We're on tour out here, almost two weeks into the tour. It has been really really good so far. This time we are out on a bus with a proper trailer and sleeping bunks so we get quite a bit more rest, a little bit more privacy, and a lot more time together where we can actually do some productive things.
Some highlights include:
Barton Springs, Austin TX
Balmoreah State Park, West Texas
Cathedral Rock, Sedona, AZ
It's really just the beginning as we will be heading up the Pacific Coast all the way to BC.
ready to do laundry...
So it's true, unless it is some crazy news hoax, that the federal government has offered a $1 million dollar bounty on Assata Shakur. If you don't know who she is, check this, then jump back to this article.
First, Assata has been granted political asylum in Cuba, and to challenge the sovereignty of Cuba violates international law.
Second, in their supposed quest for justice, how many serious criminals--murderers, white collar criminals (maybe white, maybe men, maybe both) are living freely in the US.
How many foreign soldiers, leaders of Latin American death squads, lived under US government protection and payroll in the US.
Last Friday, I just met an ex-sergeant from the El Salvadoran army who is now living in a park in Brooklyn. He was trained at School of the Americas, Fort Benning, Georgia, and sent back to El Salvador. From what he told me, he was part of the government forces involved in massacres and killings of union and political organizers. And there he was, in Brooklyn, chilling with his whisky, no million dollar bounty from anywhere on his head. He seemed like he had repented, had no other choice, and told me he cried the day Ronald Reagan died, saying that he was responsible for bringing peace to his country.
Which brings me back to the case of Assata, and also to the case of black revolutionaries who were killed or imprisoned during and after the COINTELPRO program. Their communities were under attack and they were fighting back, just like people in VietNam were fighting back, Iraq, Palestine, Basque Country, Puerto Rico, Bougainville, Cuba, and beyond, for a kind of sovereignty that does not necessarily walk lock step in line with the United States, Inc.
So does writing this all of a sudden make me a terrorist? Do all the people who have been giving moral support to Assata for the past 30 years become overnight terrorists now because of this bounty? Is this for real or just a bad dream...
(Historical note: Right here in the USA, it was a serious crime back in the days of slavery to aid slaves in their flight to freedom to the north or to Canada. Enormous bounties were placed on their head and police and the general public were encourage to take part in the slave hunts. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 allowed bounty hunters to venture into the North where slavery was prohibited in order to find slaves and return them to their masters in pursuit of "justice". Sound familiar?)Note: This link takes you to the PBS website, which is also under attack from conservative forces.
And how long before the government collapses under the sheer weight of its own fat hypocrisy, with not even a single bullet fired against it, dead of a heart attack? While something fair, equitable, and peaceful rises up in its ashes.
Do we want to support a vindictive government that lashes out against its enemies like this. These are the so called patriots.
Do we want a government that takes care of its people wisely, spends its money wisely, respects the environment, and respects its neighbors? These are now being called the terrorists. Count me in.
Well, not exactly, but some powerful forces are pulling it that way.
Some developers plan on building 40 story highrises on the site of the most sacred place in my neighborhood--a one-square block of overgrown abandoned lot on the banks of the East River in Williamsburg.
I have been going to the river there for over ten years, and very soon, I may not be able to enjoy it anymore. The neighborhood has been very vocal about this, but it's hard to tell the outcome. I want to be positive, but capitalism is a steamroller and most people these days want to get behind it rather than in front of it.
A friend of mine's boss, a long-time neighborhood guy from the Italian-American community, is all in favor of the building, hoping that it would increase business to his restaurant. I'm sure many other local business owners and property owners can't help but see it in the same light.
What will these towers mean? First, there is their sheer physical and visual presence, which will steal from us in perpetuity the view to the sky, the clouds, and parts of midtown and upper Manhattan, and the East River. For the people who live north of the towers in Greenpoint, they will most likely fall in the shadows during many of the juicier parts of the day away from the kisses of the sun.
Traffic will increase. One third of our neighborhood youth already suffer from asthma, several times the average of the rest of the US. Will all these cars help them breathe easier?
More people. Do we need them? It seems like we have enough already. A walk around Bedford and North 7th street, one of the 3 or 4 main hubs of transport and business activity, we see a healthy amount of people, shops. Subway platforms are already packed at peak hours, and there is a steady flow of people twenty four hours a day.
There is so much more to think of...will rents go up? Probably. Pollution? Probably? Even more rich, disconnected people trample the dignity of those who have been living there a long time? Probably.
Perhaps those who are in favor should truly reconsider the long-term effects that this type of development--this may be the first, and definitely not the last--will have on all aspects of our lives. And perhaps those against this idea--even those with just the slightest inkling of a consciencee--should organize and fight this. Only good things can come of it since the process of organization and community building is always a constructive one.
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All this headiness has been brought on by meditation and reading Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" recommended to me by Brett Cook-Dizney and given as a gift from Xiqui. I have blazed through the first hundred pages in a day and a half and am intrigued and horrified about how much our world is resembling that of the world that Butler portrays in the year 2024. All I can say is read it.
Happy belated May Day.
