A Plaza for the People

The People’s Plaza is a place for everyone. Or at least, that’s always been the dream

For the last seven years we’ve been carving out a special space in west tejas, where local art and culture can thrive, and local creators can create their future together.

My grandmother was an artist who created out this way, and who was quite irreverent in her own way. She’d wake up, smoke cigarettes, tell dirty jokes, drink white wine with ice, and paint. Every so often we’d come over to Nona’s apartment, and it would have gone from a safari to a pirate ship. She was always creating, always pursuing a more colorful life.

She painted and created, wherever she went. Of all the places she lived and worked, west texas was always the hardest. The spiritual fortitude it took to make beauty, amidst a social structure built for control, was a generational inspiration.

When I had a chance to take a decaying structure just a short drive from where her and Poca lived with my Great Grandma Pearl, and transform it into something alive and expressive, I jumped all in.

The Plaza sits right in the heart of Abilene Tejas. For many decades, the structure has stood nearly invisible, tucked away behind the biggest bank in town. When I first moved to town and removed the dark screens covering the windows, we heard the same thing repeated by folks over and again;

"ya know, I’ve driven by this building a thousand times, and never seen it once"

Today it's hard to miss.

The east entrance is now covered with a sunrise, and the west with a sunset. The paintings are in honor of a Lakota elder from Standing Rock, Sonny HisChase who said;

“The people are every shade of the sunrise,
every spectrum of the sand and soil,
and every shadow of the night sky.”

We have worked hard to create spaces that are profoundly welcoming to all people. A Local Mall, fostering local creativity, local culture, local commerce, and a strong local community. We call it the People’s Plaza, and we hope to see more created, in towns across America.

Rain or shine, in one way or another, we have been in construction for a bit more than 2500 days. Transmuting old material, and workin to craft new spaces that are welcoming, and inclusive. Today we are home to more than 70 local businesses and studios, and have continuously cultivated a place of free expression.

Growing up, Dad was a farmer. His dream was to grow quinoa at scale, and meaningfully address malnourishment and hunger, while building a significant business. As a kid, he was our hero on the farms, surrounded by tractors and heavy equipment, a small team of scientists and the folks who helped harvest. At six years old all that changed, and Dad ended up in a lawsuit that nearly broke our family apart. Seven years later he won the lawsuit, and bought a home in austin tejas - and a big ol’ commercial building in abilene, near the land my mothers family had ranched, for some seven generations.

When he passed away, the bank called the loan, and the roof collapsed, destroying roughly a third of the structure. There was a steady evacuation, and what would later become the Artists Wing, was essentially closed to the public. A new roof would cost more than the whole building was worth, and our family was facing bankruptcy.

On my most desperate day, a young man named Sam, overheard a conversation I thought was private. The insurance companies had rejected us several times, and I had no where else to turn. He shook my hand, slipped his card in my chest pocket, and whispered - we can get you a new roof.

This has been a project of many miracles, but this was perhaps the first. A couple months later we got an agreement for a new roof, and Sam got to work.

We removed more than 700,000 pounds of material, and had cranes lifting AC units and rebuilding their bases, for more than a year. It's a bit hard to conceive honestly, even for me and I was there. Imagine removing 700,000 pounds from just about anything. For some time after, part of me believed I could hear the building rolling its shoulders, and sighing a deep breathe of relief. Certainly for all of us within the Plaza, we breathed better and were given for the first time really, a temperate and contained space to create within.

When we began replacing the roof, we were approached by a company looking to rent the wing that had been destroyed. They were willing to take on all construction costs, and would be there for some time. For my family, the offer had the potential to change our lives. The next day we asked what kind of a company it was, and were told they were moving to town, to run oil pipelines through the region. I had just returned from Standing Rock, and as a descendent of local ranchers, knew we had to say no. It was an intense week of discussions among our family, but in the end we decided to align our business choices with our conscience. We have never stopped paying for the consequences of that choice, and every day it has made me proud.

Around the same time, two artists named Greg Crone and Casey Chavez, came to us and asked to sit down. They told us about the local art culture, and how they had struggled over the generations, to find a space that would fully support them in the region. At the time we had no idea if the Plaza would survive another season, but we made them a solemn promise. As long as we existed, we would never censor their art or creativity. If it needed to be created, there would be a place for it.

Some six years later, and we have been hosting community gallery shows, ever since. Thousands of pieces of art have hung from our walls, and a huge litany of local creators have graced us with their most precious work.

The first person to come in and truly transform their space, was one of a kind Martez Hawkins of YoMartez!. Tez and I first met when I was lookin for a barber in town. His skills with the clippers were well known, and after gettin cleaned up, I saw he also had a rack of clothing that were fresh fresh. I picked up some gear, and walked into a meeting with the bank that made the project possible. Tez often has that effect, on whatever he touches. In a region dominated by limiting archtypes, Tez created a satirical streetware brand that has traveled far and wide. What was once just a few shirts on a rack behind a barber shop, has become a stunning boutique and brand, unlike anything for hundreds of miles in all directions.

More than anyone, Martez has held the vision of a Plaza for the People. A place where all people could gather, all local businesses could thrive, all ideas could be engaged, and all artists were free to express as they wish.

Soon after we were introduced to a young man named Sergio Hernandez, and his talent has echoed through the hallways and outward, ever since. His studio remains tucked into what feels like a secret lair, and every inch is covered in paints and tools and materials. As art director for the plaza, his murals grace our walls, and his designs have brought clarity, to all manner of confusion. Like so many of the brilliant souls who have graced this place, his art is indelibly printed in the infrastructure, and will remain so. 

I am often astonished when I consider the amount of people who have come together over the years, to see the Plaza come into being. People like Christina Romera Gonzalez, who in addition to cutting folks hair and keeping their secrets, has been a force for community and creativity, since she arrived. Each year she teams up with those willing, and builds a large Ofrenda in our Welcome Gallery, creating a sacred and reverent space, for each of us to mourn and celebrate our loved ones. It is one among many traditions, honored and kept by a community willing to struggle in order to have a place, where everyone is welcomed.

People like Ryan Crone, a rare talent, with a taste for the distasteful. He has singularly written and animated and published a line of Comics created here in Abilene, that would make even the most irreverent blush. In addition to his own genre of gallery shows, he recently organized and hosted our first Independent Film Festival. Often overworked just to feed his family and pay the bills, his moments in between were spent evaluating submissions, creating awards and welcoming filmmakers to town. We all learned a great deal, and surely next year will be better, but like so much that has occurred among this this grand experiment in infrastructure, the first happened in our gallery.

Today the People’s Plaza stands as a place, open to all people. We have worked to cultivate a community that supports one another, and cares for one another. As the divisions of our time continue to splinter, we work to shepherd spaces that beckon us to cooperate, and build upon the natural interdependence of our lives.

Each space has a story, and behind each door is a universe unto itself. We have been proud to support such a broad array of entrepreneurs and artists and creators of many mediums. Over the last seven years, we have seen albums recorded and books created. Comics published and artists platformed for the very first time.

The history of Abilene is a serious one, and it seems one some are finally willing to face head on. The town was created and cultivated in many ways, to be a religious colony. A place where folks of a certain point of view, could control land and people.

For many decades, a censorship board held tremendous power here. Live music and dancing were strictly prohibited, and the town was just as strictly segregated. The south side above the flood planes, where the owners built homes. And to the north, where communities are continuously flooded out.

As a teenager, I remember Dad staring at a blueprint of the Commerce Plaza, with thumb tacks in the corners, and yelling over the phone. It was his biggest achievement in business, and yet he kept his profile low. Working with a local family, they filled the halls with state agencies and insurance companies, and large legal firms. But companies that had dozens of employees in the twentieth century, were able to be run by a small teams in this modern one, and like many places in America, commercial structures were abandoned, as the price to renovate outweighed any potential benefit. The regressive laws of west texas often stifled progress, and while much of the state blossomed, dilapidated towns became a new normal in our region.

When I first moved back out this way, all I wanted was a place to listen to good music and feel the vibes of dance and moving bodies. That place was nowhere to be found. Once a month on a Saturday evenin, a single spot would open, and folks would come pouring out. But violence often followed, and the legacy of oppression lived on.

The cultivating of local culture and a local economy through physical space, is a work we began experimenting with some years ago, in eastern Congo. There we partnered with several organizations to build a large pavilion, filled with booths, and it came to be known as The Peace Market. The Market was built among a region, in between farming communities and the big city, where families would often walk long distances each day, exposing them to many threats. After construction was completed, the changes began almost immediately. Booths filled with Mommas, and families began trading among one another, rather than going all the way to the city. Today more than fifteen years later, the Market stands strong, and continues the work of cultivating a resilient local economy, community and culture.

The People’s Plaza is in many ways, the same idea carved out of American infrastructure. What was once an old forgotten office building, is now a local mall, filled with two galleries, a community library, a recording studio, juice bar, and some seventy local businesses, shops, salons and creative studios. A community square, where originality and courageous creations, breathe from every corner. We wish to stand as a generational bulwark, to the forces of suppression. A place where all art has space to exist, all books are welcomed, and all people are allowed to be exactly who they are.

We are still far from complete in the transformation, and will need strong partners to survive and continue on. Since the roof collapsed, it has been a decade of investment, and our small family has leveraged everything we have, and given all we possibly can, to see the People’s Plaza come into being. But in truth it has demanded too much, and should not be carried in such a way. We are eager to find partners, to reflect the collective nature of the project.

If you are involved in art or music or film, we'd love to create with you. If you are involved in construction or infrastructure, we'd like to learn from you. If you are involved in investing or lending, we’d like to be your next project. If you are involved in turning businesses into cooperatives, or offering shares to a wide community of stakeholders, we'd like to grow from your experience. If you are an organization working to protect people's basic rights, west tejas has historically been ignored in staggering ways, and we'd like to work together to see that change. And if you are an individual willing to donate, our galleries and public spaces are in need of support, and we'd be honored to channel your resources in a good way.

Every First Friday, the Plaza opens for vendors and food and music and new gallery shows. We’d love to welcome all of Tejas and the Southwest to join us regularly. Abilene is several hours from the next major city, so the best way to reach us is to gather your crew and roadtrip. You can also hop a small plane from Dallas, and once here, our local airport is the epitome of convenience.

This year on Valentine’s Day, we are hosting our very first People’s Ball, held in the very special People’s Hall. Celebrating Celestial Love, this eccentric Gala welcomes you to make your formal attire Art, and come as a Living Expression of Love.

Join us on 2/14 in the People's Hall, and let your light shine bright. Whatever you wish to share, we wish to give it space to be seen.

Hope to see all of you soon

Peace and love yall
sean david

American Fascism

There has always been fascism in America. Those who believed they were superior, and had the right to choose which other humans, also had rights.

These movements are fostered and fester most especially, in churches of racial segregation. They may not be explicitly segregated churches of course, but they are deeply segregated nonetheless. If you walk into a church and most of the congregation has descended from the European continent, there’s a good chance you’ll be receiving a sermon, in the holiness of conquest.

The prophetic words of Dr. King in the Letter from Birmingham Jail are often quoted, and it is worth emphasizing that while his strongest words were reserved for what he called “the white moderate”, the entire letter was written in response to White Pastors, who had written him a letter from white churches, pleading for Order. Segregated churches, perpetuating a theology of separation.

If you go to a segregated church and have not yet been honest with yourself about it, there’s no better time than now. You may experience the power of community and collective worship there, but your congregation is likely learning more about separation, than about Jesus. More about the history of colonizers, than the radical movements of revolutionary love, which drove both the civil rights movement, and the abolitionist movement. The power of a liberated church can be a wonder to behold, but the power of segregated churches is truly terrifying to witness. Perhaps most frightening, is how many continue to pretend it’s not happening. That you’re not being taught a theology of supremacy, where everyone who follows your logo is saved, and every other living being on earth is a heathen destined to hell. It is a shameful distortion of Creator. A painful deception of Creation.

We know you do not see yourselves. Just as the Plantations protected europeans to laugh and dine, while others suffered and labored, much of our modern society does the same. Those outside the segregated circle, know all about the truths of life on this land. Those within, are protected.

Protected from the costs. Protected from the consequences. Protected from all the other perspectives. And drowned in a mythology of supremacy so dense, so thick, it often takes generations to cleanse.

We see your structures of power. Filled to the brim with people of a single hempishere, claiming a holy mission to conquer at all costs. Holding hands high and claiming God, as preachers shout superiority.

There has always been prayer on this land. Always been worship. Always been ceremony. Always been a deep spiritual understanding. Always been vast theologies.

And colonizers spent centuries working to destroy it. To erase it. To eradicate it. To murder it out of existence.

It was only in the 1970’s that Indigenous Ceremonies were made legal in the United States. Before then, medicine people were hunted and chased, starved and beaten, targeted and imprisoned. And today, a candidate and movement threatens the same, all over again.

When Donald Trump first ran for President in 2016, more than 90% of Black Women voted against him. They knew who he was. Who he is. They know racial supremacy. They know religious segregation. They know european fascism.

The only people confused in significant numbers, are Christians of European descent. Without white Christians, there is no trump movement. There is no MAGA. It is in your name, with your structures and your scriptures and your symbols, that he has built this power. It your responsibility above all others, to call this grave evil what it is.

American fascism.

Fascism must be combatted at all costs. We have long been fascist toward the non-european world. The overthrowing of democratically elected leaders has been a mainstay of American politics, for nearly a century. Dozens of countries have suffered this fate, and been left with the generational consequences. We have always been fascist toward indigenous peoples. Even after five centuries, it is still today, those with the least financial resources in the western hemisphere, standing most bravely, and most persistently, for a future with clean water and healthy lands. A future of interdependence, rather than dominion.

The suffering is unconscionable. All across America, there is suffering. In the reservations, in the city streets, in the suburbs, on the farms and ranches. We are propagated ceaselessly with physic pollution, and straddled with debts and tax obligations, that demand perpetual labor. Every obstacle is built, to keep communities from living together generationally, and from sustaining themselves with the earth in a good way.

To pretend any of this gets better, by removing the rights of our fellow people, is a grave theater. When we remove rights from trans people, as republicans are working to do in every corner of this land, we are all less free. When we remove rights from women, as republicans are doing across America, we are all less free. When we remove rights for those with non-dominant religions, as the fascist forces of american segregation have always worked to do, we are all less free.

Are women free? This seems to be a question the vast majority of Americans have settled in their minds. The only folks still unsure, are white Christians. Why is that? I ask this question directly. Is it because you care so deeply about the unborn, you're willing to work in opposition to all other movements for life, in order to protect them? Or is it because the larger agenda is colonial conquest through division, and this is the most consistently effective way to keep white women feeling righteous, as they oppose all other women.

If you find yourself still struggling to understand why abortion rights are so fundamental to freedom, please ask yourself this ever so simple question. Ask it over and over until you’ve arrived at your own conclusion.

Are women free ?

Are Women, Free ?

Are. Women. Free

If you do not believe women should be free as human beings, at least be honest with yourself and acknowledge it is fascism. You are welcoming the full vicious power of state violence, into the most sacred decisions of a persons life. To hear the modern Republican Party claiming to stand for freedom, is a uniquely hysterical nonsense. But fascist movements have always drowned in their own deceptions. Today it is mechanized and engineered, and shared at mass scale.

Unfreedom is best met with more freedom. My own response to rising violence has often been to create, and to support artists. I was honored to participate this year, in making a piece for Independents. More than 40% of Americans now see themselves as Independent, and I have long been one of them. For this gargantuan potential to grow, I believe we must support Rank Choice Voting. It is among the few legal paths, to more options for everyone.

Fair Vote and Represent Us, are working to see Rank Choice Voting implemented in all states. This change, would fundamentally transform elections in America. Both organizations are worth looking further into, and finding ways to support wherever you live.

This year the Independent candidate with the greatest chance of winning, was RFK Jr. His father was one of my early heroes, and I have long admired his work with the Waterkeepers alliance. His victories against Monsonto are singular, and his speech in Chicago called ”Our environmental destiny”, was a powerful articulation of a worldview, which guided his younger years.

When he visited Standing Rock, I appreciated the respect he showed Lakota people, and the disregard he showed the police, with high powered artillery. For these reasons, when he chose to run, I decided to do what I could, to support that run. One of the results was a beautiful film called the Power of Three by Bobby Bailey, and one which conveys some profound truths in this time. I am proud to have supported the film, and those early days of the campaign.

But much like the trajectory of RFK Jr.’s work with the water, what began with such promise, seems to have been hijacked, by a force antithetical to his articulated path.

I don’t know the particulars of why he chose to endorse trump in this election. I do know it is a shameful abdication of his commitment to environmental stewardship, to his words regarding the rights of indigenous peoples, to his words regarding the rights of women, and to his words regarding the right to vote.

I dream of an Independent movement, big enough to welcome those that supported RFK Jr., as well as the brilliant souls of Dr. Cornell West and Dr. Melina Abdullah. I dream of an independent movement willing to unite across all boundaries, to remove Citizens United, and fundamentally transform the corruption at the heart of our system.

In the meantime, we would be wise to trust the Senator who was an Independent for more years than anyone in history - the very special Bernie Sanders - and caucus with those struggling for more freedom, rather than less.

To see so many fellow human beings, seriously considering voting for a person who doesn’t honor elections, can often feel beyond comprehension. Is your hatred of the others so deep, you cannot see that you are using your power to harm? To destroy generations of labor, in establishing the right to vote? To directly hurt your neighbors? When trump was elected, we watched neighborhoods where immigrants lived, become active conflict zones. We saw ICE get unleashed on civilians. On grandmothers. On children. We watched the protections for supply chains evaporate. We watched protections for waters disintegrate. We saw movements targeted with vicious force. We saw activists disappeared, and homeland security be weaponized against citizens engaging in their fundamental right to assemble. We saw our communities get torn apart, as a conman demonized and demeaned our neighbors. This work is antithetical to freedom, just like the KKK, whose motto was also - make america great again.

There is a special kind of arrogance, in deciding to vote against more than 90% of Black Women in America. I’d wager that if we were all in a room together, and you had to actually see these women directly, look them in the eyes and hear from them, you would not use your vote with such careless disregard. You would not use your power to harm, and perpetuate oppression. You would learn to listen. To work in coalition. And you would learn to support, those who have always known the truths of this American project, even as so many of us are learning it for the first time.

If you don’t yet see that trump represents the power structure of the Confederacy, then I implore you to begin looking more honestly at America. Look beyond the boundaries of your county or race or religion. Learn to listen to those who share a different view, learn to pray with those who call Creator a different name, learn to love those who you do not understand, or were not raised to know. All are threatened by this cohort of primary color red and perpetual deception, as they cosplay a modern klan.

Many of the folks flirting with religious fascism, have no real sense of what they are advocating for, and would be deeply unhappy to live where it is implemented. This is especially true of those who live near modern cities, where music and culture and food all thrive, and are allowed their respective space. Their lives are abundantly and indisputably blessed, by the labor of immigrants and activists and artists and creators who came before, to demand and create a free society.

Over the last seven years, I’ve lived in the county where people voted for Trump, in higher numbers than anywhere else in the country. And for much of our history, this has not been a place where many Americans would want to live. The repression in places like Taylor County, where religious fundamentalism has long ruled the land, is everywhere you care to look. And the consequences in our daily lives, are vast.

Until recent history, live music and dancing were illegal, and strictly prohibited. And the physical structures of our town and region, were just as strictly segregated. Still today, this legacy of oppression lives on, in every inch of soil. While alcohol became legal in the 70’s, whenever there is booze and music and dancing today, there is almost inevitably violence. Just this last weekend, a young man lost his life amidst it.

Religious fascism works to control every aspect of your life. Who you can marry, who you can love, how you can dress, how you can think, how you can pray, how you can spend your money, how you can vote. The natural response to this lack of freedom, will always be generational rebellion.

This is a kind of oppression many Americans know little about. The segregated churches established this town as a “sanctuary city for the unborn” and even among war, I have rarely met women so deeply afraid of their neighbors.

Amidst the anger and pain of seeing your fundamental rights stripped away, and your community deputized against you, a different dream was shared, of what our small town could be. Yelled first into a microphone at a vigil for women’s rights, and later whispered among the common hearted, there are those who would see us instead become a Sanctuary City for Freedom. A place where all people are welcomed, all cultures are honored, and all expressions are given space to be.

In many ways, these have always been the competing visions for the United States. To some, it is a place for European Christians to thrive, and build their future generations. For others, it is a place where all human beings can learn to self govern, and live together.

A theocracy, intended for the people of a single hemisphere. Or a multiracial democracy, where all people have dignity.

These larger coalitions have been at war with one another, since long before our nations founding. And while candidates draw our attention, it is the larger goals of these coalitions for which we vote.

There are many in the Independent movement, who are infuriated with the Democratic Party. And there are good reasons to be. The party claims to be a big tent, and does it damndest to shut the doors of dissent. They have turned their backs on their base time and again, in hopes of pursuing the illusive moderate. It is a foolish strategy, and one would be forgiven in believing they often seem paid to fold.

But the larger coalition represented by the Democratic Party, represents the best of America, and who we should be fighting for. It is teachers and nurses and the rainbow coalition of our country. Until we have rank choice voting, this is where Independents ought to caucus, as we build power capable of winning elections and shifting systems.

Looming over each moment of every day this year, has been Gaza. The daily deaths, the daily suffering. The daily atrocities committed against Palestinians. Against children. Against families. The intentional targeting of journalists and doctors and peacekeepers and international aid workers and academics and artists and human rights reporters.

For me personally, I was motivated by a deep desire to vote for peace. To vote against the atrocities allowed by Joe Biden, and to never forget that it was Donald Trump who moved the United States embassy to Jerusalem and in doing so, brought the world to the brink.

I believed early in the campaign, that if RFK Jr. had found the courage to stand for peace, as his father had done, he could have changed history. Instead he capitulated, and we are left only with choices for war.

Is the democratic party the party of the war machine ? Of course. Is the republican party the party of the war machine ? Of course. Is the United States governments core function, war? Of course. Do people deserve more choices? Of course.

In a representative system, the Peace Coalition, would sweep elections. We would win from every corner of culture. Thus the infrastructure of profitable war, works to ensure there is never allowed to be such a coalition. Never allowed to be such votes.

Americans have never been allowed to vote for peace. Never been allowed to vote for the fundamental dismantling of the apparatus of profitable war. Never been allowed to have meaningful conversations about the true costs.

While the parties purport to represent these larger coalitions, they generally align in their wars with indigenous peoples, and their wars with other nations resources. “Two wings of the same bird,” is often said in Indian country, and the wisdom rings true.

There will come a day, when Americans will get to choose beyond the infrastructure of the colonial state, and join hands with our Indigenous relatives in the crafting of a new understanding. Until then, we are left with elections. And in the United States, we are always either voting for a multiracial democracy, or for racial and religious fascism. Everything else, is particulars.

