Being Democratic

So one day before Reverend Martin Luther King’s historic “I have a dream” speech, “Senator Barack Obama, the Hawaiian-born son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, officially [became] the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party” (NY Times News Alert) of the United States of America (USA). On the day of the historic “dream” speech, Obama gave his acceptance speech. Wow.

Today (can you believe I’m actually blogging on the day of the event, albeit late in the day?), we hear of the Republican vice presedential nominee, and we see that the lines are drawn.

On the Republican side:

• Drill, tunnel, scrape, and plant to extract the energy Mother Earth has to offer for the benefit of citizens of the USA;
• Arm, plan, and fight for what we, in the USA, believe we have the right to seek;
• Share our bounty, developed from our free market economy and necessary USA government protection, with those less fortunate; and
• Change the USA’s healthcare system cautiously and carefully, protecting those in need within the framework of the larger economic and social needs.

On the Democratic side:

• Remove dependence on foreign energy resources by spending now on Mother Earth’s solar, wind, and geothermal resources for our energy needs;
• Use diplomacy to bring the global focus back to our shared needs so we can assure what the USA needs for our political, economic, and societal safety;
• Restore economic stability and tax equity and support free enterprise for small or start-up operations rather than for national or global corporations; and
• Improve healthcare for the most needy and make the cost of healthcare affordable for the average citizen in the USA.

I tried to sound unbiased, guys, really I did.

It’s not easy being green.

Or promoting social justice.

Or trying to stay healthy on a fixed income, for that matter.

So while I think of the speech that Martin Luther King, Jr., made so many years ago yesterday, other memories come back to swamp my little pleasure boat:

• When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I went on my annual outing to the State Fair of Texas. This year represented a first: instead of three restrooms (“men,” “women,” and “colored”), there were two (“men” and “women”). In my naïve, pubescent mind, the idea of sharing a restroom with the opposite sex was apalling, so I welcomed the change. However, the two women (generally referred to as “negro” at the time) who were there when I walked in were clearly angry with me. What had I done? Ruined their chance to use a “comfort station” comfortably by my very need to do the same. My 80 pound presence was a real threat to them. They were scared; I felt the need – but didn’t have the guts – to apologize. Silence reigned. What a world.

• Around the time of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago – with all its chaos and drama – my friend Butch (still identified as “negro”) was reminiscing about his supposed friend who was referring to himself and some other white friends as “Americans.” Butch had pointed out that he, too, was an American, to which his “friend” had replied, “You know, real Americans.” I still couldn’t think of anything to say.

So my sense of history is that we’ve come a long way in the last half-century. And I still, all too frequently, can’t think of anything to say. And I still welcome the change. Maybe, someday, we could even do the same for women. You know, real humans…;-))

Join the War on Violence!

Here it is, friends, the Trailing Edge is proud to announce the promised – delayed, naturally – launch of the war on violence.

Action Alert: Join me in fighting violence! Follow these simple steps:

• Step 1: Remove violence from our language (unless, of course, we are really, really angry).

• Step 2: Remove violence from our language when we are really, really angry.

In the spirit of trailing, we can deal with removing violence from our actions at a later date.

That’s it.

Simple, right? Well, no, not easy. But simple.

So why, you ask, would we want to wage yet another war against one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. That answer is simple, also. Why not?

We’re prevailing valiantly against Pestulence and Famine, aren’t we?

OK, bad reasoning – we’re acutally not doing so well with those fights these days. Small farmers are working to survive by making money off food for fuel and agribusiness is cleaning up – monetarily speaking, of course. World hunger is winning that one. Sadly, the fight on the pestulence front is, in general, less than ideal. For example, in the funding vs. HIV battle, HIV is winning. The federal government here in the USA is working hard on these wars. However, not all funding seems to be on the anti-Apocalypse-Horsemen side, in my somewhat-less-than-humble opinion.

Anyway, back to the front. Our War on Violence. Maybe we can make some headway there. In my search for reasons not to have violence – restricted, of course to violent language for the moment – I’ve come up with the following:

Violent language may lead to violent thinking, which may lead to actual violence, and acutal violence is expensive.

Outstanding thinking, don't you agree? Not to mention an outstanding example of a run-on sentence.

War for example, is very costly by any humane or economic measure. The National Priorities Project has been keeping track of the dollar cost of the war in Iraq for us:


click here to learn more

And even back in January 2007, some folks at the New York Times knew that there were some good non-violent things to do with that money. One thing would be health care for more than 20 million children for more than 10 years. My, my. Perhaps we could just try keeping all the kids in the US of A healthy for 5 years. Maybe longer, if we spent some of the healthcare funding on public health - you know, preventing diseases and accidents being cheaper than healing them. Maybe we could provide healthcare for everyone just by watching the overspending and misspending by government contractors in our war efforts. That is to say, by doing something about over-and mis-spending; some say we have been watching it for a while now.

So join the fight! And just to show you I'm ready for a long siege, I'll start by example right here in this blog. Here goes...

OK. So a quick re-read of the above comes up with seven violent verbs and more than 20 violent nouns (including repetitions).

So I may not be your best example of removing violence from language just yet. You sharp bloggees, you noticed that right off, didn't you? Maybe we all need to band together to fight this tendency to express ourselves violently. No. Wait. What I meant was...

Baby Step 1: Remove violent language from non-violent and/or helpful activities.

We will attack - or rather, cease using - expressions for prevention and cure of disease such as “the war on cancer.” Wanting to make - that is to say, help - people stop substance abuse will no longer be a “war on drugs.” And so on.

Let’s try this together:
Join forces... Not.
Team up to conque... Nope.
Heed the call to arm... Not even.
Email me to sign up.

One baby step for us, one giant step for non-violence. Or vice versa, perhaps. Email your acceptance of the terms of engagement, that is to say, of peaceful activity. (No offerers of purchases or large cash rewards need apply.)

We can do it.

First thing tomorrow.