Tropetopia XVI – Health Care for All? No Way — Eat the Ill — Compassionate Cannibalism

For once, my everlasting opponent, John Doe Dimslow, seems to say it best:

Universal health care in America? Far better to harvest the ill.  

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is complete lunacy:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

We may be born equal but we surely do not have the right to live and die equal.

Why should it mean anything to me that my neighbors have a much greater chance of dying early because they don’t have health insurance, and that my own family has to scramble to keep ourselves covered when we need to change jobs, or that we have to pay spectacularly high fees? Necessity is the mother of invention, is it not? Even if it comes at the price of a preventable death or two, or three, or…. 

Why should I care that the government — ruled by truly benevolent big business — invests next to nothing, or less, in preventive health care? Aren’t they saving me money? Saving us all?

My idea: call it compassionate consumption, or compassionate cannibalism. Maybe a corporation could get a charter to run a business that identifies the weakest among us, beginning at, say, age thirty or forty — or, hell, any age — and then harvest these ill, or maimed, or mere weaklings for amputation or termination and processing into food, or a broad abundance of other commercial products.  

Surely this plan would help ease insurance rates since the sick would not be using up all the funds. And the profit of such an industry would be good for the economy.  

I mean, who needs universal health care and a decent health care system when selective harvesting, processing, and bio-retail will grease the gears of finance for the economy? 

After all, the U.S. has the most expensive and profitable health care system in the world even though it does not come close to covering everyone — a remarkable accomplishment of which any CEO and good citizen should be proad to boast. 

Since treatment is available often only for those wealthy enough to afford their health care plans, which leaves out in the cold an awful lot of John and Jane Does, I ask that rulers in both the private and public sectors both, along with good voters, show some compassion for us Dimslows — harvest the ill and injured.  

There are plenty of possibilities for compassionate consumption. If the internal organs of a person to be harvested are diseased, then, say, the skin could be used to make car seats.  

Or if a person has skin cancer, which leads to harvesting, then make use of the internal organs for, say, dog food, until the advertising industry gets up to speed and successfully markets upscale cannibalism of select organs to the highest class of fine diners — those who in any case are used to living off the backs, the more traditional sacrifice, of those of low income. 

The pharmaceutical companies may scream that this will cut into their stupendous profits, but it seems to me that they, like anyone, could use a little more competition in the cutthroat, so to speak, free market. 

We just need to make sure that the government doesn’t get involved in the body harvesting and processing business, since government sector work is more likely to be unionized than private sector work, and having unions almost always means better wages, more vacation time, and other benefits, like health insurance — and it wouldn’t seem right to have health-insured and at least modestly well paid workers doing such a job.  

I mean, we have to have standards.  

Let ill and poorly compensated workers harvest and process the ill and maimed, who are themselves so often poorly compensated. It only seems Right. 

Harvesting the ill for commercial consumption — is that a great Dimslow idea for correcting the health care crisis in America, or what? If I do say so myself.  

I mean, the alternative is to just let people suffer, and force them into the agonizing decisions of trying to decide whether or not to buy medicine or food or electricity or heat or fuel or shelter or transportation or education, and so on. And that’s not a very nice thing to do to our families and neighbors, now is it?  

Better to kill them early for their own sake, and for our own peace of mind as well. And kill them also, let’s not forget, for the glowing good health of the economy. And kill them too for the logic and wisdom of the big dollars that rule our political system. It only seems Right.

Tropetopia XV — The Pangloss Score III: The Up Side of Climate Change

Top twenty reasons the US should further lead the way in contributing to Global Warming and Climate Change:

Causing the extinction of polar bears is a lot of fun. 200,000 years of having them around is long enough.

We can burn all the coal, oil, and gas we want. And cut down all the rainforests too.

Hurricanes R US. And more storms and floods. Hurricane Katrina provided ethnic cleansing in its most natural form.

Millennial type drought and massive desertification has its own form of austere beauty.

The stimulating effects of mass migration are underestimated. For example, the resulting wars and other conflicts are likely to be quite profitable for those best positioned.

We need something to keep the military busy — not to mention the military industrial complex. What better to justify massive military spending than the invigorating challenges of Climate Change? We need to keep the military active so its contractors can be flush with funds. After all, who better to fund the re-elections of Congress and the President than the makers of bombs and bullets?

Somebody has to lead. If the US doesn’t lead the way in contributing to Global Warming and Climate Change, who will? The UN? Please. The UN is afraid of its own shadow, let alone Climate Change. The US must remain fearless in making the world over in Its Own Image.

Paradise is not so much. Who can profit? So we paved over paradise and put up a parking lot. It’s for the best. The Progressive Era is dead, thank god.

Cars have rights, too.

The oil companies don’t spend all their time and money blocking and buying up mass public transportation systems in cities and all across the nation and lobbying Congress to build and expand vehicular (i.e., big truck) interstates for nothing, you know.

If we oppose Climate Change, then we are opposing the interests of the powerful rich institutions that run this country and world, and we don’t want to do that, do we? Democracy would be nice and all, perhaps, but let’s get real.

We all should be perfectly capable of taking off our sweaters, getting a tan, buying skin cancer insurance, and moving halfway across the country and world if need be for the sake of the vested economic interests (oil, coal, guns, bombs, etc) that provide stability and security for ourselves and the world.

Glaciers? Who needs ‘em.

Let the sea levels rise a few dozen or hundred or more feet — the coast needs a good cleaning anyway.

