First as Tragedy...

Hola mi gente,
Marx said that history repeats itself -- first as tragedy, then as farce... and that is all I see today, farce. If we really want to honor those who perished on this day, we should start by calling out the shameless bastards using 9/ 11 to advance their selfish political and economic agenda.

Remembrance

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.
 -- Mark Twain

I was there.

I lived in the vicinity of what would be called “ground zero” since 1969. When the towers collapsed, my building shook. 

I watched from the roof of my17-story building in horror as people jumped from the Towers.

I heard my neighbor’s horror-filled scream as she stood next to me and watched people who chose to plunge rather than burn. 

I saw, with my own eyes, that horror, something my mind refused to accept at first. I thought -- I wanted so much to believe -- those little dots were debris, but they were humans.

I walked in silence with the throng of humanity that marched through the streets of lower Manhattan, a mass shrouded in white ashes. The day was a beautifully clear day, the sun shining, as thousands walked in silence, ashen heads bowed.

I saw a woman wander aimlessly, in shock, bleeding from a wound on her head. I saw another limping, and as I heard her whimpering to herself, my heart, as it would that day again and again, broke. There are atrocities I saw that day that I will never be able to erase from my mind.

I lived in the shadows of the towers all those years. I used to party there every Friday when I was a young man working at the nearby Woolworth Building, almost across the street from the World Trade, as I used to call it. When I was 14-15, I took a summer job as a messenger at a printing company where my uncle worked, and I would deliver blueprints to the architects at the World Trade site. At the time I had developed an interest in architecture after reading about Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, and I thought it was pretty cool to see the architectural monstrosity rise (let’s not allow nostalgic indulgence warp the truth: The Towers were pretty much bland-looking).

Once looking up on my walk to work (I worked in the Woolworth building on lower Broadway), I saw a man climbing up the outside one of the Towers -- “Spider Man!” blared the headline the next day. In the 70s I watched as tightrope walker, Philippe Petit, walked across the gap between the Towers on a cable. The incident inspired a film. There was a lot personal history there in those towers. At least for me, anyway. I also had many friends who worked there, at one time or another. On Fridays, some of the best Afro-Latinx bands played in tis plaza for free. I remember that no matter how blasted I got, all I had to do to make it home was look up to the night sky and point myself in the direction of the Towers.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I had just started working at a reentry project (Developing Justice) I would eventually head, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I worked from 12-8. Annoyed that I had no milk for the last of my Yaucono, I went out in my pajamas to the corner store and when I looked up I saw the back end of a plane sticking out of one of the Towers. I thought it was fucked up, but this is New York, things happen all the time, weird shit always happened at the Towers.

When I got back home, I felt the second plane hit. I felt it -- the building shook. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I won’t retell that tale, we all know it... we saw it replayed on the TV countless times (was it really necessary?)

I walked one flight up to the roof of my 17^th floor apartment building and watched... I watched along with some of my neighbors had congregated there.

I saw thousands of people walking silently, heads bowed, covered in white ash. It was strange to see so many people in one place and feel that silence. I saw people helping one another, stores giving away free water, others helping the wounded. A priest and I helped some who were walking around in shock. That day, I witnessed the nobility of my fellow New Yorkers. I experienced the true potential of the human spirit that day, even in the midst of all that carnage and ugliness.

It was what I saw immediately after that scared me. And as it turns out, I had every right to be scared.

That day, I saw the religious fundamentalists in full force before the dust had settled (literally), handing out pamphlets proclaiming the end times. I saw people buy right into that. It was a scary time, and people were confused, easily swayed.

I saw hatred. A lot of hatred.

The next day, there was a call for volunteers to escort Muslim women and children because they were being attacked. I saw a lot of anger and fear and I feared that there were forces that would use this tragedy to exploit, to manipulate. I witnessed a bellicose and washed up mayor resuscitate his political career while literally standing on the charred bodies of the dead. He is a racist who, though his leadership was a study in failure during the attack, has since made millions from the events of 9/ 11.

I saw an incompetent village idiot president take us to a meaningless war and the shredding of the Constitution -- all in the name of all those dear dead people, in the name of my fellow New Yorkers, all who stood bravely and came together when it was most needed. I saw our leaders take that nobility and turn it into something ugly, something for hatred and greed.

I smelled, every day, that strange smell emanating from the charred pile that was once the Towers. It was hard to describe -- a mixture of rotted meat and something else, something unidentifiable. I coughed what we began to call the downtown cough. My lungs have never been the same since that day... Through various degrees of separation, everyone one in New York was connected somehow to a death in those towers and I heard the many stories, I experienced the trauma and the sadness.

We must never forget those who died that day, those fifteen years ago. We must never forget the power of the human spirit that emerged -- that one sliver of good that day -- where we all came together. But we must also never forget that some used that tragedy to lead us into darkness.

Since then, we have allowed our freedoms to be taken from us, not by external forces, but by our own government and the corporations that own it. As a nation, we have failed to understand freedom and as a consequence, all those deaths have been rendered meaningless. First as tragedy, then as farce.

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

Labor Struggles

Hola Everybody,
It is Labor Day -- people died so you could have this day off; for the right to bargain collectively, for the 40-hour week, and paid vacations.

If you have enjoyed my blog please consider supporting my efforts. Any sum would be appreciated. You can donate by clicking here.

Labor Struggles

In 2013, a ten-year-old boy in #Syria carries a mortar shell in a weapons factory

Fascism should be more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
 -- Giovanni Gentile

Happy Labor Day, and I hope that you have had an opportunity to gather with friends and family to observe the many men, women, and children that died in order to make fair wages, the 40-hour week hour week, and vacations a reality. We like to wave flags commemorating wars fought, not for our rights, but for corporate interests, but we have jack shit to say about the people who gave their lives so that we could be properly rewarded for our work. 

There has never been a middle class without strong unions. The reason for this is straightforward. More and better unions translate directly into higher pay and better benefits for everyone, including nonunion members.

Contrast that with the reality that both the GOP and the elites of the Democratic Party loathe unions. In fact, neoliberal policies such as those espoused by the Clintons have resulted in most of the wealth being seized by the those at the 1 percent -- the same people who fund their campaigns. Yet they also claim they want to build a strong middle class. This makes no sense.

Consider also that the U.S. is going in exactly the opposite direction. Unions, beginning with Reagan, have been under an unprecedented assault. As The Intercept notes, union membership...  

falling during that time from 24 percent to 11 percent. And even those numbers conceal the reality that union membership is now 35 percent in the public sector but just 6.7 percent in the private sector. That private sector percentage is now lower than it’s been in over 100 years.

At the same time, they add... 

 wealth inequality, which fell tremendously during the decades after World War II when the U.S. was most heavily unionized, has now soared back to the levels that have not been seen for 100 years. 

Why is this important? It is important because there is a wealth of research showing that there is a connection between inequality, violence, and heath.

If, as decades of studies show, unions lessen inequality, then its impacts far surpass the workplace. Inequality affects how you see those around you and your level of happiness. In more equal societies people live longer, are less likely to be mentally ill or obese and there are lower rates of infant mortality. Inequality increases property and violent crime. Unequal societies have less social mobility and lower scores in maths, reading and science. Less equal societies have less stable economies. High levels of income inequality are linked to economic instability, financial crisis, debt and inflation. 

The tragedy is that even by conservative calculations show that if wages had gone up in step with productivity, families with the median household income of around $52,000 per year would now be making about 25 percent more, or $65,000. 

Given all this, you would think that labor history would be a prominent feature of our education. Unfortunately it is not because the power elite would never allow a focus on such a history. No, I don’t blame you for forgetting about Labor and its impact on our lives. After all, there’s much more important stuff to think about. Stuff such as whatever Trump tweeted last night. Please note that inequality or the labor movements is almost never an issue discussed during election debates.

In fact, the history of Labor in the USA is one that is rarely ever discussed and until recently, you would be hard put to find any historical documentation on the history of Labor. There is a good reason for this: it’s not a very pretty history. For those of us of a conservative orientation mouthing empty clichés about the “good ole days,” well, Bubba, they weren’t so good.

Not unless you consider child labor, or the lack of responsible overview in the workplace, as good. One school teacher, Samuel Yellin, wanted to teach Labor history to his high school students but was unable to find a textbook, so he wrote his own, American Labor Struggles. Until Howard Zinn and others who would come after, this was the only book that documented the history of the US government’s and Big Business’ horrific response to the Labor movement.

In the past, people have asked me to write about actions we can take to improve things. That comes later. Before we can act, we must become aware. I write in the hopes that even one person can gain some awareness. Mass movements of social change are founded in this notion of enlightening one mind at a time. History shows us, as Margaret Meade observed many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” The fact remains that the same mindset that is the cause of the problem can never be used to bring about a solution. Solutions require a change of mind, an evolution of the individual and collective consciousness.

Remember to give thanks to all those men, women, and children who had the fuckin’ cojones to lay down their lives for their convictions so that we could enjoy better lives.

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

Secrets, Shame and Bullying

Hola Everybody,
Recently, a tragic story emerged about a young teen from Staten Island, Danny Fitzpatrick, who was bullied and hounded by his classmates to the point wherehe felt he had no option but to commit suicide.^* He left a letter you can read here. Unfortunately, this happens too much. Unfortunately too many adults pass judgement on these young suicides. That’s because we live in a hyper-masculine society. Many of us will call 13-year-old Danny a weakling. That says more about us than it does about him. 

Here's something I once wrote as a response to bullying. 

Shame

We live in an atmosphere of shame. We are ashamed of everything that is real about us; ashamed of ourselves, of our relatives, of our incomes, of our accents, of our opinion, of our experience, just as we are ashamed of our naked skins.
 -- George Bernard Shaw

The whole fifth grade class was laughing at him… including me.

His father stumbled into the middle of a spelling test arguing loudly with our teacher. His clothes were ragged and he was unkempt. He was there to make a case for his son, Kevin, who sat next to me. Kevin and I were the smartest kids in the class. Kevin was painfully shy and no one really liked him to begin with, so now everybody, including me, was laughing at him because his father was obviously a dope fiend and he showed up in the middle of a spelling test totally out of his mind. He was nodding out even as he argued his son’s case.

