Joy speaks and got us some treasure

On new blog discovery

Joy is my heroine. She speaks with the knowledge that is lacking our dialectics. She speaks on behalf you and me. Please visit her and let her know that she is the voice we need.

Tea Party Tinderbox

After reading the "TEA PARTY TINDERBOX?" on MOTHER JONES, my level of optimism reached an all time low. I always hope that reason and conversation will always settle the grounds for prosperity. However on today’s hot climate settling two opposites sites to counter act each other, is a recipe for disaster. Specially, when they are about to meet on the same field.

Allan has always been the cheerleader on the home, yet even him sees my pessimistic side as an apocalyptic sign.

It is easy to blame the Tea Party crowd for their intolerance, but how come they are still gaining grounds, when we have Keith Olberman's national coverage?

As as dyslexic man, whenever I see him on TV, I keep hoping that he will talk to my understanding. He uses language that is foreign even to me that have a Masters Degree. I do not think that Americans are stupid, I think that the progressive media keeps ignoring that most folks are too tired to even enjoy television; let alone understand how big money is behind the Tea Party movement. Progressive Media uses language and dialogues that is shaped for the smart ones only; the elite of language; the Harvard graduates, that in some cases got us in the jam that we are today.

So how will you come to an agreement, when the information you have either comes from Glen Beck or from Keith Olberman? Shouting will be the answer, and when that fails, guns will come handy. And already Tea Baggers have the NRA, and the Second Amendment on their side.

And this is my point, if progressive people do not have the points that they can share with the opposite site, in a form that can lead to a dialogue, that dialogue will have less of a chance to happen. Progressive media has the means to do that, but they keep ignoring to enunciate a message that can override the Glen Beck and Sara Palin’s followers.

Linda McMahon is another wolf on sheep clothes

Linda McMahon is another danger to our lives. She is a Repug, that have spent over 28 millions dollar of her own account to secure her GOP denomination. Imagine her speaking on the behalf of millions of American that live paycheck by paycheck. Like the Sarah Palin of the corporations and the Arizona Governor, she is still brainless enough to think that without hard working Americans, that struggle for their living, her profitable living will be gone.

So lets give her the opportunity to shine, lets have campaign opponent Richard Blumenthal, make her reason.

The irony of this, is that she does make her living on wrestlers that are so appealing to working class America. Her greed spells out another Bloomberg on the making; that while he has triple his billions, thousands of New Yorkers are homeless and shipped abroad.

I am rallying behind Richard Blumenthal.

Bronson, the movie

Its a journey into the unfairness of prison. It is based on the true story of Prisoner BT1314, and how Michael Peterson supposedly became the most violent prisoner in all Britain’s Penal History.

His first crime in 1974, in which he stole a mere £26.18, landed him a sentenced to 7 years, for a robbery in which no one was hurt. For a criminal who has never killed anyone, Bronson has spent 30 out of 34 years in solitary confinement, subjected to both physical and psychological brutality, all throughout his incarceration.

The movie was skillfully crafted using first person narrative and monologues to illustrate Bronson’s attitudes against the system.

The actor playing Bronson was a fine male specimen perfect for the part.

Yet to me Bronson is just a great performance artist, who was able to master body over mind, in spite of all the cultural, political and social pressures against his time.His name was changed by his fight promoter in 1987. It had nothing to do with the actor Charles Bronson's film "Death Wish" as is usually reported in the newspapers.

He is now 55 years of age.

He has NEVER killed anyone!

He has now spent 34 years in prison, 30 of those years have been in solitary confinement.

Yet the guy can fight

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz.

After much insistence from my Hubby I just finished reading “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz.

And the novel turned me out. I know that the Caribbean is replete with political horrors, but never have I read a book that delineates how those horrors, surpass way past generations, even after their villain dictators are gone.

I new that Trujillo was a bastard, a demon or Fuku as Junot refers to. But Shit generations after his ruthless dictatorship, the dude left his damage on the lives of the Dominican Republic. A damage that even years after his death, people are still not convinced that they can’t stand up against injustice.

Junot tried to make it easy for you to understand the suffering of his people, but even when the novel is a love story, the final outcome spells out political evils and degradation.

The Feast of all Saints by Anne Rice

The Feast of all Saints by Anne Rice

This summer I was emerged in the reading of “The Feast of all Saints” by Anne Rice.

Which is a provocative narrative that took place during the pre civil war in New Orleans. It’s a fictional account attesting to the lives of the “Gens of Couleur Libre,” and their struggles and decisions that shaped their history.

While reading the novel I had to reexamine my own encounters with colonialism.

I have always experienced colonialism from the assaults it inflicted against my national heritage, my sexual identity, my working class upbringing and my limited language skills. Yet I have never experienced colonial degradation from a racial context.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, never did the check box for race caused a posse on my behalf; I new that I was a white Puerto Rican man. Migrating to the states helped me face the limited access that I have due to my skin color. I was invisible to the norm that constantly render me as “the other” either because of my language or because my affections.

Having struggle through that experience, I had to relate how my experience compare to others and specially to the black community. And I saw that I still had the upper hand.

Yet having experienced being place in a insignificant status, I had to reconsider how I will go about assisting in abolishing those ideas that cast humans into a position of unimportance. How can someone be considered devalue because of their skin color?

To me any excuse to hate can infiltrate on others reasons for hating: say their place of birth, their family income, their religion, or their sexual orientation. Yet, why is it so grievous when it comes to the context of color?

It is because color is a physical manifestation unlike having an accent, in where if I do not speak I will not get easily stopped. Or when it comes to my sexual preference where if I do not engage or disclose my sexual likings no one will be so eager to cast a stone.

Race under the Anglo-European world is a screening device to exclude, to silence and to justify inequities? Inequities that can then be always justify by other incoherent reasons such as the place of birth, the sexual orientation, or the religious believes that might undermine the Anglo-European self of importance.

I do not think that Anne Rice set to unleash this debate onto the minds of her readers, but what she did instead, was to restitute a voice to those that had been silenced because of their color. She provided an alternative kaleidoscope of histories rich in humanity not only shaped by their color, but by a desire to better their lives; hence the novel of the “Gens of Couleur Libre,” in The Feast of All Saints.

forever grateful

I am forever grateful to Allan and to all that came because of him,
to Renee and to Kyle,
to nutwoodjunction and to Buckos
to our long hours behind a screen thinking
we can make a change.