The poor suffer most from Climate Change — predominantly women and children and non-whites — but so what? Aren’t they used to it?

The stock price of bottled water companies will be out of this world.

Global Warming may be hot, but let’s keep things in perspective — doing much about it is far more uncool.

So what if a few degrees’ rise in global temperature is likely to make extinct another 20 to 30 percent of the world’s species? They’re just taking up space, drinking from dwindling streams, sucking up our ever more precious water. To hell with ‘em.

Our children will have to fend for themselves, just as we had to.

Nothing lasts forever.

So, all in all, I — Stan D. Garde, Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer – recommend we just chill out about this Global Warming, Climate Change thing, in this best of all possible worlds.

Let’s take a wait-and-see approach and then deal with the Globally Warmed, Climate Changed world we have, and not the one we might wish for.

Seems like a good campaign strategy to me — a real winner — not to mention our best shot at beating that insufferable, irrepressible, indefatigable Dimslow character who is running for the Presidency in ‘08. 

Prison Power — One of Every 138

John Doe Dimslow says:

At long last a final solution to the unemployment problem — imprison the populace. Lock up all us Dimslows everywhere. And why not? It costs less to lock someone up than it does to pay them a living wage with decent benefits. Plus, then the prisoners can be put to work in the prisons at cut-rate slave wage rates, rather than at the full scale slave wage rate of the federal minimum wage for those on the outside. It certainly pays to be more efficient. Build more jails and prisons, I say. Lock us all up for our own good and for the good of the corporate economy of Patriotica. Give us bars or give us death! Shouldn’t that be the stirring cry of every righteous American? Continue reading Prison Power — One of Every 138

Tropetopia XIV — The Stan D. Garde and John Doe Dimslow Debate

John Doe Dimslow wanted to debate me. The nerve of that impoverished fellow.

“As if your ideas aren’t dead weight from the get go,” said I.

“No, come on,” he replied, “I doubt it could get any more Tropetopian than this — a Dimslow-Garde debate.”

“Well, I guess it would be something to fill my journal,” said I. “Some light diversion. So what shall we discuss? Peace In Our Time? Please.”

“How about health care?” said Dimslow.

“Don’t make me ill,” said I. “The uninsured are damn lucky to live in this vibrant country.”

“As opposed to Canada?” said Dimslow much too predictably, “where health insurance coverage is universal – provided for all by the government.”

“The Great Socialist Nightmare,” said I.

“Oh, it’s the Great Capitalist Nightmare here,” said Dimslow with his typically obscene logic. “And here it’s a fact that tens of millions of people go uninsured, are less healthy, die sooner, and still the health care system – what there is of it – costs more money per capita than in Canada. It’s literally costing and killing us.”

“You forget one thing,” said I. “The marketplace here provides all the freedom a person could want to choose to be insured. Just work hard and pay your dues.”

“If you can find a job, let alone a healthy one,” said the insufferable Dimslow. “Then there’s the choice between food, clothing, shelter, heat, transportation, and medicine.”

“It’s a free country, I’ve always said. We are ever free to choose.”

“Oh sure, to sleep under the bridge at night, to suffer, to die young. Great. Why not just harvest the ill and be done with them – children especially, since they live in such high rates of poverty? We could grind up the little girls and boys into dog and cat food for the pets of the affluent.”

“You call this a debate, Mr. Dimslow? Sounds more like a gratuitous spewing of vitriol to me.”

“You have my ideas,” said Dimslow.

“Where would the money come from? There’s no money to insure people.”

“From you and your wealthy friends. It would come from eliminating the profit rape of the pharmaceutical companies, and others.”

“Impossible. Congress would not dare.”

“You may be right, Stan D. Garde.”

“I’m glad you finally think so.”

“There may be only one solution then. The final solution.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. John Doe Dimslow, and I have no wish to find out.” I’ll admit, here — I shivered. “There is no solution, and none is needed.”

“We must have a solution,” said Dimslow.

“I think not.”

“Possibly it has come to this — We must eat the rich. We must eat you, Stan D. Garde.”

“I assure you, Dimslow, any wealth of mine is newfound, and utterly indigestible.”

John Doe held his belly, as if, I thought, to belch. Instead he laughed. “See you at dinner, Garde,” said he, and walked off, laughing. “See you at dinner!” he called back.

“You’re all bark and no bite!” I hollered after him. I shook my fist at his threatening form, but he only laughed the more.

Tropetopia XIII — The Pangloss Score II — The US Conquest of the Middle East

Top twenty reasons the US should further invade and occupy the entire “Middle East” – aka Oila –
by Stan D. Garde:

The inhabitants of these lands are tired of their massive oil burden and would like to have it taken off their hands.

The US owns the world so is only taking its due share.

Certain environmentally responsible corporations wish to keep filling up Hummers, other Sport Utility Vehicles, and non mass transit systems.

The Air Force needs fuel to drop its bombs to get its fuel.

The US is thirsty for the crude.

King George — aka, President Powerdrunk — decrees it.

US soldiers love spending the best years of their lives getting blown up and blowing people up.

In years gone by it used to be that the US could get the countries in the region to slaughter each other on their own accord, on US behalf. Not so much anymore. Today, several of these very same countries need direct, even Divine, US intervention.

Russian deterrence is a distant memory and tiny little China is but a mere speck on the map.

