DIARY OF A RAG AND BONE MAN

(THE CONTINUING SAGA OF A HOMELESS MAN AND HIS DOG.)

by Jack Rafter.

Well, Vincent and I have suffered through some cold nights lately. We spent several nights in the tent in the strip of woods by the railroad, our usual campsite. But then it got so cold, we decided to break camp and trekked over to our fall-back camp in the basement of the downtown YMCA. (More on that later.)

We call the strip of woods by the railroad Sherwood Forest. We have a little homeless committee that meets once a week down there to discuss various issues, one of which is the ongoing problem of new people wanting to make camp or live in our woods. We get new ones coming in almost every day. Most are local, but a few strays are showing up from out of town. Believe it or not, there are some riders on the freight trains even in the most bitter cold weather. Personally, the only times I ever hopped a train was in the summer months, which is hard enough. Several years ago, I caught a train up in Roseville, California and rode it across the mountains into Utah and Nevada. This was in the month of August, so I really wasn't thinking how cold it might get once I got up in the mountains above the deserts. Well, I was on that train all night and the temperature dropped down in the thirties. All I had was a little second-hand windbreaker and a thin army blanket. I thought I was going to die.

So I can't fathom actually getting on and riding in the winter. But there are some, I guess, who are desperate enough to get somewhere.

Anyway, in Sherwood, we are trying to limit the number of new applicants for space in our woods. Space is limited and we are not anxious to draw heat from either the railroad people or the cops. Whenever the cops start seeing too many homeless bunched up in one place, they tend to think they have to do something about it. And what they usually do is start throwing people in jail. Now, if the weather becomes a real problem, then ending up in jail may not be a bad thing. Yes, there are some homeless who actually try to get arrested for vag so they can get out of the cold, but in my own experience, most of them would do almost anything to avoid getting in jail. Some have said they would even prefer sleeping on the cold ground to dealing with cops.

As I was saying, Vincent and I moved our camp to the Y a few nights ago. If you will recall, in a previous entry, I revealed how I discovered a way into the basement of the downtown Y (and it really isn't the Y, by the way, that's just what I'm calling it.) If I'm not in Sherwood on any particular nights, I leave my campsite and tent with someone I can trust, usually someone on the committee. Also, according to the rules we have established, no one loses his residency in Sherwood unless it can be shown they've been gone more than a week. So all you have to do is keep checking in from time to time. The homeless committee is pretty good at keeping track of people.

What's good about the Y is it's in this old-timey building that dates back to the twenties. It has steam heat, and the boilers are in the basement, so it gives Vincent and me a chance to really get warm all the way to the bone. This, I believe, to be an essential component to surviving the winter—is being able to get really warm from time to time. Also, there's a shower down there, which the janitor can use if he's been doing some dirty work, or if he just wants to clean up before he goes home for the evening.

Now, that's another nice thing, too, is just being able to get into a real hot steamy shower and let that hot water run on you for awhile and let it seep into your marrow. It's amazing how rejuvenating that can be after spending a lot of freezing nights out of doors. Most people in this country, the ones who still live in their houses, really have no idea how lucky they are to have roofs over their heads and a place where they can take a hot bath or a good steamy shower. The fact that most people in the world actually do not have these things is just totally beyond the comprehension of most Americans. It just doesn't touch them in any way.

But for many, I believe, all that is going to change, as the price of natural gas and electricity continues to soar, while jobs and income continue to decline. For old people and others on fixed incomes, and for all those many many thousands who are making poverty level wages or below, and who have families to support, the cold water bath is already getting to be a well-known and established feature of their daily existence. And having heat in their homes is either a luxury or a fading memory.

Up until last night, I hadn't met the janitor of the Y. But I knew what he looked like from a discarded i.d. photograph in his desk drawer. I knew he was black, I knew his name was Gilbert Chistian Gooch. I saw pictures of his wife and kids on his desk and on the walls. His office was real neat. He even had a little four by five foot carpet on the floor. Sometimes I slept on the couch in his office. Other times, I pulled my sleeping bag into an adjoining room.

Last night, I was sacked out on the couch, using my sleeping bag for a cover. Vincent was asleep on the carpet. We heard the outside door slam. Vincent jumped up. I sat up groggily and looked around. Suddenly, the office door opened, the light came on, and there was Gilbert C. Gooch standing there in his khaki janitor's uniform. He looked a little older than the i.d. photograph. His mustache and hair were whiter. Also he was bigger than I had envisioned him, strong and muscular, even for an older man.

He looked kind of stunned for a minute. I guess we both did. Luckily, Vincent had enough sense not to bark at him. Maybe he was already used to Gilbert's scent, which must have been present all along.

“What you doin' here?” said Gilbert Gooch.

“I—I'm--sorry,” I stammered, trying to sit up. “I don't mean to trespass or anything. I just needed a place to sleep. I live most of the time down by the train yard, the big one. You know where I'm talking about?”

“I don't care where you live. You're not s'posed to be in here. You and that dog gonna have to get outta here.”

