Article I of the Constitution, Letter #21

12/9/16

Dear Assailant-in-Chief,

I am going to continue my comments about the Constitution, because I've noticed a lot of right wing people like to talk about the Constitution a great deal, even though none of them seem to have read any of it except for the Second Amendment, and only the last bit of that.  Your apparent ignorance of the Constitution goes well beyond the norm, of course; it is a matter of speculation and astonishment. So while I am no Constitutional scholar, except in the sense that every American thinks they are, neither are you.  There is a Constitutional scholar handy, though; it's the guy sitting in the Oval Office right now.  Perhaps you should ask him about it.

Article I of the Constitution describes the makeup of Congress, how representatives and senators are to be chosen, and the powers of said Congress.  It contains the historical quirk of the "three-fifths compromise," which was the agreement that got hammered out between the slave-owning states who wanted slaves to be full citizens when counting up population for the purposes of representation but in no way otherwise, and the free states who said "nuh uh."  I note in passing two things:  the argument that you could have a citizen without a citizen's rights would have held even less water than it did if women hadn't been barred from most citizenship rights as a matter of course, and also that historically, attempts to disenfranchise or deny the franchise altogether to citizens do not end well.  They may gain ground temporarily but end in ignominy and infamy.

Congress may, among other things, grant letters of marque and reprisal and "define and punish...felonies committed on the high seas."   That is to say, they get to decide who is a pirate and who is just working freelance for the government by boarding other people's ships and taking their stuff.  That part should appeal to you but it's their job, not yours.  Sorry.

Speaking of things that are their job and not yours, laws.  They get to make laws, pass laws, levy taxes (including lowering and raising them).  They also set a budget.  So many of the things you have asserted you will do as President aren't actually things the President does, except by way of suggestion.  I thought you should know. Of course, we live in a country where people think the President could take their guns away, and they keep falling for that stupid line every four years more or less, so you're not the only one who needs to realize that.

Here's the part that has been in the news a lot lately:  "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state."

That means you can't accept goodies from foreign powers.  Including favorable treatment on business deals. The way things are going right now, you will be in violation of the Constitution as of 12:01 pm on January 20, 2017. I don't expect you to stop, honestly, until somebody makes you.  Whether or not Congress will do so probably depends on how much you annoy them and/or how much they think their own fortunes will be affected by action versus inaction.  They probably won't do the right thing until somebody makes them, either.

That is where We the People come in.  As always.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America


From Dorine Jennette:

PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.

Dorine's posts can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette

PS from Sara:  I've taken to just tweeting these at him.  He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to.  *snort*

Schoolhouse Rock, Letter #20

12/8/16

Dear Assailant-in-Chief,

You are much older than me, but back in the 1970s when you were busy trying to be a "playboy," there used to be a series of short educational cartoons in between regular programming on Saturday mornings.  They are still available via the Internet, of course.  You should really check them out, especially since your knowledge in some areas appears to be spotty and you reportedly  don't like to read.  You might find them illuminating.  For example:

It's the Preamble to the Constitution, in catchy singable form, friend to high school history students everywhere in America.  I'd like to point out a few things.

"WE THE PEOPLE" is how it starts out.  That is, the entire business rests on the principle that government derives legitimacy from the consent of the governed (cf the Declaration of Independence), both explicitly as spelled out in the Constitution itself and implicitly.  That is a matter you should consider both when contemplating the very wide margin by which you lost the popular vote and the way you are breaking promises to your own voters at a rapid clip.  The consent of the governed here surely lies in what people actually voted for.

"...in order to form a more perfect Union..."   That's to your address, right now.  A lot of people shed a lot of blood to hold that Union together, one way and another.  The eyes of our ancestors are on you, and if you continue to rip us apart for your own short-term advantage, they...and our descendants...will judge you for it.

I hear the White House is haunted.  No wonder you don't want to sleep there.



"...establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility..."  Those go together.  No justice, no peace.  That last is a chant, coming soon to a street demonstration near you.  Don't think that attempting to block permits is going to stop anybody.  It may force us to be more diffuse...which, you will discover, is not actually to your advantage.  Would you rather have one big demonstration in Washington and smaller demonstrations elsewhere, or much bigger demonstrations all over the country, plus looking like you're afraid?  You're about to find out. 

"...provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare..."   Those too go together, and I believe by intention.  Defense, not aggression, is the purpose of our military as imagined by our founders; I do not think that they would be in favor of our current globe-spanning empire and its attendant costs in both money and moral standing.  At any rate, we currently focus far more on the "defense" part of that while giving the "general Welfare" part short shrift, and I think that is exactly the opposite of right. 

