Why I Will Vote For Biden And Harris

Someone I love dearly posted something the other day about why they are voting for 45. I won’t go public with who it was out of respect for them and their opinions. I will, however go public with what the dissapointment i felt, even though I knew of their intentions. Dissapointment not because we disagree, that’s fine and even expected sometimes. Dissappointed because I had hoped that they might see the light. AT any rate,, it provoked me to think about why do I feel the way I do. This is my answer to that post,,,, The words are my own but if you wish to copy and paste them, feel free…..

For those of you who wonder why I vote for Biden and Harris, it is because I believe that they both are passionate about our way of life, our right to self- determination, to free speech and peaceful assembly, our right to guide our own lives without interference from a government run by a party that no longer has our own best interests at heart.I believe they care about the education of our children and the equal right to pursue a better life regardless of the color of their skin, their sexual preference or their gender. It is because I believe in these things. I believe in them for everyone.

I believe that Biden and Harris value each person for the individual they are. I believe that they will pursue an administration based upon empowerment for all, and not limited to the wealthiest. I believe the person I want as my president would never publicly make fun of a person with a handicap. My president would never be so incredibly cruel.

While I am not a strongly religious person myself, I believe that despite his posing with the bible, the current president cannot be the slightest bit religious when he is constantly fanning the flames of racial hatred and division, and he claims that these people who spread hatred and violence are ”Very good people.” According to the Christianity I was brought up with, there is no place at all for such behavior or beliefs. And certainly, no place for sexually abusing women and bragging about grabbing them. I believe the person I want as my president would never be so obviously hypocritical.

I believe that the person I want as my president would stand up for what they and we believe, stand up for what America has always wanted to stand for. I believe that the person I want as my president would do all they can to keep our world safe and our allies strong and not cozy up to dictators or authoritarian governments.I believe the person I want as president would never encourage his or her followers to beat someone up on national tv, promising to “pay your legal fees” because that person disagrees with his policies and has the courage to say so. I believe the person I want as president would instead do all they could to quell protests by listening to what the protestors are saying and acting accordingly before they turn violent,

I passionately believe this could be the most important election America may ever have. The choices are so clear. We either fall further into the darkness, the abyss of lies, abuse, division and hate, or we take the time to heal and find ways to begin to come together and set aside 400 years of racist abuse. I believe we can become, finally, the America that has brought so much hope to the world. I believe we can find an end to racism, to hate, to gender fascism, to illiteracy. I believe we can find a way to end the greed of the one percent, I believe we can still save our globe and end this climate crisis. I believe the choice is clear.

Please feel free to copy and paste my text if you feel the same as I do. Pass the word and spread the light of hope. We so need it. We will only find a way out of the darkness when we search for it together. #JoeBiden#JoeBiden2020#Kamala2020#KamalaHarris#vote2020#sayhisnameGEORGEFLOYD#blacklivesmatter

The Sadness Of Leaving Paradise

“Perhaps like me you have no address” Mahmoud Darwish

 

And we will go, again and again
Down roads unwanted and unmapped.
Thrust out of our past and present,
We go slowly from, but never towards.
Away, it seems, always away.

You, I, our families,
The disconsolate unwanted,
In mournful unison, go
To where the nightingale flies over sky-less lands,
Circling in silent arcs past our
Rainbows of no color, the solemn hues
Matching the smile
We’ve forgotten to show and
The eyes we’ve left behind
Like an empty wine bottle and
An unmentionable promise of return. 

Leaving is now in our bosom,
The uncultivable feed of our soul,
The cold in our summers.
The sense of loss removes our fingerprints
From the al-mahmas and the al-houn.
We express our losses in silence as
Our soul bears its’ grief
Like an olive tree without roots. 

Upon our next inevitable leaving,
I will change my name
To as yet unknown letters
In a non-existent language,
Denying what we leave behind,
Drawing the letters from what we have
On our backs,
Forged from yet
Another star-less sky
And burned into our souls here,
Times own cryptography.
All we were is spilled from the carts that
We draw silently away,
Along the streets with no sun. 

 

 

International Workers Day, a day for everyone?

This picture was taken today, May 1st, 2018, International Workers Day. As you may well see, it is of a rom woman, here in Stockholm, digging through the trash bin looking for bottles or cans to take back to the grocery store in hopes of gaining a few kronor to use to buy food. It is, by now, an all too common image.

This picture, in a way, embodies everything that this day is about. This day, May 1, is International Workers Day. It is held on May 1st in many countries around the world. The date set aside for “ All Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8 hour work day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for the universal peace. “

I was struck by the image and the irony of it as I took it. Struck by her, by her need, by the fact that on a day that is set aside to commemorate the continuing struggles of the working class, here is a woman who is surrounded by leftists, and who lives outside of even that struggle. I was struck by the questions that came to my mind as to how her actions might be viewed by those around her, especially on this day. Who would feel empathy, who might offer her a bottle or can, or food, or a shower, a place to sleep, who might be offended, who might not even notice that she was there at all? I was struck by the idea that we have become so accustomed to seeing it that we can forget the idea of class struggles or proletariat concepts and forget our common humanity. Who would, I wondered, feel some amount of empathy on May 1, but on another day scoff at her in disgust?

