Writing Down (What Must Come Down)
by Oxz (Richard Martin Oxman, aka Ricardo Bueyhombre)

Special note: In the name of “writing down” I didn’t edit this piece.

“At first glance, you don’t seem to focus on any particular issue. I am trying to focus on the food security/protection issue. It is also quite intellectual, probably fine for your chosen audience, but as a former journalist, I write down, not up. Don’t want to lose anyone.” — Sheila Velazquez, small organic farmer, grassroots organizer from New England responding to a link I gave her about our effort to Take Over the State of California.

Maybe, for the purposes of clarifying what TOSCA (our effort to Take Over the State of California), the link http://oxtogrind.org/archive/353 will look more like “writing down” than http://oxtogrind.org/archive/364 did for Sheila. Regardless, I’m going to try to simplify matters here to the barest bones… once again. I too “don’t want to lose anyone.”

First, however, Sheila spotlighting the food security/protection issue obliges me to underscore two points: One, TOSCA is going to address — make a difference with regard to — virtually ALL concerns of people with progressive/radical agendas (putting our peripheral differences aside temporarily). Two, we’re NOT going to keep holding ourselves down by investing “hope” in politicians. See Sheila’s http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/losing-our-food-freedom/, and then glance at the following comment on her article:

“If I thought it would make one damn bit of difference by signing yet another petition to send to some scum of the earth war criminal in La Casa Blanca (the White House) who doesn’t give a damn about any of this stuff nor does he take his orders from us/We The People, I would sign it. But in the end, the petition is a waste of paper that it’s printed on.”

It’s not that concerned citizens should never sign a petition. I’m simply stressing that such actions can’t be counted on. Not any more than an article — like Sheila’s or mine, whether in the New York Times or on a hard to access blog — should be counted on to produce results in the real immiserated world. [Hey, if I'm not writing down enough for your tastes, just delete the word immiserated here.]

I’m hoping to be invited to speak to the Brown Berets of Watsonville soon. See the piece about their rally to end deadly violence in the local community at http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_13692590?source=rss. If I’m lucky enough to be granted some of their heartbeats — “time,” in case I’m not writing down enough. — I intend to make it crystal clear why they have a vested interest in moving in solidarity with TOSCA.

I imagine myself getting up to the podium, and — after acknowledging institutional racism from a singular pov — moving to one of the far corners in their meeting room. There I would ask them to visualize some kind of food handouts taking place, a soup kitchen, say. Then, moving on to another corner, I’d paint a picture of locals working on affordable rental issues. Living wage advocates I’d place in yet another corner. And, then, I’d go into great detail in the last corner about the kind of anti-violence work that they’re engaged in in Watsonville. Finally, I’d underscore what’s going on in a few other corners elsewhere, some in other California towns, some located in other states, and some actions taking place with foreign locales as home bases or concerns.

Ultimately, I’d be underscoring that ALL of these efforts have something spectacularly important in common. That ALL of the heartbeats being spent in each corner beg to be united — in spite of differences — so that movement in solidarity can take place on a large scale. Nothing that would take away from each group continuing with their smaller scale operations; nothing that couldn’t be participated in — easily — simultaneous with current activity. Nothing that would require money or virtually any time whatsoever. Just something that was designed to produce revolutionary results. Legally and non-violently, but bringing down something in our lifetime.

Something that would take less time than that rally which the Brown Berets put together to deal with deadly local violence. Something that would — guaranteed — have an infinitely greater impact on the powers that be, and on all forces which guarantee ongoing violence at present. Which is — absolutely — NOT to say that that rally shouldn’t be applauded.

Jobs, health care, food, education, police brutality, our wars and a lot else are tied to street violence. Obviously. Racism — unacknowledged by a long shot in official circles — contributes enormously to what’s coming down. TOSCA — you may have noticed if you looked at any of the links above — has its eyes on putting twelve unaffiliated, non-politician citizens in a position to be able to ignore our gangster politicians (NO GANG DOES AS MUCH DAMAGE AS THAT GROUP!!!), and forcefully, creatively and repeatedly help the public to self-educate about getting down with CHANGES.

TOSCA has reformists on board like “J” (Dr. Wallace J. Nichols http://www.wallacejnichols.org/wallacejnichols/About_J..html) and more revolutionary profiles like UCLA’s Peter McLaren http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/. But I want BROWN FACES! We have Latina women on board (like Marie Trigona of Argentina), but I want MORE WOMEN! I want MORE FIERY, RADICAL SOULS WITH NOTHING TO LOSE, ANGRY AS HELL. People who understand that a better world is not only possible, but within our grasp. I want a feral howl.

We constantly hear about how THE PUBLIC won’t support this or that that’s progressive or radical. But OUR GUV will get the support of the vast majority of the public (the needy/deserving being the majority), and not have to worry about cooperating with or satisfying the elite interests that are the typical politician’s public. For ALL members of our coalition — serving together on an equal basis as Governor of California — will be living like the people do. Living like Chavez did. [Pause.] I don’t mean starving. I don’t mean without the means to pay rent. I don’t mean working under conditions that are unhealthy, or walking streets which are violent, vulnerable to horrors. NO, I simply mean… living simply.

Such a Governor WOULD have the support of the public that would matter during revolutionary times.

There’s a GRAND SCAM going on. Several, actually, as I’m sure you know. One of the biggest has to do with our unnecessary, unaffordable, abominable wars. They impact on EVERYTHING locally. And we can end them so that there is money available for what immediately concerns us all. So that returning traumatized vets don’t contribute to the cycle of violence. And so on.

Write this down! Deep in your brain. And then act in solidarity with me. Whether it’s with TOSCA or on some other basis. Here it is. I’m putting it down as simply as I can: I do NOT want to be Governor of California. BUT… if I were part of the TOSCA coalition of a dozen citizens, and I picked eleven other souls at random off the streets of any town in the state, including Watsonville, together we could do an infinitely better job for one and all than any of the gangsters who have ever served in the Sacred Seat in Sacramento.

The people should rise together. We are the vast majority, all of us in need, all of us being deprived unconscionably of basic rights, fundamental humanity. I have a plan, but I am open to others. I do not “want to lose anyone.”

If anyone from the Brown Berets of Watsonville wants to visit me and my family at my home in the Vienna Woods of Aptos, California… I’d be honored to open the doors to our garden, and serve the best burritos (or whatever you like) that we can put together. In the name of moving in solidarity together.

I don’t really like writing down. My preference would be… is to get down in person… pronto.

Ricardo can be reached at tosca.2010[at]yahoo.com
http://oxtogrind.org/archive/378 has some of my background
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sosylvie/4064756929/ = a family introduction of sorts