Sunday, June 20, 2004

Unnecessary Illusions

…”two women hanged from a tree by their hair
with their breasts cut off and their faces painted red.”
page 236 Necessary Illusions Noam Chomsky


Nationalism mutates into Fascism.
Extreme violence becomes commonplace.
Capitalism, continues its long slow death
Eroding, decaying, putrefying with
Sanguinary results. We read of
Slipping, sliding hands grasping the edge of a red riverbank.
Against a wall, ten people are lined up and shot for no reason, but
Reaction lessens as the horror spreads more and more
Year after bloody year.

Infused with stale yellow and sulfur
Lies hang in the air like slime
Linger around the ears like wasps disguised as butterflies.
Uneasy peace. Behind my eyes, a door slides softly closed.
Slumber is restless, broken by
Images of bodies swinging by the hair.
Obfuscated by news of negotiations the murders continue.
No excuse, except the phrase that pays-Fight Communism!
Silence thunders, black, empty, echoing no hope, no hope.

No time for confusion or endless debate
Elusive as a vision of the future is
Capitulation to what exists cannot be
Entertained. The choice is still barbarism or
Socialism. Don’t we know that at least?
So raise your heads and the scarlet banner high
And give this world a chance at life.
Resistance is essential.
Yet we wander, lost in the fog, haunted by Stalin’s ghost.

Incomplete though our plans may be,
Let’s at least begin, motivated not only by hatred of what exists but by
Love for the ones who suffer. Won’t it be a relief to concentrate not on
Ugliness, or personal unhappiness, but on building a better world,
Seeds of which were planted when we crawled out of the slime?
If we try, what can we accomplish? We have
Only to face the mistakes of the past, shed our not so
Necessary illusions and
Step into the fray.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Hearing

Hearing the cello-sad music
violins screaming in pain
over black and white pictures
of faces from every country
my ears cannot shut out the babble
of too many tongues.

I sit trying not to listen
my head protected by cotton candy news
that despite its sweet softness
cannot block the noise.

All around me people smile
walk, talk, work
not hearing the sounds of suffering
that beat like the telltale heart
through the walls and floor.

It is time to remove the costume of normality
to cleanse ourselves with tears
for those who have fought and are fighting still
and when we have cried ourselves dry,
to look at ourselves naked in the mirror
before we dress for the battle that is to come.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Anti-abortion activists

On my way to work last Thursday I passed 3 anti-abortion activists standing on Hamilton St. on the sidewalk in front of Cedar Beach. They were standing behind large posters of the same aborted fetus. Two of the signs said, Abortion and the third had an arrow pointing to an office building across the street and had the word, "abortionist" written on it.

Just a few days before I happened upon a documentary on FSTV or LINK about bomblets in Laos and how young children, particularly boys are still being injured by the crap left behind from a war that ended nearly 30 years ago.

Where are the blown up color pictures of those dead and injured actually existing children? Where are the pictures of people starving and dying of diseases spread by war? Why aren't the "pro-lifers" out there demanding food, clothing, shelter, medicine and education for the undead-aka the living?

I had a vision of the Scarlet Letter burned on their chests underneath their neat, conventional clothing. I wondered what terrible sin each of them was hiding.

They were only there for one day thank goodness. It doesn't bother me to look at those pictures. It makes me angry that the pictures I saw on Al Jazeera of the child swathed in bandages or the one dead with a part of his skull missing aren't being carried on the street. It makes me angry that the pictures of the victims of cluster bombs in Yugoslavia and the diaries of the doctors trying to deal with the shredded limbs there was no way to save weren't read on the air every night.

Abortion is not about the fetus. Abortion is about a woman's right to control one teeny tiny part of her body. We are all assaulted daily by propaganda-men and women, but does a man have to walk into a mall and see a Victor's Secret shop where he can buy all manner of costumes that lift and seperate, reveal and conceal in all the right places? Do men wear wonder jocks to fill them out and plump them up? Would any of this make them more appealing to women? Think of it that way and you have to laugh.

I wish they would re-run the 1970's TV show, "All that Glitters" on Nick at Night. I don't remember all of it-It was on right before or right after "Mary Hartman." Chuck McCann, Anita Gillete, Linda Grey, David Duke, Marilyn Sokol and that guy from WKRP in Cincinatti-not Howard Hesseman, the young guy-Gary somone. It reversed the roles of men and women, but it kept the society the same. It really made you see how ridiculous conventional roles are. I remember Chuck Mc Cann crying and wearing an apron and David Duke being in love with Linda Grey who had a sex change operation and was really a man and Marilyn Sokol was a sheik(ess) with a harem. I wish we had something like that now. Satire, I mean. But as Tom Lehrer said, "Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

This is disorganized and rambling, but it's all related somehow.
And I cannot believe that women are calling each OTHER "Chicks."
Please don't tell me it's the same thing as gay people calling themselves queer because it certainly doesn't feel like it. I mean "Chick Nation" doesn't have the same ring to it. I suppose at the root of it is the fact that we don't learn our own history-the movements of the '60's are seen as an aberration, not a continuation- a little spurt here, a little spurt there, not a wave that swept over the world. Maybe the tide is out, but the water's still here.

I'll leave that for another day.