The modern Republican Party exists chiefly, as an Imperial Party; to represent the infrastructure of war. They represent most especially, the financial systems, energy systems, manufacturing systems, political systems, and content systems, which allow this violent infrastructure to continue and grow.

Those who take their rage at the Democratic Party, and use it to support Republicans, do their cause grave harm. There is nothing to be found among racial fascism, beyond more racism and more fascism. It must be enveloped as the minority it is, and overwhelmed by the color and energy and vitality and unity, of our love for one another.

The power structure surrounding the Democratic Party also deserves to be dismantled, just as every police and ICE force in the country does. Until that day, keeping fascists out of power, building a powerful Independent Coalition, winning the right to rank choice voting, and doing all we can to protect our neighbors fundamental rights and the rights of Mother Earth, are worthy goals, and exist far beyond the scope of elections.

None of this will stop the genocide in Gaza. Surely not soon. Italy has just complied with the ICJ ruling, and issued an embargo in Israeli arms. It is another step. To see this imitated by an American administration, will require herculean shifts in power and resources. Boycotts. Protests. Divestment. These are all paths, in the kaleidoscope of need.

This year there were at least five parties who put forward a candidate for President, who all represented more options, for our nations relationship to war.  None of them are working in coalition with one another, and none of them are viable in this election. If voting our conscience is as important as so many claim it to be, then we must work between elections and over far longer trajectories, to make those choices possible.

Kamala Harris has said she believes the relationship between the United States and Tribal Nations, is sacred. She used that word. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a presidential candidate use that word. Joe Biden just days ago, formally apologized for the Boarding Schools, which was a mass project of child theft, child trafficking, child abuse and torture, religious abuse, the destruction of languages, and which ultimately ended, in unmarked graves across America, holding generations of native children. This apology won’t solve everything or even much, but it is a historic step in a good direction.

Perhaps Vice President Harris’ finest moment as a Senator, was at the Brett Kavanagh hearing, where he explicitly and repeatedly lied under oath, and was then confirmed. So many in our generation, knew that day was the end. The end of freedoms we don’t have to fight and scrape for. The end of protest expressions we won’t suffer for. It is possible the Democrats could have done more that day, but I remember Kamala Harris as a ferocious truth teller in that moment. Facing a mockery of justice and law, precedent and integrity, she called it out for exactly what it was. I’ll not soon forget it. There may be many reasons to dislike her or the current administration, or to even hold them in disgust and contempt. For Palestine. For Lebanon. For Yemen. For the loss of Roe. For the unwillingness to fight for our freedoms, with the same reckless abandon as those who fight to take them away.

But on that day in that room, she told the truth. And generations of women will be depending on her to take those truths, and yield power to ensure they are honored.

I’ll be proud to vote for Kamala Harris. Not because I think the democratic primary was fair. Not because I think the Democratic Party is right about corporations. Or war. Or water. Or medicine. Not because I believe the genocide in Palestine deserves anything less than our full condemnation and resistance at any cost. But because on Tuesday I’ll have a choice I won’t have on Wednesday, and on that day I’ll choose the choice who will most strongly oppose the growing fascism of our time.

And for damn sure my ancestors who suffered and fled at the hands of Mussolini and Hitler, will be cheering us on. I suspect all our ancestors who have suffered from those who believed they had the right to remove their neighbors rights, will be as well.

Get out and vote crew. Just don’t for a moment, believe this is the revolution. We are the revolution. And we must get fully free. Peace and love y’all

Peace in Palestine

There is a rage burning, in many human hearts around the world. 

Begging Creator,

Begging our leaders, 

Begging our fellow human beings,

Please. Please. Stop the shooting. Stop the bombing. Stop the killing. Stop the blockades. Please, for all that is Holy and of God, please let those who are still alive, live. Let their families live. 

Every day, we weep. 

Every night, we weep. 

Every day, we face a world of smiles and continue ons. 

And every day we give face to our own, smiles and continue ons. 

What does one do with this pain ?

Each day, we weep. 

And each day, we continue on.

Such is true of a genocide in a land, far away. 

For those in that place, at that time, it is the singularly defining devastation of their lives, and will reverberate for many generations to come. 

But for those not in that place, not at that time, life often continues on as though nothing has changed whatsoever. 

We get coffee. Groceries. Pay bills. Move from here to there. Laugh from time to time. 

Smiles and continue ons. 

What are we meant to do with this violence ? Watched in real time. 

How are human beings meant to respond?

Shall we protest ? 

We should and many are. 

Shall we share online ? 

Yes, however one has the capacity for. 

Shall we engage with friends and family, and work to form a global consensus for peace and liberation for all ?

We should and we shall and we do. 

Shall we struggle to find candidates worthy of those marching, being arrested, dissenting, and suffering? To demand with our whole souls that there be a ceasefire? 

Yes, emphatically yes. 

And yet, the question remains. 

What are we meant, to DO with this violence?

In our bodies. Our minds. Our souls.

The work of war is the work of destruction. Only those who have felt it, can understand the devastation. In a moment, what has taken centuries or longer to create, can be destroyed with such completeness, such absolutism, that those who come after may never know again, what belonged in a place for millenia.  

The work of peace is the work of creation. In contrast to the instantaneous destruction of violence, the work of peace is a generational work. Just as the land takes time to heal, so do human bodies and hearts and societies and traditions and languages and songs and ways of being. And just like the land, some never come back. 

When uranium is dug from the ground, whether from the lands of Congo, or the lands of the Diné in Arizona, it becomes a scar upon the earth. Death follows these holes, wherever they are dug. Whether among the small bugs of the dust, or the small cells of living beings, all that is exposed is forever changed. Such is also true for what violence does to the human being. Destroys parts of us filled with life, and love. Parts that were once open and available, become dormant and buried. Feelings inaccessible, which were once as natural as a river's flow.

—------

As far back as I’ve been able to go with the history of my fathers family, there is exile and exodus. We have always been on the run. From Egypt, from Portugal, from Spain, from Italy, from Greece, from Turkey. We have fled and fled, on the run always, eventually. Though the names of the countries are different, many Jewish families have their own list, and it is often a long one. The list of nations which have expelled Jews over the course of history, includes many names. 

Every time we found a new place, a new land to build a home, a new place to raise our families, we worked hard. Generations of entrepreneurs, of Rabbis, of farmers, of traders. The stories and traditions passed down suggest we lived with respect for the cultures around us, and asked only to be allowed to practice our own.  

For nearly two thousand years we lived in a generational cycle of hard work, followed by prosperity, followed by being refugees, followed by hard work. We know this story well.

There were times when we felt we could stop. To settle. To breathe and be. To thrive generationally. But inevitably, for one reason or another, we were compelled to gather what could be gathered, and find our way elsewhere. 

The promise of Israel was one many believed was sent from Creator. A place to be. To be safe. To create life. To plant and watch our seeds grow. To pray, without fear of persecution or violence or expulsion. To find love and a future for our children. The dream of Israel is one I deeply long for. A home. A place. To be. To exist. To live in safety, and full sovereignty. Our identities protected. Our traditions practiced. Our sacred histories shared. Our sites revered. Our ways endured. 

Just as the Kurds deserve their sovereignty and freedom and peace, and just as the Ojibwe deserve their sovereignty and freedom and peace, the Jewish people do as well. And today with great urgency, the Palestinian people do as well.  

This is the dream of all peoples. It is the dream of the Karuk and Hoopa, who after more than a century of seeing their waters dammed, will live once again on a free river.  It is the dream of the Bantu, who wish to live on the equator, free of the industrial mining and deforestation which works to destroy every inch of earth around them.  

It is the dream of the Lakota. Who still believe, generations after the Battle of Greasy Grass, that the Black Hills will one day be theirs, free and sovereign. That they will roam the lands of their ancestors, along with their four legged relatives, free to expand beyond fence and border. 

It is the dream of the Kayapo. Who see the river in the sky as immeasurably more abundant than the rivers on the ground, and see them drying up as well, as forests are cut down each day. 

It has been the natural dream of many peoples, to live free on the lands of their ancestors. It is the world we should work to create. 

Palestine has never been a “land without a people, for a people without a land.” Palestine is a land where people have lived and grown food and families, and existed as human societies, for millenia. Centuries before Christ, the land was referred to in this way. Despite nearly a century of erasure, their identity has endured, and will continue to. It is not power structures that determine people's relationship to the land and one another; it is the people. 

In the context of the modern world, mapped out by Colonizing powers, the pursuit of a nation state for the Jewish people, seemed reasonable to many in the West. But a great deal of what seemed reasonable to European powers a century ago, has rarely seemed so to the rest of the world, and assuredly not to the Global South. 

When the ancient Hebrews left the lands of Egypt, we arrived in a land with Philistines and Canaanites already living there. The unified empire of Judah lasted a couple centuries, centuries that are reverent to our people and always will be. But those centuries as an empire, following thousands of years of Egyptian rule, and followed by thousands of years of other peoples finding their homes among the region, do not make roots in the region exclusively ours. The story of people finding land after many years of searching, is not the story of indigeneity. It is the story of migration, and finally finding a home where we could raise our babies in peace. Our stories tell of a people called to the land in a sacred way surely, and this relationship must be honored. But this relationship is also true for many peoples, who pray in many languages.   

Our history will forever connect the Jewish people to the land we call holy, but it does not give Israelis the right to supremacy on that land for all time. It certainly does not give them the right to perpetual expansion. Whether all Jews are indigenous to the region, or whether the Jewish Diaspora may be more complex, still does not however, address the heart of the injustice. The primary question is whether my right, as a member of the Diaspora, is greater than the right of a Palestinian who has been on that land for anywhere from twenty to fifty generations. 

And the answer must be; of course not.

The reason someone whose family has lived in Palestine for the last seven hundred years can no longer live there, and the reason my family can go and receive subsidized housing, is because of the vast violence of the United Kingdom and then later the United States. It was never a great sacrifice for the Imperial Powers, to bequeath the forever frontlines of western conquest. Many did not want us in their lands to begin with. Whether intentionally or not, our beautiful children have become the swords of empire, slain to defend the nuclear hegemony of the West, religious supremacy in Jerusalem, and to continue punishing another people, for the sins of European genocide.

The holy land belongs to all of us, and all land is holy. Terrifying swaths of human history, have been written by those who spilled blood in those lands. I will never be an expert in the ways so many claim to be, but when I walk the lands of Jesus and the many teachers before and after, every cell speaks of an ancient history, beckoning us beyond conquest. If there is a place on the planet that ought to be internationally shared, it would seem to be Jerusalem. Home to three of the world's largest religions, this place above all, should be separated from wars of expansion, and kept sacred for all people. 

If any place on earth is deserving of permanent International Peacekeeping, it is Jerusalem. The center of monotheism, and religious conflict on the planet. Only an international solution to Jerusalem will create the conditions for peace. The seat of three of the world’s great religions, cannot belong to one. It cannot belong to two. It must belong to all.  

—----

In the years we built an organizational focus in the democratic republic of Congo and the Great Lakes region, we learned some lessons that may perhaps be relevant in this time. 

The first is that in order to understand a conflict, it is often worth beginning with the explicitly expansionist force. Who is currently working to expand? Who holds dominion over the territory being fought over, and who wants it?

Said simply, who is expanding, into whom?

The next question, is who benefits? Which companies or governments or treaties or institutions, benefit from this expansion? 

And finally, who benefits the most? Who has the most incentive to see this expansion come into being? Who wins the biggest game? 

From there, we can begin to map a strategic context, for understanding a conflict.

What became clear regarding the Great Lakes region, was the intractable reality that Rwanda is small with few resources, and Congo is enormous with more resources than just about anywhere else in the world. The United States has strategically used Rwanda as a military proxy in the region, and Rwanda has then used M23 as their military proxy in Congo. Those who understand this intrinsically expansionist intent, often refer to it as the Balkanization of eastern Congo. Expanding through violence, and settling with words of reconciliation. 

When Rwanda retreated in 2013 along with their proxy militia M23, it was in direct response to the United States cutting funding intended for the Rwandan military. Those cuts were then joined by several European Nations, and as the funding removals reached their pinnacle, M23 retreated.  

Those who demonize BDS, offer few peaceful alternatives. Whatever the final terms of a solution may be, those demanding peace must engage all levers of power, to align the incentives of those actually in power. In the final hour, humanity’s only choice will be peace. What can we each do each day, to ensure that choice is made now.

In resolving disputes, whether between spouses or siblings or states, there is a natural balance in asking the same questions of each party. If one side wishes for something, the first question is whether the other side may have it as well. If they may not, what exchange could be considered of equal or greater value, to give that thing up?

In the context of spouses, this may have to do with how we spend our time, or our resources, or our focus. In the context of nations, it is often about the use of violence, dominion over a territory, and the capacity to tax and criminalize those within.  

Does Israel have the right to defend itself? Of course.

Does Palestine have the right to defend itself? Of course.

Does Israel have the right to sovereignty over clearly defined borders? Of course.

Does Palestine have the right to sovereignty over clearly defined borders? Of course. 

Does Israel have the right to their airspace, and to trade along the sea? Of course.

Does Palestine have the right to their airspace, and to trade along the sea? Of course. 

The fundamental rights so often espoused by Israelis with great conviction, must also belong to those who pray in other ways.

How can a Palestine exist, without a contiguous land base?  

Can there be peace if one side has an army, contiguous borders and ever expanding territory, while the other side does not? Or will this lead forever to war, and conquest. If the events of the last eight months are any indication, the existing context will lead only to perpetual violence.

How can a nation exist, without being physically connected to one another?  This is, in many ways, the foundation of what it means to share a nation. To be in physical proximity, directly connected, and to be able to defend collectively held borders.  

How is this possible if a nation is separated in two? 

I remember reading Jimmy Carter’s, “Peace not Apartheid” in University, and feeling as though I was learning a new language. A new history. A new framework for understanding reality, I had never been exposed to.

President Carter had visited Palestine, and in his time called the situation in Gaza “intolerable” and “one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth.” To those who still claim to not understand the moral imperative of a global movement for Palestine, I ask you to consider how much worse it has become since the days of Mr. Carter.  

One would have to go back very far indeed, to find a proposal with borders that are contiguous. To find a possible agreement between two nations, that allowed for both nations to exist as full sovereign states. But if the grave crimes of the Holocaust warranted the creation of a Jewish State upon Palestinian land, does the genocide waged by Israel against Palestinians not warrant the creation of a true, complete Palestinian nation as well?

The changes within the United States, necessary to accomplish such a goal will be seismic. And yet, what could be more severe and consequential, than the annihilation of Gaza. If the Holocaust demanded a response that shifted history, the slaughter of those who have been caged for a generation, demands no less a response. 

A Palestinian Nation. Were the world to achieve such a courageous hope, our children could perhaps be the generation that finally lives to see a Holy Land, free and at peace. 

—-----

The world changed on 1/11. 

South Africa brought charges of genocide against the State of Israel, at the International Court of Justice. The accusations are clear and they are expansive. There is no joy in writing these words. The charges leveled are grave, and their implications will reverberate for generations to come. 

On the evening of the same day, the wealthiest country in the world, bombed one of the poorest in Yemen. It was an unconscionable act, following days upon days upon days upon days, of the unconscionable. 

When I first learned of the Holocaust, I understood it as a singular evil, unparalleled in the modern world. Words will never be sufficient to describe the depth of my surprise, when at 25 years old I met friends in the democratic republic of Congo, who shared that more than 6 million of their fellow human beings had perished over the course of my lifetime. A modern holocaust, often invisible to the eyes of modern people. 

It was with horror that I learned of the first Congo Holocaust, when 10 million lives were lost so the West could have rubber, necessary for the Industrial Revolution. The horror only grew, as I learned the truths of what had happened in Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Angola, Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya and beyond. The truths of what happened in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and beyond. The truths of what happened in Cambodia, Vietnam, the Phillipines and beyond. The truths of what happened in Alaska, Canada, the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Pacific islands and beyond. The truths of perpetual expansion, religious dominion, and the machinations of industrialized profitable war, we develop to rationalize continued growth.

Genocide has horrifically occurred many times, in many corners of the world. It has shaped the modern world as much as any other force, and many of us in the core of empire, are the daily beneficiaries of those which remain unacknowledged. To stand in common cause with the brave souls working to restore what has been lost, and honor all ancestors, has been in my own life, a distinctly and wonderfully Jewish work. 

Many Jews responded to the horrors of the Holocaust, by insulating and amassing the capacity for industrial violence. Many Jews responded to this same horror, by finding solidarity and common cause with oppressed peoples all over the world. As vast swaths of peoples unite for Palestine, each of our families will face a choice. Will we see these protestors as enemies, who intrinsically hate Jews and are plotting against us?  Or will we see them as human beings, responding to the mass suffering of other human beings. They are neither deceived nor foolish. They are demanding, alongside many of our Grandmothers and Grandfathers, an end to mass violence and genocide. Their call is worthy, and will be heard reverberating through the ages, as a call of collective conscience. 

—-----

In the region where I live, way out in west tejas, there is a sizable zionist movement. And yet, I wonder how many of them have met even a single person who is Jewish. On the second night of Hanukkah this year, the Rabbi stood in front of a small gathering and said, “Welcome to abilene texas, where even in the midst of our most celebrated holiday, and a war in the holy land, we still can't get even one sentence in the local newspaper.”

One sentence in the local newspaper.

Though we are unusually isolated by the religious supremacy of this land, the communities in this region who support zionism are often the same people who make life actively uncomfortable for Jews, and anyone who is not European or Christian. They are often the same communities working steadfastly to remove the rights of women, and every expression of gender and sexuality. They are often the same people working ferociously to claim power with racial and religious majorities, and to use it retributively. And they are the same people who see themselves as the rightful inheritors of the land, ordained by God's grace. In ways not dissimilar from the settlers of the West Bank, the european christians who colonized Texas, justified their conquest with their own evolution of the doctrine of discovery, and two centuries later, their descendants hold it still.  I am one of them. 

I have family who fly the white flag with the red cross at rodeos, and family who fly the white flag with the blue star of david as well. Both use symbols of religion and connection with the Creator, as symbols of dominance and conquest.

I cannot in good conscience, speak forcefully against the perpetual expansion of the Israeli nation, without also speaking forcefully against the nation which has set the example, built the legal foundation, and then continuously funded the expansion. That nation is my own.  

Gaza is often referred to as a concentration camp. It is worth acknowledging that the concentration camps which claimed the lives of so many loved ones, were originally inspired by the American Reservations. Hitler compared the Nazi genocide against the Jews and Gypsys, to the “struggle in North America against the Red Indians.” This is not some casual connection. It is the specific result of ideologies of supremacy, which so often demand religious and racial dominion over a land. 

Today the poorest zip code in America is the land of the Oglala’s, who were also the last people to claim the United States flag in open battle. Although the genocide of Native People’s in the Americas is today waged more slowly, the political structure of Pine Ridge, shares a great deal in common with the political structure of Gaza. The Lakota Nation fought several wars with the United States, and won many. No matter how many generations pass, they will forever see themselves as a Sovereign Nation. This was the agreement signed in blood, as Treaty with a young invading nation, whose Constitution rightly called Treaties the “Supreme Law of the Land.”

The Palestinians have also made agreements signed in blood. Despite the deliberate destruction of libraries and universities and cemeteries and places of record keeping, despite the generational denial of their right to be on the land of their foremothers, the Palestinian people are a people and will continue to be. They must have a Nation with contiguous borders, and they must have a military to protect themselves. To deny these fundamental needs of a people is to forever deem their continued response to displacement, as terror. Demanding they accept terms we would not accept ourselves, will only create more violence for our children.  

I remember when I first began to internalize and understand the staggering, generational loss that had occurred from the Holocaust. On the island of Rhodes, there is a synagogue with a large black rock on the hillside. That rock has seventy family names, of those taken by the Italians and given to the Germans. Of those seventy names, seven were our family. All my life I wondered why there were so few cousins in our family. Looking at that rock, I began to understand why. 

Generations later, and we are now doing it to another. Flagrantly and unabashedly. Expressing the depths of our trauma and pain, onto an entire people group, trapped generationally, because we need somewhere safe to be. 

I write to the Jews in my life. To the Christians. To those participating in the mass tribes of monotheism. Please. Please join the voices around the world, calling for a permanent ceasefire. Please join those calling for Palestinian nationhood. Abandon the echoes of dominion, and join the struggle for peace and liberation.  

Peace can grow from any corner of the earth, and begins in the human heart. Even today, Palestinian mothers and Israeli mothers, are plotting in secret for peace. Even today, trading partners from across the wall, are working toward the hope of peace. In our dusty town in west tejas, we held a vigil to honor those lost. Tears wreaked havoc through our bodies, as we sat with the scale of pain and suffering occurring in real time, often with the consent of our neighbors. Each of us can, one by one, in our own way, remove that consent. Remove acceptance, even if only on the inside. Remove conformity, remove complacency, remove the myths that we are neither connected nor responsible. Whether we are willing to internalize the staggering implications of our interconnectedness, or continue to live in perpetual denial of the violence waged with our resources and blessings, will not change the depth of the connection. Will not change that it is our dollars, taxed on our labor, financing this slaughter. Will not change that it is our bombs, manufactured with our resources, decimating generations. Will not change that it is our leaders, elected with our consent - or at least without our collective defiance - approving an industrialized Wounded Knee.

In real time. Today. Tomorrow. The day after 

We will never bomb our way to peace. Bombs may clear the land for state expansion, and real estate speculation, and kick the war down a generation. But they are the gravest form of disrespect to our children, for they ensure a violent response - whether now or when the babies of today finally have their chance. If we love the generations growing, we will commit ourselves to the daily work of generational peace.  

Now and always, sending limitless respect and honor to those protesting around the world and here at home. The machinations of war must be confronted directly, and stopped each day and each way we are able. Our institutions will continue to fail us, only in persistent unity will we find our way. 

Peace to all under this bright moon. 

May it shine upon you.

There was a time we united for peace.

This letter is for the community that once surrounded and animated falling whistles. To all those who wore a whistle, who signed petitions, who created public art, who volunteered, who gave of their unique capacity. It is to those especially, who gave months and years of their life, to support a coalition. 

There was a time when we united for peace. 

Everything in me wishes to do so now.

I write to you all as a human being, devastated by the continued bloodshed that occurs each day in our time. 

When Marcus and I were first in his attic and then later the warehouse, we dreamed of creating a coalition dedicated to peace. This coalition would have to be global - as the conflict was - and would be built around symbols rather than people, who inevitably fall.

As we transitioned to the garage, and friends found us from across the land, what was once a small circle and community, increasingly took on forms that were hierarchical. Someone had to be in charge of decisions, someone had to be in charge of legal contracts, someone had to be in charge of resources, someone had to be in charge of volunteers and supporters.

