When racism dictates what to name your kids.

I want to have children someday. They’ll be mixed Jewish-Chinese. Carolyn and I wanted to name our kids something really Jewish to go with their Chinese last names. We were thinking “Anoch” and “Esther”. Reading about the Kaifeng Jews in China, I thought it would be really neat to give our first child the gender neutral (?) middle name “Kaifeng” as a tribute to both of our roots and the synthesis thereof.

However, in Trump’s America, with the rising anger against China, it might be advisable to name them something Anglo as hell, and give them her last name – “John Light” “Andrea Light” – to avoid bureaucratic scrutiny. The alt-right is anti-Semitic as hell and the Republican hatred of China is well documented.

My normal stance on these issues are “Fuck racists, I do what I want.” but this is not a choice I’m making for myself. This is a choice I’m making for my children, for people who will have to deal with that choice for the rest of their lives.

This is the kind of shit I have to fucking think about – how racism will impact what I name my kids. This is a awful violation. Small in the grand scheme of things, but disgusting nonetheless. Think about that in the voting booth this November.

Tonight’s Debates

My wife and I are legitimately, deeply worried about the debates tonight. HRC has a wealth of experience and knowledge, but Trump is a totally unpredictable debater and no one knows what he might say or do and how it’ll play with the general electorate.

This is a guy who says our queerness shouldn’t exist, my brownness shouldn’t exist, and our interracial marriage shouldn’t exist. This is a man who would ship off our Muslim friends to internment, allow our black friends to be killed by the police, and allow thousands of refugees to die at the hands of ISIS (which plays directly into that organization’s hands).

I get that y’all in safe states might want to vote third party, but listen to me: Trumpism cannot be defeated by narrow margins. We need to show protofacists that this philosophy of muscular, aggressive know-nothing xenophobia and racism has no place in our country. That it cannot and will not win elections. Victory against Trumpism cannot be slim – it must be devastating.

Because if it isn’t, the next person espousing Trump’s ideas will have a real PR team. They’ll be able to shut their mouth and code their speech. They’ll be able to advance their hideous ideas down the road that he paved. They’ll have the support of the Republican establishment. And that man will be elected, and the fallout from that event cannot be estimated, but it will surely be terrible, for America and for the world.

Neutralization

There are days when I’m afraid that the white hot fervor of revolution was all burned up by eight years of Bush, and now, when we need it most, in the midst of a major economic downturn and governmental austerity, it’s seen as passe.

If you look at a lot of recent movies and media, popular leaders (Tom Zarek of Battlestar Galactica, Amon of The Legend of Korra, Bane in The Dark Knight Rises) are generally portrayed as violent, selfish charlatans. The people who follow them are ignorant sheep. The heroes are those who preserve the status quo against the barbarians at the gate. Given that these portrayals come from major corporate media outlets, I think I am rightfully disturbed. Now, when we most need inspiring tales of successful popular uprising, none are found.

In cultural terms, backlash against cliches is inevitable. Enough Bad Boys-style movies will give you Hot Fuzz. Enough teenage college students wearing Che Guevara t-shirts will give you Tom Zarek. But the timing of this backlash couldn’t be worse.

Maybe it was easier to generate indignation when the actual issues of Iraq and Afghanistan were thousands of miles away. When the biggest problems are homegrown – economic inequality, unemployment, and lack of opportunity, exacerbated by governmental austerity and budget cuts – paradoxically, it’s a lot harder to muster a revolutionary spirit. The lives of the intellectual liberal class are at stake now, and any major disruption to “business as usual” stands a chance of seriously limiting our future options – in the form of arrest, legal proceedings, jail, and felony arrest records.

I”m not saying this as an unattached individual who would mindlessly urge people to get in the streets regardless of dependent spouses and children – rather, I *am* one of the people neutralized by this threat. I’m comfortably uncomfortable. My income has stagnated, but I can afford a decent apartment in a decent part of town and the company I work for is reasonably decent. But if I were arrested or my job was lost, I would lose my apartment – which means my fiancee and my roommate would lose their apartment. We have backup plans (mostly involving living with parents), but they would radically alter our current paths, careers, and lives in profoundly undesirable ways.

Our generation has no workable blueprint for struggle. The oft-imitated, never-replicated 1960s has proven to be an unworkable model – The Iraq War proceeded unabated, and Obama has left many thousands of private contractors in Iraq. The Afghanistan War continues to claim lives, despite rosy predictions to the contrary. Most people don’t even seem to know or care about the CIA drone program, slaying civilians far outside of the control of any legislative or judicial oversight. Indeed, after Bush decided to send troops into Iraq, the movement seemed to collectively throw its hands up in the air and go home, assuming fait accompli.

