Entries tagged with politics

Entry 57: Am I That Name?

COMPLETE RETRACTION!

I write this entry at a moment of reflection, ten years after being asked to write a series of weekly articles as guest poet/critic for the online journal Jacket2. This was offered and accepted in good faith; I would gladly accept such a task in a minute,  any time. Somewhat at a loss for where to begin, I took up the question of “presentism” in relation to the state of the present that was most compelling at the moment—a grim January freeze in Detroit, with its attendant affective states. This was ironic, as the distinction between presentism and historicism I was engaged in thinking through was propelling me toward the essays collected in Questions of Poetics—for some of my use of the term, click here. Let’s say the “presentism” at the moment was history at a standstill, wondering which way it would go—and what the consequences would be. Those consequences, it turned out, were immediate—a three-ring circus of attacks by designated officers of the poetic Left. Here, I am not naming names—but the triumvirate was ready and took the opportunity to stage a bloody attack on my public stance in the discourse of poetics. … More

Entry 43: Rolling Out Plan B


These are the words that conclude “Plan B,” my poem written after the Trump election in 2016. What has transpired since could not have been more like—turbulence has been destiny, our demography is in pieces, and nothing is decided. It is that moment of stoppage—”the stopping / of the battle,” as Charles Olson wrote—that I wanted to get down, as my contribution to radical democracy perhaps. But even the concept of “radical democracy” is not now decided—that is in the nature of a decision—with the spectacle of the “mob” thinking it represents the demos violating “the People’s House,” as we have been told and can see for ourselves. My point is the instability of the moment, but also that of the discourse that represents it or attempts to intervene in it. Is that a good thing for poetry, to record such a moment, or a bad thing for politics, that its confusions may be reproduced? … More

Entry 39: Ozone Holes

Pleased to learn of publication of my anti-Trump poem “Plan B” in Lana Turner, I took the magazine’s offer of a free download of Lana Turner 11 (the digital version of Lana Turner 12 is not yet out) as an anticipation of things to come. The website also links to Lana Turner 10, where I published a poem written after the 2004 election, “Blue States (After Fearing),” and indeed there is a connection to the present “Plan B,” written in November 2016. (The paywall is still up for Lana Turner 10, and readers should get the entire issue, but I will provide a .pdf of the poem here). In that poem, I tracked the psychological state I was in after the 2004 election—where George W. Bush achieved his first popular majority, thought he had a mandate, had earned capital and was going to spend it by demolishing Social Security, only to fail spectacularly to do so. At the time, my serious interest in the emergence of fascist imaginaries in American democracy began, and I would spend the next dozen years interrogating their present and past history, through my research, teaching, and travels in Germany. “Plan B” is a culmination of this effort, a poem registering the psychological state of the 2016 election through the perversion of public discourse that, in Adorno’s words from The Authoritarian Personality, indicate a “readiness” to accept anti-democratic forms of government. Adorno links these psychological preconditions of “readiness” to an ensemble of personality traits in and as “ideology”: … More

Support for Profs. Stephen Ratcliffe and Roscoe Mitchell

Like many in academia and the arts, I am concerned—even outraged—at the news that eleven tenured or ranked faculty are being considered for dismissal at Mills College. Wayne State University, where I teach, had a recent experience with expedient budget solutions that affect tenure, and condemnation and reputational damage were swift—and had the administration gone through with its plans, severe. Wayne State would have lost credentials, grants, students, and in the long run would have jeopardized accreditation. I can see similar negative outcomes for Mills College should you proceed with this action—already, the news has been widely disseminated.

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Entry 30: The New Blast IV

notmypresident

 

The New Blast (final 25)

Blast the Incarnation of Greed!

Blast the Body without Organs!

Blast the Monetization of Pain!

Blast the Nation off its Borders!

Blast the Tyranny of Dichotomy!

Blast Disappearance of the Other!

Blast final Monotony of the Same!

Blast Psychic Fantasy of Destruction!

Blast the Triumph of Anamorphosis!

