tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-99182072024-03-07T20:07:50.981+01:00Weblog Keir Neuringer"The power of the mover is always greater than the resistance of the thing moved." (Leonardo da Vinci)Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-8714886051626820392015-06-19T11:13:00.000+02:002015-06-19T11:18:22.102+02:00AFTER CHARLESTON, A RECKONING WITH THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, Daniel Simmons Sr, Myra Thompson. Victims of a terror attack while praying at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 17, 2015. Peace to them & their families.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Six black women & three black men are murdered in the traditional American style (premeditatedly, by a racist white man who targeted them at their most vulnerable) & in his response US President Barack Obama says "At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I wonder at what vague point in the future such a reckoning will take place, because the man who made this statement oversees (I do not use the verb accidentally) a kill list from which, every Tuesday, he & a few other men choose which extrajudicial mass murders to commit in what I suppose he believes are "non-advanced" countries. Weddings, funerals, search parties. Places of worship. Torture chambers (literally, torture chambers). Thousands of people. Hundreds of them children. (To say nothing of the brutal injuries, the deaths by grief, the conventional murders through the regular prosecution of wars, the deaths, years on, attributable to landscapes made toxic & food systems burned to ash.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here in the "advanced" United States, there have only been a few days this year on which police in the United States <i>did not</i> kill someone in their soulless work of protecting private property & serving the interests of capital. Police in the United States kill a black person every 28 hours. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html" target="_blank">They killed 400 people in the first five months of this year</a>. While cops might not <i>commonly</i> murder people in church, they do break into homes at night & murder black children (like Aiyana Stanley Jones & Ramarley Graham), the elderly (like Kenneth Chamberlin Sr & Kathryn Johnston), & everyone in between. But this is not the mass violence with which Barack Obama wishes to reckon. The daily killings of black people by police, their proxies, & their copycats somehow do not register as mass murder, any more than do the far away drone strikes on residents of "non-advanced" countries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">At some point we will have to reckon. But not now. No. Much as the racist flag of the Confederacy flies over the state house in South Carolina (where Dylann Roof carried out his terrorist act on Wednesday), weaponized remote-controlled aircraft emblazoned with the American flag fly over any non-advanced country in the world where the US President chooses to kill somebody. American cash & weapons flow freely to state & non-state regimes that engage in mass murder, kidnapping, torture, & rape. At some point we will have to reckon with mass violence, says its perpetrator-in-chief. By reckoning with it, he no doubt means sweep it under the rug. And thus do violence as well to language: no reckoning will take place.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The actual reckoning that we need to have is with these basic facts: that the United States was built on theft & violence. The theft of indigenous land & the theft of African labor. The <i>de facto</i> state-protected right of men to rape women both enslaved & "free." The attempted genocide of indigenous tribe after indigenous tribe, their forced expulsion from ancestral lands. Medical experimentation & forced sterilization. The criminalization of race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality. The incarceration of ever-increasing & historically unheard of populations of adults & children. Their forced labor. The state-sponsored kidnapping & murder of the politically inconvenient.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And the narrow exemption from all of this horror: white supremacist patriarchy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So integral was this theft & violence to the creation of the United States that it has remained structural; theft, violence, & incarceration are <i>definitional</i> to the nation. You cannot have a "United States of America" absent this theft & violence. No one would recognize it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Theft & violence. Not liberty. Not democracy. Not equality. Not justice. Not its diversity. Not its occupied landscapes. </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Not apple pie.</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">The United States is its theft & violence. That's what its flag represents. That's what its political offices represent. That's certainly what its military & police represent. (And cultural manifestations like jazz & blues & hip hop - created by black people whose stolen labor built the country - are crowning achievements in the movement to <i>liberate from</i>, not <i>assimilate into</i>, a culture so irredeemably bonded to mass theft & genocidal violence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">It comes to this: we can bring an end to continued mass murders, forced labor, & the farce of civil rights applied selectively & at whim. Or we can have the United States of America. But we can't have both. And given this understanding, let those who would cast their lot with the persistence of the former reckon with the inherent evil of their allegiance to the latter.</span>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-76521441611340595852015-06-08T12:32:00.000+02:002015-06-08T12:51:04.695+02:00ESCALATION OF POLICE VIOLENCE (IN MCKINNEY, TEXAS & BEYOND)<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Eric Casebolt, one of the twelve McKinney, Texas police officers who responded with force on June 5th to the apparent crime of black youth at a pool party has been suspended.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of them. Suspended.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Many black commentators are adding "attend pool parties" to the growing list of things black people cannot do in the post-racial, post-slavery, democratic, 21st Century United States. Cannot breathe. Cannot cross the street. Cannot shop. Cannot play. Cannot walk home. Cannot be at home, sleeping.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Casebolt is seen in a video that has gone viral doing all kinds of unstable and utterly typical cop shit. He shouts expletives and threats at black children. He makes authoritative statements about "the law" that aren't actually true. He points his loaded gun at children -- children -- who pose no threat and break no law. He singularly targets people of color. These are all well-worn practices of police in the US. His violence toward a 14-year-old girl is particularly nauseating (and elucidating) in its depiction of both racial and gendered hate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">White neighborhood adults look on with approval. Fellow white cops run support. Cue CNN speculating whether race was indeed a factor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wait. Suspended?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This happens so often I imagine it is impossible to keep track: a cop murders or otherwise terrorizes black people (primarily, and others as well) and the police department, as a temporary stop-gap, face-saving measure, suspends that cop. Puts the cop on administrative leave. Sends the cop home to receive full pay and benefits.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This practice is really an escalation of the initial act of violence perpetrated by the police department:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">1. It's a reward. In any other profession, when a person is away from the job and collecting salary and benefits, it is known as a paid vacation. This practice essentially rewards cops who murder and terrorize black people with free time and no responsibility. It communicates, to those targeted, that a "win" has taken place in the white supremacist struggle to utterly dominate and suppress black people.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">2. It exacerbates the trauma. How must it feel for the targeted community to know that the cop who has just terrorized them is home, with freedom of movement and travel, with full pay, and with free time to think all the thoughts that led him or her to engage in the terror in the first place?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">3. It adds economic violence to the physical violence. Paying belligerent cops to do nothing but relax and collect pay, organize their defense in the rare instances that they are prosecuted, and chat with their pals at the Fraternal Order of Police, quite literally takes resources out of the communities that cops target with their terror. Public money is placed into the hands of killer cops (who almost always have the full backing of the state for their defense anyway) and is thus not being used to address the immediate and long-term needs of those targeted, terrorized, and traumatized.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">4. It's violence against language. See Orwell's <i>1984</i> or contemporary American news media for further examples. Given the frequency of police terror* (police kill a black person an average of once every 28 hours -- to say nothing of other forms of terror, and other identities targeted), public response only very rarely demands a response. A suspension soothes liberal concern trolls. When the police and the media call a reward a punishment -- a paid vacation a suspension -- it actually works its way into people's heads. Not only do some folks think punishment has been meted out, some feel the offending cop has been unfairly "victimized" with "suspension."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">5. Regarding the asterisk above: the very existence of police is police terror. That's why it's not enough to disarm the police. They need to be disbanded as well.</span>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-82245961345105702882015-03-04T19:35:00.000+01:002015-03-04T19:35:07.072+01:00Email Exchange with Peter Evans<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>[Note: my last writing, concerning the band Mostly Other People Do the Killing, generated a lot of conversation, both in private emails and on Facebook. Below is an email I received from Peter Evans, who co-founded and formerly played trumpet with the band. I include my email response to him as well.]</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">On Feb 24, 2015, at 12:59 AM, Peter Evans wrote:</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">Hey Keir</span><br />
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I've been following all the internet activity over the last few days about MOPDTK. I am sorry I didn't respond sooner but I'm glad I didn't since, it seems like you and [bandleader] Moppa [Elliot] had a really productive conversation. I still very much feel like there is a lot to say and I'd be happy if you put this entire thing on the facebook conversation which I is still going on. (I'm not active on facebook). Some of the directions the facebook conversation took frustrate me and and there is a lot I think is distracting and a lot I disagree with. It's important stuff to talk about, for sure though, all of it.</div>
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So, as a starting place I guess I'd say that I am totally in line with where you are coming from politically. There wasn't anything in your blogpost I disagreed with<i> in principal</i> or didn't understand. I read your blog from time to time, keep up with your music and I appreciate you are out there with a fire in your belly. It's sadly rare. These issues are really important for everyone in our society to be thinking hard about, and I don't think I am alone in wondering how we can and must try harder to make our scene something that reflects the change we'd like to see in society instead of a depressing reflection or microcosm of it's problems. </div>
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I have no need to argue with you about the general racial or social issues you've brought up, or the way you have framed them. But I think you might be barking up the wrong tree here, and all I'd like to do is talk about the band and the music. Since that what this is about centrally. The music, and the values in the music. That shit is audible, I really believe that. </div>
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I was a member of the band for many years. As time went on, I noticed that there was a persistent problem we had of intention versus perception. It wasn't on the level of your accusation (not that I know of), more just people just finding the band obnoxious, annoying, or in the case of really straight-ahead jazz people, thinking we couldn't play our instruments, didn't know the music, etc. The latter issue is a battle many great musicians have been fighting harder than us for a long long time, so that didn't bother me so much. What did start to bother me over the years was the constant description of the band as ironic. I played tons of concerts with these dudes, spent hundreds of hours in trains, cars, planes on the road, very often talking about music. I am being completely serious when I say that we didn't use the word irony or talk about irony as a musical concept in the making of our music a SINGLE time. Never. As far as I know it's not in any of Moppa's words to the press as a descriptor of the band. The only time it would come up was when some journalist dude would come backstage after a show, do an interview, ask us why were making "ironic jazz", or some other variation of this question. Then we would argue with these people, tell them time and time again that using familiar materials in new ways that yield (to us anyways) surprising and new musical results is actually a pretty normal process. That we really loved all the musicians and materials we were drawing from and had studied and practiced seriously and reverently <i>in order to be able to</i> play like this. We also had an unusual (and often visible) amount of fun on stage doing it. </div>
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I have devoted my life to music and particularly to a practice of music that while very hybridized, works with improvisation of many types, and often pretty directly with the improvisatory, black american tradition of music that unfortunately keeps being called "jazz". When I would be on stage with Mopdtk, playing a blues, one of Moppa's tunes (which were deliberately stylized and familiar sounding to serve as good launching points for improvisation), or "A Night in Tunisia", pretty much all of my heart, mind and physical energy went into creating something deeply felt. And actually I don't have a lot of other opportunities to deal with that material so flexibly so it was really something positive to be able to bring in everything I've learned from checking out Roy Eldridge and Rex Stewart and combine it with stuff I've explored in solo or electro-acoustic contexts. Also having [saxophonist] Jon [Irabagon] as a sparring partner in the front line was great- he has an insanely <i>demonstrable</i> knowledge of so many types of improvising, he knows Coleman Hawkins and he knows Evan Parker and can do both at once. He has played with tons of really straight ahead masters, and studied with Roscoe. And he loves all of it. I mean, clearly; it has pretty much taken up his entire life. </div>
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It was all very experimental for me, but I never could imagine that someone would listen to me play a solo in that band (or any other) and thought I was taking a dump on Roy's grave for lulz or something. It takes a lot of work to learn how to play like that! There really wouldn't be energy left over to like "make fun of" that stuff even if I wanted to. The group dynamic was usually about figuring out how to improvise our way from thing to thing, sometimes in really disjunct, unexpected ways. We would try to find new and surprising (again, for us) group interactions every gig as a way to propel the music to new places and not get bored. Very often the vocabularies we would use would come from music we love: post-Trane 70's burnout stuff, placid 1950's West coast textures, super sparse almost Cage-ian soundscapes, the obligatory post-Sidewinder Blue Note bugaloo, etc. It was never about "improving on" or making a joke out of these different (by now) and heavily stylized kinds of music. The idea was often about <i>amplifying</i> their qualities, sometimes to the point of absurdity, and seeing what happens. I mean, this is a brief description of what we were doing when you saw us play at Zebulon back in the day, as was my understanding as a steady contributor to the band. So just talking about myself for a moment, stating that the band is a mouthpiece for racism, and following the logic that I'm not a different player or person when I play in different situations, this would mean that musical decisions I make in my other groups which also deal to a extent with the transformation of historic or traditional material are ALSO "ironic" or even racist. Like this </div>
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.... and that's an implication I have a <b>real </b>problem with. Do you really think that? Have you heard Jon's record "Foxy", the Rollins homage? It's insane! It's the most moving, weird, (and yes at times even funny) tributes ever. This is the man I shared the stage with. I actually really love your playing and music, (the duo with [Rafal] Mazur is sick) but how much of this more explicitly black american music have YOU tried to engage with in a creative way- use some traditional shit to build something new? It's not easy man!</div>
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So I have to ask you- since this is about MUSIC and a band that made a lot of it- what do you hear in the actual music as being explicitly racist or offensive?</div>
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Here's the thing though. The intention versus perception problem DID become more acute and more depressing for me over my last few years in the group, and I was open about this with Moppa. Especially on the humor angle. When I would play some sound that I've spent years working on and some Belgian guy in the front row would just laugh immediately because he contextualized the group as a "funny jazz band", I would want to go down in the audience and physically assault him. Not a good feeling to have on stage!! And I love comedy but I'm not fucking Jerry Lewis with a trumpet. So I felt that, among a few other reasons, whatever I personally was putting into the music wasn't getting heard, and possibly neither was the improvisational interplay, use of timbre, and yes, exploration of traditional forms that I cherished so much in the experience of a Mopdtk gig. At least not the the extent I wanted. But it's not my band.</div>
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It's definitely a fair question- "Why, if this music was actually coming from a sincere place, did so many people think it was annoying, ironic, or in the case of Keir Neuringer, racist"?? There were definitely musicians (I'm thinking here actually of older free improvisors in the predominately white scene of european free improvisation) I respected who were quite open with me about not liking the group. I think the presentation of the band, the "brand" that developed around the music invited a lot of grief but it also invited attention that materialized into gigs (I mean, there were (unaccepted) invitations from jazz promoters for us to play "Blue"). Regardless, it became a problem for me. So I do get it, I really do. And the teeth kicking quote, even in context reads badly. I agree. But it's been on the internet since 2004 and I'm not sure what Moppa can do other than publicly disavow it. </div>
