Fresh
from his latest run for office with the Green Party of Connecticut, Richard
Duffee brings to this evening's Barnes and Noble’s Open Mic program a mix
of whimsical wordplay, intriguing dream-inspired writing and unflinching dissections
into the irrational, yet oddly enthralling, priorities that keep us in the
mutual death grip of exploitation and inequality.
In
particular, when forced recently to crash a candidate forum at the Yerwood
Center in order to debate five other candidates for the Board of Education, the
profound association between Richard’s political insight and this latter aspect
of his creative ouvre was made clear.
While
others spoke in customary itemized fashion regarding budgetary, facilities allocation and other issues, Richard’s responses, as with the first volume of his cross-cultural/cross-time passages in The Slow News of Need (2008, see "Collections and Anthologies" section below), suggested an integrated and fundamental approach
that subtly questioned the self-limiting assumptions implicit in the very
questions posed by the representative from the Stamford Parent Teacher Council.
Rather
than favoring a tony quick-fix to bullying or anxiety (like fitting
student cell phones with a special teen help-line “app”), Richard proposed
constructive departures from the conflict and competitive fallout associated
with youth “snitch” culture that would generate so much misery to begin with,
learned from his involvement in the Quaker Alternatives to Violence Project, during
his years of creative writing and legal justice instruction in youth and adult
detention settings in the Northeast.
With
each new sermon from his satirically-charged series, “The Unified High Church
of Money”—a popular and highly participatory staple at PoemAlley—Richard further explicates what he’s observed from many years in India and other
countries on how the roots of the dysfunction and suffering in human affairs at
all levels and ages originates with the conflicting roles we are conditioned to
play from the personal, economic, social and political dimensions as members of society. Tonight being three weeks out from “Black Friday”, the example
below is especially appropriate:
Liturgy #2: On Meaning
Priest:
Oh, my children, I heard a horrible complaint is circulating among you. It
grieves my heart to hear it.
Congregation:
What is it, Father? You know we hate to see you in pain.
P:
I can hardly bear to speak it, it is so foul, so over-the-top, so unworthy of
you.
C:
Tell us, let us bear the burden with you.
P:
I’m not sure I should, Children. After all, it may only be a few of you, a few
possessed by some demon, a few who are so misguided.
C:
Tell us, Father, we’ll take care of them. People like that, if we see them,
well, you know what we do [drawing their fingers across their throats.]
P:
All right, all right, I will entrust you with it.
C:
Please, Father, we hate to see you suffer.
P:
I’m sure it must only be a few of you, maybe even only those of you who do not
attend the services regularly, maybe even only parishioners who are not here in
person today.
C:
It’s all right, Father, whoever it is, we’ll deal with them.
P:
Well, children, this complaint is of lack of meaning.
[A
hush falls on the cathedral. Then, out of the silence:]
Parishioner:
Lack of meaning? Whatever can that mean? How can someone lack meaning?
P:
I have been pondering just that. Why, when there is meaning everywhere, how can
someone lack it?
C:
Yes, Father, explain to us.
P:
I was as shocked as you, Children. I went into the holy vault to meditate.
There I listened quietly to Money.
C:
What did it say, Father?
P:
It said, “Meaning? I give you all the meaning you will ever need. Look at all
you can sell!”
C:
Yes, that’s it! Of course!
P:
That’s what I heard. It said, “Every exchange is meaningful. Don’t your
customers find meaning in what they buy?”
C:
“We do, we do!”
P:
Every exchange is meaningful. Think of the joy of buying jewels! The joy of
buying stocks and futures, the joy of derivatives! Do these people mean to say
they do not want to give others this joy?”
C:
Who are they? Tell us who they are, these selfish bastards!”
P:
Oh, please, Children, let us not talk that way in this holy place. Never should
those two words be joined.
C:
Sorry, Father, sorry.
P:
There are people who do not want to sell. But just think, if no one sells, no
one can buy! And then no wonder they have no meaning!”
C:
How can they be so stupid, Father?