“Yes, sir, you're right,” I said, getting on my feet. “I'm going right now.” I picked up my shoes and my unrolled sleeping bag, and started for the door. Vincent fell in behind me. He never made a sound. Not a whimper. Sometimes, I just have to hand it to him. His head may be down and his tail tucked, but he has a way of taking bad news stoically.

(More to follow.)

THE MEDUSA EFFECT

"For great wrongs great also are the penalties which come from the gods." --Herodotus

An honest or honorable assessment of the past year would be an inventory of damages. President Bush's State of the Union speech urged another view on the nation: that we must go past the unmentionable failures and remember that "hindsight is not wisdom".

But Julian Borger's recent report in the Guardian doesn't rely on hindsight. US appropriations for war in Iraq are shown to be massive. Factoring for the latest spending supplement of $120 billion, the combined cost for Afghanistan and Iraq has reached $440 billion.

"The spending on the Iraq conflict alone is now approaching the cost of the Korean war"..."Meanwhile the cost of the overall "war on terror"--[relabeled] the Long War in the Pentagon--is already close to half a trillion dollars, and will soon equal that of the 13-year Vietnam war."

And we are more often aware of the cost in blood, suffering, and disability.

Critics of Bush's war heard the President tell them that their attitude is completely defeatist, that they emphasize only the downside, and that the important thing is to defeat evil.

In his first inaugural address, in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said:

"Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live."

On the other hand, to turn from greatness to such a president as ours, who lives in a fantasy world, and who craves an ever more grandiose status; being president does not seem good enough for him.

Considering the dark hour into which the country is passing, the members of Congress seemed to be having too good a time; it was an unreal spectacle. Ordinarily, the State of the Union is that rare occasion when Americans can examine the competing factions of the ruling class; but after excluding all the elements of presidential make believe, they were confronted after all, with brazen, unchecked power. The whole spirit of fun, the genial handshakes, the bobbleheads, were for the most part, a circus in the midst of impending tragedy.

The domestic spying, which earned President Nixon an article of impeachment during the Watergate scandal, is the unmistakable career path which President Bush seems to follow. And Bush announced these intentions clearly, during his State of the Union. Not that he expects to be impeached.

Bush's unconstitutional, warrantless eavesdropping and wholesale collection of Americans' personal information will continue, just as the unpopular war in Iraq will continue. Congress has said all it has to say in the original war resolution, according to him. In so many words, the President said he didn't really need the assembled legislators, those sitting right in front of him. The law against domestic spying need not be tailored to accommodate him; lawyers at the Justice Department have advised him that he already has Commander-in-Chief authority, and that's all he needs.

And the President's dishonest comments in his first term, regarding intelligence gathering were intentional deceptions. He has been breaking the law since 2002, and perhaps earlier than that. James Risen, the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, writes in his latest book, State of War

"It is now clear that the White House went through the motions of the public debate over the Patriot Act, all the while knowing that the intelligence community was secretly conducting a far more aggressive domestic surveillance program."

Bush's comments, past and present, about being mindful of civil liberties are worthless.

When the State of the Union was over, the Democrats gave their official response.

Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia was less than useful in presenting any real rebuttal to the odious President. Governor Kaine, while a nice enough man, came across as comfortably pious, as he mentioned again and again how incompetent the republicans are. Democrats needed to muster the necessary outrage for the administration's crimes, its insult to the rule of law, and the hidden and not-so-hidden agendas that violate human rights. For instance, the string of secret prisons overseas, lacking oversight, and the administration's permissiveness for torture. And for another example, John Yoo, Justice Department legal advisor, who said regarding our captives at Guantanamo, "it doesn't matter if they are innocent or guilty"

It happens that where a US detainee is demonstrably innocent, or has even been declared innocent, he is still held in captivity, so long as he remains in military custody, which has judged that he is a terrorist or might be a terrorist. And there the captive sits, with decreasing likelihood that he will ever obtain a writ of habeas corpus.

In Greek myth, there lived the most fearsome of the gorgons, Medusa. Any person who so much as looked her in the face, was turned to stone. Gazing only at her reflection, using a polished shield, was the one way to approach and give combat, which Perseus managed, with the help of a goddess. Athena secured from the hero the last two drops of blood from Medusa's severed head. These the goddess presented, in separate vials, to the healer Asklepius. In the two vials, each drop appeared identical to the eye, Asklepius learned that one was a deadly poison, while the last was capable of healing and redemptive power.

If we Americans vanquish our Medusa, that head full of vipers, it may continue to bleed out its poison on the land. But when the last two drops remain, we must hope to understand the Medusa Effect. One drop, we understand, is a deadly poison, and the other, the beginning of wisdom.