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Lastly, about the bandleader. Moppa as you might know now has devoted his professional life to teaching. A lot of his students are black and brown kids from Queens. I know for a fact he initiates discussions about race and politics in his classes all the time. He paid his dues playing straight ahead jazz in Cleveland several nights a week in a scene that at least in the late 90's was still a lot of older, working black jazz musicians. Also, some of these guys were the guys that taught at Oberlin when Moppa and I were students. It just doesn't seem like the right person to make an example out of in the context of these issues that you, like many of us, are so deeply concerned about. I see that you revised the post and that's cool. I don't know where this thread is going... but I made a lot of music with that band, I think it's within my right to at least articulate what was behind it, for me personally at least.</div>
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Thanks and hope to see you in Philly or NYC sometime soon!</div>
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On Feb 24, 2015 2:54 PM, Keir Neuringer <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;">wrote:</span></div>
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Thanks for getting in touch Peter. I appreciate how you and Moppa and Amirtha have all been able to talk about this with me in a tone I didn't start out with. I've read your mail several times. I hope this response speaks to most of it.</div>
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I feel bad about the way I started out. I dialed back the personal accusations from my blog post and have since tried to center the conversation on my FB wall on the issues, not Moppa or the band. I hear what you all are saying, that you and Moppa (and presumably the other guys in the group) genuinely understand structural racism and feel aligned against it. I hear that in what is being said to me. Of the guys in the band, I've only ever spoken with you and Kevin, and I've only ever had good conversations. And I respect everyone's musicality.</div>
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I want to be accountable for what I started. That's part of why I dialed down the language on my blog. And I'm down to continue to be accountable. No one has taken any accountability for the really racist shit that was used to promote the band, however. That language was not a review, but was excerpted straight from the liner notes for the band's first record. It's still up on the Ars Nova website, for example. But even if taken down, that's not accountability. The damage was done when it was made clear who was welcome at the concert, and who was not. Moppa told me he does not intend to disavow the quote, which I regret.</div>
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In our cities, and especially in Philadelphia, white supremacist values are waging a very tangible, visible war against black people (the majority demographic here). A lot of what I do in the world is activist/volunteer work that addresses this and associated oppression. The violence here comes from Washington and Harrisburg, Wall Street, the mayor's office, the D.A.'s office, it comes from the police. But it also exists everywhere. And when I see it in my own scene, it fucks me up. And it doesn't seem to be going anywhere on its own.</div>
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Since we (you, me, Moppa) recognize structural racism, since we recognize white supremacy, I think it's necessary to see ourselves not as benign, neutral entitites. Challenging white supremacy demands of us not merely saying we're against it but also interrogating the effects of what we do and what we participate in.</div>
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On the two ocassions that I heard mopdtk live I was really turned off. It wasn't that I just wasn't into it. I felt there was something wrong going on. There's more than one way to show disrespect to the tradition, and my read on the band was that instead of disrespecting it by over-reverence (i.e. participating in the Jazz Industrial Complex, which, for what it's worth, I know and loathe), the disrespect was through over-irreverence. I'm not opposed to irreverence. I hear it in the work of Dolphy and Schepp and Sun Ra and Carla Bley and Mengelberg and Bennik and Threadgill and and and. I'm also not opposed to having fun onstage. That's important too. But something felt - both times (at Zebulon and at Judson Church, I think) - really out of whack.</div>
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Understand that I felt that way already knowing your solo work and admiring it. I have since heard Kevin and Jon in other contexts and <i>admired </i>them. Something about mopdtk just reads wrong. And it isn't merely onstage. It's the whole package. Apparently I'm not the only person who has this reflection. I imagine many folks either love what they read as a send-up, or attack you from the vantage point of the Jazz Industrial Complex. My reflections come from neither place.</div>
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Should the tradition be respected at all? Many of my comrades see black liberation as a condition for collective liberation. And they see jazz as a music of black liberation. This may be a little old-fashioned for some, but I largely agree. In that spirit, I see the tradition as something to honor and respect when we play with it. Many black people in America have a very different notion of ancestry than do decendents of Europeans. Lester Bowie's notion of Great Black Music - Ancient to the Future, speaks to this.</div>
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You say the band has never intended irony. And yet people keep saying this sounds like irony to them. I recognize art's not made by taking polls. And I recognize that irony is the way some people communicate (I have a deep aesthetic aversion to it). And I know irony is different than racism. I mean I think you know this: if I say something terrible and someone calls me out on it, I can keep saying that's not the way I meant it. But if I keep saying the same thing, and the response is constantly the same from lots of different people, then I may suffer from lack of self reflection. It's one thing for people to say you guys can't play your instruments. That's a lot of ignorance. But the band has built a reputation (like with the Belgian guy laughing at your first note) that it seems to have capitalized on, or at least that you recognized clearly enough to decide to leave the project. So irony, regardless of intention, is there. And I found that the irony crosses over into racism in the total presentation - presence, packaging, music, promotion.</div>
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Again, I take issue with the <i>project</i>, and I don't hear the issues showing up in your other work that I'm familiar with. That said, I think white supremacy is utterly prevalent in our culture, and it is literally impossible for us to take any work, to put out any music, without being caught in its web in some way. The question for me is where one's efforts fall on a spectrum between embracing it outright (hoods or badges) and fighting it outright.</div>
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I have been thinking a lot about how much racism there is, but how seemingly few racists there are. Taking that tack, at first, with my response to the mopdtk show in Philly was heavy handed and wrong. Again, the question is about participation in racism, since the whole structure of our society is racist. And in my rush to call out, I was not as clear as I wish I had been.</div>
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Briefly, to answer your question about me: I have wrestled with my relationship to black american music for most of my musical life. I made some atrocious moves as a high school and college student and I am so glad that youtube and myspace did not exist back then, and that it was more difficult to put out music independently. My college jazz training (North Texas, then Ithaca) was so terrible and damaging that for years after I insisted that I did not play jazz, while continuing to reflect the inspiration of black musicians in my work. George Lewis set me straight, thank god. He and others. I used to think that unless I can burn like Johnny Griffen or Sonny Stitt, I can't play jazz and thus my improvising was definitely not related to the jazz tradtion. I've been able to open up to more specific references to the tradition in my playing over the last few years, and have been writing tunes lately as well, for whatever that's worth. And I hear you, it's not easy to build on. I think a lot about structural issues though - the music is going to be personal and there's no accounting for taste, but who gets work, who feels safe and welcome in a space, who sees their identity reflected onstage, all that really matters to me and really does not seem to matter to a lot of people in the scene. </div>
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Thanks again for writing to me. I'll see you around soon.</div>
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Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-68722932012748407502015-02-20T21:26:00.000+01:002015-02-23T08:09:39.620+01:00Slinging Mud & Kicking in Teeth: MOPDtK & When Irony Becomes Racism<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>[UPDATE 2/22/15: The following piece was written two days ago, in response to the promotion of the band's performance in Philadelphia. After writing this, I got more context about & from the bandleader. One thing I learned in particular is the bandleader's sincere reverence for the music he parodies. But such sincerity neither appears in the way the band is promoted, nor the way the music is presented. Some of this is in the band's control, some of it perhaps less so. At any rate I have changed the title & some of the language of the original text to reflect the conversations I have had in the last few days. I still think the problem discussed herein exists. I hope that the conversation this has instigated encourages the band, & those who promote them, to demonstrate respect toward the culture to which they are indebted for the content of their music.]</i><br /><br />I need to talk about a band from New York City that I am loathe to name because they don't deserve any more attention. Yet I know that it does no good to address racism without naming its perpetrators. This band is called "Mostly Other People Do The Killing." They credit themselves with making "terrorist be-bop" and their m.o. is churning out frenzied, ironic pap that mocks jazz idioms and jazz history. The bandleader, Moppa Elliott, is a conservatory-trained bassist and music educator. They are probably best known for their note-for-note rendition of the Miles Davis album <i>Kind of Blue</i>, which created some controversy for a few people. They have been on the scene for more than a decade. None of the band members are African American.<br /><br />A relevant excerpt from the promotional text for their concert in Philadelphia tonight:<br /></span></span><blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"MOPDtK formed in 2003, although founding members Elliott and trumpeter Peter Evans began playing together in 1998 as students at Oberlin Conservatory. In the liner notes to the band’s 2004 self-titled debut, Elliott states the band’s philosophy: “I would rather make music that uses jazz’s identity crisis against it, piling as many nonsensical musical associations together as possible to create music that is aware of its own inconsistencies, ironies and contradictions and likes it that way”. Elliott makes it clear he is avoiding the idea of “jazz as repertory” - “I like my jazz with some dirt on it,” he says before adding, “Bring out the mud. Standing on the shoulders of giants makes it easier to kick them in the teeth.”</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />To which I want to respond: black lives matter. Black cultural legacies matter and jazz is a black cultural legacy. Here is a white musician making light of centuries of cultural appropriation and theft under the cover of "irony." Here he is claiming to stand on the shoulders of giants, the easier to "kick them in the teeth." Here he is slinging mud - mud, y'all - at black cultural history.<br /><br />This is the language of racism. It doesn't matter if it's an ironic gesture, such language engenders real violence perpetrated by white supremacist culture against black people. To state it another way, real violence is founded on language that often seems (to white people) to be innocuous. I don't know this person. I don't know what he's like in other areas of his life. But in the text above his own appraisal of the band's work is in conflict with the notion that black lives matter. To kick black culture in the teeth is to say black culture doesn't matter. It is to say black people, thus, do not matter.<br /><br />Who are these giants at whom he's slinging mud? They are Armstrong and Ellington, Mingus and Monk, Parker and Coltrane. They are the elders of the music, the grandfathers, the ancients. They are the inheritors and carriers of what W.E.B. Dubois called the Sorrow Songs, the music that gave a people - against whom an attempted genocide has been perpetrated for centuries - their <i>life</i>. Cultural forebears such as these are meaningful in ways that many white folks cannot understand. Yes, some of us lost our family trees escaping persecution in Europe, but we don't continue to face persecution walking to the store.<br /><br />For a people whose family histories are twisted and lost amidst white violence - kidnapping, enslavement, enforced poverty, mass incarceration, cultural appropriation - playing ironically with their legacy is deeply offensive. It is menacing, threatening. It is unconscionable. It is also not new or novel, and black people in America have continually created globally significant cultural currents despite this legacy of white violence.<br /><br />The giants whose shoulders Elliott claims to stand on are musicians who reinvented and advanced the music not by slandering and dishonoring their forebears, but rather by respecting and building on their heritage. Folks with a deeper knowledge of jazz and its repertoire will understand that Cecil Taylor's music is not a kick in Ellington's teeth; Albert Ayler's music was not a kick in Lester Young's teeth; William Parker's music is not a kick in Mingus' teeth; Matana Roberts' music is not a kick in Charlie Parker's teeth.<br /><br />I recently read something that author Junot Diaz had to say about Toni Morrison, who just celebrated her 84th birthday. He said that the best writer in the world is of African descent. He said that despite the ills of the world, this fact allows him to sleep well at night. (Let's add: the world's finest living author is also a woman.) Now: imagine Diaz writing "standing on the shoulders of giants makes it easier to kick them in the teeth." You dig?<br /><br />To my ears, Elliott's music does not have the stature or quality of Diaz's writing. But the point I want to make is a question of degree, of reach. If someone were to come into my home and talk about kicking black culture in the teeth, such racist speech wouldn't become excusable - or ironic - simply because it is said behind closed doors. Or simply because the speaker doesn't intend to act physically. I'd call the motherfucker out on it, and show him the door.<br /><br />People of conscience, people who want to challenge the power dynamic that maintains white supremacy and all of the physical, cultural, and emotional violence it brings with it, have to prevent racism from reverberating throughout the culture. I note with continual disappointment the lack of commitment from my peers to challenging oppressive power structures. If the band and its members don't intend to maintain a stance of violence toward black culture and, thus, black people, the language that is used to speak about their work ought to reflect that. Otherwise, the language (and thus the notes) reverberate racism. And if that's the case, I propose to turn it off, shut it down, and call them out on it.<br /><br />Philadephia 2/20/15</span></span>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-87115903507496127002014-04-21T05:20:00.001+02:002014-04-21T16:14:27.764+02:00CEREMONIES OUT OF THE AIR<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ceremonies Out of the Air, </i>a double album of saxophone improvisations recorded in August 2013, is released on <a href="http://sundmagi.com/product/na-cd-012" target="_blank">New Atlantis Records</a> on April 22. A tour begins in New Haven the same day. Current dates and locations are below, and updated at <a href="http://keirneuringer.com/live">keirneuringer.com/live</a>.<br /><br />
<i>Ceremonies </i>is available as two 12" vinyl LPs in a gatefold jacket, as a single, 79-minute CD, and as an MP3 download. All five tracks (and a few more, which are not being released at this time) were recorded in a single session at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. The audience was comprised of some of the folks who helped fund the making of the album through a <a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ceremonies-out-of-the-air-keir-neuringer" target="_blank">crowdsource campaign</a>. The album art was painted by Erin Rice. The recording was made by Eugene Lew, and mixed by Kato Hideki.<br /><br />
The project is a dedication to my mother, Esther Neuringer, an avid new music supporter who died of lung cancer in March of last year. There is a quotation that frames the work and lends it its title, from Cormac McCarthy's <i>The Road</i>: "Evoke the forms. Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them." The text of <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2013/03/esther-dreamer.html" target="_blank">my eulogy</a> is the liner note for the album.<br /><br />
The titles of the improvisations are:<br />
1- okay we can go now<br />
2- Japanese Maples<br />
3- i dreamt there was nothing wrong with my chemistry<br />
4- The Dogwood Circle (round and round, round and round)<br />
5- we had mostly good times<br /><br />
<i>Ceremonies</i> can be purchased via <a href="http://sundmagi.com/product/na-cd-012" target="_blank">New Atlantis Records</a>, or in a special edition through <a href="https://keirneuringer.bandcamp.com/album/ceremonies-out-of-the-air" target="_blank">keirneuringer.bandcamp.com</a>, or from independent record stores and mail orders, or from online retailers like <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ceremonies-out-of-the-air/id808603860" target="_blank">iTunes</a>. For anyone interested in supporting this album beyond a purchase: ask your local independent record stores to carry it, and request it on your local radio stations.<br /><br />
<a href="https://keirneuringer.bandcamp.com/album/ceremonies-out-of-the-air">CEREMONIES OUT OF THE AIR</a> TOUR:<br /> 4/22 NEW HAVEN: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/500215956750064/">Uncertainty Music Series at Never Ending Books</a> + Cretella/Matlock<br /> 4/23 MONTREAL: La Vitrola + Clarinet Panic, Goddard X Pelchat<br /> 4/24 OTTAWA: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1482432771972930/">Gallery 101</a> + Clarinet Panic, Solina String Ensemble<br /> 4/25 KINGSTON: The Artel + Clarinet Panic, Salle Sella<br /> 4/25 GUELPH: <a href="http://www.silencesounds.ca/events.html">Silence</a> + The Vertical Squirrels<br /> 4/27 TORONTO: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/384608225012420">Oz Studios</a> + Clarinet Panic, CCMC<br /> 4/28 BUFFALO: <a href="http://www.hallwalls.org/music/5494.html">Hallwalls</a> + Kevin Cain<br />4/30 ITHACA: Angry Mom Records<br />5/01 ALBANY: Upstate Artists Guild<br /> 5/04 PHILADELPHIA: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/613482932071315/">Archer Spade Series at Rotunda</a> + Devin Hoff<br /><br />5/15 DETROIT: <a href="http://trinosophes.com/">Trinosophes</a><br />5/16 KALAMAZOO: Corner Record Shop tbc<br />5/17 DUBUQUE: Monk’s + Bucko/Berns<br /> 5/18 IOWA CITY: Public Space One + Oren/Hurlin<br />5/19 CHICAGO ?<br />5/20 COLUMBIA MO: houseshow<br /> 5/21 ST LOUIS: Cafe Ventana + N.N.N. Cook<br /> 5/22 LAFAYETTE IN: Black Sparrow tbc<br />5/23 BLOOMINGTON IN: houseshow<br />5/24 LOUISVILLE ?<br />5/25 CLEVELAND: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/306415182842248/">Guide to Kulchur</a><br />
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Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-90152626415895936382013-05-18T17:03:00.001+02:002013-05-18T17:03:47.986+02:00WITH BREATHING<br />
