Triage is the New Revolution

As a proponent of a more...er...progressive political ideology than the Democrats I was surprised to find myself rather ecstatic about the results of the recent election. Democrats truly do not represent progressives so I only vote for a Democrat when it's a very tight race with a Republican. And even then I usually don't feel good about it. I'm looking forward to the day when I can make a choice for actual progress but for now I'm just hoping that the bleeding can stop. Literally and figuratively.

Some will say, "What about the plan for universal health coverage & raising the minimum wage? That's pretty progressive." If we consider helping folks when they're sick and making sure that people are adequately remunerated for their work progressive then we are in trouble. It's 2006, not 1906, right? The labor movement happened, didn't it?

I don't think we ought to boast about no longer committing human rights atrocities after decades of doing so; we ought to boast about proactively addressing issues before they ever become human rights atrocities. The fact that a person can work for under $6/hr. in this country is absurd. The fact that that same person can work forty hours a week, get $240 (gross) and then not be able to take her child to the doctor is immoral.

Conclusion: It's great the Dems won because ending what should be considered despicable violations of the rights of every human being is better than continuing them. But we should do better than that.

Yeah triage! Woo hoo...

A Guinea Pig is Not a Guinea Pig

Someone in Sound and Fury (a fascinating - albeit not terribly well-made movie - about the rift in the deaf community caused by cochlear implants) said, "a child is not a guinea pig!" And it occurred to me that a guinea pig is not a guinea pig. Know what I mean? The definition of this animal is to be experimented on. Ummm...need more be said?

Short term Immediate Relief (purgatory) vs. Long term Structural Change (Academia)

I've thought about the relative benefits of being part of projects that provide immediate relief and benefits to people (volunteering in soup kitchens, teaching, direct action) vs. working toward long term structural change (working in academia, politics, administration positions, etc). Despite regarding various activists as heroes (Malcolm X, Emma Goldman, Weather Underground, etc), I've always been drawn to long term projects. These long term projects almost invariably remove one from the community of people that you want to support. They are also comfortable and deceiving and often turn a radical activist into an armchair radical. And yet, a life of the short term is somewhat purgatorial. This is the connection I've just made today.
You can run the most amazing soup kitchen in the world and you will help many people and that is above reproach in every way. But for me, I just see the endless number of people that will need to be fed because of the structural elements that cause hunger. I think that people who do what I'm calling "short term" work (and I understand that working in a soup kitchen, for instance, is not necessarily accurately called "short term" - but feeding people is a shorter term goal than ending the causes of hunger) believe that it will be someone else's work to develop structural solutions to the problems that they are addressing in an immediate way. That is right. But I find this personally frustrating. I could teach for the next 25 years (and I might) but that probably won't cause an end to a racist, ableist, classist educational system that supports a social system I think should be dismantled.

I want to be clear in my unequivocal support for teachers, soup kitchens and the like and my unequivocal skepticism of politicians, academics, administrators, etc. However, I think sometimes that I want to attempt to change things so there will be no need for soup kitchens rather than spend a life spooning out food.

I think sometimes that I just want this in order to have an easier job - but I think the "easier" part of it is the possibility that things might change in part because of my work. As a teacher I believe that I contribute to change but I also know that the form of change I'm involved in is the 100 year kind in which I'll never see it myself (except in individual students - perhaps that should be enough).

So far I've taken the balanced road. Teaching is not terribly immediate and it is somewhat comfortable. I do some more immediate activities and I'm also more involved in academia. But this balance leaves less time for the rest of my life. Unless this is the rest of my life. And that's no so bad.

Peace (& Freedom?) in Aceh

I haven't been following this as closely as I wish I had been but I saw this today which gave me a lot of hope. Having known (very slightly) someone who died in the Free Aceh Movement I guess this makes me feel like his work continues to be meaningful. Though this peace deal is clearly problematic it seems like it's moving in the right directions more or less. It's still painfully disgusting that Aceh is still not free.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-indonesia-aceh.html
http://newsc.blogspot.com/
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/15/144204