A lot of people in the USA these days are going broke. It hardly matters if you have a G.E.D. or a Master’s degree. Unemployment is creeping through the populace like a billion-fingered thief. The number of people on food stamps in the USA today is unprecedented, and what’s left of our national safety net after Clinton and Bush took their turns hacking it apart is a threadbare mess with holes in it the size an entire city block can fit through without sucking in its belly.

More people were living in poverty in 2010, according to the census, than in all the time the census has been collecting data. People are dying from untreated dental problems, laws are appearing left and right that penalize the homeless and the poor, prisons are profiting, a dull rage is building, and the bottom line is a lot of people—far too many—are poor and getting poorer.

The kicker is that it won’t be getting better any time soon. The unemployment rate is predicted to continue to grow, well into 2014.

All of this is very bad news, indeed.

THE LAND OF HAND TO MOUTH

It’s an unhappy scene, poverty. And we’re not talking about the presence or absence of one or two niceties. The low, low place that living hand to mouth can bring you is much more complex and all-encompassing than not being able to afford one or two top shelf amenities that might make life a bit more enjoyable when you’re out there grinding away.

For most of my life I’ve been like most of the world, I guess—getting by without a whole lot of money. Sometimes it’s been real bad. Sometimes it’s been average. And sometimes, for a minute, life’s been pretty comfortable. The truth is, though, that those comfortable times have been pretty short lived. And even then, my standard of comparison is one you’d find in a person who grew up in a poor family.

What do I mean by “poor”? I mean at our worst we were homeless and cooking food in a campfire, or living in a house with buckets for toilets. And at our best, we were trying hard to fit into the suburban middle class, but still accepting bags of hand me downs from other families. By poor, I mean the regular presence of bargain brands; I mean the type of life where you grow up always thinking about how much things cost, and how you don’t have enough to do A, B, or C; and mostly, I mean the type of deeply-seeded awareness where poverty is a way of your thinking and acting. I’m not proud of this, and I don’t think it necessarily makes a person deep or interesting. It’s just how I grew up.

Even through all of that, there was the sense that you could escape it. Maybe. One day. Going to bed hungry means you and your little brother would meet up and sneak food from the fridge after everyone else was asleep. But even on nights you couldn’t quell the hunger that was so much deeper than stomach pangs, you imagined that if you were talented enough and motivated enough, you would be plucked out of such fates and arrive in the Land of Where You Have Always Belonged; that there was a golden cot with your name on it, just waiting for you to show your mettle. After all, woven deeply into the American consciousness are a few narratives. One of them is the Rags to Riches myth; essentially the Conservative notion of Bootstrap. The myth that we live in a land of abundant opportunity, and in which no matter what your meager beginnings, if you stick it out, there is gold enough to go around.

I guess we all buy into that in this place. But recent times have put a harsh dent into those kinds of ideas.

THE VERY AVERAGE AND SUDDENLY ELUSIVE LIFE

For a short time in Manhattan, when I was 30 and working in publishing, I was bringing home a very, very average paycheck, but it was a salary. It was not minimum wage. It was not Freelance. It was pretty okay. What helped a lot was that I was living with a woman who was also making a modest salary. Those days of combining our paychecks were the most comfortable of my life. I actually had money every check that I could do something with. Go out, buy clothes, buy gifts, save…live. Absent, finally, was the constant fear and shame and worry and self-loathing that can potentially accompany a lower income lifestyle in such a nation as the USA.

Again, mind you—in the scheme of things, our income was pretty average. A cousin of mine (our families went quite different directions) was making more all by herself and living on the Upper East Side of Manhattan before she was out of her 20s. Yet, that kind of “pretty average” to a lot of people out there is the Good Life. And the number of those people is growing every day.

That’s an important part of what I’m writing here. That must always be considered: the context of our culture. After all, poverty is a relative standard. Relative to what others have, to what is required to do or acquire certain things; relative to how others see poverty; relative to what means there are to live and survive without having lots of currency. And in a nation like the USA—where (increasingly) the rhetoric and value system is one that demonizes the poor; worships the affluent and the always-in-style; and penalizes with a severity that increases directly inversely proportionate to the wealth one commands—it is very hard to be poor.

For the past few years it’s been hard for a lot of people. I’ve been one of them. It’s been hard not only because, well, it’s hard to live in the emotional and practical reality of poverty, but because the idea that you can lift yourself out of it is in danger of extinction. That notion that if you get a degree, or work hard (or both); that if you are talented and ambitious, then it’s only a matter of time before you are  living comfortably—is suffering some heavy blows. When you are a child, you vow to “make it,” and you hold on because you know anything is possible. And then you get into your 20s, or 30s, you rack up some serious student loan debt—if you are lucky enough to go to college—and you work toward that dream.

Time stretches on….and on….and on….and nothing gets better. And what if things get worse?

I’m taking the time to write this post because I think it’s important to keep track of the experience I’ve been having. Not because I think it makes me very special to have been here. It’s just the opposite. It’s an important story because so many of us are living it right now. And the truth is, it’s an uncomfortable piece of writing that’s taken a handful of sittings over the course of a week. It’s a story I’d rather put behind me (but of course!), full of experiences I’d rather forget. (Wouldn’t we all!) It’s a reality you don’t want to sit in a second longer than you are forced to. But we need to be aware of where our fellow human beings are, and what they are feeling. Even if we are lucky enough to be living a different fate. Because our individual moments of good fortune do nothing to affect the fate of millions, or create big enough shifts to change systemic wrongs.

And when you are beset by these wrongs…well, you barely admit to yourself, let alone anyone else. When you’re in the thick of it, you don’t stop too long to marvel at the misery of it. That’s not sensible. You do what you have to do. From moment to moment, and from day to day. That’s what we do, right? That’s all there is to do. You try not to become so weary that you think of giving up as more comfortable than continuing to fight. But mostly, you keep your eyes focused on the next step, and you don’t give yourself time to wallow. You’d become mired.

I feel like I’m at a place where I can take a breath. After a long, thin, period, I’ve found a way to bring income home again. I dare to hope things might change, finally. And yet, I hesitate to tell this tale; to spin out all the moments and feelings and thoughts, and the reality of poverty. Why? Why is that?

THE WORST KEPT SECRET

Because you want to keep poverty a secret. as glaring and obvious is the global wreckage and domestic corrosion of economic inequality and violence, we still want to keep it quiet when it affects us. Which is, of course, very convenient to those who benefit the most from the (global) fallout. When what needs to happen is a great anger arise from the realities of injustice and imbalance so many are living, instead we hush up.

And we hush up for myriad reasons. Men are told that women will write us off if we don’t have cash at the ready. And many will. But that is not limited to women. Sure, there are engrained ideas about what MEN and WOMEN need to bring to the party to be viable mates. And many buy into those. But not all.

No, I think the factors are bigger than that in a capitalist system. Here, poverty feels like a rot. You can see and smell it from down the block. In a capitalist system, we perceive poverty as if infectious. Poverty pulses with a neediness that threatens to absorb your own power. When you are not poor, you will very probably feel confronted by it. Threatened by it. Powerless in the face of it. Without thinking, you back away. And in backing away, further isolate people who are extremely isolated already. All around them is a bustling, shouting, barking, neon cash machine that spins some people in big circles and drives them around like a roller-coaster, while for others, the machine does nothing but pollute the air and water and food supply; keep them up all night; and steal their friends, peace of mind, and children.

So, as much as possible, you  keep your troubles to yourself when you are suffering with lack. They are your troubles, after all! You eat bitter, as the Chinese say. No need to advertise your struggle. You tell yourself you are building character. Or…whatever you have to tell yourself to keep going.

Artists, entrepreneurs, and the self-promoting learn in many places that success! breeds! success! and it’s best not to disclose anything but the good news about your product and your company or your practice. Feed that positive buzz. I have spent a lot of time as a freelance artist, and this was one I grappled with. Social media circles make the conflict clear. These are both your friends and clients (and potential clients). I needed to tell the truth of my situation, but at almost every turn, I was pressured to keep quiet about it. Not by people saying hush…but by my own feelings, and the realities of living in this culture, and the realities of being a self-employed artist. Why would people bring their projects to me if I am going broke? They will look at one artist who is not broke and then, they will look at me, and then, they will think what capitalism has taught them to think: He clearly is no good at what he is doing. They will invest poverty (or wealth) with a moral value. As we all do. There will be no time to consider other factors that might be in play. They will simply walk their business over to the happy, bustling joint. And thus, the problem compounds.

In one of the more revealing moments I had with an artist friend who constantly preached authenticity and never editing who you were as an artist and person when you present yourself to the audience, I was told that this was the reason they never spoke about their own looming and constant money worries: It just wasn’t smart as a business consideration. Which makes sense! A practical sense. I can’t blame them for that, in the end. I personally couldn’t keep so quiet about things so pressing in my life, but then again, I’m a different sort of artist. I happen to be better at telling or showing you what I see and how I feel, than I am at running a storefront.

But that’s how strongly we are indoctrinated with this social rule. We are taught that be you woman or man, businessperson or otherwise, you just don’t let it be known too much when you are struggling with money. It doesn’t make you look able, strong, or cool. It makes you look like a failure (nevermind that at least 15% of the nation is “failing” as well!) You will make others uncomfortable. There’s that sense of jinx or magical vibes to the admonition: By concentrating and admitting the desperateness of the situation, you will perpetuate the momentum of your bad luck, and so shhhhh Fake it Til Ya Make It!

And again, in a nation like the USA, the fault lines and division are very clear. And not much room for gray.

The isolation this pushes you into is painful. When you are down and out, the last thing you need is isolation. You need community. You need help. You need a shoulder, an ear, another human to remind you that you are not contagious, or catastrophic. And that your problems don’t make you a bad person, but that they are part of a larger network of faultlines. And that you are not alone.

A GROWING LACK OF POWER

The notion that you don’t have enough, that you cannot do this or that—whether it is wash the clothes, buy the children new shoes, replace a candle, replace clothes, replace the batteries in a TV remote, or come along when friends go out to the bar or the bowling alley—is a disempowering one. And all in all, that is what being poor equals. A lack of power. A lack of power needed to affect your own destiny.

Sure, the lack is not absolute. You are a human being, even in the USA! You can still wield power. You can fight against the imbalance and the obstacles. You can be ingenious, and motivated, and entrepreneurial. You don’t have to let the baby stick paperclips or her fingers into electric outlets, you can whittle plugs from wood, if you can’t afford to buy them. You can wash clothes by hand with dish detergent. You can substitute water for milk in a recipe, or grow as much of your own food as  you can manage. And you do do many of these things.

