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Brian K. Noe

this looks like a nice area

Brian K. Noe · May 14, 2013 ·

it sounded more like a compliment
than an inquiry

i felt uneasy

no gangs? he asked

and i’m thinking

no, not really – are you joking?

and then i’m imagining menacing groups of teenage boys in do-rags
galloping
through the streets of
the gracefield subdivision

i tell him
no, not really, but of course they’re kind of everywhere

i’m trying to say that we’re all the same
and that nobody is really secure
and that

well, also, gangsters are just people
i mean, if they were around here
i wouldn’t be
uh, terrified, or anything

i drive through some pretty
rough neighborhoods
every day

hey – it may look like we’re doing well
but i’m not like the rest of these people

it’s just good luck at the moment
and it could change

i wonder where he lives
and what it’s like there
but i don’t ask

why
am
i
ashamed?

Filed Under: Poetry

at his own hands

Brian K. Noe · May 10, 2013 ·

you people

i don’t know what to say to you

you expect some sort of
explanation
or
justification

or insight concerning my state
of mind

at the time

you can talk all you want
about cries for help
or
brain chemistry or
family history

and some things being overdetermined

but i swear
to christ

some days i am just

disgusted with you
disgusted with myself
disgusted

with this world…

ps:
but, honestly
mostly with you

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: Depression, Gallows Humor, Suicide

May Day Joint Statement

Brian K. Noe · May 1, 2013 ·

The first of May is a moment for us to remember the Chicago Haymarket Martyrs of 127 years ago. These Chicago anarchists helped to lead the major battle of the day, not only for the 8 Hour Day, but also for social liberation.

Chicago’s Four Star Anarchists and several other allied groups have issued a joint statement titled Remembering the Past, Fighting for Tomorrow. It includes a short history of May Day, an examination of present conditions, a positive vision for our world and a call to action.

I commend it to you as appropriate for this May Day, 2013. Click here to read it.

Solidarity!

★★★

Filed Under: Curated Links Tagged With: America, Anarchism, Chicago, History, Holidays, May Day, Politics, Union

Among The Believers

Brian K. Noe · April 22, 2013 ·

This is a repost of an article that I wrote in June of 2003. Events of the past week called it to mind.

“In each generation, with toil and tears, we have had to earn our heritage again. If we fail now, we shall have forgotten in abundance what we learned in hardship: that democracy rests on faith, that freedom asks more than it gives, and that the judgment of God is harshest on those who are most favored.

“If we succeed, it will not be because of what we have, but it will be because of what we are; not because of what we own, but, rather because of what we believe. For we are a nation of believers.”

— Inaugural Speech of Lyndon Baines Johnson, January 1965

For many years I would fly an American flag at my home on every day that weather permitted. From my earliest recollection it has represented something very deep and spiritual to me. It has represented unity.

At first, it was the unity of national identity – my tribe. In Oreana, Illinois, USA the tribe’s members were typically native midwestern, Anglo and Christian, but I had the sense very early that there was a bigger tribe. I was taught that America was a big place where all kinds of people came from all over the world. E Pluribus Unum – “From the Many, One.” What made us “one” people? Why did so many folks come from so far away and endure such hardship? They did it because they wanted to be free. So, sometime during grade school the flag began to represent freedom.

As I grew a little older, I began to learn that freedom is relative. I remember seeing Norman Rockwell’s depiction of “The Four Freedoms” – freedom from fear, freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom from want. Growing up in the 1960s, it was easy to sense that some people living among us weren’t completely free. The ideal wasn’t being fully expressed and experienced yet. We had to keep working for it. This was only right and just and our duty as Americans. So the flag began to represent justice.

