I just returned from 11 days in Venezuela, my sixth trip there since 2005. Many people have asked me how they can understand what’s really happening in Venezuela based on information from public institutions such as the U.S. government and the mainstream media. Sources they have used include television ranging from Fox News to MSNBC and CNN; newspapers from the New York Times to more “progressive” publications; and radio from private ad-based to public listener-supported stations. In order to analyze information today and in the future, there are three key points that most people in the United States and in Venezuela can agree on. 1 – No war.
General News
Voting, A Patriotic Duty
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I am a black woman in America. I am a woke black woman who has been woke before woke was cool. I also love America. I am an American patriot, an Angela Davis patriot. I heard Angela Davis explain to a television talk-show host that her activism did not come from a hatred of America, rather, it comes from her love for her country.
General News
An American Kaddish
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Daniel Stein Kokin writes an American kaddish that honors people killed in mass shootings.
General News
My Dinner with the Devil (a short story)
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He was a tall, dark, and handsome stranger standing in front of me in the grocery store line. He was “Oh my goodness fine.” But, I was cool, thumbing through a special edition of Rolling Stone about John Lennon. The man said something out loud, and I looked up. He seemed to be reciting his grocery list.
General News
With A Perfect Hatred (part 2)
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I hate liars and lies with a perfect hatred. As it is written in the Psalms: “I hate and detest falsehood, But I love [God’s] law. (Psalm 119:163)
As I write this, the United States has been rocked by multiple acts of violence in the past few days. A Florida man has been accused of sending multiple pipe bombs to prominent Democrats. Thankfully, the bombs did not explode.
General News
With A Perfect Hatred (part 1)
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My rage was physical. When the final votes were counted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the United State Supreme Court, I could feel the blood coursing through my body acid hot. I have heard the expression about boiling blood, but I had never felt this sensation before. However, at this moment, by blood not only boiled, but it ran through my body with a stinging sensation. What is the bio-chemistry of fury?
Gender and Sexuality
Beyond Patriarchy
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For deflated optimists and radical pessimists, both, this election boils down to a simple binary choice. Letty Cottin Pogrebin reflects on feminism, the importance of voting, and shares ideas of how we can get out the vote between now and Election Day.
General News
Increasing Prospects for Collaboration Even before Starting
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“I started wondering about the context within which we aim to collaborate, and about whether there is anything we can do about the structural conditions that has the potential to make collaboration succeed more often than otherwise. Over the last couple of years, I’ve been identifying and investigating such conditions…”
General News
The Pillars of Patriarchal Privilege Will (Hopefully) Come A-Tumbling Down
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Warren Blumenfeld argues that the meritocracy in which we live “endows [men] with a sense of entitlement deep within the cellular level of their bodies and the recesses of their souls.”
General News
Look At Me (Part Three)
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When we think about the meaning of events in the world around us, we interpret them through a fusion of past, present and future horizons. Philosopher Hans-Georg-Gadamer wrote about the fusion of past and present horizons in the interpretation of texts, but I say that the future we want to bring into existence is also part of the eternal now that forms the context of our thinking. We live in a country where writer Gore Vidal called the USA the United States of Amnesia. It often seems as if we cannot remember from one day to the next, much less the last century. However, if we are to understand the current moment, it is important to understand the past.
General News
Look At Me (Part Two)
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When Ana Maria Archila, national committee member of the Working Families Party and executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, and activist Maria Gallagher confronted Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator, they demanded that he look at them. Their imperative is one that demands that we see women today and see women within the context of the history of women in the United States. When I wrote about Anita Hill, I read her testimony within this context. Here is some of what I wrote:
“Once upon a time in America, during the Revolutionary War, women became boycotters, refusing to buy British goods, were camp followers, petitioners, fund raisers, loyalists and patriots. Still, at the writing of the Constitution, women were not citizens.