in progress

(1)

what it means to be black and 

what it means to be black and what 

it means to be black

it means black 

it means what it means 

black 

to be what it means 

to be black

it is something other people see on you

(or)

it is something you choose to culturally live through

(it)

what it means

to be black

it is what it means

it is black

what it means to be black is

it is not anything

i am not black

i am not white

and i don't want to talk about it.

(2)

when we say i am and then put just one thing in there as the predicate noun or nominative or 

whatever 

that is limiting

that is always limiting 

that will always limit you

unless it is your name.

your name just the way you like it.  

your name breathed out of a lover's lips

when your lover when your mother when your torturer when You (because I know sometimes you love yourself) know just the way you like it

your name is mostly given but it can chosen, found 

i can be rejected and changed and played with 

or it can be taken and you can say thank you

or you can be nameless and elude representation 

All Together

elude definition, 

dance with the impossibility of being reproduced, 

you are not your name 

I am not Aaron.

I am this

these breasts these feet these thighs you see

you know the names but you do not know them, you do not know me

and everyone i've ever let know them has hurt me has hit me but i'll never let you hit me 

no ill just ask you to please don't hit me 

and then you'll say sorry

and we'll be ok again 

and everything will be ok again 

and I won't have to talk about it.  

I am not Aaron. I am not eRin.  I am this I am this you can see me.

(3)

i like to give and i like to receive and i don't know which i like more and it does not matter.

jesus says to give so snakelike that your right hand doesn't even know what your left hand is doing

so when i went to a rally and looked like a lion and held a sign that said "tax the rich or we'll eat them" and i felt good

and i felt important and like i was doing something i should be doing

i think i was doing it wrong.  

when you give me a dollar and feel good about it later, you are doing it wrong.

i never went back.  i ignore their emails.

(4)

names are rich and dense and the closest to what we can do to talk about this essence of 

these ass scents of 

ourselves.

whose selves these selves to be self in selves to have self on my selves on my shelves i'm not quite sure

my friends and i laughed we joked we smiled we had fun hop scotching and playing capture the mother fucking flag on the story of Kunta Kinte, his name was not Toby

and we thought it was funny.

but he was a body no he was in a body no he was with a body that was no longer body but commodified property and he was bought and sold and so many were bought and sold and so many are still bought and sold and so many will never be told and so many with never grow old with the knowledge that their story 

NO their stories 

that their stories their histories will be honored because they will not be honored

13 year old assholes will laugh at them.  and 35 year old assholes will call them savages. 

We were doing nothing right

we had nothing right

we had nothing to give you 

i have nothing to give you

it was not for your own good and I am sorry.

And GOD I can not speak for you 

there is no justice there is no dignity in anyone speaking for you

but if I can, if you'll let me, I am just so sorry

(5)

Oh.  Maybe the (I ams) quickly float away.  

and maybe it is just the most effective way to say 

that I am completely right now mostly just sorry.  

That is all I am right now.  in this moment.  

what if one day we have to buy and sell moments?  moments in our lives?

minutes in our lives at the end of our lives.

it seems next it seems not long after cell phones in our brains.

(6)

So my name, my name is my bumper sticker, and because it suits me maybe we can even call it catchy

because it makes easy what we are talking about we need it

because we need easy

we need to be able to talk about it

when you asked what god's bumper sticker would say I imagined it would be the bible.  

the mother fuckers' Good Book and the Nag Hammadi too 

because that's the best he could do 

that's the best we could do

and the olyco 

the budget fighters

the protest signers 

their bumper stickers are many 

but I held up one and I felt good but I felt bad too 

because there was 

so much more to say.

and Just Do It is a bumper sticker 

and what it really says is to spend 

so much money 

that got so much value 

from god knows where, 

which is to say no one knows where, 

which is to say that god is no one, 

god is no one to the delicate fingers that put together your fresh new sneakers

that you should buy to make you a little fitter

a little hipper

Pundits speak in bumper stickers 

and there are so many bumper stickers 

that all we seem to have time for

are bumper stickers 

because you can't refute a bumper sticker 

in the time it takes to read one

You can't actually say anything between two commercial brake lights

(7)

I am something with blurry edges with no edges

and pain is something with blurry edges with no edges

and oppression is something with blurry edges with no edges

god why do we hate each other so much?

why do we hurt each other so much?

why do we feel good in knowing who we are

who taught me that easy is good

what it means to be black

what it means to be a woman

what does it mean to know this 

to feel this

to be this

i am this.

please stop.  please don't hit me, please don't hit him, please don't hit them

you don't have to hit them.