THOLOS INTERVIEWS JUBAL DURFEE

Our previous series of interviews with Jubal Durfee, whom we met at the local gun show a few weeks back, made such an impression on our readers that we have decided to revisit Mr. Durfee and get his view of recent events. We at Tholos are often assailed with letters from folks (of the foaming at the mouth variety) whose views are, frankly, somewhat to the right of our own. Chief among the complaints we hear, is that we tend to be a tad one-sided. “Too liberal,” blah, blah, blah. It was with that in mind, that we sought out someone who might furnish a decidedly different perspective from our own. You see, we really are struggling to be as even-handed as possible, though, admittedly, it is hard on us. Hence, the visit to the gun-show. You can pull it up in the archives, if you've nothing better to do with your time. God-almighty, what an experience.

We called up Mr. Durfee on a Sunday afternoon at his home in Beekeeper, Arkansas. He and his family, consisting of his wife, Arleen, and son, Billy, had just come in from church (First Baptist). They have an older son in Iraq. Billy's father recently gave him an assault rifle—an AK-47, in celebration of his twelfth birthday.

THOLOS: Hello, Mr. Durfee.

JUBAL: Howdy, padnah.

THOLOS: A lot has happened since we last spoke. Let's get right to it, shall we?

JUBAL: Fine with me. My boy wants to get in some target shootin' this afternoon.

THOLOS: Oh, yes. How's he enjoying the new rifle?

JUBAL: Oh, man, he just loves it. His face lights up when we go shootin' together, about once a week. It's funny. He used to be kinda shy. Kind of a sissy. He was drawin' pictures and he wanted to learn how to play the flute—if you can imagine! We was worried about him for awhile, there, me and Arleen. But since I got him the AK-47, he's almost a different kid. Really come out of himself. Startin' to blossom, you know? His Mom's so proud. I just thank God for puttin' him on the right track.

THOLOS: You think every kid could benefit from having his own urban assault rifle?

JUBAL: Well, I don't think it's for everybody. Some kids just don't have what it takes to handle one. But it's certainly done wonders for my Billy.

THOLOS: All right. Well, let's look at the news, shall we?

JUBAL: Sure thing.

THOLOS: What do you think about the recent revelation that the President has been spying on American citizens for the last four years?

JUBAL: Well, I'm glad he come clean about it. That's what I like. I find it so refreshing.

THOLOS: What do you mean?

JUBAL: Well, he's tellin' us exactly what he's doin', ain't he? No pussy-footin' around. No skull- duggery. See, I like that. He's just right out in the open with what he's doing, now. I think that takes a lot of guts.

THOLOS: But what he's doing is a violation of the law, isn't it?

JUBAL: I dunno. Maybe. But I tend to agree with Vice President Cheney on that. I think the President oughta be beyond the law. At least somewhat. I mean you can't expect to regulate everything he does. You can't fight terrorism that way.

THOLOS: So, no rule of law for the President?

JUBAL: Well, Bush is a hands-on kinda guy, you know what I mean? He's not gonna stand still for a bunch of Congressmen breathin' down his neck, tellin' him what he can do and what he can't do. That's not his style. He takes his orders from higher up, see what I mean? He's sort of like Dirty Harry. Remember those movies?--with Clint Eastwood? Dirty Harry was always breakin' the rules, always operating just outside the law. But he got the job done, didn't he? He always got the asshole by the end of the movie.

THOLOS: So, the President is Dirty Harry?

JUBAL: Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. But kinda. But at least we know what he's doin', don't we?

THOLOS: We do?

JUBAL: Yeah. He's comin' clean, comin' straight out, now. We ain't seen that before. See, with Nixon, you got all this double-talk and equivocation, and what have you. The guy couldn't come straight out and say he was spying on Americans or he was bombing the shit out of Cambodia or whatever he was doin', because, let's face it: he was too chickenshit to level with the American people. See, that's just what got him in trouble. It wasn't what he was doing. Nobody gave a shit about that. I mean, let's be honest. There couldn't have been a dime's worth of difference between bombing Vietnam and bombing Cambodia, could there? But soon as it came out that ol' Nixon was secretly bombing Cambodia, everybody suddenly flipped out. So it wasn't the bombing part that irked 'em, it was the lying part. See what I mean?

THOLOS: So you're saying it's okay to violate the Constitution and the laws of the land, so long as you don't lie about it. Is that what you're saying?

JUBAL: Right! Now, you're catching on! It's just like what I said the last time we talked, you know, about Clinton, when he lied about gettin' his horn tooted by Monica? See, that's where he got tripped up. He should never have lied about that. He should have just told 'em it was none of their goddamn business. “Fuck you.” Everybody would have cheered, then! The whole country would have been behind him. They would have said, “Yeah, right on! You go, man!” The whole thing would have blown over like so much thistle dust. But Clinton didn't have the gumption to say, “Fuck you.” So, of course everybody smelled blood and they got on him. Shit. Nobody gave a rat's ass if he got a blowjob, or if he got ten blowjobs, or fifty! They just didn't want him lyin' about it, that's all.

