Life

"What is life? Did you read about it in a magazine? Silent lies, never giving you what you need," wrote Laura Nyro in "To a Child."

Due to my husband's illness I've been thinking a lot about life lately. Actually we were both thinking about it for a at least a year before we knew he was sick. We were talking about what to do with the rest of our lives now that things were relatively settled and the kids were grown up.

One of the things we were thinking about was "living up to your potential." I didn't have a burning desire to be a buyer that's for sure, but there aren't too many classified ads for "Angry Female Poet. Sharp tongue, endless pool of rage from which to draw. Great pay and benefits."

When I think of wasted potential I don't think of someone standing on the corner with a sign that say's, "will work for food. " I think of Marlon Brando or Orson Welles. I guess it's not really wasted potential it's more like the seed get's planted and as it's growing someone puts an invisible box over it so instead of growing straight and true and strong the limbs are constricted and distorted. What should be reaching for the sky turns and twists and strangles itself. Besides before Barry's illness, we didn't have it so bad. My job is not terrible. Sometimes it's even fun. But in the back of my mind and in the front of my mind too, there's always this nagging feeling that I should be doing more.

Yesterday a coworker told me about an internet news article about the soldiers who were caught tring to smuggle cocaine in from Columbia. I said, "So what's new. They've been doing that for years." Here's a quote from Alfred W. McCoy's book, "The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia" which I read when I was in college in the 1970's: "After a decade of American military intervention Southeast Asia has become the source of 70% of the world's illicit opium and the major supplier of raw materials for America's booming heroin market." What he was objecting to was not so much the smuggling but a bit of information in the article that said that the US government has given 3 billion dollars in military aid to the government of Columbia. "We" were "helping" other countries while Social Security is going down the tubes. My response was that "we" don't help anyone. Our tax dollars are at work around the world and at home screwing us and people just like us. I sent him the link to Columbia Solidarity Campaign http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/cocacolacampaign.html where you can see whose freedom your tax dollars are maintaining and expanding by paying for killing union organizers at Coke plants.

I have an image in my mind of the American Working Man as an old fashioned iron mechanical bank. The smiling worker with an American Flag in his hand is bending over. Behind him stands Uncle Sam. Everytime Uncle Sam kicks the worker in the butt, he waves the flag and opens his mouth to DISPENSE a coin.

Jonathon Kozol in his book, "The Night is Dark and I Am far From Home," writes, "It is our lot to live within a world of pain. Much of that pain is now the economic bedrock of our own material advantage. It is essential...that we do not recognize the evil that we live by...if we do..we might grow up to understand we do not need to race and run forever...We might grow up instead to feel enraged about sick people, dead black infants, napalm, war machines...to wonder what kind of government it is to which we hold allegience...We might grow up to be brave and subversive human beings."

What if you did grow up subversive and even a lttle brave? Then what?

There's that Lao Tze quote, "To know and not to act is not to know." Although I know a lot of things about "our" government and I do participate in small ways in democratic resistance verbally, in writing and by going to demonstrations, I have always felt that I don't know enough to go further. I don't mean that I'm not a college professor. I didn't want to be that or a labor lawyer which is why I was a Labor Studies major at Livingston College in Piscataway, NJ for only one semester. They are both legitimate and necessary occupations, but not for me. I mean that I can't get to the next step until I pick up the right concept. The key to the next door. What is it?

The phrase, "living up to your potential" has the hollow clang of individualism attached to it. One of the passages in Kozol's book that I really don't like is, "The New Left will to have 'no leaders' is often, in my judgement, less an evidence of faith in democratic process than a disguised form of the fear to be one." This is totally opposite to what Eugene Debs said, "I am not a... leader. I don't want you to follow me or anything else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the... wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out." This is pretty important. Maybe this is at the heart of the cultural revolution that is really needed in this country.

Friends that I have spoken to in recent months have mentioned how much humbler they've become as they've gotten older. I'm not sure that humble is the right word to use. The emphasis that our society places on the importance of the individual is a major problem.

First:capitalist society cares nothing for the individual, it's all just words.
Second: human beings need each other. No one person can live by his own labor alone.
Third: it's not individuals who move the world forward, it's groups of people.
Fourth: We are as individual as snowflakes. So what? That and 5 cents won't get you anywhere.

In the movie about the Flint sit down strike, "With Babies and Banners," I remember one of the women saying, "We weren't individuals anymore. We had the union." In Stan Goff's book, "Full Spectrum Disorder," he talks about reading Marx, "Society does not consist of individuals," and being blown away by that concept, "You can't burrow down into your little niche and look down on anyyone, because we are all in this system together." That's not becoming more humble, that's becoming more conscious.

I have grown attached to the ant as a symbol. I have 2 ant pins that I wear when I'm feeling powerful. I like Laura Nyro and Diane Arbus and Joan Didion. I like shellfish and summer tomatoes even though I'm slightly allergic to both. I like shoes-I LOVE shoes!-and pins and the color green. I sing Barbra Streisand songs in the car when I'm driving in bad weather because you have to concentrate to hit the high notes and it makes me less frightened. I like to cook. I like the city better than the country. I love Brie. None of these things will help me change the world, but they might make things more fun for the other ants.

Life will never "give you what you need." You have to demand what you need whether it's pushing for more visibility for awareness of cancer and it's causes; the lack of coordination of patient care in the for-profit health care industry; industry and war as cancer promoting entities, war, the destruction of the human spirit-whatever. You have a lot more leverage when you're standing with a hundred or a thousand or a million people than when you standing there all smily and cute and pretty and smelling nice and wearing your cute new shoes all by yourself.

The Five Hardest Things

Let’s just say you’re like me-you just turned 50. The kids are grown and not in the federal penitentiary, you’re relatively debt free. All the issues you had with your parents and all the mistakes they made raising you are resolved for the most part. You may not be in love with your job, but you can tolerate it most of the time.

All the petty jealousy’s and power struggles that occurred early in your relationship have been resolved and even though there are certain acts and words and phrases that can still push your buttons for the most part you rarely have a fight and when you do it lasts for minutes, not hours.

