LISTENING IS MORE THAN HEARING
INTERVIEWING THE MULTITUDE
Over the last 20 years or so I have interviewed workers, politicians,
people of many colours and religions, security officials, UN diplomats,
young, middle-aged and elderly people.
I’ve listened to the poor,
the underserved,
the undereducated,
the underpaid workers badgered by their forepersons,
badgered by the inhumane human resource officers;
I’ve listened to silenced mothers,
exhausted nurses and labourers;
I’ve listened to the teenagers who barely speak and say less than others;
so filled with kinetic energy, curiosity, creativity, discovery at 8;
so bored, depressed and disconnected at 16.
What do we do to them in between?
What have I heard?
Incoherence, irrationality, false consciousness,
ugly racism, cock-a-hoop economic analysis,
silly, shaming political views
with people believing voices which should be shunned,
believing voices speaking to them falsely.
They embrace those voices out of desperate hope,
voices which,
out of the people’s hearing,
out of the people’s hearts and consciousness,
cruel, rich powerful psychopaths
speak of their plans for further immiseration of the people into greater poverty,
speak of their plans for ever greater victimization, exploitation and always more wars
for those who have voted their puppet politician’s voices into power,
for those who have become obedient or simply defeated and cynical.
I’ve heard racist, sexist, climate crisis gobbledegook theories,
nonsense riddled with contradictions so steep and deeply foolish
they breathe the stink of barbarism.*
But I have also met and heard wonderful things,
people of service, generosity, giving, self-sacrificing
in the name of their beliefs about a better world.
Too often I’ve heard attitudes constructed out of other’s lies,
and then lied about to exclaim authority, (Trump and Johnson for instance)
fit only for ancient naïve Roman citizens,
as their empire fell to swarming northern tribes.
DESPAIR
“….how you tried to set them free
they would not listen
they’re not listening still
perhaps they never will.”
VINCENT by Don McLean
Am I feeling smug, superior, arrogant???
No, I’m filled with rage
and with tears for their confusion,
even though they are partly self-inflicted injuries.
Injuries from their stumbling into moral darkness.
Darkness enfolding them in raven’s wings
as they fumble their moral compass.
That is understandable but not forgivable.
EVIL
“Oh yea, we’ve been neighbours,
but now I will slit your throat and rape your daughter.”
Welcome to another civil war
sparked** by frustration, want and fears,
promulgated by the newly arisen totalitarian, liars, cheats
who feed, like all raptors, on the flesh of other’s suffering,
poverty and lack of knowledge.
While the poor live in falsehoods, lies, confusion
fostered by the immoral psychotic neoliberal politicians
and their state and corporate paymasters,
the educated middle classes tut-tut
and turn away from their grandchildren’s destiny.
We live in a liberal democracy;
“Nothing seriously rotten can happen here, to us, to our children.”***
KNOWLEDGE
Thomas Jefferson wrote
“Ignorance and despotism seem made for each other,”
But if the new nation could “enlighten the people generally
. . . tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish,
like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
It is no wonder the rich, the CEO’s, think tanks, bankers thrust to control the news,****
the electronic media, the popular culture
and place restraints on the arts via funding and rules,
and of course strive to control education and educational publishing,
because they who control the story of history, control the future.
Where, how, when and through what devices or medium can the truths be told,
can the moral compass be rediscovered?
CURIOSITY
I am always curious about how people find ways to struggle, to survive and to find joy.
What do their traditions, habits and customs mean?
What do they indicate about others, including myself,
and how can they make meaning in life?
How do they survive and struggle between good and evil, especially when their societies/regions/countries/families/class are under stress?
How do the tensions between the humanists and the psychopaths play out?
Are the above not the elements of an ongoing human story (tragedy?)
In part of my story is the Serpico legend of the innocent wandering into a profession/job that demanded an immoral life be led
in exchange for wealth and recognition.
The moral or physical regeneration of one’s life is the personal equivalent
to the coming of consciousness in the blossoming of the Renaissance.
A current flows between my eye as witness and my being (heart, brain, soul)
and then to my trigger finger. As a photographer this is the moment of capturing a truth but what good it does??? Are we really stumbling into fascism? Listen well.
*Beware, the barbarian neo-fascists are again inside our gates.
What do they offer besides lies of pure blood, male superiority, national resurgence?
What they truly offer is blood and more blood,
injustice, oppression, torture, arbitrary arrests,
firing squads and new friend like Putin and his assassins.
** Truly sparked by American led globalism dumping people into greater poverty.
*** Of the few things I know, we must never surrender our humanity to convenience,
creative people must continue to reveal our humanity against the drip, drip, drip of the nut case right’s daily insinuations about others being inferior, terrorists, house stealers, job stealers, or against the attacks on women’s rights, or open bookshelves, or truthful history, and on and on.
****According to a 2021 report by the Media Reform Coalition,
90% of the UK-wide print media is owned and controlled by just three companies.
37 years ago, there were 50 companies in charge of most American media.
Now, 90% of the media in the United States is controlled by just six corporations.