Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Now We Have Become a MOVEMENT

As "Occupy" borders have blurred, the movement has continued through various working groups, and throuh forming coalitions--probably the most promising way to bring in new people and reach out to the wider community.

The GA became a useless appendage for a number of reasons... but not to be overlooked, that it's function as a central 'branding tool' was no longer relevant or needed. There are aspects of the dispersal of energy that I think are more a sign of health than not--that "Occupy" was NOT going to be institutionalized, not going to be co-opted, but has continued to manifest itself as a MOVEMENT evolving into its changing identities, rather than clinging to any one definition--which is how institutions both PRESERVE themselves... and cease to be other than institutions contained within the framework of the established order.... DEAD as movements. Fund raising being one of the most deadly infections in that process.

I find it noteworthy that just at the point when Occupy Philly was on the edge of most needing to raise money to carry out working group projects, secure bail funds, etc--the very working groups that would have benefited from a more centralized structure--struck out on their own paths. Those we have lost along the way have been, for the most part, those most wedded to a belief in reform, to the usefulness of influencing electoral politics, to concerns about image and the media & approval by authority--and who were not yet comfortable with any kind of vision that could see PAST existing structures of power.
So, in terms of numbers, we've been reduced to a core... but a very active and dedicated core, still using consensus, still non-violent in the broader sense (another group lost--those with a residual 'pacifist' notion of non-violence, who were uncomfortable with militant, deliberate confrontation)... and, like I said--forging all kinds of new alliances.

Lets build on what maybe we didn't plan on, but holds its own kind of promise. I love the idea of 'vision' but vision needs to be evolutionary, constantly changing, not a template to be nailed down to.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Review: China Cowboy

(for a less convoluted review--see Sarah Heady HERE

China Cowboy, Kim Gek Lin Short
Tarpoulin sky Press, 2012

One thing becomes another

The White Dark Man delivers the goods. Namely, La La.
Breech birth. Feet first into the world. Take off running. Ren… pronounced ‘Run’ for ‘man’.  

The MAN.
 Come late across the sea to ....

A book of short prose poems.  Reconfiguration of narrative as... though in dream. Imagining the real.

SE(a)MEN.

floating signifiers—a whole book constructed on them…  caught in the seminal flood. “… he is my blood father.” My  No longer ‘we.’ In fiction as in dreams all characters are one.


Hell, Hong Kong. 1989. 5-14. Ten transgressions. The Colonization of Sex   

Fist City, Hong Kong 1997 17-32. Sixteen Unravelings of Time & Place.

La La Land, Hong Kong 1989. 35-51. Fifteen Disolutions. Death Comes Undone

Bound for Glory 1997/1989. Fifteen Intrusions: Minds Sprung Loose from Body’s Dream

Installations 2001. i-ii. Aesthetics of PTS & The Songbook
  
La La girls. teenagers who dress Western (so far so good) to show off bodies & cloths. Wrong La La. She’s only 12. Except the Western part. Mother gave her cowboy boots. Listens to Patsy Cline. Her Country Star Humility “That her dreams might be in there. In the suitcase.”  Even the one in the trunk. From the tourists robbed in the typhoon. Stabbed & shoved from the car door.
(SUITCASE – 20)

They took his stuff.

Because it would be wrong to translate. To rearrange. To rewrite. I won’t. But there are questions. There are always questions.

Such as?

Such as… What does one do with such memories? With such dreams? When every dream’s a territory? When they’re Clint Eastwood at the top of the stairs. And even when they’re not they are.

Ren. Run.
More ancient evocations  ... the irony's not lost

But she doesn’t.
(KNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES – 40)

Instead, she takes the ball, but doesn’t quite. Ball no longer a ball can no longer be imagined as a ball, even in the dark. Rubber Soul. Pussy of desire. Dead thing living there for comfort when there is none. Not in the light. Blessed sleep. Keep your finger in the hole.
(AMERICAN BALL – 21).

I’m not     I’m not     I’m not     what’s going on.”

This is a book of disassociation. What (else) does one do …   She could shape a spin on anything. It was a movie but not hers. His Shangri La, not hers. He told her about Zhang Yimou.

Red Sorghum came out that year.  

She thought, Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Wren’s Shangri La was her (not his) America. Sissy Spacek.