P:
This is what I went to the holy vault to understand. And the vault said, “I
give you meaning every minute! Here, you want meaning? Do I not give you
everything in Macy’s to sell and buy? And what of Sears? Of Walmart? Why look
at Lord and Taylor! You want meaning? Look at any convenience store? What do
you see there but a thousand things that people seek, all the things that fill
their lives—the Coca Colas, the Cap’n Crunch, the T-shirts, the gas additives!
There’s meaning everywhere!
C:
Tell us where, Father!
P:
Why look at any country. Say you’re in Colombia. We give you your flag, your
national animal, your national song, everything you desire! Or say you’re in
Singapore. We ship you things from all around the world so you can add value to
them and ship them back. Meaning, meaning everywhere, in everything you touch!
A
hundred years ago where was there meaning in Singapore? Now it has camera
parts, computer modules, woofers and tweeters everywhere!
C:
How ungrateful these people must be!
P:
Yes, they can’t see what’s in front of their faces! They cannot see the joy of
things!
C:
They have no hearts!
P:
Exactly! And we give them everything! With just a little loyalty and honesty
and a little work, they can sell whatever they want! Freedom and plenty! They
can sell whatever can be bought from us! And they can buy and buy! Buy anything
we sell!
C:
A cornucopia of plenty!
P:
Yes, an endless vault! Endless and infinite! Let us pray.
C:
Dear Father, let us have all the goods we can earn.
P:
Yes, dear Children, and we’ll give you all the credit you can carry, and even
more at times.
C:
Thank you, Father, thank you.
P:
Go in peace, my Children, but forget not to compete. Remember, you must earn.
Only if each of us earns can others earn, and only if each of us earns can we
buy. Go thou then and buy. Go forth to earn and buy. There is thy meaning.
Check
out Richard’s thoughts, videos, writing (including such essays as “The Common
Sense of the Right to Live in the Age of Weapons of Mass Destruction”
and “The Outlines of Joyce's Perception of Social Power”, as well as information
on past political activities at his website www.richardduffee.com.
Hosted by Frank Chambers and PoemAlley's Nick Miele, the Barnes & Noble's Open Mic Poetry program meets the second Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore (located in the Stamford Down Center), beginning at 7:15 p.m.
For more information, contact:
Barnes & Noble
100 Greyrock Place Suite H009
Stamford, CT 06901
203-323-1248
Tonight, Richard
Duffee will be leading a discussion on haiku and Matsuo Bashoo, the acclaimed
Japanese seventeenth-century poet who first developed the poetry form between 1662 and 1694.
As Japanese is a
much more an allusive language than the more literal English, the 17-syllable
structure of haiku of three lines in a 5-7-5 distribution embodies an intimate, collaborative pattern of expression particular to its language and
society of origin, fostering an especially personal sense of connection with the poet.
A faithful
contributor to PoemAlley for many years, Richard is the author of The Slow News
of Need (available at the bottom of the blog though Yuganta Press) and has run
several times for office with the Green Party of Connecticut, including twice
for Congress in the 4th district (click here for a clip from a debate with Christopher Shays in 2006). 
The Barnes & Noble Open Mic poetry program meets the second
Monday of each month in the cookbook section on the main floor of the bookstore
(located in the Stamford Town Center), now beginning at 7:15 p.m.
A PoemAlley fixture,
egalitarian analyst of social power and author (The Slow News of Need, available from the “Collections and Anthologies” section below), Richard elaborates: “The shocking thing about Western love poetry is that the
tradition does not assume one needs to know anything about the recipient of
one's affections in order for one's claims to love to be credible. It's
difficult to realize how weird this is because it's a feature of the cultural
landscape that's been around for 900 years.” 
Because
the output of Medieval troubadours and trobairitz (female troubadours)
reflected their own romantic conceptions, as opposed to actual people, this
helped set the stage, along with numerous intertwined social influences, for
the senhalic, or fill-in-the-blank, adaptability of, well, affected affections as purveyed by today’s
“sentiment-industrial complex” of greeting cards, candy, door-stopper-grade bridal magazines and wedding planning consultancies. 
Part of FSW’s Neuromast:
Certain Uncertainty and Contemporary Art exhibition,
Taxonomy of Missed Connections is also a component of Ingrid’s Center for Missed Connections project
and its mission to encourage a collective embrace of loneliness, both poetic
and banal, within public spaces. 