When I was 11 we moved to Decatur and I still recited dutifully with my hand over my heart every morning in home room – “with liberty and justice for all.” The flag was so beautiful. It embodied the most noble and desperate longings of humankind, and it belonged to me. It belonged to all of us at Stephen Decatur High School. It belonged to the Blacks and the Italians and the Greek girls who came to school with ashes on their foreheads at the beginning of Lent. It belonged to my history teacher, who was Jewish. It belonged to every creed and race, even us mutts of generic European extraction. It belonged to us all. The ideal belonged to us all. The dream belonged to every one of us, and we belonged to each other. One tribe out of many. E Pluribus Unum.

Now that I’m older, I realize how naïve some of my perceptions may have been about our distance from the ideal. The truth is that for many people in our society the words “liberty and justice for all” have sometimes been akin to a cruel joke. Despite that, I’ve never once doubted the ideal itself.

People used to poke fun at me for flying my flag all the time. “What’s up with the flag? It’s not a holiday today.” Then it seemed as if overnight that changed. Suddenly, there were flags everywhere. Stores were sold out of flags that had collected dust for years. People put flag decals on their cars and taped newsprint flags to their windows.

I’d like to fly my flag along with the others, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it does to most of the people waving it so frantically these days. In fact, the sentiment expressed by many is like some dark, shadow version of my American Ideal. It’s full of anger and revenge and political partisanship blended with no small measure of religious and racial bigotry. My flag isn’t like that. My flag isn’t about hatred or fear.

I worry about my flag and my country. The America we live in today seems so different from the America of my enduring imagination. I wonder if that America will survive this age of abundance. We’re obviously at a crossroads, at a time both of great opportunity and grave danger, and may well look back on this decade as a defining moment for generations to come.

I don’t know how well my generation will stand the test of “toil and tears” required to earn our heritage. I do know that what we have and what we own, our military and economic hegemony, these things will inevitably pass. What we are, what we stand for – unity, freedom, justice – these ideals will last.

Can we become, finally and truly, “a nation of believers?”

flag at evening

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: America

A Bitcoin Primer

Brian K. Noe · April 16, 2013 ·

Here’s three minutes worth watching. It’s a simple, yet thorough, introduction to the decentralized digital currency known as Bitcoin – from Duncan Elms and Marc Fennell.

Filed Under: Video Tagged With: Digital, Economics, Singularity, Virtual

Today’s Must Read: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

Brian K. Noe · April 10, 2013 ·

“Submitting oneself to labor discipline—supervision, control, even the self-control of the ambitious self-employed—does not make one a better person. In most really important ways, it probably makes one worse. To undergo it is a misfortune that at best is sometimes necessary. Yet it’s only when we reject the idea that such labor is virtuous in itself that we can start to ask what is virtuous about labor. To which the answer is obvious. Labor is virtuous if it helps others.”

Read the Full Article: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse | David Graeber | The Baffler.

Filed Under: Curated Links Tagged With: Economics, History, Revolution

the tree of libertarian

Brian K. Noe · March 26, 2013 ·

god forbid
we should ever be
twenty minutes without some grey haired white guy
casting swine before pearls

the people
cannot be all, and always
well informed

am i right?

lethargy

misconceptions

you have the right to
remain silent

and pardon my pacifier

but the blood of tyrants
will not be shed
by your update on facebook

Filed Under: Poetry

bereft

Brian K. Noe · March 22, 2013 ·

empty feeder sways
over the backyard terrace
birds have flown away

Filed Under: Poetry

For International Women’s Day

Brian K. Noe · March 8, 2013 ·

Something to Hear, on the Occasion of International Women’s Day

Marxism and Women’s Liberation – Sharon Smith

From We Are Many

Filed Under: Audio, Curated Links Tagged With: Socialism

What I’m Reading: Subterranean Fire

Brian K. Noe · February 22, 2013 ·

Sharon Smith presents the history of radicalism in the U.S. Labor Movement from the late 1800s forward, with an eye toward reclaiming its rich heritage for the Working Class struggles of today.

The title of the book comes from something Labor martyr August Spies said prior to his execution. “If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labor movement, then hang us. Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, the flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand.”

Filed Under: Other Content Tagged With: America, Books, History, Marxism, Socialism, Union

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