Time for revolution!
I’ve talked with and to all sorts of people including people with disabilities
today about the election and the bullshit of it all. I’ll admit to “depression”
up front and to the fact that this has led to universal depression amongst
those comrades and colleagues and loved ones I’ve talked with with one caveat.
First, I must say I’m a long time advocate for people with disabilities who has
fought against discrimination against people with disabilities, and other civil
rights and anti-war struggles. Then I must admit I was victimized, as a man
with disabilities who was “primary caretaker” of a child with disabilities in a
divorce settlement in the mid-nineties with little accommodations or resources.
The court decided in spite of all prejudices that I was correct. That is a long
story made most short along with most of my discrimination battles.
They were battles about not only accommodation, but, also gender and disability
discrimination at its core, for I was first, foremost, and at the time the
primary caretaker for my beloved, yet troubled, disabled child at the time and
my ex-wife was, at the time a troubled, conservative, non-disabled, mid-life
crisis, party girl. That was at the time and she was in the strictest sense
“cheating” on us both whilst trying to play the part of the professional woman.
(Indeed she got herself pregnant while I was, with my disabilities taking care
of my daughter with troubles full time, and working to build a statewide radio
reading service in New Hampshire with 20 hour days….Yup, long and sad
story….Really longer than this and much more sad.
And before that I was part of other civil rights and anti-war protests and
activities to long to document or even write about here, for that is not the
point of this brief essay.
But, depression is all about sadness. And when I was really getting truly
fucked over and violated I went to a social agency for help not for me but for
my daughter and even for my now ex-wife over me. Yet, what did they want (and
btw I fell in to this trap for a while mind you)? Well they wanted the problem
to be me and they prescribed and I took anti-depressant drugs as they told me
because I was so fucked over I Must be depressed and besides anyone would be
depressed if he or she was blind.
Again I fell in to the trap. But to make a long story short I finally asked
what the definition of depression was.
This idiot and other MSW said, “It is anger turned inwards.”
I finally reverted to my revolutionary self and said, “”I’m not angry with me.
I’m pissed at you and all the abusers in the system!”
Still angry after all these years at this bullshit.
So I’m not depressed at the neo-fascists anointment of the clown prince of
unreality, Donald Trump, No, everyone I’ve talked with is depressed. I’m not.
I’m pissed off and not at us, but him and the powers that brought his ilk in to
being in the first place.
I am as pissed off as his reactionary base is.
I’m not willing to lay back and to take it either like some traumatized victim
of rape or other violent abuse and to make nicey-nicey of it all after being so
violated.
I’m not willing to be a victim of this in spite of jokes before this post.
I pledge to object, deny, defy, and to oppose every aspect of the neo-fascist
Trump order with every last breath and every means at my disposal.
I do not reconcile and nor do I blame myself or my comrades for the perfidy put
upon us all. In other words I’ll not turn anger inwards but rather, I’ll aim it
at the perpetrators to whom it should be intended.
I, for one will not be a victim of abuse, like a victim of rape who blames
herself or himself for the actions of her or his perpretrator. And, mind you,
rape isn’t a simple or even profound “sex crime”. It is a crime of violence. It
is a crime of domination. It is a Trumpian, “Alpha Dog” crime and the election
of “alpha-dog Trump” isa prelude to other mass crimes against humanity.
That does mean the evil Trumpians, but also the weak-knead conciliators called,
sometimes and by some Democrats.
Now, let me make something very clear here.
I’m not advocating, in spite of my anger turned, not inwards, but rather
outwards, armed rebellion or physical violence. For I am not, and anger,
especially justified anger is not a crime and never has beenexcept by the “mind
police” and the Trumpian types.
I do not say this lightly or blithely either by the by for I know the
consequences of my expression rights as I was recently violated for more than a
year for non-violent informational rights—not even civil disobedience rights—by
the State of Michigan and its agents.
No, theoretically speaking I do agree with even the U.S. notion of armed
resistance to any sort of tyranny which some ascribe to the likes of various
right wing domestic terroris groups, or whom some described as “communists” in
the 1950’s. Theoretically speaking I think we have the right here and in human
rights forms to take up armed resistance to any tyrannical form of governence.
But, that is theory. Pure and simple.
I must resist these violent impulses at all cost not because they are immoral,
un-warranted, un-just or for any other reason. I must resist them as a
reformer/revolutionary or justice fighter, or however one wishes to describe me
or my ilk solely because the path of violence in these instances just is
impractical and just doesn’t accomplish the ends.
For, I’ve read Gandhi, not fully believing it all. And I’ve read of Malcolm X’s
repudiations of previous violent calls for actions. And I’ve seen over and over
again where the “under-dog”, the minority or the oppressed was subjegated to
abuse and even genocide from Bergen-Belsen to Serbia to Cambodia to Rwanda and
back and forth through history without reconcellation.And I often wondered why
they shouldn’t have tried self-defense with means of arms if not outright armed
revolution.
