https://www.rattle.com/this-again-by-bob-hicok/
#poem #political #byBobHicok

November 5, 2023
“This Again” by Bob Hicok
Bob Hicok

THIS AGAIN

The recommendation from some website quoted on the news
is to rape, cut the throats of, and throw female Jews
off a cliff. But how far are the cliffs of Ithaca
from Cornell, where the raping and throat slashing
is supposed to occur? And if you don’t have a car,
are you supposed to borrow one or can you Uber a body
to a cliff and ask the driver to wait while you chuck it off?
And what if you’re afraid of heights? It’s time we address
the shocking lack of detail in antisemitism. It’s one thing
to hate Jews but another to ask me to hate Jews
without telling me how to hate Jews or why I should hate anyone
when loving everyone is an option. A difficult one, I admit,
impossible even, but in a process sense, it requires no knives
or cars or evil and can be conveyed in a simple phrase:
See someone, love someone. Or, Love thy neighbor
as thou loves apple pie. Or, love thy stranger
as thou loves starlight for touching us
without knowing our names. Have you ever felt
as brittle as kindling shattering to pieces
just under the shower curtain of your skin?
It’s a rhetorical question because I know you have
and will, as I have and do right now.
So screw every cult of hate. Every bullet and knife
and bomb and shitty thing said under the breath
or with the full conviction of the lungs. If you see a Jew,
be a Jew. If you see a Muslim, be a Muslim. If you see a human,
be a human. The lend-an-ear or a hand kind.
The “how’s it going” kind. The kind kind. No one chooses who
or where or when to be. We just sort of collectively are.
So hating you for being you makes no more sense
than you hating me for being me. And I don’t want to be raped
or have my throat slashed or get thrown off a cliff,
hard as that is to believe. I want to see the cliffs of Ithaca
in moonlight. The Kaaba in Mecca circled by a crowd
pulsing with faith. The Ice Hotel in a snow storm.
I want a really good pizza with an egg on it.
To kiss my wife on top of the Eiffel Tower.
All the parts of her that are Jewish
and all the parts that are human
and all the parts that make her sigh and moan.
Being human means understanding that being human
is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.
That we’re all partisans in this struggle,
fellow teamsters in not knowing
what the hell is going on, brothers and sisters
stuffing our befuddlement every morning
into pants and dresses we hope
don’t make us look fat and stupid and lost.
Everyone I know feels lost. The trick is
to feel lost together. Maybe you have a map
and I have a canteen. Certainly someone
has a pogo stick or cyclotron. We need food
and light and harmonicas and theremins
and stories about monsters
who decide not to eat the child
or stomp the village or fly over the night
with death on their wings. Lost together,
our nowhere becomes our somewhere. Lost together,
the dream of home never dies.

—from Poets Respond
November 5, 2023

the political is personal

#poetry #political

Live Revolution

Revolution comes when it is ready.
Sparks so many times seem sure to light, embolden change.
Only when the tinder is sufficiently arranged will fire take hold.
Blaze clear fidelity to this erupted moment, charging forward.
After images, ash flakes in settling dark, take flight,
swirl within echoed breeze.
Readiness, relative to chaos, free range of human whim.
Revolution is but a shared anthem, parts of anger and revenge,
parts of reaching toward a new religion.
In the aftermath of violent schism,
what bright vision will sustain?

New World Order

Post-feudal society
obsessed with security and place
lock-step shuffle of obeisance
counting corners, counting on
science and leaders of order
counting on gospel served cold,
filleted, and layered just so.
Fashionably secured, tied and
corseted, made up for easy recognition.
"Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Buy me
the pretty fire." So mesmerizing, so
certain to tell me who I am, how to be.
Casting savage spells, they are,
far and wide, telecommunication.
Tying up and tidying with vast
imaginary whips and wheels,
spinning like a Pied Piper's tales.
No wonder.
We get it wrong and twisted.
Throwing out the wheat to eat
the chaff. Poisoning the well
that no enemy may drink our bounty.
Burning our bridges and tunnels
to save them.
Embarrassment of riches.
Gorging on fine cakes and
sugar water champagne.
No wonder.
Eerie daylight marching
timed by mechanistic masters
armed with decisions directing
torture, incarceration.
Power derived from the people
constrained of memory
mistaking some paranoid parody
for a promise of life.

politics

infinite regression of change and resistance
multi-rhythmed rhyme
singing into the winds of change
to move their vector more in line
with where we wish to arrive

Power

What is power?
Power is a word.
Power is an idea.
The Word is power.
The Idea is power.
Power is a distribution of energy, wealth, strength:
Physical, material, mental, metaphysical,
social.
Power is that which allows us,
Or we allow others, to have
sway over their/our actions, emotions, limitations.
Power is a rush of air, of water, of electrons,
of words,
of weapons, of will
-- the force behind movement
or stasis.

