by Darrah de jour

Inga Muscio is the highly acclaimed, and equally controversial (and unapologetic) feminist author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, and her latest, Rose: Love in Violent Times.

In the current political landscape, women’s healthcare rights are under attack daily by new cockeyed legislation. Our social and sexual freedoms are being preyed upon by fervently conservative Republicans. The youth of our country are also at risk — whether because sex ed is being taken out of schools in favor of abstinence-only education, or because bullying by other kids is resulting in suicide. The Right’s proposed answer? “Don’t Say Gay” bills.

What better time to visit the themes of Muscio’s literary toils, and pick her brain about everything from sex, race and violence, to female friendships and that dude, The Pope.

Darrah de jour: You are one of the most important and accessible feminist writers of the 21st century. Your seminal book Cunt has changed the lives of so many women by promoting body-love, pro-sex attitudes, and by embracing LGBTQ life-styles — even when, as you state, a lesbian’s desires include wanting to roll in the hay with the opposite sex on occasion. What inspired you to pen Cunt? And how have your views changed in the last ten years?

Inga Muscio: My views have expanded and mutated some, but not earth-shatteringly so. I’d like to qualify that it’s my desire about rolling in the hay with whatever gender. I can’t speak for the general lesbian population on that one. I believe it was Cynthia Nixon who got into a lot of trouble for saying that being a lesbian was a choice for her. I’ve gotten into trouble for saying that as well. And I understand why. The bible-thumpy closet homos get all in a lather about gayness being a choice and with the right amount of prayer and support, one can simply change their mind and no longer be gay. So, if you have people out there saying, “Oh yes, lesbianism is a choice for me,” then you’rr gonna feel a bit betrayed. But the thing is, that’s kind of, in a way, the whole crux of sexuality. It exists on an ever-changing continuum, which is something bible-thumpy closet homos can inherently, never embrace.

What inspired Cunt? Two things. First off was ‘The Mistake,’ which I briefly wrote about in Cunt. Early in my writing career at a weekly newspaper, I accidentally turned in an article to my editor (this is back in the day when actual pieces of paper were exchanged amongst such individuals) and it had the title, the word count and my name at the top. Only I left out the “o” in word count. I didn’t notice “The Mistake: until my editor pointed it out to me. After the newspaper and I parted ways, I sat on my kitchen floor, with all of my articles surrounding me in a 180 degree circle. And I was thinking, “Well, I’ve always wanted to write a book.”

Thing #2 is related to your next question. I’d spent a good part of a decade stewing in this primordial rage, after my mother told me she’d been raped by two men when she was nine years old. I wanted to hunt them down and tear them apart with my bare hands, gouge out their eyes, stomp on their balls. This happened in London in the late 1940s, when she was walking home from school. She had no idea who they were. There was no way for me to satiate my vengeance fantasies on the men, themselves.

And I realized, it wasn’t about these specific men, per sé. Or my mother, or my childhood — which was 100%, 24-7 themed around this far away act of violence. I saw the hugeness of rape. How many childhood’s were shaped by violence? How have the traumas of abuse, rape, slavery and genocide echoed through each passing generation? How does war — and the mass rape it usually engenders — affect a population? I saw this act of violence committed against my mother as one minuscule facet of what I eventually saw as a fractalized, kaleidoscopic panorama. Cunt became my way of setting light to that view. It was, and remains, an incredibly satisfying means of exacting vengeance.

Ddj: In Cunt, you describe one evening where a conversation with your mother about rape changed your relationship with her. The bond between mother and daughter is a complex one. Why do you think so many women have difficulties getting close to their moms?

IM: Here we have another continuum. Some moms are not affectionate. Some are too affectionate. Some daughters are dying for their mother’s approval and their mother will never, ever give it. Some daughters could give a fuck what their mother’s think, and their mom’s doormatishly consider them the most beautiful being ever to grace this planet’s hull. Such a mixed bag.

If you want to talk just general indoctrination, there exists a lot of jealousy between women in patriarchal cultures and this does not spare relationships just because of strong blood bonds.

Ddj: We are living in a very unique time, where the GOP is trying to take women back into the Dark Ages. Their aims include: making contraception difficult and expensive to ascertain; adding additional (and sometimes painful, invasive and expensive) hoops for a woman to jump through to terminate her pregnancy; and trying to make women socially and financially subservient to men, by allowing her to be fired for using contraception — among other wonky Santorum-sanctioned ideas. Why do you think the pendulum is swinging backward instead of forward? And, what would the Muscio plan of attack be if you were organizing a retaliation?

IM: Women’s bodies are difficult to control. So is the earth, itself. So are the many people on the planet who don’t feel like being controlled, such as Palestinians, indigenous people in the US, aboriginal people in Australia, Tibetans, black people, and homos the world over. So my plan involves a lot of education and making these connections. If you’re well versed in the oppression of women, great. Now it’s time to learn about the oppression of everyone and everything else. If you understand how the people you identify with are controlled, move out of your sphere and apprehend how everyone else is controlled. Otherwise, we are all small groups of people looking only to our own self-interests, and meanwhile, do not understand the true nature of our adversary. In war, this is not a powerful position.

