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Mondragon Miracle, Part 1 of 3: Building the Road We Travel

1941, Office of the Archbishop of Spain:

“They just released you?” Archbishop Balbino Oliver eyed the priest standing before his desk with suspicion. Something about the young man unsettled him.

“I believe it was in error. They did not realize I had written so much against Franco. When God spared my life, I enrolled in the seminary.”

He possessed humility. Good. Yet something about the eyes… “Even under the care of the church, Franco may not let you go so easily.”

“Yes, it is best if I left Spain. I could continue my writing in Belgium. I think I can…”

“God granted you a precious gift, my son.” The Bishop leaned back, considering. His left eye. That was it. “It would be unwise to waste the gift with further agitation of forces beyond your control.” Yes, his left eye stared back slightly wider, giving him a permanently quizzical expression. Father Bertolli had mentioned him losing his eye in an accident.

“But the work I’ve been doing…”

“Is against Church official policy.” The Archbishop leaned forward to study the documents the priest had presented him. “You are Basque, no?”

“Yes, but in Belgium…”

“Father Tillous requested an assistant in Mondragon, only 50 miles from where you grew up. Franco is unlikely to bother you, there.”

“Out there, he is unlikely to need to.” The young man bowed his head curtly, murmuring the obligatory goodbye.

The bishop’s gaze followed his receding figure. Even with his back turned, the young man disturbed him. Perhaps something other than his eye then…

Balbino had no way to know, he had just set Don Jose on course to change the world.

Huck Finn and the Hunger Games

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Are you a teacher upset by your school’s resistance to allowing the original version of Huck Finn?  I may have the solution–The Hunger Games.

I admit, I read the first page and thought I would hate it.  The book is written in first-person present tense, has simplistic prose and starts with a huge load of back story. After the first chapter, though, I was hooked.  The novel is bullet paced and winds through twists and turns that, for once, I did not anticipate.

So what does that have to do with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?  Well, Mark Twain’s 127 year old classic has racism as its theme: A young white runaway realizes he has more in common with a runaway black slave, than with affluent whites.  The problem is that Twain was a product of his time and uses the “N-word” liberally throughout the text.  Although class struggle and racism don’t bother school boards at all, the N-word apparently does, and the book is frequently banned from school libraries, English classes and social studies.

Enter the Hunger Games–a modern book with the theme of class warfare and imperialism that has an almost spooky resemblance to the Jasmine Revolution. (No small feat given the book’s copyright in 2008.)  Because it is a futuristic novel, the N-word is no where to be found.  In fact, there are no black people at all. That takes care of that.  Instead, the former US is split into 12 Districts that are pitted against each other in a reality show that is must see TV.  I mean the government makes you watch. Two children ages 12-18 are chosen by lottery from each district and forced to compete in a kill or be killed game for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Capitol district.  Throw in media control, massive government spying, police state, and the exploitation of the periphery districts by the Capitol district and the themes of this modern novel should provide more than enough material for a discussion of the problems of modern society and how they are portrayed in literature.

And if you still miss the racism aspect of Mark Twain, well how about talking about the foundation of racism–artificial adversarial relationships that keep those without power from forming solidarity for the benefit of the powerful.

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US is Tax Free for B of A

Reprint from US UNCUT Daily Kos Site:

On Friday, the San Francisco branch of US Uncut temporarily took over the San Francisco branch of Bank of America.

This is what happened:

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Now we want you to do the same thing, with or without musical accompaniment – and we’re going to tell you how.

As the video says, the government claims we’re broke, and is slashing  necessities for working and retired Americans. Meanwhile, corporate tax  cheats like Bank of America and GE rake in billions in profit – and pay  back zero in taxes.

Something’s wrong here – and tomorrow, on Tax Day 2011, Americans are going to stand as one and point it out.

We currently have over 100 actions planned for tomorrow. Click here to find your local US Uncut action. Not seeing one nearby that works for you? Then start your own – it’s SUPER easy.

Tomorrow, let’s show the powers that be that Americans are seriously  opposed to cutting schools, firefighters, police, healthcare, job  creation…and seriously in favor of corporations actually paying their  taxes.

Thank you,

The US Uncut Team

P.S. You can learn more here about how the San Francisco action was planned and carried out.

Originally posted to US Uncut on Sun Apr 17, 2011 at 11:12 AM PDT.

Faux Democracy

“The government did not want the people to communicate with each other, and it did not want the press to communicate with the public.”–Hillary Clinton speaking about Egypt at an Internet Freedom seminar, while a 71 year old man who had been standing quietly with his back to her was dragged out before her eyes.

Sherwood on the Lake

I know, you have “breaking news” overload.  But I can’t help but see the parallels between the Middle East and what happens here at home.

