Open Letter to Americans

Dear Americans:

When you finally realize that the solution to the economy — rent and groceries (not the stock market, not your investment portfolio), to health and healthcare, bodily autonomy and reproductive rights, the climate crisis, to environmental destruction — of land, air, and water and biodiversity, to wealth inequality, to systemic racism/white supremacy, to colossal, empire-sized military and police budgets — and endless overt and proxy wars and ongoing GENOCIDE — CAN NOT and WILL NOT be found in the BALLOT BOX — blue or red,

— then what?

then, what will you do? will you hope to ride it out quietly with whatever measure of privilege you possess (white male, white adult, middle-classed, usefully employed in the systems of government or institutions of political or corporate power)?

Will you finally rise up and do the necessary-yet-awful, brave, brutal and hard work to resist and fight — like every dignified human collective across history and even today — like the Palestinians? Like the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho? Like the Maroons of Haiti — or will you be like the Germans — roll over, fall in line, bide your time — hope they come for your neighbor or coworker instead; maybe even turn them in?

This “nation is a massacre”, it always has been

for tens of millions of people right here of and on this land — and for hundreds of millions globally — even if that excludes you and yours (for now).

Enough of this profane American existence.

Enough already.

Continue reading “Open Letter to Americans”

phenology II

lilacs re-leaf, re-bloom
in October
hummingbird moths feed,


common lilacs [Syringa vulgaris]
— not cultivars —
in unprecedented re-leaf and re-bloom
October 12, 2024


and simultaneously,

She’s un-be-coming a human be-ing

She’s destined to,

we’re destined to, too


no
need to
tell me, explain
what’s happening

as constant witness,

as constant, remote witness to slaughter,

as constant gardener,

as constant tender,

as constant daughter,


i see.

i recognize.

i know,

Continue reading “phenology II”

ghosts

if you’re seeing this, you’re alive,

though dying — no matter your age, health, relative safety, relative comfortability —

on this living, though suffering and actively dying, planet

Earthlings and Earth together in a protracted hospice

right now, in these brief years, these grief years,

we are the “ever-living ghosts of what once was”

a “was” that most all of us alive this morning have never known as lived experience — save for the untouched tribes — 10,000 Uncontacted Peoples — 10,000 unsystematized, “uncivilized”

and the Ocean, and the few, still-standing Ancient One Trees; the untouched Desert, and the Mountains — even the youngest of them — The Tetons and The Himalayas, know what it “was” to be alive.

we are mere ghosts, walking dead.


Continue reading “ghosts”

Shepard Fairey is back on his bullshit

“Question Everything,”

then Obey!
fool me once, mfer.

This past Spring, I saw a Shepard Fairey exhibit at the local art museum: Shepard Fairey: Facing The Giant: 3 Decades Of Dissent.


fwiw: admission to the Krasl Art Center is free.
I didn’t pay to enter the exhibit.

Shepard Fairey no doubt has a seminal presence in street art — that is, art in public space — in sticker culture, in wheatpaste postering and in muralism. But, he’s also problematic as fuck — problematic to “fair use”, to social movements — and to art itself. I want to be more precise and say: he has an ejaculative presence in art in public space: his stuff is ubiquitously and frequently splattered — and sticky in the public consciousness — like a true Mad Men, note Ad men and marketers and PR consultants are not artists: they are not even tricksters — they are influencers, marketeers, cons, liars and grifters.

Fairey perhaps most famously helped to elevate Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign with his iconographic HOPE image — Fairey, (perhaps) like tens of millions of us, including myself, bought into Obama’s community organizer/activist history and “hope and change” schtick back in 2008. The shame and pain of decades of systemic, racialized disenfranchisement and inequity were transformed into an incredible electoral energy that was earnestly and hopefully deposited into Obama’s candidacy and presidency; it was then almost immediately disregarded and wasted — and ultimately, profoundly regretted by progressives. Only after his first term was nearly complete did “we” learn and process that Obama was a neo-liberal capitalist centrist cloaked in folksy voice and progressive-populist clothing — we witnessed him betray us again and again — and become a prolific drone-strike-executioner-in-chief as well as Wall Street’s and Rahm Emanuel’s punk-ass bitch.

