The League of Extraordinary Warmongerers

First we have the attack on the Turkish flotilla bringing aid to Gaza.

Then we see humanitarians murdered in Oaxaca while delivering aid.

And now, the US Supreme Court is on board to curb humanitarianism and peaceful resistance, with its ruling in Holder vs. Humanitarian Law Project. Any “material contribution” or “service” extended by American citizens to “terrorist groups” designated by the State Department is a violation of the PATRIOT Act and punishable by imprisonment — even if the contributions and services advocate peaceful means to accessing international legal remedies.

In the NYT article, Chief Justice Roberts claims First Amendment protections are unencumbered by criminalizing support for peaceful conflict resolution between nation-states and terrorist groups:

“Plaintiffs may say anything they wish on any topic,” he wrote. “They may speak and write freely about” the Kurdish and Tamil groups, “the governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka, human rights and international law.” Indeed, the chief justice added, the plaintiffs are free to become members of the two groups.

What they cannot do is make a contribution to a foreign terrorist organization, even if that contribution takes the form of speech. “Such support,” he wrote, “frees up other resources within the organization that may be put to violent ends,” “helps lend legitimacy to foreign terrorist groups” and strains “the United States’ relationships with its allies.”

In our current progressive climate, moral citizens already learn that the best way to support their causes is political activity through passive means: wearing t-shirts or ribbons, casting ballots, amassing in groups in a fixed place during a fixed time, and sending money to campaigns. However, the media’s enamored reporting about movements like the Tea Party shows us that people across the political spectrum are anxious for more civic engagement. Civic engagement includes reaching out and extending material contributions and services to important causes beyond the rote actions of political institutions.

In an effort to make a terror-ridden world less terrifying, people now sit in the cross-hairs of criminal prosecution. Policy-wise, this Supreme Court ruling has no logical sense in it. It treats people behind terrorist acts as beings incapable of reason and morality who are uninterested in peaceful resolutions by cutting off any education on legal ways to attain their goals. The movie The Dark Knight famously remarked that “some people want to watch the world burn.” But with rulings like these and attacks on peacemakers, we have to wonder which people want the world to burn, and the depth of their interest in it.

The Court’s ruling cements the “us vs. them” War on Terror binary shaped during the presidency of George W. Bush: if you are not with the government, you are against it. Voltaire was right when he said, “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” The consequences of keeping the alleged enemy away from peaceable means of resolving conflicts include the enabling of military spending, more long-distance war campaigns and more opportunities for war profiteering. The interests of national security, as Breyer noted in his dissent and during the oral argument, are bulldozing the democratic civil liberties these wars and conflicts are allegedly defending.

The line between a conscientious dissenter and a terrorist is becoming blurrier, and citizens of all nations are treading a fine line between acting under a moral imperative and obeying the law. What is the use of having freedoms one cannot exercise?

Crossposted at Comments from Left Field.

to my dad

I’ve had to find a new significance for my name. It’s not enough anymore to say it’s a reworking of yours.  I needed an independent meaning — a meaning to separate from you and all the marks you’ve left on my life.  Good and bad, beneficial and detrimental… it’s difficult to stay hard and fast to the truth when it involves distancing from someone you love.  So I decided to find a new truth, a new tie to the world beyond being your daughter.  It feels unfamiliar now; but it also helps.

I hope that you and your family are having a great day today.  I hope there are reasons to celebrate you for years to come.  I may not be present at those celebrations; but I appreciate the good things you brought into my life.

To our soldiers. — my latest poem, live at Global Comment

Have you ever had a moment where you wanted to discuss an event, but the methods you expected to use weren’t enough?  This poem sprang from a place of suffering, of grief surrounding the murder of Aiyana Stanley-Jones.  I planned to write an article about increased militarization of police forces, about the economic divestment from low-income neighborhoods and constant violence perpetrated by citizens and by the state, and about how the ideological wars on drugs and poverty are domestic versions of wars waged around the world.

But the only words coming to mind were lyrical.  They were mournful.  They couldn’t take the loss of a child.  I wasn’t in the mood to rage against the machine.  I took my window seat, away from the system and the struggle, and I let myself mourn for her and think about other young girls lost along the way.

To our soldiers. Whether you carry a flag or a badge, do not desensitize yourselves to the presence of our dead.  Do not kill babies and tell us your fears take priority.