Wisconsin is waging its own fight for democracy and economic liberty, without the aid of an international coalition.  They are planning to oust leaders who voted for enslavement.  But what should they demand from the new people they elect to the legislature?  How could they permanently break the bonds of economic enslavement?  

I have a few suggestions.

Dystopia 24: Epilogue


The Great Correction :

Down on  the corner of ruin and grace

I’m growin weary of the human race

hold  my lamp up in everyone’s face

lookin for an honest man

everyone tied to the turnin wheel

everyone hidin from the things they feel

well  the truth’s so hard it just don’t seem real

the shadow across this  land

people round here don’t  know what it means

to suffer at the hands of our american dreams

they  turn their backs on the grisly scenes

traced to the privileged sons

they got their god they got their  guns

got their armies and the chosen ones

but we’ll all be burnin  in the same big sun

when the great correction comes

down through the ages lovers of the  mystery

been sayin people let your love light shine

poets and  sages all throughout history

say the light burns brightest in the  darkest times

it’s the bitter end we’ve come down to

the eye of  the needle that we gotta get through

but the end could be the start  of something new

when the great correction comes

down through the ages….

down to the wire runnin  out of time

still got hope in this heart of mine

but the future  waits on the horizon line

for our daughters and our sons

I don’t know where this train’s bound

whole  lotta people tryin to turn it around

gonna shout til the walls come  tumblin down

and the great correction comes

don’t let me down

when  the great correction comes

Eliza  Gilkyson

Utopia 24: First Day of School


And I  say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made  one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew  one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and  one father.

Black  Elk

Dystopia 23: Birthday

At some point in the educational process most people are taught  in reverent tones about the Constitution, that is, what it contains and  what one should think and how one should feel about it. In Washington,  millions of awed tourists parade past this holy document preserved  within argon gas. But the vast majority of Americans are never invited  to critically examine the content of the Constitution, to ask what its  basic assumptions are and to question the legitimacy of those  assumptions…

…We have seen technical  discussions within the popular mass media about how the Constitution,  the physical document, is preserved. We-or, at any rate, I-have never  seen in the mass media a penetrating debate concerning the possible  creation of a new, better constitution.


In the hands of only the elite, the Constitution  and the government based upon it are merely tools for self-service. Only  a constitution in the hearts, minds, and hands of all of us can be  considered to be a document that truly lives for us all…The  Constitution’s very roots and foundation, its legitimacy, and its  quality and utility should always be subject to expert and popular  questions. We should not merely eternally reinterpret the current  Constitution but actively seek ways to transcend it and move another  evolutionary step as a society toward greater humanity and happiness.Roger Rothenberger Beyond Plutocracy



Utopia 23: Graduation Day

In many places, the report discusses critical thinking,  complex problem solving, collaboration, and multimedia communication  (a.k.a. 21st-century competencies). We read about goals of creating  inquisitive, creative, resourceful thinkers, informed citizens,  effective problem [solvers], groundbreaking pioneers, and visionary  leaders. But the report also clearly articulates the importance of  data-based instruction and data-based decisions. How does this report  imagine education in the context of quantitative data and qualitative  experience?

The report says data, data, data. I get it.  But the report also says schools can’t be ‘information factories.’  Where do those ends meet?

The focus of the federal and  state governments on high-stakes testing is in direct contradiction to  creating an environment where humans learn best. Furthermore, it  perpetuates the idea that all students should be the same. Students are  not the same. People are not the same. … Stop attaching funding to only  standardized test scores. Then, perhaps schools could begin moving  towards creating an environment where 21st-century skills can develop.–Bill  MacKenty eSchool News

Dystopia 22: Gerry Revisited

Invictus (Unconquered)

Out of the night  that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my  unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of  circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under  the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond  this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the  shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and  shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait  the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I  am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

A favorite poem of Nelson Mandela

Dytopia 21: Laissi’s Scars





The Human  moral keyboard is limited Adam One used to say:  there’s nothing you can  play on it that hasn’t been played before.  And, my dear Friends, I am  sorry to say this, but it has its lower notes.–Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood







Utopia 22: Jeff Revisited

Your honor, I ask no mercy, I plead for  no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never more  fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of  greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I  can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening.  In due course of time they will come into their own.

When  the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary  watch, he turns his eyes toward the Southern Cross, burning  luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches the  Southern Cross begins to bend, and the whirling worlds change their  places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of  Time upon the dial of the universe; and though no bell may beat the glad  tidings, the look-out knows that the midnight is passing – that relief  and rest are close at hand.

Let the people take  heart and hope everywhere, for the cross is bending, midnight is  passing, and joy cometh with the morning.–Eugene V. Debs

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