Meanwhile, Americans seem to lack the stomach (or perhaps our stomachs are too full) for the Tahrir Square model of revolution. Indeed, given that Egyptian youth unemployment was at 25% in 2011, we are far from that point at a mere 7.9%. Regardless of the brave youths Occupying Everywhere, he illusion of the American Dream, and it’s accompanying delusions of social mobility and meritocracy, seem alive and well, despite evidence to the contrary.

A lot of people ask me where we should go from here. I wish I had an answer to the big questions. For myself, I continue to involve myself in my local slam poetry organizing committee and try to provide arts programming that enriches my local Jersey City community. For the last four years, I’ve worked as part of The Spoken Word Almanac Project, responding critically and poetically to current events. I post about politics on Facebook and try to connect with likeminded individuals – it’s been a real treat to see my friends and I evolve together, intellectually and politically, seven years after college. I’m trying to stay connected, and engaged in the civic process. After Sandy hit, I did a bit of volunteer work (and if I had more time on my hands, I would be at the Barrow Mansion, 8am-8pm every day). I don’t have a blueprint, and I think anyone claiming to have one is probably trying to sell you a Communist newspaper or a Tea Party slogan. But damn if that doesn’t feel like nearly enough most of the time.

But hey, maybe the lack of blueprint is a strength. You can’t tell us we’re doing it wrong. You can’t tell us that this doesn’t fit pre-existing models – through trial and error, we’ve found that they don’t work. Maybe the key is keeping our moral and intellectual compasses active and engaged. Maybe we just need to keep listening, and trying new things, until we find something that works. And hopefully, we’ll do it before it’s too late.

Republicans stop women from talking about vagina, want to legislate it.

Okay, so let me get something straight.

First, Republicans officially censure and silence a female state legislator for saying the word “vagina” during a debate about abortion legislation, even going so far as saying that it was “so offensive, I don’t even want to say it in front of women.”

Wait. Let that sink in.

A man. Doesn’t want a woman. To say the word vagina. Because it’s offensive. To women.

Read that sentence back to yourself over and over again until it makes sense. Or until your fucking head explodes, whichever comes first.

Now, the Todd Akin auto-disabling uterus / legitimate rape controversy has exploded all over the internet and this shit bag told conservative radio host Dana Loesch that “We can’t run from our shadows every time someone says ‘abortion.'”

This is rich! First the Michigan Republicans ban a woman from discussing her vagina while they attempt to legislate her vagina, and then Akin turns around and claims that liberals are actually attempting to shut down the debate around abortion. Cranial explosion in 3… 2… 1…

What’s even more profoundly revolting is that the big wheels in the GOP are claiming that Akin’s point of view is some kind of aberration, but Akin’s message IS the GOP’s message. They know that their losing women’s votes by the millions, and they’re trying to cover their asses now. And women aren’t buying it.

This nonsense needs to stop. As a reality check, the Republicans actually haven’t been able to accomplish much in terms of reversing Roe v. Wade. Their various fetal personhood amendments have zero chance of passing. It’s all political theater designed to stir their base, and the November blowback is going to be profound.

After the defeat of 2008, the Republicans had a chance to reassess their unholy alliance of money grubbing free market capitalists and religious fanaticism. And instead of abandoning this losing strategy, they doubled down, welcoming the Tea Party into their tent. Their message is becoming increasingly outmoded and idiotic, but no less dangerous.

Obama’s Secret Kill List.

Secret ‘Kill List’ Proves a Test of Obama’s Principles and Will

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&r1

“A few sharp-eyed observers inside and outside the government understood what the public did not. Without showing his hand, Mr. Obama had preserved three major policies — rendition, military commissions and indefinite detention — that have been targets of human rights groups since the 2001 terrorist attacks.”

“It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent”

“It is the strangest of bureaucratic rituals: Every week or so, more than 100 members of the government’s sprawling national security apparatus gather, by secure video teleconference, to pore over terrorist suspects’ biographies and recommend to the president who should be the next to die.

This secret “nominations” process is an invention of the Obama administration, a grim debating society that vets the PowerPoint slides bearing the names, aliases and life stories of suspected members of Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen or its allies in Somalia’s Shabab militia.”

