"How much justice can you afford?" Man, is this a painful question for a long-time activist, former idealist like me to confront.
It's a different idea than just saying "all the justice money can buy"... See, there's a point to that, too: If you can hire the better (pricier) lawyer, you're more likely to win your court case. If you can pump more money into advertising, your political candidate is more likely to win. It's a cynical thought -- money tends to win, whether or not its cause is just.
But here's what I'm contemplating: Good laws are only meaningful if they're enforced -- and enforcement requires a paid staff. Remember a year or so ago when the news showed convicts walking out of Multnomah jails, because (due to budget cuts) we just couldn't keep as many people imprisoned? That was a real eye-opener for me. At the same time, I recall talk about how we couldn't pay for enough courts to actually process arrests. [Is America's much touted justice simply a function of having enough money in the budget to pay for a justice system? Can you realistically attribute corruption in places like, say, the former Soviet Union or Mexico to national poverty / debt?]
Where this comes from, is that being on the PWCL board, I'm increasingly confronted with how what we are able to do is limited by how few staff people we have. I've heard similar things about how there's an incredible backlog of civil rights complaints nationally that can't be processed due to lack of staffing. And I know that child protection agencies are chronically understaffed.
...When I came onboard, I specifically angled for doing fundraising work. Partly because the organization was in a financial crisis -- this was the most important thing I could do to ensure its survival. Now I'm having a new sense of how important funding is. It's more than just about survival; how much capacity you have for doing good is directly related to cash, as translated into person-power.
I'm grimly thinking about taking on further responsibility. Having inventoried the former Development Director's desk, I think that fundraising is fairly methodical work. I could do that. I could see myself writing grants... Endlessly. I'm cautious about taking steps down this path -- because it could never end, once I start down that way.
I care about justice. I also care about art. I also care about having a private life of intimacy and spirituallity.
Given who I am, and my personal situation, I get to choose.
I wish it was as simple as saying "I'll devote 33% of myself to art, 33% to politics, and 33% to a private life." Unfortunately, politics is a gaping black hole, whose nature is to hungrily suck out everything you've got in you. ...As much as you hear folks talk about being "proactive" and working on programs that assert positive change, there are still enemies to fight. Actual physical assaults to respond to -- and legal assaults, like that new "Measure 36", which aims to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in Oregon. When you fight an opponent, you have to operate on their time tables. And that's exhausting.
I left political work in, what?, 2000? I could see that the work I was doing with PBA was a never-ending road. I hadn't perfected everything that we were doing -- but I could see the boundaries of what was possible from where I stood. So much of it was cyclical: every year do another conference, another 12 workshops, host another 12 guests, attend the Sexual Minority Roundtable (or whatever other relevant political meeting) every month. I put in about six years. Was it my lot in life to endlessly hold open a space for bisexuals in the world? I carried the torch, and if there was no one else to pick up at the end of my stint... Then I would just have to accept that as the decision of the universe, something beyond what it is for me to control.
I wanted to do write about Youth Liberation. I feel that's my special gift for the world -- something where I have something to say that no one else has worked out to such an extent yet. And I wanted to remember what it was to have friends, lovers, leisure -- "a life".
I've gone on to do movie work, too -- pursuing a childhood dream. I've enjoyed it, though it can also certainly chew up time! ...And at the same time, I've felt its inherent insignificance. Fantasy fictions about space aliens really don't contribute much to the world, much as I enjoy them.
With PBA, I began to feel that I'd picked the wrong cause. My ultimate issue-of-interest is interpersonal violence. That includes violence against minors, women, and queers -- violence that all, in one way or another, relates back to the structure of the family. Me, I can see how bisexuality is pertinent. Compulsory heterosexuality [an Adrienne Rich term] is a key component of sexism; undermine that by promoting "the freedom to follow love" [my old slogan], and you're indirectly contributing to a better world, one without violence.
It's the "indirectly" part that contributed to my resignation. I'm a very structural thinker; I'm interested in how ideologies -- those about the nature of being human -- are made manifest in institutions. But when it comes down to it, "oppression" is an in-the-moment thing. "Bread and blankets" -- that was my old phrase. When you give a person bread because they're hungry, or blankets when they're cold, that's direct. You don't have to go off gassing about "hegemony"-this and "liberation"-that to show the good you're doing. ...Most of the members of PBA didn't see the connections I was making. Probably none of them did. --If they didn't, it seemed pretty specious to think I was actually effecting society in the ways I'd set out to.
Bread, blankets... And blood. With PWCL, I heard about one of the advocates in the Sexual Assault program discovering that they were sitting in a pool of blood from the person they were helping. "Put your hand here" -- stopping blood loss with your own hands -- that's pretty real, too.
