As I approached the Daley Center in Chicago today, I saw they had a caravan of food trucks circled on the plaza. My stomach started growling as I thought about the meme of Taco Trucks On Every Corner as a threat if Hillary was elected. I, for one, would love to have more ethnic food trucks available. After all, the best restaurants present ethnic French and Italian food. I’m not even sure I’ve tasted REAL American food, that is, from the cooking fires of Native Americans.
Then I started thinking again about Trump’s depiction of asylum seekers and I think he has it all wrong. Those people with the wherewithal, the drive, and the physical stamina to trek toward America are exactly the kind of people we need to innovate and restore our country to greatness.
I, for one, think we should have a caravan of ethnic food trucks travel alongside these asylum seekers. In the 2014 movie, Chef, an unhappy gourmet chef took to the road and opened a gourmet food truck, innovating along the way.
Perhaps some chefs could use this caravan to get back to their roots and/or put some zest back into their lives.
There should be an advance team promoting the food festival as it approaches communities along the way. The advance team will arrange for the ingredients needed for the coming feast.
Inviting those communities along the route to contribute as well as partake in the feast builds communities, friendships, and makes a lasting contribution to an international caravan cook book.
We could invite teachers so that children and adults could have history, English, and writing lessons along the way. Each child and adult should be a contributor to the caravan blog about their travels, in both their native language and in English. We need children and adults to be ready to jump into public schools and workplaces in the US.
Perhaps some musicians could join the caravan, videographers, and other idea people. Who else?
I’d be thrilled if I were invited to blog and travel with them, if someone could loan an RV.
In the meantime, I’m still trying to decide which food truck I should visit at the Daley center. You can be sure that I’ll share whatever I buy with my friends there.
Throughout my entire life, I have been speaking out about social justice issues. If your own life is similar to mine, you may remember words similar to those of my late mother’s, Lily Knott Beckman’s, when she would say, “Let’s all pitch in.” She called potluck dinners “pitch in dinners” and was a reliable volunteer for community and civic groups throughout her entire life. Even as I faced the bullying in my adult life, she encouraged me to speak out, to try to change the system, believing in me, believing in my ability to bring about change.
And so, I refuse to stop speaking out.
“…bullies can never take away my dreams, my belief in the ability of people to build communities that are powered and sustained by social justice.“Jeanne Beckman
Everyone, famous or not, can speak about social justice.
“Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why… I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
Every morning, part of my daily ritual is to spend an hour or so free-associating about the ways in which I can work make the world a better place. Even though my daily life is challenged by the oppression of bullies, those bullies can never take away my dreams, my belief in the ability of people to build communities that are powered and sustained by social justice. My strength to keep going, despite my ongoing challenges, comes from my entrenched belief that EVERY person has the power to make real, sustainable changes.
Today, I stumbled across Rep. Chellie Pingree’s TEDx talk about organic farmers in the U.S.
Her talk started my process of wondering what it would take to create sustainable communities in every neighborhood in our country. Communities where every vacant lot is filled with neighborhood gardens. Communities where every empty storefront can get grants to allow local community members to run pilot programs for benefit of their own community and neighbors within a 6 block area. Communities where every empty house is restored for families to remain in their neighborhoods. Communities where every child at every age has an adult mentor to champion the growing of inspiration, dreams, and entrepreneurial can-do.
Gangs are a symptom of children who have grown up without appropriate, individualized education, without hope, and without options
Gangs are a symptom of children who have grown up without appropriate, individualized education, without hope, and without options. Heads of gangs are leaders who are great salesmen. These gang leaders are convincing children, who are discouraged and discarded by their school districts, that their only path to recognition is by belonging, belonging to a community of similarly-discarded children. It is my belief that children who fall into gang membership have already come to believe that they have no other choices, no other way to demand the respect that every person deserves.
What would it take to reclaim the failure trajectory of children destined by school failure to join gangs?
We need to nurture a sense of belonging to the local multi-generational community from the time each child is born. Instead of having children abandon their natural curiosity by repeatedly subjecting them to inordinate amounts of time cramming for corporate-owned achievement tests, why couldn’t we have them spend a half hour or more each day engaged in locally-inspired social justice programs?
