Current mood:	okay
Entry tags:	gaza, palestine, politics, wombles

"Impotense in Unacceptable"
This is something I wrote after I got home from the pub last night.  Its a class piece of slightly pissed writing so I'm banging it up.

I know there were problems with the radio feed from the sunny govan website.  I heard the interview over the airwaves and it was an awesome bit of radio.  They're going to play it again on Sunday.  In the meantime they might put her up as a clip if there's enough calls for them to do so... :)

Impotence is not acceptable

My resolve is coming back.

On Mayday 2001 I was a womble.  Before that cops with big sticks disempowered me.  I'd been  hit  and arrested by cops before and had internalised that if they told me to do something I had to do it.  But we took their form of attack and imaginatively (ok, we got the idea from Italian group “Tutte Bianche” so it wasn't just our imaginatings) found a creative way round it – to defend ourselves from battons we covered ourselves in padding and let them hit us.  They soon gave up and for that day at least we had some freedom.

This past 12 days I've felt impotent.  I “knew” there was nothing concrete I could do to stop these horrific attacks on people.  To stop the evil that was going on.

Earlier today the wonderful puzzle posted a comment that I'd helped inform them of what was going on in Gaza.  I broke down in tears.  Cried for 20 mins.  It was a really cathartic cry.  One of those where you don't realise how much you need it until you're bubbling away, the energy finding its own way out.

I think thats really helped me to bring my full resources onto the problem.

Anyway, tonight as I was brushing my teeth a thought popped into my head.  “Impotence is unacceptable”  An image of seeing that seemingly impenetrable line of riot cops, battons at the ready, and us wombled up, keeping on going came to mind.  When I say “Impotence is unacceptable” it is unacceptable to me.  It is not an acceptable viewpoint for myself.

You see, I have a secret.  I'm really fucking powerful.  I'm 5 foot 2, not very strong, not good with words, flakey as hell, yet really fucking powerful.  And I'm not the only one that knows this!  I've been personally targeted by several different states (including UK and Israel) for being a threat to them.  Damn right I'm a threat to you.  I'm /fierce/ when I see folks being attacked.  Really fucking fierce.  And really fucking capable of doing something about it.  I have a stock of memories in my head.  Times when I stood up, took up a position, felt determination and bloody mindedness running through my veins, and you know what happened on those occasions – I bloody well won.

And each time the state targets me?  Well that just reinforces in my head how powerful I am.  It strengthens me.

The source of my power?  Well, my Mum would probably say its my bloody minded stubborn streak which apparently I've had since I refused to leave her poor abused womb until I was good and ready and no way could anyone feed me if I didn't want fed.

But she's wrong.  The source of my huge fucking power?  Its that I'm human.  And humans are fucking cool.  We've done so much amazing things.  We fuck up plenty, but we're so powerful we even fuck up in huge ways!

We're all really fucking powerful.  Like, really.  Like so immensely capable of dramatically changing situations around us that those who seem to have this huge capability (such as the UK, USA and Israeli State Apparatuses) put huge amounts of effort into subduing us.

Think of a big sea dyke.  The bigger the differential between the inside and the level of the sea outside, the stronger the pressure on the dyke to break.  Its like that with inequality too.  As inequality grows, the pressure on the state apparatus that enables that inequality increases.

But we're not just molecules of sea water only able to follow gravity.  We can climb up and get over that wall.  We can even attack it from the inside if we like. :)

I've been using the name “fleabite” for a while.  Its back to that bloody minded stubborn streak.  Impotence is unacceptable.  A tiny flea can seriously hinder a big scarey monster if it just keeps biting away.  By irritating and distracting said monster, it is less able to focus on destroying its prey.  As a bare minimum I am going to be that flea, biting away, irritating the big monster that is destroying lives so that it is less effective at that, and eventually, with enough of us, we can chase it away for good.

***

This week I've mostly been doing stuff around Gaza and drinking and playing mob wars on facebook as coping mechanisms!
  
At Monday's AF meeting we decided to put out a news sheet, so I wrote a sort of background glossary for it, and we used stuff from talestotell, and another member wrote some other stuff.  That went to the printers yesterday and we'll have 1000 to dish out in Glasgow on Saturday.

Tuesday I was too late and the doors were locked but I was supposed to be going to an interfaith prayer for peace at a local synagogue.  Fom those that did manage it, it sounded really good and I'm sad I missed it.  Later Tues eve I did get along to Glasgow Gaza Emergency Coordination meeting.  The room was packed - about 100 of us from lots of diff groups and backgrounds and some activity planned - not as much as I'd hoped but it was productive.

Wednesday was mostly writing stuff for the news sheet and doing other awareness raising about whats going on. Lots of emails, phone calls etc.  Then went to the pub with some friends.

Today I'm going into town to help with a Gaza stall outside Borders on Buchanan St - we'll be there til about 6 so come say hi if you're about.