Think…Sacrifice…Resistance…Fighting Terrorism

Think…Sacrifice…Resistance…Fighting Terrorism

“Think” by the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin from The Blues Brothers encapsulates what we must do as we move forward toward in an attempt to recapture the ideals of a nation. Symbols, ideals, and the founders say this nation was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the idea that we citizens and inhabitants of America, are created equal under the aegis of moral imagination. We can honor John McCain’s sacrifice as a hero in war even if his subsequent ignominy as a Senator sticks in the craw. Though he voted against repealing health care he supported tax cuts for the corporate state. 

Will natural goodness triumph over the corporatization and commodification of virtue? Or will we welcome the tired, the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free? The next election will serve as one more referendum on the hospitality our ancestors received, the ones who came here by necessity or from desire to live a better life. But there’s hope: though Colin Kaepernick, a UNR Alum and former 49er, “took a knee and was blackballed,”he  has been nominated a spokesman for NIKE. Move over Michael Jordan.

In current and recent history, sports and music have provided heroic examples of resistance by the poorest and most repressed race, whose heroes have sacrificed financial well-being for a greater cause. See Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith: “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.”

Lest we forget, long before most white and black immigrants arrived, the Native Americans had been  fighting the white supremacists from Washington who would curtail freedom and steal land for private profit at Standing Rock.

Fighting Terrorism Since 1492