Brasil desperta

 Brazil Awakens!!!

 .

Brasil desperta
olhos, corações de repente abrir
eo som de pés marchando

It is the most welcome sign of progress when the people see the wrongs against them and say " NO More"  I read stories- young men who watched their mothers perish while receiving poor health care. Students who want more opportunity to climb the ladder for success. Parents who want better life for their children.  It has been going on for a long, long time  but now-- as if lifted by the same wind-- all of these hearts begin to fly....
 It is a blessed and rich country now  the people want to share the blessings..and for my part it is a wonderful thing to see.
A class of rich and powerful have grown on the backs of the poor. Corruption and influence have become tools of wealth.  Honest work has become a badge of relative poverty.  Low wages prevent movement in society, we become trapped while doing all that should be done: honest work, paying taxes, raising families, and obeying the law.

 uma pedra
uma pedra no meio do caminho  
para o progresso ...e justiça

This is not new but the anger is fresh.  The acceptance of injustice is not new but it has filled Brazilians to the brim...they can accept no more.  There is not a single event that lighted the fuse, a price increase in public transportation was like a prism in the midday sun- it focused light on one subject. It has burned quickly to ignite the black powder. It is nation that began like most of the Americas in an era of total loss of freedom for many to the gain of the few. 

The heat the Sun, 
the blood of its Saints, 
all  seems mixed with the power of the seas.

The beauty of land and people
remembered in loss of freedom: once endured in Black skin;
endured again in Dictatorship.
Now, it cannot be, because something rises from within.
A long simmered coal that glowed heat
until breath of spirit touched it thus;
 now, a fire burns...and burns!


 I can only hope that in the US the poor are watching and learning that action speaks louder than money...that Democracy is a thing of the People. Equality means making a society in which everyone has  a fair and reasonable opportunity to succeed.  Where the paths are made easier because we lift the road to meet our children's feet.  Where a stone in the road is where stumbling giants fall and the people stand strong

 ouvirmos
mesmo na escuridão ouvimos
sussurros da alma do sol

...hdm

Ghosts of Conservatism - a Satire

I am more convinced now than ever, there really is no such thing as a Conservative: it is like describing the shape of an Amoeba one can never be wrong unless one says the shape is true.  The Conservative is that way- it can be anything but true.  It cannot be true to voters nor to the speaker of the phrase "I am a conservative".

History of conservatism in the US can be summarized very briefly because it is nearly empty. In the Revolution these were the men who wanted to belong to the King and then wanted to be the king. Our Founders were firebrands of their day- they risked hanging to declare their love of money in America -so i give them credit for conviction- they loved money and ALLLL the freedom it could buy.  In a broader perspective the Founders were complete phonies- in the model of say 4th Century Athens, where philosophers spoke of freedom on and on till weak and redfaced; then turned TO A SLAVE- for a goblet of wine. So these Athenian disciples of freedom had a limited view.  The Founders in America were similar. They wanted everyone to fight and die for their right to own and be rich and lead the rabble, namely- The people who actually fought, some of whom suffered awful deaths- were not worthy of voting or any say in government- only the Founders and their 'kind" were so endowed - by God- of course.  They too turned to their SLAVES for refreshment and sex and cute little brown children who would also be slaves- what the hell  is it about White Men and Freedom and Slavery- at least in Asia and Africa they said 'we are slave owning, murderous bastards who have no souls - here they pretend to be-- well Thomas Jefferson--anyway-- Conservatives are like that.  They get elected and tell voters they are Conservatives-- well there is that little thing-- the Constitution and the duties it imposes upon the elected-- to use their best judgment UNDIVIDED TRUTH AND LOYALTY and BEST efforts to benefit the people who elected them-- nothing in there about being an Amoeba-- you are supposed to be a Senator-- obligated to the people-- so  what is the Conservative crap-- are the people fed by it, housed, and educated by it-- are they made safer by it-- OR ARE YOU JUST AN  AMOEBA  BEING TRUE TO NOTHING
I look at the latest Crop of Republicans who go on these sabotage missions to ruin the economy, who exalt debt- which they largely have made in Iraq to feed their greedy billionaires-  and tell America it has no future.

 Note:  if debt were really the concern, a sincere concern for future Americans- we still must judge Republicans/Conservatives by how you treat present day Americans- those you wish to put nearer starvation on social security, those you refuse to give jobs to  today-- we cannot believe you would treat future Americans any better, that this is just a leverage point to disguise an assault on those you view a rabble- unworthy of a voice in their futures, those who want the jobs you block and refuse to create.  Just a note in case you missed it earlier - i even changed fonts to make it stand out !!  ;)

Yes they actually try to convince us we cant build bridges or reinvent the railroads, or run cars on electric power-- or create new industries.  They DAMN sure say we cant have say a million public service jobs to give young people a decent start in life.  THEY say we can't have a rising standard of living unless the millionaires FEEL LIKE INVESTING as opposed to collecting bets in the DERIVATIVES MARKET-- well that is a Conservative- a great ball of failure and bad karma-- when what we need - is the American way- we spend to raise our standard of living, invest in US- us- we the people- rails, roads, bridges, solar energy on every roof, make-work jobs for those with no skills, skill training for those who want- and millions want it.  New industries: we need to grow healthy food, and people need to know how to do it- we can do jobs for that; we need to improve our water conservation before we run out- jobs for that.  We need to fix bridges that are falling down  - i drive on some everyday.  We need to better educate our kids- more teachers, more online teaching, more tutors and help for those who need it-- jobs to do that-- see i can come up with a million jobs quite easily.  Elected people could too if they weren't a bunch of FRIGGIN AMOEBA--- and really I apologize to the Amoebas out there  i don't mean to put you in the same class as these Republicans  -- you are brainless but innocent of  efforts to destroy progress.

So this is satire except for the parts about Conservatives and their phony ideals, and attempts to ruin the economy, and divided loyalties-- the rest is clearly satire...;)

Django

Django

there is an issue here which should not be.  The issue basically is the reverence we feel to historical truth and accuracy, a sort of holy grail- an artifact so long lost it is a fiction and as a practical matter does not exist.   Quentin Tarantino seems to use his films to snatch and claim some characteristic of Black life as he sees it in America- the thug styles in pulp fiction, how he made the phrases M***F**** seem like a punctuation mark in nouveau Black-speak  ( let me tel you if you hang around enough Black men you see he has a point--ahhhhmeiii!)

Now the movie-- Django
It is about exploits and they appeal to people with a mindset towards video games, amazing film special effects, or movies in general which oversize physical abilities ( Iron Man, Spider man, Batman, Bourne parts 1- 100, "24"  -which i loved_-- you get the pattern). Now the Black elites seem divided , some boycott the film find its historic faults (Spike Lee, i am a huge fan). Equivocate over its artistic merits by finding difficulties in the historic record ( like Angela Rye, i am a fan- she is smart). But to many in the masses it is earth shattering,  mind expanding -gratefully received heroism.

Quaere: Why would we back away from that--???!!!
 
First one sees there are other aspects of Black history-(1) we are not the only group who can see the record or interpret it; another sobering fact- there were so many years, month and days of Tarantino's career before now when someone could have told a Django without the excesses of bad language and historical inaccuracy.  There ought to be some gratitude for an event which focuses young minds on an old history which is still very much in our everyday in America but forgotten like a campaign slogan from a lost campaign. ( The 2nd Amendment some think is about owning a machine gun, was about militias who chased down and sometime executed Black people who escaped from plantation- prison camps) . James Madison was a slave owner who hanged 30 men recaptured trying to escape from his prison camp plantation( later became president with a smalllll  p ) and was one of the drafters of the 2nd Amendment.
For example, Affirmative action ended not because Black people chose, but because the historic record was left fallow-  there are lives in being that were touched by ex-slaves, children of parents who knew their slave predecessors by witness of Mother and Father.  My Grandmother, knew her slave ancestors and she raised me- so  to say there are no present effects of slavery- well neither mule nor the 40 acres have yet arrived, and as far as I know those who were paid reparations for slavery and abolition were slave owners in the South who started this garbage to begin with.

My point is not reparations, nor Affirmative Action- my point is history and how the record is lost until found by someone like Tarantino, or Oprah, a film Producer--then the historical accuracy voices are raised when they seemed conspicuously absent in more meaningful events- like tracing the loss of wealth in Black families from the enslavement (kidnap and murder) of our slave ancestors when making public policy designed to overcome the effects of slavery...anyway

Django viewers have come to speak to me, among people i know, people I ask- hardly a scientific poll, more like random comments and rumors- like good evidence at a trial by jury  ; ) ) . I have been told that it  has appeal to people who can go to a movie, pay a lot for popcorn, and see a Black man do the wild and heroic stuff that we rarely see done by a Black man even in the imagination of fiction; and for what it is worth- for some it raises the idea of self esteem, and group esteem for many others.

Perhaps it raises an opportunity for Black leadership to promote some of those historically accurate facts and events-- you know  while so many are looking, and hungry for popcorn...hdm