What’s harder to do is stop the triggered thoughts that rise in your mind every where you look in your home. Each unpainted patch, each glued cup, every taped up wire or dark lamp whispers to your unconscious mind: broken…no good…expired. And the thoughts accumulate, and become a clamor.

wish i had a…. i can’t fix it…. useless…. this doesn’t work…. used up… insufficient… dying… corroded… waste

CAUGHT IN A GROWING WEB OF ENTROPY

The thorny patch of emotions grows thicker. The feelings and thoughts that are a result of this life situation grow entangled with each other, and in time, you can no longer tell where they end and you begin. You actually forget that they are attached to circumstance; that misery is not, necessarily, life. You forget that these thoughts are not you. Because they do not stay contained, these seedlings of hardship. Insecurity caused by finances bleeds over to the rest of your self-image and emotional experience of life. You are insecure about your cash, and so you are insecure about your ability to keep up your house, or keep the refrigerator full; insecure about your ability to parent your children properly, or about your appearance, or about your ability to respond to any given event that might not be foreseen. This insecurity becomes part of your wardrobe, your eye contact, your body posture, your walk.

An insecurity that persists long enough becomes dread. And dread, anxiety, depression, shame, hopelessness, and anger are lively spirits in the land of Hand To Mouth.

These feelings are often touched on when people write about poverty, or unemployment. Rarely is the aura of entropy discussed. And to be poor means to be run through with the energy of entropy. All around you, everything is fading, failing, breaking, and turning to dust. Entropy is a fact of life, and this is the case always…but when you have disposable cash, you buy off that reality. You replace batteries. You buy a new toothbrush when the old one becomes smushed and worn out. When you break a tooth, you get a crown. You buy new lightbulbs when you need them, instead of juggling lights from room to room. You don’t wrap food in Rite-Aid bags to store them in the fridge, you use plastic wrap so you can see the food. You don’t keep using the same nasty old sponge in the sink; you buy a new one! Your shoes are clean and sharp and stylish, not worn out and floppy and faded. Your clothes, too. When you have regular income, and enough to pay more than rent, every day you put forth energy in the form of physical effort as well as currency and you rejuvenate your environment and you refresh your ability to operate and be mobile and effective in the material world.

But without that money, you see things breaking down right and left. You squeeze remote controls that don’t work. Pull doorknobs that don’t properly turn. Reappearing: a singing toy that sings too low, slow and draggy before stopping altogether. The ever present hand of entropy colors your overall perception of life and self.

Many of these things—utilities shut off, toys that can’t be used anymore, non-working lights—will lead to a discussion with your children that may be painful to you. A conversation that costs yet more energy because of how much effort it takes to repeat it over and over. A conversation that exacts an energetic toll because of how it breaks your heart each time. Maybe you lie to them about what the situation is at one time or another during the day because you don’t want them to also obsess about money or attribute everything painful in life to poverty. On one hand, you are glad that they will not take things for granted and understand that there is a cost to the comforts of life, but you don’t want them to be one like you: A child of lack who grew up with that all-pervading reality. Cheap brands. Knock-offs. Humiliation in school. Bag lunches. Inability to stay quiet on what something cost. Tendency to brag about how much your shoes cost. We can recognize each other, children of poverty. We know the signs. The desperation, the overvaluation of luxury, the ambition to never Be There Again. The ease with which we discuss money, crassly. The anxiety, the inability to save. Mostly, you don’t want your children to grow into adults who are invested with a powerless self-image.

Because no matter what you do, or how you decide to think of it, every way you turn, poverty is not just a lack of power, but a growing lack of power. And it is hard to fight because the power needed to counter poverty is basically an energy exchange in which the rate keeps you at a loss. That is, the time and energy you invest in whittling those socket plugs is going to cost you more than the investment you would have made simply by dropping 1.99 into a cashier’s hand. The wear on your body and peace of mind are not negligible as you scramble to bridge another gap, or pop a finger in a dam, or hold two ends together, or in some other way interject your body into an equation that is constantly crumbling.

A CHAIN REACTION OF LOSS

Poverty is alive, as if a virus. It grows exponentially. Poverty is a chain reaction of loss. There are so many ways to illustrate this. Here’s an obvious one: You don’t have money for a dental checkup, or cleaning. Your dental problems get worse. One day, when chewing, a filling falls out. The last thing you can afford is a trip to the dentist’s, so you do your best to brush that tooth a little more carefully. But of course, decay begins. And spreads. What would have been an easy filling when caught in time, soon turns into a black hole in your tooth that eats away more tooth the longer you don’t get it filled. You avoid it until a pain festers there, and grows more every day until it wracks your brain constantly, and soon you can’t sleep. Now, you either do a root canal with crown ($2000, roughly), or you have the tooth pulled (about $120). The tooth gets pulled, of course. You probably borrowed or hocked something to get even that $120, so there’s a little more debt and stress. And there goes the Kool Aid Smile you’ve been famous for since you were a child. There goes your self image. You smile less, embarrassed of the gaps in your smile. This affects how you interact with others. Which affects all those dealings and their outcome in some way. This little hole that crept into your tooth, too, creeps into your life. And grows.

Your glasses are broken. You don’t replace them. You can’t! You tape them together. You avoid wearing them. You can’t see. You stop talking to people who pass by on the street because you cannot see them without your glasses. Or your wear your contacts for far too long and cause irritation and infection to your eyes. You run out of saline too fast, so you store two contact lenses on one side of the holder, decreasing the effectiveness of the sterilizing solution. Sometimes you can’t afford saline/sterilizer at all, and you won’t wear the geeked out glasses with the tape on one side so you stroll down the street, nearly blind, keeping your eyes to the ground. Not smiling too wide, either! Remember.

Like bubbles of mercury on the ground—like that clamor of thoughts that your home life sends to you every day—these conditions begin to cluster and add to one another.

You wear things as many times as you can before they smell to cut down on costs of washing the clothes. You no longer buy the brands that are the most environmentally sound, or non-toxic. You do your best, but inevitably, your shampoos and soaps and deodorants simply become what you can afford. So your conscious will and personality and desires are less and less motivating your actions and you are becoming One Who Survives. Gone are the days of the shampoo in the cool bottle that smells so heavenly you feel better just putting in your hair. Gone is that little good feeling that you walked around with for hours simply for using something that made you feel good. Gone are the sharp razors; hello store brand. Gone is the full fridge, gone are the desserts.

And, unbidden—even if not in your own home—the day becomes, yet, a thread of thoughts and instances in which you Don’t Have Enough. Those thoughts drag behind them bags weighted with shame; with fear; with worry and insecurity; with anger. Being full of those feelings all the time erodes your health. (Which costs more money.) And being full of those thoughts and feelings take up your time, too. Those take energy. This week, two tall cups of coffee are needed each morning, instead of the one!

And what about something as simple and reliable as coffee in the morning? Even coffee is a luxury, despite your addiction. It’s actually very expensive. Of course you buy the cheap stuff. And in a rare pinch, maybe you use grounds twice. Maybe you cover up your cup when it grows cold and put it in the fridge for tomorrow. Maybe you run out of sugar and just drink it black, no sugar. Maybe you do all those things. The days when you could saunter over to the bakery and buy an Americano with two extra shots for a $3.00 coffee seems very distant. And extravagant as hell!

All these subtractions and detours build on themselves. You feel out of breath with the hustle, because when you are poor, the hustle never ends. The need to be creative and enterprising never ends. The need to Make Do never ends. The feelings that you are a loser are ever-present. You know it’s a losing game, and you know it’s a crooked one. But who wants to lose, even at a crooked game?

PERVERSE PENALTIES…AND ANGER

It’s no wonder you end up feeling so exhausted. Perversely, a life of poverty is a life in which you need to run even faster. Because being low on cash marks you. It marks you like a tiny rodent scrambling under the hot desert sun, and the birds of prey sure do come. Late fees, disconnection fees, early cancellation fees, overdraft fees, bounced checks, low balance fees, higher interest rates, poorer terms for the poor…there is a network of vampiric thorns in place designed to trip up, puncture, and suck the life from those who cannot afford to stay sufficiently solvent. You know it. You are very aware of it. You grew resentful. You grow afraid of what the next penalty will be. It’s only a matter of time. You grow afraid, even, of the mail. You avoid it. You don’t empty the mailbox for a week straight. What do you care? There will only be more news about how much you owe. A recipe of penalty. Another mouthful of dread.

There is always this pushing upon you. This force pushing down upon  you. It is entropy. Resisting it is painful, and gets harder the less money you have. Somehow, you believe in yourself. It’s a rough patch. the whole nation is suffering. And then you think Well…most of us. There are those who are not.

Some may handle poverty better than I describe it here. Poverty will not feel the same in different cultures, perhaps. And there is a difference between living on a meager income, and being both broke and unemployed. So there is a continuum, no doubt. I am not pretending to know the minds of millions of people, and ultimately, I speak only from my own experience.

In my experience, it is inevitable that living in these conditions long enough, an anger will grow in you. An anger that in this whole dumb lottery of power and chance, you drew the bad card. Not because you deserve it, but because that’s the luck of the damn draw. The well-coiffed sons of privilege laughing as they duck to get into their Porsches or slide into their Senatorial seats are not inherently more worthy souls, or righteous beings. No matter what the movies and advertisements try to tell us. At best, they got lucky by birth or other circumstance. At worst, they were blessed by an institutional corruption that favors them. In any case, why should they get top notch dental care, a car at 16, and a full, nutritious menu every day of the week? Why should they never know a night in jail? Why should they get bailed out of every scrape and set back on the path of good fortune, while you end up running yourself ragged and broke over ten bucks? Why should there be such different worlds, and some born to hardship from the start? What makes them so special as to be given such carefree lives? Why shouldn’t your worries also be theirs?

The anger pervades, pollutes, poisons you. Poisons your heart. You push it away and try to talk yourself back to the generous soul that you know yourself to be. You are careful not to cultivate self-pity. You read your books that help breathe spirituality back into your life. You meditate. You focus on the good. But…you still live in the U.S.A. And you’re not 22 anymore, where it’s easy to frame things romantically. You “should” have it all figured out by now. You “should” be comfortable. You “should” have an IRA and savings, and a new-ish car, and be spending money. You should have some security for tomorrow.

And despite your best efforts, the bitterness grows. The Mr. Hyde within grows. He is, in fact, fed by hunger. And before long, you have a hard time feeling good for other peoples’ good fortune. You live in a vicious competitive environment, and you are losing out. Each tip or wobble of the personal coffers signifies your own moral worth and competence as a human being. It’s no wonder your emotions run high; it’s no wonder you feel worn out. And you feel disappointed in yourself, as well. Even for having such thoughts and feelings. You know you are kinder than your emotions are revealing. But maybe you are not. And you wonder. It’s very easy to call yourself kind when you have a full belly. Let the resources run dry for too long and you may find yourself to be quite another sort of person. Either way, you can’t help it. You feel cornered by circumstance and you snarl like an animal with its leg in a trap. You need out, that’s all. You can’t think and you just need a goddamn break, already.

Sometimes the only break you will get comes in the form of escape. Liquor is a handy one. After all, liquor can be the poor man’s friend, deity, and medicine all in one. A reliable tonic for when you can’t afford to treat physical ailments, or when your mind grows weary from racing, fretting, or fearing. Just wash the worry away at the end of a day. Get back to a simple, relaxed state where you don’t care about money, and where you feel no pain. Of course, you are lucky if you can afford the bottom shelf stuff. It’s about $10. It bites a little harder and is a bit rougher on the body than the good stuff. But you get used to it pretty fast.

I AM VITAL, STRONG, AND REEK OF POTENTIAL. I AM THE CAPTAIN OF TIME.

