I joined this list after i found that Sasha Lily posted the letter i wrote to KPFK when they co sponsored a 9-11 Dception Dollar event at the Herbst Theatre that included several known bigots, white supremacists and others of such ilk. Carol Brouillet denies the seriousness of these creeps striving to woo the left and succeeding in many cases. I wrote something about that for this list, but it is lost. I cannot spend the time rewriting it and do not even know if this will get on as nothing i have sent so far has made it.
I wrote the following this morning.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Coming Horror Spectacle
As the tensions among the world's most downtrodden raise in visibility, i spent the weekend working, walking and talking with my young daughter, in school for the first time in her 13 years. In seeing how public schools narrow a child's focus to the agenda of the power mongers, i am required to keep my child's conscience exercised. She already is learning how to prioritize her grades, her appearance and unexamined consumerism. So quickly is a child's mind taken over by war culture's manipulations. Against my will, i am forced to study the extent of damage being done in the name of "no child left behind". It sickens me that these are the times i am raising this child in and that i have no alternative to offer her beyond the 13 years of homeschooling i gave her. Her interest in the human rights situations we have been part of supporting is all but lost. She is driven to conform. Do i dare risk instilling misdirected rebellion by taking her with me anyway to stay a few weeks with Dineh Elder, Pauline Whitesinger? We also are connected to Ramona Morales, the mother of Sylvia Elena Rivera Morales, tortured, raped, mutilated and murdered in 1995, one of over 500 murders of young women and girls that has bestowed Juarez with the phenomenom of "femicide". She invited my daughter and i to visit her, which we have yet to do. Then there is the situation of the cleanup after hurricane Katrina where activists have been called to participate as well in supporting families resisting forced evictions as the greedy grabbers steal land from vulnerable Black people for the whitification of New Orleans.
Snow falls steadily outside my window. We do have our wood in and some supplies. Winter is often more of a challenge than we can pull off. This year we have more of our needs addressed than usual when we are forced to leave so i can find work or participate in human rights work. We are experts in doing without, know how to survive without electricity and running water, can chop wood and work hard, so can be of use at Big Mountain. I long to go there, to Juarez, to the 9th Ward, but my obligations to my child prevail.
How does one, isolated from centers of activism, work for deep and authentic justice in a community divided by bigotry, slander and mistrust? I long to act with inspiration and courage with others in defiance of limits imposed by the fears of the small minded. Seems that even those who claim to be opposed to war are de- voted to employing hate and lies to attain goals centered on their own petty power plays. It is deeply disturbing to encounter such limits and witness the damage done. To further this, we already are residents of an area notorious for it's white supremacy. Efforts to address this thru a human rights group failed and accom- plished far too little in it's brief life. How to heal schisms and encourage fairness remains a major question in my daily life as i seek a way to act with unity and visibility in opposition to the fascism killing the future.
The riots in France reflect the erupting rage festering in all oppressed peoples. As i keep my little radio tuned to the world news thru out the night, i hear the hate radio highlighting these riots as justification for vengeance against Muslims, Africans and all people of color. Their vitriol is the same spewed against the migrants from Mexico and further south seeking work in the increasingly hostile U.S. My own blood family harbors such stereotyping and hate. It is what i was raised with and has given me an insight to white supremacy and my own racist roots. Yet, no matter how much i educate myself and others, i live in an area where a few others who have concern about bigotry compete, claiming superior methods. Some claim a monopoly on how it must be addressed and call those who do not immediately climb aboard the revenge bandwagon ugly names, even on a local radio station. Why are there not better ways to confront our foibles?
I vigil weekly in front of the army recruiter in the Republican inundated town 34 miles from my cabin in the mountains. I started the vigil just after the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan back in 2002. A friend and i attempted to start a presence of Women In Black. Soon Veterans For Peace joined us. Over the past few years, the vets prevailed and women rarely vigil. It reflects the personal divisions and pain among us. I feel sorrow as i stand with my huge hand lettered sign and am joined by 3 or 4 men. I am a solitary Woman In Black representing an urgent force as a mother and devotee of peace. Such aloneness forces me to examine continually my shortcomings and failures as an activist. Such a burden.
All over the world, divisions threaten effective opposition to global fascism. My situation is certainly not unique. Any of us institutionalized by our education, jobs, faith, poltical structures, social interactions, are tainted by the insidious poisons of divide and conquer. There are multitudinous facets to oppression. Each of us knows a speck of it, both as oppressor and oppressed, no matter how privieleged we may be. But most people now are under the jackboot of poverty, sexism, racism, classism or one of more of the endless list of how humans oppress others. It is what kills hope and feeds apathy more than it already is by the dominanat society. I have been tearing my innards apart seeking solution that does not betray my own integrity. Remaining true to my own heart and conscience often keeps the isolation intact. I cannot forfeit my heart for the approval of any other. It is all i have.
In the past, my children suffered due to my activism. First, during my initiation into Gandhian nonviolence when i spent 4 months in jail for civil disobedience against the Seabrook Nuke. Later, my 2 older children and i were homeless in California, Washington and even in New York City for a brief time. I believe that those experiences drove them to be more materialistic than i would like. I also know that the level of insecurity they experienced as i instructed them to be still and quiet while we slept in my van so police would not notice us has added to their repulsion of a simple life. So, i have been able to hold onto this little home where my youngest and i now live, tho i am no owner of land or dwelling. It has given more balance to the relationship i have with her. I have always done my activism as a single mother against the prevailing attitudes of most. I often encounter people who feel being a parent demands either no activism or minimal at best. But it is my mothering that propelled me into the arena defending "sacred land and life" as traditional people put it. The Dineh Grandmothers of Big Mountain always welcomed my children and me as on the land supporters. They do not separate mothering and standing against destruction of ancient sacred land. They do not separate spirituality and politics, but integrate their way of life into the stand for the coming seven generations. These women have been my life's greatest teachers. Yet, their struggle is still known by so few as the Indigenous struggles against genocide in the U.S. are extremely marginalized. Far too many activists do not see how stopping genocide here is intertwined with stopping it in Iraq and elsewhere the talons of U.S. corporate narco free trade greed are embedded.
Rural life can still create a misleading climate of relative safety as there are still some trees, the water may look clean and the birds still fly around. But the damages of corporate war monger grow daily as can be seen by increased super truck traffic laden with the last of the big trees, the expanded malling of the town, the increase of an escaping populace, the loss of National Park lands and forests to resource extraction, the inpact of more and more recreational gas powered machinery and the whole sale denial of loss facing all life.
My son says that we should leave this area due to the power held by Republicans and the infamous bigotry. As the mother of mixed race children, i would consider it if i knew where we could go. I have never lived anywhere in my life as long as we have in this tiny cabin since my youngest was a baby. I can work to maintain it in trade for rent. I can chop wood and even cut smaller dead branches to keep us warm. I can grow more and more food in our garden and physically support many of our needs. But at any time, we may become homeless. It is a reality. I love the beauty that is so endangered. I love many of the people in this area, yet i feel impotent in doing anything to effectively stop destruction whether it is the war against everything precious or the conflicts that have torn my heart among friends and exfriends. Sorrow hangs heavy. Yet, i will continue to strive towards solution, righting the wrongs done by the race i am part of to all Indigenous peoples, share what i know with anyone interested, care for my child the best way possible, act with conscience regardless of the despair eating at my heart's edges. What we face will outdo any horror show any of us has ever seen except those now mired in the spreading ecocide, femicide and genocide that is truly a global pandemic.
In peaceful struggle, swaneagle
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------