“Yet the administration’s very success at killing terrorism suspects has been shadowed by a suspicion: that Mr. Obama has avoided the complications of detention by deciding, in effect, to take no prisoners alive. While scores of suspects have been killed under Mr. Obama, only one has been taken into American custody, and the president has balked at adding new prisoners to Guantánamo.”

“That record, and Mr. Awlaki’s calls for more attacks, presented Mr. Obama with an urgent question: Could he order the targeted killing of an American citizen, in a country with which the United States was not at war, in secret and without the benefit of a trial?

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel prepared a lengthy memo justifying that extraordinary step, asserting that while the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process applied, it could be satisfied by internal deliberations in the executive branch.“

 

Someone once told me that the job of liberalism is to hold a mirror up to society and government and say “You can do better than this.” We have to do better. Obama was the guy who was supposed to stop all this, not expand it, not create a secret list of assassination targets. There has been zero transparency on this issue, and zero legal recourse. The entire operation is a closed, black box, and that black box is killing people all over the world. I don’t think it is too strong to say that I feel a profound moral imperative to alert people to the fact that this is happening.

Neda Speaks Today!

I am, as I’m sure all of you are, horrified by the repression and violence that the Iranian government is undertaking against its own people. If you haven’t heard about it yet, Neda Agha-Sultan was an innocent Iranian women who was shot by Basij military while watching a protest. She died on the street, another victim of Iran’s campaign of violence. Her death was video taped and spread around the world. I watched the video and read the NYT article and could not stop crying for an hour.

“Neda” means “voice” – and this woman has become known as “The Voice of Iran”. The coincidence was too powerful for me to ignore. I’m not much of an organizer, but I do love poetry and music.

When I heard “When The Teargas Canisters Fly” I was immensely affected. I can still sing the chorus (if not the myriad verses). When I looked up the lyrics. Beside it was a Woody Guthrie quote – “A pamphlet is read once, maybe twice, then socked away. A song is remembered forever.” Neda deserves to be remembered forever.

I’m no songwriter, but I wanted to do my best to contribute something. So I took the lyrics of “Flesh Shapes The Day” by The Nightwatchman and rewrote them to be about Iran and Neda Agha-Sultan. It’s a very easy song to play. Even a ham-handed punk-loving idiot like me can play it.

So here are the lyrics. Please feel free to spread it widely! Just give Tom Morello / The Nightwatchman and me credit! I’m looking to get together with someone who’s a better guitar player to record it.

I hope it helps you, gives you comfort, or gives you something to sing at a vigil.

– Justin Woo

Neda Sings Today

Sung and played to the tune of “Flesh Shapes The Day” by the Nightwatchman
New lyrics by Justin Woo

Now you might have heard different
But I know it’s a fact
that the Basij shot Neda
in the chest and not the back.
Your people are still fighting!
We will nev’r be the same
We will not
forget your voice,
your death
or your name.

Votes and freedom
Steel and faith
Proxies, tweets, through wire
Skin, scar, dirt and fire

Allahu Akbar! Iran! Allahu Akbar!

Neda, we know who you are
Neda, we know just what you gave
Neda sings today!
Neda sings today!

Now it’s clear as a pillar of smoke
This election will not pass
Yeah, I support my troops
They wave green flags
They wear green masks
All Tehran is closed
General strike is in effect
The people broke their cages
Sacrifice set them free!

Votes and freedom
Steel and faith
Proxies, tweets, through wire
Skin, scar, dirt and fire

Allahu Akbar! Iran! Allahu Akbar! (instead of “Hoo hoooo! Mic check!”)

Neda, we know who you are
Neda, we know just what you gave
Neda sings today!
Neda sings today!

FREE IRAN! (instead of “Si se puede!”)

Surrounded hospitals
in Isfahan,
Embassies
in Mashad
In Englehab Square
say no farewells
We’ll meet again
in behesht or hell.

And the muezzins
will call your name
Neda Agha-
Sultan still speaks!
Ahmad’nejad
and Khameini fall!
Your voice sent them straight
to jahannam’s halls!

Votes and freedom
Steel and faith
Proxies, tweets, through wire
And skin, scar, dirt and fire

Allahu Akbar! Iran! Allahu Akbar! (instead of “Hoo hoooo! Mic check!”)

Neda, we know just who you are!
Neda, we know exactly what you gave!
Neda sings today!
Neda speaks today!
Neda lives today!
Neda sings today!