This hierarchy was, in many ways, antithetical to the original dream. We wished for a circle, a community, a coalition that would live on generationally, and remain committed to the work of peace. What we created instead, was an organization in the modern form, with leaders and titles. While we built a board and an advisory board, and circles within the whistler societies, and community coalitions, the fundamental structure of the organization depended on a director of some kind. When I fell in my own life, so much that was good and beautiful and profound and very much from the collective, fell too.

There was a time when we believed in our collective power, as much as any other quality of life. It is only natural, that the inverse of such faith, would be a rugged individualism. Facing the hard reality that no one can have our back, as often as ourself.

After the organization transitioned, many of us went back to family. We had tried to be a family to one another for many years, and some of us realized we had neglected our own. Coming back to a core familial circle after years of focusing on the larger context, is not without its challenges. But all true peace begins within, and extends most immediately, to the home.

The home I grew up within, was one where we yelled at one another a great deal. We treated each other with an intensity, I have spent much of my adult life learning to soften. As I stepped away from the organzation, I realized the degree to which I had replicated these patterns in the office. The work of peace lives on in our every day, and in my own life I have learned that even if you dream big dreams for the future, the peace of today is the peace you create within, and with those closest to you.

The symbol has never left me. None of us will know the journey each package took after being shipped away, and the ways in which they impacted peoples lives. No matter where I have gone, the whistle has always found me, and brought me to a deeper understanding of symbol and sound.

There was a reason we came together. It wasn’t simply because it was fresh. It wasn’t simply because there were beautiful bright souls. It was because we knew, deep in our hearts, that nothing would change unless we did. And we sensed within, that we were coming into consciousness, at a time of unprecedented collective power.

There are many ways in which the organization lacked transparency and clarity. If it hasn’t been said, and hasn’t been made clear, there were three concurrent challenges, that ultimately came to a head. The first was that my father had died. In an instant, his life had become my life, and the obligations of his life would dominate the next decade of my life. The second was that my health was fading precipitously, and like others in our community, I did not know how to properly care for my mind, body and soul. And third, is that during the campaign to #stopm23, we stopped paying payroll taxes. There were worthy reasons, but it eventually caught up to us. In retrospect, it likely could have been resolved with a good lawyer, accountant, income, and perseverance. But at that exact moment, I was facing escalating crisis’ in texas, none of which I understood, or had any meaningful way to address in the short term.

The agreement made at the time, was that the organization would transition to Sweden, and would continue to work alongside Congolese entrepreneurs. The condition was that I would no longer be involved.  

I have looked back at that moment many times, and asked if I made a good choice. Was it a choice born in courage and faith, or a choice made from fear. Regardless, what remains true, is a decision that should have been made by the collective, was instead made by a single individual in the midst of a personal moment of crisis.  

When I finally stepped far enough away, I found myself scribbling in the corners of my journal, simple words that had alluded me all those years. Words I find myself saying still. 

The whistle is for whistleblowing.

We had used it to fight for peace in the democratic republic of Congo. Had used it to raise funds for entrepreneurs and activists in the Kivus, both south and north. Had used it to raise funds for artists and activists in Tongva territory, in both venice and downtown Los Angeles. Had used it to raise funds for advocates and lawyers on the historic U street of Washington DC.

We had used it for art. For community. For the elevating of common conversation.  For telling the truths of war, and the hope for peace, the best ways we knew how.

Ultimately however, in the end, the symbol was its own truest expression. The whistle, is for whistleblowing.

There are many truths worth telling in this time. Many expressions worth expressing. The vast machinations of war, permeate our lives, and compel us through violence, to contribute with our taxes and labor and exchange, to violence. To a violence so severe, so global, we can hardly imagine a world without it.

In this moment there is genocide in Palestine. A genocide that has been ongoing, for more than a century. In ways connected to the genocide in Congo, which has also been ongoing for more than a century.

There is genocide in Sudan. In Tigray. In Syria. In Yemen. 

There is genocide in the continued proliferation of SARS-CoV-2, and the staggering failures of global health. 

There is genocide in the continued theft of indigenous lands, and privatization of water, soil, air and the commons.  

There is genocide in the continued oppression of colonized peoples, on lands claimed by religious and racial supremacy. 

These will only be meaningfully addressed, by an international coalition, dedicated to creating a world of peace and liberation. We are still today, very much in need of a planetary politics for peace - across oceans, languages, borders and wars.

I believe the community we cultivated over our years together, has a role to play in this coalition. We were each compelled in a time of great suffering and movement, and are each a part of the network that grew from that time.

I write to apologize to each person who believed in me, or believed in us, and who felt failed by me over the years. Failed by the organization we worked collectively to create. I assure you, there are a myriad of valid reasons why one would. I have rarely lived up to the high calling that is peace work. And the organization has failed in its core function of whistleblowing, for many years. And yet, the need for peace work among us, has never been more urgent.

This is my humble request. If you feel within, the familiar urge to join hands and continue the conversations we supported years ago, I hope you will reach out. To me and to one another. I would love to know what you are creating with this precious life, and would love to welcome you wherever we are gathering community. 

A small circle of us will be coming together on the weekend of 2/22. If you’d like to join, you are all welcomed. Two months later, we will be gathering at the People’s Plaza in Abilene tejas, in the heart of what is often considered the most conservative county in the united states.

In May, we will be in Lakota lands, building a Ceremony House. We will be there for two weeks in tents, and anyone who wishes to support, is welcomed.

And in the fall honoring the equinox, Sekombi will join us in Neskowin Oregon, where the tall trees meet the sea. It is a special and sacred place, and all our families are welcomed to come explore together. 

There have been some conversations of building issue 1 of the free world reader, on the land. Diving deeply into the stories of supremacy, which people believe give them dominion over lands. And all the ways the land says otherwise. If any of you would like to contribute to see it come into being, you would surely be welcomed.

In the meantime, I hope we will all, each of us in our own way, continue to explore what it means to be a whistleblower for peace. To speak your truth even if your voice shakes, and to work always, toward peace for the people.

On this day, and all those before and after, I hope our voices will echo through the cosmos, and join every voice calling for a ceasefire in the holy land. I do not know what to do about the genocide in Palestine. I am often overwhelmed by powerlessness. I have begged candidates to stand for peace, and worked to gather those from different sides of the conflict. But this work is generational, and demands steadfast coordination. One thing is clear - the planet must unite to create a Palestinian Nation, with full freedom and sovereignty. I am committed to working in partnership with anyone who shares this urgent aspiration. 

I do not know what to do about the continued violence in the Congo. But there was a time when our collective forces came together across borders and languages, and the world was better for it. There is still a great need for friendship and solidarity among us.  

Thank you to all of you who have read this far. Every day I wake up, and ask how we can unite for peace. Every day I am faced with the challenges of life, operated in silos. Moments of unity are rare, but great possibility is created when we find our way toward togetherness and a common hope.

Praying for peace in this time and all times. In Palestine, in Congo, in Sudan and Tigray, in Argentina, and right here at home.

Love y’all,

sdc

Free Leonard Peltier

Wherever you go among indigenous peoples on this continent, there will be signs or stickers or buttons, demanding freedom for Leonard Peltier. It should have been done a decade ago, it should have been done decades before then. 

For centuries, the United States has made Native Spirituality and Religion, illegal on these lands. They have hunted Medicine People, destroyed hidden ceremonies, and targeted spiritual leaders. Many of the Elders I’ve had the honor of spending time with, are covered in scars and broken bones and shattered teeth, from the torture they have endured at the hands of the Federal Government, for practicing their religion. 

It wasn’t until 1978, with the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, that things began to change. Two years after Leonard had been arrested, framed, and falsely accused by the United States. 

He was sent to the Boarding Schools at age 9, a place many now understand to be concentration camps. Places built to steal languages, traditions, civilizations and lives, through brutal force, subjugation and often torture. He was then relocated to the city, to face the cold realities of american capitalism and soon became a member of AIM, the American Indian Movement. 

In 1972, he helped occupy the BIA Office in DC during the Trail of Broken treaties, working to re-establish sovereignty for Native Nations, and re-open Nation to Nation dialogue with the United States. 

The FBI responded with what has been called a “reign of terror”. When they arrived in Pine Ridge, there were more than 150 feds, local police, and armed good ol’ boys who wanted a piece of the action. 

When the bullets stopped flying, two feds and Joe Stuntz, a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, were gone. Leonard was convicted, along with two others. The other two were released by an all white jury, who after seeing the evidence of the war the FBI had been waging upon Native peoples, declared their response to clearly be - self defense. 

The Feds had other plans for Peltier. He was convicted of two life sentences. When he appealed, it was clear there was no evidence he had shot the federal officers, so the government claimed he had “aided and abetted” those who did. The challenge of course, is there’s very little to convict someone of, for aiding and abetting self defense. 

At the sentencing hearing, Peltier said these words. “I have done nothing to feel guilty about. The only thing I am guilty of, and which I was convicted for, was of being Chippewa and Sioux blood, and for believing our sacred religion.” 

Nevertheless, the FBI has held Peltier in prison ever since, despite millions of voices around the world, who have called for his release. The time is now. 

Sendin respect to all of you relatives out there. Love y’all

freeleonard.us

#freeleonardpeltier

Garrett Foster is a hero.

When the pandemic began, I earnestly wanted to isolate, and do all I could to protect those around me.

And then George Floyd died.

When George Floyd was murdered, and people around the world saw it with their own eyes, we rose up in a way many of us had not seen in our lifetime.

There are legions of people over the ages, who have worked to rally people toward common, collective action — but no call, no matter how urgent, can match the urgency of witnessing an embodiment of the State, murder a man in cold blood. The streets were filled with bodies, and local organizers in hundreds of cities and towns, worked to channel the pain and justifiable rage of strangers, into a cohesive whole.

On the afternoon of July 25th 2020, I got in my old pickup, and drove to the protest that had been happening each day in Austin. As I walked up, there was a young woman on the megaphone, passionately articulating the injustices of mass incarceration in America, and a moderate sized crowd was around her, cheering on her every word. The energy was strong, the vibe was good, and I was grateful to be walking toward a community of conscience.

There was one glaring exception. And this was the large man standing in front of the crowd, his face almost entirely covered by a mask and sunglasses, carrying a military grade semi-automatic weapon.

When communities come together to protest for justice, there is often a contingent of folks who are white, and I have often felt inclined to go and meet them, and inquire. Right or wrong, this has simply been the way I’ve approached it. So before walking up to the crowd, I walked up to the guy with the big gun, and asked for his name.

Garrett, he says. Garrett Foster.

He pulled down his mask to reveal a good sized grin, and shakes my hand. I ask what he’s doing there, and with the sincerity of a man who has searched his soul, he smiles and says — I am here to protect the people.

I believed him. Right away.

In a context like that, surrounded by protestors who are generally people of color and often led by women, my overwhelming instinct was to assume he was a bad actor, out there to intimidate the community, who were letting their will be known. But from the moment we met, it was clear that these people were his people, and that he was willing to do whatever was necessary, to ensure they had the freedom to voice their protest, and demand justice.

I soon met his fiancé, a beautiful woman with bright braids and a smile that could light up a hot day in July. They met as teenagers and fell in love, a young white man and a young Black woman, together in texas.

Those who have experienced the generational racism of this state, know how hard their journey must have been, simply for loving the person they loved. But the challenges of two people and cultures colliding, would be just the beginning of the obstacles they would face in their young lives.

Whitney Mitchell developed an infection that led to her limbs being removed, and a few months later, Garrett was sent to basic training. From everything I’ve heard or learned since that fateful day, their time apart was deeply challenging for both of them. But after he was discharged at 19, Garrett became her primary caretaker, and worked faithfully to care for her each day after.

When George Floyd was killed, Whitney told Garrett she wanted to be at the protests each and every day. Amidst a global pandemic, and a partner who needs such support, it’s hard to consider how difficult this must have been. We don’t talk too often about the logistics of challenging injustice. But just the gasoline involved, in driving back and forth. The parking fees. The time given, when one could otherwise be preparing a meal, or taking care of a loved one, or earning additional income. To march is to walk, and for a person in a chair, that means someone has to push. And in the case of Whitney and Garrett, they marched together every single day.

That night was powerful. I remember feeling that after more than two decades of protesting in Austin texas, there was finally an infrastructure forming, of mutual support, mutual aid, consistency, decentralized leadership, and resonant connection with the community. All afternoon, it felt like the tides were turning, and the people were beginning to win.

We marched for hours. From the Austin Police Department, up 8th street, down Cesar Chavez, and stumbling onto a dinner at the W Hotel, hosted by the mayor. We stayed outside for some time, long enough to be sure we were heard, then continued toward Congress Ave.

As a former student at the university of texas, my first public protests were held on Congress Avenue. I cut my teeth in those early days, learning to support the community, and gather people together for demands that could only be made collectively. I remember feeling a profound sense of pride, in being back on that road so many years later, surrounded by compatriots once again, in fighting for a better world.

It was a feeling of euphoria. A feeling of limitlessness. As though each person marching was a sibling, a sister or brother long lost, but now we had all finally found one another.

And then everything changed.

When we got to the intersection of Congress Avenue and 4th Street, a car began honking and jolting toward the protestors walking across the street, with hard lurches forward, and then abrupt braking. Hard lurches forward, and abrupt braking. As he did so, the crowds began to scream and run in all directions. The sun had just set to the west, and darkness was only recently surrounding us. As it did, the car burst through our community, and confusion and panic rang out.

It all happened very fast. But as I remember it, the car pushed through the crowd crossing fourth street, and drove through an intersection filled with human beings. Families. Teenagers. Elders. Parents. And a woman named Whitney Mitchell in a wheelchair.

I don’t know if the driver was targeting Garrett. I don’t know if the driver was targeting Whitney. I don’t know if he knew, he was driving directly toward another veteran of our armed forces, who was marching in solidarity with the community, and protecting his lifelong love.

What I do know is the driver turned left through a sea of human beings, rolled down his window, and shot Garrett Foster on Congress Avenue.

What happened next I’ll never forget. Whenever bullets are shot nearby, it sends a shock through everyone’s body, simply because of the noise. But when those bullets are shot into a crowd of people in the middle of a large avenue, it was like an explosion of human energy. Tears and shrieks and terror were flung from our lungs, and no tears were as loud as hers.

Humans hid behind trash cans and street lights, but Whitney was in the middle of the Avenue, with town lake behind her, and the marbled capital before her, just crying. The tears echoed off the buildings, architecture that has likely seen much death over the years, but rarely so blatant in its hatred for people. As the ringing cleared, everyone began doing in their own way, whatever it was that was needed. To support themselves, and to protect one another.

It has been nearly three years since that day. Rarely has a day gone by when I do not think of Garrett, and think of his bride. He is a hero. There can be no other word. Garrett is a man who fell in love at a young age, and honored that love to his last breathe. Garrett is a man who trained and served his country in uniform. Garrett is a man who put his body on the line, each and every day, from the day George Floyd was killed, to the day he was as well. To demand justice. To protect his wife. To serve the people.

Garrett represents the best of us. He is why we all know, deep in our hearts, that freedom will one day come for all people. Because somehow, in every generation, heroes rise.

The verdict came through weeks ago, and the driver was found guilty by a jury of his peers. Guilty of murder. It is the right verdict. The driver charged at human beings, and killed one of us.

Whether our justice system will offer anything of value or redemption in what comes next, is of course a subject we should all consider. But for a moment, there was a sense that perhaps there would be justice.

My assumption was folks would act out their characters, and make caricatures of those involved. The great show of course, must go on. But I didn’t fully understand the degree to which the Governor was ready to welcome vigilante murder, into our public square.

The Governor has said he will seek a pardon. Not for teenagers wrongfully targeted, or mothers locked from their children for the crime of being poor — but for a murderer, who sought to kill those who challenged the deadly structure of modern policing.

All of this is now very transparently, aligned with the increasing fascism of the Republican Party.

My family were killed by Nazis. Those who continue to tolerate a party that is working to ban books, ban artistic expression, ban trans people and expressions of gender, ban the fundamental sovereignty of human beings over their own body, ban an honest telling of our history, ban the right of assembly and protest, and now allow for murder, are being radicalized in ways many may not fully understand. White Christian men, unwilling to listen the Whitney Mitchells of our community, are being told they can use their guns to demand everyone else be forced to listen to them.

Just as the Crusades and Colonial Powers did before, white christian men have often been called upon to be the foot soldiers of fascism. Defending the State, rather than their neighbors. Defending unconscionable crimes, in the name of land and symbol.

In the age of connectivity across languages and borders, I will continue to hold hope that enough human beings will choose as Garrett Foster chose. To protect the People and the Planet with their lives.

Whatever happens with Greg Abbot, the message has been sent clearly. And few among us could say there is not more fear in standing up to the State today, than there was the day Garrett Foster was shot down.

But fear is how fascism wins. And so we must cultivate courage. For ourselves and our community. Cultivate a strength within, by knowing the legacy we stand on. A legacy of challenging power, far older than the nation itself. A legacy from which the giants of this land were born.

We must protest. We must resist.

When a friend is killed.

Or a stranger.

When a neighbor is killed.

Or someone further away.

When our tax dollars are used to fund death and destruction. Oppression and war. Police violence and a racist system of incarceration.

When our collective resources are used to kill us. When a badge allows for murder.

Those who rise and those who do the excruciating work of putting their bodies on the line, day after day after day, represent the best of humanity. They are the white blood cells, directly facing the problem. They are the pointed tip, at the end of an arrow or sword. They are the olive branch, welcoming our society back to balance, and peace. And they have often been the most fundamental and necessary component of so many movements, which have achieved social progress before.

They must be protected.

The right to protest is sacred. It is essential.

It is as central to Liberty, as the freedom of speech, and the freedom to pray as your soul calls.

Garrett Foster will continue to be a hero for those who love freedom, far longer than this petty use of power by our Governor will be remembered. But as our children suffer from fear in schools, and our protestors suffer from fear in the public square, all who do not fit the colonial mold, live in increasing levels of risk and fear as well.

In a time of information distortion, when storytelling has replaced so many mediums of journalism and sharing, it can often be hard to understand who’s fighting for what, and who’s values align with those of your conscience. It may at times seem easy, to simply default to those who talk like you, or look like you, or live near your family.

But if you happen to have the great joy of having a child in your life, and they ever ask you about “the good guys”, remember it’s always those who protect the defenseless, and give their lives for the common good. It’s always those who challenge entrenched power, and demand liberation for a broader and ever growing circle.

It’s always those who protect the people.

Garrett Foster was one of the good guys.

May we all live lives of such courage.

For Life.

There has been a pro-life movement on this land, for millennia.

Those who today call themselves pro-life, have always been their enemy.

My father was a farmer when he was a young man. He taught us the value of good, vibrant soil. How deeply the quality of the soil mattered, and how important it was to have microbes and fungus and all the little things, that make life come to life. So many of the necessary nutrients found in soil, are a delicate balance that keeps it able to restore itself year after year, and capable of producing so much of what keeps us alive.

He taught us the value of a seed, and how different a natural seed is from those that have been manipulated for mass production. He taught us the magic, sacred nature of water. How you can combine all these elements to grow beautiful, colorful, energetic food. And how good my body felt, when I ate food I had helped grow, or had been grown near land I called home.

The original peoples of the land we call the Americas, were both stewards of creation, and active participants in the creating of ecosystems. From the Great Plains to the Redwoods, the Mississippi River to the Great Lakes, each of these regions were grown and supported by human beings, over the course of thousands of years.

We are surrounded by relatives; the earth, the air, water, animals, plants, trees, fungus, and all the humans who have been here since time immemorial. Each of these have played a role in a vast movement for life. This movement is what sustains some of the largest, most productive agricultural land in the world. This movement is what has sustained hundreds of millions of people, and this movement is what sustains you and I now.

When Europeans first arrived on these shores, the Pope issued a law. This law would be more consequential, in more corners of the earth, than nearly any passed before or after. What could make a law so powerful ?

The law held simply, that any land taken from a non-Christian, was legally taken. If you were Indigenous, or if you were Pagan, or if you were Muslim or Buddhist or otherwise, your land — according to the Pope — could be legally taken by any European Christian, by any means necessary.

This law led to the Doctrine of Discovery, and was the legal foundation used to conquer and colonize all of North America, South America, Africa, Australia, most of Asia, many of the islands, and the Middle East.

All across the world, white Christians encountered lands and people living on that land, who worshiped the earth, or the water, or the animals, or other deities, or one another. And according to the head of the Christian empire, those people were legally allowed to be removed from the land, however necessary.

They were allowed to be killed. They were allowed to be raped. They were allowed to be tortured. They were allowed to be burned. They were allowed to be removed, by any and all methods, to allow white Christians to take over their land.

Eleven European countries conquered 80% of the landmass in the world with this law in hand, and this law represents the beginning of most modern nation states today.

This law is the foundation of Canada, the United States, Mexico, and everything that is south and below. And although the movement to claim control by any means necessary happened everywhere, it began here. First in modern day Haiti, and then in the Carolinas.

The Missions were a strategic centerpiece in colonial expansion. They worked to evangelize the people, enslave the population, remove their spirituality, and generationally subjugate them. This was true on all continents.

The first President of Liberated Kenya, said these words in his inauguration speech.

“When the missionaries arrived, the Africans had the Land and the missionaries had the Bible. They taught us how to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened our eyes, they had the Land, and we had the Bible.”

Across places like California, where more than 300 languages once thrived in one of the most diverse ecosystems on earth, the Missions played the same role. A Chumash elder I had the great honor of spending time with, said that the Mission Arches are to him, what the Swastikas above Camp Gates, are to Jews. The symbol of a place, built to steal their labor and lives.

Before the great Patrice Lumumba, first President of Liberated Congo, was assassinated by the United States and the United Kingdom, he said these words,

“The only thing which we want for our country is the right to a Worthy Life. To Dignity without pretense, and to Independence without restrictions. This was never the desire of the Belgian Colonialists and their Western allies.”

Native people have always known that those who heralded themselves as heroes of democracy, were Colonizers first. But by and large, white people have been able to inoculate themselves from this point of view. Forced displacement, mass shootings, state-funded genocide and open air POW camps we call reservations, have allowed white folks to pretend as though these grave crimes against humanity are distant history, with little relevance in modern day. But just because you don’t hear their perspectives on a day to day basis, or encounter them in your regular life, doesn’t mean they are not held by those on the other side of the Great Doctrine.

The arrival of social media presented an opportunity for voices to rise, that had previously been entirely erased from distributed public discourse. The subjugation and distant removal of these perspectives were finally given a chance to come to light, and be heard by settler society. This began at a time when the largest generation in human history, was coming into political consciousness. Together they represented an enormous bloc of people unusually open and willing to receive ideas that have always been on this land, despite the violence waged to eliminate them, and to hear points of view, that have for so long, struggled to survive.

This has quite clearly terrified the colonial power structure. They see a generation that is bigger and more connected globally than any before, and who is utterly opposed to their wars and conquest. Utterly opposed to their subjugation of people and planet. Utterly opposed to the racial hierarchies that have defined our legal system. And utterly opposed to the misuse of extrajudicial violence by police and our military. They know they will have to do more to control us, than any American regime in the past.

