By Jack Rafter
(The continuing saga of a homeless man and his dog.)
No. 9. Vincent Takes Ill And I Get A Little Work
Dear Mr. Mowgli: Well, it’s been awhile since I put anything in here. And now the election is almost upon us and I hardly know where to begin. First off, I lost my diary for awhile there, but then I got it back. And then, Vincent took sick and almost died. I didn’t know what was wrong with him. He just sank down and wouldn’t eat anything for a whole week. Then, I noticed he was picking up his right front foot when he walked. I was starting to worry.
So, I took him to the vet. His name is Thiu Pampano. He’s Vietnamese, about forty years old. I hadn’t seen Dr. Pampano in a long time, so my being homeless was news to him. Vincent was new to him, too. I used to have a German shepherd named Mike. That was before I lost my home and everything, but my wife took him when we divorced. Dr. Pampano said he was awful sorry to hear about my troubles. He offered me money, which I declined. He told me he had taken up acupuncture and was having some pretty good luck using it on animals.
After examining Vincent’s leg, he said he believed it was paralyzed. I said how could his leg be paralyzed? Dr. Pampano said he thought it was psychological. He asked me if I thought Vincent was worried about anything. I said I didn’t know. He wanted to know where Vincent came from. I told him he was a foundling from the freight yards. “Ah,” said Dr. Pampano, “maybe Vincent is jittery from being around freight trains.”
“Maybe so,” I said.
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” he shrugged.
Dr. Pampano got Vincent to lie down on his side, then he bent over him, stroking him gently on the head, and talked quietly in his ear. Vincent soon closed his eyes and just went right under. It was amazing. Dr. Pampano applied needles to Vincent’s leg for the paralysis, and his lungs, to clear out the congestion. Then, he put on some soothing flute music played by Navajo Indians, and let Vincent sleep for awhile. About an hour later, he removed the needles and woke the dog up. Vincent got up and immediately started walking around on all four legs. He was wagging his tail and he acted hungry for the first time in days. Dr. Pampano put a scoop of dry dog food in a plastic bowl. Vincent commenced to drool. The doctor set the food on the floor, and Vincent lapped it right up.
“I think your dog is better, now, Jack.”
I couldn’t believe it. It was like a miracle or something. All I had on me was five dollars, but I offered it to Dr. Pampano. He just waved his hand and said, “No charge. It was an experiment.”
So now I’m a confirmed believer in acupuncture.
* * * *
Vincent and I spent the whole summer in Red Dunkel’s tent in the woods by the freight yard. Red’s a Vietnam veteran. For about a year, now, he’s been having stomach problems. I think the Boone’s Farm finally caught up with him. So about a month ago, he hopped a freight for Phoenix, headed for the V.A. Hospital, there, thinking maybe they could help him out. I hope he made it all right.
I told him to write me a letter and send it to “General Delivery,” but so far, I haven’t found any letters from him. I think he has a sister living in Phoenix, so maybe he’s moved in with her and got squared away. If so, it’ll be one less homeless veteran. I heard that something like forty-percent of Vietnam veterans are homeless. Forty goddamn percent! Imagine that.
Ran into Phil Brumley the other day, another homeless vet--from the Gulf War days, younger than Red, of course. Phil was just coming out of the library. He spends a lot of time in there surfing the net—says it’s the only way you can find out what’s happening anymore. The newspapers don’t tell you anything, he says. He was spitting mad when he came out of there, almost knocked me over. I asked him what was wrong, and he said that Congress had just voted to cut veterans’ funding by nearly 25 billion dollars over the next ten years.
This was the day after they passed a resolution to “Support Our Troops.” Phil shook his head. “I can’t believe they’d do such a thing,” he said.
He took a handkerchief out of his trousers and wiped his face. Phil’s a huge man, shaped like a bear, and he had broken out in a sweat. Looking at him, I thought he must have been pretty impressive when he was in top condition, decked out in crisp new fatigues with a big ol’ automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Now, he has nightmares and can’t sleep at night. He’s got a big paunch, his hands tremble all the time, and his voice quavers when he talks, like Johnny Cash.
I told him about Red going off to Phoenix to get checked out. Phil shook his head again. “Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t hold out much hope for ol’ Red. Unless he’s already in the system, the Vet’s hospital is gonna start charging $250 to give treatment. A lot of ‘em are closing their doors. The Bush people have ordered ‘em to stop publicizing the kinds of assistance they offer, so a lot of vets won’t even know what’s available to ‘em, now. And on top of that, a lot of vets are losing their disability pensions.”
Phil growled a little, and actually showed his teeth. But a tear leaked from his eye. “Those fuckers!” he said. “Those motherfuckers! I hate those god damn fuckers!” His anger just spewed out of him, and his voice quivered even more, like a child who’s been punished for something he didn’t do.
“I gotta go, Jack,” he said, trying not to look at me. “See you later.” And off he went, stalking across the clean mowed lawn, head down, staring at the ground as he walked. He just looked like a big old boy.
* * * * *
Later that day, I went down to the Labor Pool and picked up some work cleaning a big vacant lot near down town. It was a construction company that hired me for the job, along with two other guys—Blankenship Construction. They had their representative down at the Labor Pool, a man named Tom Thistlewaite. Middle-aged, overweight. The weather was hot and his sweat smelled of beer. He had on a rumpled suit, tie loose at the neck and his white shirt was actually wet. He had a little flag pin in his lapel. Just looking at him at first, I was pretty sure he was going to be a hard-ass. But he was actually rather soft-spoken and seemingly polite. I figured he was saving his true colors for when we got out on the job. Just doesn’t want to scare us off, I thought. He talked to us a minute, describing the job a little, then told us to come back early in the morning and he would drive us to the job site.
Next morning, it was still dark and cool when I struggled out of my bedroll. I didn’t have anything to eat but a piece of cornbread, so that was breakfast. Blackeyed peas left over from the night before, I put in a pan for Vincent, left him to mind the “house”, and set out walking for downtown. You’d think he’d try to follow me, but he didn’t. He’s good that way. All I have to do is say, “Stay here, Vincent. Guard the house.” And he does it, no questions asked. He’s a good kid. Sometimes, to be honest, I don’t know what I’d do without him.
I followed the tracks downtown and made it to the Labor Pool by six-thirty, the only lighted place in a row of grim, dark, closed up buildings. Even with its lights on, there’s nothing appealing or cheerful about it. Nothing but a way-station for burned out failures. Twenty or so disheveled looking men stood around inside and outside waiting to go off to various jobs. They smoked and jabbered and sipped coffee from little white Styrofoam cups.
I stepped inside, and found the Bunn coffeemaker just burning the dregs. I poured it off and made half a cup, then went outside and found my two associates squatting against the building, talking in low tones over their cups. We introduced ourselves. One was a black fella, called himself Delbert, about twenty years old, big and muscular, very handsome, almost looked out of place there. The other one was a white guy, Greg, tall and lean, with somewhat long, greasy sandy hair.
