In Support of the Palestinian People 

I have been receiving some rather vexatious comments from people I know casually through Social Media. I have been unfriended by many due to my position concerning the Palestinian and the Israeli Zionist conflict that has recently culminated into an atrocious and horrific war. Once again exemplifying the inhumane treatment humans are capable of inflicting upon their fellow man. It seems my position supporting the Palestinian people and detesting the persecution they have been subjected to since the illegal occupation of Arab and Palestinian homes, farms and businesses by Jews, has angered them. Israel has inflicted horrendous acts against the Palestinian people for over 70 years. 

Appears the United Nations appropriated Real Estate they didn’t own. The British Mandate supported by the United Nations and advocated by the United States allocated land area to Zionist leaders for settlement 1917. Later amended to accommodate WWII Jewish refugees. 

This Mandate granting property to the Jewish people extended rights of land ownership despite the property being owned and lived upon in some instances for generations of Arab and Palestinian families . They never took into consideration the legal rights of the Palestinian land owners. Prior to the British annexation of the territory it was part of the Ottoman Empire. An astonishing fact is the people were treated humanely and were extended all the rights of every other Ottoman citizen. Not so under Israeli occupation. 

In 1948 Israel declared independence demanding to be recognized as an independent nation by the United Nations. 30 countries voted against the declaration but it passed anyway. No longer would Israel recognize the conditions of the British Mandate. 

Soon after the new government implemented laws discriminating against Palestinians. The land allocated by the United Nations wasn’t large enough to support the immigration of millions of Jewish refugees. Israel determined it was entitled to areas inhabited by thousands of Arab and Palestinian people. The military quickly attacked Palestinians living in those areas with Israel forcefully confiscating the land. Over 726,000 Palestinians were evicted from their homes and thousands more were massacred. That was the start of Israel’s solution to living in harmony with other people in the region as they had proclaimed. 

Since then Israel has adopted the practice of Apartheid. Their main objective during over 70 years of occupation is the genocide of the Palestinian people. Here’s Amnesty International’s report of their investigation into Israel’s actions. 

Israel’s atrocities and injustice against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity

Amnesty International has analyzed Israel’s intent to create and maintain a system of oppression and domination over Palestinians and examined its key components: territorial fragmentation; segregation and control; dispossession of land and property; and denial of economic and social rights. It has concluded that this system amounts to apartheid. Israel must dismantle this cruel system and the international community must pressure it to do so. All those with jurisdiction over the crimes committed to maintain the system should investigate them.

February 2020

Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians: Cruel system of domination and crime against humanity

The Israeli persecution of Palestinians is extensive and too many to list. 

Let me tell you, if my home was taken from me, evicted from my homeland, tortured, my people murdered and every other crime possible was levied against me, I would have no qualms about picking up a weapon and rage against Israel. Maybe I’m the one that should unfriend those of you advocating Israel’s atrocious treatment of Palestinian men, women and innocent children. 

I’m unable to understand and far from accepting anyone’s support of Israel. Either you are an evil and sadistic person or just an uninformed. And if those descriptions aren’t accurate then I deduce that you’re just an ignorant idiot. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a glorious death
 

mice in the attic

where is the hole

 

here comes the

nightmares at

three in the

morning

 

lucid dreams of

a glorious death

but you can't help

but wonder if you

are jack ruby instead

 

sixty years later

and no one wants

the truth

 

what if our own lives

are a conspiracy

 

that would make

as much sense as

god or the big bang

theory being on every

channel known to man

 

otis redding is on

the radio now

 

a little slice of the truth

---------------------------------------------------------
face the world alone
 

first hard freeze

 

winter will soon

be here

 

it gets harder

every year to

face the world

alone

 

the songs get

sadder

 

the days move

along at a snail's

pace

 

you don't have

the guts for the

shotgun in the

corner

 

or the brains to

get yourself out

of this situation

 

determined to

simply run out

the clock

 

a red x for every

remaining day

--------------------------------------------------------
the entire bottle
 

everyone ordered

a fruity wine

 

i asked for the

strongest bottle

of liquor they

had

 

the entire bottle sir?

 

you see what

these clowns

are drinking

 

yes, the entire bottle

 

they wanted a light

evening to go over

quarterly notes

 

i wanted to be

either dead or

somewhere else

 

110 proof with

a glass of ice

 

i had no interest

in the glass

 

there was a reason

i enjoyed working

remotely so damn

much

-------------------------------------------------------------------
to see the trees
 

the leaves are

changing colors

 

summer trying

to hang on

 

of course, it will

probably snow

next week

 

i can remember

going miles and

miles as a child

to see the trees

 

now, just go on

youtube and watch

a few videos

 

the way we are

destroying the

earth

 

those videos might

be the only way the

future generations

will understand what

we once had

------------------------------------------------------
struggling to find a meal
 

swimming in treacherous

waters

 

another warm day in

early november

 

leaves piling up

on the streets

 

stray cats struggling

to find a meal

 

the last love of my life

has said goodbye and

the shotgun in the corner

gets more appealing by

the day

 

a misunderstanding

becomes the edge

of a knife

 

hope is the last dancer

for the night

 

you ever wonder why

the tornado spared a

place like this

 

apparently, mother nature

also knows how to work

a pole


J.J. Campbell (1976 - ?) is stuck in the suburbs, wondering where all the lonely housewives have gone. He's been widely published over the years, most recently at Dumpster Fire Press, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Asylum Floor and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)

Whispers of change for a land of anguish

Down here, where peace has aged and weakened,

And replaced by infirmities that sap my strength.