The flip side to that feeling of entropy that surrounds you when you don’t have money to throw around at even the essentials, is a feeling of power and vitality and possibility when you have reliable and disposable income. Yup, when you have a pocketful of plastic or cash, and a good amount more in the bank, the horizon lays out before you like she’s your starry-eyed bride. You can be part of society at any juncture you desire. You might glide over here and buy a new shirt. (They’ll let you handle them because you look well-dressed already.) You might stop at the corner and scoop up some Shwarma. You might have a laugh with the flower vendor as you choose an arrangement with which to surprise a friend—all on the spur of the moment. You might see a movie. You might buy a slice. Who knows what you’ll decide to do! At any node in this culture you can plug in. You have that power. You can collect. You can browse. You can nibble. You can gift. You can fund. You can donate. You can bargain. You can walk away. You don’t need to rush. Time moves slower for you when you are solvent.

It’s true! When you are always lacking cash, you end up stressed out. About deadlines, schedules, closing times, bank holidays, end of the month, first of the month, bus schedules. You are very aware of time. And it is not your friend. Penalties await. Last chances await. Bounced checks await. Overdrafted accounts await. Shutoff notices await. And you better stay sharp on all of it.

When money is not a worry, it’s as if the whole world slows down. It literally feels that way—that the world is turning slower. You don’t need to try and drink the milk before it goes bad…or to make it last longer than natural. Because buying a new container is not an issue. You don’t need to run like mad for the bus stop. You can call a cab. You don’t need to beg a friend for a ride to the electric company before five p.m. because you’ve already paid your bill! In fact, you paid it as soon as it arrived instead of racing against a shut-off notice. You don’t need to rush for much of anything. You can wander and muse. Because your life is not a constant battle to stay alive. Because having money means having leisure time.

And just as with cash you feel empowered, belonging, and able to tap into the society machine at will; when you are broke you feel like an outcast. You don’t belong. You are a criminal. A potential drain. At no point in the chain of societal nodes can you take command. At no point can you enter. At no point can you negotiate anything, unless it is by the good graces of another. You best not loiter. You will be okay if your clothes are new, and the lighter skinned you are, generally. But if you are walking in a circle at the mall, but not holding a Subway sandwich bag or a Pizza Hut cup, and are wearing ragged clothes, and especially if you are brown—then you are an arrest or police harassment waiting to happen.

TWISTED OUT OF SHAPE

Do you note the narrow focus of this writing? How it all becomes about your own self, your own mind, your own body, your own future? Even reading through it feels like being stuffed into a hole all alone with your rancid mind. And that’s what these situations do to a person. That’s part of that isolation. And the survival instinct, which is running on overdrive. There’s nothing more selfish than the instinct to survive, after all. And living in that place for too long can make you grabby, and make you mean. And it can make you ugly. These fears and feelings distort a person. I’ve seen it up close in the faces of people in my life; people stressed out about gas every day, or about their kids’ clothes. People who are living with all the feelings and stressors that I’ve written about here. People who are kind and beautiful souls, but after years of living this way, those qualities become harder to see…because poverty can twist you out of shape like that.

It needn’t be that way, of course. There are  many shapes a culture can take. And a wiser society would be built more compassionately. A wiser nation would not view poverty or unemployment as a personal failure, but as a societal one. A kinder nation would have, as a reflex, a more communal spirit in which we looked out for each other. In the USA it is very hard to be poor and/or unemployed. How do you get your food if you do not buy it from the store? In some cases, people have tried gardening as a solution, and the city turns around and outlaws yard gardens. A city often will outlaw panhandling, or giving food away, or paying other peoples’ parking tickets. Our culture is not arranged in a way that people can easily help each other, or provide for themselves outside of the rigid, narrow, selfish, and tyrannical capitalist path. There is a sick and ugly network of mechanisms in place in this country to both shame you for being poor, as well as to keep you from escaping your situation. This is why going broke in a place like the USA can lead an otherwise rational and balanced soul to such desperation.

A HUNGRY MAN IS AN ANGRY MAN

Poverty engenders a feeling of powerlessness in you beyond what some might imagine. It’s like that insecurity I wrote about earlier. That feeling of powerlessness doesn’t stay contained to one area. It grows in you when you are not earning enough money, or can’t find employment and can easily metastasize into you feeling and acting generally powerless, and thinking of yourself as powerless. You don’t even see it happening. And one day you look at your thinking or actions and say “How did this happen? I am not this person. I don’t think of myself as ineffectual and unable to change things!” But it sneaks up on you, living in that mental and physical aura and environment every day.

And all the emotions that poverty breeds do this; carry over into areas where they are destructive and possibly consuming. And you forget what it is like to view things differently. And you feel there is no salvation for you. You can easily begin to burn inside with the injustice that is all around you, the injustice that is reaching into your home and snatching teeth from your head; the injustice that is mocking your manhood, and degrading your personhood, and is causing your children pain. And it doesn’t take too much of this, or too long of this, to bring you to the point where you feel you are ready to blow. Because being poor doesn’t mean you are stupid. And it doesn’t mean you can’t see what’s going on. And what’s going on is that everything is failing, divided unfairly, and for you and yours is pain—while for others, its pure pleasure.

It’s important to remember that when we are talking about a “divide,” we are not talking about how one person has a BMW with leather interior and the next person has a beat up 1990 Chevy. The divide is much more meaningful and dangerous than that. We are talking about a divide in overall peace of mind. A divide in the feelings of self-worth that some have and some lack. A divide between ideas like “I belong here and there is hope and good times ahead for me” versus “I am tolled and harrassed at every turn and I can’t rest and there is no way out for me.” A divide between “I want this society and system to work out and I’ll do what I can to perpetuate its success” and “It will be best for everyone if this thing topples and all those who benefit from its standing scream on the way down.” We should not underestimate the volatile nature of a public—or even one person—who feels s/he has nothing left to lose; that the deck is stacked beyond righting; that nobody is listening, and nothing will change. In fact, the roots of enmity against the United States from abroad, I would venture, is in large part caused by this dynamic. Many who suffer outside our borders and live in squalor and in pain see so many Americans living obliviously in great comfort and know it to be unfair, and further, know the situation to be exploitive. I do not see the terrorism this breeds as so very different than other violent domestic reactions to economic violence. I’ve lived for a while now at what felt like the edge of everything. It’s a maddening place.

I think it was about two years ago when I heard of a man in a city nearby (Portland?) who went on a violent rampage that was explained by his losing his job, and by the pressures of the economy. At the time, I responded in a way that I see now as disappointingly smug, and not just a little nâïve: I wrote that he obviously had other issues if losing his job caused him to become violent in such a jarring way. Now, that may be true. But on the other hand, as I hope this writing has helped illustrate, in my opinion and experience, prolonged poverty and unemployment are big enough factors in and of themselves to destabilize a person. You don’t really need much more than that to send you off the edge. And the fact that despite my upbringing, I could have been oblivious to that simply because I had regular income at the time is just as worrisome as the idea that the conditions that pushed that man toward destruction are common today, and only growing more ubiquitous.

Take a society; blend ignorance of the comfortable with desperation of the poor, and you have a dangerous mix. And in times like this, ignorance thrives. I’ve not even touched on other important factors related to this recession/depression. For example, the fact that if you’re not white, you are being hit even harder by this economic downturn. Or what it feels like to have a name that you know will decrease your chances of getting an interview just by the nature of your ethnicity, all while hearing increasingly more scapegoating by other destitute people who are blaming their troubles on people with names or skin like you. In a time when those of us struggling ought be united in our plight, wizened demons of racism and division rear their ugly heads and keep us squabbling and at each others’ throats.

NO MORE WAR ON THE POOR

A photo of the Wall Street protests going on right now.

It is very much in the interest of society that we not let economic inequality continue as it has. The momentum of today’s class war on the poor has accelerated to a dangerous fervor. This war, and all the forms it takes, is, of course, an accepted part of the American Dream; it’s values seeded deeply in all of our ideas of what wealth means and what poverty means. It is a long-running war. But any student of history knows that the pitch of a war can pivot on the smallest happening. Winter might strike early. The crops might rot. The supply lines might be interrupted. The troops might get dysentery. The villagers might have more to fight for than a worn out cadre of mercenary soldiers. An unforeseen geographical or meteorological aberration can upset everything. And then, the tide shifts with barely a moment’s notice, and woe to those caught unprepared.

Warren Buffet has a sense of this, and that is why he is one of the rich people in this nation who has spoken up about the inequality. That is why he has recently advocated for people in his income bracket to pay a fair share in taxes. I doubt very much that this statement is purely motivated by altruism. Not to be ungenerous to him; I still very much appreciate and credit him for saying what is true and obvious, and what is easier to forget when you are very comfortable. I do think he comes from a good place, too.

But I have no doubt that he sees the writing on the wall. It’s there for anyone who cares to look around today. The proles will put up with a whole lot. A whole hell of a lot. But they have limits, make no mistake. If you leave people with no way out of Hell, they will tunnel. Even if all they have are their own fingers. Put everything beautiful on one side of a wall, and they will tunnel. Lock up all the resources in one building and reinforce the walls with steel that reached fifty feet underground—but don’t forget that you have to pay someone to make the key to lock it, pay someone to empty the garbages, and pay someone to come read your meter. Those people will not be in your income bracket. And the tricks of division will not work forever, or on all people. Warren Buffet has made a simple calculation and would rather pay some more taxes than fear his janitor, his maid, his mailman, his lawnboy, his locksmith, his pizza delivery person, and every other blue collar or unemployed person in his path.

The real people who are scared are the power elite. Of course, they’re trying to make you scared and us scared. But I can tell you, having been a reporter for the New York Times, that on the inside they’re very, very frightened. They do not want movements like this to grow, and they understand on some level — whether it’s subconscious or, in other cases, even overt — that the criminal class in this country has seized power.”

—Journalist Chris Hedges

But he should fear them. And all those who would run an endless array of tricks to keep the poor from escaping their lot should fear us. And all those who would enact laws to further game this crooked system should fear us. And the politicians who collude with their wealthy benefactors should fear us. And all those who would make the mistake of thinking the poor are their own private milk sack to be forever squashed and kneaded should fear us. And all those who would stay quiet and inactive in the face of this class war, believing they can drop enough coin into security systems and gates and guard dogs to keep us at bay will come to regret such errors of judgment.

They keep us as far away as they can, don’t they?  They do it with high rents, and loitering laws, and unwritten dress codes, and police, and expensive price tags on meals that cost a week’s pay for most of us. It’s easy for them to keep squeezing the yoke around the necks of people who never can answer back; people who are too busy trying to make rent to be effective activists or in some other way address the injustice that is crushing them. It presents no moral quandary to kill people slowly and by degrees when they are an abstract concept to you. And the poor remain abstract to rich because the media refuses to tell the truth of things, as the media exists as fairy-tales for the rich. And they don’t want to bother their beautiful minds with such icky details. The news blackout of the recent protests at Wall Street insure they won’t have to.

