OnLine With Zoe

Why is this Night Different than any Other?

I bet I am not the only person who is running internal inventory, trying to understand why things feel so bad.  Where to even begin? 

This last week has taken our nation deeper into hellfire than I thought possible.  However, I really want to measure why this, this, THIS is so suffocating. 

I turn to an idea that has worked for me over the years – the differential.  It is not one point vs another.  It is the distance between them and the time that transpired to discover the space traveled. 

Two years ago, no one expected anything like what we are now living with every day.  No one could ever have predicted that a deranged man would have a majority of boot-licking courtiers in Congress.  Today, explicit acts of hate are unleashed, celebrated and expected; heroic actually.

But even in this ghoulish nightmare of devil advocacy, something more is needling me.  I think that the anniversary, of how I felt two years ago is the gravest differential I have ever traveled.  Regardless of how anyone feels about Sec. Clinton, two years ago I was dreaming that a gigantic change was in the making.  On the second Tuesday of November, 2016, I believed Roe would be secure, Women in office would be “normalized,” the next four years would build to crescendo of celebrating the Centennial of the Vote.  Women would begin awakening to true potential.
 
Back to why this is feeling like death itself.  It is not that I am disappointed that my candidate lost.  It is not that I am a democrat and GOP is in control.  It is nothing happening specifically.  My pain lives in the distance between what I thought my 68 years were leading to and that, in fact, a nazi, narcissist with his enrolled thugs are moving at lightning speed disassembling human rights.  This river is wider than I thought was possible to cross. 

#bringbackourhumanity

Driving to and from LA in Obama traffic, there was a lot of time to think.  The violent kidnapping of Nigerian students and selling them is such an extreme lesson.  I ask myself constantly what is the lesson. 

Twitter #bringbackourgirls hit a million in three weeks.  The USA sends support. The best outcome will be photos flooding the web of these young women being returned to their families, maybe posed with their armed rescuers.  Worse will be photos of some barbarous bloodbath of the kidnappers. 

From this point to that, there are hashtags and protests and information traveling at the speed of light.  What is the message, what is actually happening.  And when the resolution is made public, the hashtags and furor will be retired with a global exhale. We will move on to the next flashbang.

Fundamentally.  What is happening fundamentally?  How many females were kidnapped for profit from that day to this?  How many are working day and night to destroy education for girls, advancement for women, full discovery of the female spirit?  This fire cannot be extinguished one ember at a time. 

Dan Sterling may be another icon of humans who think other humans are commodities, as he brags that he gave the players money and nice homes.  Are we assuaged if Black people buy the Clippers so we can feel liberated from this singular transgression.  What is the full and lasting response? 

Our species is in grave danger.  We have to teach ourselves that humans cannot own one another.  We have to want more than photo-op solutions with shallow celebrations.  This is BIG and requires a big mind to evolve, to solve, realize our spirit.  #connectthedots  #bringbackourspirit

I AM THAT WOMAN ~ Peace Walk 2012

Where are the Women

Where are the women?
Years ago I made a commitment to always ask, where are the women?
And I discovered that the question leads me to what I really want to know.

 

Where are the women?
As we saw the streets during the fall of Baghdad
At the organizing committees of Cairo
Congressional Committees on family planning
Women’s art in Museums around the world is 5%
Members at Augusta National Golf Club
Where all of the male Fortune 100 are welcome women =  0%
CEOs  in the fortune 500 = 4% (18)
The United States Congress 17%
Afghanistan women & girls leaving education, workforce, & hiding indoors as they face the Taliban taking over in 2014

Where are the WOMEN?
The women are tending to the matters of life.
collecting water, preparing food, protecting children and the elderly
guarding the door, trying to keep her family safe or migrating to find refuge

Men are tending to the matters of death making weapons and caskets
planting fake food, spraying pesticides
raising flags and claiming ownership of the land

Women are tending to the matters of life.

Imagine the world run by women ~ the fact is you can’t
We have no idea what that would be like
We can only guess but all the indications are that
Women reassign priorities to life.
To the things that give life, Sustain life, Treasure life

I want a world where women and men and children attend the matter of life.
I want a world where everyone is well, thriving, prospering.
I want a world where women make all family planning and healthcare decisions.