No one in their Right mind can imagine Baghdad without a US flag planted smack in the middle of it.

Or Tehran.

Or Islamabad. Etc.

All sane people agree — World War III is to die for, since Big Business would make a Royal Killing.

Obliterating Oila is by far the best use of the US National Guard. Helping people in times of flood, hurricane, and tornado…laudable but a distant tertiary concern.

In the immortal words of New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman in his 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree: “McDonald’s cannot flourish [in Oila or anywhere else presumably] without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley’s technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.”

In the immortal words of President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (current Barack Obama advisor) when asked about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children due to US-UN sanctions: “We think the price is worth it.”

In the immortal words of Albright on another occasion: “What’s the point of having a superb military…if we can’t use it?”

In the immortal words of former President George H. W. Bush: “What we say goes.”

What’s another Oilan conflagration or two in the grand scheming of things?

Once again, Whose oil? Our oil.

As Dr. Pangloss says, “If you truly want the best of all possible worlds, you have to bomb for it.”

So these are the top twenty reasons the US should conquer all Oila, though there are countless other worthy and practical reasons about which we could go on forever and ever more, or until The End, of course, whichever comes first.

Stan D. Garde
DemRep Sloganeer

Direct Line to the People

 (The Powerdrunk Rulers)

“The debate over Iranian interference in Iraq proceeds without ridicule on the assumption that the United States owns the world…. In this case, however, even ridicule — notably absent — would not suffice, because the charges against Iran are part of a drumbeat of pronouncements meant to mobilize support for escalation in Iraq and for an attack on Iran, the ‘source of the problem.’ The world is aghast at the possibility.”
     – Noam Chomsky, “What If Iran Had Invaded Mexico?“

Iran declares war on Mexico. Threatens to pray the United States back to the Stone Age, flint arrows and all, if it so much as meddles with the imminent invasion of its neighbor to the south. (Or if not back to the Stone Age, the Gossamer Age, at least.) Any Americans found sneaking across the Rio Grande will be detained indefinitely. Iran says its imminent invasion of Mexico has nothing to do with the famous Iranian yen for Mexico’s famed Tabasco Sauce (or oil). Iran would have invaded already but it had to pray first. Iran trusts that America will do the same before it considers any Mexican interference of its own.

The U. S. Quandary

Dick Powerdrunk, the (full of) Vice President, noted in his response to Iran, “We will rip out your eye teeth and crush and grind them into powder for use in our heart medications.”

What to say about this stellar official? He may be one gun-blasting, murderous bombing, corporate-money-raking gun-of-a-gun, but he’s our gun-of-a-gun? What blessed land deserves this full of vice president? What contest in whose hell did we win? The corporate coffers – though not their employees’ accounts – threaten to explode with the amount of government and oil money this vice leader is cashing through. Who cares that it is stained Iraqi (etc) blood red? O to be the vice leader, and company. Ain’t it rich?

Dick Powerdrunk – our stellar full of Vice Inc. President – he said, “Iran and Mexico, we own them both, but we can’t have them invading one another. My plan it simple yet effective, profound yet easily grasped by the common man – we will destroy them both first.”

Condi Powerdrunk, the Secretary of (the failed) State was more measured in her response. She said, “Tabasco Sauce is not worth it, really.” Wise heads on TV nod sagely.

Like so many of her fellow Patriots, Condi Powerdrunk never saw a bomb she didn’t like, never saw a land she wouldn’t reduce to bare sand. She never saw a human right she would let stand when fixed on the goal of getting oil (and blood) on her hands. I hear she likes a good book — well, let her recite the Book of Blood, the one she knows so well by heart. And so the old tales goes, the one that plays time and again, as she and her colleagues act out the pleasant symptoms of the neo-feudal system of our day, the one we let play and play, until when? Until the whole world is deCondistructed into nothing more than a pure chunk of clay?

Don Powerdrunk, the ex-cabinet Secretary of Glorious War could not be reached for comment at this time. Rumor has it he is hoarding Tabasco Sauce.

What more do we need to know? Don Powerdrunk helped lead the U.S. into a glorious war that the soldiers and people are so glad to have been invited along for. After all, you go with the powerdrunk Secretary of Glorious War you have, not the one you may wish for.

Oh, and of course the Iraqis couldn’t be happier. I guess it only goes to show that you can conquer some of the people gloriously some of the time, even if you can’t conquer all of the people gloriously all of the time. Hey, support the Generals. Tell them to “Stand Down.” Now. Might spare them a future appointment with a Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Tribunal. Nothing but raw power could spare Don Powerdrunk now. Such are the glories of war, after all.

And what of George Powerdrunk? – our great leader. He exercised profusely. He slaughtered the people who owned distant oil. Never would he invade for Tabasco Sauce. He did not say, “After us, the deluge” – he said, “I am the deluge.” He said, “The American People” — and not the corrupt electoral and judicial systems — “have poured my bowl full of liquor, and I intend to spill it all.”

He exercised profusely, and this made us all quite proud to have him as our model spokesman. He said, “I got mine. You got yours?” He said, “I will preserve a bubble or two of the world because us rich people need to have something to cherish while the entire rest of the world collapses.” He said, “Let it deluge.” He said, “Katrina is a nice name. We must not let the Hurricane besmirch it.” He never hardly went to church but he tried to make it look like he did. The better to slaughter the people who own distant oil. And he exercised profusely.

