(3 comments) SHARE        Friday, January 27, 2017
Machiavelli Nailed It! The 16th Century writer Niccolo Machiavelli can shed light on the actions of the newest president, especially Chapter 19, entitled, "That One Should Avoid Being Despised And Hated."

SHARE        Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Love and Power: Standing for Cultural Democracy U.S. Department of Arts and Culture Chief Policy Wonk Arlene Goldbard's remarks at the CULTURE/SHIFT 2016 plenary launching "Standing for Cultural Democracy: The USDAC's Policy and Action Platform."

(22 comments) SHARE        Sunday, July 31, 2016
Are You Adding to The Empathy Deficit? Whatever else is going on, voting for Hillary is a simple act of empathy for those who would bear the brunt of a Trump regime. Just do it. How you feel about it is your problem.

SHARE        Saturday, July 9, 2016
Serve and Protect Who? A Thought Experiment Those who've benefited from this system at the expense of Black people and others targeted by the police have a simple choice right now. Separate yourself from white supremacy word and deed. Or wait and see how well it protects you when the violence festering at every level of American society--from street-level policing to Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric--explodes.

SHARE        Thursday, June 23, 2016
#WeveSeenThisBefore Donald Trump didn't invent the vicious racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny, and triumphalist worship of white supremacy that his statements have unleashed. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, "In a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible." Trump is guilty, and should be made accountable for, his spewings and their impact. And we are responsible to ensure that is done.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, June 16, 2016
Scapegoats Coming Home to Roost In the aftermath of Orlando, it's clearer than ever: Singling out one facet of identity to blame for whatever the scapegoater detests is always vicious, untrue, and damaging.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, May 23, 2016
The Game of Ones "The Game of Ones." The Guggenheim's is just one example. Exalting individuals at the expense of communities, neglecting the long history of collective creation, cultural resistance and restoration, self-knowledge and communal knowledge to which so many community artists have dedicated their lives.

SHARE        Monday, May 16, 2016
On Burning Out, Burning In There's been a big discussion about "burnout" among activists lately, meaning many different things: physical maladies of overwork; depression, a sense of futility--or at least a pervading doubt that one's efforts matter. Exhaustion, emotional and intellectual. There's a wise woman in my head who likes to disrupt the magic thinking festival that goes on there. Advice to myself

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, May 2, 2016
Let Them Talk: The Piano Prince If I asked you to name a prodigiously talented, extravagantly flamboyant, African American, sexually fluid musician with a body like an exclamation point and a taste for the rococo whose premature death left the world a little grayer, of course you'd say "Prince," and you'd be right. Or half-right. Then there's James Booker.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, April 8, 2016
You're Drafted: What Now? Nothing characterizes the difference between the sixties and our era as much as the Vietnam-era draft, making political decisions intensely personal. The Boys Who Said NO! a film-in-progress and why it matters.

SHARE        Thursday, April 7, 2016
USA: MIA (Again) on Cultural Rights and Cultural Development Why didn't one single U.S. city apply to be recognized for cultural policy aiding sustainable development? It's a long sad story....

(6 comments) SHARE        Thursday, March 10, 2016
On Race, Religion, and Human Complexity Bernie Sanders gaffe in the debate on Sunday reminds us that it is incumbent on us to do justice to the truth in all its complexity and contradiction. No one can be fairly summed up by the big clumpy identity categories we've come to rely on.

(3 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 7, 2016
The Antidote to Absurdity: Winona LaDuke and Mililani Trask Winona LaDuke and Mililani Trask: Two women who provide the antidote to absurdity in a sense of the sacred in action, and who recognize that we have been asking permission from people who have no right to grant it.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Tell Your Story Now! Discussion easily turns into argument and friends into foes. But when we share actual stories instead of opinions, things change. Share your story as part of the People's State of the Union 2016.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, January 24, 2016
Reagan and Trump: Tragedy and Farce I'm having late-70s flashbacks, remembering when Reagan seemed like an unelectable joke. I don't want the joke to be on us.

(3 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, December 30, 2015
World So Undivided: John Trudell An homage to the late John Trudell, knew how to hold the incredible gift of being alive and the surrendering of our power to heal that breaks the world's heart every day.