I want to be more precise and say: he has an ejaculative presence in art in public space: his stuff is ubiquitously and frequently splattered — and sticky in the public consciousness.

The Obama HOPE image stands as a reminder and a joke of hope placed in any Democrat or Republican politician — any. Thank you for that, truly, Shepard Fairey.

But, some among us may still not know — that Fairey had misappropriated the photograph on which the iconic Obama HOPE poster was based, without credit or compensation to the copyright holder — falsely citing “fair use” — Fairey subsequently destroyed evidence about the actual unfairness of his use which amounted to theft, fraud and obstruction. Fairey settled with the copyright owner and also plead guilty for contempt of court.

Fairey has also reproduced and exhibited images of actual, bonafide Black power and liberation icons (Angela Davis notwithstanding) — and has been rightly interrogated about his cultural appropriation. On the surface, his work may pass as homage to great People and powerful movements, but it can also be interpreted as an artistic “black face” — and as an attempt to co-opt that which is not his in order to elevate his own vanilla, half-woke vibe — and of course, to cash-in. He remains defiant in his approach to cultural appropriation.



Continue reading “Shepard Fairey is back on his bullshit”

The Neutral, The Liberal and The White Moderate: lifestyle preservation by any means necessary


“Do not associate with the neutrals, because they will betray you someday, because they are too cowardly [and comfortable] to take a stand.”


they will betray

with their

portfolio and corporate profit-taking,

dependence on and loyalty to government, organizations, institutions and electoral politics,

cultural appropriation, displacement, dispossession, exploitation, and gentrification of the historically and contemporaneously oppressed

greenhouse gas & carbon footprint privilege and exceptionalism,

ecocide by appetite, consumerism, and growth/development — physical, geographical and technological,

ultimate loyalty to the State and its forces for maintenance and protection — of their own wealth and property, and of private and corporate property, and of The System at the expense of People’s liberation and abolition movements

and finally,

by their neutrality to

particular

fascism and genocide.


Continue reading “The Neutral, The Liberal and The White Moderate: lifestyle preservation by any means necessary”

“PALESTINE IS THE WORLD IN ITS FUTURE TENSE”

Art Not Genocide Alliance manifesto
as distributed and posted at the April 2024
Venice Biennale
to protest the inclusion of and to demand the boycott of the Israeli Pavilion
aka The Genocide Pavilion

NO BUSINESS AS USUAL

DURING GENOCIDE


THE PALESTINIAN PAVILION

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF ART?

A manifesto against the state of the world.


In a world where genocide unfolds before our very eyes, shielded by nation-state rhetoric and bolstered by the imperial powers of our times, we bear witness to unspeakable horrors. This witnessing is not metaphorical – it is stark reality. To witness now is to be complicit; ignorance is no excuse, and inaction is cowardice.

What is it that cannot be stopped?

The global state structure, which dominated the 20th century, not only allows but actively enables genocide in Gaza and elsewhere in this world. Every genocide is perpetuated by a state. This machinery of destruction, guided by settler colonialism, fueled by capitalism, empowered by technological might, and covered by complicit media giants, must be dismantled. We are confronted with ongoing efforts to alienate us from our political agency and the ability to strive towards a moral and just world for all. We ask: If this level of atrocity is now acceptable, then what is deemed unacceptable? We must reconsider what structures national identities have produced and restore our severed connection to the land as a source of our identity and political existence.

The Palestinian struggle and resistance comes to remind us of what should not be forgotten: the people and the land embody each other, in time and place. It is within this unbreakable bond that we envision the future, it is within this bond that we learn from the past, and through it we engage with our present. We refuse the state of the world: the brutality of maintaining the hegemony of the powerful and the complicity of those who turn a blind eye to injustice.

What role can art and POETRY play in a future built on genocide?

The Zionist state’s atrocities permeate every level of existence. It devours all human knowledge and science by utilizing technology and social engineering to produce killing target and destruction lists. Within these new artificial intelligence technologies, every total meaning can be devoured, every total meaning can kill.

Now is the time for art and poetry. For art
that rejects the logic of prevailing power. For poetry that resists the totalizing narratives that fuel the killing machines of the perpetrator. Art is inherently political-in its message, production, and presentation. It engages with society, assuming a role either in complicity or resistance.

