On the same day that Barack Obama begins his nationalistic patriotism tour in Independence, Missouri, the authorities-that-be announced that protesters will be fenced in by chain-length
or chicken-wire during the Democratic National Convention. While the Democratic presidential candidate wags on about a love of country and the importance of sacrifice to the nation-state, the Federal Court approves the creation of "Free Speech Zones," or the sectioning off of areas where Freedom of Speech can be granted within a metal cage.
What Obama, the Federal Government, the City of Denver, Secret Service, and Homeland Security are forgetting is that to demonstrate a commitment to the best of "American" ideals, basic constitutional rights must be protected by any means necessary. Rather than addressing the ever-increasing totalitarianism of the United States Police State, Obama glibly blabs patriotic pap as police continue harassing communities of color, queer people, poor people, and people who dare criticize the corporate state this country has become.
The cage protesters will be confined in will be a visual reminder of the 2 million plus people incarcerated in the United States, the legacy of slavery that U.S. corporations continue to profit from, the Japanese Internment Camps, and the incarceration of queer people.
When Obama yaks about patriotism, it is imperative to remember what pro-Americanism supports--genocide masked by the right to life, slavery masked by the right to liberty, and the planned poverty, sickness, and misery of millions masked by the right to the pursuit of happiness.
American patriotism is the naturalization of racism and in claiming this project of white supremacy, Obama's claims of patriotism become a tool for white power.
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3 comments:
Hi CP Rev,
Nice rant about BO BS. One suggestion: you are entitled to your opinion about reproductive rights, but it is probably a good idea not to politicize women's reproductive rights/the right to choose while critiquing the big O. I'm guessing that you are not from the dis-staff side of the equation, and thus will never be physically caught between a rock and a hard place with regard to not wanting pregnancy versus the lousy forms of birth control that don't work very well, and are commoditized and controlled by the capitalist big pharma construct. I agree that abortion should be something that seldom happens, but please don't make women's bodies a wedge issue like the neo-cons/conservatives do. If you will never personally be faced with making the hard choice to terminate or continue a pregnancy, then please leave that discussion to the people who may have to, at some point, make that decision--meaning women.
Oh my goodness. By right to life I never meant to evoke the anti-choice movement. I was evoking the phrase "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" which the anti-choice movement stole to defend their anti-life rhetoric that endangers the health of millions of people who need the right to have abortions.
Let me apologize for not clarifying this and actually using this response as an opportunity to argue for reproductive justice. The genocide I was referring to was that committed by white people against indigenous people and Africans, not, by any means, a commentary on the reproductive justice debate. I am a firm belier in people's right to choose their own reproductive path and apologize for what was a lack of clarity in my language.
CP, since you tend to keep up on the articles coming out on the DNC protests and the stifling of them by the state, do you mind hyperlinking to those stories? I never read the local rags and it would be good to get some context to your posts.
luvs
UD
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