A couple months ago I was listening desultorily to a song of Dylan's that's always mildly irritated me because of its romanticizing revolution, "When the Ship Comes In," when suddenly two lines caught my attention:
And the words that are used For to get the ship confused Will not be understood as they're spoken. That is powerful. And I love the implicit contrast between (a) no longer believing and (b) no longer understanding the words that are used to confuse. THAT is not utopia, but it is on the doorstep to utopia or a reasonable facsimile thereof. I would go a bit further. The words that confuse (the slogans of common sense) CAN NOT BE REFUTED, and arguing against them is futile. They can only be made unintelligible by collective action. Yesterday our local anti-war group had a speaker from the Immigration Project, who gave a really bone-chilling account of 50 years of growing confusion, idiocy, and cruelty in our immigration policies. Very powerful. And it is quite obvious that there are no solutions to that 'problem' within the current framework, which she in effect reaffirmed at the end of her presentation by proposing some radical reforms that would allow more people in and eliminate various injustices in the system. But they won't. Even if 'accepted' by Congress, they would be wrapped in complexities and enforced by a bureaucracy with interests contrary to 'justice.' Those are the words that confuse, the words that talk about reforming a fundamentally evil structure. Any demand less than Open Borders is bullshit. Arguing around this or that practical detail wwould be an instance of the words that are used to get the ship confused. Check the lbo archives for recent posts by Jenny Brown, in which she points out that the slogan for health care is "If it's not single-payer,it's bullshit." That is, all long complcated proposals are words that are used to get the ship confused -- they can't be refuted because they don't say anything. They can only be made unintelligible by growing action 'in the streets' that make them unintelligible. Carrol Jim Devine wrote: > > me: > >>>>> In my utopia, people would read what I write. ;-) > > Sandwichman: > > In my utopia, I wouldn't need to write what I write because it would > > be common knowledge. > > not only that, but people would agree with me. Hey, you just did! > maybe we're seeing the start of something... > > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
