Category: Reflections

Reflections, thoughtful and otherwise, on stuff

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Reflections

RIP Kemal Amin “Casey” Kasem

I grew up listening to him announce the top 40 and had no idea about his political activism, till one year, when I was arrested during a civil disobedience action at the Nevada Test Site, and found myself two seats in front of him in the bus where some of the arrested had been loaded to be taken to processing. Some of the long time activists knew him and recognized him but many of us had a hard time believing that such an icon of American pop culture was in handcuffs next to us until he started saying many of his classic lines like “Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.” We spent the rest of the time on the bus listening to him tell us stories from both his career and his activism.
Rest in power Kemal Amin “Casey” Kasem and thanks for everything!

http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/06/15/3449222/casey-kasem-scooby-doo-vegetarianism/

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power & privilege Reflections

Time to listen

To all of us guys out there:
This is the time for us to take a deep breath and listen. Keep breathing and keep listening. If we hear anger and frustration and rage, then let us listen to the anger, the frustration, the rage. There is a reason why those emotions are there. In at least some small way (and probably bigger way than we are aware) we have all contributed to them. Keep breathing, keep listening.
And to all the guys who are inclined towards the ‪#‎NotAllMen‬ response to the‪#‎YesAllWomen‬ campaign: Unless you have spent most of your life also saying NotAllMuslims and NotAllArabs and NotAllBlackMen and whichever else would be the appropriate response to when media and society at large demonize an entire group of people based on the actions of a few, then your cry of “but I am not like that” is at best defensiveness but more likely a misguided (even if subconscious) attempt to keep on to the male privilege of shaping the direction of the conversation and making everything about us.
We have had the floor for a very long time. Time to let it go, at least for long enough to be able to really listen. I think we will be better humans, and better men, for it.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/05/27/not_all_men_how_discussing_women_s_issues_gets_derailed.html

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europe Reflections

Euro-elections and abstention

There has been a lot of talk about the votes that ultra-right wing and “eurosceptic” parties received in last week’s european parliament elections. Less attention has been given on the votes which were not cast at all. Continent wide the abstention rate was 43% but that ranged from 10% in Belgium to a mind-boggling 87% in Slovakia. Electoral abstention is often explained away as people being apathetic. I have met many people who are truly desperate, a lot more who have no hope for the future, but very rarely have I met anyone who is truly apathetic about their own lives. Some people abstain from the electoral process because they are philosophically opposed to voting. Many abstain because they don’t believe that their participation in the electoral game is going to matter one way or another. Others abstain because they believe that the whole process is rigged, while many more abstain because they don’t think that any one who is running actually cares about what happens to them.
There are those who say that if you don’t vote you don’t have the right to complain. I don’t agree. In many parliamentary political systems like what most European countries have there is a process known as a motion or vote of no confidence. This is a mechanism through which members of parliament can vote on whether they still have confidence in a minister or even the entire governing party or coalition. Those who lose a motion of no confidence are expected (or required) to resign. I think that overall abstention rates are better seen as “votes” of no confidence in the entire system than apathy. And when almost half of the voters choose to effectively support a motion of no confidence then the system is in serious jeopardy, far more serious than having fascist and eurosceptic representation in it.

euroelections

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europe greece Reflections

Thoughts on the euro-elections

I have been asked in the last few days what I make of the electoral results in Greece and Europe, whether it is Syriza’s victory or the rise of Golden Dawn and fascist parties. There are a lot of celebrations and alarms raised by different sectors of the political and media classes. But the situation is a lot more complex and complicated than what superficial conclusions are being drawn from election results. The reality is that people are pissed, confused, scared, desperate. In Greece a lot of us know that there is a significant number of greek voters who alternate between supporting Golden Dawn and Syriza. In the conventional left-right view of politics this makes no sense whatsoever. In the more personal reality of people who are desperately “shopping” for who might be able to restore their lives and society into something that resembles normalcy and calm this becomes a little more comprehensible. What this shows however is that the political situation is a lot more volatile that even the election results show. There is little reason to believe that things will get better for the majority of ordinary people. Nor is there any reason to think that any of the formerly marginal political forces which are rising to some prominence and power now have the capacity to “make things right.” The Titanic is sinking and no rearranging of the chairs or threats to “jump overboard” (or to “throw others overboard”) will change the fact that the Titanic is still sinking and it is not salvageable. I don’t know how and when it will go under, but the direction is not in doubt. And as long as we are looking for who will “save us” or who has the right “fix” then we are looking in the wrong direction. I understand, I feel the desperate desire for the leader who will lead us into the promised land, the expert who will make everything work again. There are plenty of times when I have wished that they could be found. But they don’t exist (although we have plenty who are vying for the positions). Nobody will save us. We need to (re)learn to take care of ourselves and each other. Nobody will fix this. We need to (re)create our own world, for the benefit of all, human and non-human, current and future generations. In the end, the most frightening aspect of the situation that we find ourselves in is not how bad things are. It is that it is up to us to “make it right.” But, for me at least, this is the aspect which gives me the most hope.

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power & privilege Reflections

Anti-semitism and misogyny

The media have no problem naming the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels as the vile act of anti-semitism that it seems to be. I wish they would be just as willing to name the attack at UCSB as the vile act of misogyny that it clearly is. And to recognize the grounds where misogyny is bred and fostered.

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/26/3441585/anti-woman-site-predicts-more-deaths/

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Reflections

Missing flight MH370

I have noticed over the last several days a disturbing number of memes about the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, many of them trying to be funny and failing miserably. Alongside them are reposts of speculations about what happened from bored media outlets and pundits who seem to think that if you don’t have anything good or factual to say you should say something anyway. So here is a plea to everyone (who reads this). There are 239 people missing along with that plane. These people have families, friends, loved ones. I cannot even imagine, and I hope most of us never have to, the kind of hell these people are going through right now. Send those people love, tender thoughts, strength, compassion. But before you (re)post something that looks funny or cute or “interesting,” pause for a few seconds and think. If you knew someone on that plane, would you still post it?

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Opinions Reflections

Sanitizing Mandela

I have commented a fair amount about the sanitization of Mandela’s life and legacy and I want to make an important clarification, prompted by a someone’s Facebook comment. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate and value Mandela’s messages of reconciliation. I do in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. But it is important that we remember that he did 27 years in prison for armed resistance and for being a communist, not for saying we should all love one another. To focus on his messages of reconciliation *only* is to erase three plus decades of the man’s life and to remove any context, really strip all the power, from his message. Mandela was a revolutionary, a man who was willing to go to prison, to die, but also to pick up arms to fight for his people, and a man who continued to advocate for the freedoms of all (and very specifically Palestinians, a little detail that I don’t think will make it on CNN) till the end. If we are to honor the man, let us honor all of him. If we are to learn from him, let us learn from all that he has done. To reduce him to a quote appropriate for a first grade public school classroom and turn him into someone who will be “praised” by the same people who classified him as a terrorist is to rob him of everything that he stood for. And it is to rob us of an amazing example of what a person can be and do.

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Reflections

6 December

The 6th of December is a day of many anniversaries of death. I am sure that I am missing some but here are the ones that I recall:
1961 Franz Fannon, decolonization thinker and writer extraordinaire, dies.
1989 Marc Lepine kills 14 women in Montreal, calling them “a bunch of feminists.”
2008 Alex Grigoropoulos, a 15-year old student is killed by Greek police.
2013 Nelson Mandela dies.
I hope December 6th becomes a day when we celebrate the lives of the known heroes of our movements (Fannon and Mandela) as well as the lives of the lesser known people who have come to symbolize our unfinished struggle (Alex and the women of École Polytechnique).
La lucha sigue.

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austerity greece Reflections

Faith in people and community

Yesterday afternoon I was in the center of Athens with my mother and after we finished some errands and visiting with some friends we decided to stop by a local place that she likes, to get something to eat. Just outside the entrance an older man was pacing around, hand slightly extended, muttering over and over again Πεινάω (I am hungry), a sight and sound that has become quite common in greek cities. We put a few coins in his hand, gave him a smile and went inside. About 20-30 minutes later, while we were eating, I noticed that the same man had also come inside the restaurant. He was immediately and warmly greeted with his name by the owner and his young daughter who were busy serving the remaining customers. After a few minutes they showed him to a table, and the owner brought him a small plate of food and some bread, and after the man had sat down, a rather large glass of red wine. When the folks at the table next to him had finished their meal and left the owner took several slices of unused bread (when you go to a restaurant in greece they will always bring you silverware, bread and water) and handed them over to the eager older man. Several times the owner’s daughter (who is probably in her twenties) stopped by to exchange a few words, a smile and a touch, which always produced a very large grin from the older man. When I passed his table on my way to the bathrooms we also looked at each other with a smile, and he made the classic greek hand gesture that shows satisfaction with one’s meal.
As my mother verified and I have heard from others, there are many places who have such “regulars,” people from the neighborhood who are down on their fortunes and who will be taken in by restaurants towards the end of the busy meal times and be given what is left over. In the USA folks often have to go through the dumpster to get the leftovers. That is happening more and more in Greece too, but it is also nice to see that at least some of those who have no food will be taken to a table and served with a smile, and a large glass of wine.
After reading and hearing about a lot of the news that I have been posting, seeing something like that was food for the soul. Fuck the state, the banks and the troika. My faith is still, and always, with the people and community.

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Reflections

Thanksgiving…

To all my friends who are spending this day with loved ones, may you enjoy your day and your feast (hopefully with minimal arguments and indigestion). To all my friends who are spending this day with the grief of the loss of loved ones, may the warmth of memories and the love and good times that you shared with those no longer with you bring you some comfort and even joy. To all my friends who are spending this day alone, possibly feeling isolated and despairing, since the loss of what we never had can hit pretty hard too, remember that this is just a day and that you are loved more than you know. To all my friends, regardless of where you find yourself today (even those of you in other countries who are scratching your head trying to figure out what on earth I am talking about on a Thursday), take a moment to appreciate the day, to be thankful, to laugh, to reach out to someone. And do it again tomorrow.