LAISSEZ FAIRE: Dedicated to the uninsured 47 million Americans.

Laissez Faire


generally adored
this system fortunato
rarely abhored
maker of the ghetto

in a country hailed
by three hundred million hearts
covered if failed
with doctored charts

we hide the effects
defy the attacks
coming from rejects
lost with no chance


highest bidder, step up!
fight for your cash
and trample the Gallop
see? ain't no backlash!

we keep 'em down n' broke
what they got to take?
might be the stroke
or backyard snake

build my empire on your back
you slave, slave away for me
i cut your paycheck
damnit, don't cry when you bleed!

you're gonna stain my Persian
walk out of here and stay
i give you compensation
to keep the Wobblies at bay

don't try to organize
put those chains back on!
when you gonna realize
life ain't fair to a peon!


we switch it up now, boss
we take back the mic
you gonna hafta cut your loss
or we goin' on strike!

don't tell us what to do
we know what's ours to claim
and we gonna take it, too!
you didn't listen--damn shame

we want healthcare--swear it!
you've killed too many
we're gonna live--declare it!
no more big money


i'm gonna tell my kids to come
what corporations got wrong
tell 'em what is good n' done
apologize it took so long

you can have your competition
just don't shoot craps with strife
wheel n' deal to bold fruition
but give us liberty n' life!


--

pax.

must be that the world's gone lame.

i found this horrifying article last night after reading 90+ pages from a book i had to read for history class (which ironically ties in because the last two chapters of this book detail the 1899 Newsies strike in New York City, and several subsequent strikes shortly after the turn of the century).

this article, found on my Yahoo! browser as i went to check my e-mail last night right after grabbing some dinner and returning to my room, lit a fire in my idling heart.

i am reading a powerful book written by the honored Dr. King, Why We Can't Wait, in 1963. it has touched something in my warring, violent heart that i thought i had dealt with and reasoned away.

i thought i'd finally come to grips with a philosophy called "Christian Realism", which entails a desire for peace via peaceful methods, but a realisation that there are certain situations in this world, ALL (in my belief) affecting civilian casualties and the defense thereof. it is the belief that Dietrich Bonhoeffer acted justly in his reaction to Hitler's war on the Jews and half the modern world over 60 years ago. Bonhoeffer, a German minister, was in league with a group intent on assassinating the Fuehrer. and on numerous occasions they very nearly did. and as a result many of them, brother Dietrich included, were executed within a narrow margin of War's End in Europe.

so that's where i think i normally am. i spend my time reading the writings of men like Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Reinhold Niebuhr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and (most painfully and obviously) my dear brother Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the one i feel closest to as i read his words or hear his voice.

and, like i said, it is painful to read Martin's words on peace and nonviolent resistance.
it is hard to feel so strongly against oppression and know that there are situations in which i would take up arms to defend the weak, the poor, the oppressed, and frankly any kid who needed help and couldn't get it any other way.

but then, there are situations where nonviolence works to get the point across, if not to completely begin a surge in liberation... though in the case of the US Civil Rights Movement it is often a longer, slower battle to continue to suffer for.

i found a video today that changed my perspective on other social struggles and movements around the world in which nonviolence is used and definitely gets the point across.

EZLN supporters (i.e. the People) storm a military outpost, unarmed. i'm not sure what's going on or what their intent is as they storm in, but it's the coolest thing ever to watch them break the barbed wire fence and march right up into the outpost, forcing the ARMED soldiers back against the walls of the central building.

just watch. there's hope in nonviolence that i didn't know existed beyond these borders.
blows me away!

26

the windshield wiper's been at it for a few minutes. it's starting to thump against the car.

hustle, bustle, and, so much muscle
cells about to separate
i find it hard to concentrate
and, temporary this
cash and carry 'em
stepping up to indicate
the time has come to deviate

the rain pours harder. i grip the wheel with my left hand, holding on tight as the curves wind.

and, all i want is for you to be happy
and, take this moment to make you my family
and, finally you have found something perfect
and, finally you have found...

my right hand is so blessed as to be interlocked with yours. you lean toward me in your seat, fingers rapt with mine.

death defying this
mess i'm buying its
raining down with love and hate
now, i find it hard to motivate

the tires peel and turn as i speed on to my house to show off my amazing best friend-turned-love.

and, estuary is, blessed but scary
heart's about to palpitate
i'm not about to hesitate
and, want to treasure the rest of your days here
and, give you pleasure in so many ways dear

you speak loud enough to be heard over our new favorite song, telling me of your family, giving me more reason to love them and you.

and, finally you have found something perfect
and, finally you have found...
here we go

our windows are rolled down just enough, the rain-guards not really working and i don't care as my arms gets sprayed by the intoxicating rain.

do you want me to show up for duty?
and, serve this woman, and honor her beauty
and, finally you have found something perfect
and, finally you have found...

hungry and thirsty, still several tens of miles from a dinner we're incredibly late for, there's peace in your touch and the fleeting glance.

...yourself... with me, will
you, agree to take this man
into your world
and now, we are as one

i'm blown away by who you are, where you're from and that you have faith in us despite neither of us having a great track record.

my lone ranger
the, heat-exchanger
is, living in this figure eight
now i do my best to recreate
and, sweet precision
and, soft collision
heart's about to palpitate
now i find it hard to separate

i am broken, my past the rap sheet of a criminal of the heart. too many broken behind me, my own in shambles...

and, all i want is for you to be happy
and, take this woman and make you my family
and, finally you have found someone perfect
and, finally you have found...

you are perfect, the beautiful woman i love and will hold and hold dear forever. i want you and you alone.

all i want is for you to be happy
and, take this woman and make you my family
and, finally you have found someone perfect
and, finally you have found...
Yourself...

as the final word rings out i look into your eyes a second longer than you'd like as the road blurs beneath us.

as the final ring is cast and dyed i breathe in something never tasted before. i know. i love you. te quiero tanto... tanto... tanto... tanto... tanto.....




[lyrics by Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Hard to Concentrate", sentences written entirely, completely genuinely, by me]

Two.

"Inti and Ricardo ran into some small boys and went to the house of a young peasant with six children, who received them very well and gave them a lot of information... Posing as one of Inti's assistants, i went to talk to the peasant... He told us about other peasants, but we could not be entirely confident about his information because he was not very specific. El Medico [Moro] treates the children who had worms and a mare had kicked one of them; then we headed off."
--February 9 & 10 [1967]
--Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's Bolivian Diary

"As Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered a village there, ten lepers stood at a distance, crying out, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!' He looked at them and said, 'Go show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy."
--Verses 11-14 of Chapter 17
--Luke's Gospel, New Living Translation

two revolutionaries interested in the health and reality of the people around them as they strive to make a change.

both died by the age of 40, working, fighting, labouring, striving, living, dying for the people they cared for and loved.

Salaams.

Loophole Legislation (that makes me want to use strong language)

I was reading about something last night that successfully pissed me off and nearly sent me into an outrage!
the downside of this well-meaning outrage was that there's really no longer anyone alive responsible for it and it's results that i could do any damage to.

so i let the initial reactionary feelings rest.

but the idea started working on me and i started writing something down last night...

first, here's what i was reading about. maybe for some of my readers this is a familiar old term:

The Pupil Placement Law.