I want a world with women at the helm, in parliaments,
on the front line of justice and law enforcement.
I want a world where women are empowered to lead the way to PEACE

__________________________________________________________________

I AM THAT WOMAN

This is our prayer, pray with me
This is our chant, chant with me

I am that woman  (I say after each line below)
I am that woman   (You say after each line below)
We are that woman.  (We say after each line below)

In New York City there is a women who ran away at 14, now 20, is owned & branded by her pimp

In Nepal there is a mother whose daughter has been kidnapped into sex slavery

In China there is a woman at a sewing machine 18 hours a day making our running shoes

In Toronto there is a woman who is told to avoid rape, she should not dress like a slut.

In Georgetown there is a student, on scholarship, who cannot afford $3,000 for pack of pills

In Peru there is a woman who spends 50% of her day collecting water for her family

In New Delhi there is a baby girl left to die because she was not a boy

In Sierra Leone there is a woman whose genitals are being mutilated in the name of tradition.

In Honduras there is a lesbian living in hiding afraid for her life and freedom

In Kenya there is a girl who is not allowed to be in school because she can’t buy pads.

In Nigeria there is a 12 year old widow who was a child bride and is now homeless

In South Africa there is a woman dying of HIV-AIDS with no healthcare

In Wind River Indian Reservation, Wyoming there is an 8^th grade girl, Marisa Spoonhunter who has been raped and killed.

In an Allegheny County Jail, PA there is a woman in childbirth in shackles and handcuffs 

Today we are all these women
We are more than our one life, we are all of these women
We stand and chant and walk for all these women
Because I am that woman, you are that woman, we are that woman.

Peace on Women 4/28

Honestly I struggle with posting my speeches.  I want to deliver them to you myself, in my voice, standing in a room or in sunlight.  On the other hand, how can I share what I want to say, have to say, want you to know.  I do not approve of all this patricrchal language but I am not a person who merely tells what should not be but offers the alternative.  I do not like declaring war or fight back as that all will end up in the woof and warp of us.  Today I choose to declare PEACE on Women and everyone including Mother Earth herself. 

___________________________________________________________

 Good Morning   Buenos Dias

I am so proud to be here with you today.
I am in love with equality and you are too 
It is just that simple.

Welcome to this moment
Welcome to the place our opponents fear the most.
Where we have drawn a line
We have drawn the line to say enough is enough
When we rise up together to say enough is enough
In all 50 states We UNITE to say, enough is enough.

Welcome to this moment
We are women and men who demand equality
We are LGBT who demand equality
We are First Nation who demand equality
We are First Immigrants who demand equality
We are the 99% who demand equality under the law.

Welcome to this moment
when the majority sees their power,
seizes their power,
exercises their power
The moment of UNITY has arrived
when we refuse to be divided, diminished, dismissed.

Welcome to this moment
The whole of Mother Earth is calling for change. 
The forces are collecting
The tipping point has arrived
From Egypt to Wall Street, from India to Mexico
The people are rising up and uniting for change

Welcome to this moment
Throw open your arms, be of good cheer,
we have found one another as never before 
I am in love with equality and you are too
It is just that simple.

Today Let Us declare:
Peace on Women
Peace on Immigrants
Peace on Queers
Peace on Workers
Peace on the Poor
Peace on America
Peace on Earth

Occupy Generation ~ Occupy Heart

While Berkeley is being occupied, visited by Daniel Ellsberg, tents on the Mario Savio Square, I feel so much more than nostalgia.  I am rifling through my mind to figure how on earth I found out about the Free Speech Movement.  It was not on the Nightly News with Huntley Brinkley, it was not in the local papers (Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel), it was not dinner conversation in my home or any home I visited.  You can know it was not in my Catholic Church; they were not pro-Kennedy.  It was not the lunch talk over tuna noodles or sloppy joes. 

To say there was no internet, there were no PC’s but, moreover, there was no lateral communication that had a secret factor as there is today.  Many adults have not kept up with electronic news possibilities; they merely read CNN on their ipad rather than fish for the Guardian or Al Jezeera.  Though I carry my own biases, it appears to me that many people my age who are devotees of Amy Goodman and foreign press are child-free or involved in learning professions. 

Somehow I knew, I knew about Birmingham, I knew about Martin Luther King, I knew about the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act.  Somehow it found me.   My compass was set on autopilot to point 180 degrees from anything my mother supported; Wisconsinite, Joseph McCarthy; the Committee on Un-American Activities; the John Birth Society; crazy messages about communism including people building air raid shelters in their basements. 

Mind you this is all before Betty Friedan, before PC’s, before Stonewall, before HIV/AIDS, before home pregnancy tests, before thousands of things that are now simply, “in the water.”  As best I can measure how it got to me at 15, it was books, music and a genuine taste for fundamental resistance to the same ole, same ole.  Anything that had been tested, tried and true was toxic and antiquated.  Change was being born, born in me; where else could it be?  Yes, I was a genuine card-carrying anti-war hippie by the time I was 19.  I wore overalls with an American Flag sewn upside down on the bib. 

Today as I watch the news, comb through facebook, watch youtube videos and search on #OWS I see the outcome of a sliver of that investment.  And there are Joan Baez and Crosby & Nash singing right on queue.  I see 19 year olds and 25 year olds who are moving the world one change at a time.  The human mic, refusing dogma, demanding equality, valuing books, standing in unison. It isn’t déjà vu all over again, it is burgeoning brilliance roaring across the earth on the finest brand of courageous NEW.  From Marines to medics, from seniors to daycare, from a few to a thousand, change is being born in each and every one. 

But here is what you may not know, what you may not have realized.  Today there is a kid, 12 or 13, who is lost in a sea of toxic traditions of bigotry and fear, who is taking it all in.  They are writing it all on the walls of their heart.  They will continue on a lifetime trajectory, now plugged in, and, whoa, change is gonna come, born at the speed of light, fueled by today’s resistance, informed on a scale I can not even dream of.  Oh, lucky kid.  Oh, better world.

Out Love, not Out Rage

I saw Outrage on Friday.  Besides being supportive, I was curious.  I am always looking for agreement, camaraderie, unity.  I found the movie’s premise lost under the weight of the title.  Even watching the movie makers on the View that morning, it wasn’t readily obvious that author and blogger, Michael  Rogers was objecting to closeted people voting against their very people they have relationships with.  Closeted gay men in politics are voting against HIV/AIDS funding, against gay marriage, against making crimes against LGBT people a hate crime.  It is the chasm between their sexual orientation and their visible, measurable, callous voting record.  Frankly, for me, it begs the question, would they be less stalwart if they were straight.
 
The characters in the movie, opening with Larry Craig, were all recognizable.  Those of us who read gay news are aware of these men and their voting records.  I have to admit, I have zero idea what this looks like to straight people.  Heck, I got emails this week asking me if Adam Lambert is gay – straights see things very differently than I do.  Governor McGreevey was bright, radiant – no really – like someone who just discovered deep spiritual relief.  Governor Crist was slimy and resistant; what is the opposite of present? 

A paragraph  on women ~ Elizabeth Birch of the Human Right Campaign was terrific, moving and honest.  Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin was open and relaxed.  Oh but the wives, the terrified wives, standing next to the pathetic closeted husbands at counterfeit press conferences; Mrs. Craig, Mrs. McGreevey, Mrs. Crist.  Actually there are thousands of straight spouses who are trapped infraudulent lives,  holding their families together.  How the gay spouse can do this is really beyond me.  I kissed a girl, I liked it and I came out; all within about 5 seconds.   And it is no secret that there are many, many lesbians and bi women in politics ( no I have not slept with all of them) but I can tell you that I have never seen them vote against LGBT rights or human rights for that matter.
 
But what really bothered me, deeply bothered me, was one clip of Larry Kramer, beloved founder of Act-Up.  Certainly this brave hero of the LGBT movement said dozens of quote-ables during the taping but what they chose to show was Mr. Kramer saying that activism comes from rage, from anger.  For me it was like hearing nails on a chalkboard.  I have spent over 40 years working to deepen my understanding and practice that successful, lasting activism comes from love.  You cannot convert the opponent by burning his car, breaking her windows, clubbing their kids.  Fear will never create conversion.  (aren’t we having a national conversation about torture on this right now?)

