Thursday, April 10, 2008

On ...Stuff

Where the hell have I been!??!??

sick.
sick I tell you.
sick.

I'm not usually the one to go more than a week w/o a blog post, but...I'm afraid I've done it,
I've really done it this time!

So...Sorry for that, folks!

Anyway...

Here's the DL of what's happening around here
and...how I can apply that to my over-processing mind.

This week is VEISHEA week on campus

Not sure what that word is?
check it out here
Its a ton of shit...happening...all the time...
all week...and all weekend.


_________________

In other news...

I went up to Mpls last weekend with miss Kris
tooo pick up somethin' special.
I'll share with you more on that later.

I love long drives, though. They make for good conversation.
We had a lot of that and somewhere in there
we talked about a few things,
one...revolutionaries...and how they were all considered Crazy before anyone believed them
two... omission...

These put together...gave me an idea for a blog post...
one on...mmm American History...and class!

I think if I were to do another major, besides g.d. ...like I went blind or something,
it would totally be history or philosophy...

Anyway. the issue of class...
it is pretended, as in the preamble of constitution,

that it is "we the people"
rather than 55 white males whose class interest (i've talked about this before,
and how its ...similar to a dysfunctional family...?)
required a strong central gov.
That gov. with its central purposes, to serve
the wealthy and powerful
has continued throughout American history.
Its disguised by language that suggests
all of us, rich and poor and middle class
(and those of us who will be in debt until ...45...)
have a common interest
Thus the state of the nation is described in Universal terms.
When the [dumbass] president declares that our economy is sound
he will not acknowledge that it isn't sound for 40 or 50million people struggling to survive
Lest we forget the rich %1 who own %40 of the nations wealth....They're doing Just fine.
class interest has always been obscured by the "national interest"
I am not sure why I'm so skeptical of the "nation interest" or "national security"
for policy justification,
but maybe, just maybe it is because its the same excuse
used by Nixon as he carried out a war in indochina

that Reagan used as he invaded Grenada

and when Clinton bombed iraq again and again
I won't bother mentioning the atrocities of GW. *cringe*

I wonder now how the foreign policies of the US would look if
we wiped out the boundaries in the world
and thought of.. all of the children in the world as our own.
Wars of our time, are wars against our children
(Thank you Cranberries???)
Either the music video to Bosnia:

or the song "War Child".
But its True! The children are either innocently killed,
left with missing family. Or are left to pay off the debt and re-earn trust post-war.
But again, even though it should be, its not about them.
its about the 55 white men who wrote the constitution
saying that anything for the "good of the nation" is "great"
And because of this, Every american school child learns about the boston tea party
but who learns about the masacre of the peacock tribe in new england?
or the military attack by 200 calvarymen which wiped out a sleeping camp of peekin indians in montana
When in Lit class did you learn about
WEB Dubois (okay...i learned about him in US history, anyone else??), John Hope Franklin, etc.
black authors never seen on our reading list throughout our education.
GREAT american authors who... are overlooked, STILL TODAY because of their race.
I find this fact particular interesting in the sense that
its not always an active happening that becomes 'racism'
or that makes the world turn and declares wars....
but many times it is a simple omission.

It is the omission of opinion
of values
of voice by the people who have little. to no. social power.

Its ...kind of ...a big deal. And kind of why...
why people who are revolutionaries are always considered "crazy"

So next time...next time you go to 'omit' something
think of the trickle down effect it can have...

...I could definitely have wrapped that up better, and its all in my head,
but honestly,
a cold beer and some cribbage is ...literally calling my name via text messaging .......
pull it together yourself.

HAPPY ....THURSDAY!??!




the wellbeing of

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great stuff!

If you haven't already read it, I think you'll love Benedict Anderson's /Imagined Communities/ -- all about why people go along with what you've described as particular power interests dictating that "we've" all got a common interest in x, y, z, policy/tradition.

(fyi the wikipedia article on him doesn't do justice to that concept)