We see this on display in the fractured Occupy movement, where the name itself is highly offensive to indigenous people. Those within the movement who hold power do not seem willing to apprehend the gravity of this, thus weakening the very thing they are trying to make strong. How can indigenous people — this includes Mexicans, Chicanos and native folks — really, heart and soul get behind the concept of an occupation when it is something their families have been struggling with for over 500 years? And without the people who come from this land – without the full backing of people of color, homos, and white women – the Occupy movement, for example, will not get anywhere. When we remove all the things that keep us in racist / misogynist / xenophobic mindsets, then we can start talking revolution.

Ddj: Many conservatives are rallying for the removal of sex-ed in public schools. If sex education is removed from public schools, in favor of abstinence only education, or none at all, what kind of effect do you think this will have on children, teens and the future?

IM: Pregnancy rates will skyrocket. Date, gang, and sexual abuse rape will reach epidemic proportions, as if they haven’t already. More young women will go to jail for throwing their baby in the trashcan in Olive Garden during their lunch break or in the school bathroom toilet. Poverty, homelessness, hunger. The young men who actually try to stand up and be fathers for their children will most likely join the military and put their life on the line. The children of these young people will be more available to abuse from relatives, day care center workers, baby sitters or family friends because the parents both have to work. Deaths from homemade abortions will rise. Adoptions will also rise. Good times.

Ddj: South Carolina Governor Vikki Haley recently proclaimed that “women don’t care about contraception. They care about jobs, the economy, and raising their families.” What would you say to Ms. Haley if you had the chance?

IM: I’d say, “That’s a fascinating talking point you learned at one of your dazzle camouflage meetings. If it was based in reality it would not work nearly as well as it does.”

Ddj: Two and a Half Mem co-creator Lee Aronsohn came under fire last month for what many claimed were sexist comments. In response to a reporter’s inquiry about current television programming, Aronsohn replied, “We are reaching peak vagina on television, to the point of labia saturation,” referring to female-centric sitcoms like 2 Broke Girls and Whitney. He went on, “Enough, ladies. I get it, you have periods.” What is your response to this bravado? Why do you think some men still fear women and women’s bodies? How does this affect women?

IM: I see, since Lee Aronsohn knows we have periods, then periods are due to cease existing. When will we reach peak penis in any realm of existence? In architecture? Sitcom plots? Political campaigns? There are very few things in this world — from structures of hierarchy to the cadence of songs — that isn’t penis shaped in some way or another. Hello, war? Bullets, missiles, warheads. Please. I can’t leave my home without being inundated by the realities of penises. Enough, gentlemen, I get it, you (hope to god you) have hard-ons.

I think most men fear women’s bodies because they are indoctrinated to mistrust nature. These are the nice, well-intentioned men. The ones who feel compelled to control nature are a whole other problem. The sexiest men are the ones who’ve faced all of those fears. I think all this affects women by controlling us. Many of our thoughts, desires, aspirations, fears and traumas are also very penis shaped.

Ddj: Your latest book Rose: Love in Violent Times, explores women and violence. In it, you write, “Rape is so much more than the mainstream definition of ‘forced sexual intercourse.’ Rape is murdering part or all of someone’s soul. Snuffing out someone’s power.” While we do not condone honor killings in the US (though some have occurred in families that have relocated here), our attitudes do include blame, judgment, and inaction. When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the city billed sexual assault victims through their insurance companies for the cost of rape kits. Others try to differentiate “forcible rape” from incest, as though the results – the stripping of dignity, the violation – were somehow different. Where do you think these attitudes stem from?

IM: Funny you should ask, because it all comes from the above-mentioned penis-based thought. Men who create and pass laws don’t think rape is all that bad. Unless it happens to their daughters, of course. No one dies. It’s as close to a victimless crime as you can get without actually being victimless. Somewhere in the dark heart of a man’s penis, there is the possibility that the woman really wanted it. There is also the problem of slavery and the genocide of native people that we’ve yet to face. We come from a long history of rape being condoned. If a senator’s great-grandfather owned slaves, and raped the women, it was passed through the family that rape was just boys having a little fun. We really, really do have a lot of rapists in our history. And child molesters. So the laws reflect this. Any rhetoric that victimizes/demonizes those who oppose this reality isn’t warmly welcomed. Especially when it comes from a woman. That really is the bottom line throughout our culture: we attack/demonize the victim. Without the victim opening their mouth, there would be no problem. This applies to whistleblowers, environmentalists, animal rights activists, labor unions, incarcerated prison rights activists, un-closeted breastfeeding mothers, and pretty much everyone else who bucks the system of total control.

