Birth, Truth, and Videotape

How was I born? How was I birthed? My mother is no longer here to ask. I’d like to think I would be brave enough to ask her, if she was still here on Earth with me. Birthing was not dinnertime or anytime discussion in my Catholic Latino household growing up in Saginaw. The same is true for most American households, regardless of ethnicity or religion.

It is an absurd, sad truth – for whatever complicated, personal reasons – that most Americans don’t discuss life’s two biggest topics: Birth and Death. And despite whatever artificial institutional and social embargoes that have been constructed – particularly by men, church, conservatives, and capitalists – these discussions among rational people are inevitable. Lately, I have been peeking around the curtain and listening, watching, and learning about women, the planet’s true sacred givers of human life.

I’m at a point, socially and politically, that I am simultaneously pro-life, pro-birth, and pro-choice. Our society needs to be more life-affirming, to reconstruct a more-than-adequate social system that supports procreation, and to trust and revere the woman’s role and wisdom in being life’s ultimate arbitrator. Despite man’s fierce, oppressive, and historical struggle to prevent its acknowledgement, women are the deciders and life givers.

I’M A PLANET!

Birth, babies, and pregnancy have been high profile topics in the movies lately. Prior to this weekend, I have been juxtaposing the messages contained in the movies "Knocked Up" and "Juno," two films that I highly recommend. I mark the former as one with a conservative bent and the latter leaning more to the left. Both movies leave the young women at the center of the birthing decision, paint the men as cartoon characters, and tell their story with humor and keen hipster language. While neither movie may satisfy some people, I was glad to see the topic brought to the big screen.

Tonight I will be cheering for Juno’s screenwriter, Diablo Cody, who is nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay. Cody’s smart use of humor and language has Juno announcing to the world at different junctures in the film, “I am a sacred vessel!” and “I’m a planet!” as flashes of truth rarely shared with such a wide audience.

Can we handle the truth? What happens when you remove the clowning and begin to look at stark reality?

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS

This past weekend brought more cinematic complexity to the topic. A couple of weeks ago I had made plans to drive to the Maple Art Theater in Bloomfield Hills to see the controversial foreign film, "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days." Soon after making those plans, the Friends of the Greenhouse Birth Center announced a local showing of "The Business of Being Born." On Saturday I shuttled to both films on the same day. The film experience is one I’ll never forget.

The foreign film, "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days," is about a woman’s decision to have an abortion and the punishing, oppressive, male-dominated system – represented by Romania in the late 1980s – in which the decision is made and carried out. Director Cristian Mungiu’s film provides an intimate, unflinching look at the woman’s quiet desperation. Right now the film is not getting wide distribution in the U.S., thus my drive to Bloomfield Hills on Saturday afternoon. You can probably guess why this widely-praised foreign film was not nominated for an Academy Award. Like I said, we can’t handle the truth.


THE BUSINESS OF BEING BORN

Sitting in Room 147 of Michigan State University's Com Arts building for 3 hours on Saturday night was not very comfortable. The lecture hall seats must be designed to keep students awake. That night, however, I did not dare complain of my discomfort, having watched about six women give natural child birth in the documentary, “The Business of Being Born.” I’m not ashamed to say I almost cried with each birth shown. Like so many people – including large numbers of doctors and nurses – I had never seen anything more beautiful than a natural child birth, albeit on the movie screen.

The documentary, and the community discussion that followed, was a powerful lesson in Woman’s struggle to re-assert her primacy in the birthing process. It exposed the absurd proposition that women, especially American women, must struggle within an artificial, male-dominated system represented by doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies to experience what historically is their fundamental place as the earth’s life givers. The movie shows natural childbirth is anything but natural in the American medical system, which is dominated by and encourages cesarean sections, epidurals, and cocktails of dangerous drugs. The medical establishment has turned natural childbirth into a major medical emergency for almost every pregnant woman in America.

The movie has been described as the “Inconvenient Truth” of childbirth. I’ll agree with that assessment. But it could also be labeled as a sequel to Michael Moore’s SiCKO because it exposes a portion of our medical establishment that is unreasonable and out-of-control. It illustrates a system that cares more about profits than people.

The Friends of the Greenhouse Birth Center, and its partners at MSU, are to be commended for bringing “The Business of Being Born” to town. The movie should be viewed by parents, prospective parents, doctors, nurses, and, well, every American ever born. I’m not exaggerating. It was clearly acknowledged in the movie, and later during the panel discussion, that women rarely see other women having natural childbirth. Today’s women, as a result, are vulnerable to and frightened by a medical system that depends on fear. If you watch this movie and peek behind the curtain, you will find that history, health, and power reside with women.

-- Rico Thomas Rico

Why We Fight

I spent a bulk of the past week with some very mis-guided people who think that Michigan’s economic future lies in military defense spending. When I step back and look at these people, I see typical day-to-day Americans who are so engulfed in the American militaristic culture that they have mostly stopped questioning the dangerous, violent, and ugly road we have traveled as a nation for the last 60 years. Historians will ponder why America – a supposedly Christian nation – chose and accepted militarism as its way of life.

