Funny you didn't mention the fatherland of genocide, cultural and physical theft, warmongering, enslavement and racial apartheid from 1883 to 1956 as well as banning indigenous religions and culture from 1883 to 1978, except for Powwow community fairs and other controlled economic activities. Today we have Representative Bachmann going after American Muslims in government. Yesterday it was Japanese, because Germans were white, and before that it was the "Black Irish" and "Black Dutch" and the Jews, before that it was Africans and began with "Indians" (who God forgot as shown by how easily we died from their filth).
What will these "gentle" folk say to the new head of PIMCO the Muslim American of Egyptian Parents: Mohamed El-Erian as he takes over from the Jewish guy, Bill Gross who is stepping down from CEO? It's in the American gut to refuse to acknowledge anything that isn't "gentle" as foreign and un-American. (Why do I feel like everything I've said for fifteen years on this list just doesn't make a difference? I know, whining is undignified.))) Well, I've only had the "right" to practice my faith since I was 36. Only then did I understand what Garcia-Lorca called the deep springs hidden within. Or what we call the "Ghosts" in our heads. Only after seeing the "Industrial Era" on the Olympics did I understand how much you guys loved it with the pollution, the grime and the poor little buggers climbing those dirty smokestacks. Scuttlebutt has it that Wagner's uebermenschen who forged the ring were Jewish. Now the truth is out, they were a metaphor for English living on the Island and in the caves of Germany. Does revolution in that sense simply mean starting it all over again to the same purpose and result? The best one, Ed, was your statement about America as the fatherland of Imperialism. Well, what do you think the reason is for Americans embracing psycho-analysis with its ultimate goal of "separation and individuation" from parents? Why this take on Liberty that relates to singularity and no relationships? That's not Imperialism. I admit that American intelligentsia is confused on the meaning of Empire but Fathers are not born from sons. No one could be that confused. What do you think all of those European fur companies in Canada and Tennessee were about? And that tea in China and the East Indian and African "trade" that destroyed cultures and the nations they built? Was that about Individualism? It was a rite of passage for the European middle and upper classes. A place where they could prove their worth before taking over the family manor. It was Europe's bar mitzvah. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 12:43 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'; [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Will it ever happen? A couple of quotes: THE REVOLUTION of the twentieth century will take place in the United States. It is only there that it can happen. And it has already begun. 'Whether or not that revolution spreads to the rest of the world depends on whether or not it succeeds first in America. I am not unaware of the shock and incredulity such statements may cause at every level of the European Left and among the nations of the Third World. I know it is difficult to believe that America-the fatherland of imperialism, the power responsible for the war in Vietnam, the nation of Joe McCarthy's witch hunts, the exploiter of the world's natural resources-is, or could become, the cradle of revolution. (Jean Francois Revel, Without Marx or Jesus, the new American revolution has begun, 1970) The Occupy movements are the physical embodiment of hope. They returned us to a world where empathy is a primary attribute. They defied the profit-driven hierarchical structures of corporate capitalism. They know hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. In Zuccotti Park and throughout the they slept on concrete every night. Their clothes were soiled. They ate more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They tasted fear, were beaten, went to jail, were blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, saw their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cared if they would win. (Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, 2012) A question: Hope does seem to spring eternal in the revolutionary breast, but will anything ever really happen? Ed
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