Ddj: I often engage in conversations with the men in my life (I have an abundance of fantastic male friends) about the challenges they face with the current state of gender dynamics, third wave feminism (or are we now in fourth, arguably?) and the polarization of subjects like abortion and rape. What can the good guys out there do to better understand issues affecting women right now?

IM: I really find it beneficial to immerse myself in the art, films, music, and writing of any demographic I’d like to better understand. See if they could commit to doing this for a year. Your man pals will come out of it with a pretty nice understanding. But not just feminists. Tell them to read biographies about beauty queens and cheerleaders, about powerful women such a Barbara Bush, Imelda Marcos or Margaret Thatcher. Watch independent films by women of color. Just grab any and every CD by a woman at the library. Only go to local shows or openings by women. Tell them to be sure to include transgender women. And good job putting the lid down after they pee.

Ddj: Relationships between women can be intense. What do you think is the biggest challenge women face in having authentic, intimate friendships with each other?

IM: Mirroring competitive models of power. It goes against our nature and wears down out spirit, and so we set upon each other in internecine and highly damaging ways.

Ddj: Not long after Prop 8 was deemed unconstitutional in California, North Carolina voters approved amending their state constitution to ban gay marriage. Last week, President Obama spoke publicly in favor of same sex couples‘ right to wed. Eight states in the US have legalized same sex marriage. Do you think marriage equality will provide equal rights for the gay community? If not, what issue trumps it?

IM: I do think it is a big and important thing. So many people do not enjoy the benefits of marriage. I’ve heard of partners of 20 years being barred from their beloved’s deathbed by homophobic family members who never approved of the relationship. Or firemen whose surviving spouse is not eligible for widow’s benefits. It’s truly horrifying. That being said, I’d like to see gays passionately fighting for the rights of black people, or putting energy into the water or fishing rights that native people are fighting for. I’d like to see homos branch out a bit. All of the issues facing humanity today are important. It’s difficult to prioritize.

Ddj: Pope Benedict XVI said on April 5th that women have no place representing God as ordained priests and rebuked priests who support ending celibacy. Do you think women who ascribe to Catholicism and similar organized religions that oppress women and create/support violent and divisive laws against them are self-loathing? What say you about the myth of female purity (let’s not forget Mother Mary had children after Jesus), and that men can only receive salvation through a sexless woman devoid of physical passion?

IM: The reason he was made Pope was because all of this child sex abuse stuff is constantly erupting and he is the person most experienced in covering it up. The Pope is a total psychopath and anything that comes out of his mouth is guaranteed to be psychopathic.

This whole female purity thing is the Catholic Church’s grudging way of accepting the fact that women must exist on the planet. This is an enclave of men who live in an almost all-male city within a city, who propound to be the word of a male god who never consorted with a woman to produce his child. Is he, in fact, god because he managed this feat? Is this not the holiest thing conceivable (no pun intended), to have a son without touching a woman? Now that’s some shit to aspire to, huh?

These men are absolutely out of their minds. These are the fellas who helped “discover” the new world and sanctified the total subjugation of entire Indian nations. They’re behind a lot of the beliefs in this country that keep people divided and conquered. I look forward to their downfall with bated breath.

Ddj: What are you currently working on?

IM: I’m re-working Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil, which will be published next year.

Find Inga online at ingalagringa.com and facebook.com/inga.muscio.7

Darrah de jour is a freelance journalist and consultant, with a focus on sensuality, environmentalism, and fearless women in the media. Her lifestyle writing and celebrity interviews have appeared in Marie Claire, Esquire and W, among others. She contributes author and filmmaker interviews to The Rumpus. Darrah’s sex and sensuality column for SuicideGirls, “Red, White and Femme: Strapped With A Brain – And A Vagina,” takes a fresh look at females in America. Darrah is also a regular guest co-hosts on SuicideGirls Radio, which is broadcast on Sunday nights on Indie 1031.com/. She lives in LA with her doggie Oscar Wilde. For more of Darrah visit Darrahdejour.com/, and friend / folow her on Facebook and Twitter.

A version of this interview originally appeared in The Rumpus.

[..]

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Steven-Elliot Altman (SG Member: Steven_Altman)

Our Fiction Friday serialized novel, The Killswitch Review, is a futuristic murder mystery with killer sociopolitical commentary (and some of the best sex scenes we’ve ever read!). Written by bestselling sci-fi author Steven-Elliot Altman (with Diane DeKelb-Rittenhouse), it offers a terrifying postmodern vision in the tradition of Blade Runner and Brave New World…

By the year 2156, stem cell therapy has triumphed over aging and disease, extending the human lifespan indefinitely. But only for those who have achieved Conscientious Citizen Status. To combat overpopulation, the U.S. has sealed its borders, instituted compulsory contraception and a strict one child per couple policy for those who are permitted to breed, and made technology-assisted suicide readily available. But in a world where the old can remain vital forever, America’s youth have little hope of prosperity.