Displacement. Reversal. One thing becomes another/borders dissolve & redefine themselves.

Elsewhere.  

Repulse Bay.

Never-almost-never-quite visual… language overrules. Take over at the last minute. And there are many last minutes in this book. As many as there are words.

Things become other things”
(SUGARCUBE – 22)

Make bargains. Deals with the devil. You’ll never win… but neither does the devil.
Flip sides of the record.

The subject of the colonial fantasy, as of all fantasies of freedom…  is servitude.
They rob us. We rob them. All servitude is sexual in the end.

Adjectives & adverbs without compliments become nouns. A bluegrass of fogging….  An unrequiting...

Misplacement re-signifies. Shar pei with sweat Indeterminate pronouns abound.

When the suitcase is opened the dream will vanish
.
Euphemisms make a lexicon of dreams.  A doubling of subject…writing the wrong to right the Self.   I

In Extremity.
(RUN- 25)

La La sees as green-blue the sticky slime. Iridescence. Checking her crotch. Blue-green: compliment of red. The baby who will never be -- named Cyan. See’n red.
All servitude is sexual in the end.
(CYAN – 26)

It goes on. No soap opera. Grand Old Opry—that’s out of reach. Instead, it’s Heidi on the bed. Wearing all her clothes. Ren but you can't hide.

Good or or bad?
La La or Heidi?
Ren or bill?
An egg or a man?
A girl or a book?
(HEIDI – 57)

Dressed for the kill. It’s what she wants, he thinks.
Someone has to pay the Bill
(AMERICAN CEREAL – 37)

Missing is where she goes. Her mother remembers searching for the image what she had no time for before she went missing. How to be a mother. What is left? “was it there before?” A warped photograph. Phonogaph. Country music.

She says so with her eyes. I am here.”
(YELLOW NOTICE – 4)

La La: “I never got to do anything”
That’s her Country Superstar humility talking. There are songs. The whole thing in songs. A retelling in a second life.

The Songs are in the back (they always are). You only have to look.

La La’s GUTHERIECRUCIAN SONGBOOK: A Bildungsroman  pp. 101-115)

As if ditched himself Ren heard the escapes in there them bucking
Buried instruments for gagging. Guitars under the earth as if another
la la inside them the next eight years. Cold choired blasting
below. Machines as if breaking.

One reckoning an alarming crackling. The late La La with wheeled
heels through a uke kicked. Deep-sixing in the blazing core one
whoop on her way out.

an unrequiting.


https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif


May 29 W.I.P.




Monday May 29, 2012
Don’t talk to me of wonders
... gather fledglings thrown from their nests
I am too much concrete & fumes
glut of signifiers, dry
rot of history, bodies …
children acid rain refuses

they clamber curbside begging crumbs at dusk
the lush
equivalent of sorrow
scribbled out on grocery bags
                                    pound of flesh
                                    quart of nails
lance the abscess, drain sweet sap
in snow before the memory fades
& seasons change

London Occupy Spring

Memorial Day: A Day of Shame!


From the veterans of the Revolutionary War-- denied pay owed them for their service, without compensation for life long injuries they sustained--to the war damaged men and women vets of Iraq and Afghanistan who slept on the streets last night, the neglect and abuse of veterans in the U.S. is one more hidden history of hypocrisy, exploitation and shame.
Veterans are allotted just enough to insure they won't become the vanguard of a revolution. Without the fear of insurrection by millions returning from Europe and the Pacific, there would never have been a G.I. Bill after WWII. No need to include Afro-Americans... it was safe to assume that white fear of holding and protecting their own privilege would be enough keep blacks down.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Rise Like Lions--Occupy Wall Street and the Seeds of Revolution



Rise Like Lions May 24, 2012 by “Scott Noble’s film Rise Like Lions takes the people, actions, and words from the camps and streets of Occupy Wall Street and provides a radical, compelling and inspiring account of what the movement is about. Watch it. Share it. Do it!” -Ron Jacobs, Journalist, Author The Co-Conspirator’s Tale

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Capitalist Anaconda


A beautiful testimony to how capitalism fucks up our relationships--to one another, to our fellow creatures, to the riches of the earth... and the experience of feeling for the first time the wonder, exhilaration and love of being FREE of the capitalist strangulating anaconda!