No one

really wants you 

to hit them.

(8)

My project desires YOU Saturday any time between noon to 3:30

Hello,
I will be giving healing haircuts downtown on Saturday at the parking-lot next to the reef, so if you would like to come down and read some poetry to the person in the chair, and maybe shed a hair or thousands yourself, that would be wonderful. I like cutting hair, but mostly I am into creating a space for a little friendly head touching, pampering, and heart-to-heart. I will be downtown at around 12:00. I hope to see you!
<B Claire Ragland

Final project overview

I have paired with someone different than the initial group intended. This is Clarissa.  She will be doing the pictures of the capital building in Olympia and one poem I shared with her seemed to fit the idea of how government is "viewed". The architecture being the obvious view whereas it's inner workings or people involved is another.

Small Class Writing Prompt

My writing contraint became writing using the influence children have upon my ways of teaching and learning as well as write.

The Rapture

There's nothing quite like living on a dying planet ravaged by war,  encircled by space based weapons platforms, to instill in the human heart a certain feeling of millenialism. We asked the citizens of Olympia how they felt about the coming Apocalypse at an undisclosed residential location last night.  Here's what they said:

Question #1:  If the Rapture were going to take place tonight, what would you do?
Question #2:  What if the Rapture has already happened, and this is the *THEN* what would you do?

Answer #1:  I'm not quite sure.
Answer #2:  I would look around to see who was left.  I'd be curious if the landscape changed at all -- buildings and natural landscape.

A#1:  Nothing different.  Watch some awesome bands.  Get tired. Go to sleep.
A#2:  Have sex in the streets.  Do a lot of drugs in public.

A#1:  Meet as many people as I can.  Have a party.  Have the time of my life.
A#2:  Then I guess I'd be fucked October 21st.  [ed note: supposed new date of the Rapture]

A#1:  I'd try to find my family.  My brother lives here, the rest live in Missouri.  I'd try to find my closest friends.
A#2:  I would just keep living how I'm living.

A#1:  I don't believe in the Rapture.  I would stand outside a bathroom drinking steel reserve  [what respondant is doing right now].
A#2:  (same)

A#1:  Same thing we do every night Pinky:  try to take over the world!
A#2:  I'd be doing this.

A#1:  Try to make a very strong connection with someone of the opposite sex.  And try to make the most of the time I have left, assuming I would be Raptured.
A#2:  Grab my dearest and run!

A#1:  Sit in the corner of Ladd's Inn (in Portland) and make art during karaoke, while Anna sings Barry White.
A#2:  I'd go to Olympia and go to the last show at [undisclosed location].

A#1:  Get loaded I guess.  I made burritos in honor of the Rapture.
A#2:  Go steal people's pets.  [respondant proceeds to relate the story of a man who started a business as a joke, offering to take care of people's pets after the Rapture, since they would be going to heaven, but he, being a heathen,  would remain on Earth, along with their souless pets.  It was supposed to be a joke, but people actually started paying him in advance for his services, and now he doesn't have to work any more].

A#1:  I wouldn't believe in it, even if it just happened.
A#2:  ----

A#1:  Lay on, in, or next to an old growth tree.
A#2:  Live as though my imagination controls my reality.

A#1:  I'd be happy because the conservative christians all got Raptured, and we're left to live out the glory days on Earth.
A#2:  Probably I would... party on!  We're still here!  It's a beautiful life.  -- do you have any drugs?

A#1:  Get baptized.  Convert to all religions.  Pray to every god there is.
A#2:  Party just as hard as I am now, and be so happy that all the conservative christian dicks are gone.

A#1:  Exactly what I'm doing now.  Searching for herbs.  Walking down the street.  Sex is always cool...  but I don't believe in the Rapture.  It reminds me of being a dinosaur, extinction... it doesn't mean Spirit doesn't still exist.
A#2:  it's no surprise.  do you know how many times I've thought that?

A#2:  Continue to do what I'm doing.  I'd have a lot of gratitude that the Creator, I mean, Decider, allowed me to continue this existence.  I guess I did something right. 

A#1: Everyone has to leave now or I'm going to go to jail.

Well there you have it folks.  The citizens of Olympia are an onery bunch, but they are clearly not without an appreciation for the Divine.

