only bread is bread

Propagandhi have a song called "who will help me bake this bread", in it Chris always sounded like a whiney know-it-all on a power/guilt trip to me. The song relies on the children’s story about a hen baking bread and asking other critters for help every step of the way. Of course all the other critters are too busy or lazy to pitch in, until the bread is ready to eat. The "moral" really depends on the reader; thankfully I had very unusual parents who embedded a sense of personal responsibility for collective welfare in me. The moral I heard is that the Hen knows how to bake bread, wants to share the knowledge, but most folks are too self interested to learn something until there is an obvious benefit. I'm sure some other kids got messages like; sit on your ass and some whiney fucking chicken will take care of it, or people are stupid and selfish and you should only look out for yourself, or (my favorite) ignore what's happening around you and bread will magically appear.

I've been posing as a community organizer for about 15 years now. I seem to chronically end up in the Hen's position; either as part of a small group that does the work that a large group feels good about, or as a whiney power/guilt tripping fucker that incessantly reminds people that calling wheat, water, wood and an oven, bread doesn't actually make it bread. Or that knowing what is needed to make bread isn't the same thing as getting the materials and putting them together and making bread. That only bread is bread. And calling the knowledge of how or ability to make bread, bread is a lie.

This traps a lot of good intentioned people, knowing how to do something isn't the same as being able to do it. I know what an active and engaged community looks and feels like; I've been in several in the past. I would like to be in one now. But I am not. The people around me today for the most part are focused on; individual survival, career advancement, and maintaining hope in a desperately ugly world. They are not (for whatever reasons) actively involved in creating the world around them. They go to special events that are organized by others, and showcase a couple folks ability to entertain or make pretty things. There is a pervasive fear or apathy that keeps people from taking risks, even the relatively risk free risk of showing up to cook and eat at Food Not Bombs. This is a problem, and a much more threatening problem then whoever is President.

If I can't rely on the folks around me who think resistance to capitalism and imperialism are the right things to do, to actually stand up resist in a way that demonstrates the possibilities of a different future, why should I worry about who lives in the White House. What a ridiculous avoidance of our power and responsibility.