This is why we are now seeing such concerted efforts to ban books, to ban protest, to make the teaching of our history illegal, to remove Voting Rights, and to criminalize vulnerable communities such as those who are trans.

Those in power have clearly recognized that they will no longer be able to win through popular elections. Their only chance of maintaining Colonial Rule, will be through a hostile takeover of American governance. They have removed one of the great victories of the Civil Rights Movement in the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, they have removed our Miranda rights, and they have now removed the fundamental rights of Women to Bodily Sovereignty.

When abortion is illegal, women die. They die. Many, many, many die. It is a simple fact.

A recent study at Duke showed that when abortion is illegal, the deaths of women go up by more than 20%. Of course, this falls disproportionately on people who are already marginalized and vulnerable.

Abortions save lives. Abortion saves lives every day, all the time. Abortion is necessary in a wide variety of circumstances, and has been practiced by people since time immemorial. The right to an abortion, and to all forms of body sovereignty, are an intrinsic part of what it means for a person to be free.

Even as I type those words, it’s clear that they are not my own, but simply an echo of the millions of thunderous feet on streets, over generations of colonial subjugation, pulling away from work and family and life and love and art and survival, to demand their basic human rights. Colonial Christianity has never fully acknowledged these rights, just as it has never fully acknowledged the rights of non-white Christians, or non-Christians more generally.

My father was a Jewish man who left Queens at 18, to pursue adventure on new horizons. He met a woman in California, and followed her family back to West Texas, and eventually to a town called Abilene. For nearly 20 years he owned a large commercial building near the center of town, and for nearly 20 years he kept his identity largely secret.

I moved back to Abilene five years ago, and every day I think about why he chose to live that way. And every day, I’m confronted with the dominance of Colonial Christianity. Control of the land, and the laws, and every aspect that determines the context of our lives.

The city has been good to our family for generations, and I will forever be grateful for the friendships created here. Like much of the South, it is filled with kind and polite people, who will always greet you with a smile and a handshake. But beneath the manners of modern times, is a history rife with violence.

In many corners of town, there is transformation and a challenging of the status quo. I have found the underground of Abilene to be full of grit and determination, with talent long ignored, and deep wells of passion. Few know better the structures of oppression, than those who live so close to it. At a time when Texans are threatening to secede from the Union and criminalize homosexuality, and at a time when the banning of books is being publicly demanded, the necessary context is that the city was originally created to be a colony for a very specific religious movement. Though overwhelmingly built by the Black community and the Latino community, it is the white Christian community that owns it.

When the abortion ban was first announced in Texas, and tens of thousands marched in Austin, there were some forty of us here in Abilene. In this town once called home by one of the lawyers who argued on behalf of Roe, young women mostly of color, marched with courage and conviction. I walked in awe of their bravery, as we were surrounded by white men with signs calling us murderers. This kind of blind righteousness, so endemic among Christian Nationalism, will do nearly anything to not see the genocide they generationally perpetuate. Every accusation is a projection.

It is a cultural movement I know well. My mother’s family has been in texas since before it was texas, and have always believed they were called by God to be stewards of the land. In its root form, this belief is beautiful, and one that cultivates great growth. But when merged with violence, and the belief that the land belongs only to those who share your symbols, it becomes a nationalism that will work to dominate everything it touches, until met with an equal or greater force.

The Colonists believe that the existing order, is the natural order. They believe that White Christian Men ought to be in charge of the structures that determine our lives. That they ought to be the sole arbiters of the laws and guns and violence, and the upholding of our fundamental rights. This is the doctrine of discovery. This is colonial ideology. This is colonial supremacy.

This land that was home to the buffalo for millennia, and lived on by the Jumano and Kiowa and Wichita and Comanche people, for thousands and thousands of years, today has nearly no one nearby, who keeps their traditions and language alive. Instead it has been replaced by a religious movement supremely convinced of their supremacy, and their right to dominion over land and people.

Today I speak to my ancestors in my prayers, and welcome them to support the people in their struggle to be free. To come with broader eyes than they were able to see from, in their time. I feel them with us, beckoning a new relationship with the land, and all the people who now call this land home.

This November we will vote on whether to make this town a “Sanctuary City for the Unborn.” At a recent vigil for women’s rights, a local man named Joey Devora stood among a courageous circle, and said after centuries of slavery, segregation and displacement, it was time Abilene became a Sanctuary City for Freedom. Our hearts swelled with hope.

There is a generation rising across the colonized world, and especially in places like the South, ready to do whatever it takes, to liberate the people of this land. To create a future where all people, and all living beings, have their foundational rights protected. The legal structures may still be controlled by those who swear fealty to the Doctrine of Discovery, but if enough of us begin to decide otherwise, I do believe we can build a land where all are free.

I am pro Life.

In every part of my being, I am For Life.

Everything I value and love and hold dear, is for Life.

Everything I pray to, and worship, and struggle for, and fight for, is for Life.

I am for the rivers and I am for the springs.

I am for the mountains and I am for the snow.

I am for the oceans, and the symphony of creatures that call her home.

I am for the grass, and for the forests and trees.

I am for the birds and the wetlands and estuaries.

I am for the salmon and the soil.

I am for all the animals who walk and fly and crawl.

I am for the humans and the children and the elders.

I am for the women and the men and the spectrum of genders in between.

I am pro life in every way I know how to be.

And we will continue to struggle around the world, until all are free.

In the depths of my soul, nothing has guided me more, than listening to the ever present whisper of Life. And no matter how much the colonizers wish to claim that term, know that it is a lie. Life demands versatility, expanse, diversity, acceptance of all that is, and deference to water. Conquerors cannot be for Life. They are for their dominion, their domination, and their supremacy.

If you are a Christian, and filled with the righteous desire to protect the innocent, know that there is a vast community of human beings, fighting for Life, and ready to welcome your support and creativity and labor and dedication.

When children are stuck at the border, and families are separated without Habeas Corpus, we need a movement for Life.

When native mothers see their daughters stolen, and their sisters go missing at far higher rates than any other people, we need a movement for Life.

When Black mothers watch their children shot down day after day after day after day, we need a movement for Life.

When climate scientists put their bodies on the line, to warn humanity of ecological collapse, we need a movement for Life.

When Indigenous People pray for the water and move to protect it with their very lives, we need a movement for Life.

When school children walk out of classrooms across America, demanding gun control so they can safely learn in schools, we need a movement for Life.

When teachers and nurses and construction workers and all forms of laborers, demand better pay, paid parental leave, and healthcare for all people, we need a movement for Life.

And when refugees flee war, often driven by exceedingly profitable arms dealers, and mining and oil companies, we need a movement for Life.

To those who have previously identified with the anti-choice movement, I say please join us. Please hear the millions of human beings crying out across our country, and recognize that there are no babies without Mothers. To reduce abortions, we must invest in the safety of Mothers.

In Jewish law, God calls us to protect Mothers as one of our highest obligations. In Islam, the life of the Mother is held as sacred and primary. Indigenous nations have often been Matriarchies, and held precious the medicine needed to give yourself an abortion, or offer it to others.

Within Christianity, there has been a great divide since Rome adopted the religion, and used it to justify its expanse. To understand this division, it’s critical to understand the religion’s founding story:

Jesus was brought up on charges by a religious power structure, and ultimately sentenced by a violent Nation-State. If you grew up being told — as many children are — that America was God’s chosen land, just as Jesus was God’s chosen son, then you heard the story upside down. You heard the myth first used by the Romans to justify their expansion of empire, then used to justify the Crusades, and eventually used to conquer the Americas and beyond. You heard the story of Colonialism.

Because in the real story; America, is Rome. And Jesus, is the persecuted.

The marginalized. The oppressed.

Colonial Christianity distorts the founding story of its faith, to tell those who love Jesus that they ought to be supportive of Roman style conquest and control, rather than in creating a society that protects the most vulnerable among us. This is the modern Right.

In contrast, there are significant communities of Christians who understand their Savior stood with the oppressed, and comforted the afflicted. That he opposed those who used Religion as a tool for Control and Power, rather than connection with God and all of Creation. That he opposed those who used places of Worship, as places for Profit. That he opposed those who utilized oppression and violence. And that he gave his life, working to heal.

This tradition is overwhelmingly found in the Black Church, and among Christian Abolitionists. Across the ages, it has been a powerful force for social change, and against the forces of Colonialism.

The fight to outlaw abortion reveals the depths of the hypocrisy intrinsic in those who would use a Savior of the oppressed, to justify their oppression. Where mothers and babies and innocent people are actually begging for Life, those who call themselves “pro-life”, are nowhere to be found. The same movement that fights to strip women of their inherent freedom to bodily sovereignty, also works to prevent the measures that would make life more livable for mothers, and make child rearing a more beautiful, safe journey, rather than the isolated, dangerous and expensive one it is today.

If you wish to protect the unborn, please join all those working to address poverty and homelessness and war and ecological destruction. All those working to create healthcare for all, housing for all, a living wage for all, and most importantly, fundamental freedoms for all.

A pro life society would work together to be sure our children’s air is clean, and our water is clean, and our land grows clean food.

A pro life society would prioritize our health and our wellbeing and our education and our livelihoods.

A pro life society would form communities where mothers and families can support one another, and share with one another in the daily challenges children often bring.

A pro life society would demand an end to nuclear weapons, and take the resources we spend perpetuating war around the world, and invest them instead, in perpetuating peace.

A pro life society would do everything in its power to end fossil fuels and fracking, and protect the aquifer networks where our grandchildren and great grandchildren’s futures reside.

A pro life society would work to transform systems of domination like prisons, for-profit camps on the border, and the death penalty, into systems for healing, rehabilitation, restoration and reintegration.

A pro life society would work with Native Nations all over the continent, to ensure sovereignty, to honor historic Treaties, and to give back their sacred places and possessions, so they can steward and shepherd the land as they have since the beginning of time.

A pro life society would support women and children as its core and central obligation.

And yet where were those who used that name, when a generation of Native women were sterilized ? Where were they, when the Boarding Schools stole hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children, and sent them to places that hated their culture, language and religion? Where were they when those children were tortured and beaten, and far too often killed.

It was largely white Christian women who ran the Residential Schools. Who adopted Indigenous children into abusive homes, and perpetuated generational trauma. Colonial Christianity used residential schools and violent displacement to fill orphanages, and homes that allowed only a single expression of faith. This wholesale system of child-trafficking over generations, resulted in a destruction of language, cultures and lives, nearly unmatched in history. It is the descendants of those who supported the Boarding Schools, who today lead the movement against bodily sovereignty for all people.

The anti-choice movement has always been fraudulent, in that it has fought to give rights to those not yet sovereign, and steal them from those who are alive right now. This fraudulence is especially true, given that the Justices who have overturned Roe, were only confirmed because they explicitly lied to Congress in their confirmation hearings.

They lied. The four men and one woman, who believe they have the right to remove fundamental rights for hundreds of millions of people, lied under oath, and to the entire nation. Each of them committed perjury, in full view of the public, and with consequences that will leave far too many dead and suffering. To proclaim this a righteous victory for Jesus, as so many Evangelicals have done, reveals the true intent of a religious movement that has replaced God with Power, Salvation with Nation, and Freedom with Colonial Subjugation.

American Christians can either choose freedom of Religious expression for All People, or they can choose a theocratic repression which almost always leads to fascism. They cannot choose both.

I believe we will be victorious. That those who love Life, and are willing to give our lives to defend it, will win. That all living beings, will one day be free. That when this chapter of human history is written and complete, and our generation’s final struggles have come to pass, and it is time for the future to carry the banner, we will hand them a world that is freer than the one we were born into.

But for today, these laws of oppression are real. And many human beings will die and suffer as a result.

So begin to build. To build power in your community, in your town, in your city, in your county. Build solidarity amongst one another, and build power for vulnerable people. Build community power, with each other and for each other. Build spaces for art and expression, build pathways for community healing. Build circles of truth and reconciliation, and build monuments in the public square.

And if you are in a big city and have any degree of mobility, please consider going home. Go back, to the land of your childhood, or the land of your forebearers. Go back, where those in power have been unaccountable for generations, and where vulnerable citizens suffer as a result. Go out, and find commonality among those who grow our food, and produce so much of what keeps us alive, and where strict hierarchies are maintained, between the Owners, and the Laborers. Build in places where divergent people have been all but silenced, and grow a whisper to a roar.

The places “in between”, will struggle greatly in this new era of repression. And while cities will likely remain central for many in our generation, they often operate as fundraising engines for the aggressive oppression of rural and border communities. The work of shifting power will demand significant migrations away from places that concentrate youth and resources, and toward places where the power structure continues to hold on, with white and ferocious knuckles.

In places like west texas, trans and queer people are actively under threat. The public library is being actively attacked for welcoming a plurality of stories. And all those who are marginalized or vulnerable, speak of the hostility that is ever present.

Dr. King calls on us to disobey unjust laws. While each person is entitled to their own view, the laws throughout history that have precluded revolution, are those that degrade a portion of the people, while elevating the power of others. Laws that prevent the full expression of your humanity. And laws that prohibit your foundational freedoms.

The court rulings removing and criminalizing our Miranda Rights, our Voting Rights, our Right to Religious Expression, our Right to Protest, and our Right to Bodily Sovereignty, are fundamentally unjust, and demand generational defiance.

Women from sea to shining sea, are now plotting to intentionally break the law, in order to protect vulnerable women. This kind of revolutionary love, is the foundation upon which a new Union could grow on this land.

We who wish for the freedom of all people, may not have learned the pathways to unity, but I do believe that as the threat of Religious Fascism becomes more clear, we will begin to join with one another in pursuits many of us have only imagined, and find our collective way to liberation.

Deep within my soul, I will forever believe, that together we will be free.

sean david

With Love

To a nation with love:

Who are you ?

You are a human being.

The nation may be many things, but you - you are a being endowed with imagination, creativity, capacity, reason, instincts, and yes, that strange & elusive force called love.

You are mighty with love. Filled to the brim, and at times overflowing. Other times you may feel sunk to the bottom, unable to swim, & yet somehow, someway, love finds a way.

Like water, Love finds a way. Somehow, some way. It crawls through our nooks and crannies, finding its way into the darkness and illuminating the shadows. Opening wounds, and revealing rot, allowing the healing power of light & love to arrive.
Love finds a way.

This land has been at war since the Settlers first arrived. For the Europeans fleeing feudalism, the last five centuries have been a great expansion of freedom & liberation. For those brought here in chains, it has been an everlasting struggle for sovereignty, in a place determined to make you a slave. And for those who have always lived here, whose families go back a thousand generations, the last five centuries have been an apocalypse. A level of destruction and death so vast, most born in modern times will never know, the Freedom that was here before. That Liberty has always been the law of this land.

Today we face a choice. Two men who carry the same complexion, and whose ancestors come from the same hemisphere of the earth. Neither respect the original inhabitants of this land, and both believe in their Ordained Supremacy over this land, and many other lands.

One however, has embraced Hate as an explicit rallying cry. Embraced Anger and Violence, as encouraged pathways to gaining power and domination. Embraced Racial Supremacy, as a central doctrine of his ideology. This man must be defeated.

With Love has been a whispered request, welcoming human beings of every shade and tone, to defeat Hate & embrace Love.

Joe Biden may well be the least inspiring democratic candidate in modern history. He is neither heroic nor truthful, neither gifted in the art of persuasion, nor charm. He has a history of small deceptions, and has often used politics to expand power for Empire.

Perhaps the only truly redeeming quality in Joe as a candidate for President, and a figure in modern history, is that for nearly a decade, he showed the world what it looked like, for an elder White Man, to serve as second to the first Black President.

This is no small thing. His life served as an example to millions of White Men and White Women, who had never learned to defer authority to those they had claimed supremacy over. In this, he led #withlove.

Millions of americans are calling on millions of Americans to do the same. You may not have a perfect choice, or even a good choice in this election, but the choice is quite clear:

Vote With Hate

or

Vote With Love.

The Democratic party is far from perfect, and neither are the movements that support it. They are however, at this very moment in time, the only recourse to directly combat the Hate that currently holds too much power over all of humanities lives.

To remove hate,
We must vote with love.

The Love is not in the party you are supporting. It’s not in a politicians hands, or a leaders heart.

The Love is Within You.

Don’t Vote because a talking head said so. Because some quack on television barked into your living room.

Vote because your heart tells you the Orange Man must be brought down.

Vote because your soul knows he is full of hatred, and he using that hatred to harm.

Vote because you know the power structure won’t solve our collective problems, but working as a collective just might.

Vote because while you may not be able to win all you believe in, your vote can stand in Solidarity with those whose lives hang in the balance, and have neither voice nor vote themselves.

Vote with Love.
Live with Love.
Heal with Love.

Sent with love,
Sean

The United States is an Apartheid Nation

The united states is an apartheid nation.

You may read these words and ignore them as the intentional hyperbole of the Radical Left, or as words used by ‘activists’, to inflame the masses, and call them to riot.

They are of course, none of those things. They are a cold, calculated descriptor, of a legal, political, economic and militarized system, that subjugates portions of our people, to benefit and enrich another.

The basic definition of apartheid is simple:

“A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.”

Is this not what we have in America ?

Is this not what we have always had ?

The gap in wealth between white families and black families in the United States of America, is wider today, than it was at the height of Apartheid South Africa.

Just consider, for a moment, the idea of a anti-apartheid protestor out on the streets, who is greeted by a South African. She says thank you for your work, and just remember - the economic divide here, is worse.

Though this divide, as staggering as it may be, is still simply a portion of our subjugation.

When the calvary came west, they killed, raped, maimed, burned, destroyed, infected, and ultimately colonized a continent. Or of course, they won it from another colonizer.

Along the way, hundreds of Treaties were signed by the United States, guaranteeing vast swaths of land to indigenous people, and guaranteeing of paramount importance - their Sovereignty.

Though the Constitution calls Treaties the Supreme Law of the Land, the entire story of our expansion, is one of perpetual breaching; of treaties and laws.

As is often said by Native activists - The Indian Wars Have Never Ended. The old POW Camps became Reservations, often on the same land and with the exact same identifying number. These reservations work still, to deny sovereignty, and keep the original people of this land in continual subjugation.

The same laws used to demarcate what land is Reservation and what land belongs to the extractive industries who are constantly at war with Native Peoples, are used to determine what land is used for section 8 housing, and what land will be gentrified for the benefit of the ruling majority. The structures of prison, begin in the organization of land and city.

This of course, is why the statement - The United States is an Apartheid Nation - ought not be terribly complicated or emotional. It is simply a clear minded, honest analysis of a political structure that for centuries has stolen land through tactics of genocide and grave deception, and stolen bodies through tactics of conquest, and enslavement.

The Laws governing Native People are fundamentally different than those governing me. As are the laws so often applied to Black People. This applies to red lining and real estate, loans and credit, our educational system and our healthcare system. It certainly applies to application of force by police, and determination to punish by juries and judges alike. And though the definitions may shift slightly, the same racism applies to which countries we support with resources and food and weaponry and intelligence, and which countries we destroy for extraction.

We may have theories regarding the equal application of the law. Stories and legends and tales and ideas. But such has never been true on this land, not now and not since Columbus first encountered the Arawaks. Their eventual extermination, began the war we are still battling today.

If we can begin to acknowledge the severity of the problem. The scale at which white supremacy has colonized the planet, and the thoroughness with which it has erased the ancient history of this land we call home - then, and maybe only then, can we begin to acknowledge the scale at which we must consider solutions.

In this way, Apartheid South Africa offers a compelling roadmap, or at least, a series of lessons, for what we might imagine.

Of course, it is worth acknowledging up front that the fundamental difference, between the project of decolonizing the United States and decolonizing South Africa, or for that matter, India, the Philippines, or nearly anywhere else, is that here, the genocide of native peoples was much, much more thorough. While it is obvious to us now, that the British should no longer rule India, or that Afrikkans should no longer rule South Africa, it still feels perfectly normal, that a largely european power structure, “founded” entirely by europeans, controls whether people of a darker skin complexion, are allowed to be free on these lands.

This reality presents an inescapable mathematical challenge. Absent widespread violence, the majority must either decide to side with the minority for justice, or the fundamental demographics of the country must change. In our time, we are seeing the beginnings of all three.

When South Africa began its process of transformation, there were many unknowns, and both tensions and passions, were high.

The journey toward a new constitution, a new flag, a new song, and a new national story, was a long one, but in so many ways, it was supported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission took seven years, and worked to unearth grave injustices, and crimes against humanity, that had taken place on their soil. Those who had been persecuted were given a platform to put those grievances on the record, and those who had committed the crimes were given due process, and ultimately some form of justice.

There has never been such a commission in the United States. Not for the Boarding Schools, which perpetuated a direct strategy of generational genocide - and not for Slavery, which shackled human beings for centuries. Not for the detention of families without habeas corpus on the border, and not for the extrajudicial murder of Black people by police.

We could create one.

We could go inch by inch across this great land, and acknowledge the crimes of colonialism. We could build monuments to those who resisted, and the heroes who defied colonial conquest. We could hold ceremonies, led by indigenous people, acknowledging what has been done, and committing ourselves and our future generations, to restore what has been taken.

We could hold vigils, led by the Black community, lionizing those who have given their lives in the struggle, and pledging enormous resources to finally ensure the descendants of those brought here by force, are given the modern forty acres and a mule they have been promised so many times before.

Just as restitution of lands are inseparable from reconciliation with native peoples, property ownership is inseparable from any meaningful reparations program. It is the single greatest contributor to the wealth gap, and the most direct way to ensure people are able to expeditiously live lives of dignity and peace.

For some, these proposals may seem extreme, or too large in scale. I wonder how you would feel, if it had been your father where George Floyd had been.

Is it extreme to honor the Treaties ?  Or is it extreme to ask a people to endure centuries of subjugation. Is it extreme to ensure Black people have political control over the forces policing them ?  Or is it extreme to assume we will continuing seeing this same pattern of innocent people being murdered, and masses of people rising up to demand some measure of justice.

An earlier version of the flag we think of as the American flag, was flown by the United States military, in each of the wars against Native people. Even today, if you walk into the Pentagon, the first several flags represent the Indian Wars. These conquests set the foundation for what we would later do in nearly every corner of the world.

At gatherings of Indigenous resistance, you will sometimes see the flag flown upside down. This will often draw a strong reaction from white folks, who feel it is gravely disrespectful. It isn't uncommon for Natives to look back and ask some variation of the basic question - how can the direction of a piece of cloth, inspire more outrage from you than our continual subjugation ?

As it turns out, the guidebook for how to properly treat the United States flag, says that it should be flown upside down, as a signal for duress. When all is not well.

All is not well.

