Not in My Name

Of course, right after that last post, he went right back on the air and fulfilled all our lowest expectations.  Supposedly speaking for America.

Nope.  Not in my name.

But some 30% of the population still seems to think this is all a-ok?

I guess that isn't (or shouldn't be) as much of a surprise as people are reacting like it is, because it's been part of the program all along.  Not the "line 'em up and shoot 'em" part, but the "everybody just keep feeding all the wealth and power this way and no one gets hurt" part.  This piece by Lindy West in the Times does a good job of calling it out to the Republicans who are responding, rightly, if only out of self-interest, to denounce the words of a president gone off the rails:

It is easy to denounce Nazis. Republican lawmakers, if you truly repudiate this march and this violence, then repudiate voter-ID laws. Repudiate gerrymandering. Repudiate police brutality. Repudiate mass incarceration and private prisons. Repudiate the war on drugs. Repudiate the fact that black Americans have still not been compensated for the unpaid forced labor that was foundational to white financial stability. Repudiate gun control obstructionism. Repudiate the Muslim ban. Repudiate the wall. Repudiate anti-abortion legislation. Repudiate abstinence-only education. Repudiate environmental deregulation. Repudiate birtherism. Repudiate homophobia and transphobia. Repudiate your own health care bill, which would have led to the deaths of thousands more people than a Dodge Challenger driven into a crowd. Repudiate your president.

Everyone else, wherever you are on the spectrum of humanity, this is a good moment for us to confront our own assumptions and biases, figure out what we need to work on to change and the best ways to do it. This is hard work, but it’s worth doing. Oh, and it goes on forever. 

One more quote – you’ve probably seen this one, but it bears repeating. It's Angela Davis, from a talk in Carbondale, IL in 2014.

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.  

Photo: Scott Olson

Fighting Mass Incarceration

So this weekend sucked something fierce. Literal Nazis figuratively trolling the nation, at the cost of at least three lives and putting at risk whatever dignity America has left. Taking ideals of justice and equality and pissing on them in the glow of burning crosses and tiki torches picked up in the garden supply department on their way to the white hood convention.

Not that anyone paying attention has a tremendous amount of faith left in the ‘justice’ system in this great land of ours.

My response [other than to tumble in to the Fbook rabbit hole for a minute and do some howling at the TV and at the walls of the apartment] was to go to Secret Project Robot on Saturday afternoon-into-evening for their benefit for JustLeadershipUSA under the name “Music Against Mass Incarceration.”

Think of it as a blow against the empire. Or at least the prison industrial complex.

Amazing set from Sunwatchers

My new favorite band, 75 Dollar Bill.  

Incredible performance from Brandon Lopez Trio (Nate Wooley on trumpet, Gerald Cleaver percussion)


Chris Forsythe & Solar Motel Band

Gold Dime

You don't need me to rattle off the stats - the prison system is out of control and in danger of spiraling even worse; it targets the poor and people of color, arguably by design.  That day, rather than get sucked in and take the bait of the King of the Trolls and his Address to the Nation - absolutely enraging though it was - I showed up, paid my admission, and engaged with some actual, living, positive creation.  For what it's worth, I recommend it.