Post 7: Blue States

1-Year Plan
Post 7: 11/5/04

Blue States:
Reading the Election
With Kenneth Fearing

Yes, you
everywhere you, driving, laughing, arranging the day [87]

"Marilyn Monroe Found Alive," the headline in the Weekly World News read. Most disturbing was the picture: depressed face over age-advanced body. Years later, nothing left of the ideal.

Champagne for supper, murder for breakfast, romance for lunch, and terror for tea.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time the world has gone to hell. [102]

To be a political subject in the era we are in is to be defined by a series of defeats and still maintain one's politics. All else is simply the construction of norms, empty subject positions.

Adjust to the present, and to a longer view.
To cities shining in the sky tonight, and smoking in the dust tomorrow [99]

In what sense is 51% a mandate? When capital accumulates through margins of profit. "I earned political capital, and now I intend to spend it." Thus 1.5% represents the national will.

No name, any name, nowhere, nothing, no one, none. [55]

I am a pixel on an enormous screen; my words have no effect—I am a unit, an isolated person standing in a long line waiting to vote, separated from all the others, waiting to be counted.

Watching a thing beyond the walls
Step from air and beckon them [13]

Zogby's at 5 PM Election Day showed 311 electoral votes going blue and the states of Virginia and Nevada in doubt. This is now not a matter of record—it was removed from their site.

Then the news: somewhere a million men are on the march again, elsewhere the horror mounts, and there are incidental leprosies [78]

What is the mechanism of fear? The Bin Laden tape, reasonable interpreters tell us, did not affect the election. It did not, in any reasonable way—but it may have been a visceral trigger.

Here we will be urged by reality confused with dream,

We will be urged by the hunger of the live, invited by the relentless purposes of millions [27]

The answer to the political debacle of the present is to return to a politics of the Popular Front, specifically, its anti-Fascism. It is not a matter of coalition; we need something to be against.

She thought it was too soon but they said no, it was too late. They didn't trust the other people.

Sell now.[39]

Should I have taught Bob Glück's anti-Christian, queer novel Margery Kempe a week before the election? Did it confuse the students, give them no ground to stand on? This was a thought.

It is early evening, still, in Honolulu, and in London, now, it must be well past dawn

But here in the Riviera Café, on a street that has been lost and forgotten long ago, as the clock moves steadily toward closing time [145]

What would be signs of fascism creeping into the rationality of neocons? Two kinds of evidence: destructive expansion of national fantasy; radical scapegoating of intolerable others.

Scenes, hysterics, peace
live, live, live, live, and then move out [89]

Are we depressed yet? Should we emigrate to Canada? Take a couple of years off and live in poetic exile? What is the most immediate and available form of compensatory behavior?

And wow he died as wow he lived,
going whop to the office and blooie home to sleep [51]

A new poetics of aggression is the condition of public agency. The conduct of the election as an aggressive public debate turned out to be an enormous risk—as aggressivity turned to anger.

Now listen, wait, will you listen for a minute? That's all I ask. Yes or no?
O.K., Steve, O.K. [92]

The moment of intervention always passes and is caught up in the retrospective account of the unfolding story one is in. The worst part of the election is the triumphalism the day after.

Let us present,
this night of love, and murder, and reckoning, and sleep [36]

One can go to bed thinking the world is one thing and wake up convinced it is another. And everyone will act in such a way as to confirm this view, even if nothing has changed.

Is the night that wraps all the huts of the south and folds the empty barns of the west;
is the wind that fans the roadside fire [58]

I am happy to be living in a blue state. In blue states, there is a chance of a meaningful politics. Blue states can remember the history that created them. Blue states are critical.

The crime, if there was a crime, has not been reported as yet;
The plot, if that is what it was, is still a secret [152]

I await news of the manipulations that must have taken place behind the scenes—the computer chip in voting machines, the massive trashing of voter registrations. But it won't matter.

Hand in hand, heart joined to heart,
A new day dawned [29]

The nothing that exploded, exploded in more than one way. The fantasy that is everywhere began as a mere nothing, while the fantasy that was coming to be has now disappeared.

With 2,000 wounded and 1,000 dead
10,000 wounded and 5,000 dead [79]

The numbers are automatic, insubstantial. They exist as a negative—vanishing into nonentity, crushing in their monumental weight. We can only see ourselves as a part of the whole.