George Powerdrunk loved Tabasco Sauce, and so he vowed to see Iran’s imminent invasion of Mexico and further raise the stakes. Much further. When you own the world, after all, you can do what you want with it. George Powerdrunk, perhaps inspired by the famed Texas author Cormac McCarthy and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy both, has decided to fully commit himself to the apocalyptic path of turning the world into a McCarthy-ite Road, from which of course he will provide an exit for himself to live in a nice little bubble ranch for the rest of his powerdrunk life.

As for Iran, let them invade Mexico for all he cares. George Powerdrunk has been keen to launch World War III for a long time passing now. And why not? He answers to “a higher Father,” he says. He believes he has every right.

He doesn’t even have to pray about it. He has the direct line.

So we know what the Officials are doing.

And the people?

Tropetopia XII — Down with John Doe Dimslow

This is the man who must be stopped – John Doe Dimslow, the DemReps’ strongest opponent in the upcoming 2008 US Presidential election.

Clearly, the poor man knows no bounds and has no sense of decency, zero (not to mention inverse) geopolitical acumen and is at an utter loss for publicity and sloganeering. Yet our ongoing polling data indicates that he remains a very dangerous US Presidential candidate indeed – especially on the ever sensitive and dread topic of “the issues”. On the issues, the man shows some unfathomable striking resonance with the masses of loyal vendor-consumers that are the good people of this land. Possibly our poll questions have not been best designed as of yet. We will see to this in the future. The very near future. The Dimslow threat must be stopped, the virus eradicated. Down with Dimslow, I say. Let the sloganeering commence.  

Dimslow’s April 1 chilling candidacy announcement –

I, John Doe Dimslow, hereby declare my candidacy for President of the United States.  

This is not an April Fool’s joke. Though I wish it were.

The political platform on which I will base my campaign and which will serve as guide if elected is not the Holy Corporate Charter but the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed into law by the United States and other nations over half a century ago, a declaration that has still not been lived up to, and for no good reason.

My main planks will not be based on the lunatic motto of capitalism that “private vice leads to public good” but instead will be based on the various articles in the UDHR, of which I will have more to say – especially in relation to current events and conditions, and especially as seen through the eyes of Dimslows everywhere – in the coming weeks, months, and years leading up to the election for the 2008 presidency. 

The decision of selecting a running mate has been a long and arduous process that I have suffered through for some time now. I have finally decided to select as running mate someone who I believe will give me immense credibility, someone who will be able to stand up to the candidates for the Dems and Reps with credentials every bit as distinguished and fine, someone brilliant who burns with a keen sense for expanding civilization for the benefit of all everywhere, someone who will back down from nothing and no one, someone utterly reliable and dependable and someone who holds the best interests of the American people close to his heart—someone, again, I cannot emphasize enough, with a proven track record and solid credibility, someone equal to and every bit as good as any of the likely candidates for the D’s and R’s. And so now I hereby proclaim to be my running mate, Vice Presidential candidate for the 2008 elections, the next esteemed Vice President of the United States of America: Genghis Khan! 

Actually, not the Genghis Khan, the renowned Mongol invader of centuries past but a descendent of his, a long since naturalized American, who yet retains the most outstanding characteristics of not only the great Genghis Khan himself but also of his grandson, Hulagu Khan, who conquered Iraq some eight centuries ago. No less is to be expected of my vice presidential nominee, who, given his acclaimed heritage, it should be clear to all, is the ideal candidate to square off with any likely candidate selected by the D’s and R’s. Welcome to the Dimslow campaign of 2008, O great descendent of Genghis Khan. 

April Fools! 

April fools, not regarding my own candidacy, which will proceed as scheduled, but regarding my choice of candidate for Vice President – a choice I have in fact not yet made. The Genghis Khan descendents will have to look to the policy establishments of the D’s and R’s for their continued employment.

In the meantime I urge everyone everywhere – Genghis Khan devotees aside – to pitch in on the UDHR Dimslow efforts for now, for ’08, forevermore.

  

 

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Sat Apr 9, 12:01 PM ET JDD Press

Citizen of the United States of America, and of Earth, John Doe Dimslow peers out from a window of his home and wonders what is becoming of his country and the world, on Saturday, April 9, 2005. He wonders if he will be able to keep his home and keep up with the energy and fuel bills. His health insurance is poor, and he intends to keep pressuring the government to call off its attack on the world, and to maintain and improve its services to his kin and to humankind, and to do much more to keep the United Corporations from ripping him off, along with everyone else. He is glad to see the duck get a fair shake. And he wishes the duck well. (JDD Photos/Jane Doe Dimslow)

 

     Dimslow – 2008    

My Name is Rachel Corrie — Art, Social Change, Censorship

 My Name is Rachel Corrie Staged in Seattle

   Gina Whitfield 

The purpose of art is to inspire us to be more than we are, to question our own assumptions or our entrenched ideas. My Name is Rachel Corrie certainly achieves this; it is an impassioned call to action. The depiction of her life forces the audience to question their assumptions about a young radical, who was in fact not dogmatic or hateful, but whose spirit was caring and who was desperately trying to find good and genuine beauty amidst a hideous conflict. Her words, which form the core of the play, often brought the audience to tears, describing the appalling conditions of life endured under occupation….

My Name is Rachel Corrie, however, has had to struggle to get a run on stage at all…. It’s unlikely to be at a theatre any nearer to you anytime soon.

