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Ben Okri's poem on Grenfell Tower

Submitted by Arrow on Tue, 06/27/2017 - 7:08pm

Posted this to EB...it needs is's own essay.

Edit: travelerxxx 's Youtube video down in the comments is longer and more complete. I refer you to there as well.

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Submitted by Meteor Man on Tue, 06/27/2017 - 7:21pm
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The poor die for others prosperity.
A strange time is shaping on the Strand.

Powerful and compelling. Love it!

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Submitted by gulfgal98 on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 6:50am
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@Meteor Man that stood out for me too. Grenfell Tower is a tragic metaphor for what is happening to poor people all over the world.

This video must be seen by as many people as possible.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Submitted by Mark from Queens on Tue, 06/27/2017 - 7:39pm
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Beautiful and searing.

I get the feeling that the Grenfell Tower story has such far-reaching ramifications, and could lead to a sea change in political philosophy and economic policy in the UK, potentially the world (though the MSM is so pathetic here, and lined up against anything remotely to do with that scaaaary Socialist Corbyn).

I don't see this going away for a very long time.

Thanks for sharing it in the EB and making it stand on its own here.

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"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"

- Kurt Vonnegut

Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Tue, 06/27/2017 - 8:22pm
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The Tarot card "The Tower" always shows the Tower in the process of its destruction, usually being struck by lightning and catching fire therefrom.

And this is the kind of housing we use for all the non-filthy-rich these days. Sad

I agree with our poet. "Let a world-changing dream flower!"

My dream is: rich or poor, every human being living on the ground. Fuck this stack-'em-up-like-cordwood bullshit!

Irwin Allen and Company got it right:

[video:https://youtu.be/OXmWoPCRZ-c]

"One of these days, they'll kill 10,000 in one of these firetraps. And I'll keep eating smoke and bringing out bodies...until somebody asks us...how to build them."
-- Fire Chief O'Hallorhan (Steve McQueen), closing scene, The Towering Inferno

And as far as I am concerned, "how to build them" is: don't.

Diablo

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 1:33am
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yes--it did deserve its own essay.

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Submitted by travelerxxx on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 3:37am
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Perhaps because I don't do Twitter, I am unable to see this video. I did a search and found a youtube video of it here:

Grenfell Tower: June 2017

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC9Ni-IPnAc]

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Submitted by Cant Stop the M... on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 4:51pm
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@travelerxxx "When they want you to die for profit they will let you know."

--Wendell Berry

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Submitted by Song of the lark on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 8:28am
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So emblematic of our general idiocy, our learned greed, our constant competition with everything. William Butler Yeats summed it up in his epitaph. "Cast a cold eye, on life, on death. Horseman pass by."

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Submitted by MarilynW on Wed, 06/28/2017 - 11:59am
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I heard it as a larger cry out against right wing governments. How they crush the poor.

A passing comment I read yesterday describing a Koch as greedy. "No" I thought, "these billionaires' greatest fault is not their greed, it's their hatred of humanity."

A person, a committee, a council has to have a savage disregard for human life to choose hazardous materials for a building, a building for low-income people.

And Grenfell is one of many such buildings, 100% are fire hazards. How did we allow these cruel people have this power?

At least one of the victims was a Syrian refugee. Think about that.

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To thine own self be true.