But what if the poor and exploited were to begin showing up everywhere? What if there were no place an Uppercrustian could go without seeing signs of our anger? What if we began leaving our mark…and with it, a strong phrase adopted as our calling card? Something like No More War on the Poor? What if the 1-Percenters began seeing this phrase everywhere they turned? What if it were spraypainted on every Mercedes? What if this phrase were spray-painted on the pretty black asphalt driveways of every congress member’s driveway? What if cards with No More War on the Poor scrawled on them turned up in the dry-cleaning of every Senator? What if that dry-cleaning had poison ivy in it, too? Or bleach? What if their Mercedes began coming back with scratches down the side instead of a wax job? What if their landscaper watered their prize rose bushes with weedkiller instead of water? What if  they could never pinpoint where the ongoing action was coming from…because it was coming from everywhere?

Nobody in the world, nobody in history has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

—Assata Shakur

It would be a voice they could not escape. There would not need to be any organization or central group. It would be a project that millions could undertake. People wouldn’t need to devote ten hours a week in a week already jam packed with duties and exhaustion. A note here, an action there. Wait for opportunity to show itself and then speak in that voice that speaks for us all. And what if a million people were spreading this message? What if ten million were? What if the newspapers had no choice, eventually, but to begin covering the strange flurry of messaging that was showing up on napkins in restaurants, and car doors, and driveways, and in flower deliveries and grocery bags? What if the right people began seeing the many, many disaffected and suffering humans they previously never had to stare at? What if they began feeling cornered and surrounded? What if we remembered that we do surround them?

Perhaps bit by bit, changes would happen. Think of it as a haunting. Or think of it as advertising! Advertising works, you know. If there is no way to turn away from the Coca Cola ad, you will eventually come to memorize it. And whether you like it or not, it will work on you. What if the rich and the crooked were to be haunted by the anger of millions? There would be no formal advocacy group or official that politicians or billionaires could bury under or buy off with good PR, or kickback. There would be no weaseling away from action. Action is all that would alleviate the million-pronged assault. Better conditions for people. Change angry, hungry people who need a way to vent against the injustice into people happy with life because justice is alive and well and affecting them for the better.

It would be one thing if the poorest of us could leave it all up to those who benefit from ignoring their plight. But that would make no sense. Collective anger needs to give voice to the conscience that too many powerful people lack today. Perhaps this particular imagining of a nationwide project—a faceless but inescapable voice—is not the answer. I don’t claim to have an answer. But I know one needs to be found. I know today’s so-called solutions are getting us nowhere. After all, this is not really about an acute crisis, but a long-term pattern and a systemic imbalance. And this systemic imbalance will remain, even after the last of the protestors on Wall Street have gone home.

There is a power differential in play in our nation that is killing most of us. And we need to take some of that power back. It is not only possible for us to do that, it is the only way out.

YESTERDAY’S SICK WARMONGERING SCION OF AMERICA, George W. Bush, once appeared on television and sternly scolded the People for taking television too seriously.

That is, this pampered rich boy who had every thing stolen for him in his life, swaggered up on his pulpit and berated the entire nation, warning us not to have too many emotions and thoughts due to all the televised news about death in Iraq; about suicide bombings in Iraq; about the Empire spasms that lashed out taking lives, maiming babies, weeping spent uranium. “The explosions on your TV.”

And I think that little irony there says it all about today’s media, about today’s “News” channels. We are supposed to take them seriously, even as they tell us not to do so. An inverted knot of suppressed and sublimated emotion and mangled thought process is how they’d have us. A busted open container they can pour poison into. But before that, like a vampire, suck up the energies and spirit of so many, and from all sides of the political spectrum. Inside this beast’s festering jaws are clenched a fabricated world brightly and wretchedly illuminated as if by 100,000 limbs set alight by white phosphorus.

Inside that box, the Iraq disaster is done with. Inside that box, it makes sense to keep bleeding billions into the Afghanistan sands. Inside that box, no important questions matter. Inside that box, your own heart and mind can’t fit. What would (does) our world look like outside of that box?

Today’s Right wing is not worth listening to any more than it makes sense to stick your arm into a spinning garbage disposal. What of those those who watch these hell-hearted plasticmen and seethe? Or mock them on a blog? Or debunk TV arguments every day of the year? A massive amount of energy and time is spent doing this. It’s sort of weird. Who do they watch for? Not for me. Some will claim it is a service. Do they do it for you? They deplete their own energies, and accomplish what? What is accomplished each day by doing this?

In truth, I’m sure it is a service for a few. Is it the most valuable service? Perhaps not. What of pooling all that time, pooling any monies, and creating a new station. Or perhaps a new network via radios. Yes, radio. This tool that many more people can use, and even carry mobile. A tool that many of lesser means can broadcast with, no less.

And to do what? Simply reporting the state of the world as it truly is. Sowing the airwaves with hope, with positivity, with history lessons. With plans, with campaigns, with community. Completely tuning out the false narrative as you would tune out  a sick individual on a corner, ranting about death, devils, and disaster. Would you follow that person around, reinterpreting all their madness for the crowd? Would you shout side by side and call it a service?

This motion is not so much popular, though. The shape of thought that would completely swerve away and build something new in the place of something unsightly, unsafe, or unsound. Is that a revolutionary act? It is, by definition. Reform seeks to take something broken and reshape it. Redundancy says do it over and over even when it does nothing much. Revolution says that Thing is not worth reshaping, nor is it worth your energies and time. Revolutionary thought says you have the power and means and ability to make something new, in place of the old. But today’s Left is not revolutionary, of course.

Lately I hear a lot about how while so many are misguidedly blaming ALL muslims for 9/11, it was only a small cadre of radical extremist muslims who attacked us on 9/11.

Is that true?

Do you even know–as a person–who attacked us on 9/11? I don’t. How am I to know? How are we to know? I still have the newspaper where some foggy screen caps of a Fake Osama Bin Laden were shown supposedly crowing about the WTC attacks. For a tape that would be the hardest evidence in USA possession of who made the biggest hit on our country in its entire history, it faded out of existence very fast, eh? But then, I already said it’s fake.

Do you know it was the Taliban? Really? Why? Because your TV told you? Because the lying, corrupt government told you? That same government that was making deals with the Taliban in August of 2001? The same government that has been trying to sink its derricks into Central Asian oil fields for years? Why? Because they claimed 19 passports floated out of the completely exploded plane down onto the street and somehow stuck out in all that clutter, debris, ash, and litter?

What evidence do we have that the WTC were taken down by the people our government claims? What evidence personally? What trials brought to light the guilty? What process made this clear? What oracle pronounced this truth? The very same TV that our own government’s head of state told us not to take seriously? What forces forbade you to question this? The Right, and yes, the Left, too. From Bill Maher to DailyKos—earnest questions about this catastrophe that changed everything in our nation, from law to war to monies spent in congress, to school lessons—were verboten. Despite the shabbiest case ever built against any major crime. And those who insisted we examine it were demonized by those same Liberal forces, as we are today. Just as it has been the Liberals overwhelmingly leading the charge to sneer at those of us who still believe in protest, rallies, and boycotts.

That is your (Professional) Left.

Obviously, in 2010, what is ancient is again new. The empire is well into its recycling phase. We see conquer and divide. Hucksters and snake oil salesmen. Blatant class war. PSYOPS and a host of control mechanisms to provide a manufactured reality that keeps the People scattered, confused, scared, angry, and mostly, full of fake information. We were attacked and traumatized a decade ago, lied to about it by those who are supposed to protect us and be of us, and this rending of the truth helped destroy us as a confident and sane people.

We tried again to hope and believe in truth when Obama was elected, but as much as some “progressives” still cling to their ideology and party, it’s clear on a gut level that we were had and that the strongest forces in our nation today are those of war, greed, and deception.

And now, nobody believes in much of anything anymore as a result. And we are fast unraveling. Truth means nothing and TV pays it not even the tribute of a gesture. Racism is part of everyday speech, political campaigns, and dialogue. Hate groups are hand in hand with government. White supremacists roam the border and carry badges and guns, too. Laws that let police be even more racist in their operations than before are being launched left and right.

Even those who fight every day to maintain belief know, in their belly, that the game is rotten to the core. This is driving us mad, it is wrecking national sanity. Or causing people to simply turn away.

It’s not just because Obama is black that the nation is flipping out. It’s also because all the illusions of national identity and ideology that we were given as children have fallen apart. Now naked power rules, and shows itself in gross class war and cooked up news shows, court rulings, and police actions that make clear who will be okay tomorrow, and who will not. Those of us with little money or position understand we will soon be living in mildewed tents on the outskirts, while those with money or power will continue to enjoy tax breaks, ballrooms, and well-buttered toast smothered with imported jams.

Dreams of justice and fairness have been toppled.

Once that sinks in fully, things will become very ugly indeed. But many of us are in denial, in shock, or yet to see the final foundation buckling. Still listening to the siren song of TV.

Were there someone or some ones capable of organizing even a fraction of us—they’d need lots of money, and yet not to be beholden to the ideology of the Right—we might have a chance against our enemies. Our enemies are greed and disinformation. And a state out of control. It is those same illusions given us as children. It is the inertia that shoves us cliffward. It is the voice of the Television. It is today’s Liberal brain, brain like a slave, stooped over with the load of delusion, but weary and with no place to go to get away from it. The Left is a zombie holding a flag, with all its sly use of the Right’s most drastic weapons, with its reinforcing at key moments, what harms the People, with no real plan or courage to enact something better, something revolutionary. At every juncture where the Left might make a real stand and make a difference, it suddenly caves in. Just when the People might again hope or benefit. But it must. Because, you see, even the “left” politicians on the national stage know the deal. They hold no hope for justice or truth, either. But LIBERAL is their brand and they are stuck with it.

The GOP? The GOP is but the blood-flecked ID expanding like a rogue universe of wicked cells, the diseased and disintegrating lobe of the human condition. The freaked out, frantic, midnight acid-head mind that whips and coils like a half-smashed snake in the sand.

I’m not better than anyone else in all of this. I soothe myself with TV, too. I dive deeply into illusion. I simply happen to turn to it for storytelling, for movies. Otherwise, I’ll be out in nature. Give me the sun, the wind, the water, and the touch of someone close to me. And give me stories. Stories of clear-eyed humans, of paths lined with golden wheat that sways in the sun, trod by brave souls undertaking important journeys. Give me stories of unpolluted hearts, and simple, wise, and humble humans. Give me stories of the past, of over there, of a day faraway. A day when this looming tower of babbling bullshit has finally collapsed and lain itself upon the ground to bake and bleach under an aging sun, before long to be but a skeleton for tomorrow’s mountains.

IN THIS WEEK’S News With Nezua, I touch on Mexican president Felipe Calderón’s latest move of cutting off half a million peoples’ power (and thus their wells and water) due to the municipality being delinquent on bills. This story winds down deep into the fabric of Mexican politics and power struggles.

Pobre México is fighting to stay solvent, as the economic downturn of course, has a passport, and crosses the border all day, both ways. And with FeCal at the helm, well. His idea of change was an onslaught of failed drug war (an estimated 16,500 corpses stacked up at FeCal’s door now) that the USA is still helping to fund via the Mérida Initiative that Bush brokered. Ugh.