Letter to the Media 

 

Monday, May 21, 2012


"Look, I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market." Obama
...and there's the problem. Cause the Market--in a money economy, primes the pump of everything else, & so must come first. Regulation, moderating policy for social good... la la la, all of that is ALWAYS, by definition, secondary (after all... if you don't have the money? ) And what do you do with education? Medical care? Care for the elderly, those unable to produce excess labor for the profit of the 'Market?" There is ALWAYS a built in contradiction here that corrupts politics, widens inequality... insoluble if the hologram of the "Market" stands in for the whole of reality, making it appear that there is nothing else.
Obama is trapped in that delusional, limited pseudo-reality, and has no power of vision to change it.
Enough & more than enough!
Another world is possible!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Obama Bots ...

You want to give me 'lesser of evil" arguments--I say to you--steal everything you can get away with for your basic needs & live on nothing more, for every dollar that exchanges hands supports the system, buys weapons & prisons and strengthens the Empire of Money & Death!

Thursday, May 17, 2012

It's because... W.I.P.

It's because...
...a thing is like nothing else not
even itself least of all the names
of the missing planets invisible bodies
wandering between stars from
the beginning of time that we reason
with shackled senses wed
for life to our own shadows, that every tree
is rooted to the earth & earth itself to our own
flamboyant star with its flare
for radiant wind &
aboreal storms shattering the palette
of night over the rooftops of abandoned cities

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

In response to a recent court decision, rendering indefinite detention unconstitutional...

 anticipate this may well be challenged and overturned.. .as I assume is the case for the judge who made the ruling... but more important than the outcome is the judicial politics emerging here--where members of the judiciary: judges, attorneys... and some in enforcement, are staking out irreconcilable positions. This matters. Please share this. The 'deep;' divisions we are all aware of, are penetrating 'up' into the highest levels of established power

The End of the General Assembly


Occupy Philly. The GA served its purpose. It's dead because, by no stretch of the imagination, does it approximate more than a parody of direct democracy.Not because direct democracy failed, but because the decisions made there NO LONGER HAVE A CONSTITUENCY.

Everything in this movement that matters, happens now outside the GA. That wasn't always the case. What's left is a 'branding tool,' and a dysfunctional set-up to handle money. Direct democracy is not defined by this or that PROCESS, or sets of rules... these are always, and must be, defined by the situation and circumstances of participants in relation to shifting problems that confront them. The Occupy Movement has moved on. It exists in new forms--which prove the vitality of direct democracy.

For most of human history--until the neolithic agricultural revolution and the rise of city states--direct democracy in some form or other, was the norm. And continued to be in many cultures. And it's because it's STILL working that the GA is no longer relevant--all the working groups, doing great stuff... are governed by some form of direct democracy.

Let us not be dragged backward by nostalgia and our misplaced wish to meet institutionalized tyranny with our own institutionalized reactions--which can only recreate the very thing we want to change--the self-replicating monster kingdom of money & death!

May 16, 2012








We are the dolls our mothers ...
     forgot to bring in from the rain when they were children
     our severed limbs & bodies of trees
    

     Who could have known porcelain faces
     would rust – eyelids in vacant lots
     teeming with centipedes & flowers
     buttercups
     arrogant with morning light




Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Talking to Trees

Organum


Poems are not machines.. though they take in raw material and transform them... I rather like the word 'organum' ... though in a way that echoes, but doesn't adhere to conventional definitions.. polyphonic music--with its intersecting multiplicity of voices & cantus firmus, absolutely.. and the medical use of the term.. teeth, organs assisting in, and essential to digestion.. .but peripheral rather than central to the processes of transforming food into the cells and organs of the body. The poem as Organum...

