Evolution for the hell of it

Pliny the Elder, who when Rome was burning requested Nero to play You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille, never got a dinner! - Red Buttons 

The problem with most revolutions is that they end up crushed under the weight of their own sense of nostalgia.

If the political season has reinforced anything for me, it is that I should be leery of political leaders crying out for revolution -- especially leaders calling for "revolution" within the structure of an institution (read: voting) that was meant, from the beginning, to avoid the previously aforementioned revolutions.

One friend of mine, whose political astuteness I respect even if I don't always agree with him, has been talking about the problem of ideological purity in the DNC. I was not able to make it to Philadelphia for the donkey circus like I did  to Cleveland to sit sideline and watch corporate media facilitate the very frenzy The Orange Il Duce described in his 75 minute prophesy of doom (read: nomination acceptance speech). The Bernie or Busters are busting a gut and threatening to go Green.

This is bringing the Nader bashers out in Memeworld -- poor, statistically inept souls who think somehow that Bush II only won the first time because Nader had the temerity to run for President in spite of the two party system. Claims by Bush I supporters that  Texas billionaire crack pot Ross Perot cost Bush a second term have been roundly debunked.  The problem with any recent third push, as far as a I can tell, isn't in the desire for a viable response to a broken two party system. The problem is that they never try and build from the ground up. The Green Party doesn't spend money on local, state, and federal elections. They go for the Big Chair on Pennsylvania Avenue. The problem isn't that Jill Stein will split the progressive vote. The problem is that the Green Party lacks a strong enough base to knock either corporate party off it's feet.

There are a lot of calls for unity behind the now coronated presumptive Queen Hillary, whose only smart move has been to pick a VP who at least knows how to play the harmonica. Meanwhile, journalists are arrested the DNC -- which, for all of it's circus and foreboding fascist themes, did not happen at the RNC.  Having seen how local law enforcement tone can have an impact on these situations, I am more inclined to put this off on Philadelphia's Police Department than I am the Democratic Party. Then again, corporate media outlets, the blogosphere, and memeworld have been brewing up a fight since Bernie Sanders first conceded the race and endorsed Hillary Clinton.

I'm more inclined at this point, rather than calling it for one political hack or another, to pick up my guitar and play a little music. Then I'm going to go write a poem. Then I might weed the garden. I could get angry at politicians behaving like politicians, or at corporate media acting like corporate media. I could sacrifice my ideological stance in the name of being on the winning team*.

Or, I could go camping.

Yeah. Camping sounds good.

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* #GoTeamFascist


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Dirty River on the road: selfie activism

Quality is the greatest enemy of mass-leveling. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Polar Protesting: Near Quicken Loans Arena

I spent yesterday in downtown Cleveland trying to find the dire narrative the political extremists on both ends and all major media outlets have been pedaling. True to the old adage "If it bleeds, it leads," it seems as if FOX, CNN, and MSNBC are determined to create a causal connection between the recent killings and the implosion currently happening inside the GOP.

I saw one mini van full of guys in olive drab who were clearly not military, not police, and not connected to any government agency. There were a few people taking advantage of Ohio's open carry law, and if you follow the media story about the "rally"*  in the Public Square, it would be easy to believe that downtown Cleveland is looks like the setting for a Phillip K. Dick novel.

People deserve better than the narrative they're being fed about the actual state of things. 

Yes, there were a lot of cops around. A few of them were wearing bullet proof vests. Most of them were wearing their regular uniforms and carrying their normal firearms. There were also the usual brand of Jesus freaks, megaphone doomsday preachers, and political protests. As I mentioned in one of my video updates yesterday, the polar bear is probably my favorite. Not only is it on message, but I have to give kudos for the person in the suit's dedication to the cause, because not only did that person walk around for several hours in a hot polar bear suit in July, but that person did so around Public Square and E 4th Street -- the hub of activity outside Quicken Loans Arena.

There were a few radical speakers at the free speech mic, some hate mongers posing as Christians, and

two other protest marches against Trump and the GOP: a pro-immigration march that made creative and not market intended use of a sex blow-up doll, and a parade of women wearing pink in protest of Trump's outright misogyny. There were some lone protesters, each with their own cause, ranging from a call to treat Syrian refugees fairly to one of the sanest people I saw, an old man with a t-shirt that read  "END POVERTY NOW."

I was also hoping to find a few of the more radical left marches to include. Tom Morello showed up to wear his IWW hat and punch the air with the Northeast Ohio Wobs... but the march took place at 7pm -- long after any delegates, GOPers, and major media outlets had filed into the Quicken Loans Arena compound to listen to Chachi spout and Trump's wife plagiarize. Moreover, the march took place from E 47th to E 12th Streets.