Sobs and cries echo daily, melodies of hardship,

as garrison claims a new title :”The big man’s diet “,

earned with the sweat of pain and heart labor.

Look, our elders survive on cherished dreams,

bearing witness to change, that made them burdens;

burdens indeed, to their own seeds.

The youths contemplate with watchful eyes,

anguish covers them like a tinted blanket of dust

Behold! Doctors work to hasten us to the grave,

foolishly struggling to keep us broken apart.

Verily, verily, we are nothing but unguarded flocks

Whose shepherds are parasitic lives, drenched in riches,

And oppressing terribly with meaningless words.

Sobs and cries remain daily melodies,

men wilt under the land of anguish,

where peace has grown pale_ now wearing wrinkles.

NEEDLES

We wedded the ink with the skin.

The priest performed acupuncture

consecrated by heroin,

and the nurses purled the sutures

while the knitters prepared the syringe.

These rites we practiced unpinned time.

We survived your blessings and sins

and withstood your charities and crimes.

We know our bricks wither within

but our ivies, they cling, they climb.

WHAT ABOUT THE AGE OF LOVERS?

The age of heroes is broken.

The palace is now aflame.

The historians’ is growing.

The heroes are not to blame,

for, though their strength is diminished

it isn’t demolished yet.

Tomorrow’s the resurrection

but today is just a rest.

Our bodies and experience

form the borders of our mind.

But there exists That Beyond Sense

that we cannot understand.

We get confused in worlds not right.

If bandit’s in the library

and pundit’s at the prize fight

we can’t tell plains from prairies.

We imagine a symmetry

that we can’t yet define.

We assign all our mysteries

to God, to magic, to time.

We gird our egos in armor

to weaken our defenses,

but freedom embraces karma,

aggression joins resistance.

Desire develops into deed.

Our matches become beacons.

We were waves that became a sea

and rowboats that grew riggings.

Orators are clothed in words

and scholars stand on language.

But heroes must speak through their work

and lovers through their anguish.

A DEVOLUTION OF THE VAN GOGH SOUL

My heart sits tarnished

in its rib prison.

The inclement earth

burns under heavens

ashen and barren.

Who erased the stars?

“MUSHROOMING”

If you were forest

i could purport

this noble purpose

for these frequent

meticulous surveys

that I perform

throughout your moist

and fetid shadows

WITHOUT YOU BETH

                       MY LIFE

Beth:

I miss you often.

These paths unmapped and all my everythings nones.

(near me still your spirit hovers

but — unattached!)

standards weighed by a crooked butcher’s variable pound.

*

Breaths used to lift dolphin-like

from our depths

like frost balloons toward the sun

in/and/out, those beaths of lovers

with joys unmatched.

up/and/down/and/up/

an ocean-rhythmed merry-go-round.

*

Death.

Abyss-dropped coffin.

Everyone wept. Someone mumbled a little Donne.

Then they handed round the shovels.

(An egg unhatched:

without you Beth my life’s another burial ground.)

*

Faith?

My fists clasp-softened, fingernails ripped —

faith, you say?

A black-habit nun who whispers yes but means never.

Faith’s record scratched:

Here’s how the faith radio with no aerial sounds :

…

classIQue

A home is nothing

without a baby

Albert Einstein.

Won’t you con-

sider adding one

to your family?

The adoption fee

is only $275, &

you’ll get a 20%

discount off your

next five home-

delivered pizzas.

“My quietness has a hamster in it”

Used to be content
with the traditional
hamster package—
a wheel, a wooden
carrot to chew on, her
single goal to be a
fūzokujo in a soap-
lands. That all over-

taken by new tech-

nology & the advent
of Polynesian tiki

culture. Now her
engine is fueled by
biodiesel derived
from coconut husks,
& she wants to drive
the slickest cars, to
become a Street
Czar named Desire.

Purple Haze

Start with a
premise. Or.
The seen thought
that may or may
not have to 
struggle to reach 
the top. Or. The
unseen thing that

tickles the back
of the mind be-
fore striking a
chord & singing
scuse me while 
I kiss the sky.

Innovation & discovery

occur in direct proportion 
to the amount of non-
piercing body jewellery 
being worn. Govern-

ment has tilted the 
playing field to favor 
this approach. Balance 
is the foundation. The 

statements are short, 
clear. Event merchandise  

is now available on-
line. What is a ratio?

you have been band from facebook

Let your Girl Scouts
lip-synch freedom
songs & use their cookies
for pleasure not for
pain. Now that the
mouth of the wild beast
is ranked #315 with a
bullet on TripAdvisor’s

top 788 attractions in
Paris, we can move
on to the next important
project—does jelqing
lengthen, & lengthen the
shelf-life of, one’s penis?

