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I woke this morning to the news of James Forman’s death. He was one of those
heroes of my youth, one of the leaders of the March on Washington in 1963 and
the Freedom Summer of 1964 and the Freedom Rides and the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee. Forman composed the Black Manifesto in 1969, demanding
[still long over-due and unpaid] reparations for slavery. He endured beatings
and jail and ridicule, and kept on going.

On Democracy Now this morning, Bob
Moses and John
Lewis, two still-living heroes of that time, two colleagues of Forman, spoke
about him. John Lewis is now a Congressman,
and always a leader. Bob Moses, from a far less prominent position, does no
less good work heading up the Algebra
Project, demanding and providing the educational tools that young black
men an dwomen need to succeed.

Cornel West’s eloquent essay on hope makes a fitting meditation for this day
of loss and remembering. Here’s one paragraph from Prisoners
of Hope.

"This hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism adopts the role of the
spectator who surveys the evidence in order to infer that things are going to
get better. Yet we know that the evidence does not look good. The dominant tendencies
of our day are unregulated global capitalism, racial balkanization, social breakdown,
and individual depression. Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively
struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth
inequality, group xenophobia, and personal despair. Only a new wave of vision,
courage, and hope can keep us sane-and preserve the decency and dignity requisite
to revitalize our organizational energy for the work to be done. To live is
to wrestle with despair yet never to allow despair to have the last word."

Grim political day, with House and Senate confirming Bush’s "victory,"
and the Judiciary Committee beginning the Gonzales hearings. At least one senator,
California’s Senator Barbara Boxer, stood up this year to join Rep. John Conyers
and 30 other representatives in opposing
the election charade. Because one Senator joined the House members, both
Senate and House were forced to discuss and to vote on whether to declare Bush
president. The saga
of miscounted votes, lost votes, computer tampering, voters refused the right
to vote joins the shameful history of Florida in 2000.

In the Judiciary Committee, Senators Hatch, Specter and Leahy followed the
elaborate rules of Senatorial courtesy in applauding one another’s long and
distinguished service and agreeing to call the nominee "Judge" Gonzales,
since he served as a judge in Texas. The full
transcript of the first day’s hearings repeats his Horatio Alger success
story and his assertion that, "This administration does not engage in torture
and will not condone torture," and his pledge that, as Attorney General,
he would respect the Geneva Conventions that he last year deemed "quaint"
and "obsolete." But he also said that "I think the decision not
to apply Geneva in our conflict with Al Qaeda was absolutely the right decision,"
and that, hypothetically of course, the President has the legal right to ignore
any Congressional ban on torture.

The Star Tribune got it right:
Alberto Gonzales has blood on his hands. Reports of prison torture continue
to come in, and not just of long-past occurences but of a
continuing nightmare with no end in sight.

Molly Ivins,
as always, sums it up well:

"Just to show you that such forms of accountability as are left in our
slightly tattered system of checks and balances are worth keeping, the upcoming
hearing on Al Gonzales for attorney general has already borne fruit. Voila!
The Justice Department has come out with a new memo on torture saying it is
not necessarily limited to "excruciating and agonizing pain." Say,
what a triumph for human rights.

"Further, the memo says, "Torture is abhorrent to both American law
and values, and to international norms." So there. In other words, we have
repealed the infamous Gonzales memo, just in time for his hearing.

"Now, I’m not going to conclude that Fascism Is Upon Us just because we
have an administration that not only can’t find the Constitution but apparently
doesn’t know there is one. Too early in the year for that. Long way to go. Got
to save your indignation. But it is unpleasantly reminiscent of Watergate, isn’t
it? That’s what we’re looking at here, folks — not just constitutional deafness,
but moral turp as well. All we need is one bag job and an alert night security
man. "

"My greatest political asset, which professional politicians fear,
is my mouth, out of which come all kinds of things one shouldn’t always
discuss for reasons of political expediency."

Shirley Chisholm made her own way, remaining, as her book title proudly
asserts, "unbought and unbossed" throughout her political
life. The first black woman elected to Congress (1968), she was a founding
member of the Black Congressional Caucus and also ran for president
in 1972, a symbolic move that she hoped would pave the way for "a
black, a woman or a Jew" to be taken seriously as future presidential
candidates. During 14 years in Congress, she opposed the Vietnam War,
supported the War on Poverty and remained an activist and a fighter
against racism and sexism.

Some Shirley Chisholm quotes:

"When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom profit that
loses."

"The United States was said not to be ready to elect a Catholic
to the Presidency when Al Smith ran in the 1920’s. But Smith’s nomination
may have helped pave the way for the successful campaign John F. Kennedy
waged in 1960. Who can tell? What I hope most is that now there will
be others who will feel themselves as capable of running for high political
office as any wealthy, good-looking white male."

"In the end antiblack, antifemale, and all forms of discrimination
are equivalent to the same thing – antihumanism."

"Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time… its idea
of meeting a problem is to hold hearings or, in extreme cases, to appoint
a commission"

Have a new year
because
180,000 people in Aceh, Indonesia, India, Thailand will not have
a new year
because
uncounted Iraqi children starved to death in the old year of liberation and
will never see
a new year
because
more than a thousand U.S. soldiers died in the desert without
a new year,
because eleven-year-old Karly Johana Suárez Torres was accidentally shot
to death by Colombian soldiers and Guatemalan union leader Julio Rolando Raquec
was assassinated on purpose and nameless, numberless Haitian prisoners were
killed by rioting guards, all in December, all of whom will never see
a new year.

Because you can,
have a new year.

Have the new year they cannot —
seize this year, bite it, chew it, swallow it, make it part of you
grab onto this new year and ride it, cowgirl,
squeeze this new year with both hands and mold it into something for yourself,
something steel as girders of a new building,
something fiery as molten sun at end of ocean day,
something soft as cat fur and with claws to climb
out of the depth of despair.
Have this new year.