I think instead of Langston Hughes, “What happens to a dream deferred?” That poem, Harlem, has always resonated with me. Will America’s underclass explode? Or was Trump the explosion of the angry mob?
The 1% pits the underclasses against each other & it still works. I don’t understand the hate. There will no return to normal; you are so correct in that. A new path forward means we have to address this horrible systemic racism that is rooted in American soil. Until then, until we stop hating each other, I just don’t see a new path. I want that future for everyone. I truly do.
Thank you for nudging us all to keep dreaming. A beautiful vision can light the way. And maybe one day I’ll follow Baldwin and my nightmares about office 9-5 life will end.
Thanks for the gracious shout out, JP. Yes, I welcome a world with time to “waste.” Where the margins for rest and art are generous, and the concept that “time is money” is exchanged for a more relational metaphor. Time is gift, and as you have quoted Ruth Wilson Gilmore as saying, “Where life is precious, life is precious.”
"Each transaction, each purchase, each facet of our lives is increasingly structured to extract as much as possible, even if that means eating away at the very foundations of society and the very foundations of our lives."
This is so true, and so evil. It's resource hoarding by the ultra-rich.
I ordered the books you recommended, and will be reading them after I apply for a Canadian passport. Just in case.
More iterations of the Keep Hope Alive tour that started in Jesse Jackson’s failed Democratic campaign back in ‘88.
Same invocations, same dreams, same lack of specificity.
The giant corporations have controlled all, including the paychecks, the courts, the politics, most of the education system, the so-so media spouts, the transportation systems, the extraction of fossil fuels, the production of them, the police, the military - and so how do you propose to wrest the totality of that species-ending control from them?
Feelings of anger are fine - so where do they go? Hopeless tough talk of “revolution”?
This is failure at an epochal level, and that is all this will be.
George Wallace’s appeal besides racism was a promise to shake things up, that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the parties. He was the sound before the fury with that pitch.
We need to separate socialism from Marx. As a democratic socialist I am always accused of being a follower of Karl Marx. Marx was a product of the romantic era when popular belief was that that Utopia was possible. Everything Marx said about communism was wrong, but everything he said about capitalism was true.
True socialism is derivative of democracy, and that needs to be our central creed.
A slang term usually aimed at American Democrat voters (generally those who are upper middle class or rich) who care more about being mildly inconvenienced by not being able to go to brunch than they do about people who aren't as better off as them.
The term originated during the Women's March on Washington in 2017, where several white women held up signs that said "If Hillary were president, we'd be at brunch."
The entirety of US history has been plagued with capitalism, war, imperialism, slavery, genocide, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity and misogyny. It has never been fair, equal or equitable. Not to mention that actually, yes, utopia would be possible if the US didn't exist. It is literally the global force of evil, chaos and destruction.
I think instead of Langston Hughes, “What happens to a dream deferred?” That poem, Harlem, has always resonated with me. Will America’s underclass explode? Or was Trump the explosion of the angry mob?
The 1% pits the underclasses against each other & it still works. I don’t understand the hate. There will no return to normal; you are so correct in that. A new path forward means we have to address this horrible systemic racism that is rooted in American soil. Until then, until we stop hating each other, I just don’t see a new path. I want that future for everyone. I truly do.
I love your dream. Sounds like something everyone could get on board for
Thanks for this
Thank you for nudging us all to keep dreaming. A beautiful vision can light the way. And maybe one day I’ll follow Baldwin and my nightmares about office 9-5 life will end.
A million little bites might do it.
Thanks for the gracious shout out, JP. Yes, I welcome a world with time to “waste.” Where the margins for rest and art are generous, and the concept that “time is money” is exchanged for a more relational metaphor. Time is gift, and as you have quoted Ruth Wilson Gilmore as saying, “Where life is precious, life is precious.”
How the GOP oligarch-lovers ever became seen as the defenders of the working class is still a mystery to me
"Each transaction, each purchase, each facet of our lives is increasingly structured to extract as much as possible, even if that means eating away at the very foundations of society and the very foundations of our lives."
This is so true, and so evil. It's resource hoarding by the ultra-rich.
I ordered the books you recommended, and will be reading them after I apply for a Canadian passport. Just in case.
More iterations of the Keep Hope Alive tour that started in Jesse Jackson’s failed Democratic campaign back in ‘88.
Same invocations, same dreams, same lack of specificity.
The giant corporations have controlled all, including the paychecks, the courts, the politics, most of the education system, the so-so media spouts, the transportation systems, the extraction of fossil fuels, the production of them, the police, the military - and so how do you propose to wrest the totality of that species-ending control from them?
Feelings of anger are fine - so where do they go? Hopeless tough talk of “revolution”?
This is failure at an epochal level, and that is all this will be.
George Wallace’s appeal besides racism was a promise to shake things up, that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the parties. He was the sound before the fury with that pitch.
Thank you for writing this. I featured it in this week's round-up: https://michelleteheux.substack.com/p/this-week-in-income-inequality-jan-17f
We need to separate socialism from Marx. As a democratic socialist I am always accused of being a follower of Karl Marx. Marx was a product of the romantic era when popular belief was that that Utopia was possible. Everything Marx said about communism was wrong, but everything he said about capitalism was true.
True socialism is derivative of democracy, and that needs to be our central creed.
America has never been a democracy. It was founded on slavery, stolen land and genocide. You need to go back to brunch.
I don’t eat Brunch
Brunch Democrat Definition:
A slang term usually aimed at American Democrat voters (generally those who are upper middle class or rich) who care more about being mildly inconvenienced by not being able to go to brunch than they do about people who aren't as better off as them.
The term originated during the Women's March on Washington in 2017, where several white women held up signs that said "If Hillary were president, we'd be at brunch."
I know what Brunch is. I was merely batting away your contempt
History did not end in 1789. If the US is not a democracy then it falls to us to institute it
The entirety of US history has been plagued with capitalism, war, imperialism, slavery, genocide, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity and misogyny. It has never been fair, equal or equitable. Not to mention that actually, yes, utopia would be possible if the US didn't exist. It is literally the global force of evil, chaos and destruction.