WORKING WITH THE POOR — in Chiapas, Mexico

Araceli, at right

Richard

Richard's first carpentry class with their families.

"I do not feel at home in the U.S., and, I find that the more time I spend in Chiapas the more I realize
I have never really felt at home in this country.

Mexico, especially in the Southern portion,
is a land of indigenous families who are poor.


I feel so much more at home
surrounded by the poor,
living amongst them, as well. "

THE
New American Dream Interview

[first published January 2009]

RICHARD FLAMER, 61, lives in Chiapas, Mexico.

He has been there full time since 2001, six months a year prior to that for six years.

He is married to Araceli Benitez Moya, A Zapotec woman from Oaxaca.

The two of them run a Catholic Worker farm, which offers hospitality and housing to those in need, chiefly migrants on the road from Central America.




NAD: Richard, hello, welcome.

You are now up here in the states.

Where exactly are you, what are you up to?

How long will you be here? And then you will go back to Chiapas?

Do you view that as your home now? Or, do you feel you are back home, now, up here?



RICHARD FLAMER:

I am currently in Champaign, IL. staying at the local Catholic Worker while working in construction in rebuilding a small house for a local family.

That is, I am working for money to get enough to build a house for my wife and I on the farm site.

Each year I come back to the U.S. to raise funds, do talks, do a little construction, whatever it takes to continue our life in Chiapas.

I do not feel at home in the U.S., and, I find that the more time I spend in Chiapas the more I realize I have never really felt at home in this country.

Mexico, especially in the Southern portion, is a land of indigenous families who are poor.

I feel so much more at home surrounded by the poor, living amongst them, as well.




NAD: Where did you grow up?

You were in Vietnam. What year. Where. Were you in combat?

Did you see all the bad things we picture? How did you end up there?


RICHARD FLAMER:

Vietnam was the best of times and the worst of times (thank you Charles Dickens.) It was a fundamental time for me to be in the war.

My work was largely in Military Intelligence so I ended up being out of combat most of the time but responsible for locating targets for the B-52 bombers.

For a short period I was on the ground working with a Marine unit in surveying target damage, etc.




NAD: When you came back, can we assume you were depressed, PTSD?

What did you go through, and what pulled you out? You were involved in some civil disobedience.

You have done some on-purpose jail time and some no-so on purpose — right?


RICHARD FLAMER:

I have done some short stints in jail for Civil Disobedience. My time when I came back was awful but I was fortunate in finding a route for my intellect at a good College (Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont) and a way at a healing.




NAD: What is your passion today?

When you woke up this morning, what did you feel you had to get done before supper time?


RICHARD FLAMER:

I don't know that I have a single passion anymore.

My whole life seems to be a life of passion. I try to approach everything with the same hope and fervor.

I find that I have the same questions as I had when I was a youth but the importance of the answers has waned.

These days I take great joy in almost everything around me. As for getting things done — I don't much worry about that stuff.

As Dorothy Day once offered us: "God doesn't ask us to be effective, only faithful."

I find that I have the same questions as I had
when I was a youth but the importance of the answers has waned.

NAD: How do you see the USA now, from your front-porch perch way down south?

There are many things to talk about in your life, that is why there is a movie in the works, but could you just briefly mention your days down there as a photographer.

You really have been sort of a good works wanderer. It must have been fun, in a way.


RICHARD FLAMER:

I don't know that my life has been as a good works wanderer.

I think what I started was a kind of atonement. That is, I searched for a way of atonement and ended up having a life that helps in serving others.

One sort of forgets about all your travails and finds solace in the faith of those around you.

As a photo-journalist I was always trying to take pictures which would somehow contribute to a peaceful life — I ended up taking photos of the people that I learned to love.

It is an enormous joy, this life. I have the best life in the world.

It is an enormous joy, this life. I have the best life in the world.

NAD: Tell about the movie being planned about your life.

On the website for that project there are quotes from Dorothy Day.

Do you feel pretty strongly about the Catholic Worker, the poor, the service philosophy?


RICHARD FLAMER:

I feel strongly about Dorothy Day, the Catholic Worker, etc. but I am unhappy about the idea that the film will be about me.

The truth is, the measure of our lives is in love; how well we can be disciples. It's not about me, it's the work.




NAD: Please insert a link here to something you would like linked to, with a brief tag re: where that link goes:


RICHARD FLAMER:

Link to www.bishopruizproject.org


Thank you.

Richard



____________

About

THE New American Dream Feature Interviews

If you search the archives below the current feature interview,
you will find, in a sort of order [last to first], interviews with:

Anthony Rayson, Chicago anarchist, publisher of prisoner authors

Ian Woods, Canadian publisher, 9/11 Truth activist

Elena Siff Erenburg, a political artist in L.A.