Greg wore a big gauze bandage on his forehead, still white and clean. I asked him what happened. He said he was standing on the street near the night shelter with some other guys last night, waiting for the doors to open, when some drunk walked up to him and accused him of stealing his picture.
“His what?” I said.
Greg smiled. “That’s exactly what I said. ‘What picture you talkin’ about, fella?’ And the fella says, ‘You know the one. It’s the picture of my wife. You stole my wife’s picture. Now, you give it over right now or I’m gonna box your ears.’ Well, I just laughed when he said that. I mean, he was at least a head shorter than me, and he was soused and bobbin’ all over the place, so I didn’t take him seriously. And so I says, ‘Well, I don’t have your picture, fella, and I don’t know you or your wife, so why don’t you just git your ass away from here and leave me the hell alone.’ And I kinda pushed him a little, I guess, ‘cause he was standin’ there breathin’ on me, and he stank like a shithouse in a barroom. Well, all of a sudden he hauls off and bops me one in the head, and damn if the little rat-fucker didn’t knock me flat to the ground. Shit, I didn’t know what hit me at first, it was so sudden, I was seein’ stars. I thought somethin’ musta fell outta the sky. Once I got my bearings and could see straight again, I noticed he had a big rock in his hand.”
“A rock?” said Delbert.
“Yep, a rock. Then, I felt somethin’ wet in my eye, and reached up to wipe my head and then I saw my hand was covered in blood. Well, I kinda went crazy, I guess, felt steam comin’ out my eyes, and I said, ‘Goddamn, you little bastard--!’ I think he knew I was gonna kill him if I could just get up, ‘cause right then, he let go that rock, and lit out. I got up to chase him, but I was so dizzy I just fell down again. Luckily, some guys lifted me up and carried me into the shelter. And then one of the shelter people gave me a lift over to the Mercy Hospital, and they stitched me up.”
“You got stitches?” I said.
“Yeah, four stitches! You believe that? And it took ‘em all night to get to me. I almost didn’t make it to the job this mornin’.”
“No shit?” Delbert said.
“No shit, man. I just came from there. Practically ran all the way, with my head like this. Jesus! I don’t know if I can last an hour out there, but I need to make some money.”
Delbert shook his head. “Man, that’s rough.”
Light was beginning to come into the sky and we could all see each other a little better. Just then, the boss pulled up to the curb in his big shiny blue pickup. This morning, he had on a sport coat, no tie, and a brand new straw cowboy hat. “You boys ready to go to work?” he said. We said yes and got up and started for the truck. He handed Greg a bag with a big red “M” on it and said, “What happened to your head?”
“Aw, just a little scrape,” Greg replied. “It’s nothin’.”
“You sure you can work with that?”
“Yes, sir, I can work. I’m fine, really. Never felt better.” Tom Thistlewaite jabbed his thumb toward the back and we hopped in.
On the way to the site, we had two Egg McMuffins apiece, bananas, and fresh coffee, not the labor pool dregs. It was enough to give us a whole new feeling about the day, and about the boss, too.
We drove to the eastern edge of downtown and stopped in front of a big lot on Baxter Street. The lot was hemmed in on three sides by big brown anonymous buildings. The three of us choked when we saw the lot. It was just a pure disaster, full of construction debris and garbage of every description. We climbed down from the back and Tom Thistlewaite got out. There was another truck parked in front of us. A young guy got out, walked around to the back and dropped the gate. It was full of tools—shovels, rakes, three pair of work gloves and three wheelbarrows.
We got all the stuff out and laid it on the sidewalk, then we stood there gawking at the lot. Now, I could see why Tom Thistlewaite was so soft-spoken. He didn’t need to scare us. The work was scary enough. There were piles of dirt and rocks, concrete rubble and rebar, black asphalt, torn tarpaper, roofing and sheetrock, broken bricks, broken glass, broken lumber, paint cans, and just the kind of generic trash you might see in any urban open lot, blown there by the wind or thrown or dumped in the middle of the night by passersby. There were several old aluminum lawn chairs with shredded plastic webbing, a beat up bark lounger, a big red sofa with springs and stuffing popping out of ragged holes.
And huddled in the middle of all this desolation were three lone trees, a little juniper, a deformed scrub oak, and a fair sized elm; they were a ragged and pitiful trio, besieged on all sides by garbage.
Thistlewaite studied our grim faces and smiled. “Now, don’t let this little job throw you,” he said. “You got three days to clean it up. If that’s not enough time, we’ll see what we can do, but we need you to clean it right down to the ground. Just work steady and work together. Fill your wheelbarrows and throw everything in that dumpster, there.” He pointed at a black dumpster parked at the curb.
“Why don’t you just get a bulldozer?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Well, I was gonna do that, but ours is bein’ overhauled. Meanwhile, we need to make some headway on this place, so we hired you. Ain’t you lucky?”
We smiled sheepishly. In the back of Tom’s truck sat a big orange water cooler with a cup dispenser on the side. He dropped the gate and Delbert and I slid it to the edge. “Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna leave this truck here with the water cooler, and I’ll be back at noon with your lunch. Let’s see how far you can get before then. Any questions?”
We shook our heads. He pointed at the cab. “There’s more bananas and apples in yonder, if you need a snack. Make sure you drink plenty of water. I don’t wanna come back here and find somebody passed out on a pile of bricks. Good luck, boys. See you later.”
Then, he and the young guy got in the other pickup and drove off. We stood there a moment. Then, in unison, we each picked up a shovel, a rake and grabbed a wheelbarrow and moved toward the lot. We didn’t have to go far before we hit the first pile, which was mostly brick and rock, five feet wide by three feet high. We all agreed to follow Tom’s advice and work together, so we went to work, filling the wheelbarrows from the same pile, then wheeling them over to the dumpster and emptying them out.
We trudged along for an hour or so, but without any real pep. You might say we were just pacing ourselves to get through the day, but you’d be wrong. Truth is we were intimidated by the work, so we had no enthusiasm. It dawned on me that if we kept working at that pace, we wouldn’t really be saving energy, just letting it all out like the air from an inner tube. It was the same dilemma I saw in a movie one time. The movie was Cool Hand Luke, and it was one of the best pictures I ever saw. Maybe you remember it. Paul Newman, as Luke, gets himself thrown into a state prison somewhere in the South. At least, that’s what it looks like on the surface. But it’s really about a total non-conformist, someone who refuses to recognize the rules of society or take orders from bosses or anyone else. And what the movie says will happen to that person is that society will eventually squash him like a bug.
Anyway, there’s this scene in Cool Hand Luke when he and the other convicts are out on work detail one hot day, shoveling gravel down a long straight road. The pace is set by “No Eyes,” the lead guard, whose face is forever hidden behind mirrored sunglasses—the cold, anonymous face of the State; No Eyes is a crack shot with a deer rifle, who hardly ever utters a word. He walks down the road swinging his cane, ahead of the line of men, who must try to keep up. And, of course, at first, it’s just a steady burn, the road seems to stretch forever, the men are quiet and grim-faced as they trudge along. But then, something happens. Luke instinctively knows the men are intimidated by the work and the guards; he can read the defeat in their faces.
