aQuaTIP

My Socialist Ranting

A school teacher of mine sent me a petition today and asked me to sign and forward it--she sent it along to number of her other friends and colleagues, aside from me and she did not BCC her list.  I replied with the message below.  The petition asked the President and the Governor of California to move to deny social services to anyone not a US Citizen and to block efforts at amnesty for illegal immigrants. 

I think that the moral of this story is that people should probably think twice before they send me things without BCCing their recipient list ... muhahaha

[The Subject E-Mail]

Do not sign or distribute the petition below or any petition with a similar mission. Petitions that demand that social services be open only to US Citizens and also call for no amnesty are reactionary, inhumane and even down right mean-spirited and cruel.

The United States of America's GDP is greater in relation to our population than any other country in the world with a population over 10,000 (small micronesian countries are excluded from this as a result; they tend to have oil reserves and few residents, making their per capita GDP incredibly high).

Our per capita GDP is so high and our more worthwhile citizens, like our teachers, our artists, our public service officers (like firefighters and EMTs), non-profit organizers and other workers of great industry, are so poorly paid because we live under a Capitalist regime in our Democracy.  Capitalism serves only the interests of the very, very few (and an increasingly smaller crowd considering that our population now grows at rates far exceeding anything in the Baby Boom generation).

The solution to protecting our elderly, indigent and hard-working citizens that barely scrape by isn't to deny opportunity and assistance to those who have come to the U.S. for a better life.  No, that's just plain selfish.  Let alone the fact that the relationship is incredibly spurious. We do not live in a vacuum.  We are no better or more deserving than a Mexican or Guatemalan or Somalian merely because we were born in clean, sterile hospitals.  It was merely by chance that we entered into the most privileged country in the world.  It is also merely by chance that we entered into an economic class so deprived of what our country has in such great abundance--capital.

The solution is not to shut people out.  The solution is the equitable distribution of property and capital.  The solution is to enable the hard-working, to enable them with the means to their fiscal salvation.  I don't mean to deify money, but I believe that the end result of the workers of the world being able to control their destiny--for that destiny not to be decided in a corporate boardroom where children of privilege reign and the room's gross income exceeds that of the people of any of the poor states like Kentucky, Tennessee or West Virginia--I believe that to achieve that end will lead us to protection for all of our citizens and allow for a direct and true Democracy. Such a reality cannot be borne under Capitalism.

Democracy controlled by the people, not by money, not by media outlets and corporations, is what we need.  A Democracy that addresses the real nature of our transnational and global civil society must always be our goal or we will never be able to protect ourselves, our interests and our futures.  A Democracy steeped in Capitalism is not even a Democracy, but a satirical send-up of the very least and the very worst that Americans have to offer.  Democracy (the will of the people represented), unfettered, is the very best we can build and hold out as an example--a true beam of lasting inspiration to those that seek human rights, civil liberties and a just, civil society.

Call on your Representatives, Senators, Governors and President to provide for people in proportion to how they provide for us--CEO's and board members, those heavy with stocks and those rich with property provide nothing! They are only important because when they tell people they are, no one resists.  You, the worker, are who is important and having us, the workers, pitted against poor immigrants helps no one but the rich and the last thing we need is for them to be any richer and to have any more power than they already do.

See the wealthy for what they truly are.

donate

and yes, you too students:

If you haven't already donated to the tsunami disaster relief effort, you need to.  Get out your credit card and donate to Oxfam.  Don't have any money?  You have more than they do.

Have a great day!

Great Share

I was taught to share. 

I was once asked by an acquaintance of a friend of mine if I had a place he could sleep the night.  He was homeless and stinky.  I didn't particularly want to deal with the smell or the inconvenience of having this man in my very, very small efficiency, but what right did I have to say no?  "Of course," I told the man, "you can stay at my place."  I had something that someone else needed.  I believe I was 18 at the time and I had an obligation.

Parents encourage their children to share.  The motivation for this instruction can represent the lessons of a few things parents are looking to impart on children (even if they aren't consciously aware of it at the time), but the greatest thing American parents are trying to encourage is their child's current and future proper interactivity in civil society through the principle of reciprocity and the "spirit of giving."

Christologies have room for this Christ-like activity of giving to the needy--giving when someone has need of something that we have is quite the thing to do.

Jews consider the activity of giving when someone needs something a mitzvah.  Jews are encouraged to commit mitzvahs with the implicit understanding that when one is in need, true need, that God will guarantee us necessary mitzvahs either corporeal or spiritual to assist us in our time of need.

The Hindi view this activity as the cultivation of good karma.

In my fairly limited knowledge of world religions, it seems that there is a strong faith-based precedent for giving to those who need--a strong precedent for sharing.

