Was the blind man P.T. Kimbrough? or Don NolkdS? Not sure of Don's
spelling, but I think he founded Dialog. Carol McCarl took over at
some point, many years ago, and I stopped reading the magazine. There
was another editor, a blind man, who was also editor of the Braille
Forum...I think, but his name escapes me. We used to talk on the
phone, but that's about all I recall of him.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/6/20, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Back in the 90's, The University of South Dakota at Spearfish ran a 10 day
summer program for blind people for several years. It was initiated by a
blind man whose name I forget, who used to be the editor of Dialogue
Magazine. He and his partially sighted wife lived in Arizona, and they had a
summer home in Spearfish. Art and I participated in that summer program
twice. The first time, we attended the regular program which was like an
Elderhostel program, in that it involved classes in various subjects and
some field trips. There were classes on local history and Native American
history, and some others that I didn't attend like exercise and some other
stuff. The classes were run by professors who volunteered their time to do
so. People from the community also volunteered to be guides and provide
other services. Among other things, there was a trip to Mount Rushmore to
see those heads carved out of the mountains. No one ever mentioned
controversy related to those monuments if, in fact there was any back then.
But the whole experience of being in South Dakota in that environment was
very weird. The people who taught those courses, expressed a great deal of
respect for the American Indians who lived in the area. They were familiar
with the reservation that was located nearby, spent time on it, and knew the
people. There was talk of the Black Hills and the gold, and although I have
no specific memory of it, there must have been discussion of how those hills
which belonged to the Indians by treaty, had been stolen from them because
of the gold. I remember visiting another sacred mountain. But all of this
was now tourist territory. No one really said out loud that Europeans stole
land from the native population and then segregated that population on
reservations and that now the descendants of those Europeans were making
money from the tourist trade. I'm not sure that I thought of any of it in
those terms either. The second trip, one or two years later, was to
Yellowstone National Park and then to the site of a famous battle between
troops and Indians and an area in Montana. The two things that stand out in
my memory are the natural wonders in the park, and the aridity of the area
in Montana where some of the people who traveled west, decided to settle. It
was hot and dry there, with almost no vegetation. I couldn't imagine why
anyone would try homesteading there. But of course, maybe it wasn't that
bad back then. I wasn't thinking about global warming at the time.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 9:45 AM
To: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx>
Cc: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: UNAC: On This Fourth of
July,https://socialistaction.org/2020/07/04/unac-on-this-fourth-of-july/
Some of us are so full of ourselves that we cannot allow ourselves to
consider that this entire Experience, which we call the Universe, may very
well have come into existence quite by accident, or, that which we sense, is
but a small part of an even bigger, more vast something.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/5/20, Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> wrote:
UNAC: On This Fourth of July
https://socialistaction.org/2020/07/04/unac-on-this-fourth-of-july/
July 4, 2020
On this 4th of July, Trump goes to Mount Rushmore to set off fireworks
on Indian land even though the tribal leaders have asked him to stay
away and fireworks have been banned in the area due to a drought. He
speaks at Mount Rushmore where statues have been carved of 4 white
presidents designed by a supporter of the KKK. The building of Mount
Rushmore was a desecration of the Black Hills, sacred land of the
Lakota Sioux people. It stands only 75 miles from Wounded Knee where
US troops massacred hundreds of unarmed Sioux women, children, and
men. Can the Native people truthfully celebrate freedom on this 4th of
July?
On this 4th of July, Black people and their allies are in the streets
asserting that “Black Lives Matter.” Independence in 1776 did not
bring Black people freedom; they remained enslaved. Tens of millions
were killed in slavery and in the Atlantic crossing. Blacks are still
being killed in the streets and it took a mass upsurge in over 2000
cities and towns in the US and in cities around the world for this
country to even start to make some concessions by taking down some
statues of slave owners and supporters of slavery. It took a mass
upsurge for there to begin a discussion of ending racist policing and
for the democratic right of the Black community to control the police
and other institutions in their communities. Blacks are dying from
COVID-19 in numbers far greater than their proportion in the
population due to the structural racism that deprives Black people the
resources needed to live a healthy life. Can Black people truthfully
celebrate freedom on this 4th of July?