Would you like to, yourself, the way that other people do

would you like to be the kind of man you've always dreamed you'd be [84]

This writing may be beneficial for me, but there is no guarantee it is for you. Maybe you can take back the power that they took from you—but only individually, on a competing basis.

Lady, the demand is for a dream that lives and grows
and does not fade when the midnight theater special pulls out on track 15 [56]

If you were not part of my dream, I would do to you what you would do to me, if I were not part of yours. Therefore the results are inconclusive, and there are no words to report them.

And we will fight for all of this again, and if need be again,

And on that day, and in that place, we will try again, and this time we shall win. [98]

You desperately need a win. So do I—if I don't win again soon, I will collapse into nonentity. We rush to a place where there can be a win, flee from anywhere we fail to come out on top.

This key responds with something not even sound at all, sometimes a feeling, and the feeling is anguish [131]

The key is the displaced counter of human contact. Eyes avert from those whose thoughts do not coincide with mine. A process of a-sociality has set in, which appears to be inevitable.

But zooming through the night in Lockheed
monoplanes the witches bring pictures of the latest
disaster exactly on time [83]

The disaster is an afterimage of the path of a hurricane through the I-4 corridor, sweeping everything before it in a monumental fear. Brujos channel this fear, direct it to their ends.

A startling fragment, here, shoots to the surface out of early youth;

Of Freud, and of Kraff-Ebing for a moment. Of Havelock Ellis (must read, some day, in full). [100]

Belated I began, belated I will end. The twentieth century ended too; we are in another era, in which prior results are revisable. "The only thing I know is to wipe the blackboard clean . . ."

While Granny smiled and dimpled in sympathy:

"Hi-Fie Sue Scores Again" [165]

In what way can a complex be undone? When it's simple, stupid. The Gordian Knot—parable best loved by neocons. All analysis flies in the face of a simple, stupid identification.

White mice, running mazes in behavior tests, have never displayed more cunning than these, who arrived by such devious routes at such incredible ends. [106]

The routes are prefigured in advance. We lay down networks of reinforced connectivity between points of identification, and it all works perfectly, toward a predetermined end.

Books are the key to magic portals. Knowledge is power. Give the people light.

Writing must be such a nice profession. [71]

Afraid of depression, they reproduce it. Evidently, they must be happy with the results. In desperate times, the poet represents the national will, beyond any force of presidents.

nothing unto you, and nothing unto me, or to any other known or unknown party or parties, living or deceased [82]

He was a monad in a chartered space; he was sealed off from fluctuation; he owned the market; he was the rock on which our hopes and fears were founded, the last to be liquidated.

Does he think that he is the only one?

Does he think that he is the only man on earth who has felt this thing? [113]

Joining together in massive numbers, they rose up, expressing a will that had only been kept down until that moment—only to find their numbers fell short. In this they were confirmed.

It is destiny that is yours, yours, all yours, and only yours, a fate you have long ago disowned and disavowed. [101]

What a ridiculous fantasy, that merely to touch each other we could reinvent the world that had been taken away. That we could clear away ressentiment, that we could think otherwise.

And you dine, then, and go to a show after that, perhaps, and after that a night spot, and after that come home again, and climb the stairs again, and again go to bed. [103]

Could it be otherwise? At the theaters, the masses stand in line, either forgetting what could have been or confirming it as the general will. This entertainment was made for them.

There is no law compelling any man on earth to do the same, second hand.

I am tired of following invisible lives down intangible avenues to fathomless ends. [97]

In the dream, a female lion with delicate face, elongated limbs, and matted fur emerged from woods by the side of the road. We were merely driving by in our car, windows rolled up.

Then enter again, through a strange door, into a life again all strange,

Enter as a rich man, or perhaps a poor man [137]

The perfectibility of man appears only as a ghostly afterimage down a long corridor where he thought he saw a version of himself, walking forward to that moment in which he was.

And the road is gone—

The road that never did lead to any mill at all. [130]

The condition of evaporation as a narrative of progress—we are everywhere, all at once, while the truth which we are is disappearing. A condition of precipitation as the poetics of truth.

But wondering, too, what it really was I at one time felt so deeply for,

The actual voice, or this muted thunder? These giant shadows, or the naked face? [154]

I do not consent to the situation we are now in. I do not consent to the war, to the farce of consent that was staged to permit it. The voice, therefore, is the subtraction of a face.

What program do you want at midnight, or at noon, at three in the morning

at 6 A.M. or at 6 P.M. [86]

At the exact moment of lunar eclipse, the Red Sox won the Series. The impossible event is only uninterpretable. We dare not interpret it as meaning anything, one way or the other.