"...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."  Liberty is the point of all this.  Not just for some of us, but for all of us...past, present, and future.  That's what Posterity means; those who will follow after.  We, the people from whom the authority of government derives, get to march around, say what we want, worship as we please, and generally conduct our business as we see fit so long as it isn't infringing on anybody else.  What you like or don't like doesn't enter into it. 

What's good for our posterity does, however.  I'll tell you one thing that isn't good for them:  sea level rise.  Famine. Drought.  Wildfires.  Increasing storms.  Any curtailment of their Liberty, including your craven threats against the press and the First Amendment.  (I'll get to that in more detail in a later letter.)

"...do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."  "Ordain" is an interesting word.  It means to decree something or put it in proper order, but it also means to imbue with holy authority, as in ordaining a minister.

Barring an outbreak of daring patriotism and common sense among the Electors, on January 20th you will hold up your hand and vow to defend the Constitution.  I hope that the words you speak have some power to make an impression on you. But in the end, the Constitution is bigger than you, and it is up to us, the People, to hold you accountable.  That we shall do.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America


From Dorine Jennette:

PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.

Dorine's posts can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette

PS from Sara:  I've taken to just tweeting these at him.  He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to.  *snort*

Liars, Traitors, Cheats, and Thieves: Dear Assailant-in-Chief, Letter #13

11/29/16

Dear Assailant-in-Chief,


Elliot Lusztig was talking about Hannah Arendt's The Origin of Totalitarianism and its applicability to you and yours. Specifically, that fact-checking you is useless because you aren't dealing in facts; you are framing the narrative for what you want to do next.  The Nazis knew the Jews weren't to blame for Germany losing World War I, they were just ginning up a reason to murder them.  Likewise, you know millions of people didn't vote illegally in the election. You're just ginning up a reason to suppress the vote. As Lusztig says, "What Trump is saying is not that 3m illegals voted. What he's saying is: I'm going to steal the voting rights of millions of Americans."

But why would you do that?  The answer is the same reason Jim Crow laws were passed, the same reason Republicans want voter ID laws and are against early voting but for closing polling places.  You know you will lose if everyone who is eligible to vote actually does, so you machinate to take their voting rights away.  You can't win any other way, so you cheat. You...along with every Republican colluding with you...are a liar, and a cheat, and a thief who wants to steal democracy itself.

I cannot imagine anything more deeply un-American. To wave the flag and conspire to undermine the Constitution is more than hypocrisy; it's a kind of idolatry in the worst possible sense.  The symbol is nothing; the thing itself, the country, America, the Republic, that is everything. America isn't a flag.  America is us.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America


From Dorine Jennette:

PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.

Dorine's posts can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette

PS from Sara:  I've taken to just tweeting these at him.  He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to.  *snort*

D is for Defiance: Dear Assailant-in-Chief, Letter #12

11/28/16

Dear Assailant-in-Chief,

 Today is a study in contrasts.  There's a nasty creature, one of your fans, who has spent years harassing and intimidating local politicians in his best (not very competent) Brietbart/O'Keefe style...deceptively edited videos, belligerance, outright lies.  He tried to pick a fight with me online.  I called him out, stood my ground, and he scurried away like a cockroach when you turn the light on. 

And then my friendly acquaintance Catherynne Valente wrote this story, a fairy tale about politics (what else are fairy tales about?) and deception, and despair, and defiance. 

I say No.  No to your corruption, your bluster, your lies, your callous disregard for the Constitution, your tacit encouragement of bullies, your poisoned sweets.  And Yes, yes to my friends, yes to my glorious diverse and joyful American community, yes to freedom and music and poetry and love, yes to stories, yes to truth.  Yes to the Republic, as it should be.  Yes to every item on the Bill of Rights, but especially the First.  I defy you or anyone who tries to encroach upon it.  I am full of defiance, and I am turning on the light.

