Category Archives: Americans

dancebreak.

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I don’t know about you, but lately, everything is coming up ’80s for me. 1980s. Bad economy, the ghost of Ronald Reagan, bad banks, doc siders, penny loafers, jelly shoes, skinny jeans, jeggings, acid wash jeggings, jelly bracelets (silly bands), flannel. That stupid article in Psychology Today calling me and mine ugly got me watching a pivotal scene from 1985 classic, The Color Purple. I needed to hear Celie’s declaration of independence, ‘I’m poor, black, I may even be ugly, but dear god, I’m here. I’m here!.’

Cornel West broke up with Obama y’all. On some silly bitch trifle over inauguration tickets and somesuch. He’s spewing some bitterness that makes me wince (translation = deeply uncomfortable) on some old black nationalist anti-semetic line that I hadn’t heard since the last century. I get that you’re sad that he doesn’t call anymore, boo but you ain’t gotta pit folks on some us versus them. Not when it’s the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Rides. And in an odd turn of events, I found myself trolling YouTube for Basia’s 1989 jam. It’s kinda a break up song, right?

But honestly, if we’re talking 1980s to 1990, this was the penultimate break up songs of all break up songs:

I’m also told that the Rapture is scheduled for this Saturday. And like any self respecting, skeptical and musical loving nerd, I queued up Blondie *and* KRS-One’s cover:

I’m just glad we got a soundtrack for this stuff. But really, I love everyone’s hair and the soft focus lenses, and the reverse grip of heartache. This is how I will want to remember the world before it all ends.

semantics. mcshemantics.

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As I read accounts on the standoff between public union supporters and the governor of my home state, I kinda winced at a word: prosperity. In a write-up about the billionaire Koch Brothers, the NYT cites a letter sent by Charles Koch, appealing to conservative business leaders to engage in future political activism:

“If not us, who? If not now, when?” said the letter, which invited other conservatives to a retreat in January in Rancho Mirage, Calif. “It is up to us to combat what is now the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.”

Prosperity. Defined as ‘a successful, flourishing, or thriving condition, especially in financial respects; good fortune.’ Here, culturally, we now have divergent views of what that even means in its total application. A billionaire writes to other million mcbillionaires beseeching them to engage in political activism against the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity. What is that exactly? The passage of the health care reform act and subsequent extension of the Bush era tax breaks were key indicators of the end of American freedom and prosperity. The Dow is trading above 12,000 is an indicator, no? Walker has made certain tax concessions for business interests to operate within Wisconsin, concessions that have contributed to the budget shortfall the Dairy State now faces.

At this point in the conflict, we know that Scott Walker’s stance to shore up the state budget deficit does not require ceding the right for public unions to collectively bargain. It’s simply a political power move in a weak economy.

I’ve been thinking about work and quality of life for some time. Beyond my own struggles, but collectively, beyond the concept of the narrative of the American Dream. Balloon Juice’s E.D. Kain hits some major notes for me here:

“Do we want a ‘right to work’ for whatever big business dictates, or a ‘right to work with dignity’? Because that’s what’s being stripped from the American worker more than anything else. With every new round of layoffs and outsourcing, the dignity of the American worker is diminished.”

We’ve read stories about how American wages have stalled over the years, benefits reduced, and total number of hours the average American works (‘in 2005 annual hours worked in the US were 15% higher than the European Union (EU15) average’). We know that we’ve overleveraged our own resources to keep pace with tokens of American dream of prosperity (see: the housing market, credit card debt per household, etc). to maintain that myth of prosperity for the middle class/working class. We take our work seriously. Even when there’s high unemployment. We believe that it’ll lead us to the good life, the prosperous life. Can unionization guarantee that?

And I have complicated feelings about unions. I’ve been a member of a public union and I’ve worked for a corporation. Some unions (see: construction) have been known to be selective in bringing in new members (see: black men). Still, I don’t believe that public unions should be stripped of their right to collectively bargain. If business leaders can create organizations to advocate for their interests (see: Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission), why on earth would we not permit workers (public and private) to do the same? I’m seriously searching for an answer on some false equivalency tip (see: liberals, Jon Stewart). I’m loathed to find one. Continue reading →

on, wisconsin!