THOLOS: So you're saying that Clinton would have been better off to just admit what was going on--

JUBAL: Yeah, or tell 'em to go jump off a cliff, like I said. But yeah, even admitting he was getting it sucked would have been better than what he did, in my opinion. “I never had sex with that woman.” “It depends on what 'it' means." Nobody wants to hear that crap. Nobody's buying any of that. So simpering, you know? So spineless. I mean it was like, there he was again basically saying he didn't “inhale” when he answered the dope smoking question. Remember that? It was practically the same performance. I half expected him to say, "Yeah, okay, she tooted me, but it didn't count 'cause she didn't swallow." You see what I mean? Now that would have been pure Clinton. But he couldn't do it. Couldn't answer 'em straight. Why? 'Cause he's a coward, that's why. But it ain't only him. Clinton's just a symptom, you know, the perfect symbol, really, for the whole Democratic Party. They're all cowards. You can't find more than a handful that'll stand up for anything. Shit, the Democrats are better for Republicans right now than Republicans.

THOLOS: On that, I think we agree.

JUBAL: No, no, don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining! Y'all just keep right on doin' what you're doin'. (Laughter.) Watchin' the Democrats these days is like standing on a riverbank and watching somebody take a long time to drown. Meanwhile, I'm pretty confident our party will come out on the other side of all these scandals and things even stronger than we were before.

THOLOS: Okay, let's go back to when Bush lied to Congress about weapons of mass destruction hat didn't exist--

JUBAL: Well, now, I don't necessarily agree that he lied about that. I still think we're gonna find those weapons. They're stowed away in some cave somewhere, and the marines are gonna find 'em.

THOLOS: Okay, but let's just say, for the sake of argument, that there were no weapons to be found, insomuch as just about the entire civilized world is in agreement that Bush lied about that, and since he's now starting to get quite a lot of heat for lying about it, do you think he should have just told the truth about what his true motives were?

JUBAL: Well, yeah, why not?

THOLOS: Even if the administration's true motive was to get control of the oil fields?

JUBAL: Well, I don't know if that's their true motive. I don't necessarily hold with that. I mean, I think Bush really wants to get democracy goin' on over there, you know, and he just truly wants to overthrow evil tyrants and kill all the terrorists in the world. That's what I think he wants, 'cause I believe him when he says that's what God wants him to do. I believe that's what God wants. Hell, we just talked about that at church today, had a big conversation over it, how God wants and needs America to prevail in the world. Because without America spreading the gospel of Jesus and the word of God, the whole shebang will be lost to the devil. And probably should be, if you wanta know the truth. But shit, man! Once we're in there, in my opinion, we'd be crazy not to want to get our hands on the oil. I mean, by God! Of course we should get the oil. We're not fools, here, are we? We're not a bunch of innocent little lambs. Nobody was born yesterday. I mean, if it ain't us, it'll by God be somebody, won't it? And it's liable to be Iran. Or France. Or Germany. Or somebody. I mean, it's just layin' there, and I believe God intends for us to have it, pure and simple, or we wouldn't be there now.

THOLOS: That sounds kind of like Manifest Destiny.

JUBAL: Come again?

THOLOS: Manifest Destiny. It's an old term, meaning that basically everything we have was ours for the taking, sort of, by “devine right.” Like when we took the land from the Indians. Or when we defeated Mexico and acquired so much territory. Back then, just as we did with Iraq, we initiated the Mexican War by saying we had to overthrow an evil tyrant. But what we ended up with was a vast empire.

JUBAL: Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. But, basically, you know, I just think all of that is defeatist ideology. I mean, look, man, you're sittin' where you are and I'm sittin' where I am because our foredaddys had the gumption and the balls to kick a bunch of assholes out of here and annihilate the rest or round 'em up and stick 'em off in the desert somewhere. Okay? So that's a fact, right? So, what is all this complaining about kickin' some more assholes and getting our hands on the oil, before some other goons get hold of it? Huh? I mean, are we gonna get all moral all of a sudden and quit puttin' gas in our tanks? And if you and I had been around back when we raided the Indians sacred burial grounds and hauled out the gold from the Black Hills, and if somebody had handed you a big sack of that shiny shit, would you have turned it down? I doubt it.

THOLOS: So what are you saying?

JUBAL: I'm saying this is who we are, man! This is who we've always been! We've never been anything else! So, we might as well get with the program, and quit deluding ourselves. And I think that's why Bush has chosen to come straight out and level with us. No more lies, no secrets, no bullshit. See, I think he's figured somethin' out here, and that's why this is so unusual and so exciting. Because we've never had a President actually stand up, flat-footed, and say, “Fuck you. Yes, I'm spying on Americans. Yes, I'm detaining people without lawyers and trials. Yes, I'm torturing people. And yes, I'll do whatever in the sam-hell I have to do to overthrow evil and fulfill God's will. I'll break any law, I'll step on anybody that gets in my way to get the job done.”

THOLOS: Just like Dirty Harry?

JUBAL: You betcha.