The hub of pre-game activity for Day 1 of the convention happened between 8am and 1:30pm at the Public Square and E 4th Street. 

Free speech is crucial to a free society, and dissent is the marrow of a healthy democracy. But I have to wonder about the purpose of a protest no one sees except those who would know about it anyway.

I've participated in marches and protests before because while voting is a civic duty, it is the exact opposite of revolutionary action. When people are organized and have a unified message, dissent can change the direction of The State run amok. But the most successful protests, the most successful forms of dissent, also take risks. 

If the radical left is serious about changing the direction of things and taking on the damage done by late stage capitalism, then it's not enough to march somewhere "safe" because they buy into the media myth of a militarized zone at Public Square. Having a radical message means doing more than bird calling it back and forth with people who agree with you. That's the failure of social media activism. 

People deserve better than dissenters who don't want to take a risk for what they believe. If we leave the megaphones for the hate mongers, we are enabling the hate and violence, not standing against it.

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*If the media outlets covering the "gun rally" had used a wider camera angle, they would have had to tell the story of five people that no one paid any attention to. But a close camera angle is the best way to create a crowd to fit the narrative they walked in wanting to tell.
 

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My Last Sermon; or, why I don't play Pokemon GO

 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill. - Book of St. Matthew, 5:6 (DRV)

Lately I've been thinking about the last sermon I gave. I was 14 years old. The minister of the church I attended while growing up supported my decision to dedicate my life to the ministry* by working with me to explore the nature of the vocation. I studied biblical and theological texts; I went on hospital and home visitations; and I was allowed to give a couple of sermons.

Let me add that stepping up into the pulpit for the first time is a uniquely terrifying experience. There is a kind of invested authority there which does not exist anywhere else. There also a special kind of isolation there, too. People generally do not like their preachers to suffer from the same human failings everyone else does. It's as if those who hear the call are supposed to be suddenly touched by the divine in such a way that all manner of arrogance, fear, greed, hatred, and ignorance are washed away like a hard day's won dirt.

Clearly, that is not how it worked out for me.

I chose Matthew 5:14** as my subject -- what is referred to as the "City on a Hill" section right after the Beatitudes***. The verse is one that gets a lot of treatment and a lot contextualization and re-contextualization. My focus was on how, after the Beatitudes earlier in the chapter and before the call to action that comes after, that it isn't enough to simply identify as a Christian. Mere existence and religious self-identification is not enough. Through his life as recorded in the New Testament, Jesus helped the poor, broke down the false caste system that elevated Pharisees above tax collectors and prostitutes, and preached against greed, hollow words, and empty works. He also acted out in righteous anger at the money changers in the temple. To be the light of the world is more than wearing a name tag, and more than walking into a building on Sunday. To be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, the city on a mountain means DOING, not just BEING. Being a follower of The Christ is an ACTIVE VERB, not a PASSIVE one.

As a student of history, I watch current events through the lens of someone who has read not only Pliny's history of the fall of the Roman Empire, but also about the rise of Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy, and Pinochet in Chile. I've also read about and watched the long history of nationalism in America, the violent power play of capitalists, as well as the divisive and violent racism and sexism that have long run the undercurrents of America.^  I have made my position clear about certain current events: Trump's neo-fascism, Clinton's neoliberalism, and Sanders as NOT a revolutionary figure.

The violence last week with the death of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and the five Dallas Police Officers make one thing very clear: the rhetoric is far more important to the powers that be than any of the blood spilled.  Wisconsin is next in line to suggest "Blue Lives Matter" Legislation -- which would make the killing of a cop a hate crime. The very same people who rally against increased gun legislation, pointing out that more laws won't solve the problem, are themselves calling for more laws.

And, true to form, the far right is trying to co-opt the wording of protest in order to change its meaning.^^ Blue Lives Matter laws not only insult the purpose behind hate crime laws, but is an attempt to negate the essential message behind the Black Lives Matter -- that systemic racism puts Black Americans at a higher risk for violence at the hands of The State.  While it's important to keep in mind that economic violence impacts people of all ethnic backgrounds, there is nothing wrong with people within the black community trying to organize and defend their community.

The other big ticket media item over the last week, besides Bernie Sanders' capitulation to the Clinton Political Machine, is the Pokemon GO explosion. Between the phenomenon surrounding the new hunt for Pokemon in real time and Samsung Galaxy's VR goggles, augmented realities are becoming... well, a reality.

Not that augmented reality is anything new. Italian writer Umberto Eco wrote about hyper reality in 1973. Reality TV and the myopia created by being able to fine tune our online experiences to a specific and individual reality have already cemented our cultural interest in being distracted by an augmented reality. Simply retreating to the movies or to television -- streamed or otherwise -- is not enough.

