Friday, June 29, 2007

Antonio Taguba

This guy was my hero a few years ago. Why didn't he take Rumsfeld's spot?

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Please read about his bravery, and the corruption of his colleagues, in Seymour Hersh's June article of the New Yorker entitled "The General's Report." I can't help, after having read the piece, wondering if anything can be done to stop the current administration.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Please do this...

SafeHouse, a non-profit organization and transitional housing facility in San Francisco for women leaving prostitution, has entered the final round of a competition to secure program funds. I did my internship at SafeHouse last year and continue to run a group there on thursday nights. I know personally how badly this money is needed, and HOW EASY it is for you to help: it's just a click of the mouse.

Please hit this link and cast your vote for SafeHouse:
http://www.searchkindly.org/
You can vote every 8 hours between now and sunday.

Will you forward this opportunity on please?
Thank you, in advance, for your service to the women of SafeHouse.
Peace,
Emily Joye

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Subversion

Just in case you haven't, please visit: http://sewpeace.wordpress.com/
It's the blog of my heart. I posted this particular essay at the Seminarians to End War site last month, but figure I should place it here too. It's a nice deviation from the Plath-ish (read: pathetic) poetry I've been producing as of late. Agh seasons...


Subverting the Ends and Means of Perpetual War

In their recent publication Multitude, authors Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri put forth the idea that perpetual war has become the political modus operandi of the global empire. A current “state of exceptionalism” (applied in general by global networks but most specifically embodied in the political strategies and actions of the US) is part and parcel of this perpetual war paradigm. They cite this exceptionalism by locating its function in both legal and national behavior. A “state of exception” happens when, in a time of national upheaval, the constitution is “suspended temporarily and extraordinary powers given to a strong executive or even a dictator in order to protect the republic.” (Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. (Penguin Books, NY: 2005) 7) This is the legal form of exception. The national form happens when any given nation state considers itself a) an exception to the rule of universal law and/or b) exceptional in its definition as superior over and above other nation states. Hardt and Negri contend the current disposition and political action of the US fits into this national “state of exception(alism).” In recent years, especially with regards to the US invasion of Iraq, we have both claimed our exceptionalism by assuming our supposed role as ambassadors of democracy and by preemptively striking Iraq without UN support.

Twentieth century neo-Marxist philosophers have often maintained that the ideology of super-structure is maintained by cooperation of ideological state apparatuses. (I am drawing here largely from the work of Louis Althusser.) These ideological state apparatuses must enforce the means of production and the conditions for reproduction that keep such an ideology afloat. Needless to say, in a state/world of perpetual war—and herein the ideology of super structure maintains that war is ontological—ideological state apparatuses must enforce means of production and conditions for reproduction that sustain the war industry. The war industry, though mostly dependent on the development of weapons, relies on various means and conditions: communication networks, political systems, rigid understandings of boundaries, the willingness of men and womyn to serve in the military, etc. This large spectrum of dependency creates an environment in which social apparatuses are largely responsible for and participants in perpetual war.

An ideological state apparatus can be two things: 1) an institution or group that is commissioned by and operative on behalf of the state, i.e. public universities, governments, police, etc and 2) an institution or group located within a particular state, though not commissioned by or operative on behalf of the state, that participates in the construction of infrastructure, public life & opinion, and social networking, i.e. non-profits, churches, private schools, etc. Again, the ideology of the super structure (in our case: “democracy,” capitalism, and “free speech”) is maintained when all ideological state apparatuses work in unison to upkeep the means of production and conditions for reproduction. The ideology of the super structure becomes vulnerable when one or two or three or four ideological state apparatuses start dancing out of sync.

Ideology is produced in a myriad of ways though we often assume word-systems are primarily responsible for the construction and deconstruction of ideology. While it is true that slogans such as “These colors don’t run” and “God is not a republican or a democrat”, documents such as The Communist Manifesto and Letter from Birmingham Jail, and speeches from the mouths of Malcolm, Stanton and Mao certainly participate in the ideological life of peoples, words are not solely responsible for ideology. Symbols systems and communal rituals also have the potential to enforce means of production and the conditions for reproduction. So now Christians, I hope your eyes and brain cells are waking up!

The Church in America is an ideological state apparatus. We do not work for the state, in fact in regards to the topic at hand we should be working against it, but because of our location in state territory we are participants in and susceptible to American ideology. Further, just because we are located in a certain nation state does not mean our allegiance must be given thereto. If our God is one whose love is not limited by borders, skin types, religious affiliations or mistakenness of human action—and really, isn’t that what grace implies?—then our attempts to be human in the image of God must mirror this limitless love. Our allegiance is not to the state, our allegiance is to love. And let us be clear about one thing: love is the opposite of war. If we believe that God came so that we may have life and have it more abundantly, then we simply cannot dance in sync with perpetual war. It is our duty, therefore, as the Church in America, as an acknowledged ideological state apparatus, to subvert the contemporary super structure. Our word systems, symbol systems and communal rituals must negate the role of violence and war in global politics.

