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<td style="padding: 10px;" class="style4" colspan="2" valign="top"
width="500"><big><big><b><span class="style1">Tito's Class-Conscious
Classifieds</span></b></big></big><br>
<span class="style2">by Susie Day<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/day130812.html">http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/day130812.html</a><br>
</span>
<p>In a recent PBS interview with Bill Moyers, journalist <a
href="http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98sacrifice-zones%E2%80%99/"
class="style5">Chris </a><a
href="http://billmoyers.com/wp-content/themes/billmoyers/transcript-print.php?post=11003"
class="style5">Hedges</a> discussed protest for social change.
"Revolt," he said, apropos of salvaging a collapsing world, "is all we
have. It is our only hope."</p>
<p>I agree. So would my friend <a
href="http://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2012/08/10/john-tito-gerassi-l-ami-americain-de-sartre-mort-a-81-ans_1744962_3382.html"
class="style5">Tito Gerassi</a>, who believed all his life in
revolution. And, since rising unemployment is part of the collapse of
our world, I think Tito would have enjoyed making occupying Wall
Street, and other forms of social activism, into respectable
occupations. Think of the job market potential. . .</p>
<p align="center">WANTED:<em> Revolutionary Wackos</em></p>
<p>Applicants must retain childhood ability to identify with the
powerless. Must have at least seven years' experience believing that
humanity is capable of living by kindness and cooperation, rather than
by greed and competition. Applicants must not be inclined to laugh
upon reading this last sentence. (Those who did laugh, please refer to
Form 1186 regarding job openings for U.S. President.)</p>
<p>Applicants must enjoy out-of-doors activities such as
marching, singing, chanting, blocking, sitting-in, dying-in,
self-chaining, brick-hurling, and storming, either singly or in groups
of fellow Wackos, to protest various social inequities and/or oncoming
disasters.</p>
<p>Applicants must stay informed about socio-political crises,
especially atrocities directly caused by U.S. policies but largely
ignored by U.S. mainstream: invasions, kidnappings, torture, financing
of foreign death squads, etc., etc. Applicants must accept
occupational hazard of being called "Wacko" by U.S. mainstream for
caring about these things in the first place.</p>
<p>When explicating political positions, applicants must be able
to fire off accurate data -- e.g., <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/19/solitary-confinement-congress-prisons"
class="style5">80,000 U.S. prisoners currently held in isolation</a>; <a
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-08-02/immigration-prison/56689394/1"
class="style5">400,000 immigrants detained on U.S. mainland</a>; <a
href="http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/un-afghan-civilian-deaths-1493659.html"
class="style5">1,145 Afghan civilians killed by NATO in the first six
months of 2012</a> -- while maintaining Zen-like awareness that each
statistic represents individual, unrepeatable human beings who would
probably not appreciate being subsumed into a number for the sake of an
explication.</p>
<p>Artistry with spray paint and/or computer graphics encouraged.
Poetic ability to compose refreshing updates for such time-tested
rhyming couplets as "<em>Racist Sexist Antigay/first name last name GO
AWAY!</em>" is a real plus.</p>
<p align="center">WANTED:<em> Movement Leaders</em></p>
<p>The most important qualification for this job is that the
applicant does not want it. Applicants must be impervious to
assassination attempts, long prison sentences, and lucrative book
contract offers. Must possess depths of humanity no less than 11,030
meters. Must be informed about and critical of
racist-patriarchal-homophobic-capitalist ruling class, while committed
to delivering non-rhetorical sound bites. Symmetrical facial features
and ability to look good on t-shirts -- possibly coins, if revolution
succeeds -- highly recommended.</p>
<p>At least 25 years experience as one of The Masses. No
imperialist oligarchs need apply.</p>
<p>While there is one soul whose house is in foreclosure, you are
not free.</p>
<p align="center">WANTED:<em> The Masses</em></p>
<p>Humanity a must. Equal opportunity employer. Women, people
of color, queers, the poor encouraged to apply. Must see own life as
inextricably linked to nearly 7 billion other members of The Masses,
within context of planetary ecosystem. BYO drums, babushkas, machetes,
tractors, smart phones. Guaranteed lifetime employment.</p>
<p align="center">WANTED: <em>replacement for Professor John
(Tito) Gerassi</em></p>
<p>Applicant must have been born in 1931 in France and called
"Tito" (diminutive of "Juan" or "Juanito") from childhood. Applicant
must have grown up in Paris around artists and intellectuals, including
Marc Chagall, André Breton, and Simone de Beauvoir, who were friends of
Applicant's parents. Atheist Jean-Paul Sartre must have been
Applicant's "non-godfather." Applicant's father Fernando must have
been abstract painter who left for Spain in the 1930s to become a
Revolutionary Wacko in the Civil War against fascist General Francisco
Franco. Applicant's mother must have acknowledged at the time that,
although the war was already lost: "Fernando is not fighting because
we're going to win. He's fighting because one must fight fascism."</p>
<p>Applicant must have come to the United States as a boy,
becoming one with The Masses, later a journalist for <em>Time,</em> <em>Newsweek,</em>
and the<em> New York Times</em>, interviewing the likes of Che Guevara
and Fidel Castro. In 1965 Applicant must have written <em>The Great
Fear in Latin America</em>, a book inspiring thousands of 1960s
Revolutionary Wackos; then in 1966, <em>The Boys of Boise</em>, one of
the first books to explore homophobia in America. Applicant must then
have become popular professor at San Francisco State College, where,
during campus demonstration in 1968, Applicant's lower back was
permanently injured by police.</p>
<p>Although Applicant was offered professorships at various
prestigious universities, he must instead have chosen to teach courses
on revolution and class warfare to poor and working-class students at
Queens College, NY. Eschewing the post of Movement Leader, Applicant
must have spent years teaching, writing, organizing, and being
increasingly adored by students and hundreds of friends, most of them
Revolutionary Wackos.</p>
<p>At home, Applicant must have loved espresso, cute pictures of
bears, and his daughter Lara. Applicant must also have enjoyed
occasional furtive smokes on his balcony in full view of disapproving
loved ones and Western medicine. Finally, upon turning 81, after years
of courageously fighting cancer, Applicant must have lost his battle on
July 26 of this year. Applicant must be missed widely and mourned
deeply by thousands of Revolutionary Wackos, Movement Leaders, and The
Masses.</p>
<p>No one need apply.</p>
<hr>
<span class="style3">Susie Day is a writer.</span></td>
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