Punk Rock Poetry Corner: Banana Nation

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Banana Nation 

America can't keep the lights on anymore

A million applicants for 50,000 jobs at McDonalds!

A dying economy, failing infrastructure

Open the door

Look at Brazil

There is the core of the future

Wake up it's morning

The living room is trashed

The dream is over

America is out of cash

Yet another useless war to add

To the trillions already spent overseas

When bridges collapse here

Every time there is a freeze

We have a dying way of life

Squashed between limousine liberals

And tough on crime conservatives

Who keep voting on both sides

For the 535 of inept Barney Fife's

Who are more busy keeping the corporations

Happy and their own pockets filled

While the American dream is killed

Young people say goodbye to your own home

Hospitals, hobbies, the ability to roam

Free time, vacations and security

You'll be baited and switched

As you make $6-7 dollars an hour now worth $2

At a job you spent 4 years and $50-60,000 to get

Talk about being robbed

You're not the only one buried under a loan

Already knocked out by Sylvester Stallone

No jobs, No jobs, begging for a handout

Or how about just building a life

No, plan for more strife!

More cuts, bennies, and helps for the robber barons

While doing what's right seems to mean nothing anymore!
---The Squawker

America's Uniform!

I am old enough that I remember when everything was more beautiful. People wore bright colors and designs, instead of endless blue jeans and T-shirts. I had the thought watching a crowd at a holiday parade, they are dressed so darkly and everyone was in blue jeans young and old. There is no difference anymore. There is no lightness in the party of life anymore. Am I strange to think that seeing a dress with a few flowers on it would be nice once in awhile? One day at the grocery store I decided count how many women you see NOT wearing blue jeans with a T-shirt/polo ensemble, I saw 4, among hundreds. What does that say? Mao couldn't have dreamed of "uniforming" a nation with such ease! 

"In recent months there have been reports in the foreign press that after a long absence skirts and dresses are returning to China. The way Chinese women dress has often been looked upon by foreigners with some dismay and disapproval. 'How can they bear to look all the same?', 'How drab the streets must be', and 'What has become of all those rich colours, embroideries and fabrics?'. . . Frequently, the widespread tendency for men and women to dress in plain cotton jackets and trousers is thought to be the result of strict official measures brought into operation in 1949."

Guess I am old enough to remember different. America wears a uniform now perhaps to match the uniform thoughts?---The Squawker. 

Punk Rock Poetry Corner: The People's Haikus #3: Shootout At The Dream Factory

<TAKE I: THE INDUSTRY>

Note to authors: want

Royalties? Go see the queen

of England, not me.

Celebrity book
deals reign supreme: it's a small world,

dude, who needs you?

First novel doesn't
sell? Better luck next time, kid.
Show us your platform!

Your cupboard feeling

cold & clammy? Better talk with

my assistant, friend:

Hey, I'm your agent!
I meant what I said (at the

time that I said it).

 

<TAKE II: THE TALENT>

"Wait a minute," I

demand, "not so fast...sure, cream

rises. So does crap."

On the horizon,

I smell puffs of mutiny,

DIY cries ringing free

Spreading our stories

via the blog or handheld

reader (making us 

all town criers (no

longer selling works for hire,

always & forever):

this deal sounds better:

high time for a shootout at

...the dream factory.

<TAKE III: THE OUTCOME>

So where's the grapeshot?

The whiff of gunpowder has

never smelled sweeter

than it does here &

so, forgive me, if I want

the taste in my mouth

to linger just a

little bit longer, since cream

rises (remember)?

                          <The Reckoner>

The Faces Of Hunger (Take Three): The Mobile Food Pantry Line

The end of the month lay a good 10 days ahead. Our proverbial cupboard yawned empty yet again, however, as I regrettably informed The Squawker: "Shall do we it, then?"

"Afraid so," The Squawker sighed.  "We're out of everything, and we won't have anymore money coming in till Monday."