You’re beginning to think about retirement, maybe starting a business. You’re starting to do the household chores during the week so you can spend the weekends walking in the woods or birding.

Then you find out your husband, partner, the love of your life has lung cancer.

There’s a television commercial for an SUV, I can’t remember which one. The driver takes the vehicle to the edge of a cliff. He stands at the end of the earth and there is nothing there but darkness and stars. I’m at the edge of that cliff, but there are no stars. The first hardest thing is realizing that you have no future.

Try to imagine it. You have built a life. Two weeks after you turned 20 you met a male person you could have a conversation with who wasn’t gay. Somehow you swallowed a barbed hook that’s still pulls at your stomach, heart and head. He tried to break up with you twice but you wouldn’t let him. Well, once you wouldn’t let him quoting from his very own Little Red Book, the second time he changed his mind. You got married and had babies. You worked hard and had fights and made love all over the place. Making up for a lack of experience you explored “The Joy of Sex” bending down the corners of the pages so you could “practice.” You christened every room in every apartment and every piece of furniture in every room, the stairs, and the floors. When you went on vacation the first thing you would do when you got on the highway (since the car seat was facing backwards in tback seat) was whip out his penis and start your trip with a bang while passing truck drivers got a birds eye view. You made love in the woods up against the trees, under the bushes at the Wolverton Inn, giggling as people walked by. In front of a giant mirror in a room over a drag show in New Hope.

This man was so strong he could have crushed you, could have snapped your neck with practically no effort, but he used his strength to hug you, to hold you, to love you more than anyone else in the whole world had ever loved you. You were safer than you’d ever been and that made you feel free. He used his strength to work hard and fix cars and build bookcases and put up sheet rock and change light fixtures and change babies and help you wallpaper.

All those things he would do, but he would also read you poetry even if you don’t like the kind that rhymes. He would talk to you about politics and literature and how to make wine. He would make you breakfast and goat curry even though you don’t like goat curry. He would argue with you about the nature of World War II for 13 years and then admit that you were right.

Now when he lays there drifting in and out of sleep saying that he’s too tired to think, dragging himself down the stairs to drink a milkshake laced with Prosure you find it hard to take a breath. You wish you were the one who was sick and when he says, “No, you don’t wish that honey,” it hurts so much your head could explode all over the walls. Someone who saved your life, who helped make your life, who held you up through years of depression and mental pain is suffering more than he ever has in his life. To not be able to fix this by sheer force of will; to not be able to meld your body into his and drag him through this is the way you’ve always done everything-together- is intolerable. The second hardest thing is being powerless.

<>We live in a time when “family values” are trumpeted to justify oppression and robbery.
We have something called the Family Leave Act that is supposed to cover situations like this. When a family member is seriously ill you are supposed to be able to take time off to care for them. Unfortunately the act doesn’t say what you’re supposed to do for money. If you’re lucky, the person who gets sick is a teacher who has 45 sick days instead of 7 like you do, so for 45 days he gets full salary. After that it’s 50 percent on short term disability. So instead of being supportive and nurturing, you get to worry about money and paperwork and picking up all the slack of the household shores while working full time. He wants you to be with him and you can’t. Financial and time pressure, these are the third hardest things.

Once if you had a bad day at work or your kids screwed up again you could come home and blow of steam. You could go out to dinner or go for a walk or have a few glasses of wine and tumble into bed to release the tension. Now there’s no one to talk to rant at or run away with. There is no fun. No fun in June, July, August, September, November, December, January, now it’s February. There was only worry-wondering what the problem was, what it would mean. Then there was the discovery; the worst possible discovery. Now there’s limbo – suspended animation with no end in sight. The first deadline is 2 weeks away. A CT scan. Did it work? If the answer is yes, “prophylactic cranial radiation,” then a month or 2 later, another CT scan. Repeat, repeat, repeat. If the answer is no…Uncertainty, this is the fourth hardest thing.

People ask you how you are. They tell you they are praying for you even though you don’t believe in prayer or god. They tell you they were so sorry to hear about it. You wonder if they really mean it or are secretly glad that something came to break that bond that no one else seemed to have. You went everywhere together-meetings, movies, walking the dog, to the supermarket, flea-marketing. You didn’t want to go anywhere alone. Not you and not him. “Come with me,” he would say. “Take a ride with me.” And even if you were in the middle of cleaning the house or weren’t planning on going out you would change your clothes-“Do I have to wear a bra?” and comb your hair and go because he wanted you to go with him.

People ask you how you are and you say “OK.” You have to go to work and you have to do your job and you have to pay bills and do the laundry and go to the store. You have to get up every morning and get through every second of every day. You cry in the shower and you cry in the car and you cry in the middle of the night. All your memories play in your head when you’re alone. You wish you had made him buy a video camera so you could have captured his smile, his walk, and the way he crossed his legs and held his pipe. Panic overcomes you in the middle of the day when he used to call to see if you needed anything from the supermarket or what you wanted for dinner. There are days when he never calls. The days after chemotherapy when he lays on the couch all day too weak to pick up the phone you realize that this could be the way your life is from now on: no one calling for any reason at all. How do you express these feelings to a stranger? Who can listen to this tidal wave of pain?

What if someone shows up in your inbox one day with a message that he heard about your husband being sick and to let him know how things are going? What if it’s someone you haven’t seen in 12 years but you can talk to like you just saw him yesterday? What if it’s someone you’ve known for 30 years who loves you? What if one day you send a small message back-“I’m scared,” you say because you are terrified and alone. And he answers back, “Call me, anytime.” I suppose you should say, “No thank you, that wouldn’t be proper.” I suppose you should shred your brain, your body and your heart with your nails; beat your head against the wall until you can’t think anymore; cry every night until your eyes are purple slits and your head throbs. I suppose you should enshrine your loneliness in a near-crypt, surrounded with bouquets of lilies.

To have the chance to be human again, to have fun again, to love again. That is the fifth hardest thing.

Living in America

The chipmunk on the wall
is staring at me
aggressively shaking it’s tail.
I am the interloper.

