To Be of Use

To be of use
by Marge Piercy

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.


All of us discover works of writing that we wish we had written, or that seem to so align with and echo our own thoughts that we feel as though, well almost anyway, that we had written them. Perhaps our emotional lives are always swinging somewhere between desire and memory. This is a poem for all of us in these times when the fire to do real work for a true purpose burns so hot. The time is short; the needs are many. Let's begin!

The Borg have triumphed

Resistance is futile.

It will help to clarify things in your mind right now if you can unleash your imagination. Picture, if you will, the five members of the Roberts/Bush 'Supreme' Court who voted to make the corporations our real overlords. Picture them in their true Borg (a la Star Trek) regalia -- robotic mechanical prosthesis arms, black, fused headgear, and red glassy monocles. If I had the time to photoshop their actual appearance I would, but as that behavior, free speech though it is might be a violation of copyright, the word police storm troopers would be at my door the moment I finished, if not before. Don't be surprised if sooner than you can say Archer-Daniels-Midlands, the corporations begin to copyright or trademark every word in the dictionary and begin to charge us a fee for speaking at all!

We have succumbed to the machine.

What to do:
Find a tribe and a loving partner, learn to make smooth moonshine, grow great mushrooms, raise fine, fat pigs, cultivate some good greens and chewy roots, cook outrageously, eat to satiation and enjoy the sunshine.

© David de Smit

Big Win for Ronnie and Georgie!

I think it is safe to say, even this early on, that unless Obama discovers some testicular fortitude in his Speedo, he will be a one-term President. Though he appeared to have some strongly held positions about progressive changes for the nation, these have been jettisoned for comfortable rolls in the hay with the real rulers: the military industrial complex. Thanks again for warning us Ike! Too bad we're all watching 'reality' shows on the boob tube.

Unless the Democrats and the Administration in particular find a way to dominate and muscle the media, they will lose on every issue. As Obama has acknowledged, more than once, that the buck stops with him. Well, it also starts with him.

Obama’s pandering to the most mendacious, avaricious and amoral players in the political/economic/social hairball that is our national culture may set back progressive change for decades. He has been totally unwilling to fight for the real changes he trumpeted about so loudly and so eloquently during his campaign. He has completely squandered his initial political clout and goodwill, to the point that he now appears to be essentially an impotent, incessantly smiling windbag. With the not unsurprising loss of a Senate seat in Massachusetts, Obama’s political leverage, personal charisma and credibility have slid even further. Already he is talking not about fighting for health care reform, but caving in and giving up the struggle. This time, once again, it is the Democrats that have managed to win one more for the Gipper. Congrats!