I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question.

I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to conclusions.

I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to the conclusion
that this was the best of all possible worlds and I was lucky to have been born at
a time so free from the disease and hardship that was a mere generation away.
I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to the conclusion
that this was the best of all possible worlds and I was lucky to have been born at
a time so free from the disease and hardship that was mere generation away and to
have the opportunity to be anything I wanted to be regardless of class, race or
sex. Bzzzzz.

In the fourth grade John F. Kennedy is killed. In the eighth grade Martin Luther
King and Bobby Kennedy are killed. I sit at my bent plywood and Formica desk
unmoved while others sob watching the black & white TV. Even the nun’s are crying.
We read “The Diary of Anne Frank” in the seventh grade. What a tragedy! Such a
young girl! How poignant! Later I find out about Goodman and Shwerner and Chaney
and Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Later I find out how hard it is
to accomplish something good when powerful people don’t want things to change.
Reading alone in my bittersweet orange room with it’s flowered curtains and
fishmobiles hanging from the ceiling, I am beginning to not understand how Hitler,
charismatic as he may have been, did what he did all by himself. Bzzzzz.

I ask the librarian in my high school for a map of Vietnam and she says, “You
girls should be thinking about parties and dances. You should be having fun, not
worrying about things like war.” I am angry with her for not understanding: this
is my party, this is my dance. In the Museum of Modern Art there is a poster that
is a photograph of a pile of dead Vietnamese bodies. The caption asks, “And babies
too?” and answers, “And babies, too.” I come to the conclusion that “Never again!”
really means never again in exactly the same place in exactly the same way.
Bzzzzz.

I pull down the cardboard box in my closet with old issues of my “Catholic Child’s
Treasure Box.” Laura Nyro is singing, “Buy and Sell” on my pink and purple record
player. I turn to the story of Wupsy the Guardian Angel and Sonny John the African
pagan baby that is his first charge. The head angel tells Wupsy not to stop Sonny
John from getting too close to the open fire. Sonny falls into the fire and is
badly burned, but because his mother Ntaka Ntaka thinks he is going to die, she
allows him to be baptized so he will go to heaven. Bzzzzz.

I explore the public library for things that I should read. I find “Treblinka”,
“While 6 Million Died”, “Who Financed Hitler”, “The Crime and Punishment of IG
Farbin”, “Blowback”, “Wanted, The Search for Nazi’s in America”, “The Deputy”,
“They Fought Back”, “The Wall”, “Fascism and Social Revolution”, “You Can’t Go
Home Again.” I question the role of German capital in the rise of the National
Socialist Movement. I question the role of International capital in the rise of
the National Socialist Movement. Standing in the stacks, my arms piled high with
evidence. I question the role of Social Democrats in their capitulation to the
National Socialist Movement. This is an old argument. Communists know one truth,
Social Democrats another. The issue is in the past, but not in the past. Read
Bogdan Denitch on Kosovo. Read Michael Parenti on Kosovo. Draw your own
conclusions. I question the role of the US government in the aftermath of the
National Socialist Movement. In 1995 Serge Stetkievich, an engineer at the company
where I work, sees me reading Christopher Simpson’s “Blowback”, points to a
picture of a Nazi in the book and says “I worked with him after the war.” My
stomach feels odd. I look at him. “ We had no choice,” he says, “It was them or ….
” He stops after seeing the look on my face. I come to the conclusion that Hitler
did not accomplish the murder of 14 million people all by himself. Bzzzzz.
I question the role of the American Communist Party in encouraging unions to make
“no strike deals” during WWII when American capital is making money hand over fist
as they have in every war since the Civil War. “After the Soviet Union was invaded
we had to support the war to save the Soviet Union! Communists were among the
first to fight fascism in Spain. We had to continue the fight!” Yes, the fight
against fascism but separate from Capital. What is Fascism but the skeleton of
Capital? Underneath the fat of war boom and the fancy clothing of electoral
politics the bones are the same. Oops! Here comes Joe Mc Carthy and HUAC. Hello,
Film Noir. So long, film rouge. Goodbye, Ethel. Goodbye, Julius. Bzzzzz.

