Taking Off From Tookie: The Only Action Left

That “handful of women” who met in upstate New York one sweltering summer day in the 19th century had it right...for their time. They got the so-called Woman’s Movement going in the United Stink of the Americas. Ditto for the violent M’Fers coming off of the Odessa Steps in what used to be Russia. I could go on incessantly citing old paradigms for protest and change...that won’t work anymore. But I’d rather repeat -from yet another angle (I’ve been at this soooooooo long!)- what needs to be done YESTERDAY!

That is, if you want to do more than vent, call attention to yourself, socialize (getting strokes for being politically correct), protest for the sake of protesting, build an “alternative” career, or martyr yourself...in the name of planting seeds for a better world in an impossible future, etc. Or underwrite the above (with the safety of your pen*).

*”Helping people” in The Pen -or those penned in on the outside- with a pen. That’s a good one.

Then....

The only action left for activists to consider...is to be found at my house. Literally, in my living room. Where there are no bugs, no spotlights. And zero chance that you’ll get sucked into sucking on any of the old teats being offered up to you by activists across the U.S.A. Today, NONE of the models for change that I know about have a chance in hell of working in this lifetime...or in Ten Tookie lifetimes from now.

Take me up on this, please. Why wouldn’t you?

The plan is to get someone like, say, Alan Maass (who wrote “They Murdered a Peacemaker” for Socialist Worker Online at http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/569/56901Stan.shtml) and/or the people who contributed to that article (listed at the end of it) and/or Niranjan Ramakrishna (author of http://www.counterpunch.org/ramakrishnan12132005.html) and/or Dave Zirin (author of http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=72&ItemID=9327) and/or...anyone who’s losing sleep over the obvious...to come over to my place.

And do what? Well, for starters, I’d overlay. I’d go over what I’ve already put on the table in public...delineating, of course, what I couldn’t say in public as an overlay. Then we’d all sit as per a perversion of Pascal’s advice...quietly...within the (uncornered, uncorny, uncanny) corners of my room...considering the futility of what else has been placed on the table, what else is in the current blend of the mixed-up momentum that masquerades as progressive/radical action. Lay it on, over and above the unambitious, uncreative, unseeing/unseemly sacrifices that are being made.

The ensuing silence should give us a chance to come up with something else. And stop the celebrated bootless cries.

Richard Oxman, at rmoxman@yahoo.com, will provide organic this and that for everyone who attends...to this need. And if you can’t make it to Los Gatos, California in December (when a meeting date to be determined will be set), there’s always the telephone hook. His recent writing is at www.oxtogrind.org.