Blast whomever is Not Listening!

Blast whomever Does Not Get It!

Blast Core Values of Individuation!

Blast the Blindness of Self-Interest!

Blast Regression Analysis of Fact!

Blast the Obscuration of Predictors!

Blast our Total Amnesia of the Past!

Blast our Presentism of Hate Speech!

Blast our Incomprehensible Futurity!

Blast Past, Present, and Future then!

Blast Action and Nonaction from Fear!

Blast Fear making Good People Quiet!

Blast Fear undoing Logical Inference!

Blast Fear perverting Common Sense!

Blast Fear returning us to Barbarism!

Blast Fear the Seducer of the People!

[after Wyndham Lewis; return to part I]

Entry 29: The New Blast III

notmypresident

 

The New Blast (third 25)

Blast the Corruption of Language!

Blast the Purification of Language!

Blast their Misuses of Metaphor!

Blast our Mediation of Metonymy!

Blast all Originality of Authorship!

Blast endless Recycling of Copies!

Blast the News as Election Cycle!

Blast the Construction of Discourse!

Blast the Eternal Return of the Same!

Blast any Illusion of Transcendence!

Blast a Seething Snakepit of Tropes!

Blast the Apotheosis of Zarathustra!

Blast that Dawn over the Rockies!

Blast that Sunset of Verbal Debris!

Blast your Life as a Dumpster Fire!

Blast repeating Tidal Waves of Shock!

Blast needing to Get Through This!

Blast your Republican Uncle in 1960.

Blast your Democratic Father in 1968.

Blast even the Great Chain of Being!

Blast Trust Funds of Popular Culture!

Blast Hedge Funds of High Culture!

Blast the Banking System entirely!

Blast the Inertia of the Art Market!

Blast the Perpetuation of Ideology!

[after Wyndham Lewis; to be contd.]

Entry 28: The New Blast II

notmypresident

 

The New Blast (second 25)

Blast your Existential Threats!

Blast being Painted into a Corner!

Blast your need for Boundaries!

Blast all Boundaries whatsoever!

Blast the Line, the Fence, the Wall!

Blast dichotomy of Spatial Regions!

Blast anything Red, Blue, and Purple!

Blast the Undermining of Gray Areas!

Blast the Destruction of the Zone!

Blast the Silence of the Majority!

Blast the Rule of Enforced Quietude!

Blast any Liquidation of Avant-Gardes!

Blast not Talking in the Workplace!

Blast the Denial of Public Discourse!

Blast the Truth of Perpetual Distortion!

Blast our Perverse Triumph of the Will!

Blast our Regime of Monumentality!

Blast the New Sinking of the Titanic!

Blast the Engineers of False Hope!

Blast any Mention of Hope Altogether!

Blast the Stasis of Nonexistent Change!

Blast you Pimps of Hope and Change!

Blast Progressivism and its Illusions!

Blast the Rule of Regressive Psyches!

Blast the Ruse of Cynical Reason!

[after Wyndham Lewis; to be contd.]

Entry 27: The New Blast

notmypresident

 

The New Blast (first 25)

Blast the Brutalitarians!

Blast the New Barbarians!

Blast the use of Brute Force!

Blast the poetics of Domination!

Blast the Six Million Nonactors!

Blast the end of Moral Scruples!

Blast the guiles of Mendacity!

Blast the flipping of the Rust Belt!

Blast surplus of Data Analytics!

Blast ruse of Informed Judgment!

Blast all False Prognosticators!

Blast the Primal Horde of Bros!

Blast Little People Talking Big!

Blast Big People Talking Down!

Blast the rise of Family Dynasties!

Blast fascination of Filthy Lucre!

Blast the servitude of Denial!

Blast empty places to Fill In!

Blast the Reality TV of Choice!

Blast the choice of Reality TV!

Blast endless receding Horizons!

Blast the Abyss of every Ground!

Blast all forms of Normalization!

Blast containments of Narrative!

Blast _____ fill in the Blanks!

[after Wyndham Lewis; to be contd.]

VOTE (LIVE) 
AS IF YOUR LIFE (VOTE)
DEPENDS ON IT

We are in a bad situation, a situation not of our choosing, painted into a corner once again. But I say, friends, with the greatest conviction and enthusiasm, I am going to cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton! I have been voting in elections since 1968, the beginning of the long turn to mediocracy in the election cycle. It is a deliberately constructed mediocrity, a fabric of denial, compromise, and opportunism. Democracy is impossible, but it must be preserved! The most important thing we must do is fight the eruption of fascism in all its forms. American polity is shot through with undemocratic tendencies—is that what makes it democratic? The situation is only getting worse. Once started, political irrationalism spreads like wildfire. It is a condition of language, where words are detached from their referents and free-floating desire makes any interpretation out of them it likes. Behind these words are narcissistic identifications and hateful abjections. We have not seen anything like it in our lifetime. Looking out the window, it is a beautiful fall day in the suburbs, the traffic is flowing regularly downtown, there are mild signs of hope among the populace, life is good! The worst is over, the worst is yet to come. Here is why I am going to cast my ballot for Hillary Clinton and as many down-ballot Democrats as I can identify:

  1. Anti-fascism! A vote for Clinton is a vote against planting the seeds of fascist psychology among the unsuspecting masses. There must be decisive counter-measures to stop this threat, and a vote for Clinton is tactically the only available option. Vote Clinton!
  2. Women’s emancipation! A vote for Clinton is a vote for the continuing emancipation of women, and is framed against the most stunning public misogyny we have witnessed. We must put an end to the “normalization” of this hateful personality disorder. Vote Clinton!
  3. Anti-racism and defense of immigrants rights! Decisive action is needed in the public sphere to counter the emergence of racist, xenophobic, Know-Nothing politics and psychology. Again, we must end the “normalization” of this violently depraved discourse. Vote Clinton!
  4. Long live Occupy and the Sanders campaign! To the extent that anti-capitalist and anti-Wall Street politics are a verifiable part of the Clinton campaign, she deserves support. Vote Clinton!
  5. End war mongering and military adventurism! We must bring our criticisms of foreign policy adventurism to the only party that will listen to them. The alternative is an aggressive, bullying, reactive, xenophobic, America First politics that will lead to world catastrophe. Vote but criticize Clinton!
  6. Reject left sectarianism! We do not give up our right to pursue politics to the left of the election cycle. A vote for Clinton is an immediate tactical necessity. Criticize the left!

This is the position I am taking. It is not a matter of indifference. The election is decisive in more ways than we can yet understand. Fight fascism, end the denigration of women, racism, and xenophobia, continue to pursue social justice in the spirit of Occupy, #blacklivesmatter, and the Sanders campaign, and be vigilant toward the excesses of American military adventurism. Vote Clinton and encourage others to do so as well!

Entry 22: Speech Acts

Tim Kreiner has written a considered response to my previous post, an act of intellectual dignity given what else is out there. His piece circles around a conflict between abstract rights (Free Speech) and concrete acts (antiracist politics) he says Place herself caused when she pushed inadmissible racial content into the public arena. He also sees her timing as crucial: while I imagined that Place was grabbing a part of the limelight from Kenneth Goldsmith’s scandalous performance of Michael Brown’s autopsy, he believes that she “added the images in the midst of a live social movement against specific acts of state violence targeting black people.” [Correction: Place added the banner in 2012, and the profile photo in 2011; thus, both of our scenarios are incorrect. It is still an open question why a project that was not getting attention suddenly create intense outrage. The relation of image to text here is still crucial.] While we agree that adding the images converted a banal textual project into a racial provocation, he sees her opportunism as not simply in the aesthetic series but as an attack on the social movement, and thus criticizable from that perspective. Her cynical use of Free Speech, and by an extension the defense of her work in terms of it, cannot be dissociated from its effects on antiracist organizing and its larger concern, #blacklivesmatter.

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