In
particular, when forced recently to crash a candidate forum at the Yerwood
Center in order to debate five other candidates for the Board of Education, the
profound association between Richard’s political insight and this latter aspect
of his creative ouvre was made clear.
With
each new sermon from his satirically-charged series, “The Unified High Church
of Money”—a popular and highly participatory staple at PoemAlley—Richard further explicates what he’s observed from many years in India and other
countries on how the roots of the dysfunction and suffering in human affairs at
all levels and ages originates with the conflicting roles we are conditioned to
play from the personal, economic, social and political dimensions as members of society. Tonight being three weeks out from “Black Friday”, the example
below is especially appropriate:
P:
All right, all right, I will entrust you with it.
Note: this critique from March by Richard Duffee originally ran on the site of the American-Iranian Friendship Committee. Zero Dark Thirty is currently available on DVD. In light of the accumulated
testimonies of Bradley Manning (U.S. Army, pfc), Edward Snowden (NSA
contractor) and, in particular, John Kiriakou (see videos at the end of this post) regarding
the CIA’s torture activities, it’s vital to dissect the differences between why
these insiders acted as they did in defiance of the unforgiving hierarchies of
which they were a part and how Zero Dark, Argo, Olympus Has Fallen and similar hyper-nationalistic fare rationalize for
the rest of us support of the practices/policies they exposed—not to
mention what it says about our society if it proves itself unworthy of their
sacrifices in defense of truth and humanity.
I
saw Zero Dark Thirty yesterday. The film reveals the heart of what our imperialist
government likes to think of as its ethical system. The system is so simple
it’s terrifying. It has two parts: 1) obey your superiors and 2) tell the truth
to them. If you do those two things, you are supposed to be entitled to honor
and to feel your purpose in life is fulfilled.
Would
changing any of those things have prevented 9/11? Not one word. The assumption
is that we need oil and power and so we have the right to occupy the Middle
East, to dominate the economics and politics of the region, and, if that’s not
enough, to kill and steal. Might is supposed to make right: the standard
doctrine of Machiavelli and Fascists. What does “might makes right” actually
mean? Really, that there is no such thing as “right”: what people call “right”
is only what the most powerful say right is—in their own interests—and the rest
of us just repeat their nonsense because we’re terrified not to. Greed and the
lust for power are presumed to be sacred, so if pursuing them gets you into a position
where, to continue on your path, you have to torture, murder, and steal, that’s
understandable, so torture, murder, and theft are OK so long they’re approved
from above. Being approved from above is all that counts. Of course, the people
at the very top may arrange “plausible deniability” for themselves because it’s
OK if their underlings are fired or jailed, but not them. It’s OK for the
people at the top to be liars and cowards. They’re too big to allowed to fail.
Now
the real questions start. What does it mean that all that matters is that one
obeys one’s superior and tells him the truth?
The
Director of the CIA reports to the President. Is the President one’s ultimate
superior? This, of course, is what everyone in the government is supposed to
believe. They are all supposed to believe it because, more than anyone else,
the President is supposed to represent the majority of “the people.” But does
he actually represent the people? Let’s count some of the equivocations. 1) If
the election was honest, 2) he may represent the majority of those who voted,
but that’s not the majority of the electorate. 3) The majority of the
electorate is not the majority of the people. 4) The vast majority of those who
voted took only two candidates seriously. 5) They thought the sole significant
act they had in the choice was to vote down one pre-chosen candidate by voting
for the other. 6) The choices were made by the duopoly, the Republicrats. 7)
The leadership of the Republicans now has positions Barry Goldwater held in
1964. The leadership of the Democrats has domestic positions to the right of
Nixon’s and Rockefeller’s. 8) Both parties are flooded with money the Supreme
Court allows to come from anywhere unreported and unchecked, so that the rich
control both candidates. 9) 1% of the people have 41% of the wealth, 2% have
50%, while 40% have 0.3%. The wealth of 2%, being equal to everyone else’s
together, is at the disposal of the rich while most of the wealth of the rest
of us is committed in some way to enabling us to survive. It is not possible
for 98% of us—even if we all agreed—to outspend 2% on politics. 10) The result:
the President is dependent on the money of 2% of us. He knows it. About
all of this, of course, not one word.
