it's a small (but very vast and complicated) world...

Last week, I drove down to Atlanta with a couple friends. Driving from DC is quite an undertaking -- a good 10-12 hours. So the plan was to start from DC at around 10:30am. We'd get in before or at midnight, catch some deep zzzs, and be fresh and awake for the US Social Forum the next day.


Right. Yeah.


We actually arrived at 4:30am...after a un pneu creve, a tow truck, two and a half hours at a car dealership...


I still enjoyed the ride. DC is a bubble and, to tell the truth, not my top favourite place. I feel a bit trapped here at times. I think the place attracts so much ambition and attention that there is not that much energy flowing out. I feel sucked into the centre and long to break out and run. Flee for a short while into the cool of the countryside, into the quiet.


That is why it was great to be on the road, speeding through lines of trees over rivers nameless to me unless I caught a glimpse of a passing sign.

We even stopped at a mini Pizza Hut...Lesson: get the super veggie-- it has tomatoes unlike the regular veggie. I was lucky and chose the super... :)


I drove the last shift as I tend to get strangely hyperactive after 1am. I stopped at a Waffle House to buy a coffee. For those of you not versed in the eating places of the American South, Waffle Houses are yellow and black restaurants serving, besides waffles, lots of coffee and all the greasy overfried breakfast foods you could desire. I personally would not recommend the sausage, but I have had relatively decent waffles there before. And their coffee does the trick...I was babbling on for hours, much to the dismay of my friend in the front seat hoping to catch some zzzs........

But yes, the Waffle House-- it was a good pitstop. I got my first shot of southern hospitality in a while. For all its faults and all its lingering sores and scars, the South does have a place in my heart. Strange, it sort of sneaked up on me; somehow love entered in amongst a lot of other slightly more negative feelings (doesn't that happen surprisingly often?). I was reminded of this tangle of emotions when I walked out of the Waffle House. Despite having to work at that hour for very little pay in a greasy cafe by the side of a highway, the three servers shared their laughs and smiles with me. They gave me cheer...and explained how their sales were going compared to last year's.

Anyway, why am I rambling on about this? Because it reminded me how much I find I need to be on the road from time to time. Journeying reminds me of how big and complicated this world is -- how many people, how many lives, how many stories. Living in a city like DC, you bump into people you know from other places all the time, inevitably exclaiming "oh, it's a small world after all..."

I used to complain about that phrase every time I heard it. Now I have accepted that it will be said and does represent an important truth about our interdependence and interconnectedness. But I still maintain that we need to know that the world is also huge -- a crowded, complicated, interwoven mess. A beautiful mess, an ugly mess -- we can simplify it, we can explore it, but it will remain tangled and vast.

I think that's what amazes me the most -- how can the world be simultaneously small and vast. I think intricate is a word that helps me understand this paradox. You can zoom out and see patterns, see connections. But then when you zoom in, you just keep going, on and on, the details keep appearing. Even when, finally, you get to a single person, things are never simple...

Blessed be journeys and their confusions. Things will never be simple. But we walk on...

"swedish word...swedish word...blues..."

ok i just have to say that someone is singing the blues in swedish in my living room right now...on a keyboard bought by my late grandfather back in 1993 or so.

Tapping his socked foot, dressed in a blue embroidered shirt surely from his travels, my finnish friend sings...."swedish word, swedish word....etc....blues....". Too bad I can't translate for you...writing "swedish word" does not quite capture it...

now we've moved from blues to a more classic sound...the song from which he sang some verses the other day as our good night greeting -- after we'd all eaten the chocolate cake my sister had for me. My sis, my Finnish friend, an American high school librarian from Washington State, and another librarian from Brooklyn who were all staying with me all sang happy birthday to me at midnight after a long day of the US Social Forum...

the song was from the most famous Swedish who wrote many popular songs...this one is not heard as often as the words are sad...well not so sad as hard, black -- it's a song sung in the attic and it is for people who are -- that's one very old profession, you know, when you take the, clean the chimney -- yes, a chimneysweep. It is a drinking song. Skol is cheers. Skol, yeah. Cheers -- what you say when you toast. A toast for all you brothers. Then it tells some hard truths about money and man. Eveybody is as ugly...and talks about the deluge, the flood -- in the Biblical sense.