Jason Haggerty is an investigator for Black Buttons Inc, the government agency responsible for dispensing personal handheld Kevorkian devices, which afford the only legal form of suicide. An armed “Killswitch” monitors and records a citizen’s final moments — up to the point where they press a button and peacefully die. Post-press review agents — “button collectors” — are dispatched to review and judge these final recordings to rule out foul play.

When three teens stage an illegal public suicide, Haggerty suspects their deaths may have been murders. Now his race is on to uncover proof and prevent a nationwide epidemic of copycat suicides. Trouble is, for the first time in history, an entire generation might just decide they’re better off dead.

(Catch up with the previous installments of Killswitch – see links below – then continue reading after the jump…)

[..]

by Aaron Colter

As a co-founding radical member of the Weather Underground, Bill Ayers is still a polarizing figure in America today, even though he’s dedicated most of his life to changing the way teachers approach childhood development and learning. In advance of his appearance at Portland, Oregon’s Stumptown Comics Festival this weekend, Ayers was kind enough to answer some questions about reforming public education, President Obama’s first term, and the future of the Occupy movement.

Question: Your connection to now President Obama was greatly over-hyped during his campaign, but as a Chicagoan, a citizen, and a leftist figure in America, how satisfied are you with his first term?

Bill Ayers: During the campaign, Senator Obama said consistently that he was a moderate, pragmatic politician. The right built up a story that he was a secret socialist who palled around with bad people; liberals said, “I think he’s winking in my direction.” The reality is that the president is surely a smart, caring, kind person who is politically exactly who he said he is: moderate, pragmatic, politician, leader of one of the two great war parties.

He also was asked during the primary fight, “Who would Martin Luther King support?” His answer: “King would be in the streets, building a movement for justice.” Exactly right. Rather than wring our hands as we stare helplessly at the sites of power we have no access to — the Congress, the White House, and the Pentagon — we might get busy organizing in the communities, schools and work-places, places of power we have full access to, and take it to the streets.

Q: Many liberals seems to be unhappy with how the President has handled military action in the Middle East, especially in regards to drone attacks, and also the President’s signing of the NDAA, the controversy over Wikileaks, the detention of Bradley Manning, etc. – how do you feel about those issues and what would you say to those on the left who might not want to vote for Obama this fall?

BA: Voting cannot be the be-all and end-all of participation. And in an electoral system so awash in money, so corrupted by cash, we would be foolish to rely on an election to answer our deepest needs and dreams. Organize, build a movement, and come to Chicago in May to say No to NATO!

Q: Speaking of dissatisfaction, the Occupy Wall Street movement is potentially poised to return in force this summer, do you think the movement has had a positive effect in helping change economic inequality?

BA: Occupy is an invitation and an opening, not a point of arrival, and it’s already won in important ways: the 1% is exposed, the frame is changed, and the 99% are getting mobilized against war and planetary destruction, for peace and simple fairness.

Q: What advice would you give to protestors today? Are there tactics you see as being effective? And conversely, are there things Occupy protestors are doing that you see as having a negative effect?

BA: I’m no tactician. But fundamental radical change is what we need now more than ever — we need to change ourselves, we need to remake the world. We need a revolution in values — against militarism, racism, materialism, consumerism — and a revolution in fact for peace and sharing the socially produced wealth and saving the planet. There is no single answer, but refusal to go along with exploitation, oppression, conquest and greed will open a path. Public space is created whenever people come together authentically and freely to name themselves in opposition to injustice. Those spaces can surely turn into their opposites, but let’s resist. Symbolic actions can play an educational role, and the educational value of any symbolic action — and this can include demonstrations and sit-ins and strikes and more — is impossible to fully assess in advance. Meanings are forever contested and never settled. We do the best we can, and then we reassess and try again. But our goals must be pedagogical, and our rethinking hinges on two questions: Did we learn? Did we teach?

Q: Do you see property destruction performed by the so-called “Black Bloc” today, or in the 1990s by the ELF, as having any merit? What would you encourage young radicals to do today?

BA: Sometimes, it depends. I urge activists to become more radical (go to the root of things), study, learn, organize, talk to strangers, mobilize, display your ethical aspirations publicly. On the important issues of the last two centuries, political radicals from Jane Addams and Emma Goldman, John Brown and Harriet Tubman, to Eugene Debs and WEB DuBois have gotten it right. The legacy continues with the work of Ella Baker and Septima Clark, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X 40 years ago, and on up to today. Of course as Ella Baker said, “Martin didn’t create the Movement, the Movement created Martin,” and it’s true; for every remembered leader there were hundreds, thousands putting their shoulders on history’s wheel. We might reflect then on the people as they make and remake history.

