Author: asitoughttobemagazine

CINDY SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

StopBAf

WARNOGRAPHY

by Cindy Sheehan

“We’ll know it when we see it.”
Richard Holbrooke, Special US Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on defining victory in Af-Pak

“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . .”
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart defining pornography in 1964

Well, there you go…Richard Holbrooke has defined the US’s demented mission in Af-Pak as an indefinite proposition and when I say “define” I am joking, because what kind of definition is “we’ll know it when we see it?”

Oh yeah, I know what kind of definition that is; it’s a Bush era definition, which is totally appropriate because it seems like in so many ways that we are still in the Bush/Cheney era…or error.

In a related article, Bush/Obama Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, spells success in Af-Pak even more ephemerally than Holbrooke when he said: “Mysteries were those where there were too many variables to predict. And I think that how long U.S. forces will be in Afghanistan is in that area.” I know I had to read that last sentence a few times before it even began to make sense to me.

Does this inspire confidence in anyone that A) high ranking officials in the Obama Administration are either profoundly stupid, or deliberately obfuscating on the length of the “mission;” and that B) as in Iraq, the US is never leaving that beleaguered region unless our ass get deservedly handed to us like the USSR’s was.

What is a “mystery” to me is where the anti-war movement is.

There has been no significant removal of troops from Iraq and there has been a very significant increase of troops to Af-Pak, with the unfortunate commensurate increase in casualties on all sides, yet there is very little movement in the “movement.”

McCain would be doing the exact same thing that Obama is doing in Iraq-Af-Pak: the EXACT same thing. There is no difference between what Obama is doing and what McCain would be doing, except Obama has a (D) behind his name.

The profound difference to us here in the grassroots would be that if McCain were president, faux-gressives would still be up in arms about the wars and, even though our protests wouldn’t change McCain’s mind, at least we could retain our moral high-ground, that has been sold out to the Democrats for absolutely nothing in return.

War always has been and always will be the most obscene slasher-porn ever invented by deeply sick minds and perpetuated in the 21st century by even sicker minds that kill indiscriminately for power and profit.

I know evil when I see it.

War is evil and the US Empire that is the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” (MLK, Jr.) is the greatest evil no matter who is at the helm of the ship of state.


— Cindy Sheehan

This piece first appeared on Cindy Sheehan website: Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox on 8/14/09.


WITNESS IN PALESTINE

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

hebron

Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank.

FROM JERICHO TO HEBRON

by Anna Baltzer

I took a short day trip to Jericho several days ago; it was love at first sight. My friend and I were welcomed to the city with free bananas by friendly merchants who sold us fresh fruit from orchards within walking distance. Jericho is more like a big farm than a city. I had never been to a desert with so much green (it turns out Jews aren’t the only ones who can make a desert bloom). The air smelled like citrus and flowers; and in the late afternoon, a family sitting in their garden invited my friend and me for tea. We accepted after the requisite three refusals, and soon tea turned into supper, which turned into an invitation to stay the night that we couldn’t refuse.

The evening air was warm, and from the garden I watched the local children riding their small bicycles home from school and the well-dressed adults riding their bigger bicycles home from work, past the palm trees and setting sun. Behind the orchards we could see the mountains, dusty and still, peaceful.

The next morning I took a walk to the ruins of Hisham’s Palace, one of the city’s biggest attractions. The archeological site is beautiful, and the mosaics are extraordinary. I received a personal tour from a 1948 refugee working there, who said “the pleasure of my company” would be his payment.

I wondered why Jericho felt like such a different world from the rest of the West Bank, so relaxed, spontaneous, and open. Then it hit me: I hadn’t seen a jeep or heard a sound bomb my entire time there. There were no Humvees zooming past in the middle of the night, no soldiers demanding who I was and where I was going. Jericho is—almost—Palestine without the Occupation. And it is beautiful. It’s a vibrant reminder of what Palestine could—and hopefully someday will—be. Who says all Palestinians would rally against Israel if left alone? Nobody I met talked much about Israel while I was there. They were too busy living their daily lives, like most people in the world.

It takes just 2 hours to get from Heaven to Hell. At least, that’s how long it took for me to go the next morning from the paradise of Jericho to the nightmare of Hebron. Until recently, Hebron was the only city in the West Bank besides East Jerusalem suffering from settlements within its city limits. Usually settlers establish themselves on hills surrounding villages or cities, but many of the settlers in Hebron have moved into the second floors of Palestinian homes in the Old City, always by force and sometimes with the help of the army.

Hebron’s were the first settlers in the West Bank after Israel occupied the area in 1967, when the Old City’s Palestinian population was around 7,500. Twenty-five years later, that population had shrunk by 80% to 1,500, a mass exodus provoked by Israeli settler and state violence and dispossession. The wealth left with the refugees; only the poorest residents remain, those with nowhere else to go. Today the old market, which used to be bustling and vibrant, is run-down and abandoned. Unemployment hovers around 80%. The local economy is in shambles, as are the hopes of many Hebron residents.