Oh, my and millions of we people with disabilities have been literally
slaughtered, sterolized, and committed to gas chambers ourselves just for who
we were and just because they could do so.
So, here is the bottom line:
I’m for violent self-defense. I’m personally pissed off. I am forarmed
revolution as last resort for all repressed people….theoretically.
Problem is in the medium run let along within the long run it just doesn’t
work. Wish it did, but history shows it it does not work.
To survive as a species and as relative democratic structures I think we must
take, though ironically structured here; a “non-violent, but combative
mindset”. We must face all injustice with common defenses that are non-violent,
and “reason based” if we are ever to prevail. We true revolutionary spirits
must embrace tactics of non-violent, direct action, as not only principles of
spiritual/political being but also of practicaticality. Why?
Bottom line none of us will ever acquire the arms from nuclear down to grenades
and munitions to deter any fascist or other totalitarian state.
This is just a fact! It is indisputable.
That does not mean that we should let any injustice including retaliatory
injustice and violent injustice including genocide to prevail
In fact moral, secular andmost religious organizations and ideologies insist on
not only moral outrage against such injustices but also actions.
In fact even Christianity denotes directly that Jesus “ran riot” against the
money changers in the Temple. He was ticked off at injustice and that got him
literally crucified. But, his lesion was in my terms: It is rightful, just to
resist injustice and hypocrasy. And it is not pathogilical or irreligious to be
rightfully “pissed off at injustice”. In fact that is righteous virtue. Nor, is
it wrong to take direct action.
By the way and as an aside I’m a pretty big fan of the more violent Barabus and
of the Messada crew and others who resisted both violently and otherwise the
tyranny and injustice of all imperial power including the ancient Romans. I
really am. I feel the thing in my bones and dna and I’m not even Jewish. But,
Jesus and his people were so and they were abused forever.
But, I guess here is the point….
The ideology of Jesus prevails to this day and I’m not saying this religiously
either for I am agnostic. But, the empires ofRome through our own American
Empire haveeither vanished or are on the demise.
Again I’m not saying folks don’t have the right to self, or evencollective
defense of lif, liberty and the means to same.
I’m just saying my natural instincts towards violent solutions to violent
problems just hasn’t worked in my life time or in most of human history while
non-violent means of revolutionary expression has had some lasting effect in
some circumstances.
Regarddless, once again while I have instincticts towards violent reactions and
get pissed off, rightfully over and over again I must guard against both for
practical purposes if for no other reasons.
Example: While I was and still do believe in the full civil rights of
African=-Americans, and while I spent a part of my youth with black panthers in
Flint, Michigan; and while I have no value judgement on the so-called “black
rage” expressed now almost fifty years ago in the Detroit and elsewhere
“riots”; I must ask along with my brothers and sisters: “Where did that get
anyone?”
I remember slogans of “burn, baby, burn” and signs on nearby north end stores
saying, “don’t burn, soul brother.”
I remember divides on school grounds between white and black that never existed
before in this nearby suburb to. I didn’t understand then and still have a hard
time wrapping my mind around it all.
And remember I was just a working-class, average white guy, and football player
with an often bad temper who could get in to a fight over even a girl whom I
secretly covetted but wasn’t ready to admit to for doing same (trying to clean
this part of my sordid life up here for sure…)
Man, oh man, what I mean back in the day we were trained to be competitive and
to be iolent over the slightest of provications, from lust over a long legged
girl to the rice patties of Vietnam to the nuclear silos of Armegeddon and back
and forth again. And where did that get us with peace of mind and with creating
social justice?
And there was where I became a peacenik or whatever one wanted to call me. I
became a civil disobedient son-of-a-bitch with a chip on my shoulder working
for social justice and I was then and am now perrennially “angry”.
But, do not and I repeat denote, ever equate rightious anger, or the instinct
to stand and figuratively “fight” rather than to flee, the battle field with
non-violent resistence with cowardice; or conversely don’t think of “passive
resistence” with being a whimp or coward or a non-revolutionary, or a sell out.
I’m getting older by the day (Lol) and allof these things are about my personal
history and dealing with my personal demons along with those of my boomer
generation.
I am not a “saint”. We were not saints.
But, I did then and do now aspire towards peace with justice for all, including
me.
Life is a strange journey. It ebbs and flows like a river. Sometimes in the
rage of spring, after angry monsoon rains the river rages on with tremendous
force destroying most everything in its wake. But, after settlingdown just a
little bit it is not only navigable, but gives life-giving nutrients and fluids
to the now abundent land.
Let spring begin the flood, and let summer give us renewed life and rebirth in
its wake.
Joe