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America’s new Bellwether State, remains in a detente:

Senate Democrats remained in hiding in Illinois, preventing the chamber from taking up a budget bill that includes provisions they view as an attack on public sector unions. And Assembly Democrats began a marathon session of debate on the bill, promising to offer more than 100 amendments in an apparent stalling tactic.

This fight is spreading to other states with Republican governors. Indiana State Democrats walked out of session yesterday because of a similar bill up for consideration in that state. If you haven’t seen this segment from the Rachel Maddow Show on history of the labor movement in Wisconsin, and its effect on what we come to commonly expect as rights for workers, you should do so now.

The next [labor] movement is now underway.

 

speaking of real talk…

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Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

While it seems like ages ago (as we’re all transfixed on natural disasters and the revolutions in the Middle East) I haven’t stopped thinking about the State of the Union Address:

What’s more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -– the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny… The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can’t just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.” Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age. And now it’s our turn. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there. The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do — what America does better than anyone else — is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We’re the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It is how we make our living.

The tone of the speech was mature, thoughtful, absent of detailed description of policy initiatives, but a clear lecture of Real Talk. In many ways, I felt like this conversation is about two years late. Sure, better late than never…

And not to sound too arrogant or self promoting, but some of the themes Obama covered reminded me of a blog post I wrote nearly two years ago. Some background: I used to work in one industry and now I am doggedly trying to secure sound employment in another. This is a personal choice, privileged in some ways yet, dare I say, brutally difficult.

I also feel it’s premature to declare the recession over. Yes, the Dow is trading at 12,000, a high we last saw in June 2008, but job growth/creation has not matched that enthusiasm. 9.4% unemployment still holds, and if we count the ‘underemployed’, those with a smattering of temporary, part time and freelance jobs, more than likely uninsured, that rate doubles. If you’re a woman or man of color, god help you. The private sector may be hiring, but it remains unclear what those jobs are. There are some of us in this economy grinding to find work in our respective fields with nil to marginal success. Some of those jobs were eliminated and if we’re to be honest here, those jobs aren’t going to come back. Some of us will have to retrain, learn new skills to be competitive with a generation of new jobs that are hyper-specific to trade and skill. Continue reading →

‘it wasn’t just a man, it was a movement…’

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For some reason, this poem demanded a reread for me while reading and listening to various takes/tributes for MLK Day this year:

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone must drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone must glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

Again we’ll need bridges
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls how it was.
Someone listens
and nods with unsevered head.
Yet others milling about
already find it dull.

From behind the bush
sometimes someone still unearths
rust-eaten arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must give way to
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass which has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out,
blade of grass in his mouth,
gazing at the clouds.

—Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

same, same. but different.

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Thinking about Saturday’s shooting in Tuscon, I remembered an Adam Gopnik piece from the 2007 New Yorker in the wake of the Virgina Tech Shooting. It’s worth a re-read as we uncover ‘facts’ and salacious details about the psyche and life of the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner. While we’re all trying to find space to engage in discussions about gun laws, mental illness, and political criticism (discourse versus rhetoric versus vitriol versus sedition), the excerpt noted below was particularly resonant for me:

If the facts weren’t so horrible, there might be something touching in the Governor’s deeply American belief that “healing” can take place magically, without the intervening practice called “treating.” The logic is unusual but striking: the aftermath of a terrorist attack is the wrong time to talk about security, the aftermath of a death from lung cancer is the wrong time to talk about smoking and the tobacco industry, and the aftermath of a car crash is the wrong time to talk about seat belts. People talked about the shooting, of course, but much of the conversation was devoted to musings on the treatment of mental illness in universities, the problem of “narcissism,” violence in the media and in popular culture, copycat killings, the alienation of immigrant students, and the question of Evil.

Some people, however—especially people outside America—were eager to talk about it in another way, and even to embark on a little crusade. The whole world saw that the United States has more gun violence than other countries because we have more guns and are willing to sell them to madmen who want to kill people. Every nation has violent loners, and they tend to have remarkably similar profiles from one country and culture to the next. And every country has known the horror of having a lunatic get his hands on a gun and kill innocent people. But on a recent list of the fourteen worst mass shootings in Western democracies since the nineteen-sixties the United States claimed seven, and, just as important, no other country on the list has had a repeat performance as severe as the first.

via Shootings : The New Yorker.

