We Will Not Cave

  James Madison, speaking to Joseph Jones November 28, 1780,” asked “would it not be as well to liberate and make soldiers at once of the blacks themselves, as to make them instruments for enlisting white soldiers?   It would certainly be more consonant to the principles liberty which ought never to be lost sight of in a contest for liberty” Alan Gilbert writes, “Madison had long feared black revolt as the Revolution’s Achilles heel” Madison proposed the intermingling black soldiers with majority white soldiers to keep the blacks from revolting.   Legislature came against Madison’s proposal.   It is unjust to free slaves to sacrifice the property of some at the demise for the profit of other slave owners. See, for the white man, it was thought that it would be unjust sacrificing the property of some for the exoneration of the other slaveholders. So putting a slave in a battle that would have him (sic) killed is worse than beating him (sic) each day to get sufficient ...

  Purloined wrinkles pressed from your face, taken away by pictures, going backward in time, you were a delightful young man, but what happened to you? Insanity plea, set you free, you couldn’t accept responsibilities, the motion of lips, mustache twists, smile to frown, suit to gown, how you made it, rejoice, resound, if your name isn’t Ezra Pound, I do not know just who I’ve found, suspenders hang from waste to ground, pristine fingernails and sunken face with heavy frown, face was once perfectly round. Now elongated with a frown, I didn’t know that your name wasn’t Ezra Pound. On the street corner holding up a lamp stand, your glorious self hovers a foot above the ground.   Chipping into your pot, your music makes no sound, I soon realize, you are Ezra Pound. Every face is God’s face from what I can see, with pinstriped pants and unbuttoned sleeves.

The mark of the Beast, they are heating the iron; their plan is to mark us.   To brand us into the next burning, they push us with their words. Onward Christian soldier, following with slave morality, our caustic blonde bodies fall in line, like sheep.   If you have not had the mark yet, run and hide.   Fly away, flee.   They plan to shave us, to brand us, to make us. They will use the venom of words to punctuate our every move.   Flesh peeling, piles, kneeling.   Leveling the blow the master sets forth his hierarchy, based not on empathy or symphony.   The sin will be that we cannot breathe amidst the terror they bring upon us. The treading on leads to hallucination; that carries forth the many-hued nations.   The kaleidoscopic view, the ribbon, the rainbow, the dew. Feeding on grass like sheep, we’re the Last. Pray, prey, you victim, you slain.   My God, where are you, the ache, the pain? Lashes, cracks, and essence proves the noble will no...

  As an “anthropologist with a deep historical and ethnographic understanding of the politics of colonialism and development in Indonesia, (Tania) Li shows how successive incarnations of a liberal ‘ will to improve ’ failed to account for the messy realities of landlessness, disease, exploitation and other structures of law and force, and were subsequently confounded when populations failed to improve. Li argues that such accommodations to hegemonic orderings of the world, as revealed in Johannesburg’s City Development Strategies, emerge whenever the concepts of improvement, even ones that profess to be critical, are 'rendered technical' through programs that seek to ‘translate messy conjunctures into linear narratives of problems, interventions and beneficial results’” In this portion of the text out of Rankin’s article on reflexive relationality and accountability she delivers a strong message for the outcomes-oriented approaches of the liberal technician who seeks to alle...

 I am burned out on theology, philosophy, critical thought, and politics.  Wish I could blog about dogs OR narwhals without discussing Friedrich Nietzsche.  Someone give me a simple thing to blog about; is there anything simple?

 So entire police force resigns when a town manager is hired.   The new town manager is black.  It is a shame that the police resigned.  If the only reason for the resignations is that the person is black, then it is a shame and disgrace to all people of color and white.  Is there more to the story than what is being told?  Was there a political agenda that the new town manager ascribed to which was objectionable?  Was the town manager supportive of the police? Simply put, it was racist to resign .  But it may have been political as well. I am tired of the extremism of the left and the reactionary behavior from the right.  Please, someone, tell me the story as they understand it.  I am unwilling to dig to find the truth of the matter; reporting and the media make me sick.  I do not support racist agendas , or agendas that do not support the police. What a mess there must be in that town.

  Theology can make a person nauseated, just ask SØren Kierkegaard. However, I must touch on the subject in terms of how it returns to postcoloniality and the making of public policy.     There are those who say there is no God.   I think it is a bit presumptuous to follow that conclusion. There is no strong evidence against their being God, either as first cause or creator of beings who can be conscious of themselves. God is by definition unspeakable and Christ the image of the unseen God, if you have any question. But, Christianity has taken a beating throughout the years and especially in the 21 st century, dominated by supposed critical thought. College folk and those on the street are speaking ill of Christianity, seeing it as the dooming factor of negative thought that “still haunts the world, even in the posttruth age.” I am sorry that they (sic) feel that way. Christianity, along with other religions, is seen as irrational at its core.   The only basis ...