Feudal Diffraction

It's not the color chart; it's the hierarchy.
Hoarders of permission slips for supplies
thereby decide what gets prioritized,
which brick gets laid, or even fired,
who lives well,
who scrapes til they no longer get by.
It's not our genetic code that compels stupidity.
Perhaps it's a kind of manic compulsion,
depressive obsession,
mass psychosis,
St. Vitus line-dance to a zombie
caller's tune.
What to do?
Meme-web reconstruction in increments
paradigm warping incidents
realign the pulse of macro/microsphere
benign gibberish cy-phones through?
Take back your time.
Take back your right to self-valuation.
Take back your place
outside of the lines.
If our needs, self-fulfilling desires, greater
ecstatic glory and grace
are to be based
on solid infrastructure,
on fruitful interplay,
on free and freeing expression,
let us take hands in
undulating, beatific dance
multi-rhythmed
direction.
Let us be and do and feel
that which gives us permission
to be whole.

RIGHT ON

#poem #political

Put down with disdain
for proclaiming the gratuitous pain
of folks crushed under power games.
Evil glowers trained from
corrupt social warriors who
exult in what’s destroying us,
lead their loyal to perdition,
disassembled, reconditioned
to hate by their plan.
Forcibly taught not to understand
our own best hope to emend,
not depend on slavers’ dope.
Roped up in wasted fantasies,
divorced from truth and sanity.
Required rallies ’round a flag.
Watch those who fail that tail wag.
Pledge, hand on heart: working people’s
job is to feed voracious markets
while tossed out on the street,
eating tainted meat,
breathing poisoned air.
Shills may shout like they care
to fool the weak, to lead us
into profit wars to bleed, exhort us to
all ways support mammon expanding.
Where are the banding
together, sisters, brothers, who
discover how to trust and honor each other?
Where is the call and answer rail to
remind us Dickensian pauper’s jail
can only bind us
when we allow twisted power to blind
and define us?

NEW WORLD ORDER
#poem #political

Post-feudal society
obsessed with security and place
lock-step shuffle of obeisance
counting corners, counting on
science and leaders of order
counting on gospel served cold,
filleted, and layered just so.
Fashionably secured, tied and
corseted, made up for easy recognition.
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy! Buy me
the pretty fire.” So mesmerizing, so
certain to tell me who I am, how to be.
Casting savage spells, they are,
far and wide, telecommunication.
Tying up and tidying with vast
imaginary whips and wheels,
spinning like a Pied Piper’s tales.
No wonder.
We get it wrong and twisted.
Throwing out the wheat to eat
the chaff. Poisoning the well
that no enemy may drink our bounty.
Burning our bridges and tunnels
to save them.
Embarrassment of riches.
Gorging on fine cakes and
sugar water champagne.
No wonder.
Eerie daylight marching
timed by mechanistic masters
armed with decisions directing
torture, incarceration.
Power derived from the people
constrained of memory
mistaking some paranoid parody
for a promise of life.

Economist Fakes Political History Of Gaza

#Economist #Fakes #Political #History Of #Gaza #Israel #US #Muhammad #Dahlan #Fatah #Palestine

"The Economist is faking history:

[Bibi Netanyahu is the wrong man in the wrong place - Economist](https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2023/10/31/bibi-netanyahu-is-the-wrong-man-in-the-wrong-place) - October 31, 2023
In the absence of clear government direction the Israeli defence establishment is doing all the planning. Its preferred solution is to see the **PA ultimately return to Gaza, which it controlled until Hamas’s coup in 2007.

[...]

The 9 Muslim Majority Nations Most Well-Disposed to Accept #Palestinian #Migrants, 2023.