So, at that moment, he turns to them, whispering excitedly, to come on, pick up the pace. “Let’s pass No Eyes,” he says to them, suggesting the quicker they get done, they’ll have the rest of the day to lie in the weeds and relax.
And, of course, it works. Suddenly, the men are galvanized like never before, especially at the thought of passing up the murderous guard, which had never occurred to them. So now the pace picks up, the men march forward, swinging their shovels, furiously throwing gravel down on the road. We see shovels rhythmically stabbing gravel and slinging it down. We see faces lit up, eyes ablaze with new life. Now, in this moment, they’re free, alive, sweeping ever forward, all eyes pinned to the indifferent back of the guard as they begin to close the gap between them. And then comes the moment—almost like magic—when they realize they’ve actually caught him, and as they overtake him and brush on by, we can almost see through the mirrors at the stunned eyes watching the convicts around him all laughing riotously, no longer defeated. And we can see that what really irks him in that moment is the awareness that he is no longer in control, he no longer owns these men.
So as we finished emptying another load in the dumpster, I was thinking about Cool Hand Luke. Then, I got to looking at the three lone trees marking the middle of the lot, and suddenly, I had an idea. Turning to the others, I said, “Let’s make those trees our goal.”
Delbert looked up, sweat dripping from his forehead. “What do you mean?” he said.
“We’ll work in a circle—all the way around ‘em, till they’re free. We’ll liberate those boys. What do you say?”
Both men smiled. “Sounds good to me,” said Greg.
“Count me in,” said Delbert.
So the trees became our goal. And just like in the movie, suddenly, we were energized. It was really strange, but from then on, we worked furiously, as if we were on a mission, a larger reason to do the work than just ridding a non-descript lot of years of debris. We were driven. We went from one pile to the next, working clockwise around the trees. Sometimes when a barrow got too heavy with rock and broken brick, two of us would get on it, one on each handle, and steer it over to the dumpster. It was kind of funny and strange how we three strangers seemed to meld together. We all noticed it, I think, because, every so often, we’d be in the middle of some task, and look at each other, and just grin. Or even break out laughing. We were actually enjoying the work. In fact, it even ceased to be like work. It was Delbert who first spoke of it. We were back at the dumpster, working a mile a minute, all three of us, huffing and puffing, and suddenly Delbert paused, and said, “Hey, you guys, look at us!” We stopped and looked. Delbert smiled, shaking his head. “We just a workin’ machine!”
Greg said, “Yeah, we somethin’, all right. My head’s about to split, and I don’t even give a shit.”
“Those trees are waitin’,” I said.
“Let’s go,” said Delbert. And off we went again.
Still, it was slow going. If you pictured the whole lot with its trees in the middle being a clock face, by noon, we’d only cleared out maybe an hour’s worth of trash and rubble. But that hour that we cleared out was nice and smooth, clean to the ground. When Tom Thistlewaite showed up with our lunch and surveyed the work, he was pleased. He gave a little sharp whistle. “Whew. You boys been humpin’ it, ain’t you?” he said. We smiled and looked at the ground. Thistlewaite whistled again. “Well, gonna take more than three days to do this job, I can see that right now. Gonna take a week, easy. But at least, I got three guys ain’t afraid of a little work.”
He went in his truck and came out with a grocery sack full of food. He handed it to me, then, he looked at his watch. “Okay, I want you to take an hour for lunch, then get going again. I don’t imagine you’ll get as much done as you did this morning, but just do the best you can. I’ll be back at five and take you to the labor pool, so you can sign out.” Then, he got in his truck and turned and looked at us. He actually winked, and said, “Good work, fellas!” And then he drove off.
We crossed the street and sat under the awning of a warehouse to eat our lunch. Mr. Thistlewaite had brought us cold cuts, a loaf of wheat bread, some sharp cheddar cheese, spicy brown mustard, mayonase and red-tipped lettuce. We found a jar of pickles, more bananas and oranges, a big can of V-8 and a big bottle of grape juice. He had brought along an ice chest to keep our fixings fresh. The guy thought of everything. And I was so sure he was going to be an asshole. Well, it just goes to show you can’t always judge a book by its cover.
We finished lunch in about thirty minutes. We all agreed if we sat too long after eating, we might start to get sleepy, so we got up and walked back across the street. As we stood over our wheelbarrows, Greg clicked his tongue and said, “Hmp.”
“What is it?” I said.
“Just thinkin’ about somethin’ Thistlewaite said before he left.”
“What’s that?”
“Said we probably won’t get as much done as we did this morning.”
Delbert smiled. “Yeah, I heard him say that, too.”
“Why do you think he said that?” I said.
“I don’t know,” said Greg, “but I think maybe we need to prove him wrong.”
Delbert and I looked at each other and nodded agreement. Then, we picked up our shovels and got down to business.
That afternoon, we worked with a fury. By five o’clock, we had a whole new section cleaned out—at least an hour on the clock-face, plus a little more. When Thistlewaite showed up, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Just kept shaking his head. “Well, I never,” he said. In fact, must have said it two or three times.
He drove us back to the Labor Pool and told us to be there same time next morning. And so we were.
And so it went, and we ended up working a whole week cleaning the lot on Baxter Street. And we skinned that lot down to the ground. It took three dumpsters to hold what we cleaned up.
On the last day, we actually finished around three o’clock. After we dumped the last pile, we just stood on the sidewalk awhile surveying our handiwork. The lot was clean as a pin, and the trees stood out free and unencumbered. We thought we could hear them thanking us. The breeze seemed to blow through them in a different way. At last, we strolled over and sat down under them. Luckily, one of us thought to bring the snacks, ‘cause once we sat down, I doubt if anybody would have felt like walking back to the truck.
Amazingly, the grass there was still green, and there was yet a layer of grass over the whole lot, even though most of it had been buried for a long time, and there were quite a few dead spots and weeds and stickers and thistles; but minus all the debris, we thought it looked pretty good, and as we sat there quietly looking, it suddenly came to me that we were very proud of our work.
We were sitting there looking pretty relaxed when Tom Thistlewaite drove up at five o’clock. He got out and walked over to us. He just looked amazed. I don’t think he knew what to say. He took off his straw hat as he walked up. “Well,” he said. “Well. Wow. This is--. Wow.” He paused. Then, he said, “Well, your checks are waitin’ for you.”
As we got up, I realized for the first time, how sore I was. We all groaned a little as we climbed up in the truck. I noticed as we drove off, all three of us were watching the little lot disappear in the distance. We were about to get paid. We should have been happy, I guess, but nobody said anything. Funny how you get attached to a place, no matter how homely it is—when you’ve worked on it awhile, when you’ve swept it out and made it your own.