I slid on my warmup jacket and glanced once more inside the refrigerator, whose remaining contents -- a half-empty bottle of mayonnaise here, a barely-full bag of carrots there -- made its yawning emptiness all the more apparent.  "Right, you've got a point...let's go, then, eh?"

Today marked the mobile food pantry's inaugural visit. The project was the brainchild of our local Lutheran church, whose management regime had already been hosting free dinners on Saturdays (see "The Faces Of Hunger [Scenes From A Church Dinner]" for further details).

For The Squawker and I, this noble experiment seemed like a significant upgrade on that particular idea, but we didn't entertain any great expectations.  At last count, the community dinners were drawing 100-150 people, but nothing could have prepared us for the scene that we encountered, once we pulled up.

The line stretched as far the eye cared to roam, for roughly six blocks -- starting at the alley, past the local museum and further ahead into the church parking lot. We'd anticipated a fair crowd, so we made a point of getting there by 3:30 p.m., a full hour before the event itself.

From the looks of things, we'd underestimated the demand. I pulled into a distant corner, and reached to grab our trusty plastic storage tub off the back seat.

I'd have to carry the flag -- or, in this case, the tub -- since the Squawker's breathing difficulties make lengthy walks, or more than a couple minutes of standing still, a problematic proposition.

"How many people do you think are here?" the Squawker asked.

I turned around again, to have a look.  "Hmmm...off the top of my head, I'd say, between 200 and 300.  It's been awhile since I've counted a crowd," I yawned.  "Wish me luck, then..."

I'd hardly taken my place in line, when a couple of older black women noticed the storage tub.  They asked if the house rules specified bringing your own container, because nobody had told them, apparently.

I looked around. Almost everybody seemed to be clutching something, whether it was a plastic grocery bag, cardboard box or shoulder bag.

"You know what? I've got cardboard boxes," I told the women.  "I always use carry a few, when I'm shipping records..."  The anxiety vanished from their faces.  "You can use some of mine."

A thirtyish black man standing next to me perked up.  "You ship records?  I love vinyl, man, I'm an old school guy, myself..."  He also stood empty-handed.

"Nothing wrong with that," I smiled.  "You can have a couple boxes, too."

I went back to the van, as the women followed behind me, and opened the hatchback.  I handed them a couple folded cardboard boxes apiece, and gave a couple more to my fellow vinyl enthusiast, who'd saved my place in line.

"Thanks, man."

"Don't mention it," I said, squinting into the sun.

Young moms with toddlers lined up with middle-aged, middle-class refugees like myself...young men no longer on the make...grandmothers who sported a lifetime of varicose veins on their legs...and older gents in their fifties and sixties, who'd spent their lives toiling away...until the system discarded them, without a blink, or a second thought.

The sight seemed oddly breathtaking. In another life, another time, we could have been stands-ins from a grainy Norman Rockwell painting, united by a common purpose...which, on those occasion, happened to be feeding ourselves. The faces of hunger were back in town.

I signed the paperwork, on behalf of The Squawker and myself, and set the storage tub on the ground. In the middle of the lot stood the mammoth white Spartan Foods van, with its innards opened up on both sides, from which the volunteers unloaded cardboard containers and bags, setting them down on the tables in front of us.

The line inched forward, and within 10 minutes, I collected a hefty bag of potatoes. I hesitated, at first (The Squawker's allergic, but maybe I can make potato pancakes -- yeah, that's it, like Dad used to make), but I threw them into the tub, anyway.

Gradually, the line snaked around the Spartan Food truck cab.  I scooped a couple of club soda bottles into the tub, plus a couple of Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist 2-liter bottles (God, I hate Sierra Mist, it's not something I'd buy in the store.  Still, beggars can't be...y'know...).

Soon, we made our way to the other side, where a flurry of chicken and ham packages disappeared in front of me.

The difficulties sharpened into focus. They'd run out of meat, knocking a hole in our plans to bridge the gap for the weekend, until our next short-term burst of cash arrived.   Slowly, inevitably, the line began to wind down.

