Read this.
Really good stuff...I particularly like this:
As social justice activists and organizers, we need to do a much better job of developing solidarity. We are battling for the very lives of our traditional communities and we need each other’s ideas and support. We cannot afford fragmentation. We cannot afford to consider one group more worthy or deserving than others. In the US, we need to do much more to forge linkages between the needs of coastal Louisiana and coastal Mississippi and the urban needs of the New Orleans metro area. Nationally, we need to strengthen our alliances with other communities fighting for justice. Internationally, we have much to learn from each other and we must build much better solidarity. Our Indian sisters and brothers told us if they knew what was going on after Katrina they would have demonstrated in front of the U.S. Embassy in India demanding the government respect our human rights. It is a tactic of our enemies to divide and conquer, it is our job to connect and conquer.
I've seen no truer statement about our dilema than this one. Connect and conquer...I love that.
10 comments:
MOTT FOUNDATION, ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, MCARTHUR FOUNDATION, FORD FOUNATION, JP MORGAN, DODGE FOUNDATION, THE LIST GOES ON. WE NEED TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THE ROLE OF THESE FOUNDATIOPS AND HOW THEY ARE OFTEN USED AS METHODS AND MEANS OF DIVISION RATHER THAN UNIFICATION
Guess you've cured yourself of it. (re: I am increasingly receding from national media and news or anything that doesn't immediately effect me within the confines of my little postage stamp of the world, New Orleans.)
I hate to say it and maybe I am on the slippery slope to a bad place but I find that I no longer have the time or the energy to be outraged by any plight outside of NOLA. I feel that we are in a war for re-claiming our city from the politicos and the criminals (and the many that fall into both categories together).
I want to see more exposed about the things and the people that are holding us back... nagin, eddie jordans, david white, the cynthias, the orleans parish school board, the people that are really responsible for the decay and the slow death of the city that we love...
"it is our job to connect and conquer". Do you believe in creating your own destiny? Could you do it in a more widespread fashion? regardless of consequence, for the good of all?
I've been reading your blog for a couple months now, and I find myself more and more, checking in to see what new revelations of corruption in our city gorvernment you or others have unearthed. And every day i think the same thing, and I see others asking the same question....where is the federal government? It is a question that ultimately ends with a brick wall of unanswered questions and overwhelming greif when the "big picture" for our beloved city is confronted mentally. I often start to post a comment, but I'm no writer, and others usually post what I want to say, only better. But tonight as I read your last two posts, it was the last phrase that caught my eye. "it is our job to connect and conquer".
I have the email of dave paulson, (FEMA), and my neighbor is a former FBI head honcho, and for what it's worth, I'm forwarding all this information to them. I have no idea if anything will come of it, who am I to think otherwise.
But I can tell you and everyone else reading this amazing blog, maybe it's time to do something ourselves. Maybe, just maybe, it would be the worst thing possible for the federal government to be the ones to blow the whistle- especially given the "potential for corruption" reputation we already have across the nation, and the road blocks that reputation has created already. Maybe, just maybe, if we as citizens of this city, found a way to organize and blow the lid on all the bs in city hall...in such a way that it sent a message to leaders and potential future leaders around this state, "this is our chance to get it right, and we're not going to tollerate any amount of venality in our public offices.
Maybe the idea itself it's too ideological. Maybe it'll take a mountain to move this mole of corruption in our government. But, maybe, just maybe, it's our turn to connect and conquer.
because i find myself more and more, wondering..........................what will our great great grandchildren's history books say about the people, the genration, who were faced with rebuilding the city of New Orleans.
Isn't there something we can do?
Is there anyone willing to brainstorm this ideology with me?
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/05/fbi_investigating_louisianas_f.html
hey Angel
i'm in, know others. when can we meet?
o
angel said:
>>Isn't there something we can do?
Is there anyone willing to brainstorm this ideology with me?<<
i'm in. let's get together. heck maybe even a certain undead we know will come :)
o
Ashe' Papa Legba...educate us, please.
I'm in Angel...I'm in Oya...time and place?
Heck, Angel, you write just fine. Thanks, Ashe, for posting this. Bill Quigley is so the bomb. He was at it immediately after the flood, while the water still stood, protecting the rights of renters forced to evacuate and unable to return. If anyone missed clicking the link and reading his whole article, go back now and do it. It's fabulous. *sigh*
time and place, time and place. want to try for this weekend some time? or next week? could we call it the truth club?
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