I wonder, what does this mean for the way we have done worship? Can we continue to elevate a sign of politically-sanctioned torture as our dominant Christian symbol? Can we ever sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” or even allow this song to be reprinted in our hymnals? What about continuing the theological characteristics of God as vengeful, jealous, desiring the ‘victory’ and full of wrath? If we save these religious vestiges for the virtue of preserving tradition we are putting our stamp of approval on the super structure’s fascination with and reliance on mayhem.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Water Creature

arising out of the lake,

like a water-creature

ravenously hungry and

capable of ripping apart any flesh with breath

(especially one of domestic familiarity)

she peeps and screens the scene

dreadfully anticipating the slightest

error or offense


because


if in fact

a mistaken step

cacophonous sound

or outright slap should surface

she will punish

in all the ways they have told her

she dare not


why


because they signed her up to hate

every morsel, orifice and vulnerability

she can identify

at home

in herself

and around the town


as a result


somewhere along the way

she could no longer recognize

her kept quiet desire from their

artificially-activated, addict-producing want want want

though it grew larger and larger

like a cancer come to kill her


so


once a month

twelve times a year

or not nearly enough

based on your measuring apparatus

she does things no one understands

(though they understand it enough—apparently—to call her “crazy”)

like faking delirium

instead of putting up with everyone’s unconscious hysteria

screaming/singing/crying/fucking/dancing/fighting/laughing

instead of

curtsying/silencing/pretending/swallowing/lying/half-smiling

dying.


she


punishes the want

by letting loose the desire

and she bleeds

for all to shamelessly—

for all in the dehydrated/starving—


se(a)e

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Passing

No statistic exists to confirm my point,

however I am virtually certain almost everyone

imagines a threshold, courtroom or pearly gate

where at the end of life all things are examined for their credibility,

morality and/or absurdity before a passing happens.

You pass if honesty,

good association,

adequate contemplation (and the like)

colored your big and smalls,

moments and decades,

stillnesses and sounds.

Your loving me

appears the only thing

that would get me a pass during

this small moment of stillness.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Generations of the Circle

Tai Chi Chuan is the only thing I cannot describe.
So I won't try.
But I can say this:
I am grateful to my teacher and her teacher and his teacher
and years and years and years
of students being students.

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Rich

Luke 12:13-21

13
Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ 14But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ 15And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ 16Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” 18Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” 20But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” 21So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Exodus

A girl found herself lost, alone, and confused in the woods. After hours of walking in this unexplored, undesired territory, the girl reached a river. She walked up to it, saw her reflection and began to cry. Her tears hit the surface of the water and awakened a figure therein.

"Why are you crying?" the reflection asked.

The girl thought she was crazy. Certainly it was her own voice she was hearing; had she been alone so long that her own thoughts began to take on an outsider's voice? She poked through the water, penetrating her reflection.

"What are you doing?" the reflection asked.
"What the fuck?" The girl turned around, looked up to the sky, pushed the surface of the water again. This could not be happening.
"What are you trying to touch?" the reflection asked.
"Are you talking to me? or am I crazy?" The girl looked deep and hard into the water as she questioned the reflection. Sure enough their mouths were moving in sync.
"You're not crazy. What do you want from me? I am here after all. Isn't that what you wanted: someone here for you?"
"I want to get out of these woods" the girl responded hopelessly.
"Build yourself a fort out of things you find in the woods--for shelter."

The girl gathered big branches and large leaves from the floor of the woods. She thought she'd go talk to the reflection again, but by the time she was done gathering, the daylight was minimal; hence she would wait until tomorrow to return.

Sleeping was difficult. She could not get comfortable. Every time she remembered the conversation with her reflection a sneaking suspicion of insanity would creep in. Eventually she got tired of her own thoughts and fell asleep. In the morning she went back to the water.

After looking at her reflection with morning eyes--tired morning eyes--the girl said "Okay, now tell me how to get out of here please." She felt bad about being overly demanding, but couldn't muster a semblance of courtesy. Besides, who would she be offending? herself? a figment of her imagination?
"What are you talking about?" The reflection looked perplexed in a condescending way.
"You helped me yesterday; so help me now." She was rather turned off by his lack of knowledge and display of superiority.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Are you nuts?" The reflection looked away.

...are my own eyes turning away from me? she wondered.
...what could he possibly be looking at? i'm right here.

She took a huge rock and dropped it on the face of her reflection. Then she collected small stones and hurled them into the middle of the river. She threw them hard, over and over, until her arm felt like it might rip out of the socket. When the pain of her arm took over the girl screamed long and hard. The scream echoed five times. The final echoe felt like a sacred return--like the fury she released into the air came back to her out of loyalty. She returned to the place where her conversations with the reflection took place. There her face remained staring back at her, as if unaffected by the displays of rage. After a lengthy period of sustained and unobstructed staring the reflection lifted his palm in display.

The girl turned away and ran. She ran like she was being chased. She ran like someone was hanging on to their last breath just waiting for her to arrive. She ran like her body had trained for this moment for years. She made her way to a road. Her toes hit pavement. She was out.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

To Wade

When you show up
with your little heart all pouty and tangled
I forgive myself for all the times my heart
is all pouty and tangled.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Sunday Morning Cleaning

Two nights ago

underneath the filth of hotel sheets and comforter

i craved something unobtainable at the time.

Though I consider myself a master interpreter of desire,

this particular evening the content(s) of my longing escaped me.

Here’s what I did know:

the thing,

located at home had

a grip of sorts on my circadian rhythms,

a knowing of what needed replenishing,

a soothing potential, for nights like these,

an access to things closer to the other bedside

(like the ashtray or t.v. remote)

a freer access to things inside me than anyone else

a future with my face, appearing and reappearing

a sarcasm that doesn’t mind chancing offense for the sake of laughs

a pulse and breath that steal my own when absent.

This afternoon

while scrubbing the bathroom floor

I realized what it was I desired two nights ago.

Not you there, but you here—today—cleaning the kitchen

after a night of gripping, knowing, soothing, accessing,

appearing and reappearing, offending and laughing,

pulsing and breathing.

I missed what we have slipped into: each other.