Me, I adore bad sci fi films. I admit it. But every so often, I can't help considering how much money goes into Hollywood -- and then comparing that to how much money we need in order to process all of the pending civil rights complaints. Or, putting "social change" and justice issues aside, imagine the good that would be done if we put that money into Hospitals? [A movie like "The Corporation" irritates this nagging itch further, when I start to think about all the useless and toxic plastic widgets that are being propagated.]
OK, so the problems are big. I can do my part. And that's good enough. ...I've been feeling irritation for the past few years about this bumper sticker "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention". Suddenly I think I know why. See, I'm not outraged. I'm grim and determined with regards to the issues I'm dedicated to, and attempt to compassionately ignore the issues that I don't have the time/energy/resources to address. If you're outraged, you're wasting your energy instead of getting something done. Outrage is an emotion reserved for spectators. Well, I'm overstating the case, but you get the drift.
Ultimately it comes down to this: I'm haunted by "The Last Temptation of Christ". That last temptation being to just live a happy, normal life. Counter-intuitively, I assert that in a world of injustices that could easily swallow your entire life (if you devote yourself to the struggle) happiness is not a luxury -- it's a holy obligation. I mean, I don't believe in santa-god, but I do feel that existence is a profound gift, that obliges us to wonder at its beauty. To focus on the flaws of our life together so far as to ignore joy, that's... well, not OK.
Leopoldo said something on the trip to the coast that I've been rolling around in my head..
I was talking about how I feel I'm closest to the divine when I look into the eyes of another person and catch a glimmer of another mind looking back at me. I have no way of connecting to a super-big-gulp cosmic mind; a human-sized mind is the closest to that experience that I can get. And, just as with talking to god, I think to actually connect with another person is a rare, profound thing.
...Leopoldo said that I "celebrate people" more than pretty much anyone else he knows. [Feel free to correct my wording, if I got that wrong, Leo.]
Well, yeah! That's what it's all about, after all. Love each other. Simple kindness will do. Try to treat strangers with respect. Make sure that everyone at least gets fed, regardless of how awful they are. And perk up, drop what you're doing to go help, if you hear someone saying they're being hurt. That's all there is to it... Duh.
(Oh, but how the world of corporations,k family birth order psychology, and what-not tangles up our heads.)
...
Point? Did I say I was going to have a point?
It's a different idea than just saying "all the justice money can buy"... See, there's a point to that, too: If you can hire the better (pricier) lawyer, you're more likely to win your court case. If you can pump more money into advertising, your political candidate is more likely to win. It's a cynical thought -- money tends to win, whether or not its cause is just.
But here's what I'm contemplating: Good laws are only meaningful if they're enforced -- and enforcement requires a paid staff. Remember a year or so ago when the news showed convicts walking out of Multnomah jails, because (due to budget cuts) we just couldn't keep as many people imprisoned? That was a real eye-opener for me. At the same time, I recall talk about how we couldn't pay for enough courts to actually process arrests. [Is America's much touted justice simply a function of having enough money in the budget to pay for a justice system? Can you realistically attribute corruption in places like, say, the former Soviet Union or Mexico to national poverty / debt?]
Where this comes from, is that being on the PWCL board, I'm increasingly confronted with how what we are able to do is limited by how few staff people we have. I've heard similar things about how there's an incredible backlog of civil rights complaints nationally that can't be processed due to lack of staffing. And I know that child protection agencies are chronically understaffed.
...When I came onboard, I specifically angled for doing fundraising work. Partly because the organization was in a financial crisis -- this was the most important thing I could do to ensure its survival. Now I'm having a new sense of how important funding is. It's more than just about survival; how much capacity you have for doing good is directly related to cash, as translated into person-power.
I'm grimly thinking about taking on further responsibility. Having inventoried the former Development Director's desk, I think that fundraising is fairly methodical work. I could do that. I could see myself writing grants... Endlessly. I'm cautious about taking steps down this path -- because it could never end, once I start down that way.
I care about justice. I also care about art. I also care about having a private life of intimacy and spirituallity.
Given who I am, and my personal situation, I get to choose.
I wish it was as simple as saying "I'll devote 33% of myself to art, 33% to politics, and 33% to a private life." Unfortunately, politics is a gaping black hole, whose nature is to hungrily suck out everything you've got in you. ...As much as you hear folks talk about being "proactive" and working on programs that assert positive change, there are still enemies to fight. Actual physical assaults to respond to -- and legal assaults, like that new "Measure 36", which aims to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage in Oregon. When you fight an opponent, you have to operate on their time tables. And that's exhausting.
I left political work in, what?, 2000? I could see that the work I was doing with PBA was a never-ending road. I hadn't perfected everything that we were doing -- but I could see the boundaries of what was possible from where I stood. So much of it was cyclical: every year do another conference, another 12 workshops, host another 12 guests, attend the Sexual Minority Roundtable (or whatever other relevant political meeting) every month. I put in about six years. Was it my lot in life to endlessly hold open a space for bisexuals in the world? I carried the torch, and if there was no one else to pick up at the end of my stint... Then I would just have to accept that as the decision of the universe, something beyond what it is for me to control.
I wanted to do write about Youth Liberation. I feel that's my special gift for the world -- something where I have something to say that no one else has worked out to such an extent yet. And I wanted to remember what it was to have friends, lovers, leisure -- "a life".
I've gone on to do movie work, too -- pursuing a childhood dream. I've enjoyed it, though it can also certainly chew up time! ...And at the same time, I've felt its inherent insignificance. Fantasy fictions about space aliens really don't contribute much to the world, much as I enjoy them.
With PBA, I began to feel that I'd picked the wrong cause. My ultimate issue-of-interest is interpersonal violence. That includes violence against minors, women, and queers -- violence that all, in one way or another, relates back to the structure of the family. Me, I can see how bisexuality is pertinent. Compulsory heterosexuality [an Adrienne Rich term] is a key component of sexism; undermine that by promoting "the freedom to follow love" [my old slogan], and you're indirectly contributing to a better world, one without violence.
It's the "indirectly" part that contributed to my resignation. I'm a very structural thinker; I'm interested in how ideologies -- those about the nature of being human -- are made manifest in institutions. But when it comes down to it, "oppression" is an in-the-moment thing. "Bread and blankets" -- that was my old phrase. When you give a person bread because they're hungry, or blankets when they're cold, that's direct. You don't have to go off gassing about "hegemony"-this and "liberation"-that to show the good you're doing. ...Most of the members of PBA didn't see the connections I was making. Probably none of them did. --If they didn't, it seemed pretty specious to think I was actually effecting society in the ways I'd set out to.
Bread, blankets... And blood. With PWCL, I heard about one of the advocates in the Sexual Assault program discovering that they were sitting in a pool of blood from the person they were helping. "Put your hand here" -- stopping blood loss with your own hands -- that's pretty real, too.
Me, I adore bad sci fi films. I admit it. But every so often, I can't help considering how much money goes into Hollywood -- and then comparing that to how much money we need in order to process all of the pending civil rights complaints. Or, putting "social change" and justice issues aside, imagine the good that would be done if we put that money into Hospitals? [A movie like "The Corporation" irritates this nagging itch further, when I start to think about all the useless and toxic plastic widgets that are being propagated.]
OK, so the problems are big. I can do my part. And that's good enough. ...I've been feeling irritation for the past few years about this bumper sticker "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention". Suddenly I think I know why. See, I'm not outraged. I'm grim and determined with regards to the issues I'm dedicated to, and attempt to compassionately ignore the issues that I don't have the time/energy/resources to address. If you're outraged, you're wasting your energy instead of getting something done. Outrage is an emotion reserved for spectators. Well, I'm overstating the case, but you get the drift.
Ultimately it comes down to this: I'm haunted by "The Last Temptation of Christ". That last temptation being to just live a happy, normal life. Counter-intuitively, I assert that in a world of injustices that could easily swallow your entire life (if you devote yourself to the struggle) happiness is not a luxury -- it's a holy obligation. I mean, I don't believe in santa-god, but I do feel that existence is a profound gift, that obliges us to wonder at its beauty. To focus on the flaws of our life together so far as to ignore joy, that's... well, not OK.
Leopoldo said something on the trip to the coast that I've been rolling around in my head..
I was talking about how I feel I'm closest to the divine when I look into the eyes of another person and catch a glimmer of another mind looking back at me. I have no way of connecting to a super-big-gulp cosmic mind; a human-sized mind is the closest to that experience that I can get. And, just as with talking to god, I think to actually connect with another person is a rare, profound thing.
...Leopoldo said that I "celebrate people" more than pretty much anyone else he knows. [Feel free to correct my wording, if I got that wrong, Leo.]
Well, yeah! That's what it's all about, after all. Love each other. Simple kindness will do. Try to treat strangers with respect. Make sure that everyone at least gets fed, regardless of how awful they are. And perk up, drop what you're doing to go help, if you hear someone saying they're being hurt. That's all there is to it... Duh.
(Oh, but how the world of corporations,k family birth order psychology, and what-not tangles up our heads.)
...
Point? Did I say I was going to have a point?
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