Wisconsin = Ludlow. Lest We Forget

On June 6, 2012 it was confirmed that Scott Walker had prevailed in Wisconsin and all the headlines asked if Unions were dead.  I went to my garage to pull this letter out and was so saddened that I couldn't find it.  Today, while looking for something else I found it with other significant papers.  This letter was written by my dear, deceased friend who was my inspiration and moral compass.

November 20, 1993

Dear Andy:

(Late September, Southern Colorado)

I had been driving under stormy skies.  Fat raindrops splotted like eggs on the windshield, but only occasionally.

Heading south on Highway 25, I passed a small green sign that said ‘Ludlow Site’ and pointed off to the west toward dark, pine-covered hills.  Turning onto the dirt road, I remembered the name from the song Ludlow Massacre, only I’d never heard Woody Guthrie do it.  The first time I’d heard it was on the Prosperous album.

When I arrived, I was alone.  An old windmill was screaming on its hinges in the wind, and a ceiling of steel grey clouds was moving down across the hills from the west.  More fat raindrops fell.

I walked around outside the iron gate looking in at the monument and at the door to the cellar where the women and children had been.

Ludlow was where one of the most significant events in US history occurred; what happened there became the catalyst for labor union sympathy in this country and we don’t even learn about it in school. (They rarely teach Vietnam here either).  The reason I was there at all was because of the singing of an Irishman.  Perhaps all nations deny their terrible pasts and leave it to foreigners (or the victims) to tell the stories.

Looking through the register at names and comments from all over, the rain started falling (it really did….)  I turned a page and saw:

Andy Irvine

Dublin, Ireland

-lest we forget-

I’ve lived and travelled around the Southwest for years and have found that that country is full of surprises.  It felt like irony and coincidence had come together at that moment, and I’ll never forget it.

I just had to tell you that.....

Forgiving the 9/11 Hijackers?

Like most other Americans, I spent much of the day yesterday somberly considering the attacks on the United States that occured 10 years ago and contemplating the ensuing decade. As I made my way to Mass early Sunday morning, I was grieving for the lives lost and the families shattered, but also for the ugly way we have conducted ourselves as a people and as a nation following the initial outpouring of solidarity.

What we've seen in the last 10 years is a cynical misuse of grief and fear, used as a vehicle to garner support for unrelated - or at best tangentially related - foreign policy goals that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each of the three readings at Mass dwelled upon debt and forgiveness and we were instructed very clearly to extend forgiveness to others, just as our God extends grace and forgiveness to us. If we fail to extend forgiveness, then the sin is our own. What is so terribly frustrating and sad is the way in which we as a nation have so pridefully ignored our own state of sin and sought only retribution - not understanding and forgiveness. While it is true that those who attacked us on that achingly beautiful September morning have not asked our forgiveness and most certainly suffer from pridefulness of their own, so too have we as a people neglected to seek forgiveness for the unspeakable violence that we have directed at the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Our leaders have not sought forgiveness. They have aggressively pursued acts of violence, such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" or bombing of villages by predator drones. One of the primary architects recently made the talk show rounds to reinforce his support of said techniques and brag about his certainty of purpose. There is no interest in forgiving or in forgiveness - only for exploiting fear and fanning hatred to further the interests of our war machine. We, in turn, as a people have not demanded that our leaders be humble. Instead, many of us have become even more fearful of the "other" who looks different, speaks a different language and worships God in a different way. Instead of loving our brothers and sisters as ourselves, we do not recognize these "others" as part of our human family.

The domestic policies pursued reflect that fearfulness. We no longer share a commitment to care for one another. We love our brothers and sisters - but only literally, not figuratively. The candidates for elected office that call themselves "Christian" should revisit this basic lesson that God became human just to tell us to our faces: forgive seventy times seven times and love our enemies. Easy to remember, but hard to do. People of faith must set the example for our leaders, living out the Gospel and insist that they follow our lead.

Gladdened by the quickening of the revolutionary heart

I am hostage to the 24 hour news cycle and the tweet deck configured to #Egypt on my iPhone. Tunisia is free, Egypt is demanding democracy, and now Yemen – I can’t turn away…

I am back in San Salvador: December 31, 1991. I hear the crackling of firecrackers out in the streets. I start, momentarily confusing the firecrackers for the report of soldiers’ guns, then remember that it’s New Year’s Eve and it must be midnight. I am alone in the house; my comrades are ringing in the New Year in the villages that they serve on behalf of the Jesuit Refugee Services. Inside the house it is quiet and still; a little bit scary. I find my watch, wanting to stand witness to the New Year in my solitary way and find that it’s only 11:50pm. The firecrackers are premature. The wild celebration I hear in the streets must be hope for the year ahead. I go back to the basin to hand wash my dusty clothing in the dim light.

