American Poets: Robinson Jeffers

September 16, 2010 in Montana

by lizard

This is the first in what will be a series of looks at American poets, past and present, who I think answer the question posed in the title of my last post.

Robinson Jeffers is an American poet who found critical acclaim in the 20’s and 30’s with long narrative poems that touched on controversial topics, like murder, incest, and parricide.  But it was his vociferous opposition to America entering World War II that caused “gate keeper” critics like Kenneth Roxroth to turn on him.  Thus banished, and voice lost to the fervor of nationalism, his prominence in the poetry world quickly dissipated.

For me, discovering poets like Robinson Jeffers is deeply reassuring.  It allows me to connect my own resistance back through the decades to artists who refused to abandon their internal compasses for external gratification.

August was a bad month, 2009 was a bad year

September 16, 2010 in 2010 Election, Barack Obama, Economy & Business, Healthcare

By Duganz

I grew up in Anaconda, Montana, which has seemingly been in a recession since, oh say, 1982. I was also pretty damn poor as a kid–we didn’t eat at Grandma’s just because she cooked, but because we didn’t have food that day. Mom went to school, Dad worked his ass off for us.

But, man, things never seemed this bad:

The number of people in poverty increased by nearly 4 [million] – to 43.6 [million] – between 2008 and 2009, officials said.

The [U.S. Census Bureau] defines poverty as any family of four living on less than $21,954 a year.

Meanwhile, new figures showed home foreclosures in August hit the highest level since the mortgage crisis began.

Banks repossessed 95,364 properties in August, up 3% from July and an increase of 25% from August 2009, said RealtyTrac, a company which charts the national picture.

The official US poverty rate in 2009 rose to 14.3% from 13.2% in 2008. In 2009, 43.6 million Americans lived in poverty, up from 39.8 million the year before, the third consecutive increase, the bureau said.

What the hell was the point of the bailout again? To keep he banks afloat? Anyone want to bet that nobody from Citibank has been added to the poverty pit?

But that’s not all!

There are also 4.4 million more people without health insurance, and as p-bear already pointed out that number probably won’t be going up quickly, ya know, cause the reform bill doesn’t even really come into effect until 2014 (and it’s hard to buy insurance when you’re broke). I wonder how many more will lose insurance by then.

If we’re lucky, maybe we can have a society like the one in Metropolis.

Progressives are taking a huge hit this election year – that much seems clear – and it’s news like this. People see these numbers, and they blame those in power. We can say that President Obama and company inherited the mess all we want, but we must remember that bad numbers caused the Right to lose in 2008. It can happen again.

And who can blame the vox populi? If I was losing my home and my insurance, and I had a family (larger than just me and the Mrs.) I’d be super angry and want something to happen too. And maybe I’d revolt against the people who promised me change, and a future for my kids, and have yet to deliver on that promise (note: it’s easier to sell change than to make it happen).

I’m not trying to be a Negative-Nancy, it’s a cold reality and no amount of sugar can make it go down easy.

Unfortunately, that anger is leading to the steady rise of people like this nutcase:

It’s gonna be a long November.