Reversable rhetoric

One million jobs project aimed at the unemployed OR Fornication of simulation and populist pander

            Promises for help are merely facades for legislation geared towards corporate assistance. Socialism for large corporations is perpetrated as a belief of continual subsidies that runs parallel to incremental restoration of tribal eminence. This reality of gradual reactionary change ramifies a societal consciousness that willfully accepts citizenry rights rescinded at the hands of a silent minority. The foundation of the “coup d’état in slow motion” is a national paradigm beholden to corporate capitalism, perpetuating a wrench of power from lower order economies to be firmly placed within the hands of an elite social standing. Residence of the tier above any nominal “upper-middle class” not only compete for those positions that grant access to control platforms of business, but those who participate in such a climb do so ultimately to serve as sovereign over a niche of the national power structure.

            Our perception of a “dog-eat-dog world” may be abstracted to a person endowed with the ability of generating and engaging in the creation and flow of power. A strange yet familiar alchemy will quickly elevate such a person, as a celebrity suddenly appears in the mass media, to a figurehead representing some camp of invested interests, people looking to make money as quickly and inexpensively as possible. The fusion of consumer society with the national fortitude of political and military power finds a flat-topped pyramid; a broad base of exploited citizenry, who mostly squabble over orchestrated forms of reality, exemplifies the structure of an exclusively material Superpower. A question begging to be asked, perhaps out of stubborn habit, would ponder the potential influence powerful family dynasties would have in managing the ebb and flow of powers that guide a globalized money exchange, as well as administering and securing a preferred global finance paradigm.

            Sociopaths wind through the routine of a 9–5 wager; as a reward for persistence and dedication, the loyalist will grow to be rich. This moral wager stands to victimize the loyalist, establishing an exploitative ethic: an honest day’s work will force you to become targeted as a sap devoid of the capacity for the carnival swindle. For example: the warm bond of neighbors when the trumpets blare, “WE ARE GOING TO WAR!” None of us are prone from the poison of violence. Unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force, a revolution of meaning, to regulate the overturn of value. Repetition of reality.  Cannibalism.  Mountain top removal, emplaced moonscape. Destroy this planet, move onto the next.  Virus, consumption, mimicry, exponential growth, treason of intellectuals. We cannot take power, we must renounce power.  

The Conquest of America

In August, 1949, American poet Archibald MacLeish had an essay published in The Atlantic that reminded readers of the true revolutionary force in the world, one that had sprung up in the late eighteenth century and grown much for over more than a century in the United States of America. MacLeish was the US representative at the foundation of UNESCO, as well as the inaugural holder of Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs before coming under fire by J. Edgar Hoover and Joseph McCarthy for his former association with left-wing writers and organizations. The essay, entitled The Conquest of America, warned about the denial of the true crisis — of shifts in civilization and culture — in favor of a fear-driven crisis, which was but one consequence of the cultural shift of community-based life to an envisioned liberation of the individual as participant in a new kind of democracy anchored by the Constitution of the Republic.

Never in the history of the world was one people as completely dominated, intellectually and morally, by another as the people of the United States by the people of Russia in the four years from 1946 through 1949. American foreign policy was a mirror image of Russian foreign policy: whatever the Russians did, we did in reverse. American domestic politics were conducted under a kind of upside-down Russian veto: no man could be elected to public office unless he was on record as detesting the Russians, and no proposal could be enacted, from a peace plan at one end to a military budget at the other, unless it could be demonstrated that the Russians wouldn't like it. American political controversy was controversy sung to the Russian tune; left-wing movements attacked right-wing movements not on American issues but on Russian issues, and right-wing movements replied with the same arguments turned round about.

All this took place not in a time of national weakness or decay but precisely at the moment when the United States, having engineered a tremendous triumph and fought its way to a brilliant victory in the greatest of all wars, had reached the highest point of world power ever achieved by a single state.

Communism is not a force which moves with that [revolutionary] current. On the contrary, Communism, like its authoritarian rivals, seeks to cure the sickness of the condition of man by turning back against the current of human evolution, to that decaying city of hierarchical and disciplined order in which mankind, at certain sacrifices of manhood, may find seclusion and retreat.