Please take a look at the poem I’ve written, now live at Global Comment, and feel free to leave comments here or there about what you think of it.

Where is home?

In BFP’s recent post Helen Thomas, she reinforces the solid point that Israel is a settler nation founded on the land of Palestinians.  She also points to the irony of progressives calling Thomas’ remarks out of line, when they adopt the indigenous demands that white racist nationalist settlers of the United States demand that other undocumented nationals (typically brown undocumented nationals) “go home.”  They seem to think they have exemption from the call.  It’s easier to excuse oneself than it is to face responsibility for the actions of those who built this nation on the bodies of indigenous peoples.

However, I think it is also relevant to consider another conundrum about the homes some of us lack.  In this particular situation, Polish and German Jews and Black Americans descended from slaves have a similar problem.  We have no homes, and we may lack the economic and social capital to recreate a home in the places from which we were taken.

Now, keep in mind that this is not an excuse for indigenous peoples being murdered, starved, and subjected to ethnocide.  But Helen Thomas seemed to fixate on a quick solution to send “Jews” back to Poland and Germany.  Kind of like when Whites fixated on sending Black American descendants from slaves back to Africa.  Some members of our peoples likely agreed and tried it.  But both perspectives, however justified partly in historical context, fail to consider the full circumstances of how we arrived where we were and how we got to where we are.

Our forced displacement from our lands, for purposes of genocide and enslavement, have made us culturally homeless.   Why do we have a cultural and social obligation to return to lands that robbed us of our dignity?  What resources do we get to rebuild homes if we cannot afford to go where our families originated?  What happens if those lands reject us again?  Where would we settle without losing some piece of our cultural identities to the area we occupy, to take some space in the international cultural community?  Economic enrichment was another key motivator for the Holocaust, and it clearly fueled the transatlantic slave trade for several centuries.  Who owes us the totality of our lives and work before our homes were destroyed?

We can all sit on our little acres and shout “go home go home go home” all day.  But the construction of home amidst occupation and trafficking runs deeper than telling People X to set up shop in Locale A or settling for colonization because the international landscape was founded on it, is steeped in it, and knows little else but legitimizing opportunistic violent human enclaves.  The solution isn’t as simple as move as close to the past as possible without repeating it and/or rebuilding history using scraps of citizenry and a road map.

If we all have a right to exist, what antiquated notions of possession and siege should we relinquish in order to exercise it?

On Gaza, Oaxaca, and the assault on human rights

What we are seeing with the attack on the Turkish flotilla to Gaza and the attack of aid relief workers heading to Oaxaca is an assault on basic humanity.  It is not defense of borders; it is not protection of resources; it is not authority of states.  It is the violent intervention between people and their right to live, to thrive, to flourish on a planet created for all living beings to exist.

A group of overarmed, depraved necrophiliacs are declaring war on our right to live because we do not crave death as much as they do.  It is wrong.  We should not stand for it.

I commend the bravery of the people who gathered resources together, who walked into the belly of the gunpowder-bloated beast and said, “No.  We will not let you deter us from helping others.”  It is civil disobedience in its most sacred form.  It is worth the price of death to try to save another’s life.  I, like many others, only wish it did not have to come at such a high price.

I am disappointed at the way people have treated those who condemn killers of good samaritans, of human rights workers, of peace supporters.  It is tragic that our culture has taught us that if logic can twist to justify one killing, it can start contorting to justify them all.

I am also unafraid to say this, even though it resulted in the firing of a journalist: if you cannot see the clear parallels between imperialism and colonialism around the globe and the establishment of the state of Israel on Palestinian land, you are willfully ignorant.

By acknowledging that the so-called civilized nations that permitted the wholesale extermination of entire groups of people sought to ameliorate their slowness to act by stealing land from yet another indigenous, autonomous group of people, I am not invalidating history or calling for the eradication of anything.  I am simply stating what happened, and why it is unsurprising that fighting continues for land, and why it is shameful that the Palestinians are joining the devastated ranks of other indigenous peoples around the world.  I am simply stating that the so-called civilized nations would rather steal land and arm its designated occupants to the teeth rather than create a peaceful, social solution to the ongoing racism and anti-Semitism that plagues their populations.

The nations would rather give away land that isn’t theirs so they can continue to preach in their churches, indoctrinate in their schools, and codify in their laws that a few decades’ worth of band-aids will fix centuries of injustice, hatred, and murder.  The nations would rather transform every human body that opposes it, no matter how small or slight or unarmed, into a menace that must be put down.

And with every humanitarian who dies to share food and medicine with their fellow human, we civilized ones are reminded that these fixes are not enough.  Just as we have the right to speak, the right to arm ourselves, the right to justice and the right to believe, we have the right to aid. We do, and we should.

God bless those people who are brave enough to help in their communities and in the world.

Two Recipes and a Snack

This is my second time writing this out.  I am not pleased.  But hopefully this time, everything will make it through successfully!

I am going to share some affordable recipes that are quick, healthy and delicious.  One is a meal (lunch or dinner), one is a dessert, and the last one is a fun snack idea.

Recipe #1: Veggie Quesadillas

Mmm mmm good!

This recipe is fast, healthy, and very easy to prepare.  I am going to approximate prices for the ingredients.  You can decide whether you want to go without some things.

Ingredients

1 10″ whole wheat tortilla (I bought the Chef Garcia brand, 10 in a pack for $3)

1/8 cup broccoli florettes (I bought a small bunch of fresh broccoli, chopped it up, and froze it to save money and to make it last longer; it cost approximately $1.50)

1/8 cup diced tomatoes (I bought a 6-pack of tomatoes for $3, and I diced and froze these as well)

1/8 cup onion (I used red onion; my grocery store had a container of already diced red onion for $1.50 and it lasted a LONG time when I froze it)

1/8 cup mushrooms (I bought a package of mushrooms for approximately $2.50; chop and freeze rules still apply)

1 tablespoon of scallions or green onions (Got a small bundle for about $1; chop and freeze rules apply)

1 tablespoon minced jalapeño pepper (Optional add for people not partial to heat and spice; I bought five small- to medium-sized jalapeños for approximately $2 and subjected them to chop and freeze)

1/2 cup reduced fat shredded cheese (I say cheese because you can use any type you’d like: vegan cheese, store brand cheese, fancy cheese.  Go wild with whatever cheese you can tolerate!  I used Sargento reduced fat “Mexican” blend cheese on some days and Sargento mild cheddar on others.  Each pre-packaged bag of shredded cheese cost about $3 a piece but you can always buy a block of cheese and grate your own to save here.)

A dash of cooking spray (I bought a frou-frou healthy cooking spray that cost $3 BUT if you have a non-stick skillet to prepare it in, you can save your money and just add a few drops of water when you heat your veggies.)

Total Cost: $20.50 (I added into the total cost an extra bag of cheese because one bag of cheese makes approximately 5 quesadillas.  It all depends on how much you go wild with the cheese and how many veggies you opt to use.  I go kinda hard on veggies because I like them.  With the cooking spray, it’s $23.50.  But go with non-stick cookware if you can.)

Directions

1. Gather your vegetables from the freezer, and place them into a small plastic container.
2. Spray a 12″ skillet with cooking spray (or use your non-stick cookware).  Place your vegetables into the skillet on medium heat to thaw.  This is the time to break apart any stubborn tomatoes or to divide any intimately bonded onions.  Remove slightly softened veggies from heat.
3. In the same skillet, place your 10″ whole wheat tortilla and let it heat.  Place a small layer of cheese towards the center-right of the tortilla.  On top of the cheese, add your veggie mixture.  Then top with the remaining cheese.
4. Using a spatula, fold the left side of the tortilla over the right and press down evenly.  Allow the folded tortilla to heat for approximately 20 seconds; then flip it carefully.  The quesadilla is done when the tortilla feels a little hardened and takes on a golden-brown sheen.
5. Transfer the quesadilla to a plate and if you’d like, cut it into two triangles.  If you find you have extra veggie mixture, use it as a garnish or place it into another freezer-safe container for future quesadilla making or for a stir fry.

That’s it!  It’s yummy, safe, and relatively fast to make if you chop and freeze your ingredients beforehand.  If you’d like to top it with sour cream or salsa or more cheese or whatever, do you.  I tend to keep it simple because since I’m on Weight Watchers, I need to track my points and it’s filling enough without the extras.

Recipe #2: Sorbet

This recipe is the one I’ve raved about on Twitter, often in CAPS LOCK.  It’s easy, it’s sweet, it’s vegan-friendly, and it’s GOOD.  You will need a blender or food processor or magic bullet to make this.  My particular combination makes four 1/2 cup servings.  Keep in mind that sorbet comes out a little softer than italian ice and ice cream. I’m going to use peaches for this recipe since that was the first fruit I used to make it; but feel free to substitute any fruit you’d like.  Great for hot days!