1954--Brown v. Board of Education--Segregation outlawed because nothing can ever really be "separate but equal."

here's what the famed brother, Dr. King, had to say about it,

"There was another factor in the slow pace of progress, a factor of which few are aware and even fewer understand. It is an unadvertised fact that soon after the 1954 decision the Supreme Court retreated from its own position by giving approval to the Pupil Placement Law. This law permitted the states themselves to determine where school children might be placed by virtue of family background, special ability and other subjective criteria. The Pupil Placement Law was almost as far-reaching in modifying and limiting the integration of schools as the original decision had been in attempting to eliminate segregation. Without technically reversing itself, the Court had granted legal sanction to tokenism and thereby guaranteed that segregation, in substance, would last for an indefinite period, though formally it was illegal."
---Martin Luther King, Jr., Why We Can't Wait

this is the part of the book at which i immediately yelled out my favourite expletive... probably more than once. it's a good thing i was in a pretty much empty campus parking lot (although ironically 10 minutes beforehand a campus police cruiser had driven up behind me, probably smelling for pot smoke, since i generally dress the perfect part of the druggie hippie).

i think i stood up and threw my hands in the air in exasperation and swore some more, beginning to pace, FURIOUS.

sadly of course, i can't REALLY blame all whites for that. as much as i wanted so badly to do so. at that moment i know i would have offered some very choice words to those Supreme Court Justices if they had somehow shown their face on my campus. and i probably would have been so vocal that that squad car that sniffed me would be back in a flash to lock me up for "disturbing the peace".

and to think that allowing segregation to continue, when they did, wasn't an act of gregariously disturbing the peace!

finally realizing there was nothing i could do to change the past, i pulled out a notebook from my satchel on the curb, took a swig from my water bottle and pulled my pen out of my pocket, leaning against a small tree to begin writing something i'm surprised i can still read, for my hands were shaking with anger as the ink flowed...

"Loophole Legislation--9.8.08

Words like 'as best seen fit' are Bull. if the president/congress/or powers that be promise financial aif to a region or country in need of reconstructionary funding, then nowhere in the written promisory note can ambiguous wording, such as that often used for the betterment of the U.S. Constitution, be applied. If it is, there is a negative legislative loophole.

If not, there is a good loophole in the system based on greed, and said moneys may actually make it into greater manifestation among the people for whom it is intended."

as i finished writing last night, i recalled to memory a scene from the film Amazing Grace, in which the abolitionists in the British Parliament drafted a simple law that endangered British sailing vessels as they tried to hide under the neutral flag of the colonies, as those particular vessels carried slaves from Africa to the Isles. if suddenly all ships in those waters bearing the flag of the colonies could become fair game, then the slave trade would be greatly hindered for too many sailors and captains would be too afraid to make that journey knowing they were suddenly viable targets for enemy warships.

if there can be a good piece of loophole legislation like that, then there's certainly something that can be done today to look out for the interests of the masses and the oppressed. the problem is that today there's probably some way to pay closer attention and with a federal system in place, relying also on the permissions of a presidential and executive voice, then it's a lot harder to pass legislation so quickly that could truly benefit those already downtrodden by the law.

anyone have any ideas on this? what if i could actually get my readership to come forward and comment in larger numbers and assist me in the struggle to find a way to pass a protectorate law WITHOUT ambiguous wording...

will anyone please help me?

my father said something in church last week about how so many church-goers complain about change in the church and want things to be done the same old way. he then said that so many get so frustrated and upset about change occurring within a church body, and said that he holds out on giving this response one-on-one, but went ahead and said to the larger group:

"if you're going to get upset about something, let's get upset about AIDS in Africa, starving children or the situation in Darfur. Let's make it about something that matters for crying out loud!"

on that note, i ask you:

will you stand up and not get pissed about the words i use to describe things that i hate, to describe injustice that is unfit for human witness! these stronger words should mean nothing to you in comparison with the greater evils i'm telling you about!

stand against racism
stand against hate
stand against poverty
stand against slavery
stand against apartheid
stand against injustice!

i wish the unrest of God's spirit to be upon you until you take action.
may peace flee from your heart until peace and rest are gained for the world.
--BENEDICTION--

first. drink it black.

i've been up for ALMOST an hour at this point this morning.

i've gotten into the habit lately of spending nearly at least an hour on the phone with a particular loved one every night (at least while i'm away at school). that tends to make me tired, but for some reason i get up really bloody early anyway.

