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Stop Making the Bed
Tuesday, 6 November, 2007
Roxanne R. Amico
Dennis Kucinich’s resolutions of impeachment of Vice President
Dick Cheney, are recognition that Cheney lied about reasons for
war on Iraq and is lying with regard to Iran. I write with an
urgency I’ve kept at bay for many years; an urgency that's
not my learned way of being an activist. In 44 years, more than
twenty have been under the occupation of radical forces I underestimated,
against which I fought in a variety of ways including self-congratulatory-lifestyle
change, community organizing, anti-war activism, prisoners' rights,
and electoral politics... Like all activists, I felt an early
emphatic sense of justice. I learned from mentors to temper the
urgency for the long haul; internalized the metaphor that great
cathedrals are built over several generations, and many—(even
Michelangelo)-- knew they wouldn't live to see completion of "the
big picture"; saw change take a long time—and that
in many contexts, it should, because I knew that even on a personal
level, change challenges, so it takes time to integrate new ideas,
ways of living, and experiences... This is what I’ve learned
about pacing change…
What I also learned: Things change—and what I learned over
these decades is no longer appropriate for these times. --You
know, the times my nieces and your nieces and nephews and children
and grandchildren and their offspring, and all nonhuman communities
on which their lives depend, are facing… Urgent times.
In 1983, the movie “The Day After” was made to illustrate
the urgency of acting against nuclear war. Lately I find myself
appealing to my friends’ and families’ sense of the
danger ahead, with little hope of being heard above the lockstep
of routines, unable to act with passion, unless some immediate
loss visits. Even when I get calls for immediate action, unless
it's from a friend--I delete or ignore. Crude— maybe even
rude by some interpretations— but true. I have a job that
demands my full-bodied-fitness and attention. On EVERY given day,
I live at a pace of emergency already. EVEN my down time is imperative:
I’m an artist living in a culture that devalues the work
of artists and we sell our time to maintain the status quo, rather
than being paid for shaping a better culture. Another way to put
this is that when I am not working for food, I am working for
love. THAT is a reason I am an activist--To change the culture
that generates this unnatural, non-stop fight to live a life of
choice.
Which is exactly the urgent matter of this writing. The US government
is occupied by insane criminals who’ve tortured and terrorized
both the people and the land of this continent and other lands.
They stupidly presume themselves to be above the law, endowed
with the right to destroy the US constitution and International
Declarations of Human Rights. We must use every tool within our
disposal to resist them. If we do not stop them, they will kill
many more-- with their lies, aggression, profiteering, spying,
kidnapping, and unlawful arrests-- as journalist Naomi Wolf elucidates
in a recent Huffington Post article.
Two points here: First, what the US government does to the US
populace and to the land does not stay in the US land, air, and
water, just as what they do to other people and other lands does
not protect the people or land here from others’ expectation
that WE are accountable. I think of so many who’ve cited
Germany, during World War Two, when others eventually attacked
after having enough of Hitler’s brutalities. Likewise, there
are those who will not tolerate the destruction caused while too
many US citizens hang on to delusions of non-urgency. Second,
being an activist means knowing that impeachment is a minute piece
of what’s needed to repair the damage the US has done here
and abroad. I’ve all but given up on the elections, after
the last two stolen and now that democratic processes have been
corporatocracized. I know that my nieces will not have clean water,
clean air, nor safe food either in terms of supply or land to
grow it. It is inconsolable that in the lifetime of the youngest
child, there are many living beings that are being killed in the
time it takes to write this sentence. But being participant in
life also means knowing that some small things can add up to some
positive measure and the impeachment of these small-minded bullies
will be a piece towards convicting them for the criminals they
are.
Even if the earth and all inhabitants were not in distress, life
is short. Once asked in an interview why I do art, I learned that
the question is akin to “why am I alive?” As witness
to these crimes against every biosphere, my art and activism are
my tool, weapon, language—indeed my life—to serve
the wounded world community. I urge all who love this world to
act now to take some radically different action in acknowledgement
of the dangers ahead.
In an opening scene of the film “The Day After”, a
woman’s family tries to stop her making the bed. A “normal”
task, except that it’s the day upon which they awakened
to the news that a nuclear bomb was detonated. Unable to face
the implications of this state terrorism, she loses her mind and
continues doing what worked on any other day. It’s time
to stop making the bed. To paraphrase the Australian rock band
“Midnight Oil”: “…[no] sleeping while
the beds are burning… The time has come…” I
emphatically support the impeachment of the entire Bush Administration,
after which they should be tried for treason and all crimes.
For Radio Roxanne, I’m Roxanne Amico