A Dream, After Notley

(Or some sort of lounge) (it’s very dark)

(‘cause they have) (these two women in) (white dresses)

(I tell her that I) (have just) (and she says)

(it happened to me too) (and I ask her) (when)

(and she says within) (a day) (and she says I know)

(the woman) (we move over) (to these couches) (we

start touching) (I notice that) (she’s a fish) (she’s a fish woman)

(she’s been transformed) (her body’s flat and) (her eyes)

(are almost drooping) (I know she’s from the ocean)

(I tell her) (that you look like you’re) (a sea creature)

(offend her) (by calling her a fish) (home) (and there’s

a string) (with a little sign) (and I can’t

read it) (I know it means) (you can’t come in)

(there’s a key-in code) (but I don’t) (want

to try) (because I think) (something bad) (would

happen if I) (enter)

-Whitney

And the Budget Work Goes On

Hey all - trying to get the word out about this event, put on by Fellowship of Reconciliation, that is continuing to work on the budget and war spending. Check it out!
 

Turn the Budget Around!

Sunday May 22 from 1:00 to 3:30 pm

Heritage Park, 5th Ave & Water Street, Downtown Olympia

The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation and our campaign to Bring our Billion$ Home invite you to enjoy peace, justice, music and fun.

Military spending keeps going up – at the expense of cutbacks in social and environmental needs, aid for state and local governments, etc.  Congress won’t take leadership to change federal budget priorities.  Only a grassroots movement can do that.  The “Bring Our Billion$ Home” campaign wants to stop the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, cut military spending overall, and use the savings to fund the many things that we really need.

Bring big cardboard boxes to build a symbolic wall with images and messages about our wars and military budget on one side and peaceful alternatives (better ways to spend the money) on the other.  Use the art supplies we’ll have available to decorate our boxes.  We’ll build this wall – and then Turn the Budget Around!  Fun for all ages!  Enjoy music by the Artesian Rumble Arkestra and other performers.  Participate in the “penny poll.”  We’ll provide ten pennies representing the federal budget and invite you to allocate in several jars to show how you would spend our tax dollars.  Enjoy other “Bring Our Billion$ Home” activities – fun for the whole family!

Information about this event: Pat Holm, (360) 357-4151 frogprin@cco.net

Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation (360) 491-9093 www.olympiafor.org

Western Washington FOR (206) 789-5565 www.wwfor.org

wallstanding prompt

my thumbs are having ntrouble bending
my breath was shALLOW OR DEEP OR I'M NOT REALLY SURE IF I'M SHALLOW OR DEEP BUT IT WAS NOT MY OWN VERY MUCH
and WHAT CAN I ECVEN OWN VERY MUCH
IT WAS LIKE FUCKING OR CRYING, LOSING CONTROIL
MY BREATH LOSES CONTROL
AND IT BECOME FLUTTERING
but less beautiful


i feel very small
me and mycracking thumbs
are no one
and nothing
to be feeling pain and suffering
i have not had it hard
but what is that value


sick breath art fuckery i feel like i should have a beard
someone is watching me no one is watxhing me i could simply lie
i want to simply lie
i need other people for myself to be who i am
who ami i alone, without anyone to hehar me moan
without anyone to \hear the soft simmer of a slightly uncofortable ssss simmer from my fingertips
why did that ringing just start?


i think


im scared and im alone
but im not alone
this small box of a room could be anywhree
and anyone could be knocking
and im scarted but not for my life
i know that my life is not at the hands of whjoever might be out there
its a different kind
im a dirreent kind
its so much deper than unkind


i know there is carpet and food and anythiong
but i dont know what i cant see
i dont know anything even what i do see
i dont know anythin g, even what i can read


because just as myu breathe became a moths wing
em itting its winged whisperings
the same what that it did when i first happened upon my forbidden clit
in the same shame and hiding
i sacrificed my breath
to some other thing
i can't know this
why am i so diligently trying


my fingertips dont hurt anymore
my calves arent anymore at all really sore
i am free
                             in bargaining units.




I did the exercise in one of the single occupancy bathrooms in the library, and while I was writing someone knocked on the door and a buzzing began. The capital letters and misspellings are a result of the trickiness of organizing that which spills from you.

