CLEAR LAKE CITY, TX — If it wasn’t for public libraries, I would not be able to network and communicate with like-minded individuals. I live in Texas, which has the fifth worst regressive tax system in the nation, and a lower rate of upward mobility than California. Rick Perry, former governor, endeavored to recreate paradise from laissez-faire mythology. I tire of hearing that greed is good and government is the problem.
Naturally, no one assumes the government will solve human problems. Government only exists to promote justice, including the equality of members and their safety within a free system.
However, in a capitalist system one group or another has to be the scapegoat.
In Texas, anyone who advocates change to the system is a James Dean rebel-without-a-clue, one who wants to topple the rigid authorities to replace them with himself. We are nearer each year to the rough edge of Mississippi in abortion policy. We also provide a host of minimum wage jobs. Former Governor Perry, in the squeakiest of helium breaths, downplays biology’s role in sexual orientation as well as lies about the success of Texas students. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice?
Humanness is lost under capitalist economy where being poor is a sign of incompetence and bad character. Changes to the system will require changes to dominant attitudes first.
In spite of Texas’ high brag about being an economic powerhouse built on true Christian capitalist values, there has been little entrepreneurship emerging from Texas. The Republic of Texas with an anti-secular sneer thumbs its nose when asked to abide by the wall of separation. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, religion plays a big role in conservative charitableness. Conservatives are the most generous according to a study released by Arthur C. Brooks, and the hyper-religious South gives more.
This lengthy introduction brings me to my purpose. I organized for 100,000 Poets for Change in 2014 to propose alternate views, and the nature of the event and its goals felt right. I did not get media attention but we attracted a fair crowd at NOKturne, a late night juice and exotic foods bar. The musical entertainment was an old high school friend who recently divorced a famous French singer. The poets included an Iraq War veteran, a gay rights advocate, and a poet from Davis, California who once dated Cesar Chavez’s daughter. The group was small and intimate, but fabulous. Those who didn’t attend missed a great opportunity to voice their concerns.
I admire the diversity and beauty of thought and even those who are diametrically opposed to my worldview look for change in something . . . because the world’s nature is one of flux, of strife and mutual aid, and a need for stability. All are welcome to my poetry events. Cognitive dissonance does not exist in poetry. The arts are a place where one is free to be oneself and the intimacy of communication heightens a sense of wonder, mystery, and awe.
I live to create.
Dustin D. Pickering is Editor-in-Chief of Harbinger Asylum and founder of Transcendent Zero Press, www.transcendentzeropress.org.
100,000 poets for change event in Houston
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