Ingredients

3 cups frozen sliced peaches (Cost: approximately $2.)

1/2 cup water (You can use tap if you have access to it; I’m not fancy.)

1/2 cup sugar (You can get a five-pound bag of sugar for $3 or cheaper; you can also substitute your favorite sweetener here but be mindful of how sweet you’d like your final product to be.  I’ve only used sugar; but I’ve seen recipes online that use simple syrup and honey.)

Total Cost: $5-6 or less

Directions

1. Place all ingredients into blender/food processor/magic bullet.  (If you’d like to keep some of your fruit in small chunks, separate about a 1/2 cup from the rest of the fruit and let it thaw during the next step).
2. Blend until smooth.  Use the blend option or puree option (whatever one is available on the appliance you have).  You may have to occasionally stop the blender, take the top off of it, and push the stubborn frozen fruit chunks toward the blade to make sure they are evenly processed. (Please make sure you cut the blender OFF before doing this.  Do not injure yourself or break your appliances.)
3. (If you let your fruit thaw a little in Step One, readd it to your mixture before this next step.)   Divide the fruit mixture into four 1/2 cup containers if you have them, or just place into one large freezer-safe container.  Freeze for at least one hour or until it has reached the desired consistency.

That’s it!  It’s hard for me not to plow through a couple of the cups sometimes, and on Weight Watchers, it only comes to approximately 3 points per serving!

Recipe #3 (not really): Mango Snackers

Ingredients

1 bag of frozen diced mango (approximately $3)

Total Cost: $3 (clearly)

Directions

1. Open bag.
2. Grab one or two diced pieces of mango.
3. Place in mouth and let it melt.  Your mouth softens the mango and then you get a sweet surprise.
4. Eat.  Make yourself stop.  But if it’s a hot day, don’t.  It tastes awesome.
5. Okay, don’t eat them all.  Ration out about a 1/2 cup if you feel you must.

This is probably one of the greatest healthiest coolest treats that takes NO preparation.  I bought Nature’s Promise brand of organic mango; but if you have access to other brands, then experiment.

That’s my healthy eating blogging for today!  I hope that you try at least one of these things.  They’re in order from moderately difficult to extremely easy.  Let me know how you like the recipes and if you have any suggestions for people with dietary restrictions or kids or anything else.  Enjoy!

Reflections and Introductions

I always feel like I’m walking into a trap when I start any type of self-improvement.  Despite my good intentions for doing it and the fact I WANT to do it, the moment other people get wind of what I’m doing they start projecting these expectations on my motives.  Eventually I join in until I don’t recognize why I started anymore, and the constant external plugging of Instant-Great-Life makes me quit.

I am physically healthy for a 5’7″, 237 pound African-American woman, haven’t had anything remotely close to high blood pressure or high cholesterol, haven’t tested anywhere close to having diabetes, and have a slight tendency towards anemia (my white blood cell count has been on the low side since I was a kid).  Yet whenever I go to the doctor’s office or whenever I tell someone I want to lose weight (mostly to become fitter and for my mental/emotional health since I can’t afford therapy, not even on a sliding scale), my doctor insists DESPITE MY DAMNED MEDICAL CHART we have reviewed together, that I need to ward off these specters of disease because BMI says I’m obese, and people presume that clearly I have been written a death ticket because I’m a fat black woman who wants to lose weight.

Reading this Bitch article on the links between privilege and a larger anti-feminist empowerment structure put it into perspective for me, because while I’m trying to make lifestyle adjustments and visualizing goals, I inevitably start wanting unrelated things.  I start wanting things that, for whatever reason, I’ve assumed that I can’t have now while I’m fat.  An excellent career.  A healthy romantic relationship.  Lots of money so I can join a gym, do a class, buy cute outfits.  Driving lessons and a car, so I can get my license.  Dancing lessons, so I can learn to dance.

Then when I look at all these little fantasies I’ve erected, I wonder, “How the hell did I get to wanting these things when I just want to get rid of these two asymmetrical rolls on my back?  Why is this my laundry list when I only want to get to the point that I can run and not feel like I’m going to collapse after an 1/8 of a mile?  If someone doesn’t think I’m attractive now, rolls and all, what does it say about me that I assume they’ll come running once I’m fit and slimmer?  Even more, what does it say about them that they felt no need to approach me until I conformed to their aesthetic?”