Allen Ruff, bookstore worker and author in Madison

Len Osanic, Black Op Radio, Vancouver, Canada

Levi Asher, a writer and literary critic in New York City

Geov Parrish, Seattle journalist, activist

Bill Polonsky, Yukon 9/11 Truth

Daphne Webb, Denver writer, activist, green wedding planner

Michael Boldin, a populist blooms in L.A.

Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher magazine

Will Braun, editor of Geez Magazine, Canada

Ben Heine, political artist in Belgium

Matt Sullivan, editor of The Rock Creek Free Press, Washington, D.C.

Sam Smith, editor of The Progressive Review, from Maine

Jarek Kupsc, 9/11 Truth filmmaker, "The Reflecting Pool"

Bill O'Driscoll, arts editor, Pittsburgh City Paper

Gerry McCarthy, editor of The Social Edge, Canada

Jim Cullen, editor of The Progressive Populist magazine, Austin, Texas

Bartcop, old-school blogger from Tulsa

Lee Rayburn, radio show host from Madison, Wisconsin

Aimee England, bookseller in Michigan

Al Markowitz, poet for the working woman & man

Timbre Wolf, a Tulsa peace minstrel goes to Hawaii

Steven Stothard, a radical grows in Indiana

Dale Clark, an artist in the desert near Bisbee, Arizona

Jacqui Devenuau, Green Party organizer in Maine

Don Harkins, co-editor of The Idaho Observer

Stewart Bradley, independent film producer in Indiana

Rick Smith, Cleveland area radio host

William P. Meyers, independent book publisher, political activist in California

Ian Woods, Canadian publisher, 9/11 Truth activist

Richard D. Brinkman, Edmonton, Canada 9/11 Truth

Lynn Berg, New York City actor

Alejandro Rojas, of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network

Brian Kasoro, publisher of The Liberator magazine, Brooklyn, New York

Brother Raymond, walked from Denver to D.C., for truth

Korey Rowe, one of the producers of Loose Change, New York State

Dave Zweifel, editor of The Madison Capital Times

Cathleen Howard, expatriate, from Tucson to Mexico, to pursue her dreams

Sander Hicks, Brooklyn radical entrepreneur, writer, publisher

Joe Bageant, America's blue-collar author, living in Belize

Frida Berrigan, a lifetime of faith, hope and love, living in NYC

Denise Diaz, brewing up a revolution, at The Ritual Cafe in Des Moines

Deanna Taylor, Green Party activist, teacher, in Salt Lake City

Rossie Indira-Vltchek, writer, filmmaker in Jarkarta, Indonesia

Nora Barrows-Friedman, Pacifica reporter in Gaza, sometimes in California

Delaney Bruce, Friends of Peltier

Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs, in Taos, New Mexico

Michael Sprong, South Dakota Catholic Worker

Brian Terrell, Des Moines Catholic Worker

Bob Graf, One of the Milwaukee 14

Loren Coleman, Bigfoot researcher, living in Maine

Monty Borror, Sci-Fi artist from Virginia

David Ray, Great American Poet, in Tucson

Jack Blood, radio show host, in Austin, Texas

Danny Schechter, A Real Reporter, from New York City

Bob Kincaid, host, Head-On Radio Show

Tony Packes, Animal Farm Radio Host, Keeping An Eye on Big Brother

Richard Flamer, Working With the Poor in Chiapas

David Ray Griffin, 9/11 Truth activist author, from Isla Vista, California

Barry Crimmins, U.S. comedian, author, social activist

Bret Hayworth, political reporter for the Sioux City [IA] Journal

Lisa Casey, publisher of website All Hat No Cattle, Florida

Joe & Elaine Mayer, activist couple in Rochester, Minnesota

Fr. Darrell Rupiper, U.S. priest revolutionary [deceased]

Whitney Trettien, MIT student, Green Party activist

Meria Heller, radio show host, in Arizona

Phil Hey, professor, poet, Sioux City, Iowa

John Crawford, book publisher, Albuquerque

Steve Moon, Iowa Bigfoot researcher

Carol Brouillet, California social activist, 9/11 Truth

Russell Brutsche, Santa Cruz artist

Kevin Barrett, professor, radio show host, 9/11 Truth activist, in Wisconsin

A'Jamal Rashad Byndon, social activist in Omaha

Chris Rooney, Vancouver, Canada Catholic Worker, website publisher

Marc Estrin, political novelist, from the left, in Vermont

Peter Dale Scott, poet, professor, author, activist, in California

Anthony Rayson, anarchist zine publisher, works with prisoners, from Chicago

Alice Cherbonnier, editor of The Baltimore Chronicle, an independent newspaper