The ‘Miraculous’ Birth of Identity Politics | Poetry of Mankh |Axisoflogic.com

“The generosity of Earth will trump individualism.”

– Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota)

Some people feel down or depressed nowadays, depending on the level of scarcity, isolation, and scraping by materially. A few years ago at a conference I heard and jotted in my journal the above epigraph and recently the message reared its age-old yet ever-new heart-head and got me thinking about where things went awry.

One could say that identity politics began with Jesus; not Jesus the man but Jesus the phenomenon.

The Essenes, a mystical community, were known for what can be called a “Messianic Movement.”[1] In other words, they aspired to attain and live a Christ consciousness not beholden to any individual rather available to anyone, yet requiring much discipline and devotion. I use the term Christ consciousness to distinguish between the individual religious association of Jesus the man and the qualities of a Christ consciousness. Christ consciousness is a magnanimous way of being whereas the religious institution mostly doles out “good deeds”. On the flip side, the religious institution with its fixated individualism hijacked the spiritual messages so as to dominate the material world and create amnesia of the soul. So how about: Be good-hearted, be kind to your neighbor, and find your way through the eye of a needle instead of the historical examples of enslaving and killing non-believers for plunder and the abduction of lands.

My sense is that, at the time of the Essenes, the powers that be – so afraid of losing their power to a mass movement that recognized individual efforts of cosmic consciousness WITHIN the framework of a community – created a narrative of individualism beyond this earthly garb so as to control the masses and prevent an uprising. Is that not what’s been going on for millennia since, and continues to this day. As recent examples, the leaderless Occupy movement (which attempted to re-occupy settler colonial territories while occasionally recognizing the Original Peoples' respective lands) and Bernie Sanders (who capitulated to the current so-called left-wing of the powers that be) both voiced many things ‘for the people.' But after a short while they were not allowed to continue; the former was shut down camp by camp with a coordinated effort across the country, the latter by a so-called Democratic Party.

And suddenly, chances for positive change – most people don’t want war and poverty, and do want peace, jobs, and a healthy Earth with access to clean water and nurturing food – were returned into business as usual and a lesser of two teetering politicians. While no fan of either teeter, what strikes me as a puerile side-effect of identity politics is the vehement vindictiveness hurled at Trump because of his persona. Granted, the word grace is missing from his dictionary and his racist rousings and disregard for the environment are beyond troubling, yet what gets highlighted by some critics amounts to attacks on his hair, weight, and such like, while the previous most recent example of empire's front-man was a smooth-talking, law degree, drone bomber who recently confessed in his new memoir that “his administration 'couldn't afford to look soft on terrorism.'”[2] Yet that particular drone bomber (Trump escalated those efforts, particularly in Somalia)[3] basically sailed through the media-public eye.

Meanwhile, the damage has been done:

“The ‘Drone Papers’ leak in 2015 revealed that, at least during one period, 90 percent of US drone strike victims were 'not the intended targets'” and according to a review of Joseba Zulaika's book Hellfire from Paradise Ranch, “they [drone bombings] create more terrorists than they kill, according to some of Obama’s own counterterrorism experts.”[4]

While no peacenik, Trump hasn't started new wars, something at least deserving of more mention and even gratitude. Recently newsworthy is the following, which, whether genuine or not, truly deserves more airplay:

“Acting US Defense Secretary Christopher Miller is apparently preparing to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, saying the conflict 'isn't over,' but adding that 'all wars must end. This is the critical phase in which we transition our efforts from a leadership to supporting role,' Miller [Trump's newly appointed Secretary of Defense] said on Friday in a letter to all Department of Defense employees. 'We are not a people of perpetual war. It is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end.' [5]

Of course, Trump & Co. have also employed devastatingly cruel sanctions in a time of corona-virus, yet the positives/negatives game is not the aim of this essay rather to point attention away from these cults of individual adulation and knocking off the pedestal, then propping up the next adulation.

The haves and the have-nots, the next round of drinks and the paycheck-to-paycheck, the success story and the abject failure, the order anything you want from Amazon and the family fleeing their home in Nicaragua so as to survive the hurricane storm Iota are side-effects of a system built on gain and loss, saved saint and discarded sinner, make it or break it. And because of that, we as a species have nearly broken the world, with too many people living in fear of where the next meal and roof are coming from.

I don't have a degree in economics or sociology so as to provide fixes yet what I can do is wax poetic with regard to “the generosity of Earth.”

This autumn I have raked uncountable leaves from a mere bunch of beautiful trees. These individually nameless leaves have given me a good daily workout, helping to build up my muscles and stamina before the colder indoor season, these individually nameless leaves have allowed me to hear and communicate with a wider variety of birds and to welcome the cooler temperatures. The dried Morning-Glory vine and Rose of Sharon pods are filled with more seeds than I know what to do with. There, before my very eyes are hidden sources of abundance and generosity that will go to waste―unless I find people to distribute those seeds to.

The Earth is reminding me, teaching me what generosity is and the responsibility that goes with that, reminding me that the season of decay and withdrawal holds the very seeds of re-emergence and expansion.

Pick your literal metaphor, a fruit-bearing tree or umpteen gallons of milk and barrels of farm food being dumped during corona-virus times, in part, because of closed restaurants and schools.

How many more storms or lockdowns or imbalances or non-partisan military-industrial-complex billion$ or big-box-chainstore gargantuan profits before “the generosity of Earth” becomes the accepted way of the world and doesn't need to be cited as exemplary?

NOTES:
[1] “Westward-Singing Bird”

[2] “‘Killing for optics’? Obama claims he ‘took no joy’ in drone strikes, but ordered them to avoid looking ‘soft on terrorism’”

[3] “Trump Escalates Killer Drone War and No One Seems to Care”

[4] Ibid.

[5] “'All wars MUST END': Trump's new acting defense secretary signals withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan”

Mankh (Walter E. Harris III) is an essayist and resident poet at Axis of Logic, as well as a correspondent-poet for the WUSB 90.1FM radio segment “Radical Words”. In addition to his work as a writer and small press publisher, he travels a holistic mystic pathway staying in touch with Turtle Island. His website is here.

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