Pobre México. Tan lejos de dios, y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos.

—Porfirio Díaz

Here is, at first glance, a fleeting fragment of news from October, wherein FeCal opted not to close Luz y Fuerza, México’s second-largest power utility.

• Mexico Ministry Rules Out Creating New State Power Company

“Mexico decided it won’t create a new state power company to replace Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the Energy Ministry said. … President Felipe Calderon ordered on Oct. 11 the liquidation of Luz y Fuerza, the nation’s second-largest power supplier, firing more than 40,000 electricity workers. The decree was because the company’s finances were “unsustainable” amid mounting losses, he said.”

The thing is, in the US when we read news in English language on typical US news sites (like above) we almost always get FeCal’s desired spin, or I should say the government’s point of view only. And FeCal and his crew are not El Voz de la Gente, bleeve that.

Note that in this article, it claims FeCal was going to close Luz y Fuerza for rather dry reasons. “Unsustainable” and all that. Sure. Just fire FORTY THOUSAND WORKERS, another day in the life, move along. There’s more to this story, have no doubt.

If you have been following Mexican news at all, FeCal (a not so nice name for Felipe Calderón) was—to oversimplify a bit, as I am here overall—their George W. Bush. In fact, Felipe Calderón stole the presidential election with the help of some of the same players who helped Bush. I know all this should have links, but if you go to El Grito (I’m running around this morning, have errands, tiny break in video production schedule) and search for these people and you will find it all. Many hours spent on those stories back then.

Manuel Lopez Obradór was running as (and I do think he is far more of this camp than FeCal) Mister Downtrodden, Mister Para la Gente. Mister Left. While FeCal was and is Mister “Let’s Be Like the USA,” working with the Bush admin. He is Mister “Let’s Do All They Want Us To, Let’s Militarize This Joint, Let’s Wiretap, Let’s Bring on a Drug War.” And of course, that’s why he was given the presidency, and why the US GOP GOV would surely cheer it on. (Although Obama is fully committed to funding Mérida, even past its expiration date which really, really, really angers me with his adminstration.)

It’s unfortunate to me that the US is so very in the dark on all Mexico’s politics…because truth is, we better know this stuff. It’s all affecting us, all the time. And the relationship between the US and MX has so much history. And the media and governments actually use the language barrier and the apathy that dwells north of the Rio Bravo to the advantage of the elites and to the people’s detriment.

Anyway. I hope to help bridge this gap a tiny bit myself, and my plans are to become far more effective at it in time. It will take time, and it will take many of us. For now, I can offer you the bare outline of  some of these shapes, and if you like you can research and find out more.

Mexican Electrical Workers Union members protest the summary firing of 44,000 members. Photo: La Jornada

There’s history and politics, of course, behind what is going on with the power plants in Mexico. And in general, North and South of the border, you and I need to keep an eye on the plight of workers and the unions. That (and the media) is where the people’s power lies. And that’s where oppressive power cracks down hard. (Peep the body count that journalism produces in war zones.)

Things aren’t as cut and dry with the Luz y Fuerza story as bloomberg.com would have you believe. As one could learn in the Narcosphere:

In the middle of the night last Saturday, President Felipe Calderon sent six thousand soldiers and militarized Federal Police to take over state power company Luz y Fuerza installations in Mexico City and the states of Mexico, Puebla, Morelos, and Hidalgo.  Immediately following the takeover, Calderon issued an executive order closing Luz y Fuerza.  Because no law or decree can go into effect until it is published in the federal government’s Official Diary of the Federation, the government published the executive order in a special edition of the Official Diary of the Federation to coincide with the military and police raids that closed Luz y Fuerza.

Federal Police occupy a Luz y Fuerza building. Photo: La Jornada

Mexican legal experts have criticized Calderon’s action as illegal, unconstitutional, and “an excessive and abusive use of power” because he by-passed Congress when he decided to close Luz y Fuerza and deploy the military and police against workers.

The government’s official justification for closing Luz y Fuerza is that the company’s operating expenses exceed those of other state-owned companies.  It claims its use of the military and militarized federal police was a pre-emptive strike: it wanted to prevent workers from striking, taking control of the facilities, and cutting off power in protest of the closing of Luz y Fuerza.  However, a week prior to the police and military takeover, the union specifically stated in a press release that it had no intentions of striking nor cutting off power to electricity customers.

Jose Hernandez, a leader of the Mexican Union of Electricity workers (SME)

As little as I know about Mexican politics and media, once you find one spot of corruption, you will find more. And they all magically seem to connect the more you read. Even these recent events, and the arc of Mexican right wing politics since FeCal stole the office.

…[I]n Mexico, we have an ultra-right national government. Formally its considered Christian democratic, but its lead by the extreme right group, el Yunque. This group is anti-communist and well linked to the right wing groups of the Catholic Church. They’re committed to the privatisation of the energy sector, of electricity and oil and last year they wanted to pass reforms to privatise the oil, but they didn’t achieve it because of a large national mobilisation.”

“These mobilisations were lead by Manuel Obrador, who’s a leader of the PRD (Revolutionary Democratic Party) and from the most nationalist and progressive section of this party. He also ran in the 2006 elections, in which all most all studies say there was fraud. Calderon won by 0.56%. Despite large mobilisations we couldn’t overturn the fraud.”

“So this right wing government aims to deepen what they call the structural reforms, reform the work law to allow for flexibility of the working day, for unstable work, for sub-contracted labour, and the biggest obstacle to be able to pass these reforms is the SME.”

—Jose Hernandez, a leader of the Mexican Union of Electricity workers (SME)

The Mexican Union of Electricity Workers (SME) is almost 100 years old, known for being very independent of the MX government, and democratic in nature. This is a rarity in México, as most unions are corrupt and inextricably linked with the government. SME  won the right to retirement for workers in 1936 through strikes, which was a huge strengthening of the working class. And most importantly, SME works out of Luz y Fuerza. As we can see, like Lopez Obradór, SME is aligned with the People, and not with Big Business or Iron-Fisted Gobierno, and thus is an enemy to the FeCal administration.

And so Felipe Calderón and his forces have been doing all they can to destroy Luz y Fuerza, and take down SME with it. But this predates even FeCal, and is a long running motion recognizable in many nations, when the richest and most powerful suck upon the necks of the  poorest and most vulnerable.

“The government has been trying to destroy the SME for 20 years, they’ve been investing in the CFE, in modernising it, and not in Luces y Fuerzas. So now Luces y Fuerzas seems like an inefficient company and its equipment is ancient and it needs a lot of maintenance to work. The government effectively took away its ability to generate electricity, and now it’s buying 98% of it its electricity from CFE.”

“And the government designed a system of accounting to make it seem like Luces y Fuerzas was going bankrupt.” …

And of course, this isn’t just about electricity, though the power utilities are surely a massive force to control. The government of Mexico is looking ahead. This is yet one more strike against the people—and we are mostly talking the indigenous in México, the poor, because this won’t hurt most of the expats or the ones cashing in—and a strike for the illusion that Mexico can become a “first world country” if it just keeps erecting hotels, strengthening the military, and crushing the poor.

“Another reason why the government wants to privatise Luces y Fuerzas and destroy our union is because of the possibility of further profit. With the new technology the power lines and cables can also be used to transmit images, voice, and information- that is, television, internet and phone. It’s a bigger business than electricity. The union has proposed that Luces y Fuerzas provide those services, without any concessions to private companies, which is what the government wants.”

“It shows the irrationality of capitalism, these things could be provided free to society, but they want to privatise it all to make money.”

So you see, it wasn’t just that the Mexican President decided, oh, that finances weren’t quite working out so they laid off a few people. This isn’t about a steward of the nation making wise decisions about safeguarding the People’s interest, no not at all! This is about greed, corporate and state hunger, and the People’s needs aren’t even in the picture.

Police occupy Luz Y Fuerza. Photo: El Pais

And that’s why it’s so important to keep our eyes on the unions and the strikes and the workers.

“The first thing we did in response was to mobilise; on 16 October there were nearly 500,000 people; unionists from various unions, students, Obrador’s movement, farmers- that is, the people mobilised, and despite the huge media campaign attacking the SME, saying we are corrupt, we’re lazy.”

“And in the legal terrain, we’ve been fighting as well, seeking legal protection before the actions of the government.”

And that’s one thing Mexicanos sure are good at. Standing up for their rights. Let’s hope they prevail, because for such injustices to sweep down and grab la gente by the neck and so close to us and without our help is a failure of activism and people power. If borders did not wall off humanity to sections of our brain, the People would have all the rights and powers that would help the world thrive. I’ll type that one more time because it’s so important.

If we did not use “the border” concept to separate in our imagination who is a friend, who is an enemy, who is “US” who is “THEM,” who is a resource, and who is in need, there would be no state power or army that could continue to make us toil and die for the continued power and wealth of the very few who are on top of this global pyramid.

It begins in the mind. Those who would rail against migration, against natural flow of river and human, who would deprive fellow humans of healing and medicine when they need it, who would insist on fences and walls and guns and prisons for those ousted by economic needs…when it is those very pieces of machinery that we are being penned into suffering with…today’s “immigration restrictionists” are members or affiliates of hate, they are distracted, they are simply tools of the same forces who delight in having us at each others’ necks while we are all exploited and robbed.

Here in the US, we see more and more laws being instituted that penalize the poor, that oust the homeless, that ticket those who feed them. And in México, half a million people in Ecatepec have had their wells shut off.

Where is our real fight? With people of different skin tones? With people who use different word sounds to express their dreams, their pain, their hope, their hunger?

Or with those who move hugely and cloaked over with flag and legal document, drawing blood worldwide and siphoning away oil, monies, and the very water that we need to live?

Moratorium on Employer Sanctions If No Reform Now

From the Mexican American Political Association:

CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION FROM IMMIGRANT WORKERS

President Barack Obama could not have been clearer than the statement he made at the close of the two-day summit meeting with the presidents of Mexico and Canada on August 10, 2009, that immigration reform legislation will have to wait until 2010 and indicated that even then will prove a major political test (as reported in the Los Angeles Times). Immigrant advocates and proponents in favor of fair immigration reform and legalization should now have no illusions about the timetable for the change that we hoped for and the change that our people want and need. However, the demand for an immediate moratorium of the Obama enforcement policy becomes more apparent and pressing. There is no other alternative. If we can’t have reform this year, we absolutely require relief in the form of a moratorium of the enforcement of employer sanctions, raids, deportations, e-Verify, and prolonged detention for immigration related offenses, which are civil in nature. All non-violent tactics need to be put on the table.

Worker Councils from a growing number of companies that have been targeted by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under the direction of Secretary Janet Napolitano, directed by the policy of President Barack Obama, are forming and fighting back under extremely adverse conditions the enforcement of employer sanctions sweeping the country. These companies bear the names of Overhill Farms, American Apparel, Farmer Johns, Micro Solutions, and many others. In fact, some 650 have been profiled by this administration. The initial mass terminations have only just begun.