I.<br />
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it begins with breathing, I am certain of this, but I didn’t know how it ends, I never knew how it ends until recently, everything is in the lungs, before I could breathe my mother breathed for me, she breathed and then I could breathe, and not long ago I watched and I listened and I held her hand as she breathed her last breath, so I know how it ends, it ends as it begins, with breathing<br />
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early on an August morning in 1947 my mother began to breathe, and early on a March morning in 2013 she stopped breathing, her life could be measured in breaths, in years (the years she breathed), in days, in the number of children she gave birth to, or the number she lost, or the things she made with her hands, or the dogs she kept as companions, or the places she lived, or the places she visited, or the songs she loved, or the cigarettes she smoked, the pain she endured, such could be the parameters of her life as a work<br />
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and is this a strange introduction to a performance of the work of her son? I don’t think it is, I want to situate my music in a context that is meaningful beyond the parameters of pitches and rhythms, for which, even as a musician of many years, I have limited understanding or objectivity, my work is not about sound phenomena, I have only a cursory interest in sound phenomena but a great interest in social phenomena, I have written it before, elsewhere: music is not (merely) about organizing notes, it is about organizing ourselves, and I ask myself as I perform or write or record, how do I organize myself amidst others, with others, what do we do when we listen, what do we do when we write, what do we do when we perform, what is the music that my particular body makes, a particular body my particular mother made (not to suggest there is anything special about either of us, or others, any more than any others, just that we are all particular and it follows that the music one makes will be particular too), I think about the social phenomenon of breathing in tandem with the breathing of others, it begins with breathing, I am certain of this, and it ends with breathing, I am certain of this, and why should it be anything else in between?<br />
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does this sound complicated? because I don’t want it to sound complicated, I want it to sound simple, it is simple, as simple as breathing, an act you do without thinking about it, or you do and you focus on it, or it is labored, difficult for you and so (simply, without complication, without obfuscation) it outweighs all other things you might do or think about doing, I watched and I listened and I held her hand as my mother breathed in her last hours, now faster, now slower, now louder, now softer, I watched and I listened and I held her hand and surely she did the same when I was born, so I think I understand something about breathing, but sound phenomena confuse me, and in a world of confusion why add more confusion?<br />
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this is not a manifesto, I am trying to situate my work in a context, and what I am thinking about as I write is what kind of music the sound of my first breaths must have been for my mother, because perhaps this is music that all children and all parents can understand, and we are all one if not the other, and I can approximate what my mother felt, if not in the details, then at least in the awe and the humility, by contrasting it with the kind of music my mother’s last breaths were for me, something I knew I would never hear again, but to ask what kind of music I am thinking of is to think about the parameters of this music, I don’t know, it is not delineated by temporal durations, or spatial dimensions, or structure, or word count, and there are no words to describe this gift my mother gave to me, to let me hold her hand and let me listen and let me watch as the work that was her life ended, as she died<br />
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but there is a metaphor: it was like breathing<br />
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II.<br />
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when I was very young I told my parents I wanted to be a fire engine -- not a fireman, but the actual vehicle, it was the sound of the thing, the spectacular sound of the siren that I wanted to be, and I imitated it often, but by the time I was four years old I had changed my mind and I told my parents that when I grew up I wanted to be “a mommy”, I had learned to appreciate a social phenomenon, perhaps sirens have a social function but they don’t have an inclination, but mothers do, at least my mother did, she wanted me to be good at what I do, and for others to care for it, and for me to be “happy” doing it, and she taught herself, late in life, to appreciate the odd sounds and odd social phenomena of whatever scenes my music found a home in, experimental or avant-garde or contemporary classical or free improvisation or noise or jazz or rock and roll or whatever you want to call these attitudes toward music making and the social behaviors that develop around them, she went to all the strange concerts and talked to all the musicians and bought their recordings and invited them to her home and fed them, and she asked me what I thought and she told me what she thought, and for someone who never played an instrument or wrote a song she breathed this music deeply, and maybe the dying process began earlier than we thought, maybe it was when she stopped being able to go to concerts and see her beloved musicians and speak with them and support their work, but I will tell you this last story it was perhaps ten days before she died and I was so busy taking care of her that I hadn’t played or practiced any music or slept in weeks but I put on a Bobby Darin LP and we never really listened to that record and it held no special meaning for us but fuck, music is music, so she in her wheelchair and me in my exhaustion and deep, deep sadness at the devastating loss I was about to endure we danced a little to that music and the joy in the room was intense and now I don’t want to speak of her in the past tense I want to breathe into my saxophone, this after all is the ability she gave to me, to breathe, this is where it began and this after all is where it will end, with breathing<br />
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<i>[note: written for the program website of Kate Moore's <a href="http://dtsconcertseries.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/like-breathing-by-keir-neuringer-hh9-16-05-2013/" target="_blank">'Handmade Homegrown'</a> concert series in The Hague, for which I gave a performance on May 16.]</i><br />
Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-5238077137724556912013-03-22T21:48:00.000+01:002013-03-22T21:48:38.415+01:00ESTHER THE DREAMER
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">(eulogy for my mother 1947-2013)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When music played, she would look out a window,
see tree branches swaying, or people walking, and note the choreography. I
would send her recordings of my music, and she would listen to them, again and
again and again, and she would treasure them as if they were her grandchildren,
and play them with pride for friends, and memorize their every vibration, and
know them as though she herself had written them - and hadn't she? with her own
body and her own soul, thirty-six years ago - and tell me that she heard great choirs
singing my work, she would orchestrate greater versions of it than I could
imagine, in the time it took for a bar of a piece to play, she would
orchestrate lavish versions of the music and the production and the publicity, she
would describe the immense productions, already clear in her mind, the dancers,
the elaborate set designs, the lighting plans, the colors swirling and telling
stories within stories in their intermingling. And her orchestration would
extend to the accolades and success it would bring to her son, because hard
work and risk-taking will always bring great rewards, how it would permit me to
travel and buy a home and raise a family, and how that family would thrive and
honor the toiling and risks and sacrifices of her dear parents, parents whose
adventures she memorialized with such reverence that their very kisses to each
other became legends as sacred as any other to the ears of her children. She
would hear a note and it would extend from a fine, small molecule of air that
she would capture gently between her thumb and one of her long, brightly painted
fingernails, out in a flourish full of grace, to the heavens, the stars, through
whole solar systems, to the furthest reaches of being itself, and with a wave
of her head and an "ah" or two clicks of her tongue, she would catch
herself, remembering something, the corporeal, the belly, she would ask "is
it lunchtime?" and always, always, always, before she would eat she would
offer you up the world to fill your own belly, and if the world didn't satisfy
you she would offer you another, or another, and if three whole worlds would
not satisfy you she would find another again, anything, and what else, and you
would have ice cream covered in hot fudge and whipped cream for dinner, or a
spectacular meal of many courses made from scratch, or your choice, anything
you wanted, of the town’s finest dining, there is no modesty in matters of the
belly, but she would teach you how to grow in the garden, how to grow fruits and
vegetables and herbs that nourished you, and how to grow flowers that delighted
you, with strange names she would always know, as though these were names she
herself had chosen for them, and she would always know their season, their
particulars, like a mother knows what foods her babies like to eat, there were
whole taxonomies of flowers and plants in her head, and everything was a
sprawling taxonomy, mountains of beads and jewelry and ribbons and fabric and
paint and glue pouring out from makeshift workspaces, arranged into families
and groups as precariously and with as much poetry as any really living life, and
the ups and downs of the stock market and the ins and outs of real estate were
arrayed in her mind and upon the slightest slivers of paper, the backs of
receipts and envelopes and matchbooks, mysterious ciphers in her careful,
lovely scrawl, populating reams of scratch paper that curled around her house
like vines, full of lives of their own, flowing from every surface, and each
calculation coming with a mathematics and a lesson on self-sufficiency embedded
in it, and recipes, oh recipes, as though recipes were a kingdom unto
themselves, and tuna salad begat egg salad, and egg salad begat devilled eggs, the
kitchen at once a sacred shrine and a restless artist’s tangled workplace, and back
out in the garden she would teach you how to pull up the weeds, not just which
ones to pull, but how to do it as a discipline, as an aesthetic, as the sun
rose, when the rest of the world was asleep, with a good dog at her side, and a
cup of too-sweet coffee in one hand, and the new day full of possibility, full
of opportunity, the early bird does not catch worms, she opens up her own restaurant,
she teaches you how to eat, how to cook, how to present food elegantly, because
the table is a canvas, the good spirits of her many guests are canvases to
paint upon, generosity is a thing to paint with, everything is adorned,
everything is arrayed, every thing is part of a collection of things, and
because her bright green eyes were prisms, and her long hands were factories, every
thing can be made to be some other thing, turned around, painted, put in a new
context, given to a school or a church for children to make new art with, or sell
it and sell it and sell it until you can buy a house and sell a house and save
enough to give away so her grandchildren will never be cold or hungry or sick
and the things she labored greatest over, the pains she suffered most for, the
love that just flowed and flowed and flowed out of her because she had no
beginning and no end as long as she loved, and her love was out in the world, here
we are, with names she gave us, doing her proud, seeing, hearing, feeling this
immeasurable limitless potential of a world she dreamt up for us, to travel
over, to sing to, to entertain, to build upon, to find love on, always to find
love, to find someone to sing to, to travel with, to entertain, to build with,
to dance with, to laugh with, to cry with, to cook with, to fill the belly and
the heart with, to dream dreams with, to breathe with</span></div>
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<o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">and I was there with her as she breathed her
last breath, her hand in mine, her no-longer seeing eyes looking through me to a
new world, her sweet face young again, poised, mischievously to the end, in the
vaguest suggestion of a smile, with the lines of life and care and her prodigious,
idiosyncratic folk wisdom smoothed over in her departure from this place, that
last breath pure and calm and full of peace, even in her last instant of life a
lesson to hand down to me, her son, her friend, and a hope that this world,
this world without her, would be like this world with her, a place where to
wake up and breath is to dream without limitation</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Rockwell;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-78158543886172015882013-01-10T16:14:00.000+01:002013-01-10T16:14:23.806+01:00ON IDENTITY<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We?</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't drop bombs on the
brave, embattled people of Afghanistan. We don't drop them on Yemeni boys whose
first beards only they and their mothers can see. We don’t drop them on weddings
and funerals and search parties in Pakistan. We don't give them, as gifts, to
the persecutors of Palestinians. We don’t commission, design, or make the
bombs, and we don’t order others to drop them.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't manufacture the
guns that cops use to kill one person of color in the United States every
thirty-six hours. We don't sell the guns, we don’t profit from the gun sales, we
don't fight for the right to own them with the same money we fight against the
reproductive autonomy of women. We don't enshrine the legality of white folks
killing black folks under "stand your ground" laws drawn up by the
American Legislative Exchange Council.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't wear badges. We
don't wear uniforms. We don't demand to see your license and registration, or
your passport, or your visa, or your working papers, or your student ID, or
your rental agreement. We don't set up checkpoints, we don't stop and frisk. We
are not racial profilers. And we are not colorblind.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We make beautiful music
together. We know how to dance. We know when to dance, when to party, when to
run, and with whom. And we know when to stand up, backs straight, facing the
State, meeting its hatred of itself with our love of each other.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We hold hands, we lock
arms.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We feed each other, we
clothe each other, we keep each other warm. We don't hoard food. We don't waste
food. We don’t shame you if you’re hungry. We’re not embarrassed when our
stomachs rumble. We don’t eat first.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't build walls, we
smash them. We cut holes in wire fences. We tear down advertisements. We cover
walls with art and messages.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't build jails. We
don't kidnap people, we don’t kidnap animals. We don't pour chemicals into the
eyes of rabbits and mice, we liberate them from the labs where they're held
captive and tortured. We don't torture. We aren't torturers who say we don't
torture.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't distinguish
between human rights and civil rights and animal rights. Every species is
endangered. The world is a wildlife preserve.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don’t hold elections
hostage. We don't hold elections. We don't represent anyone but ourselves. We
don't pledge allegiance to flags. We don't wave them, we don't wrap ourselves
in them. We don't salute them. We have no nation, and it is not great, and it
never was. We don’t govern. We are not governable.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We are not constituents.
We are not citizens. We are not consumers. We are not products. We don’t yammer
on about renewable this and sustainable that. We are not a science experiment.
We know that ethical shopping is still shopping.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't take instructions
from strange old men in strange robes with monopolies on god's will. We don't
pray at the altar of oil. Or gas. Or coal. Or uranium. Or money. Or technology.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We know that the bed and
the bank of every river and stream is a sacred site.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We understand consent, we
honor it and we insist on it. We don't rape. We don’t rape women, or men, or
children. Or oceans. Or economies. We lash ourselves to trees and stand up to
bulldozers and knock the teeth out of the mouths of racists. We bash back.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We respect autonomy, not
authority. We offer solidarity, not charity.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don’t do business. We
don’t make deals. We are not our jobs. We are not our debts. We are not our
illnesses. We are not our educations. We are not our parents, or their
mistakes, or their failures, or their fears. We don’t owe them. We are not our
children. We don’t own them.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don't indoctrinate
children. We don't fire their teachers, we don't close their schools. We don't
lie to them about the world. We don't feed them poison, we don’t rob their
bellies of food. We don't round up their fathers and then blame them for being
fatherless. We don’t work their mothers to death and then blame them for being
motherless. We don't teach them to love their country. We don't teach them to
hate their bodies.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We feed each other, we
clothe each other, we keep each other warm. We hold hands, we lock arms.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We know when to dance,
when to party, when to stand up, backs straight, facing the State, meeting its
hatred of itself with our love of each other. We know when to run, and with whom.
We know how to dance. We make beautiful music together.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don’t target whole
cultures for eradication. We don’t target whole forests for eradication. We
don’t build zoos, or museums, or glass and steel towers. We don’t close
libraries, we don’t destroy them, we don’t burn books. We don’t fire
plutonium-powered rockets through the stratosphere. We don’t insist on cooking
the atmosphere. We don’t casually calculate the risk, we don’t prepare
environmental impact assessments and then, fuck it, drill anyway.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We are not all of the
above. We are not multiple-choice. We are not either/or. We are not census
data. We are not statistics. We are not metrics. We are not the general
populace, the American people, a concerned citizenry, a nation divided. We are
not a movement. We are not united. We are not the People. We don’t petition the
king, there is no king.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We hold hands, we lock
arms.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don’t reach across the
aisle. We don’t lend bipartisan support. We don’t legislate. We don’t segregate
our concern. We don’t say that progress is being made when you stick a knife in
our backs nine inches and pull it out six inches. We never thank a politician,
for anything, ever. We don’t ask what we can do for our country, because we
don’t have one, we don’t want one, and we don’t want to know what it can do for
us, either.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We don’t ask for handouts.