***

Weight Watchers is simultaneously improving and ruining my life.  Let me explain.

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve lost 25 pounds.  I lost the first 17 pounds using a free tool online called My Fitness Pal for calorie counting and estimating my activity.  I’ve lost the 8 pounds through my enrollment on Weight Watchers through my job.  I’ve been on the program since April, and I like the POINTS system as much as I like calorie counting; but of course, the POINTS calculator makes tracking more convenient, and you don’t have to rely upon people’s inaccurate assessments of nutritional facts as often.

But I am swiftly realizing it may have been a mistake to enroll in the Weight Watchers program through my job and to let it garnish my wages.  That choice has switched me from eking out a living with an administrative job to existing from paycheck to paycheck.  I cannot afford to go out with anyone.  I cannot afford to buy anything I need.  Instead, my money funnels towards home, student loans, and paying for the times when my fantasies of having enough, having it all, and continuing to have more blinded me to the reality of being a poor black woman with a relative to care for and the constant need to weave her own blessings from dust and dreams.

If I had that Weight Watchers money every two weeks, it would make a WORLD of difference.  But on the to-do list for a girl playing at privilege she doesn’t have — to eat, to pray, to spend — praying is the only thing I can afford!  So I do it regularly to instill some heaven into the hell I’ve created.

***

Credit is now the bane of my existence.  I relied mostly on credit to fuel my fantasies of having it all.  I could subscribe to magazines I liked.  I could buy my friends thoughtful gifts.  I could donate money to people and charities.  I could go out to eat.

And I LOVED going out to eat.

I ran up my credit card in college feeding myself and my friends.  Although we were granted the privilege of being served unappetizing food, sometimes undercooked food, often not very healthy food through our college diet plan, we opted not to take it.  We would either go to other places or buy groceries and cook ourselves.  We would choose our own unhealthy adventures, thank you very much, and we did it until we couldn’t anymore.  My little baby credit card, given to me at 17-18 (with parental supervision, initially) has grown from an $800 limit to approaching $10k while I’m the ripe old age of 24.  Guess how much your girl owes after 5 more years of higher learning, 5 years of running after security in shopping bags, and 5 years of wanting to feel responsibility through spending instead of through… well, taking responsibility.

I’m coming down from an addiction, and I’ve had mini-meltdowns in recovering from my need to show that I’m magnanimous and generous through spending.  Spending money helped to curb my social anxiety in a big way and helped me feel engaged in a non-profit model that gets by with constant solicitations for money and signatures instead of time-consuming interaction with issues, instead of recognizing the patterns of how these issues affect my life even if I’m not immediately proximate to the causes.  And it’s telling that lately in activism, saying the phrase do something translates often to give money to starting/stopping something.

***

I learned earlier this year that I cannot afford to write for free.  The second I felt the impulse to sit down and write here, on my space, I would follow it up with a question: “Can I make this longer and pitch it somewhere?”  Writing is something I enjoy; it’s something I do to sort out the thoughts that don’t belong anywhere else.  But it takes time, and time is money.  I’m foregoing a trip to work for time and a half to write this.  This is the best self-care I have.

I’ve slowly tried to phase out using Sylvia Peay as my writing name.  I have a body of work here and other places writing under that name.  I’ve made great friends and occasional enemies writing under that name.  But for a woman who constantly writes things like “this is who I am” to keep using a name that is not the one she was given — it grew tedious.

Some writers do well pseudonymously.  But I like my name.  I want to write for free and write for money (multitasking!), and I want to do it under my name.  I found an archive of posts from The Anti-Essentialist Conundrum by chance a month ago (proving nothing ever truly dies in cyberspace), and I will slowly integrate them here and bulk up my archives.  Eventually I will learn how to get my own domain space, buy said space, and see if I can pretty things up beyond what WordPress has given me.

I’m Monchel Pridget.  I’m a Christian (non-denominational), lawyer, writer, poet, radical woman of color, online activist, armchair revolutionary, and big mouth.  Honesty is one of my most precious commodities, second only to love.  My words, opinions, and occasional fits of hubris belong to me and not to anyone employing me at any given time.

Nice to meet you.