On this 4th of July, the US, with little more than 4% of the world’s
population has about 25% of the world’s prison population. On this 4th
of July there may be as many as 100,000 prisoners in solitary
confinement in the US, some for decades while the UN says that any
more than 15 days in solitary confinement is torture. Can the victims
of mass incarceration, majority blacks, Latinx and Native American,
truthfully celebrate freedom on this 4th of July? Can the world’s most
renowned and innocent political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal celebrate
the 4th of July when an overtly racist judge ordered a virtually all
white jury to hurry their July 3 deliberations to convict Mumia in
order to go home to celebrate July 4?
On this 4th of July, can the migrants and refugees who are imprisoned,
many separated from their children at the borders or the 11 million
undocumented, threatened with deportation celebrate freedom on this
4th of July?
On this 4th of July, the US has troops in around 172 foreign countries.
The US has 20 times the number of foreign military bases as all other
countries in the world combined. In 1776, it was British imperialism
that was opposed by the first American Revolution but today it is the
US that is the main imperialist power in the world and people
throughout the world are fighting for their own self-determination and
independence from US imperialism and its puppet regimes.
On this 4th of July, people have had to isolate in their homes, or are
forced to work in their low paying “essential” jobs while being
exposed to a deadly virus as trillions of dollars are given to the
rich and the corporations to bolster a failing economy so the wealthy
can maintain their obscene life-style and wealth.
Do any of us have anything to celebrate this 4th of July? UNAC
believes we do not.
Socialist Action News
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___
Richard Dawkins
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond
all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to
compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive,
many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others
are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands
of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be
so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will
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state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons
and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some
people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you
won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice.
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should
expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no
good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
On 7/5/2020 12:57 PM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
Richard Dawkins speaks truth...as far as we know it to be at this
present time.
I just finished listening to a speech by Donald Trump that sounded as
if it came straight out of my grade school history book(1940-1949).
Donald Trump regaled us with stories of the four great faces carved
upon Mount Rushmore. Of course it was a Whitewash lesson as told by
a White Supremacist.
There can be no question that the Constitution was heads and
shoulders above any other documents of the day. But it did not mean
that it was cast in concrete, never to be changed. As with any
document, changing times make them obsolete, if not adjusted. And of
course, that is exactly what has happened to our Constitution. While
it might be recognized by its drafters, much of the language in the
amendments would shock some of them, and be strongly opposed by others.
And what does it do for us to raise up those Founding Fathers as if
they were perfect men? They were men of the times they lived in.
Some believed that rank and file Americans should not be allowed to
vote. Some who stood tall for the Rights of Independence were slave
owners, and did not include their human property in such Rights. And
some were certain that women should not concern themselves with Men's
Business, such as politics.
In 244 years from now, as folks look back on these troubled times,
how will they describe our actions?
Will we be trashed because we did not think in "modern terms"? Let
us respect our Founding Fathers as the men they were, struggling to
carve a nation out of a vast continent, beset on one hand by an
oppressive British King, and on the other hand facing the anger of
the Indigenous Occupants of the land they were attempting to take over.
Can't we simply accept that they did what they did due to the world
as they found it? Does that make America any less desirable as a
place to live? Does pointing out our current short comings make us
any less Americans?
And by the way, just who is Donald Trump speaking for? I was highly
embarrassed by his speech. It was a political rallying call,
declaring many dedicated Americans as a threat to our nation because
we take exception to much of Donald Trump's behavior.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/5/20, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
UNAC: On This Fourth of July
https://socialistaction.org/2020/07/04/unac-on-this-fourth-of-july/h
ttps://socialistaction.org/2020/07/04/unac-on-this-fourth-of-july/
--
___
Richard Dawkins
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is
beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me
to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten
alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with
fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping
parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst,
and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this
very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population
until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
In
a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and
genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people
are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in
it, nor any justice.
The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should
expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no
good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
― Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