Monday, May 14, 2012

Monday May 14, 2012



A cloud of sleep, raining...
     ...fantastical stars
     the real

     ablaze at their alchemical

     celebration of mass        helium to
     gold to

     radiant distance

     sparrows insistent clawing air for song
     from within

     boxed containments of night

Late Mother's Day Poem


May 13, 2012 Mother's Day
I would be as one --whose word...

condemned to death as Lorca
driven bound, 1936... or --

was his body yet free
over dirt roads beyond reach of


light


I stutter -- fumble for ?
not only what is -- now -- & once & then

but the immense immeasurable distance


transit of light


cannot -- for all that, overcome
the failure of common speech -- as paradigm


for there is no other -- moon
rock torn from the bowels of the earth

our dead Mothers -- all of them
with tongues of amethyst and dung

Sunday, May 13, 2012

MAY DAY, 2012


Wells Fargo
Man in business suit shoves ATM card in woman's mouth

                 a new technique        (force


 bike between legs

grab the guy when he jumps in to help)     
money

metaorphosed shape of all values

yellow tape marks the crime scene

                                                  EXPLOSION ROCKS


festival of colors

                                                  SYRIA'S LARGEST CITY
holi      holi     holi
up in flames


crimson
                       gold
                                     violet
                                                   green

                                    washed in the blood of the lamb

Thursday, May 10, 2012

National Gathering June 30 - July 4 Independence Mall



Here's a FAQ on the Occupy National Gathering being planned for Philadelphia, on Independence Mall, June 30 through July 4

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Philadephia Federation of Teachers: Coalition building meeting

Here’s some impressions from the PFT meeting this afternoon (May 2, 2012). I take notes at meetings the way I take notes for poems… random disassociated impressions intended for stimulating even more disjunctive associations at some later date—not for putting together a coherent representation of whatever might have inspired them. Be forewarned.
It was a good meeting. Any time Helen Gym stands up to speak her mind, it’s gonna be a good meeting. She was awesome yesterday at the hearing before the school board. She’s done her homework, put the Knudson proposal to the test and finds it an empty shell.
Only one of several impressive voices.

Simplified synthesis from multiple sources: Managers/Administrators mediate between money and people who do the work: teachers, principles, all those who make education happen. When managers hold the power, Money always wins, money determines, money makes the rules, sets the agenda, ceases to be a means to serve education, but comes to define what education is, and is for… namely… in the end, it all comes down to one thing: to make more money.

That’s what Knudson’s privatization, farming out to corporations… comes down to. Teachers have little say in how educational programs are designed. This has to change. Return education to the educators and communities. There are many problems that have to be addressed in securing financial support. Blue Cross, University of Pennsylvania… pay NO property taxes. The whole tax structure in the city needs to change… but First Order of Business must be to STOP the Knudson plan. There is no room for negotiation or modification—it MUST be stopped. General agreement on this, and first deadline is May 31—vote will be June 1. So we are under severe time pressure.
How is this to be done?
Build Show Sustain

Build coalition. Movement building. Organize to achieve goals… committees, divide tasks
Show: Education! Parents and teachers need to learn what we are facing, get out information. The public needs to learn the facts. Teach-ins. Press conferences. Target questions to expose weakness and distortions in the Knudson plan. Go public big time!
Sustain: This is about creating a vision for the future, long term goals and planning. People wanted (& there was STRONG support) DIRECT ACTION, Occupy Philly has a role to play here fer sure. We can be a valuable member of this coalition effort—if we keep in mind that there are many teachers, present and retired, community organizers—some awesome people (remember, they defeated the Edison plan ten years ago!), and we need to take our commitment to horizontal democracy seriously and not think we always have to be the ones leading the march. (Thank you Caroline for bringing this up at a May Day planning meeting—about how Occupy shoved ahead of people who should have had more say in the feeding ban hearing, alienating people we should have on our side). But there’s a load of ways Occupy Philly can be good partners here.
Some targets are more immediately vulnerable—or likely to respond. Every City Council person—who know that when the schools to be close are named (they have refused to do this so far), parents and community people will be pounding on their door.
Every school, a man named Ralph pointed out, is a little economic engine in its neighborhood. Any closing has an immediate and powerful effect in the local community. Council peeps should be called and meetings set up starting ASAP. And the Mayor… because of how he’s backed this—is vulnerable to its potential success or failure. Unions need to be mobilized. Important coming dates: May 15, Corbett will be in Philly at Chamber of Commerce meeting!
May 31, SRC vote.
A side note. Someone stood up at a recent meeting at the AME Bethel church—“We need to Occupy 440!” he or she said… and everyone stood up and applauded. Think about this… when we’re asked about what difference Occupy has made. This is the kind of difference you can’t see or measure. It was just the word “Occupy”… that’s not coming from any working group, or General Assembly—or participants of Occupy this or that… it’s a word that has grown powerful, charged with of yet to be defined actions and implications—how loaded and powerful it has become… that’s the power of a Movement, not any one institution or Cause or lobbying group has that kind of power… to spring up in new forms, spontaneously, spreading where no one would have expected it.
A new world is possible!