We must defend our agency as political beings,
stateless as humanity itself, collective as what
our societies are, we are bound to organize an
resist on multiple fronts to halt the genocide
and prevent it as a future.

Art and poetry represent our liberated knowledge, freed from the belly of the beast. This moment demands that we reclaim our political agency; in its clarity, it empowers us to turn imagination into affirmative actions, forging poetic structures of collectivity-a return to the essence of our humanity. We belong to the world, to the earth, to the land, and through this agency, we move, act, and refuse to be silent accomplices to the state’s atrocities. We cannot ignore the oppressive conditions under which creativity thrives. Faced with censorship co-option, we must resist glorifying the regime or fading into obscurity.

Continue reading ““PALESTINE IS THE WORLD IN ITS FUTURE TENSE””

Zionism is Nazism | Israel’s Holocaust of Gaza

ISRAEL is perpetrating INDISPUTABLE textbook GENOCIDE in GAZA.

ISRAEL is an uncontrollable, gone-rogue nuclear-state that has not abided any UN resolutions for ceasefire or immediate international humanitarian aid delivery.

ISRAEL has either intentionally targeted or effectively admitted that it cannot control its own military troops after the targeted triple strikes on marked/identifiable and IDF pre-approved World Central Kitchen vehicles — killing 7 multi-national humanitarian aid volunteers. Hence, World Central Kitchen is suspending operations in Gaza, and its ships with 240 tons of remaining food on board for Gaza have departed back to Cyprus.

THE UN must deploy peacekeeping forces.

U.S.-controlled NATO sits on its hands while the atrocities in GAZA are in plain sight for everyone with a screen. The whole World is watching an acute HOLOCAUST of PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

U.S. President Joe BIDEN & U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken unconscionably deny that ISRAEL has committed any WAR CRIMES or CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY — though:

ISRAEL has murdered at least 10,000 PALESTINIAN children in six months’ time.

ISRAEL has murdered at least 9,000 PALESTINIAN women in six months’ time.

ISRAEL has has murdered doctors, nurses, journalists and humanitarian aid workers.

ISRAEL has targeted and destroyed hospitals schools and housing.

ISRAEL has completely destroyed 90% of the hospitals in Gaza.

ISRAEL has committed human horrors — rivaling those of the Nazi SS — at the Al-Shifa Hospital Medical Complex.

ISRAEL is actively and intentionally denying or destroying food aid and destroying fresh water sources and infrastructure. ISRAEL intends to GENOCIDE ONE MILLION PALESTINIAN PEOPLE in GAZA by famine and thirst and denial of medicine and medical and surgical treatment.

ISRAEL has destroyed more than half — possibly up to 80% of structures, infrastructure and land in Gaza. This is a U.S. “Manifest Destiny” playbook dispossession and removal via destruction and genocide. //

U.S. President Joe BIDEN and his administration have forced AMERICANS to directly underwrite this GENOCIDE by using AMERICAN taxpayer dollars to fund ISRAEL’s HOLOCAUST of GAZA with cash and weapons.

Continue reading “Zionism is Nazism | Israel’s Holocaust of Gaza”

is this real life: zone of interest

happy saturday afternoon.

i am making a marinara, but i may pivot and make it a vegan bolognese, served over bucatini or vegan mushroom or eggplant ravioli.

i haven’t yet decided — while children are being genocided

by intentional starvation

in Gaza, Palestine.

there is famine in Sudan. And Congo. And Ethiopia, too.

how is this real life?

in 2024, while The World can watch from their screens. while knowing there is enough food in The World for all of them.

yet, here, i am deciding: between listening to a podcast about one of my favorite fellow outer-ruralers, Ted Kaczynski (the irony is not lost) — or, a pandora station mashup of caamp and uncle lucius – both bands, i first learned of from time with my son in wondrous and humbling wilderness landscapes and cozy lodging — or, continuing my Clarissa Pinkola Estes audio book the Power of the Crone Myths & Stories of the Wise Woman Archetype //

so many choices for dinner, intellectual stimulation or joy while i am safe and warm and mostly, whole.

how does this dichotomy exist?

that is rhetorical.

i feel the grief of helplessness most acutely when i am in the grocery store shopping for food and while i am preparing and cooking food — the most basic of human tasks //

a meadow in Michigan, The World.

this is a foto of golden-rosy light shining on the snow-covered meadow that i have the immense privilege to nurture, protect and observe, on land i occupy — at Sun’s peaceful, not violent, rise this morning — the precious snow all melted by afternoon

Crone tip :

when you glimpse the blaze of golden-rosy light, you must act instantly:

get to the window, get outside, with or without an artificial lens or shoes — because the glow is gone in less than minutes.

