Make it Personal

Hola mi Gente,

I find occasionally reposting the following worthwhile… 

Politics

Contrary to what you may believe, politics is not something you sometimes watch on TV in between the tons of garbage reality shows you consume weekly. Politics affects your personal life more than any dumb twat that gets the date or the chance to debase him or herself for your cynical pleasure. Therefore, if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to implement policies that harm you or those you love, take it personally.

Get Angry. 

The “Machinery of Justice” will not serve you here -- it is slow and unfeeling, and it is theirs -- all of it. Only those without access to power suffer at the hand of Justice; the creatures of the power elite slide out from under with a wink and a grin. If you want Justice, or even fairness, you will have to snatch it from them.

Make it personal.

Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time -- of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, makes the difference -- the only difference in their eyes -- between players and the “little people.” They don't give a damn about respect -- respect has no value for them. You have to make them fear and loathe you.

Players they will make their deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again, they will justify your liquidation, your displacement, your suffering, and the brutality of it all with the ultimate insult that it’s the way of the world, it’s politics, it’s a tough life, it’s “just business,” and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck that...

Make it personal.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Learned Helplessness vs Social Change

Hola mi Gente,

Last night something remarkable happened, defying statistical models and the predictions of the chattering class, Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the Michigan primary. What is even more remarkable is that a little-known, 79-year-old Jewish dude from Brooklyn is giving Hillary a run for her money. Stay tuned, this is not your father’s election cycle. LOL

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Learned Helplessness vs Social Change

Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the entire tide and direction of American Culture... Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion.

 -- Richard Wright, Black Boy

First, let me be clear about my position regarding the current election cycle. I do not support any candidate. Period. I believe voting is the least effective of all the tactics for creating social change and I refuse to essentially vote to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. However, if forced, I would vote for Bernie Sanders. In addition, I could never vote for a Clinton. Period.

In the Gospel According to Eddie, one of vilest sins (second only to willful ignorance) is the notion that we have no agency -- the ability to be an active participant in our lives. The sentiment seems to be, “Well, sure ____ (<-- a="" any="" attitude.="" attitude="" belief="" bother.="" but="" called="" can="" cannot="" defeatist="" difference="" escape="" form="" getting="" here="" i="" in="" insert="" is="" make="" negative="" observe="" of="" overarching="" psychology="" reamed="" so="" suffering="" system="" t="" that="" the="" this="" type="" why="" wrong="" you="" your="">learned helplessness

. Learned helplessness is the best way I can describe the attitude of  many Hillary Clinton supporters, who seem to have adopted as their motto, “No we can’t!”

I was reminded of this psychological concept when I recently came across a study that study from Princeton that argues that over the past few decades America's political system has slowly transformed from a democracy into an oligarchy, where wealthy elites wield most power.

Using data drawn from over 1,800 different policy initiatives from 1981 to 2002, the two conclude that rich, well-connected individuals on the political scene now steer the direction of the country, regardless of or even against the will of the majority of voters (click here for an interview with the lead investigator of the study).

Listening to the responses from so-called progressive pundits and activists, I can see why we may already have lost our democracy -- or whatever it was we had. We have become so conditioned to authoritarianism that we have self-professed progressives openly advocating against single payer health care, the model used almost universally in developed countries. They say it is impossible, so they dismiss the effort as unrealistic or pie-in-the-sky day dreaming. Overturning Citizens United? “Impossible! Get that out of your head!”screech the Hillary supporters. 

And you go on down the whole list of progressive values and these so-called progressives dismiss them all. We must vote for a right-of-center democrat or we are naïve political children, they say. Of course, these political “realists” ignore the fact that the current right wing hate group acting as a majority in two branches of government has not bothered to work with the current right-of-center POTUS, Barack Obama. Using this line of logic, I am glad these people did not win the day when civil rights activists decided to desegregate southern establishments. Using this utterly clueless worldview, they would have been content to be able to sit at a diner for only one hour a day. I am only half joking, folks… 

I was once marching in Washington, DC against some injustice, I forget which. At the time, like now, I had been feeling very frustrated at the state of politics in this country. I was marching alongside an elderly African-American lady who had to use a walker. She was veteran from the peak years of the civil rights movement -- someone who marched in the South when they would let dogs loose on you if you had the audacity to demand equal rights. I asked her how she could continue the struggle in the face of so much failure. Her response will stay with me until the day I die and it is why I still fight.

She asked me, “What is your ethnicity?” I answered that I was of Puerto Rican descent. Then she said, “Do you know that you probably have an ancestor who fought against slavery though he knew he would never see the light of a free day?” Then she turned to a young woman standing next to me and said, “Do you know that it is very likely that you have an ancestor who fought for the right to vote though she knew she would not be able to cast a vote herself?” And on she went with the rest of the group, pointing out how those who came before us laid the groundwork though they knew that they would never live to reap the fruits of their collective labor. Many lost their lives in the struggle.

