Music in the Heart

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among the people, to make music in the heart.
                                                                      ― Howard Thurman

 

 

Chris Hedges spoke some days ago at the Boston Community Church.  Some 60 mostly old timers tuned in to listen. I could see their images plainly on the zoom composite. One woman knitted throughout the one hour Hedges held forth. He read from a prepared text, elaborated in his own mind, without thought as to who his listeners might be and as I listened to his litany of  criminal acts perpetuated by this government, which he read without expression, without inflection, I came to feel as though as Americans we live and die, enslaved to a crime boss, our every moment, our every breath until all hope is crushed and day falls to eternal night.

 

 The Grinch That Stole Christmas

I recognize the voice of a prophet but I think he gives us nothing of the joy that makes change possible. Had he imagined the winter in our hearts, what would be different? How could he have spoken otherwise? Would he have wept disconsolately to bring us such news? Would the despair of his message have throttled the words in his throat? What course of action might he have suggested? How might he have redeemed what was such a self-indulgent performance? And I thought  how when George Carlin shared the same doomed message it brought laughter to our hearts, because without laughter, struggle is impossible, because struggle must never die. That is what counts. Never forget it.

 

Below are two examples of good alternatives:

 

https://went2thebridge.blogspot.com/2020/12/insatiable-greed-and-600-slap-in-face.html

 

Lisa Savage, the author, is a colleague who ran on the Green  ticket for Senate in Maine, the state that keeps regurgitating Susan Collins.

 

and

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSemNBT_s4k

 

In childhood, George Carlin was a schoolmate, and lived in the same apartment house. He understood generosity. Shortly before we lost our national jester, we reconnected. He remembered me perfectly—probably because Gorilla was his pet name for me. Painstakingly timed, his words in performance made his listeners’ hearts leap with that kind of full bodied laughter that brings deep breath and music to the heart.  

 

 

Insist on $2000 checks now.

 

Demand an immediate global ban on gain-of-function biomedical and biodefense (bio-warfare) research.

 

Urge interim AG Rosen to rescind #45 death warrants.

 

Biden: end sanctions on Iran.

 

Force vote on Medicare for All.

 

 

Latin American academics endorse boycott of complicit Israeli academic institutions.

 

Mexico to increase minimum wage by 15% starting January, brining it up to $7 a day.

 

Iraq insists on Blackwater case transfer to international courts.

 

EU ramps up fight against pollution with ban on plastic waste exports to poorer countries.

 

Swedish Appeals Court upholds 5 G ban.

 

French energy unions strike in defense of public energy.

 

Group of German lawmakers speaks out against Assange’s extradition to US>

 

Activists and parliamentarians join together to prevent armed drones in Germany.

 

UN human rights expert Nils Melzer urges #45 to pardon Assange.

 

International groups launch probes on human rights violations in Philippines

 

At least one apartheid state, Israel, may be reaching breaking point.

 

Netanyahoo charged with fraud, breach of trust, and accepting bribes , offering favors to media figures in exchange for positive news coverage about him and his family.

 

D.C. with tis heavy B lack population, on track to become 51^st state,

 

Progressive caucus  calls for direct payments of at least $2,000 for working families.

 

Progressive caucus and Poor People’s campaign team up to chart a course for future.

 

Progressives take aim at GOP Senate greed in crucial GA runoffs.

 

Stimulus” face-slaps evicted, jobless and hungry, but excludes  corporate immunity from package.

 

House Dems announce effort to pass $2000 payments.

 

Women’s climate justice group joins lawsuit targeting #45 administration’s elimination of Tongass National Forest protections.

 

Biden to review US nuclear-weapons programs with eye toward cuts.

 

Enviro groups provide Biden with draft climate emergency order to put out fire fanned by #45.

 

Climate groups call on Biden to build back fossil free.

 

Climate groups call on Biden to nominate Andy Levin as Labor Secy.

 

Trans Mountain Pipeline protester create treetop camp.

 

Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement applaud latest Biden economic council picks.

 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission drops plan to deregulate rad-waste disposal barring waste from going into regular landfills.

 

US Fish and Wildlife Service determines that monarch s warrant protection under Endangered Species Act.

 

Pressure works: Civil rights groups urge Biden to nominate AG dedicated to bedrock principles of equal justice.

 

Sometimes: Months after AOC demand and federal suit, USPS release almost entirely reacted DeJoy calendar.

 

Warren introduces bill to ban lawmakers like Perdue and Loeffler of GA from trading stock.

 

ACLU announces major win in Minneapolis to reinvest almost $8 million from the Minneapolis Police Department into alternative non-policing services.

 

Black Alliance for Peace calls for people-centered human rights.

 

Legislation blocking ICE from New York courthouses signed into law.

 

Center for Constitutional Rights sues ICE and DHS for information on terror tactics used in arrests.

 

Class-action sit sought by women over disturbing pattern of inhumane medical abuse of CE detainees including forced hysterectomies.

 

Massive boycott needed: Election  watchdog to sue Facebook’s Zuckerberg for using dark money to fund massive fraud.

 

NAACP sues #45 over alleged disenfranchisement of Black voters.

 

New York approves automatic voter registration.

 

#45 loses Wisconsin Supreme Court case.

 

Fox-up New airs point-by-point fact check of election fraud claims during  3 of network’s most pro-#45 shows.

 

Pushback works: As #45 continues killing spree, Pressley leads call for Biden to immediately abolish death penalty.

 

UC Irvine and California state prison system reach deal to create first University of California bachelor’s degree program behind bars.

 

Demonstrators besiege California prison headquarters as well as in Hawaii as well as in Hawaii demanding humanitarian release of prisoners in COVID infested prisons.

 

Fate Winslow, sentence to prison for life for selling $20 worth of pot released after serving 12 years.

 

Imprisoned nearly 40 years, Michigan man freed after witness recants story.

 

Barrier to Mumia’s appeal dismissed as case can now move forward.

 

Unions call for LA County shutdown in January.

 

In rare reversal, N.Y. Times publishes a call for Biden administration to raise minimum wage.

 

Fast food workers win COVID protections in West Durham, N.C.

 

NYC to prohibit major fast food employers from firing workers without just cause.

 

Fight for the Future announces pushing Zoom to provide end-to-end encryption to all users