…

My Name is Rachel Corrie made its West Coast debut last week at
Seattle’s Repertory Theatre. The one-woman play is based on Corrie’s life and untimely death. The
Olympia Washington native was killed four years ago, in March 2003, at the age of 23. She was crushed by an Isreali bulldozer while she tried, along with an International Solidarity Movement team in the Gaza Strip, to protect a Palestinian home from demolition. Rachel Corrie’s life, her personal and political passions, and her desire to contribute to peace in the Middle East are compellingly acted out by
Seattle’s Marya Sea Kaminski, who brings her talents to a play that has encountered many obstacles in being brought to stage. The play is based on Corrie’s journals and email correspondence, which were published in the UK Guardian after her death, and was originally conceived by actor/director Alan Rickman and Guardian editor Katharine Viner. Corrie’s writing is both the inspiration and the script; the young woman was a colourful and talented writer, eloquently describing her wish to not be complicit in her country’s central role supporting the Israeli occupation. The play is effective both because of Kaminski’s delivery, but also because it injects the personal hopes and dreams of a young woman – loves lost, career plans, and family dramas – in addition to Corrie’s evolving political views.

The play has sparked controversy wherever it has been produced or, more accurately, wherever people have attempted to produce it. This has left the British creators screaming censorship, and left many in the artistic community questioning just how free speech is in
North America, where the play hits political nerves. My Name is Rachel Corrie was deemed “too hot” for the Big Apple, for instance.

…

Tropetopia XI — The Tropetopian Age

Some have asked me, Stan D. Garde – “What is a Tropetopian Age? What do you mean by Tropetopia?”

First, the etymology —

trope:

Latin tropus, from Greek tropos turn, way, manner, style, trope, from trepein to turn — a word or expression used in a figurative sense; figure of speech — a common or overused theme or device; cliche

topia — by way of utopia:

Utopia, imaginary and ideal country in Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More, from Greek ou not, no + topos place — an imaginary and indefinitely remote place — a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions — an impractical scheme for social improvement

Of course, my slogans and policies are the furthest from “impractical” — that’s why the u in utopia is dropped. I’m not talking noplace here. I’m talking the world today. Tropetopia.

Unfortunately, book critics such as the ones below, though extraordinarily well-meaning, just don’t get it. It was sad really what these good men and women had to say about my previous book, Youthtopia:

A terrible book. Irresponsible.
   – Dean Obay

This book should be banned.
   – Will Servile

No one under 21 should be allowed to read this book.
No one over 30 could have written it.
   – Connie Sireton

No reputable publisher would go anywhere near it.
– Amanda Thority

Ban it. Burn it. Bury it.
– Newt Baas

I thought well only of the review by Dimn Flattary, in which he wrote, “High School like you’ve never seen it. High school like you’ve always known it.”

(I can state authoritatively due to many years of service in lovely Rockview Terminal, the Terminators never forget that our children are our greatest resource, and they do everything in their power to make sure our children are mentally cleansed, as thoroughly and as efficiently as possible — patriotica, electronica, Americana: YouthTopia — which is exactly what my mentally cleansed kin above value as well as I. Actually, I think the critics were simply afraid the book would fall deleteriously into the hands of those who have not yet been properly mentally cleansed — youth. Of coure the book is not for youth, and I give strict orders in the book to keep it out of the hands of all youth. I wrote Youthtopia for thoroughly cleansed eyes, ears, and minds only — those of mature adults, of course. Wishful thinking, I suppose, since the ban was quickly broken — but to few ill effects, apparently. So I now feel free to write Tropetopia for everyone.)

Whereas Youthtopia revealed school as if people (parents in particular) had never seen it though always known it, with Tropetopia I hope to illuminate the world entire by way of this Global Campaign Journal that may strike many as if they never had known such a global campaign for the benefit of all humankind even existed though they’ve always seen it.

Don’t look now but this is an age of massive public relations. A very large percentage of the Gross National Product consists of advertising alone. What civilized institution anymore isn’t advertising a great deal — or isn’t in and of itself a sheer monument of PR? The realm of trope.

The more you think about it, the more you live, the more you come to see: All is trope — living, breathing, thinking, believing, buying, selling, living, breathing, thinking, believing, buying, selling – more than ever, we trope to live, we live to trope. Tropetopia.

The power of trope – we couldn’t think a straight thought, live a straight life, or put our world on the straight and narrow without it.

Politics and Lit — DC Guerilla Poetry Insurgency; British Iraq TV Drama

British Iraq TV Drama

    Sean Rayment

The Mark of Cain, to be broadcast this Wednesday, is understood to have infuriated officers at the Ministry of Defence (MoD). The drama involves a group of soldiers from a fictional regiment posted to Basra for peace-keeping operations. They are confronted by a population that views the coalition forces as oppressors.

Soldiers are seen taking part in an orgy of violence against detainees they suspect were responsible for the deaths of two colleagues. The soldiers are shown urinating on their captives before forcing them to commit sexual acts.

Tony Marchant, who wrote The Mark of Cain, says he spoke to more than 100 former and serving Iraq veterans and their families when researching the project.

