Category Archives: resistance & dissent

The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass-A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

David Remick’s essay, “AmericanDiginity on the Fourth of July” in The New Yorker led me to search, read and post Frederick Dogulass’ speech in its entirety. One Hundred Sixty-Five Years after Douglass gave his speech Raoul Peck made the documentary I Am Not Your Negro based on James Baldwin’s unfinished work. Unfinished is an understatement.

Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens:

He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling hasContinue reading “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass-A speech given at Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852”

TRUMP the CATALYST for LITERARY RESISTANCE

The catalyst for breathefreepress.org. was Trump’s election to the presidency of the United States considered at the most powerful office in the world. A revelation with a “sudden” biblical force saved my personal ecosystem from collapse. A rebel since my teen years I hold two concepts “dear:” freedom and equality.

I grew up in the aftermath of World War II with the ideals of the US founding documents.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [hu]man[s] are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.Continue reading “TRUMP the CATALYST for LITERARY RESISTANCE”

Classification is not confirmation

Petrie dishes of capitalist experimentation . . .

It was an odd dream although I was not naked what I wore was neither me nor appropriate to the situation.

(will I be ready if and when recognition comes)
I walk into a meeting of high-powered people

(socially awkward outsider)

All the attention is on me when the representative “I” goes into this fabulously impressive articulate cultural analysis. Of course, I cannot remember when I wake except for something about our minds as Petri dishes for some social, political, corporate experimental bacteria. I write the one phase I can eek out on an orange post-it: Classification is not confirmation.

It took what forty-fifty years for the fringe to come to complete and total power? This brings me to Timothy Snyder’s resistance pamphlet, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. History repeats itself, but in the end, every dictator lives on life-support. The French Revolution—The Russian Revolution and our American revolution have proven the people bend until they break. In this instance, I hope history repeats itself while the imperiled Earth remains habitable.Continue reading “Classification is not confirmation”

THOUGHTS ON THE BUDDING DICTATOR

I forget to write and barely read the New York Times since becoming distracted by Trumpmania. I watch what appears to be history rolling in from a black horizon. My eyes glued to CNN and MSNBC as to a telescope turning my focus toward Fox News to avoid the shoals. The puddle of time since Drumpf became president is like crossing the Pacific Ocean through a confluence of three massive storms colliding.

Who is deceiving whom? Is the media running out the story for ratings? Is Donald Drumpf as ignorant and off the wall as he appears? Are his tweets media candy or a distraction from his devious attempts at authoritarian rule? He and the Republican Congress are working in the cloak of chaos to dismantle personal liberty, reverse advances in human and environmental reform. America was greater under a cloud of pollution and contaminated waterways. No? NO!

And where are the patriotic Republicans who have historically voted their conscience to impeach and impede Democratic presidents?Continue reading “THOUGHTS ON THE BUDDING DICTATOR”