Stop focusing your energy
on the effectively useless,
always selective,
always tenuous,
always exclusive,
always revocable,
First Amendment,
right now.
right fucking now.
Continue reading “americans of empathetic, inclusive and courageous consciousness:”my mother turned 75 years-old yesterday
and that’s all i know,
about her
anymore
If birthright citizenship granted by the U.S. Constitution will be bastardized or revoked; to potentially exclude 574 Federally recognized Indigenous Tribal Nations;
if the U.S. is leaving WHO;
if the NIH, CDC, FDA and USDA are intentionally incommunicado during an endemic, debilitating chronic virus — with another potential pandemic on the global horizon — and may be permanently silenced or defunded;
if the U.S. Government won’t recognize, adhere to or enforce the United Nations International Criminal Court findings, rulings, sanctions and warrants on human rights violations and war crimes;
if the U.S. Government has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement both by action, inaction and officially; if the U.S government is abandoning climate mitigation and bio-diversity loss mitigation both by action, inaction and officially;
if FEMA is to be dissolved and defunded amid increasing, expanding and worsening anthropogenic-caused or accelerated climate catastrophes;
if Federal income tax collection may cease, to be replaced by tariffs or other regressive tax; or the working classes will be further over-burdened by Federal income tax collection even as the Federal programs that crucially and critically support or supplement life and lives are weakened or eliminated;
and granted, these institutions, agencies and policies are deficient, mismanaged or corrupted in some way or many ways;
if the two political parties in the U.S. Government are entrenched without possible legitimate political, military or civic challenge; if the three separate branches of the U.S. Government are in virtual lock-step as an autocracy; and, if there is de facto rule of the United States of America by oligarchy;
then,
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”
This past Spring, I saw a Shepard Fairey exhibit at the local art museum: Shepard Fairey: Facing The Giant: 3 Decades Of Dissent.
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.
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.
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”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.”
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”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”“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
Continue reading “From the River to the Sea | neutrality empowers and normalizes genocide”
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.
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!”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”There are no terrorists,
foreign or domestic;
respectively,
there are only
the victim-survivors of
colonization and Empire
and
those whom States and Empires
indoctrinated, or trained and armed —
and jettisoned.
The former are always
liberation revolutionaries,
the latter
are discontent citizens;
both, willing to die for
truth,
repatriation,
retribution
and land.
the limineen | earthling, poet & crone 