In quick succession, I collected a loaf of sourdough bread (cool, nice to score a Squawker perennial for the kitchen), a cardboard box of yogurt (God, I hate this stuff, I don't care if you two-bit f#ckers in Eastern Europe feast on this stuff, still, beggars can't be...y'know), and..last, but not least...a box of leftover birthday cake (Not sure what we'll do with this, but still...beggars can't be...y'know...).

Other than a fistful of small bananas, I didn't see a fruit -- or vegetable -- in sight.

I pushed the tub across the ground with my foot, ever so slowly, until I made it back to the van.  The Squawker watched closely as I opened the side door, and heaved the whole lot inside.  "Did you get any meat?"

"Afraid not, dear Squawker...they ran out before they got to me."

"Ah, man...we'll come a little earlier next time."

"I suppose."

As we pulled out of the parking lot, I wondered what someone with food allergies might do in this situation...or someone diabetic, like the Squawker, for instance...or, for that matter, anyone requiring a diet that didn't depend on heavily processed food.

I pushed all those thoughts of my mind, in short order.  After all, we hadn't gotten any meat...so we'd have to figure something out for the weekend.

CODA
The next day, I called a friend, and had him to wire a loan, so we could get through the weekend.  We ended up giving him the yogurt on his next social visit. I've paid him back about a quarter of the loan, so far.

We gave the potatoes away to a different friend.  The birthday cake turned out to be stale, and -- since it was taking up a good deal of the upper shelf -- little more than a space waster, so it went in the bin.  This is what happens when the faces of hunger come to town.  --The Reckoner

Punk Rock Poetry Corner: Union Haiku (Guest Post: Don Hargraves)

Union Haiku

Sitting in class
the last day of worker training
Management man speaks.

Management man says:
"I'm neither for or against
the teamster union,

"But remember this:
The union doesn't pay you,
the company does."

- - - - - - - - - -

Your statement is true
but if it were up to you
you would pay much less

Our wages would drop
And benefits disappear
As your profits rise

And the rules would shift
as management whim becomes
workfloor policy.

The union makes you
deal with us employees
as equals, with rights.

The Union makes you
pay a decent wage for work
that we do for you.

The union makes you
give us benefits you would
not give otherwise.

The union makes you
comply with OSHA, they make
you think of safety.

- - - - - - - - - -

Management man, you
have the company's backing
and all it entails:

Would we work for you
were it not for the money
you put in our hands?

Lawyers work for you,
you hire your own police
to watch over us

Meanwhile governments
beg for you to pick their land
to place factories.

Pointing guns at us,
they give money and promise
worker slavery

for the benefits
(however iffy) of your
presence on their land.

- - - - - - - - - -

Without the union
workers must view each other
as enemies

Hiding under you
as you use us as your tools
to keep your power

Burning ourselves out
only to be thrown away
when we're all used up.

- - - - - - - - - -

So I'll stay union
And stand alongside the workers,
fighting with them

For a living wage,
benefits that protects us
from life's vagaries

And to enjoy friendships
and pleasures not conditioned
by our working life.

Don Hargraves

Finished May 10, 1999
Rewritten July 29, 2002

Ecuador Re-Elects Rafael Correa (Ramen Noodle Nation Gets More Material)

Never let it be claimed that we don't give credit where credit's due.  Ramen Noodle Nation congratulates Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, on his painless cruise to a new four-year term. With Venezuela's longtime strongman, Hugo Chavez, effectively sidelined by cancer, it falls to you, Mr. Correa, to stand as Latin America's leading anti-American voice. Not even the combined might of seven opposition candidates could halt your latest journey to greatness...when you're visiting the Cognitive Dissonance Hall of Fame, at any rate.

How proud you must have felt, as you told your supporters: "Nobody can stop this revolution.  We are making history, we are building our homeland which is Ecuador and the great homeland which is Latin America."  We look forward to seeing you give four more years of hell to the capitalist dogs, wherever they roam, far and near...right, then....this little joke's gone just about far enough!

