UP TO US, NOW! This Year Just Might Be The Year That Changes Everything
Something new is in the air. And it’s not just dread.
"Revolutionary Love": Michelle Alexander On Gaza, Solidarity, MLK & What Gives Her Hope
(Editor’s Note: A very real wake-up call to us all of just what is on the line and the only path to survival. The interview is great and gives a good sense of Michelle Alexander’s powerful piece in The Nation, but I strongly urge you to read her article and find the niches of redemption and change she points to that you can work with. If we do not do so, truly, we are doomed. — Mark Taylor)
Democracy Now! (4/13/24)
Author and civil rights advocate Michelle Alexander's new piece in The Nation reflects on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s April 4, 1967, speech in New York opposing the war in Vietnam and its lasting lessons for American society today.
"The clock is ticking on our democracy, on the climate, and on our hopes for a truly just peace in Gaza and beyond."
She describes "revolutionary love" as the transnational "connections between liberation struggles" around the world, and calls for anti-oppression movements in the U.S. to continue working to "end the occupation of Palestine and commit to the thriving of all of the people who have been subjected to endless war and occupation." Revolutionary love, argues Alexander, "is the only thing that can save us now."
Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now
“We haven’t learned yet and time is running out. The clock is ticking on our democracy, on the climate, and on our hopes for a truly just peace in Gaza and beyond. As King said at Riverside Church, there is such a thing as being too late.”
By Michelle Alexander
The Nation (3/8/24)
This moment feels different. Something new is in the air.
Of course, everything is always changing. Impermanence is the way of life. Philosophers, theologians, and poets have reminded us for centuries that the only constant is change. As the late, great Nina Simone, once put it,
The young become the old
and mysteries do unfold
for that’s the way of time
no one, and nothing stays unchanged
Still, I think I am not alone in sensing that this year feels different. Something new is in the air.
Some would say it is the stench of death. We can smell it now, almost taste it. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza in just a few months with our bombs—mass murder funded by our government, aided and abetted by our military, paid for by our tax dollars. We have been told by our government that we are not witnessing genocide.
And yet I, like millions of people around the world, have watched. I have watched the hearings at the International Court of Justice in the Hague as charges have been brought by South Africa charging Israel with genocide—hearings that mainstream news outlets refused to air.
“We herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Riverside Church Speech, April 4, 1967
But that is not all that I have watched. For more than 150 days, I have watched videos that have traveled around the globe. I have watched as mothers have pulled body parts of their dead children out of rubble, then gathered the pieces of their children—hands, arms, legs—into bags, and carried the remains of their children down the street in agony, with grieving relatives wailing and trailing behind them. I have watched as fathers have sprinted to buildings that have just been bombed, arriving in time to learn that their entire family is dead. I have watched as children in hospitals have been told that, no, your mother did not survive, and neither did your father, or your sister, or your uncle; one nurse, with tears in her eyes, tried to reassure a young boy that he isn’t actually alone in the world, telling him, “I am here, little one, I am here for you,” even though all his family is gone—every last relative—lost in the rubble. I have watched as children have had their limbs amputated—sawed off—without anesthesia because the hospitals have been destroyed by bombs and there is no medicine, including pain medication, to be found. I have watched as people facing starvation have been shot at by soldiers as they approach vehicles carrying aid.
It’s all occurring on our watch
I have watched and I have watched. All of this is occurring on our watch.
Something different is in the air. But it is not just the mass killing in Gaza, including more than 12,500 children, and the destruction of schools, churches, mosques, hospitals, universities, museums, and basic infrastructure. It is not just the memories of the killings that occurred on October 7, memories of brutality which many continue to carry along with grief and unshakable fear. More than a thousand Jews were killed on that day, leading to panic and unspeakable pain.
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
As if all of that were not enough, there is another source of anxiety, fear, and dread that is hanging in the air. This is an election year. And some are saying that if things do not go well, it could be the last election our nation ever has. Democracy hangs in the balance. Donald Trump has said that, if he is elected, he will be a dictator only on the first day of his second term. After that, he says, we can trust that he’ll behave himself.
I do not trust Donald Trump.
But is not just the brutal war or the threats to our fledgling democracy or attacks on voting rights or attacks on the very ideas of diversity and inclusion that has many of us feeling anxious in a different kind of way right now; 2023 was the hottest year on record—by a lot. We reached the highest global temperature of all the years since scientists began tracking that data in 1850. Last year’s record beat the next warmest year, 2016, by a record-setting margin. Climate change is accelerating faster than nearly anyone predicted. It is no longer our future; it is our present. And yet, the five biggest oil companies last year raked in record profits, nearly $200 billion in profits—more than the economic output of most countries.
We wonder why so many young people today are depressed, anxious, and struggling with their mental health. Perhaps it is social media. The attention economy, also driven by a lust for profits, has kept us glued and addicted to our phones—isolated and lonely—endlessly scrolling and comparing ourselves to others, caught in outrage loops and doom spirals.
And yet, as author Johann Hari has pointed out, it is perfectly normal for any species to become anxious and depressed when their habitat is being destroyed. …
“This I believe to be the privilege and the burden of all of us who deem ourselves bound by allegiances and loyalties which are broader and deeper than nationalism and which go beyond our nation’s self-defined goals and positions. We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation and for those it calls “enemy,” for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Riverside Church (4/27/67)
Everything must change for the better, and together we have to make this happen.
No one, no matter how hard they try, can put a bandaid over genocide. It's not acceptable, and a clear sign that things can't continue the way they are.
You can't spell "revolution" without "love". (Look at the word in a mirror and see.) ;)