Enclosure in Docile Bodies

Enclosure is the limiting of physical spaces with only one purpose for one target population. It involves the "disciplinary monotony" of time. Discliplining space leads to disciplining people: in the eighteenth century, enclosure was intimately linked with the rise of capitalism (e.g., factory towns). The aim of enclosure is to "derive the maximum advantages and to neutralize the inconveniences" as production becomes more intensified and more concentrated.

#1

On torture...

A good friend (and former 'boss') of mine wrote this a few years ago. I think it's worth a read.

http://www.lacuadraonline.com/the-surly-bartender/the-surly-bartender-the-unfortunate-logic-of-torture/

how did we get here

“How Did We Get Here?”
“We want you to enjoy good seafood”

There’s hardly any left
Baste the filet in lemon juice
Delicious destruction, we devour the dying

“catching unwanted species”
Implying there are wanted and unwanted animals
All animals should be wanted

Avoid best choices good alternatives
“Caviar and Sturgeon (Imported Wild-caught)
Chilean Seabass/Patagonian Toothfish”

“There’s a limit to the fish in the sea”
But It's Not Just Fish
How can you see?
The sea
You see
Is dying

“a state of silent collapse”
Just because the sea is silent doesn’t mean it isn’t screaming
I can feel the sea dying around me
The water is itchy, my skin crawls with disgust, I emerge stinking of poison and pain

Ocean friendly, people friendly
The sea should be free
We forget who she is her body is burned and bleeding we wound our mother

Future of the Oceans “help turn the tide.”

~Dominique

can these former monuments continue to exist as pure sculptures? On one hand, their physical dilapidated condition and institutional neglect reflect a more general social historical fracturing. And on the other hand, they are still of stunning beauty without any symbolic significances.

http://www.cracktwo.com/2011/04/25-abandoned-soviet-monuments-that-look.html

We Dance

One year collapses into one second,
a lifetime, an instant.
History moves apace
codetermined by human action
coterminous with human will.
Time stretches, gnaws at our tails.
Shrinks to drag us along.

Moments of clarity send
links between body and mind.
no more waivering.
Subject and object collide,
lucidity sends
sham dualities tumbling.
Each thought, each step slices
carrying parts of preceding potential.
We dance with history's unfinished business.

-GWB

Overestimating the Daze

Nonchalant meandering
just between two periods of neo-savagery
Disengaged self reproduction,
cranial phantom limb syndrome, negated.
Caffeinated appendages are good for
churning an aggravated apparatus.
A system which missed its mark
starvation ensues
apologies ensue
Filth has assumed an unusual position
at the top

Unelected governors, strikingly unfashionable
divine right, deus economica

-- GWB

Disheartened Citizens present Geurilla Poetry at Arts Walk

Hey All,

Thought it would be fun to put on a small guerilla poetry reading tomorrow friday night at arts walk at 8pm. It will be at the Rafah Mural on State St. and Capital Way. Bring your text art and anyone else you know who would like to get on the bullhorn. Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace is offering us the place, and we will be also using this time to have an open mic for those of us who are disheartened and want to share our stories. Please come and stop by and read your art if you feel comfortable. Feel free to call me about any details. -Johnny 2068494120

Note-sketch of 4-20-11 class experiments in re-texting claimed spaceships

always more questions when I leave:

tangled tentacles with ball plugs, octopus, stretch out
growing branches from branches
setting out angled
never-ending
ever-fornicating

of course there was a slow ghost blimp
the armpits of plants branch animal
cognitive mapping, napping cats banking drat holes in roofs for water'll come through

breathing oil grid

birth defects in the.

fell like dying.

ground. i feel hurt. and very batter is against me.

modular grid, modular mouth....







garbage takes no resistance in your mouth it melts in the how sun. i see but do not see, got black plastic bags wrapped and ruined it. masking tape.

"why i just thought it was more an examination OF JUnk. Which was junk and which was his junk."

"The motis-operandi"
"The little segments that were like the butt couplets, all fit into each other in a weird collective way. It's almost , oh back in the day, It's like a temporal derive. You have to define the past as glance over the shoulder"

"nostalgia contention. Longing for a past that was, or wasn't, or criticizes the longing for the past that was. And economic mechanisms build character non-starbucksy neighborhoods with a reall-small-wontown feel. Like compared to economic mechanisms that create insurance for insured peasant invisibility class work at work analogous that create the bed rails garnish soil for a gentrified diverse equates to divide. SWEEP THE INVISIBLE OUT. More wallmart and the war-hole. immigrant labour efficient productive prisoner. Collective nostalgia:

aural community. looking at the past lens mirror-zed crystallized formality tense work veiled, got so I was hoping parenthetical.