(2 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Normalizing The Extraordinary in Medellin, Part Two A city releases itself from terror and remakes social fabric through art, culture--and gardening. Plus a song from Carlos Vives.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Clay Feet Abounding: The Presumption of Progressive Virtue On the FitzGibbon scandal: The first step to addressing abuses of power is always the same: let go of the illusion that people whose politics you find virtuous are going to be more ethical, compassionate, or just in their behavior than people whose politics you find objectionable. People are people, full stop.

SHARE        Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Normalizing The Extraordinary in Medell-n, Part One Medell-n, Colombia releases itself from terror and remakes social fabric through art and culture.

SHARE        Thursday, November 19, 2015
USDAC Statement on Syrian Refugee Crisis U.S. Department of Arts and Culture Statement on Syrian Refugee Crisis. Opposing fear & isolation, sending love, creativity & compassion to those needing refuge.

SHARE        Thursday, November 5, 2015
Still, Life: Zurbaran and Van Morrison The works of art that reset the moorings of one who is always coming home, never arriving, an outsider who has been privileged to step inside.

SHARE        Friday, October 23, 2015
Imitating Realness: Art and Authenticity It's time to be fed up with a wildly misguided and rapidly emergent impulse in art and commerce, mounting an imitation of realness in which both art and authenticity are left lying on the studio floor. Why "canned parrot meat" is the last straw.

SHARE        Monday, May 25, 2015
Imaginings Roll Out! From Brooklyn to Chicago, from Xtigone to Black Lives Matter, people are gathering to dream out loud: what is the vibrant, sustainable, resilient future we want to inhabit? How do we get there?

SHARE        Monday, May 18, 2015
Field Office Annals, Part Two: Engagement, Vision, and Play In Washington, DC, and Lawrence, KS, two activist artists talk about connecting local communities to a national movement through art and culture.

SHARE        Monday, May 11, 2015
Field Office Annals, Part One: Filling A Need The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture, the nation's first people-powered department, is opening Field Offices. Founders of the first two, in Lawrence, KS, and Washington, DC, have a lot to say about why they are needed.

SHARE        Monday, April 20, 2015
Ethelbert Miller: A Sustaining Presence is Forced Out and Everyone Loses The much lauded and honored poet and literary activist Ethelbert Miller has been laid off after 40 years saving lives and spirits at Howard University. What does this say about higher education today?

SHARE        Thursday, April 16, 2015
My English Teacher's Son Won the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award A name opens the door to the palace of memory, and high school comes flooding through.

SHARE        Friday, April 10, 2015
Class Suicide and Radical Empathy So many political and spiritual leaders performed the act of class suicide, dying to the privileged class of their birth--often by taking a step with no return--and thus sacrificing privilege and power in favor of full identification with the oppressed. In telling Moses' story, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper illuminates what for is the theme of every seder, radical empathy.

SHARE        Friday, April 3, 2015
Passing the (Star)bucks Starbucks' attempt to raise the question of race and racism was flawed, to be sure. It was ridiculed on every satire show and in nearly every blog and column. The result? Mission accomplished: you won't be talking about race relations with your barista anytime soon. But whose mission? I think the right won on this one, even if the biggest battle was fought on the left.

SHARE        Thursday, March 12, 2015
Three Words for Love: Selma, Aloha, Ahava The Selma March Jubilee, the Japanese American activists who joined the march, and Jewish civil rights workers killed a year earlier all remind us that a society of justice and love depends on those who step forward despite danger.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, February 10, 2015
A Story of My Heart Thousands of people took part in the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture's People's State of the Union civic ritual in January. What can we learn about the state of our union from the more than 500 stories they posted online?

SHARE        Wednesday, February 4, 2015
TV Family Values TV's idea of family may be bleached, starched, and pumped up on cheeroids, but sometimes it can even save a life.

SHARE        Friday, January 30, 2015
Another Kind of Spiritual Practice We may think of spiritual practice as something apart from ordinary life, but something as prosaic as facilitating a meeting can be a form of spiritual practice. Consider the People's State of the Union.

