1. Imagine a poetry reading in a house that is being robbed.
2. Imagine a poetry reading in which the reader, the audience, and the people in the house are all being robbed and the reading continues.
3. Imagine this reading a number of times.
4. Imagine the reading beginning to take on the content of these surroundings.
5. Imagine the reading beginning to take on the form of these surroundings.
6. Imagine the reading beginning to move like a house.
7. Imagine that there is an interval in which the robber is going out to rob the house, and his own house is left empty.
8. Imagine poetry enters this house.
9. What, at this point, is a poem?
Friday, December 31, 2010
Griftopia
Best holiday reading so far: Matt Taibbi's Griftopia, a seething account of the financial industry and the "long con that is breaking America."
Taibbi, in addition to explaining the gritty details of credit default swaps and commodity futures speculation, does things like title his chapter on Alan Greenspan "The Biggest Asshole in the Universe," coming up with simple, angry, broadly engaging frames for how our economic system works. The lesson of Taibbi's frames is that as complex as these cons were to pull off, the story of them is in fact very simple: the American financial elite, with the help of government de- and re-regulators, has spent the last 25 years either a) exploiting everyday Americans at a high-stakes casino tilted ridiculously in their favor, or b) flat-out robbing us. The only hope left for our nation's economy, now, (with an eviscerated production and public sector) seems to be that these foxes and bullies will outfox and outbully the financial elite of other nations, and that some of that resultant wealth will trickle down to us.
If this sounds cynical, it's because it is. The American economy has built itself more and more entirely on what Taibbi describes as a kind of elaborate shell-game: with things going to shit long-term, who in the short-term can vacuum up what wealth is left? It's important to note, as Taibbi does, that this creates two real political parties: the Grifter class, and...everyone else. What's brilliant about the Tea Party, from the standpoint of this Grifter class, is that it diverts the potential consciousness of the non-grifters (us), turning substantive grievances against the economic elite (them) into moral grievances against a "cultural elite" ("liberals," urban social planners) and a cultural non-elite (poor minorities and immigrants).** This mobilizes the exploited against the even-more exploited—a classic and horrendously effective strategy of powerful groups throughout history.
What the Tea Party phenomenon (and the whole Democrats v. Republicans thing more generally) misses is that, ideologically, we're not playing on mid-twentieth century terrain anymore, where government regulation = socialism = Stalinism = Hitler (and, for that matter, Republicans = "small government"). By thinking in such anachronistic terms, the screen is set up behind which 21st-century-style domination and unfreedom can continue to take place. The end-game of Tea-Partyers and Republicans (and some Democrats) is not to institute "less" government, but to institute a government that, by selectively "not interfering" in certain sectors (while happily interfering in others), enables and empowers a new class of Dominators. This is the Grifter class, and it includes everyone from Dick Cheney to Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) to Glenn Beck to Larry Summers to Sarah Palin to, yes, Barack Obama.
I look forward to seeing who, in the next cycle of political candidates (and spectacle-addicted media coverage), will offer a narrative as candid and forceful and clear as Taibbi's. Because the real we—the not-grifter-class; those without big vacuums—are really, really fucked. Our only hope is to build up viable resistance movements—electoral or otherwise.
On this note, here are three national organizations that are helping build the fight against the Grifter class. Join them. And provide links to others in the comment threads below.
http://demandprogress.org/mission
http://movetoamend.org/
http://other98.com/
**"Revolt of the Elites," in the most recent issue of n+1, illustrates the consequences of an attack on one of these elites (the cultural elite) and not the other.
Taibbi, in addition to explaining the gritty details of credit default swaps and commodity futures speculation, does things like title his chapter on Alan Greenspan "The Biggest Asshole in the Universe," coming up with simple, angry, broadly engaging frames for how our economic system works. The lesson of Taibbi's frames is that as complex as these cons were to pull off, the story of them is in fact very simple: the American financial elite, with the help of government de- and re-regulators, has spent the last 25 years either a) exploiting everyday Americans at a high-stakes casino tilted ridiculously in their favor, or b) flat-out robbing us. The only hope left for our nation's economy, now, (with an eviscerated production and public sector) seems to be that these foxes and bullies will outfox and outbully the financial elite of other nations, and that some of that resultant wealth will trickle down to us.
If this sounds cynical, it's because it is. The American economy has built itself more and more entirely on what Taibbi describes as a kind of elaborate shell-game: with things going to shit long-term, who in the short-term can vacuum up what wealth is left? It's important to note, as Taibbi does, that this creates two real political parties: the Grifter class, and...everyone else. What's brilliant about the Tea Party, from the standpoint of this Grifter class, is that it diverts the potential consciousness of the non-grifters (us), turning substantive grievances against the economic elite (them) into moral grievances against a "cultural elite" ("liberals," urban social planners) and a cultural non-elite (poor minorities and immigrants).** This mobilizes the exploited against the even-more exploited—a classic and horrendously effective strategy of powerful groups throughout history.
What the Tea Party phenomenon (and the whole Democrats v. Republicans thing more generally) misses is that, ideologically, we're not playing on mid-twentieth century terrain anymore, where government regulation = socialism = Stalinism = Hitler (and, for that matter, Republicans = "small government"). By thinking in such anachronistic terms, the screen is set up behind which 21st-century-style domination and unfreedom can continue to take place. The end-game of Tea-Partyers and Republicans (and some Democrats) is not to institute "less" government, but to institute a government that, by selectively "not interfering" in certain sectors (while happily interfering in others), enables and empowers a new class of Dominators. This is the Grifter class, and it includes everyone from Dick Cheney to Lloyd Blankfein (CEO of Goldman Sachs) to Glenn Beck to Larry Summers to Sarah Palin to, yes, Barack Obama.
I look forward to seeing who, in the next cycle of political candidates (and spectacle-addicted media coverage), will offer a narrative as candid and forceful and clear as Taibbi's. Because the real we—the not-grifter-class; those without big vacuums—are really, really fucked. Our only hope is to build up viable resistance movements—electoral or otherwise.
On this note, here are three national organizations that are helping build the fight against the Grifter class. Join them. And provide links to others in the comment threads below.
http://demandprogress.org/mission
http://movetoamend.org/
http://other98.com/
**"Revolt of the Elites," in the most recent issue of n+1, illustrates the consequences of an attack on one of these elites (the cultural elite) and not the other.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Re-imagining poetry community, 2
Great review of Brian Kim Stefan's pamphlet Bank of America Online Banking: A Critical Evaluation in the new Sustainable Aircraft.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Austerity Myth
Great video on why we should be spending more, not less, on public services at a time like this.
(And, from the same source, a poem.)
The Watson Institute presents Mark Blyth on Austerity from The Global Conversation on Vimeo.
(And, from the same source, a poem.)
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