These poems were previously published in a print book by Mark Young, The Codicils.

Review:  Signal:  02 A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture edited by Alec Dunn & Josh MacPhee, 2012.  Reviewed by A. Iwasa

“SIGNAL is an idea in motion.

“There is no question that art, design, graphics, and culture all play an instrumental role in maintaining gross inequality.  They have also been important tools for every social movement that has attempted to challenge the status quo.”

These words start the second issue of Signal, and encapsulate well what this project is about.

It’s a good mix of anarchist, anti-colonial and Left statist.  Though I’ve been a long time adherent to the Anarchist People of Color (APOC) tendency, I think too many anarchists are quick to discount what we can learn from other movements that don’t synch up exactly with our theories, including other kinds of anarchists!

From an in depth essay about Mozambican painter, Malangatana Valente Nguenha by Judy Seidman, to a well explained photo essay on revolutionary Portuguese street murals by Phil Mailer, the first two feature pieces go from anti-colonialism to anti-fascist rebellion largely sparked by the Mozambican liberation struggle itself showing the potential interplay and internationalism of revolution.  These connections between art and revolution are laid out sharply with images as striking as the words.

“If imperialist domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily an act of culture,” said Amilcar Cabral, one of the primary participants in the Mozambican revolution.

Make no mistake, Malangatana paid dearly for his art, spending 18 months in jail along with writers such as Luis Bernardo Honwana, Jose Craveirinha and Rui Nogar.  The Portuguese colonial authorities knew the potential power behind radical writing and art.  Also, Malangatana’s brother and other family members were murdered by the counter-revolutionary RENAMO, who had been started by white Rhodesians and were later backed by the South African Apartheid regime after the triumph of the Mozambican revolution.  Without a doubt, the beauty of his art was matched by how high the stakes were.

These essays are followed by a collection of images of broadsides for Freedom:  A Journal of Anarchist Communism, an English publication co-founded by Peter Kropotkin among others.  The collection was found at the Kate Sharpley Library, driving home the importance of archives.

This is followed by a deep dive into old school, low end printing technologies by Lincoln Cushing, what Cushing calls “the Volkswagen bugs of the reproduction world.”  Printing was my vocational in high school, and I worked in the industry on and off from 1998 to 2022, so this one was particularly fascinating to me.

Though Cushing writes a bit about different kinds of offset and letterset presses, and pre-Xerox copy machines, this is primarily about Gestetner Art.  Again, this was especially interesting to me as the San Francisco Diggers were very involved with the Communications Company which had two Gestetners, the only reason I was already familiar with this sort of machine.  The essay focuses largely on their break through work in color separation, something most people take for granted today.

Cushing remains largely focused on the San Francisco Bay Area, but goes on to write about various other print projects that used Gestetners.  It’s a solid snapshot of an era, but it’s also inspiring as I’ve not only worked in the printing industry but have also volunteered for various print projects over the years.

I don’t think the past stands as a blue print for what we should do now or in the future (I mean, look where it got us!), but I do think we should gather inspiration where it makes sense to try to add to successes from the past and move forward.  For many reasons I don’t think you can duplicate proceeding events anyways.

Next is an article by Deborah Caplow that situates the then contemporary Oaxacan street art into the larger context of Mexican Revolutionary art starting in the 1920s.

I was possibly most excited to learn about the Liga de Escritores y Artistas Revolucionarios (LEAR, League of Revolutionary Writers and Artists) since I’ve long been interested in organizations for cultural workers beyond the small scale collectives and what not I’ve been able to participate in.

Though I was also fascinated by what I read about Jose Posada as a longtime fan of his work, but simultaneously unknowledgeable about him as a person.

This is followed by a Manga by Taiji Yamaga, a participant in the early Japanese anarchist movement.  It’s introduced by the Center for International Research on Anarchism, Japan.  I was dissappoined at first, because when I read Manga, I instantly went to Death Note in my head was hoping to have discovered the Japanese Philip K. Dick or what have you.  The Yamaga Manga is essentially just drawings and notes for his memoires, The Twilight Journal.  But it’s still cool as a first person account of anarchism in Japan in the early 1900s, especially to me since I’m half Japanese but don’t speak the language.

In closing is an essay about Rode Mor (Red Mother), a Danish collective from 1969-’78 that evolved from a graphic workshop to a band, then a circus split off and ended as a fund artist-activist projects.

The author of the essay, Kasper Opstrup Frederiksen, translated all of the titles and quotes, which to me shows a certain level of expertise on the subject matter the editors seem to do a good job of finding, when they don’t have direct participants’ input.

The article delves into Rode Mor’s philosophy, practice influences, which was largely Socialist Realism. Though Rode Mor stopped cultural production in 1978, that’s when they pivoted to using the profits from their work to fund other Danish Leftist artists until 1987.

Grant Guy is a Winnipeg, Canada, theatremaker and poet. He has 6 books published and his poems and stories have been published internationally online and as hard copy. He was the 2004 recipient of the Manitoba Arts Council’s Award of Distinction and the 2015 Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Difference Reward. His work has been performed/exhibited in Canada, the USA, Brazil, France, Spain and Italy.