The Pine Ridge Reservation is home to the Oglala’s, who fought alongside Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, in the last great defeat of the U.S. military. The Battle of Little Big Horn or the Battle of the Greasy Grass, depending on who you listen to. The United State’s first form of retribution was Wounded Knee, the largest mass shooting in our history. Today, Pine Ridge is the poorest county in the country. The empire never forgets.

If you are white, or a European American, you have likely grown up being told a story of who we are, and where we are. If you are like me, you held that story close at one point, and felt deeply and personally identified with its myths, symbols, flags and songs. The journey away from that construct, and toward the people who have always been here, or those whose families were brought here by force, may be a challenging one, but they are the ones who have always known what is truly happening. Their stories and their point of view represent a far closer understanding of the “truth” than a state sanction propaganda campaign, stretching from the Pope’s decision to legalize theft of land from non-christians in 1493 - all the way to today. Manifest Destiny. 

From sea to shining sea, all belongs to us, the europeans who claimed it a few hundred years ago through vast crimes and destruction.

For many, they will tell you that this is the end of the story. What is settled is settled. What is done is done. But like a farm planted over forest, the groomed soil may be a physical reality for some time - generations even - but eventually, given a long enough time scale, the forest will return.

Such is true of this land. The songs and the symbols. The ideas and the principles. The systems for governance and the laws that guided them. All were here for millennia. All are deeply imbedded in the fiber of the land. All are also, returning.

A Constitution which calls Black people a literal fraction of a human being, and a Declaration of Independence that calls the Original People’s of this land “Merciless Indian Savages”, may not represent a strong enough foundation for this cross continental civilization to stand on. If “American” means anything, it is the identity of a people who decided to tell a new story, and write a new structure, for how we shall live with one another and with the earth. None of us living in this nation today created that word, but each of us must decide what it means for us, in our time. Will we once again claim the freedom inherit in every living being, and author a new future, and a new system, for us and those who come after ?

Imagine if you were to grab a bedsheet, and tape it tightly to the wall. Then sit back to consider; if the flag of this land, and the flag of our people, were yours to create, what would you paint ?

Perhaps consider doing the same with a large document and a sharpie. If the words that defined us as a people, were yours to write, what would you say ?

And then consider doing the same with this revolutionary moment. If the vast forces of human beings, leaving their homes and putting their bodies on the line to demand justice, were given a mantra, what would you have us say ?  What would you have us chant ? What would you hope we reach our arms to the sky in order to express?

Rebellion is as inherit to this grand project of democracy as any other behavior, and should be encouraged and supported however possible. Though it is not my place to make demands of anyone, as someone who has felt rebellion at the center of their soul for decades, I will implore a single piece of unsolicited and hopeful insight:

Use your rebellion to create.

Use your defiance to articulate a new path, a new identity, a new story and a new us. Use your anger to build. Use your rage to make.

There will always be destruction; it is inseparable from entropy. The question is always where, and what comes after.

The Original Peoples of this land often dedicated themselves to the creation and perpetuation, of vast ecosystems. Some claim the Redwoods and forests of the west, the rice fields of the midwest, and even the Amazon, were all created and supported over millennia, by generations of indigenous people.

One of the most significant tactics in their quiver of tools, was the controlled burn. In the forests, a controlled burn does many things. It kills all the underbrush that is clogging the pathways for animal migration. It creates thick layers of nutrients in the soil. The heat can often open cones, allowing seeds to be released. And perhaps most unexpected, fire can be an effective tactic to guide animal migration, and bring wild herds toward land that needs to be grazed or tilled, and away from places that need regrowth.

Today we have handed control of our forests and grasslands and lakes and rivers, to bureaucrats who do not understand these natural cycles, and to extractive industries that ignore our interdependence, for short term, personal enrichment.

The results are forest fires, growing in frequency and intensity, each year.

What is the lesson ?

The lesson is use your fire. Use it with focus and determination. Use it with an understanding of the Whole. Use your fire to burn all part of the forest that must be burned. Use your fire, knowing that points of heat can benefit everything else, without burning everything else.

Use your fire as the ancients used fire.
To perpetuate life.

The system must be reborn. We cannot continue to pretend that a generation of europeans came here, and just happened to create the most unique form of government the world had ever seen. They learned many of their founding principles of freedom and self rule, from the people of this land, and the history of liberty that had thrived on this continent, long before Europeans knew these shores existed.

If we continue to tell a story of european exceptionalism, and erase the true origins of those exceptional ideas, or the true labor behind our exceptional industries, then we will continue to birth generations of white americans who will be raised within a fiction of supremacy. To change their understanding of who they are, we must collectively become infinitely more honest about who we are, and where we are.

American Police are the generational result of Slave Patrols. They existed to protect white property, and keep a dark and exploited population, controlled. This basic function has not changed.

We must continue to protest these basic functions. Stop them wherever they emerge. Work within the system to root out District Attorneys, Sheriffs, Judges, and so on, while working outside the system to create civilian forces to protect vulnerable civilians by any means necessary.

We could be mobilizing as local, nonviolent, independent militias, to guard the homes of undocumented families from ICE. To protect native communities from man-camps and destructive pipelines. And yes, to protect black communities from the police.

This same work extends around the world. While we should work to elect a Commander in Chief who prioritizes peace, in the meantime people around the world need protection from imperialism. Whether working with international forces, or local militias, sovereignty belongs to all people, and everyone has a right to protection.

The same industries profiting from the vast expansion of our militaries around the world, are profiting from the militarization of our police at home. This larger collection of businesses and industries is often known as the War Machine. Beginning with Nixon, there has been a deeply strategic effort to divide the international peace movements, from domestic movements for justice. This divide serves only those committed to war.

A unified, global movement toward ending colonialism in all its forms, will only come into being if we are honest about what has brought us to this point. Without a legal path to prosecute the crimes of colonialism, we will never share a mutual understanding of our shared history, and a broad consensus for how we begin to heal.

We can become more. All life is created equal and interdependent with one another. We can commit to the freedom of life, and the liberation of all living beings.

Until that time, there is a long and profound legacy of those who have given everything they have to give, toward our collective liberation. While there can never be a comparison between the pain inflicted on the victim, and that of the perpetrator, there can also be no doubt that conquest poisons all of us. Everyone has a roll to play in our getting free, but none more so than those holding the keys to power and privilege.

We will each find our own path to healing and personal liberation, but our collective liberation will demand mass transformation. Of systems and structures. Leaders and borders. Symbols and shared understanding. I do believe this process is indelibly supported when we put the full force of our being toward constructive rebellion. When we live it and breathe it. Speak it and write it. Sing it and paint it. Love it and be it. A vision of who we could become.  Of where we might go. Of how life will be, when all are born free.

Sending love and strength to all those on the frontlines. Respect always for those who put their bodies on the line for all of us.

Sean

Together

Last week I turned 38.
The date was 02-20-2020
In so many ways, it feels like
a transformational year.

Like many of you, I’ve spent my adult life fighting for peace, justice, and the liberation of life. These fights will continue, and I continue to hold hope that the largest and most connected generation in human history, will see them through.

For many years, I saw movement building, as fundamentally separate from electoral politics. In movement building, we can unite around the shared ideals of what ought to be, and make demands that are fundamentally just and true. In contrast, electoral politics always felt like the place of compromise and deception. Where good ideas met a power structure, unwilling to acknowledge even basic truths regarding the nature of profitable violence, colonialism, patriarchy, war, and the degradation of mother earth.

Then in 2015, I was introduced to Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie is hardly the perfect candidate. He often lacks the smoothness with which we have come to expect politicians to speak with us. He is often rough around the edges, in the same way the old ranchers and cowboys that mentored and raised me, often were. In the same way my Jewish family from the Bronx and Queens, often are. But in all the centuries of American politics, I dont believe we have ever had a more honest choice for President.

Bernie tells the truth. It may not be said with poetry, and it may not be said in a way that moves the cinematic needs of each of us living in this advertising age. But if you pay attention, to the best of his ability, he tells the truth. Every single time.

Bernie was the only person on the debate stage to call what happened in Bolivia, a coup. He has consistently been the only person to demand basic human rights for Palestinians. He has consistently been the only person to acknowledge the long track record of CIA interventions and assassinations, of democratically elected leaders, all over the world. He has been the only person to vote against Trump’s excessive military budgets, and the trade deals that consistently support multinationals, rather than workers. He is the only person to repeatedly call out the war-machine - and the banks, weapon manufactures, and industries of extraction that fuel it. And he is the only person to demand an end to endless war, in the hopes that those resources can be used instead, to protect the planet for generations to come, and ensure a basic level of dignity for every human being, at every level of income and wealth within our society.

He is not a perfect candidate. He could go much further on reparations here at home, and reparations for imperialism outside our borders. He could go much further on debt forgiveness for the developing world and the fundamental transformation of the IMF and the World Bank. He could go much further on transparency of global supply chains, fair-trade, international justice, and peace building around the world. Could go much further in support of indigenous sovereignty, the protection of waterways, and the inherent rights of all living beings.

But when the largest gathering of indigenous people in human history came together at Standing Rock, only he and Tulsi showed up. It wasnt Elizabeth Warren, who claimed native ancestry for most of her life. It wasnt Obama, who so many of us wanted to be a voice for justice and reconciliation. It was Bernard Sanders. He offered his support unequivocally, as he has so often done for those on the front lines.

So whether you're ready to fight for racial justice, or climate justice, or native sovereignty, or peace and the end of profitable war, or the rights of life itself, I believe you will find a friend in a Sanders Administration. It wont be perfect; it has never been and it never will be. But it will be far more honest, and decent, and compassionate toward the struggles that weave their way throughout our planet, than anything we've seen before.

I hope you’ll vote for him on Tuesday, and support him in the years to come. For more than fifty years, he has worked to be on the right side of history, and demand a world that is more peaceful, just and equitable. His priorities have not always been mine, just as im sure they have not always been yours. But the fight for human dignity is a fight worth fighting. A fight worth taking far beyond his lifetime, and indeed our own.

Whether he is elected or not, the work of movement building will continue. For the generations to come, let us forever work toward unity among humanity, peace for all people, and protection of the living world.

Love yall,
Sean

The Holy Land

There has been an attack on Jews, nearly every night of Hanukkah this year. Violent hate crimes, clearly fueled by anti-semitism, and a desire to divide communities already wrought with division. 

One of the goals of anti-semitic violence throughout history, has been to make us afraid, and to attempt to make us ashamed. Of who we are, where we come from, and what we have always endured. 

This is part of why many Jews place their menorah in the window, as a statement of courage, reminding their neighbors of who they are, the ancient heritage they honor, and that they are not afraid. 

The last few years have emboldened a set of ideologies, some thought the world had left behind long ago. There are many forces at play, but without question, the current administration has protected and supported those who perpetuate racial supremacy, and bigotry in all its forms. 

Over the last generation or so, some American Jews have found their way into many of the highest echelons of culture and power. We have, in so many ways, been normalized into whiteness, and been allowed to traffic in circles that had previously been reserved exclusively for the colonizer. To be sure, this welcome has not been complete, and any Jew who has spent time in largely white cultures will tell you there remains a distinct and pervasive othering. But certainly the privileges afforded this generation of Jews, have surpassed nearly any generation before. 

This photo is of the Carasso family in New York City, more than a hundred years ago. The man with the mustache is my great grandfather Jack, who was the first to arrive from Thessaloniki. He spoke eleven languages, and began a restaraunt supply business, to sell goods to all the other immigrant communities. He eventually made enough money to bring his brothers out, and then his cousin and mother as well. 

In the front is my great great grandmother Miriam. The matriarch of the family, who ruled with an iron fist. Like everyone else in the family, she arrived speaking Ladino - a dying language that is in many ways a mixture of Hebrew and Spanish. It was the language of the Sephardics, who traveled across the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, fleeing a new wave of persecution every generation or so, for nearly two millennia. 

There was no question when they arrived on these shores, to a power structure dominated by the descendants of northern and western europeans, that they were distinctly other. Even among the Jews, they were not welcomed in the large synagogues of the Azkanazai, finding instead the Shuls of the Sephardim. 

My grandfather Seymour continued the restaurant supply business, until it eventually failed, and he spent the rest of his days as a salesman, selling kitchen goods on behalf of others. My father was then born in the Bronx, moved to Queens, and was bar mitzvahed with the other Sephardic boys. All his life, he wished he could have spent those formative years of Hebrew School, learning baseball with the Irish and Italian kids in his neighborhood. 

When he turned eighteen, he looked around at a cramped apartment, and a family still playing out the traumas of generational persecution in how they treated one another, and decided he wanted something new. On thanksgiving day, he packed up his car, and headed west. 

He would eventually find quinoa, and holistic agriculture, and meditation, and a blonde babe from southern california who loved the ocean. But at eighteen years old, all he knew was he was ready for change. 

When my brother and I were born, he decided to not have us bar mitzvahed. He believed the most important path a human being could pursue, is the discovery of their own, personal and unique relationship to truth. As a result, he felt his roll as a parent was to expose us to as many paths as possible, and give us the tools necessary to make these larger choices for ourselves. 

He believed in questioning, and seeking. In debate, and the great challenging of ideas.

At least one morning every weekend, we would wake up early, put on our sunday best, and find our way to a new house of worship. Sometimes we would stay for several months, sometimes only for a single visit. We would always listen and learn, sing and pray, honor the traditions, and learn whatever insights they had to share. And inevitably, we would always move on. 

Looking back, its clear we received an invaluable education, and gained an expansive empathy for different cultures, perspectives, paradigms and cosmologies. And while it was not a traditionally Jewish journey, something about it was also profoundly Jewish. As a people who had been forced to survive in one place after another, under power structures that were never our own, we had always had to learn to adapt and listen, in ways that were simply not necessary, for cultures who existed as the majority, on the land of their ancestors. 

Before my great-grandmother on my grandmothers side passed away, she gave my Dad three clues about her homeland, that she remembered from before the war. The first was butterflies. More butterflies than she would ever see again. The second was the smell of oranges. Orange trees and olive trees, lined the river they lived beside. And the third was a cave. In the cave had been a great loom, where her mother, and her mother before her, had made large rugs to be sold among the Ottoman empire. 

When I was eighteen, my father and I flew to the island of Rhodes, and found the only synagogue still on the island. There we shared these clues, and went on a great adventure to find our family land. I will never forget walking up to the cave, and seeing the old broken loom, covered in a century of dust. Walking along the river, we ate the oranges that grew abundantly, and cried at the site of the old stone homes, bombed by the Italians. Even today, that river is home to one of the worlds great migrations of butterflies. Every time I see one nearby, I suspect my great-grandmother is there, guiding my path. 

A few days later, the Rabbi brought us to a large black rock, placed high above the mountains. On that rock were seven hundred family names, each taken from the island by the Italians, and handed over to the Germans. There were seven names of our direct family on that rock, forever engraved, and forever erased. 

At eighteen I laid at that rock all day long. There were hours when i wept hysterically, my body heaving sobs that shook me to my core. And hours when i would simply stare at the clouds, and imagine how different my life would be with cousins, and relatives from all these ended lines. More than anything, my body cried the tears of generations, asking why the world would ever allow such a thing to happen. 

It would be seven years before i backpacked into the Congo, and encountered a conflict that in modern times, had claimed more lives, than Jews who died in the holocaust. Clearly it was different, in a vast variety of ways. But i knew without question that there was a great work ahead, and that if the people of the world responded with the full force of our conscience and will, the great grandchildren of these persecuted women, would eventually be able to make their way in the world, with some modicum of freedom and dignity, as my brother and I have been able to do. 

I remember sitting at a dinner table in eastern Congo, just along the beautiful Lake Kivu, and enjoying a feast with a heroic man who had become a surgeon to serve his people, and whose medical care had saved tens of thousands of lives. We were talking about violence, and he said that if I really wanted to understand war and peace in the world, the very center of global conflict was Palestine and Israel. 

Of course I objected, as we were only a few hundred miles from the deepest red zone in the world, where there were the highest rates of death. But he was was adamant. Congo was where the world was fighting for control of the resources that would power the modern world, but Israel and Palestine is where the great powers had locked horns in perpetual war. 

Many years later I would lock the door to the falling whistles office for the final time, and hand the keys back to our landlord. That same day, I got in a taxi and headed for the airport. It would be my first journey back to the promiseland. 

What followed was a luxurious and deeply illuminating trip, where we were given a chance to see Israel in all its beauty. The entrepreneurs and the modern cities. The power brokers, and the weapons that guard them. The politicians who are working to create a new way, and the religious leaders who work toward peace. The activists who are striving to hold power accountable, and the journalists who choose to cover or ignore their stories. The communities who share all they have, and the kibbutz’ that support them. The socialists who fight for what they believe was the original intent of Israel, and the soldiers who defend what it is today. 

The only thing we were not given a chance to see, was Palestine. 

At the time I was too shocked to properly communicate my anger and disappointment. I would comment to a friend that week, that it felt like touring Mississippi in the 50’s to understand the battle for civil rights, and never visiting a black neighborhood. Such erasure would be an outrage of epic proportion. And yet here we were, on an adaptation of Birthright, normalizing the complete exclusion of a persecuted people. 

For years I had naively hoped, to never need to comment publicly on this conflict. It is one of the few issues that is guaranteed to cost friendships, where well meaning people from all sides, find alternative perspectives from their own so offensive and hostile, that they cut people out of their lives forever. I knew I had to do what I could to contribute toward peace, and support those at the frontlines. But my own hypocrisy was glaring, as I asked a generation to be whistleblowers, and could not find the courage to do so myself. 

Much has changed since then, and the last few weeks have changed everything forever. Among the many seismic shifts, is that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into War Crimes committed by Israel. This is no small thing, and must be taken as the gravely serious step that it is. 

During this same season, our current administration has issued an executive order, connecting all American Jews with the nationality of Israel. This is aligned with anti-semitic tactics throughout history, which have claimed we could never belong to any nation, as thoroughly as we belonged to one another. The obvious conclusion being that we ultimately cannot be trusted, paving the way for the accusation that we are traitors. It is in many ways, reminiscent of Nazi Germany, which said we were Jews first and Germans second, and therefore had to be forcefully removed. 

Just after this order was placed into law, the Presidents lawyer Rudy Giuliani claimed he was more Jewish than George Soros - whose family was killed in the holocaust for being Jewish - because Soros does not support Israel. 

During the same few weeks, there was also a coordinated smear campaign waged against Jeremy Corbyn, a life long defender of human rights, decrying him as an anti-semite because he dared to demand dignity for Palestinians. 

And then the Washington Examiner had the audacity to question the Jewishness of Bernie Sanders - whose family was also killed in the holocaust - for having done the same. They specifically called him “ethnically Jewish”, insinuating that any Jew who supports Palestine, cannot be fully Jewish.

And now, a string of targeted attacks against Jews, many made with abrupt and dramatic violence. Synagogues and schools have been defaced with swastikas, a woman's dorm at a Jewish school was set on fire, posters have been placed across Vermont saying “its okay to be anti-semitic”, Jews of all ages, from children to elders, have been punched on the streets of New York, a fraternity in Indiana was suspended for hate-speech against Jews, Jewish cemeteries across Europe have been defaced, and just last night, five people were stabbed in a Rabbi’s home. The attacker used a machete. 

Here are the names of the Monsey attack victims, for those who pray. 

‎יחיאל מאכל נחמן בן אלקה לאה
‎Yehiel Michel Nahman ben Elka Leah

‎שלמה בן וויטאל
‎Shlomo ben Vittel

‎יוסף בן פארל
‎Yosef ben Perel

‎נפתלה צבי בן גילה
‎Naftula Tzvi ben Gila

‎מאיר יוסף בן וויטאל
‎Meir Yosef ben Vittel

Given their pain, the suffering of their families, and the fear felt by so many, it felt time to finally sit down and write, if for no other reason than to say - this is going to get worse yall. It has the potential to get much, much worse. We are going to need allies around the world, to stand with the Jewish people, as Jewish people have so often stood with oppressed people in every corner of mother earth. 

The attacker was a Black man, and his race is being used as a chance to call for more policing, more profiling, and more violence. We will not become safer by persecuting other people, who are also under siege by the violent forces of the State, as we have so often been. 

There is a cycle. Anti-semitic violence drives fear into Jewish communities, and that fear often moves in two directions - toward calls for further police, and toward support for further militarizing Israel, in the hopes that someone will actually protect them. Both give power to those who profit from war, and both separate us from building meaningful coalition with all the other communities, who are also facing daily, systematic violence. 

Here in the states, the claim that one is not patriotic enough, has often been enough to take down movements and figureheads. The same has been true of the accusation of anti-semitism. These are charges that get bandied about without real concern for the consequences. There is a vast and enduring difference, in being patriotic to a land and a people, versus swearing fealty to a set of symbols and rituals that define a particular power structure over that land. And yet here we are, with so many Jews attacked over the last week, and the Presidents lawyer is rattling on about how anti-semitic a Jewish man is. Giuliani, and the man who employs him, are men without honor. 

White evangelical leaders have been playing a very dangerous game in this country, for a very long time. Specifically one in which they tolerate, or even outright support, white supremacy in their congregation, while courting Zionists who they believe will help usher in the second coming, when the chosen people have returned to the holy land. Zionist leaders who work to use this cultural movement for their own supremacy in the region, are playing with a fire that has scorched our people far too many times. 

If you want to support Israel, you have every right to do so. If you want to support Palestinians, you have every right to do so. But to pretend that Zionism, and the movement to impose the modern borders of a nation state, is the same as being Jewish, is both false and dangerous. 

Jewish culture, faith and identity are fundamentally distinct from Zionism, and there are whole ideologies and theologies of Jews, who foundationally disagree with the project of nation building in any form. It is not my place to say whether they are right or wrong. But they are without question, Jews. 

There are over 36 passages in the Torah, calling us to care for the vulnerable and the immigrant. In this time of great mourning and fear within the Jewish community, I pray we return to these teachings, and reject calls to meet violence with further violence. 

A 14th century philosopher said “Those who are conquered, always want to imitate their conqueror.” I first began to realize this in studying Mobutu Se Seko, one of the great Kleptocrats of the last century. He ruled in the wake of Patrice Lumumba’s assassination by the CIA, and dominated the country for the next four decades, exploiting the people as the Belgians had done before him, and selling raw goods such as Uranium, back to the U.S. and other imperial powers. In expansive and often absurd ways, he lived his life in imitation of King Leopold - the king of the Belgians who had ordered the butchering of over ten million Congolese. From his mansions to his boats to his clothing, Mobutu found a way to mimic this criminal colonizer, and despite the differences in the color of their skin, to continue the brutal legacy Leopold had begun. 

Few nations have militarized their society on the scale of Nazi Germany. From the little boys to the little girls, everyone was recruited into the war machine. Those driving this project, were motivated by a belief in their supremacy, and their ordained right to live on germanic land, free from the influence of those they considered outsiders. 

