May we all feel and know that we are part of this enterprise

Photo by Derrick Z. Jackson/Globe Staff

I profoundly enjoy the thoughtful articles of teacherken, who posts frequently at Daily Kos. He is a social studies teacher who helps kids not only learn about how government works but to recognize its vital importance in their lives and their need to engage it.

He has a great one out today, one reflecting on Derrick Z. Jackson's column at the Boston Globe titled 'It's OK to be an American now.' Teacherken talks about issues of inclusion and participation.

Jackson begins thus:

IN CALLING President-elect Barack Obama a "house Negro," Al Qaeda missed the memo from Grant Park. Before Obama's victory speech in Chicago, the crowd of 125,000 people said the Pledge of Allegiance. In my 53 years I have never heard such a multicultural throng recite the pledge with such determined enunciation, expelling it from the heart in a treble soaring to the skies and a bass drumming through the soil to vibrate my feet. The treble and bass met in my spine, where "liberty and justice for all" evoked neither clank of chains nor cackle of cruelty, but a warm tickle of Jeffersonian slave-owning irony: Justice cannot sleep forever.

Spontaneous street bursts of the pledge and the national anthem came from notoriously liberal Madison, Wis., and the People's Republic of Cambridge. The day after the election, children claimed they said the pledge in school like they never said it before, in places like majority-black Washington, which still does not have a vote in Congress, and Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

A taste of teacherken:

Those of us who lived through the turmoil of the Civil Rights era and of Vietnam saw the flaws of our nation. Many of us sought to alleviate the pains, to correct the failings. Some feared change. Others sought to use that fear in ways that further damaged the country. That applies to those who encouraged violence whether to suppress dissent and protest or to undermine the government and the polity. Too many withdrew and focused on their immediate needs and desires. Others began to participate, but mainly to resist changes that they feared. And our nation suffered.

We need to heal. That is incumbent upon us all. Such healing can only come through participation. That participation requires a commitment to something beyond ourselves, our immediate wants and perceived needs. It requires political participation. It requires a meaningful commitment. That is one important expression of love of country, commonly called patriotism.

I commend them both to you.

Additional note: Juan Cole points out the following:

In the video, al-Zawahiri does pointedly refer to Malcolm X's distinction. But he speaks in Arabic of "`abid al-bayt," "the house slave," and does not use the word "Negro" (which the al-Sahab translators are rendering 'zinji.') The connotations and implications are much the same, but it is not exact to say that al-Zawahiri used the phrase "house Negro" himself.

--the BB

Taking back our nation

Bob Herbert says it well:

Voters said no to incompetence and divisiveness and elbowed their way past the blight of racism that has been such a barrier to progress for so long. Barack Obama won the state of North Carolina, for crying out loud.

The nation deserves to take a bow. This is not the same place it used to be.

h't to John Aravosis at Americablog

--the BB

I am emotional today

It's not just work stress.

It's election season, for sure.

It's the knowledge that people are going through tough times.

That people go hungry who shouldn't have to.

That people are afraid of love.

That folks are bombed into eternity.

That people plot the death or destruction of others.

That lies are brazenly told in public.

That some people believe them.

That so many people are driven to hatred by their fears.

That power brokers - political, religious, corporate - struggle for control while regular folk suffer and die because of the tussles of the mighty.

That we continue to ravage the Earth.

That people do not know that love is possible or that they are precious.

That we are shipping our young women and men off knowing that some of them will return in flag-draped coffins.

That the world can still be so beautiful.


I have broken into tears three times already, once at work talking about our troops.

Once listening - for the third or fourth time - to a video I will repost soon.

Once listening to this.



John Aravosis at Americablog posted it today noting that he watched again and it still makes him cry. I have posted it before and it clearly gets to me too.

Just thinking about train whistles in the night is enough to set me off.

May you have the gift of tears to wash your soul, to water your hopes, to keep your heart tender.

--the BB

Thursday Constitution Blogging

Welcome back to our new feature, Thursday Constitution Blogging. Now that I've testified for Jesus I want to put in a few good words for the United States Constitution. I don't think it's perfect but it's one damn fine structure for a free People to gather as a nation and govern themselves.

I currently work as a contractor for a federal government agency. At a "family meeting" a while back the branch chief talked a bit about the oath of office. You know, the one about allegiance to the Constitution? Sort of like the one the President takes. She had been reminded about it and wished she had a judge present to administer the oath to the lot of us. I so wished someone official in black robes were present. Even though not technically a federal employee I was ready to leap to my feet and take the oath. Several times over the course of that day I got teary thinking about it.

You see, I not only love me some Jesus, I love me some United States of America. Jingoism makes me wanna puke, but I love this land and the dream and ideals that shaped it. I remember returning from my first trip abroad, three months in France as a student. I had seen the world through non-Yankee eyes, which was shocking and liberating. But when I emerged from Customs at JFK and saw the words of Emma Lazarus' "The New Colossus" inscribed there and thought of that lifted lamp I wept and wept. THIS was what made America great: that shining promise.

I reread the Constitution periodically. Bored the hell out of me in high school. Not anymore. So now you have some idea why I post about it here.

On a related topic, I urge y'all to give an ear (well, actually, an eye or two) to Dennis. He has something important to say and is calling on us to spread the word [link]. Dennis points us to A Tale of Two Decisions about FBI coerced confessions, a story of the sickness that infests our nation these days. Here's a bit of Dennis that I found moving.

Did you ever think that one day this would be America? That our government would ask a court to help cover up illegal and immoral behaviors? Sometimes I don't recognize America anymore.

It is time for a change in America. It is time for an end to the lies and the secrecy. Someone, please tell Hillary and Barack and John and Chris and Bill and the rest of the crowd running that they need to convince us that they will change these things. And tell the media that this is what matters, not the stupid horse race that politics in America has become.

Let's stand up and fight to restore America to herself, People!

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

--the BB