What Is to Be Done

What Is to Be Done

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When asked Why here?
Mao said We didn’t pick it

Here is a slab of If
Here is a set of appropriate roles; armed in cinema

Armed against No one was here
I see you, us. Someday
Our arthropod utterance

Intention alone is not dialectical
or petroleum or vaccine patents

Is it too late for analysis?

What filled me with the limbs of little girls, plumes
of suicide, what fed my grandparents rotting vegetables
rationed in the camp of illegal flowers

Unrepentant, sunlight can lay
eggs like a spider mother, a season before death

Love has ruined my life
Love made useful by class—
remnants of murdered trees, imaginary debts

Translated into adhesive, anemone venom
green slippers at the portal of beetles

I have come to terms with failure
as a contrabass in the spine,
implacable echo of goddamn

I still love the people
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Become a Sustaining Donor This September

Between the reemergence of right-wing red-baiting and Donald Trump’s use of the chilling National Security Presidential Memorandum–7 to criminalize left political organizing, we’re seeing McCarthyism reborn before our eyes.

This assault on democracy cannot be ignored or wished away. Resisting it requires bravery in the face of threats and repression, a steadfast commitment to the truth, and the unwavering belief that we can—and will—overcome this darkness.

We must have an independent media that sets the record straight, unearths corruption and abuses of power, and advances a politics of justice and dignity for all if we’re to win this fight.

That’s why I’m writing to you today. This September, The Nation needs to add 100 monthly donors to sustain our progressive journalism. Your contribution makes the next investigative report, the next truth-speaking column, and the next pathbreaking essay all possible. 

I hope you’ll support our work with a recurring donation today. If you donate $10 or more a month, we’ll send you a brand new “Hands Off the Free Press!” sticker to recognise your commitment to our cause. Please, donate today. 

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

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