IN HIS OWN WORDS

Sometimes you just can't do better than let ignorance drool out its own version of things. So, herewith, the actual response of your president and mine (God help us), to a question about the recent Medicare bill. Yes, this is for real:

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE: 'I don't really understand. How is the new plan going to fix the problem?'

PRESIDENT BUSH (Verbatum response):

Because the--all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those--changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be--or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the--like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate--the benefits will rise based upon inflation, supposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those--if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.'

And just think: this is the guy who has his finger on the nuclear trigger! Feeling safer yet?

From: DARKNESS

by Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went - and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires - and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings - the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire - but hour by hour
They fell and faded - and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash - and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless - they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; - a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought - and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails - men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh. . . .

THE OPPOSITE OF GOOD IS APATHY by Cindy Sheehan

"The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead." -- William Lloyd Garrison

The apathy of most of America is stunning and appalling to me. When I found this quote I was filled with wide-eyed wonder that there is one statue left in America complete with statue, or one grave or tomb still occupied.

On October 26th, as MoveOn.org was holding its candlelight vigils across the country to mourn the death of the 2000th American soldier in Iraq, I and two dozen others were being arrested in front of the White House protesting the carnage done in our name by the illegitimate residents therein.

Now, counting the 11 American soldiers who were pointlessly killed in George's unconscionable and brainless war of terror in the Middle East, the American "official" death toll is up to 2193: 200 more families ruined in less than three months!

My son Casey was in the first 1000 to be killed in Iraq. We reached that dismal mark by September 2004. MoveOn.org conducted candlelight vigils for that occasion. Then a little over a year later, MoveOn.org conducted candlelight vigils to commemorate the 2000th soldier.

If we don't get off of our collective apathetic and complacent backsides to stop the barbaric killing in Iraq, when will the next candlelight vigil be? George Bush and the evil neocons are killing our precious soldiers at the rate of 2.78 per day. By my calculations, we should be lighting our candles again and singing "Kum bah ya" by October.

This article is not intended to be an indictment of MoveOn.org, which does some amazing work and who were big supporters of Camp Casey. But my point is this, America: the longer we allow the illegitimate pretender to the White House and his conniving and callous gang of co-conspirators to continue, the more our collective humanity is damaged.

Apparently, candlelight vigils do very little to stop, or even slow down a little, the carnage committed by the war criminals in DC.

Then we have the unfortunate innocents of Iraq. I have heard reports of up to as many as 200 of them killed yesterday. So if 200 were reported, one has to really wonder what the true count was.

Bill O'Reilly and George Bush define a terrorist as someone who "kills innocent men, women and children." Am I the only one who sees the irony and stunning hypocrisy in this statement?" Who do Bill and George think are being killed in Iraq? A well-trained and organized Army? Terrorists? We all know that is false.

This is who is being killed in Iraq: living breathing human beings, identical to Americans or any other human beings on earth, who are just trying to go about their lives, trying to survive in a war-torn country that was no threat to America or our way of life.

"I would say 30,000 more or less have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," said George on December 12, 2005. Even if one accepts this very low guess-timate by George, his policies have been responsible for ten times the 3000 deaths on September 11, 2001. By his own admission, he is ten times the terrorist that Osama ever was. If George says 30,000 ... who knows what the truthful total is. It fills me with sorrow and hurts my heart to even contemplate the number.

America: this is what you are allowing your government to do in your name: Detain and torture prisoners without due process. Use chemical weapons on other members of humanity. Spy on Americans without a court order (I hope my conversations put them in a coma of boredom). Carpet bomb cities filled with human beings like yourselves.

Destroy the infrastructure of other countries. Destroy the infrastructure of American cities. Cut taxes on the rich while pouring money and blood into the thirsty sands of the Middle East. Decimate our treasury. Rape the environment. Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.

Hillary Clinton told me that the "wheels of government grind slowly." This is a tired cliche and it is unacceptable blather while the war machine is grinding the bones of our children. It is time for us wide-awake Americans to make our elected officials speed up the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

If I hear one more rendition of "We Shall Overcome" and then watch the vigilers or marchers go home and turn on their TVs and crack open a brewsky, content in the fact that they have done something for peace that day, I am going to scream! We can't overcome unless we take the proverbial bull by the horns and overcome!

Hold your vigils and marches in relevant places: such as warmongering local Congressional offices. So many Senators and Congresspeople come to mind. Or in front of a recruiting station. Or federal buildings. Or military bases. Then instead of going home and cracking open a beer, or uncorking a bottle of wine, sit down and say "we aren't leaving until you call for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq." Put your butt on the line for humanity.

Change will not happen until we make it happen. We can't make change happen by wishing or praying that it will happen.

We actually have to do something.


(This article is reprinted in its entirety, by permission, from Indy's Anti-War. They have our thanks. Our hat is tipped to Thomas Leavitt at Seeing The Forest, for the link. And most of all, we thank Cindy.)

THE LITTLE KING

Apparently, the pen that President Bush is using to sign bills into law is filled with disappearing ink. With the use of “signing statements,” he is asserting his right to either revise or completely ignore, if he chooses, anything he puts his name to. So far, he has done this with over 500 pieces of legislation, including the recent ban on torture, which he signed last month.