Spending time in Israel for the first time, I was struck by how similar the rhetoric used against Palestinians, was to the rhetoric that had so often been weaponized against Jews. Words such as cockroaches, and scum, and worse. In that language I felt the fear of my family, and the way that fear had been manipulated for generations. And I felt the stockholm-syndrome exhibited by Mobutu, where he idolized his capturers, and in so doing began to imitate them as well. 

There is a difference, between Israelis who simply wish to live their lives in peace, and those who actively promote war and bigotry. Just as there is a difference, between so many Americans who arrived as oppressed religious minorities, indentured servants and the enslaved, as opposed to those who came to actively colonize a continent filled with millions of people, and thriving civilizations. We are not responsible for everything the power structure does in our name, but neither are we without responsibility. The crimes fueled with our tax dollars, our silence, and ultimately our compliance, are ours to own as well. 

There can be no doubt, that Jewish people around the world deserve safety, and a chance to raise our families in peace. And there can be little doubt, that in the wake of such structural violence and oppression at the scale of what happened in the holocaust, it was reasonable to demand an army of our own, and a place where we can protect the vulnerable among us. 

But Palestinians are human beings as well. Inherently valuable, and intrinsically free.  They deserve their sovereignty, as all human beings do. Their liberation will now forever be tied up with the liberation of Jewish people, and our fates will forever be intertwined. Violence does not simply hurt those being abused; it hurts the abuser as well. There will never be a peace, absent a commitment to the liberation of all. 

Hanukkah is complete, and the eight candles have all been lit. Last night in the Grand Army Plaza, Hasidic Jews danced in the rain while lighting a large public menorah. Around them, were Jews of every race and theological persuasion. And around them, were Muslim allies as well as non-Jewish Black and Brown allies, protecting the celebration of light against the darkness. I can think of no greater visual for the path forward. 

Nothing is harder than unity in the face of violence and bigotry. Nothing is more important. May we stand together, shoulder to shoulder and across the world, in demanding a future of peace, where all our families are protected, and all our people are free. Amen.

The Walk

As many of you know, this year a young man named Mike Posner walked across america. Crossing what has, for a very long time, been known as turtle island. 

Mike and i met a few years back around the dinner table of our dear friend Jamie Kantrowitz. She is a special kind of host, and course everyone who arrived not knowing one another, left feeling like family. I remember commenting to a friend later that night - he is really special. 

At the time i didnt know anything about his music. I laughed many months later when someone showed me a video of him walking through a club lookin every bit the part of a pop star. And to be sure, that is part of his journey. But Mike has always been more than his craft, even when his poetry is at its most prescient. 

Over the next year or so, we shared in some genuinely sacred moments together. Rafting the Salmon River was among them, where both of us were introduced to the Shoshone people, who claimed a history much older than anything I had previously understood. Along the river, they showed us pictographs - images engraved in rocks - they claimed were older than anything I had encountered, anywhere else in the world. I remember thinking that when I’ve gone to spend time in places like the mountains of northern China, or Palestine, or Kenya, that there was an assumption of an ancient history. It was widely accepted that people had lived on that land for a very, very, very long time, and that those ancient roots were inseparable from understanding the land today. But Idaho ?  Even the name felt new. Yet there they were, ancient drawings staring back at me. It was the beginning of a great unlearning, and as the years went on, that journey would demand I reconsider every preconception I had ever held, about this land so many of us call home. 

The water spoke to us that week, guiding us in feminine wisdom, and I left feeling deeply committed to a great healing. Within myself, and among the humans, the animals, the water and the land. 

That same year, I had crossed the southwest on a motorcycle. My first real journeys on motorbikes were in central africa, and were later followed with my brother in the amazon. But riding on dirt in places where drivers are accustomed to paying attention to bikes, is a wholly different experience than riding in big cities where drivers are often on their phones, or across highways made of asphalt. 

I had just begun to feel comfortable in the back alleys of venice, when my dear friend and former bunkmate Kai Brown called me one day and yelled - mate ! We’re crossing the country on motorbikes, and you better be on the road with us first thing in the morning. Of course i objected, having never even crossed the fullness of los angeles, but Kai is Kai and he yelled in his classic Aussie way, until finally i relented. The next day i left the house at 3am, for a journey that would forever change my life. 

That day we drove 16 hours, and eventually landed in Zion just in time for sunset. My body was tired beyond comprehension, and my mind reeling with gratitude for having arrived, at least on this very first day, alive. 

Along the way, we ran into one of Kai’s good friends, Trek Thunder Kelly, who showed up with a young man along with him. Alex. 

Alex and i took to one another immediately. His has a smile that is warm like the sun, the quick laughter of a little boy, and eyes that hold the wisdom of generations within. 

A couple days into the ride, we were crossing territory he considered sacred. As the sun began to set, we set off to hike to a more remote location to say goodbye to its glow. Just as we set off, it began to rain, and some girls nearby began to scream and run toward their cars. He looked at me and grinned with that particular twinkle in his eyes, saying simply; 

Some of us feel the rain. 
Others, just get wet. 

That evening, just before the sun melted into the horizon, Alex began to sing a traditional song of the Diné people, or as I had always been told, the Navajo. As he sang, I could feel the ancientness of the song, as though it carried a vibration across space and time, arriving in that very moment as a sacred sound. This feeling was followed by one of great shame, in realizing that before that moment, I had never heard an indigenous prayer sung as ceremony, rather than as spectacle and performance.  

As we sat on those rocks, I began to feel my soul coming back to this land. For many years, the entirety of my conscience had been focused on a region far from home, where the desperate calls for peace, had overpowered any other sound. The urgency of the time had demanded everything we had to give, but living in a perpetual emergency that was not tangibly visible to our immediate community, had taken its toll. That night, i began to feel myself within myself, fully here, on turtle island. This land I had always called home, and was slowly realizing I knew nearly nothing about. For perhaps the very first time, the scales began to fall from my eyes as I realized that this too, was ancient land, and that the genocides perpetuated by Europeans across the African and Asian continents, had taken their toll in blood and soil here, first. 

Years have gone by since then, and each of us have lived our lives and pursued our paths. When Mike decided to walk, I knew i wanted to help in whatever way i could. In 2008, my dear friend @BobbyBailey had supported his brother Chris in walking across america as a form of personal restoration. I was there in New York, along with a crew of friends, when Chris completed his journey, and had seen the joy on his face in those final few miles. Mike had casually overheard the story, and knew he had to do it for himself. 

And so it was, that I asked Mike if his journey in the opposite direction, was walking across land currently considered indigenous territory by colonial standards. When he said that he might be walking across the Navajo Nation, of course I called Alex. 

Alex is Alex, and adventure lies at the center of his heart. He eagerly agreed to support, and soon thereafter we decided to join Mike on his walk across the sovereign territory of the Diné people. The challenge of course, was that Mike was on foot, and it was nearly impossible to predict how long it would take him to cross the rockies. Add on a rattle snake bite and all the delays that followed, it looked less and less likely the stars would align. 

I got the call 48 hours before Mike arrived at the Four Corners. Called Alex, and then, on a whim, called my brother, dear friend, creative collaborator, and adventure companion for more than a decade - @DanielNJohnson. We did what was necessary to cancel life for a week or so, bought a ticket, and two days later I arrived in the Albuquerque airport to see them both outside, grinning like school boys. Alex’s pickup had only two seats, but thankfully riding in the bed of a truck is legal in New Mexico, so I hopped in back, wrapped myself in a blanket, and we set off. An hour or so into the drive it began to storm, and for the next few hours i huddled beneath a tarp, as we charged to the remote corner connecting Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. 

The next morning we greeted Mike, to one of the biggest, most genuine grins i had ever seen. The road can be a weary place, and no other medium of transport moreso, than on foot. Seeing the way we lifted his spirit, and the way he lifted ours, I was sure in that moment that this journey was meant to be. 

Mike had missed about 12 feet the day before, from where he stopped walking, to where the RV had moved in order to camp. Those 12 feet had plagued him, and his first request was that we all go back. Watching him walk that short distance, for no reason other than his own conscience, began to show me the integrity of the man i had come to walk alongside. Each day after would only confirm that conviction. This was a man who rose each morning before the sun, and walked with a fierce and steady dedication. Without fail, he finished each day with stretching, a meditation as the sun began to fall, and an early night of sleep. Only to begin again. 

Over the next eight days, we would cross the entirety of the Navajo Nation. The first eight miles of each morning was spent in absolute silence as the day transitioned from darkness to dawn. As the day went on, we would be stopped by dozens of beautiful human beings, eager to share their story. Nearly everytime, Mike would ask the same closing question - if I prayed for you, what would i pray for ?  Their stories were sometimes long, and sometimes short. They often contained tears and sometimes laughter as well. Every story was deeply and profoundly human, reminding us time and time again, of the shared nature of our struggles, our pain, our joy and our love. Walking away, we made sure to ask for Creator’s protection and blessings, and prayed their prayers would be heard by life itself. 

I would be lying if I said the journey was not exceedingly challenging. Walkabouts and pilgrimages and vision quests are an ancient practice, and though this one was distinctly modern in many ways, it was also a return to something as natural for humanity as breathing - walking. 

I remember going to a therapist once, who said that often trauma will become lodged in one hemisphere of the brain, and block our capacity to move from sphere to sphere. This breakdown in connection led to a whole host of pain and confusion. They recommended grabbing something soft in each hand, and squeezing one side after the other. Pitter patter, pitter patter. 
Pitter patter, pitter patter. 

Many ancient dances are the same. Left side step. Right side step. Left side step. Right side step. Or as the drum moves faster, left left, right right, left left, right right. 

So much of modern life forces us to move in a straight line. Roads and highways, so devoid of life they have been called Rivers of Death by those who strive for harmony with the natural world, these lines and exacting angles force us into a very specific plane of thought. A dimension of the material world if you will, processing information that is physical, far more readily than that which is emotional, spiritual, vibrational, & energetic. 

The beat of walking became so much more than simply one step after another. Among the mundaneness of left and right, we found the one thing so many of us are searching for. Connection. After many days, it became clear that while we were praying for those who stopped us, and while they often prayed for us, the pitter patter pitter patter of left and right was doing something else. As we connected the two hemispheres of our bodies, we also began to heal ourselves from within. 

Over the years, Dan and I have had the great honor of making some very special pieces of content together, some of which have reached a great many people, and hopefully inspired them to fight for our collective future. But this is the first time we got to tell a story entirely in the medium of images in motion. If you know his photography or animation, you know he has always been a visual poet. But this was a new challenge for him, and I was immensely proud of the result. None of the pieces we’ve ever made have had a real budget, they've all simply been the art of passion. This one was no different. There is a rare joy in creating for no reason other than to create. And there are few folks whose creativity gives me such joy to support, and is more beautiful to behold. 

The piece was released some time ago, but deadlines for pop stars and poets are a timeline all their own. After more than a decade of fighting a war through the internet, I have relished these last several years, where social media has been a place to mostly listen and learn, especially from those at the frontlines, who desperately need us to hear their call.

Along this journey, we got to spend a few precious days with an elder named Al. He is Alex’s step-father of sorts, but even those distinctions feel distinctly colonial in their need for separation and categorization. Al is family, and in every moment we were together, he treated us as such. Over the last few years I’ve had the great honor of sitting with elders from across turtle island, and learning of what this land was before Europeans claimed we owned everything. Before the Pope declared the theft of land legal, as long as it was taken from non-christians. Though reconciliation is profoundly challenging, and a work that will demand generational commitment, they have always shown me what any European who was willing to listen would come to learn; the peoples of this land have always been free. It is us who brought the chains. 

Thank you to my brother The Tone Ranger, for always being so ready to set aside your own creative authorship, and add sound, ambiance, rhythm and vibration to these collective stories we love to tell. And thank you to brothers Al, Alex, Mike, Dan and especially Julian, who literally kept the wheels on the ship, as we set off on what became a sacred pilgrimage. It was a journey I will never forget. Love you all.

May we continue to work toward truth and reconciliation in this land, and for a historic reckoning, among those who arrived, with those who have always been here. Here’s to a future for our children, where we are honest about where we are, honest about whose land this is, and commit the fullness of our lives, to the liberation of life itself. 

Peace yall 

12/10

Today is 12/10. Human rights day. A day we honored for many years. A day I will forever hold sacred. 

No one has taught me more about what it means to fight for freedom, than the statesman who held himself with dignity, even until the very end. 

The lessons he offered his country and continent, reverberate for our own today. 

I am aware that our country can completely liberate herself from the chains of colonialism politically, economically and spiritually, only at the price of a relentless and sometimes dangerous struggle.

My faith will remain unshakeable. I know and I feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise as one man to say no to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the clear light of the sun.

Without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free people.

The colonialists have campaigned against me throughout the country because I am a revolutionary and demand the abolition of the colonial regime, which ignored our human dignity. They look upon me as a Communist because I refused to be bribed by the imperialists.

The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or the United Nations. We will write our own history and in both north and south it will be a history of glory and dignity.

Neither brutality nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakeable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregard for sacred principles.

Rest in peace Patrice.

Alexander the Great

He would have loved his weekend. 

He really would have. 

He would have loved the people and the paddle out. The hugs and the laughter. The storytelling and the filming and dancing and the howling. He would have loved seeing folks come from all corners of the world, and he would have loved the healing that’s taking place between us. 

Damn. He really would have loved this last weekend. 

Alexander is a man I’ve found myself hard pressed to put into words. I wonder if that’s because he never really felt like flesh and blood to me. Of course, he was. As all the tears shed these last few weeks reveal, he was very much, flesh and blood. But the truth is, I always received Alexander as spirit more than body. As light more than the shadows. As flight more than the ground. 

Alex had a capacity to make everyone he met, feel as though they had been mates for decades. He certainly did for me. The stories that have poured through social media, have often been variations of one another, each saying something remarkably similar to the other - the moment we met, I felt we would be friends for life. 

Alex was perhaps the first person to treat me like an artist. Like a writer. To believe that maybe just maybe, there was something beautiful within my soul, waiting to be born. That if I would just sit down and focus the mind, words might come out. That if I reached into the depths of heart, it might pump an energy through my veins, up my chest, across my shoulder, down through my arm, and out through fingers fiercely gripping a pencil, ready to share on the outside, all that lay within. That maybe, just maybe, we are each organic beings and our spirit contains the medicine necessary for each of us to heal. And that maybe, just maybe, if we had the courage to share what was in our insides, we could heal that which was invisible within you as well. 

Alex was a pied piper, leading us all in song and dance, even when nothing was said at all. He made you feel as though life was a parade, and how could we possibly spend parade day simply sitting around? We must be up on our feet my friends, up on our feet, alive and dancing. For what is death to the body, but laying down forever ? The living must stand and run and move and shake dear ones - if for no other reason than to keep the worms at bay. 

Alex was a revolutionary. For nearly a decade, he criss-crossed both the country and the world, rallying his generation to demand an end to a war a world away. He believed deeply in the equality of humanity. That our lives in the developed Global North, are worth neither more nor less, than the billions of lives in the continuously colonized Global South. That violence anywhere should be treated with urgency, and that injustice elsewhere demands the same response as injustice here at home. He was a man of expansive empathy, who saw people as people, regardless of circumstance or the geography they happened to be born within. And while much has been said of the roaming tours that belonged to Invisible Children, I’ve always believed they were this generation’s John The Baptist - those who were privileged enough to come first, and stir the people for the revolutionaries yet to come.  

Alex had trauma. For too many of us, the events of our lives while we are helpless and vulnerable, collide with abuse and violation. At times it can be a benign behavior that has implications long after, but often it is not. The melding of our hardest attributes In violence, and our softest attributes in our passions,  can often be disastrous in the depths of our psyche. The wounds of our formative years, often take the longest to heal. 

—
Get up and go. 

When I heard the news, I felt it in every small, star-speckled fiber of my being. As though his star-speckled being had burst into billions of pieces, and traveling through space and skin, had simply entered me. I felt his light crawling through each and every dusty corner within, opening that which had been closed, forgiving that which had been held onto, and healing that which had been wounded. What does one say to such light. To such power and beauty. It was his truest essence in body form - that of a healer. A carrier of the light. And whether you were a pre-teen on warp tour learning about war for the first time, or a friend who simply needed one person to say they understand your pain, Alex brought the light. So while I don’t know what others have experienced since his death a few weeks ago, I can say with some confidence that his light is now airborne. Capable of traveling great lengths, and finding its way into all the crevices within us, that he tried so hard to gain access to, with conversation, laughter, music, dance and poetry. Oh how he loved poetry. 

When the news began to circulate the internet, folks began posting their favorite stories and memories with him. And while each was beautiful and inspiring and devastating, I couldn’t help but see the common themes. Every time anyone needed the kid, he has a once in a generation talent, for simply showing up. Alex was get up and go. Every time, all the time. 

Friends in Philly celebrating a birthday, and he happens to be in New York ?

Get up & go.

Friends in Nashville are opening a new business and he happens to be in Memphis ?

Get up & go.

Friends in Gulu, celebrating the opening of a new school ?

Get up & go. 
Friends suffering from depression, with nowhere else to turn.

Get up & go.
Friends mourning the loss of a loved one.

Get up & go.

Friends welcoming a new child into the world.

Get up & go. 

Alexander was go go go, and hungry for all that life had to offer. Willing to kiss its pain and dance with its confusion. To explore its questions with courage, and expand our understanding with curiosity. To inquire and seek. To pursue and discover. To listen and learn and to read and to listen. To watch and to see and to feel. Good god, he felt. Everything and all of it. Our suffering and our joy. Our divisions and our ever-so-rare moments of unity and togetherness. The kid felt it all. Like a great receptor, allowing the energy of the world to come through him, and then sharing it with all of us. 

I can’t stop thinking about the nature of it all. Of what it means to take your own life. To come to a moment within, where your options for tomorrow seem so profoundly unacceptable, that you decide you no longer want to see it. 

I keep thinking about him, feeling so alone in those moments. When his insides couldn’t be reached, by the hundreds and thousands of hands who loved him so damn much. When the far away corners of his mind were confronted by layers of wounds so expansive, he could not see the other side. When the knots that burn through the stomach, had become so entangled and confused, he could not even consider them releasing again. When the fears and hesitations that afflict us all, had become so limiting, he could no longer see himself as brave. When the ways in which the world makes us feel small, do not feel like feelings at all. When the ways in which our phones make us feel alone, do not feel like feelings at all. When the lie of separation becomes so pervasive, it does not feel like a feeling at all. 

When our feelings become so heavy, we simply cannot take another step. When our feelings become so hard, we don’t know if we’ll find softness again . When they calcify, and begin to block us from ourselves. Keeping us from feeling love. From seeing the vast and infinite ways in which each of us are unique and necessary and worthy. Worthy of love, healing, forgiveness, redemption, relationship and life. 

I don’t know what to do with the tears that keep coming, except to allow them. There will be moments when they’ll come so hard, I’ll pull off the side of the road, remove my helmet and hope their passion heals the concrete below. But what has felt true each day since the news spread across the web, is that none of us could any more stop their flow, than we could stop the headwaters that create our rivers and waterways. I don’t know where the tears come from, any more than I know where the emotions that burn through our insides, come from. The only thing of which I’m certain, is that trying to block them or suppress them or delay or shorten them in any way, is as adverse to the ecology of our souls, as a dam of concrete is to blocking the flow of life. Like the rivers, feelings must flow. The salty water of our tears must run free. Whether in this moment, or tonight, or tomorrow, or a hundred years from now, feelings are meant to be felt, and tears are meant to be cried. 

I had never done a paddle out. Lost too many friends over too many years, but never been able to heal in that way. I was struck by how different the pain felt in the water, than on the concrete. As though before they had stuck to me, like the oil and grease and tar that allows us to get where we wish - but that out here, in the tears of Mother Earth, surrounded by that which give us each life, the water cleansed far more than our skin. 

Mni wiconi. It took me a long time to reconcile what often felt like the frivolousness of the beach, with the intensity of the sea. Indigenous people everywhere, have always considered water sacred, and alive. From them we learn an understanding so much older than dominion, its makes our attempts at hierarchy seem immature at best. We now know through modern science that water is older than the solar system; perhaps older than the galaxy itself. But native people have always told us - water is life. It is sacred, and is in so many ways that which animates all that is alive. Alex loved the water. Who knows if even he knew why or how. But without question, his journey away from the interior of the country and toward the sea, brought with it great openings and freedoms within his soul. Like so many of us, he was drawn to the ocean. To the impossibility of its size, and the challenge its crossing presents. But as a boy raised in Michigan who found his way to Tennessee and around the world, it is a testament to the life he lived that so many salty dogs would come out to the sea and honor him in this way. He had lived his own life, paved his own path, and created his own way. So much of that way, had led him west. 

I saw a video on Sunday, of Alex rubbing the pregnant belly of his wife, singing at the top of his lungs, and dancing as he so often did. It was as beautiful a visualization of fatherhood, as anything I’ve ever seen. If you knew him, it’d be impossible to see it and not be overcome with emotion. What happened man. What the fuck happened. 

There are too many questions. Too many mysteries. We will never know the torment that rages within the sea of our souls. Amidst the confusion that has swirled through these last few weeks, the one thing that I keep coming back to, is a deepening awareness that the ocean is infinitely grander and more complex than the shoreline. That the initial slap of water as you plunge from the air to its depths, is simply the initiation. We are no more the faces we show the world in our photographs, than the ocean is its surface. Each of us are a sea unto ourselves. A vast and infinite galaxy, of life and tides and forces, interdependent with all other forces.  

Perhaps the redemption in this, is we begin to use our eyes with some skepticism. The smiles we present are often our strongest armor, as we ferociously protect the shadows within. As someone who has also relished in the hiding and hibernation, I wonder if the only way we face the darkness, is by simply exposing it to the light.

He was as beautiful a soul as I’ve ever encountered. Sometimes we just gotta shine shine shine and then give ourselves to all that is. Now he is everywhere, in all of us, forever. 

Thank you Andrew Collins, for taking the time to read these words, and offer your blessing. Thank you baby brother Breton Carasso, for showing up with wetsuits, and a camera for the community.  And thank you Jonathan Oligher, for being a poet of image in motion. Everytime we pull over on some street corner, and let you touch buttons for a few hours, somehow something is created that welcomes all of us into that moment. It’s a gift and honor to support your craft. And thank you to all those who have shared your love and stories across the Internet. We may all be in different corners of the world, but it has been a profound journey to hear so many stories of our dear friend, and a life well lived. May we all become the uncles and aunties and cousins and family, that surround this coming baby with love and support, for all of his days. 

We love you Alexander Collins.

Be at peace.

For our Grandchildren

This is the first time I’ve taken a photograph and thought; I hope my grandchildren have this image in their lives, as I have had the images of those who came before me.

It was taken in Texas. The land where I spent my adolescence, the land where my mothers family has lived for some seven generations, and the land I was brought back to this year.

Four days ago, marked seven years since my fathers passing. He was a good man. A man who loved life, who cherished each day, and who gave the best he had to his family. A man who loved his children, and who fought to create a better life for all of us.  

