(P1) Political
President Obama and My Grandniece Bianca Ashong
Exclusive: From my (Ed Coletti's) niece, Lucia Brawley September 16, 2011
Bianca and I went to see the President speak in Alexandria at an amazing high school with formidable students, some of whom hold their own patents. He signed the Patent Reform Act into law. He spoke about the youth present as the future and then gave Bianca a special shout out: "And this little guy, too!" Later, she got to meet him and I told him that her dad and I had met on his last campaign. He noted pointing at her lovely Afro locks, "I used to have the same hair!"
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Get the Money Out of Politics
Please consider signing this petition toward a constitutional amendment with the following wording
"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."
(P2) Philosophical
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(P3) Poetical
Bay Area Poet Terry Ehret contributes this terrific prose poem upon the occasion of 100 Thousand Poets For Change Day - September 24, 2011.
How Fascism Will Come
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
—attributed to Sinclair Lewis
When fascism comes, it will greet us with a smile. It will get down on its knees to pray. It will praise Main Street and Wall Street. It will cheer for the home team. It will clap from the bleachers when the uninsured are left to die on the street. It will rally on the Washington Mall. It will raise monuments to its heroes and weep for them and place bouquets at their stone feet and trace with their fingers the names engraved on the granite wall and go on sending soldiers to die in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the deserts of Iraq. It will send doves to pluck out the eyes of its enemies, having no hawks to spare.
When fascism comes, it will sit down for tea with the governor of Texas. It will pee in the mosques from California to Tennessee, chanting, “Wake up America, the enemy is here.” It will sing the anthems of corporatization, privatization, demonization, monopolization. It will be interviewed, lovingly, on talk radio. It’ll have talking points and a Facebook page and a disdain for big words or hard consonants. It won’t bother to read. It will shred all its books. It will lambast the teachers and outlaw the unions.
When fascism comes, it will look good. It will have big hair, pressed suits, lapel pins. It will control all the channels. It will ride in on Swift Boats. It will sit on the Supreme Court. It will court us with fear. It will woo us with hope. When fascism comes, it will sell shares of itself on the stock market. It will get rich, then it will get obscenely rich, then it will stop paying taxes. It will leave us in the dust. It will kick our ass. It won’t have to break a sweat to fool us twice. It will be too big to fail.
When fascism comes to America, it will enter on the winds of our silence and indifference and complacency. And on that day, one hundred thousand poets will gather. In book stores and libraries, bars and cafes, in their houses and apartments, in schools and on street corners, they will gather. In Albania, Bangladesh, Botswana, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Guatemala, Hungary, Macedonia, Malawi, Qatar, crying, laughing, screaming. They will wrap the sad music of humanity in bits of word cloth and hang them, like prayers, on the tree of life.
Terry Ehret
September 23, 2011
Note: This poem is woven with images and fragments of rants and blogs and online articles I found when I googled the Sinclair Lewis quote. These appear in Italics.
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Ed Coletti's latest collection of poems When Hearts Outlive Minds now available at Amazon.
Nice From Lawrence DiStasi
Ed Coletti is a poet from Santa Rosa (originally New York) who has run two poetry-reading series, SoCoCo and Poetry Azul there. Like most poets, his life has varied widely from service in Vietnam to the Summer of Love in San Francisco to advanced degrees at SF State and Sonoma State to teaching to publishing to counseling. These days he also derives great enjoyment from painting—samples of which can be seen on www.flickr.com/photos/edcolettipaintings.
In this collection of his poetry, Coletti tends to concentrate on elegy, probably because the book is shot through with memories of his father’s decline and death. The poems are contemplative but not heavy, sad but not saddening as they mull over the inevitable passage of time, our power and us with a lightness of touch that reminds in some ways of his paintings. Coletti’s is a way of thinking and writing that can lament loss while simultaneously reminding us of its defining role in the rhythm of life. Here, for one example, is the poem, “Befriending Death.”
As with death himself
I too sit close
to my father—
death all too close
I breathe hot to his cold
jealous we must share
my father, me exhaling,
death inhaling
No contest,
just a rhythm
Coletti also runs two blogs: http://edcolettip3.blogspot.com., and his ‘No Money in Poetry’ blog. Worth checking out.
Lawrence DiStasi
Lawrence DiStasi is an editor, writer, and instructor at UC Berkeley Extension’s Fall Freshman Program and has been the project director of the traveling exhibit Una Storia Segreta: When Italian Americans Were ‘Enemy Aliens’, since 1994. He is author of Mal Occhio: The Underside of Vision (North Point Press, 1981) and Dream Streets: The Big Book of Italian American Culture (Harper & Row, 1989). He is president of the American Italian Historical Association’s Western Regional Chapter.
Comment or Read Comments Here on any of the above or below. Log in under "Name/URL," (it's easy). Just the name (don't worry about the URL). Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net, and I can post it.
