Scoutseven

Pinch me

O, sweet breath of a changing political season.

For far too long, the social change sector has been in stop-horrible-things-from-happening mode.  This has been the mandate of our collective context and, wow,  it has been exhausting.

While all horrible happenings will not stop overnight (or ever), the shift in our nation’s leadership does allow us to begin advocating for something greater than fundamental human decency and common sense.   What a relief!

Time to step back, look to the horizon, and start pushing an agenda of truly transformational change.  It’s not up to Obama to do this.  He won’t.  He can’t.   He doesn’t even want to.

So let’s celebrate this moment, this transition,  this opening.

And, then, let’s remember what we, too, are here to do.

Tired of speeches

Mabye I’ve just gotten really cynical, but I’m watching a bit too much of the Democratic convention, and I wish someone would just get real, stop reading, and speak from their hearts.

I’m seeing one canned line after the next, with calculated pauses and perfectly framed messages.

It feels flat and manipulative and, worst of all, absolutely necessary.

Our political process has made authenticity impossible. In our pollster driven media culture, there’s no room for anything real. There’s no room for humanity, or complexity, or nuance, or dialogue, or possibilities as opposed to promises.

So this is what it comes down to. One big grandstanding attempt to manipulate the American vote.

It’s top down democracy, and we need another way.

Wonderful interview with Desmond Tutu

The World Affairs Council of Northern California has some of the most interesting lectures and interviews on global issues of almost any resource I know. This recent interview with Desmond Tutu is a precious addition to their collection. Hear the famed archbishop’s thoughts on Zimbabwe, Burma, Tibet, Women as global leaders, and so much more. His approach to political analysis is so refreshingly human. You can get the podcast on ITunes, or download the MP3 here.

Let America Be America Again

A poem worth remembering, by one of our greats…

Let America Be America Again
by Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed–
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek–
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean–
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today–O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home–
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay–
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.

O, let America be America again–
The land that never has been yet–
And yet must be–the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine–the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME–
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose–
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath–
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain–
All, all the stretch of these great green states–
And make America again!

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes,
published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright ©
1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes.

Big shout out to all you hard working campaigners!

I have barely spoken with some of my dearest friends and colleagues in six months, because they’ve been buried in campaign life… trying to turn the tide.

It’s brutal work. Each vote comes with a lot of sweat, sleepless nights, and way too much caffeine.

So thank you Tate. Thank you Steph. Thank you Billy. I’ve missed you.

Thanks to all of you across these lands who are probably having dinner with your friends and families for the first time in weeks, if not months.

And a big, special thanks to those of you who cannot claim that sweet smell of “victory”. Thank you to Naina and Alli and everyone who tried to get Aimee Allison elected here in my home town of Oakland. Thank you to those who tried to fight back the horrible, anti-gay propositions of Colorado, Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconson, and Idaho (shame, shame, shame). Thank you to those who fought for clean energy in California and elsewhere. Your work was not in vain. We will get there…

I extend my gratitude to all of you, for working within our broken system, and trying to make change where you can.

My hope comes in a whisper, reluctantly, but for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel like there may come a day when I will no longer be ashamed of being an American.

Bill Moyers to the Class of 2006: “We’re Sorry”

The other night my 88-year-old grandmother told me, “I wanted to leave the world better than I found it, and I’ve failed.”

I was so struck and saddened by her words that I found myself fully arguing with her. “No, we’re fine!!!!” (yeah, right).

I mean, who wants their grandma going to the grave thinking their life’s work was for nothing?!

It quickly became clear that this wasn’t a matter of hope or despair, but simply how difficult it is to know that she will not see the end of this particular cycle. While I may see better times (and I believe I will), she may not even see George Bush get booted from office.

She had recently heard a speech by Bill Moyers, which quite beautifully reflects this particular dilemma.

Addressed to the class of 2006 at Hamilton College, this is the kind of honesty, heart and integrity rarely found these days. She appreciated that tremendously. And since she didn’t think anyone else in the world would appreciate it too, I’m sharing it here.

From her generation to mine…

I have been thinking seriously about what I might say to you in this Baccalaureate service. Frankly, I’m not sure anyone from my generation should be saying anything to your generation except, “We’re sorry. We’re really sorry for the mess you’re inheriting. We are sorry for the war in Iraq. For the huge debts you will have to pay for without getting a new social infrastructure in return. We’re sorry for the polarized country. The corporate scandals. The corrupt politics. Our imperiled democracy. We’re sorry for the sprawl and our addiction to oil and for all those toxins in the environment. Sorry about all this, class of 2006. Good luck cleaning it up.”

You’re going to have your hands full, frankly. I don’t need to tell you of the gloomy scenarios being written for your time. Three books on my desk right now question whether human beings will even survive the 21st century. Just listen to their titles: The Long Emergency: Surviving the Convergence Catastrophe; Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; The Winds of Change: Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations.

These are just three of the recent books that make the apocalypse prophesied in the Bible…the Revelations of St. John…look like child’s play. I won’t summarize them for you except to say that they spell out Doomsday scenarios for global catastrophe. There’s another recent book called The Revenge of Gaia that could well have been subtitled, “The Earth Strikes Back,” because the author, James Lovelock, says human consumption, our obsession with technology, and our habit of “playing God” are stripping bare nature’s assets until the Earth’s only consolation will be to take us down with her. Before this century is over, he writes, “Billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be kept in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” So there you have it: The future of the race, to be joined in a final and fatal march of the penguins.

Full Speech >

Iraq War Set to Be More Expensive then Vietnam

Read it and weep, friends. We’ve got work to do.

And if you havn’t seen the film Sir No Sir!, hopefully it’s playing in your city (all info on website). The film is a truly inspiring tale of the heart of Vietnam war resistance, the troops themselves. Essential viewing for any of us concerned about building broad-based opposition to the current Iraq debacle…

The Iraq war has already cost the United States $320bn (£180bn), according to an authoritative new report, and even if a troop withdrawal begins this year, the conflict is set to be more expensive in real terms than the Vietnam War, a generation ago.

The estimate, circulated this week by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), can only increase unease over the US presence in Iraq, whose direct costs now run at some $6bn a month, or $200m a day, with no end in sight.

Read Full Article >>

Movement Building and Dr. King on War

In one of my other lives, I sing with an acapella trio. Last night we were invited to sing at a simple event honoring Martin Luther King and his opposition to the vietnam war. April 4 was not chosen by accident, as he was shot this day almost 40 years ago.

While the event wasn’t hugely attended, there was something very special about it.

The organizers divided his speech into readable chunks, and we all took turns at the mic — high-school students, professionals, artists, religious leaders, a former candidate for the local board of supervisors… the small crowd was remarkable in its diversity.

It reminded me of the potential of community-based organizing. And also how hard it is, here in 2006, to build a movement for (or against) anything. We were such a small and dedicated crowd, gathered to remember. But it’s not enough… and what will it take?

If you’ve never come across Dr King’s big “anti-vietnam” speech, it’s very worth taking 10-minutes to read. He got a tremendous amount of criticism for his public stance at the time. And his words are painfully relevant to our present situation.

An excerpt:

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Go to Full Speech (with audio)

Diebold Be Gone!

I admit it. I wish evil upon them.

Another Blow to E-Voting Company
Associated Press

One of the nation’s leading suppliers of electronic voting machines may decide against selling new equipment in North Carolina after a judge declined Monday to protect it from criminal prosecution should it fail to disclose software code as required by state law.

Congrats to the amazing Electronic Frontier Foundation for all the work they did to make this happen.

For more background on the electronic voting machine debacle, and all things election reform, check out The Center for Voting and Democracy.