I took a tour of the city led by Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a faith-based organization that witnesses and intervenes nonviolently to prevent violence in Hebron and other hotspots around the world. We walked through the market area, where the few remaining Palestinian merchants have hung netting above their shops to catch trash that the settlers throw down from their apartments onto the Palestinians’ streets and rooftops. Said one merchant, “I’m not here to make money anymore. I just sit here because there’s nothing else for me to do. I’m waiting to die.” Even if his old customers had the money to spend, the merchant couldn’t get to his shop because it’s in the Old City, which is now cut off from the rest of the holy city of Hebron by a checkpoint. The people of Hebron can no longer go freely to their city center, nor to their main place of worship. I wonder how Israel would react if Palestinians started moving into the Jewish section of old Jerusalem by force, and then cut everyone off from it but themselves.

It doesn’t make sense. In a city of more than 120,000 Palestinians, there are about 600 settlers calling the shots, and about 2,000 soldiers and police stationed to protect them. In 1994, Baruch Goldstein, a local settler from New York affiliated with the Kach Israeli extremist political party, opened fire on a mosque full of praying Palestinians. He waited until they were bent over with their heads to the floor in worship before shooting 29 men to death, injuring about 100 more.

According to the imam who was present during the shooting, when the soldiers heard the shots they assumed they were from “Arab terrorists” and began to target Palestinian residents in retaliation, including one in the process of evacuating the body of a friend who had just been slaughtered. Riots following the massacre left 9 Israelis and 26 more Palestinians dead. Since the massacre, Hebron settlers have built a monument in Goldstein’s honor and make pilgrimages to his tomb.

The 1994 massacre was not the first Hebron has seen. In 1929, some 30 Jews were brutally murdered by Palestinians who resented their growing presence in Hebron. A native from Hebron named Hisham sometimes gives tours of the city, sharing little-known details about the time of the 1929 massacre, which he himself witnessed as a young boy. According to Hisham, before the massacre there was a large population of Jews in Hebron who considered themselves Arabs. They were well-integrated and respected in the community. As the Zionist movement gained ground, some people began to resent the huge influx of Jews flooding to Hebron with hopes of establishing an exclusivist Jewish state. Hisham said the vast majority of Jews killed in the massacre were recent immigrants from Europe, because most of the native Hebron Jews were saved by their Muslim neighbors who hid them in their homes.

Hisham’s family members, for example, were “shabbes goys” (non-Jews whom Jews hire to perform work that is forbidden for observant Jews on the Sabbath, such as switching lights on and off and cooking) for a Jewish family next door, whom they took in during the massacre. Hisham added that the majority of perpetrators of the massacre were not from Hebron.

It’s disappointing that these stories of Jewish and Palestinian solidarity are not more well-known. People remember the non-Jews who risked their lives to help Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust, but those who sheltered Jewish Hebron residents in 1929 are mostly forgotten. Similarly, the Arab media doesn’t go out of its way to talk about Israeli activists who risk attack and arrest every day for standing in solidarity with Palestinians against the Occupation. It seems the media on both sides have an interest in perpetuating fear and racism rather than taking advantage of the solidarity that has always existed here, albeit limited.

Although the native Palestinians in Hebron can be blamed for neither Goldstein’s massacre nor the one of 1929, they continue to pay the price for both. The earlier massacre is still used to justify excessive security measures at the expense of Palestinian freedom of movement and self-determination in Hebron. Ironically, Goldstein’s crimes are used to justify the same security measures. After he opened fire in the mosque, Palestinians in Hebron were put under curfew for a month (presumably to prevent retaliation), while the settlers were allowed to roam freely shortly afterwards. The Palestinians, who had been the target of the massacre, were shut in their homes for 30 days, unable to go to work or school, let alone visit one another and pay their respects to the dead.

Another result of the Goldstein massacre was that the site of the massacres—the Cave of the Patriarchs, where Hebron’s main mosque, the Ibrahimi Mosque, sits—was split into two, with one side for Muslims and one side for Jews. Both the curfew and the division were allegedly to prevent further confrontation, but in reality they served to further curtail the rights of the very population that had been attacked. The Israeli army and government call Goldstein’s gang terrorists, but in practice they are the group’s most crucial suppliers of security and impunity.

–Anna Baltzer

This piece was originally published on Anna Baltzer’s website: AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com on 3/12/05.

Further Reading:

The Olive Harvest by Anna Baltzer, 8/7/09



COMMENTARY

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

mercurydime_xlungex

Photo of what is commonly called a Mercury dime, but which actually depicts Liberty wearing a Phrygian cap with wings, symbolizing both liberty and freedom of thought. It was designed by Adolph Weinman.