In most third- world countries, the military takeover happens in a public coup d’etat. Here in the United States, our coup d’etat was a deliberately slow process moved along by the military-industrial complex, our corporate oligarchy, an accommodating Congress, and a citizenry with eyes wide shut. Our third-world status has only recently followed the de-industrialization and de-capitalization of the country, leaving us dependent upon militarism to keep our economy afloat. For those of us at the wrong end of this one-sided deal, we either work for defense industry directly or indirectly, and for our children it is becoming the only option if they want health care, housing, and college money.

Nobody seems to notice that the military establishment is beginning to freely and blatantly exert its control over us through the use of blackmail. In early December 2007, the Washington Post reported on one example when the Pentagon threatened to layoff 200,000 workers if the Iraq occupation was not fully funded by Congress. Of course, our increasingly-irrelevant Congress always capitulates under these threats. Apparently, what’s good for the Department of Defense, is good for America.

If you have not viewed it already, I highly recommend the documentary “Why We Fight,” which provides an excellent overview of America’s cultural of militarism, starting with President Eisenhower’s warning and prediction that an unchecked military-industrial complex would be a threat to our liberty. A video of Eisenhower's warning is provided below.

Interestingly, NPR’s Guy Raz reported on “What Drives Record Spending on Defense?” on February 4, 2008, on Morning Edition. Raz’s report – nearly 8 minutes long – provides some subtext to the same topic of “Why We Fight.” I don’t know how NPR’s censors let that report slide by, but I recommend that you take full advantage and listen to this excellent news report. For the NPR report click here.

There are no more excuses for us, as Americans, in not knowing or recognizing our reliance on militarism and militaristic tendencies for jobs, oil, profits (for a limited few) and a false sense of security. Plus, with threats to our liberties from our own government and military, who needs terrorists? Whatever you do, however, don't look for the coup d'etat in our streets. It has already happened.

-- Rico Thomas Rico

Baseball Has Been Barry Barry Bad

Because the words of this blog pack a wallop, I want to dispel any rumors – before they even start – that the rants and raves contained herein are written under the influence of steroids or human growth hormones. These rants and raves are 100% organic, with the possible exception of the occasional diet soda or two.

I firmly believe baseball star pitcher Roger Clemens should not claim his fastball and strikeout total are purely organic. Nor are Barry Bonds’ 762 home runs. A number of other major leaguers should not make the claim, either. The national pastime is busted and broken, just like the American empire. Bloggers like me will need to keep clean to clearly observe and report on the unraveling.

BASEBALL'S MAJOR LEAGUE PROBLEM

A day comes for most of us when we realize our parents are not the perfect beings we were led to believe growing up. As we mature, we begin to see them for what they are, including their character blemishes.

Many of us continue the maturation process with the realization that “America the Beautiful” is not so beautiful. It’s the day when one realizes that the federal government is of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations. It’s when you realize your government is guilty of illegal actions including torture, secret prisons, human rights abuses, and domestic spying, while vast portions of the citizenry don’t object. It’s the day when you realize the U.S. President is a blatant liar and himself guilty of war crimes.

Now comes the additional realization that America’s “national pastime” – major league baseball – is truly a metaphor for the nation. Evidence has steadily unfolded revealing a game full of cheats and liars and money-grubbers, while vast portions of the citizenry don’t object. The stadiums will be full this summer despite the game’s soiled reputation and the steroid-use scandal engulfing a number of its star players. Many Americans seem comfortable with a stench-filled presidency; why not its national pastime as well?

The corporate press ran stories this past week that major league pitchers and catchers reported to spring training in Florida and Arizona. It is the 2008 start for the much-too-long baseball season. Adult fans and kids are flocking to spring training sites seeking autographs, everyone acting like nothing is wrong with the game, or nothing is wrong with this country (we don’t really have troops dying every day, do we?).

For the romantics who want to continue adulating the game of baseball, the truth about the game’s current stature is a high hard one, inside, chest-high, and close to the heart.

A METAPHOR FOR THE NATION

There was a time I could talk baseball with the best of them, and still can to some extent. I grew up playing baseball. I know the game, its nuances, and its history. At one time, I was a long-time, loyal Detroit Tigers fan. Some day my obituary will report my 1999 fantasy league championship in the Lansing’s “Hot Shots Baseball League,” bragging rights that even the inventor of Rotisserie baseball cannot claim.

Still, I will admit my naiveté in the final years of my relationship to major league baseball. When ballplayers recently started popping large quantities of home runs out of the ballparks – including once-peep-squeak shortstops and second basemen – I was convinced the baseballs were juiced. I didn’t think for a second that the ballplayers were juiced.

In the end, major league baseball became a freak show led by Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds, all feeding the casual fan’s wish for spectacular offense in a game tagged as “boring.” I, for one, can’t and won’t pretend the game – like its nation – maintains its past integrity, real or imagined.

Now, as I continue walking further away from major league baseball, my current endeavors move me closer to another steroid-pumped institution, the U.S. military-industrial complex. It’s obvious from the chart below that the United States is artificially pumped with military spending, especially compared to any other nation, friend or foe. Our muscle-bound military economy now relies on a spectacular military offense to feed its continual hunger for profit through conflict, war, and killing.

Yes, there is something rotten in Mudville: the soul of a nation and its national pastime.

-- Rico Thomas Rico