I know this is linked to below, and that Avedon has joined the bandwagon, but I think this simple point is worth repeating, over and over and over. Call *me* boring, I can hack it, but don't dismiss the essential truth of this:

No presidential administration keeps its promises without relentless pressure from below.

From the American Revolution to the Civil War, abolition to women's rights, the Civil rights era to Stonewall, it's the same story every time. Ugly, poor, fat, tranny, unhip, powerless, "criminal," outcast, unpopular, drug using, cat loving, "loosers" have been at the forefront, in the vaanguard, the most vocal and far-seeing, when it comes to progressive change. You can add "unpopular C list bloggers" to that list, now. But the bottom line is that no one listens to "people like us," until they do, because they have to. On so many issues (FISA, Iraq, the "bailout," health care) we're sofa king right, and have the only real and lasting solutions, and everybody else, no matter how well connected, paid, or "popular," are wrong and will be proven so, in the "meaningless" eyes of historians, people who benefit from the programs we advocate, and those millions of current and future generations not killed or forced to suffer so that a few hundred rich people can be richer. I know this in "my soul." More importantly, the history of the West, the religious wars, and science, back me up. Read more…

For a good long while before the 30s, some people thought they could create wealth while not paying anybody, and it all came crashing down. Then they were made to pay people, for their own good. Years later, they tried to realize the dream of not paying anybody a second time around, with even cleverer not paying anybody techniques. Needless to say, it still didn't work, but they'll get to try again. And they got rich anyway.

45 years ago today, in Washington, DC -- I have a dream

for Bayard Rustin -- and all the rest of us who remain "Brother -and Sister- Outsiders" -- who still don't have the opportunities, equality, and rights that others have -- and that we all deserve.

I'm 48 years old. I was born when Eisenhower was still President.

The kids today have no idea what I've seen.

One of my earliest memories was JFK's assassination. I was three, and I remember I couldn't understand why if JFK was dead (gone to Heaven) he was still on television.

I remember Vietnam and the turbulence of the Sixties from nightly television, but not from daily life. I saw riots on television, but I never attended one.

I remember getting up for school one morning and my mom telling me that Martin Luther King had been killed. I kind of understood who he was and knew it was significant.

Two months later I woke up to find out Bobby Kennedy had been murdered too. Five years, three leaders murdered. Read more…

This one has flown over more than a few atrocities, too.

The Angry Black Woman speaks for me:

It’s February. Black History Month is upon us again. *rolls eyes* Huey Freeman (of Boondocks fame) summed it up best when he said:

Every Black History Month it’s the same thing - the Underground railroad and George Washington Carver. Like nothing else ever happened to black people!

The next frame of the strip then shows the teacher bringing up MLK and Rosa Parks as Huey shakes his head in disgust.

I’m with McGruder on this one. True, it’s good to learn about African American history from the roots of slavery to the triumph of Civil Rights. But the focus is all too often narrow, the topics clichéd, and the point missed entirely. Plus, I haven’t seen too much emphasis on black folks since Civil Rights except to update us on those in the movement who are still alive.

Word. One of the problems I've always had with "official" recognition days/months/awards is that they reduce the complex into the simple, the controversial into the inoffensive, and ahem, whitewash the problems to which they are supposed to be drawing attention. ABW asks that we talk about our own families and histories, the better to remind everyone that there is no one narrative of Black history.

So I'll tell you part of the story of one of my family members, my grandmother. Read more…

I've got a guest in town, so light blogging for a couple of days. But I wanted to tell everyone to go to the National Galleries when you have the chance. To my shame, every time I came to DC before moving here, I was always too busy with protests and parties to take in any culture. Read more…

Roy LaHood (aptly named, R-Pussy) has a solution for the Page Problem plaguing Republicans these days:

The problem, you see, is not in our crotches, dear Brutus, but in those evil pages! They lead us into temptation! So we should shut down the page program, presumably to teach those evil slutty temptors/tresses (let us never forget that females, too, can be Temptresses, like the one who brought about the downfall of previously-virtuous Dan Crane (R-Walking Spermbank)) a lesson.

So a program that has been in existence since 1829, whose alumni include such figures as Daniel Webster for chrissakes, should be abolished because a Republican congressman is a self-hating, closeted, in denial twit terrified of sexual contact with partners of adult status? Because Foley has abused his authority relationship with boys, the boys (and girls) should be the ones punished? Read more…