Linchpin

In the seventies women's liberation movement, we let go of the vision for liberation and get mired in equivocation, a drive for equality that thirty years later we still haven't got.  We settle for equality which quite often means "the same as".  We can make the same money as a man for being a CEO and earn more money than any human has a right to or a need for.  This is a result for many liberation and civil rights struggles that emerge from the era.

In our political activism we're often met with adamancy, stridency, resistance.  Ultimately we get out-chessed in the game. The experience for some of us leads to a cutting cynicism from knowing that not all that much has been changed. When the outcome is broadened to the world, the effort still has a long, long way to go.   We haven't been able to bring down the patriarchal institutions; we haven't been able to eradicate the pervasive attitude regarding women's status.

When gay folks begin the chants for marriage, I'm sitting here saying to my self:  oh yeah here we go with "the same as".  We're still failing to get at the linchpin, to fundamentally challenge the institutions that keep the patriarchy looming over us.  Now we're gonna get the right to divorce and have nasty custody fights and spend too much money on a wedding.  Swell.  Still I can't stop reading or watching the persistent stories, listening to the rising swell of voices, observing the narrowing focus on this one issue.

As this goes on I notice something amongst the clamor and clash and flash of it all.  There's panic; the reaction to the call for gay marriage is inducing a panic.  This is different than the adamant negative reactions to Blacks calling for civil rights or women chanting for equal rights or even gays asking for the simple right to be out.  When gays start with the right to marry, though, one state after another scrambles to pass laws stating that marriage is between a man and a woman.

The news media and even those of us pushing for marriage seem to miss this panic.  The overriding description of the action is that this issue is one of equal rights.  The recurring legal argument is that separate but equal hasn't been right for other groups and it isn't for this group either.  Because we've used this rhetoric for so long to wheedle and cajole bits of rights, we fail to understand what we're really getting at.

When I see a picture of Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin marrying after 51 years of a committed relationship, I notice something.  They are the same height, the same build; and obviously they are both women.  Suddenly I get what the panic is about. We have finally, though perhaps unwittingly found the linchpin of the patriarchy and we are tugging furiously to pull it out.

Marriage is traditionally between a man and a woman.  Traditionally in that relationship the man is taller, broader.  Often the woman is his little lady.  Even when a woman hyphenates her name, the man is still the reference point.  Even if they use an "alternative" commitment ceremony, most usually it's the man's name she adopts.  These are vestiges of the premise that women are literally the property of their husbands.  In a lot of places in this country and around the world, the sun hasn't really set yet on that premise.

The panic about gay marriage isn't about the need for the species to reproduce more. If we were rabbits, humans would be finding ways to reduce our population.  The resistance isn't about the natural order of things.  Gay is in the wild as well as the history of the strongest civilizations.  It's not about the Bible.  There are several instances of gay that God doesn't seem to notice. 

When men marry men, they are refusing to own women; when women marry women, they are refusing to be owned by men.  The ownership of women is the linchpin of patriarchy and we are about to pull it out.  The panic is that when we manage to do this, the patriarchy may come down.

Tapped

Sometime in the eighties I work in Tony Serra's law office.  (It's not on my resume).  Serra's firm is a gaggle of leftie lawyers.  That moment is similar to the moment in which I find myself now:  dedicating myself to giving up my routined life for the uncertainties of being the poet, performance artist.  I have part-time jobs mostly and fill in the budget deficit with odd jobs such as work as transcriber for Serra.

Their big case is an assignment from the federal government.  (The same government that recently jails him on the ruse of tax evasion.)  It's a spy case covered in the papers because it's a big deal.  The man supposedly sells secrets to the Russians.  The FBI goes into his home and steals, excuse me, appropriates all of his anything:  files of credit and utility bills, correspondence and tapes. The man and his wife correspond by tape.  It's my job to transcribe those many, many tapes.

There isn't often anything of much importance to the case.  This is correspondence typical of married couples distanced from each other including mundane daily details: I'm gonna be home on this date; I got the leaking faucet fixed.  Every once in awhile there's mention of kugerands which are gold coins.  This is subject matter due attention along with even seemingly insignificant dates because chronology is important too.

Even though it's for his defense, I feel disrespectful because I'm eavesdropping on private conversation.  Sometimes my mind wanders as I listen and type mechanically, shutting off any emotion I feel about the current circumstance of these people's lives.  Aside from some heartfelt political conversations, usually spoken on the porch or in the parking lot, I necessarily make it pretty humdrum work.

The humdrum is disturbed during a meeting even I attend.  It's a warning meeting to alert us to be careful of our conversations.  Some of the lawyers have met with the fed prosecutors who alarmingly exactly quote back to our lawyers, privileged and private conversations we think we're having with ourselves. It's apparent from these quotes that the feds have wiretapped our offices.