Human Earthling tip:

when you glimpse a genocide and famine you must act instantly:

you must speak out, loudly; you must resist in all possible ways; you must refuse to look away as you live life; you must do something, anything, to try and stop it; you must do anything, something to try and help other Earthlings; you must resist and “refuse to be an accomplice to genocide.”

Our World sits just outside of Gaza, of Palestine. We are All in the zone of interest, right now.

Continue reading “is this real life: zone of interest”

F R e E P a L e sT I nE

Truly, one of the greatest evocative and provocative living contemporary artists, Survivance/resistance/futurist writers, and performance poets,

Diné artist Demian DinéYazhi’ ingeniously embedded “Free Palestine” in the flickering letters of their powerful, poemic-neon artwork ⁦at the Whitney Museum’s Whitney Biennial

we must stop imagining destruction + extraction + deforestation + cages + torture + displacement + surveillance + genocide!

we must stop predicting apocalypses + fascist governments + capitalist hierarchies!

we must pursue + predict + imagine routes toward liberation!

~ Demian DinéYazhi’

poemic-neon artwork: “we must stop imagining apocalypse/genocide + we must imagine liberation.”

we must stop imagining destruction + extraction + deforestation + cages + torture + displacement + surveillance + genocide!

photo by: Nora Gomez-Strauss

we must stop predicting apocalypses + fascist governments + capitalist hierarchies!

photo by: Nick Mathews

we must pursue + predict + imagine routes toward liberation!

photo by: Field Kallop

the institution & curators were unaware;

yet “Free Palestine”

was intermittently revealed for those with the patience to observe the piece

the entire artwork faces out toward the Hudson River for all to see:

Continue reading “F R e E P a L e sT I nE”

an open letter on a 65°f primary election day in Michigan | day 145 of Israel’s acute genocide of the Palestinian People

good afternoon:

i feel like i should have started my heirloom tomato and chiltepin seeds on New Year’s Eve, but i haven’t even ordered or sorted seeds yet;

that I should’ve picked up a bottle of mineral facial sunscreen and given myself a pedicure yesterday;

that the swimsuits overwhelming retail spaces are not for spring breakers and resort goers but for anyone headed to North Avenue Beach in Chicago or Silver Beach in Michigan today;

and that i wish i didn’t know that the Thwaites Glacier is hanging on by fewer and weaker pinning points;

do you respect or even revere military service? i know many of you certainly do/

Continue reading “an open letter on a 65°f primary election day in Michigan | day 145 of Israel’s acute genocide of the Palestinian People”

Aaron Bushnell, Rest in Peace! “Free Palestine!”


𝘼𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝘿𝙪𝙩𝙮 𝘼𝙞𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝘼𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙣 𝘽𝙪𝙨𝙝𝙣𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩 — 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛-𝙞𝙢𝙢𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙗𝙮 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙖𝙜𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙩 𝙄𝙨𝙧𝙖𝙚𝙡’𝙨 𝙐𝙎-𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚.

“𝙄 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙜𝙚𝙣𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙙𝙚, 𝙄 𝙖𝙢 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙚𝙣𝙜𝙖𝙜𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨𝙩.”

“𝙁𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙋𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙚!”


“25 years old Aaron Bushnell has succumbed to his injuries after self-immolation outside the gates of Israeli embassy in the settler colonial U.S. capital, Washington D.C. Bushnell live-streamed a Twitch video stating, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest but, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” He then poured unidentifiable liquid upon himself and set himself on fire as he repeatedly screamed, “Free Palestine”!

In typical fashion, Western media and pro-genocide human filth have taken it upon themselves to condemn, ridicule, joke, ignore, and manipulate the action and character of Bushnell. Remarking with vile and inhumane disregard for his actions instead of examining and reflecting on what drove Bushnell to this extreme form of protest. Let us not lose sight of our humanity as politicians and warmongering cowards steer humanity closer and closer toward authoritarian control and collective madness.