Everyone should wake up every day and pay attention/ be astonished/ act/ doubt, and repeat for a lifetime. We begin by recognizing that every human being, no matter who, is a gooey biological wonder, pulsing with the breath and beat of life itself, eating, sleeping, pissing and shitting, prodded by sexual urges, evolved and evolving, shaped by genetics, twisted and gnarled and hammered by the unique experiences of living. Every human being also has a unique and complex set of circumstances that makes his or her life understandable and sensible, bearable or unbearable. This recognition asks us to reject any action that treats anyone as an object, any gesture that thingifies human beings. It demands that we embrace the humanity of everyone, that we take their side.

Our country is first of all an extremely diverse immigrant society, with fantastic resources and accomplishments, but it also contains a redoubtable set of internal inequities and external interventions that cannot be ignored. We are faced with the enduring stain of racism and the ever more elusive and intractable barriers to racial justice, the rapidly widening gulf between rich and poor, and the enthronement of greed. We are faced as well with aggressive economic and military adventures abroad, the macho posturing of men bonding in groups and enacting a kind of theatrical but no less real militarism, the violence of conquest and occupation from the Middle East and Central Asia to South America.

Encountering these facts thrusts us into the realm of human agency and choice, the battlefield of social action and change, where we come face to face with some stubborn questions: Can we, perhaps, stop the suffering? Can we alleviate at least some of the pain? Can we repair any of the loss? There are deeper considerations: Can society be changed at all? Is it remotely possible—not inevitable, certainly, perhaps not even likely—for people to come together freely, to imagine a more just and peaceful social order, to join hands and organize for something better, and to win? Can we do anything?

If a fairer, saner and more just society is both desirable and possible, if some of us can join one another to imagine and build a public space for the enactment of democratic dreams, our field opens slightly. Occupy! There would still be much to be done, for nothing would be entirely settled. We would still need to find ways to stir ourselves from passivity, cynicism, and despair, to reach beyond the superficial barriers that wall us off from one another, to resist the flattening social evils like institutionalized racism, to shake off the anesthetizing impact of the authoritative, official voices that dominate so much of our space, to release our imaginations and act on behalf of what the known demands, linking our conduct firmly to our consciousness.

Q: Protestors around the country are preparing for marches and actions on May 1st as part of a General Strike. How useful do you think will be?

BA: Who can predict? Not me. We do our best, we act, and then we rethink and try again. Maybe we can learn from it. Occupy was impossible the day before it happened; the day after it was so obviously inevitable.

Q: There have been some Occupy protests aligned with trying to save schools that are set to close down due to budgetary constraints, and we’ve seen people try to occupy those schools to stop them from being shut down. Do you think that’s an effective tactic? What do you think people can do that would be more likely to bring about change?

BA: Keep trying, keep thinking.

Q: May will also mark the beginning of the occupation of Chicago to protest the NATO summit, now that the G8 has been moved to Camp David. First, do you think the fact that the G8 was moved can be seen as victory for Occupy protestors? And second, how do you think the city of Chicago will handle the situation?

BA: Yes, indeed. G8’s withdrawal was our victory. Now come to Chicago May 22, please and thank you, and help us drive NATO out as well.

As far as the city goes, a 1984-style national security dragnet is set to descend on Chicago in an attempt to lock the city down during the NATO summit. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made it clear that he will happily act as the host of NATO — and that the 99 percent are not welcome. Emanuel is concocting a culture of fear, suggesting that it is the growing human resistance to NATO that represents danger, outside agitators, violence and invasion.

Universities and schools are being urged to close early in May; communities of color are told that NATO’s work is not their concern; merchants are preparing for assault from the dissenting masses. But NATO, and their G8 friends in hiding, are the real masters of war; it is they who are the greatest purveyors of violence on this earth.

It is unsurprising, then, that Emanuel has funding to further arm and mobilize the police and militarize the city. The Mayor has announced plans to contain and suppress demonstrators. He has pushed through legislation that restricts and criminalizes free speech and assembly and requires costly insurance for public demonstrations. He is issuing a steady stream of pronouncements about a fabricated Chicago, which he says is under siege from ominous and dangerous outside forces.

The mayor, not the popular resistance, is creating conditions for a police riot in Chicago against people exercising their right to peaceful dissent. Emanuel can still change course, and he should. So far, he has chosen to frame the coming convergence of protesters and the powerful solely in military and security terms.

Chicago is big enough for all — it is after all a nuclear-free and cease-fire city, cradle of the Haymarket martyrs and the 8-hour day, labor and peace actions, vast civil rights and immigration rights manifestations, home of Ida B. Wells Barnett, Jane Addams, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Studs Terkel. Chicago is a vast public space with historic parks, monuments, neighborhoods and streets for popular mobilizations — Chicago belongs to all of us. We underline the right — the moral duty — to dissent and demonstrate, to resist and to be heard, to participatory (not billionaire paid-for) democracy.

