Walt Whitman: Thought (Of Equality)

(Credit: Ohio Wesleyan U., Bayley Collection)

Thought

Of Equality--as if it harm'd me, giving others
     the same chances and rights as myself--
     as if it were not indispensable to my own
     rights that others possess the same.

                        --Walt Whitman

Paulo Freire: Enemies Who Must Be Watched

(Image credit: Slobodan Dimitrov)

The oppressors do not perceive their monopoly on having more as a privilege which dehumanizes others and themselves. They cannot see that, in the egoistic pursuit of having as a possessing class, they suffocate in their own possessions and no longer are; they merely have. For them, having more is an inalienable right, a right they acquired through their own "effort," with their "courage to take risks." If others do not have more, it is because they are incompetent and lazy, and worst of all is their unjustifiable ingratitude towards the "generous gestures" of the dominant class. Precisely because they are "ungrateful" and "envious," the oppressed are regarded as potential enemies who must be watched.

--Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

Karl Marx: Nothing to Expect but a Hiding

He, who before was the money owner, now strides in front as capitalist; the possessor of labour power follows as his labourer. The one with an air of importance, smirking, intent on business; the other, timid and holding back, like one who is bringing his own hide to market and has nothing to expect but--a hiding.

                      --Karl Marx, from Capital

Chomsky: Power Used Wisely

(Image Credit: Duncan Rawlinson)

It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes willful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them.

--Noam Chomsky, from a talk given at Tufts University in 2001

Eugene Debs: I am my brother's keeper

(Eugene Victor Debs. Nov. 5, 1855-Oct. 20, 1926)

A little break from my usual poetry posting. Eugene V. Debs. Labor leader. Five time Socialist Party candidate for U.S. Presidency. Much of what he said still burns with his original intensity, and is as true today as when he said it:

Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself, but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
Yes, I am my brother's keeper. I am under a moral obligation to him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality, but by the higher duty I owe to myself. What would you think of me if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings starving to death.

                                 --Eugene Debs, from his 1908 speech “The Issue”

Moloch

Moloch

    Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone!

                                             --Allen Ginsburg

Drilling   spilling   pumping

                                                blasting

                                                      

removing every mountaintop

to find the pearl

of great price

casting the star

named Wormwood

into every river

made bitter

unwilling to say—Enough!

until every son and every daughter

has passed through the fire . . .

I stand off

and see the smoke of burning,

and the circle-jerk

of those who wax rich

through the abundance

of her delicacies.

O God!                         We all

(yes, stupid fuckers one and all)

invoked this beast insatiable

conjured

him from the smoky pit in order

to have our way with him,

this pet that does not merely

bite the tit

that feeds it—

it devours all

sometimes slowly

                              over time

sometimes

                   in one huge gulp.

--------------------------------

Tonight is beat poetry at dVerse MeetingtheBar. Even if you aren't up to writing tonight, you owe it to yourself to head on over to read Gay's informative article. I took inspiration tonight from Ginsburg, John of the Apocalypse, Jeremiah the Old Testament prophet, and human greed and stupidity. Seemed like a good blend for a beat poem to me.

Foucault: Who First Thought?

Who looked into the din and confusion of war, in the mud of battles,
for the principle of intelligibility of order, institutions, and history?
Who first thought that politics was war pursued by other means?

                                              --Michel Foucault, from Society Must Be Defended

Chris Hedges: War's Crusade

Once we sign on for war's crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.   

                       --Chris Hedges, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning

Shakespeare: A Living Wage

Palamon:                                            Yes, I pity

Decays where’er I find them, but such most

That sweating in an honorable toil

Are paid with ice to cool ‘em.

                        --Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen, 1.2.31-33

Shakespeare: Food Chain

Third Fisherman: . . . Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.

First Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.