Let this moment remind us of why we must speak up and continue fighting for Palestinian Liberation and decolonization of all colonized peoples. Let it remind us to unite toward continued actions of love and solidarity and survival. Let it remind us that we desperately need one another for the fights ahead and that we must fight with all our might to protect one another as we strive to dismantle unjust and oppressive systems in our bodies, in our families, in our friendships, in our communities, and in this gigantic world.

May Aaron’s friends and family have the space and courage to mourn and the confidence of outside support to rise above the scorn and ridicule of inhumane journalists, media outlets, and brainwashed citizens. May Aaron rest amongst his ancestors and bless this world with clarity, compassion, hope, and rebirth.” — RISE INDIGENOUS

Aaron Bushnell’s last post on facebook

content warning: video below

Continue reading “Aaron Bushnell, Rest in Peace! “Free Palestine!””

From the River to the Sea | neutrality empowers and normalizes genocide


“To be neutral, to be passive in a situation is to collaborate with whatever is going on.

You can’t be neutral on a moving train,’ I would tell them. . . . Events are already moving in certain deadly directions, and to be neutral means to accept that.

Howard Zinn

Ceasefire! Free Palestine! Land Back!


If you ever wondered what you’d have done during
[Transatlantic human trafficking and chattel slavery,
Manifest Destiny,
The Indian Removal Act,
the Trail of Tears,
the Wounded Knee Massacre,
The Homestead Act,
Jim Crow and lynch mobs,
the Holocaust,
Apartheid,
or the Civil Rights Movement]
… well,
you’re doing it
right now.
Continue reading “From the River to the Sea | neutrality empowers and normalizes genocide”

i want to tell you, talk with you, about things, but i can’t, we can’t | we can only cry: CEASEFIRE, FREE PALESTINE! Rafah!

i want to share things like:

this morning, i accidentally swiped my cosmetic brush across the 4 toned mineral highlight powder instead of translucent powder — and i now look like a 70s disco queen (especially with bed hair) or Ziggy Stardust (it’s too much to rewash my face and i’m just gonna look like this all day)

and, that i had another Big Dream (Jungian) early this morning before Sun’s rise — it was powerful and unnerving; are you dreaming too? have you had any Big Dreams?

and, that after buying myself 5 (actually 7) houseplant babies for the Ides of February, bringing the total upwards of 50 plants, my house is still not even close to being filled — so how can i be called a “plant lady”?

and that a crow died here and i performed some rites over and left gifts upon, their dear remains;

Continue reading “i want to tell you, talk with you, about things, but i can’t, we can’t | we can only cry: CEASEFIRE, FREE PALESTINE! Rafah!”

Free Palestine : Day 122 of Israel’s genocide — and its ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian People

Today is day 122 of the settler-colonial state of Israel’s GENOCIDE of the Indigenous Palestinian People on their ancestral lands.

NO place is safe from the brutality and savagery of the Israeli government and army — not evacuation routes, not refugee camps, not “safe zones”, not schools, not hospitals, not universities.

Israel has murdered 11,500 children in 122 days.
Israel has murdered 11,500 children in 122 days.
Israel has murdered 11,500 children in 122 days.

Israel has murdered at least 30,000 people in 122 days.

Israel along with the US, UK, Italy, Australia, Finland and other nations are depriving Palestinians of UN humanitarian aid by defunding the UN’s Relief and Works Agency — and by physically blocking shipments of food, water, and medicine and medical supplies. Israel and its coalition are starving-out Gazan refugees.

Israel Occupation Forces have boldly filmed, documented and published their own war crimes against both “prisoners of war” and civilians.

According to UN Women: “70 per cent of people killed in Gaza are today estimated to be women and children, including two mothers per hour killed since the beginning of the crisis.” — This is textbook genocide – to destroy women, mothers and children is to destroy the future viability of a people.

Israel has decimated Gaza and murdered Palestinians with the direct and sustained support of the United States Government, funded by US taxpayers’ money and with US Pentagon & defense contractor weapons.

While the People in the United States:

Continue reading “Free Palestine : Day 122 of Israel’s genocide — and its ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian People”