Teach Your Children Well

You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by.
And so become yourself, because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well, their father’s hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams, the one they picked, the one you’ll know by.
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.

~~~ “Teach Your Children”  (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – 1970 – (listen)

[Update: 11/10/11 – Looks like I called this one. David Crosby and Graham Nash performed “Teach Your Children” in Liberty Plaza on Nov. 8 – watch their interview and performance on Democracy Now! – end update]

Hey there kids –

I don’t now if you’re aware of it – or what your thoughts may be about it – but for a crusty old demoralized lefty like your D who bemoans the lack of an effective political movement and street protest tactics, the Occupy Wall Street Movement is the only game in town and a litmus test for getting off your ass and into the streets. Read Chris Hedges’ essay about why that is the case:   “The Best Among Us”.

So, as the Occupy Wall Street Movement began, I spent this last week on a Southern road trip, in search of inspiration, courage, soul, and integrity – Selma, New Orleans, and Memphis (respectively, in photos below).

I am thinking of writing a post about my experience titled “Southern Culture on the skids tour”  or some-such – and heading up to NYC tomorrow to check out the Occupy Wall Street show.

Along my way south, I was stopped by Tennessee State police – a really blatant abuse of authority that they made no effort to hide. I mean come on, since when does a [pretextual] routine traffic stop begin with, and then focus intensely and exclusively on a set of questions about where the driver is going, what he plans to do there, and where his travel plans are going next?

When I dodged his questions about my travel plans and asked why he stopped me, he went back and repeated the travel questions, saying he would tell me why he pulled me over after I responded. So I told him where I was headed – he then proceeded to lie right to my face by claiming I had repeatedly been driving erratically over the white line (the stop occurred at 8:15 am during a heavy fog alert, so I was being extremely cautious in driving way under the speed limit, especially after being followed for 15 miles). In hindsight, due to my prior Homeland Security issues with photography, I’m fairly certain that I am on some kind of watch list and was profiled (perhaps by new license plate scan technology) – I did see Homeland Security marked vehicles on I-81 shortly before I was stopped.

I’ve read that Homeland Security designates heightened states of domestic surveillance due to special events (e.g. watch this deeply disturbing PBS documentary about the FBI domestic infiltration and persecution involved in the Minneapolis Republican National Convention “Better This World“. Also, I’ve written about Pittsburgh G 20 Summit, declared a “National Special Security Event”.

So, given the potential threat to the political powers that be in the event that this movement took off, I imagine that there is some kind of national state of emergency “Amber Alert” issued to the National Surveillance State bureaucracy.

I hope the Occupy movement is the beginning of the end of the World as we know it.

And I apologize in advance for the lazy substitution of visuals for analyticals  (but I bet no one knows who that placard in the foreground memorializes in front of the BB King place – hint, hit this link: http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=139

Much Love, D

Selma, Alabama - scene of "Bloody Sunday"

street music, New Orleans

Memphis, Tenn. - can you read that memorial placard?