[collective archive. made my stomach drop. i jumped down from my high horse. flickers pass before I can open open my mouth. detritus, dead skin sloughing off, and all that junk.]

the subconscious form ideas that had died a long time ago walking on the shore
the story of williams who is Ne w york, and also collective montage jazz new york LETTERS 4 volume of life's work Ginsburg and song of multitude of self-hood, and repressive dangers vietnam and numerous.

tradition. straight. classical. non-pretentious. judicious. we lay there in the sun, i glare and face your face and know i am already dead. just another piece of green beach glass.

what gets treated as object, ephemeral, referred to, present -past consumed, subsumed, date signatures, and a construction of sentence essay contraction past-tense sentence past tense sen-tense.

immediate past last week yesterday in my no more time cell zone.
NO buck. no rebuke. now buck.

ephemeral even that can utilize uh What?
I bracketed you.

It came with enlarge thing. The past that has never yet to occurred will have yet to recur.

Mis a poor-piate the past. Misappropiate the mask.
Reappropiate the pasture. Reapprpiate the masquerade.

Not natural. To me it makes total sense. Disney and CIA studios impressive military connection not temporality and use of the space, military complex and commercialism.

Not wanting art. Being careful about appropriation.

To move on beyond the past-form with new, old, aesthetic qualities.

Can you resurrect the past? If not why be careful then?

what will have been
what will be, will have been

might be going to have lived. might have lived to be going.
who Narrates What from Where for Whom
rhetorical

what will have been control, convince future history, untold un set in stone, re-told reset rest reset in tone.

tense on the level of the sentence. that there are actual people who make essential narrative, it is not non-fact.

the future could be put in the past. may not be as effective. not unpacked. must unravel. need to take acid. acrid. axis.

GOsomewhere else! you've been here too many times before.

running miss- ing. became napping, chart improvise seem- ing

language is power and archive not aware of themselves and expository

precisely dance with me, shove ____ in my whittle room thing.

YOU HAVE TO co create this WITH ME! I AM parametering your PLAYGROUND.
political moo.

poetry as tour and archive. piece uses organizing as a way for access a way of thinking about activism as an aesthetic relationship to the world.

frame to be framed.
framed by your frame.






i believe you can change the mind with language. we are attracted by nature to what is familiar , our brains are very alert to what we know. we can change our habits, though we will always be attracted to the familiar, we can choose to create new and unfamiliar language that slowly resets our brains to a balanced, where what is familiar always changes, as it is with what is unfamiliar, for as the unfamiliar become visible it steps towards the territory of the known, and the past. Every new idea has the opportunity to become an old one.
Poetry as practice of the linguistic pulls on our lens.
To recreate language, is to recreate the nature of our reality.
To recreate language is to recreate how we communicate
I am under the assumption that language has not yet reached the capacity it has to transform our communication. To transform our minds, our awareness, our use of the spectacles.
The more normative apples, situationist co-optation of organization.

live-enactment built-in organizing components.
just as much proxy. praxis.
temporal cerebral cortex strategy.

pace actions. not even directed. greeting cards at pace to give out some poetic exchange. so even in un-directed pace actions.

poem is the live event poem is the live event poem is the live event poem is the live event.

all is somewhat anemic without its live component
live blood plug

IRONIC SIGNAGE
very direct activist message contract NOW pretty simple we get it
the public face
the private face
the picket face
the office face
the strike face
whatabout whatabout whatabout
on like a really fine aren't any answers only precedent level
only classified more and more draw someone in if you want people to come in, but 5 out 10 people are not going to hear you. coat-switch into different milieus.
FUTURE ANTERIOR wide open POSIBILITY unchangeable falling apart future tense.

possumbility.
in a public space, in a public way. kind of inviting conversation.
provocations of what-kind-of-world-you-want-to-live in. The people we feel some sort of responsibility towards. a provocation. dialougically, organic provocative, ITSSAYING let's keep in mind the clock is ticking. the future us, is around the corner, we want to be co-creators in that future.