The one force which can claim the revolutionary title in the world we live in [...] is the force that Jefferson put into words. But though the hope has been betrayed and forgotten in one generation and another, the living seed remains: the seed remains and grows. It is this seed, this influence, this force, this force of revolution, which is the living thing in the Republic. Without it, the United States is so much land, so many people, such an accumulation of wealth. With it the United States is a stage upon the journey of mankind.

The Atlantic; vol. 184, no. 2; pp. 17-22.

Anemic Attitude

How much is this?

Um, I think that one is $30.

Oh my God . . . I've bought something like this, SOOOOO many times in the past.

Oh, huh huh huh.

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Lately, I've been mindful of my habits. I've greeted ritual with the same rigorous adroitness the demure Agent Moulder employs in the Pacific Northwest when facing unexplained phenomena: frantic research; sleepy-eyed rumination; lack of dossier; advocate of brevity; unorthodox trust and compassion with the locals; arriving just at the last moment to catch a glimpse of the paranormal/supernatural. In the end, I lose sight, and find myself returned to the beginning.

I try to be creative as I approach my ritualized day, searching for alternatives instead of relying on convention. I find myself, just as concerns of aliens or werewolves — ghastly anomalies — often elude our progress-driven culture, without total appreciation for commitment to an alternative. I catch a glimpse, the feeling dissipates, and I am done. I recognize the ritual, and then cannibalize it for spare parts to fashion a new reality. The ritual of my daily habits is incorporated into the virtual language of an altered environment. The ritual is broken, and I unload the stress of completing that ritual through the play of new permutations sourced from an exceedingly ambiguous provenance. Hapless repetition of behavior, schemes of procrastination, falling head first into a pile of dirty laundry — I am consumed from inside only to be regurgitated out onto the world. Less an implosion of the soul than vacuumed spirit. Too much salt, sugar, fat, grease, alcohol, smoke, negligence, body odor, matted hair, anemic attitude.

Into oblivion, obliterated and obtuse, witness the apotheosis of consumption. I refuse to believe in such worship of devalued signs, though ironically, perhaps this is a sign of the times; emotional refusal in tandem with willful participation. Compulsory without force, for the tether extends from deep inside the machine of society into us all. I do not fight systematic participation, only dread the day when I no longer have the comforts of forced recreation. My muscle become inflamed with tension; I am pained by the dead things consumed hours earlier. Yet I am convinced things are normal, and I have plenty of time to wait for an epiphany. Burgess Meredith haunts an opium den, as I haunt a neglected present.

Buying beer in Binghamton

The night would evolve from kosher marshmallows to four hours of poker.

I’d found my pace with battling hunger pains, when a homemade marshmallow was offered to me. The sticky morsel was dense and flavorful, light woodiness mixed between the gelatinous sweet tanginess. A surprise diner followed before I had to jet-out and meet the crew.

Parked in the lot behind where the shooting occurred. Binghamton has many oversized parking lots with many empty spaces. Whoever built these huge parking lots certainly didn't foresee the sparse population density of this city. Not once have there ever been enough cars to fill every space. Free parking is a perk during depression.

Shortly after embracing the warmth in the evening air, I walked down to the local supermarket to pick-up beer. What beer, any beer? No, the need for legit libations was in order. Smack me across the head if I ever buy Coors Light in your presence, reader. Soon, I had found my bottle of dubbel from Ommegang. Drink slow and proud.

I was waiting in line behind two women, one with a young daughter no more than ten years olds. She was fidgeting with magazines, picking up crossword puzzles and trying to solve them, placing them in front of Elle magazines while frantically twirling her hair in curls. She took a short look at me. I smile as politely as I can at the moment, but she just stares straight into my eyes. It’s amazing how certain small children can give you such strong penetrating looks. I wind up glancing away for a second, only to return my eyes to her restlessness.

After a few seconds of humming, the girl starts to do a little jig: a circular dance. The mother, who is having problems with some plastic card, looks at her and tells her to cool out. The other woman is just beside the mother, leaning impatiently on a 12-pack of Genny cream ale. Plastic cards come with PINs and this card is being persnickety.