We don’t ask for tears. We don’t want casual, drive-by, fashionable outrage at
our situations. We do want the boots off our backs.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We are not slaves, because
being held captive, for days or decades or centuries, does not make one a slave.
We are not, nor have we ever been, nor will we ever be, wretched refuse. We are
not a melting pot.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We are not overpopulation.
We are not illegal. We are not here to breed. We are not addicts, even when we
are addicted. We are not welfare mothers, even when we are mothers on welfare.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We are not what you say we
are. Whatever you say we are, we are not that.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We know when to run, and with
whom. We hold hands, we lock arms. We make beautiful music together. We know
how to dance. We know when to dance, when to party, when to stand up, backs
straight, facing the State, meeting its hatred of itself with our love of each
other, meeting its hatred of itself with our love of each other, backs
straight, facing the State, meeting its hatred of itself with our love of each
other.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">(Philadelphia, November
2012)</span></span><br />
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">[Note: written for the first issue of Bread & Roses, a publication </span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that works to cultivate an explicitly anti-oppression community at Cornell University & in the broader Ithaca, NY community, </span></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">run by students / comrade activists at Cornell.]</span></i></span>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-74831392078163083492012-08-21T22:18:00.001+02:002012-08-21T23:46:58.193+02:00OBAMA ON PARSING RAPEFour things US President Barack Obama did not say in response to Republican Congressman Todd <a href="http://jezebel.com/5936160/the-official-guide-to-legitimate-rape" target="new">"Legitimate Rape"</a> Akin yesterday:
<br><br>
<i>"JUSTICE IS JUSTICE. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of justice we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me. So, what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are white, making justice decisions on behalf of people of color."
<br><br>
"MURDER IS MURDER. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of murder we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me. So, what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are imperialists, making military decisions on behalf of innocents abroad."
<br><br>
"CLIMATE CHANGE IS CLIMATE CHANGE. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of climate change we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me. So, what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are corporate stooges, making harmful resource extraction decisions on behalf of human and nonhuman cultures and ecosystems."
<br><br>
"HEALTHCARE IS HEALTHCARE. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of healthcare we’re talking about doesn’t make sense to the American people and certainly doesn’t make sense to me. So, what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are in bed with insurance and pharmaceutical corporations, making healthcare decisions on behalf of the poor and vulnerable."</i>
<br><br>
Instead, the first US President to ever have a <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/30/glenn_greenwald_obamas_secret_kill_list"target="new">"kill list"</a> and assume the authority to command that any person, anywhere, may be killed for any reason, at any time, said that rape is rape, and that we shouldn't parse it, and that "we shouldn’t have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making healthcare decisions on behalf of women."
<br><br>
And now I am angry and confused. The <i>de facto</i> dominant mass cultural message emanating from people repulsed by Akin's utterly repugnant ideas about rape, women's reproductive rights, and human biology, seems to be that since some or many US Republicans will support laws that negate women's rights, the coming federal elections are a referendum on these rights, and so Democrats must be supported in these elections.
<br><br>
But there is a fallacy here. Democrats, and Barack Obama chief among them, have a record of sustained campaigns of terror against women. Every time a bomb is dropped, a rocket is launched, or a bullet is fired by US military abroad, we must consider these to have targeted women. Every time a trained killer, who must obey orders and not his conscience, is stationed somewhere, he is a threat to women. Every time a vote is cast to increase the cash flow from struggling folks to the Pentagon, it is a vote against women. Women, specifically. Women suffer the most in war. They suffer the most from the belligerent occupying forces, the exploitative corporations, the local creeps taking advantage of the chaos.
<br><br>
And women suffer the most in wars that are undeclared, but are wars nonetheless. Obama has proven himself <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/nov/28/report-obama-broken-environmental-promises"target="new">an enemy of the environment</a>. His policies, from his embrace of nuclear power to his enthusiasm for hydrofracking to his duplicitous zeal for tar sands mining to his commitment to "offshore" oil drilling, are contributing to the horrendous condition of our air, water, soil, climate. The effects - fires, floods, food scarcity, toxics everywhere, and so forth - are felt hardest by the most vulnerable in all societies. These are never politicians, never (white) men, never the wealthy, anywhere on Earth.
<br><br>
What was Obama saying about rape last week? Where was his concern? Women were still being raped, were still being harassed for seeking healthcare, were still being denied their rights. Obama's most important piece of legislation has been his giant gift to health insurance companies.
<br><br>
The political expediency of his response to Akin reveals exactly who he is: not committed to social justice issues. Like all rat-bastard politicians, including his opponent Mitt Romney, he is committed to himself, and satisfying the whims of those who pull his strings. Now I'm thinking about how fast he suspended his political campaign and rushed to Aurora, Colorado, when James Holmes shot up a movie theater there. And now I'm thinking about how he did not do that when Wade Michael Page did the same to a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin a few weeks later.
<br><br>
I am witnessing not just politicians, but their supporters, segregate their moral concern. It is intellectually dishonest and it is ineffectual in bringing about real social change. Today I saw an inspiring statement: Rise Up or Shut Up. It is a reminder of what it means to be truly committed to social and political change. Someone who is genuinely committed to the rights of women does not wait until a "Legitimate Rape"-ist like Todd Akin speaks before advancing the notion that actually no, women should rule their own bodies. Someone who is genuinely committed to the rights of women does not bomb them, does not starve them, does not torture their brothers and sons, does not run toxic pipelines across their farmland, or their aquifers, or their sacred sites, does not accept political bribes from corporations that toss women and men out of their homes, or that draft legislation funneling them into lives lost in the for-profit prison-industrial complex.
<br><br>
Perhaps the argument I am trying to make is convoluted. I am writing while I am angry. I am angry because I don't distinguish between men who rape and men who legislate rape. And I don't distinguish between kinds of rape. And I don't segregate the victims of rape. It is a rapist mentality that keeps bombing people in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen. It is a rapist mentality that drills into the seabed looking for oil. And I think we can struggle against the individual rapes and the collective rapes, the Republican rapes and the Democrat rapes, without feeling ourselves thrown into the clutches of a different rapist on election day. We will not stop this rapist culture with votes. Rise up or shut up!Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-46906610819826667812012-08-14T01:19:00.003+02:002012-08-14T18:57:14.709+02:00THE COP IN YOUR LIFE<br />
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I don't know any cops. I see them on the street but usually they don't see me, because I don't fit the profile of the people they target for harassment, kidnappings, and murder.</div>
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Maybe you know some cops? A few weeks ago I was discussing <a href="http://www.newjimcrow.com/" target="new">the New Jim Crow</a> with two friends, women who also want to see a fast end to the institutional racism in the US that preys on people of color to fill its prisons, ghettos, and morgues. I made the totally uncontroversial statement that all cops are bastards, only to remember, as I spoke, that one of my friends is the daughter of a cop.</div>
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I did not take back my statement, or apologize, but I did listen as she described her cop father: a man, she said, whose inclinations were anti-racist, toward genuine public safety, toward justice, who complained (at home) about dirty deeds on the force.</div>
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A few days later, cops in Anaheim, California <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AItgu2Onqg" target="new">executed Manuel Diaz</a> in the street. Diaz, a 25-year-old community member accused of no crime, was shot from behind, as he ran with two other men in the opposite direction of the armed men trained to kill who were chasing him. Diaz was unarmed. After hand-cuffing him, police shot him in the back of the head at close range.</div>
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Members of that same police force responded to the families, who assembled in the neighborhood to demand justice, just like a bunch of cowardly bastards, firing bean bags from shotguns, firing rubber bullets, and letting loose an attack dog. The small, unarmed crowd included infants.</div>
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These cops then offered cash in hand to people in the crowd for their cellphones, presumably to dispose of the evidence of their disgusting crimes, which anyway found its way to network news and the Internet. Within 24 hours, these <i>same cops </i>murdered another community member, Joel Acevedo.</div>
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"Known gang members" is the way the police force, and the compliant media, justified these murders. "Police involved shooting" is the way the press describes them, and the numerous other acts of lethal, extra-judicial aggression this particular police force has committed in 2012.</div>
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Here's a reminder: so far, this year, <a href="http://mxgm.org/report-on-the-extrajudicial-killings-of-110-black-people/" target="new">a person of color is murdered by the state or its vigilante proxies every 36 hours</a> in the US. I don't have the exact numbers for when American cops initiate beatings, sexual harassment, sexual assault, public humiliations, violations of privacy, threats, thefts, kidnappings and so forth. You can look up the numbers on incarcerations for non-violent offenses, for the way folks are kidnapped from their communities and stripped - with classless, colorblind laws that target people of color and the poor - of their rights to work, receive public assistance, vote.</div>
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And since I began this piece, I read of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/03/chavis-carter-handduffed-shooting" target="new">Chavis Carter</a>, a young man who was stopped by cops in Jonesboro, Arkansas, searched multiple times, handcuffed, and thrown in the back of a police car. At some point after this, a bullet entered his right temple and killed him, and the pigs say it was a suicide. These cops are bastards.</div>
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What does it take for a cop to not be a bastard? To denounce, loudly and clearly, this kind of behavior. To refuse to participate in it. To refuse to protect the State from the people it is entrusted to serve. To refuse to protect corporations from people protesting their misdeeds. To refuse to protect private power, period. To recognize the functional difference between municipal police and the military.</div>
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Want to be a hero to the community? Escort vulnerable folks, without a gun. Be helpful, without a badge. Be responsible, without a uniform. But if you wear a uniform, if you wear a badge, if you carry a gun, know that the State no longer sees you as an individual, but as a weapon yourself. That's how it uses you, that's how it dispatches and discharges you. Know that many of the rest of us see you that way too, and with good reason.</div>
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If you wear a uniform and a badge, if you carry a gun, go ahead and demand accountability from the force, see how far that gets you. Remember that you are supposed to serve the community, not the force. Remember that the mass incarcerations and killings by police are done <i>in your name </i>and that, wearing that uniform, we see you as duplicate expressions of the same idea. Are you a weapon against us? What are you a weapon for?</div>
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If the cop in your life is still a cop, it means that he (or she) has not threatened the good ol' boys club with demands for accountability, but really it means that he (or she) hasn't risked job and benefits in a society that criminalizes joblessness and health problems. It means that they collude (actively, or by their silence) with other members of the force to alter or hide evidence of police crimes. It means they go out on the street, trained to kill, with weapons loaded, knowing damned well that we live in a society that targets people of color, youth, and poor folks, and have the temerity to expect respect, even praise.</div>
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I am about done writing when I read another story about murderous cop bastards, this one out of New York City, where the mayor brags "I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world." <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2012/aug/12/police-shoot-kill-man-near-nyc-times-square/" target="new">Two days ago a swarm of these forces loyal to arch-plutocrat Bloomberg confronted Darrius Kennedy in Times Square</a>. I am going to go out on a limb and say that a reasonable response to being confronted by multiple armed killers is to protect yourself. Kennedy pulled a knife and started to back away. I suppose Kennedy had mental health issues, and if this society cared to address them, it wouldn't shoot him dead in broad daylight.</div>
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Ten shots, I think I read, to slow down this one agitated man, from a police force well practiced at containing thousands of Occupy Wall Street activists at a time for the past year. Brave? No. Accountable? No. Just? Not at all.</div>
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Again, what were these cops a weapon against? Who were they a weapon for? Here is an account from social justice activist Kelly Rose Pflug-Back, who writes that</div>
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<a href="http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2012/07/23/every-prisoner-is-a-political-prisoner/" target="new">"Some political prisoners are arrested for staging public demonstrations that address poverty, and some are arrested for living in poverty. Some actively protest social inequality, while others turn to drugs or alcohol because they can no longer bear the brunt of this inequality."</a></div>
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Will we live in fear of the State's municipal police forces or will we demand accountability and exact justice from them? Are all cops bastards? Let the bravest ones lay their weapons down, step forward, and prove otherwise.</div>
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Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-27876428222235924642012-08-09T21:18:00.001+02:002012-08-14T18:58:41.439+02:00(WRIGHT RIFF)<br />
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Because it bears repeating,</div>
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and regarding the anniversaries of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, civilian population centers in a country ready to surrender,</div>
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and regarding the billowing plumes of black smoke spilling out from the Chevron refinery in Richmond, California and into the lungs of the largely poor, black, and immigrant population there,</div>
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and regarding the US president who still takes cash from the nuclear industry, and thinks that hydrofracking should be exempt from clean air and water standards, and that BP and Shell and ExxonMobil and the rest should drill for oil, right there, offshore, <i>in the fucking sea</i>,</div>
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and regarding the drone aircraft that killed another ten men (and who knows how many women?) in Yemen earlier this week, ten men whose crime was their age, their gender, and the audacity to live where they live, making them "militants" (against whom? for what reason? in what war?),</div>
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and regarding the laying of the Keystone XL Pipeline across North America, from Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico, cutting like a dull, rusty knife through aquifers and mountains, wetlands and woodlands, prairies and farms, cutting through lands where genocide has taken place, cutting to line the pockets of a few men, the moral and biological descendents of those who committed the genocide,</div>
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and regarding the sending of spacecraft (military, scientific, commercial) through the atmosphere and into outerspace, the only atmosphere we have, our protection on this planet, the atmosphere that NASA must share with every species, and most of us never asked NASA to put us all at risk so that a camera could snoop around Mars anyway,</div>
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and regarding the white men who won't examine their fear and hatred, who lash out with violence against any "othered" individual or group, men like that white supremacist piece of garbage who brought his hatred to a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last weekend, putting to predictable work his years of training and indoctrination by the US military,</div>
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and regarding the asshole president who speaks of "soul-searching" after such a predictable bloodbath, while maintaining a kill list, the right to kill anyone, anywhere, for any reason, while defending war, defending apartheid, promoting the idea that remote-controlled aircraft armed with missiles and bombs, and covering the globe make anyone safer, and turning his back, like a fucking coward, on climate science, on American racism, on class warfare,</div>