We are organizing ourselves to openly oppose these policies and practices, which are devastating our families during the worst economic times since the 1930s. We call on workers, employers, unions, churches, immigrants’ rights coalitions and advocacy organizations, human rights groups, and worker centers to unite and respect our broad call to mobilize urgently and demand an immediate moratorium of the aggressive unprecedented enforcement of employer sanctions with the I-9 audits of profiled companies that hire immigrants, the expanded use of eVerify, the federal system of employment verification, and the expansion of police-ICE collaboration through the 287g program. Enforcement heavy and legalization light is now the order of the day for President Obama.

We call on all unions of the labor movement, that has a responsibility to defend us, to clearly articulate their open opposition to employer sanctions and the I-9 audits, defend their members and all workers targeted for termination due to no-match discrepancies with the Social Security Administration, and openly oppose contract-worker programs as modern indentured servitude no matter by what name they are titled.

We call on the churches of all denominations, which have a responsibility to safe-guard our spiritual well- being, to express vocal opposition to the policies and practices that are tearing up our families and destroying the prospect of us remaining in the U.S. You have a duty to hold the line against any assault on the integrity and unity of the family.

We call on the immigrants’ rights coalitions and national networks of different names, that represent that they work on behalf of immigrants and advocate in favor of fair and humane immigration reform, to not fear mass mobilizations of workers and immigrants openly demanding an end to the Obama enforcement strategy, but instead to join us. We want you to demand a full and generous legalization of undocumented immigrants without accepting a horrific deal of “smart enforcement” as a trade-off.

We call on the state and federal legislators to have courage and fight for humane immigration reform and to not be sold on the idea that by demonstrating more enforcement they will be able to win over more moderate and even Republican politicians in favor of legalization. How much more does President Obama want to push us down in order to demonstrate his “tough on immigrants” façade to the American people? We can only stand for so much.

We call on all honest employers that depend on immigrant labor to join the broad movement to oppose employer sanctions and all its discriminatory implications as government heavy invasive intrusions and interruptions of the work-place. You have a moral duty to pay an honorable wage for a good day’s work.

We are taking the brunt of the attacks and suffering the immediate consequences of this misguided policy, therefore, our call is urgent to take to the streets on September 5th, the Labor Day weekend, and October 12th, not to ask but demand that President Obama stop the attacks on immigrants and that he fulfill his promise of immigration reform, that which we heard during the presidential campaign, but has recently been forgotten.

We are convening all organizations, unions, churches, and all those who support fair and humane immigration reform to march in the streets and let our voices be heard as one – all at the same level and force – that WE HAVE HAD ENOUGH MR. PRESIDENT. We declare that just as you politicians we also are human beings and we also need to eat and live with dignity. We are honorable workers and we deserve respect. The same as is demanded of us to pay taxes, we demand to be blanketed by the very programs that exist thanks to our contributions, especially during these distressful times.

We represent a blessing for America and the solution to the economic crisis. We demand a fair and humane immigration reform for all NOW. We demand that Obama LEGALIZE AMERICA NOW!

All out on Labor Day September 5th and October 12th!!!

Worker’s Council of Overhill Farms
Worker’s Council of American Apparel
Worker’s Council of Farmer Johns
Worker’s Council of Micro Solution
Hermandad General de Trabajadores Union International
Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana
Mexican American Political Association
Chicago Community and Workers Rights
CONLAMIC (The National Coalition Of Latino Clergy And Christian Leaders)
People’s Assembly for Popular Education & Liberation (PAPEL)
Chicano-Latino Artists for Social Equality (CLASE)
Congreso Internacional de Mujeres Activistas de las Americas (CIMA)

Source

by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger

[For those new to UMX, The Weekly Immigration Wire is my weekly (paid) article I write for The Media Consortium. It is a column that runs on a few other sites (see end of post).]

This week’s Wire [originally titled Weekly Immigration Wire: Fighting H1N1 Hype] focuses on the opportunities for change that crisis can introduce. From the H1N1 “Swine” flu’s declining fervor to 2009′s May Day marches for worker rights and immigrant solidarity; from the tragic killing of Luis Ramirez to legislative movement on immigration, these are tumultuous times. But it is precisely such conflict and challenge that provides the best opportunities to make lasting change.

Last week, we highlighted how anti-immigration voices were exploiting the nation’s fear of the H1N1 flu to their own advantage. While still no joke (except in biting satire), the flu is an overhyped event used by Republicans to push an anti-immigration agenda, according to the Colorado Independent’s Daphne Eviater. While not all immigration comes from Mexico, the country and its people are often used as convenient scapegoats.

Mexico is suffering most from both the virus and an intensifying conservative backlash, as New America Media (NAM) revealed in several articles this week. As if the confluence of these forces weren’t enough, an April 27th earthquake struck Mexico, adding to the atmosphere “in an almost surrealistic fashion,” writes NAM’s Kent Paterson. At least truths are beginning to surface as to the flu’s origin:

News reports link the possible start of the health crisis to a huge, runaway U.S. pig farm located in the Veracruz-Puebla borderlands. The farm in question is owned in part by U.S.-based Smithfield Foods, the largest hog and pork producer in the world and a company with a record for environmental violations on this side of the border.

Will the government or agricultural industry look into the complaints against Smithfield farms’ with the fervor of anti-immigrant pundits? Unfortunate events like the H1N1 flu can be opportunities to make positive changes to the systems involved. The agricultural sector and its crowded animal farms are clearly in need of reform.

Many supporters of workers’ rights and humane immigration reform came together on May 1. Yes! Magazine’s Colette Cosner explains why solidarity around immigration reform is stronger this year, and why May Day is so inspiring. Workers are standing united, rather than divided: “Work-place raids are being preceded by union drives,” Cosner writes. “Traditional labor groups are recognizing that these raids hinder their organizing capabilities. So too do the immigrant rights activists now see the unions as an integral part their work-place security. … The united platform is spun from our collective desire to live lives free of fear. This fundamental concept is the backbone of each of the May Day demands.”

Fearmongering from the Right has been crowding sense from the airwaves, and it’s a distraction from issues that matter. Such was the case for Luis Ramirez, a recent hate crime casualty. RaceWire’s Michelle Chen tells his story, which echoes civil rights-era cases in its iconic extremes of race-based violence and subsequent lack of justice:

Harsh words between Luis Ramirez, 25, and a group of four local boys, including the convicted teens Derrick Donchak, 19, and Brandon Piekarsky, 17 … escalated into anti-Mexican epithets and a physical confrontation. Despite efforts by his friends to intervene, Ramirez was soon lying on the sidewalk, his skull cracked open by a kick to the head, and his assailants had bolted off into the night.

This brutal murder ended with simple assault charges for the white teenage assailants. The all-white jury threw out charges of third degree murder, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment and ethnic intimidation. Equally amazing is the eyewitness account that reveals willful police negligence in pursuing the killers. The Mexican American community and growing numbers of human rights and immigration activists are springing into motion to demand accountability.

The Ramirez murder is, like the H1N1 flu, another opportunity to examine what protections are in place to guard human health and life. As Chen notes, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crime Prevention Act has passed the house and will soon be before the Senate. It would be a grievous error and abdication of opportunity to not pass this into law, given the ubiquitous waves of hostility aimed at immigrants as well as gays, transgendered people, and others.

RaceWire also covers the Supreme Court’s May 4 ruling that nullifies another injustice: Charging immigrants who use a sequence of numbers in place of an actual Social Security number with willful identity theft. In To catch a thief: SCOTUS on undocumented workers, Michelle Chen discusses the ruling, which sides with Mexican immigrant Flores-Figueroa, who worked at a steel plant in Illinois. Flores-Figueroa was flagged, then arrested, when he tried to arrange his situation more legitimately. While the case has changed law for so many other immigrants, Flores-Figueroa will most likely be deported, once done serving his time.

In other immigration news, Maryland’s state assembly ruled that undocumented high school graduates should pay three times that of citizen high school graduates attending college; Homeland Security signals a new focus on employers, not workers; and Oregon hopes for a new wave of income by urging the U.S. Senate to legalize the state’s nearly 400,000 undocumented and put them on the tax rolls.

Finally, do take a moment to celebrate the spirit and actions of Arizona public defender Isabel Garcia, profiled recently for In These Times. Garcia’s fight against injustice is well-documented. She works tirelessly to change to the surreal and perilous game that is played out in the borderlands human rights struggle. Garcia was the first non-Mexican to receive the National Human Rights Award from the Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos de Mexico, but refused to speak at the acceptance ceremony because her speech about the militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border was censored. Garcia is not concerned with image, but with changing the standards of living on the borderlands. Let’s hope that while President Obama buys time to negotiate a humane solution to the immigration issue, he keeps this in mind.

—————————————————————-

Also featured at The Sanctuary, Huffington Post, Talking Points Memo, Open Salon, DailyKos, MyDD, Open Left, FDL, Rabble, In These Times Blog, RaceWire, America’s Voice and Alternet

I WROTE A POST the other day on the new poster by Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena, and essentially it was about how my initial impression was of a white artist appropriating culture in the newest culture-hungry OBEYGIANT art operation. I made various comments about the poster art, both complimenting elements of it (I love Fairey’s style, which borrows hugely from Russian Constructivism though he’d like the borrowing to stop there) as well as criticizing elements of the composition. These were not emotional “Eh, I just don’t like it” type comments; they were grounded in a cultural perspective as well as springing from my own artistic eye. I didn’t feel it necessary to temper my critique, because hey, it’s just one cat’s opinion. Little did I know I’d get the pushback I did.

As I have returned to this issue and this post and these people with as much nuance as I can manage, I expect commenters to do the same. If they cannot engage the ideas here thoughtfully, I will simply block them. I had enough arguing back and forth yesterday though I do very much thank those commenters, too. They forced me to delve deeper and to flesh out the ideas that I intuited right away, but had not yet the background “research” as was said, to argue comprehensively. I have done the research now, and I’m sure they will be satisfied that I took their advice.

Overall, the folks at ObeyGiant and/or ObeyGiant Forums did not care for my critique one bit, and they showed up to accuse me of various things, among those that I was reacting out of jealousy, ignorance, fear, and vanity. (In the same comment I was admonished to stop being divisive and feel the love!) The comments were in turns scornful, dismissive, and furious that I dared “spread misinformation.”

One commentor, “almanegra” wrote “[j]ust don’t start trying to spread misinformation that the whole operation was simply driven by a single factor, profit” as well as “you should really look into where the money is actually going as opposed to assuming that the image was purely profit driven.”

Reading back, I can see that it could read that way. No, I don’t really think it’s that simple. So not that I thought my opinion on it mattered so much, but okay. Ahem, for the record: I don’t think Shepard Fairey’s intentions can be said to be purely profit driven. Profits from the posters go to “creating materials for the May Day marches and donations for immigration reform organizations” and that doesn’t seem very profitable, does it. Of course if the “materials” are more of these posters, then the profits are essentially going back into creating what are highly-visible advertisements for the Shepard Fairey brand, as well. But we’ll push that aside for the moment. Finally, the cat who talked to me about the poster one-on-one says he works with Shepard Fairey and he’s an all right guy. So I have no reason to disbelieve that.

