useless assholes everywhere
praise be to allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded
them just permitted wronged one retaliate against oppressor in kind
proceed peace upon he follows guidance people of america this talk mine is
you concerns ideal way prevent another manhattan deals with war its causes
results before i begin say that security an indispensable pillar human
life free men do not forfeit their contrary bush's claim we hate freedom
if so then let him explain us why don't strike example sweden? know haters
possess defiant spirits like those 19 may have mercy on no fight because
are sleep under oppression want restore our nation as lay waste shall
yours except a dumb thief plays others makes himself believe will secure
whereas thinking when disaster strikes make it priority look order
happening again but am amazed at even though fourth year after events
september 11th bush still engaged distortion deception hiding from real
thus reasons there repeat what occurred about story behind tell truthfully
moments which decision was taken consider knows had never towers became
unbearable witnessed tyranny american/israeli coalition palestine lebanon
came my mind affected soul direct started 1982 israelis invade american
sixth fleet helped bombardment began many were killed injured terrorised
displaced couldn't forget moving scenes blood severed limbs women children
sprawled everywhere houses destroyed along occupants high rises demolished
over residents rockets raining down home without situation crocodile
meeting helpless child powerless screams does understand conversation
doesn't include weapon? whole world saw heard didn't respond difficult
hard describe ideas bubbled end they produced intense feeling rejection
gave birth strong resolve punish oppressors looked entered should destroy
taste some tasted deterred killing day confirmed me intentional innocent
deliberate policy destruction democracy while resistance terrorism
intolerance means oppressing embargoing death millions sr did iraq
greatest mass slaughter mankind has ever known throwing pounds bombs
explosives also jr remove old agent replace new puppet assist pilfering
iraq's oil other outrages these images background reply great wrongs man
blamed defending sanctuary? oneself punishing aggressor objectionable
terrorism? such unavoidable message sought communicate word deed
repeatedly years can read wish interview scott time magazine 1996 or peter
arnett cnn 1997 john weiner 1998 observe practically kenya tanzania aden
abdul bari atwan well interviews robert fisk latter your compatriots co
religionists neutral pretenders white house channels controlled by able
run him? relay understood you? avoid correct path lead concerned it's
been grace positive enormous all standards exceeded expectations due
factors chief among found deal administration light resemblance bears
regimes countries half ruled military sons kings presidents experience
lengthy both types replete characterised pride arrogance greed
misappropriation wealth visits region dazzled hoping would effect sudden
monarchies envious remaining decades positions embezzle public supervision
accounting took dictatorship suppression freedoms son named patriot act
pretence fighting addition sanctioned installing state governors import
expertise election fraud region's florida made use difficulty mentioned
easy provoke bait send two mujahidin furthest point east raise piece cloth
written al qaida generals race cause suffer economic political losses
achieving anything note than benefits private companies having using
guerrilla warfare attrition tyrannical superpowers alongside bled russia
10 until went bankrupt forced withdraw defeat continuing bleeding
bankruptcy willing nothing too being said won lost precise scrutinises
cannot sole factor spectacular gains rather demands opening fronts keep
busy various corporations whether working field arms reconstruction
achieve appeared analysts diplomats playing team towards goals united
states intentions differ sorts notions british diplomat referring lectures
royal institute international affairs [when pointed out that] spent
$500000 event incident aftermath according lowest estimate more $500
billion meaning every dollar defeated million dollars permission besides
loss huge number jobs size deficit reached record astronomical numbers
estimated total trillion dangerous bitter recently resort emergency funds
continue afghanistan evidence success bleed plan allah's true shows gained
hand something anyone looks contracts acquired shady linked mega
halliburton convinced loser economy agreed commander general muhammad ataa
operations carried within 20 minutes notice armed forces abandon 50000
citizens twin face horrors alone most needed seemed occupying talking
little girl goat butting important planes skyscrapers given three times
period required execute secret thinkers perceptive ones americans warned
told securing removing weapons assuming exist available nations
inspections interest thrust into unjustified unknown outcome darkness
black gold blurred vision insight interests ahead toll rose embroiled
swamps threaten future fits saying naughty she used her hoof dig up knife
earth 15000 tens thousands thousand 10000 hands stained sides sake keeping
business aware punishes weak money letting powerful get off 1000 same goes
allies terrorise kill capture lie sleeping families mattresses recall
action reaction finally behoves reflect last wills testaments left
gestured despair studied researched prose gestures collapse where how
mistaken allowed implement aggressive foreign policies telling hold
account caused happy learns others' mistakes verse poetry injustice chases
unhealthy bed ounce prevention better pound cure return truth persist
error wise squander liar conclusion kerry nor own play automatically
guaranteed guardian helper
Notes on the election -
0. The Republican win was predicted and predictable. Now the infinity
of analysis begins, an infinity that has already missed the point.
1. There is nothing the Democrats might have done 'better.' The country
voted its conscience.
2. Its conscience is founded on a morality-based worldview, which is
rural in origin, and relatively rigid.
3. 9/ll played a critical role, not only in revealing the extreme
vulnerability of the country, but also in the production of an Islamic-
fundamentalist alterity that could not be dismissed.