Bent over the concrete stone, washing out my faded dress there is pounding at the door and I hear my name called urgently, with excitement and obvious joy, “Lezzleee!! Lezzleee!! Yo se que estas alli!! Abre, abre! Lezzlleee!” Even though I was adamant that I wanted to be alone on New Year’s Eve, I am happy to hear my friends. Typically I find it very depressing and prefer to be depressed alone rather than spoil other’s enjoyment, but I was feeling particularly lonely and sad that night and therefore relieved that they didn’t take me at my word. I went to the door, dressed in ragged sweat pants, flip flops and a loose t-shirt, and opened the door to a new and different El Salvador.

Apparently, an agreement to end the decade long civil war had been struck. In New York City, just minutes before the stroke of midnight when Secretary Perez de Cuellar would relinquish his role as Secretary General of the United Nations, the opposing sides agreed upon a compromise and a transition to a truly democratic government. The war, ostensibly, was over.

Astonished, I left my house dressed in my cleaning clothes (very un-Salvadoran) and jammed myself into the tiny Honda Civic with my friends. We bounced down to the “Salvador Del Mundo” monument and joined the rest of the celebrants. Watching the news coverage of Egyptian people in Tahrir Square, I can feel the jubilance and sense of wonder that I felt standing in front of the Salvador del Mundo Monument. I recognize from this distance the gradual awakening in the people as they sloughed off fear of the regime.

Two and a half weeks after that New Year’s Eve, the entire country celebrated the official signing of the “Accerdos de Chapultapec” by gathering in the center of the City. This time I was prepared and wearing my clean and ironed dress and closed toed shoes as I stood in front of the National Cathedral. The five leaders of the revolutionary groups that made up the FMLN stood on the stage, the sense of joy and hope palpable, and as was customary before any gathering, we all paused for a “moment” of silence to remember the fallen. For a full minute, the thousands of people gathered stood in silence and as the plaintive yet authoritative cry of the voice of Radio Venceremos called out the familiar call and response…

“COMPANEROS CAIDOS EN LA LUCHA………HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!”…

A gigantic banner unfurled, covering the left side of the Metropolitan Cathedral, a bold red with white letters:

F
M
L
N

A giddiness ensued… then the explosion of emotions – excitement, joy, disbelief, regret (for friends and comrades lost), delight (for having survived) – and for me, immense humility (shame?) that I was allowed to share in this moment that belonged to El Salvador and El Salvador alone. The people of El Salvador had fought bravely and stood up to the brutal regime and their patrons in the United States. My country.

I think I see on TV the same collection of emotions in the Tahrir Square protesters: the disbelieving joy and the tentative hope that the people might prevail. The delight at openly embracing dissent, regret and longing for brothers and sisters – comrades all – who suffered and died at the hands of Mubarak and his henchmen. As the nights become violent, I think I see the stiffening of resolve, the commitment to dying on one’s feet as opposed to living on one’s knees. There will be no turning back.

What I think I see is the quickening of the revolutionary heart. May it prevail.

Eight Cow Woman

Mrs. Else taught a course at Nevada Union High School called World Cultures. It was a required course at the time and probably should have been one of my favorites. Sadly, I don’t remember much about the class, only an exercise where we learned about a tribe in North America called the ASU who revered a beast called the Rac and a film about a guy who paid eight cows for his wife. I guess that class must have taught me something because both lessons have stayed with me, for better or worse.

The story of the eight cow woman depicts a couple of conflicting ideas – about the edifying power of the truest love and also about the commercialization of women. If you did not grow up in a fairly conservative or fundamentalist community, you may have missed the story… Johnny Lingo travels to a nearby village and offers the unheard of bride price of eight cows for the homely Sarita. The villagers laugh at him, because as homely as she is, he surely could have made her his wife for one cow and her elderly father would have been grateful. Less than a year after their wedding, Sarita has become a poised and beautiful woman because she is finally aware of her worth and her value as a woman.

I had incredibly ambivalent feelings about Johnny Lingo and his eight cow wife. I recognized that with self-confidence even homely women can become beautiful, which was hugely encouraging to my 13-year-old braces-wearing self. But I also had the vague feeling that the only reason she felt confident was because a man chose her. Johnny’s wife became an eight cow woman because he made her one. And he made her one because he wanted an eight cow wife – her beauty was a reflection of his virility – or something like that.

Thirty years later I am contemplating marriage and the ambivalence is back. I am middle aged, I have children, I have an established career – the only reason I would get married again could only be for the truest love. When I was a young woman, before I was ever married, I used to claim that when I married what I wanted was a simple gold band. I wanted the world to see that I married for love, not for money (one cow). But I always hoped that someone would ultimately spring for the big rock (eight cows). I knew that spending money on a diamond was silly and I wasn’t worth it. I got the plain, gold band and quickie courthouse wedding, exactly what I asked for.