Solidarity!

Stop Mountaintop mining: scheduled actions


Join thousands across Appalachia and the entire United States as we stand together to demand an end to mountaintop removal coal mining.

These Spring 2012 upcoming events are being planned by a diverse array of groups from across the United States: 
April 30th Green Walk for Jobs and Justice, PennsylvaniaJoin us for a 16 day, 200 mile walk to get PNC out of the business of mountaintop removal coal mining. We are walking across the State of Pennsylvania, leaving from Philadelphia on April 30th and arriving at PNC’s National Headquarters in Pittsburgh on May 15th.  Learn more at EQAT.ORG/WALK
May 8-9th Bank of America Shareholders Meeting in Charlotte, NCBank of America is the biggest funder of coal, from mining to power plants, in the U.S.  This spring, people from all walks of life, representing the diversity of the 99%, are converging on Bank of America’s doorstep to hold the bank accountable and take action. Join RAN and our allies on May 9 in Charlotte, NC to protest at Bank of America’s annual shareholder meeting. Learn more here. 
May 19-26 Mountain Justice Summer Camp and Day of Action in Pipestem, WVThis annual event includes workshops on mountaintop removal and informatin on how to take action and get involved with the movement to end mountaintop removal mining. It will be followed by a summer of action. Get involved at: mountainjustice.org/
May 28 Women Unite to End Mountaintop Removal, Charleston, WV
Women unite by meeting at our state capitol wearing white and shaving our heads to represent the stripping of our heritage, our homes, our water and our land. Stand in solidarity with our mountains that have been stripped of their trees, plants and top soil and our people who are sick and dying because of the effects of MTR. Learn more here. 
June 1 Kentucky Rising, Capitol Lawn, Frankfort, KYLet your voice be heard! Demand the end of corporate domination of our politics. Bring your passion. Bring ideas. Bring your voice. Bring a tent. Details will be posted at kentuckyrising.org. Facebook page is here.
June 1-6 End Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington, DC
ilovemountains.org/wiw 
Over 150 citizens from the Appalachian region and across the nation will gather in DC to demand Congressional action to end mountaintop removal and create a sustainable economic future in Appalachia.
June 6th Day of Action to End Mountaintop RemovalA rally in Washington DC, rallies across the US and a call in day will demand an end to mountaintop removal coal mining. Join us in DC or host a local event in your community!
June, 2012 – 500 miles for 500 Mountains WalkThis 500 mile walk will journey from Washington, DC to the sources that provide its energy. This self-powered journey will pass an electrical plant in Virginia, and then on to the mountains where coal is extracted through mountaintop removal. Dance Exchange artists and partners will engage communities in workshops, residencies, and interactive panels, to examine resource use and its impact on our lives and the environment. Learn more here.
June, 2012 – Take Action to Protect Blair Mountain, WVDetails coming soon. 

Saturday, June 30th & Sunday, July 1st Mountain Keepers July 4th Festival, Kayford, WVSee mountaintop removal and celebrate Appalachian culture with Larry Gibson and other inspiring mountainkeepers. Learn more at mountainkeeper.blogspot.com
End of July, West Virginia, RAMPS mass walk-on to an active surface mine in WV. More details coming soon!  www.rampscampaign.org info@rampscampaign.org
Saturday, Sept 1st & Sunday, Sept 2nd, Labor Day Gospel Music Festival, Kayford, WV
See mountaintop removal and celebrate Appalachian culture with Larry Gibson and other inspiring mountainkeepers. Learn more at mountainkeeper.blogspot.com

Saturday, October 13th & Sunday, October 14th, Changing of the Leaves Festival, Kayford, WVSee mountaintop removal and celebrate Appalachian culture with Larry Gibson and other inspiring mountainkeepers. Learn more at mountainkeeper.blogspot.com