DC GUERRILLA POETRY INSURGENCY

The DC Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency (GPI) is an anti-authoritarian, collaborative pro-humanity artists’ collective incorporating music, rhythm, spoken word, community and resistance. The GPI is part of a community of artists of all persuasions from D.C. and around the nation. Some of these groups include: The Rhythm Workers Union; Young Women’s Drumming Empowerment Project ; Word of Mouth; DC Poets Against the War; The Collaborative Arts Insurgency in San Francisco; The Fuse in New York City; and The Guerrilla Poet Insurgency in Richmond, VA. We also support allied groups with similar means and ends, such as The Blackout Arts Collective and the Supersonic Samba School in San Diego.

WHAT IS THE GPI TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH? The GPI assertively wields and empowers creative voices to promote progressive social change . GPI’s primary goals include: inventing new media, reclaiming public space, building diverse communities of artists and activists, and facilitating the expression of individual convictions. One way to conceptualize our action model is as “push marketing” for political perspectives in real space. Performing on the streets, in trains, malls, anywhere with high pedestrian traffic, the GPI literally gets in the public airspace that passersby might otherwise ignore. The Guerrilla Poetry Insurgency model can be manifested anywhere (see our Lyrical Ambush Recipe), and we plan to support any artists seeking to start a new dialogue and create a new world wielding words instead of weapons.

WHAT DO WE DO? The GPI’s signature action is a bi-monthly “Lyrical Ambush” in Washington DC’s Dupont Circle every first and third Monday at 7:00pm. We blur the line between audience and performer, welcoming everyone to linger and participate. We use art to explore themes such as racism, social justice, war vs. peace, corporate domination vs. meaningful democracy, the “war on drugs” and the misuse of fear to degrade civil liberties, and whatever you or your kids bring to the mic. Ambushes include whoever shows up to listen and share their truth. GPI actions are community-building events.

Performing as requested, the GPI serves the broader activist community by bringing talented artists, DJs, drummers and poets to organizations in need of fundraising entertainment for their events and rallies. We also conduct workshops in the community and at local schools; visit universities; and perform in public spaces both in DC and around the East Coast. The GPI has conducted workshops at conferences including the National Conference on Organized Resistance and the American Studies Association Annual Meeting, as well as on campuses including Wells College and Woodrow Wilson High School, among others.

Like any insurgency, the GPI is more a loose and flexible network than a formal organization. Public events often consist of picking a time and place to create a varied and diverse artistic result composed of whoever shows up. Bi-weekly organizing gatherings are a forum to share information on various projects and help individuals create their own projects and shows. There is no “approval” structure, as individuals are empowered to envision actions and make them a reality by garnering the support of both core members of the GPI and an expanding network of artists. Recently, GPI assisted a high school peace initiative needing trainers on a wide range of subjects by compiling a contact sheet including over 30 organizers throughout the city.

Anarchist Novel — Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

Anarchist novels, part 1: The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

    Platypus Bill

What is an anarchist novel? Even if we include those that merely feature an anarchist main character, or an anarchist mode of thought, the list is fairly short. Caleb Williams by William Godwin, penned some two-hundred years ago might qualify as the first case in point. The Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy is also often mentioned. Then there are several modern examples, especially within the genre of cyberpunk. However, if we limit the definition to stories that describe an anarchic society, the list shrinks down considerably. I can only think of two examples: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, and The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. And since Le Guin considers her book to be the first to deal with the topic of an anarchist society [reference required], I can only assume that she would opt for an even shorter list. Or maybe she excludes The Moon on the grounds that it describes an anarchist revolution, that once it has succeeded in overthrowing the old guards, quickly adopts a parliamentary system.

The Dispossessed is certainly the only novel I know of that deals extensively with the structure and functioning of an anarchic society.

Tropetopia X — I Mean What I Say

You know how some people say something that says something they haven’t said? They speak indirect to communicate. I’m not one of those people. I mean what I say.Other people say, “It sure is a hot day today…” then swallow hard when they are at your place and you’ve forgotten to offer them something to drink.

Continue reading Tropetopia X — I Mean What I Say

No Go for Iraq War Play and Novel — “agents love it” but…

 By Peggy Tibbetts

The problem is, I can’t get an agent to take it on. One agent loved the story but didn’t think he could find a publisher for it. Another agent said she was riveted and couldn’t put it down but she declined. Agent after agent praises it, then passes. An editor compared it to Syriana, then said he was looking for a story about a female soldier but not necessarily about the war.

Oh, God forbid we should talk about the war with the kids.

I never understood his Syriana reference. I wrote the novel before the movie came out. I saw the movie and there’s no female soldier character in it. He also said it was complex so maybe that’s what he meant. So, yeah, war is like that. Complex. As in, not all black and white.

Discouraging? Yup. But also disturbing. So I’ve been wondering lately. Is it possible the Iraq War is taboo for teens?

Apparently it’s perfectly ok to recruit teens into military service to fight the war but it’s not ok for them to understand and explore their feelings about the war. Or in the case of my novel, to read about the war. For me, the situation in Connecticut really points to that.

Are educators and the media (publishers) shielding young people from the realities of this war? I think so. In the case of PFC Liberty Stryker, it isn’t about whether or not it’s a good story. It is. It’s that publishers aren’t publishing stories about the Iraq War for teens.

Yet they are of enlistment age and many have parents serving in this war, so why not? I don’t understand.

Now in Connecticut, the high school principal doesn’t want students performing their interpretation of the war through (a mostly female cast!) soldiers’ eyes.

Shakespeare and War, by Robert Fisk

From Counterpunch 

My own experience of war has changed my feelings towards many of Shakespeare’s characters. The good guys in Shakespeare’s plays have become ever less attractive, ever more portentous, ever more sinister as the years go by. Henry V seems more than ever a butcher. “Now, herald, are the dead number’d?” he asks.