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and regarding the murder of Marvin Wilson by the state of Texas a few days ago, a man who was so easy to kill, with an injection of poison into his bloodstream, and so difficult for people to defend, with his black skin, and his mental disability, which the racist, backward state compared in its murderous legal reasoning, its own intellectual deficiency, to a fictional character in the Steinbeck story <i>Of Mice and Men,</i></div>
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and regarding the fact that at no time in history have so many people been imprisoned as there are, now, in the United States, and they are so disproportionally drawn from poor, black, and latino communities, and this is neither brave, nor free, nor secure, but unmitigated evil,</div>
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and regarding the hateful mass of people, who call themselves Christians, but whose charity amounts to eating the cooked flesh of industrially tortured chickens rather than countenancing the notion that their very neighbors might love who and how they wish to love, without fear,</div>
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and regarding the channeling of stolen wealth toward corporate stooge politicians amidst a backdrop of school closings, teacher layoffs, home foreclosures, and the absence of mental health resources to those pushed to the edge of despair by this shithouse culture,</div>
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but mostly because the degree to which the following sounds wrong to you reveals the degree to which you need to hear it again, to turn it around in your thoughts, to realize not everyone has it as good and easy as you,</div>
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god damn America.</div>
Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-13498488095787300552012-07-23T20:31:00.001+02:002012-07-23T20:32:08.438+02:00COMMUNIQUE ON INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION<br />
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"They are gunning us down in the streets.</div>
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Forces loyal to the regime are using both conventional and chemical weapons with lethal force on unarmed civilians, including women, children and infants.</div>
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Dissent has been criminalized and municipal police departments throughout the country have been militarized.</div>
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Freedom of speech has been curtailed. The press is run by financial elites with close ties to the ruling cabal, brought to power in a sham election.</div>
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Racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, as well as people from stigmatized social groups and anyone expressing dissent, are singled out for extrajudicial punishment that includes disenfranchisement, harassment, torture, indefinite detention, and death.</div>
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The president has claimed the right to shut down all electronic communication, and a near-total spy network filters all opposition groups and storms the homes of their members.</div>
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Schools have been shut down at an alarming rate, sick and injured people are turned away from hospitals, labor unions have been broken up, and the regime has empowered vigilantes to harass and kill refugees escaping violence across the border.</div>
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We beg the international community to intervene on our behalf.</div>
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Sincerely, America."</div>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-89694357105922391242012-07-21T00:37:00.002+02:002012-07-21T00:37:31.365+02:00WHO THEY KILL AND HOW THEY TALK ABOUT IT<br />
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I am deeply saddened to read of the innocents targeted with gun violence in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater last night. And also all over the world, all the time.</div>
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I note that what those folks were doing in Aurora was what I wanted to do today: <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719" target="new">beat the heat</a> for two hours, sit back comfortably and watch a fantasy story.</div>
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I don't know what all the other people targeted with gun violence around the world and in the US were doing. How were they beating the heat? What kind of comfort were they seeking out? What kind of stories did they want to be told? What kind of realities did they want to escape?</div>
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There is a total takeover of the news cycle when violence targets a bourgeois pastime, or when it targets white folks doing anything. At other times such violence is largely invisible (unless it concerns lucrative investments, sort of the same thing to some, but that's a discussion for another time).</div>
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I recall that the murder of Trayvon Martin was invisible. It became newsworthy only when the <a href="http://dcist.com/2012/07/george_zimmerman_im_truly_sorry_but.php" target="new">confessed and unrepentant</a> murderer George Zimmerman became a potential fugitive from reluctant Florida law enforcement. The "violence" that concerned the news cycle was the disregard for authority that Zimmerman might have shown, had he <i>really</i> gone on the run.</div>
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Yesterday I read with horror, but without surprise, that in the period since Trayvon Martin's murder, a Black man, woman, or child is gunned down by the State or its proxies every thirty six hours in the US.</div>
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<a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/report-reveals-spike-in-extrajudicial-killings" target="new">EVERY THIRTY SIX HOURS</a>.</div>
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James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado shooting, like <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2011/01/imperial-theater-of-barack-obama.html" target="new">Jared Loughner</a> before him, is a household name today. What are the names of the cops and vigilantes who go into black communities and kill with impunity? Where are the outraged media pundits to pour over the details on these horrors? Why didn't network news ask political candidates what their stance was on gun control when <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2012/03/american-way.html" target="new">an off-duty cop strayed into Rekia Boyd's Chicago neighborhood and put a bullet through her head</a> earlier this year? Or when scores of others were robbed of their futures, stolen from their families?</div>
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Justice? Accountability?</div>
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But what kind of expectation should anyone have of commercial news sources? The ABC network has labelled the shooting rampage in Aurora the largest mass shooting in US history. I saw this statistic jump instantly from ABC to Wikipedia (and who knows how many other information sources). It must now coexist, uncomfortably, like the colonizer with the colonized, with the fact that the hundreds of Lakota Sioux massacred by the US at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890, were also people.</div>
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<i>Oh, but that was war.</i></div>
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And it's all war, all the time.</div>
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I do not point any of this out to diminish the scope of the horror in Colorado, but to illustrate the dimensions of it. I revise the famous formulation misattributed to Stalin: one death a tragedy, a million deaths a million tragedies. And as I type this I see that 188 people were killed in Syria today. They had names and faces and mothers and lovers.</div>
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Barack Obama pulled his campaign ads in Colorado today, and directed flags to fly at half mast on all federal buildings. The indiscriminate massacre of innocents by bombs dropped from drone aircraft will not be suspended, however. Not for one fucking second. And armed gunmen, trained killers, armed and dressed something like the murderer in the Aurora movie theater, have the beloved politician's blessings - no, <i>orders</i> - to shoot up whoever they like in Afghanistan at this very moment.</div>
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My thoughts are with the families of the victims. All of them.</div>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-1434533819358188222012-05-14T19:43:00.002+02:002012-05-14T19:43:35.673+02:00THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS<br />
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"The kindness of strangers" is a misnomer. When we're kind and generous and encouraging to each other we stop being strangers. I am so moved by everyone organizing and hosting my shows on the tour I am currently on through the US midwest and rust belt, people offering me meals and places to stay, saying "keep the change" when they buy tapes, saying encouraging words, which are beyond value, when they don't have cash to spare, taking time away from tough, vulnerable lives (as students, artists, parents, workers, unemployed) to listen to the words and music of a stranger with a strange name. We are cash poor but rich in community.</div>
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I am a musician who performs live. Some of my work has roots in jazz and popular music, some of it has roots in classical and avant garde composition. Some of it is decidedly experimental, in that I don't know the outcome when I start. A promise to those who take time out to be at a show: I will not sell you out. I am not here, with a famous name, to help venues sell high volumes of alcohol. I am not here, with meaningless lyrics, to be the soundtrack to meaningless liaisons. I am not here, with polite, cunning pieces, to glorify the sophisticated, high culture of an imperial, murderous culture. I am not here with slick pitches; looking out from behind my saxophone or my Farfisa, I see comrades and participants, not dollar signs.</div>
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I am in it because I love what I do and I love doing it for people. I hate that money and not love guide so many decisions and that everywhere we seem to be vulnerable to failed lives if we don't follow the dictates of money over love. Specifically because I am not in it for the money, everything that comes in -- whether guarantees, donations, door money, purchases of recordings, tips -- means as much to me as offers of a drink or a meal or a place to stay, a conversation about the city I'm in or the particulars of the local scene, a reflection on my work, an idea about where I should play next time to reach more listeners, an offer to play my work on a local radio station, an offer to release my work on an underground label.</div>
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I want to kill the culture that sets us up in client relationships, adversarial relationships, disconnected strangers temporarily, circumstantially inhabiting shared space (corporate owned, bank mortgaged, plastered with advertisements). I want us to be in it together, because I know that we are. Every show is a group show, every solo performance I give is with a huge band: people making flyers, opening up spaces, setting up equipment, sitting at the door, cleaning up, local bands playing for free to help bring their friends out to see a traveller, parents hiring babysitters or asking family to watch their children, in order to come out, late, on a weeknight.</div>
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I have had enough of the animosity with which musicians and sound engineers so often meet each other. My music, and an engineer's ability to make it sparkle and crack through their sound systems, in rooms they know, constitute the performance. We don't work in isolation from each other. When we do it well, with respect for each other, with patience, it doesn't matter if I sing about the sky falling, the night is about cooperation, not contempt, and I think the folks who come to the show receive that message.</div>
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Think about our culture for moment, its tempos, its contours, its expectations, its pressures. In this environment, taking time to give the unknown a chance, engaging in a <i>time-based </i>cultural interaction without the definite promise of some known, tangible, personal benefit is actually revolutionary. It's turning the culture on its head. And it's so easy! We can do so much of it. And it doesn't only have to be at shows. We go to shows, we put on shows, we can be giving about listening and performing, and then we can abstract this experience. How does it play out at the coffeeshop, the post office, the train station, the day job,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> </span>in the kitchen, the classroom, the street?</div>
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You ever hear the line "Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail"? Kurt Vonnegut wrote that. I am so grateful for his writing. But maybe he was wrong. Love may fail and courtesy may prevail. But courtesy is a gateway drug: to kindness, and then to generosity. And this leads, dangerously, subversively, surely, back to love.</div>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-43761005147529810382012-05-10T17:43:00.000+02:002012-05-10T20:44:02.117+02:00MARRIAGE EQUALITY & COGNITIVE DISSONANCE<br />
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Within the narrow confines of authoritarian power and influence that define the American political arena, it is good news whenever the idea of equality receives a boost from an individual in an influential position. Despite what polls say about the US population split down the middle with regard to marriage equality, I would like to imagine that I side with a majority of people in believing that every person, absolutely and without limitation, has the right to connect and partner and love as they choose. It may be just my imagination. I think the role of government, if there must be one, should be to protect such rights, rather than impose limits on them.</div>
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Joe Biden, and then Barack Obama, who wield enormous influence, both recently made statements in support of marriage equality for traditional, conventional, state-regulated, two-partner unions, regardless of the sexual orientation of the people involved. This may go some way in eventually countering the crop of backward, hateful state laws that specifically deny two gay people the right to marry. Or it may be an election-year ploy. (You decide.)</div>
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But I am very concerned about the cognitive dissonance that seems to have erupted around the statement of Mr Obama (a man, let us never forget, who likes to order people to be killed so much he used his Nobel Peace Prize speech a few years ago as an opportunity to defend war).</div>
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I opened up the popular social networking and FBI tracking website Facebook this morning to see that a friend had posted a photograph of Martin Luther King, Jr and added the quote "The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice" followed by the words "Well done Mr. President!"</div>
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This is beyond the fucking beyond. It's a kool-aid overdose. It is to conflate a fearless civil rights advocate with a spineless corporate stooge. It is to suggest that when the one indicated that he no longer was still trying to decide whether gay people should have whole rights he somehow achieves the moral stature of a man who gave his life fighting the triple evils of racism, poverty, and war.</div>
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Obama, mass-murderous, whose disdain for justice and equality trumps his predecessors in real, actual, non-kool-aid terms, has indeed offered a historically marginalized, repressed group the vague benediction of (potential, possible) justice and equality. Does he deserve praise for that? He does not. </div>
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King once said "I have worked too long and too hard to get rid of segregation in public accommodations to turn back to the point of segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. And wherever I see injustice, I’m going to take a stand against it whether it’s in Mississippi or whether it’s in Vietnam.”</div>
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Specifically and pointedly and militantly, when he declares his vague support for gay rights (or any other "good" thing), Obama ought to be taken to task for "segregating his moral concern." To fail to do this is cognitive dissonance at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.</div>
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If crimes of aggression are the supreme crime, carrying with them all other crimes, and if Obama is at the top of the mass murderous chain of command, it is literally fucking insane to thank him for statements in support of limited authoritarian support for some equality for some people who engage in some conventional behavior. Can there even be such a thing as "some equality"?</div>
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A reminder: the man receiving the accolades and the outrageous adulation for <i>conceding </i>that more people should have the right to enter into conventional, state-regulated relationships than his predecessors, has also specifically ordered the killing of US citizens, including children, accused of no crime. He has declared that he walks "in lock-step" (his words) with the apartheid, war criminal regime in Israel. He has demonstrated a predilection for murdering people with flying robots, a preference for military tribunals at an offshore imperial torture & detention center over real trials in real courts of justice, an insistence on addressing only the middle class and never the poor -- who are disproportionally people of color and therefore over-policed, over-incarcerated, often disenfranchised and thus <i>unable to vote</i>. He has been determined, since year one of his presidency, to turn away from all climate science, drill everywhere, and thus leave society's most vulnerable to suffer most as the global climate becomes weirder. He has enthusiastically embraced every civil liberties-encroaching bill that he can sign up for, from the Patriot Act to the NDAA to the anti-protest Trespass Bill (HR 347). He has expanded war, encroached on privacy, protected corporations, continued "drug war" policies, turned his back on racial oppression, and amassed the largest campaign fund in history, again.</div>