However, more importantly, the oppressed will become poisoned by the violence.  The minority has to find love in their heart and become irresistible.  That is the only way to create a healthy movement, a true lasting conversion and extinguish fear.  I was fortunate to spend some time with Jeremy Gilley, the British filmmaker who is creating International Peace Day, through his film-making of Peace One Day and The Day After Peace.  I told him that I am not as worried about those who die by gunshot as I am about those who pull the trigger as they live on with their hearts broken.  Violence is intoxicating, contagious and another disease – like homophobia.
  
Tuesday, May 26 is California’s Day Of Decision.  On Facebook, the White Night Riots video has been viraling around.  I want to tell people that clearly those 1979 riots did not work or we would not be rising up for our rights in 2009.  Releasing of violence may be billed as good for you but it isn’t.  It is not some limited energy that must be spent.  It is a viral, burgeoning disease that only attracts itself.   If you are angry, you deserve to be loved.  If you are homophobic, you need to love and be loved.  No matter what happens on Tuesday, extinguishing  anger with love is the only way that will last.  

Tolerance is not Enough

Tomorrow there will be tables of people, eating together and priding themselves that they are tolerating others all afternoon.  Sitting cross-legged, folded arms and editing nouns for several hours so as not to incite anything.  Tight lipped, hiding (hidden) from controversy, protecting relationships or beliefs, with a promise to the host that, “nothing bad will happen to ruin the big day.”

Toleration offered, as the ultimate gift, from a position of distance or refraining from offence does not breathe.  What could possibly happen if crossed limbs unraveled and questions, from genuine curiosity, were submitted without guile.  

• Why do you wear a headscarf?
• What is the difference between being an Arab and being Muslim?
• Why do some people think their race is better than another?
• Why would you want to be able to marry?
• Do you think children with same sex parents will be ok?
• Will you marry now that you have kids?

Like a three year old White kid who asks their first Black playmate if the “color rubs off?”  when questions are asked with the intention of wanting to know ~ what occurs is the opposite of harm ~ closeness becomes possible.  Inquiry, from non-judgment, is the bridge to somewhere. 

November 24 the YWCA released a report that Gen Y wants this new President, administration and re-boot of American society to address discrimination due to race and religion.  I would tell these surveyed young women that equality in the US begins with the Constitution.  The ERA, pay equity and including everyone in the Constitution is the fundamental and lasting place to start.  (I believe they did not list it because they do not know they are not included.)

And I want to tell them that I agree whole-heartedly that religion must be addressed.  It is what currently separates us and informs all of the big “family values” issues.  A few years ago my mentor, who was one of the founders of NOW, told me that originally NOW had a religion committee and chair.  She contacted the president of NOW and told her about me.  She was told that NOW will never have a religion committee ever again.  I think they consider it divisive but, in reality, it is religion that builds walls and, in doing so, righteous believers have both the capability and the responsibility to disassemble them.  The desire to understand is the most powerful wrecking ball. 

Ah, back to the Thanksgiving table.  Tolerance is not enough.  It is postponing the judgment and offering insincerity.  Those who built the walls are the ones to begin the demolition.  The effective tool is guileless inquiry.  Those who are walled out, walled in, who are holding their tongue and hiding their lives will melt in relief and reach back in gratitude.  Lets all agree with His Holiness the Dalai Lama who says, “Kindness is my religion.” 

Sweet Vacation with Seeds of Peace

Peace, Pocketbooks and Change

What Price Peace

I think that many people believe that peace is too expensive.  Some people think that killing leads to peace.  Some people think that might makes right.  No one I know, no one I work with, no one I share dinner with does but, clearly, some must think this as the citizens in our democracy keep electing people who do believe that the path does not have to contain any hint of the destination.  They don’t even think that the route to their spoken destination has to demonstrate their spoken fundamental goal.  They obviously believe that you can kill on the road to peace. 

I want to ask how could this be and, yet, the question is taking me to a terrible answer; more correctly, many terrible answers.  They are afraid.  They have taken revenge back from the lord.  They have built a statue and made a movie of Gandhi and thrown away his teaching that, “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.”  They have become glib about politics.  They have decided to not participate in the election process.  They have stepped out of the fray, as corporations rule the world and there is nothing one can do.  CRAP, IT ALMOST MAKES ME SORRY I ASKED. 

My code of ethics requires that I ask.  I wish they would ask.  ASK ME!  ASK ME!