I thought about all the grungy forgotten lots in all the big cities. I thought what if all you had to do to lay claim to them was to go in and clean them up, love them a little—plant trees, flowers; put in a garden, perhaps, some flagstone paths and maybe a bench for folks to sit on. And once you’ve done that, then that lot becomes the peoples’ property, and nobody else can claim it, no developers can come along and build on it.
A few days ago, Vincent and I were walking down Baxter Street on our way to Johnny Blair’s Café. We walked clear past the place where Delbert, Greg and I had worked so hard for a week, and got to the next corner before I realized where I was. Then we turned around and went back and looked. It was a four-story parking garage. The juniper, the oak and the elm were gone.
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
THE FIRECRACKER MAN
My friend, Benny H— and I had lunch today at Luby’s. Benny sells firecrackers. Has a huge firecracker stand just up the road from a small town northwest of here. It’s not one of those big new steel buildings with air conditioning in it, which are gradually taking over all the firecracker business in the country. Pretty soon, Benny thinks firecrackers will go the way of everything else and end up in the hands of Walmart, and all the little guys like him will be out of business.
But for now, Benny’s stand is the old style wooden structure, with hatches that open in the front, where people walk up, swatting the bugs away from their faces, and pick out their fireworks. Over five or six years, Benny’s fireworks stand has grown from a single-hatch structure roughly eight feet long, to one with six hatches that is probably fifty feet long, festooned with lights and little triangle flags fluttering in the breeze. He has cornered the firecracker business in his little neck of the woods.
Benny’s about sixty years old, his beard is thick and grizzled. He walks around in a squat compact body with a paunch that comes of being addicted to key lime pies and black forest cake. He is not your average firecracker salesman. Not that I know what your average firecracker salesman is like, but, for some reason, I don’t believe they tend to be yellow dog Democrats with the word “Peace” emblazoned on their gimme caps, or sporting buttons on their shirts that say things like, “He Lied They Died,” and “I didn’t vote for his daddy either.” And I seriously doubt very many firecracker salesmen would call themselves agnostics, or be caught red-handed attending services at the Unitarian church.
Before the Iraq war broke out, Benny and I took the train to San Francisco and marched in the big peace parade. A month later, we got in his old car and drove to D.C. and marched in that one. I think I’ve about gone broke marching for peace over the last couple of years, but I just felt like I had to do it.
Benny doesn’t hesitate to offer his opinions about things, especially politics. Once he gets revved up, he transmogrifies into something like three parts stump preacher and one part auctioneer. When he really gets going, his eyes water, his nose runs and flames shoot out of his head. It’s quite a sight, really. At that point, people tend to steer a wide circle around him. Women gather up their children and run the other way.
Nor is Benny afraid to tell certain people in the Republican camp what he thinks of them. Back when the Neocons in the Texas Lege were in the midst of their redistricting fiasco, lead by Governor Perry, Tom Delay, and various other hammerheads, you may remember that fifty-plus Democrats hopped a bus to Ardmore, Oklahoma in an effort to prevent a quorum and obstruct the vote. For four days, the “Killer D’s,” as they became known, hunkered down in a Holiday Inn, subsisting on fast food from the nearby Denny’s. Delay, who is now under investigation for a truckload of criminal shenanigans, called out the state troopers and even tried to shanghais the Department of Homeland Security to help round up the wayward Dems.
When a group of Republican hecklers showed up at the motel, a rag-tag assortment of Democratic supporters, including Benny, drove up to show their solidarity with the Killer D’s. Benny said he was standing with his little group, facing an angry horde of Repubs, some of whom had even brought their children with them to heckle and hurl insults at the Texas lawmakers.
At one point, Benny broke ranks and walked over close to one of the shouters, a guy dressed in a blue blazer, Sanzibelt slacks and Florsheim shoes. He had a scowl on his face. Several kids were standing close to him, Benny said, and even they were dressed in nice little shirts and ties and leather shoes. They, too, had scowls on their faces and stood there shouting, just like the grownups.
“Where you from?” Benny said to the guy in the blue blazer.
Blazer blinked, looking kind of nonplussed. “Dallas,” he responded. “Where you from?”
“Aw, I’m from down around there.” Benny paused, looking from the blazer to the kids, all forming a little chorus line. Suddenly, he said, “Say, where’d you get all these baby bigots?”
Benny said the guy kind of came unglued, huffing and gasping for breath. Couldn’t seem to get a word out. Benny chuckled, turned and walked back to his group.
After we ate at Luby’s, we went driving around in his pickup, an old Chevy Apache with mismatched fenders. As we cruised through some of the wealthier neighborhoods, I said, “Something odd’s going on here.”
“What’s that?” Benny said.
“Well, where are all the yard signs for the Republicans?”
I just wasn’t seeing as many this year—or bumper stickers, either, for that matter. I don’t think it’s my imagination. I’ve really been watching this phenomenon—if that’s the right word. Maybe it doesn’t rate being called a “phenomenon” quite yet. But I do know that in past campaigns, you couldn’t drive through these Taxed-Less neighborhoods without seeing one Republican sign after another.
On the other hand, I pointed to quite a few Kerry/Edwards signs—even in front of some of the wealthiest homes. We both agreed they looked sort of strange there, as if some alien virus had broken out.
“So what do you think it means?” I said, referring to the low number of Republican signs.
Benny said, “Aw, well, don’t get your hopes up. Nothing’s changed. They’re still gonna vote for the bastards. They just don’t necessarily want to advertise it, that’s all.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Well, because by now, I think most people can see what rats Bush and Cheney actually are. At least people with any sense can see it. Especially after the first debate, where Bush finally had to go up against somebody who had all the facts, and could stand up straight and tell the truth about this war, not only because Kerry’s obviously light years smarter than Bush, but because he was actually in a war, while Bush was out running around getting drunk, terrorizing people in his car, and shirking his National Guard duty. So, there he was on national TV, flying without a script, without Rice or Rove or Cheney there holding his hand—and let’s face it, all that preening and prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier just comes off hollow as hell when you’re standing alongside a real war veteran—and after all the stumbling and stammering through his memorized sound bytes, well, Bush just looked like a big kid with a cowlick, without a lick of sense. And anybody that tuned into that debate could see that for themselves. Unless they’re as dumb as he is. In which case, you could put a jackass in front of ‘em and they’d still swear it was a cutting horse. So—“ Benny scratched his head. “What was I saying?”
“You were saying they’re gonna vote for Bush, even if they don’t put out yard signs.”
“Oh, sure, of course! All these Republicans around here are gonna vote for their boy—it’s like they’re sayin’, 'Well, he may be a doofus, but he’s our doofus.' See what I mean? But some of ‘em—well, maybe even most of ‘em—still have a tiny smidgen of decency left in 'em, even though it’s buried pretty deep—you know a lot of ‘em probably voted for Eisenhower, and he was a very decent man, a towering war hero. Old Ike would have been appalled at the cretins that are in charge now. So all these folks around here have got just enough sense to be slightly ashamed, but not enough to do what’s right. It’s like masturbation. They’re still gonna do it, they just don’t want everybody knowing they’re gonna do it, see? Heh heh. Hee hee hee.”