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This is equality? This is justice? This is praiseworthy? The arc of the moral universe is long. It does, indeed, bend toward justice. And away from Mr Obama.</div>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-31778530507388099002012-03-28T05:11:00.000+02:002012-03-28T05:41:19.084+02:00The American Way<br />
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"Go back to your country, you terrorist."</div>
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That's the message left in a note next to the body of Shaima Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five who was beaten with a tire iron in her California home on March 21.</div>
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She can't go back to her native Iraq, now, though, after nearly two decades in the US. She's dead. A few days after the attack, she died, in a hospital.</div>
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Evil as it was, Shaima's murder was not senseless. It was a predictable, logical expression of the culture. American politicians elbow each other to justify precisely this kind of treatment of Iraqi women, from Operation Desert Storm in 1990, to the bombing raids and brutal economic sanctions of the ensuing decade, through 'Operation Iraqi Liberation', to Obama's faux withdrawal from Iraq late last year.</div>
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I want to make this point as clearly as possible, but it is difficult, because it is at once so obvious and so upsetting.</div>
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American politicians, military personnel, and business people tied to "defense", "security", and "energy", have been literally and figuratively gunning down Iraqi mothers since at least 1990. They do this with the total approval of US media, from the New York Times to FOX, from CNN to NPR. They do this with the complicity of Americans who reinforce such actions with votes, patronage, a willingness to be perpetually misinformed, a refusal to unpack their privilege.</div>
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This murder is the embodiment of the culture: the brutal beating of a woman, an outsider, a mother; an infantile note with an inane message; the victimizer running from the scene of his crime; the news media turning from it (and, in the same moment, attempting to smear Trayvon Martin, the victim of another targeted assasination on the other side of the country).</div>
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This is the American way. This is what America does. It beats Shaima Alawadi with a tire iron. It guns down Trayvon Martin for the color of his skin. It trespasses, off duty, into the neighborhood of Rekia Boyd and fires a bullet into her skull. With badges on, it chases 18-year-old Ramarley Graham into his own home and murders him. It plugs holes into children, women, and men in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, sets them on fire, and then spirits away a single man, as if he alone were responsible, as if it was an isolated act, as if the US didn't bring the killer, many killers, and more than a decade of devastation to Kandahar Province.*</div>
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This is the American way. It threatens to drop nuclear bombs on Iran while cautioning the starving of North Korea to obey whatever diktat the US sees fit to impose. It manufactures and sells the weapons to crush liberation uprisings from Egypt to Palestine, from China to Tibet, from LA to NYC.</div>
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Each US president reiterates what the last said, that there will be no apologies, to great applause. Each stands in front of a flag and feigns remorse when the stories of individual victims of predictable violence become known, when these stories shock enough people that a response is demanded, when there's an angle that the news media can parley into better ratings with the insightful banter of authoritative white men in suits. With the most insincere sincerity they declare their determination to "get to the bottom of this", which invariably means forcing the issue out of the collective consciousness as fast as possible.</div>
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Talk to anyone who wears the American way as a badge of honor and wait -- wait in vain, wait forever -- for them to talk about patriarchy, about white privilege, about the myriad ways to be "othered" in the US: for being a woman, for being a person of color, for being born somewhere else, for living in the wrong neighborhood, for wearing hijab, for dressing differently, for speaking differently, for loving differently, for working differently, for praying differently, for being indigenous, for defending oneself.</div>
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America is 300 million white supremacist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist imperialist murdering rat bastards.</div>
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And you. You're not this. So prove it.</div>
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No one needs anyone's casual shock, how terrible this or that isolated incident is, change the channel. <i>Their </i>violence is coordinated, it is premeditated, and it is sustained. That's what our resistance to it must be. Thoughtful, creative in the extreme, persistent, diverse. If you are a person of conscience, if you have had enough of young mothers living under the threat of a beating -- from anyone, for any reason -- if you have had enough of teenage boys gunned down by cops, whole families incinerated by the Pentagon, smooth-talking asshole criminal politicians tap dancing for the camera, your friends and neighbors constantly marginalized for this or that otherness, women slut-shamed, you're in luck, even the climate of the planet agrees with you. You know where to find others who feel as deeply as you do the need to stop the beatings, the bombings, the shootings, the imprisonments. Find them, get to work, before the next manifestation of the American way takes a tire iron to another mother, before it puts a bullet in another beloved son.<br />
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* The victims of the (most recent) massacre in Kandahar have names: Mohamed Dawood, Khudaydad, Payendo, Robeena, Shatarina, Nazia, Masooma, Farida, Palwasha, Nabia, Estmatullah, Faizullah, Essa Mohamed, Akhtar Mohamed, who were murdered, and Haji Mohamed Naim, Mohamed Sediq, Parween, Rafiullah, Zardana and Zulheja, who were wounded.</div>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-9559044452658892822012-03-05T15:01:00.005+01:002012-03-05T19:36:47.946+01:00Vocabulary Is Not The ProblemLast week I wrote a few paragraphs on the subject of free speech. The subtext would have been clear to any American paying attention: the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 went into effect on March 1. Predator Obama signed it into law, like a fucking coward, on New Year's Eve, hiding behind the fact that some Americans were celebrating the calendar's birthday, some were trying to avoid getting attacked with chemical weapons by municipal security forces in body armor, and some were just trying to get some sleep before another work day.<br /><br />By now you know that the NDAA gives authoritarian serial killers like Obama and whatever scum-sucking fascist theocrat follows him the legal cover to kidnap and torture anyone on the planet, at any time, for any reason (or lack thereof).<br /><br />But the timing of what I wrote coincided with something else that corporate and social media has latched on to here in the United States of Bombing People: right wing influence peddler and living embodiment of a pile of shit Rush Limbaugh had some derogatory words for Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student and advocate for women's reproductive rights who spoke to the US Congress on the need for women to have access to birth control as part of their health insurance coverage.<br /><br />Nothing new, there are innumerable evil men like Limbaugh on American radio, preaching hatred for women, under the cover of "family" or "religious" or "conservative" values, every hour of every day. As nasty as it was, and as much as I would like to punch him in the face repeatedly for saying it, I believe that Limbaugh had the "right" to say what he said. Bowing to the public pressure applied to his corporate paymasters over a span of <i>two whole days</i>, he did sort of almost apologize for this one particular incidence of his rhetorical violence against women.<br /><br />It's a difficult thing for me to articulate, this right of someone I hate to say things I hate, because I don't want any mother or sister or daughter to ever be called a "slut". Women (in the United States as elsewhere in industrial civilization) continue to be the subjects of violent rhetoric, laws, and social behavior that are all unacceptable. How do we end this violence? Is it enough to decide what can and cannot be said?<br /><br />I think not. Any person of conscience is sickened and outraged by the misogynistic speech of assholes like Rush Limbaugh. But then, people of conscience are sickened and outraged by a patriarchal culture that accepts and normalizes violence and hatred directed at women in every aspect of our society.<br /><br />Rush Limbaugh is a symptom. In our culture there will always be scumbag misogynists like him because it is our very culture which is misogynistic. Dig: liberals want Limbaugh taken off the air for his disgusting use of words, but have few or no words themselves when it comes to the men giving orders at this moment to literally murder women. It is no secret that women bare the heaviest burden of war, and the United States is at constant war, as the NDAA clearly reflects. Wars need armies. How often and how aggressively does the US military prosecute its male soldiers for raping its women soldiers? But here's another example, the war on Afghanistan, which is particularly brutal.<br /><br />Why?<br /><br />Afghan women face three enemies: the misogynist Taliban, the misogynist Afghan warlords (made over to look like a legitimate government), and the misogynist Western warlords who are engaged in an imperial war of aggression (the <i>supreme crime</i> under international law, if you get with that sort of thing). The US and its NATO partners routinely bomb civilian targets. Women, men, and children who go to recover the remains of their loved ones after indiscriminate bombing raids (which in themselves are an outrage) are the deliberate targets of secondary bombing raids. In order to terrorize the population, bombing raids are conducted by President Exelon's "Reaper" and "Predator" robot planes on weddings, funerals, homes, schools. Such attacks have increased manifold since the Nobel Prize-winning father of two took over for George W. Bush, another sociopathic baby-killing father. (Read <i>A Woman Among Warlords</i>, the indispensable memoir of the young Afghan opposition leader and women's rights advocate Malalai Joya, to learn about the desperate and worsening situation for women in her country.)<br /><br />Let's walk and chew gum at the same time. Sure, I can get with any campaign to remove scumbags like Rush Limbaugh from the airwaves. Let's call out, shame and boycott every last one of the advertisers of his radio program, let's out the corporate network (Clear Channel), and the network's owner (Bain Capital), and the fascist theocrat scumbag politician associated with it (Mitt Romney). (Let's boot the system of commercial airwaves while we're at it.) But I can't get with all that unless we also get real. Spectacular violence is being done to women by the Obama government with an alarming willingness by his cheerleaders (well what the fuck are they, anyway? fans? followers?) to forget it or forgive it. It's unacceptable and unforgivable.<br /><br />Everything I have written here, up to this point, is consistent with my writing over the years. To make a case against a morally repugnant, nationally significant figure I have used an example from the far side of the globe. But I might as well look over the fence to see how my neighbor is treated by her husband. I might notice, jesus it was just today, how the two "good natured" male hosts of a seemingly benign NPR chat show guffawed with a male caller over how hysterical their wives can be. I might check my own patriarchal privileges and advantages.<br /><br />Some people talk about pragmatism, some people talk about a "lesser" political evil. They need to know that if they want to be taken seriously in their opposition to violence against women, it cannot be selective. In the current cultural climate of the United States, if all we do is censor speech, regardless of how righteous we think it might be in the isolated moment, watch how fast such power will be used against those who continually find themselves at the receiving end of the culture's violence and oppression.Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-18762603740968455582012-03-01T17:10:00.002+01:002013-10-10T08:10:37.653+02:00SPEAK UP!Freedom of speech is our right because we claim it and we manifest it, not because it is granted by authorities elected by votes or money or guns.<br />
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The only way to maintain our freedom of speech is to exercise it, and rigorously so. We must not censor ourselves under any circumstances. We must not do the work of liberty-hating authoritarians by muzzling ourselves for fear of their reprisals.<br />
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This is so glaringly obvious it embarrasses me to write it. And yet I note, in disappointment and desperation, that there is some need to highlight these sentiments.<br />
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We can accept no limits on our freedom to speak our minds. None. No one who tells us it is illegal to say these or those words, in this or that order, has any legitimate power of us.<br />
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This is not an invitation to be irresponsible. Quite the opposite, actually. Every time someone says something vapid, ill-considered, mean, baseless, racist, off-topic, ignorant, self-aggrandizing, they step over to the side of authoritarians who seek to limit free speech. It serves those in positions of power and oppression to speak when you have nothing to say. Your narcissism knocks us all down a peg.<br />
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When you have nothing of value to say, be quiet and listen. When those you are hearing have nothing of value to say, lend your ear to something else.<br />
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The charge of sedition has made a comeback of late, the idea that certain words, said together in a certain order, are cause to remove the sayer from society in one way or another. But the only way the charge of sedition could be legitimate is if the power claiming offense to your words is legitimate. It is not.<br />
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We must be certain of this, that we can and will say any words, in any order, at any time, for any reason, and we will not accept the charges of sedition, terrorism, incitement made against us. We will not accept fines, jail time, "indefinite detention", torture, and assassination for using words to express ourselves to each other. We will not be made to fear communicating with each other just because the powerful threaten to abuse us for doing so.<br />
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The idea that the way we speak will be met with gun violence, chemical weapons, police brutality, torture, show trials and prison sentences proves the very need to continue to speak freely. What other ways do we have to defend ourselves from violent authoritarians? What other ways do we have to proclaim the good world we wish to live in? <br />
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We must accept that while we claim the right to say what we will, others will say things we may not like. Unless we wish to use our freedom of speech to sound like a bunch of raving narcissists, we ought to avoid amplifying and encouraging the ugly, baseless things that some few will continue to say. Uplift foolish people with your intelligence, not by pandering to them.<br />
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We do not have to dignify with a microphone the sound coming out of every asshole. Say more good, powerful, intelligent, meaningful things and more good, powerful, intelligent, meaningful things will have been said.<br />
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There are words that I have said in this brief text that, taken together with my determination to travel freely and, perhaps -- who knows? -- taken together with the people with whom I associate and, perhaps, with the people or organizations their friends associate with, and taken together with the books and articles I read, would be cause for that fucked up, illegitimate state authority that claims the right to bomb the world, to take me into custody, to place me in a windowless jail cell, without charge, without a lawyer or light or heat or clothing, for the rest of my life. It doesn't matter that I've never lifted a hand against another human being, that I've never held a weapon, that I've never encouraged any kind of violence, that I have no record with these illegitimate authorities of any kind of wrongdoing whatsoever. For using these words, they claim the right to haul me away from my community, my work, my loved ones, forever.<br />