With a smile that belied her rebel attitude, she explained that she didn’t march because she hoped or expected win over the oppressors. Rather, she recognized that -- as little power as she had -- she was determined to use her courage and determination as a weapon to harass embedded power structures. Her goal was defiance. She also explained that she avoided discouragement because the moment she chose resistance as a strategy against slave mentality, she was triumphant. Nothing the power elite could do could ever diminish her triumph.

Finally, she emphasized that we owed it to both our ancestors and our children. We owed it to our ancestors, many of whom fought slavery and oppression knowing they would never see it abolished in their lifetimes. More importantly, we owe it to our children, who need to have the road cleared for their own resistance. Children who need a power of example of defiance in the face of hate in order for them to shake off the shackles of ignorant passive acceptance and learned helplessness.

And this is what concerns and frustrates me the most about the Hillary Clinton campaign and her so-called liberal and progressive supporters. This is a campaign with no vision -- a campaign of diminished expectations at a time when what we need the kind of leadership that audaciously demands progressive values in the face of entrenched racism and power. 

I will not tell you who to vote for. In fact, I will encourage you to do more. But do not ever tell me that voting for and supporting the Clintons, a white southern political dynasty that in the past has used racist dog whistles in order to incite moral panics resulting in the unprecedented mass incarceration of mostly black men, is “practical.” 

Do not try to tell me that the same political cowardice that implemented economic policies (again, using racist tropes) that decimated the most vulnerable in our society, is somehow pragmatic. Fuck you with that nonsense. You stand there and take the pain while you push the lever that inflicts that very pain, but do not call it practical, or realistic, or (shit!) progressive. 

Do not try to white wash trade policies that destroyed our manufacturing base, resulting the loss of millions of jobs just so CEOs could the corporations they run could stow the profits in offshore accounts. That is not practical or even inevitable. It is oligarchy, not democracy.

What is important is that you take a stand, whatever it is. I will not engage your thinking on this. If you act, you act; if you don't, you don't. This is about action (or the lack thereof), not talk.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Resources

Jill Quadagno: The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (click here)

Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page (2014). Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Perspectives on Politics, 12, pp 564-581. doi:10.1017/S1537592714001595.

When Youth Violence Spurred ‘Superpredator’ Fear, NY Times (Click here)

The Superpredator Myth, 20 Years Later, Equal Justice Initiative (click here)

Fast Track to Lost Jobs and Lower Wages, Economic Policy Institute (click here)

Lee Atwater on the many ways to say the n-word without saying it (click here)

Sunday Sermon [Knowledge & Education]

Hola mi Gente,

FYI, I will be speaking as a panelist at a conference tomorrow about the importance of education as a policy to address mass incarceration. Feel free to stop by starting at 5:30PM at SUNY Empire at 177 Livingston St., 6^th floor:

On another note, I have three interviews/ meetings coming up this week. Wish me luck.

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Knowledge and Democracy

Thinking is an action; critical thinking is a subversive action.

-- bell hooks

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

 -- James Bovard

When I was in high school, an English teacher drafted me to be on the school’s debating team. I attended a high school that had over 3,000 students packed into a building that was originally built to hold half that number.

The school’s major claim to fame was that a student had been murdered there the year before I went to high school, in 1969. To walk through my school’s staircases and hallways was to navigate situations and dangers most adults, let alone children, would find hard to cope with. 

I was at the top of the Dean’s List, but I had to, by necessity, forge some form of alliance with those hallways and staircases, as well as the streets. And though I was an honor student, I might have known the individual who had taken your lunch money or sold you reefer.

Still, I was tagged as one of the few who would succeed. I was part of a citywide program that was specially funded for gifted inner city students. It was called the “College-Bound” program. And while my extorting and drug-selling friends attended classes packed with 40 or more students, I attended classes composed of the brightest students and, if there were fifteen students in the class, it was a lot. The best teachers, politically committed and passionate young people, became our mentors. Sometimes they were the last obstacle between us and the horrors that lurked just outside our classrooms. Some of the greatest teachers I have ever known were a part of that group.

They believed in the liberal notion that a good and free education was the key to a viable democracy. I began to learn some of the basic tools of intellectual craftsmanship under the tutelage of these men and women. They stressed to us that one of the primary elements of a true, functioning, representative democratic republic was that its citizens be well informed.

The vast majority of my classmates, most of whom were my childhood friends, went on to college and would become professionals. Several went on to become lawyers, a few more ended up on Wall St., and more than a few became teachers themselves.

I enjoyed debating. I saw debate as a gladiatorial arena in which the inequities of injustice could be hashed out. I was informed, passionate, and known for showing no mercy. I saw debate as a blood sport (still do LOL) and I was especially merciless when I came up against students from who had the privilege of attending schools located in wealthier neighborhoods -- schools that received twice the funding my school received. I remember visiting a school once that actually had a small stage in their “performance arts” classroom.