However, do notice that these comments seem mostly concerned that I was smearing Shepard Fairey’s motives; and that I was claiming the event was purely for profit. Of everything I said in my post, this is what was really raising hackles. Of course we know how important it is to Whiteness to maintain a public appearance of perfection and how averse it is in having its public image besmirched or its reputation sullied. On other hand, this panic-like flurry of comments could be simple fear of a brand being threatened or the anger that arises when having one’s altruistic motives questioned. Those things make sense, too.

Regardless: my question is where is the outrage to defend the name and integrity of Fairey’s supposed “partner” in this work, Ernesto Yerena? All this outrage is responding to the idea that I dare impugn the motives and reputation of Shepard Fairey.

The point was raised that Ernesto’s part in the making of the poster was being overlooked, but it was tiny compared to the focus on Fairey’s reputation, and in fact, was mentioned in the service of clearing Fairey of the charge of being an outsider looking in; not in the service of celebrating Ernesto Yerena and what his story and reality is. One problem with Whiteness is that it refuses to be de-centered in any area it appears. In this way, Whiteness is like a cognitive disease. It refuses to arrange importance rationally or by any meritocratic ranking, but instead arbitrarily and relentlessly places the feelings and point of view of Whiteness central to any arrangement of credit or concern.

Now I’m talking about a lot of things here. We see that this is not a simple poster discussion. Yes, we’re talking about artistic/symbolic elements in a work of art, but also about appropriation, Whiteness, Tokenism, the immigration movement, capitalism…

I’m happy that something is helping move the immigrant movement forward. So please know that. I really am. The people who suggest this is about petty jealousy reveal their own smallness. And those commenters who say I’m stirring up divisions where they shouldn’t be, well…I just wrote a blog post. I’m not the one who showed up here in numbers to argue back and forth and call names! So…who is being divisive? Again, we are talking about many things. Sometimes what I discuss here is idea based. These ideas can exist along with practical realities in the world; my commentary does not negate those. But some shapes are important to point out. And let’s be real. You are not really so worried about division amongst activists, but about image of the Fairey brand among youth who read me. In fact, I could read that concern in the words that were spoken to me personally.

The artist I spoke to on the phone from Obey Giant was very cool (and I’ll talk about him more soon) but posed the situation as if I were being “separatist.” He was very nice about it, but the assumption in his words was that I was interested in a pure divide between races. “I used to be separatist, but I don’t want to alienate white people anymore, my girlfriend is white… I want to reach the largest possible group.” And yes, I understand that. But see, I am not “separatist,” either. So just let me clear that up! I don’t want a little girl on a poster with a middle finger in the air, or an “I hate white people” pin! And my points were not about excluding white people. There is no need to interpret what I said as anti-white people. Just because it was anti-appropriation.

This is the kind of thing one has to draw out carefully. So I’ll try.

We can assume that ObeyGiant is already sensitized to being accused of cultural appropriation. We can assume this because a) cultural appropriation is sort of what Fairey does as a “style,” and because b), Fairey defends himself from it on his Wikipedia page.

"It’s not like I’m just jumping on some cool rebel cause for the sake of exploiting it for profit." —Shepard Fairey

So for me to accuse him of the same thing (and without even having researched, as I was admonished by these commenters; “Next time do a little research!”) surely touched a nerve.

Commenter “A1″ wrote

I understand the fear that a white dude who has gained lots of popularity is exploiting a culture for profit and fame, but you have to believe me that this is not the case with this project. Don’t be hung up on the race of the guy who’s name is attached to this.

But I am hung up on whose name is attached to the project. See…that’s the very point, in part, that I’m making.

I’m hung up on that fact that Ernesto was the face of the artist when it comes to signing posters for the brown crowds while also being the one who was in the hole for the money that it took to make the posters, and at the same time being left off the credit side as another “Shepard Fairey” iconic work is produced and celebrated by the larger culture.

I’ll draw out these thoughts more in a minute. I did speak with Ernesto on the phone, after all. But that is my core complaint. And it is in line with all the things I always talk about when I write online, and have for over three years, now.

Now, while I was chastised by the commenters yesterday for daring to accuse Shepard Fairey of having cash as a motive (cash in hand or measured in increased visibility and reputation, nobody made clear), at the same time, I heard the complaint that I was not properly appreciative of how much money was sunk into such a risky venture!

Commenter A1: I don’t think you understand how much time, money, and effort went into carrying out this project that tackles an issue that most people would be too scared to approach. I respect Shepard Fairey for being willing to attach himself to an issue that many find to be too controversial, and would rather avoid.

Or that I was not properly appreciative of the bravery that Shepard Fairey showed by risking his reputation to touch a controversial issue.

Again, I’m happy Shepard is on board and is helping. Beautiful. Of course, you know that I feel gente need to rely on each other, boost up each other, rise from within. As much as possible, and the more often, the better. I’m not a cookie dispenser for the brave altruists. If I were, you’d now be reading theunapologeticcookiedispenser.org . And you’re not. This wasn’t about how “good” or “bad” the artist was; what his moral fiber is. Or if I gave that impression, I should not have. This is about a shape that plays out between unequal powers, and about community, and about culture. It’s also about a person’s own experience and right to define themselves, so we’ll hear out another view soon. Ernesto’s—the artist who apprentices for Shepard Fairey and who contributed to this poster art.

But let’s address one last commenter before I talk about my conversation with him and my own thoughts and feelings on the entire complex issue of appropriation, tokenism, and the power structures that necessitate these dynamics.

ButchM writes to another commentor on my site:

Also, you are missing the point when you are defending the critique of the work. I don’t think people are concerned with the evaluation but rather the false premise that this was Shepard’s design. It was primarily Ernesto Yerna’s [sic] with input from Zach and Shepard. Ernesto is an apprentice of Shepard’s so his work has a similar flavor. You can criticize it all you want but just know that you are speaking about one of Ernesto’s designs. So that really invalidates the charges of “outsider perspective” or “whitness [sic] problem.”

“It is primarily Ernesto Yerna’s [sic] work”
Is this true? No, it is not. Ernesto told me personally (and I have the audio) that the work was “more or less 50-50.” So, no, ButchM; it is not “primarily Ernesto (you had his last name wrong) Yerena’s work.”

The particulars? Ernesto told me personally that he took the photo, and that Shepard Fairey then took “at least a couple hours” to render that photo down to a style that only showed its minimal contours and detail.

Clearly not cultural appropriation.

I think you will recognize this look of simplified contour and detail I speak of in Fairey’s past work.

Another case of Not Cultural Appropriation?

Last time Shepard Fairey didn't take his own foto and the AP got pissed! This time Ernesto's photos were used to draw from.

"Guns and Roses"

Ernesto said he then traced what Shepard Fairey had done “which didn’t take that much [work]” And he added two other color layers.

And no, until someone dropped a link yesterday to cimarrones.org, no I had not seen the other poster that the Fairey/Yerena had made, (below) showing a man with the fist properly raised in the air. Which is good. The fist in the air symbol is not something you can water down, really, as was done in the other version. No offense to Ernesto, if that was his call. But I stand by my comments that the halfway raised fist is about as effective a symbol as a photo of a man about to turn his back and run away from a line of tanks that are facing him. If Immigrant Girl is not intended to be a fighter but “what we are fighting for” as the commenter said yesterday…then put her fist down. And give her a parent on either side. Whole families not shattered by raids and separated by bars or borders—that is “what we are fighting for,” not one little girl.

And the “We Are Human” just does not work for me for the reasons I stated, as well as were stated in comments. This is the name of the campaign, and I find it utterly tone-deaf, though it tries. It sounds like Fairey tried to do his contour-reducing trick on the slogan “No One is Illegal”; make it punchy and short. I don’t care if that’s accurate, really, or how it came about. But I will tell you that multiple activists/raza reacted instantly negatively to it, without even hearing my critique. So take it as you will.

And of course I’m glad gente at la marcha are happy to have free signs, and I’m not surprised! But a mass of people claiming to be humans in the street….what’s the message? Take us to your leader? Don’t mind the saucers, we are Homo Sapiens?

It’s just a weird phrase that, as was said by a compa, “sets the bar way too low.”

The Anti-Racism March in Maricopa County on Saturday, May 2, 2009 | Foto by Juan Luis Garcia

Ernesto told me that he was in debt to Fairey until they sold enough posters/screenprints to pay off what it cost to make the posters. (“He wouldn’t have made me pay it back even if we didn’t” he added kindly). He also told me he got to choose the colors. Finally he told me (and I don’t know if Fairey knows this, but I doublechecked with Ernesto to make sure it was okay to quote it) that he chose the colors of the Aztlán flag, the Anahuac people. (I love the colors he chose, but those aren’t the colors of the Aztlán flag that I know of, so maybe I have the wrong flag).

Nota: “Anahuac” refers to the Mexica movement, and the Mexica movement bases its purpose in that we are descended from the indigenous of this land and the borders that came later are invalid. Obviously, this is a hardcore stance, a smaller demographic subscribes to it, and many who do, don’t talk about it aloud as it can alarm those who disagree with the overall idea. The art and statements of the Mexica movement are why one commenter on my last Fairey post tried to sneer and deride UMX by calling it a “defacto MySpace page.” Because often you will see that art and those statements displayed by people on MySpace, gente trying to stand proud instead of being shat upon through the White Lens. People on MySpace are generally younger and more comfortable with speaking pure ideal because they don’t have to worry as much about negotiating the compromises that come with a visible career, etc.

Ernesto Yerena, LA Artist working here on a Zach de la Rocha print | Foto by Juan Luis Garcia.

Ernesto was in a tricky spot talking about some of these things. Just as he was in taking part in the art and how confrontational to make it. He talked about not wanting to alienate white people as I wrote above (I didn’t butt in to tell him my family has “white people” in it) and of compromise, too. “I’ll take help where I can get it [to reach these goals].”  (“Though I’m totally happy with how it turned out” he added with barely any pause.)

And he is going to be in a tricky spot, when these types of conversations come down. And I understand that and will talk more about this soon. I relate to a lot of it.

My thoughts on Ernesto are that he is a good cat, a sweet guy, a real soul, a Xicano who comes from la comunidad, and who is keeping it as real as he can. He’s 22, he’s doing hard work for the community, he’s a talented vato, and he is walking a fine line—as gente must do when we negotiate these structures of power and opportunity. Finally, he is deeply committed to the cause for reasons more personal than I’ll even state here. So yes, there is no doubt that Ernesto is raza.

Is the charge of a Whiteness Problem invalid?
No, and this will be my final statement here.

On Ernesto’s navigating the outstretched hand of opportunity?

