Out There

Are you out there? Can you hear me? Are you alone? Insecure amid the anxieties that besiege your frightened mind or are you secure in the knowledge that this new gaggle of acquaintances will shield you from the pain...at least for awhile.  You see I know what you’ve been exposed to day and in and day out since your childhood spent as a poor girl in a rich man’s house and I know how it cycles through your mind, again, and again, and again, making you want to scream for mercy or drown your liver in a poison tide.  Because it doesn’t matter whether you have that flock of hangers-on hanging off you or not, you’re alone and even behind a mask you can’t hide from it.

Circles within Circles

I remember kissing you at 90km per hour; though it felt like we were travelling at the speed of light.  Spinning round and round in circles like the world spins upon its axis and with the universe warping around us to the point where all reality disintegrates and one can only wait to be sub-atomically undone.  Yes, I remember waiting.  Waiting with a sinking feeling in my stomach for the centrifugal force to take hold of me and pitch me to the grim death that must surely come to those reckless enough to ride unsafe machinery at the behest of their crazy girlfriend.

But then I look at you: my sole constant amid the maddening blur of trees, grass, carnival rides and flashing neon lights against the night sky.  And you smile, holding close in my fear: daring me to go one step further, with you, as we journey together to the edge of sanity.  I remember the reassuring grip of your hand and I don’t want to let go – I don’t want to become so hard that I can no longer feel your touch through my armour which the universe is now stripping off and flinging in all directions like some volatile cosmic tornado that threatens to undo time itself.

I need you.  And even as the whirlpool claims me and the typhoon rages through my veins, coursing through a mind and a soul that is fighting for its life, my eyes are fixed on you – watching you and our love spinning round and round, circles within circles, spirals, ellipses, neutron stars, and unknown galaxies lit by the atomic fires of giant quasars – billion year-old light recycled and reborn, aging, and reborn, over and over – and I will know that there is order even in the depths of chaos.

I never wanted to let go.  You see this might seem to be one big cosmic joke but really, this crazy world is like that carnival ride and every day I find myself spinning in the dark toward my fate.  And it’s scary being alone.  I keep staring at the shifting walls of this vortex, tracing patterns amid shadows and trying to see your face.  Searching because I need you: I need your eyes, your smile, your kiss, your hand – to be my constant, the only thing that stays still amid the flux of reality.  Something real.  I will look at you, and not be afraid.

Obama and Public Healthcare: The Man Who Could Have Been

It’s not easy being Barack Obama these days: too many high hopes, too much opposition, too many complaints from the “professional left” (as his press secretary put it), too many problems with the economy, too many problems with healthcare, too many problems with Afghanistan and Wiki-leaks, too many Tea-Party rallies, too much pressure from Corporate America and Wall Street, too many Rush Limbaugh wannabes, too much debt, too many issues with the BP oil spill, too many issues with Israel and Palestine, too many issues with Lebanon and the Russians, too many issues with Iran, people saying he’s too progressive or not progressive enough, Republicans circling him like vultures, just TOO MUCH STUFF! So not surprisingly I’ve heard people say how much they just would not like to be “in Obama’s shoes”, it would just be too much of a hassle, they say.  I disagree, for I know exactly what I would have done.
  
Take healthcare reform for instance.  If Obama had been truly progressive and truly serious about securing affordable healthcare for all, he would have done the following as soon as he was elected: he would have addressed the American people, pointed his finger squarely at the Republican hacks and “Blue Dog” Democrat stooges and said, “People, you want affordable healthcare and these privileged, wealthy, Mayo-Clinic-visiting elites stand in the way this basic aspiration.  I campaigned on change, but I need your help to make it happen.  I invite you to come into the streets and show these Senators and Congressmen how you feel – healthcare is your right.  If you want it, come out and claim it!” Millions would have turned out, the Senate would have been forced to back down and national single-payer public healthcare would have become a reality in America.

Inspiration

Born anew, the phoenix rises like words from your trembling vocal cords that travel across the great divide, down the dark tunnels of my ears, before your wandering spark ignites the combustible liquids of my consciousness.  Smouldering embers rise into fires that refuse to die and soon the entire field of my vision is ablaze.

Your dancing form, your dancing words, basking in the heat of this inferno you have conjured continue to weave their enchantment.  My mind smarts with the knowledge that words can give life and hold power over life while my senses scream in exaltation of the obvious: inspiration is a lady.