What's going on, here? For one thing, apparently, it seems the President now gets to pick and choose whatever laws he will obey. It also means our corruption is out in the open, now. For instance, when our government was still conducting “extraordinary renditions” (kidnapping), and torturing people in secret, we were entitled to hope that something might be done about it. Now, the President reserves the right to disregard the torture ban whenever it suits him. And he's saying it straight out.

He also says he has the right to spy on American citizens, which we just learned he's been doing for the past four years, in direct violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. He freely admits breaking the law and defies Congress to do anything about it. Bush's Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, appears to have no interest in investigating this crime, but seeks instead to ferret out and indict the leakers for exposing the criminal.

Question: Why hasn't this man been impeached? As I recall from my high school civics class, it's not all that easy to get bills passed through both houses of Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States. Why go to all that trouble, if he's just going to do whatever he feels like doing from now on? Come to think of it, what do we need all these congressmen for? Kind of a wasted expense, isn't it?

Is this what they meant when they said they wanted to “get the government off our backs?”

Some thirty years ago, another president—Richard Nixon—invoked almost the identical stock phrases and euphemisms that Bush and Cheney now employ to justify their lawbreaking. Phrases like, “national security” and that old chestnut, “executive privilege.”

Compared to Bush's list of crimes, the break-in and attempted wire-tap of the Democratic National Committee by Nixon's little gang of thugs now seems almost quaint. Yes, and he spied on us as well, through the same National Security Agency that Bush has been using. You can read all about it in Nixon's Articles of Impeachment.

The difference between that time and now is immense. In those days, the President found himself head to head with a real and viable Congress—both Democrats and Republicans—who took violations of the law seriously. The man who lead the charge was a feisty seventy-six-year-old senator from North Carolina, Sam Irvin. In his role as chairman of the Senate Watergate Committee, Irvin became something of a folk hero, spicing his questions of witnesses with equal parts of the Bible, the Constitution and Shakespeare. When it came to cross-examining stone-walling conspirators, such as H.R. Haldeman and John Erhlichman, Irvin's “b.s.” detector was always in play. You knew the whistles were going off when his eyebrows shot for the roof and his jowls trembled.

When Nixon initially refused to let his aides testify, citing “executive privilege,” Irvin snapped: “Divine Right went out with the American Revolution and doesn't belong to White House aides. What meat do they eat that makes them grow so great? I don't think we have any such thing as royalty or nobility that exempts them. That is not executive privilege. That is executive poppy-cock.”

Irvin said that Watergate for the first time sought to destroy the integrity of the process. “If the many allegations made to this date are true,” he said, “then the burglars who broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate were, in effect, breaking into the home of every citizen of the United States. What they were seeking to steal was not the jewels, money, or other precious property of American citizens, but something much more valuable—their right to vote in a free election.”

Irvin likened the mindset of Nixon's henchmen to the Gestapo. Referring to former Attorney General John Mitchell, and former White House aide, John Erhlichman, both convicted for their roles in the conspiracy, Irvin said, “I don't think either one of them would have recognized the Bill of Rights if they met it on the street in broad daylight under a cloudless sky.”

A pity there are no Sam Irvins in our current Congress. Thus far, they have either actively participated or else passively sat on their hands and watched while the Bush-Cheney “cabal” has looted and trashed the place.

If it is true that the law is now what the President says it is, then where does that leave us? It seems to me we are at a cross-road, very similar to the one Nixon brought us to. And what we are faced with is whether we will continue to have a government based on our old Constitution and existing laws and rights as “free citizens,” or if we will trade it in for something entirely new and different.

Richard Nixon once said, “When the President does it, that means it's not illegal.” And Congress answered. How will they answer now?

IMPEACH,...IMPEACH,...IMPEACH

"The same President who insists he has the authority to wiretap "enemies" without warrants, imprison "enemies" without hearings or lawyers" ..."even torture "enemies," said today that YOU are an enemy." --Dave Johnson, Seeing The Forrest

Johnson gives us a timely warning that our President looks upon dissent as disloyalty to the country. As the President sees it, this domestic unpleasantness lends "comfort to our adversaries", as it exposes his administration's illegal spying on Americans. I reprint an edited version of the comment I made at Seeing The Forest:

Bush does not strike an accidental posture, posing as the nation's savior, while at the same time, undermining its crucial liberties. He never was that subtle.--which didn't matter before--when so many Americans believed in his "sincerity". But now that he has overplayed his hand, he has, for the most part, lost the audience. At times, the President betrays himself. He comes across as the nation's most obscene joke. Bush has moments of mawkish, self parody, when he seems attuned to the fact that what he's saying is bullshit. And we hold this truth to be self-evident.