In reality, we at Ramen Noodle Nation look forward to mining four years of satire out of another Correa term.  (Undoubtedly, though, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has to feel more relieved than anybody; he's got four more years of guaranteed pizza deliveries to the Ecuadoran embassy, in London, where he remains in semi-permanent limbo...but we've already covered that subject.)  

As expected, Corrrea's latest electoral campaign passed largely unchallenged in a cloud of bluster, intimidation and continuing threats to press freedom. Now, we wouldn't say that Mr. Correa is thin-skinned, but this is the country where he broke into a broadcast by the Telemazonas TV network to refute a story about...what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.

According to a report published by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which monitors these abuses, the dispute centered on the venue where the president ate -- hardly the stuff of scandal, but nevertheless, one that he felt compelled to address, at great length.  Under Ecuador's constitution, anyone who feels "slandered by the media" has a right to reply -- and the network has to broadcast it, no matter how flimsy or trumped-up the charge.

Ironically, according to CPJ's report, these official responses, or cadenas,  date back to 1974, when the ruling military government discovered -- to its equally great chagrin, no doubt -- that it had no obvious method of getting its pronouncements on the air, because it didn't own any radio or TV stations.  Now that Correa has discovered this technique, he's milked it more than any of his predecessors (1,365 times, or 11,793 minutes, amounting to eight days of airtime). As the cliche goes: old habits die hard, those routines may take quite a bit longer to burn themselves out, in Mr. Correa's case.

Of course, as CPJ's three-part report explains, in painstaking detail, all of Mr. Correa's populist bluster against "dogs" and "assassins" hasn't prevented him from building an empire of 21 newspapers, radio and TV stations that serve largely to reflect his views.  "Do as I say, not as I do" is an old, unhappy tradition in Latin America, as the people have often learned, to their lasting dsmay. (Remember all the "Marxist Yuppie" jibes directed against Nicaragua's ex-president, Daniel Ortega?) At the same time, the government spends large amounts of money on advertising, when it's not filing multiple defamation suits against media outlets that dare to criticize Mr. Correa or his government in some way.

Needless to say, all this concerted pressure exerts a chilling effect. An analysis by the press freedom group Fundamedios found that 93 percent of stories published about the election in January 2013 were short, descriptive articles that contained little in the way of analysis, or commentary. And it's not just Mr. Correa who escapes the scrutiny, apparently; so will many of his parliamentary allies running with him, since many papers have decided to put off the risk of publishing any compromising disclosures until after the election. (For the uninitiated...this is the equivalent of viewing pornographic pictures after an orgasm, or whatever metaphor you want to plug in here.)  You can view the whole document here, though it's in Spanish:

http://www.fundamedios.org/monitoreo/Informe%20Monitoreo%20electoral%20ok.pdf

And, for those who want the whole story, here's part one of CPJ's report...just follow the bouncing ball of repression from here:

http://www.cpj.org/blog/2013/01/repression-deepens-in-ecuador-as-correa-heads-to-n.php

Why, then, does Mr. Correa spend so much time and energy discrediting an enemy whose power seems increasingly constrained, anyway?  Well, partly, because such charges resonate with the man on the street; add a dash of insecurity, a pinch of hubris, and you get the total picture. Of course, it's equally worth remembering that the Correa government's popularity is largely fueled by oil money, which is always subject to the whims of the marketplace.

What will happen to Mr. Correa's populist appeal, once all the oil revenues starts to dry up?  He might do well to give that issue some thought, especially when efforts to promote other industries -- notably, mining -- have yet to get off the ground.  That's one reading of the situation; we invite readers from South America (in general) and Ecuador (in particular) to weigh in.

So what lies ahead for Mr. Correa and his relentless cheering section?  We here at Ramen Noodle Nation can only speculate.  However, when they do something spectacularly foolish, rest assured, we'll be here to comment on it -- why?  Because the joke's always funny...when it's at their expense. --The Reckoner

Says It All...

Schools in most cases are not teaching young people economic realities but indoctrination. I remember hearing all the "global market economy" stuff and what a positive it would be, even back in the 1980s. Maybe then I suspected it was a scam.....

-The Squawker