Marc and I are in the CIW office on a sunday, and therefore no one else is in here.

Last night I sat and listened to current housemate, Marcelino, a Mexican a little younger than my father perhaps, "tell me what's up."

As we all sat, drinking Tecates and watching Univision, he was explaining to me his belief that organized religion is nothing more than business. It was also his belief that Political Parties had absolutley no redeeming qualities, and that the Mexican governments attempts to combat poverty, serve no purpose unless there is a change in the system.

Not a bad analysis for a "lumpen proletariat", eh??

It was a such wonderful timing to here such words. Part of this "rebirth" I'm having, this finally acheiving "new man" status, has so much to do with taking seriously the ideology that no one knows better how to explain oppression than those being oppressed. The ideology of listening, of asking questions, of taking direction from oppressed communities, not giving direction. Anti-racism, anti-imperialism, revolution, five-hundred years of resistance, my listening to marcelino, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers...it's all tied together...all related. this process is so beautiful, this process of resistance and of creation...of community. It hurts like hell at times, too, but let that serve as a way to remind us that there can be no progess without struggle.

............

hmm..........it's hard to write when one is not all depressed and sad. I guess I was only good at writing when I was in that state....


let's see...what else to write about....


Well, I don't really have much to say for right now..i.t's going to take some practice writing in a "good mood."


I'll be back in michigan on the 28th of july, thanks to a recent economic aid package from vanguard north (do I have to structurally adjust for that aid, by the way???).

party on the first of august.

later,
angelo