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Now someone tell me again how getting active in local politics is going to change a damned thing? Speak up!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8ISil7IHzxc?rel=0" width="480"></iframe>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-50340714330094646982011-12-31T18:57:00.005+01:002012-01-01T16:41:56.552+01:00LINER NOTES 2011!Twenty eleven. I really liked the part where so many people, in so many places, in so many beautiful, creative ways, for so many reasons, in so much solidarity, with so much determination, looked the Establishment in its ugly face & said fuck off already.<br /><br />An apt theme for the past year, as I experienced & observed it, would be <i>community</i>. It describes the successes of the socio-economic awakenings, the challenges to political establishments, the encampments, the risk-taking of activists for social justice & self-determination, the widening scope of movements against war & to protect water, soil, air, forests, rivers, cultures.<br /><br />In a year largely defined by people taking to the streets, my year was spent, for better & for worse, less <i>in the street</i> than <i>on the road</i>. I travelled more heavily this year, to perform, than in any other year of my life. It has been utterly fulfilling & I look forward with enthusiasm to more. Everywhere I went I met people eager to create & strengthen the community of experimental & independent music & art. A polemic: real music & art cannot be expressed in market terms, & is a crucial component of societies actively challenging the political, economic, & cultural hegemony of the Establishment.<br /><br />The following lists are an attempt (probably incomplete) to articulate & thank, in one place, all the wonderful people, venues, & organizations who are nurturing meaningful community in the places I performed & exhibited my work in 2011. What an honor! What a privilege!<br /><br />THANKS FOR SETTING UP SHOWS! THANKS FOR HOSTING!<br />Tad Michalak (<a href="http://burndownthecapital.weebly.com"target="new">Burn Down the Capital</a>), <a href="http://www.dansmallspresents.com/"target="new">Dan Smalls Presents</a>, Tom Orange (Cleveland), Kevin O'Brien Cain (Buffalo), <a href="http://www.squeaky.org/events/2011/summer/justinchouinardkeirneuringer"target="new">Squeaky Wheel</a>, Brandon Hawk (Dayton), Joel Peterson (Bohemian in Exile series, Detroit), Gabriel Beam (<a href="http://toledobellows.wordpress.com/"target="new">Robinwood Concerthouse</a>), Bubba Crumrine (<a href="http://www.ithacaunderground.com/"target="new">Ithaca Underground</a>), Martin Blazicek (<a href="http://www.bludnykamen.cz/"target="new">Bludny Kamen</a>, CZ), <a href="http://dc-soniccircuits.org/calendar/show/102/2011-09-30-pas-vsi-keir-neuringer-pyramid-atlantic/"target="new">DC Sonic Circuits</a>, Vicky Chow (<a href="http://contagioussounds.net/"target="new">Contagious Sounds</a>, NYC), Santo Pulella (Head West), Mike Kramer (<a href="http://h-ear.org/"target="new">(h)ear Festival</a>), Adam Schatz (<a href="http://searchandrestore.com/"target="new">Search & Restore</a>), Paul Baldwin (<a href="http://www.blacksparrowpub.com/"target="new">Black Sparrow</a>), Pete Lebel, Stephen Pellegrino, Anne Wellmer, Dewi de Vree, KG Price, Kaleid Series (Chicago), <a href="http://quietcue.blogspot.com/"target="new">Quiet Cue</a> (Berlin), U-Ex(perimental) (Utrecht), Peter Bradley (Schoolhouse, Guelph), <a href="http://haroldarts.org/"target="new">Harold Arts</a>, Jacob Kart (Chicago), Marie Guillerey, Gregory Clow, Joseph Hess, Aaron Hefel (Counter Productions), Thom Elliot (Pleasuredome), Jessica Puglisi, Sam Sowyrda, Rozz Tox (Rock Island IL), Good Style Shop (Madison WI), <a href="http://www.nowywspanialyswiat.pl/"target="new">Nowy Wspanialy Swiat</a> (Warszawa), Bomba (Kraków), Kevin Ernste (Cornell University), Brad Thorla (Anabell's, Akron), Stephen Crowley (Iowa City), Culture Shock & The Westy (Ithaca).<br /><br />THANKS FOR COLLABORATING WITH ME!<br /><a href="http://rafalmazur.eu"target="new">Rafal Mazur</a>, <a href="http://ensembleklang.com"target="new">Ensemble Klang</a>, <a href="http://djsniff.com"target="new">dj sniff</a>, <a href="http://www.reubenradding.com/"target="new">Reuben Radding</a>, <a href="http://www.andrewdrury.com/"target="new">Andrew Drury</a>, <a href="http://redtrio.info/"target="new">Red Trio</a>, <a href="http://www.ovalwindowmusic.org/joesorbara/"target="new">Joe Sorbara</a>, <a href="http://sites.radiofrance.fr/francemusique/_c/php/emission/popupMP3.php?e=13&d=425005486"target="new">Paul Dutton</a>, Chad Taylor, Jonathan Goldberger, Alyssa Duerksen, Lindsay Gilmour, Chris Seeds, Michael Stark, Zaun Marshburn, Ryan Zawel, <a href="http://www.hankrobertsmusic.com/"target="new">Hank Roberts</a>, Walt Lorenzut, Ross Haarstad (Theatre Incognita), <a href="http://www.thenoisyattic.com/"target="new">KBD</a>, Dan Friedman, Heather Seggar, Alter Koker, <a href="http://www.lotzofmusic.com/"target="new">Mark Alban Lotz</a>, Dick Toering, Johanna Varner, Antibody Xtett (Manuel Miethe, Anna Kaluza, Max Andrzejewski, Stephan Bleier, Nico Meinhold, Wolfgang Georgsdorf), <a href="http://www.johnnydowd.com/"target="new">Johnny Dowd</a>, <a href="http://www.krzysztofwolek.com/"target="new">Krzysztof Wolek</a>, <a href="http://www.johnritz.org/"target="new">John Ritz</a>, <a href="http://margaretlancaster.com/"target="new">Margaret Lancaster</a>, <a href="http://vimeo.com/nilz"target="new">Nils Hoover</a><br /><br />THANKS FOR SHARING BILLS WITH ME!<br /><a href="http://deerhoofvsevil.com/"target="new">Deerhoof</a>, <a href="http://powerdove.bandcamp.com/"target="new">powerdove</a>, <a href="http://mattbauder.net/"target="new">Matt Bauder</a>, <a href="http://sundmagi.com/product/na-cas-001"target="new">Hyrrokkin</a>, <a href="http://nickmillevoi.blogspot.com/"target="new">Nick Millevoi</a>, <a href="http://www.fredthomas.blogspot.com/"target="new">Fred Thomas</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dF4Ifo0n70"target="new">Alter Koker</a>, Seth Graham, Andrew Weathers, Tristan Trump, Forget the Times, Rowan (Shelley Burgon), Rambutan (Eric Hardiman), Holland Hopson, Matta Gawa, Mouth to Mouth to Mouth, Sid Redlin, Arrington de Dionyso, Steve Baczkowski, Sinjo Thraw Mash, Loop Goat, Chris Seeds, Frass Accolades, Wind Farm, Stephen Pellegrino, Joel Peterson, Joe Panzer, Raphael Brim, Mall Mutants, Michael Attias.<br /><br />THANKS FOR PUTTING OUT AWESOME RECORDS THIS YEAR!<br /><a href="http://mattbauder.net/"target="new">Matt Bauder</a>, <a href="http://www.djsniff.com/ep.html"target="new">dj sniff</a>, <a href="http://mathka.bandcamp.com/album/un"target="new">Tomek Choloniewski</a>, <a href="http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=39679"target="new">Matt Wright & Evan Parker</a>, <a href="http://jasonajemian1.bandcamp.com/album/riding-the-light-into-the-birds-eye"target="new">Jason Ajemian & the HighLife</a>, <a href="http://sundmagi.com/product/na-cas-001"target="new">Hyrrokkin</a>, <a href="http://redtrio.info/"target="new">Red Trio</a>, <a href="http://jenniestearns.com/"target="new">Jennie Stearns</a>, <a href="http://sundmagi.com/product/na002"target="new">Matta Gawa</a>, <a href="http://audiotong.bandcamp.com/album/go-go-beuys-band"target="new">Go-Go Beuys Band</a>, <a href="http://bigmeansoundmachine.com/album/ouroboros"target="new">Big Mean Sound Machine</a>, <a href="http://travislaplante.bandcamp.com/"target="new">Travis Laplante</a>, <a href="http://cstrecords.com/judges/"target="new">Colin Stetson</a><br /><br />THANKS FOR RECORDING (WITH) ME!<br />Dana Billings, Michael Perkins, Jason Ajemian, Edward Ricart, Brett Nagafuchi, Danny van Duerm<br /><br />THANKS FOR HAVING ME TALK TO YOUR STUDENTS!<br /><a href="http://krzysztofwolek.com/"target="new">Krzysztof Wolek</a> (University of Louisville), <a href="http://www.studiomch.art.pl/"target="new">Marek Choloniewski</a> (Studio of Electroacoustic Music, Academy of Music in Krakow), <a href="http://www.michaelhersch.com/"target="new">Michael Hersch</a> & <a href="http://oscarbettison.com/"target="new">Oscar Bettison</a> (Peabody Conservatory), <a href="http://www.ovalwindowmusic.org/joesorbara/"target="new">Joe Sorbara</a> (University of Guelph)<br /><br />THANKS FOR PLAYING ME ON YOUR RADIO SHOW & WRITING ABOUT ME!<br />Greg Baise (WCBN 88.3FM Ann Arbor), Needles Numark (<a href="http://upstatesoundscape.com/"target="new">Upstate Soundscape</a>, Buffalo), Tom Orange (<a href="http://thebrewingluminous.typepad.com/blog/2011/12/1-december-2011.html"target="new">Brewing Luminous</a>, Cleveland), Taran Singh (<a href="http://taransfreejazzhour.com/"target="new">Taran's Free Jazz Hour</a>), Ken Waxman (<a href="http://www.jazzword.com/review/127435"target="new">Jazzword</a>), Bartosz Adamczak (<a href="http://networkedblogs.com/htVlC"target="new">Free Jazz Alchemist</a>), Guy Sitruk (<a href="http://jazzaparis.canalblog.com/archives/2011/12/06/22892759.html"target="new">Jazz à Paris</a>), <a href="http://mechanicalforestsound.blogspot.com/2011/03/recording-keir-neuringer.html"target="new">Mechanical Forest Sound</a><br /><br />THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO TURNED ME ON TO THESE NICE OLD RECORDS I NEVER HEARD BEFORE!<br />This Heat, Deceit; Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden; Cabaret Voltaire, Micro-Phonies; Einsturzende Neubaten, Kollaps; Pere Ubu, Dub Housing; The Stooges, Fun House; Nas, Illmatic; Wire, Chairs Missing and Pink Flag; Death, ...For the World to See; Television, Marquee Moon; Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation.<br /><br />THANKS THANKS THANKS!Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-16482117232333304722011-12-09T11:24:00.004+01:002011-12-09T17:44:53.447+01:00US Stands Up For (Selected) LGBT FolksHillary Clinton, the secretary of state in the Obama Administration -- an administration with a truly repellent record of human rights violations, with a trail of policies aggressive toward civil liberties and civil rights -- made a speech recently at the United Nations in Geneva elaborating the US stance on rights for LGBT folks. As words go, they are good words. Only hateful, vile people want to dictate the private lives of others, sort us by who and how we love. I wonder, though, how the government can dispatch its secretary of state to lecture the world on human rights while so actively and aggressively pursuing human rights for <i>some</i>. What kind of cognitive dissonance does this lady have to be practicing in order to declare that gays are people while America's drone aircraft circle no less than six countries, regularly -- <i>regularly</i> -- murdering children? When people captured as children for the crime of defending themselves from American warlords still await some sort of stilted trial at Guantánamo Bay? When American funding for the immiseration (not to say the eradication) of Palestinian people continues? When Obama's own preference is for an imaginary world happily chumming along on endlessly toxic energy sources? <a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/"target="new">When Americans are targeted by the president for assassination abroad</a>? And target by the system for assasination <a href="http://troyanthonydavis.org/"target="new">at home</a>?<br /><br />A sensible, compassionate person doesn't trust the likes of Hillary Clinton, of course, doesn't trust anyone she's politically associated with, doesn't vote for such people. Skip the pseudo-righteousness and check an excerpt I found that was left out of <a href="http://news.advocate.com/post/13844217337/watch-the-speech-youve-been-waiting-for"target="new">the speech</a>:<br /><br /><i>"From Afghanistan to Palestine, from Pakistan to Mexico, from Iran to Guantánamo Bay, the Obama Administration has an important message about the rights of LGBT people. If you live in these places your sexual orientation should not be a barrier to human rights. The US policy of hating and fearing the lot of you, gay or straight, is that barrier. We vaguely tip our hat to civil rights for the gay communities in our client states. The rest of you can eat hot drone."</i><br /><br />And here are some reactions from around the world:<br /><br /><i>"When the flying robot dropped that bomb on my house, killing me and 14 members of my family, I died secure in the knowledge that my sexual orientation played no part in the war crime that was my murder. I died because, well...who the fuck even knows anymore? But not because I was gay. Thanks, Hillary Clinton, for clearing that one up for everyone."</i><br />-Gay Afghan Ghost.<br /><br /><i>"Israel is a mecca for gay people. Very open minded. Even gay soldiers can shoot at us for no reason!"</i><br />-Gay Palestinian kid<br /><br /><i>"When we heard Hillary the Clinton's speech about the importance of equality for gay people worldwide, we realized that the invasion the Obama Administration recently initiated of our country had absolutely nothing to do with the similarly recent discovery of oil here."</i><br />-Gay Ugandan environmentalist, in hiding<br /><br /><i>"We are thankful to Ms. Clinton's declaration that all people have rights, regardless of their sexual orientation. Also Mexicans! We assume the American drone aircraft now hovering overhead are there to protect us from the constant influx of American guns."</i><br />-Gay Mexican maquiladora worker<br /><br /><i>"I always knew there was nothing wrong with my way of life, and grateful to the Obama Administration for all the moral support."</i><br />-Gay South American hedge fund managerKeirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-70138578460748318372011-08-30T14:00:00.005+02:002011-08-30T20:16:26.932+02:00Hell No We Ain't AlrightHurricane Irene made me think about Hurricane Katrina. I imagine I'm not alone in this. It made me wonder: how have things changed? How have they stayed the same? How have they improved? How have they gotten worse?
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<br />Have a listen to the three great tracks below - by Mos Def, Public Enemy, and the Legendary K.O. - made in the aftermath of Katrina. Check the lyrics. These are songs that gave voice to widespread anger and outrage over the Bush Administration's non-response to the tragedy that befell New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August 2005. But they also speak, powerfully and timelessly, to backward national priorities, institutional racism, poverty, police brutality, anti-war sentiment, and other pressing issues that continue to receive scant attention in the post-Bush era.
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<br />Intelligent people (but few in positions of power or influence) wrote and spoke insightfully at the time about Katrina's extreme strength and destructiveness as symptoms of climate change. Six years later Hurricane Irene is a manifestation of the same. Though disaster preparedness may have improved, <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/29/bill_mckibben_will_hurricane_irene_be"target="new">the discussion about climate change has been largely left out</a> of the vocabulary of those who govern and report.
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<br />Hurricane Irene coincided with a <a href="http://www.tarsandsaction.org/"target="new">weeks-long mass mobilization of environmental groups in front of the White House</a>. Hundreds of people from around the US are lining up to be arrested (over 500 arrests as of this writing) to raise awareness of the Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline that will carry highly toxic oil from the Alberta tar sands (an environmental catastrophe in and of itself) in Canada, through fragile ecosystems in the US, to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico for global export. The <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0811/62136.html"target="new">State Department has signed off on the project</a> and it is up to Obama to make the final decision of whether or not the Keystone XL is in the national interest. Climate scientists and environmentalists have declared loudly and clearly that <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175417/"target="new">the mining of the tar sands is an enormous "carbon bomb"</a> and is absolutely counter to the urgent need to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.
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<br />Obama, remember, has <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/22-6"target="new">signed deepwater drilling permits</a> in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. His administration <a href="http://www.ewg.org/release/administration-stacks-panel-big-oil-and-gas"target="new">stacked a seven-member advisory panel on gas hydrofracking with insiders from the energy industry</a>. He is a recipient of large campaign contributions from the nuclear industry, and <a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/17/obama-goes-nuclear/print"target="new">a zealous supporter of it</a>.
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<br />It is certainly curious. One could see the racism, hatred and deceit of George Bush and his administration unmasked, not only in the whole of his years-long, bloody war on terror, but also in moments like the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Since he entered office Obama has been cultivating his own hatred and deceit, with <i>his</i> bloated war on terror, his ever-expanding drone bombing programs, and horrifically malfeasant energy projects. His refusal to deal honestly with climate change and his willingness to sign off on one environmental disaster after another begs the question: is there <i>anyone</i> he doesn't hate?
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<br /><i>(Post script: have a look at <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/us/30vermont.html?pagewanted=print"target="new">this article from the New York Times</a>, about the devastation from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene to communities in Upstate New York and Vermont. It is also typical of the reporting I listened to on NPR over the weekend: devoid of any mention of climate change. It's like reporting "bombs dropped on houses" but failing to mention who dropped the bombs. Oh but I guess they do that too.)</i>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-44750589272400005622011-08-09T22:44:00.003+02:002011-08-09T23:33:42.782+02:00Another Great InsurrectionAmong the disappointments out there, some are great, some are small. I want to mention one that is a little smaller than those I usually speak to. Amidst the turmoil in the UK this week, 150 independent record labels have had much of their stock destroyed in a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/09/independent-record-labels-stock-london-riots"target="new"> warehouse fire in London</a>. (I imagine those labels will appreciate some digital sales to help them bounce back without putting pressure on them to move physical stock, if you're so inclined.)
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<br />In London (and other English cities) there is mass civil unrest that some folks call riots and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o"target="new">some folks call insurrection</a>. The initial spark was the institutional racism of the police state and the way it intersects with economic oppression and other class issues. These issues often affect musicians and artists whose work is not expressed in contemporary economic terms.
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<br />So I hope that people who love the great music on some of the affected labels can appreciate how important it is to lend sympathies (and solidarity, and material support) to the marginalized over the oppressive. I think it is mindless, privileged drivel to dismiss the unrest and property destruction outright as the work of thugs and criminals. Only politicians and the BBC speak with such willful lack of subtlety or understanding.
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<br />There are folks venting legitimate grievances. And surely there are people coasting along and enjoying the chaos. And surely there are brutes in the streets taking advantage of it. But these brutes, <i>it must be said</i>, are <i>far outmatched</i> in their brutishness by the people in power, who wage aggressive war in faraway places, who dangle education beyond the reach of those who need it, who force an eternity of nuclear devastation on the soil and water, who enact policies that further marginalize culturally meaningful pursuits (like making good music and getting it to the public).
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<br />I think it is important not to vilify the insurrectionists and their legitimate grievances in the same sentence as we regret the damage seen by these independent labels. What is the <i>incidental</i> burning of records to the <i>intentional</i> burning of villages? Speak of strategy and effectiveness in expressing anti-establishment unrest, sure, but not in the absence of a clear, outright condemnation of a systematically racist political establishment that would burn our records, our instruments, and our children in a flash if it was economically expedient.
