Join us on Thursday evening, July 3rd, from 7 to 9 PM at Feed Arts Center for the next Key City Singalong.
More info is here.
Sorry To Bother You
Here’s a happy little tune from The Coup. Sending this one out to the Supreme Court of the United States.
S14
I’ll be attending the Socialism 2014 conference in Chicago June 26th through the 29th. Here’s the schedule for the event.
See you in Chicago!
The Truth About The USPS Staples Deal
The Postal Service’s propaganda machine has been working overtime in recent months, with workers forced to watch videos featuring Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe spewing falsehoods about “the state of the business” and the deal with Staples. APWU President Mark Dimondstein takes on the PMG’s claims in a new video that every postal worker and consumer should see.
More info: APWU: Stop Staples
To The Unknown Deserter
Bill Ayers considers the Bergdahl controversy.
A few years ago a group of German radicals and peace activists created a huge depiction of a soldier in profile, running hard as his helmet and rifle are flying away from him, and called it The Monument to the Unknown Deserter. They displayed their monument from town to town and city to city all over the country. We need that kind of sentiment—that monument—here, now more than ever.
Read More: Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl | Bill Ayers.
Glenn Greenwald Interview
I’m looking forward to hearing Glenn Greenwald speak in Chicago at the Socialism 2014 conference next week. His presentation via Skype last year was one of the highlights of the conference. He recently spoke with Nicole Colson and Eric Ruder about the startling revelations of the past year, the mainstream media’s reaction and what’s still to come.
There’s a human shame that comes from doing things that people are willing to do only when they think people can’t watch them. And yet this is exactly the realm in which all forms of dissent, creativity and exploration of what it means to be a free individual reside in–when we have a private realm.
That’s why human beings instinctively seek out a private realm, a place where they can go and think and be and do without other people watching. That’s the reason why tyrannies always want to turn to surveillance–because they know that creating the perception one is always being watched is the most powerful instrument for keeping people in line and forcing people to comply with the wishes of authority.
Read the full interview: Unmasking Big Brother | SocialistWorker.org.
What’s Really Going On In Iraq?
The mainstream media would have us believe that it’s a war between a terrorist group called ISIS, and the U.S. installed government of Iraq, led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki – but is it really just a sectarian battle between the Sunni terrorists and the Shiite-dominated government, with the people of Iraq caught in the middle?
Not according to Michael Schwartz.
For the last couple of years, local folks in the Sunni areas of Iraq–many of whom are now involved in this insurgency–have been organizing protests, nonviolent and violent, against the government, based on numerous justified grievances.
As the government has escalated its repression of these protests, what is essentially a guerrilla war has developed (or rather a large number of uncoordinated local guerrilla-type insurgencies) in the various cities and towns in Anbar, Nineveh and other northwest provinces. ISIS–with a multi-local presence in many, but not all, of the local areas–is an (often vicious) element in the mix. It sometimes takes leadership, but most often, it is not the dominant force in any locality.
Read On: Understanding the crisis in Iraq | SocialistWorker.org.
The Militarization of Police in America
From the WSWS:
Increasingly, the methods of imperialist war and military occupation, practiced by the United States with such bloody and disastrous results overseas, are now to be employed in the US. Whether in Iraq and Afghanistan or Los Angeles and Detroit, the purpose is the same.
Read More: Militarization of police in America – World Socialist Web Site.
For Flag Day
This is an article that I wrote in June of 2003, long before I began blogging. It explains pretty well, I think, why I don’t fly the Stars and Stripes much anymore.
Among the Believers
“In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again. If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.
“If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe. For we are a nation of believers.”
— Inaugural Speech of Lyndon Baines Johnson, January 1965
For many years I would fly an American flag at my home on every day that weather permitted. From my earliest recollection it has represented something very deep and spiritual to me. It has represented unity.
At first, it was the unity of national identity – my tribe. In Oreana, Illinois, USA the tribe’s members were typically native midwestern, Anglo and Christian, but I had the sense very early that there was a bigger tribe. I was taught that America was a big place where all kinds of people came from all over the world. E Pluribus Unum – “From the Many, One.” What made us “one” people? Why did so many folks come from so far away and endure such hardship? They did it because they wanted to be free. So, sometime during grade school the flag began to represent freedom.
As I grew a little older, I began to learn that freedom is relative. I remember seeing Norman Rockwell’s depiction of “The Four Freedoms” – freedom from fear, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want. Growing up in the 1960s, it was easy to sense that some people living among us weren’t completely free. The ideal wasn’t being fully expressed and experienced yet. We had to keep working for it. This was only right and just and our duty as Americans. So the flag began to represent justice.
When I was 11 we moved to Decatur and I still recited dutifully with my hand over my heart every morning in home room – “with liberty and justice for all.” The flag was so beautiful. It embodied the most noble and desperate longings of humankind, and it belonged to me. It belonged to all of us at Stephen Decatur High School. It belonged to the Blacks and the Italians and the Greek girls who came to school with ashes on their foreheads at the beginning of Lent. It belonged to my history teacher, who was Jewish. It belonged to every creed and race, even us mutts of generic European extraction. It belonged to us all. The ideal belonged to us all. The dream belonged to every one of us, and we belonged to each other. One tribe out of many. E Pluribus Unum.
Now that I’m older, I realize how naïve some of my perceptions may have been about our distance from the ideal. The truth is that for many people in our society the words “liberty and justice for all” have sometimes been akin to a cruel joke. Despite that, I’ve never once doubted the ideal itself.
People used to poke fun at me for flying my flag all the time. “What’s up with the flag? It’s not a holiday today.” Then it seemed as if overnight that changed. Suddenly, there were flags everywhere. Stores were sold out of flags that had collected dust for years. People put flag decals on their cars and taped newsprint flags to their windows.
I’d like to fly my flag along with the others, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to most of the people waving it so frantically these days. In fact, the sentiment expressed by many is like some dark, shadow version of my American Ideal. It’s full of anger and revenge and political partisanship blended with no small measure of religious and racial bigotry. My flag isn’t like that. My flag isn’t about hatred or fear.
I worry about my flag and my country. The America we live in today seems so different from the America of my enduring imagination. I wonder if that America will survive this age of abundance. We’re obviously at a crossroads, at a time both of great opportunity and grave danger, and may well look back on this decade as a defining moment for generations to come.
I don’t know how well my generation will stand the test of “toil and tears” required to earn our heritage. I do know that what we have and what we own, our military and economic hegemony, these things will inevitably pass. What we are, what we stand for – unity, freedom, justice – these ideals will last.
Can we become, finally and truly, “a nation of believers?”
Open Mic Night at Feed – Wednesday, June 11th
Come join us on Wednesday evening, June 11th, at 7PM for Open Mic Night at Feed Arts Center in downtown Kankakee.
We’re planning an evening of acoustic music and spoken word, with old Folkies, young poets, and everybody in between taking the stage to present their craft.
Whether you are a seasoned performer, or you’ve never yet faced a public audience, we invite you to come and share your music, recitation or reading before a group of enthusiastic and nurturing souls at Feed.
If you don’t feel like performing, please join us to listen and to support those who do.
It’s an evening of homegrown words and music, direct from the heart of the arts in our community.