Selection criteria:
Greater than 20 million pop
Greater than 0.25% of world land area
Less than 500 people p/Mi²
Greater than 3k USD GDP p/Capita
Greater than 125 billion USD GDP

These #Muslim majority nations have enough #land, #wealth & Muslim #population to absorb & #assimilate their fellow #Muslims from the territory formally designated as #Palestine.

No Muslim majority #nation seemed to #care too much about the #Uyghurs, so let's see if they care about the #Palestinians, or if #Islam really isn't all that important to them beyond being a #political & #paramilitary tool.

#israel #idf #gaza #hamas #geopolitics #israelpalestinewar #muslimhypocrites #muslimsolidarity #islamichypocrisy #un #nato #usa #uk #islamicsolidarity #eu

https://www.nationofchange.org/2023/10/25/why-capitalism-cannot-finally-repress-socialism/

Why capitalism cannot finally repress socialism
By Richard D. Wolff -October 25, 2023

..."Over the last two centuries, as #socialism spread from Western Europe across the globe, it interacted with very diverse #economic, #political, and #cultural conditions. Those interactions yielded multiple, different interpretations of socialism. For some, it was an evolving critique of #capitalism, especially its injustices, inequalities, and cyclical instability. For others, it became the ongoing construction of an #alternative economic system. More broadly, millions were brought to socialisms that aimed to change basic social institutions (family, city, government) that capitalism had subordinated to its needs. The different, multiple socialisms debated and influenced one another, accelerating change within them all.
...
Such a socialist system entails the continuance of traditional capitalism: enterprises owned and operated mostly by private capitalists, individuals, or corporate groups. What it adds that makes it socialist is a government (often but not necessarily run by a socialist party) that closely regulates and supervises markets and enterprises.

Such socialist governments aim to moderate key effects of private capitalism including its very unequal distributions of income and wealth, extreme business cycles, and unaffordable access by the general population to healthcare, education, and much else. Progressive taxation typifies socialist governments’ means of intervening in otherwise private capitalism. Moderate socialisms of this sort are found in many European nations, in the programs of many socialist parties around the world, and in the statements and writings of socialist individuals.
...
People have often organized their collaborative production and distribution of goods and services as self-conscious communities within larger societies. Sometimes such productive communities were organized hierarchically with governing groups (councils of elders, chiefs, kings, lords, and masters) paralleling how they organized residential communities. At other times, they organized productive communities more horizontally as democratic cooperatives. A rapidly rising concept of socialism in the 21st century differs from the three basic models discussed above in its focus on and advocacy for the organization of workplaces as democratic, productive communities functioning within society.
...
Among critical socialists’ analyses, some eventually reached the conclusion that previous socialisms focused too much on the macro-level of capitalist society and too little on the micro-level. Socialism cannot only be about the balance between private and state enterprises, about “free” versus state-regulated markets, and about market versus state-planned distributions of resources and products. That limitation can and should be broken. Failures at the macro level had causes at a micro level that socialists had too often neglected.

When socialisms left the internal organizations of production and distribution enterprises inherited from capitalism largely unchanged, they made a major error. They left in place human relationships that undermined chances for enterprises in socialist economies to reach socialism’s goals. A truly democratic society cannot be built on a foundation of productive enterprises whose internal structure is the opposite of democratic. The employer-employee capitalist model is that foundational opposite. Capitalist employers are neither chosen by nor genuinely accountable to their employees. In worker cooperatives, by contrast, the employer-employee division is ended and replaced by a democratic community. The employees are likewise and collectively the employer. Their one-person-one-vote decisions, by the majority, govern what gets produced: how, where, and when. They likewise decide democratically what to do with the fruits of their collective labor, how enterprise revenues will be distributed among individual workers, and as investment funds and reserve funds."...

Why capitalism cannot finally repress socialism | NationofChange

Ariel Beery

Rallies by human rights and pro- #Palestinian activists around the world have called for an immediate ceasefire between #Israel and #Hamas. Many of those rallying have only good intentions at heart: they seek no more harm to innocents. They seek to protect the children of #Gaza, who have no responsibility for the crimes of members of their parents’ generation. They seek to mitigate the chances of an outbreak of a regional war that could cause further damage to even more innocents across Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt. They seek peace.

