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"Speak Truth to Power"

It is no secret that we have been living under a regime of fear and jingoistic propaganda the likes of which have not been witnessed since our good friends in Germany strayed behind similar fascist leadership. Bush and Company did not invent the underbelly of America, they have just given it license to rule the day, and the last 8 years. I am tired of beating around the Bush both literally and figuratively. Let's just call the current state of US politics what it is, cynical, racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and just plain u-gly! And, in my opinion, a phrase that epitomizes this political cesspool-ness is: "Barack Obama is a Muslim."
This flat-footed phrase in and of itself is not patently racist, ugly, or xenophobic, right? We can read this statement as simply declarative, much like "Jennifer is a gay." And, just like, "Jennifer is a gay," the intended meaning is far more sinister than the words convey; until you factor in our current fear driven "American" psyche and the "i'm-a-'patriot'-deathly-afraid-of-the-'other'-and-my-commander-in-chief" mentality. With this context taken into consideration, the deeper meaning is revealed. It's anti-Obama effectiveness relies upon the understanding that certain assumptions are just "true." 1. Obama is a liar who cannot possibly know his own faith. 2. Being Muslim is bad. 3. Not being a Christian is un-American. 4. Muslim's are brown people. 4. Brown people are "other" or "Not American". 5. Muslim's are terrorists. This cynical syllogism goes something like this: Muslim's are anti-American, brown, terrorists; Obama is brown; Obama is a Muslim; Therefore, Obama is an anti-American, brown, terrorist.

This kind of embedded anti-logic requires us to engage with the statement in ways that do not uproot its true racism and xenophobia . Obama's camp says, "he is not a Muslim." Obama supporters say, "he is a Christian, not Muslim." But wait! What is wrong with being Muslim? Much like "Jennifer is a gay," the very identity of a group of a people is foisted as an insult (e.g. that's so gay); and the identity then becomes the evil and must therefore be denied. Wrong!

We must take Bush, Fear and Co. out of the discursive driver's seat. You do not get to define who is American! You do not get to define who is presidential! You do not get to define what it means to be Muslim or gay! And, to the rest of us, let us not engage with such clear racism and xenophobia without calling it out and refusing to engage the statement on their terms. If we let it rest, we lend it credence. If we do not ourselves question, "what is the problem with being Muslim? what are they getting at?" then we uphold the fear-laced embedded meanings.

Let's start a new game, with new definitions, and a spirit of hope, that which Senator Obama so clearly wishes to offer.

weary of my country

I am weary people, just very fucking weary. In the last two days 200 people have been killed in Iraq, 33 people have been killed in Virginia, and last week a woman was murdered in the building right next to mine on the UW campus. The violence alone is enough to make anyone weary...but that isn't it for me.

It is the every day violence that gets me...the every moment violence of the dominant US culture....you know, the one that touts freedom but makes lists of the books you check out from the library; the country called the land of the free and home of the brave....which translates in 2007 as the land of the feared and the home of the brazen, emboldended hate and war mongers.

I'm weary people. You must be too. I do not believe that this dominance feeds many of us. People say, but cookie monster what are you talking about? We are a great country. Why....because our platitudes are easy to call up when we need to? Why are we a great country? Because we have freedom? What kind of freedom? For whom?

Here's the scoop: our country was built upon ownership, property, and the desire for more ownership of property to be able to subsist. White men, with property, were the ones who were thought of as people. White women were property, but were at least people for the most part. American Indian/Indigenous folks....well, they were simply disposed of....or at least the attempt was made to dispose of Indigenous peoples. Genocide...and the African Holocaust....that built this country. Our cities, our trade, our lives are soaked with the blood of millions of African and Indigenous men, women, third genders, fourth genders, and children. And we just never look back even to say, what was that we just hit?

What is wrong with us white people. Have you no shame? Have you no memory? Have you no sense of history or interest in something other than yourself and the symbolic god we worship, the almighty dollar. Money is merely a belief system. It doesn't really exist....but man does it create a serious amount of material inequality in the world. We need a philosophical revolution and decide to quit believing in money, quit worshipping at the alter of global capitalism. This world is owned by the World Bank and Multinational coporations.

I'm weary today. We need radical honesty, radical reparations, radical apology, radical change of direction, and the radical idea that fear and scarcity must not rule the day. I'm weary.

Subvert

This is a new blog and I'm just testing this shit out.