UPTO US. Help ma write the story.

whose vision whose picture whose fever dream
all…. I…,…. see…. is ….. me….

very 2 blocks of text rearranging so tripping over bumpers sticking over on steroids.

if you saw Jesus you would all see all the war stickers a rabble-rouser… I have a question that uh pertains.. em and a couple friends drew chalk signs on campus
but it WAS such sloganeering that, other people could LAsso it quickly. These kids, it's graffiti.
My homework assignment is graffiti. My homework assignment is blurring the action so as not to be lassoed, so when the dude comes up, they question what is going on. we've already shot ourselves in the foot by simplifying our objective.

the best way to change the world is by organizing with each other in solidarity.
we need to be both impatient and patient.
we will have or have that discussion, that anterior, that ethos of the march, depending on how activist you want to be, this is a class on aesthetic relations to reclaiming public space. amount of rally or mass, a diversity of things YOU work may call on a difference of convention..
clear in our indirect bud, blur them later order, second convention history mentions active movement on parallel course than poetry similar exception of picketing line and getting to play the crappy instruments you don't need to know how to play. when you're in a picket like and warm our hearts jazz. health. care. marching band. coalition. that allowed us to hold the line. and have that conversation in each of our person-type hearts. Discuss our own actual experiences. Sarcaustic asshole. Niche for very kind of type. 12 34 5. All fits in here.

Theres a reason that doesn't have all these real world.. cough up… commodify exist at one time one existence mirror land

like landscapes of descent. where desires are met, and see, reorganized, fought out.

written to here 4-20-2011 in public bathroom floor 1

from 7:30pm until 8:09pm
-N.A.G.

Great Opportunity: Labor Center Workshops

Hey All--

Please, if interested, go! Also, love that work is starting to be put up (2 poems below this post). I'll delete this post after the conference is over so that the poems aren't buried. Do read them meantime.

Solidarity,
david

LABOR CENTER RISING AND ON THE MOVE!
Washington State Labor Education and Research Center
South Seattle Community College
April, 2011 Special Bulletin

REGISTRATION OPENS TODAY FOR THE EMERGING LEADERS CONFERENCE!!

WHEN: The conference starts at noon on Friday May 20th & ends at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 22nd.

WHERE: Georgetown campus of the S Seattle Community College – 6737 Corson Ave S Seattle 98108

SPACE IS LIMITED! DON’ T DELAY! Registration closes May 16th

The Emerging Leaders Conference will offer workshops on the critical issues facing working families today. This is an opportunity for younger union members, students, and activists to develop leadership skills, network with others from a broad range of social justice organizations, and plan for tomorrow. Now more than ever we need to encourage those who have not previously played a leadership role in their unions or organizations to become educated and motivated leaders. Can we build the leadership of tomorrow here and now? Si se puede!

To download a registration form, go to http://georgetown.southseattle.edu/LERC/events.aspx click on the Emerging Leaders Conference link on the left and scroll down to the bottom of the page. Print the form, complete it, write a check for the registration fee payable to WA Labor Center, and mail both the form and the check to:

WASHINGTON STATE LABOR EDUCATION AND RESEARCH CENTER
South Seattle Community College Georgetown Campus
6737 Corson Ave S, Seattle, WA 98108

REGISTRATION FEE: $150 General Registration, $75 Student Registration – includes all meals & workshop materials. NOTE ON HOUSING: We encourage participation by Washingtonians from outside the immediate Seattle area. We may be able to provide housing assistance to those who will be traveling from other parts of the state. Contact Cheryl Coney – cconey@sccd.ctc.edu.

SCHOLARSHIPS: Some scholarship money is available for students and others who do not have an organization to sponsor them. For University of Washington students, contact the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at UW Seattle to request a scholarship – 206-543-7946, pcls@u.washington.edu. For all others needing scholarship assistance, contact Cheryl Coney here at the WA LERC – 206-764-5380, cconey@sccd.ctc.edu

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE: The current schedule for the conference is below and can be found on our website. Two items require some special explanation:

MENTOR TRAINING: On Saturday, May 21st from 2:30-5:30 there will be a special session offered on mentoring. This is intended for current leaders who want to mentor emerging leaders; this training can be signed up for independently of the rest of the conference for free. If you want to attend this session please email Sarah Laslett – slaslett@sccd.ctc.edu or call 206-764-5382 to reserve a space. If you would like to remain at the conference after this session for dinner and to hear our keynote speaker, Kent Wong from the UCLA Labor Center, we ask that you pay $25 for dinner. We need to have an accurate head count for dinner so please let us know by May 13th at the latest.