“I see,” I said.
What I can’t see is what the payoff is. After all, it seems to me that if anybody oughta be truly scared of this administration, it oughta be rich people. So maybe they don’t give a rat’s ass that Bush lied about WMD’s, that Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, are all liars, who have turned the whole civilized world against us, and maybe they don’t care that young Americans are dying and getting maimed for no good reason. And maybe they think all those Iraqi men, women and children getting slaughtered on the other side, is just fine and dandy.
But that still leaves us with self-interest. What’s happened to that? Rich people still want to make money, don’t they? And I suppose they still want to live in big houses with swimming pools, and have their Hummers and their cell phones and their Hispanic housekeepers; and they still want their sons to grow up to become rich fat cats like Daddy, and they want their daughters to join sororities and marry rich white boys, like Mommy; and I know they’re not ready to stop using up the world’s water supply watering their golf courses and their voracious lawns. Yet, they go right on supporting this Kamikaze President that is leading the country straight into a pit of bankruptcy, whose program of perpetual war will only continue the process of breaking the country, and destabilizing the world. Meanwhile, the death and destruction we’re visiting on Iraq will go on generating more terrorists, not fewer, thereby increasing the chances that we'll be attacked again.
It doesn’t take an economic guru to figure out what effect all this craziness and instablity is likely to have on the U.S. stock market—perhaps for years to come. In fact, if we continue driving insanely down this road, the whole notion of the market as being a dependable investment strategy over the long-term may be finished. Of course, most of us normal people could give a fuck less about that. The rest of us are too busy dealing with every day reality, like trying to pay the water bill when the car breaks down and the kid gets sick and there’s no health insurance and you’re trying to make ends meet on a paycheck from Walmart.
But I just keep wondering why all these rich people are voting for Republicans, when they have so much more to lose than the rest of us. They’re not all crazy, are they?
Well, there’s plenty of poor people voting the same way, which really is the flip-side of the mystery, almost as mysterious as why the Log Cabin Homos are hanging out in the enemy’s camp, where they’re hated and reviled. What is it with all these folks going around shooting themselves in the foot? What is the payoff?
“I’ll tell you what it is,” says Benny. “The payoff is this. They get to keep their illusions. The illusions are more important than reality. It’s the illusion that they’re winning even when all the facts are telling them they’re losing. It’s the illusion that God, gays and guns matter more than education, health care and a living wage. Most of them have never been winners in their lives. Especially the Evangelicals. Now, for the first time, they’ve got a president who does their bidding, actually panders to them. Imagine that! The leader of the free world actually validating all their craziness! So you’ve got the corporations getting everything they want, the polluters are having a field day; Bush has fired all the scientists, so there’s no global warming to worry about; Halliburton is making a billion a month in Iraq; we can run amok in the world and there’s no World Court that can rein us in; in short, every cross-eyed, gap-toothed lunatic and money-grubbing greedhead in the land has moved to the front of the line. The only ones left out, as far as I know, are believers in Sasquatch, UFOs and Star Trekkies. Well, the only thing they lack that all these other crackpots have are lobbyists. Ah, give ‘em time.”
Benny paused a moment to chuckle and catch his breath. We drove along past manicured lawns and stately homes. Then, I heard Benny chuckling again. “Did you know the Republican National Committee has sent out a mailer to residents of Arkansas and West Virginia telling them that liberals would seek to ban the Bible if elected?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that,” I said.
“You need to keep up Harper. These sharks never sleep. Karl Rove works around the clock. The Evangelicals are telling their minions to vote ‘Christian,’ i.e., vote for Bush. Meanwhile, the Pope has weighed in, ordering all the members of his flock not to vote for any candidate that supports abortion rights. Yessir, they’ve decided that God is a Republican. And Ken Lay is the new Jesus. Only, instead of giving up his own life so that others could be free, Kenny Boy sacrificed all his worker’s lives, so that he and his disciples could grow rich and fat.”
Once again, Benny sighed and shook his head. “I tell you, religion hasn’t been this fucked up since the Salem witch trials.”
By the time we got through driving around worrying about everything, it was time to eat again.
But for now, Benny’s stand is the old style wooden structure, with hatches that open in the front, where people walk up, swatting the bugs away from their faces, and pick out their fireworks. Over five or six years, Benny’s fireworks stand has grown from a single-hatch structure roughly eight feet long, to one with six hatches that is probably fifty feet long, festooned with lights and little triangle flags fluttering in the breeze. He has cornered the firecracker business in his little neck of the woods.
Benny’s about sixty years old, his beard is thick and grizzled. He walks around in a squat compact body with a paunch that comes of being addicted to key lime pies and black forest cake. He is not your average firecracker salesman. Not that I know what your average firecracker salesman is like, but, for some reason, I don’t believe they tend to be yellow dog Democrats with the word “Peace” emblazoned on their gimme caps, or sporting buttons on their shirts that say things like, “He Lied They Died,” and “I didn’t vote for his daddy either.” And I seriously doubt very many firecracker salesmen would call themselves agnostics, or be caught red-handed attending services at the Unitarian church.
Before the Iraq war broke out, Benny and I took the train to San Francisco and marched in the big peace parade. A month later, we got in his old car and drove to D.C. and marched in that one. I think I’ve about gone broke marching for peace over the last couple of years, but I just felt like I had to do it.
Benny doesn’t hesitate to offer his opinions about things, especially politics. Once he gets revved up, he transmogrifies into something like three parts stump preacher and one part auctioneer. When he really gets going, his eyes water, his nose runs and flames shoot out of his head. It’s quite a sight, really. At that point, people tend to steer a wide circle around him. Women gather up their children and run the other way.
Nor is Benny afraid to tell certain people in the Republican camp what he thinks of them. Back when the Neocons in the Texas Lege were in the midst of their redistricting fiasco, lead by Governor Perry, Tom Delay, and various other hammerheads, you may remember that fifty-plus Democrats hopped a bus to Ardmore, Oklahoma in an effort to prevent a quorum and obstruct the vote. For four days, the “Killer D’s,” as they became known, hunkered down in a Holiday Inn, subsisting on fast food from the nearby Denny’s. Delay, who is now under investigation for a truckload of criminal shenanigans, called out the state troopers and even tried to shanghais the Department of Homeland Security to help round up the wayward Dems.
When a group of Republican hecklers showed up at the motel, a rag-tag assortment of Democratic supporters, including Benny, drove up to show their solidarity with the Killer D’s. Benny said he was standing with his little group, facing an angry horde of Repubs, some of whom had even brought their children with them to heckle and hurl insults at the Texas lawmakers.
