Listen to a reading of this poem:
❖
Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
while the world burns,
while they prepare us for war with China,
while they take away our rights,
while they steal more and more of our power and our wealth,
while they rape our minds with advanced propaganda systems
to shape us into pawns in a global chess game.
Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
to avoid our fear of an unfathomable future,
to compartmentalize away from how nothing makes sense anymore,
to sedate the creeping sensation that everything we’ve been taught is a lie,
to squeeze off the strangled cries of that sacred child within us,
to hide from the insight that we are one with every part of this mess.
Let’s argue about bisexual Superman,
because it’s easier than being real,
because it’s easier than admitting we’re afraid,
because it’s less challenging than facing ourselves,
because us-and-them culture wars are comfortable
while authenticity is terrifying,
because the beloved keeps beckoning us back to wholeness
and we are simply not ready to confront our own perfection.
Let’s argue about bisexual Superman
instead of making art,
instead of singing the glory,
instead of expressing reverence for the miracle of creation,
instead of filming everything we can before it’s gone,
instead of embracing each other on a dying world,
insead of kissing each other on our plunge into the unknown,
instead of comforting each other about our own mortality,
instead of allowing real intimacy to get a word in edgewise,
instead of connecting in that way we’ve always longed for
but never had the courage to allow.
Let’s fight over what turns Superman on
to keep ourselves from getting turned on,
to keep ourselves from living turned on,
to keep ourselves from living tuned in,
to keep ourselves from opening our eyes
and beholding life’s majesty for the very first time
and never, ever closing them,
and holding hands
and walking out into a transformed world
beneath the yellow sun.
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13 responses to “Let’s Argue About Bisexual Superman”
superman never kissed any plunge, and now he’s gaybones. many such cases. sorry for the badvibes, i actually love this
Superman’s kid is gay? Really? Guess it could be possible due to prenatal hormonal influences. Kryptonian biology is still a mystery to us Earthlings. In any event the morally righteous police force always knows what is best for the rest of us. In this case anyone who objects merely need not purchase their product and those who do not object should purchase multiple copies to make up the difference and show their support. And just shut up about it. The new (ab)normal is great.
Shouldn’t Bisexual Superman be Bisexual Superperson? Just asking.
What, exactly, does that “transformed world” look like, work like, on a day-to-day, grassroots basis? Not a word about it.
Regardless, I absolutely agree with what Jimmy Dore has recently said about the possibility that ANY human beings in either the R or D parties (particularly those in the D party) are going to change ANYTHING in the present arrangement in the US — that, in short, it ain’t gonna happen, ever! In the following short video Dore explains exactly why that fundamental change has never happened after any previous elections, and it will never happen after future elections as long as Rs or Ds continue to hold the reins of power in the House, Senate and w(S)hite House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82kxhXlM9bI
The bottom line is that if you — a US voter — do not want More Of The Same that has happened after every election in the past; and will, therefore, certainly happen after each and every election from here to eternity, do not vote for another R or D, ever!, no matter what an R or D promises!
As you know, Ish, you won’t find out what a transformed world looks like, how it would operate, what it would feel like to live in, how we could get there from here, etc., from a Jimmy Dore video or a blog post, even one by Caitlin. We both know It takes a hell of a lot more than any video or blog can provide to get that kind of breakthrough. Surely there are other avenues (and I hope Caitlin’s readers point to them), but I know of only one which envisions concretely, in its full breadth and depth, what Marx could only allude to as the workers’ paradise. Sequentially read, Edward Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” and “Equality,” both free on the net or bought for peanuts from used a book seller, offer a time machine to such a transformed world and outline a viable path to get there from our current capitalist madness. Understandably but unfortunately, wading through two Victorian novels (actually, a novel and and an extended Socratic dialogue), written during the First Gilded Age, is not the kind of thing that appeals to most people in the Second.
I want to take a mind trip. I want to compare two worlds – the earth on which we live and another planet that is identical to ours, except that in that planet’s solar system there has been a brief solar event whose radiation has not only instantaneously killed all of the people on that planet, but, amazingly, also slowed down the physical deterioration of any of the things that the planet’s deceased inhabitants created.
Hearing about the calamity on the twin planet, millions of people from our planet, who just happen to be unemployed ex-technicians from various professions (yes, a very competent bunch), jump into spacecraft and fly to that other planet. But, before they leave, they agree that all of what is on the other planet will be “owned” equally among them and used for the good of all. (Yes, you’re right, that is exactly where I’m going.)
Just like there is on this planet, there is an internet on the other planet, so the immigrants instantly realize that a so-called representative government will not be necessary …………. on the other planet. In that place there shall be direct democracy. People will hammer out important decisions among themselves using the internet as a means of virtually instantaneous mass communication.
There will be only one “nation” on this new world and that nation will cover the entire world. There will be no other nation to export to. There will be no other nation to import from.
