Saria Idana

Birds Eye Project Blog

Towards a new US
A Call to Action….

To the old, the young, the rich, the poor, to women, men, and children; To the workers, laborers and farmers; To the artists, intellectuals, teachers and students; To the bankers, policy makers, the convicted and the free, the dark-skinned and the light; To the Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, followers of indigenous shamanic paths, monotheists and polytheists and secularists; To the tired and the frightened, the inspired and apathetic, to the patriotic and the anti-patriots, to the immigrants and the citizens of this blessed and cursed country…

DEAR AMERICANS!

We live in the most powerful nation on the planet. What does this mean?

This means responsibility, responsibility to hold our government accountable for its actions and to hold each other accountable for ours. Responsibility to speak our minds, speak our hearts, speak our visions. We have a responsibility to revision and rebuild America. An America that can adequately provide Life, Liberty and Happiness for all whom are affected by U.S. policies and in whatever forms Life, Liberty and Happiness take for the diverse populations that are affected by the U.S.; there are many ways to live and many belief systems to believe, and they are all of equal value. We must revision and rebuild policies at home and abroad. While we revision international policies as our government polices and bullies the world, we must act locally, we must confront the oppression within our boarders, RACISM, CLASSISM, SEXISM and all other ISMS which create hatred, division, oppression and inaction. We must struggle to strengthen our education system from elementary through the graduate levels. We must strengthen our health care system, providing care for all those in need. While we must support our troops, we must weaken the military machine. While we must support safety in our communities, we must weaken the prison industrial complex which includes prisons of the mind constructed by propaganda in the media, and popular entertainment, movies, magazines and TV as well as propaganda in our education systems and text-books. We must weaken prisons of the mind created by drugs and crime planted into our poor communities.

We shall free our minds of fear and hatred through the vehicle of the arts, through conversation and debate, we must not be afraid to debate with those whom with we disagree. Most disagreements lie within how we think, not what we think. We must bring the arts into education for the purpose of empowerment of voice. We must not only oppose the system, but infiltrate it. Infiltrate the media, the government and big business. We must not just talk about these actions, but engage in ongoing dialogues and projects as to how to make these accomplishments; if one project fails, we must find another approach.

While i believe we must actively revision a new unifying sentiment in the U.S., i believe that we must reevaluate the use of the terms “ a new America” and “a new Americanism” as what we mean is a new U.S. and a new patriotism for this country, not a new North and South America. The term “a new Americanism” is only an alternate action of imperialism and U.S. domination; the people of one country defining the ideologies of two continents simply through the power of language. Words are powerful as they manifest not only thought and how thought is packaged; words also package action. Perhaps we need to rename this country as we redefine it along with its patriotism.

I tend to call this nation by the acronym U.S., not USA for this is not the united states of America as the American land mass extends far beyond our boarders with Mexico and Canada. The acronym U.S. spells “us”, and who are “we”? We are a country full of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives. It is not simply our economic wealth as a government entity that makes us the most powerful nation on the planet, it is also our diversity, however, it is not with respect to diversity of thought and belief that our government acts.

{While what i am speaking of is in many ways democracy, no one asked the Iraqi people if a democracy is what they want. It is one belief system of many and it is one born out of western thought. It is time for the west to stop enforcing its values on the rest of the world.}

As part of a movement to redefine this country, we must not reflect the actions of our government, we must be open to all peoples and beliefs, we must not alienate each other or assume that we all agree. We must unite as U.S., “us”, as United States, united states of being, united states of mind. We must unite and we must speak both our similarities and our differences.

We reside in the most powerful nation on the planet, an Empire, perhaps in the process of being strengthened, perhaps an Empire about to fall. As the U.S. government acts violently out of greed i fear that we are moving into an age of incre - Birds Eye Project Blog

Hollywood Progressive
Coming of Stage in L.A.
March 29, 2011 By Ed Rampell

Homeless in Homeland is a dramatic tour-de-force that’s not to be missed by anyone who enjoys good plays – but especially by those grappling with a way to get out of the dead end conflict that has locked Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Arabs, in a two thirds of a century-long dance of death pitting two ethnically-related peoples against each other over a single piece of land both claim and covet as what Judy Garland called “no place like home.” It might just be that talents like Idana will help lead those two tribes, who have been wandering for more than 40 years in a deadly desert, to that somewhere over the rainbow. Idana is bringing her entire one-person show (about half of it was staged at LAWTF) to New York’s Teatro Latea in April.
- Hollywood Progressive