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AMERICAN DREAMS (OR: HOW I CAME TO NOT LOVE THE BOMB)

Young Fascist (Italian Child): Alison Mason Kingsbury: Life and Art

Council flat, East London, damp wall,s mould in the corners

VHS tracking lines cutting static through James Dean's face

the flicker of the TV, the only warmth


Rebel Without a Cause & I'm seven years old

Romani no passport HUNGRY

swallowing that red jacket mythology like it's bread like it's BELONGING


[beat]


I wanted to be SEEN so badly, I didn't care what was doing the seeing


[beat]


The Wild One 1953 Brando all fuck-you jawline

by 1973 he's sending Sacheen Littlefeather to the Oscars

& she's saying "we do not have the right to take away land and dignity"

& the audience BOOS & John Wayne has to be PHYSICALLY RESTRAINED

from dragging her off stage & Hollywood makes him PAY


by The Island of Dr. Moreau 1996 they've got him in a muumuu

FAT joke CRAZY joke HAS-BEEN because he chose TRUTH over the golden statue


[beat]


while Brando gets destroyed for DISSENT


[beat]


Dean didn't get the choice - Porsche Spyder wrapped around itself September 30 1955

24 years old FROZEN beautiful his blood pooling in the Salinas Valley dirt

sold back to us as COOL as ICON as INEVITABILITY


they needed him DEAD needed rebellion FROZEN so it can't MUTATE

can't connect to Hampton's breakfast programs can't connect to Roma organising in the camps

can't become the kind of threat that ORGANISES

can't turn alienation into SOLIDARITY


[beat]


because let the rebels LIVE & they might actually BUILD something

let Brando speak & suddenly Indigenous resistance gets a PLATFORM

let the Black Panthers feed children & suddenly people ask why the STATE isn't feeding them


[beat]


This is how empire WORKS - it lets you worship the SAFE dead

the ones who threatened NOTHING while it MURDERS the ones who did


[beat]


the dream is the BAIT


[beat - let this land]


Fred Hampton's blood still wet on Chicago floorboards December 4 1969

MURDERED in his bed drugged by an FBI informant shot point-blank while SLEEPING

21 years old younger than Dean when he died

but Hampton was DANGEROUS in a way Dean never was


Black Panthers EXECUTED for ACTUAL revolution for FREE BREAKFAST for COMMUNITY DEFENCE

for building DUAL POWER for making empire OBSOLETE


[beat]


while Brando gets destroyed for DISSENT


[beat]


Roma people GASSED at Auschwitz-Birkenau 500,000 dead NO museum NO movies

just SILENCE just ERASURE just the same fascists who killed us now running border patrol

now running ICE, now running the HOME OFFICE

Now criminalising Roma under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act


But they don't tell you about the Roma Resistance fighters

the ones who joined Yugoslav partisans French Resistance Soviet Red Army

who fought ACTUAL Nazis, not METAPHORICAL ones

Who sabotaged railways, blew up bridges DIED fighting fascism


They don't tell you about Settela Steinbach

nine years old Romani girl

filmed being deported to Auschwitz

her face looking out of the cattle car

THAT image used for DECADES as the "face of the Holocaust"

without ANYONE knowing she was ROMANI

because even in DEATH we're ERASED


[beat]


Dean's jacket was soaked in Indigenous blood before he ever wore it

stitched by exploited labour in factories built on STOLEN land

Brando's motorcycle ran on oil extracted from OCCUPIED territories

& seven years old SWALLOWING it whole

thinking THIS is what resistance looks like


not knowing ACTUAL resistance was happening in council estates

in community centres in breakfast programs

in kitchens keeping families ALIVE


[beat]


while Brando gets destroyed for DISSENT


[beat]


seven years old & how could she have known the red jacket was a SHROUD

not knowing survival in a country that wants you GONE

is more RADICAL than anything James Dean ever did

not knowing SURVIVAL is resistance when the empire wants you DEAD


[beat]


knowing now & STILL wanting STILL swallowing


[beat]


because that's what IDEOLOGY does - it gets INSIDE you

it's SMARTER than propaganda

it becomes your DESIRES your AESTHETICS your sense of SELF


dead rebels sell MERCHANDISE

living rebels build MOVEMENTS


[beat]


Dean sells POSTERS & NETFLIX biopics & FASHION LINES

Hampton built BREAKFAST PROGRAMS & COMMUNITY CLINICS & POLITICAL EDUCATION


Brando made a SPEECH

the Black Panthers made SURVIVAL POSSIBLE


wanting a RED JACKET

while Roma built RESISTANCE NETWORKS across Europe


[beat]


Thirty years later, Dean's empire IS Palestine's empire SAME blood SAME bait SAME lie

The empire that made Dean an ICON is the empire funding genocide in Gaza

dropping white phosphorus on children, calling it DEFENCE

is the empire that GASSED Roma & never paid reparations


& seven years old WANTING INTO it

wanting into the machine that's MURDERING Palestinians MURDERING Roma

MURDERING anyone who threatens its PROFITS


[beat]


while Brando gets destroyed for DISSENT


[beat]


& the work is WANTING while KNOWING

to be HUNGRY while AWARE

to SWALLOW while REFUSING to let the wanting make you COMPLICIT


wanting the red jacket AND knowing it's soaked in blood

wanting the DREAM AND knowing it's BAIT


[beat]


& still there seven years old VHS tracking lines

James Dean's face cutting in & out STATIC

council flat damp & cold

survival teaching resistance

without ever calling it that


STILL hungry

STILL wanting

STILL swallowing


[beat]


but ALSO organising

ALSO building

ALSO REFUSING


[beat]


learning to not love the bomb

but not learning to stop WANTING


[beat]


learning liberation is building BREAKFAST PROGRAMS

while the wanting never goes away


learning liberation is teaching HISTORY empire tried to erase

while still thinking Dean looks cool


learning liberation is ORGANISING COMMUNITY DEFENCE

while still being CAUGHT in the empire's desires


[beat - slow down here]


& maybe that's the REAL loss of innocence

not learning the truth

but learning the truth & realising it doesn't SET YOU FREE


learning you can KNOW empire is violence

& still want what Empire sells


learning you can ORGANISE against it

& still be SHAPED by it


learning LIBERATION isn't a moment of AWAKENING

but a lifetime of building POWER

while the wanting NEVER fully goes away


[beat - longer pause]


while Brando gets destroyed for DISSENT


[beat - final pause]


while WE build what they couldn't DESTROY

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