The festival of NATO counter-summits, protests, and family-friendly permitted marches planned for May are the next chapter. Organizers and supporters will use humor and music, art and play, civil disobedience and imagination to voice their rejection of permanent imperial wars and the many forms of violence that arise from the same paradigm: discrimination and hate based on race, gender and ethnicity; epic income disparity; mass incarceration; inadequate resources for education, health care and opportunities for meaningful work.

Music, dance, teach-ins and peoples’ tribunals will overflow the parks and theatres. The protests are in the spirit of the Arab Spring, Occupy and the Madison labor struggle, drawing equal inspiration from the work of many others: the Pelican Bay hunger strikers, teachers and nurses, the undocumented DREAMers, returning veterans against the wars, women insisting on reproductive dignity, people resisting foreclosures/take-back-the-landers, those working for LGBTQ equality and more. People from everywhere will bring their spirits and their creativity, pitch their tents and stake their claims. Join us!

Q: Congress passed a recent bill that would make it a felony for protestors to disrupt events where the secret service was present. Do you think fears of a felony charge if protesting at the NATO summit are warranted? And if so, what do you think the proper response should be from protestors?

BA: Break the law.

Q: Politics in Chicago are seen as being inherently corrupt by many people in this country. Do you think that’s a fair assessment of how the city is run? Is there a structure in Chicago politics, for example the system of wards and aldermen, that makes changing policy and accountability more complicated than other cities?

BA: I don’t know that it’s any more or less complicated, but I do know it’s corrupt to the bone, that we should abolish the mayor’s office and the city council and build popular democracy — the model might be ancient Greece for the hundred years, or the Wobbly encampments in Nevada a hundred years ago, or Occupy!

Q: Switching gears a bit, what do you see as the biggest obstacle facing education reform today?

BA: The biggest obstacle facing education reform today is the accepted frame or the established terms of the discussion — the dull but insistent dogma of fashionable common sense. Whenever any two-bit politician gets to a microphone and says, “First we need to get the lazy, incompetent teachers out of the classroom,” he has not only framed the debate, he’s won. What can I say? “No, please leave the lazy teacher there for my grand-daughter!” If I get to the microphone first, I might say, “Every kid deserves a thoughtful, intellectually grounded, morally committed, caring, compassionate, well-rested and well-paid teacher in the classroom.” That’s a re-framing, and I win this one.

A flattering portrait of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan [“Class Warrior,” the New Yorker, February 1, 2010] perfectly reflects the dominant frame in today’s school reform battles: “there are, roughly speaking, two major camps,” writes the essayist. The first he calls “the free-market reformers,” the second, “the liberal traditionalists.” This unfortunate caricature is dead wrong, and it leaves out a huge range of approaches and actors, notably it omits those who argue, as John Dewey did, that in a democracy, whatever the wisest and most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what the community wants for all of its children. Arne Duncan as well as the Obama children and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s kids all attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where they had small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits. Oh, and a respected and unionized teacher corps as well! Good enough for secretaries, mayors, and presidents, good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of Dewey, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”

In schools focused on the needs and dreams of the broad community, we would be inspired by fundamental principles of democracy, including a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being. We would rally around the idea that the full development of each is the condition for the fullest development of all, and conversely that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each. One implication of this principle is that in a truly democratic spirit, whatever the wisest and most privileged parents want for their kids — that is exactly what we as a community want for all of our children.

If we think of education as a product like a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screw driver — something bought and sold in the marketplace like any other commodity — and if schools are businesses run by CEO’s, and if teachers are workers and students the raw material bumping along the assembly line as information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads, then it’s rather easy to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and privatizing a space that was once public is a natural event; that teaching toward a simple standardized metric, and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately-developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” is a rational proxy for learning; that centrally controlled “standards” for curriculum and teaching are commonsensical; that “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior as a stand-in for child development or justice is sane; and that “accountability,” that is, a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools — but never on law-makers, foundations, corporations, or high officials — is logical and level-headed. This is in fact what a range of noisy politicians, and their chattering pundits in the bought media call “school reform.”

The magic ingredients for this reform recipe are three: replace the public schools with some sort of privately-controlled administration; sort the winners relentlessly from the losers — test, test, TEST! (and then punish); and destroy teachers’ ability to speak with any sustained and unified voice. The operative controlling metaphor for these moves has by now become quite familiar, education is an individual consumer good, not a public trust or a social good, and certainly not a fundamental human right. Management, inputs and outcomes, efficiency, cost controls, profit and loss — the dominant language of this kind of reform – doesn’t leave much room for doubt, or much space to breathe.

In this metaphoric strait-jacket, school learning is a lot like boots or hammers; unlike boots and hammers, the value of which is inherently satisfying and directly understood, the value of school learning is elusive and indirect. Its value, we’re assured, has been calculated elsewhere by wise and accomplished people, and these school masters know better than anyone what’s best for these kids (for other people’s children) and for the world. “Take this medicine,” students are told repeatedly, day after tedious day, “It’s good for you.” Refuse the bitter pill, and go stand in the corner – where all the other losers are assembled.