Yours sincerely,

Sara Amis
Citizen of these United States of America


From Dorine Jennette:

PLEASE JOIN ME IN WRITING THE ASSAILANT-IN-CHIEF
Please join me in bombarding the Assailant-in-Chief with letters: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact. I will write to him every day through his first 100 days in office, maybe longer if momentum holds. I am asking others to write just ONE letter. Let's not just vent our grief to each other--let's speak truth to power together. Please WRITE and please SHARE this plan with your friends. Pass it on!
You do not need to be a woman or an assault survivor to address the Assailant-in-Chief as such. If you are a man who has a daughter, a sister, a wife, a woman colleague or friend you respect, or a mother (hint: that last one is all of you!), then you have something to say to the Assailant-in-Chief. Your letter might be a brief one-liner. That's great! Please send it! Women need our allies now. Here's the link to DJT's contact page--this might take you one minute or less! https://www.donaldjtrump.com/contact
Or, maybe you will start a related project addressing any one of the many groups Trump has already harmed . . .
As we talk with each other, let's break the bubble and also send our complaints straight to the source. He won't read them and won't care if he does, so probably this is a placeholder action while we figure out what we're really going to do . . . but it's something.

Dorine's posts can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/dorine.jennette

PS from Sara:  I've taken to just tweeting these at him.  He's not going to read them anyway, but I might as well use the platform that he actually responds to.  *snort*

Blue Staters in Trumpland: A Survival Guide

Back in May of this year, Kyle Whitmire over at AL.com wrote a column about "the Alabamification of America."  He described the state of affairs in Alabama thusly:  "Our governor is under investigation. Our House speaker is under indictment. Our chief justice is suspended from duty and awaiting trial, again. We're one of the poorest states in the country, living off the federal dole, and we sit at or near the bottom of most empirical rankings of quality of life. Our leadership is non-existent and our government is on the brink of collapse."  This is, I wish to note, what happens when you let crazy take the wheel of governance.  And it is not a solely Republican phenomenon...I do live in DeKalb County, Georgia...but since Republicans have been riding the fact-free crazy train for years now, and have currently reached what I dearly hope is the apotheosis of same, we are going to talk about that for a little bit.

He went on to warn, "don't think for a minute that you're better than us. Donald Trump is the Republican presumptive presidential nominee, and you put him there. You're closer to Alabama than you care to think."

And so here we are. 

Many of us are wondering what the hell just happened, and feeling a combination of disbelief and betrayal by our fellow citizens that is, alas, somewhat familiar.  I felt that way in 2000, when "F for Fiasco, L for Lord help us" Florida happened. However, if anything 2004 was worse.  Not only did the country re-elect George W. Bush, thus removing any brake on the trainwreck-on-fire economic collapse that was already barrelling down the tracks, but the Georgia legislature put a same-sex marriage ban on the ballot.  That drew the haters out in droves.  Democrats lost twenty-five seats overnight and their previous majority in the state House of Representatives; the governorship and both houses in the state legislature have been held by Republicans ever since. That means twelve years of, as Whitmire puts it, "stuck on stupid." Though I would argue that Georgia has avoided some of the excesses of foolishness exhibited by some of our neighbor states.  Some of that is because we have Atlanta, which is the largest city in the Southeast, and a loud and boisterous liberal minority.  That last part is important...especially since, nationally, liberals are NOT the minority but the majority.  In other words...things are pretty bad.  But this fight isn't over.  It is just beginning.

So, my left-leaning friends in Democratic majority states who are contemplating the appalling prospect of a Republican Congress being the only thing between them and Donald Trump's apocalyptic notions of Presidency, including his hair-raising policy proposals, I have a few words of advice that will help you get through the next four years, especially the next two:

• First, you CANNOT lose your mind over every reckless, hare-brained, bigotry-codified-into-law idea that they float as possibilities.  That well is inexhaustible, but you are not, and most of it won't go anywhere.  That is because they are throwing red meat to the seething tank full of piranha who are their base, to keep them interested. They propose laws to make English the official language, or to outlaw hijab, so they can go back to their constituents and say "I TRIED but you know how politics goes..."  If they don't, they are subject to primary challenges by Republicans even crazier than they are. This is why even moderates will do a little two-step with the Devil every so often. 

• However, it IS worth your while to oppose all of it, by letting your opinions be heard loud and clear.  Because...

• The more sensible among them realize that if they let too much crazy through the gate, the public will recoil and they will get creamed like an eclair in the next general election. This is what happened to Pat McCrory in North Carolina, for all that he's fighting it like mad.  The consequences did not, alas, extend to their legislature.  Being vocally opposed to ALL of the stupid helps drive home the message there.  I am just saying you don't need to pull the fire alarm every single time...since wearing you out is part of the strategy, too. 

•  They also, after beating the drum of "government is bad" and being the party of obstructionism for so long, now have to actually govern.  If they don't, they own the screw-up.  And while their base will just rationalize that away, they know many of us...especially those swing voters they need to stay in office...will not.  Here in Georgia that means some surprisingly practical and useful things have emerged from the legislature, alongside all the voter ID laws and abortion bans. 

