Debate watching party 9pm in shapiro multi-purpose room. with free food (100 wings!)
Stephen Robinson vs Elections commission will not go to trial.
POYA manifesto in the hoot. Here’s my contribution:
I’m a shy person. I don’t like talking about politics. I really am. Throughout middle school and high school I gained a reputation as a composed, thoughtful person who didn’t pipe up much during political debates. I relished my role, listening to my friends debate politics, knowing that when I chose to speak, people would listen. They knew that I took the time to think both sides through. They trusted my judgment.
So much for that. Is it really a neutral act to refuse to rebel at the presence of evil? The America depicted in high school history texts is very different from the America we live in today. The genesis of this society was predicated on the genocide of the red man. The riches of this country were grown with the blood of the black man. And the woman? Don’t even get me started. We were promised an America embodying the realization of the Enlightenment, a land of tolerance. A land of freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from want. Freedom of expression. Instead we got Empire. Instead, we’re handed a kleptocracy.
Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t want to be an activist. I want to be an academic. I want to tinker with computers and curl up with a book in front of the fire. I don’t want to be painted as one-sided, angry, or needlessly didactic. Yet what choice do I have, when one political party systematically destroys America and the other is too cowardly to stop them? No choice. No time to waste.
Let me preface this by saying that it’s impossible for me to speak for anyone other than myself. My affiliation should be fairly clear. I’m offering some disjointed thoughts about your means, not your messages.
Anger isn’t enough. Righteous indignation motivates, but to do what? Is it enough to say that you want change? What change do you want? How do you effect it? Are you prepared to rebel?
P.O.Y.A isn’t going to do it because it’s fragmented. It’s a shibboleth for op-eds and megaphone speeches. You will not motivate most of this campus to do anything more than weakly echo your anger.
A final thought: I put this mask on not because I felt strongly about the enemy, but the means used to destroy it . On some level, this is practice for me. Good luck, and I hope I don’t find you on the other side of the barricades someday.
My friend,
First of all, I wish I were at that party. 100 wings sounds mighty good.
Now to respond to what I think you’re saying.
The Sahar I know is still a composed thoughtful person, who speaks his mind clearly and intelligently. I happen to trust your judgement.
I too understand your feeling of rage against this America that seems to betray what you’ve been taught to believe since elementary school. I offer you a poorly translated Chinese proverb. Take a step back and rethink, you’ll find that the ocean is wide and the sky is clear.
If you don’t understand anything I just said, I don’t blame you. What I am trying to say is, don’t expect so much. You are essentially raging against human history. If anyone can think of any nation-state that has been responsible, just, and decent, especially when it is a great power or superpower, they should let me know. As far as I know of history (perhaps not enough?), every country that has ever reached power status has built their power on bloodshed, exploitation, and inequality. You name it. Britain, the USSR, China, France, Germany, Japan, and obviously the USA.
I don’t mean to criticize you or any of the very decent people who populate this blog. But if you think that by having a little intellectual rebellion and by being an activist, you can somehow reverse the pattern of human history, then I say you’re sadly mistaken. Better men and women have spent their lives trying. At best they get remembered, at worst… well, it got really bad for them.
Still Sahar, I don’t think you’re in any way one-sided, angry, or needlessly didactic. But if it makes you feel better to be activist, if it lessens your guilt or allows you to channel your anger, then be one.
Just my thoughts.