Schools for obedience and conformity are characterized by passivity and fatalism and infused with anti-intellectualism and irrelevance. They turn on the little technologies for control and normalization — the elaborate schemes for managing the mob, the knotted system of rules and discipline, the exhaustive machinery of schedules and clocks, the laborious programs of sorting the crowd into winners and losers through testing and punishing, grading, assessing, and judging, all of it adding up to a familiar cave, an intricately constructed hierarchy — everyone in a designated place and a place for everyone. In the schools as they are, knowing and accepting one’s pigeonhole on the towering and barren cliff becomes the only lesson one really needs.

The forces fighting to create this new common-sense, school-reform-normal, are led by a merry band of billionaires—Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, Eli Broad—who work relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, and promoting, always spreading around massive amounts of cash to underline their fundamental points: dismantle public schools, crush the teachers unions, test and punish. When Rupert Murdoch was in deep water in the summer of 2011, it came to light that Joel Klein, a leading “reformer” as head of the New York City public schools for years (and whose own kids, of course, attended private schools), was on Murdoch’s payroll. According to the New York Times, the two saw eye to eye “on a core set of education principles: that charter schools needed to expand; poor instructors (the now-famous “lazy incompetent teachers”) should be weeded out; and the power of the teachers union must be curtailed.” The trifecta!

And, of course, these imaginary reformers create a fictional opposition, as foolish as a straw man without a brain, and just as easy to knock down. So imagine escaping the logic and the metaphoric strait-jacket of the “marketeers,” wriggling free, Houdini-like, and swimming to the surface of the tank for a sweet kiss of life, that first breath of air: inhale…exhale…keep on breathing. And don’t get entangled in that silly, simple-minded binary of “reform” vs. the status quo. Let yourselves be free — think beyond what’s proscribed.

Here is a standard we might bring into this debate: What if this school/classroom/experience was for me, or for my child? That would not be the end of the matter, but a healthy and clarifying starting point for discussion. If it’s not OK to cut the arts programs or sports or clubs or science for my child, how can it be OK for the children of the poor? If I want teachers for my kids who are thoughtful, caring, compassionate professionals – well-rested and well-paid, completely capable of making clear and smart judgments in complex situations — how can I advocate for teachers who are little more than mindless clerks for the children on the other side of town? We should be highly skeptical of reformers who claim to know what’s best for other people’s children — whether Gates or Bloomberg or Bush or Obama — when it would be unacceptable for them, or for their precious ones. This kind of hypocrisy is endemic among the current crop of reformers, and this kind of test can be easily applied.

We might insist on recasting the entire discussion about education and school reform. We assume that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions create better learning conditions — and the pathway toward good working conditions must include (not exclusively, but definitely) the independent, collective voice of the teachers.

Furthermore, education in a democracy — at least theoretically and aspirationally — is geared toward and powered by a particularly precious and fragile ideal: every human being is of infinite and incalculable value, each a unique intellectual, emotional, physical, spiritual, moral, and creative force; each of us is born free and equal in dignity and rights, each endowed with reason and conscience, each deserving, then, a community of solidarity, a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood, recognition and respect. In order to be true to that basic ethic and spirit of democracy, school folks must find ways to build on this foundation, assuming that their complex and difficult and yet deeply satisfying task is to create spaces that are happy, healthy places for children, spaces that help students achieve both individual and social fulfillment and well-being. School people who willingly dive into this contradiction realize that the fullest development of each individual — given the delicious stew of race, ethnicity, origin and background, the tremendous range of ability and disability — is the necessary condition for the full development of the entire community, and, conversely, that the fullest development of all is essential for the full development of each.

We might also align with the notion that education is a fundamental and universal human right, something every child deserves simply by being born, a moral obligation of the community, a phenomenon resting on the twin pillars of enlightenment and freedom, and principally directed to the full development of the human personality.

Now when the marketeers talk of “the market working its magic,” we can ask specifically and concretely how centrally-generated standards and an extensive testing regime, for example, or eliminating the arts, or replacing career teachers with a steady parade of short-timers, particularly in urban and low-income areas, does anything to improve education for each and for all. We can challenge the sterile notion that schools must be in every respect subservient to the market, or that the singular purpose of education is to produce workers, feed the economy, or win some trader’s war with China or India. And we can resist privatization, defending the public square and a culture of the commons — in schooling no less than other places.

So who is framing the debate today, and what do they want? All the noisy proponents of market competition in public education have managed to push their ideas onto the agenda by force of power and wealth, certainly not based on any moral suasion or even the paltry results that their schemes have produced. But the project continues, mainly because it is pure dogma — faith-based and fact-free. We need to challenge that freight train with evidence and argument and a vision consistent with our deepest democratic dreams. Organize, link up with their natural allies (parents and students) and fight back! This involves in the first place changing the frame of the discussion.