When I am a father, I will encourage my children to share.  I will encourage them to share with others who merely want to partake in what they have and I will encourage them to share with those who don't have what they need or want and I'll endeavor to make those distinctions clear.

If there is a God, I live with the full force of my conviction that that God didn't believe that one person is better than another.  Nor should a mother, father or care-giver have to stand by and watch their child go off to school on the first day back from winter break wearing all of the same clothes they left school in before break--nothing new. 

When those kids go to school and their classmates talk about their trip to Costa Rica, their new shoes with flashing lights or their new computer, they are degraded.  When those children go to school every day and are taught (not by structured education, but by hard, concrete experience) that they are somehow lacking and when media and families promulgate or work to achieve material goals, they are degraded.

So what?  Indeed.

While that's heart breaking for those of us who have been there (and for the some of us who are still there) think beyond that individual level.

Think globally.  Consider the United States as a global player and our next door neighbors.  Consider also the poor kids down the street in Central and South America or the kids in the next elementary school district in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

We tell kids to share with others.

Our nation gives less than %0.08 of it's tax revenue to foreign nations in the form of aid.

If you have kids, will have kids or work with kids and you encourage them to share: fucking mean it and be certain you're not a total hypocrite.

We have a responsibility to those around us.  We have a responsibility to individuals in our town, in our country and in our world.  The tiny amount of money we each contribute through taxes or meager donations is insufficient.

When I take a drink of whisky or go to a movie, I am burdened with images of poverty and suffering that aren't a part of my life. 

If you enjoy something in your life regularly I strongly encourage you to develop a habit of thinking about your worldly privileges in juxtaposition to the needs in life.  It won't keep you from enjoying your life (trust me), but what it will do is make sure that you appreciate what you have and that you give when you're called upon, either by change or by divine will.

Always give.  Giving cannot be the exception, it must be one of our only absolute guidelines and rules in living our lives in a global civil society.

Merry Christmas.

New Album -- RNC 2004

New album up for a few weeks. Photos from the event surrounding the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Indymedia.org Covers RNC Protests

For the very best in the Peoples' News re: the Republican National Convention demonstrations, visit the NYC Indymedia site.

The Privilege of a College Education

In this, my first column of the academic year, I’ll discuss the often times unearned and under valued college education we are here at Cornell to obtain.

The notion that we have some or most of what we have because of privilege is oft denied because many of us feel as though we have worked hard for the positions we inhabit in society. That some of us have worked hard may not be at all untrue, but even the desire to work hard is often a privilege itself. To feel as though the work one does will yield fair results is denied to many people because society has repeatedly told them that their family structure and composition, their culture or heritage, or even their physical or mental abilities predicate their existence. These people are being told that normal levels of “hard work” aren’t enough and that they must go above and beyond what others must do in order to succeed is unjust, I think, but also an inherent component in our Capitalist economic mode.

One of the greatest privileges that we have here, as students of Cornell College, is that we are here at all. Cornell is a noted, private liberal arts college with a history and a reputation. Some of us are here because of generous gifts to Cornell that have come to us in the form of art, performance and academic merit scholarships (athletic scholarships cannot be awarded at Cornell). Many people, scholarship recipients not excluded, have chosen to take on great financial debt so as to attend the kind of college they desired for their continued education, while others are able to be at Cornell because their parents or family are wealthy or they have been graced with the good luck of unearned wealth and that affluence has accommodated their desire to attend our institution.

Regardless, I wouldn’t ask a person that is supported by personally unearned wealth to give it all up, “earn it” and then return to Cornell. I would ask any of you out there that feel like I’m calling your position out to take even a quick look at how easy it is for you to get the material possessions you want or the text books you need (but didn’t really want in the first place) and consider that for most of the children of affluence in our nation, a good post-secondary education is something that just happens to them by following the possible paths set up for them, but that for people that have come from a lower income background, college can be a constant struggle. Many of our students at Cornell are the first in their families to graduate from college, where parents didn’t know what the SAT or ACT were or that a good college education could easily come at a cost greater than that of their family home.

Most people who have great privilege are also very innocent in their positions—people are born into systems and circumstances and taking advantage of those is perfectly natural. I don’t fault the children of wealth for being wealthy. I fault those who don’t recognize it as a chance circumstance.

Unearned privilege is one of our most insidious, yet subtle, remnants of overt racism and sexism. I would have included homophobia in that, but several states have made efforts to amend their constituting documents to prevent the legal recognition of the loving, committed relationships of people, which seems to indicate that overtly heterosexist behavior is still approved of by a significant (although not a majority) segment of our nation’s populace.

Merely acknowledging the privileges we have is a tremendously important step in eroding systemic racism and sexism.

by Addy Free, Opinions Editor
The Cornellian Early Edition, 2004
[my posting of columns will typically not occur until the issue has hit the stands at Cornell, but this is an exception]

Reagan finally died!

Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, died today at the age of 93 after suffering from Alzheimer's for many years.

If anyone deserved the Federal death penalty, it was Ronald Reagan and if anyone deserved to suffer, it was him.

Ronald Reagan, due to his outspoken homophobia and the trend to reverse ipso factor secular humanist ideals, not to mention their own outspoken homophobia, implicate him, his cabinet and his administration in the deaths of over 25,000,000 people in the world. The decision not to allow the CDC or the NIH to adaquately persue study and containment of what was them refered to as GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), or a wide array of other acronyms, because it affected only homosexual males and Haitian immigrants is utterly unacceptable.

Anti-homosexual bias and anti-immigrant bias in the United States has resulted in over 25,000,000 deaths since the mid-80's when the CDC's bulletin first discussed HIV related opportunistic infections in gay male populations in Los Angeles and New York.

Over 40,000,000 people in 2002 were living with HIV or AIDS and that number has rapidly increased. 14,000 people are infected each day with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS and the numbers show no sign of decreasing.

Ronald Reagan, if there is a hell, is burning in it.

Ronald Reagan and everyone who voted for him should be ashamed of their part in a plague that surpasses the Black Death in the number of human lives it has taken.

Ronald Reagan and the people who voted for him and worked for him should never be allowed to forget what their hate has brought upon the world.

Ronald Reagan deserves no pity. He lives on in the form of a plague that kills thousands of children in Sub-Saharan Africa. His legacy is hate. His legacy is ignorance and death and poverty.

Let his death be celebrated!!

Religious Insecurity

There are many people who are so insecure in their religious affiliation and spirituality that they are scared to talk about it with someone who has done a lot of thinking, personal introspection and self-education on the issue of faith and the philosophy of religion. I wonder then: how rich, or even believable, is that person’s commitment to that faith?

Perhaps they are too young or too new to a situation to deal with direct challenges to their faith, but when is one old enough? There are 30-somethings that can’t answer some pretty simple questions about their affiliation and beliefs. My purpose isn't one of religious imperialism. Mine is to encourage people to sincerely take some time and put a critical lens to the text and traditions that they subscribe to.

I am a socialist and an agnostic. As such, I have a hard time seeing a real disconnect between religion and economic mode and so that informs a lot of my opinions. The way that I think about religion is somewhat difficult to get used to for some so I understand that some people could be intimidated by the claims that I have to make, but if a person is going to subscribe to religious beliefs that have led to so much pain in the world, then I think they need to be willing to make some sacrifices--being uncomfortable for a short time seems a reasonable price to pay for understanding.

When I was sixteen I first started coming to terms with the issues of white privilege, and yes, as a white male from a small town who really hadn't been confronted with these thoughts before, it was an incredibly uncomfortable situation. I am so glad that I challenged myself by repeatedly going into situations where I could learn from the experiences of others and I know that I’ve learned a lot from that.

My challenge to anyone who claims a faith is to, if you’ve not already done so, take some time and try to take a mildly objective look of your faith and the impact it has on the world around you--locally, nationally and globally.

by Addy Free, Columnist
printed in The Cornellian vol. 124, issue 9

The Kiosk

On the way to brunch today I saw that the kiosk (free use/speech space) had been painted with "VOTE BUSH 2004" so I decided to reply! Hilary, Sara and I walked over to my room and picked up the spray paint and I wrote next to VOTE the words OR EAT and above BUSH I wrote MY, so that it read "VOTE OR EAT MY BUSH 2004."

Now, on the way up to do that Leland, campus conservative Jew from Berkeley who worked for Ben and Jerry's (yeah, I know, go figure), was like.. check out the rock. The rock is another free speech space for painting and whatnot. I was told that it said "SOCIALISM SUCKS" on it. Now, Leland gets harrassed a lot in the form of things being written on his door or things getting ripped off of it and I'm certainly against that sort of behavior, but writing something so incendiary and ignorant isn't a way to keep your loose allies. I'm through with defending the kid.

To make this all the more interesting though...
While I was repainting my comments (Leland had come while I was doing something else and painted over my words) a campus security guard came over and asked me not to write MY above BUSH. Well, I certainly did anyway and told him that I was going to anyway--now I was just going to leave it at that, but I mentioned this to Jackie Johnson on the way into the Commons to get a drink of water and she went right over to the security office and demanded to know what was up with his asking me not to do it. Apparently, PerMar (the security company that the College contracts) has been asked to watch what goes on at the kiosk and to ask people to keep it tasteful.

WHAT THE FUCK!? Maybe this has to do with someone painting "FREE LOVELY SADDAM" but, it started when the administration thought I had something to do with the repeat paintings of "FUK YOUR GENDER." Well, I'm not going to e-mail anyone in the administration about this, I'm just going to bring it up at Senate and be the shitstarter that I am.