Every person in the new world will be a “world citizen”. There will be only one set of rules for every person. Human beings will either sink or swim together on this new world.
After the new immigrants arrive on their new planet, using existing transportation systems, they disperse all over their planet so that they can get their new (old) machines up and running; fields plowed and planted; hospitals operating, etc. (Yes, it wasn’t easy. But with the common good in mind, people were successful. Just accept it for the moment.)
The immigrants soon realize that it takes very few people (far fewer than immigrated) to keep the machines running, food on the table, etc., and with some more design engineering and automation, even fewer people will be required as time goes on. Not only that, but the products of these machines can be made to a much better quality then they apparently were previously, so these products will last far longer. As a result, it is realized that perhaps some of the huge machines/factories can be operated far less frequently than they used to be by the previous inhabitants. For example, automobiles soon come to be made much simpler, easier to fix and much more reliable. They have a far greater useful lifespan than they once had.
The people enjoy leisure time, developing their artistic abilities, playing games and other non-productive activities.
Rather than unfairly have the same small number of people constantly toiling on the machines, the people decide to divide up, or “distribute”, the human labor that is necessary to operate the machines, plow the fields, construct buildings, roads, etc. That is, everyone has to work on the machines, etc., but for only a short period of time each year. And as the machines get improved and further automated, even less labor is required and, therefore, even more of each individual’s time is “free”.
The newly-designed machines in this new world come to do almost all of the things that must be done, and the “profit” from the machines – leisure time and the actual products of the machines – is equally divided among all people.
Some of the leisure time is used for training all people in the variety of tasks they will be undertaking – everything from brain surgery to sewage treatment. Apprenticeship and training via video (just like Youtube on planet earth!) are found to be the ideal ways of training people. It is soon discovered that most medical and dental procedures can be either performed by robots or learned in a fraction of the time once thought to be absolutely necessary.
Through apprenticeship and video schooling, the population becomes very knowledgeable, so they soon realize that by reducing their own population by slow attrition – by having only one or two children – the remaining population has even less to do (less water treatment, housing, electricity, food, everything), so their descendants have even more free time to themselves.
These people’s new-found religion is two-faceted — the Golden Rule and the continually-evolving simplicity, ease-of-use, and, most importantly, high-quality-construction and, therefore, long usable life of the products they create. Unlike the people did back on planet Earth, the people on this new world strive to manufacture things only once — things that with simple, inexpensive maintenance, last essentially forever.
Transportation systems move people to and from the machines and other places where labor is needed, as well as moving people about the planet for other less practical reasons.
Life is great in the new world.
The End
My point is that there are possible alternative ways of living (economic systems), but the only thing we are allowed to hear in our prefect Matrix of education and 24/7 propaganda is that there are NO alternatives available to the present arrangement, other than the experimental ones that are at this very moment being literally dreamed up by the present entrenched powers-that-be in order to serve only themselves.
All of us commenters and Caitlin and Tim have to RIGHT NOW do exactly what our billionaire Elite Overlords are doing – at first “imagining” a different arrangement than the one we were born into (a greed-based arrangement that has for literally centuries benefited only a microscopic percentage of the population and which has led the human species of animal to the edge of extinction either by environmental catastrophe or nuclear war) and then implementing that new arrangement by electing representatives who have that same “vision” of a better arrangement and will carry out their constituents’ wishes against an entrenched, near-omnipotent opposition.
Keep in mind that I intended my hypothetical world to stimulate discussion of alternative arrangements. If you can imagine a better arrangement than the one I have imagined and a better way to bring that arrangement into reality, please type it out right here, right now. Big things have small beginnings.
As you undoubtedly know, your hypothetical world is substantially similar to Bellamy’s world. In “Equality,” Bellamy actually lays out a road map to get to a world like this from the savagery of capitalism. It begins with a rapid expansion of the public sector, forced by necessity to step in when the private sector fails. I think that the pandemic, whatever its origin, has begun this irreversible process. I say “begun” because the private sector has nevertheless been allowed to milk the pandemic for all its worth. But should the virus mutate to easily go end around all vaccines, it’s a new ball game. We might even be forced to learn what must be done to address looming ecocide.
The Dispossessed, Ursula LeGuin.
I just listened to a 30 year old song “State of Mind” from Fish (when someone uses poetry in a skillful way i always have to think of him) and it is slightly depressing how his words could easily have been written today. His observations are still accurate.
Another 10 years earlier he wrote “Fugazi” (at that time for his band Marillion) and that also paints a familiar picture of our presence. I fear change will keep being stifled.
Wow. Your words are so powerful Caitlin. Wow.
Or:
How the distractions fracture
Stop us from taking action.
How the distractions subtract
Stop us from reacting
How the distractions contract
Stop us from contacting
Distractions
Distractions
Distractions
What a lovely poem! Thank you for your art!
Brilliant! Thanks for writing this.