Rebuilding the power of the people: A call for revolution

This is the second piece I will be featuring by Tyler Norman. His message is moving. Pass it on.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rebuilding New Orleans is another step on our long, arduous, but ever-more fruitful and ever-less lonely path toward a new world...

A world in which peace and justice beat in every heart and love and hope shine on every face.

A world in which environmental and human degradation and oppression exist only in history books.

A world in which violence, greed, hatred, and the capitalism and consumerism which breed them are relegated to their proper place as mortal sins.

A world in which the impending social, political, spiritual, and moral revolution has swept through the human race like a wildfire wind and delivered us to a higher, more enlightened state of being and growing together.

Rebuilding New Orleans is not merely about gutting flooded houses or distributing canned goods and water. Rebuilding New Orleans is not only about attracting tourism or putting pressure on FEMA. Rebuilding New Orleans is not about maintaining the status quo.

People need houses, jobs, and food and water, yes - they also need dignity, self-determination, and compassion. Rebuilding New Orleans is about a complete overhaul of our racist, classist, sexist, morally decrepit society and all of the depression and decay it perpetuates - and we're gonna get it right this time.

And we're gonna make ripples, that turn into waves, that turn into storm surges of power, in the hands of the people, washing away ill-established institutions of the violent, greedy, hateful, self-centered and anti-democratic ruling class.

Yes, you heard me: we're gonna get it right this time.

The people of New Orleans and those that support them are heart-sick and dead-tired of giving in...

Sick and tired of watching their menfolk randomly rounded up like stray dogs, their youth leeched away by concrete and steel.

Sick and tired of watching their womenfolk sacrifice all for their families, to be thanked only by objectification, insult, and abuse.

Sick and tired of watching their children sell their souls to drug-and blood-soaked pop culture.

Sick and tired of watching, and waiting, and ultimately giving in.

Rebuilding New Orleans is about so much more than relief and restoration. It's about re-establishing our rights. It's about re-discovering our history. It's about re-imagining our future. It's about revolutionizing our people, here and now, around this avoidable and utterly inexcusable tragedy.

Hurricane Katrina whisked away the curtain of encouraged ignorance hiding deliberate and calculated injustices in this city. And they are not unique to this city. No... environmental and human degradation and oppression exist worldwide, and it is high time that we all join the ranks of those standing and shouting against them!

But, we must have long vision. The romantic image of the revolutionary as fiery poet dying young at the hands of the enemy is a treacherously false one, a spectacular Trojan Horse bearing the soldiers of the consumerist machine who so eagerly recuperate our outcries for their profit, soldiers who have already co-opted the life-affirming messages of Che Guevara, Malcolm X, and so many others, to be repackaged and sold back to us cleansed of all historical and cultural meaning.

The true revolutionary is one who keeps her ear to the ground, learns from her people, leads by example, and inspires by invoking the power we wield in our unity. The true revolutionary beckons us all to follow her to the social, political, spiritual, and moral high ground, that common ground which no tides of ignorance and deceit can overtop.

The true revolutionary must have long vision. She does not fight only for herself, she does not struggle only for her people. She fights and she struggles for her children and the children of her people, the next generation and all who will follow, because she knows that in spite of all seemingly insurmountable injustices, to live and to share life is an unfathomable blessing, one which must never be forsaken. She knows that though she may bear witness to seemingly endless grief and pain, in time we will overcome!

We in this country must mentor, fight and struggle for our children, and the children of our people, making the most of our step along the path by encouraging and educating the next generation to make theirs a great leap. We must fight and struggle alongside the youth of New Orleans, who are the brightest, dearest treasure we have, and not allow them to be snatched away from us by the willfully neglectful and insidiously deceptive ruling class, who seek to inject the fatal virus of self-loathing and self-destruction in these children, as they have all who have come before them. We must fight and struggle hand in hand with the next generation of New Orleans to ensure that they learn all of the mistakes and successes of past generations, to ensure that they have confidence in themselves and in their communities, to ensure that they have the ability and the will to harness the power we wield in our unity.

We must motivate and assist in improving upon basic reading, writing, and mathematics skills, to revitalize the innate joy for learning and critical analysis, and to foster the development of social skills, civic responsibility, and community leadership potential.

We must educate. Rudimentary logical skills such as literacy and mathematics are gateways to higher learning, as well as vitally important tools for navigating today's complex and often highly oppressive world, and mastery of these skills builds confidence and self-respect. Instinctive curiosity and desire to understand one's experiences often must be rekindled in children whose school and community experiences have been so frustrating that they have lost the will to educate and challenge themselves and their peers. Students who know that the lessons they learn have real-world applicability, and can dramatically enhance their ability to control, organize, and improve their lives and their environments, are eager to learn and prepare themselves for those challenges. We need to inspire.

We must recognize the need to be flexible. Children learn by many different methods, and many have been parented and schooled in ways which have been somewhat destructive to their development. Depending on the needs and abilities of the children, we must employ group discussion-based learning, one-on-one adult mentorship, peer-to-peer tutoring and skill sharing, or free play and exploration, always trying to adapt quickly and positively to the changing dynamics.

Above all, we need to encourage and empower our children to pursue a path of self-improvement for the good of all.

We must begin radicalizing and revolutionizing our children, arming them with the weapons of knowledge to challenge those that try to isolate them and push them down, as they have isolated and pushed down their parents and ancestors. We must arm them with the weapons of knowledge to cry "Enough!" and take their world back into their own hands, to be reshaped for the benefit of their communities and reinvigorated with the enthusiastic and life-affirming vitality of self-empowered youth.

We must fight for our children, so that they may see a brighter day, so that they may continue fighting for their children, so that they may make the next crucial step along that most divine path that is seeking our new world.

Rebuilding New Orleans is not about anything as simple as rebuilding houses and businesses and public services. It is about rebuilding the power of the people. It is about rebuilding our common ground and our common love and hope. It is about rebuilding our world more beautiful than it has ever been, for our children and all who come after.

And yes, we're definitely gonna get it right this time.

And we can do it, undoubtedly, if we come together to unify our struggles and share our resources, if we come together to merge our diverse wisdoms. If we can recognize the innate, divine oneness between ourselves and our seemingly disparate worlds, if we can recognize the great value of solidarity, we can overcome the parasitic ruling class.

But we must have long vision. It will take generations to spread the good word of peace and justice. But many generations precede us. We have inherited a great lineage of revolutionaries and visionaries, and through them, we know we cannot ever give up the fight. Through them, we see the ever-greater value of the ongoing struggle, we see the trajectory of our inherited long vision. We see that our lives bridge one crucial step on a long, arduous path that is steadily bringing our people to a new world. We see that our mission, our goals, our most basic philosophy must ensure that our step is not the last and not the longest, that our step is momentum for our children's great leap. We see ourselves, and our children, as learners and teachers and builders and seekers. We see ourselves, and our children, as true revolutionaries.

For our ancestors, for ourselves, for our children and all who come after -

Peace and Justice -

Love and Hope -

Tyler Norman..

http://www.commongroundrelief.org/

Thank You.