All winter and spring
it has gone unmolested,
foraging for food,
digging tunnels
jumping over the walls

Now, almost summer
it encounters me,
sitting on the patio, feet up
senses swimming in the sounds and smells
of almost summer in America,

Knowing that on this day
so beautiful, yellow-green
and full of sweet life
everywhere in the world
people just like me
scream and die
scream and live.
Beaten,
Mutilated,
Raped,
Shocked by electricity

I accept the pleasure this day offers me.
I will hold it in a drawer in my memory.
Someday, in the midst of terror,
the drawer will fly open, wide
taking me back to this day
of almost summer in America.

A Circumstantial Education

I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question.
I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to conclusions.
I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to the conclusion that this was the best of all possible worlds and I was lucky to have been born at a time so free from the disease and hardship that was a mere generation away.
I was encouraged to explore, to read, to question, and to come to the conclusion that this was the best of all possible worlds and I was lucky to have been born at a time so free from the disease and hardship that was mere generation away and to have the opportunity to be anything I wanted to be regardless of class, race or sex. Bzzzzz.

In the fourth grade John F. Kennedy is killed. In the eighth grade Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy are killed. I sit at my bent plywood and Formica desk unmoved while others sob watching the black & white TV. Even the nun’s are crying. We read “The Diary of Anne Frank” in the seventh grade. What a tragedy! Such a young girl! How poignant! Later I find out about Goodman and Shwerner and Chaney and Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Later I find out how hard it is to accomplish something good when powerful people don’t want things to change. Reading alone in my bittersweet orange room with it’s flowered curtains and fishmobiles hanging from the ceiling, I am beginning to not understand how Hitler, charismatic as he may have been, did what he did all by himself. Bzzzzz.

I ask the librarian in my high school for a map of Vietnam and she says, “You girls should be thinking about parties and dances. You should be having fun, not worrying about things like war.” I am angry with her for not understanding: this is my party, this is my dance. In the Museum of Modern Art there is a poster that is a photograph of a pile of dead Vietnamese bodies. The caption asks, “And babies too?” and answers, “And babies, too.” I come to the conclusion that “Never again!” really means never again in exactly the same place in exactly the same way. Bzzzzz.

I pull down the cardboard box in my closet with old issues of my “Catholic Child’s Treasure Box.” Laura Nyro is singing, “Buy and Sell” on my pink and purple record player. I turn to the story of Wupsy the Guardian Angel and Sonny John the African pagan baby that is his first charge. The head angel tells Wupsy not to stop Sonny John from getting too close to the open fire. Sonny falls into the fire and is badly burned, but because his mother Ntaka Ntaka thinks he is going to die, she allows him to be baptized so he will go to heaven. Bzzzzz.

I explore the public library for things that I should read. I find “Treblinka”, “While 6 Million Died”, “Who Financed Hitler”, “The Crime and Punishment of IG Farbin”, “Blowback”, “Wanted, The Search for Nazi’s in America”, “The Deputy”, “They Fought Back”, “The Wall”, “Fascism and Social Revolution”, “You Can’t Go Home Again.” I question the role of German capital in the rise of the National Socialist Movement. I question the role of International capital in the rise of the National Socialist Movement. Standing in the stacks, my arms piled high with evidence. I question the role of Social Democrats in their capitulation to the National Socialist Movement. This is an old argument. Communists know one truth, Social Democrats another. The issue is in the past, but not in the past. Read Bogdan Denitch on Kosovo. Read Michael Parenti on Kosovo. Draw your own conclusions. I question the role of the US government in the aftermath of the National Socialist Movement. In 1995 Serge Stetkievich, an engineer at the company where I work, sees me reading Christopher Simpson’s “Blowback”, points to a picture of a Nazi in the book and says “I worked with him after the war.” My stomach feels odd. I look at him. “ We had no choice,” he says, “It was them or ….” He stops after seeing the look on my face. I come to the conclusion that Hitler did not accomplish the murder of 14 million people all by himself. Bzzzzz.

I question the role of the American Communist Party in encouraging unions to make “no strike deals” during WWII when American capital is making money hand over fist as they have in every war since the Civil War. “After the Soviet Union was invaded we had to support the war to save the Soviet Union! Communists were among the first to fight fascism in Spain. We had to continue the fight!” Yes, the fight against fascism but separate from Capital. What is Fascism but the skeleton of Capital? Underneath the fat of war boom and the fancy clothing of electoral politics the bones are the same. Oops! Here comes Joe Mc Carthy and HUAC. Hello, Film Noir. So long, film rouge. Goodbye, Ethel. Goodbye, Julius. Bzzzzz.

I explore the thoughts of other people.
“Those students don’t know how good they have it.”
“They wouldn’t be able to demonstrate if they lived in Russia!”
“They’re supposed to getting an education, not demonstrating, having sex and taking drugs!”
“Communists are torturers!”
“Hitler was a mad man!”
“Quadaffi is a terrorist!”
“Saddam Hussein is another Hitler!”
“Milosovic is another Hitler!”
What was Truman? What was Johnson? What was Nixon? What is Kissinger? What is Bush? What is Carter? What is Clinton?
“The Viet Cong are Communists. We have to save those people from Communism!”
In James Michener's book, “Kent State,” parents of some of the students on the campus say that if their sons and daughters were throwing rocks and bottles at the National Guard, they SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOT. How many tons of bombs, naplam, agent orange dropped to save these people from Communism and to save them for what? Bzzzzz.

I return to college. My husband wants me to be a teacher. I explore Paolo Freire and Jonathon Kozol. I read in “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” “with the establishment of the relationship of oppression, violence has already begun. Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators, if they themselves are the result of the violence…there would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation.” If you teach this way no pair of Nike’s, no designer jeans will satisfy. I can’t take the loyalty oath. I can’t lead the pledge of allegiance. Who will hire me? I decide I can’t be a teacher. Bzzzzz.

