showing up

 I am having lots of feelings these days. I don't feel like I can ever catch up with them. They keep flowing out of me in the form of these ephemeral cards. 

It's time for me to put myself out there some. I'll have a show in February at NOLA 'Nacular gallery and I'm coming out more and more each day. Let's see where it leads. It surely cannot stay here.

Gaza

 As ever, I face my rage and make a poster. I’m trying to be effective and to end the occupation. We are invited to participate in the liberation of Palestine and to liberate ourselves and all of creation. I have been privileged to March in the streets with my neighbors. We have created a liberated space and we continue to expand that space and time until all are free.

 Campaign Season is upon us.

 I get mad and tired and hopeless, and then I realize that this is a good way to serve the oppressor. So I get back on press and spread a little of the solution. We know what to do, and what not to do.

War is failure

Our corporate overlords beat the drums of war. Honest people ask, "What else can we do?" as they resign themselves to support the brutality. But really, what else can we do? Let's think about it for a minute. We don't have to shoot some conscript who doesn't even want to do the invasion. We don't have to obey the generals when they tell us to invade. Let's meet and talk and use our imaginations and our love for each other. As usual, I'll recommend the General Strike. You have good ideas too. Thousands are flooding the streets of Russia to say "NO" to war. They are arrested and worse, and the next day thousands more come out to replace them. I bet some folks know a lot about sabotage and could figure out how to disable a tank or a drone without killing anything. We could drop out of the carbon economy and drain fuel from the whole war machine. And we can all be more careful about who we believe and where we get our news.

I'll print a poster. 

white people policing

 This story really warms my heart. No, really, I'm serious. It would have been tragically different here, with the boy in handcuffs in the back of the police car, or worse. Policing can be different. Not in this society -- not yet. Not in a system that depends on division and exploitation. Not where money is king and power is white. But we can do better. We are already doing better, just not enough. I'm going to keep building. Thanks for your company along the way.

New Zealand police confirm

toys are cool

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - An emergency call made by a 4-year-old New Zealand boy asking for police to come over and check out his toys prompted a real-life callout and confirmation from an officer that the toys were, indeed, pretty cool.

Police shared audio of the call on social media this week along with a photo of the smiling boy sitting on the hood of a patrol cruiser, noting that while they don't encourage children to call the emergency number, the incident was ''too cute not to share.''

The call begins all business: ''This is police, where is the emergency?''

There's a pause as the unidentified boy hesitantly says, ''Hi,'' and then ''Police lady?''

''Yes,'' the dispatcher says, switching to a friendlier, singsong tone. ''What's going on?''

''Um, can I tell you something?'' the boy asks, and after being told he can, says ''I've got some toys for you.''

''You've got some toys for me?'' says the dispatcher.

''Yep. Come over and see them,'' the boy replies.

A man then gets on the phone confirming the call was a mistake, saying the 4-year-old had been helping out while his mother was sick.

A police dispatch call then goes out, giving the address: ''There is a 4-year-old there who is wanting to show police his toys, over.''

''Yeah, I'm one-up, I'll attend to,'' responds an officer.

Not Racist

 It’s hard to admit, but living in this deeply racist society makes us all racist. To deny it is to be like the guy who says, “trust me.” That’s the last guy I’m going to trust. 

Patriarchy

 

Sacred Ground

The New Orleans power elite and real estate speculators continue to pursue their policy of land-grab and displacement. We have a perfectly unsuitable City Hall building that needs serious attention (most likely by bulldozer.) We have acres of land in the New Orleans East neighborhood that is starving for a major development like a new City Hall. And, most importantly, we have Congo Square. I suggest the article in Antigravity magazine . We could reflect all day on the racist colonial legacy of this city, state, region, country . . . but the point is to hit the streets and liberate the land and ourselves.

 I heard someone on the radio say "When he called to his mother he called to all mothers." I'd like to credit the person, and ask if my edit was appropriate, but I went ahead and printed this card anyhow. Perhaps I just wanted to be included even though I cannot be a mother.

I also had a creepy feeling looking at the image of Mr. Chauvin. First, that name, sounds like "chauvinistic" and there's a connection. We get the word from a possibly fictional soldier in the army of Napoleon who was zealous and unquestioning in support of his emperor in supremacy of the French State. Our current Chauvin has been described as having a "casual, hands-in-pockets" attitude. I see it differently. He is intent, anxious. And his bulging chest leads me to wonder if he is among the many police officers who use steroids to enhance their self image as mighty punishers of the criminal other. I see his hand is thrust into his pants in search of his shrunken testicles, craving stimulation, reassurance that he is the great one, the potent white hero.

I print letterpress for a living. Sometimes I print things on the side that I don't intend to sell, instead I just put them out and see if I can't help push the conversation along. Often as not this conversation would probably not help my business. So, now that there is no place like coffeeshops to drop them, and I want to protect my regular customers from scary thoughts, I turn to this blog. 

Here's the latest. My sister asked how to pronounce "simony" and I said I thought it was long i (sigh-mon-ee), but I had to look it up and I found the story of Simon the Magus, who wanted to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Apostles set him straight, but I say, why stop at healing and speaking in tongues? The air, the water, the land, our health, understanding,  . . .  all these are free from the Creator. And like Woody Guthrie, when I see a "no trespassing" sign I look on the back side. That side was made for you and me.

Leadership

Dr. King spoke more than once about Mother Pollard. She inspired and sustained him and the movement. And yet we don't even know her full name. Like today, the work is sustained by people (mostly women) who will never get a national holiday in their honor. 

