Is Putin the Face of the Future or the Final Gasp of the Past?
Once, I visited a cemetery there, on the border between Poland
and Ukraine. Stark and beautiful. Green and calm. No dead
man walking there. Not even ghosts. Only the long lines
of graves and rusting crucifixes nailed to trees.
The whole world
has pictures, explosions
we hold in our palms
A chilly, damp, paralyzing Spring, with soggy skies and faded landscapes. Reality feels like a pair of washed-out blue jeans. But the ground keeps birthing its progeny of weeds and … Continue reading →
The conflict in Ukraine Is a disaster for the poor of this planet.
the night is the clear conscience of the beast
The attention given to racism of late has had exactly that unintended effect — relieving Americans of any obligation even to acknowledge the insidious implications of materialism and militarism. In that sense, even now, two of King’s giant triplets barely qualify for lip-service. In the political sphere, they are either ignored or, at best, treated as afterthoughts.
We must face the weight of such social evils and be prepared to also face the ways in which we are complicit with them, especially when we are often indifferent.
But comrades, if we kill him, someone will make
a martyr song and it will become the anthem sung
by thousands in the streets
I knew that the IRS wasn’t visiting me as part of an audit of my returns, since I hadn’t filed any for eight years. My partner and I were both informal tax resisters — she, ever since joining the pacifist Catholic Worker organization; and I, ever since I’d returned from Nicaragua in 1984. I’d spent six months traveling that country’s war zones as a volunteer with Witness for Peace.
Climate activists have arguably been a little too focused on politics as a source of change, and paid not quite enough attention to the other power center in our civilization: money. Efforts to punish Russia economically for its attack on Ukraine may hold valuable lessons.
In this poignant, vital talk, Zarlasht Halaimzai articulates the lingering trauma of being expendable — and shares how belonging to a community can help bring back feelings of long-lost safety.
a cozy little square
where local drunks would
congregate to damn
the vicissitudes
of their tipsy
fate
We need a progressive politics that shows solidarity with all victims of military violence — while resisting the militarism of our own government.