TOWARDS A DEMOCRATIC, COOPERATIVE, AND CARING ECONOMY

by Mira Luna

There has been a lot of talk lately about how we should reform our economy. In order to figure out where we want our economy to go, we need to evaluate where we currently are. The economy we operate within in the US is, by many measures, not taking care of our most basic needs. The US spends more on healthcare than any other country, but is now ranked 50th in longevity and 47 million people in the US are without health insurance. 3.5 million people, 39% of them children, currently experience homelessness every year and 30% of Americans are on the edge of poverty. 36.2 million people live in households considered to be food insecure, including 12.4 million children. Even by the most conservative standards, the US ranks 23rd in world happiness despite its enormous wealth, making up one quarter of the world’s GDP. We work longer hours for less pay doing unsatisfying work and have little time to connect with each other, as the social fabric of our communities slowly disintegrates. Why is wealth being pulled away from the things that we need and the things that make us truly happy?

Where money flows is partly determined by where it comes from. US dollars are issued solely by the Federal Reserve (a private financial institution) as debt (usually from loan agreements, including to the US government), which means it must be paid back with interest. The money to pay for this growing debt comes out of one person or institution’s pocket and interests accumulates in another’s pocket, creating inequalities and pooling wealth in fewer and fewer hands. The Federal Reserve attempts to set the value of the dollar by controlling the supply of it as a scarce resource. So even though there is enough food or housing for everyone, there will not be enough money in the hands of those that need it to pay rent or buy food, especially in times of economic recession. Markets also create artificial scarcity for the sake of increasing value, making only somewhat scarce resources and very abundant resources seem very scarce.

Scarcity created by the centralized monetary system and the market encourage unnecessary competition and greed out of fear that there isn’t enough resources out there for everyone. In the US, the top 10% of the population now possesses 80% of all financial assets while the bottom 90% holds only 20%, a significant threat to democracy, as concentration of wealth also leads to concentration of unchecked power. A continually growing economy is not sustainable, a boom-bust economy is not secure, and an unjust economy will lead inevitably to other social problems.

With the current economic crisis, we have an opportunity to create tools and structures that facilitate a shift away from wealth accumulation and competition for scarce resources to a more democratic, cooperative, and caring economy. How do we start to make this transition? We must start to decentralize our economy and develop aspects of it that have disappeared after decades of free market and capitalist fundamentalism.

If you can imagine, we operate within three economic circles. In the innermost circle, immediate family and friends give freely amongst each other (though less than they used to) – this network of trust is primarily a gift economy, usually with no expectation of direct reciprocity.  Our local communities used to provide the middle circle of economy, meeting most of our basic needs that our families and friends couldn’t. This middle circle was made up of local government and also people and business we knew well, trusted and exchanged with regularly, usually reciprocally through barter or exchange of money. Evaluations of who needs what the most, who we trust, and who deserves the most would influence our trading. Today most of this middle circle is gone. Now the outer circle, consisting exclusively of anonymous monetary exchanges in the global economy, determined primarily by the highest market value or profit, has consumed most of the two inner circles. We have very little control over this outer circle of trade and it has done great damage as it is run by businesses and people who have little vested interest in or responsibility towards the communities that they affect.

In order to create a better economy, we need to redevelop the inner and middle circles and reduce the dominance of the outer circle. There are many grassroots projects already underway to develop the inner and middle circles – worker cooperative development organizations, cohousing and cooperative housing projects, community credit unions, land trusts, urban community gardens, bicycle kitchens, free clinics, sustainable local investment programs, ridesharing, recycling stores, and community currencies are just a few examples. Though we can’t completely jump ship right away from the current economic system, we can slowly build alternatives as a transition to the new economy. Community currencies, though not a panacea, can be an especially potent fulcrum point in making this shift.

Regional or municipal community currencies that are well constructed can help redirect wealth away from corporations and towards local businesses, local governments, and not for profit groups. They can also provide stability in a roller-coaster market economy so that people don’t lose their jobs and public services don’t need to be cut. Local currencies re-pattern behavior by encouraging local exchanges, relationships and local self- and small business employment, increasing local community self-sufficiency and sustainability. Spending locally results in three times the income effects, three times the wealth effects, three times the jobs, and three times the tax income, before it leaves the community. Community currencies combined with import replacement could drastically increase local wealth and stability. Ithaca Hours and Berkshares paper currencies are two good examples of paper currencies successfully being used in the United States, as well as the Worgl in Austria and the Chiemgauer in Germany. Over 300 alternative scrips issued in North America during the Great Depression.