• They must therefore thread a careful path between the Scylla of their own base and the Charybdis of the rest of us.  Your job is to make sure the latter part of that double threat has some real teeth to it. 

• You do this by learning the best way to apply pressure, to whom, and when.  Let your own representatives know how you feel, reward them for standing up to stupid, and call them out when they don't...that's important.  Politics is about horse-trading, and you want to make sure that your legislators (who WILL need Republican support to get anything done) are not tempted to cave on anything you find important.  Nobody wants to go out on a limb that won't hold their weight. 

• Some Democrats will sell us out.  That 2004 ballot measure I mentioned above was passed because of a handful of quisling bigots with a D beside their names.  It needs to be clear that if a Democrat in Congress does something like that, a primary challenger will appear.  Be ready, which means getting involved. 

• Beyond that, find out who the gatekeepers are.  That means learning what legislation goes through which committees.  Either call up Democratic members of those committees and/or the chair (who will determine whether a committee even votes on a bill).  Because the Republicans hold the majority, those seats will all be held by Republicans. In most cases they will be pretty secure in their seats, but...not necessarily.  Depending on where they are from, you may have some leverage, especially with Republican senators from liberal-leaning states. If you are a constituent in one of those states, be all up in their business, all the time.  Have them on speed dial.  You are their new best frenemy. 

• Figure out whose seats may be vulnerable in 2018 and, if they are anywhere near you, start helping the effort to unseat them now. 

• Help the ones who aren't near you, too, if you can.  I can tell you right now that some of these supposedly "red" states are shifting under the Republicans' feet; I live in one of them.  Six counties went for Hillary Clinton that were held by Romney in 2012.  Three of them were in Georgia.  In the same way that supposedly Democratic strongholds proved to be volatile in 2016, lots of supposed Republican strongholds are not so solid going into 2018 and 2020.  If you have a little extra dough, Cobb, Gwinnett, and Henry County Democrats could put it to good use.  

• Encourage your state and city governments to push back against the stupid as well.  The city of Clarkston, Georgia recently decriminalized marijuana, and several municipalities around the state offer non-discrimination ordinances for LGBT residents. Even when those measures seem like gestures of defiance, that is worth something in and of itself.   Because...
  
  
  • The overall principle here is that behavior that has a political reward will be repeated, and behavior with a political cost will not be.  There are powerful forces rewarding certain kinds of nastiness and stupidity; we need to be a counter-weight providing an equally powerful pull in the other direction.  We have the advantage in that we actually ARE in the majority, and the left is motivated right now in a way we haven't been for a pretty long time...maybe not in decades.  That provides an opportunity to break the stale-mate we have been in for a while.  What we do with it remains to be seen.   
  
  Be kind to each other.  Take care of each other.  The biggest thing we need to do, if you ask me, is to show that all of that "stronger together" stuff isn't just a slogan; that there is a vision of American society as a community made up of many different people from diverse backgrounds who actually do care about each other and the country as a whole which is far more compelling than the poisonous daydream being sold by Trump. We need to live it.   There are quite a few people who are about to have a rude awakening, when they figure out just how badly they have been lied to.  That is going to be one hell of a hangover and we need to be kind to them as well, while still standing up for the values I just described, and the value of every American. 
  
  An observation I have made before is that conservatives seem to love "America" the abstraction, while we love Americans.  America is us.
  

Feline Philosophy, Anarchy, and Art

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain

A side-effect of hanging around Occupy is that one winds up having to explain patiently to people that having a penchant for breaking things and wearing clothes you found on the bargain rack at Hot Topic does not make you an anarchist.  Sometimes you have to explain that to people who call themselves anarchists.  I don't look like I know anything about it, apparently.  I am middle-aged, chose to accord punk a decent burial rather than take up necrophilia,  and have a job, more or less, as an educator.   I vote, among my other peculiar habits, and my clothing comes in other colors than black.  That's all right; I reject the notion that political and philosophical ideas require membership in a subculture.  I also reject the idea that it requires a certain set of lifestyle choices, ideological catechisms, or a reading list.  Although I do habitually think about the systemic consequences of my personal decisions and I love a reading list, those are voluntary choices on my part.  (See what I did there?)  In other words....don't tell me what to do.