4. With the religious right, fundamental ontology replaces the episteme.
5. Bush appeared, alive and life-like at the World Trade Center ruins
almost immediately after, conjoining his image with the intensity of
destruction.
6. The left continuously focused on the negative aspects of the
Republican party, over-determining, at least in print, the violence of
a world-view at odds with the rest of the planet.
7. Absolute morality is not concerned whatsoever with opinion.
8. The right has been organizing, in the US, for at least a century and
a half; this election and the last have been in preparation for decades.
9. In the 60s, which for many of us appears to be a history of the left,
the right quietly embraced both technology and structural compromises
that increased and solidified its power base, in rural and impoverished
areas of the country.
10. A fundamental flaw is the assumption that so-called minority votes
are liberal and leftist; in fact, the opposite is increasingly the case.
11. The 'American dream' is both part of class distinctions, and a
force in their elimination. Don't underrate its influence; no matter
how hard we try, there is no revolutionary class, but only power,
desire, economic status, and diffused and focused oppression.
12. Corporate America is far more diverse and problematic than the left
assumes; it also presents a very real world of almost infinite choice
and identifications. Its collusions and corruptions are our collusions
and corruptions, and have absolutely nothing to do with God and God's
State.
13. Cultural capital in the US is far more important than economic
capital, and its boundaries cut across the latter in terms of class. We
are all white trash and we are all intellectuals and theorists.
14. Far too many judgments are made 'for' rural and so-called back-
water areas, which are almost never heard themselves. The information
discourse networks and religious institutions of the majority of American
voters are concretely effaced by abstraction. The water of baptism is
not H2O.
15. Morality and fear are interwoven; it is the abject stereotyped
image of gays fucking that appears to corrode the 'clean and pure' body
politic. Your marriage wrecks my marriage. It is a failure of the left
not to deal with this; dismissing the violent imaginary out of hand
ensures its force within the political arena.
16. In conservative America, the negation of negation is not dialectical,
but also a return to a rapturous positivity.
17. If one's religion insists that abortion, for example, is murder,
then any means, including murder as literal self-preservation, may be
used in return as a defensive and pre-emptive action. It is not ever a
question of one side listening to another; it is a question of war to
an infinite degree.
18. The church in rural and disenfranchised America is a communal and
cohesive force, one of the few institutions capable of lived-community
and defense against the rest of the world. But more than this, the
church is also the locus for community activity and identity. To dismiss
it, even in its intolerant and sometimes evangelical varieties, is to
miss the point of its existence. For the individual, the church is
salvation, explaining and preserving morality, even forgiving and
abetting the temptations of sin.
19. The church overdetermines the rest of the world; rural and other-
wise isolated communities have a surprisingly low degree of information
flux. The church provides stability in a late-late-capitalist world of
postmodernity, where selves, ideologies, and languages are contested.
Within testament and testimony, there is no contestation; the church,
in other words, 'puts a hedge around the Torah' (Pirke Avot).
20. In my opinion, the image of Kerry hunting (and killing) was not
only hypocritical and distasteful, but also a premature sign of defeat.
However, this had no affect on the election per se, which was already
determined, way back in the late 60s and early 70s, when Billy Graham
created the first automated post-office in the US - a religious
embrace of technology that forecast the future of the country. Perhaps
the left 'created' - i.e. the hacking manifesto - but the religious
right utilized, entrenched, constructed a primary embrace of individual
and instrumental reason that guaranteed the supple application of power
when and where needed. The only real question here is why it took so
long.
21. The left has been hampered by split ideologies and critique; the
right, which permits no critique, has worked constantly with umbrella
ideologies.
22. What has been exposed and contested in the US is often business as
usual in the rest of the world. We are witnessing a movement from
republic to empire, from the primacy of voting, to the primacy of
dominant interests.
23. On a personal level - I have lived in West Virginia, Pennsylvania,
and the Bushlands of Texas and Florida. What happened was no surprise.
I voted early yesterday, and felt a sense of relief at the minor
_punctum_ I experienced. But I had no doubt that Bush would win, that
my voice was primarily personal therapeutic. Instead of despair late
last night/this morning, I've felt that our work, that of an opposition,
has only just begun - that it could only just begin. We have to
recognize, above all, that the US has done the will of the majority;
the more we overlook this, excuse this, theorize this, wonder 'what
went wrong,' the more we are weakened. Perhaps this is a positive sign -
in the sense that the enemy, if it is an enemy, is clear, and no longer
can be dismissed as an aberration.
24. The 'cultural war' is war.
25. Terror is an instrument of war.
26. Religion sublimates terror.
27. I live, you die. Vote or die holds no truck with the faithful.
28. Language is not action. Belief is action. Belief is not language.
29. The explication of fact in Michael Moore is replaced by the
internalization of sin and the body in Mel Gibson. Old Testament, New
Testament.
30 What the right knows: There is always already closure.
_
Poetic Inhalation and then some -
http://www.poeticinhalation.com/tlm_v4i7.html
http://www.poeticinhalation.com/pi_featureartist_alansondheim_zz.pdf
? sheila murphy
living in translated space
cover art by jiha moon
? alan sondheim
zz
art + poetry by alan sondheim
? john tyson
please understand my plant
cover art by john shimon