Perhaps the President is a sock puppet. Perhaps we have taken him too seriously. Which hands animate the presidential glove and provoke Bush's gestures? Who steers the ship of state while he is chainsawing brush with such frenetic energy? While the President is collecting cuts and bruises, who is handing out the marching orders?--dispensing favors?--bribing officials?--tapping phones?--subverting habeas corpus?

We may have to have an impeachment; if only to convince the Inner Circle that we are serious, that this Constitution of ours will continue to reflect our living political theatre, and thereby secure a governing consensus, which can again defend our laws against the lawless, and our civil liberties against the entrenched power which would belittle and sacrifice them.

WHAT WE HAVE

(a past post revised.)
by Grayson Harper

You feel something there. An irritation, a swelling. On your arm. On your neck. On your leg. Just there, under your sleeve, under your blouse. Each time you sit down or stand up, a nagging sensation you worry about during the day. Or when walking, your clothes chafe against it, repeatedly reminding you—just when you thought it was nothing. You want to get off somewhere alone, unfasten your clothes, have a look.

And then you find it, this thing, just there, perhaps, on the inside of your leg, the soft flesh of your thigh. Nothing much. Just a boil, a small one, the size of a pebble. Slightly yellow. Nothing you can’t handle with needle and antiseptic. Nothing that won’t clean up with ease.

So you lance it. And squeeze. And the little bulb oozes out, then dab with cotton. And poof! It’s gone.

But in the morning, after the cup of coffee, after the shower, you look down, and there it is. What you have. A little bigger now, a little more yellow. So, out with the needle, the antiseptic. And, just like that, it’s gone again.

But then, driving to work, you begin to think about it. Feel it inside your clothes when your foot presses the pedal. You shift around, trying to get comfortable. But it won’t leave you alone. At work, in the restroom, there it is, just the same. Only now, you have no needle or cotton. It will have to wait.

By noon it has grown. You think of mentioning it to someone; but you’re embarrassed, you don’t want to talk about it. On your lunch break, you stop at the drug store. Maybe you’ll tell the pharmacist, try to describe what you have. But his eyes, when he looks at you, seem like an accusation. Instead, you purchase needle, cotton, alcohol, and, tucking the sack in your coat, you leave in a hurry.

On your way back to the office, at a store window, you pause. There's a wide-screen TV you’ve been coveting for some time. Four thousand dollars. Too high. A clerk reaches into the window with a device and the TV pops on. It's the Congress in session. You stand there, watching, as a white-haired senator expounds on his position. His fist pounds the podium. But his voice is distorted by the glass, a sound almost animal-like, as if he were under water. You squint, trying to make out what he’s saying. At the bottom of the screen are the words: “WAR APPROPRIATIONS.” Beside him on an easel, sits a chart with a graph. The red line zigzags in one direction, the black line zigzags in another. The senator gesticulates, his finger slicing the air like a knife. And, then as you watch him, something curious seems to appear. Squinting to see, you move closer to the glass. And there it is, incredibly, a redness, a swelling, on the pale skin of his cheek.

Back at your office, in the restroom, the boil has grown to the size of a china berry.

And so it goes, day after day, the morning ritual, trying to make it go away, this thing that you have. But it keeps coming back, always the same, like an old habit. Even after lancing, it merely swells again, filling the empty sack before your eyes with dark, viscous fluid. So you frantically lance and dab. Lance and dab. . . .

And at night, tossing and turning in your sleep, you dream of an angry, a fevered furuncle, growing out of control, putrid yellow and green, taking over your leg, creeping up your body, enveloping your arms, your neck, your face. You see men and women lined up to speak, their faces corrupted with vicious red ulcers, words scrolling across the sky: WAR. . .WAR. . .WAR. . . . Paralyzed with fear, you lie there in a fever, drenched in sweat. By morning, you feel almost a weight on your leg. You want to reach down, search with your fingers, but dare not, afraid of what you will find.

Then, in the glare of the bathroom light, indeed, it has grown even larger, ever more hideous, your whole upper leg red and inflamed. There’s no stopping it.

At work, you think of calling a doctor, but it seems wrong, now. He won’t believe you. He will dismiss it, say it’s nothing, your imagination. You see your boss walk by. You almost call to him, but he’s in a hurry, you hesitate, and he’s gone. Perhaps your secretary, but today, she seems cold, indifferent. Your colleague walks in, drops a file on your desk, starts out. On impulse, you call him back. “Paul, have you got a minute--can we talk?” He turns, frowning. “What is it?” Distracted, unfriendly. You start to tell him. “Well, I have this friend. . .he has a boil. . .on his leg—“

“A what--?” Paul's face a scowl of revulsion.

“A boil. . . .”

“I have to finish a report.” He turns to go. And then, stunned, you see it. There, on the back of his neck—white gauze covering something unsightly, bulging. Horrified, you follow him to the outer office, where your secretary sits filling out forms. And you see it. A swelling on her arm, a pustule in the middle of an ominous red circle.

And you stand there, mute, watching, as others pass by, as they go about their business. They barely nod in your direction, they don’t speak, their eyes are unsmiling. And on each one, each one passing by, you see clearly, for the first time, what they have: red and inflamed, yellow with pus, on their arms, on their necks, on their faces.