For other needs and wants, we should create soft currencies within the middle circle that transition us towards the gift economy and indirect reciprocity.  We should design these currencies so as to maximize feelings of abundance and trust in communities. Soft currencies include mutual credit systems like time banking and LETS (Local Employment/Exchange Trading Systems). Time banks are based on hour-for-hour exchange that reduces the emphasis on keeping score, creates abundance because we all have some time and skills to offer, and reduces inequalities through a single standard metric, the hour, rather than the market value of that hour. Because there is no interest in this system, there is no incentive to accumulate credits and no problem with being in debt.  Wealth then circulates more fluidly throughout the community, which means people are taking care of each other. Time banks and other mutual credit systems now number in the hundreds in the US and in the thousands across the world. The most successful mutual credit system is the Swiss WIR bank, a business to business trading and accounting system, which has captured a significant portion of the economy and buffered it from depressions.

In order to create a more loving economy, we should also create as many opportunities for gift giving as possible. Gifting builds a collective consciousness that we are all in this together and we trust each other to take care of each other.  There are many examples of successful gift economies. The entire country of Mali functions primarily on a gift economy. Other examples of gift economy are practiced in Black Rock City by participants of Burningman and in the Pacific Northwest by indigenous peoples during potlatch ceremonies.  Spreading around the world contagiously are small events which epitomize the gift economy, called Really Really Free Markets, in contradistinction to the capitalist free market, which actually gives nothing away for free and tries to commodify everything. In a Really Really Free Market, skills are shared, services are offered, music is often is provided, and goods are given away, but no money, barter, or advertising is allowed.  Everyone receives reward merely by seeing others benefit from their gifts and they may take whatever they need, whenever they need it, building trust that all will be provided for.

As we grow these inner and middle circles, we will see a shift toward a more democratic, cooperative, caring , and dare I say, loving economy. Our currencies, businesses, banks, and investment mechanisms should all be based on our highest values and the kinds of relationships we want rather than these tools and structures determining our relationships and our values. It is time to move forward consciously, deliberately and and fearlessly to create the new economy.

–Mira Luna is a San Francisco based activist who is working on developing an alternative economy in the Bay Area. She helps coordinate Bay Area Community Exchange, a local timebank, JASecon, and the Really Really Free Market. Her blog is Trust is the Only Currency.

I WANT TO BE BETTER

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

Ajanta caves in Northern India

Reclining Buddha carved in the Ajanta Caves in Northern India, dating to the 2nd century B.C.

I WANT TO BE BETTER

by Eve Toliman

I once read about a young man who joined an ashram (I think his name was Chris and I think the ashram was in San Francisco).  At a certain point he slowed way down.  He smiled sweetly and spoke less and less.  His peers were awed by his spiritual progress.  They tried to emulate what they believed was his serenity.  Over a period of about a year, he became slower and stiller until he didn’t speak at all.  He just smiled.  A shiny, round, apple-cheeked young Buddha.  Enlightenment.  Turns out he had a massive brain tumor.  His fellow aspirants had mistaken dullness for serenity.  (I think pharmaceutical companies capitalize on a similar confusion.)  I fear I am Chris (minus the sweetness) — something vital in me is being eclipsed by something vacuous.

I have a friend who won a silver medal for basketball at the World Games.  Like many athletes, her body pioneering new limits, her performance a testament to human spirit and will, she was debilitated by injuries.  Two surgeries later, never having achieved the peak of her athletic capability, she could no longer walk without pain.  She can’t even bear to watch the game anymore.  The love of her life is whole and well, blithely wooing others.

When I was 26 my mother was diagnosed with a terminal cancer.  Ironically (or not) she had worked at Sloan-Kettering as an aide to an oncologist studying the same cancer that took her life at 55.  We were a spirited and unbalanced group to begin with.  During this last year of her life, when all hope died and the shadow of a guillotine draped everything we did, we were launched to new extremes. We drank harder, laughed harder, and pushed harder against the huge inevitability that was pushing toward us. I was doing computer projects — tedious, relentless attention to detail.  As an antidote to the colossal left brain activity that occupied too much of my other time, I started drawing — a lot.  On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I took two three hour drawing classes back-to-back.  I sketched still lifes in the morning with a brilliant, laser-like, high-speed printmaker whose work hung in the Guggenheim.  As he passed by, people muttered about the effects of long-term exposure to printing chemicals.  Hushed and inconclusive, it nonetheless impressed me with a desire to avoid printmaking.  In the afternoon, I drew nude models with a sardonic landscape painter whose chosen genre had fallen out of popular consideration.  He pursued his craft knowing it would never amount to anything more than it was, his own private communion with creativity.

One morning, I was drawing in Robert-the-twisted-printmaker’s class.  He was talking non-stop, as usual, but for some reason on that particular morning he kept looming over my shoulder when I least expected it.  I was trying to get into that right brain groove, just be my hands as Andrew Wyeth put it, when BAM, in my ear, rapid fire conceptual jargon.  I would stop and wait for the clatter to move on.  I finally gave up and just listened.  Intermingled brilliance and nonsense.  Impossible to ignore.  Fascinating and grating, my left brain sifting, panning for gold.  When I showed up for figure drawing, chalks in hand, model prepared, quick sketches done, I was paralyzed.  I just stared, hoping, waiting for that right brain relief.  Walt-the-pragmatist-painter finally asked, “Why aren’t you drawing?”

“I was listening to Robert all morning.”

“Oh, I understand.”

Here I sit, waiting for relief, stunned by the non-stop, clattering demands of a life — meals, laundry, dishes, money, phone snafu again, still haven’t replaced that spare tire, my daughter’s tooth needs to be pulled, I need a crown, (where are my son’s adult teeth?), finish the web copy, my passport’s expired, new doctor for the kids, back-to-school night, we are out of bread, invoice that client, oh god, I forgot to call the insurance agent — hoping, waiting for that right brain relief, spaciousness in which to feel and dream and do nothing at all.  I feel dullness creeping over me.  I watch my love blithely wooing others.

When my mother died, I stopped drawing all together. Ten years and two kids later, when divorce seemed inevitable, I started writing.  It felt as if my soul had been startled into some kind of action and was now fighting for her life.  It is ten years later again.  My soul seems to be in some kind of tug-of-war with modern life.  I am the rope.  We are the rope.   I hear the same things from friends.  These are people who love their work, love their families, but feel eroded by the demands of managing their worldly lives.  Perhaps it’s time of life.  For those of us who didn’t give up, time is taunting us, drawing us out.  If our souls are to have expression, it is now or never.

Perhaps the tug-of-war is created by my misperception.  It is not the inevitable effect of an evil world against a pure soul, of endless tasks eclipsing meaning  — it is the result of a false split.  It is not worldly here and spiritual there, mundane here and creative there, rather it is love throughout.  Driving to the mechanic, watching the teens in the crosswalk, waiting at the post office, calling the dentist,…  The mundane simply raw material for creativity.  Spaciousness throughout.  No destination, just this.  When I stop resisting the tug and just fall, a curious reversal occurs.  That place of tension becomes the opening.

My boyfriend and I have been having the same fight for over a year.  Every month or so, we approach the heated topic gingerly and within minutes it blows up again and we retreat.  Yesterday morning, for the first time, we moved safely over the mined border into an entirely new landscape.  Just like that, peace.  In the evening, he turned to me and said, “I want to be better — better to you, better for you — than I know how to be.”  I felt it enter my chest and move around.  I realized, I want to be better, too — much better than I know how to be.  Suddenly the tug-of-war is recast: It is not what’s keeping me from the fullness of my human life — it is my human life.

–Eve Toliman

Further Reading:

I Dreamt of My Father Last Night by Eve Toliman, 8/4/09

Prodding Baudelaire by Eve Toliman, 7/28/09

Beneath the Damage and Apology by Eve Toliman, 7/24/09


A HALF MAST REBEL

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

csg1

A HALF MAST REBEL

by Gabriela Barragan

When I discovered what the religiously-tinted definition of a prude was, back in the 6th grade, I decided I didn’t want to be one.

In my 11-year-old mind, already indoctrinated by a steady stream of Catholic-infused political beliefs and dogma, prudes didn’t sneak Guns N’ Roses tapes, heavy metal magazines, or try smoking an abandoned pack of cigarettes.

But I wasn’t about to turn full-fledged rebel.  In concert with the floweret of rebellion beginning to bloom there was a flash of the most boring of all adages, ready for harnessing at any moment (especially by dieters), and one my Mom stated constantly:  “Everything in moderation”.

So, while I was determined not be a pre-makeover Charlotte Vale from Now Voyager (young spinster goes from nunnery dress to sophisticate on celluloid in black and white) I also wasn’t going to manifest the exhibitionistic Catholic school girl stereotype, with a skirt hiked up to there – the maximal anti-prude.

But the rebel floweret inched a bit taller.  I may not have attempted to set my uniform skirt on fire, but I watched.  And I was disappointed, like everyone else, that the material kind of melted and curled, and that the resulting acrid stench made me and my adolescent comrades run away and stuff our mouths with contraband Hubba Bubba to stave off the caustic tang that permeated our polyester, our Peter Pan collars, and even it seemed, our skin.

More than 20 years later, I’m not as fascinated by cloying bubble gum flavors, burning my uniform in effigy, or espousing the Catholic doctrines I was taught by teachers with (mostly) good intentions.  In those 20 years I’ve met many people of diverse backgrounds.  Through more than a few I observed that faith (not religion, but faith) is not just housed among the very good, the very dogmatic, and those who shun all forms of venial sin.

