Chicago-Midwest

The Imagined Nation

Revolutions are things for cogs and wheels and gears and engines.I lived my adolescence near the outskirts of three manufacturing plantations and believed until what was a catastrophic disaster for a large segment of the population was to be my fate, emancipated me from a terminal existence as a fixture in a machine that made machines. Many were forced to move in a different direction, I was freed to dream, to hope and to learn the art, science and crafts of expressing all that I wished to invent and experience.Freedom begins in the mind and extends to the flesh, it is the power to define one's own desire in intimate detail as if it were already a manifested possession.I have the right to say "I want" and the power to make that which I want tangible and a commodity good for trade.This is why the Africans that were imported into Europe and the early Americas were bound and dragged here to do, use their skills and knowledge. Near the end of legalized chattel slavery, masses were sold by their own people or stolen to be cheap general labor. At some point machines were made to do much of that work and oh the hell that caused. But we did not and do not hesitate for a microsecond to think about if we should employ that machinery for our own comfort, pleasure & status. Patterson Greenfield was and is the only African American established and operated automobile manufacturer in American history, but some of us can generate an internal caste system based on another's ownership of a car.To me that's a bit insane.Before the word, there was the imagination, the first process of invention.Once a thing is expressed it is an invention. It is "Real".This is why I almost never need a report addressing the state of communities or who is ultimately responsible for the present state of discontent expressed by masses that demand open conflict in the process of seeking ethereal amorphous undefined states of existence. The individuals and groups that dictate policies are plain in expressing their intent, it is the masses that confuse, by demanding that their individual selfish concerns be made top priority. Like a person that takes a radio to baseball game, when they are supposed to be on the field with the team. We have a responsibility to make a contribution to the state that we desire. For some it is cheap grueling manual labor for others it is sleepless nights of thought. They are equally important to the realization of anything, but they are not equal in value.Like feudal warriors who balanced their art with an honor code and a pragmatic skill set and a craft, intended to express the conflict life endures to become apparently beautiful, I am by no stretch of the imagination unwilling to use a focused disciplined force to accomplish and maintain what I believe to be freedom. I am practiced at shattering the concrete pavements that block my paths of growth toward what I know I am meant to be. Still vengeance is not a goal, nor is destroying what I can not replace or create, neither is becoming a mirror image of that which hates me.At the same time I practice writing a lot of haikuAs a person who has both voluntarily giving up and had my civil liberties taken away for a time. I believe it to be a divine right to express what I believe freedom to be for myself. The right to publicly bitch and or critique is one of the things that makes this union of states great. That and having some government agency launch rockets into your home is generally pretty note worthy. I've been places where it's just the reality of the day.Which brings me to a few questions*If the President is just a stuff shirt or talking head for the institutions that line his pockets, then why aren't we lining them deeper so that he is willing to speak for us. I mean that is capitalism, right?*If this is an undesirable state and condition to exist in, why not make effort to change it? It's likely to be cheaper than lobbying for it.*If the education system is failing to teach our people what we want and need them to know, why not teach them ourselves?No one will ever be able to convince me that we do not have the talent, skills, knowledge, experience and time, right here in our communities.I used to carry calling cards that read, "I get paid to think". Other than my website's url and my name that was the only information on it. It was an open act of rebellion against the teachings of my most intimate communities. That statement always provoked a reaction or a response. I made notes on who and what those replies were and produced my own little demographic curve to filter who I would allow myself to have business exchanges with and who I would offer proceeds from my earnings to in charity. From the parties that responded favorably to my advertisement my income has steadily consistently increased to well above scale for my occupation, I'm a communications artist. But consistently from the parties that respond negatively to the statement, "I get paid to think", there is haggling to the point that the only way to fulfill their desired exchange is to sacrifice the quality of my work. We often complain about the quality of our own community's workmanship and seek to acquire better in exchange for our wages than we our selves produce in our occupations. Becoming less and less involved, emotionally and physically with the process of completion. I think there's some social science philosophies that address that. Still we want the products of passion and discipline, but we do not want to make the investment or take on the responsibility of making the creation of those things our own.I use what freedoms and liberties I do have to imagine, express want for, search for and manifest that which I desire. I find a great deal of prophetic prediction in works of fantastic fiction. Unlike the traumatic reactionary melodrama of keeping up with current events. I tend to only be surprised when an individual or group does what is good and beneficial for the masses.In my own ethnic and economic (ghetto)communities it makes me a subversive individual, because many believe that we are owed a debt which I don't think will ever be paid to anyone's satisfaction. Outside of my communities I'm looked up on as a thinker worthy of engaging in conversation. Conversation is like Jazz, it's coded with understandings that to the uninitiated closet aristocrat that demands that things be one way it may sound like cats fucking in the alley, but to someone willing to endure the discipline of learning to understand what is being expressed different assessments can be made.I admire genius in all forms, whether those forms be selfish and evil or benevolent and kind. The workings of a logical mind is a process to be studied. In that one comes to an understanding of what another is capable of, then it is time to learn what another is willing to do......and under what conditions.These loosely connected ideas lead me to one word:AttritionReap what you can carry and burn the fields behind you as you retreat to a place to make a stand and be prepared to hunker down for the duration. Knowing they will get hungry, they will get bored, they will get cold, they will get lonely and at some point turn to their own devices.The poor and middle income people of the world learned to play "The money game" but didn't build anything with it. So the guys that made the money game quit, took their tokens and are waiting. They give us minute by minute updates and play the game in generational cycles with track records that go back hundreds if not thousands of years.I work toward a goal with definable edges, when I'm not in conflict with something, I express them with greater focus, passion and intensity than I use cross the practice floors, grinders and ranges for being prepared to use what I hope is never needed.i imagine a place where children need only walk out the doors of home or school to touch food. I imagine a place where a hoe is a garden tool and not a twisted derogatory term of endearment. I imagine a place where people I know personally produce the bulk of the products I use on a daily. I imagine a place where a 'Peace officer' is a valued member of the community. I imagine a place where children openly debate the properties of differing ideas.I imagine a place where the difference being a fuck and making love is a tangible product or a human life that understands the benefits of being loved and therefore believes they have purpose in their community and lives to fulfill that purpose. I imagine a place where people share with the world their skills and talents and leave home, because they want to, not because they have to in order to attain a lifestyle. I imagine a place where people are taught language, science, philosophy, art and self expression through the processes of learning to make things that are good for the people around them,Wind turbines,bio fuelsgeothermal heat pumpsglassceramicsbuildingsgardenspaperclothingtelevisionfoodtransportationI'm willing to fight to build and protect that.But I don't believe I have to.I'm not willing to send my children to fight because the current president is not Patrice Lumumba or Edi Amin. I am especially opposed to throwing lives to be fodder against a fool who is willing and capable of destroying most of the life on the planet with a phone call, just because he has no male heir.Sons make their father's feel a sense of immorality, especially once their sons have sonsThat would defeat my imagined nation now wouldn't it?Obama is a novelty and will most likely be made as ineffectual as Jimmy Carter, but perhaps if someone the masses respect attaches something to do to that "Yes We Can" mantra the world has been chanting. Enough people will do something to make that call and response true and everyone else will be like sports fans and take credit for the victory.

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