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A few words: from The Portland Alliance!


 

A Few Words

Northwest Alliance News
and The Portland Alliance Newspaper
Editorials, Commentary ~:~ Thinking Globally, Acting Locally

http://www.ThePortlandAlliance.org/afewwords  


This is our 4th online issue of the Alliance for 2019. These are hard times and telling hard truths is even more important today.
Thanks for all of the journalists, writers, artists, musicians, commentators and columnists who contribute their efforts to this Newspaper.  We have updated, created and/or modified hundreds of pages in the Alliance since the Summer 2019 issue, and will continue with our efforts. January 2020 will include updates in Poetry, Fiction, Writing and the Creative Arts.

We can become the peace we seek. There are more of us.  


 Truth is absolute, truth is supreme, truth is never disposable in national political life  ~John Howard 

 


I have had more than enough of the war parties... The "thrill" of spending trillions killing millions for billionaires is long gone.

https://youtu.be/HzTlB-TjAzM?list=RDk_IM9zUadqw


I am Union and have always been. As an editor, writer and journalist, I must be objective, but unions are how people organize to have a seat at the table. Unions were the force behind organizing a March for Freedom. Martin was standing with unions the day he was cut down by the federal government.

But here in Portland, we have a problem with the PDX police bureau union. The officers in this union need to understand that unions do not and cannot protect bad cops.

We need to tear the fascists down.

https://youtu.be/jKVnur5DkdI?list=RDjKVnur5DkdI

What the city of Portland needs is leadership. Our dangerous mayor,Ted Wheeler, is ostensibly the police commissioner. If the mayor were doing his job, he would fire officers who tell other officers to shoot black people. Those officers are breaking the law and should be fired and prosecuted for the crimes they commit. And unions have nothing to do with it.

The fools and tools on the police force who advocate racism, profiling, beatings and attacks and murders of citizens are breaking the law. They should be fired.And their union can have nothing to say about it. This is a matter of law.

We are fortunate that Chief Outlaw is leaving. Firing squads in homeless shelters are a bad idea. If she thinks "kicking butt" on nonviolent demonstrators exercising their civil rights is OK, she has another think coming. And if she feels entitled to beat and harass some of the most vulnerable among us, the homeless, regardless of what the mayor, police commissioner, city council and everyday people think or say... she should have been fired already. 

Everything must change!

https://youtu.be/vgX2EAdvFyw?list=RDvgX2EAdvFyw

These are not union issues. These are issues of PDX Police Bureau dysfunction and corruption. Those who commit these crimes should be prosecuted, not coddled. The mayor should be recalled. And any on the council who condone profiling, brutality, beatings and murder committed by police officers should be recalled, removed and/or replaced.

Assembling a firing squad in a homeless shelter and gunning down a husband and father with mental issues who poses no real threat... is murder, pure and simple. The officers who perpetrated this crime are still on the force.

Gunning down a kid crouched in hiding by shooting him in the forehead and twice in the chest is not protecting and serving. This is murder. We need to get these criminals off the street.

And unions have nothing to do with it.


in Solidarity, Tim Flanagan, associate editor  

Post Script: Revolution is the cure...

https://youtu.be/2jTdmLt-eBE?list=RD2jTdmLt-eBE

"And now we got a revolution

Cause I see the face of things to come

Yeah, your Constitution

Well, my friend, its gonna have to bend

I'm here to tell you about destruction

Of all the evil that will have to end.

Some folks are gonna get the notion

I know they'll say I'm preachin' hate

But if I have to swim the ocean

Well I would just to communicate

Its not as simple as talkin' jive

The daily struggle just to stay alive

Singin' about a revolution
Because we’re talkin’ about a change
It’s more than just evolution
Well you know you got to clean your brain
The only way we can stand, in fact
is when you get your foot off our back”


Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and activist in the civil rights movement. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.   https://thepeaceresource.com/2018/01/18/nina-simone/



A Few Words from Dave Mazza 

"During steroid-induced insomnia last night, I started thinking about how for many of us, cancer is now treated as a chronic illness. It will be ten years in December that I was diagnosed and treated for advanced prostate cancer. Over the course of those years, my treatment included surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, and now chemotherapy.