Instead of tithing to churches that use their tax-exempt funds to spread hatred and oppression across America and the world, why couldn’t those who can afford to donate monies use those funds to build sustainable communities within a 50 mile radius of where they live?
Instead of school administrators (earning six figure incomes) making decisions to give up on community children who have not benefited from failed corporate-owned curricula, why couldn’t local parents re-establish their rightful place as the employers of their community teachers, demanding that every child, beginning at the pre-kindergarten level, have full access to meaningful, individualized instruction to help them achieve their FULL POTENTIAL, instead of teaching to mediocrity?
Instead of having our 7 year old children murdered while selling candy, what if our communities could nurture ALL of our children to be entrepreneurs? Maybe some of those empty storefronts in their local communities could house and nurture a consortia of child & community entrepreneurs, sharing their wares, dreams, and knowledge.
What could these programs look like? Please share your dreams with me.
Scorched earth divorces, as discussed in the book, Divorced from Justice, start out by the spouse with deep pockets (SDP) and cutthroat attorneys cutting off the innocent spouse from any financial support. Then, SDP’s attorneys throw every stalling tactic, legal (and not so legal) maneuver, and obfuscation at the innocent spouse. As her attorneys fend off the various maneuvers, her legal team runs out of funds.
While on paper, there are protections in place to protect the innocent spouse, the reality is quite different. Attorney Penelope Bryan wrote about coercion (see http://tinyurl.com/4t8pjbc) and the long-lasting, devastating effects on the spouse and her children.
I have been told that I should describe myself as an undocumented victim of domestic violence. Undocumented because like many others, my divorce court has routinely denied enforcement of domestic violence laws since my abuser is the one with deep pockets. So, even though I’ve attempted to just move on with my life after 26 years of marriage, my Ex has repeatedly used the court to deny me my rights to my share in the assets from the marriage at the same time he’s forcing me to take his extortion debt, take his lavish vacation debt (think Bonaire, Islemorada, and Vail) and debt taken to hide his asset-hiding.
As I am struggling to fight back against my Ex, who took the entirety of the retirement assets, dissipated the value of the marital home by over $100k, and has tried to incarcerate me on several occasions for failure to pay utility bills in the dissipated house (think holes in the roof, kicked in doors, and broken boiler) even though I am financially destitute due to his court maneuvers, I can’t help but think about how these scorched earth divorce tactics are similar to the seizing of assets and power by political bullies, most recently the GOP in Wisconsin.
As I struggle to fight total financial devastation and probable homelessness, my personal Patronus (think Harry Potter) is to channel Luke Skywalker trying to shoot the death star, in the first Star Wars movie. As he is being shot at by the Evil Empire’s fighters, Luke channels the Force as Obi-Wan Kenobi implores him to focus using the force, to shut out the distractions as he focuses on the target he must take out in order to save humankind.
As citizens are attempting to fight against the takeover of our country by corporations (think Wisconsin and the Koch brothers), I think about the similarities between scorched earth divorces and the disenfranchisement of our workers, families, communities, and country.
First, the corporates took away many of our rights when they changed bankruptcy laws, allowing credit card companies (think Bank of America) to charge loan shark credit card rates and policies, then they reduced funding to such an extent to legal assistance programs that those programs still remaining had few resources to make a difference. The corporates bought out SCOTUS (think Bush v Gore), are trying to control access to the Internet, and ignore open meetings acts, and have used the government for unfettered attacks on whistleblowers.
They want us to believe that we have no option but to comply. Therefore, we must figure out ways to fly under the radar and cover the backs of those who still have resources to fight peaceful yet effective battles.
In order to survive, to preserve any shred of decency and life, we must prioritize and focus, yet decentralize our peaceful attacks. We need hundreds of wikileak-type sites. While we decentralize, we need to find ways to share resources to enforce ethical laws and practices.
More later… I have to get back to fighting my own legal battles. I am still not out of the woods in my own divorce. My Ex continues to stall, obfuscate, submit frivolous motions with perjured affidavits and has so far prevailed in the court system.
In the meantime, even if you feel you have no energy to fight these battles for common decency, talk to your neighbors and find ways to pool and stretch your energies. Our children are relying on us.
Goose and Gander Report 