Election Commentary from Grace Lee Boggs
i wanna share a recent column by one of my sheroes, Grace Lee Boggs. She’s a lifelong anti-racist activist/feminist and has been involved in all major social movements of the past 60 years. She’s in her 90s and is still involve, still writing, still fighting. I read her autobio and it changed my life in ways i’ve yet to understand. i now strive to become a more human human being. Peep her websites:
http://www.boggscenter.org/
http://boggsblog.org/
WHAT TIME IS IT?
By Grace Lee Boggs
Michigan Citizen, Sept. 14-20, 2008
In the wake of the Democratic and GOP conventions, both claiming the mantle of change, we need a deeper discussion of the times in which we live and the kind of changes we need to make — in our way of life and in our politics — if we are to avoid the catastrophe of the “Good Germans” after World War I.
Our times are promising because the presidential candidacy of a visionary African American has energized a new generation of youth and millions of Americans who for centuries have been left out of the American Dream.
But our times are also perilous because it will take more than vision and liberal politics to win over or at least neutralize some of the social forces energized by Sarah Palin at the GOP convention. Overwhelmingly white, suburban or small-town, these Americans are, understandably, increasingly insecure because of the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our tanking economy in hock to China, and people of color becoming the majority in many cities.
That is why this “pit bull with lipstick” and a girlish voice was selected as McCain’s running mate by Steve Schmidt, McCain’s new head strategist. Schmidt has been trained by Karl Rove, the American Goebbels whose dirty tricks and rousing of the Christian Right orchestrated Bush’s rise to power.
Before Palin spoke, the GOP delegates were confused and uncertain. But after she ridiculed Obama’s community organizing and lauded McCain as a “war hero”, they were on their feet shouting “Fight, Fight, Fight,” and “Drill, Drill, Drill.”
I was reminded of the “good Germans,” who, humiliated by defeat in World War I and needing a wheelbarrow of marks to buy a loaf of bread, turned to a World War I vet for salvation.
There is no quick solution to this increasingly dangerous situation. But we can begin by acknowledging that the main change we Americans now need to make is in ourselves. As Martin Luther King Jr. warned in his 1967 anti- Vietnam war speech over 40 years ago, we need a radical revolution of values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.
In a recent interview with Bill Moyers, self-described conservative Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University Professor and Ret. U. S. Army Colonel who lost his son in the Iraq war, reminded me of this MLK warning when he pointed out that, “Our major problems are at home, not out there somewhere.”
“We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they may happen to be, to drive wherever we want without having to think about whether or not the books balance at the end of the month. What neither Obama or McCain can do is persuade us to look ourselves in the mirror, So we rely increasingly on the projection of American military power around the world to try to maintain this dysfunctional system.”
Since the Vietnam War period, Bacevich warned, the U.S. has become an “empire of consumption.” “We refuse to live within our means. So we rely on our military power. We can’t expect Congress to change this situation because ‘the imperial presidency” is its creation. It has thrust all power on the executive branch and now exists primarily to assure the re-election of its members.
The Bacevich interview can be found on the August 15 Bill Moyers Journal. I urge readers to read and discuss it, not only with Obama supporters but with those leaning towards McCain. One way to begin this conversation is by providing examples of how we would be safer and happier if we lived more simply so others could simply live and also talking about the growing urban agricultural movement. To learn more about this movement, see Milwaukeerenaissance.com/
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