[-empyre-] to brazil with love

[lotu5]

 >>>>> From: Eduardo Molinari <archivocaminante at yahoo.com.ar>
...
 >>>>> what is to "erotize politic" today?
 >>>>> what are the connections between body and ideologies today?
 >>>>> what is the political dimension of the body today?
 >>>>> to erotize politic for me is only possible when incarnation
 >>>>> happens.
 >>>>> then you can "feel" the political actions, also the enemy ones.


Well, I seem to have provided some answers of my own to the questions 
below without knowing you were discussing them!

As for people being afraid in the states, YES, I think so, but also 
distracted. I think that most often in my interactions with people they 
feel disconnected from politics, like they can't make any change 
politically, so "why waste your time?", and really people are distracted 
too, and find politics boring. I too find most political marches and 
rallies and movie screenings boring, I admit!

I always find that whenI leave the US though, people in other places 
seem more engaged with politics, like there is a history and a culture 
of political engagement, so there's already a built-in assumption that 
politics matters, while to most people in the US politics is seen as 
something foreign, until voting time comes around.

As a teaching assistant in a university, this is my most common 
experience, that even queer women of color or muslim women will say 
straight to my face "I'm not interested in politics. It has nothing to 
do with me." Although, I teach art classes, so maybe its a commentary on 
artists, or on college students or on my particular city. Or I've had so 
many women in my classes say adamantly that they are not a feminist, as 
if they were afraid to be seen as feminist. But again, maybe a 
commentary on who is interested in studying art, and hopefully they felt 
differently after my class!

This idea of incarnation and feeling actions is interesting, because 
I've heard many people I know, friends, describe experiences in the 
alter-globalization movement as transformative, and they seem to 
structure their lives around politics after these experiences, but 
they're often the moments of being in a huge crowd with thousands of 
chanting people, sharing sweat, or being traumatized by rubber bullets 
and tear gas, or running together in a black bloc, or being hit in the 
head with a police baton, these are the moments that I feel people 
describe as transformative and they are absolutely embodied moments that 
you "feel"!


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