If a Democrat wins the Presidency, and the US military pulls out of Iraq…

Source: urban guerrilla

If a Democrat wins the Presidency, and the US military pulls out of Iraq…

I don’t want Iraq referred to as a war. Viet Nam isn’t a historical war; it’s a country of eighty million people.

I don’t want Iraq to be forgotten. The effects of war continue long after the pull-out of one side. The same goes for Afghanistan and anywhere else.

I want to see pacifists who hold weekly anti-war vigils to continue weekly vigils, but against the prison system and police brutality.

I don’t want liberals to be allowed to think that corporations have suddenly become ethical, transparent, and pure of heart.

I don’t want liberals to be allowed to think that the age of state surveillance and repression is over, and maybe they’ll learn to realize that it began centuries before Bush II.

I want to continue to see hundreds of thousands protesting in the streets, just like we saw in New York in 2003 and 2004, in Chicago and Los Angeles in 2006, and in Washington D.C.

I don’t want people to suddenly forget about Palestine.

I want to see liberals decrying poverty in the United States with the same passion that they decry the possibility of an invasion of Iran.

I want this many people to continue total mistrust of the government.

I want to see liberals resisting racial profiling of Blacks and Latinos with the same gusto that they have opposed harassment and deportation of Arab and Muslim men.

I want to see annual national demonstrations on the anniversary of Katrina.

I want to see people who thought that Bush II was the beginning of everything bad to read some history.

I want to continue to see pacifists getting arrested in civil disobedience actions at government offices, over the prison system, privatization of services, or, well, there are plenty of options.

I want us to be creative enough to figure out how to continue to bring people in.

I want to see us be able to retain some of these folks who joined us in the streets because they just found Bush II “so damned arrogant.”

I want to see those folks who claimed that they believe in revolution, but that we just need anybody but Bush first, quit working on elections.

I want to see tens of thousands mobilize annually to oppose the IMF, the World Bank, and other organs of imperialist capitalism.

I want to see liberals stick to their frustrations, and not to ignore Democrats who do the same damn things. I want to see these liberals become radicals.

I don’t want to see most of the groups that have been formed at different levels in the last six years fall apart. I want to see them develop.

I don’t want people to start thinking that it’s okay to join the military again.

I don’t want anyone to vote and feel that they’ve done something.

I don’t want anyone to see a Democrat elected and think that we won.

The Irrationality of Rationality

the following poem is made up of titles of poems by Charles Bukowski. Each line is the title of a poem from his book Bone Palace Ballet; I added words to some of the lines to let the poem flow better. Other than that, they’re all Bukowski titles.

a place in Philly:
God’s man,
the puking lady,
depression kid.
what will the neighbors think?

somewhere in Texas,
the strange morning outside the bar:
a $15 boy and a $1500 casket.
two crazies
smirking in the dark.

Society should realize
each man’s hell is different.
The powers that be
are clever.
Our world [is like]
walking with the dead
up through the night
as the fools dine out on the freeway.

The lady who looks forever young
The old guy in the piano bar
The young poets.
Those good people
quiet in a quiet night.
Death in a modern age.

Darker, and darker
welcome darkness.
In Glasgow there is
the singing of fools,
the bone palace ballet,
total madness and
some luck, somehow.