Over the ensuing ten years, I tried to convince myself that what was important was the marriage, not the wedding. But every wedding I attended left me a hot mess, surreptitiously wiping away the tears and the snot, feeling somewhat bewildered by the intensity of my reaction. I look forward to weddings because along with funerals, they tend to be when families and friends come together to celebrate life. We raise glasses, we dance, we talk - weaving the basket that holds our lives and makes us a tribe. I came to realize that part of my sadness came from never truly joining my tribe to my husband’s tribe and for that reason we were always a little bit apart.

When our marriage began to unravel, we didn’t have our unified tribe to help keep us together. And above all, from the very beginning he chose to please his parents and not me. The reason we couldn’t have a wedding was because his parents didn’t approve and wouldn’t attend. But it would be hurtful to them if we celebrated our wedding without them – so out of respect we never celebrated. In the process I learned that if a couple can’t figure out how to bring their families together for a wedding, then the families certainly won’t come together to support a marriage. What you compromise in your wedding is indicative of what you’ll compromise in your marriage, and compromise is essential in a marriage so you’d better figure it out.

When our marriage was over, I looked back on that beginning. Was it really that important that I had no white gown, no veil, no diamond engagement ring and above all, no laughing children running through the legs of dancing couples slightly tipsy from wedding champagne? YES! It was really that important because from the very first he displayed to me that in his eyes I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth the expense of the ring and I wasn’t worth the hassle of the guests and I really wasn’t worth standing up for to his parents. And from the very first I displayed that I didn’t think I was worth it, either. I accepted the wedding band bought on the spur of the moment at the mall, I accepted that my parents wouldn’t be celebrating with us; I accepted that his parents could be excused from being part of our tribe.

Contemplating marriage, for the last and best time, it is important to me that we bring our families together and join them as one family. I trust the ritual to contribute to our foundation. At the same time I have the nagging fear that I want this only because I’ve been trained to fetishize weddings and somehow I believe that like Sarita, only being picked by a man makes me a valuable woman. I’ve started to feel weirdly guilty and ashamed when coveting other women’s beautiful diamond engagement rings and looking up destination weddings online.

I am reliving my 13-year-old proto-post-feminist dialectic: I am a creature of my culture where I long to have my worth validated by the love of a man, but angered by a tradition that commercializes me. I resent the bride price that a beautiful diamond ring implies, but I want the diamond resting on my left hand to signal my worth to the world. I want a public declaration of love - a wedding where we stand at the altar and make our promises, and our friends and family make promises, too. I want to be an eight cow wife.

I was going for a run in my suburban neighborhood a couple of days ago, with the iPod set on shuffle and a forgotten country song from a couple of years ago came on right after 2 Live Crew’s “Hoochie Mama”. That song, “Where I’m From”, extols the virtues of small town America where “the quarterback dates the homecoming queen” but it’s the line about the wooden white church and where children are given their grandmothers’ maiden names that I think got to me. I’m running along the street suddenly choking back tears longing for a place that I couldn’t wait to get out of when I was seventeen.

There are a handful of songs that do that to me and they are almost always country songs – although John Cougar Mellencamp can get to me sometimes. I actually did grow up in a town where the quarterback dated the homecoming queen, attended a small white (albeit Catholic) church and, I’m not making this up – my oldest son’s name is my grandmother’s maiden name. Listening to the songs, small town America sounds like a really great place. But let’s be honest, if it were so wonderful why would so many of us try to leave? And that includes the country stars that are singing these songs. I can tell you why I left – because if you’re not the homecoming queen or quarterback or at least trying your hardest to live up to that standard, then there’s really no use for you in those towns. I wasn’t even gay or not white, just uninterested in those things and that by itself is unforgivable. I can only imagine what it was like for folks who weren’t white and heterosexual …

What is it that makes those songs resonate so much? I can understand why a faded homecoming queen in her mid-40’s might start bawling during her morning run listening to that song – but why does it have such a grip on me? And what about other people who never even lived in one of those towns? The image of the yeoman farmer is so ingrained in our national psyche that we are trained to long for it and whether we’ve lived it or not, embrace it as our own history.