Seeing Israel as the stronger party, these well-intentioned activists have come to a simple conclusion: if only Israel stopped its military operations, a #ceasefire would emerge. #Hostages would eventually be returned. Lives would be saved. The problem is, as the leadership of the US and EU have already concluded, that is not #realistic. In past wars with Hamas, Israel has ceased fire and increased economic development for Gaza. Each time, Hamas used the time and money they siphoned off to build #weapons of war and aim those at both #Israelis and the #Palestinians who disagree with their #theocratic #dictatorship. Which is why the only way for the #Left, us #progressives, to live up to our morals and keep the high ground is to call for the immediate unconditional #surrender of Hamas.

Calling for the unconditional surrender of Hamas would prove that the Left cares about children of all countries, without ascribing to a hierarchy of human life. It avoids the moralistic laziness of publicly funded intellectuals such as Nicholas Kristof, among others, who essentially argue that a person planning to shoot you or your children has the same right to life as his victims. It avoids the abdication of responsibility by progressive leaders who forgive the war crimes of the party dedicated to carrying them out.(...)

Hamas depends on #international opinion far more than Israel. Hamas cannot exist without international aid, without international diplomatic air cover.

Those who care deeply about protecting the lives of #innocents need to think not just about today, but tomorrow.

Calling for a ceasefire would mean Israel #accepting a certain number of innocents dead by the hands of Hamas tomorrow in order to save innocent lives today. Calling for an alternative — for the unconditional surrender of Hamas — would solve this problem. Without Hamas in power, the threat to innocent lives on both sides drops precipitously. A ceasefire is made possible because the promise of future bloodshed is virtually eliminated.

There are those who would say that calling for Hamas’ unconditional surrender is unrealistic. That Hamas would not do it, and therefore the Left should focus on the only party who can be pressured by the international community: the democratic State of Israel. That, in my opinion, is worse than moralistic laziness. It is an abdication of morals, a cynical pragmatism that sacrifices Israeli innocent lives due to a lack of self-confidence that the Left should advocate for the truth. It is the path of least #resistance that leads towards the #victory of #evil over good.

Moreover, it is wrong. Because, again, Hamas depends on international opinion far more than Israel. Hamas cannot exist without international aid, without international diplomatic air cover. Without suitcases of cash coming from #Qatar with the active assistance of the #Netanyahu governments over the ages. If anyone can be influenced to stop the violence — if the Left’s progressive voice can have any impact whatsoever — it is by calling for the unconditional surrender of Hamas.

Because if Hamas emerged from its #bunkers, weapons down, hostages free, there would be no international justification for Israel to go to war, and Israel’s war aims would be met. Israelis who recognize now that there is no solution to the conflict that does not include a #political #transformation of the region would join with those #progressives who aided in freeing Gaza from Hamas to envision a new regional order. And there very well might just be peace
#antifa against #islamism #islamistic #clericalfascism and #antisemitism = #antizionism
https://jungle.world/blog/von-tunis-nach-teheran/2023/10/gaza-was-linke-auf-demonstrationen-fordern-sollten
.

Thomas von der Osten-Sacken: Gaza: Was Linke auf Demonstrationen fordern sollten

Von Tunis nach Teheran (Sonntag, 22 Oktober, 2023; 16:54)

EQUALITY KNOCKS
#poem #political

“Fortune favors the brave.”
But I am not brave.
Too tired, aggrieved, for that world
to matter.
I’d rather speak of far out
stars, shining possibilities
not likely to knock
upon my hovel door.
“The poor have always been among us.”

So long as we measure brother against brother
on a scale of credit and debt.
Who gets to order the jet?
Who gets to die,
ever more desperate to
cheat the street of bludgeon meat,
confined to a prison cell
or other faux hell?
A crow and carrion show,
so everyone will know
the wages of failure
to fit on some narrow queue.

Naught knight nor druid can avail
challenge cowardly effigy,
change how badly taught this sad course
of history.
How dissuade mad conspirers’ cynical sway?
How expose knavery,
encourage true bravery?
Reify kindness, heal blinding hate?
Sane solution hovers before bruised eyes. Useless,
lost in disguise, unless emotions connect, electrify.
A whole and energized people shine
far brighter than splintered, extracted light.