In that moment, in one fiery glance I can see the entire universe unveiled before me.  The primal depths of the

Tao and all its mystery are suddenly illuminated in one blazing caress.  “See how it is all connected,” you whisper in a voice that resembles a volcanic eruption in slow motion.

With a roaring crash and a grinding splitting of rock my Gollum awakes to the tune of your ancient songs and gazes at the volatile vistas you have opened before its wondering eyes.

And just as quickly you are gone, your blazing features etched in my memory as I long for the enfolding splendour of your flaming red wings.  If I was a sculptor I would make a tastefully draped image of you playing a violin and label it “inspiration” in testimony of my affection but instead I am left with a blank page, sitting there before me - taunting my confused mind as it tries in vain to capture your glory.

I can only long for the day when you will smile in my presence again.

Why Anarchists Annoy Me: The Black Bloc and Police Partnership at the G20

While the whole truth about the confusing circumstances that surrounded the police crackdown at the G20 in Toronto on the weekend of June 26/27 will likely never be unravelled without a serious public inquiry, enough evidence has emerged for me to draw my own conclusions. What happened at the G20 was an ambush, a set-up, entrapment, a sophisticated bait and switch operation in which the anarchist elements of the protest were led to do exactly what the police wanted them to do: raise hell and give them justification (and it doesn’t take much when spin-doctors are at work) for a general crackdown on dissent.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5G7aCgXtWg&feature=player_embedded

A High School Student's Perspective on the War on Terror (Circa 2002)

(Just a recently rediscovered piece of work I turned out back in Grade 12, many years ago now).

For the average student, such as myself, locked within the confines of the education system with no hope of escape, it’s often hard to picture what is really going on in that great wide world outside the warm and fuzzy enclosed spaces we call classrooms.

To the average student (or any kid for that matter, student or no) – as in touch with the world as we are (or at least as much as the Internet developers dreamed) – the “War on Terror” proposed by some president sitting in a far away house that just so happens to be white against so fanatical terrorist zealots and their “president” who apparently blew away a couple of sizable office buildings seems almost like a video game (an analogy only someone in this digital age could come up with).

Remember those old Mortal Combat Nintendo games? Those classic pieces of video technology where the winner of the game often didn’t just take the loser’s pride but his entire head and spinal cord as well (in addition to dicing up his body, throwing it into a spike-filled pit, corroding it with acid and all manner of other spectacular means of desecrating the recently deceased)! Well, it only seems fitting – given our digital violence charged psyches – that we see this “War on Terror” as an intriguing (and suitably lethal) Mortal Combat sparring match between “Captain America” and “Angry Arab” with all the pretentious amounts of blood and gore that make it such a good show.

Canada Day False Reassurance

Only days after the mass arrests and beatings that featured in the police crackdown that surrounded the G20 Summit in Toronto, the Queen addresses cheering crowds on Canada Day with a feel-good message that all is well and that Canada is a shining example for the world – exactly what the people want to hear in these uncertain times of war and economic uncertainty and exactly why they still look to an 84 year old woman for semi-divine guidance.

Now the debacle of the G20 can be blamed on a few despicable anarchist morons, the country can go on as normal with its supposedly sacred mission in Afghanistan, its supposedly profitable tar sands showpiece oil industry, its sure to come economic austerity programs, its manipulative Prime Minister, its star hockey team, its down home celebrity singers and figure skaters and its tame gospel of multiculturalism which conveniently ignores the third world living conditions that persist not only on native reserves but in our inner cities and countryside alike – not to mention its ancient draconian anti-sabotage laws from 1939 that can be revived secretly to deal with troublesome dissenters. This was a day of Tim Hortons, monarchy, street hockey, and endless patriotic protestations of innocence by guilty politicians – the inconvenient 2000 protestors who marched in Toronto under heavy police guard were dwarfed by the 100,000 strong mass of flag waving people swarming Parliament Hill.

Too many choose to remain blind and cling to myths rather than face up to harsh realities. Stephen Harper has washed his hands clean of the G20, left any after effects for the Province of Ontario and the City of Toronto to deal with, and taken sweet refuge amid royal pageantry and tradition. The lessons of the past week are telling: There will only be justice in this land, and we will only be a truly “shining example” for the world when 100,000 people throng downtown Toronto to protest against injustice in solidarity with their fellow citizens and a mere 2,000 show up on Parliament Hill to stare at royalty.