Powerless

Recently, despite parent protests, community complaints, student complaints and general disapproval, Chicago shut down 50-ish schools. Robbing --mostly non-white, already poor--our future of their education. Not that American education is great, and I believe 100% that it is INTENTIONALLY failing. It's much easier to control the people this way.

I stopped protesting things a while ago. The energy is great, you feel righteous and you get to make signs, but I've never seen it work. I've seen it be very counterproductive. I've found that interacting with people made more of a difference.

We've passed through Memorial Day and Veterans day and all their militaristic, patriotic bullshit. It's institutional slaughter fueled by lies. I read an article about how the generations to which I belong will be defined by Iraq and Afghanistan. And while choosing to join the military during a war in a foreign land is traumatic, it is nothing but a symptom. And also nothing but a cheap treatment for a symptom. At the beginning of  these wars we had a bunch of angry, under educated and hopeless--mostly men-- who were very discontent with life in America.

Then we gave them something aggressive to do that would fix everything. They were PROTECTING FREEDOM. By giving up their own? By taking away others'? Now we have a population of broken young people, back here. And a group of broken people over there. And a group, a very small one, of VERY rich and successful and self-satisfied OLDER, MOSTLY WHITE and MALE people here. Who are still protecting LIFE and MARRIAGE. By taking those things away from people.

But I can no more blame my American troops for being indoctrinated into believing that what they are doing or did is right. No more than I can blame a young talib--whose country was ravaged by foreign interference and to whom groups like Al Qaeda or Hammas, give a sense of purpose, security and very often FOOD AND MONEY AND MEDICAL AID; those men are fighting for what they've been indoctrinated to believe is righteous.

And when both sides meet in the Killing Fields and they do not understand why the other can't just understand that THEY are the just one. And we sit back and wonder why any of them can't just see and understand that they've both been deceived and killing each other will solve and do nothing. If only we could get all these young men and women of all races, beliefs and backgrounds to stop killing each other for the lies that a few people in power told them.

Then maybe we would have more energy for breaking through those lies and taking away that false, tainted power and making all of us less vulnerable: to poverty, to indoctrination, to lies, to killing, to ignorance.

BUT HOW?

Ex. Gay or straight marriage isn't the problem. BELIEVING that the civil government has the power, the right, to dictate our households' economic, medical, housing, and familial RIGHTS---there's a problem.

Ex. Drug use isn't the problem. The poverty, racism, hopelessness that leads to drug use IS. The money wasted incarcerating people with a sickness, is a problem. And funny story, when those FELONS get out and can't get a job because they have a record, and can't vote because they're felons, they end up just as hopeless and likely to use and end up back in jail.
ALSO, IF WE WERE TO ASSUME THAT AFTER SOMEONE GETS OUT OF PRISON, AND ARE SUPPOSEDLY REFORMED, WHY CAN'T THEY VOTE? WHY CAN'T THEY BE HUMAN AGAIN?

Nothing is isolated. These problems are caused by poor education; poor access to nutrition; poor access to meaningful employment, that is jobs that pay enough and treat you like a human; and all of these causes and symptoms are encouraged by INSTITUTIONALIZED AND SYSTEMATIC: RACISM, SEXISM, CLASSISM. 

Celebrate that gay marriage while that young black man can't get to school safely, and if he does, won't get a good education. Enjoy pulling out of Afghanistan even though we have years and decades of repercussions in our troops, in our foreign relations, in our economy. Enjoy that sale which is fueled by underpaid workers, both in your store and who have made whatever it is you're buying.

There are layers. It's like Inception.