Articles by: Rachel Oxman

MLK And Addressing Spiritual Death On Campus

MLK And Addressing Spiritual Death On Campus

“Not only are ‘leaders’ here not putting money into social uplift in lieu of diverting funds for death abroad, they are — quite by design — undermining safety nets for the express purpose of making the vast majority of concerned citizens incapable of fighting for their enlightened self-interest effectively, being physically too weak. Add moral decline to that, and their[Read More…]

by 26/04/2018 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Photo by Lupuca

 “Emergency” Must Be Used, Embraced

“Why don’t all schoolchildren know what TCE is?” — Richard Martin Oxman “Not many people want to continue to aid and abet crimes against humanity and war crimes behind big lies launched against weaker nations with fabulous resources to loot.” — John McMurty The Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada who I’m quoting above has written an article recently which puts the lie[Read More…]

by 12/04/2018 2 comments Life/Philosophy
 Getting the Military’s Carbon Footprint Alone….

 Getting the Military’s Carbon Footprint Alone….

“This book describes a world peopled with young folk who have bypassed reading and writing and who thus have been forced to fabricate a life without the benefit of that innermost, intimate guide, the self. It does not take a powerful imagination to describe such a world. The details can be found in the morning newspaper. It is a world[Read More…]

by 05/04/2018 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
 So That We Can Sleep Through the Night

 So That We Can Sleep Through the Night

“ Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today?” —  Samuel Beckett Some people might think it’s a plus to be able to sleep through anything, to not get woken up by the slightest of noises, or the movement of a partner tugging on[Read More…]

by 01/04/2018 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
 NBA vs. NRA

 NBA vs. NRA

“There was a point at which Jackie Robinson refused to ‘respect’ the flag at ball games.” — James Baldwin Demonstrators protesting the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man blocked entrances to Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, California Thursday night amid chants of “black lives matter,” prompting police to shut down admission to the Sacramento Kings’ National Basketball Association[Read More…]

by 26/03/2018 Comments are Disabled World
<> on March 13, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Gleaning The Meaning

  In the first 11 weeks of 2018, there have been 12 school shootings. Although shootings on school campuses only make up a tiny fraction of gun injuries and deaths annually, a March report from the Giffords Law Center focuses on the deep impact of gun violence on children in the USA, elaborating on how it extends far beyond the classroom.[Read More…]

by 17/03/2018 1 comment World
The United States of Avoidance

The United States of Avoidance

Dr. Ron Forthofer, who wrote U.S. Mainstream Media: Empire’s Too, has made a huge mistake in his characterization of the mainstream media respecting domestic issues His “mistake” is worth citing mainly because it’s one that U.S. educators all across the country make routinely, compounding ignorance with ignorance.  Review, if you will, how he opened his article: “The U.S. mainstream media[Read More…]

by 05/03/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
 One Flu Not Over in the NRA Nest Where Public School Shootings Total 17 Thus Far and Home School Shootings Equal Zero

 One Flu Not Over in the NRA Nest Where Public School Shootings Total 17 Thus Far and Home School Shootings Equal Zero

“Academia in the U.S. — in most places — offers kids an invitation to a mental institution where qualified medical professionals are absent and the drugs offered have not been tested.” — Annapurna Tosca Sriramarcel, a member of the Oxman Collective “One flew east, one flew west, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.” — Ken Kesey’s inspiration Highly educated people[Read More…]

by 01/03/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
The Bucket of Blood Beyond Parkland

The Bucket of Blood Beyond Parkland

“Sixty-eight percent of U.S. citizens believe that ‘better mental health screening’ would help to reduce the number of school shootings, but one has to ask what’s considered mentally healthy in our spiritually-anemic, sick society.” — Richard Martin Oxman Relationships and loyalties within a family are the strongest and most important ones, say most people. [Pause.] Yes, blood is thicker than[Read More…]

by 16/02/2018 1 comment World
Don’t You Know What Happened?

Don’t You Know What Happened?

  “In less than ten years, two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under water stressed conditions.” — one of the last lines of the documentary spotlighted in this article “[It is] the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.” — Vandana Shiva commenting on the worldwide water crisis in her Water[Read More…]

by 11/02/2018 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Activist Being Through A Glass Darkly

Activist Being Through A Glass Darkly

“Dawkins… seems to suffer from a ‘god in the sky’ childhood Bible indoctrination. “ — excerpt from a colleague referring to Richard Dawkins “From the oscillating universe beating like a gigantic heart to the puzzling existence of antimatter, order — in a human sense — is at least partially an illusion. Ours — in reality — is the order of a time, and[Read More…]

by 10/02/2018 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
What Rhymes With “Educate! Organize! Activate!”?

What Rhymes With “Educate! Organize! Activate!”?

  “Howard Zinn once wrote a book titled, You Can’t Stay Neutral on a Moving Train, and that’s especially true when you’re headed for a precipice. Right now, activists need to be bonded with the owner of the train or be the engineer.” — Richard Martin Oxman The answer to the title of this article shouldn’t be attempted with a[Read More…]

by 01/02/2018 2 comments Life/Philosophy
 Considering Absolute Numbers

 Considering Absolute Numbers

  On October 12, 1961 Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first African-American fighter pilot died. I went to his funeral in the French War Veterans section of the Flushing Cemetery in Queens, New York because I had only been a few feet away from him In Peekskill, New York in 1949 (as a six-year-old) when a racist, “patriotic” crowd almost beat[Read More…]

by 14/01/2018 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
 If Anything….

