Does anybody think that Bobby Jindal is ready to be President of the United States? Or the Gov. of Alaska, who Bill Kristol suggested for VP?

This is of course exponentially more important for McCain who is so old he turned George Burns on to cigars.

Earlier the cops had closed all of the off-ramps from Highway 80, which was a major deal, and while it's great that this important demonstration was able to disrupt the flow of traffic-as-usual, the cop's preemptive blockade of all the highway exits leading to Richmond kept away many folks who wanted to come protest. With some orange rubber cones and police cruisers, the State, once again, blocked citizens from exercising their constitutional rights. I was turned back twice by traffic cops steering all cars away from the rally and march area. To make it to the protest I had to sneak past the police checkpoint by driving through a hotel parking lot. Then, having missed the rally, I caught up to the march.

Some folks, about 24, were arrested at the very end, after we ignored the barricades and entered Chevron property. Dr. C., an Environmental Justice organizer from Richmond, listed Chevron's crimes against the community, and my friend D., who always has a great way of framing things, said, 'We're going past the barricades to ARREST CHEVRON, so if you see any CEOs in there you can put them under citizen's arrest.' The cops freaked when we simply moved their iron gates. (I love disobedience to illegitimate authority!) Then we clustered together again in a sit-in; this time inside Chevron's property. The arrests happened later, but I had left by then. It was a beautiful day in the streets.

There are huge marches this week in SF and around.

--Abraham Lincoln

Forty years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before a microphone at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles and spoke words that would forever alter his place in history: “I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America.”

Though past the peak of his popularity he was at the height of his prophetic powers. Increasingly embattled, his influence waning, with the climactic victories of the civil rights movement behind him, King first announced in the City of Angels the opposition to war that marked his spiritual growth in the last years of his life. His concern anticipated that of many Americans about the current war.

Among Dr. King’s stands in this period, none was more courageous, or costly. He had criticized the war as early as 1965, but stopped short of placing the full force of his moral witness on a collision course with the U.S. government and the war machine. He refrained from directly attacking the Johnson Administration’s policy and resisted linking the civil rights movement to the movement to stop the war. But King’s equivocating would not last much longer. As he was to say, “We cannot remain silent as our nation engages in one of history’s most cruel and senseless wars….”

As 1967 dawned, and his disgust for the war deepened, he must have seen the lonely path of the prophet laid out before him—as he would ultimately in Memphis. The specific repudiation of war occurred at a symposium in Los Angeles organized by The Nation magazine. In the speech, titled “The Casualties of the War in Vietnam,” King stated that along with horrifying and intolerable physical casualties, including the deaths of one million Vietnamese children, the war was also inflicting moral casualties. If these “casualties of principle are not healed,” he warned, “the physical casualties will continue to mount.”

By involving itself in the affairs of Vietnam, the United States had violated the principle of self-determination and had fallen victim to “the deadly western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.” For King, America’s war in Vietnam could not be considered apart from larger issues of social justice, for whether or not Americans realized it, “our participation in the war in Vietnam is an ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed…our failure to feel the ache and anguish of the have-nots.”

It is hard to recall King’s Los Angeles speech without being reminded of Iraq. He said, “I see our country today intervening in what is basically a civil war,” and, “We often feel that we have some divine, messianic mission to police the whole world.” Further, as if foreseeing present policies, he warned that, “Nothing can be more destructive of our fundamental democratic traditions that the vicious effort to silence dissenters.”

Five weeks later, on April 4, 1967, King spoke once again against the war in a speech at Riverside Church in Manhattan. In a stunning oration, King further articulated the ethical arguments he had first put forth in Los Angeles. The Riverside speech gained the attention of a nation that had little noted his earlier west coast renunciation of the war.

As Voltaire said, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong,” and King’s Riverside speech unleashed a torrent of criticism against him. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Life magazine were among those who denounced King’s anti-war stance, and the FBI intensified its covert smear campaign aimed at discrediting and derailing King’s efforts. On April 4, 1968, the first anniversary of his Riverside speech, King was assassinated while standing on a balcony in Memphis.

King’s prophetic voice had been silenced, but his words and his vision remain. Although history has rightly honored the majestic Riverside speech, the less noted and path breaking Los Angeles speech has its claim to a place in history. It is infused with the positive moral vision King so often brought to particular issues. He sought to fix the attention of his audience, “not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but upon the positive affirmation of peace.” Peace, he said, “represents a sweeter music, a cosmic melody that is far superior to the discords of war.”