I have a class called, “The Philosophy of Peace.” We have to write a peace plan. We have to divide and share the world’s resources. The instructor is a Catholic into liberation theology. He infuriates me. Is that what he thinks is causing the problems of the world? No one has come up with a fair enough PLAN! I do a slide show with my term paper. I show the “plans” that have been trampled in the dirt, buried under the bodies that fell on top of them. He has never seen these things before. I want to scream. Bzzzzz.

Preparing for the Columbus Quincentennary I read about the conquistadors slow cooking a Native American over a fire pit. They tell him not to worry for he will soon be in heaven. “Are their Spaniards in heaven?” he asks. “Yes, of course, many Spaniards,” the soldier answers. “Then I don’t want to go to heaven,” says the Indian. Bzzzzz.

My children are teenagers now. I explore what happened in Italy after 1945 with American tax dollars, covert aid and approval. I read William Blum. I explore what happened in Germany after 1945 with American tax dollars, covert aid and approval. I read William Blum. I explore what happened in Indonesia in 1965 with American tax dollars and direct aid and approval. I read William Blum. My head fills with truths until I can’t hold it up any longer. It grows like a baloon, but it is as heavy as stone. It flops down. I try to pick it up. It flops to the side. It will not stand straight on my neck. I am officially a freak. Bzzzzz.

I march. I rally. I speak. I read. I write. Does it make me happy? Does it make me rich? I search for truth like a blind man reading in stone that’s been worn down by time. Like Anthony Newly and Leslie Bricusse with no star to guide me and no one beside me, I go on my way and after the day the darkness will hide me. Every bookeverypoemeverymovieeverypicture of the crimes of my country is in my head. The pile is bigger than 14 million. All colors, all races, all sexes, all ages across time. There is one thing in common, the color of our blood. That is a fact. There is no denying it. Bzzzzz.

I don’t want to lose this anger. ‘Reconciliation’ is a word that makes me want to vomit an ocean of blood. “Conflict resolution” is a phrase that makes me want to step on the heads of the snakes that hiss it. I sit in my living room so I can see all the colors that surround me. It is the color of acorn squash. The stairway wall is paprika. The dining room is gazpacho green. Nina Simone is singing “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” on the CD player. I explored, I read, I questioned and I came to the conclusion that everything that happens today is directly related to what happened yesterday. I am lucky to have been born at a time when people were turning the world on it’s head and shaking out the dirty secrets for all to share and see so I could run and pick them up, hold them in my hands and let them burn like fire in my pockets until I find their truths.

Zombie

I am a zombie during the day.
The tasks laid before me are the pegs I use
to pull myself through time.
There is no purpose to what I do.
There is no reason for doing it.
It is not done with thought or with pleasure.
It is a necessity to keep the mortgage paid and food in the refrigerator.

Outside I am starting to shrivel from lack of life.
Inside I am rotting.
Invisible maggots eat at my veins and flesh-maggots of boredom and self induced paralysis,
Contained by the skin they rumble and squirm unseen
slowly, relentlessly devouring me.

I look for a purpose. I look for a reason to be. I find only emptiness.

I watch the sky for a sign of change.
Clouds move swiftly past my eyes.
Thin straight clouds. Puffy cottony clouds.
Clouds that look like eyes that have been crying all night.
Clouds that look like mist.
Underneath there are glimpses of blue.
In the distance there are hills still red and green and gold with autumn leaves.
But houses are swallowing them up. Green lawns. Beige aluminum siding. Perfectly shaped trees.
I listen for the sound of change on the wind, but there is only empty, hollow wailing.

Grayness is a mist over everyday.
All colors are shaded, less brilliant.
The air has no odor.
The birds sing as if on cue.
It’s as if a protective dome was already over us
and everything is already artificial.
Is that a lemon or an illusion of a lemon?
Is that a piece of chicken or a memory of a piece of chicken?
My eyes slide sideways from person to person
to see if anyone else is thinking these thoughts,
but their faces betray nothing unusual.
Only the grayness is real.
I try to grab it, but it eludes my touch.

My nerve endings wave in the air-
thin, pale pink tentacles
waiting to catch the slightest scent
but nothing passes by.

The absence of the hint of change is frightening.
It is also the absence of hope.
Silence rings like a death knoll.
Like the footsteps of a behemoth.
Like a million soldiers marching.
Like a tidal wave crashing over the earth

Nowhere to hide.
No safety. No disguise.
I cannot wear my disguise anyway.
It doesn’t fit.
Whatever mask I wear doesn’t matter,
because I cannot disguise my eyes.
What I know
blazes like neon, squeaking out of the cracks between my closed lids.
My mouth cannot smile at the things said as jokes.
My mouth cannot make small talk.
My mouth can only utter the monosyllables:
“No, no more. Stop. Stop.

Which little country
will be today’s Guernica?
And which will be tomorrows?
Whose children and old people will be laying in the street in shreds ?
Whose fathers and son’s will be turned into killers?
Whose daughters will be raped?
Whose mothers will turn to stone?
Whose lands will be made inhabitable?
Whose water will be polluted?
For centuries. For Centuries. FOR CENTURIES.
What year is this? In what country do I live?

I know, I know it all and yet I do nothing.

If I walk outside the sun shines on me, not knowing I am guilty.
The breeze touches my face gently, not knowing I am guilty.
If it rains on me I go inside.
If it’s cold, I turn up the heat.
If it’s hot, I turn on the air conditioner.
If I’m hungry, or even if I’m not-I eat.
What will it be today?
Spaghetti? Salmon? A sirloin steak?
Or is it breakfast still- a bagel, some oatmeal, pineapple yogurt?
There are no floods here. No tornado’s. We’re too far inland for a hurricane.

This is how I know there is no god.

In the evening the moon sits high above the city trees
with one bright star below and to the left.
What does it mean? What does it mean?
I cannot hear. I cannot smell. I cannot taste.

If I could eat the moon
it would taste cool and sharp.
My tongue would slide along one whole shiny side and then dig sharply in
and scoop out
a tiny,tingly piece
of cream.
And the cream would
Slide down my throat
like liquid ice
and line my belly with sparkle.

If I could lick the stars
they would taste crisp and sweet.
Their sugary coating would come off on my tongue.
I would leave them sticky and wet
and giggling as I passed by
tickling their sweet star stomachs with my tongue.


If I could hold the ocean in my arms
singing it to sleep with a muses ancient song,
I would cradle it like an infant newly born
and sing my sorrow for its injuries.
For years and years, I would sing,
voice high and soft and voice low and deep
and voice velvet with sorrow and voice silvery with light.
Rocking gently back and forth dipping my fingers
in the water of its mouth,
stroking its limbs and singing.

If I could find comfort in this world,
I would let the air undress me
and caress the soft flesh of inner arms.
I would let it whisper in my hair, breathe in my neck,
flutter around my lips like a million butterflies.
I would stand perfectly still on the top of an empty hill
arms outstretched and let it flow and swirl and stream
and glide under, around through me.
Then exhausted, I would lay down in the grass and sleep.

I am not Orpheus

My husband was recently diagnosed with small cell lung cancer and is about halfway through chemotherapy and radiation. This is a part of how I am trying to deal with it.



I calm no beasts with sweet and gentle strumming.
I do not charm or mesmerize with song.
The thorns on roses harden when they hear me.
And beasts sharpen their fingernails on my tongue.

Death hovers like a yellow gas above us.
Swirls around your eyes and chest and head,
Clings like slime to each second of each day,
Sleeps like a black cold slab in our bed.

Not with a thousand notes can I
Make ghosts cry or stay the pain of the eternal damned,
Pluck Persephone’s longing for the life she abandons half a year,
Bring forth the Furies tears with stroke of hand.

Bloody stars tumble from my open mouth,
Pour from my eyes, embedding in my skin.
Fill my heart as hard as rock.
Clog my veins until they blaze within.

I will not plead. I will not beg the gods,
Perform and wait for their approval.

I am not Orpheus.

Follow me out of this dark place.
No matter how faint your step,
No matter how light your breath,
I will not turn my head.

For Diane Wakoski a Golden Sunday to Erase the Blue Monday

y

So gold bees buzz by my open eyes.
Gold coins plop into my lap.
Gold light hums in my
veins and sends satin
slipping into my pores.
Gold nuggets fill
my sweet mouth and gold fibers
enmesh my heart. Gold balls roll
and tumble in my hands.
Gold life fills my soul.

If I could dance one more dance
with light crackling around my feet
I would dance with my legs on fire
the golden heart pulsing that yellow bright beat
and my hips
would flicker with liquid flame
burning in my womb.
life multiplying
in my body. At last my blood
molten and swimming into the air.

It is golden.
It is golden.r
It is golden.

Kerry Supporters

Here's another letter to the editor written before the election, not published by the Morning Call. I had to go to C-Span and watch the DNC over again because there were so many things that disturbed me about what the speakers were saying.

To the Kerry-Edwards supporters who have been calling and urging me to vote for Kerry since Nader is no longer on the ballot in Pennsylvania I would like to remind you in the words of some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention, what John Kerry stands for:

Gen. Wesley Clarke, “John Kerry will join that great pantheon of wartime democrats like…Harry Truman…Bill Clinton who confronted ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia and with a policy backed by force brought peace to a shattered land.”

Senator Joe Lieberman: “People are worried about their jobs, about rising healthcare bills, about their kid’s education, about their retirement and their environment. John Kerry and John Edwards have practical, progressive, sensible plans to relieve those worries, but all of us know that those plans won’t mean much unless we can restore the American peoples sense of security…shattered by Islamist terrorists…fanatics who are as great a threat to our personal security and freedom as the Nazi’s and Communists who we defeated in the last century.”

Madeleine Albright: “I want a President who will lead in the tradition of Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower…We all know that throughout history freedom has been opposed by dictators, aggressors, fascists and communists. In recent years we have seen arise a new and evil tide-terrorism. As President John Kerry will mobilize the full arsenal of American power including the military, intelligence, law enforcement…under his leadership, we will persist until we prevail.”

And Kerry himself: “I defended this country as a young man and I will defend it as President…I will never hesitate to use force…We will add 40,000 active duty troops…double our Special Forces…provide our troops with the newest weapons and technologies…our National Security begins with Homeland Security.”

Ralph Nader may not be a prophet to lead us into the Promised Land. Do we need one?
He may not be building a movement the way some think he should; maybe that’s our job. But he is clearly anti-corporate, while the Democratic Party is the good cop of capitalism.

Remember, those of you who vote for Kerry and Edwards, exactly what principals you supported in this election. Hopefully, organizing and agitation around the real issues of war, poverty, education, healthcare and the environment as they affect the people of the US and the world will continue despite capitalism’s more palatable mask.

Equality

Standing beside another human being
laughingly pointing a gun at his naked,
bound and blindfolded body. Hoo-ahh!

“I always wanted to be the first woman torturer
caught on camera.”
See Jane smile.
See her blue-green rubber gloves, thumbs rakishly pointed up!

Don’t you want her for a mommy?
A daughter?
A wife?
A neighbor?
A teacher?
My hero!
“I violated prisoners in my maidenform bra.”
Something for your daughters to aspire to.

New this Christmas!
Barbie in uniform complete with dangling cigarette,
dog collar, working cattle prod and
your choice of Prisoner: Middle Eastern, Asian,
Central/South American, African.
Beefsteak tartar a la Brecht is still on the menu at Mom‘s Diner.
Order yours now!
Avoid the Christmas rush.
Pull the string and hear her say in a real familiar voice,
"I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it." *
“We need a common enemy to unite us.” **
“The dove of peace has become the ostrich of complacency.” ***


Equality achieved.
Got that side trip out of your system, girls?


Now, can we get back on the road of liberation?



*Madeleine Albright
**Condoleeza Rice
***Jeanne Kirkpatrick

The recipe for a Land of Opportunity

The recipe for a Land of Opportunity

1. Pour lots of US dollars into tiny, reactionary organizations that exist within a chosen country. (If they don't exist, stir some up.) Make sure they have a well-funded press and many photo opportunities with western journalists. (Toss in some massacre/rape/baby eating stories.)

2. Block all aid to political forces already in power because they are communists. (No documentation necessary. Nor does it matter if the left, communist, coalition government in existence was democratically elected.)

3. Place an embargo on the chosen country cutting off all export/import of necessary items including food and medicine. (Pressure Cooker effect)

4. Make sure plenty of guns, butter and cash get through to the reactionaries. Simmer. Add US troops to taste.

5. The pot will begin to bubble. The side with the most guns, butter and PR wins. (Your tax dollars at work.)

6. Pause to wave the flag.

7. After the dust settles and the blood dries, you have a perfect base for the business community to commit humanitarian deeds so the workers are not starving out on the street and to lay the foundation for future prosperity - for itself.

Note: Recipe can be doubled, tripled, quadrupled as needed.

Vote for Nader, Register your Discontent

I can see why the Democratic Party is upset by Ralph Nader's candidacy.

If it weren't for Nader we would be faced with another year of either not voting or holding our noses and voting for a more palatable though not lesser of two evils.

If they lose, the Democrats could dismiss us as apathetic or if they win point to their success as proof that they were right to support god, the expansion of the military and the strengthening of Homeland Security while fondly reminiscing about their youthful fervor for peace and justice.

For those of us who know that war, poverty outsourcing and other iinjustice existed before Bush took office; for those of us who watched an international wave of anti-corporate, anti-war movements grow and spread only to be sandbagged by the nationalist backlash after 9/11, voting for the Democratic Party and the Kerry/Edwards ticket is tantamount to waving a white flag.

In the Election 2004 article on Nader in August 3rd's Morning Call, State House Minority Leader and Democrat H. William DeWeese said, “...we are going to do everything humanly possible to intercede against Mr. Nader.” This is the pathetic strategy the “party of the people” has for beating one of the most publically inept political figures of the century. To use Al Sharpton's analogy, this donkey has taken us for a ride long enough.

We don't want the military expanded. We want national health care. We want free education. We want affordable well constructed housing. We want living wage jobs in industries that meet human needs. We want Social Security to be expanded. We want debt forgiveness for student loans.

We don't want the Department of Homeland Security. We want no interference in the internal workings of sovereign governments or grassroots organizations. We don't want a new Cold War around the world or at home paid for with our tax dollars.

We want an end to corporate welfare. We want an end to subsidies to industries that threaten the future of the planet. We want corporations that outsource jobs at slave wages to be heavily taxed. If any military interventions are required to keep the wages low in their chosen lands of opportunity, they should strap on their 6 guns and pray.

We don't need the kind of empty hope that John Edwards promised was “on the way.” We don't

need the kind of trickle down, drop in the bucket help that John Kerry promised “is on the way.”

Behind the razor wire surrounding the Fleet Center, wrapped in red white and blue, produced by

Spielberg, serenaded by Carole King a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf.

More than 2 Evils at the DNC

With the exception of Rev. Al Sharpton, the performances at Wednesday nights Democratic National Convention were a cross between a Simpsons Halloween Special and Saturday Night Live in its heyday. The fascist Barbie Governor of Michigan and John Edward's lizard like tongue movements punctuated by a nano-second Jimmy Carter Grin offer fertile fodder for any moderately talented comedian. Unfortunately the future of our country and the planet are not laughing matters.

After hearing over and over again of Kerry's military record and promises to expand the military and the "Homeland Security" budget can anyone honestly say that a vote for Kerry is the lesser of 2 evils?

Tear gas, batons, riot gear, bullets, bullet proof vests,K-Rations(or whatever letter they're up to) bombs, planes, surveillance equipment all make a lot of money for a lot of people.
Around the world these products maintain a world order that makes it safe for people to work for a pittance. A world order that makes it safe for people to die of diseases that are preventable and curable. A world order that makes it safe for American corporations to murder those who organize for decent pay and working conditions. A world order that makes drug use-legal and illegal commonplace "in the greatest country in the world in the best of all possible times." A world order that gives young people a choice of war or prison.

Strengthen homeland security-more women being forced to drink their own breast milk before they're allowed to board an airplane? More hollywood hotties forced to bear their chests to show their nipple rings? More easily recognizable actors made to take their shoes off to show they have no weapons? More men with guns at the entrance to parking lots, bridges and tunnels as we drive around this "free" country?

The war that John Kerry fought in was a war against the tiny country of Vietnam. this is a country that fought the Japanese, then the French before the US came. Already devastated from years of war, they did not have fancy weapons. They didn't travel halfway across the world to bring communism to our shores. They were invaded by the most powerful military machine the world has ever seen and they won anyway. Men, women and children fought against the invaders who raped, mutilated and burned their way across their land. Since when is that something to be proud of? The DNC has loads of veterans telling of their support for John Kerry. Where are the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW?) Outside most likely.
When they played, "Dancing in the Streets" they didn't segue to the "free speech zone."
Which brings me to the musical part of the Convention. Let's start with:

Jackson Brownes, "Lives in the Balance"-
"They sell us the President the same way they sell us our clothes and our cars. They sell us everything from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars."

Well I guess we'll buy anything.

Al Sharpton made a great speech. He ended by saying something like, we never got our 40 acres and a mule, but we're going to ride this donkey as far as it will take us.

I don't think that's the right way to go right now. Maybe it's because I'm 50. I remember going to see Mc Govern speak in Elizabeth NJ in 1972. I remember that I disliked Nixon, but I did not feel that McGovern was enough. Later, I succumbed to the lesser of 2 evils argument and voted for Carter. In all that time, which way has the world gone? Since Vietnam and Chile, Newark and Detroit, Kent and Jackson State, the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Cointelpro, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, the Patriot Act and Iraq again when is it going to stop?

Get off the donkey. Give it a whack on the rearend and send it packing. John Edwards was saying last night, "Hope is on the way." Well hope as been on the way for more than 200 years. When's it gonna get here? And what will it do when it does. Do we really need more hope? You can't eat hope. Hope can't shelter you or clothe you or give you medical care education clean air and water, a sustainable environment or peace. It takes more than hope for that. It takes action.