the clock read 11.57 when i hit the pillow last night and about 7.03 when i rose this morning, my body itching incessantly on my legs, my arm.

i've got poison ivy. again. it normally lasts me about a month. hopefully not this time. i've caught it early and applied calomine lotion this morning, then came back to my dorm room, put on the coffee, and watched a ridiculously pointless fake video called 'Everyday Normal Guy', and showed it to my roommate.

poured some cereal, it's got real strawberries in it :) and Silk Soymilk. pretty healthy, and should be vegan, too, i think :) :)

coffee stopped choking and bubbling about five minutes ago and i poured it into a mug. took the first sip.

i drink it black. Imogen Heap's playing loud into my ears. Hide and Seek.

without a mug of coffee every morning, i get a caffeine headache. but i think i wrote about that some time last year, probably...

i was starting to get a vague headache until that first sip. the first sip is really good.

how great is it that i start the day with a hot mug of bold black coffee and a conversation with God, and that i finish out the day with another conversation with God and a great conversation with her! i am blessed. :)

i lose

one of my favourite games of all time is Risk.
i think i have this vague sense that at some point in history i won that game once.
but as a general rule, i know i always lose.

and yet it is still among my favourites.
while sitting here before church, reading about suffering for the Name (a Name i believe is also so often attributed to true justice and righteous acts for the sake of the people) from the sermon on the mount, and listening to Coldplay's Viva la Vida, it occurred to me exactly why i love that game so much!

i love fighting hard--to the last man--until my imminent defeat against an enemy so big that i know they'll crush me, but until that moment, until that day, I'LL GIVE 'EM HELL!


in that sense it feels like reality, the way i expect my life to play out if God puts me where i think he'll put me--
before an unjust enemy.

write your letters
grit your teeth
say your prayers
lock and load.

routinized, scrutinized, mutinized

two of the title words are not recognized by the google dictionary spellings. they're not usually turned into verbs in this way, they are meant to be nouns and things that just happen without any intent. overtly.

however, i feel like college has begun to routinize me, which is not exactly what i would desire for myself, or for anyone i care about. it strips away my ability to frequently make random calls and break from the "normal". classes are great, as i've already said, but i feel mildly constrained by the routine that these classes are pushing on me.

it makes sense to me then that i scrutinize the system that does this to me. after all, are we not taught to think for ourselves in school? ;) i'm not trying to write this in an annoying way, or a rebellious manner. i say this pretty light-heartedly, but i like to examine the vague irony of it. i am routinized by things that i love, and by someone i love, whose voice every night is so calming and intoxicating that it soothes my mind and body to sleep, even if my heart denies me sleep by pounding fiercely inside my tossing and turning body, until i wrap my arms around my pillow and "pretend i am kissin the lips that i am missin".

that's the kind of routine i used to hate about having a girlfriend, but things have changed since that sort of routine came after getting to know her so much better on a friendship level for nearly two months, spending at least an hour or two in conversation with her nearly every single day, face to face, shopping with her for foods both of us can eat, sodas she'll make me finish after her first sip, and tiny pieces of manufactured and discovered oddities in jewelry stores that accentuate beautiful characteristics of her or of any other soul that dons them.

the routine of her voice every night these past two weeks has been really helpful for me. and really enlightening, as well.

so, due to the scrutiny
i've placed on the layers of routine
that affect my every day's and "some day's"
i have determined that i will break away from all of the unhealthy routines
and focus only on the healthy ones, allowing the rest to fit in place
and my branching out--i'll call it mutiny--
will allow me to make some changes
in the way this world views justice.

i declare mutiny against the harmful status quo.

i may only have a semester here at this particular institution, which means i've got a few months to make a mark and make sure as many in the region as possible, are aware of injustice on a global scale, and have begun to find methods of fighting back.

routine scrutinized produces mutiny.

i like it this way ;)