A notable example:  The best yoga teacher I ever had, a former heroin addict, could drink a bottle of wine and get blazed the night before class and still teach with the kind of patience and in-the-moment presence only gifted instructors possess.  She was a good time gal, and a dedicated and very spiritual yogi – not an either/or.  It gradually became clear that I didn’t have to run from the religious prude archetype proffered by teachers back in my uniform days.  I just had to merely give it my regards and say, “No, thank you”.

I may have veered off the path my parents put me on back in Kindergarten, while they have become even more devout, but I now understand the importance of respecting their beliefs even though they are not okay with mine (maybe slightly alarmed is more like it).  We’ve even managed to have some conversations about our differences without skyrocketing blood pressures on either side (of the aisle).

So, instead of continuing to run, or drowning out the dogma with GN’R, I’ll listen.  I won’t necessarily accept or adopt, but I’ll listen.  My yoga instructor once said:  “flexible in the body, flexible in the mind”.  My sprint now is away from narrowness and rigidity, and toward a more catholic view – but allow me emphasize that lower-case “c”.

–Gabriela Barragan

Further Reading:

My Musical Corkage Fee by Gabriela Barragan, 7/21/09

JACOB LAWRENCE

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

270_fs

Ironers by Jacob Lawrence, gouache on paper, 1943.

JACOB LAWRENCE IRONERS 1943

by Nathan Birnbaum

This painting plays into the labeling of Jacob Lawrence’s early work as “primitive,” bringing to mind descriptors such as “folksy” and the “common-man.” Clearly, we have a piece that is directly addressing the social, political, and economic underpinnings of a cultural task.

Both in the post-Emancipation era and before, during, and after the Great Migration of African Americans to the North, black women found themselves pigeonholed into domestic labor jobs, among them ironing and washing the clothing of more affluent white families. Although this work could be seen as demeaning, these women in fact came to look upon the work as a way to express their new-found freedom, a theme addressed in a book entitled To ‘Joy My Freedom by Tera W. Hunter (which ironically chose this particular painting for its cover).  When competing with other ethnic populations for jobs in the economic sector, washing was fiercely defended, even violently at times, as an African-American trade. However, after moving North in the Great Migration (and I suspect that Lawrence’s rendering comes from what he observed in Harlem in the late 30s and early 40s), this work not only came to symbolize entrenchment in the lower class sector, but long hours slaving over what amounted to labor intensive work for little pay.

But determination to embrace identity, like that in the post-Emancipation era, was a characteristic of the New Negro which Lawrence famously addressed in his Migration Series. According to one scholar, he “simply interpreted life as he saw it” and Lawrence himself might appropriately comment that this photo addresses the fact that African Americans “didn’t have a physical slavery” but rather, an “economic slavery.”

In terms of aesthetic qualities, Lawrence’s use of broad, square, large, and block-like figures not only speaks to the theme of domestic labor, but immediately brings out the strength of the women. The figures jump out of the photo, expanding the viewing capacity of one examining the painting, and the fact that there are multiple women serves to tread the line between sympathy for and truthful depiction of entrenchment in the labor force. Lawrence employs techniques that typified Modernist art, such as repetition of forms, reduction and simplicity of these forms (for example, there is no differentiation in the faces, clothing, and expressions of the women, as Lawrence chooses to leave these details out entirely), and furthermore, he chooses largely arbitrary colors for his canvass. Much of the painting appears superficially flat, except for the irons, which might serve to highlight the heaviness and cyclical nature of the labor.

But given the background that we can ascertain from the historical information I addressed earlier, Ironers easily fits Lizzetta LeFalle-Collins’ claim that Lawrence “not only was telling the history of the Negro, but also introducing viewers to a new way of seeing objects and compositional relationships.”  These women clearly have a defined relationship with their work.  And perhaps seeing the prominence of their irons and the size of their working arms serves to present domesticity in a new way, removed from a society that was deep in the throes of World War II.  Washing of the clothes wasn’t grounded in war but rather it was grounded in everyday life for these women, and had been historically as well.

–Nathan Birnbaum

Further Reading:

An Argument for a Core, By Nathan Birnbaum, 8/1/09

“A New Era of Engagement”, But for Whom? by Nathan Birnbaum, 7/15/09

COMMENTARY

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

rn_age2_wLaura_1936

Ralph Nader aged 2, with his older sister Laura (who has been a Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley since 1960).  This photograph was taken in 1936.

THE HOLY TRINITY OF INELIGIBILITY?

by Rod Ciferri

I’ve previously written inquiries into the eligibility of the two major party candidates of the last presidential election in “War Is Over!” and “McCain’s Natural Born Problem”.  Therein I noted that being a U.S. citizen is not enough to be eligible for president.  The U.S. Constitution, in Article 1, Section 2, sets a higher standard, “natural born citizen”, which requires a presidential candidate be born in the country to at least a U.S. citizen father.