Even in the College Bound program, I was once taught algebra sitting on the bleachers by my school’s swimming pool, with the heat turned up to 90 degrees and people splashing and running around. Yes, I took great pleasure in dismantling the premises of my better off opponents mostly because it was easy to see the inequality behind it all.

Funding for the “College Bound” program was gutted shortly after my high school years. White flight to the suburbs followed by the arrival of conservative political power (which succeeded by pandering to white fear), gutted most social programs and education was the first victim. This first wave of the conservative onslaught against public education was followed by a sustained attack, this time by “Third Way” democratic neoliberals that funded then popular “tough on crime” initiatives that emphasized punishment and prison building at the expense of education.

As a result of these short-sighted and wrong-headed social policies, studies consistently show today that about 14 percent of adults in the U.S. are illiterate, meaning that 32 million people lack the skills to handle many everyday tasks. Some 21 percent of the population, possess “below basic” skills in reading and writing, meaning their reading ability is so limited, they have difficulty making sense of a simple pamphlet, for example. Another 44 percent of the population, have intermediary skills, meaning they can perform moderately challenging activities.

While these figures are certainly concerning, as with most things, there are two Americas when it comes to education. I am sure that we have all come across those articles that compares to the US to other comparatively wealthy democracies, showing how far we lag behind. However, that’s only half the story. The real take away from these studies and what the majority of the articles reporting these findings fail to mention is that public schools from middle class or wealthier communities in the US fare as well or better than schools in other countries. Schools situated in poorer communities, communities beset with lead poisoning, poverty, and addiction for example, don’t fare as well. 

For too long, there has been a two-pronged strategy to this manufactured educational “crisis.” The first has been to accede to the conservative ideal of the market as a solution. Most often, the Trojan Horse of charter schools, a system that uses a combination of padded cells, corruption, lousy instruction and worse results, are used to siphon off already scarce funds from public schools. The second prong has been an endless series of dismantling social safety nets that has resulted in increases in child poverty and child hunger. The rhetoric has been that the school system is too broke to fix. In a way, conservatives correct: the educational system is broken, but it is mostly the result of their social policies. One example in a long list of examples is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which cost states more in property taxes and other taxes than they got out of it.

The solution is not to go in and bulldoze the schools. The answer is not to privatize the schools. The answer lies not in destruction, but in creating the collective will to change and support the way we teach. I doubt I’ll find much disagreement that our schools are melting down. However, too many of the adults reading this are much too quick to blame the children. Don’t be fuckin’ stupid. If our children are failing, then that means we as a society are failing our children. If you’re one of these people, then you’re just a dumb motherfucker. Period.

Others want to blame the parents. While it is true that parental involvement is an important factor in educational achievement, it doesn’t matter how much a parent engages if the schools we entrust our children are in disrepair, offer no access to technology, or teach children in retrofitted bathrooms. Good parenting in a well-funded suburban school equals a good student. On the other hand, good parenting in a poorly funded and demoralized inner city school doesn’t equal a good student.

The answer lies in how we view education. Education (like health care) isn’t a business, it’s an investment. For every dollar spent on education, the economy gains nine dollars. Educational investment results in healthier children who are less likely to end up in the special-education-to-criminal-justice-system pipeline, and are more likely to go to college.

Conservatives, however, seem hell-bent in pursuing an agenda that has resulted in a de facto caste system. They are channeling people who believed we should have a literate ruling class and a working class that should know just enough to make change when they buy something.

We are there.

They have done their best to destroy public education. The undermine teachers unions and starve schools. In other words, they set public education to fail and when it does, they point fingers and yell, “See! Government doesn’t work!”

Historically, we have understood education as an essential, organic part of our democracy and considered access to higher education -- regardless of income or criminal justice status -- to be, using neoliberal terms, one of the keys to building a strong middle class, a strong economy, and a strong, united nation.

Conservatives, however, see education as another commodity, like shoes or X-Boxes. Because they see it as a commodity, they operate under the false assumption that it’s easy to measure. Standardized tests lead only to standardized minds. Standardized tests do not and cannot measure if our kids know the difference between the worldviews of Thomas Paine versus Edmund Burke or the differences in the vision of democracy between Robbespierre and Jefferson. Standardized minds don’t result in critical thinking skills and the ability to think “outside the box” -- skills essential to a democracy. 

If you want to know the consequences of 40 years of conservative educational policies, you have to look no further than the current election season. One study shows that Donald Trump, the GOP frontrunner for their presidential nominee, speaks at a fourth-grade level and the chattering class then feigns surprise. Considering our expressed values regarding the importance of education, why should we be surprised? In any other country, the way we treat our children would be considered child abuse.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…