SHARE        Sunday, January 11, 2015
I Just Don't Know We persist in making predictions, even though we're terrible at it: almost always, we're just extending our beliefs into the future. The aftermath of terrorist incidents shows that we aren't much better at analysis: it merely shifts the possibility of error from future to present.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, December 31, 2014
The Year of Whiplash This has been a year of whiplash, with activism at a height I haven't observed since the sixties, but also a year that requires a powerful act of will not to be dispirited by the hardening of the hearts of entrenched power. Speaking to us from 1985, James Baldwin sheds light.

SHARE        Thursday, December 4, 2014
Broken Words "Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself," wrote Abraham Joshua Heschel. In recent Grand Jury actions, we see how true that is. All of us are responsible to change it.

SHARE        Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Post-Election Letter to A Friend Last night, a friend wrote me on Facebook, "how can the dreams in your recent books come true after the midterm results?" I counseled him to avoid "grasshopper vision."

SHARE        Saturday, October 25, 2014
Happy Blog-iversary (and A Half) to Me I've been publishing my blog for ten years plus, but I've just copped to being an optimist. With my history, how is that possible? Because I'm all about change, and unless you believe it can come, what's the point? Check out my latest changemaking role, Chief Policy Wonk of the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture!

SHARE        Friday, October 17, 2014
Ferguson: Generations and Expectations In Ferguson, we are seeing a moment of great beauty and meaning, in which those who desire justice and love rise to summon it forth. Some indict an older generation for failing to produce a plan, but really what is needed are guiding principles that value creativity in the service of freedom, equity, and justice.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, August 28, 2014
Call to Creative Action The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture has issued the USDAC Call: Creativity for Justice and Equity, calling all artists and creative activists to join in the movement to demilitarize the police and bring justice to victims of publicly funded racism. Endorsers include Gloria Steinem, Peter Coyote, Makani Themba, and dozens of others.

SHARE        Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Non-Negotiable Rights Women, human rights, and brains. Do women need to earn equal rights by being better? Are male and female brains different? Why do we waste time on arguments that don't change anything?

SHARE        Tuesday, August 12, 2014
We, Thee & Me Feminists and antifeminists. Is it better to make a deal with the king that benefits your own group, or pursue justice for all? Is recent antifeminist social media an expression of rights hard-won, or of ignorance?

SHARE        Monday, July 28, 2014
Israel, Palestine, and Us: The Peace That Passeth All Understanding Facebook is aflame with symbolic posting wars over Israel-Palestine, as if peace will come when someone wins an argument. The only hope for a culture of peace is rooted in self-awareness as unblinking as our awareness of the misdeeds of others.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, July 20, 2014
Belonging, Purpose, Pleasure We're in the middle of a shift from Datastan to the Republic of Stories: from the place where everything that counts can be counted to a much richer world. What are the words that can hold this message? They may be belonging, purpose, and pleasure.

(21 comments) SHARE        Monday, July 7, 2014
On Safety and Umbrage The call for "trigger warnings" threatens to turn us unto a "culture of umbrage." If we give into that demand, we will surely meet an anorexic end, starved of humor, challenge, and the learning they enable.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Plutocrats and Plebeians More people who know are warning plutocrats that an uprising is on the horizon if they don't change their ways. Nick Hanauer gets it right, but he still needs to learn plebeian math.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, June 27, 2014
Pro Bono Blues Is it exploitation when well-funded organizations ask artists to volunteer? There's a lack of awareness of ethical challenges when haves ask the have-nots to pony up.

SHARE        Monday, June 23, 2014
Here We Go Again: Cultural Equity in San Francisco Those who get the biggest share of funding--them that's got, as Billie Holiday put it--pay lip-service to fairness for those who get crumbs--them that's not. But lip-service is generally the only currency they are willing to shell out. This is playing out in San Francisco right now.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, June 20, 2014
Go Come Back: Culture Is A Bridge and a Fortress Did you ever have something that generated feelings of pride and shame simultaneously, depending on your viewpoint? In Hawaii, the use of Pidgin is contested in schools, and Pidgin activists are responding.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, June 2, 2014
Running Nature's Numbers The Nature Conservancy CEO Mark Tercek, profiled in The New Yorker, thinks he's questioning conservation orthodoxies. But isn't it time to question his own blindspots?

