Nothing but a flock of pre-dawn breeze,
And florid sky, and lake
Taut with water, like a sail:
A painting in motion, unfinished.
I had thought I lacked for time
And spent my days frantic,
As though life were a web
And death a looming spider, his
Approach inexorable, his mouth
A relentless South Texas wind poses impossible questions,
Flaps the smirking flags until they are upturned,
Mists the mown grass with evil’s sputum,
Ripples the lone unarmed security guard’s shirt
As he waves concentration camp employees
We’ve all heard the Chinese proverb, “Give a poor [wo]man a fish and you feed her for a day. You teach her to fish and you give her an occupation that will feed her for a lifetime.” It’s a great concept, one that is popular with those who are more free market-oriented–they like the notion of hand-me-ups instead of hand-outs–as well as with those who tend toward socialism, as they like the idea of empowering the poor.
This is an oversimplification, but one way to think about the Civil Rights Movement, especially from the mid-to-late 1960s, is that there were two philosophical approaches: Dr. King’s faith-based, inclusive, nonviolent strategy; and Malcom X’s Black Power, “the bullet or the ballot,” movement.
“The trouble with [Nazi war criminal and participant in the Final Solution] Adolf Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.
We 21st century humans are pretty good at studying and learning the lessons of history but terrible when it comes to turning this knowledge into action. Consider the myriad books that have been written about the two World Wars, the Vietnam War, Stalinism, the Rwandan Genocide, the HIV / AIDS epidemic, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and other events
I am become the poet of resistance.
I write like a comet, a solar flare,
A sawed-off shotgun,
And where my words no longer suffice
Let them mingle with my blood,
If you’re reading this I assume you don’t need to be convinced that Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents and throwing them into “detention centers” is an abomination, a violation of human rights, and further proof that his administration
What if you can’t do well do good?
What if my electric car
And diligent recycling
Mean less than nothing to
The slave-wage worker
I am the Founder & CEO of Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit social venture seeking to tackle poverty through financial services. I am also a writer, poet, cyclist, and avid reader. Enjoy my blog!