I’ve come to the conclusion that McCain’s undisputed Panamanian birth crushes his eligibility since the mere U.S. proprietary rights acquired in the Panama Canal Zone did not make it part of the U.S., and, absent pulling a rabbit out of the hat, and explaining some gigantic lies about his personal life, Obama’s eligibility is non-existent as well due to his father’s apparent Kenyan citizenship.

What about Nader?  He did come in third place according to popular vote (although didn’t reach the radar screen with the Electoral College).  If McCain and Obama are both disqualified, then Nader would be the presumptive front-runner to win the Electoral College vote. Is he a natural born citizen, and, thus eligible for president?

The short answer is:  Maybe, maybe not.

Like Obama, it depends upon the citizenship of his father.  Although information about Nader’s public life is voluminous on the internet, details about his parents are skeletal in comparison.

A glance at wikipedia.com reveals that Nader’s parents, Nathra and Rose, who were natives of Lebanon, were married in 1925 and “immigrated to the United States.”  Nader was born in Winsted, Connecticut in 1934.  It is not clear to me when Nader’s parents immigrated to the United States.

The question of Nader’s natural born citizenship, hinges upon whether or not Nathra was a naturalized U.S. citizen prior to Nader’s birth.  If so, Nader is a natural born citizen, having been born in the country to a father who was a citizen, and, thus, eligible for president.

The immigration statute governing naturalization in effect from 1924 through 1952 was the Immigration Act of 1924.  Under this law, it was possible for an immigrant to become naturalized a U.S. citizen within five years.

If Nader’s parents immigrated shortly before or after their marriage in 1925, they would have been in the country for nine years when Nader was born.  Therefore, it is possible they had become U.S. citizens before Nader was born.

However, since I’ve found no information about the natural born citizen issue regarding Nader, his eligibility for president remains unclear.

–Rod Ciferri

Further Reading:

McCain’s Natural Born Problem by Rod Ciferri, 8/2/09

War is Over! by Rod Ciferri, 7/17/09

COMMENTARY

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

cocaine

Cocaine. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration photograph.

A Blogage Plane

POWDER TO THE PEOPLE? YES.

by Jack Freeman

Although I am not advocating the use of hard drugs, the legalization of Opium, Cocaine and Heroin along with Marijuana is a good idea. 1. It will save lives. 2. From a cultural stand point, it will, I think, help save and restore the health and integrity of society which should be progressive and positive, rather than negative and digressive. And we will not be living in the past. 3. Fewer Covert Wars and Drug Wars would be fought by governments, private armies or militias. One reason for my writing this statement is because of the negative influence I saw the new Drug climate had on the art scene in San Francisco in the 1960 and 70s when the laws were enforced in a public way. The 60s were a chaotic transition from Post WWII.  The 70s was when a the New World Order began. It had many reactions. One was Drugs another was going back… a kind of neurosis.

First, medically, Drug addiction can result in poor health and death. As the writer Tom Wolfe said after researching “The Electric Cool Aid Acid Test” in San Francisco, that the Black Plague had returned in some Hippie patients who dropped out and refused to be vaccinated. Second, socially, in the local Art Scene, there was a kind of atrophy of personality that crept in from use or the new Drug cultural influence.  Conversations became empty.  Nothing technical was discussed, at least on a traditional level, just words like “far out” or “that’s a gas, man”.  And, the dress was down.  Art students became divided between drug users and non users. So, painters, “daubers”, drank wine and the Hard Edge and Funk artists smoked grass, basically. Jokes were not funny. People were remarking that America had lost its sense of humor. That was not lost on Charles Schulz who said on TV that the comics were not funny any more.  It was a national epidemic that is still around. And, for what ever complex reasons, by the 1970s, people were becoming divorced from nature and them selves. This resulted in the Cyborg cult movies. If drugs had been legal, this would not have happened because use would have not been iconoclastic or recklessly recreational, in my opinion.

For some there was a special drug, Acid that fueled an art movement, Acid Rock music and the visual arts, too. That is one thing, but I have read that experiments with acid on unsuspecting people were done by COINTELPRO. Acid was slipped into cocktails at a party at 200 Chestnut st to see if mind control was possible. One lady jumped out of a window. Another person went to SF General. COINTELPRO was the organization that collected names of the Berkeley Free Speech demonstrators. This still goes on. In a 500 page report, 1,500 incidents have been listed over a 10 month period. Drug Laws facilitate arrests and reporting of names at demonstrations.

My argument about the negative side of Drug Laws is that they make enforcing racial profiling too easy and exclusive. It is like the haves and the have nots. We are all ethnic. When arrests have to be made, they should be made when someone has committed a violent act or where or there is a victim of some kind. The way it appears is that people are being arrested for being different therefore they are wrong in what they do.