(3 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Have Skin in The Game Or Don't Talk About Not Doing What You Love Recent columns by Miya Tokumitsu and Gordon Marino have condemned the advice to "do what you love" in favor of a notion of duty they feel free to prescribe for others without swallowing themselves. Intellectuals without "skin in the game" who claim to be opposing oppression are actually abetting it.

SHARE        Friday, May 23, 2014
Racism Stunts Your Growth A scientific study confirms what we already know from lived experience: holding racist attitudes shrinks your creative capacity.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, May 5, 2014
On Being A Sore Winner The perfect is the enemy of the good: Donald Sterling and the NBA, Obama and the Pipeline. Every once in a while, stop to celebrate small victories.

(2 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Climate Change & The Human Quandary Activists feel the climate crisis is like a runaway train, and they can't rouse their companions to seize the throttle. What are the resistances and how to overcome them? Progressive Jews try to find out.

SHARE        Wednesday, April 9, 2014
"Realism" and Its Discontents "Realism" is the self-ratifying notion broadcast by every power elite: the message that the existing order of things is so firmly entrenched, so well-funded, and so effectively guarded that it is pointless to resist. When someone says, "be realistic," beware!

(8 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 31, 2014
Deceleration & Sustainability "Sustainability demands deceleration." Even Nixon supported a basic income grant. How it would help artists and stem overproduction.

(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, March 28, 2014
Aesthetics & Sustainability Artists rescue "sustainability" from abuse and dilution: calling for a fund to support that work.

SHARE        Thursday, March 27, 2014
Staging Sustainability Staging Sustainability: how artists are living on the bridge between art and science, and what that can do to save the planet.

(1 comments) SHARE        Thursday, October 27, 2011
Decolonization: Annals Of The Culture Of Politics, Part 3 The Occupy movement is about decolonization of the economy, public space, and our own minds.

SHARE        Monday, September 26, 2011
To The Streets: Annals of The Culture of Politics, Part 1 The 2012 election campaign is in full swing, beginning, once again, to stage the vast (and vastly repetitive) drama that periodically mesmerizes the body politic. The current culture of politics doesn't offer what we need instead: the basic citizenship education and fundamental self-exploration needed to achieve an informed, engaged, and self-aware electorate.

(3 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Tell The Story Right: The Jobs Plan We Need, Part 2 Part 2 of an essay on the jobs plan we need, one that addresses social and cultural infrastructure just as much as physical infrastructure. We can't afford not to do it.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, September 11, 2011
Tell The Story Right: The Jobs Plan We Need, Part 1 President Obama's jobs plan is better than anticipated, but our national conversation about job creation is still devastatingly inadequate. Fixing infrastructure means not just roads and bridges, but repairing our social fabric, and that requires public investment.

SHARE        Monday, August 29, 2011
Surreality: Against Inner Exile How many people share this sense of dislocation, this perception of a general condition of surreality, in which ordinary customs and habits seem somehow off? Visit the Twilight Zone with Thomas Friedman, Cornel West, Carl Gibson, Van Morrison, Sheik Abdul Ghani Aboughreis, and me.

(2 comments) SHARE        Thursday, August 18, 2011
The Window and The Mirror Warren Buffett, empathy and entitlement, racism and privilege, with soundtrack by Booker T and Bob Dylan.

SHARE        Friday, August 5, 2011
Theater of the Absurd The budget drama being enacted in Congress is at its core and essence theater: a national performance of symbolic speech designed to generate emotional responses so powerful they obscure the falsity of the enterprise.

SHARE        Thursday, July 7, 2011
In The USA Our best and worst on Independence Day: the evergreen enterprise of immigrants; the cacophony of languages aligning like coherent light in the "A-a-a-h" following each fireworks explosion. The way we enshrine privilege, obey authority, fall into the habit of disbelieving in our own power. Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bruce Springsteen, Arthur Waskow, immigration, the economy, community, and more.

SHARE        Wednesday, July 6, 2011
The Fall of The Empire: Cui Bono? Rome fell, the history teacher told us, because those in power pursued personal wealth and privilege at the expense of collective well-being.