Workers Day, as it is also called, is a time of recognition. Recognition of the common struggles faced both in the past and currently with the hope that things will change. Struggles for healthy working conditions, a livable wage, education and skill training, decent working hours, equality among workers in questions of gender, class, pay, conditions and respect, are among others the topic of the day.

But the day has a greater meaning, especially now in europe, with the huge influx of immigrants and refugees, both documented and undocumented. Said influx has given rise, sadly, to a newly emboldened far-right. The hatred and fear mongering of the neo-nazis is rapidly gaining power throughout europe, including the once socialist idyllic Sweden. Swastikas and hate slogans are showing up more and more frequently and hate crimes are rising at a deeply alarming rate. As I walk the streets of Stockholm I see homeless men and women, I see refugees and I see rom, I also see the reactions on the faces of those who pass them by. Some, or perhaps most, merely ignore them, occasionally someone will stop and offer them money or food, or talk to them. Some call the police and ask them to be physically removed, others attack them verbally or even physically, although I have not seen any physical violence myself. What does this say about our society?

The socialist ideals of a great society of equals has been taking a terrible beating and the election of Trump has given greed and prejudice a new face. It has also put the economic gap into stronger focus as the 1% grows stronger, the struggles against their covetousness is growing as well. It is becoming clearer to many that capitalism equals egoism and I am buoyed by their voices and their strength.

‘A Poet’s Hallucinations,’ by Dareen Tatour

ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

Dareen Tatour’s “A Poet’s Hallucinations,” translated by Jonathan Wright, comes ahead of PEN America’s planned month of solidarity with Tatour, who was first arrested in October 2015, charged with incitement to violence primarily over a poem (translated to English here), and has been in jail and on house arrest since.

The verdict in Tatour’s trial is currently set for October 17 at noon in the Nazareth court. By this time, the poet will be exactly two years and a week in detention.

You can follow the course of her trial at freedareentatour.org/trial.

1. The Desire Hallucination

Desire builds a nest

Between the branches of my love.

It sings like a bulbul, night and day

And sweeps through me like fire through straw.

It tears my eyes from my face

And disfigures my features.

It steals all the furniture in my soul

So I sit and lament my luck.

1. The…

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A New Translation of Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour’s ‘I… Who Am I?’

ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

On August 30, despite public threats to withdraw funding from Israeli Minister of Culture Miri Regev and Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon, poets, writers, and readers gathered in Yaffa to hold a solidarity event with Dareen Tatour, who was first arrested in October 2015, charged with incitement to violence primarily over a poem (translated to English here), and has been in jail and on house arrest since:

From the solidarity event in Yaffa. Photo: Arab48.

The solidarity event, according to a report in Arab48, included both poetry readings and a discussion of Tatour’s legal case by lawyers and activists. Tatour’s father was also there to thank those in attendance. According to multiple reports, both Regev and Kahlon threatened to use their power to defund the theatre in Yaffa that held the event.

Several US literary figures also renewed their calls for Tatour’s freedom.

Now, Tatour awaits the verdict, set…

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Confession – Poem by Ghayath Almadhoun

As the wonderful Richard Söderberg said while he was on the Guldbagge awards, (Swedish Oscars) In order for women to take a step forward, men need to take a step back. It was a wonderful, true and very aware statement from one of Swedens coolest people. I thought about that statement, and about #metoo which he was, of course, referring too when I read this poem written by Syrian born Palestinian and now Stockholm resident poet Ghayath Almadhoun. It’s a beautiful poem of sadness and repentance for his part in the oppression of women everywhere, even in countries in which he has never set foot, in centuries long past and yet to come, for crimes against women he has never seen committed by men he has never met. If we are to grow past this oppression, men everywhere need to stand up and acknowledge their part in it, and take a step back so that women can take that so very important step forward.

 

Confession – Poem by Ghayath Almadhoun

 

You;

women who have trampled grapes

with bare feet

since the beginning of history

who were locked in chastity belts

in Europe

who were burnt to death

in the Middle Ages

who wrote novels

under male pseudonyms

in order to get published

who harvested tea

in Ceylon

who rebuilt Berlin

after the war

who grew the cotton

in Egypt

who covered your bodies with excrement

to avoid rape by French soldiers

in Algeria

virgins

in Cuba

who rolled cigars

on their naked thighs

members of the Black Diamond guerillas

in Liberia

samba dancers

in Brazil

women who have had faces destroyed

by acid

in Afghanistan

my mother …

 

Forgive me.