His words at the Beverly Hilton Hotel will not be lost. When the Martin Luther King Memorial opens in the nation’s capital, a handful of his most memorable utterances will be chiseled into marble. Last week a committee of historians chose two quotations from the Los Angeles speech to be among those to be included. One is the quote with which this piece began. The other is a truly fitting testament to the courage King showed that night forty years ago in Los Angeles: “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of convenience and comfort, but where he stands in moments of challenge and controversy.”

Mel Gibson lost his cool on tequila and exposed his extreme anti-semitism to the cops, and the world.

Three drunken fratboys from the University of South Carolina, thinking they were talking to a Kazakh reporter named Borat, revealed again the banality of hatred, proudly declaring their contempt for women, admiration for slavery, and the 'powerlessness' they feel compared to "minorities."

Now Michael Richards melts down, hurling racist threats from the stage. Surely some revelation is at hand....Ghosts of the land, specters of slavemasters.

The ghost of white supremacy is woven into the machine of the current system, from the drowning of New Orleans to the war on Iraq.

What are those of us who are white prepared to do to dismantle systemic racism? What are we prepared to see, recognize, observe, hear, say, read, learn, ask, challenge, interrupt, and give up? What work are we prepared to do? What movements are we prepared to support? What actions must we take to transform our racist past into real possibility?

As any dermatologist will tell you, redheads are generally at a much higher risk for skin cancer than blondes and especially brunettes, as redheads tend to be exceptionally pale. Red hair often accompanies very light skin, such that, in some sense, red hair is marker of the "whitest of the white," so to speak.

As Harold Ford Jr. is himself a light-skinned African American, a brunette playmate would not create much contrast. A playmate with brown hair and olive skin would in fact be darker than Ford Jr. And while blonde hair has often been used as a marker for whiteness, and even miscegenation, perhaps that would have been too obvious (?).

Even if only on a subconscious level, red hair signifies an identity that is pale, "Caucasian," and quintessentially "white."

Our analysts conclude that this is yet another example that racism and white supremacy linger like a virus in the body politic. Even in 2006, at the dawn of the third millennium, some politicians are still as eager as ever to conjure racist images of interracial sex.

Let us condemn those who inflame racism for political gain, expose the myriad ways racism thrives in American life, and renew our efforts to dismantle the systems of white privilege and white supremacy. In this way we can begin building a world based on justice, compassion, respect and equality.

But last night was a different story as Bobby put on an enchanting show and was clearly energized to be in San Francisco. There wasn't a bad song all evening, but the core of the show was an amazing string of "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," "Desolation Row," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Highway 61 Revisited," and a nice song from the new album, "When the Deal Goes Down."

After ending with a few more tunes, Dylan came back for a great encore of "Thunder on the Mountain," "Like a Rolling Stone," and "All Along the Watchtower."

Dylan truly seemed like an amplified prophet at times throughout the performance, and again as he ended the show by reprising the lyrics, "Businessmen they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth/None of them along the line know what any of it is..." and he hovered on the word "worth," as if encapsulating a searing indictment. End of show; rousing ovation. Dylan and his impressive band gathered at center stage, and the enigmatic poet laureate of rock stared at the crowd like an intense sagacious owl, then disappeared.

Sometimes all it takes is an example…

Of course, waiting at a crosswalk is not a big deal, and traffic signals--for the most part--serve the common good, but the problem is, we’re raised to be overly compliant in general, and too often we learn to respect authority no matter what. We’re afraid to step out of line, even if it is a big deal, so we don’t speak up when our government lies, or drops bombs on civilians.

But what if we could begin to inspire each other to defy the criminals who claim to be our rulers?

When that first person dares to step out into the intersection and cross the street, there’s no telling how many might follow.

I should probably introduce myself briefly. My name is Drew Dellinger. I’m a poet, teacher, activist, and father. I’m originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, (Go Tarheels!) and now I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Currently I’m busy finishing a PhD in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). For the last fifteen years or so I have been deeply interested in ecology, social justice, cosmology, art, and activism. Over the years, I’ve been blessed to learn from, and work with, many amazing and inspiring activists, organizers, authors, scholars, and visionaries.

That’s enough about me for now…I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. Send me an email, or post a comment to this web log.

Thanks again for checking out the site, and feel free to bookmark it and check back in as it evolves…

Blessings and solidarity,

Drew