 If Anything….

  “Why do men then now not reck his rod?” — a line from God’s Grandeur “Progressives, generally, are not at home with controversial religious issues, in part because they cannot deal with phenomena which they’ve only encountered in the telegraphic sound bites offered by political debate. It is characteristic of the narrow logic of left-of-center citizens that when they[Read More…]

by 12/01/2018 2 comments Life/Philosophy
Photo by bobosh_t

Oprah In The Oval Office: Curb Your Enthusiasm

“What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have. And I’m especially proud and inspired by all the women who have felt strong enough and empowered enough to speak up and share their personal stories. Each of us in this room are celebrated because of the stories that we tell. And[Read More…]

by 09/01/2018 Comments are Disabled World
I Don’t Recall Witnessing Such A Blending

I Don’t Recall Witnessing Such A Blending

  In No Country for Old Men, Sheriff Bell recounts his conversation with a woman who complains about “right-wing” politics: “She kept on, kept on. Finally told me, said: I dont like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I dont think you got any[Read More…]

by 05/01/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Freedom Is Still The Name For A Thing Which Is Not Freedom

Freedom Is Still The Name For A Thing Which Is Not Freedom

Co-Written by Rachel Oxman and C.Russell “In July 1952, in a cell block on Ellis Island, C.L.R. James began writing a book about Herman Melville. The Triinidadian journalist, historian and social theorist was awaiting deportation under the McCarran Act. Caught in an administration limbo of the “detainee,” James built his book, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways on Melville’s abidingly pertinent observation that, in the United States,[Read More…]

by 21/12/2017 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Clarion Call for The Great USed

Clarion Call for The Great USed

USers (better known as “Americans”) have been expressing a preference in survey polls for access to a universal health care system for quite some time. Considering their frustration with so-called representatives who do not advocate in their interests and expressed desires, perhaps they should be called The Great USed. In the late Reagan years, 70 percent of the adult population[Read More…]

by 08/12/2017 1 comment World
 The Third That’s Needed

 The Third That’s Needed

  “We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.” — from The Tempest In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, it is characteristic of Prospero that he has learned to view political life in light of the transitoriness of human achievement in general. Though his initial error was to neglect political life entirely, he[Read More…]

by 28/11/2017 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Politics Not Appropriate For The Objective Classroom?

Politics Not Appropriate For The Objective Classroom?

  “The problem I’ve always had with ‘objectivity’ as a concept is that it doesn’t have an agreed upon meaning.” — Dr. Anthony DiMaggio, author of “Confronting the Cult of Objectivity” What school has teachers who handle Social Studies and Humanities subjects without advocating a particular political point of view? Is that even possible? Certainly, there’s plenty of talk — always has[Read More…]

by 15/11/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Once The Truth Is Told About Lawrence Livermore Labs

Once The Truth Is Told About Lawrence Livermore Labs

  “It’s only twenty minutes away, thirteen miles between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Pleasanton via I-580, but I’d say that not a single soul among the 82,270 citizens who live in that San Francisco suburb know anything about what’s going on within the government’s secretive realm unless they work there.” — Richard Martin Oxman What exactly are Tanks &[Read More…]

by 04/11/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
 One Trick Pony Up

 One Trick Pony Up

  “He makes it Look so easy, it looks so clean He moves like God’s immaculate machine” — from Paul Simon’s “One Trick Pony” “When a person expends the least possible movement on a certain act, that is grace.” — Anton Chekov, in a letter to Maxim Gorky Most people aren’t geniuses. Most cannot juggle multiple tasks at the same[Read More…]

by 24/10/2017 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
I Know Of None

I Know Of None

“What we do not yet know is how much of the ancient Abbasid city of Raqqa and its horseshoe walls and the gate of Baghdad built probably in the eighth century, survives. So much of Syria’s antiquity has been damaged or destroyed – sometimes quite deliberately – in this war, that few historians bother any more to decry the destruction[Read More…]

by 20/10/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
 Pardon Me

 Pardon Me

  A man was starving in Capri; He moved his eyes and looked at me; I felt his gaze, I heard his moan, And knew his hunger as my own. — from Edna St. Vincent Millay’s Renascence A pardon is an executive forgiveness of crime; commutation is an executive lowering of a given penalty. A pardon wipes out the conviction while[Read More…]

by 19/10/2017 1 comment Human Rights
The Blood That Flows Within

The Blood That Flows Within

  “If a captive mind is unaware of being in prison, it is living in error. If it has recognized the fact, even for the tenth of a second, and then quickly forgotten it in order to avoid suffering, it is living in falsehood. Men of the most brilliant intelligence can be born, live and die in error and falsehood. In them, intelligence is neither a good, nor even an asset. The difference between more or less intelligent men[Read More…]

by 14/10/2017 2 comments Human Rights
 Incendiary Incarceration

 Incendiary Incarceration

  “I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare…. I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do…. No dream,[Read More…]

by 12/10/2017 1 comment Human Rights
FO Forward

FO Forward

  “While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” — Eugene V. Debs “This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and[Read More…]

by 11/10/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy