Our Job

Have you forsaken Earth - Oh worker?

Have you forsaken our wide family

that nourishes its children everywhere?

For now every bough and rocky crevice,

every grove and curving bay

and the hope of every heart

is in your hands.

What was the reason for the Union?

What created us out of scraping vassals,

out of exhausted, breathless human property?

It was not the jobs assigned by Owners

with their great plans and mansions,

with their exploitations and their wars.

We made the Union - out of our recognition of each other -

The garment worker’s bruised hands,

The mason’s limp, miner’s cough,

The young in poverty, the old in despair -

We made the Union when we saw that together

we had the power to change all that.

We made the Union out of active love.

Will we worship the jobs doled out by Owners,

and put our futures in bondage to their greed?

Or will WE set the jobs that must be done

to bring this Union to the future we all need?

They tried to portray the Union as a little faction,

grasping for a share of what is produced.

But we always knew this story was a lie.

Our interest, our constituency, is all the people

and all the Earth as well.

There we will find our real job.

We are the Union.

We will determine what jobs need to be done -

Together. - Everywhere.

And jobs for hire and owners will be no more.

Sculpture/Poem (A)

   These are prototypes or mock-ups of various things.

   This first one relates to the journey of the Dreamboat, a method of communication between spirits.

The idea originated in a playing piece or card in a spirit-related game -

There are actually two poems because a sail in this type of sculpture is flat and two-sided. There is a problem side and a hope side.

How can I comprehend

  A world so wide as this?

My foot falls,

and the dust settles

behind me.

Every drop, every torrent

returns to the sea.

This seascape, this cloudscape,

  this swirling turbulence

    stretches on forever.

How can any place be set?

How can a being such as I -

  be defined -

amidst this storm?

What seas did we travel

within our dreams?

  What were those things,

those beings, we saw?

  Not only out of my imaginings,

  my heart, my desire -

 But manifestations of other minds,

  so real that they were real.

The Dreamboat carries a cargo

of spirits’ notions

made substantial

  by our connections

even over great distances

and imposing gulfs.

 

Departure

Who are these children of the twilight?

Will there be a worthy craft -

among all these vessels bearing curses as their cargo -

that will carry them truly through this approaching night?

We might say that

trust comes easily to those who hold no aspiration,

who hold no hopes.

But perhaps they tell us,

“Cast off. Focus not on what is lost.

“We are sailing somewhere new.

“Perhaps it will be the place where friendship rules,

“and false oaths and false garments fall away unneeded.”

Some turnings and course corrections of 2016

It might be worthwhile to add some things to this blog which apparently still exists even though it's likely no one has visited it for many years.

Seeing that my book does not seem to have been completed, nor my game(s), nor that interactive modular floating sculpture thing, I think I will send out a few words and pictures here. I'll just assume for the moment they are really going out.

Maybe begin with this...


A button made by the
Syracuse Cultural Workers
(Hey, I'm from there!)

         Less Capitalism

There may be some alarm or confusion about this button. If I am in favor of reducing or replacing capitalism, how is it that I have given so much support to various businesses in my neighborhood, to other money-making enterprises and have run my own businesses from time to time?

Capitalistic enterprises, designed to produce some kind of profit, have existed throughout history, and will probably continue to exist in whatever social/economic/political system we eventually turn to. Socially, the enterprise can be an application of creativity to a social need. The entrepreneur, or artist, for that matter, who designs the specific or the general solution to a social need deserves some kind of credit for his or her contribution, as well as payment for expenses, just as any worker deserves compensation. If the compensation is fair, everyone benefits.

Capitalism, or the capitalist system, on the other hand, is an economic structure that determines how all enterprises, all labor, all resources, all living things and all wealth shall be valued in a society. And they are valued according to a single all-pervasive principle. That principle does not flow out of some moral or ideological discussion. It is rather generated and continually reinforced and expanded by the operation of the capitalist system itself. The principle of capitalism is profit is valued above all else, and whatever stands in the way of obtaining the greatest profit is to be eliminated. Those people most successful in this system, the capitalists, acquire the most wealth, and are in a position to drive society toward ever greater focus on profit-making above every other value and ever greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the most successful capitalists.

Karl Marx happens to present capitalism as a necessary stage in the progress of civilization that eventually is overthrown due to the contradictions embedded in an endless trajectory of profiteering. In any case, it is clear that a system that does not include benefit to humanity or to nature as primary values will become more and more anti-social as it focuses more and more on profits for a few people. Capitalism has been harmful to society for hundreds of years, but it has now reached the stage where its elimination is necessary for the continuation of human civilization and of life on earth.

Capitalism affects us all, not only as victims of exploitation and injustice, but as participants in the culture of profiteering. It is said we fight for equality and justice and power for the people. And we do. These things define us seeking something more than what we can get for our individual selves, something higher than mere profit, something helpful to society. Why? Because we care about all people; we care about the entire earth.  More Love. Less Capitalism.