I don't have anything against playing games. I probably majored in Grand Theft Auto in graduate school as much as I did writing. There's a lot in the world that drives me to want distraction and avoidance. I'm an expert at avoidance. And there's a lot I'd rather avoid.

But there's no action in avoidance. There is no beauty in passivity. There is no flavor when there's no salt.

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*I've written about this time in my life at length in other places, so I don't feel like going through all of that again here. Let's just say my life took a different turn.
**You are the light of the world. A city on a mountain cannot be hid. (DRV)
***What I like to call The Revised Ten Commandments.
^They were here in the beginning. They have always been here. "Before the settlers. Before the Indians. It was here. Waiting." - W.S. Burroughs.
^^ See also, Pat Buchanan's upending of the Reform Party. See also, the "Trump Revolution." See also "All Lives Matter." 
 
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Notes from Outland

To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.  -- Abbie Hoffman  

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information. -- Paulo Freire 

from: Contemporary Art on Human Bodies by Yung Cheng Lin

 I have long suspected that the purpose of such a long political season is to ensure that the American Public is just so tired of hearing about it, talking about, and thinking about it, that to vote seems pointless. All the lines are drawn. Everyone has decided who they're going to bet their children's future on. It's not quite time for the betting window to close; but at this point, only the lines are filled with the neophyte gamblers who are still trying to decide whether they want to box their trifecta or not.

In the middle of this political year -- in which my own opinion was formed even before I saw the thoroughbred parade -- I'm marking a sort of anniversary. This time last year, I was battling what I saw an as unfair termination from JCTCS. I knew then it was politically motivated. I know it now. At the time, though, I saw a way through it, a way to some kind of victory. There was still momentum from The Louisville Teach-In. We created a connection, a community, something that might turn into a movement. We got the word out. People were starting to listen.

And then -- it disappeared. KCTCS began weeding out the most vocal activists (I was not the only one)

and those who remained kept their heads down out of fear of similar reprisals. The institutional power play worked.

And even with the recent shake-up, in which KCTCS fired more than 100 people in reaction to our tin pot fascist governor's budget cuts, a few of those who remained silent, who would not stand up for themselves or for their peers, still have jobs.

I suppose that counts as some sort of victory. Only time will judge that.

But even though I'm on the outs with the institution of higher yearning, I find it difficult to let go. Anyone who knows me well knows I can nurse one hell of grudge. I can grow iguanas into full dragons with bellies full of an unending fire. I'm actually pretty good at compartmentalizing the negative feelings, the anger, because I am trying not to feed all my hungry demons. The truth is, though, that some demons grow best when they are shut up in the dark and ignored, locked up in my subconscious. This morning during my workout, my thoughts turned towards people who I thought were friends and comrades, and people who were not but whose betrayal was so profound that I still have violent revenge fantasies about them.*

I am trying not to feed those demons, but it's more difficult than you might think. I know all the canned memes about how grudges are just weight you can drop if you want; but the truth is, my grudges drive me, too.

Yahoos, from Gulliver's Travels. Or, Hillarites.

It's hard to let go. But I'm trying. I can't help but feel like I was deserted by what adjunct movement there was in Kentucky, and that what labor movement there is here is too busy trying to find a Democrat to believe in to actually change anything. The Bernie or Busters are holding onto the illusion that their candidate is actually the start of a revolution that none of them really wants.** The Hillarites are celebrating because Ol' Buddy Bill scared the FBI and DOJ away. The Trumpians are complaining about the corrupt politics, co-opting the language of the Bernie or Busters in an attempt to attracted pissed off "progressives" who would rather vote for a fascist than another career political criminal.

Brobingnagians. Or, Trumpians.

While everyone is crying for or against Hillary,

The dark powers are amassing power -- and we, the American People, are more focused on the whether the cherry on our shit sundae is maraschino or bright red sour.
Sanders is capitulating and Trump is marching forward like he already bought the White House. Meanwhile, the Koch Brothers are shaping public policy and increasing their cultural footprint simply by spending money on advertising, on influencing our infected institutions of higher education, and by pushing political candidates who will make their policy interests more of a priority than those of the constituents they were theoretically elected to represent.

In closing, I'll offer some track advice: if the horse you're thinking of voting for is carried around by yahoos, think twice. The handicap will hurt us all.
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* #respondent53 has a playdough face. 

** Elections are not, by definition, revolutions. Democratic elections are meant to AVOID revolutions. If Sanders supporters really wanted a revolution, they wouldn't mess with the elections process. Neither would Trump supporters. Or Hillary supporters. Or Greens. Or Socialists. They would take to the streets.

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