Republican Nation
Meant to take a sabbatical from blogging. Too restless, feeling more and more trapped in the bleak news report that loops over and over without end: the economy this…economy that…the economy, the economy, economy…
Anyway, I’m back because before I began this Blacks Next Door public diary, I promised myself, to do it for one full year — so I will do my best – despite my wide mood swings to honor BND’s September 2010 expiration date.
“The economy’s still not doing well.” I overheard someone sigh in the elevator last week. You would have thought he was mourning a dying family member or dear friend such was the intensity of his melancholia.
Life by numbers is oppressive. It’s also stupid. Ever have a manager shove a spreadsheet into your face that’s supposed to be a snapshot of your value within your organization that doesn’t reflect any of the important intangibles like what the forces were that inspired you to perform well or may have led your daily performance to be not at all inspired?
Well, if the Republicans continue to have it their way, this is how America will be ruled: by spreadsheet.
Human potential will have no more meaning than what numbers justify. In fact, the future will be shut inside a coffin and handed back to you wrapped in a flag.
This is my final conclusion after a week of watching Republican politicos kick and scream and foam at the mouth over the President’s proposed Stimulus Package.
Allocating $50 million to The National Endowment on the Arts is a waste of money they ranted. How could citizens having music and art in their lives be stimulating except in some subversive way that only serves ‘liberal’ culture?
First of all, this is no longer the 80’s when the voice of the Right may have been more in tune with that of the mild mannered ‘man on the street’ than that of an artist like Andres Serrano.
After two terms of Clinton — who at least at the level of the streets I walk, was a conservative influence – and eight years of Bush, porn and gambling are bigger than ever.
And instead of the Piss Christ, we have Ann Coulter.
So the Obama team will have to use imagination as much as money to truly stimulate and inspire people to feel good, dream, innovate – not just consume but create.
Until then, as long as one of the most important cultural events in this country is basically a war game, yeah, sigh, The Super Bowl — with an ominous Bush regime icon like General David Petraus at the center to kick it off, America remains — as far as my watchful eyes can see — well, a Republican nation.
Tags: Barack Obama, Black Republicans, blacks, george bush, republicans, sports
February 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Brilliant!
February 17th, 2009 at 8:54 am
This is a nice blog. How did I miss this one?
February 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Dear Jen,
I think this is a good decision. Sometimes we forget ourselves in the web vortex. We just get sucked deeper and deeper, thinking that we are rescuing humanity. I think were thinking on the same lines. After six years of free service to an unknown community, I also took a sabatical from my website. Read below
Good-bye Awdalnews devotees
http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_09/Feb/09_goodby_bashir.html
Cheers,
Bashir.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
. . . of course BND is unique and a very cool blogspot for all types of people not locked in & set in their beliefs. Naturally Sabbatical is your prerogative, Jen - because after all it is a lot of work, but i would say the discourse of this world can use a few of these unique voices like that of sistuh Jen. Funny, exhausted, flabbergasted and full of wholesome ennui and bewilderment. I would miss her immensely generous effort.
And as for Ann Coul(d)ter- she of the wearing large crosses, she may indeed have been christened by being sprinkled with the dust of pistols. She is a proponent of etching out the views of a great number of people by establishing that “those folks”, their values and views just have No Worth . Ann may be the anti-tolerant. “Polarization” is the condition I think you are finding so prevalent AND boring. It’s as boring as violent language. I always despise it when I catch myself thinking I know what someone’s opinion is going to be before I hear anything more than their designation, i.e. Republican. It’s saddening to have the world all in rows, consumable, clichéd, a packaged deal. After all; the objective is creativity, creation: something like that, isn’t it ?
And it’s Jen and her ilk will be lending any small measure of inspiration to folks “on the ground”, as they say- on the streets - as the language maulers at CNN & MSNBC say. Poor brave President Obama is now occupying a rarefied atmosphere so high above we schleps, with the relations of the USA to all the world to bear on his shoulders, it may be that his shine has shone over as wide an expanse as it can, without some dimming of his influence. He has to beware of the vice of conservatism himself: he’s in politics and it is a tough game.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:32 am
First of all I want to say how fortunate I am to have been directed to your site. It is brilliant and insightful, keeps my mind from turning to the mush the the Republicans want. I am 67 years old, have fought the struggle valiantly from the assisnations of both Kennedys, Malcolm and Dr. King. I have tried to “levitate’ the Pentagon with a crazy bunch of radicals known as SDS, which progenitated the “Weathermen”, I have been beaten down by horses on Wall Street and have marched with The Young Lords. Your insight and wisdom, I don’t know how old you are, have sparked something in me that was long dormant. Oh, Obama’s election began that awakening but writers such as you, and you write brilliantly, have nurtured me and a generation that lived through the sonambulance of the 80’s and 90’s to once again exam the world around us. Thank you Jen for keeping the fires lit.
I agree that the spreadsheet is only the final evidence of what the priocess has brought us through. If we ignore the process we will never reach the conclusions that those “spreadsheets” bear witness to.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
This is a powerful blog and I am so glad that I read it tonight. We are about to witness a great time in this country and I really want to stress the “WE”, because each of us has a role to play in this. The Republican machine, (and the “Dem” machine that does not serve the people) along with folks like Ann Coulter are struggling to put out the burning house. They are trying everything the can, and certainly fear has always worked for them before, but this time it is different. This time they are telling everyone that the sky is falling and many are looking up, but most are ducking what they think are falling clouds (the tumbling Dow). What the machine does not understand are things like hope, spirit, love, determination, and resilience. The machine understands NUMBERS. What I know and what many others know, is that they keep getting closer and closer to this burning house and that WE will eventually push them in.
WE need you to keep blogging, because we need your unique perspective. That’s essential in a new world!
February 25th, 2009 at 8:46 am
After watching that stirring speech last night I had to come back and re-read this blog. It is very timely indeed. Have an awesome morning my friend.