For a long time I've been thinking about this as a "negative" diary, as in "why the f--- haven't we stopped this god damned war". But after drinks with friends that turned into dinner, and in the "spirit of the season" - as an atheist, non-practicing buddhist Jew, what season - I want to put the most positive spin on it I can.
So - Hope springs eternal.
In high school I organized a "Marxist study group". It turned out to be four guys and one girl who got together every friday night to bullshit. In two years I think we "studied" two books. But what we did do was talk wild politics for hours every friday, creating a safe, if drunken and drugged, place where we could speak of things that school, family, society deemed unspeakable.
More below.
But the only reason I bring this up now is to state that there were three or four things which we - overeducated children of America in the 60s - never expected to see in our lifetimes (we're talking early 70s here). Two of those were a black government in South Africa and the demise of Soviet totalitarianism. We probably would have argued that both were possible, indeed inevitable, but only after violent revolution. The rest you know.
In both South Africa and the Soviet Union, in fact, a combination of enlightened (or fatalistic) leadership, popular struggle, and international pressure lead to essentially bloodless and profound revolutions. And that's really it - everything we can imagine can happen, suddenly and painlessly. I've thought again and again about writing a dairy that starts like that and continues to ask what is wrong with us? why haven't we done that? why didn't we do it in 2000 when an election was stolen, why didn't we do it in 2002 and stop a war? why haven't we done it in 2003, 4 ,5 6, 7 to stop the slaughter in Iraq (and I do mean we, since I've done less than many if not most of you). But that's not my message tonight as we approach the day when through conspicuous consumption we are somehow celebrating the most non materialistic of all revolutionaries (sorry Gandhi, but Jesus is at least your equal here).
No, tonight I Just want to say to everyone on d'kos - be full of hope, the impossible has happened repeatedly in our lives and it can happen whenever we are willing to make it happen. I know, I know, everything is stacked against us. Hell, for me my very personality structure is stacked against it. And yet - can we really say that we face a harder struggle than blacks in South Africa, or everyone in the Soviet empire? Forgive me for slapping your face but get over it. We have so much to work with and yet...
I'll stop there because it's so easy to be mean. I don't know any of you, but I do love you all, I do want the best for all of you, and all Americans, and every other human being. And, the bottom line, I really believe that that is all that separates us from "them" - we have enough imagination to extend our love of family and friends to larger circles. Why do one million Iraqi deaths mean less than 4000 US American? Lack of imagination! And maybe it's that simple, when our collective imagination is big enough then our non-violent revolution will become history's next big surprise.
For now though - just dream my friends, and don't sell your dreams out for pyrrhic fantasies of victory - we can have it all. It's just a matter of making enough imaginations soar. Be happy in the season and be true to your best self and we will change EVERYTHING.
Look what just nine of us did to Sauron.
Love,
Frodo