Poetry by Robert Bly: Stealing Sugar from the Castle
"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?" - Thoreau
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.
2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?
List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,
for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
via Pulse
Funny, coming back here, I feel like I'm coming back to someplace significant. Like driving down M66 into the river valley that was my childhood home. Maybe the most significant thing that has happened in my absence is that life has gone on. Dollar stores proliferate.
Why am I grouchy and sad and overwhelmed?! Oh, I remember why. It’s Christmas! Not only have we co-opted a day that is about love and sacrifice and made it a selfish capitalistic orgy, but we have placed expectations on ourselves that doom us to failure. I cannot make everyone in my family a scarf. I push myself to the edge of sanity making ONE scarf.
"... by the very design and scale of national politics, no presidential campaign could offer more than a wink and a nod to true participatory politics. Activism isn’t something that happens on TV for a general viewing audience, but at home with real people who aren’t watching the tube at all. While a president can provide some inspiration – Oprah-style, if need be - for a whole lot of people, the executive isn’t the locus from which real change occurs. As president, Obama could enact policies that make activism easier to accomplish, jobs easier to create, and corporations more easy to resist – but this activity itself would have to come from us." - Douglas Rushkof
While the democrats fiddle about, the Republicans have big plans for winning the election:
in love