Date: Tue, 03 May 1994 11:39:44 -0500 (EST)
From: Ben Friedlander <V080L3NP-AT-ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>
Subject: Re: waging metaphor


> "I think a careful account of such moments, analyzed for their political 
> content, might reveal some surprising things."--goofus  Can you give me an 
> example of political content in such a case and what it might reveal? 
> Thanks, Margaret

well, i always fall back on the obvious, the dreams of the bible, which 
almost always function as moments of slippage or re-orientation in "sacred 
history," jacob wrestling in the desert (& the sign that this dream has 
broken through the plane of reality, his lameness after), or joseph's dream 
in prison.  not such a wide gap separates the visions of the prophets from 
king's "i have a dream" or even the bumper sticker slogan "visualize world 
peace."  but i guess this is where bey's "ontological terrorism" comes in, 
the hoaxes which dreams perpetrate, the orson welles "war of the worlds" 
syndrome.  the shanytowns protesters built on college campuses in the mid 
'80s i guess it was, if these had been more than simply symbolic 
intrusions, if they'd become actual subcultural sites (as they sometimes 
were), then the identities assumed in such places, & the dreams those 
"identities" had, would have made themselves felt politically in a more or 
less iummediate way.  lastly:  the paranormal:  the instructions dreams 
give us, which find *confirmation* in waking life.  survivors' accounts of 
the camps are full of these.  someone dreams he's back in germany & then 
the next day a transport is headed back for the reich, & this person makes 
sure he/she is assigned to it.  the poet h.d. is said to have volunteered 
her services to the r.a.f. during the second world war to help them locate 
the bodies of missing aviators psychically, through seances.  psychics are 
often used by the police these days too.  admittedly, this is all stuff 
skirting the edges of a dream-politics, but it *is* a start...the point is 
freedom, the freedom of the imagination, but not only that, freedom too 
from the division between idealist & materialist, which those who are 
"materially" oppressed suffer more harshly than any.

goofus