Those of us who have fought in whatever small way for justice and democracy know what acting means. We stand with the Americans who fought for decent and safe working conditions; who organized labor before it was legal;

Song: Solidarity Forever
"They have taken untold power that they never toiled to earn.
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn,
the union makes us strong."Sub: In union we are strong.

Who fought for civil rights
Song: Aint Gonna let nobody turn me 'round
Turn me round, turn me round.
Ain't gonna let nobody tun me 'round.
I'm gonna keep on walking, keep on talking
Marching toward freedom land.

For womens rights
Song: Bread and Roses
"As we go marching marching.
We bring the greater day.
The rising of the women
means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler
Ten that toil while one reposes.
But a sharing of lifes glory
Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses."

Who fought to keep schools and firehouses and libraries open in our communities.
Song: It Isn't Nice
It isn't nice to block the doorways.
It isn't nice to go to jail.
There are nicer ways to do things.
But the nice ways always fail.
It isn't nice, it isn't nice.
You told us once, you told us twice,
but if that is freedoms price, we don't mind."

Who fought so no husband, father, son mother, wife or daughter would have to die halfway across the world "hanging on the barbed wire, crying out for water."
Song: Masters of War
Well what do I know to talk out of turn?
You might say that I'm young.
You might say I'm unlearned.
There's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you:
Even Jesus could never forgive what you do."

It's past time to part company with the donkey. We can walk together forward "in a column that's a century-wide. It's still a long and a hard and a bloody ride" in 2004.

More tomorrow.

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.

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.

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.

Alienation

In your hands,
a piece of wood becomes a chair
a pile of thread becomes a bolt of cloth
a chunk of ore becomes a steel girder
an empty field becomes a crop of corn.

One of many bodies, no name, no face
you accept the uneven split of wages and profits
reciting the catechism of popular economics.

In your hands
a piece of steel becomes a box of screws
a crop of wheat becomes a loaf of bread
a hunk of clay becomes a set of bowls
a pile of wood becomes a house.

The objects you create stand beside you.
You are smaller in their presence.
They are larger in your presence.

In your hands,
a pile of stones becomes a fireplace,
a load of concrete becomes a sidewalk
a skein of wool becomes a hat,
a nugget of silver becomes a ring.

Some of the money you earn in the uneven exchange
will buy the object you produce
for while in making a car or a chair there is no status
in owning one status is attained.

In your hands,
strength has become weakness.
your creation has become your master,
our history has been rendered over:
granite obscured by a garish coat of red, white and blue.

Why War?

Wars have never been fought for ideals or ideas. Wars are not fought “to end all wars” or “to make the world safe for democracy.” They are fought over natural resources and for economic and political domination and they make a lot of people a lot of money.

Sadaam Hussein was not a good person. That is not why the US invaded Iraq. If the US government were concerned with “evil” it would not be supporting brutal regimes in Turkey or Indonesia. It would not have subverted the governments of Chile or Nicaragua to name a few. It would not have invaded Grenada. It would not have bombed Yugoslavia.

After September 11 the people of the United States had a chance to look closely at and reevaluate our government and it’s foreign and domestic policies. We had a chance to ask ourselves, “Do we want more money for weapons of mass destruction, more young men and women deployed across the world for war and armed “peacekeeping?” Do we re-prioritize in favor of national health care, more money for education, mass transit, more concern for the environmental destruction that is picking up more and more speed, more time to participate in this democracy?”

The majority of people have decided in favor of the latter, but this doesn’t make billions and billions of dollars for the people who make everything from the weapons to the body bags to the K-rations. When we speak about the military budget we should remember that the money taken from the public coffers, money earned by generations of working people, goes to the corporations who make the weapons that kill people and the planet itself. In spite of their patriotism they do not sell to the government at cost.

The Bush organizations “war on terrorism” has already stripped us of the few democratic rights we have. Oh we still have the right to buy several different models of gas guzzling, mega-polluting SUV’s. We still have the right to shop at the Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club of our choice, but not the unionized Shop Rite or Laneco. We still have the right to send our children into the military gambling that they’ll survive long enough to use their GI benefits to further their educations. We still have the right to work until we drop so we can afford housing, healthcare and contaminated food.

What makes a terrorist? Hopelessness and desperation. What makes terrorists target America? Some people say it’s because they are jealous of our “freedom” and our lifestyle. Americans work longer and harder than their counterparts in other industrialized nations. We are more productive as well, but we receive less and less compensation for that achievement. Where does the money go? 40% of the wealth in America is owned by 1% of the people. Our lifestyles reflect this as more and more people work more than one job just to keep their heads above water, retirees are forced to go back to work and even families with 2 full time working parents earn incomes that are below the poverty line. In the meantime the tax dollars we work until May to pay are used to shore up anti-democratic leaders in El Salvador, Turkey, Columbia and Indonesia to name a few. They are used to develop and produce some of the most horrendous weapons of our time-cluster bombs and nuclear waste “bullets” that have brought horrible death and destruction to the people of Yugoslavia, Iraq and Afghanistan.

The priorities of the people who manufacture arms, who own oil companies and who already own most of the wealth created in America are not the same as mine. I do not support an invasion of Iraq or any other country.

What To Do

I think we need to raise the issues that are affecting people in their daily lives, keep these issues in the forefront as the military budget drains the public coffers. What are you terrified of more-Al Quaeda or not having food, clothing, shelter, a living wage, access to medical care and decent education? We need to say that we are not human resources; we are human beings. We need to stop accepting the voting booth as our only legitimate means of expression.

I have been extremely depressed since the recent elections. I am beginning to snap out of it because I realized that once again, I allowed myself to have faith in the electoral process. I have not always voted. I used to vote when I felt I needed to for the lesser of 2 evils. I voted for Carter when he lost. I voted for a republican governor in Pennsylvania because she was pro-choice. I felt very bad about that and I really didn’t want to do it. She was for 1 issue that I felt very strongly about and against 99 other ones that I also felt strongly about. Voting is a very unsatisfying experience. It’s like having one lick of lemon ice on a really hot summer day and then being told you can’t have any more.