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<br /><object width="480" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hpypYcMe16I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hpypYcMe16I?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-36196802024844472852011-08-01T23:31:00.006+02:002012-08-14T18:59:55.592+02:00The Same Wars 2011Not long after Barack Obama began his term as US president, I wrote a piece called <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2009/05/same-wars.html" target="new">The Same Wars</a>, the premise being that the Bush Administration wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were indistinguishable from the Obama Administration wars in those same places. I was writing this in the context of the phony torture debate in the spring of 2009, when there were still people around who would look you in the eye and speak well of Obama. Blind faith is so strange. There are fewer of those people around these days.<br />
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I think it's time to re-up this notion of sameness. It is uncontroversial to note that the Obama Administration has <i>surpassed</i> its predecessor in the prosecution of illegal, unjustified warfare. The United States now openly commits naked aggression on the people of six countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Libya. Prosecutable acts of aggression in each and every case. There is no justification for the drone attacks, the torture dungeons, the sprawling military bases, the checkpoints, the detentions, the home invasions, the daily humiliation, all the continued killing. Do we respond with tears or rage to the spiralling humanitarian crises in many of the places that the US and its NATO allies choose to either target with ammunition or ignore altogether?<br />
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Almost daily we hear of entire extended families wiped out by bombs that some rat-bastard US spokesperson claims were mistargeted, or malfunctioning, or anyway it was the victims' fault for living in close proximity to persons designated targets of illegal, extra-judicial killing. We hear of the US economy tanking but the bombs are made by wealthy corporations in the US. We hear of warlords and dictators whipped into a killing frenzy as though this justifies the invasions, occupations and "surgical strikes", even though it happens every goddamn time and you have to be a complete anti-historical moron to think this time will be different. Beyond the mendacious NPR/CNN blather about local folks "on the ground" praising their own victimization at US gunpoint, we hear from people committed to self-determination and forced to struggle not just against their own local oppressors but against the rogue superpower as well.<br />
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And then we hear other things, atrocities committed in other fields, the wars fought on other fronts. Acts of war committed in the form of oil spills. Legislative war against poor people and the working class. Propaganda wars, where Loughner and Breivik are lone crazies but any Arab's righteous anger is taken as evidence of impending jihad, and passengers on ships bearing letters of solidarity to the imprisoned people of Gaza are considered terrorists. <br />
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I say this over and over again because it never stops being true: the war is against clean air, clean water, clean soil. We are forced to accept bitter terms of defeat as access shrinks to unpoisoned food not grown on mutated farmland. The Fukushima catastrophe - that the reactor was even built in the first place! - was an act of war against the future, and that war extends to multiple fronts as reactors around the world are allowed to remain open, allowed to leak yet more toxins into our beleaguered ecology. (Where does that miserable asshole Obama stand on nukes? Look into it, it's not pretty.)<br />
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The global climate has gone utterly haywire and do-nothing politicians sit on their hands and do nothing but talk about how to enrich the rich. It's a war. They say "debt ceiling crisis" and if you don't hear "phony crisis propaganda" then it's working. I used to read and write about creeping fascism but that adjective - creeping - has become too tame. It's marching full stride. Outright racist religious fundamentalists vie for control of the US government, vie for the opportunity to become beneficiaries of corporate incentives to legislate in corporate favor, and the country's first black president continues to bomb black and brown people and their villages to dust. (The next US president might hate African-Americans, it's true, but will she have the blood of as many Africans on her hands as the current president? Time will tell, if we let it.)<br />
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The secretary of state is supposed to be a woman but state governments can choose with impunity to restrict women's reproductive rights. Men and women with soft palms and robust bank accounts deny workers the right to advocate for themselves. The government of my home state of New York decides to extend marital rights to same sex couples, provided they are willing to live in a place held hostage by toxic gas drilling corporations.<br />
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Earlier this summer, over in The Netherlands, the government waged what the famous Dutch composer Louis Andriessen correctly called a war on the arts. Arts budgets were slashed or erased in that haven for cultural freedom and funding, even while the US secretary of defense was next door in Belgium exhorting NATO countries to spend more money on the alliance's war machine. My friends and colleagues took to the streets of The Hague to oppose these tragically backward policies. It was an impressive show, both by the committed artists and their supporters and by the security forces, who played out their own little Greek street scene by beating down a few non-violent protesters.<br />
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Why has the war extended so far as the cultural sector in a place like The Netherlands? Why has it extended as far as a youth camp in Norway, where a footsoldier of white, racist, misogynist fundamentalism massacred scores of children one morning last week?<br />
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These are the same wars. When I marched in Amsterdam and London against the assault on Iraq before it began, none of my musician colleagues marched with me. They shrugged it off. Everyone has their own way to politics and so forth, so I write without judgement. But when it came time for them to take to the streets to agitate for their interests I am not sure that the "anti-war" folks rushed to their side. A little solidarity goes a long way. I take the extraordinary, decades-old struggle playing out in Egypt as an example: diverse groups standing up for each other (even after the Western cameras have gone on summer holidays).<br />
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When we realize that these offenses and atrocities are the same wars being fought, we can begin to strategize and not be left scratching our heads in confusion and frustration as we lose yet another battle. I don't have to know a soul in Yemen to understand that the bombs exploding there sound the same as the mountaintops of West Virginia being blown to pieces in some sleazy corporation's relentless pursuit of coal. I don't have to be deeply engaged in the day to day politics of Libya to know that when a mother loses her child to NATO bombs her sorrow is as real as the sorrow of a grieving mother in Oslo in the aftermath of Breivik's American ultra-right influenced killing spree. The children near Fukushima and the whales swimming in the Pacific take in the same radioactive toxins. Malnourishment stings as sharply in Detroit as it does in Mogadishu. Apartheid was as wrong in South Africa as it is in Israel. Freedom movements in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia deserve international solidarity as surely as similar movements in Egypt and Tunisia.<br />
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We ought to stop acting as though our daily horrors are some new thing cooked up out of nowhere. I think it's delusional to think we can be successful environmentalists without being committed anti-war activists too. We can't fight successfully for gains in education, or the arts, or civil rights, or reproductive rights, without realizing that we are fighting a war that is fought not only on the legislative level, but with guns and tanks and bombs as well. Worker's rights at home won't cut it if we don't pursue freedom for those enslaved in sweatshops abroad.<br />
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Our narrow self-interests will not win the day. The men and women in state and national capitols, and those in the corporate boardrooms, and those in the television studios, and those in uniforms at drone command centers, or in tanks, or at checkpoints, are of a piece with the Loughners and Breiviks. They're all of a piece with the energy fundamentalists at Exxon and BP and the rest who are pouring oil into rivers this summer. For fucking profit! You can probably figure out a more subtle way of saying it. But say it, get with it, because it's true: a war is swirling around you and you have agency over how you engage it.<br />
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These are the same wars. Enough with the false dichotomies between different actors in the same suits, between corporations and governments who want the same thing, between adversarial countries. You can fight or flee. But the earth is small, and they've got it surrounded, and you can't flee. So fight.<br />
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<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8PaoLy7PHwk?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-55306756857469874312011-07-13T22:21:00.006+02:002011-07-13T22:35:22.032+02:00Thoreau DayYesterday, July 12, was Henry David Thoreau's birthday. I celebrated. I consider Thoreau a hero and a constant source of inspiration. His were practiced examples of how one might live in accordance with their values.<br /><br />Some people have asked me, if I don't celebrate <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-questions.html"target="new">Thanksgiving</a>, or <a href="http://keirneuringer.blogspot.com/2011/07/independence-from-america-day.html"target="new"> American Independence Day</a> (July 4th), or religious holidays, what do I celebrate? I think Thoreau's life and <a href="http://hdt.typepad.com/"target="new">work</a> are worthy of celebration.<br /><br />So I invited twenty friends over, we grilled up some hamburgers, got wasted and lit off a mess of fireworks. I'm kidding of course. I took a walk at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treman_State_Park"target="new">Treman State Park</a>, not far from home, by myself. It was a hot, dry day but at five in the afternoon, and in the occasional shade of the woods, the weather was pleasant enough. From the lower park I walked along the Gorge Trail until it split and then I took the Rim Trail to the upper park. From there I took the South Trail back down to the lower park. It's a well marked loop, paved in some places, popular. Some mildly strenuous moments if you're not accustomed to walking uphill. Something like five miles total. It took me a bit under two hours.<br /><br />The woods around were alive with chipmunks and squirrels busy chasing each other and fussing about in the trees. I did not catch sight of a single bird. I have walked this trail many times, in many seasons, and always see newts and salamanders but this time not one. Mosquitoes and flies were out, and I have been on walks where they drive me nearly to a panic, but they weren't so abundant now. I saw one frog, after an hour or so of walking, and it made me very happy. I see and hear very few of those, though I think they should be plentiful here and in this season.<br /><br />I saw no fish in Enfield Creek, in the pools that punctuate the falls. On my last walk here I saw many, but they were all dead. I saw no sign of raccoons, or skunks, or foxes, coyotes, deer, yet the roadsides everywhere here are littered with their fresh or rotting corpses. No prints of bear paws in the dirt tracks.<br /><br />There's so much here I cannot name: trees and plants, soil and erosion patterns, what flowers when. I didn't take the kind of walk that I imagine Thoreau would have taken: slow, deliberate, carefully observing details and relationships. I walk fast, each step a step away from roads and computers, governments and corporations, self-promotion and other peoples' news. Like HDT, I imagine, I spend time in nature to assuage the loneliness and isolation of the contemporary urban (and virtual) environment. Walking alone on a narrow track in the woods (no phone, of course, and no money jangling in my pocket) I feel the opposite of alone. I feel utterly connected, to myself, to my surroundings, to time.<br /><br />The contemporary urban and virtual environment encroaches on this, and hideously so. I wonder what it would be like if HDT took this walk with me. He would surely point out numerous, wondrous things that I miss. This gorge, its waterfalls, its trees, the way the flora changes, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically as I walk from one glacially formed ridge to another, has much to marvel at. But I hear HDT asking -- or maybe it's the voice of myself as a child, 25 years ago -- "where did everything go?" Fellow mammals are busy dying under the wheels of fuel efficient automobiles, pines disappear as invasive insect species lay siege to them, the water, ever more toxic, chokes the fish, the sky above is littered with airplanes and satellites.<br /><br />Thoreau spent his 44 years observing and reflecting on the world around him. He called bullshit on the way civilized people treat each other, the way money and property perverts them, the racism and warmongering of politicians. He has inspired generation after generation of environmentalists, civil rights activists, people clamoring for self-determination, people struggling against war. What a hero. What a thing to celebrate.<br /><br /><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WoVid4YGreQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9918207.post-29359052077600132632011-07-03T18:22:00.001+02:002011-07-04T00:30:18.196+02:00Independence from America DayI propose an Independence from America Day. Can we celebrate <i>that</i>?<br /><br />I declare independence from the pirate spirit of Christopher Colombus that defines the United States: find abundance that is not yours; subdue or kill anyone enjoying, defending or even willing to share it; transport it elsewhere for personal gain; leave behind you a wasteland, a graveyard, and look for more treasure. As with the Caribbean in the 1490s, so with Iraq today. <br /><br />I declare independence from the English entrepreneurs who set up camp in Jamestown in 1607. After some rough seasons and plenty of help from the Powhatan people, they managed to establish a global trade in tobacco and force indigenous onto reservations or indoctrinate them in schools and churches.<br /><br />I declare independence from the religious fanatics who began their invasion of Massachusetts in 1620. I declare independence from their intolerance, their patriarchy, their witch trials. How would they have treated someone like me in the mid 17th century?<br /><br />I declare independence from slavish adherence to the U.S. Constitution, an old rag written long ago by a group of racist businessmen who didn't get it right -- unless "getting it right" is this, what we've got, after 224 years to perfect it. Raise your hand if you've had enough of these depraved white men in Washington arguing over what "the Founding Fathers" meant in the 1780s. Who gives a shit? They're dead and it's 2011!<br /><br />I declare independence from slavery. A century and a half after the Civil War was fought (not over slavery, mind you, but state rights) slavery is still rampant. As for African captives in South Carolina in the 1850s, so with the girl who sewed your shirt in a Mexican maquiladora, or assembled my computer in a Chinese "free industrial zone", or scrubbed the toilets at a Saudi oil rig.<br /><br />I declare independence from the westward "pioneering" that laid waste to culture after culture in the pursuit of what another pathological national movement once called lebensraum. I declare independence from the continued denial of justice to the survivors of the genocide perpetrated on American indigenous people.<br /><br />I declare independence from the United States flag, because it is the same flag that waves over 1,000 military bases around the world. It is the same flag that NASA astronauts stuck on the Moon, which the US bombed several decades later.<br /><br />I declare independence from "The Star Spangled Banner". A national anthem about war is a dead giveaway for what the nation is about. And it grates on my ears. And it embarrasses me when musicians perform it. And why don't they sing songs about sports at sports events?<br /><br />I declare independence from the idea of American citizenship. What besides this connects me to the other 300 million Americans? What besides this connects us to each other and not to those who live and work and study and love in the US without citizenship? What connects me to a technologist in San Francisco, or a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, or an energy consultant in Houston, more than to a poet in Shanghai or a violinist in Damascus?<br /><br />I declare independence from the oft-repeated hogwash that "nothing is manufactured in the US anymore." Incorrect! From tear gas canisters to bullets, from guns to missiles, from tanks to helicopters, from warships to jet fighters, from satellites to drone aircraft, from nuclear power stations to nuclear bombs, plenty is manufactured in the United States! Business is booming. Automobiles. Prisons. Pharmaceuticals. Oil and gas wells. Logging roads. Genetically-modified seeds. Financial meltdowns and bailouts. Shitty movies.<br /><br />I declare independence from Capitalism, from the theft of land and resources, the poisoning of rivers, forced labor, consumerism, planned obsolescence, market fetishism, and the rest that turns people's souls into mountains of invisible money. I have in me the genetic and intellectual memory that humans are social creatures. We depend on each other. My family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues are not enriched by the immiseration of others.<br /><br />I declare independence from sham democracy, from uninformed consent, from indoctrinated idiots droning on about shit they don't understand, from "the democratic process" when we are voting on how to kill the oceans, how to talk about torturing people, how to bomb them, how to eradicate plant and animal species, how to sell out the education of young people, how to cook the planet.<br /><br />I declare independence from celebrity fetishism, from an industry that rewards political and sexual -- to say nothing of artistic -- criminals with air time, that teaches young girls to become hypersexualized dimwits. I declare independence from the culture of self-obsession and selfishness.<br /><br />I declare independence from space exploration. It's a bait and switch. Hey, explorer, you want to explore something? Explore how to get all the goddamn plastic out of the oceans and out of everybody's endocrine systems.<br /><br />I declare independence from nationalism, perpetual war, institutional racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. I declare independence from propping up Israeli apartheid, Saudi tyranny, Afghan warlords. I declare independence from forcing a failed way of life on the poor of world, at gunpoint, every time there's a natural disaster, and making them pay for it, and calling it humanitarian aid.<br /><br />I declare independence from dropping bombs, setting landmines, firing rockets, issuing weapons, stationing troops, "winning hearts and minds", abandoning veterans, erecting walls and barbed-wire fences, slaughtering innocents, covering it up, doing it again, calling it collateral damage, doing it again, saying "war is hell", doing it again, insisting that the killing is humanitarian in nature, doing it again and getting promoted.<br /><br />I declare independence from perpetual ecocide, from clearcutting forests, from chemical spills, nuclear tests, monocrop agriculture. We are not stewards of the Earth. Nature doesn't need our "help". Shut down the nuclear power plants, the coal mines, the gas fields, the oil wells. Turn off the lights and sit in the dark for a day and think about how to turn the lights back on. I guarantee you that the sun will rise in a few hours.<br /><br />I declare independence from state terror, from being afraid to speak out because they'll drag me through mud and leave me in a prison cell, from being forced to insist on "non-violence" while they pummel me with rubber bullets, tear gas, riot gear, or just their shitbrained nationalist ideology.<br /><br />No flags, no myths, no factory farm animal carcasses charred on gas grills, washed down with fizzy corn syrup, while watching gunpowder explode in the sky.<br /><br />Fuck all that noise. I declare independence from it, and it feels great, and I'm celebrating when and how I want to.<br /><br /><iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tD1p6ZnUXg4?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Keirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17380721582942127443noreply@blogger.com0