I explore the thoughts of other people.

“Those students don’t know how good they have it.”
“They wouldn’t be able to demonstrate if they lived in Russia!”
“They’re supposed to getting an education, not demonstrating, having sex and
taking drugs!”
“Communists are torturers!”
“Hitler was a mad man!”
“Quadaffi is a terrorist!”
“Saddam Hussein is another Hitler!”
“Milosovic is another Hitler!”
What was Truman? What was Johnson? What was Nixon? What is Kissinger? What is
Bush? What is Carter? What is Clinton?
“The Viet Cong are Communists. We have to save those people from Communism!”
In James Michener's book, “Kent State,” parents of some of the students on the
campus say that if their sons and daughters were throwing rocks and bottles at the
National Guard, they SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOT. How many tons of bombs, naplam, agent
orange dropped to save these people from Communism and to save them for what?
Bzzzzz.

I return to college. My husband wants me to be a teacher. I explore Paolo Freire

and Jonathon Kozol. I read in “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” “with the
establishment of the relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never
in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the
initiators, if they themselves are the result of the violence…there would be no
oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their
subjugation.” If you teach this way no pair of Nike’s, no designer jeans will
satisfy. I can’t take the loyalty oath. I can’t lead the pledge of allegiance. Who
will hire me? I decide I can’t be a teacher. Bzzzzz.

I have a class called, “The Philosophy of Peace.” We have to write a peace plan.
We have to divide and share the world’s resources. The instructor is a Catholic
into liberation theology. He infuriates me. Is that what he thinks is causing the
problems of the world? No one has come up with a fair enough PLAN! I do a slide
show with my term paper. I show the “plans” that have been trampled in the dirt,
buried under the bodies that fell on top of them. He has never seen these things
before. I want to scream. Bzzzzz.

Preparing for the Columbus Quincentennary I read about the conquistadors slow
cooking a Native American over a fire pit. They tell him not to worry for he will
soon be in heaven. “Are their Spaniards in heaven?” he asks. “Yes, of course, many
Spaniards,” the soldier answers. “Then I don’t want to go to heaven,” says the
Indian. Bzzzzz.

My children are teenagers now. I explore what happened in Italy after 1945 with
American tax dollars, covert aid and approval. I read William Blum. I explore what
happened in Germany after 1945 with American tax dollars, covert aid and approval.
I read William Blum. I explore what happened in Indonesia in 1965 with American
tax dollars and direct aid and approval. I read William Blum. My head fills with
truths until I can’t hold it up any longer. It grows like a baloon, but it is as
heavy as stone. It flops down. I try to pick it up. It flops to the side. It will
not stand straight on my neck. I am officially a freak. Bzzzzz.

I march. I rally. I speak. I read. I write. Does it make me happy? Does it make me
rich? I search for truth like a blind man reading in stone that’s been worn down
by time. Like Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse with no star to guide me and no
one beside me, I go on my way and after the day the darkness will hide me. Every
bookeverypoemeverymovieeverypicture of the crimes of my country is in my head. The
pile is bigger than 14 million. All colors, all races, all sexes, all ages across
time. There is one thing in common, the color of our blood. That is a fact. There
is no denying it. Bzzzzz.

I don’t want to lose this anger. ‘Reconciliation’ is a word that makes me want to
vomit an ocean of blood. “Conflict resolution” is a phrase that makes me want to
step on the heads of the snakes that hiss it. I sit in my living room so I can see
all the colors that surround me. It is the color of acorn squash. The stairway
wall is paprika. The dining room is gazpacho green. Nina Simone is singing “Don’t
Let Me Be Misunderstood” on the CD player. I explored, I read, I questioned and I
came to the conclusion that everything that happens today is directly related to
what happened yesterday. I am lucky to have been born at a time when people were
turning the world on it’s head and shaking out the dirty secrets for all to share
and see so I could run and pick them up, hold them in my hands and let them burn
like fire in my pockets until I find their truths.