retry, fail

From Chris Hedges' recent column "The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free":

American culture—or cultures, for we once had distinct regional cultures—was systematically destroyed in the 20th century by corporations. These corporations used mass communication, as well as an understanding of the human subconscious, to turn consumption into an inner compulsion. Old values of thrift, regional identity that had its own iconography, aesthetic expression and history, diverse immigrant traditions, self-sufficiency, a press that was decentralized to provide citizens with a voice in their communities were all destroyed to create mass, corporate culture. New desires and habits were implanted by corporate advertisers to replace the old. Individual frustrations and discontents could be solved, corporate culture assured us, through the wonders of consumerism and cultural homogenization. American culture, or cultures, was replaced with junk culture and junk politics. And now, standing on the ash heap, we survey the ruins. The very slogans of advertising and mass culture have become the idiom of common expression, robbing us of the language to make sense of the destruction. We confuse the manufactured commodity culture with American culture.

... ... ...

The modern world, as Kafka predicted, has become a world where the irrational has become rational, where lies become true. And facts alone will be powerless to thwart the mendacity spun out through billions of dollars in corporate advertising, lobbying and control of traditional sources of information. We will have to descend into the world of the forgotten, to write, photograph, paint, sing, act, blog, video and film with anger and honesty that have been blunted by the parameters of traditional journalism. The lines between artists, social activists and journalists have to be erased. These lines diminish the power of reform, justice and an understanding of the truth. And it is for this purpose that these lines are there.

_______

Some poems from Rachel Loden's book Hotel Imperium.

The Death of Checkers

Grant that the old Adam in this Child may be so buried, that the new man may be raised up in him. — The Book of Common Prayer

This is the new socialist brain. This is the statue
of Dzerzhinsky falling over. This is my wife Pat.
This is an ode to the Bratsk Hydroelectric Project.
And I just want to say [abort, retry, fail . . .]

the kids, like all kids, love the little dog.
This/is/your/brain/speaking . . . . So I want you all
to stonewall it. Because gentlemen, this is my last
dance contest, last waltz with Leonid

around the Winter Palace. This is the Kommissar
of Moonbeams, this is the Soviet of Working People’s
Reveries. This is the new man born out of Adam.
These are the new world order mysteries — oh,

Republican cloth coat. Oh gallery of Trotskyist
apostasies. Tricia and Julie do not weep for me -
I live and flourish in the smooth newt’s tiny eyes,
my new brain fizzing with implanted memories.



Blues for the Evil Empire

with a line by Unamuno

Consider the late Eurasian entity, how it lumbered
into the groggy arms of history where it was

buried. Which is more than you can say
for Lenin’s body, chilly like a mammoth

in an ice floe, if less hairy. An old man in the square
asks ‘Who is laughing at us?’ then drifts unevenly

away. The czar’s nephew comes alive
in Finland like some cyborg, sent into the future

with a mission to annoy; there are the plagues:
evangelists, economists, and experts

of all kinds, Americans who read the future
in a glass of tea, and analyze ‘the Slavic mind.’

At home, cold warriors, like dying jellyfish,
grow dim. Why no joy in Washington, no dancing

in the streets — we ‘won,’ but sleep uneasy
in our victory. The evil empire, vanquished, seeks

a plusher berth within — a red and rising sun?
A few blocks from the White House, my city twists

and keens, and someone’s child is bought and sold.
— We do not die of darkness, but of the cold.

Rachel Loden

from Hotel Imperium

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