Open Letter to the BBofW: Our Land of No Children
by Ricardo X [Readers should definitely check out my OAXACA+ piece http://oxtogrind.org/archive/432, which pulls together some important impressions/suggestions centered on the Nov. 9 Simon Sedillo presentation at UCSC.]

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors. We borrow it from our children.” — Native American proverb

“O Bailan Todos O No Baile Nadie.” — Uruguayan Tupamaros (The theme for http://www.counterpunch.org/mickey02102004.html.)

Dedicated to http://www.flickr.com/photos/sosylvie/4064755453/, the work of the Brown Berets, the work of S. Sedillo, and http://oxtogrind.org/archive/364 (Taking Over the State of California, TOSCA). [Pause.] And EMILIANO’S PARTY http://oxtogrind.org/archive/431.

Special note: The Oxtogrind site is archived, most elements are no longer functional. Only the articles are recent, and each one is directed at a particular person or group of people for very specific purposes. Not knowing those contexts can make the pieces puzzling or even off-putting.

As we help to find decent food for others, protect them from violence on their streets, connect them with qualified health care providers and employment opportunities, and encourage self-education… we are obliged to simultaneously undermine the institutions which guarantee the increasing scarcity of healthy food, mounting environmental toxicity, greater inhumanity ‘cross the board, unprecedented immiseration and a glorification of ignorance.

I know the Brown Berets of Watsonville do invaluable work. I applaud them. And I have only good things to say about them in public.

And yet… I have some unsolicited questions.

I am told that they are a totally volunteer organization. They have day jobs, and they do what they can within their community on their off-hours. Admirable. Truly. [Pause.] Without knowing them really, I would bet my life that they care deeply about the people they are helping. That they’re accomplishing much.

So what are my questions? [Pause.]

1. What activities are you engaged in on a regular basis, Brown Berets of Watsonville? What exactly are you doing as a rule? What’s the range of your contributions to the community?

2. What makes you think — if you do — that moving in solidarity (with others) to undermine the institutions referred to above would necessarily take any additional heartbeats from your lives?

3. Do you see the need to try something which follows a new paradigm for change?

The United States ranks 30th among nations in infant mortality rates, and is the second worst among developed countries. And it’s getting worse, as you may know. [Pause.] Just as it’s getting worse daily for those children we’re killing… intentionally… unnecessarily… abroad.

Such abominations must end. And they will not end, the horror will only increase, if we cling to obsolete paradigms for change exclusively.

Please look at the short video of one of my home schooled kids… on the campus of Stanford University… and consider the context provided at the very beginning of http://oxtogrind.org/archive/378. His memorization of facts — so important to mainstream education — is not the point. His home/community schooled spirit is, a spirit which would likely have been crushed by trying to acclimate to what our schools are mainly about. [The state of pubic education, virtually all education in the U.S., is deplorably unhealthy on several counts.]

I’m a lucky guy, maybe the luckiest in the world. All my children are gems, rare as flawless chrysolite, and my partner Sylvie www.sosylvie.typepad.com is beyond measure in the pleasure (plus) she provides.

BUT… nothing works, nothing can work for me… for them… for — if I may be so presumptuous to say — for YOU… if we don’t undermine our atrocious institutions. O Bailan Todos O No Baile Nadie. [Pause.] Expeditiously.

For, as things stand, we are headed hurriedly to a Land of No Children.

Richard Martin Oxman can be reached at tosca.2010[at]yahoo.com. Don’t worry, he’s not attached to TOSCA. He only wants a little time — but more than Thursday’s allotted 10 minutes — to get to know you better… to come up with something (new, perhaps)… in solidarity… that will serve your purposes. [Pause.] 18,129 Mexican children were deported on their own last year from the United States! There are a thousand+ other concerns — equally abominable — which he shares with you.