About this blog and its author
Contact Info:James M. Branum
RR 1 Box 525
Fort Cobb, OK 73038
(405) 476-5620
Email: jmbzine(at)gmail(dot)com
About the Author: My name is James Matthew Branum. I’m 31 years old. Like most native-born Okies, I’m a mix of white and American Indian ancestry. (more specifically Cherokee, Irish, Scotch-Irish, English, German, Swiss, and unknown)I work as a solo-practice attorney (GIRightslawyer.com) helping soldiers to get discharged from the Army, as well as defend soldiers who are facing courts-martial.I also serve as the Minister of Peace and Justice at Joy Mennonite Church in Oklahoma City, but also have kept many ties with my family’s faith tradition in the Churches of Christ and friends and family in other faith traditions.I hope to do some small-scale farming and ranching in the future (for my own food and secondarily to sell) but right now agriculture is more a hobby than a profession.I am a 1994 graduate of Newcastle High School, a 2000 Bachelor of Arts in Bible/Christian Ministery from the Institute for Christian Studies (now Austin Graduate School of Theology), and a 2005 Juris Doctorate from Oklahoma City University. I have also completed classes from SWOSU in Weathford, OK OCCC, USAO, Nations University, Texas State University, and Tulsa Community College.I have previous lived in: Anadarko, Yukon and Newcastle, OK (growing up), Weatherford, OK (3 years of college), Austin & San Marcos, TX (4-1/2 years), Pine Ridge, OK (3 months), back to Newcastle, OK (about 3 years), and Oklahoma City (3 years & 3 months).My hobbies include: bicycling, organic gardening, painting and drawing, watching movies, reading, blogging, and traveling.
Activism-wise, I mostly work on peace and social justice through my church and the group it sponsors the Oklahoma Center for Conscience. I also am involved to a lesser extent with the Green Party of OKlahoma, the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, and with my friend Rachel in the work of Red Flag Press.
About this blog and what it stands for: This is a blog of radical political and social commentary with a special emphasis on local and regional issues. JMBzine used to be more general in scope, but I now post personal items for friends on Facebook and post things about farm living at PineRidgeOklahoma.com.My political philosophy is a bit hard to categorize. If I had to describe myself, I would say that I’m an old style (as in cir. 1912) Oklahoma Agrarian Socialist. My primary political influenced has been the Jesus. I believe his way of radical peace, love and sharing could change the world. I also draw a great deal from the writings of Wendell Berry, Thomas Jefferson, Thoreau, Buddha and even Marx (but mostly second-hand when it comes to Marx). In modern terms, I guess I fit best in the Green Party, but I don’t really dig the way the Green Party (at least nationally does things), and in many ways fit better with the anarchist approach of the Catholic Worker Movement and the Wobblies.I believe strongly in both the sanctity of life, but take it further than many do. True peace includes both a spiritual element and an economic element, because true peace can only come when everybody had enough and no one goes hungry. I believe that all forms of killing are wrong — the brutality of war, the cruelty of the death penalty, and the tragedy of abortion. I also believe that all forms of dehumanization is wrong and agree with the Wobblies that the Wage system is a slave system. I don’t believe in prisons and I don’t believe in exploiting workers. And I don’t believe in the oppression of women, be it under the guise of “family values” or economics.And I believe that the ends don’t justify the means, but rather believe (to quote Ghandi) that we must “be the change we want to see.”And I believe in beauty and goodness. Sometimes it is hard to believe it in the day-to-day grind of life, but I don’t think life would be worth living if it weren’t for those unexpected glimpses of the divine in everyday life.And I do believe in God. Not the kind of God that most preachers preach about, but rather a transcendant God that is present in our hearts and causes us to do good when we least expect it, and leads folks, even those we think are incorrigble, to do good. Every time that someone stands up and refuses to participate in evil, that’s the work of God. Every soldier who lays down his gun and refuses to fight is hearing the voice of God. Every person who shows love to another is acting from that divine center. For that matter, I think God works in us even when we don’t believe in him/her/it (God is hard to confine to English language pronouns).
Anyway that’s my perspective. I should also tell you that I’m a very emotional guy and suffer from depression. And we live in a crazy world where a lot of horrible things are going on. Young men and women are dying everyday in a senseless war, and civilians and enemy combatants are dying horrible deaths, for no good reason at all. Sometimes my grief and anger come out in my writing. I don’t like seeing power abused by anyone, be it the government, churches, or the police, and sometimes I say more than I should. I do try to remind myself that things are rarely as bad as they seem but I feel like I should warn y’all that what I say here isn’t always neat and clean. It sometimes is downright harsh, but I feel like the times sometimes justify harsh emotions.
Lastly, no matter what I say, my readers should understand that because I believe that the ends don’t justify the means, that I never advocate for violent solutions to political problems. Violence is the result of a lack of imagination and I think we can do better than that.
Disclaimer and Copyright Info: Any legal information provided on this site is provided for educational/informational purposes and should be used in lieu of appropriate legal advise from an attorney. —- Links provided by this website are provided for informational value and may not necessarily represent the viewpoint of JMBzine.com. Comments posted by readers are also the responsibility of the comment poster and may not represent the views of the JMBzine.com. — JMBzine is committed to positive personal and social change through purely NON-VIOLENT and VOLUNTARY means. Nothing on this website should be construed as justifying the use of violence or other coercive means as a means to any end. — All logos and trademarks in this site are property of their respective owner. The comments are property of their posters, all the rest unless otherwise noted are (c) 1995-2007 by JMB but are licensed under a Creative Commons licensing agreement.