I graduated from Pitzer College in 1975 and hung around Claremont for the next two years (a Claremont Cockroach, as I’ve said). Angela Davis was a visiting faculty member of the Claremont Colleges Black Studies program in 1975, which I did not know until seeing this video. I was rather surprised, since I thought I was somewhat in touch with what was going on there that year. But apparently the who thing was kept very secret. In any case, this is a great address and very much in alignment with the values of Pitzer.
I remember my Unitarian minister in Oklahoma City once saying, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” I always thought that was a good perspective to take. Nonetheless, I think I can safely say that I have two kinds of friends on Facebook: those who discuss political and social matters on Facebook and those who don’t.
In the wake of President Obama’s surprise endorsement of gay marriage last week it did not surprise me that my friends in the latter category were 100% positive and supportive. I’m fully aware, of course, that plenty of people were not happy with that statement.
It reinforces my perspective that your experience on Facebook is exactly what you make it.
Flying the American flag upside down has always been an a sign of distress or emergency. When I was in college in the 1970′s classmates would put flag stamps on their mail upside down as protest of the Nixon administration’s activities in Vietnam and its policies domestically.
Some weeks ago our local hometown newspaper ran a front page story about a guy who was flying his flag upside down because he believed we were losing our fundamental rights. And when did he do that? After all of the rights violations of the Bush II administration? After Obama signed the defense spending bill that also allowed the indefinite incarceration of Americans suspected of terrorist activities? In the light of thousands of Americans unemployed, underemployed, or losing their homes to foreclosure? No. He did it after the passage of the Obama health care bill. I chose not to read the entire article. I knew I would just get mad.
Providing universal healthcare is a bad thing that violates our fundamental rights? The United Sates is, after all, the only major industrialized country in the world that doesn’t provide some kind of universal healthcare. To me there many more fundamental threats to our rights than ensuring everyone has access to healthcare.
It would disturb me if there was a wedding between religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.
With all of the attacks on President Obama in the realm of religion, I appreciated Susan Russell finding this quote, which was from the 2009 National Prayer Breakfast.
I didn’t become a Christian until many years later, when I moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden revelation, but because I spent month after month working with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who were down on their luck no matter what they looked like, or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard God’s spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to a higher purpose — His purpose.
That’s the kind of religion I like to see in a president.
If you saw my quote from Susan Russell last week on the war against women and appreciated the truth she was conveying, you’ll want to view this. The words were extracted from this sermon, which she delivered on 19 February. Don’t be fooled by the first six and a half minutes. She really shifts gears at right about 6:30. She confronts the reality, but she leaves us with hope.
I know, she wasn’t around for the 2008 election either. We lost her in 2007. But damn I miss Molly Ivins. The fun she would have had with the crowd of Republican wackos vying for the nomination would make the race at least a little easier to countenance.
She has been recently quoted recently from a 2001 article in which she said: “The next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please, pay attention.” At least Rick Perry is no longer (for the time being anyway) a frontrunner. Not that those who are at the head of the pack are any better.
And speaking of Molly, how about this quote about the Texas legislature from way back in 1971.
All anyone needs to enjoy the state legislature is a strong stomach and a complete insensitivity to the needs of the people. As long as you don’t think about what that peculiar body should be doing and what it actually is doing to the quality of life in Texas, then it’s all marvelous fun.
Scary. Replace “state legislature” with “U.S. Congress” and replace “Texas” with “the United States” and don’t you have an apt description of the current congress?
We miss you, Molly. We’d love to have your wit today to help ease the pain a little.