The tricky thing about attacking the Appropriation/Token dynamic is that it is a huge offense to a person of color to be called a token. I know, because I’ve faced this same dynamic. When I was granted a ticket and costs to attend YearlyKos 07 as one of the Chicago 17, I needed to explore what opportunities were opening up in front of me. I felt this was in my path for a reason, and it was, in the end. But I didn’t know what it was. However, I trusted my fate and my path. I knew where my heart was and what it was about. I resented like crazy those who thought they knew better, that I was “selling out” or in some way less a person of color because of my decision. I was prompted to go by many readers and more importantly, I wanted to do this. I felt I could further the cause of what I was doing. I was exercising my free will, I was being recognized for my talents and influence, and I was being brought in as someone who was known to write fiery, unrelentingly ideal-based blog posts. What compromise was I making? But some of my readers disagreed with me and I lost what I thought were some friends by taking that opportunity. Of course, true gente stuck by me. My close amigos. Even if they thought what I was doing was…a mistake, or playing into a Token situation. And some understood that I was going where I needed to and trusted it would all be fine. (And it was all fine, and learning what I did there prompted me in the direction that helped lead to The Sanctuary’s existence.) But I felt a horrible pressure all the while I was making my own way. Pressure from the white funders to tell a story they liked, one that framed them as benificent and kind and altruistic, which is how they saw themselves to be. And pressure from certain factions of my own readership to completely turn away from all things Whiteosphere in the most extreme way possible—to not even go. So I was being forced to defend my integrity as a person of color. By people of color. One commenter even said “don’t be a token!” As it was not meant smartly, sort of dropped both meaning well and clumsiliy, I took it to be coming from outside conversations that were now reaching me.

So I feel bad that Ernesto’s call to me—even if prompted to do it by others at ObeyGiant—served the purpose of his having to defend his cred, his cultural integrity to me. On one hand he was making sure to tell me they were good to him, not taking advantage, really helpful and really open to him; he was also assuring me of his agreement with certain cultural beliefs and allegiances…and that is not what I needed to hear or wanted him to feel he had to tell me. This is what can happen when white structures take you in and use you in certain ways. Not to say you aren’t getting things out of it, too. But sadly, you are the one who ends up being pointed at by your fellow people of color and having to defend yourself and at the same time getting taken advantage of in one way or another from the other side.

It is a painful spot to be in.

It’s very tricky to address a tokenizing system while understanding that the people involved are simply trying to live and find their way to do what they love and believe in, may not see themselves as “tokens,” and must navigate an inequal power structure that may only hand you opportunities once you concede certain things, or hand your more or bigger ones depending on what shape you take, what words you use, how close you hue to a political line, etc. I don’t like calling people “tokens” and I don’t really feel I have that right and that is not what I’m doing here so much as exploring the inequality that exists in these setups that often earn these names. I wouldn’t blame an artist for doing her/his best to spread his/her message in the way that felt right to their own soul. Just as I wouldn’t scorn those holding up the posters and marching. They don’t care or want to hear about “appropriation”; they just want to escape persecution and have their families intact. But as I said, I write often about ideas that can coexist with realities on the ground.

When I spoke yesterday of how I wanted art that people called “icons of the movement” to come from la comunidad, ButchM sarcastically commented “Psst. His [Ernesto's] name is on it. He personally signed every single one of the s/n edition. How do you not know even know that before your wrote an article about it? Seriously.” And then linked me to cimarrones.org.

You tell me. Do you see Ernesto’s name on the poster? Well, maybe we can’t read it from here. I don’t see it. Though most blogs or sites touting the art immediately think of this as “Shepard Fairey” work, I was happy to note that at least some sites do purposely put Ernesto’s name in the credit when talking about this art.

But if you go to ObeyGiant as well as any other site that has grabbed the ObeyGiant press release, you’ll notice something interesting.

The two blurbs being used to sell the poster of mi gente, of nuestra gente—Ernesto and my people—are Shepard Fairey talking about his European immigrant ancestors, and Zach de la Rocha’s star-power endorsement. Don’t get me wrong, I crank RATM like nobody’s business! And I agree that de la Rocha was an inspiration years ago, too, with his music about social injustice. And still is. And por supuesto I’m glad that Shepard Fairey relates to today’s immigrant story in his way.

But where is Ernesto’s blurb?

When Ernesto talked to me, one of the first things he spoke about was his background, his roots. What situation his family is in now. How he has spent time in border towns and how much this issue means to his heart. It was real rap, and it was moving. But why, if he owns a ’50-50′ share in credit of who made this art, is his story not included in selling the poster? Why, if his presence should negate the charge that this poster is cultural appropriation that furthers Shepard’s visibility and career without fairly repaying or crediting the Brown™—is Ernesto’s story not part of the story of this art’s birth?

Why does Shepard Fairey lead the promo with his story of white immigration while Ernesto’s modern-day ties to this very issue and these very people are omitted?

If there is a clear answer to this that escapes the charges of Whiteness centering itself or cultural appropriation, I can’t imagine what it is.

gracias, sombrero tip to hermana @aaminah

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WORKER’S DAY which is a day Latin@s (and others) march to show solidarity and press for rights in many areas. This is also UMX’s 3-year anniversary. And a reflective day for me, for sure. And yet, I cannot blog more on this now because I have my hands full with dos hijas, with my two youngest daughters. Hey, that’s familia and life for ya! Once in a while, these things might just preempt studious blogging.

But I’ll be back later! Just wanted to shout and and send strength and positive vibration your way this day. Enjoy la marcha en tu ciudad, or whatever rallies you attend or way you have of contributing to la lucha.

Please drop your links to your own May Day posts if you swing by today!

HAVE YOU SEEN THE NEW WORK by Shepard Fairey? You know, he’s the cat what did the famous and iconic Obama HOPE poster. I guess the high of being Everyone’s Favorite Poster Guy has worn off and someone’s looking for another hit!
I don’t mean to knock Señor Shepard unduly. So let me dust the powder off my wig and proceed to tell you coolly what bothers me personally about this image. I’ll start with what I like.

Striking color palette. Smart to avoid bright whites and go with vanilla/creme/offwhite background. Interesting choice of turquoise. I like that. Nice lines and style. Warmth in the eyes and in the tones of the “immigrant girl.” Strong central image, rays accentuate positive energy. I consider it a tip of the sombrero that Fairey’s hat text copies the choice of font I used here.

What don’t I like?

Trying too hard to be “ICONIC.” Fitting too many elements. Flowers, T shirt, Hat text, Fist…too crowded. And in all of that, no family. It is tradition in México/Latin America as well as in so many immigrant families to be centered around the family. That is so much of what the fight is about here. And she is all alone. And happy to be alone!?

Put the fist up. Look at this humble person. She won’t even meet your eyes. Put the fist up. It feels awkward to have her with a fist halfway raised, turned toward her own body, and looking off camera. This seems to me someone trying to tame the scary image of Latin American protest traditions and make it palatable to the masses of US political junkies, with whom S. Fairey is trying to score points.

Finally, the part that really bothers me. We Are Human?? Really? I don’t know. As I said on a list ayer, I know that immigrants are in the fight for Human Rights…but I didn’t think the “human” part was really in doubt!

What I also said on that list—and you may sniff this leaking through my comments that point toward a chasm in cultural connection—is that the Latin@ comunidad has a very rich and powerful history of political art, not only protest. So I look forward to seeing what gente create. Someone on this “brown” list I’m on said “I hope this becomes the icon for immigration reform!” I am sure that Shepard Fairey hopes this as well. I do not.

To me, this image is what happens when an outsider-looking-in accidentally projects their own alien view on an Other, even meaning well.

The bottom line is that the Whiteness Problem presents in various ways, even when attempting beneficence. And co-opting another culture and speaking for them is a common. I am not here to tell Mister Fairey he cannot express himself. There is always room for more art and nobody’s going to stop Fairey, anyway. He is a very well known artist and involved in a number of good causes. He has even defended himself in the past against somewhat similar criticisms:

It’s not like I’m just jumping on some cool rebel cause for the sake of exploiting it for profit. People like to talk shit, but it’s usually to justify their own apathy. I don’t want to demean anyone’s struggles through casual appropriation of something powerful; that’s not my intention.”

Intention…I seem to recall a few discussions online centered around this concept.

Personally, I think the intention was simply cash and fame, or more of it. But maybe I’m being too…sensitive.

Mobilize for May 1

March 5:00 PM from Union Square, NYC
Assemble Broadway and 15th
Defend Workers’ Right to Fight Back

Legalization for all! No limits on the right to strike and organize

Workers can’t fight layoffs, cutbacks and wage cuts if they fear deportation and detention and if laws block their rights to form unions and to strike.

Make the Rich Pay: Decent Jobs For ALL

Tax the rich and corporations to pay for a massive direct government jobs program—expanding housing, education, health services.

Budget cuts, concessions by workers, layoffs all deepen the crisis by cutting demand for goods and services. No budget cuts! Instead we need to create jobs and expand demand by taking money from the rich, who created the crisis.

Democratic Control of Finance

Permanent government ownership and control of all banks and other financial institutions– run by democratically-elected boards.

Trillions for bank bailouts just gives money to the same bankers whose policies are gutting the economy. WE need to control the financial system, not leave it in the hands of a pack of billionaires. The people must vote on where we put our own tax dollars.

How can we win these demands?

The same way people in the last Great Depression won Social Security, unemployment compensation, huge government jobs programs like WPA—by mass demonstrations, by General Strikes like those in San Francisco, Minneapolis and Toledo, by sit-down strikes (plant occupations) and by organizing everyone—fellow workers, neighbors, and friends. “Make the Rich Pay” Coalition

taxtherichnyc@gmail.com, NJ May 1 Coalition info@njmay1.org, NY-NJ Rapid Response Network

Info: 504-520-9521

Movilízate Para el Primero de Mayo

Reunete a las 5 PM

en Broadway y 15th St. Union Square

Defiende los Derechos de Obrero

Legalización para todos! Sin Limites en el derecho de organizar y hacer huelgas

Obreros no pueden resistir los despidos, ajustes y cortes de salarios si temen deportación y si las leyes bloquean sus derechos de formar sindicatos y hacer huelgas.

Exigir que los Ricos Paguen por Trabajos para Todos

Impuestos para las Corporaciones y Los Ricos, para financiar un programa masivo. De obras publicas – expandiendo vivienda, educación, y salud

Cortes del presupuesto gubernativo, concesiones de los obreros, y despidos, todos profundizan la crisis, cortando demanda por bienes y servicios. No más cortes del presupuesto gubernativo. En vez de cortes necesitamos crear puestos de trabajos y expandir demanda, tomando el dinero de los ricos, quienes crearon la crisis.

Control Democrático de Finanzas

Propiedad permanente gubernativo y control de los bancos y otras instituciones financieras–dirigidos por consejos elegidos democráticamente

Billones y Trillones  de Dólares Para Salvar a Los Bancos, solamente devuelve dinero a los Banqueros Corruptos cuyas políticas están destruyendo la economía. Necesitamos controlar el sistema financiero, no dejarlo en las manos de una banda de millonarios. El Pueblos debe decidir en que se utilizan los impuestos que pagamos. Esto seria  Democracia!!!

Como podamos ganar estas demandas?

De la misma manera que el pueblo en la última gran Depresión gano seguridad social, seguro por los desempleados, y grandes programas de obras públicas como el WPA—Por medio de grandes manifestaciones, por medio de huelgas generales como las de San Francisco, Minneapolis y Toledo, Por medio de ocupaciones de fabricas. Y organizando a todos—obreros, estudiantes, vecinos, y amigos.

La Coalición de Exigir que los Ricos Paguen, NY-NJ Red de Respuesta Rapida, NJ May 1 Coalición info@njmay1.org

Info: 504-520-9521