Monday Minutes E4_Why I Think the “Progressive” Victories of Hashmi, Mamdani, and Spanberger are Illusions of Hopeful Escapism

POETRY #1

…the statement “I want people who feel marginalized to feel seen and represented” echoes in a hollow room that doesn’t exist

Optimism scorches the sun and creates cancer in the skin of the living

Change spills profusely over the bullet holes of wallets never designed to house futurist currencies

Systems reset to malaise after sporadic bursts of jubilance

I recognize the world again…

Dull in promise

Bright in cycle

The devils have ingressed faces reminiscent of mine…

So, it’s like this…

The recent wins of Abigail Spanberger, Zohran Mamdani, and Ghazala Hashmi are actually impeding any sort of substantial change because they can cause us to hope that the “United States” is capable of reform.

Read that again if you think you may have seen it for something it wasn’t. Yes, that’s what I said.

And I truly believe Spanberger, Mamdani, and Hashmi are well-meaning, have track records that show their commitments to holistic transformation, and plan to implement policies to better the lives of “Americans” underserved by the system as it stands.

Buuuuuttttt….

They’re not the problem. The idea of the “United States” is. As much as we know the foundation and current structures that illegally place themselves on stolen lands are inherently oppressive, these so-called “progressives” don’t seem to seriously foresee the abolishing of this government. They stretch size 2 spandex on the Statue of Liberty and expect no tear.

In other words, while these wins are encouraging for many and have sparked hope in what was/is for many a hopeless situation (GZA feat. Killah Priest and Res, “Beneath the Surface”), I find such hope unrealistic. When are we going to network in reciprocal relation and blaze an expansive flame while we dance to The Doors over “Apache” breaks? What do I mean? Let me spell it out?

What if the only hope of an equitable “forward” is to stop bullshitting and burn “America” to the ground?

I’ll make it even more plain: when will the so-called “progressive” leaders renounce the idea of “America?” Is being elected to government offices with an intent to implement subversive agendas the most blatant and audacious declaration of justice we can make? And do Abigail Spanberger, Zohran Mamdani and Ghazala Hashmi fall short if they fail to trample on the US flags they wear, the very symbol of theft, assaulting of cultures, imposition of religion, and gender conformity to binaries?

The various strands of ancient philosophical systems in the geographical region now “commonly” referred to as “India” have a multitude of approaches detailed in the sutras to escaping “samsara,” or the cycle of life and death conscious “selves” are believed to go through over and over again until they detach from the illusion of the world and attain “moksha,” or liberation (The Opus, “Life’s Endless Cycle.” Shout to Mr. Echoes and Isle of Weight). Attachment to the world, that which is familiar and inoculates the senses, is a bondage that instigates the cycle of samsara yet again after one sips the final drip of life force for a final time in a current revolution. Solving the mathematical/logic equation releases you from having to do it repeatedly and into the pleasure of applying the conclusion in useful ways. Is a holding onto the idea of the “United States” and “America” a type of samsara? Is there something else after we relinquish it?

Are we too frightened to release it?

Many feel that the system we have is all we can strive for. We’re stuck with “America.” Of course we are. We can’t see a clear and distinct idea of anything but that concept which artificially organizes this geographical region. However, we can make it better and push it to live up to its potential. This is the position of Spanberger, Mamdani, and Hashmi.

But I suspect that this is not true.

Until political leaders with so called “progressive” platforms begin to seriously imagine beyond “America" and into a future that engages the before of diseased-ridden invaders and makes space for thought towards not the upkeep but the eradication of this illegal United States government responsible for plundering and destroying reciprocal relationships between all inhabitants of this land, well-meaning mayors, lieutenant-governors, governors, etc. remain in a samsara that merely makes them the new custodians of an antiquated mainframe that is by definition oppressive, capitalist, and exclusionary. How long will they be satisfied with screaming at the top of their lungs that they are the first “insert whatever category they’re hurling at the structure they want to fit into so badly” to hold their particular political offices and suggesting this is progress as if attaining said office within a colonial framework that abstracted reality and created the categories “Muslim,” “woman,” and “immigrant” and applied them to their multiplicity to exclude them from said office in the first place is some sort of accomplishment? When will they/we begin to ask questions such as “is ‘America’ capable of authentic justice and does it need to be destroyed?” When will they/we light the Constitution with seven blowtorches and become pyromaniacs who direct the flames to the steps of the White House?

I understand that when dealing with a cancerous idea/government such as the “United States of America” (or perhaps the “Divided Fakes of Hysteria”), ending the country won’t happen overnight. The treatment of such a ruthless and barbaric invader takes consultation with skilled doctors, treatments such as chemotherapy and ganja smoking, and creativity. My problem is that many leaders on the so-called “left” don’t seem to see the idea of United States itself as a cancer/problem. Just as I argue in my upcoming book, Multi/Race/Less/Ness: A Process Alternative to Category, that race is by nature traumatic and requires abolishment of the idea of race itself in order to begin authentic treatment of its effects on the world, I argue here that “United States of America” is an offensive, oppressive, contagious and warmongering cancerous colonial concept forcefully injected onto the middle of Turtle Island along with other islands such as Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is responsible for various global disasters like slavery, the brutal destabilizing of anticapitalist governments, the maintenance of the dominance of a two-party illusion, and a plethora of other atrocities. The “United States of America” does NOT have a right to exist. Any politician acting in service of and not toward the destruction of the “United States” corporation, including Spanberger, Mamdani, and Hashmi, as well-meaning as I think they are, operates illegally, as Bob Marley reminds us that all governments worldwide are illegal. The ancestors the uncivilized invaders encounterd did not sanction this reckless and inhumane 248 year- old regime which seized stewardship of the land from them. This is the same illegitimate regime Spanberger, Mamdani, and Hashmi are so excited to be at the helm of. I want to hear more so-called “progressives” discussing and moving toward an apology and return of the care of the region to descendants of those from whom said stewardship was stripped by force as the foundation from which all future projects of liberation are based. Let’s just give them back the keys to the house they’ve inhabited for millenia. Our only hope is to enter better relationship with the earth on which we reside. That better relationship can only happen when “land is back”and the “United States of America” is no more.

POETRY #2

To a drunken crowd he holds up the head of his adversary, gloating he’ll never see him again

I can’t distinguish which of their voices speak

Contorting psyches until ancestral bones break

Solace because at least now they fit within the rubrics

The day he said we thought would never come has yet to arrive

In a year from now you won’t be able to figure out why no one can grasp a mirage…

Didn’t you listen when KRS told you “There can never ever be justice on stolen land?”

Gotcha. That was just some good ole’ science fiction. Pay me no mind…