The short interval of daydreaming was interrupted by the girl, who was now jumping up and down beside the Time magazines. The cover was that of Time’s covers for 2008.
“Barack Obama! Barack Obama! Momma, Barack Obama! Look look look!”
In her excitement, the girl knocked over some chocolate bars on the shelf just beside her. The other woman was now looking at me, smiling embarrassingly.
“It’s Barack Obama momma! Look! It’s Barack Obama!”
The mother responded, “Ok honey, let’s stop now. I see, I see.”
“It’s Barack Obama!”
Other people were now laughing and smiling. The picture of Obama is small amongst the collection of other Time Magazine covers. It’s a copy of a copy, a facsimile of the most important face of the dawn of the new millennium; the girl has no prejudice for tiny pixels.

So I say brand your figureheads as small as you want. You can grow bigger than them.

Third landing demonstrator

I witnessed a mouse with a small sign in front of my apartment door pacing back and forth. It's a typical lateral formation just in front of the threshold of my front door. He's demonstrating general dissent inside apartment buldings built before 1900. These buildings lack the glitter and glam of luxury condominiums in highrises over looking the Lower East Side (they don't exist, not yet). I know these mice are from Long Island. I know they like to drink $7 smirnoff ice's and/or $12 banana daiquiris. Much to my chagrin, I can never invite them in and charge them for a cheaper daiquiri, since I've been off the rum for a bit now. I wouldn't even have spare vodka to offer, and I will not insult anyone with Mr. Boston 100 proof vitriol. No, my liquor cabinet is clean. I could offer some high-dose oxycotin, but then again I'm not going to let on just how many downers I'm taking per day. Also, I don't want a drugged up mouse to OD in my living room. With growing contempt for myself, I yell, "FUCK YOU, DIX HILL CUNTS!" as I try to hide my failed attempt at sensationalizing vermin demonstrators. The mouse ran off, things neutralized. Let them run away. Go visit your upper crust hosts on the 23rd floor. I've hung a piece of white paper, scrawled with a simple message for them:

Deprived

Freely accepting the remnants of coldness that blow from a northern latitude. Days have been unusually clear up until this past one. I have the urge to remain awake at all times. The brain's active and not affording me snooze time. A long bike ride is calling me.
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The dimple on the wall ... it must have been the sambuca/vodka shooters.

a mother rat had given birth to a small litter the week prior. There were tiny squeeks three nights in a row. M*A*S*H was on, Alan Alda was hatching some schtick to woo his secret admirer who'd sent him a love letter. It was past 2 AM and a sleep-deprived trance had set in. The TV began pushing itself away from me, it seemed tens of meters away. The image on the screen never fuzzed-out, my eyes focused on Hawkeye beginning to sound more and more like Groucho Marx. My eyes slowly move downwards, glazing over my stomach and chest. I saw little people mingling on a stretched out plain that was my gray shirt. They were feeling around my chest for a something, the glow of the TV illuminating their search.

My hands were now larger, vibrating gloves without motion. I couldn't see the ceiling. My perspective had now panned out, yet I looked at the screen and it was larger now. Jamie Farr was now on, clad in a sundress. His skin was tanned and oily. I marveled at his large schnoz. It matched his smile so well. His face filled up the screen without any problems. I couldn't tell what he was saying, but I knew when to laugh.

Hawkeye now had wine, waiting for his mystery admirer. Like a gray matchbox car bolting across the floor under the screen, the hypnotist snapped his fingers. Bolt up, stars etched onto my eyes. Walk two steps, see a tail. "WHAAAAA SHIT!" Like a hobbling hobo reaching for a machete, the small little league bat that was always in the same corner. The gray-tailed admirer was fast. It dodged a Nike, then the large textbook (was it Chemistry?) before flying under my legs. Straddling back and to the side, trying to wake up, hearing the laugh track in the background, the grayness now making its way under the desk. The computer was still on. You cannot escape through cyberspace.

I see this rodent cowering in a corner. It's young, without a mother. It cannot understand its fate. It is a foreigner, inferior. I wield power over it. Now i see the cardboard lid of a box. I take the bat and push the lid closer to the cowering grayness. It now is trying to climb up under the desk. I hesitate for a three seconds, before slamming the lid against the gray fur with the bat only one time. Rodent-cardboard-wood.

Skull. No movement. Remain squating, then fall on my knees, gradually slumping downwards and forwards towards the rodent. no laugh track, no cross-dressing, no admirer.

sambuca and luksusowa with one ice-cube x ~30. the dimpled-wall, that's lamenting the admirer. i hit it straight, open palm, wrist tilted 65º left of the normal. Spackling is cheap.