 

Translation from Swedish: James Blake

Ghayath Almadhoun

‘A Blade of Grass’: Support Ashraf Fayadh, Dareen Tatour, and New Palestinian Poetry

‘Against barbarity,’ said the celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008), ‘poetry can resist only by cultivating an attachment to human frailty, like a blade of grass growing on a wall as armies march by.’

Spreading poetry around the world from places where words are feared is a very noble cause indeed. Words are amazing things, they can create, they can destroy, they can calm, they can anger, they are cherished and they are feared. They only way to end fear is to face it. Dictators always crush those who can use words, journalists, teachers, philosophers and especially poets whose words can cause souls to fly from a single blade of grass.

ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY

Smokestack Books is currently crowdfunding — through October 15 — for their forthcoming anthology A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry. Those pledging £20 or more will receive a copy of the book:

Designed by Belal Khaled.

By crowdfunding, the press seeks to raise money to help pay contributors’ fees and printing costs, as well as to donate to the legal campaigns of imprisoned poets Ashraf Fayadh and Dareen Tatour.

The title of the collection comes from a Mahmoud Darwish quote: “Against barbarity, poetry can resist only by cultivating an attachment to human frailty, like a blade of grass growing on a wall as armies march by.”

A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry will be a facing-page, meet-in-the-middle collection that brings together, in English and Arabic, new work by poets from historic Palestine and the diaspora, including work by Marwan Makhoul, Maya Abu Al-Hayyat, Fatena Al-Gharra, Dareen Tatour, Ashraf Fayadh, Fady Joudah, Naomi Shihab Nye, Deema K. Shehabi, Mustafa Abu Sneineh, Farid…

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Che Guevara on the 50th anniversary, if you will) of his death, no, murder by the CIA.

He wasn’t perfect, but who is? The unrelenting commitment he gave to the cause of human rights, and the sacrifices he made for the struggle right up to the ultimate sacrifice, continue to inspire those who fight the corrupt system.

To quote the great poet Kenneth Rexroth from his beautiful poem For Eli Jacobson;

”There are few of us now, soon

There will be none. We were comrades

Together, we believed we

Would see with our own eyes the new

World where man was no longer

Wolf to man, but men and women

Were all brothers and lovers

Together. We will not see it.

We will not see it, none of us.

It is farther off than we thought…”

Rest in peace, perturbed spirit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/world/americas/che-guevara-death.html

Howl by Allen Ginsberg : The Poetry Foundation. (A corrected reblog)

Ahhhh,, Allen G. It’s hard to think of a poet who had a bigger influence on me than you. Ezra, yes, perhaps once, tiger cage or not, Kenneth Rexroth and Kenneth Patchen both have opened my eyes to the beauty of taking on a social cause and of love, as has Neruda.

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, “

I was one of those angelheaded hipsters, I was one of the frustrated youth, busted without a reason, inclined towards the inevitable decline, ousted with nowhere to go and no way back in, climbing a ladder that I didn’t know didn’t even exist, where are the fucking steps? Where am I going? Following a hollow leader, leading nowhere but up and ending up nowhere but down, tearing my clothes in a flagellants rage, whipping my back with all the insipid uninspired rules of the military, the crucifix burnt into my skull, he is risen he is risen, Dylan, no, not Thomas, Bobby, no not Kennedy, a poet for no one but words for all, a hero running the streets at dawn, now, here in Stockholm luring me into a storm of calmness, denying me my rage until i couldn’t hold it anymore shooting it out into the worlds great gloryhole, with no one on the receiving end,

Well, I digress. Allen was simply one of the great minds of our, or any, generation. It is a pleasure to read and share his work. I’ve been planning on writing something for my 60th birthday a few weeks ago and I still hope to do that soon. It would be massively incomplete if it didn’t include this magnificent fountain, this famously censored HOWL.

Howl by Allen Ginsberg : The Poetry Foundation.

Hurricane Harvey Exposes Trump’s Empathy Deficit – The Atlantic

Republicans are asking a horrific question: Is our president insane?

Certainly more narcisstic and un-empathetic (is that a new word?) than most presidents or for that matter, more so than anyone i have ever met, and certainly the most unprepared, ill mannered and unpresidential of any president in my lifetime. He has the least leadership abilities of any president, the worst public speaking skills, absolutely no sense of decorum, no clue as to how a “normal” grownup male should behave and he seems totally incapable of grasping, not to mention acknowledging, his faults.

As an american living overseas, I can say that while some here may well have disagreed with his predecessors in the White House, no president has ever been such a constant source of embarrasment or ridicule across europe as him. And all of this is beside his facist-friendly politics, his economic plan, if he has one, his nepotism, his admitted illegal groping of women, or his obvious racism, or his orange skin and small hands (mutant?)

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-president-insane-20170828-story.html