I sit there and all the chill and madness from experience with the FBI COINTELPRO action of the seventies returns.  Perhaps they assign this case to Serra as an excuse to get into Serra's offices.  Their true interest may not be a spy's defense; it may be an offense to spy on lefties.  It's hard to sit in my seat; I want to run.

After that meeting, I have an earnest conversation with one of the lawyers…in the parking lot although we're aware of the feds' capability of listening with electronic devices from parked vans.  I speak of the prickliness that comes from the heat of personal experience with government mad dogs.  I say that I'm not ready to give myself up, to have them jail me on extenuating circumstances, in-passing associations.  I don't return to work after that.

What the feds do now with the Patriot Act is what they do in the seventies; only then it's illegal, now it isn't.  If I'm ever arrested by the feds, I want to be sure it's clear why they're arresting me: because I'm a poet witness and they're afraid of what I know, what I say after I say what I know to a whole lot of people.  I hold to the seventies motto: we can't really stop them; we can make it as difficult for them as possible; work publicly so a lot of people know we act in good faith exercising our inalienable rights.  They can silence us individually.  Yet the sheer weight of collective poet witnesses' words will accumulate until our voices' vibrations change the tune and bring down the system.

I am a poet; for that I'm prepared to be arrested.  From that point let the six degrees of separation be created as I make it as difficult as possible for them to commit their crimes; I'm watching and saying what I see them do.  Whatever each of us chooses as our part:  choose it, do it.  Make it difficult for them until they're removed from their offices or even their offices are removed.

Echo-nomics

A lot of attention is going to the economy these days, news reports are dominated by the topic:  what’s the problem, who has the answer, who doesn’t, who got us here.  I’m not an economist; I’m a sociologist. I’m not a card carrying paycheck cashing sociologist; I just majored in it and learned more about sociologists than I did people. As to course of study, I’m more naturally inclined to herstory, law and rules of verse.  I’m definitely not an economist as the paucity of my paycheck and pocketbook will verify.  Still I’m a poet so I see things, then say them. 

Today’s news is about the all of a sudden economic crisis that took about a decade to occur.   Somebody just now noticed that the kitchen is on fire.  Because I’m not an economist I don’t understand all the words and theories as to what will right it, what it was that wronged it.  The sociologist can demarcate the classes that, cultures of people who will be effected by it as the trends will verify. The poet can discern what I see. I like to keep it essential so it’s real clear what I’m looking at.

The economy has a tendency to lean toward feudalism in which wealth largely belongs to overlords and what’s left over goes to everyone else.  At some time in history other classes were added to economic hierarchy.  Periodically there is a siege on the middle class in an attempt to eradicate it.  It is the middle class that protects the working and poor classes from the tyranny of the rich.

As a younger, I once found my self walking on Wall Street during a foray to New York City.  It seemed to me that I was walking in the canyons of hell.  It wasn’t just about the very tall buildings everywhere; New York City is full of such canyons.  This one feels different, feels like hell, like a place where there’s no lightness and very little air.  This is where the underrulers are.  They’re the ones who rule out of sight, manipulating markets, economies, governments, workers worldwide.

The economy is based on a pyramid scheme, the inverse of the pyramid on the dollar bill. The people who buy in early and sell late but not too late, make lots of money; most everyone else will never realize such profit margins.  The economic realm in which we live means there is a tight limit on how much “growth” there can be before the burgeoning upper base causes the whole shebang to topple over. (I do wonder sometimes what the significance is of that pyramid symbol on the base symbol of our economy…)

Another structure associated with the economy is the hierarchy of “labor” in relation to pay.  In working class terms, there is some guy (usually) who is making multiples of millions of dollars for being a CEO who would not be a CEO of anything without the workers who make the cars.  The autoworkers are for sure making far less than the CEO.  When the corporation goes down it lays off workers; the CEO who mismanaged the company isn’t fired.  He will walk away with multiples of millions in bonuses.

One day recently during an internet surfing I came upon a list of the top fifty most influential women.  It’s a rather impressive list.  That impression unraveled a bit when I realized that four or five of the women were high execs in Walmart which has more than a few issues with mistreatment of workers.  In the years of women’s liberation, this isn’t what I meant and yet this is what feminism has become.  I think I meant that liberation is changing the structure, changing the definition of equality.

Equality doesn’t mean I can be the CEO of a company and be more valued than the workers, designers, janitors.  It doesn’t mean being able to have a chance to be a corrupt and satanic liege of underrulers. Equality is defined as all contributors being recognized as equal in the endeavor for the success of the company, its people, vision and products.  All contributors (job titles) are paid equal pay.  All means all without exception.