OPEN SPACE WORKSHOPS: Sunday May 22nd is largely devoted to Open Space Workshops. These are workshops that will be designed and led by conference participants at the time. They can focus on strategic planning for a particular campaign, issues that have not been addressed at the conference, or dig deeper in to issues that were raised during the Friday and Saturday sessions. Participants will be the leaders during this last part of the conference in order to make it useful for the concrete work they will do after the conference is over. Our intention is for Emerging Leaders to be an on-going initiative, leading to other trainings and educational events. The Sunday workshops and report-backs are the time that this group will plan what they want to do next.

SCHEDULE (subject to change):

Friday May 20th: Opening Sessions

Noon Lunch & registration
1:00 Intro to the School
1:30 Defining Leadership
3:30 History presentation & plenary
6:00 Dinner
7:00 Strategic planning training
8:30 p.m. End for the day

Saturday May 21st: Concurrent Sessions

10:00 a.m. Sessions:
Ø Organizing Among Immigrant Workers
Ø Using Social Media to Organize
Ø Building Leadership Skills
Ø Fighting for Workplace Rights

12:15 Lunch
1:15 p.m. Sessions:
Ø Using Politics to Effect Change
Ø Using Social Media to Organize (2nd time)
Ø Understanding the Economy – Follow the Money
Ø Coalition Building

3:30 Sessions:
Ø International Solidarity
Ø Coalition Building (2nd time)
Ø Building Leadership Skills (2nd time)
Ø The Art & Noise of Street Heat

2:30 Special Session: Mentor Training

6:00 Dinner & Keynote Speaker: Kent Wong, Director, UCLA
Labor Center
8:00 p.m. End for the Day

Sunday: Open Space Workshops

10:00 a.m. Intro to Open Space
11:00 Open Space Workshops
12:45 p.m. Lunch
1:30 Final Plenary: Report backs & future planning
3: 45 Evaluations
4:00 p.m. End

Sponsors (still in development – let us know if you want to be a sponsor):

* American Federation of Teachers 1789
* Allyship
* Coalition of Labor Union Women
* Community Alliance for Global Justice
* Economic Opportunity Institute
* Fuse Washington
* Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies - UW
* International Association of Machinist District 751
* International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees 15
* OneAmerica
* Martin Luther King County Labor Council
* Pierce County Central Labor Council
* Puget Sound Sage
* Seattle Education Association
* Seattle National Organization for Women
* Seattle Solidarity Network
* Service Employees International Union Local 1199NW
* Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (IFPTE 2001)
* Teamsters 117
* United Students Against Sweatshops
* Washington Bus
* Washington Fair Trade Coalition
* Washington Federation of State Employees Local 304
* Washington State Labor Council

Questions? Contact Cheryl Coney – 206-764-5382, cconey@sccd.ctc.edu

found poem

virtually all riches come from oil
it was in everyone’s interest
to safeguard oil fields, for NATO to keep close watch:
the country may well be sitting on a cash mountain.

the hotly contested area
deserted by its population
available for the taking.

after some confusion
the shrapnel came from the desert, passed right through
vehicles going backward and forward
I strongly regret the loss of life and
I am not apologizing.

to maximize the terror it is not possible
to make a mistake
with 20 tanks
advancing on a large patch
of desert land.

we shouted god is great and after that we heard nothing.

~ McK

"Progress" Reworked

“This is Progress” Reworked

Coursing contradictions abound,
yet too many are content
so no one makes a sound.

Political, ideological banter and bargain
Record profits, pleasing voters, and hollow jargon.

These men tinker with all things monetary,
calling shots quite unnecessary
and it’s more than a little scary.

Their words and actions do not match.
Based on their track record, we just might crash.

OK, OK, they do have to make difficult choices,
like “Baby, what color should we
repaint the Roll’s Royces?”

The hypocrisy of their philosophy is evident.
Subjugate, separate, and show little relent.

Is it two parties or just two faces
both hiding the machine’s long history of disgraces?
They argue, “debate,” and misinform,
It is a pertinent and unfortunate norm.

Global commerce, poverty, and corporate deals,
The flow of money is what the masses feels.

The verdict has been dealt: we cannot let greed win.
So people call your neighbors, call your kin!
If we work together, we can
Take down this unyielding media spin.


-- EPK

Welcome &etc.

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In solubility,

mTa