He was also violent as a young man. Perhaps not in all the ways we think of when we think of a violent father, but in ways that were decisive and real. As a young child, home, in many ways, felt like a warzone. A place where we longed for peace, or ran away in pursuit of it.   

Much of the last few years, has been spent on a journey of deep listening and learning. After the death of Michael Brown, and the movements that ensued, it became clear that a generation was rising of those who had long been silenced and erased.  A movement led by those who had been colonized, toward a dream of freedom beyond what many of us who have benefited from the colonizing, were ready to work for. That no matter what path I personally took, no matter how brave or cowardly, how true or how untrue, how aligned or disaligned, i would always be a settler on this land. As would my children, and theirs after that. Beneficiaries of land claimed in genocide, where religious laws rationalized a vast and enduring theft. What we decide to do about it, will be up to our generation, and every generation to come.

Many of the teachers I’ve found over the years, have said they believe European Americans to be the lost tribe. A people who left their home lands, and have never been honest about where they arrived. 

My mother’s family were among the early colonizers of New York, who then traveled south through Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and eventually arrived in Texas. Just in time for the Battle of San Jacinto. My grandfather was the first to leave the family farms, go to war, and come home a changed man. Shortly after he moved to California, and his family back in Texas still tell stories of how he’d launch into tirades, detesting bigotry in any form, and demanding our family forge a new path. Three generations later, there is still a great deal of work to be done.  

My fathers family had a very different journey. His family were Sephardic Jews, who have been running from one place to another, for a very long time. Fleeing oppression from the Romans and the Turks and the Moors and the Spanish and eventually the Germans. This fear of expulsion, of being torn from place and home, has driven itself deep into the psyche of my family. I feel it still. 

The pain of his passing dominated much of the following year, but it was eventually replaced by the crushing scope of what had to be done to resolve his affairs. To complete, all that remained unfinished in his journey.

So many hours of life since then, have been dedicated to the basic mechanics of learning a set of skills that were never mine. Learning from a spectrum of interests, that were never mine. And taking care of relationships and entanglements, that were never mine.

The passing of a loved one can be a confusing affair. For a son, the passing of a father can often become a moment of great shifts in the trajectory of one’s path.

For me it marked the end of a time when the fullness of my days would be spent in pursuit of my conscience and conviction; and the beginning of days when it would be spent largely in pursuit of providing for family.

This divorce of conscience and labor, has had profound and often destructive consequences in many aspects of my life. And yet I recognize that to have ever experienced a time before such a separation, marks me greatly privileged in the scope of humankind.

Each year since, I have worked with all my might to return to a time when my mind and hands could focus fully once again, on the fight for freedom worldwide, and the work of supporting those who wage it. If you are among those rare and precious souls who spend their lives protecting life, demanding justice, and pursuing peace, you are my friend and ally. We may not always understand one another, but my respect and honor is always first for those who fight at the frontlines, wherever your line may be.  

I have learned through many seasons, that while every dollar created contributes toward a system of war, that same dollar within this system can purchase freedom of time and mind and energy and strength for those who most need it. The paradoxes are vast, as are the ways in which we are each called to pursue a free future.  

As the year turns, and each of our collective identities lurch forward round an imaginary clock, I am thinking a great deal about time. About all that can be lost when one releases the need to be controlled by it, and all that can be gained. It is a unique form of madness, to create a society where our days are spent in pursuit of an abstract form of value, to gain the only commodity there is no way to get more of; time.

The urgency of now, drove me body and soul for many years. Wars where friends lives are on the line abroad, and wars where friends lives are on the line at home, have pushed many of us to demand peace with a righteous fury, from every continent on earth. That larger community has stumbled over the years, but I am grateful to have stood with so many of you, over so many years. It is my deep and abiding hope, that those of us who are alive in this time, will continue to stand.  

When I was leaving standing rock, I looked toward a friend who I had come to respect a great deal, and said that perhaps it was time for a new chapter. He looked me in the eyes and said - you are not a book Sean David. There are no chapters. You are a tree. 

With neverending spirals, cascading away from one another, the life of a tree continues endlessly, until it doesn’t. And then slowly, it becomes the source from which all other life feasts. In so many ways, this feels like what has happened with my father. There was no big ceremony, and no big fanfare. Just old friends drinking old booze telling old stories, and dancing the night away in his honor.  But like the falling of a great tree, his passing began to fundamentally shift the soil where his roots had grown for so long. Where my roots had grown. It nourished the land around me, and exposed all the areas that desperately needed nourishment. Needed life and light and water and love. 

The work of going back, and asking what had led to the violence and separation within our family, has caused me to also pursue a deeper understanding of what has led to the violence and separation at the heart of our society. At the heart of our lives.  

Each of the Treaties signed with the people indigenous to this land we call home, have been broken. While the Constitution we commit ourselves to, calls treaties the Supreme Law of the Land. To not acknowledge this is to simply deny what is right in front of us. And yet so many of us do. This cognitive dissonance pervades our consciousness. We drive past reservations, or see the ancient names of streets and bridges and cities and states, and assume all is well, and everyone is fine. But we know. Somewhere deep inside of us, we know. This is their land. And though the scale of what would be necessary to make it right is nearly impossible to conceive, conceive we must. The work of imagining a future of restitution and reconciliation and restoration, is a work worth doing. For how will we arrive, if we do not know where we might go. 

Violence can be a potent and powerful eraser. Of dreams and ideas and hopes and dignity. Even if it doesn’t shift you physically, it always shifts you. Kills some part of you.

The work of peace begins within. The wounds we play out in the physical form, each began as wounds of the heart. The trauma of war is generational, and echoes through each of our lives. So must be the pursuit of peace. 

For my family with roots in Northern Europe, and my family with roots in the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, I commit myself and my family, to the work of truth and reconciliation on this land we now call home. In this time, and in all times. 

I hope some day my grandchildren will see this photograph, and gain as much strength from me, as I have from all those who came before. We are the fruit of our ancestors dreams y’all. Let us give the fullness of our lives, to ensuring all those who come after us, are free. 

Love y’all. Sending strength for 2019. We are gonna need it. Here’s to a future, free and at peace.

Sean

All People.

Six months ago I drove out into west Texas. It had been years since I was here, but my connection to the land had never gone away. No matter where the world brought me; a piece of Texas had always remained within.

On one of my first few days out here, I ended up at a little event in the local library, for a candidate with a funny name. I’ll never forget what I saw that day. Farmers, ranchers, small town folks, standing up and raising their arms in the air, for a message that would make an abolitionist proud. Here, in the most conservative district in America - where folks voted for forty five in higher numbers than anywhere else - were every day folks coming out of their respective closets, and demanding something very different for our future. 

The past of this land is something I know well. My great grandfather seven times past, fought in the battle of San Jacinto; the war that made Texas a nation. For his service in that war he was given five thousand acres of land. When he passed it split 6 ways, and his youngest daughter married a Greenwood. Our family has had a presence here ever since. And though my time has often been spent more central and in the northern parts of the state, I know this land and love this land. I know these people and love these people. This is the land my great great grandfather farmed, and where my great great grandmother bore more than a dozen children. The land that fed my great grandmother, who lived here till she was 104 years old. The land that shaped my grandfather and great uncle, two of the greatest men I’ve ever known. There is a hardiness to the culture of this land. A gumption. A willingness to go all in, as the forefathers & foremothers of nearly every settler in this region did.

This is a ancient land, this Texas. An old and ancient land. Land that was once roamed by Kiowa, Comanche, Kickapoo, Apache, Tonkawa, Caddo, Wichita, and many others, held thriving civilizations. Models for self organizing just as unique as their patterns and languages and modes of music. People who governed themselves, and protected themselves. People who survived a harsh and often unforgiving terrain. People whose creativity is still found in every corner of our culture.

After many thousands of years, the area was eventually claimed by Europeans. Those who came with a belief that the land was theirs. Ours. Yours. Mine. Made for you and me. The Pope had declared that all land taken from non-believers, was legally taken. And so it was. No matter the laws of this land, or the cultures that had protected it for so many generations before.

Eventually the land became populated by Mexicans, many who were of the generations born in war, and many who had been forced to leave their indigenous ways. They were then driven from the land by white Texans, generally Northern Europeans famous for their large physical size, who claimed it as their own and created a Republic. Even as Texas became a state, the color of your skin determined your capacity to own land, vote, posses your personal labor, and share in the larger society.

Much has changed since those days. Women can now vote. People of color can now vote. Everyone who can get a loan, can own a title to a piece of earth. Schools are built, and roads are built, and electricity lines are drawn, and water processing plants are built, and homes are built, and a whole massive infrastructure now sits on top of this soil.

And yet. And yet. We still have schools like the wild west, where men walk right in and gun down our children. We still don’t pay our teachers a living wage. Our economic growth continues to be rooted in a substance that is killing the land, and poisoning our water. We are now holding camps of human beings on the border. And less of us vote, than in nearly any other state.

I’ve spent some time at the camps. The makeshift cities, designed for children. The structures and infrastructure, that separate families from community. Communities from families. Mothers from children. Children from fathers.

We do not want this on our soil Texas. We really don’t. This devastation of life and potential and human connection. This violent rupture of the natural order. All we have is one another. Our families. The people who take care of us and who we take care of. We do not want the spiritual degradation of this pain, etched into our corner of the earth. It is a wrong too wrong to be righted with ease. Healing it will take the work of our children. It will take generations.

I won’t pretend that this election will be able to change all of this. President Obama deported people as well, and even placed some in camps that lined the border. Though the scale was smaller, and the pride of violence in the treatment of immigrants was more measured. But it’s not as though the answer is simply; elect democrats. It’s not. In state after state, county after county, decade after decade, there has been a part of the Democratic Party just as owned and controlled by the war machine; just as bought by corporate donors; just as willing to rationalize and defend the colonial project; just as willing to sell weapons to repressive regimes; and just as willing to perpetuate the human rights crisis’ of mass incarceration, mass deportation, and severely neglected reservations, as their counterparts in red.

And the truth is, I don’t know if Beto is gonna work to transform the war machine. I don’t know if he’s gonna work to shift multinational finance, or the global arms industry, or industries of extraction. I don’t know if Beto is gonna demand an end to the war in Yemen, or Burma, or Congo or elsewhere. I don’t know if he’ll demand dignity and protection for Palestinians. I don’t know if he’ll fight for the displaced tribes of Texas, or take their sovereignty seriously. I don’t know if he’ll work to protect the water, and end fracking once and for all. I just don’t know.

What I do know, is that on the day I first drove up to the border, he was there. He was there, demanding mothers be returned to their children, demanding families be released from incarceration. I know he had vowed to protect dreamers, and fight for their full citizenship, and equal protection under the law. I know that he has worked for years to create a safer border; not by hurting vulnerable people, but by demanding transparency from the industries that move goods back and forth across that invisible line established through war.

I grew up on a border. Or at least, within a few miles of one. We crossed it often, and many of my childhood’s favorite memories were spent on the other side. I remember asking at a young age, questions which hold few good answers. Among them; why? Why are they there, and we’re here? Why do they live like that, and we live like this? Who says so ? Who drew the line.

The only answers I’ve ever found, are rooted in white supremacy. Rooted in a colonial project with three extending branches; kill the natives for free land. Enslave the Africans for free labor. And expel the Spanish speakers to ensure white majorities. Absent those tactics, none of us are here in the way we currently are. And certainly none of us are on this land, passionately working to deport “immigrants”.

There is a lie we’re told in nearly all schools, museums, textbooks and papers. A lie so pervasive, many of us hardly notice. A lie so deeply written into our institutions and monuments, we can scarcely imagine it otherwise. But it is a lie nonetheless. That somehow history began, when Europeans arrived. That we were the beginning. That we are the beginning. The founders. The creators. Those this land has always belonged to, and those it must continue to belong to.

We can hold rallies and wave flags. Donate to politicians with the same myopic dillussion as ours, write op-eds defending our righteousness, and craft textbooks to defend manifest destiny. But none of it will change the fact that many, if not most, of the brown people on these continents have ancestral ties to this land. And the white people do not. Will not. Not now, not ever. Not even if your family fought in the original wars of Texas.

Our generation can no longer allow the vestiges of colonialism to define our lives. There is a great healing ahead, and whether it occurs in our time or the time of our children, it will occur. Every land claimed in genocide eventually has to face the full sweeping scope of what has been done. It has often found a formal home in Truth & Reconciliation commissions, but regardless of what it’s called, no land can heal until we begin telling the truth, and working toward reconciliation.

I’m fighting for Beto because he tells the truth. Or at least, he seems to try and tell the very closest thing he knows of as the truth. He tells the truth about justice, and what can be done to protect our communities. Not simply by police, but also from police. He tells the truth about schools, and the obvious consequences of not paying our teachers a living wage. Of the insanity of submitting our children’s brilliance to bubbles in a row, and answers on a form. He tells the truth about money and politics, and the pernicious ways in which one controls the other. He tells the truth about race and unequal protection under the law. And more than anything, he tells the truth about immigrants. People striving for their families and their futures. People doing what so many of our forefathers did. People who commit fewer crimes, statistically, than any other people. People who work hard, and take care of their families and communities. People who deserve protection, and a place to call home.

Being here, and supporting the army of volunteers he has mobilized across the state, has been a great honor. I won’t pretend to know what it has taken from his team, in sweat and anguish and love, to build this non-violent army, but every member of his team deserves our endless gratitude. They have connected us across the state, and given voice to what was in so many dusty counties, silenced. The voices of conscience. Rising against an old and fragile and seemingly unbeatable power structure, to demand something new. Something better. Beto may not be the end, but he and his team have certainly created a new beginning. And if I know the people of Texas, something tells me they will never let it go. This generation won’t roll over, and allow the good ol’ boys to determine who lives and who dies, who has a home here and who does not. The old guard won’t fall easy, but you can be sure; they will fall. The fire sweeping Texas will continue, and whether it takes a decade or generations, this will be a land of dignity, and equal protection for all.

Win or lose, this Senate race has been historic. It has laid the groundwork for those will come next, and reminded a hardy people to again be brave. Once revealed, courage cannot be contained. And the courage of this land will continue. 

I’ll spend today driving a van from place to place, gathering folks who want to vote, and bringing them to the polls. For the first time in my life, there is an election here with a chance of moving us forward. Like so many thousands of volunteers today, I wont waste it.

Thank you Beto O’Rourke, for standing up. So many more now will because you now have. Here’s to victory, however long it takes, and justice in this land.

Sean

#AllPeople

For the Matriarchy.

In 1991, 1600 black women signed a declaration stating that they believed Anita Hill. The statement was organized by the Women Action Campaign, knowing well that their support would change little within a patriarchal power structure. They wanted posterity to forever know, that black women had stood up for the truth. That black women had believed a woman bravely standing up, to tell the truth. That black women had been right, regarding a Justice who would go on to do so much wrong. 

There is a unique psychosis to the colonizer. To the man who has conquered and claimed, and taken without accountability or justice. This state of mind is not limited to the soldier or commander; the one who physically takes through force of violence, that which nature never offered. This mentality afflicts all those who come after. All who sit on land and water, claimed through theft and death. All who stand on this side of a line they did not create, but now relish within. All who indulge the bounty, of a border drawn with blood.  It is the mentality of the conqueror. Of the patriarchy. Of the man who believes he owes creation nothing; for he is the top of the food chain, and life is his dominion. 

This week, 1600 men signed a declaration stating they too believe Anita Hill. And more pressing in this moment, that they believe Dr. Christina Ford. It is a powerful statement, and these men represent many of us across this land. Men who believe women. Men who believe survivors. Men who are ready and willing to stand and fight, with those who have always known. 

Today's hearings were a travesty. Stories across the country are being shared, from survivors who have never shared before. From survivors who have never been believed. From survivors who have been forced to remain silent. From survivors who have never been afforded the space necessary to heal. From survivors who are telling the truth. 

Dr. Ford told the truth today. She did so with poise and eloquence and dignity and expertise. She was both the witness, and the voice of reason. The voice of conscience, and the voice of academic understanding. She exhibited her excellence calmly, even as she relived a trauma that has clearly guided her life’s work. 

The Republican Party hired a Prosecutor to question a Victim, while sharing her Testimony. By all accounts, the prosecutor is an expert in sexual assault. When the man accused of sexual assault was brought inside, the prosecutor was discarded. One by one, white men of extraordinary privilege, who had neither the decency or integrity to speak directly to Dr. Ford, apologized to the man accused of sexual assault. 

I will never understand what it means to be a woman. I am a cis-gendered man of privilege myself, and while I have experienced violence and abuse, and known the erratic pain of powerlessness; I have never known what it would be like to wake up tomorrow and know that I would not be believed. I have been doubted, and ignored, shunned and expelled, silenced and erased; but if I brought testimony to the authorities of this land or any other land, I would do so carrying a high degree of certainty that I would find someone to believe me. Someone to take my concerns seriously. Someone to listen to my story. Listening to the stories pouring in from across the country, from women who have been abused and assaulted, it is clear that this has rarely been the case for so many. 

I was raised to love women, to appreciate women, to listen to women. But I was also raised to view women as sexual objects. To take pride in sexual conquests. This is not something I am proud of, nor something I wish to pass onto my children. But there can be no doubt that it was true. Friends, mentors and role models, encouraged sexual exploration in a way that may have had healthy intentions, but were so distinctly wrapped up in a language of conquering and victory and winning and pride, that it lost its connection to the sacred or the feminine or the loving, and was replaced by a race or a competition inseparable from personal achievement. These were among my earliest lessons, infused with a masculinity that believed it was entitled to a woman’s affection. To a woman’s bedroom. To a woman’s body. 

Throughout my life, I have been blessed by the friendship of brilliant and capable and strong women. Women who have taught me and guided me and cared for me. Women whose labor I have too often taken for granted. Women whose insights I have too often ignored. Women who have been central in making me me, as I suspect they do often are, in making each of us, us. I will never know how to properly say thank you. For their labor and their love, their patience and their kindness. For their forgiveness when I have betrayed the balance of power between male and female. And for their understanding when I have attempted to grow. 

Certainly one way I have learned to say thank you, is to serve. To serve their causes and battles. Their priorities and promises. Their convictions and demands of conscience. 

Thank you to Kisha Bari for her visionary photography from the frontlines.

At Standing Rock, I began to fully understand what life could look like within a Matriarchy. We were creating a society without centralized leadership, and in every corner of camp, where necessary work was being performed, women were consistently at the center. Guiding our physical needs of food, water and warmth, and guiding the needs of spirit, in tradition and ceremony and conflict resolution. Each day I woke up, ready to ask the women what was needed for the day. And each day I relished, in fulfilling those needs. Knowing, deep within, that they were persistently concerned with the wellbeing of us all. 

I won’t pretend to know what to do about the current situation. Months ago, I yelled and fumed at the prospective nomination of Judge Kavanaugh, knowing full well who he is, and what he fights for. Whose rights he would protect, and whose he would disregard. What a sad and despicable representation he was, of someone who calls themselves a Justice. A man who values the values of colonialism above all else; patriarchy, white supremacy, protection of the powerful and legalized theft from the powerless. Who could stop him, I asked? Who could even mount a legitimate fight? At the time I did not know of the allegations of abuse that would come forward. I also did not know how courageously our sisters would rise. 

I have never been a partisan. In the fight for human rights, we have often found temporary allies from all persuasions. But in the larger battles, there can be little doubt that both parties support the war machine, and both parties support the colonial conquest of indigenous people - both here and around the world. In waging wars for peace, and supporting those who struggle for dignity and life, I have often considered the Democratic Party a more inclusive form of colonialism. But after today’s hearing, I will do all in my power to defeat the Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee. Their willingness to treat Dr. Fords testimony as a chore they are required to perform, rather a sacred obligation to witness and investigate, showed them to be men worthy of detest. Men to be seen with the same hostility with which we view authoritarians and their defenders. Men who are a disgrace to humanity, and reviled by so many of the women who inevitably raised them. 

Many of those I respect and admire, have given their lives to a revolution of love and life and peace, and the protection of all that is sacred. Though that revolution will never be fulfilled through voting alone, I hope we will all dedicate ourselves - at the very least - to removing these specific men from power. Their arrogant disregard for Dr. Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick, have earned them our enduring hostility. They deserve to be hunted by people of conscience, and given no quarter. Followed and pursued, haunted by the disrespect they exhibited today. If they confirm Kavanaugh, we will live a generation under their oppression. May they never forget the day they displayed the full ignorant hostility of the patriarchal power structure. May they remember for the rest of their lives, the day we decided, from sea to shining sea, to elect women to every office, in every corner of this land. It may not solve the war machine or the largest land grabs in history, but it will be a step. Toward the end of whatever we witnessed today. Call it patriarchy, call it fundamentalism, call it white supremacy. Whatever your descriptor, I pray our generation unleashes an army of non-violence, dedicated to removing these men from power forever. Perhaps then, we can get to the real work, of creating a power structure dedicated to human equality, and the liberation of all life.

Thank you to our sisters. Thank you to Dr. Ford. Thank you to the 1600 women who signed the original proclamation 27 years ago. Thank you to the women on the frontlines. Who have faced arrest, who have faced persecution, who have faced the rain and the cold and the hostility of those who close their eyes, in the pursuit of protecting power. Thank you. Your courage has inspired me, and has galvanized a generation. You have led us through dark days, and been a light among the storms. Thank you. 

May tomorrow bring us some justice and some peace. And if it does not, may we work ceaselessly until the day it does. 

Sean

To the Women. To the Sisters. Thank You.

I woke up early this morning, unable to sleep. It happens most days, these days. The restlessness. Frustration. The knowledge that laws are being created and enacted each day, to strip people of their foundational rights and decency. That laws are being destroyed, which protect the inherit dignity of vulnerable people, animals & ecosystems. That power is being consolidated each day, by those who wish to exploit & extract. That those who are willing to do harm and cause violence, are winning. That those who are willing to perpetuate crimes against humanity, are winning. That those who are willing to engage crimes against nature, are winning. That those who believe in their supremacy, through false narratives of erasure and subjugation, are winning. That while there is a great deal we can do in the long term, our short term options feel preciously limited in their capacity to protect and defend, those whose very life force deserves protecting and defending, if for other reason than that they hold the force of life. 

This week is particularly chilling. As the legal body who presumes power over this land, debates the lifetime appointment of a man who stands ready to strip the rights of everyone who does not look like him. To reduce the legal protections of all who do not look, like me. A man who has used politeness and decorum, as a facade for decency, while upholding ideologies so proudly limited in their understanding of life and value and worth and dignity, that they make a mockery of any ideal rooted in liberty or justice for all. A man who has been explicit, in his desire to use the full power of the law, to enforce his small and sad understanding of what is or is not - who is or is not - deserving of equal protection under the law. 