Let's start with a fundamental attitude.  Deep down in my bones, I believe that all power must justify itself to those it would exert influence over, rather than the other way around.  The power to pass laws or enforce them, to allocate resources or use them up, is always conditional and open to question; no other state of affairs is acceptable, or even possible except through manipulation, coercion and failure of the imagination.  When you put it that way, it sounds strangely like the Declaration of Independence ("....Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed")  and therefore ought to have the stamp of the hoariest true-blue American sentiment about it.  And yet in practice that fundamental world-view tends to bother people.  I have been told more than once in indignant tones that I have no respect for authority; I can only agree cheerfully, which seems to upset people even more.  I do not have respect for authority.  I barely recognize authority as a concept, except in the specific narrow academic sense of an authoritative source (and I'm well aware of how subject to debate that is). My compliance is never to be assumed, and my respect beyond that which I accord to all living beings as a matter of fundamental ethics has to be earned.  I do respect integrity, knowledge and logical sense, and will amiably ask that they be demonstrated before I put my full trust in a person or institution; I will less amiably point out when they have been breached.  This makes me a rebel, apparently, and very upsetting. 

Really, I'm no different from a cat, except that I talk more.  Cats are inherently anti-authoritarian.

So are artists, a species of which I am a member, cultivar writer.   While it's true you will occasionally find an artist espousing some authoritarian philosophy or another, they always mean it for other people.  (Nobody said an artist can't be a hypocrite.  We are like other mortals that way).  I never met a creative person though who took authority seriously as applied to herself.  That is because real art requires freedom and is governed by constraints the artist understands to be arbitrary even when she believes in them passionately, with the same total conviction that a six year old will lend to the rules of a game she and her friends just made up on the spot.  Even reality is bendable in spots.

Don't get the idea that just because I think rules are the product of fallible human minds it means I also think there shouldn't be any.  That kind of person always believes that there's such a thing as ultimate truth in human affairs, and that he or she knows what it is.  What I do think is that, acknowledging that rules are often arbitrary (a word with roots in the concept of rendering judgment), they are also functional in that they provide a container, a vessel for human interactions.  They can be useful, but they must also be subject to criticism and revision on the basis of how functional they really are, and that extends to all levels, the philosophical, the social, and the practical; local, national, and global.  This is also the business of the philosophical or theoretical arms of social justice movements:  feminism, anti-racism, queer activism, disabilities activism, etc.  That is not a coincidence.  As tiresome as that can sometimes be....like a four year old asking constantly "why? why? why do we do things this way?  why don't we do them another way?" it is essential.  All true and valuable change begins with a question.

Question authority.

We live in interesting times

I have been volunteering for Occupy Atlanta a lot lately, which means my life has been very exciting.  That is, I have been on the radio, on TV, wrote an op-ed for Creative Loafing which caused some poor Randroid such distress that he hunted down my UGA e-mail in order to tell me how wrong I was, got quoted by the New York Times, have been hobnobbing with politicians, rappers, homeless people, Marxists, anarchists, and Libertarians, and currently have a phone number written on my arm with a Sharpie.  In case I get arrested. I sold a short story and wrote this.

How has your week been?

On consensus process and the goals of the "Occupy" movement

Author's note:  I wrote this for the Occupy Atlanta group, but it is not an "official" statement from that group. It is my own viewpoint.  When I say "we," I am speaking to, rather than for, other participants in the group/movement.  Which could be you, if you like.

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." - Audre Lorde

We can't do things the same way and expect different results; that way proverbially lies madness. If you want to change anything for real you have to change culture, and culture change begins with people. Culture is people.

I've been around for a while; my first job was working for the Atlanta Greenpeace office, back when there was such a creature. I have been in a number of activist and religious groups over the years which were governed by consensus, and believe me I know the frustration that the slow messy operation of it can produce. And yet, I want everyone to understand that consensus is not just an awkward caltrop in the path to "real" action. In a very real sense, consensus process is the doing of the thing we wish to accomplish.

We aren't just pointing out the inequities of our society, or that corporate greed has brought us all to the brink of the abyss, or that the lobbyist system of government is corrupt. We might say all of those things, and a great deal more; we are a diverse bunch of people with a lot of opinions. And we're ok with that.

We aren't just here to speak a message; there are a million other organizations out there who have said what we are saying before. They are much more polished and orderly than any Occupy group probably ever will be. They are effective in various ways and to various degrees. Direct actions have also been tried before. They sometimes work, and sometimes don't. The elements of Occupy Wall Street are not really new, and yet they have captured people's imagination. Some of it is the historical moment. Some of it is another thing; the bracing shock of real freedom. We are so used to conversations that are carefully measured and weighed, calculated and manipulated, that the spectacle of a bunch of people speaking their minds about things they find important in raucous discord and occasional harmony is confusing. The news media certainly seem confused.

