Musings

I haven't spent much time looking at the Conventions.  One of the better quotes I've heard recently was that of a friend who remarked, "It's tough to decide which convention I like less."

As I've indicated, I'm voting for Rocky and Luis of the Justice Party.  Blue has presented the Green ticket which also looks attractive and Cornet has raised the party which carries Cindy Sheehan as vp.  I am sure the SPUSA will be on the ballot in a number of places.  I will be voting for all state and local Demos in the Gem State, This part of Idaho is heavily LDS and traditionally Democratic -- so the voting breakdown around here will be interesting.

I haven't heard many affirmative reasons to vote for Barack Obama.  Mostly, it's the fear of Republicans which are depicted as Attilas.  Of course the Republicans paint the Demos as Gargantuan Government types.  Objectively, each party seems to me to be closer to each other than the south and north rims of the Grand Canyon -- though with not much of a divide in between.

I've never been one to let conventional political differences divide individual friendships. (Racist perspectives are, for me of course, divisive.)  I know plenty of good people who plan to support Obama for various reasons.  But I do find it strange and sad to see some Left organizations in this country, small as they are, desperately back Obama whose record is, to couch it in kindly terms, shabby on many fronts, including that of Labor.  I am less surprised at the pro-Obama liberals, many of whom see Obama, erroneously in my opinion, as an Intellectual Presence.

The role of Left groups should be to blaze New Trail: develop justice visions, and send them out to the Four Directions.  A few still do that in this country -- SPUSA is notable -- but others are mired like logs in the Democratic river bottoms. 

Occasionally, I have mentioned a Swiss-born cousin of my Mother's [my cousin, too, though long before my time], Chris Hoffman, sometimes dubbed the "Millionaire Socialist of Kansas."  He's the guy who dropped dead of a heart attack while addressing an IWW rally in Kansas City.  Set a pretty good example.  A brief bio:  http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/220294

He was on the same basic trail as my Swiss-born great grandfather, Michael Senn, who got to Kansas Territory [which then included part of what's now eastern Colorado] even sooner than Cousin Chris' family,  Michael Senn was an Abolitionist, Union soldier, founded the Knights of Labor in Kansas, was a leader of the Kansas Populist party, supported the cause of the Indian people, guided the U.S. Senate investigating committee to the site of the Sand Creek Massacre of peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos, and was essentially a Socialist in the latter part of his life.  I never knew him since he died a decade before my hatch -- but he was, along with John Gray [the fighting Mohawk fur hunter], a significant influence in our family.  He never made much money -- unlike the other side of Mother's family whose landholdings in Dakota Territory could have used Shane.

I like trail blazers.

Hunter [Hunter Bear]

HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See Outlaw Trail: The Native as Organizer:
http://hunterbear.org/outlaw_trail1.htm
[Included in Visions & Voices: Native American Activism [2009]
(Much expanded with new material in 2012.)

And see the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded and with more photos in June, 2012.)
 
For the new, just out (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63. (This page expanded 9/12):  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm

Witch Hunt: SCEF, FBI stuff, etc (with links):
http://www.hunterbear.org/witch_hunt_continuesthe_southern.htm