Scoutseven

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.

Sugar, be my valentine

If this holiday makes you grumpy, the brilliant maestras and maestros at Social Signal just might be able to renew your faith in ROMANCE.

Oh yeah. The time has come to SURRENDER. Chocolate, and love struck puppies, and flowers on the pillow, and a gazes that send you hither, and souls clattering — be mine be mine!

Give it up, let go. LOVE Love love is in the air.

More Hallmark conspiracies? Who cares!!

O my.

I’m feeling faint.

Culture, Memory, and Thanksgiving

It’s Thanksgiving in America.

The biggest holiday of the year, some would argue.

For those inclined to reflect on where this day really came from, here are some Wikipedia excerpts.

• The official history claims that the Pilgirms started it all, as we learn in school. Celebrating the harvest and also the generosity of the Native Americans who kept them from starving at the time (the fact that, as a nation, we continuously gloss over the subsequent fate of our generous neighbors is the reason I have chosen, many a time, to boycott celebrating  Thanksgiving all together).
• During the Revolutionary war, it seems like there were lots of Thanksgivings celebrated on the state level, mostly in response to war victories.
• Lincoln then declared it a national holiday in 1863, perhaps in response to the Civil War more than anything else. In his words, “This year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.”
• And Roosevelt shifted it from the last Thursday of the month to the 2nd to last Thursday of the month in1939 because, waddya know, it gave people more time to shop (the Depression and all).

Thanksgiving has now taken on its own life in this country. Food and football and families and lots and lots of forgetting.

Americans are good at that.

For many (if not most) Native American peoples of this country, Thanksgiving is a deeply offensive day. For us, a celebration of what we have, for them, a National Day of Mourning. Let us not forget this. And let us not forget that the native struggle for sovereignty and land rights continues, to this day, all across North America. It is one of the most despicable and invisible cultural legacies of this country — too often overlooked, especially on Thanksgiving, even by those who consider themselves social justice activists (myself at the top the list).

A surprisingly useful page on About.com sums up much of the current struggle quite well. In summary:

Of central concern for many Native American activists is the ability to carry on traditional practices – religious beliefs, languages and other customs – free from discrimination. In response, they continue to fight to protect their rights and religious freedoms, both of which have repeatedly been threatened over the years through denial of access to religious sites, prohibitions on the use or possession of sacred objects, and restrictions on their ability to worship through ceremonial and traditional means. Specific rulings that have threatened them include:

• The Supreme Court, in 1998, allowed the construction of a Forest Service road through an ancient site held sacred by several tribes.
• The Supreme Court, in 1991, ruled that states and localities no longer had to show a “compelling governmental interest” to justify laws that limited or infringed upon religious exercise. (The case involved two Oregon men who were denied unemployment benefits after taking peyote as part of a worship ceremony of the Native American Church).
• Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, which would have restored the “compelling interest” standards that limited government’s ability to enforce legislation that infringes upon religious freedom. However, the Supreme Court soon struck down RFRA as an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional powers.
• 1994 – A law signed by President Clinton exempted the religious use of peyote from federal and state controlled substance laws and prohibited discrimination against those who engage in the use of peyote for religious purposes. Although this protected Native Americans’ use of peyote, the fight to protect other areas of religious freedom continues.

Other Civil Rights priorities include:

• The ongoing battles for voting rights
• The elimination of mascots by schools and professional sports teams considered offensive as they reflect outdated stereotypes and perpetuate racism against Native Americans
• The absence of civil rights organizations to address grievances involving police misconduct and other criminal justice discrimination
• Under-representation in the employment at all levels of all institutions involved in the administration of justice, at the federal, state, and local levels in some states
• Lack of participation in local, state, and federal elections, which results in a lack of political representation at all levels of government, and ensures the continued neglect and inattention to issues of disparity and inequality in the Native American community
• Insufficient training, technical assistance and funding for tribal court systems and tribal law enforcement agencies
• Limited legal resources; victims of discrimination often find it difficult to secure legal representation and public defender programs are felt to be inadequate due to inexperience, lack of funding, and conflicts of interest
• Inadequate hate crime legislation prevent adequate response to crimes involving racial bigotry; tribal governments have not established civil rights offices to assist their constituents in seeking redress

That is just the beginning.

For more info, listen to the American Indian Movement webcast here.

If you know any additional resources, please put them in the comments.

I have struggled a lot with how to be in relation to this holiday, which I have loved since I was a child, and yet which reeks of historical amnesia.

I have boycotted, I have facilitated ceremonies of remembrance before the meal, I have just been angry.

Every year it is a struggle.

How do I honor the struggles behind this day, while also staying connected to my family and culture? How do I celebrate when there is so much to grieve? (knowing that without celebration, we are as good as dead). How do I take responsibility for my cultural heritage without living a life full of shame?

There are so many paradoxes to hold.

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)

Insomnia and Poetry

I woke up at 3am to the rustling sounds of wind and rain. Couldn’t find my way back to sleep.

This week a friend reminded me of David Whyte, who has been one of my all-time favorite poets for years. He’s also a Fortune 500 consultant who works to integrate poetry with organizational development and change. I’ve always wondered what that looked like. How he pulled it off.

As I lay awake, I found myself thinking of how difficult it can be to integrate the language of the heart into the work place. Even though, one might argue, it’s the most important language we have.

So here I break down the walls of Work and Life for a moment, and offer one of my favorite Whyte poems.

Seemed like a nice way to start the day.

The House of Belonging
by David Whyte

I awoke
this morning
in the gold light
turning this way
and that

thinking for a
moment
it was one
day
like any other.

But
the veil had gone
from my
darkened heart
and
I thought

it must have been the quiet
candlelight
that filled my room

it must have been
the first
easy rhythm
with which I breathed
myself to sleep

it must have been
the prayer I said
speaking to the otherness
of the night.

And
I thought
this is the good day
you could
meet your love

this is the black day
someone close
to you could die.

This is the day
you realize
how easily the thread
is broken
between this world
and the next

and I found myself
sitting up
in the quiet pathway
of light.

The tawny
close grained cedar
burning round
me like fire
and all the angels of this housely
heaven ascending
through the first roof of light
the sun had made.

This is the bright home
in which I live
this is where
I ask
my friends
to come
this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.

This is the temple
of my adult aloneness
and I belong
to that aloneness
as I belong to my life.

There is no house
like the house of belonging.

I Heart Wikipedia

Today I got curious about the history of Valentines day.

So I went to trusty old Wikipedia and starting perusing, which led me to quite legitimate (and educational!) entries for: Romantic Love,
Platonic Love, or even just Being. Who knew an encyclopedia could ever be this cool.

If, by any chance, that consumer machine has done it’s job on you, and you’re having a miserable day, you might also be curious to know about Singles Awareness Day (SAD). Pretty funny.

Whatever the case, whether you’re in romantic love, or platonic love, or just being, may your heart be full.

Happy Valentines…