“This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead / One hundred twenty six: added to these
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred…”

Henry is doing “body counts”. When the herald presents another list–this time of the English dead, Henry reads off the names of Edward, Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Kikely, Davy Gam, Esquire:

“None else of name: and, of all other men,
but five and twenty… O God, thy arm was here…
Was ever known so great and little loss,
On one part and on th’other?”

This is pure Gulf War Part One, when General Norman Schwarzkopf was gloating at the disparate casualty figures–while claiming, of course, that he was “not in the business of body counts”–while General Peter de la Billière was telling Britons to celebrate victory by ringing their church bells.

Shakespeare can still be used to remind ourselves of an earlier, “safer” (if nonexistent) world, a reassurance of our own ultimate survival. It was not by chance that Olivier’s Henry V was filmed during the Second World War. The Bastard’s final promise in King John is simple enough:

“Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them: nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.”

But the true believers–the Osamas and Bushes–probably lie outside the history plays. The mad King Lear–betrayed by two of his daughters just as bin Laden felt he was betrayed by the Saudi royal family when they rejected his offer to free Kuwait from Iraqi occupation without American military assistance–shouts that he will:

“…do such things,
What they are yet, I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!”

Lear, of course, was written in the immediate aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, a “terrorist” conspiracy with potential September 11 consequences.

…

Novels, Films, Comics

INTERVIEW WITH HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES

DAMAGE REPORT: VEITCH TALKS “ARMY@LOVE”
http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=10185 
   Jonah Weiland

300 seen as a tool to work up anti-Iran sentiment
   John Burke

The fatal flaw

So far, most imaginative portrayals of Tony Blair have been comedies, but would tragedy be more fitting? Blake Morrison considers the prime minister’s legacy in fiction as he approaches a decade in office

Tropetopia IX — The Pangloss Score I: The DemReps

There is nothing so important as inspirational uplift, for maintaining organizational effectiveness in this Terminate age, so I, Stan D. Garde, as Official DemRep Sloganeer, feel duty-bound to offer periodic Panglossian Top Twenty Lists – The Pangloss Score.

All hail Dr. Pangloss, who understood so well that we who do live in this world, do live in “the best of all possible worlds.”

The Pangloss Score I – The DemReps

Why the DemReps are the best of all possible political parties

Due to the wonders of electronica, it just so happens that any given vote for the DemReps may count repeatedly.

Conversely, any votes for anyone else may never show up at all.

Better the Devil you know!

Orwell said it best – The Party that controls the present, controls the past. The Party that controls the past, controls the future. The vote is in, is it not?

The Golden DemRep Rule – Do unto the DemReps, as you would have them do unto you.

The DemReps – Who else?

DemReps – The Party to die for.

DemReps R Us.

Choice is overrated.

Why not conform?

Inspired by the master policy planner Jonathan Swift, the DemReps come up with one great “Modest Proposal” after another.

The DemReps know money – yours especially.

No party is more considerate of the common person than the DemReps. Who better to lead us from our caves of ignorance to the true path of understanding? Perhaps Ambrose Bierce said it best, the DemReps are like “One with his hand in your pocket, his tongue in your ear and his faith in your patience.”

In the enlightened words of the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Jay – “Those who own the country ought to govern it.”

The DemReps are the best big money can buy.

In the DemReps we trust.

Nearly a thousand US military installations in far more than a hundred countries can’t be wrong.

Democracy is but a passing fad.

The DemReps know enough to use the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights proclamation document – both its individual rights side and its social rights side – as toilet paper.

No one hurls the war cries louder, no one “catapults the propaganda” better than the DemReps. They rule!

So we good loyal vendor-consumers should vote accordingly.

All hail Pangloss.

Praise be The Pangloss Score – as it was in the past, is now, and ever shall be, Panglossian world without end, Amen.

I believe, therefore I Pangloss.

Stan D. Garde here. Peace out.

(Down with Dimslow.)

Uniting the Movements — United States and World Social Forum

ZNet Commentary
Uniting the Movements: Atlanta, Ga. in Late June 
     Ted Glick

How will we bring about significant change in the USA? There are a number of things that need to happen, but one bottom-line, essential requirement is the coming together of a critical mass of organizers and activists into a grassroots-based, politically independent, popular and progressive network, alliance and/or party. Given what we are up against here in the belly of empire, it’s hard to see how we have any hope of change absent such a development.

Some of us got an idea of the impact such an alliance could have 20 years ago during the period from 1983 to 1989. During that time, because of the 1984 and 1988 Presidential campaigns of Rev. Jesse Jackson, a grassroots-based National Rainbow Coalition began to emerge. This African American-based and African American-led formation brought together leaders and groups from a mix of constituencies and movements-Latinos, labor, farmers, women, lesbian and gay people, peace activists, community groups and more. Between 1986 and 1988 it began to take root via local and state coalitions, developing as a progressive alternative to two-party politics-as-usual. It was a grouping which consciously linked activists operating in the Democratic Party with activists building independent organizational forms and parties, united behind a consistently progressive political program.

This type of a Rainbow Coalition movement no longer exists, but there is an important initiative underway that has the potential to advance a different kind of unity- and alliance-building process across lines of race, culture, issue and geographic region, a process that we desperately need: the United States Social Forum, happening in Atlanta, Ga. June 27 to July 1.