Muslim MP insulted in India’s parliament calls out BJP hate | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

“The hatred is instilled so much in people's minds.” Muslim MP Kunwar Danish Ali, who was subjected to Islamophobic slurs in India’s parliament, has told Al ...#AlJazeera #AlJazeeraEnglish #BJP #MP #Muslim #alJazeera #aljazeeraEnglish #aljazeeralive #aljazeeravideo #aljazeeraEnglish #aljazeeralatest #aljazeeralive #aljazeeralivenews #deliberate #hate #hatred #instilled #latestnews #minds #newsheadlines #parliament #peoples #ploy #political #power #ruling #speech #stay
Muslim MP insulted in India’s parliament calls out BJP hate | Al Jazeera Newsfeed

#political class want to kill us all

United Kingdom Nett Legal #Migration 1950 to 2023, with party #political overlay.

Total nett legal migration from 1950 to 2005 was 1,872,475.

Total nett legal migration from 2006 to 2023 was 6,535,892. +349%.

Average nett legal migration p/year from 1950 to 2005 was 33,437.

Average nett legal migration p/year from 2006 to 2023 was 363,105. +1086%.

#massmigration #unitedkingdom #uk #usa #immigration #multiculturalism #globalism #westerncivilization #netimmigration #eu #nettimmigration #demographics #elitism #ethnography #overpopulation #economics #sovereignty #nationalsovereignty #data #analysis #socialengineering #eugenics #culturalmarxism #culturalfragmentation #ethnolinguisticfragmentation #assimilation #culturalenclaves #neoliberalism #neoliberalglobalism

GOP Stunts BACKFIRE in its Face and they Get MOCKED by Universe

https://youtu.be/CwHAyvajVUs?list=PL36GQAccexbwWrQXTsWI9aUpNupKyB5q5&t=75
11 min video
#Aliensupershow #video #animartion #political

*All hail the president of the undead *#Humor #Political #PoliticalHumor
https://www.usluck.com/40314/all-hail-the-president-of-the-undead/

All hail the president of the undead - USLUCK

All hail the president of the undead by 7dayweekendgirl

#science #lockdown #mandated #political #lies

https://www.usluck.com/28759/i-will-get-great-indictments-and-nobody-gets-indicted-better-than-me-believe-me-and-ill-have-mexico-pay-for-those-indictments/ I will get great indictments, and nobody gets indicted better than me, believe me, and I’ll have Mexico pay for those indictments. #Humor #Political #PoliticalHumor

I will get great indictments, and nobody gets indicted better than me, believe me, and I’ll have Mexico pay for those indictments. - USLUCK

“I will get great indictments, and nobody gets indicted better than me, believe me, and I’ll have Mexico pay for those indictments.” by vinylskip

usluck.com/25070/horse-race/ Horse race #Humor #Political #PoliticalHumor

Horse race - USLUCK

Horse race by theseusptosis

It suits #Supranational #Elite #Scion #puppeteers to have intellectually indolent, credulous & #foolish people in positions of #power because they are easy to #control.

This is why they fund #political campaigns of low-calibre people & leverage their ownership of mass #media to thwart political campaigns of high-calibre people.

It isn't much to do with the left/right #dichotomy, but more to do with an Elite/The People dichotomy. Elite #Scions fund & #manipulate "both" "sides" of #politics to suit their interests, regardless of how that impacts the rest of us.

The #problem with the #USA is that it has #mutated from a #Republic into an Imperial #Plutocracy.

#corruption #uk #globalism #massmedia #uspolitics #judeoangloamericanempire

https://youtu.be/B8Thi1T9frA

" #FRANCE FOREVER ” #WWII #FREE #FRENCH #ARMY & #NAVY GEN. CHARLES #DEGAULLE #PROPAGANDA #FILM 92685 - #PeriscopeFilm

This black-and-white film promotes the ‘Free France’ / 'Free French' #political entity led by French #General #CharlesdeGaulle. It is a short pictorial recapitulation of the events that followed the #historical date of June 18, 1940, when the French #government surrendered to #Germany and the Axis. The film is produced and edited for France Forever (France Quand Méme) in #NewYork by #CharlesClement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1hh8Tbsvic
#vidéo #historique #histoire #guerre #politique

Happy Birthday, Julian Assange!

https://yewtu.be/watch?v=0Z5eG7f-nU8

#Happy #52nd #Birthday to #political #prisoner, #JulianAssange

#freeassange #dropthecharges #weareallassange

Happy Birthday Julian

Today marks Julian's 52nd birthday, and his fifth in Belmarsh Prison. The man who revolutionised journalism forever - providing a safe space where people could hold the powerful to account would be discredited, persecuted and arbitrarily detained,...