Q: In your opinion, is there something schools, regardless of their community, could do easily and immediately that would be a vast improvement over the current system?

BA: We might create here and now an open space where we expect fresh and starting winds to blow, unaccustomed winds that are sure to electrify and confound and fascinate us. Winds that tell us we are alive. We begin, then, by throwing open the windows. In this corner of this place — in this open space we are constructing together — people will begin to experience themselves as powerful authors of their own narratives, luminous actors in their own dramas, the essential creators of their own lives. They will find ways to articulate their own desires and demands and questions. In this space everyone will live in search of rather than in accordance with or in accommodation to.

Imagine a school or a classroom where asking, framing, and pursuing their own questions becomes the central work of both teachers and students; where the question of what is worthwhile to know and experience is taken up as a living challenge to focus all student activity; where we would practice participatory democracy; where all the themes, implicit and explicit, are built on a foundational idea that we are swirling through a living history, that nothing is guaranteed or foreordained, that we are, each and all of us, works-in-progress; and where every day we acted out the belief that the classroom, far from being a preparation for life, is indeed life itself. Building community and trust and traditions and engagement would then become central lessons of a successful school.

Q: There seems to be a greater number of people today in support of charter schools, especially in poorer communities – are these charter schools on the right track in your opinion? Or are they taking away from investments that should be put into more traditional public schools?

BA: I’m a bit agnostic about tactics, so it depends. But in poorer communities folks desperately want what everyone wants: a quality education for their kids that helps them become full participating members of society, and good people above all. Pressed and exploited, isolated and marginalized, communities fight for what they deserve as a human right: a decent education for our young. Tactics vary. But if charter folks want to revitalize the public schools — and not be a part of the wrecking machine — they should explain how they are doing that.

Q: Any big plans or projects that you’d like to talk about?

BA: I’m working over-time this year on occupying this and occupying that, occupying the future and occupying my imagination, occupying everything in and out of sight.

Revolution is still possible, democracy and socialism, possible, but barbarism is possible as well. I’m trying to live leaning forward, a pessimist of the head but an optimist of the heart. I find the tools everywhere — humor and art, comics and poetry, protest and spectacle, the quiet, patient intervention and the angry and urgent thrust — but the rhythm of activism remains the same: we open our eyes and look unblinkingly at the world as we find it; we are astonished by the beauty and the suffering all around us; we recognize that right next to the world as such is a world that could be or should be; we dive into the wreckage and swim as hard as we can toward a distant and indistinct shore; we doubt that our efforts make enough difference, and so we rethink, recalibrate, look again, and dive in once more. If we never doubt we get lost in self-righteousness and political narcissism — been there. If we only doubt we vanish into cynicism and despair. Awake/Act/Doubt! Repeat for a lifetime.

Oh, and I’ve got two new books on the way: Palling Around: Talking with the Tea Party, and What If? Releasing the Radical Imagination.

Exciting times!

[Note: Bill Ayers recently discussed his book To Teach: The Journey, in Comics and why comics are important to political discourse on the ComicsAlliance blog. Recommended reading!]

Images: Justin Bianchi and Michael Sauers

Aaron Colter is a writer and marketing consultant living in Portland, OR. A graduate of Purdue University, Colter has worked for a variety of clients, including the NCAA, Willamette Week, AOL, Dark Horse Comics and several others, in addition to being a guest speaker at a variety of publishing conferences. In 2007, along with Louie Herr, Colter founded the documentation project Banana Stand Media, producing and distributing live music recordings at no cost to independent artists. The pair are currently working on a Banana Stand Media compilation album featuring some of the best live tracks captured over the years. Their goal is to raise awareness for the artists featured and for Portland’s live music scene. You can sponsor the project via Kickstarter here.

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by Alex Dueben

Caitlin R. Kiernan made a splash in 1998 when her novel Silk was released. Since then, Kiernan, who was trained as a vertebrate paleontologist, has written a number of novels including Murder of Angels and The Red Tree in addition to becoming a prolific short writer with more than half a dozen collections. Besides the dozens of magazines and anthologies she contributed to, Kiernan also releases Sirenia Digest, a monthly collection of “weird erotica.” She also was the regular writer for The Dreaming, the comic series which spun off of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

Kiernan just released The Drowning Girl: A Memoir, a novel that is arguably her best to date. The book centers around a schizophrenic woman, the new woman in her life, a nineteenth century painting, myth, family history, memory and truth, leaving one pondering what is real and what is not.

This month Dark Horse Comics released the first of five issues of a new comic series, Alabaster, which stars Dancy Flammarion, a character that Kiernan fans know from the novel Threshold and short story collection entitled Alabaster. For the uninitiated, Dancy is a young albino woman who has been sent by an angel to hunt monsters in haunted corners of the deep South. We reached Kiernan at her home in Rhode Island.

Read our exclusive interview with Caitlin R. Kiernan on SuicideGirls.com.