At one point, Benny broke ranks and walked over close to one of the shouters, a guy dressed in a blue blazer, Sanzibelt slacks and Florsheim shoes. He had a scowl on his face. Several kids were standing close to him, Benny said, and even they were dressed in nice little shirts and ties and leather shoes. They, too, had scowls on their faces and stood there shouting, just like the grownups.
“Where you from?” Benny said to the guy in the blue blazer.
Blazer blinked, looking kind of nonplussed. “Dallas,” he responded. “Where you from?”
“Aw, I’m from down around there.” Benny paused, looking from the blazer to the kids, all forming a little chorus line. Suddenly, he said, “Say, where’d you get all these baby bigots?”
Benny said the guy kind of came unglued, huffing and gasping for breath. Couldn’t seem to get a word out. Benny chuckled, turned and walked back to his group.
After we ate at Luby’s, we went driving around in his pickup, an old Chevy Apache with mismatched fenders. As we cruised through some of the wealthier neighborhoods, I said, “Something odd’s going on here.”
“What’s that?” Benny said.
“Well, where are all the yard signs for the Republicans?”
I just wasn’t seeing as many this year—or bumper stickers, either, for that matter. I don’t think it’s my imagination. I’ve really been watching this phenomenon—if that’s the right word. Maybe it doesn’t rate being called a “phenomenon” quite yet. But I do know that in past campaigns, you couldn’t drive through these Taxed-Less neighborhoods without seeing one Republican sign after another.
On the other hand, I pointed to quite a few Kerry/Edwards signs—even in front of some of the wealthiest homes. We both agreed they looked sort of strange there, as if some alien virus had broken out.
“So what do you think it means?” I said, referring to the low number of Republican signs.
Benny said, “Aw, well, don’t get your hopes up. Nothing’s changed. They’re still gonna vote for the bastards. They just don’t necessarily want to advertise it, that’s all.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Well, because by now, I think most people can see what rats Bush and Cheney actually are. At least people with any sense can see it. Especially after the first debate, where Bush finally had to go up against somebody who had all the facts, and could stand up straight and tell the truth about this war, not only because Kerry’s obviously light years smarter than Bush, but because he was actually in a war, while Bush was out running around getting drunk, terrorizing people in his car, and shirking his National Guard duty. So, there he was on national TV, flying without a script, without Rice or Rove or Cheney there holding his hand—and let’s face it, all that preening and prancing around on the deck of an aircraft carrier just comes off hollow as hell when you’re standing alongside a real war veteran—and after all the stumbling and stammering through his memorized sound bytes, well, Bush just looked like a big kid with a cowlick, without a lick of sense. And anybody that tuned into that debate could see that for themselves. Unless they’re as dumb as he is. In which case, you could put a jackass in front of ‘em and they’d still swear it was a cutting horse. So—“ Benny scratched his head. “What was I saying?”
“You were saying they’re gonna vote for Bush, even if they don’t put out yard signs.”
“Oh, sure, of course! All these Republicans around here are gonna vote for their boy—it’s like they’re sayin’, 'Well, he may be a doofus, but he’s our doofus.' See what I mean? But some of ‘em—well, maybe even most of ‘em—still have a tiny smidgen of decency left in 'em, even though it’s buried pretty deep—you know a lot of ‘em probably voted for Eisenhower, and he was a very decent man, a towering war hero. Old Ike would have been appalled at the cretins that are in charge now. So all these folks around here have got just enough sense to be slightly ashamed, but not enough to do what’s right. It’s like masturbation. They’re still gonna do it, they just don’t want everybody knowing they’re gonna do it, see? Heh heh. Hee hee hee.”
“I see,” I said.
What I can’t see is what the payoff is. After all, it seems to me that if anybody oughta be truly scared of this administration, it oughta be rich people. So maybe they don’t give a rat’s ass that Bush lied about WMD’s, that Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, are all liars, who have turned the whole civilized world against us, and maybe they don’t care that young Americans are dying and getting maimed for no good reason. And maybe they think all those Iraqi men, women and children getting slaughtered on the other side, is just fine and dandy.
But that still leaves us with self-interest. What’s happened to that? Rich people still want to make money, don’t they? And I suppose they still want to live in big houses with swimming pools, and have their Hummers and their cell phones and their Hispanic housekeepers; and they still want their sons to grow up to become rich fat cats like Daddy, and they want their daughters to join sororities and marry rich white boys, like Mommy; and I know they’re not ready to stop using up the world’s water supply watering their golf courses and their voracious lawns. Yet, they go right on supporting this Kamikaze President that is leading the country straight into a pit of bankruptcy, whose program of perpetual war will only continue the process of breaking the country, and destabilizing the world. Meanwhile, the death and destruction we’re visiting on Iraq will go on generating more terrorists, not fewer, thereby increasing the chances that we'll be attacked again.
It doesn’t take an economic guru to figure out what effect all this craziness and instablity is likely to have on the U.S. stock market—perhaps for years to come. In fact, if we continue driving insanely down this road, the whole notion of the market as being a dependable investment strategy over the long-term may be finished. Of course, most of us normal people could give a fuck less about that. The rest of us are too busy dealing with every day reality, like trying to pay the water bill when the car breaks down and the kid gets sick and there’s no health insurance and you’re trying to make ends meet on a paycheck from Walmart.
But I just keep wondering why all these rich people are voting for Republicans, when they have so much more to lose than the rest of us. They’re not all crazy, are they?
Well, there’s plenty of poor people voting the same way, which really is the flip-side of the mystery, almost as mysterious as why the Log Cabin Homos are hanging out in the enemy’s camp, where they’re hated and reviled. What is it with all these folks going around shooting themselves in the foot? What is the payoff?
“I’ll tell you what it is,” says Benny. “The payoff is this. They get to keep their illusions. The illusions are more important than reality. It’s the illusion that they’re winning even when all the facts are telling them they’re losing. It’s the illusion that God, gays and guns matter more than education, health care and a living wage. Most of them have never been winners in their lives. Especially the Evangelicals. Now, for the first time, they’ve got a president who does their bidding, actually panders to them. Imagine that! The leader of the free world actually validating all their craziness! So you’ve got the corporations getting everything they want, the polluters are having a field day; Bush has fired all the scientists, so there’s no global warming to worry about; Halliburton is making a billion a month in Iraq; we can run amok in the world and there’s no World Court that can rein us in; in short, every cross-eyed, gap-toothed lunatic and money-grubbing greedhead in the land has moved to the front of the line. The only ones left out, as far as I know, are believers in Sasquatch, UFOs and Star Trekkies. Well, the only thing they lack that all these other crackpots have are lobbyists. Ah, give ‘em time.”
Benny paused a moment to chuckle and catch his breath. We drove along past manicured lawns and stately homes. Then, I heard Benny chuckling again. “Did you know the Republican National Committee has sent out a mailer to residents of Arkansas and West Virginia telling them that liberals would seek to ban the Bible if elected?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that,” I said.