But what it if it, what if it is, what if it is, what if the thing that cannot happen really happens just the same

suppose the fever goes a hundred, then a hundred and one [73]

Floating from anxiety, lifting from fear. The impossible event ends uncertainty—so that we can say, with all the rest, that we witnessed what took place, if from our peculiar perspective.

but how will you know us, crumbled into ashes, lost in air and water and fire and stone,

how will you know us, now or any time, who will ever know that we have lived or died? [64]

Weeks later, the time drifts, we refuse information, snow falls, bodies pile up, the time drifts, they are using us, we refuse information, they are the bodies, snow falls, bodies are information.

Not the saga of your soul at grips with fate,
bleedingheart, for we have troubles of our own [91]

They pulled the message after it had became outdated. A billboard reading "Who cares?" is replaced by a solicitation for hospital services: "We do." The public face had disappeared.

Echoing in the walls, the ceiling, shaking the tables, the chairs, the floor—

Over and over, it is selection number 8— [148]

The number 43 comes up. Empty equivalents of capital cannot contain a universal. We rage in our particularity against the blinding illumination of a uniform sky. The number 6 comes up.

Movies at night: "The life she led."

Everyone sleeps in one big bed.

The stars go around inside your head. [20]

Dreams divide into heavy traffic in extreme weather. Dan Rather signs off from the nightly news; substitution and overwriting yield the face of John Roberts. There is still more to report.

Rails, chemicals, utilities, steel,

Listed or unlisted, let these stand guard through the shadowy times to be [151]

Logic and fiction conjoin in a univocal effect. The index of belief rises, unbelievable! I refuse to accept any evidence of the final outcome, even as every outcome is deferred.

Always another word I did not write appears in the spirit parchment prepared by me,

Always another face I do not know shows in the dream, the crystal globe, or the flame [116]

They will take a baseball bat to your wounded mattress, hurl a bowling ball into your metal firewall, spray toxic solvents onto your painted forehead, poison your impulse to resist.

What became of Uncle Ned, Uncle Ted, and is he happy, and ask him if he knows what became of Uncle Fred? [123]

Inflation spirals upward through devaluing trends. The imported cheese is a loss leader. Our numbers add up, incalculable. I accept/do not accept: posted as notice on the front door.

Name, address, relatives, religion, income, sex, bank account, insurance, health, race, experience, age [46]

Alberta touches Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan gropes for Manitoba, Manitoba reclines on Ontario, Ontario embraces Quebec. We lie breathlessly with trading partners through the night.

These are the things that will return to you,

to mingle vividly with the days and nights, with the sound of motors and the sun's warmth [34]

There is trouble with your account. New information is requested. Do not reply to this message as it has been sent by a alien proxy. You will not be given another opportunity to reply.

Who, who who?

What were you when, why were you what, where were you which, either how or why? [167]

Sun melts snow on black asphalt, leaving the road clear for drivers. All necessary products have been supplied, the maintenance contracts signed, sealed, and delivered.

Because the mind is a common sense affair filled with common sense answers to common sense facts,

It can add up, can add up, can add up, can add up earthquakes and subtract them from fires [120]

The security firm does not know the actual contents of the trunk, but my client and I told them the box contains artifacts to be delivered outside the country via diplomatic courier services.

And years of marriage (a happy, happy marriage)
prepared him for years of divorce.

(O happy divorce) [132]

Signs pass in succession along the road to the airport. People were galvanized for a change in government. One aircraft after another taxis onto the runway. People had assembled.

Now don't get excited. We'll just keep quite and deal the cards and whoever it is they'll get tired and go away. How many for you?

One. [109]

If there is to be movement, it must be in a single direction. Around the shrinking polar icecap, magnetic attractions discharge their fields. People rise up and change their government.

"Myrtle loves Harry"—It is sometimes

hard to remember a thing like that [11]

People rise up and change your government. Snow falls and is cleared away by machines. The archive is accessible but contains no entries. This is a discourse of community, I repeat.

Notes:

1] Brian Massumi, "Fear (The Spectrum Said)," at Wayne State University, 4 November 2004, discussed the ontology of fear, the productive gap between onset and realization.

2] Erin Manning, "Happy Together: Moving Toward Multiplicity," at Wayne State University, 3 November 2004, spoke on on the politics of touch in transnational/deindividualized spaces.

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Other links: