Being Positively Disruptive

As many readers may have noticed, I haven't spent much time in writing essays for this blog over the last three or four months.  You might also have guessed from this that I've been very, very busy.  While many people I know have been glued to their TV's, computers, and smartphones, addicted to the torrent of toxic drama, crazy-making and bad news being generated by a certain doofus with orange hair who now claims to be the President of the United States, I've been occupied with making some good news of my own.  Let me fill you in on the details.

First, the tutoring initiative in which I am involved, which I mentioned in this post and this one, is now expanding from one location to three. Our roster of teachers has both changed and grown.  I believe there are now thirteen of us, and more may be joining in the next few months.  While two of our groups are continuing to focus on basic mathematics, one group is developing a science curriculum aimed at teaching appropriate technology and self-sufficiency/sustainability in the context of developing alternative institutions.  That group is being led by a woman from an African-American/Asian background and a Native American woman, and they are writing a series of science experiments and activity packets aimed at youth from 10 to 20 years of age.  

And we have a fourth group composed of writers, who are developing and editing a math curriculum to be used by all of our groups, complete with workbooks and worksheets.  (As soon as I am done with this post, I will be working on addition and subtraction worksheets.  If idleness is the devil's workshop, I won't have to worry about getting into trouble for a long time!)

On another front, a group of us at work are planning to launch a campaign to collect donations for the Puerto Rican victims of Hurricane Irma.  I am thinking we will present the campaign as an opportunity to spend money for a good cause instead of spending money on holiday shopping.  We will also promote news sources that are providing accurate coverage of the situation in Puerto Rico, as opposed to many American news sources and the White House.  My goal is to provide a positive disruption in three ways:

• By providing concrete relief to people whom our current regime would like to starve,
• By shunting money away from the usual recipients in our consumer economy during this holiday season,
• And by providing ongoing evidence that our current regime and its President are illegitimate.

There are a lot of people where I work.  Let's see where this takes us...

Lastly, it looks like I may have a few opportunities over the next couple of months to talk about resistance and related topics in front of a few audiences.  It looks like my part in the resistance being mounted by oppressed people is likely to get quite a bit larger.

Puerto Rico - A Humanitarian Disaster

The Federal response to the hurricane which recently devastated Puerto Rico is not unexpected.  Indeed, it is symptomatic of the disease of a large swath of American society - a swath who are full of empathy toward those victims of Hurricane Harvey who happened to be wealthy and white - yet full of sleepy neglect or overt hostility toward everyone else.  Now that sleepy neglect has hypnotized many Americans (but not a majority, thank God!), lost as they are in their individualism and addicted to their consumerism, while the overt hostility issues forth sporadically from the current President like projectile emesis from an infant who has been burped too vigorously.  Note, though, that the hostility is provoked only when someone manages to break through the President's own sleepy indifference and his perverted preoccupation with himself.  Then, if you are that someone, watch yourself, lest you get yourself spewed on.

Meanwhile, a lot of people in Puerto Rico are about to die.  This is not because there are no Federal resources available to help them, but because the Federal government is now run by a bunch of rich and incompetent pigs.  Decent people who have the means to find out the actual situation on the island (and not the sanitized FEMA version) should be appalled.  Those evangelicals who supported (and continue to support) the President should take a look at the last half of Luke 16 before they go to bed tonight.

But let's not stop with just being appalled.  Let us do what we can ourselves to contribute to disaster relief in Puerto Rico.   The President, like an alcoholic absentee father, has made himself unavailable to provide for the common good.  Here is a link to a page listing organizations to which you can make a donation for the relief of the suffering of the people of Puerto Rico.