“You need to keep up Harper. These sharks never sleep. Karl Rove works around the clock. The Evangelicals are telling their minions to vote ‘Christian,’ i.e., vote for Bush. Meanwhile, the Pope has weighed in, ordering all the members of his flock not to vote for any candidate that supports abortion rights. Yessir, they’ve decided that God is a Republican. And Ken Lay is the new Jesus. Only, instead of giving up his own life so that others could be free, Kenny Boy sacrificed all his worker’s lives, so that he and his disciples could grow rich and fat.”
Once again, Benny sighed and shook his head. “I tell you, religion hasn’t been this fucked up since the Salem witch trials.”
By the time we got through driving around worrying about everything, it was time to eat again.
AND WHICH PART OF THE BIBLE IS THIS?
"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain; if one ever looks at me like that, I'm gonna kill him and tell God he died." --Jimmy Swaggart
Friday, October 01, 2004
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MAN AND A LITTLE BOY
Early in Thursday night’s face-off between President George W. Bush and Candidate John Kerry, Bush stumbled briefly and spoke out of turn. Kerry flashed a warm smile at his rival and said, “I’d be glad to throw out these rules and have a real dialogue.”
Kerry was referring to the rules agreed on by representatives of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, rules which make it impossible for the candidates to actually question and engage each other on the issues, something which Kerry, at least, knows is the hallmark of real debate. But Bush avoided Kerry’s challenge, and the moment quickly passed.
Since Bush has routinely questioned Kerry’s fitness to lead, and even attacked this war hero’s courage, just as in previous campaigns, he maligned the courage of such real men as John McCain and Max Cleland, this brief moment in the so-called debate seems to offer an insight into the President’s character, or lack of it. Of course he doesn’t dare go mano a mano with John Kerry, who, even adhering to the stilted and arbitrary rules, far outclassed the President in this first meeting.
From the opening question, Kerry kept Bush on the defensive, consistently marshalling the facts while Bush repeatedly fell back on his old lies—that Saddam Hussein posed a threat, that everything is going well in Iraq. On the issue of Bush’s failure to pursue Osama bin Laden, the real perpetrator of 9/11, Kerry seized the advantage and drove home what a colossal blunder this was. At that moment, Bush’s defenses collapsed, and he seemed almost lost for any logical reply. Often, all he could do was stumble and repeat his mantra, “It’s hard work,” “We’re working hard,” “We have a lot of hard work to do.”
Similarly, Bush appeared weak and even foolish in his attempts to explain why he has kept the U.S. from joining the World Court, or why he has turned his back on the Kyoto Accords, thus failing to respond in any way to global warming. And when Kerry challenged him on stem cell research, Bush could find nothing to say. What could he say? Virtually every scientist alive knows that this research could hold the key to curing a wide range of diseases and disabilities, such as cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord injuries.
Clearly, it’s time for a change in leadership. Or, to put it another way, it’s time we had a real leader for President, not merely a straw man.
Kerry was referring to the rules agreed on by representatives of both the Republican and Democratic Parties, rules which make it impossible for the candidates to actually question and engage each other on the issues, something which Kerry, at least, knows is the hallmark of real debate. But Bush avoided Kerry’s challenge, and the moment quickly passed.
Since Bush has routinely questioned Kerry’s fitness to lead, and even attacked this war hero’s courage, just as in previous campaigns, he maligned the courage of such real men as John McCain and Max Cleland, this brief moment in the so-called debate seems to offer an insight into the President’s character, or lack of it. Of course he doesn’t dare go mano a mano with John Kerry, who, even adhering to the stilted and arbitrary rules, far outclassed the President in this first meeting.
From the opening question, Kerry kept Bush on the defensive, consistently marshalling the facts while Bush repeatedly fell back on his old lies—that Saddam Hussein posed a threat, that everything is going well in Iraq. On the issue of Bush’s failure to pursue Osama bin Laden, the real perpetrator of 9/11, Kerry seized the advantage and drove home what a colossal blunder this was. At that moment, Bush’s defenses collapsed, and he seemed almost lost for any logical reply. Often, all he could do was stumble and repeat his mantra, “It’s hard work,” “We’re working hard,” “We have a lot of hard work to do.”
Similarly, Bush appeared weak and even foolish in his attempts to explain why he has kept the U.S. from joining the World Court, or why he has turned his back on the Kyoto Accords, thus failing to respond in any way to global warming. And when Kerry challenged him on stem cell research, Bush could find nothing to say. What could he say? Virtually every scientist alive knows that this research could hold the key to curing a wide range of diseases and disabilities, such as cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and spinal cord injuries.
Clearly, it’s time for a change in leadership. Or, to put it another way, it’s time we had a real leader for President, not merely a straw man.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
UN SECRETARY GENERAL CONCEEDS ILLEGALITY OF IRAQ WAR
In an article in UK's Guardian, Ewen MacAskill and Julian Borger quote UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, conceeding the illegality of the war against Iraq:
"I have indicated [the war against Iraq] was not in conformity with the UN charter."
The Guardian article goes on to say,
"The UN chief had warned the US and its allies a week before the invasion in March 2003 that military action would violate the UN charter. But he has hitherto refrained from using the damning word "illegal". "
"...last September, Mr. Annan issued a stern critique of the notion of pre-emptive self-defense, saying it would lead to a breakdown in international order. Mr. Annan last night said that there should have been a second UN resolution specifically authorizing war against Iraq."
"Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution 1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to determine what those consequences were."
"I have indicated [the war against Iraq] was not in conformity with the UN charter."
The Guardian article goes on to say,
"The UN chief had warned the US and its allies a week before the invasion in March 2003 that military action would violate the UN charter. But he has hitherto refrained from using the damning word "illegal". "
"...last September, Mr. Annan issued a stern critique of the notion of pre-emptive self-defense, saying it would lead to a breakdown in international order. Mr. Annan last night said that there should have been a second UN resolution specifically authorizing war against Iraq."
"Mr Annan said the security council had warned Iraq in resolution 1441 there would be "consequences" if it did not comply with its demands. But he said it should have been up to the council to determine what those consequences were."