Waiting for Nothing

Almost everybody predicted that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016. We are now faced with the common perception that we will have a vaccine soon and this pandemic will be behind us. Maybe not. There is more to it than common sense. Still it is helpful to keep in mind that things we all agree on, or that we wish was true, might not be so. And it is helpful to realize that things we all know to be true can be ignored if they contradict what we wish was true. We know that vaccines against polio, smallpox, diphtheria, and others have changed history. We also know that there is no vaccine for HIV, a mostly useless vaccine against the seasonal flu, an everyone knows that despite centuries of study there is no cure for the common cold. Add to that the wild claims for genetically modified antibodies (never before used or tested even on animals) and the millions of people who are reflexively anti-vaccine and we have a long wait ahead of us and no return to normal, ever.

Stock Market Okey-Doke

Did you have a good second quarter of 2020? I had a tough time. We had a tough time. Work is way down, we're all concerned about our health and the health of our neighbors, it looks like it will be many months before we can visit friends and family, political leadership is concerned only with self-promotion, and racist violence is in a dangerous death spiral. But do you know who had a great quarter? a record high? NASDAQ.    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/topstocks/nasdaq-hits-record-high-fedex-soars/ar-BB16dXxb 

I have tried to learn about and understand the economy. Finance capital has been especially hard to figure out. This all looks like paper chasing, with no actual goods produced or delivered. Wall street looks like theater to me. The trading floor closed for months because of COVID, with no discernible effect on the market. We are all offered 'the market' as a goal, a dream, the only legitimate way to understand value and values. But it's all a bunch of lies.

I've been predicting the end of this rotten system since about 1840 (I was a precocious child). But this time seems like the real thing.

John Brown

Days like these remind us that it is not OK stand by and watch. John Brown has been for me a terrifying inspiration. Would I have joined him then? Should I follow his example now? Obviously my answer is in the fact that I still consider it a question. My answer so far is "no". Tactics, inspiration, morality, spirituality, personality, politics, and so many more questions are not relevant once we decide to act. And I am unable to see these days as either binary good vs. evil or as shades of gray. It seems like there is a threshold somewhere, an edge of history that we can step across. It is ours to discern that place and how we can take that step. In the meantime, here's a marching song:

John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave,

His soul's marching on.

He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord,

His soul's marching on.

They will hang Jeff Davis to a sour apple tree!

As they march along!

He captured Harper’s Ferry with his nineteen men so few,

And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;

They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

—————

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored

He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword

His truth is marching on, His truth is marching

Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Glory, glory, Hallelujah!

Glory, glory, Hallelujah! His truth is marching on

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps

His day is marching on

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me

As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free

While God is marching on

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

——————————

When the union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,

There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;

Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,

But the union makes us strong.

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,

Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?

Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?

For the union makes us strong.

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;

Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;

Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;

But the union makes us strong.

All the world that's owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.

We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.

It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.

While the union makes us strong.

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,

But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.

We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn

That the union makes us strong.

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,

Greater than the might of armies, multiplied a thousand-fold.

We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old

For the union makes us strong.

--------------------------------------------

There are two recent, really good fictionalized accounts of John Brown's life

Cloudsplitter, by Russel Banks

and The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride (soon to be a Showtime movie, I hope it's good)

All Are Called

I credit someone on the Visionary Activist radio show for the text. I don't know who it was but Caroline Casey quoted someone who said "When he called for his mother he called for all mothers"

Conversation

I print for my own expression and I print for others for pay. I have never had to turn work down because I don't agree with the content but I will never print something I find offensive. Then there is the stuff in between. Here's a picture of a poster I printed for my friend Devin. I have no objection to this poster, but I am done with the conversation. There is no other side to racism. Arguments and reasoning have always been ways for oppressors to distract us while they pick our pockets and kill our neighbors. Sure, I'll have a conversation. I'm having one right now. But it's not about convincing anybody. We're engaged in this conversation to guide our action as we destroy white supremacy.

agitation-propaganda

It's time to revive Prints John. I print things and then I want to put them out. I go to plenty of demonstrations and things and I try to hand this stuff out. Everything else is shut down. No café society. 

So maybe if someone sees something from the Prints John brand they'll find me here and we can get some of this agin-prop out into the world.

I think there's a link to email me here and I'll answer if you reach out.

the return

I'm back in New Orleans. I realize now that I went into this trip with vague and impractical goals. I doubt that I would have changed anything had I realized this first. I might only have avoided my present feeling of disappointment. The sky did not open up and present me with a fully baked plan. So I'm back and getting reacquainted with all the great things about being here (especially my friends), and the nearly intolerable climate.

For years I looked forward to this new phase of my life where my responsibility toward my son has changed and options open. What I avoided considering, and must now confront, are the costs associated with these options. Perhaps I will yet find another informal lease arrangement like I have enjoyed here and keep on the same low profile path, or I will try and build a financial identity that will enable me to join the grown-up world. Save me from that fate! Who out there has or knows of a shop space of about 500 to 1000 square feet where I can set up my 5 or so tons of printing equipment and just do what I do. I don't want it for free but I don't want to sell my soul to CitiBank.

I know it's not practical. And I imagine that people who feel trapped by this rotten system will feel no sympathy for me wanting this indulgent escape. Perhaps if I can create this utopia for myself, and link it with others, we can continue to expand this alternative universe to include you and all who with to join. What else can we do?

Home?

There's the place you live and there's the place you're from and there's the place you belong. I'm trying to get those all lined up. I have arrived in Los Angeles and my first scheduled appointment happened to be just 6 blocks from the place I was born. It is now the Dream Center, a Christian community service center. At the time of my birth it was Our Lady Queen of Angels hospital. And so it went throughout the day. All the old sites and sights and even the changes remind me who I am and where I'm from. That doesn't mean I belong here or that I'll be able to live here again, but I am definitely from here. 

Here's a snippet of Robert Frost that has been stuck in my head. It's from Death of the Hired Hand, North of Boston, 1914

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there

They have to take you in."