“There is no justice in
America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you.” Amiri Baraka
My son came home with a bag of clothes from H&M,
t-shirts and a couple of extremely thin cotton shirts that cost $9 each. As I
always do with clothing, I looked at the label to see where the garment was
made: Bangladesh. I wondered about the human being who sewed the shirt, what
his or her daily life was like, and how much this unknown person earned for
this insubstantial garment I held in my hands.
Baltimore on my mind, the fire this time, burning right in
front of our eyes, and white pundits entirely missing the point as they spout
nonsense about law and order. They don’t get it. Oppression breeds rage,
hopelessness breeds despair, and sooner or later a spark touches off a fire
that becomes an inferno. Connect the dots. Urban communities in America have been
deindustrialized, jobs at living wages are hard to find, especially for people
of color; policing in these communities is harsh, brutal and murderous; the
downward spiral has been swirling for nearly two generations. What do we expect
will happen?
He doesn’t have a prayer of winning the nomination, but I’m
glad Senator Bernie Sanders has entered the 2016 presidential contest. The race
desperately needs another voice, a voice not fueled by corporate dough, a voice
that speaks to the real, everyday, mundane concerns of average people: jobs,
wages, housing, health care, education, and the condition of our planet. Bernie
Sanders won’t champion populist themes and then turn his back on people in
favor of the tired neoliberal agenda that has sundered the middle class and
created obscene wealth and political inequality.
The “system” will call Bernie Sanders a radical, a
socialist, even a communist, hostile to capitalism and the American way; he
will be ridiculed and laughed at, marginalized and largely ignored by the media
machine. Remember Ralph Nader?
May. The drought drags on here in California. No rain in the
forecast. In Nepal, another body is pulled from the rubble. The earth seems melancholy.
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