Country music is past tense with deep nostalgia for that imagined history. Country music norms that experience so we, as a nation, connect to our idealized shared history. Urban music norms a different experience. Rap and hip/hop, like jazz and blues before it, tells the story of poverty and “making it”. Many of these artists grew up in poverty or at least want to appear that they did so they have “cred” (Not unlike Country artists who’ve never ridden a horse) and now have access to things they didn’t before. They are excluded figuratively and often literally from the idealized American Dream that Country music portrays. Where Country music is nostalgic and past tense, Urban music is aspirational and future tense – portraying a time and place where the singer is not excluded, but in control, where he has a great car, drinks the best champagne – even the best looking woman. Rap and Hip Hop tell the story of a man who has made it and has access to the good life, as Nelly says, “runnin’credit checks with no shame…”

Consider, please, these two differing versions of the United States and the American Dream. There are many who long for the idealized version where just like in the country songs, everyone is either a Homecoming Queen or a Quarterback and all of their needs are met. Then there are those that were never part of that vision, either because they are poor, immigrant, black, brown or gay – maybe even all of those things. Their American Dream is the narrative woven through the urban tracks of rap and hip hop: making it, being a full respected member of our American Society. The tension arises when the Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens begin to feel like the reason that their lives aren’t the way they think they should be is because of the poor, immigrants of color or gay people. Meanwhile, the poor immigrants of color and gay people are pretty sure the Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens are running things and shutting them out. The Tea Partiers are country music’s Quarterbacks and Homecoming Queens and the anger in their actions and words is the response to the urban beat of Barack Obama and his supporters who are demanding to speak and be heard.

Tea Partiers want to live in a country song where everyone in the United States plays by their rules and aspires to be a football hero or a pretty girl. Tea Partiers would like to take our country back from those who don’t fit in to their image of what is a “real American”. Fake Americans, such as Barack Obama, Lt. Daniel Choi, and Lilly Ledbetter are trying to break down those barriers that are useful in keeping people cemented into their assigned roles. The Tea Partying “Real Americans” are worried that their government no longer only functions to maintain their status in American life. Health Care reform, the stimulus package, the Dream Act, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Fair Pay Act are seen as an open invitation to the American Dream, and according to the Tea Partiers, the American Dream belongs only to the people in country songs.

The Burqa and the Taco

France (according to the French) invented human rights. While the US has the Declaration of Independence –we merely declared our independence from the yoke of the British crown. In contrast, France’s revolution was crowned and enthroned by the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
These days, instead of declaring what rights the Citizens of France enjoy, President Sarkozy wants to ban full body veils that hide the face of the wearer. French lawmakers have already outlawed head coverings in French public schools. Efforts to ban the head coverings began in earnest when last spring a woman wearing a niqab was cited for driving with an obstructed view that endangered other drivers. Instead of meekly paying the $30 fine, the woman called a press conference claiming that the fine violated her human rights. Her husband stood gallantly by her side, proudly supporting her defense of Islam, her defense of the right of French women to wear full-body veils and also her defense of Islamic men’s right to insist that the women in their families wear such veils. Apparently, this woman demanding her human right to wear the full body veil created a great deal of national ambivalence. Which is more French – defense of human rights or the secular republic?

Here in the United States, we faced a similar existential crisis when Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona signed into law a bill that requires individuals in the state to produce proof of their legal immigration status when asked to do so by any law enforcement officer. Our own history is based on defiance of imperial power and the right to privacy from the over-reaching hand of authority. Our current concern about the encroachment of the Federal Government can be traced directly to King George III and his Red Coats’ brutish exploitation of our Colonial forefathers. When I first heard accounts of the new Arizona law, I bristled at the brutishness of the Arizona State Government, outraged at how the law subverts our constitutional right of freedom from unlawful search and seizure, enshrined in the 4th Amendment. I rolled my eyes and huffed at those closed minded individuals who fear the stranger and complain about “those people” who don’t share our “American” values as they trampled on our Constitution – what hypocrites!

Compare that with the reaction that I had to the French naturalized citizen who vigorously defended his wife’s “right” to wear the niqab: How dare he? In addition to his wife, a French national who adopted the niqab, he had three additional wives in concurrence with Islamic law with whom he fathered no less than twelve children. Each of his “wives” was receiving state benefits provided to single mothers and their children. Again I bristled with outrage! How dare he move to France, take advantage of the generous benefits and insist that French culture bend to his customs – the French government certainly had the right to protect their culture and insist that their laws are not manipulated and exploited by “those people”…..Then it hit me on the head - I sounded just like the supporters of the Arizona law that blamed Mexican immigrants for coming to the United States to take advantage of our (not nearly as generous) benefits.

Certainly the two situations are not entirely comparable, but both highlight the difficult and uneasy balance between the essence of our respective nations and the interconnected world of the 21st Century. We shall see by summer’s end where in the balance both nations lay…

Questions for the day....

If the Tea Party is taking back "their" government, does that mean their the ones who screwed it up in the first place?

Why is it that people get so worked up when photos surface of the crowned queens of beauty pageants that show them exposing their bodies for attention - isn't that the point of dressing up in high heels and a bathing suit? Why is it only okay to do that if you're wearing a sash?

Is it weird that the guy who introduced therapy to give up the gay turns out to be gay himself, and the guy who supported abstinence education for teens turns out to not be able to abstain himself? Couldn't they get themselves spots in their own programs?

Don't white people get the irony of "taking back our country" from Mexican people, when they live in a part of the country that used to be part of Mexico?