I don’t remember all the details, but I remember the shame. I can still remember vividly the shame on Kevin’s face, the humiliation in the knowledge that now everyone knew his deadly secret -- that his father was a “junkie.” I remember this because I remember my own shame too, and because I felt like a hypocrite.

It’s so easy to join the mob, so easy to feel a part of the crowd at the expense of someone else. The mob mentality has no mercy. Just look at most of today’s headlines and you’ll bear witness to what the mob mentality, or the very human tendency to create scapegoats, can create.

The fact was that I knew too well that shame. My own father was a drug addict, and I remember when all my friends encircled me one day while chanting, “Your father’s a junkie, your father’s a junkie.” And I remember how I felt so ashamed, so humiliated, and so angry. I couldn’t resolve the anger and shame I felt about my father because I loved him so much and all those feelings were too overwhelming -- I didn’t know how to process all that. I just stood there in the middle of that circle tears of anger flowing until I lashed out at the first one to get close enough to me and I punched him in the nose. And that’s when the mob turned on me and I went home with a split lip and torn clothes.

Deep inside I hated my father for making me go through that, but I also adored him. He was so intelligent. I used to love to sit on his lap and put my ear to his chest and listen to the soft rumble of his voice as he taught me something or spoke. My father was like a God to me. And now I hated him and I hated myself for hating him because it felt so wrong.

I just didn’t know how to handle the inner conflict. I was too young. So I guess somewhere, somehow, I internalized all those conflicting feelings and became ashamed of myself for everything: for my father, for my feelings, for my inability to fix it.

My father was a great storyteller and on some days, he would gather all the kids on our block and entertain us with stories. I guess it was a testament to his storytelling gift that he could keep us transfixed on a Lower East Side stoop and you could hear a pin drop. I was raised in a neighborhood where drug addicts were a common part of the urban landscape. As children we would place bets on how far a junkie would nod. Some junkies would nod so far, bent over at the waist that you would swear they would tip over and fall. But they never did.

My father would nod off -- a consequence of the influence of heroin -- when he told my friends stories. At first, we would sit there for what would seem minutes because invariably there was a punch line, a lesson, or a resolution or moral to his stories. At first, my friends wouldn’t say anything, but then my father’s nodding got worse and one day while arguing over a game or a rule, as boys are won’t to do, it came out: the outspoken truth that my father was a “junkie.” It was a hard lesson to learn at such a tender age.

Yet I sat there and laughed at Kevin just like everyone else did and even at that young age (5th grade), I knew it was wrong. I knew that I was being a phony because I didn’t want to feel that shame anymore, I wanted to be like the others, so I joined in on the cruelty. In making Kevin the scapegoat, the rest of us were saved from confronting our own shame. And we all probably carried a lot of shame. We were all poor, living in run-down, rat-infested tenement buildings. Many of our families were on welfare, or had parents who were unemployed. We all wore hand-me-downs or clothes purchased at the Salvation Army. And in our shame, we sought release from that bondage. One of the ways was to scapegoat another, so that the crowd wouldn’t look too deeply at us.

I wanted to reach out to Kevin, but he refused, perhaps sensing something worse: that I pitied him. Eventually I told Kevin my secret and while we never became close friends, in the fifth grade we stuck it out together. I did so even though even talking to Kevin made me an outsider (again), but that was OK, because I think it was at that time I decided I would always be an outsider. I reasoned that no one could really know me if I was an outsider, so fuck them.

And in that way, I began to build a wall of protection that kept others out so no one could ever know me -- a fortress of solitude like in the DC Superman comics.

Shame is a prison that breeds violence. It limits us and shreds our self-worth. Shame mandates that we keep our genuine self hidden and condemns us to be isolated us from the nurture and connection we crave and need as human beings. I don’t know for sure, if this was all the beginning, or the setting of the table for my own life, but the one thing I’m certain of is that our secrets kill us, as surely as cigarettes or drugs. Secrets kill because embedded in our secrets lies our shame.

If you notice I’m not that particular about who reads my madness, but I am particular about making someone -- even a stranger -- feel excluded because I know that feeling intimately. It has haunted me for most of my life. Not many people can successfully accuse me of lacking a sense of humor, but I abhor humor at the expense of another.

Even now, sometimes it’s easy for me to join in with the mob and feast on another’s soul so that I could feel better about myself. It’s the easiest thing because it trips that “you belong” mechanism. I've done it before and felt stupid after when the object of ridicule was kind to me. But really: how many of us are laughing or forming cliques, or creating scapegoats because we too have secrets? How many of us can say we’re not turning away from our own shame at some level? The better question is when will we as adults put a stop to all this? How many more have to die?

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization... 

*Note:

For information about suicide prevention or to speak with someone confidentially, contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1 (800) 273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Both provide free, anonymous support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

A GoFundMe page has been set up in Daniel's memory, and donations will go to funeral preparations and an “organization that fights bullying and encourages suicide awareness,” which the family has yet to determine.