                                             --William Shakespeare, Pericles 2.1.26-28

Herman Melville on Butchers of the Bloodiest Badge

(Herman Melville, died Sept. 28, 1891)

Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honoring us whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a butchering sort of business, and that when actively engaged therein, we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is true. But butchers also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honor.
                                                                 

To Drive Us Mad--Candide

          

          "But what was this world created for?" asked Candide.

          "To drive us mad," replied Martin.

          "You remember that story I told you," continued Candide, "about the love of those two Oreillon girls for their monkeys. Doesn't that astonish you?"

          "Not at all," said Martin. "I don't see anything strange in an infatuation like that. I have seen so many extraordinary things, that nothing is extraordinary any longer."

          "Do you think," said Candide, "that men have always massacred each other, as they do to-day, that they have always been false, cozening, faithless, ungrateful, thieving, weak, inconstant, mean-spirited, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloody, slanderous, debauched, fanatic, hypocritical, and stupid?"

          "Do you think," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they could find them?"

          "Of course I do," said Candide.

          "Well," said Martin, "if hawks have always had the same character, why should you suppose that men have changed theirs?"

          "Oh, but there's a great difference," said Candide; "for Free 

Will . . ."

          They were still talking when the ship reached Bordeaux.

--from Voltaire's Candide

I stand by what I've written, so up yours.

So--here's the series of events as I see it. I posted a poem on January 10, 2013, one inspired by an essay by Wendell Berry. On January 11, 2013, just one day after my post, Mr. Berry spoke at a Baptist college conference and came out in favor of fair treatment of gays, including the right of gays to marry. Soon after the report of Mr. Berry's speech made the rounds, conservatives (religious and political) immediately distanced themselves from Mr. Berry, afraid (I suppose) of catching some germ that would turn them into homosexuals. (Why, in the accompanying photo above, is Mr. Berry surrounded by so much "wood"? is this a subliminal message?) Many of the arguments made against Mr. Berry focused on his supposed mental state. Comments such as "he's gone crazy," it was his "Grandpa Simpson moment," he's "off his rocker," he's "lost it," summed up the substance of the logic against Mr. Berry.

I have come to suspect that this entire reaction is a hidden anti-poetic agenda against my poem. So here, in front of Gawd and ever-body, on this blessed day of January 18, 2013, I publicly come out and say . . . I stand by my poem as written.

Southern Hospitality

Submitted to dVerse OpenLinkNight, Holiday Edition. Not very Christmassy, but the word Holiday reminded me of a song by Billie Holiday.

World Famous Southern Hospitality

and yet, not so many years

ago, we hung our black

brothers and sisters

from our leafy gallows

as we posed, grinning white

faces topped with jaunty

hats. Smoking, squatting

on fatty haunches,

or leaning against

the strange fruit-

bearing tree as if sharing

a neighborly moment

in the white clover yard

of the white narrow church.

lines 10-11: see the song “Strange Fruit” as sung by Billie Holiday

And the Award Goes to . . .

For Three Word Wednesday, prompt words were affinity, fidget, and mention.

And the Award Goes to . . .

Unblinking, we devour
fabricated reality like
saucer-eyed fish that cannot
distinguish real worms
from glittering bait. Such
affinity for the famous,
who earn their honor by
pretending to be what
they are not. They fuss and fidget
and we watch, mouth agape
as if witnessing the return
of Christ Almighty. Take
hold of your own days.
Make no mention of the
exploits of others.
You also live.

(So I was feeling a little grouchy today.)

Space

Three-Word Wednesday prompt was tough this week. Went ahead and threw something together anyway. Three words were conniption, janky, scooch. Slinging slang on this one.



Space

This janky world.
A growing cosmic
conniption fit
of hatred and violence:
words offered
programs engaged
money funneled
armies deployed
have failed to fix
our fractures.

What if we
just scooch over,
make room for
everyone,
every creature,
welcome all?

Of course it will
never work. So
we continue
to build the tombs
of the prophets
and martyrs
stone upon stone:
shake our heads
deafen our ears
adorn our homes
capitalize
our personal
space.