The colonial institutions that dominate our lives and this land, the lives of so many billions of people around the world, and so many more billions of animals and species of life across every spectrum of the planet, are each rooted in fear and violence. There is not a colonial state, anywhere on earth, with its buildings and columns and judges and legislators, who does not originally gain its legitimacy, from genocidal force. From an all encompassing violence, that destroys, conquers and then claims dominion. The people of this land, and all lands, deserve an opportunity to rewrite our founding documents, to redraw the lines that limit the migration of lives, and to recreate the symbols that create our children’s consciousness. Such is the birthright of life. Each generation must decide for itself, what laws will govern itself. Such is the burden of being alive; not to control those who will come after, but to tend to that which is alive today, in a way that ensures there will be life tomorrow. So those who will inevitably arrive, are then also given a chance to choose. A chance to decide how they too, will be governed. How they too, will live. How they too, will give what they have been so freely given - the earth, air, water, and life - to the generations that follow. 

All life holds this choice. It is as inherit as the flow of water. If we met one another in a field, we would either decide to fight, or we would decide to talk. We would either do the work of battle, or we would do the work of conversation and consensus. We would either decide to use the force of physical violence, or use the force of our minds and hearts and creativity and capacity. We would either decide that those with the most capacity for harm should rule, or we would decide to create mechanisms to govern and protect our lives and our community. If we wish to live in some semblance of harmony with one another, each generation must engage this sacred work. To come together, and decide for ourselves, what rules we will subject ourselves to, and what we will not. We are not required by nature, to submit to what those before us decided. To subdue our intuition or intelligence, in subservience to decisions made in another time. Traditions carry weight and wisdom, but they too were made by people wrestling with their own lives, in their own way, in their own time. Each generation must do the same. To not do so, is to place our lives and the lives of our children, at the mercy of those who did not know what we now know, or in the hands of those who would pervert what was decided then, to benefit themselves now. 

Amidst these challenging times, when my life and family and obligations, have taken me so far from where my conscience has often placed me, I have consistently thanked Creator for those willing to stand at the frontlines. For those able to meet the full force of injustice, with the full force of their bodies and voice. For those willing to place themselves physically between that which stands ready to destroy, on behalf of all who wish to create. These people come in all shapes and sizes, from all colors and creeds. Though a patriarchal history would tell us otherwise, they have often been women. Though a colonial history would tell us otherwise, they have nearly always been led by people of color - at least, since the beginnings of the violence we call colonialism. 

Today, this is as true as ever. 

Yesterday, our sisters once again put their bodies on the line for all of us. They stood up bravely and denounced the confirmation hearings of a man who has used the law to reduce the dignity of so many. They stood up courageously, and interrupted the proceedings for a man who would hold the vulnerable accountable for circumstances they did not create, while protecting the powerful who often did. They shouted loudly for the world to hear, that these hearings would not hear from the multitudes, whose basic rights were being directly threatened. And while they disrespected the laws of decorum, they showed deep respect for the larger ideals for which they fight, and submitted themselves to arrest.

What dignity. What grace. What courage. From a distance away, I honor these women. In the absence of leadership from so many who have been elected, I honor their leadership. What the world would look like, if each of us stood to be counted, and risked arrest and bodily harm, for the sake of all others who cannot. It may not ever be perfect, but certainly it would be a better one. A fairer one. A more free one. 

To the leaders of yesterday’s action, and to all who were arrested yesterday and everyday, in defiance of injustice, and in pursuit of liberation for all life, thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice. For your courage. For your dignity. For the way our children will see resistance, and the way you bring it’s long legacy to life. Thank you. 

We are all in your debt. Though we may not all see it today, future generations most certainly will. Thank you.

Indigenous People's Day

​At the end of this summer, the city of Los Angeles joined cities around the country, in a new tradition. There will be no going back. All future generations will know October 9th as a day to celebrate Indigenous People, rather than a man who brought death to the Caribbean.

For at least the last eight thousand years, the area we call Los Angeles, has been home to the Tongva people. Here they built homes and communities, often near fresh water where fish were abundant, and near the ocean which they saw as sacred.

I lived in and out of Los Angeles for more than a decade, before I first heard their name. I'm not proud of this, but it's true. Their name was never apart of our conversations, and their quest for sovereignty, was never brought up in the day to day bustle of cities and concrete. But I was surrounded by their spirit nonetheless. Many of the names of the streets we drive on, and the neighborhoods we live in, were theirs. And the seal of the city for Los Angeles features a Tongva woman. A small acknowledgement of whose land we are all on.

I've spent much of the last year, on the backroads and byways that weave through this country. After the election, it became clear that we were entering a profoundly dangerous chapter in our history. A time when white supremacy was no longer going to remain the prevailing ideological assumption of our power structure. A time when avowed white supremacists felt so threatened by the rising movements happening across the world, that they were ready to openly seize state power, to destroy all who stood in the way of their conquest. That we were entering a time when our illusions of progress would be shattered, and seen for what they so often are - myths and tokens. Stories to tell us we are no longer the deadly conquerers of the past. And tokens to appease those who would otherwise dedicate their lives to resisting.

My sense was that there would be few answers for our future, absent a deep understanding of our past. And while there are many answers to be found in books, there are many which can only be understood viscerally. Through flesh and blood, site and sound, sense and scent.

As has been my way for many years, when there are questions that need answering, I somehow find my way to the open road. No matter the continent, there seems to be a special spirit which guides the traveler who is willing to journey with open questions, an open mind, and an open heart.

This year, that journey brought me home. Back to California. The land I was born on. The land my mother was born on. The land my father is buried in. The land that raised me as a young boy, and the land I returned to as a man. The land I believed I knew.

There are many stories to share, and most will fade in the dusty background of my memory. But there can be little doubt that the California I thought I knew, and believed I understood, was a myth. A construct, created by settlers, to rationalize genocide. The attempted extermination of a people.

To understand California before the Spanish, consider a place like Kenya. California was one of the most ecologically, culturally and linguistically diverse places on planet Earth.

Old stories speak of the elk herds in the tens of thousands. The antelope, in the hundreds of thousands. The whales and dolphins swimming off the coast, in packs of thousands.

There are more than 200 languages, that are indigenous to California. Two hundred. Some as similar as French to English, but many as different as English to Chinese. London may be the most international city in the world, but there are less languages spoken in that city today, than were originally spoken in this land.

This region still gives life to the tallest trees in the world. For thousands of years, the bear ate salmon from the river, and defecated in the mountains, creating some of the richest, most potent soil in the world. Though the original colonists came as close to killing all the ancient Sequoias, as they did to killing the ancient people.

Around the time California became a state, there were some 150,000 indigenous people living here. In the decades that followed, that number would plunge to some 30,000. This was no accident. It was endorsed by the state. Protected by the state. Funded by the state. Led by the state.

Vigilante militias rounded up men who had come for logging and mining, to commit large scale attacks on indigenous communities. Mounted on white horses, their goal was simple - clear the land for exploitation. If that meant eliminating the people living on that land, so be it.

In town after town, there are stories of extermination. A hundred people rounded up, and the water poisoned. Fifty people imprisoned, and given blankets with disease. But few of these stories will be found in the settler museums that litter the state, detailing the "history of California". Ornate and precise timelines describe the glory of settling a new land, and building communities where there had not been one before. In town after town, that history begins in the early 1800's.

I began to see these timelines the way I often see characterized advertisements from the 40s and 50s. Asking myself - are we really supposed to buy this?

In the summers of childhood, my parents would often try and get up to Yosemite. It was my dads favorite place on Earth. He would spend hours walking with the Sequoias, and basking in their ancient presence. When he passed away, my brother, his brother and I, all went back to Yosemite to say goodbye. Under a tree stuck by lightning, with a trunk that had become two, we buried his ashes, and sang his favorite songs.

This summer I returned. To pay homage, to weep, to laugh, and to share time together again. But on this journey, I was asking new questions.

Who had been here before us? Whose ancestors, were also buried in this land? What was here before roads of concrete paved their way through redwoods.

The Miwok people, who called themselves Ahwaneechee, had lived below the waterfall we know as Yosemite Falls, since time immemorial. There they had their homes. There they had their lives.

A member of the local militia, who were the first Europeans to enter the valley, said of that first invasion. "The whole valley had the appearance of park like grounds. With trees, shrubbery, flowers and lawns."

Today the communities who had maintained that land for thousands of years through burning, foraging and grazing, are displaced. Replaced by campers who vie for tickets to camp below a place we call Half-Dome - tickets that often sell faster than those to a festival or movie premier. Tickets, to a project of mass displacement.

There is a cultural center just below the Yosemite Valley. In it, the Mono people have a museum filled with the animals that once ranged the surrounding lands. The story of of their attempted extermination is matched only by the history of a people who have always been here, and who have found a way to survive.

In that museum is a great Grizzly Bear. The iconic symbol of California, standing in all its glory and ferociousness. And below the bear, a sign that says simply - the last grizzly bear in California was killed just outside Topanga. 1916.

So while the city of Los Angeles features a Tongva woman who has been displaced and hunted by the city of Los Angeles, our state flag features an animal that has been decimated by our state. The symbols of colonialism.

We were grateful to have some time with an elder woman, who was patient with our questions. She said the Water Wars are coming, and all will be forced to decide whether life can be owned.

After some time together, I asked finally - what do you wish for us to do? She looked at me and said with grace - learn your history. Learn the truth of what has happened here.

I remember very little from my early education. Though in elementary school, I distinctly remember the Missions Project. All of us went on field trips to the Missions, and learned a story they called their history. For our project at the end of the year, each of us spent weeks recreating a Mission out of cardboard, glue, sand, sticks and toy figures. My family was proud. I was proud. We showed if off at school, along with all the other models kids created at home.

Yet a Chumash elder recently told me that the Mission arches are to his people, what the Swastika is to the Jews. Welcoming them into a place, built to steal their blood and bodies.

My great-grandmother fled camps that flew flags with the swastika. I wonder how our families would respond, if German students made models of concentration camps for school.

Whether we are comfortable acknowledging it or not, the Nazi project of extermination was deeply inspired by what the American project has done to the indigenous people of these lands. And the wars that built our military might, were wars against those who were already here, to clear the land for those who had arrived.

There is a work ahead for us. It will not be led by people who share the color of my skin. But we must participate. We must contribute. We must listen. We must relearn the history of this land, and begin a long journey toward honesty. The longer we try to control the lie, the longer the lie will control us.

Changing the name of a holiday won't solve much of what's in front of us. But it is a step. As was said by City Council member Mitch O'Farrell, it was a watershed moment. When the dam is released and the water pours forward. There will be no going back. The children of California will never again be asked to celebrate a sailor who raped, pillaged and killed the people of the Caribbean. It may not be the end of teaching about the Missions. But it's a start.

​Instead we will be asked to celebrate indigenous people. To celebrate those who have been here for all time. How many years will we celebrate this history, before the people of Los Angeles begin to push with vitality, toward federal recognition for the Tongva people, and land reparations to ensure they have a home here for generations to come.

​I was proud to be able to witness the moment. For so many years, indigenous people in Los Angeles, and around the world, have fought for this acknowledgment. To see a colonial institution, led by the first recognized Native American in the history of LA's city council, reverse a century of tradition, and move in a new direction, was a welcomed respite from the persistent violence of our power structure.

That violence continues to focus it’s eye on those who are undocumented - many of whom are indigenous to this continent. The decision to repeal DACA is not one born from economics, or constitutionality. It is one born from white supremacy, and the settlers dream of conquering this land, from sea to shining sea. It is a dream that is only possible with genocide. Only possible with the systematic erasure of entire people groups. It is a dream that will never allow life to flourish on this land. A dream that is sold as life, but carries only death.

Kill the people. Take the water. Change the names of the land. Create private property. Force, by threat of violence, all who live on that land to pay, simply for living on land claimed in slaughter. The entitlement of the colonizer, to believe those of us with light skin are righteous citizens, while those with brown skin are the intruders, is a staggering distortion of reality.

It's easy to remain stuck in the colonial story. It has pervaded so much of our lives. But the natural world is unconcerned with our stories and symbols. Unbothered by our flags and borders. The natural world is governed only by it’s own interdependece. At the core of this vast and infinite web, is what united so many last year - water is life. Water is sacred. Without water, life begins to die.

I thought of the the Mono woman's warning, as wildfires ripped through this region. When we drain the water from below the earth, the soil grows dry. As it does when we damn the rivers, and direct water through concrete aqueducts. The old timers across southern California, speak of springs that flowed year round. Today, those springs are dry. When we steal water from places that are lush and brimming with life, and bring it to places we all love, but have little capacity to sustain life - we continue genocide.

On Oct 12 - 15, there will be a Gathering of Elders in Long Beach. The event is being organized by local indigenous communities, and will be open to the public. For all of you looking to learn more about the land so many of us have called home, this will be a place to spend some time. Whether for an hour or for four days, I hope you’ll make it out. The chance to sit in ceremony, and learn from those who know what no book can teach, is a rare one. It is worth doing.

I was recently with a Kumeyaay woman, who said their lands originally stretched along the coast, from northern San Diego, down past the border. That's the land my brother lives on, so I asked her what she thinks of surfers. Those who linger just beyond the borders edge. She responded with words I won't soon forget. "It is good that they love the ocean. Water is sacred. But they're just like all the others. They don't know where they are."

Surrounded by the the Chumash to the north, the Tatavium to the northeast, and the Yuhaviatam from the mountains to our east, I am beginning to understand - for the very first time - where I am. And though my fathers ashes are buried in this land and I was born on this land, we will always be settlers. Those who came from elsewhere, and created a life on land that was taken.

I believe there is a future where my children will be able to learn the culture of this land, and honor the long and proud history of those who have always lived here. To do so, we must begin to acknowledge the truth of what has taken place here. The blood that is still in the soil. In 1851, the U.S. Government signed a Treaty with the Tongva, guaranteeing millions of acres in the Los Angeles region. The document was the locked in a drawer in D.C. for the next fifty years, and like hundreds of other sacred agreements made across this land, the Treaty with the Tongva people, was broken. If our generation wants to begin to make things right, after so many centuries of death and wrongdoing, there may be no better place to begin, than the Treaties. Forged in battle and signed in prayer, these agreements are meant to be the foundation of law on this land. Neither decades nor centuries will wipe clean this deception. If we want to live within a society rooted in the values we so often espouse - we must begin with the original agreements that created the foundation upon which our power structure stands.

The land.

Happy indigenous peoples day y'all. May we honor them in protecting life. Whether the trees or the animals, the land or the water, all life is sacred. Perhaps we will begin the real work of protection, when we begin being honest about where we truly are. A'ho

A generational work.

When I was a kid, my godparents lived on the island of Oahu in Hawai'i. I got to go visit them on two different occasions, and I remember those trips as nearly mystical journeys. Deep into the jungles and oceans of a place that hadn't lost its wild. The memories of a young boy. Where every tree is a monster, every river a place to play, and every vine a rope to swing on. It was in the jungles of Kauai, that I first told my family I wanted to be an explorer. I wanted to see the world. Journey into the unknown. 

Little did I know that I would meet Hawaiians years later, and learn that the place I once saw as wild, was in actuality taken and controlled. That there remain Hawaiian communities who see themselves as sovereign, and the United States as a colonizing, enslaving force. That the wildness I so loved as a young boy, was land stolen from people who had lived there for millennia, so people like me could enjoy it as tourists. As paying customers. Fueling an industry built from colonial beginnings.

How can we rent and sell the land, if there are people already living there? People who have been living there, for thousands of years. In the case of Hawai'i, the tactic was simple. Military dominance. What were once bases we built in agreement with the Kingdom of Hawai'i, became bases for a hostile takeover. Regime change. A coup.

Today, Native Hawaiians represent less than a quarter of the islands population. And in every category of oppression that can be measured, they are the most afflicted. Relegated to the shadows, as tourism sells the sun. 

Colonialism comes in many forms. In modern times, it is often through a vicious combination of debt, arms, coups, and industrial projects for power, waste and extraction. But what makes this system so powerful, is its story. A story of liberty. A story of democracy. A story of progress.

It's a beautiful story y'all. It really is. I spent my younger years, proudly wearing our colors, and singing about our greatness. And in truth, I love this country. I really do. I love the land. The endless expanse of hills and mountains and trees and desserts and swamps and plains and salt flats and lakes and rivers and every other imaginable terrain. I love the people. People from every corner of the world. Many of us, the descendants of those who left. Those who got on a boat or a bus or a plane, and left. Left somewhere at some time, but unless our journey was forced, always, always in search of something better. Something more. Something more, free. For ourselves and those we love. In a kaleidoscope of ways, we are a beautiful people. A people who love to create. To build. To go bigger and higher and to push boundaries previously inconceivable. This capacity to turn a dream into reality is deep within the fiber of America.

I've traveled much of this country. A year ago, the only states I hadn't driven through were Alaska, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota. A year later, and Alaska is still calling to me. I've met people in nearly every state, and am blessed with friends and family from a wide array of races, religions, social classes. And to be entirely honest with you, I'm in love. I love the people around me, and the people I have met along the journey. I've not always done right by everyone, and not everyone has done right by me. But on balance, my journeys through America, and the world, have brought me into the living rooms, and around the dinner tables, of people who are kind, decent, hard working, creative, loving, and whether that living room is made of marble or mud - interested in a better world.  

​If only we could find common ground. I hear those words said often. By police and protesters. By power and the journalists who track it. By whites who would be allies, and by people of color who have been disappointed too often by a whiteness that centers itself by nature of a paradigm built for power.

That common ground continues to be elusive. There are many reasons of course, but perhaps the most glaring is that there are those who are willing to acknowledge the crimes against humanity perpetuated by the United States government in the vast genocide of indigenous Americans, the theft of millions of people over a dozen generations called slavery, and the violent removal of Spanish speakers to ensure white majorities. These three tactics have been foundational staples in the creation of an apartheid regime, in a war that is often called settler colonialism. A war many are still fighting.

And then there are those who are not. Those still unwilling to face the racism at the heart of our most precious institutions, often built by slaves, on land stolen through war and treachery.

Until we are honest about our colonial past, and our colonial present, we will continue to repeat the same conflicts over and again. The burden of this work falls overwhelmingly on the white community. We are the people who have been told we are superior, for centuries. We are the people who have largely benefited from a power structure designed by land owning white men, for land owning white men. Do we continue to struggle with student debt, and and jobs that don't pay well enough? Of course. Is there poverty and suffering in the white community? Of course. But are we subjected to the full pernicious violence of a State which has never, at any point in its history, not profited from the enslavement of brown and black bodies?  No we are not.  We are not preyed upon in our communities. We are not systemically harassed and accused. We do not live with fear for our lives when we are pulled over for a traffic violation, or live inside a reservation, built to bury the mass killing and displacement of our people.

For many of us who are white today, the crimes of colonialism feel far away. The history of what Western Europe has done in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, was intentionally kept from us. Certainly in my schools, this genocidal legacy was glossed over as the natural consequences in the larger fight for democracy and freedom.

We did not commit these crimes. Or at least, many of us do not feel that we did. We simply were born. Born white, in a nation that has always exhaulted whiteness. We will each have our own journey of discovery. But at the end of that path, if we are willing to spend time with those who have lived on this land for all time, or those who have been subjected to an apartheid regime for centuries, it will likely become harder to reconcile the history of liberty that is sold to us in schools, film, advertising, and institutions- with the obvious realities of racial hierarchy and profitable violence within our power structure.

So it is not particularly surprising when Jeff Sessions calls Hawai'i an "island on the pacific." For him, the great islands of Hawai'i are merely another colony. Another place we conquered. Just as Standing Rock is just another reservation. Rather than a sovereign part of the Sioux Nation.

I love this country. I truly do. I love the people and the land. But we've got real work to do. Deep work. The internal kind, that has so often defined generations. What kind of society are we willing to tolerate. What kind of world are we ready to create. One in which more black men are killed by police, than at any other time in our history? Or one in which crime is treated holistically, where we address the drug trade, gun sales, militarization of police, and systemic poverty, that drive so much of our violence. Are we going to continue bombing countries all over the world, creating a generation of people who will give everything to avenge their loved ones?  Or are we going to dismantle the war machine, in addressing the global arms trade, oil subsidies, mining subsidies, forgiveness of debt owed by former colonies, the surveillance state, and so forth. Are we going to continue to ignore the millions of indigenous people across this land, who are demanding the United States Government respect both their legal and inherit sovereignty? Or are we going to continue pretending our Constitution doesn't call Treaties the Supreme Law of the Land, while hundreds of Treaties remain in an ongoing breach of contract, protecting millions of acres of occupied land for those of us who have settled here.

I'm not sure how we find common ground in any of the major conversations of our time, until white people, myself included, begin being honest about colonialism. How can we talk about the inherit rights of an undocumented person, if you believe your citizenship isn't directly connected to our military slaughtering and displacing millions of indigenous Americans?

How can we talk about the rights of life, if you continue to believe that Europeans brought democracy to this continent? For while the longest continuing Republic in the world is in North America, it began centuries before Columbus arrived in this hemisphere.

We will not be able to run from our past forever. At some point, some generation will have to face the crimes that built the foundation of this nation. Truly face it. And begin the long work, of doing right by those who have been wronged. Perhaps then, we will be able to begin the far larger conversation; how do we create a society for all?  A world for all. How do we share resources to ensure all people have access to food, water, shelter, energy and information. It is a conversation we must have. Or continue to suffer from needless wars, and a police state behoven only to those who own the land. 

My sense is we will not be ready for that conversation, until we are first honest about how the existing power structure came to be. Until we are first honest about the genocides that shaped the modern world. Their enduring consequences, are a testament to our need to consider war and peace, as a generational work. Never has there been a war, which did not wage violence on children. Never has there been a child born into violence, who did not suffer the scars for many years. Who did not share those scars, with those who came after. If we wish to create a safer world, we have to do all in our power, to ensure fewer children are being born into violence and war. Such work will be forever strangled, until the people of America are willing to face the global contortions of a war machine that continues to devour cultures, land, water, and innocents alike, to ensure profit for the few.

I believe this work begins in our hearts. The courage to have empathy for another human being, allows us to then imagine what would have to change for that person to live in dignity. And if you have the courage to imagine such a world, then all that is left is the work of our minds, hands and feet. To conceive, build, and march. For no idea can be brought to life merely through words. Or even only through labor. Truly great ideas also demand resistance. Protesting what is, and working toward what ought to be.  

I am grateful to be in a generation that is beginning to step into the full power of our protest. To live among leaders who are leading from the ground up, and visionaries who are building from behind. On this quiet Sunday afternoon, I can hear a new world calling. Quietly, nudging us toward herself. Every generation chooses whether to face the challenges before them, or hide and pass those challenges to those who come after.

I pray we face our past. From Hawai'i to the Dakotas, the South of my childhood to the Coasts we so love; all was claimed in genocide. Only in understanding where we came from, will we be able to create what must come next; an America for all Americans. And with it, a future for our grandchildren. 

Blessings y'all

Sean