Where Are My Words?

During the buildup to the Iraq invasion it was easy to be vocal: I read news reports (the ones missed by most of the American public) and blogs (almost always referred to me by Numenius) voraciously; I was well informed. I organized three readings of Poets Against the War here in Davis; I attended protest marches and demonstrations; even the weekly silent vigil held here in Davis every Saturday organized by the Society of Friends felt like a loud statement.

I don’t feel vocal any more. I feel defeated and silenced. I feel as though having a voice doesn’t count; the might of the American military is what’s driving the world and will continue to do so, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. I know rationally that this is the most important time to raise one’s voice, now that so many things are at stake and seem so in danger of being replaced by whatever it is that’s coming. I just wish I had something to say.

That’s why I approached last night’s Poetry Reading Against the War with such anxiety. I made a very belated and weak attempt to publicize it. I think I secretly hoped nobody would show up, because then I wouldn’t have to explain why I had failed to write a poem for now—a poem about where we are in the wake of all this madness. I wouldn’t have to explain my silence. I wouldn’t have to admit to despair.

Nobody did. Show up. I think this stranglehold of silence affects more of us than just me.

This is why I’m so grateful to Kos and Atrios and the rest for making sure we don’t all descend into silence, which is exactly where the Administration wants us.

Boxing the Political Compass

Kos in an excellent post today discusses how the Democratic Party may now be a better home for libertarians than the GOP, since the Democrats are doing more of a job of protecting personal liberties than the Republicans are these days. It is interesting to visualize how this plays out in a more sophisticated representation of political space than the traditional one-dimensional left-right line. One such depiction may be found at the Political Compass. (Spoiler alert: if you are at all inclined to take online quizzes, I recommend you go to this site and take the quiz there before reading further).

The depiction at the Political Compass maps political positions in terms of two dimensions. The horizontal axis represents an economic dimension in the traditional sense from left to right, but the depiction adds a social dimension as the vertical axis. Authoritarian positions are at the top of the diagram, and libertarian positions are at the bottom of the diagram. The axes divide political space into four quadrants: the libertarian left (today’s progressives and Greens), the libertarian right (traditional libertarians), the authoritarian left (Marxists), and the authoritarian right (e.g. the territory of the neocon right wing).

I think most people in the U.S. today are arrayed on the diagonal stretching from lower-left to upper-right. There are relatively few traditional libertarians, and even fewer Marxists. But the diagram suggests questions for Democratic strategists. In this era of the PATRIOT act and other such perfidies, has the authoritarian-to-libertarian social dimension become more important to most people than the economic left-right dimension? Is there enough of a bloc of voters who are either libertarian left or libertarian right that the Democrats should reach downwards on the diagram—remaining centrist on the economic dimension, but becoming more libertarian on the social dimension, becoming as Kos puts it, the party of personal liberty? And for the traditional libertarians and the Greens, is it now time for a libertarian-Green alliance?

Poets Against the War in Davis

The Davis Enterprise, our local paper, ran a story yesterday on the Davis Poets for Peace. The article is not unfortunately online, but it gives an extensive spot to my efforts to gather local poets and activists to protest the U.S. war on Iraq.

This grew out of the movement spearheaded by poet Sam Hamill, founder of Copper Canyon Press and a veteran activist from the 1960s, in response to Laura Bush’s cancellation of a symposium on American Poetry scheduled for February 15—on the grounds, according to her publicist, that she didn’t want poetry politicized (!). Since Langston Hughes was one of the three featured poets, along with Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, this is even more ironic. And here’s a Republican who reads.

Sam Hamill asked some of his friends to submit poetry against the war. The word spread. Within days there were 3,000 poems on Poets Against the War; within weeks, the number had grown to 13,000.

Poetry readings against the war were hastily organized and hundreds were held across North America on or around February 12. In Davis, thirty of us huddled outside the City Council Chambers under the covered walkway (it was raining hard) and read poems by ourselves or by others. Another two poetry readings were held at the 24-hour peace vigil that began on Thursday evening after the war started. Participants ranged from well-known local poets such as Maria Melendez to first-time poetry writers. Many of their poems can be found through the Poets Against the War site.

All this has been possible because of the online activist community exemplified by MoveOn.org, whose focused issues and reliance on word-of-keyboard dissemination have altered the way many Americans participate in the political process. The community has grown fast, and has turned global. Simply in terms of activism for poets, there are Poets for Peace, UK Poets Against the War (great headline: “Oxford Poets Blast US Air Base with Rhyming Couplets”), Poesa Salvaje, Potes Contre La Guerre (“parce que le mot ne peut pas stopper la guerre, mais peut l’empcher de se drper du bien” [“because the word cannot stop war, but it can prevent it from cloaking itself in good”]).

Poetry provides an outlet for some people who want to protest the war but are not willing to chain themselves to buildings in San Francisco. Voices of peace, humanity, anguish, fear, and general questioning are a fresh antidote to the bombastic howling, lies, and deceit emanating from Washington. Where, we all ask, are the weapons of mass destruction? And why, even if hundreds if not thousands of Iraqis take to the streets and wave to the American and British soldiers, did that make it legal for our government to invade?

Here’s a poem I wrote after being asked to calligraph the names of Iraqis who had been killed by bombing or by sanctions since 1991 to hang on the Davis peace tree, which stood for two weeks in the G Street Plaza following the outbreak of the war.

Refuseniks at Village Homes

Gil Medovoy has been organizing an Israeli-Palestinian peace series which has been meeting at the Village Homes community center. Today he invited in two refuseniks who have been living in the Bay Area for a couple of years. They both gave eloquent presentations about the Israeli occupation. Several points: they emphasized how Israel society is completely isolated psychologically from the Palestinian presence. Often Israelis who come to the States will meet their first Palestinians here, rather than in Israel. Another thing—the majority of the settlers in the West Bank are there for economic, not ideological reasons—i.e. cheap land and housing. This is significant because with enough economic incentives, they would move back to Israel. And lastly, the American pursestrings are very important. Without the US aid, most Israeli leftists agree, there would be no occupation.

They are both involved with the Bay Area group A Jewish Voice for Peace. Also, I didn’t realize that Gil has a radio show on KDVS where among other things he talks about Israeli-Palestinian issues. We’re lucky to live here within range of three independent FM stations!

Post D-Day Peacenik Depression

From Alternet. The street demonstrations of the past week or so have been primal screams that are emblematic of powerlessness. We need to do the hard work of long-term organizing. The California Peace Action’sCampaign for a New Foreign Policy is moving in the right direction here, trying to present an appealing alternative to the neocon imperialist vision.