Organizing toward this event was initiated by Grassroots Global Justice, an alliance of over 50 grassroots organizations representing people of color and low-income communities in the U.S. Over the last couple of years it has been putting the pieces in place to make this major event possible.

World Social Forum Origins

It is significant that the US Social Forum is emerging out of many years of World Social Forums that have been happening in countries of the Global South. Originally begun in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2001, the first World Social Forum (WSF) was organized as an alternative to the world ruling elite’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The second and third WSF’s were held in Porto Alegre, the fourth one in Mumbai, India and the fifth one back in Porto Alegre. Beginning with 12,000 people in 2001, it grew to 155,000 registered participants in 2005. The sixth World Social Forum was “polycentric,” held in January 2006 in Caracas, Venezuela and Bamako, Mali, and in March 2006, in Karachi, Pakistan. The Forum in Pakistan was delayed to March because of the Kashmir earthquake that had recently occurred in the area. Earlier this year, in late January, the seventh WSF was held in Nairobi, Kenya, attended by 60,000 people. There have also been regional and national social forums in Europe, Asia, the Mediterranean, Italy and, in the USA, in Boston, the Southeast, the Midwest, the Southwest and just recently in Washington, D.C.

This first national social forum in the USA is coming at a particularly auspicious time. Bush, Cheney and the Republicans are on the defensive, struggling to maintain support for their agenda of wars and occupations for oil and empire abroad and, at home, the destruction of basic Constitutional rights and cutbacks to education, healthcare, Social Security and other human needs. Yet there is also widespread, popular dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party and with corporate, big money domination of both major political parties. Jerome Scott and Walda Katz-Fishman, leaders of Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty and Genocide, a key group within the leadership of the US Social Forum process, recently summarized its importance in this way:

“The social forum process was initiated by social movements of oppressed and exploited peoples in the Global South; and no one group in the U.S. ‘owns it.’ Second, the social forum is being brought home to the U.S. by grassroots organizations-with people of color and low-income led organizations in the leadership. Third, the social forum is a convergence process of all our fronts of struggle; it is multi-issue and multi-sector, and inclusive of all who are struggling for justice, equality and peace. Fourth, the social forum is a space where a broad range of political analysis is welcomed-from progressive to revolutionary.

“This is why the US Social Forum is the place to be this summer if you are a movement builder, if you have a vision of another world, if you want to make it happen!”

Let’s make it happen. See you in Atlanta!

(For more information and to register, go to http://www.ussf2007.org)

Ted Glick is a founder and is active with the Climate Crisis Coalition and the Independent Progressive Politics Network. His over seven years of Future Hope columns is archived at http://www.ippn.org. He can be reached at indpol@igc.org.

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Tropetopia VIII — Epic of Epics

If this American Campaign Journal, Tropetopia – more realistically titled, Global Campaign Journal – were anything more than a humble vessel of the popular will (the good loyal vendor-consumer will, of course) then I would be forced to point out that my notes here form the makings of an epic that easily has the potential to reveal more and far surpass in all elements any and all great works heretofore, including any and all works of the imagination and of fact – such as all epics of poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, sociology, theory, religion, science, and any sort of literature whatsoever, the novel, not least.

I would be forced to state that Tropetopia is sort of a history of histories, a philosophy of philosophies, a religion of religions, a theory of theories, a science of sciences, a novel of novels – a literature of literatures.

But – since Tropetopia is merely a modest old campaign journal, I can admit to nothing of the kind, however true it may be.

Tropetopia VII — The Curse of the Dumblicans and the Repugnocrats

All right, damn it. All to the Right.

Time to face facts. That’s what I do. That’s my role. I look the nasty facts in the face to keep all us loyal DemRep Vendor-Consumers one step ahead of reality.

I read all the polls and then I redesign them and I poll the more. No matter how heinous – it is my job to confront reality.

Here’s reality –

95 percent of VC admit to calling the DemReps by either the old slur of Dumblican or Repugnocrat at least once during the previous year.

These curse words are what have got to stop.

98.5 percent of VC polled admit (meaning the number is probably far higher) to calling, or at least thinking, of the DemReps as the DamnRips (short for Damned Ripoffs) – or some version thereof (i.e., DumbRips, DimRips, DipRips, DopeRips, etc).

These are absolutely libelous names and appalling numbers, as any good VC should know.

This shows that we good VC are far from fully consuming and internalizing the best in Terminate DemRep Sloganeering offered today – at least on any consistent basis – periodic triumphs of TDR sloganeering aside.

As Official Terminate DemRep Sloganeer, I intend to fully correct this abysmal situation.

The corrections shall heretofore commence, in public and private both.

It begins with you – each and every loyal and faithful Vender-Consumer alive today. You must internalize each and every slogan that is good for you and your country and world. You must buy in and not opt out. You must produce on a regular basis your own such slogans and carry them on, pass them out, and not pass them by.

We good VC produce and consume many important wonders these days – including a dizzying variety of electronica, foodstuffs, and subsistence gear – but nothing so vital as our daily nutritious assortment of slogans by which and only by which (brute force excepted) our great age may profit and thrive.

I urge you then, and now, good VC of the world, go forth and slogan, as will I – in proper VC fashion and style — the most profound, the most fitting, the most rewarding way known…

…the most constructive, the most benevolent, the most efficient, the most democratic — you get it — way of life known to humankind.