In 1992, I wrote an article for Regeneration, A Magazine of Left Green Social Thought. The focus of Regeneration 4 was Green Electoral Politics, The 1992 debates. One of the things I said was, “As activists, our primary activity not to educate, but coordinate the … anger and frustration that we all feel; to encourage people to see that we can live in a human way and to point out that the capitalist system is stopping us from saving ourselves and the world. Whether we win or lose a particular struggle, the struggle itself is important because involvement in it is a step away from passivity and isolation and a step toward humanity and community. It’s important for people to stand up and say that our lives matter more than their profits and that a system that recognizes capitalism’s right to profit over our right to live must end. Do people come to that realization through electoral activity?”

I feel the same way today. I think for me the problem is in finding a community. There are faith-based groups and race based groups, student groups. There the Labor Party such as it is. But for people working in a non-union office environment in an industrial park, not religious and with anti-capitalist politics, there’s not much community or hope for one.

I don’t know if anyone saw the article in the January 2002 issue of Monthly Review, “Left Politics in the Age of Transition,” an exchange between Immanuel Wallerstein and the Editor’s of Monthly Review, but Wallerstein said some interesting things.

One of the things he said is “Use defensive electoral tactics…Once we don’t think of obtaining state power as a mode of transforming the world, they (elections) are always a matter of the lesser evil, and the decision of what is the lesser evil has to be made case-by-case and moment-by moment.”

The entire article is very good and I think worth reading for everyone here, but let me just summarize his alternative strategy:
“1. Expand the spirit of Porto Allegre-What is this spirit? The coming together in a non-hierarchical fashion of the world family of antisystemic movements to push for a) intellectual clarity b) militant actions based on popular mobilization that can be seen as immediately useful in people’s lives and c) attempts to argue for long term fundamental changes.
2. Use defensive electoral tactics.
3.Push democratization unceasingly. The most popular demand on the states everywhere is “more”- more education, more health, more guaranteed lifetime income.
4. Make the liberal center fulfill its theoretical preferences. This is otherwise known as forcing the pace of liberalism. The liberal center notably seldom means what it says or practices what it preaches.
5. Make anti-racism the defining measure of democracy. Democracy is about treating all people equally-in terms of power, in terms of distribution, in terms of opportunity for personal fulfillment…Racism is not a secondary issue either on a national or a world scale.
6. Move towards decommodification…instead of turning universities and hospitals into profit making institutions we should be thinking of how we can transform steel factories into non-profit institutions…
7. Remember always that we are living in the era of transition from our existing world system to something different. We should not be taken in by the rhetoric of globalization or the inferences about TINA. Not only do alternatives exist, but the only alternative that doesn’t exist is continuing with our present structure.

…The key problem is lucidity. The forces who wish to change the system so that nothing changes…have money, energy and intelligence at their disposal…only careful analysis will keep us from falling into their many traps.”

Sounds good to me. I just don’t know how and if we can do it. I think it was Ted Glick of IPPN that sent out an e-mail saying that we should hold Town Meetings in every community. This at least gives people a chance to get to know each other and communicate. I suppose we could try to hold town meetings on specific issues that are not necessarily seen as local issues-like healthcare- and see what people think, what the problems are in our area. It’s difficult to do anything that involves regular people though without the local honcho’s getting involved. A few years ago in Allentown some women tried to organize a group of people to discuss what the problems were with the downtown area and local political people were all over the meetings trying to co-opt the issues.

Guernica vs. Terrorism in Spain

This letter is in response to the misuse of Picasso’s Geurnica in the Tuesday March 16th Morning Call. The only relationship the bombing of Geurnica has to the terrorist bombing in Madrid is that perhaps, if the leftist government of Spain in the 1930’s and the spirit of international cooperation that supported it had been allowed to flourish instead of being brutally destroyed with the complicity of “democratic” governments and the Catholic Church, there would not have been a 2004 bombing in Madrid.

The Luftwaffe bombed the town of Guernica in the Basque region of Spain on market day April 26, 1937 in support of the fascist General Franco. For 3 hours, they dropped bombs and strafed the surrounding countryside, killing about 1600 of the towns 5000 men women and children. The outrage of this massacre is what Picasso’s Guernica represents.

The deaths that occurred in Madrid in 2004 were the result of a group of misdirected fundamentalists who do not hold state power. In contrast, with the bombing of Guernica the killing of civilians became a socially and politically acceptable act by governments during World War II, culminating in the horrific atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. To this day, the brutality of aerial “warfare” continues on a regular basis as we have seen from the use of cluster bombs in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States government and other major democracies maintained an official non-interventionist position during the Spanish Civil War that resulted in Franco’s forces getting plenty of guns, money and oil eventually ensuring the defeat of the elected leftist government. Before the government fell under the relentless barrage of well-funded fascists, more than 50,000 International Brigade members volunteered to fight for Spanish freedom. They came from Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, the Ukraine, England, Ireland, USSR, Yugoslavia, Scandinavia, Canada, Hungary and of course from the United States. Republican Spain represented hope to people living in poverty and despair through a worldwide economic depression; hope to people who found a chance to fight in Spain against the same fascist enemy that was crushing them at home. Among the many who died there was the first black man to lead an integrated American military force, Oliver Law, a commander in the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Upon returning to the United States, survivors were labeled “premature antifascists” because their cause was not tied to nationalism but to internationalism and to the belief that all the people of the world deserve to be free.


A few years ago the Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University hosted an exhibit called, Shouts from the Wall Posters and Photographs Brought Home From the War by American Volunteers. The introduction to the exhibit quoted the writer and film maker, John Sayles, “They fought when they didn’t have to fight, fought when it brought no public glory in their home towns, fought to put a lie to the cynicism that keeps people in darkness…for a republic that was mostly a belief in what people could be, in how they could live together…in a time when caring about someone you’ve never met is seen as weakness or treachery how much strength have we taken from the thought of them…”
There are many sources for more information about the Spanish Civil War. One of these is the website of ALBA – The Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives at www.alba-valb.org.