Today the negative influence of Drug Trafficking and use in society has become worse than it was 50 years ago. It is insidious. Taking drugs is not a rebellion forward, for example. We live in the past as Tom Wolfe has suggested. Leadership should lead. It was not being strong enough after WWII to stop the trafficking that Drugs got a foot hold and now 60 years later we are in a backward mode like a hermit crab.

We are back in time which is not far to go in one sense, since it is all around us. But, if you are at the apex of modern civilization, it is a long way back. It is retarded. Maybe this is one reason for the rebirth of folk music.

If you ever wondered what happened to the Middle Ages, and thought it ended before the Italian Renaissance, you would be wrong.

–Jack Freeman

Further Reading:

Art Review: A Blogage Plane by Jack Freeman 7/17/09

SONIA SOTOMAYOR

Posted on by asitoughttobemagazine

soniasotomayor

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s 1972 yearbook photograph from Cardinal Spellman High in North Bronx, New York.

WATCH WHAT YOU SAY BECAUSE … SOMEONE MIGHT HEAR YOU!

by Diana Cristales

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” These were the words spoken by former appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Intrigued by the amount of press Sotomayor and her statement had attracted, I decided that I wanted to gain a better understand of what she really meant by those words. So, a couple of YouTube videos and online articles later I found the original text to which this statement belonged. The entire speech can be found in the text of the Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture in 2001, delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. It was published in the Spring 2002 issue of Berkeley La Raza Law Journal, a symposium issue entitled “Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation.”

My first impression was that these words, within the context of the entire speech, were intended to serve as an acknowledgement that there is value in cultural understanding, representation and activism, for people of all cultures, in regard to law. My second thought was, ”she shouldn’t have said that out loud.”

That made me think about a social behavior that is not only common, but expected. We don’t always say what we mean in front of just anyone. Either, because we are afraid to say what we think, or perhaps because it is bad social etiquette.

The truth is that, wives don’t always say what they really think to their husbands in the same way that they do to their best friends, especially about sex. Employees do not usually speak as openly with their bosses as they do with their co-workers. Teens do not share as much about their most intimate thoughts with their parents as they do with bff’s. And a person of color is not always going to share their cultural perspective with people outside of their immediate social circle. How do I know? I know because I am a person of color. I will even go as far to say that some white people will only say certain things in front of other white people. How do I know? Because my ex husband was white and that’s what he told me.

Does that surprise you? Well when I found that out, it surprised me too! He told me the truth….not all white people like Latin people and even if they won’t tell you that themselves….they tell one another. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had with Latino’s where they vent their frustrations about how they are treated or about how they perceive other cultures. They would never say these things to a person outside of their culture because it’s just not polite.

So what is really the problem with Sonia Sotomayor’s words? That she actually said what she was thinking out loud. She said it and it was recorded and now…it can be used to define her beliefs as a Latina woman and as a judge. She spoke to the public in way that is best reserved for private conversations. Not having been a public figure to the extent that she is now, she allowed herself to be candid “in public”. Sotomayor felt comfortable expressing her concerns with this specific group in a way that was relevant to that group and now the world has access to those same words without having heard the entire speech.

The real questions that can be derived from her words are: Can one person with a diverse cultural background make better decisions that a person without a more homogeneous cultural background? Is one culture more objective than the other? Do all decisions require objectivity in order to be the right decision or do other factors need to be taken into account? Perhaps what she was saying is that a person with a limited understanding of other cultures is at a disadvantage.

Isn’t it possible that a group of people who have shared similar experiences, come from a similar tier of society, and have a similar educational background would make decisions based on shared values. Is it possible to be completely objective given our cultural histories? Now what about our educational background? If we are privy to the same information, wouldn’t we then develop a somewhat common idea of what is right and wrong?

To be quite honest I didn’t like what she said when I first read it. I didn’t like the way it sounded, but after reading more about where and when she said it, I feel that she acknowledged, what she considered, her social responsibility for a part of the population that is not always represented or valued.

Did those words give us an insight into the way she thinks and what she believes? Yes they did, for that time. However, it has been eight years after she spoke those words and I’m sure she is that much wiser.

As to her ability to serve as a judge in the highest court…… I for one would like to be culturally represented in a country where I have spent all but four years of my life. I would like to see a wise Latina woman make an impact in the life of people she serves. I am excited that she is looking at the things that might have been overlooked. We deserve people in government who are willing to speak their truth, even when we do not agree or understand. At their best, lawyers and judges should serve as stewards of the law who have the integrity and insight to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.

It is August 6, 2009 and the Senate has approved Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The rest is herstory, I mean history.

–Diana Cristales

Further Reading:

In So Many Words: The over-intellectualization of art, culture and politics by Diana Cristales, 7/20/09