LETTER TO HILLARY DILLARY

Dear Honorable Ms. Clinton:

I have received your “Critical National Issues Survey” and find it odd that nowhere is there any mention of the war in Iraq. Could it be because you stand with Bush and Cheney in support of that war, and in fact, wish to expand it?

Nor is there any mention of the fact that on the city of Fallujah alone, American bombers have thus far dropped almost five-hundred thousand tons of ordnance, or that we are bombing civilians with white phosperous, which basically melts human flesh down to the bone, leaving the clothes intact. Good. Perhaps Walmart (whose board you sat on for years) will be able to sell those clothes to the poor in New Orleans and turn a tidy profit.

Come to think of it, your survey makes no mention of New Orleans, either. Already forgotten, huh? Did you know that 80% of the loans to rebuild the houses of the homeless in New Orleans were turned down by FEMA? But hey, when you're spending $195 million a day on a pointless war, I guess there's not much left to build homes or levees or feed hungry people.

And nowhere in your survey is there any mention of the words, “torture” or “detainees.” No mention of the “Patriot Act.”

Excuse me, but what kind of “survey” is this? Is this for real? One almost gets the feeling that in your view, the items I've enumerated are not even worthy of consideration as “critical issues” in your so-called survey.

If ever there was a time for Democrats to find their spines and begin to stand for something real, surely the time is now. Yet, for the most part, you and the other corporate-financed Dems of our party are silent as bedbugs. Indictments are percolating all the way up to the White House, and nobody on our side of the aisle appears to have much to say.

Well, I will say it: this war is immoral, it is illegal, it was brought on by a pack of lies, and you and everyone up there knows it. If you had an ounce of courage, you'd be standing with Cindy Sheehan in the ditch in Crawford, instead of keeping a safe distance, leaving her and the Veterans for Peace to carry that burden by themselves. Shame on you. And on all of us.

I will not support a party or a candidate of that party that does not, from this day forward, commit to getting us out of this obscene war and bringing our troops home—within the coming year, not some time in the dim future.

I will not support anyone who does not take a firm and vocal stand against this war and those who perpetrated it.

That our Congress, sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, could tolerate for this many years the lawlessness of this administration, certainly is viewed by the rest of the world as a stain on our country. I believe most historians will write it that way, and in fact, are already starting to do so.

Do you really want to be associated with the Bushes, Rumsfelds and Cheneys of this world? Or do you want to be one of the few that historians will look back on and remember in a different way?

Sign me:

Not Interested In Republican-Lite Candidates.

EUGENE McCARTHY,...FAREWELL BROTHER

"For nearly 20 years, before the test of 1968, I had emphasized, especially in talking to students, the need for a revived sense of vocation in modern society. I had emphasized that acceptance of professional status carries special responsibilities and obligations, including the obligation to take risks; and that we should expect politicians, if the issue is important enough, to show a similar sense of profession, and to understand the obligation to take political risks when necessary."

"At all times, but especially in 1968, and again, if it is possible, especially now, the role of the Presidency must be one of uniting this nation, not of adding it up or putting it together as a kind of odd-sized jigsaw puzzle. To unify this nation means to inspire it. We need to develop a sense of character in the nation with common purposes and shared ideals, and then move on as best we can to achieve limited or great progress toward establishing a sense of justice."

For young people who grew up as I did in the 1960s, Gene McCarthy was our voice crying in the wilderness. He was able to articulate the immorality of the war in Vietnam, and he had the courage to do so. He was not flamboyant; he was fearless. There was a wonderful resonance of courage in his voice, and in his speeches we heard a paring down of issues to their essence, and a clarity that lifted our spirits.

And he was a US senator, an older guy and a member of "The Establishment". But when McCarthy declared that he would challenge President Lyndon Johnson in the Democratic Primaries in 1968, it certainly required a lot of nerve. McCarthy understood that the issue of the war was fundamental; the risk of dividing the Party was an essential choice. Our Gene McCarthy sugar-coated nothing and he was a leader for those who opposed the Vietnam War. He was both pragmatic and capable of fine moral judgement, full of poetry and integrity. He raised the whole level of debate and would not accept injustice. The sense of the reality of the war in 1960's Vietnam had just slipped away from the Johnson White House; and Gene McCarthy understood that this was what had happened. Bush's Iraq War is an example of this same kind of fracture between political goals and reality.

In recent years, McCarthy aptly described George W. Bush and his associates as "bullies", with the political instinct to "bully everything"; and as recently as 2003, McCarthy warned

"A Democratic Party that can win but forgets the disenfranchised people of the country is a hollow party that wins hollow victories. And that's what we have now."

It was especially sad to hear of the death of Eugene McCarthy over this past weekend. This is because many of my generation loved him. There is no stronger or finer friend than the one who has seen you through a storm and given you courage. Farewell brother. Thank you for everything.