After surgery and radiation failed to catch all the errant cancer cells, "cure" was taken off the table and replaced with "management" of a
 chronic condition. From a physical standpoint, this has worked well. I have enjoyed relatively good quality of life and even with the chemo continue to do so. My cancer has been kept low enough that I have thus far evaded the severe bone pain that can come with metastasized prostate cancer.

Emotionally, making the acute to chronic shift in perspective has been more difficult.  As a society, we are drawn to cures - resolutions to health problems that expunge those problem.
The idea that there are health problems like cancer - so long considered a death sentence - can remain inside of us and be managed for long periods of time in ways that sustain a good quality of life doesn't come easily. And while our culture is beginning to change around this, much of the support of cancer patients is till centered on being a warrior who will defeat whatever cancer has taken up residence in your body.

These expressions of support are important to many of us, even if they don't reflect the reality of our own cancer experience. I don't have a clear grasp of what that reality is, but I do know that it doesn't serve me well when I focus too much on one piece of it - like a bad PSA reading - and fail to pull back and look at the bigger landscape (my doctor at this point would remind me a "single data point does not a trend make.")

The trail is full of curves and limited views of what lays ahead. Those places where the trail is washed out or less steep than anticipated are single data points that may call for attention and may or may not signify serious change. They do not define the condition of the entire trail or the quality of the entire journey. The chronic cancer experience requires living with too much of our map taken up with terra incognito and few well marked trails.

I deeply appreciate all the support I've received from my friends. And I appreciate those who have used the warrior/cure language. Sometimes a warrior is needed in this crazy fight. It helps fill in those empty spaces on the map. But I'm trying to remember that I still win if I lead a good life regardless if I have cancer going along for the ride
."

Dave Mazza, former editor of the Alliance 

 

David A. Mazza

1952 - 2018   David Mazza

Speaking Truth to Power Since 1981! Support
Alternative Media!


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Indigenous Wisdom


chief-seattle
“This we know. The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. All things are connected, like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the children of the Earth. We do not weave the web of life; we are only a strand of it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves”

. —Chief Seattle


Like the most of you, I was raised among people who knew – who were certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts…

 

ingersoll2

…We can be as honest as we are ignorant. If we are, when asked what is beyond the horizon of the known, we must say that we do not know. We can tell the truth, and we can enjoy the blessed freedom that the brave have won. We can destroy the monsters of superstition, the hissing snakes of ignorance and fear. We can drive from our minds the frightful things that tear and wound with beak and fang. We can civilize our fellow-men. We can fill our lives with generous deeds, with loving words, with art and song, and all the ecstasies of love. We can flood our years with sunshine — with the divine climate of kindness, and we can drain to the last drop the golden cup of joy.”

― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol 1: Lectures

 tecumseh1

“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.”

—Chief Tecumseh


 


black elk


Black Elk (1863-1950) or Hehaka Sapa

Oglala Lakota Sioux South Dakota, USA

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers; and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells Wakan-Taka (the Great Spirit); and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us. This is the real peace, and the others are but reflections of this. The second peace is that which is made between two individuals; and the third is that which is made between two nations. But above all, you should understand that there can never be peace between nations until there is known that true peace, which, as I have often said, is within the souls of men.”

—Black Elk

barcott-190 nyt
Louise Erdrich by Persia Erdrich


“You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP

henri-frederic-amiel
“Life is short and we have never

too much time for gladdening the

hearts of those who are traveling

the dark journey with us.

Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”

― Henri-Frédéric Amiel


 federico_garcia_lorca_joven_2


“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

―Oscar Wilde


guardianhendrix
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens”

― Jimi Hendrix


“When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;

indexWhen doubt no longer exists for you then go forward with courage.So long as mists envelop you, be still;  Be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists-As it surely will. Then act with courage.”

— Ponca Chief White Eagle, Go Forward With Courage

ttd
“Treat the Earth well.

It was not given to you by your parents,

It was loaned to you by your children.

We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors,

we borrow it from our children.”

— Sometimes attributed to Tasunke Witko



“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

– Chief Seattle

2a78d9cb1fd0e7fef90380822e3131ce--chief-dan-george-american-indians

“May the stars carry your sadness away,

May the flowers fill your heart with beauty,

May hope forever wipe away your tears.

And above all, may silence make you strong.”

— Chief Dan George



“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no 3311696_1431917764delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore, among us there were no thieves.

When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent, or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to civilized property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth.

We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”

– John (Fire) Lame Deer, Sioux Lakota