It ends with a toast for life.

The first song was about an oil tanker, named Gramsci. You know Antonio Gramsci? I wrote my masters thesis about Antonio Gramsci.

my downsides from ussf (amongst many positives)

(I hate to be negative before writing about the positives, but I had to vent a bit).

I am annoyed.

I am tired of some people talking without thinking on both sides of the aisle -- and on both sides of the political spectrum outside government buildings with clearly defined aisles.

In fact I am sick and tired of the whole idea of a two dimensional scale anyway.

I am tired of crowds cheering without thinking.

I am sick and tired of people falling in love with an idol.

I am disappointed in people who should know better.

I am disappointed in people-- people who know things take a lot of hard work, not just some pretty words.

I am tired of people not deconstructing words -- "white"..."race"..."God"..."government"...

People-- words are shortcuts! They are symbols! The analysis must not end with the symbol tumbling from your lips.

It is not that hard to get up on a stage and whip a crowd into a frenzy.

To get up on a stage and say things they want to hear.

But that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

People are dying and people are killing -- mindless cheering will not solve this.

If you want energy, if you want a rally, say so.

But don't you dare tell me you are analysing, don't you dare tell me you are breaking things down. Don't you dare tell me that you are listening to everyone.

It is enough that people in the world feel desperate enough to kill themselves to kill others. We don't need more people not thinking, we don't need more people forgetting that from time to time they need to sit on their butts and consider what exactly it is they are proposing. what exactly the consequences of their words will be.

Don't tell me you hate capitalism until you can tell me what capitalism is.

Don't tell me you're a socialist unless you can tell me what that means.

Don't tell me that Mao is a hero until you can explain those millions of lives lost.

Don't tell me that Chavez will save us all until you can explain why there are rumors about certain offshore accounts -- and don't even try to tell me "he really has very little money."

Haven't we learnt enough history to know that we need to beware when someone starts promising us he'll give us everything? Just like that...?

Don't tell me that the "government" is at fault for everything before you break down that huge concept-- all its institutions, networks, people. They don't all have forked tongues!

Don't tell me "science" is bad ... when you are speaking through a microphone to people who've travelled thousands of miles in a day or two...in response to messages sent out over cables in a matter of seconds.

Don't ignore the fact that you live somewhere where you can gather and complain, discuss and debate. We have so much more space than exists elsewhere. Let's use it to think before we scream.

And don't separate the world into 'white' and 'colored' as a start to explaining why we need a revolution in this country.

And please, please, please don't depend on the structure created by your oppressor as a way out. You cannot use categories of identity created by the other to escape in a sustainable way.

Also -- don't throw around with wild abandonment the terms 'rascist' and 'white supremacist' when you abhor them. Do you judge me by the colour of my skin? My "white" skin? Do you define me by what you see? By my accent? How do you categorise me in your mind?

Inclusion and solidarity are beautiful words. I stand by them. They are the only way forward if we all want to move to a better world.

Solidarity must be our motto. Americans often have not heard of this word, even those that already use it to decide how to live their lives. Let's share it. Let's show what it means.

People, don't come to the table with your agenda laid out and tell me this is an open space.

Nothing is ever going to be easy. This is a crowded planet. We've got a lot of convincing to do. A lot of explaining, in gentle voices-- gentle but firm. We need to understand that system that has screwed so many people around the world. Because a system's made up of people...some not aware of their actions, even if they really should be. That's a serious challenge for us.

I don't know if I have that much capacity for empathy -- I'll admit I fail to have empathy a lot of the time. But at least let's admit that it has to be a main ingredient in any new movement that has any hope of making another world possible.

Forgive my anger. It's self-righteous. It's coming from someone that has not suffered like you. It's coming from someone privileged enough to find time for activism. But this is my truth and I want to put it out there.