Bon voyage Olympus

This was the last photo I took with the old Olympus CAMEDIA C-5000 Zoom, an all-around handy point-and-shoot. It was taken in the late afternoon on 12 Dec. while driving west on NY-17, just before the turn-off for Rt. 201. The 5000 equals the whopping 5 megapixels of the camera. even with poor lighting, I enjoy the silhouettes of the lamppost and power lines set against a typical cloudy day in Binghamton.

The red eucalyptus leaves is the first photo I took on the Canon SX-10 IS. Since getting it, I've already missed tons of great opportunities to test the settings out. Reading reviews of it, and ignoring the quibbles from the hoards of camera geeks, I'm very happy with what it offers and the clarity of the zoom. The only better sensor out there would be on a DSLR, and I am no where near that affluent (yet) to afford one. I'm hoping to hone my compositional technique on this camera before venturing into the blue horizon of DSLRs anyways. I look back at my old Canon Rebel 35mm-film camera and memories of the photography class I took in high school return. And there is always the WWW to offer a nice review of what I should already know.

Break from work binge

I've been slaving away at completing this thesis, now a task that seems to be driving me insane. It is probably just the environment in Binghamton, both the city itself and the department of geosciences that has fucked me over, but I've grown very disenchanted with academia, a field that until very recently I had no doubt of making some sort of career in. I keep telling myself that after I finish this piece of esoteric literature, I can continue onwards to a more meaningful study with a more diligent, attentive advisor whom I already have developed an excellent rapport with. Then I find myself predicting the future way too much. I envision myself in 5 or 6 years in a light I don't necessarily want to live in. This is a detriment to my present work. I sometimes hate myself for it.

I've been drinking too much (coffee) and smoking too much (tobacco) and I haven't been taking pictures, writing prose or sketching any emotions onto paper, nor have I been reading the many books that I begin only to lay on the shelf and ignore. If I cannot accept this lifestyle, then why continue?

I feel like I've been lying to myself. I vacillate endlessly.

Autumn cleaning

Deterring rain, a mentor who renigs, revealing documentaries and tantric lessons. Humidity lingers in the middle of September. I'm trying to ignore the negative premonitions.

Robservation (after Potomac hike)

The black'n'blue below the knee on the right leg has a diameter of 3.5 cm.

Re: observation

there is a crude caricature of Peter Knueffer to the left of the left urinal inside the first floor mens restroom, Science 1.

From here...

final touches

i finished all my requisites, yet i still can't sleep. i'm truly without any schedule. i live until i can no longer stand, then i collapse and wait to wake-up. i fear that the mountain will fall hard, or i can ride the avalanche made of the talus which i built. things do become clear with time.


i suddenly remember walking along Bleeker and going into Porto Rico to buy tea. i think of the tea she would like, but i cannot answer. i just look at the clerk fill each bag from innards of the urns. i buy too much tea, and only one small bag of coffee, an order that was placed to many hours ago for me to remember exactly what roast, what bean, the amount to get. i hope i have enough money. i'm left with $4.68. not enough to get anything decent to drink. i had only 2 smokes left. i give some people a call. no one answers. i walk around, as i usually due, summer, winter, autumn, spring, dusk, rarely dawn, in a hurry, without haste, meander, incise a path to no destination. i think of the circles i've walked in, search every corner, being fond of some places yet forgetting why exactly. I will eventually sit anywhere i choose that seems welcoming, or have a certain ambience i am particularly fond of. i sit and wait for my thoughts to flocullate, to gather around a single point and build. i will eventually dry out in laughter, or laugh at my own misfortune.

i miss looking for public benches no one sits in anymore. i like putting the old commodities and services we've taken for granted to use. old letter shoots i buildings sadden me. light fixures with push-buttons. old library cards with DUE DATE written on top. the seems past forgets itself.

flooding

major flooding in june (main drainage channels)

major flooding in mid november (tributaries to main channels)

minor flooding late november (week prior to freezing temperatures (small tributaries and creeks)

little sleep for the for stalled papers.

wish to just lie down and never get up again.

lost the hunger, slept for 13 hours. lost time, found a drive for keeping.