The Direction of Intention

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Rualdo was born in Guatemala and as a young man had to flee his country for giving voice to his political ideas. He would have disappeared like so many of his friends and colleagues had he stayed.

Recently, Rualdo and I were taking a walk and he asked me why Americans were so silent. From his point of view, when the governor of a state (Michigan) attempts to suspend the collective bargaining rights of the people, it is a dangerous precedent and all of the people of the United States need to stand up and support the working people of Michigan. He is troubled by the national haranguing teachers are subject to when there is no political will to actually address the system. His list of examples of complacency in the face of corruption and abuse was long and disheartening.

“Why don’t Americans stand up for themselves?” he asked. “Why are you so silent?”

I had two responses. I told Rualdo what my dear friend Roger once said: Americans will be complacent as long as our televisions and dvd players worked. We will defend to the death our right for distraction. And second, we are too busy fighting amongst ourselves to fight for ourselves. The Giddy Masses is woven into the national fabric.

More importantly, Rualdo’s question brought me to consider something that has a deeper resonance for me: resistance to “what is” is not very useful unless it opens your eyes to what you want to create; creation is movement toward something, resistance is movement away from something. I told Rualdo that I believe we are silent because we don’t know what we want to create. We are inert because we don’t have the experience of “we.” A common narrative binds communities and our narrative is one of division.

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