Sacred Ground

The New Orleans power elite and real estate speculators continue to pursue their policy of land-grab and displacement. We have a perfectly unsuitable City Hall building that needs serious attention (most likely by bulldozer.) We have acres of land in the New Orleans East neighborhood that is starving for a major development like a new City Hall. And, most importantly, we have Congo Square. I suggest the article in Antigravity magazine . We could reflect all day on the racist colonial legacy of this city, state, region, country . . . but the point is to hit the streets and liberate the land and ourselves.

 I heard someone on the radio say "When he called to his mother he called to all mothers." I'd like to credit the person, and ask if my edit was appropriate, but I went ahead and printed this card anyhow. Perhaps I just wanted to be included even though I cannot be a mother.

I also had a creepy feeling looking at the image of Mr. Chauvin. First, that name, sounds like "chauvinistic" and there's a connection. We get the word from a possibly fictional soldier in the army of Napoleon who was zealous and unquestioning in support of his emperor in supremacy of the French State. Our current Chauvin has been described as having a "casual, hands-in-pockets" attitude. I see it differently. He is intent, anxious. And his bulging chest leads me to wonder if he is among the many police officers who use steroids to enhance their self image as mighty punishers of the criminal other. I see his hand is thrust into his pants in search of his shrunken testicles, craving stimulation, reassurance that he is the great one, the potent white hero.

I print letterpress for a living. Sometimes I print things on the side that I don't intend to sell, instead I just put them out and see if I can't help push the conversation along. Often as not this conversation would probably not help my business. So, now that there is no place like coffeeshops to drop them, and I want to protect my regular customers from scary thoughts, I turn to this blog. 

Here's the latest. My sister asked how to pronounce "simony" and I said I thought it was long i (sigh-mon-ee), but I had to look it up and I found the story of Simon the Magus, who wanted to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Apostles set him straight, but I say, why stop at healing and speaking in tongues? The air, the water, the land, our health, understanding,  . . .  all these are free from the Creator. And like Woody Guthrie, when I see a "no trespassing" sign I look on the back side. That side was made for you and me.

Leadership

Dr. King spoke more than once about Mother Pollard. She inspired and sustained him and the movement. And yet we don't even know her full name. Like today, the work is sustained by people (mostly women) who will never get a national holiday in their honor. 

Waiting for Nothing

Almost everybody predicted that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016. We are now faced with the common perception that we will have a vaccine soon and this pandemic will be behind us. Maybe not. There is more to it than common sense. Still it is helpful to keep in mind that things we all agree on, or that we wish was true, might not be so. And it is helpful to realize that things we all know to be true can be ignored if they contradict what we wish was true. We know that vaccines against polio, smallpox, diphtheria, and others have changed history. We also know that there is no vaccine for HIV, a mostly useless vaccine against the seasonal flu, an everyone knows that despite centuries of study there is no cure for the common cold. Add to that the wild claims for genetically modified antibodies (never before used or tested even on animals) and the millions of people who are reflexively anti-vaccine and we have a long wait ahead of us and no return to normal, ever.

Stock Market Okey-Doke

Did you have a good second quarter of 2020? I had a tough time. We had a tough time. Work is way down, we're all concerned about our health and the health of our neighbors, it looks like it will be many months before we can visit friends and family, political leadership is concerned only with self-promotion, and racist violence is in a dangerous death spiral. But do you know who had a great quarter? a record high? NASDAQ.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/nasdaq-hits-record-high-fedex-soars/ar-BB16dXxb 

I have tried to learn about and understand the economy. Finance capital has been especially hard to figure out. This all looks like paper chasing, with no actual goods produced or delivered. Wall street looks like theater to me. The trading floor closed for months because of COVID, with no discernible effect on the market. We are all offered 'the market' as a goal, a dream, the only legitimate way to understand value and values. But it's all a bunch of lies.

I've been predicting the end of this rotten system since about 1840 (I was a precocious child). But this time seems like the real thing.

John Brown

Days like these remind us that it is not OK stand by and watch. John Brown has been for me a terrifying inspiration. Would I have joined him then? Should I follow his example now? Obviously my answer is in the fact that I still consider it a question. My answer so far is "no". Tactics, inspiration, morality, spirituality, personality, politics, and so many more questions are not relevant once we decide to act. And I am unable to see these days as either binary good vs. evil or as shades of gray. It seems like there is a threshold somewhere, an edge of history that we can step across. It is ours to discern that place and how we can take that step. In the meantime, here's a marching song:

John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

His soul's marching on.

He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord,

His soul's marching on.

They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!

As they march along!

He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so few,

And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;

They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

—————

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword

His truth is marching on, His truth is marching

Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah!

Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His truth is marching on

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps

His day is marching on

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me

As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free

While God is marching on

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

——————————

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;

Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,

But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,

Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?

Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;

Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;

Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;

But the union makes us strong.

All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.

We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.

It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.

While the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,

But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.

We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn

That the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,

Greater than the might of armies, multiplied a thousand-fold.

We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old

For the union makes us strong.

--------------------------------------------

There are two recent, really good fictionalized accounts of John Brown's life

Cloudsplitter, by Russel Banks

and The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride (soon to be a Showtime movie, I hope it's good)