There’s our knee jerk responses to these mass shootings: the naming of the perpetrator (he inevitably has three -John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald– now this kid Jared Lee Loughner), the narrative of the ‘loner’, the mental defect or illness that motivates one to murder, the very definition of nihilism. This feels routine. We hope (swear) it will never happen again. It always does. And it always will. In reading the piecemeal narratives on Loughner today in Mother Jones, a friend’s view of the shooter’s motivation was curious:

Since hearing of the rampage, Tierney has been trying to figure out why Loughner did what he allegedly did. “More chaos, maybe,” he says. “I think the reason he did it was mainly to just promote chaos. He wanted the media to freak out about this whole thing. He wanted exactly what’s happening. He wants all of that.” Tierney thinks that Loughner’s mindset was like the Joker in the most recent Batman movie: “He fucks things up to fuck shit up, there’s no rhyme or reason, he wants to watch the world burn. He probably wanted to take everyone out of their monotonous lives: ‘Another Saturday, going to go get groceries’—to take people out of these norms that he thought society had trapped us in.”

A lot of us (me included) looked to assign blame to the far right and Tea Party for inciting this kind of violence on a Member of Congress. But now, I have to take a step back. Our conversations about these matters have reached a complexity that requires mature reasoning, and a news cycle that moves slower than 140 characters or less.

1.1.11

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One.

This year is a prime number. And according to this guy, the sum of 11 consecutive prime numbers:

The prime-ness of this year suggest one should do something momentous. So I went to Coney Island with my friends to watch a few hundred giddy people of all shades and shapes jump into the 38 degree waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I even got my feet wet. Not bad 1.1.11.  Bring it.

 

 

radio silence.

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I think I’m burned out from the news. Too much salt, not enough sweet.

I’m trying to catch up yet find myself sinking deep into a malaise, my eyes flood with too much information. It’s difficult for me to focus on a single item long enough to concentrate. I read somewhere that the internet is ruining our brains. Maybe that’s true. I can’t even remember where I read that. Could’ve been a blog, or a newspaper. I honestly don’t know. I think the midterms put me in a funk. For every forward progression I think we make in civil society, there are dogged forces that pull us back. This may be contributing to my malaise.

For me, I know that when I’m overwhelmed by bad news, I seek solace in art. There’s an urgent need to be in a sublime space, the quiet, the understood relationship between you as viewer and the artist. So this past weekend I checked out Wangechi Mutu’s latest work at gallery in Chelsea. Peeped a view of the Copley exhibit. For three weeks, I had been immersed in reading, editing, coding Union Station Magazine’s latest issue and our new blog. While I was doing that I listened to music over the internet, alternating between Pinna Storm’s October Playlist (h/t Shani!) and Kanye’s Runaway. I bobbled up to the surface to read postmortems on the elections, the Maddow/Stewart showdown, and Bush being …well a victim. But I returned to my inner space, which is to say, I really appreciate Ye’s latest effort (more on that later). He won me over with a brilliant appropriation Bon Iver’s Woods. And going up in the woods is what this girl from Wisconsin really feels like doing. As the world spins, I really need to maintain my center.

scattered thoughts on moderation and restoring sanity.

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I had every intention of going to DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity. The spectacle and clarion call, the gathering of moderates was seductive. However, in typical moderate fashion, I didn’t figure out a plan to get there. By the time I realized I should have booked a bus ticket on MegaBus or Bolt, they were already sold out.

So instead, I spent my Saturday restoring sanity on the home front. I cleaned my bedroom. I cleaned the bathroom. I vacuumed. I groomed my cat. I folded laundry. I organized the stack of ungraded papers for my review. I took a walk around the neighborhood. I bought a latte. I did most of this in relative silence. I refrained from checking my twitterfeed for updates of value and snark regarding the day’s events. I peaked once. Kid Rock performed? (Dude, like seriously?)

There were shows I’m missing. A happy hour I would’ve liked to have gone to. At the very least, I would’ve loved to rub elbows with the young progressives and shared in their sideways glance, witty banter and commentary about a comedian who’s righteous indignation against the tide of batshit crazy in our political discourse has manifested itself in a not so cleverly disguised get out the vote rally on the Washington Mall. Instead, I’m here in Brooklyn. Unable to check into foursquare to unlock uber swarm badges to acknowledge that I exist among the crowd of young(ish) moderate voices in American politics. I’m fine with this. Continue reading →