What we are doing is not just trying to prove a point, or challenging authority. We are demonstrating an alternative. Look around you. This is radical equality...never perfect in the moment, but in the next moment it can always be better. There is something magical about it even when it's tiresome and painful and awkward. This is what democracy looks like when you strip the motor down.

We are building the beloved community literally as we speak, and in our speaking. If you disrespect the process, or dismiss it, or look for too much focus in a polyphony of voices, you are missing a crucial aspect of the point.

The Imaginary American

My family, the part from Europe, came to these shores very early. Pretty much as soon as there was a boat to Virginia, they were on it. I'm a descendent of two Revolutionary War captains (Capt. Thomas Amis and Capt. Thomas Austin) and also, via my great-grandmother, of one Thomas Pitman. Pitman was involved in Bacon's Rebellion, which was sort of the seventeenth-century practice run for the Revolution, except that it didn't go so well. Many of the participants were hanged; my progenitor was pardoned by King Charles II, and thus I am here to talk to you today and carry on the family tendency towards troublemaking. I am a tenth-generation American...not including the ones who were already living on this continent and whose generations are uncountable. I don't think this makes me better than anyone else, mind. I think America is something you show up and participate in, and what you do counts far more than how long your history here is. Nonetheless, I do have history.

Members of my family have served this country in various wars (well, some of them were technically fighting against the United States, but we will gloss over that.) My father was a decorated hero in World War II and four of my five brothers served in Vietnam. Many members of my family have served their communities and people as educators, from my great-grandfathers on two sides of my family, my grandmother and great-aunt, my mother, my aunt, my sister, and myself.

I was born and raised in a small town in north Georgia, at the southern end of the Appalachians, and have lived in Georgia all my life.

And yet, I have a sneaking feeling Sarah Palin and her ilk would not consider me a "real American." This in spite of the fact that my family gave up secessionist tendencies over a hundred years ago, unlike some people.

It seems you are only a real American, according to the Republicans, if you live in the states or rural areas where they have the most support, and you agree with the majority there. In other words, if you vote Republican. Being a citizen and knowing what the Constitution actually says don't count any more. Being a part of this country's two-hundred-year tradition of volunteerism and "community organizing" is obviously right out.

I now live in the liberal hippy-dippy freaktastic indie-rock epicenter of Georgia, described by comedian Patton Oswalt as a "weird bubble dream city of goodness," which lies along the axis of woo running south on US 441 from Asheville, NC...that is to say, Athens, GA. Athens, a city of about 100,000 people, has its own Human Rights Festival and its own drag king troupe, more independent record stores than corporate ones, and a Tree That Owns Itself in defiance of human-centric notions of property rights. The University of Georgia is here and while we do have the Cult of the Bulldawg and a thriving population of rednecks (smile when you say that, bubba), we also have suspiciously liberal-sounding educational practices such as the only School of Ecology in the country. I personally have an MFA in Creative Writing with a graduate certificate in Women's Studies, and I work in the English department. I recycle and eat organic, locally grown food. I have been known to organize in my community. I even worked on the campaign of a local Democrat...which around here, I might add, makes me a political moderate.

Apparently all this means I am not a "real American." I guess that makes me an imaginary American.

All right, then. I will imagine. America.

I imagine an America where everyone can get health care, and we have the lowest infant mortality rate in the world...instead of the highest among industrialized nations.

I imagine an America where the government does not issue slithery and putrid justifications for the torture of prisoners, because no one in any position of authority would ever condone such a thing.

I imagine an America where we do not allow children to go homeless or hungry, because we recognize our obligations to each other as citizens of a common society.

I imagine an America where the Constitution is both well-understood and well-revered by those who vow to uphold it and whose authority to govern flows from it.

I imagine an America where no one suffers from the delusion that one can bestow democracy or freedom at gunpoint.

I imagine an America where I, as a woman, get paid equally for equal work, and no one questions that my health is a legitimate concern, even when it conflicts with the desire of others to impose their religious mores on everyone or to avoid being grossed out by the facts of reproduction.

I imagine an America where dissent is as patriotic as Thomas Paine, and not only when you agree with conservatives.

I imagine an America that lives up to its better self. I imagine an America that is not divided. I imagine an America that remembers who we really are.

I like that America. I want to live there. It's not where I have been living, to be sure, but it seems like a place that is possible.

Let's go.