Tuesday, February 15, 2011

I Get By Saying Goddammit

I don't mean to minimize what events in Egypt represent, because motherfucking Pell Grants. You go, Mobamafucker. Honestly, whether you think he's a good guy who's fighting an honorable and pragmatic war of strategic retreat against unassailable political winds or you think like I do that he is signaling his fealty to Corporate by gutting the signature federal program for providing education grants to this country's poor, it DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER! except that if you're right that's motherfucking worse.

I've said America is Serbia by 2020. Silber says we're Egypt in 2030.







AND IT CAME TO PASS

C.D. Wright

This june 3
would be different

Time to draw lines

I've grown into the family pores
and the bronchitis

Even up east
I get by saying goddamnit

Who was that masked man
I left for dead
in the shadow of mt. shadow

Who crumbles there

Not touching anything
but satin and dandelions

Not laid his eyes
on the likes of you

Because the unconnected life
is not worth living

Thorntrees overtake the spot

Hands appear to push back pain

Because no poet's death

Can be the sole author
of another poet's life

What will my new instrument be

Just this water glass
this untunable spoon

Something else is out there
goddamnit

And I want to hear it

8 comments:

  1. 2030? Nice but I hope sooner.

    I think a few people mentioned at one point that inequality is actually higher here than it is in Egypt. But we have a lot of stuff, don't we? It seems much harder to define exactly what poverty is when it's not stuff vs no stuff but rather nice/lots/better stuff versus ok and/or debt-financed stuff.

    I'm broke so I go to Walmart versus I can afford to go to Walmart and they have everything I need to feed, clothe and entertain myself so how can I be broke?

    Whatever the numbers say, perception matters too, and I wonder how things could be realigned in order to ensure 2030 is.

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  2. Egypt is the fulcrum, dude, and Pell Grants will prevent our nation's children from seeing that! Our university system indoctrinates like no other... except our public school system which is almost superior on that front... except Obama who proves the Ivies superior and Chicago superior... hell, who's the winner here, which side is flat on the ground and which side's load just got ejected into the sky?

    Don't mind me, I'm just frustrated that after you kindly gave the link to Polly Live, because it wasn't immediately streaming I forgot and missed it, and that's bigger than Egypt or America.

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  3. I was actually coming here specifically to see if you'd seen the Who Is Arcade Fire thing. No need!

    I'm really gonna miss what the Tee Vee taught.

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  4. I will also miss WTTVT. One of your links, to my local paper as it turns out, describes our Secretary of State as worried about national security as a result of these new budget cuts, I would make 3 observations:

    First, we can't even keep the power on in this country and someday, that is really going to fuck things up.

    Second. No one knows how much we spend on Defense and Intelligence. They won't give us exact figures and we can't audit what we know about.

    Third. Arguably the 3 biggest events of the last 30 years affecting the US were the fall of the Soviet Union and consequent revolutions, the invasion of Iraq (Part II) and the realignment of the middle east. The US "intelligence community" (hey--they picked the name) missed all three.

    There is no need to give those folks another nickel. Instead we should just name a really big number, cut it and declare the deficit fixed. And we should you the savings to buy PEPCO so the government can keep its lights on.

    drip

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  5. We don't all have a lot of stuff.

    If you don't understand that there is real poverty in the United States, that people are homeless and hungry, that people die from lack of simple health care, that families live in their cars, you might look again. And thank your lucky stars that you are so fortunate.

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  6. Oh I am totally aware of how bad things are.

    I guess I was just ruminating on American exceptionalism when it comes to poverty, the way in which poverty can feel differently or is portrayed differently in a wealthy Western country versus the rest of the world.

    The difference between not having because there isn't versus not having because of not having the money to buy, even while working or while willing to work.

    Both are tragic but the latter much more infuriating. Hence Marx, etc.

    But that is absolute poverty. I was thinking more about relative poverty above, and just wondering: why aren't people out in the streets? Is it because, even while broke, people can, surrounded by material wealth, delude themselves into thinking that they might be able to participate in that material world soon, and therefore that there is no need to tear down the system?

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  7. "Poverty" is not doing without cable/dish.

    "Poverty" is not having to skip sushi night this week.

    "Poverty" is not being forced to downgrade from Bonwit-Teller to Macy's.

    "Poverty" is not driving a 10-year-old clapped out VW Golf, instead of a brand-new M-B SUV.

    And for pete's sake, we do not need to bring Modern Conveniences to primitive cultures who are doing just fine without them.

    /rant

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  8. I don't know what I'm saying wrong to make you think that I think I or someone else is living in abject poverty just because I or they can't afford those things.

    I don't think it is that controversial to assert that, for whatever it's worth, the standard of living in America is generally higher than most places (the sarcasm in the line "we have a lot of stuff" and most of the words that followed was badly-conveyed above) even while considering it grossly immoral that so many people are not able to attain that standard. In fact, it is the fact that the "richest country in the world" has so many suffering people in it that SHOULD piss off a lot more people, but it doesn't. I am wondering why. I am guessing it has something to do with America's self-perception as a society. That perception is deluded. I am wondering what that delusion is and how so many people came to it.

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