Thursday, September 09, 2004
THE FOOL'S BRUSH
By Kelsey Shipman
It begins as innocence, in the shape of a child
As a manifestation of the carelessness of the young and the wild
It enters only with the underdevelopment of the some-day astute senses
Squirming through the bouncing of child’s play
Nestling in dampened intuition and the immature dawn of what is almost today
It finds its pulse beneath knowledge in a way so discreet
That even a spy so experienced kisses its shifting feet
It slowly spreads like a wave of anticipation
Finding no comfort in limitation
It begins to boil in your blood, shooting out bubbles of intense misunderstanding
Tainting every world view that approaches conception
Of intimate connection
With the brightening beat of life, finding no individuality in coats or skins
Dismissing the presumption of lack of correlation
Found in the separate territory of the genius of speciesism and the rest of the breathing world
Which is really one in the same, although the frequency of departure will make your toes curl
It invades the mind, closes off the union with our beginnings
Begins to swirl the world’s listless underpinnings
Turning vast lakes and oceans into masses of currents
Disrupting all tranquility
And organizational equanimity
Bridges become dark masses of metal
Not fallen trees or the beaver’s toil
The ground is uprooted and organisms displaced
As the part of us throbbing with the gods’ own reflection falls into waste
The line between ourselves and the things we produce is blurred
Although nature attempts to thwart us, we continue undeterred
Is it us or an irrefutable force that paves the road of inevitable decline
You see, it has weaved so greatly into every fiber of our perception
That it is now inseparable from us as it cultivates a need for destruction
Now lacking distinction between its foolishness and our own
We indiscriminately obliterate without a consideration of the beauty of the unknown
Skies are left in darkness as mortality rears its ugly head
Soulful creatures searching for a rationalization to reason away the looming dread
As we sit among our ruins, with only more to come, we beg the wisdom of our ancestors
And yet it is they who turn to the very essence of our beginnings
That which we have fought against in some contest of obscured winnings
The wisest of the spirit-filled animals offer lessons of humility
But we as conquerors cannot accept the ineptness of our professed abilities
And what more can a mere human do but screech with endless scope
When they feel their whole being squeezed by an ever-tightening rope
The path of the wicked is no different from those invaded by foolishness
Both dismissing the presence of force and strength of mind
Only to crush the once infinite vivacity of their own kind
It is without these they experience the ferocity of animation
Only to worship illusory gods outside the holy realm of creation
The sound waves streak across the sky like an artist’s careful stroke
Entwining patterns of wisdom and elucidation that we never spoke
There is something honest and unfeigned about the gut’s exposed voice
Something which we shroud in discomfort and civility
But that we long for in our oh-so-many times of insecurity
Dark masses impend the horizon and negate glimpses of hope
And only speak to us in echoes of our attempts to cope
So we are left with only a mangled, distorted world
The obvious causes of which we still beg to be unfurled
We release screams in the night as our temporary acknowledgement of what shall come
But it is only the common cries of misery that paint the dim sky with lights
Each with its own story of sudden missing will and might
The individual’s whimper will not dull the Earth’s grief
But the beckoning of the common god in us all can illuminate the direction of peace.
_________________________
Kelsey is an 18 year old sophomore, history major, attending a university in Texas. She is the daughter of a dear friend of mine, who has been an activist for peace and justice most of her life.
It begins as innocence, in the shape of a child
As a manifestation of the carelessness of the young and the wild
It enters only with the underdevelopment of the some-day astute senses
Squirming through the bouncing of child’s play
Nestling in dampened intuition and the immature dawn of what is almost today
It finds its pulse beneath knowledge in a way so discreet
That even a spy so experienced kisses its shifting feet
It slowly spreads like a wave of anticipation
Finding no comfort in limitation
It begins to boil in your blood, shooting out bubbles of intense misunderstanding
Tainting every world view that approaches conception
Of intimate connection
With the brightening beat of life, finding no individuality in coats or skins
Dismissing the presumption of lack of correlation
Found in the separate territory of the genius of speciesism and the rest of the breathing world
Which is really one in the same, although the frequency of departure will make your toes curl
It invades the mind, closes off the union with our beginnings
Begins to swirl the world’s listless underpinnings
Turning vast lakes and oceans into masses of currents
Disrupting all tranquility
And organizational equanimity
Bridges become dark masses of metal
Not fallen trees or the beaver’s toil
The ground is uprooted and organisms displaced
As the part of us throbbing with the gods’ own reflection falls into waste
The line between ourselves and the things we produce is blurred
Although nature attempts to thwart us, we continue undeterred
Is it us or an irrefutable force that paves the road of inevitable decline
You see, it has weaved so greatly into every fiber of our perception
That it is now inseparable from us as it cultivates a need for destruction
Now lacking distinction between its foolishness and our own
We indiscriminately obliterate without a consideration of the beauty of the unknown
Skies are left in darkness as mortality rears its ugly head
Soulful creatures searching for a rationalization to reason away the looming dread
As we sit among our ruins, with only more to come, we beg the wisdom of our ancestors
And yet it is they who turn to the very essence of our beginnings
That which we have fought against in some contest of obscured winnings
The wisest of the spirit-filled animals offer lessons of humility
But we as conquerors cannot accept the ineptness of our professed abilities
And what more can a mere human do but screech with endless scope
When they feel their whole being squeezed by an ever-tightening rope
The path of the wicked is no different from those invaded by foolishness
Both dismissing the presence of force and strength of mind
Only to crush the once infinite vivacity of their own kind
It is without these they experience the ferocity of animation
Only to worship illusory gods outside the holy realm of creation
The sound waves streak across the sky like an artist’s careful stroke
Entwining patterns of wisdom and elucidation that we never spoke
There is something honest and unfeigned about the gut’s exposed voice
Something which we shroud in discomfort and civility
But that we long for in our oh-so-many times of insecurity
Dark masses impend the horizon and negate glimpses of hope
And only speak to us in echoes of our attempts to cope
So we are left with only a mangled, distorted world
The obvious causes of which we still beg to be unfurled
We release screams in the night as our temporary acknowledgement of what shall come
But it is only the common cries of misery that paint the dim sky with lights
Each with its own story of sudden missing will and might
The individual’s whimper will not dull the Earth’s grief
But the beckoning of the common god in us all can illuminate the direction of peace.
_________________________
Kelsey is an 18 year old sophomore, history major, attending a university in Texas. She is the daughter of a dear friend of mine, who has been an activist for peace and justice most of her life.
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
TIME IS RUNNING OUT
Well, we’re coming down to the wire on this sham election, and I must say I don’t hold out much hope for the outcome. The convention in New York clearly demonstrated that the G.O.P. is now safe in the hands—the claws, I should say—of extremists, of every shape and size, liars, thieves, bigots, religion mongers, war mongers, an assortment of the weird and grotesque, trolls, golems, chimeras, all tramping around in the woods and weeds. Every time they hear the war trumpet sounded by Cheney or Tommy Franks or Bush himself, foam issues from their lips and their eyes roll back in their heads.
God, how they love lies, and how they do love to be lied to! It’s been four years watching the triumph of lies, the triumph of paranoid fantasy and delusion over reality. As Tennessee Williams would say, we are now operating on the “fantastic level,” and so it is fantasy and delusion which are actually driving decision-making and policy.
Fantasy and delusion have brought on this needless war, which has killed upwards of 1,000 American and 12,000 Iraqi people. Fantasy and delusion have gifted us, our children and grandchildren, the biggest deficit in U.S. history, upwards of $4 trillion—from a surplus of $5 trillion. Fantasy and delusion have handed us corporate malfeasance on a scale the fat rats of the Gilded Age could only dream of. Fantasy and delusion have given us higher gas prices, Hummers, assault weapons, Fox News, and a cartoon character for governor of California. It’s why so many of our baby soldiers in Iraq are completely mystified as to why Iraqis would want to kill them instead of kiss their feet, because all they’ve ever known is what they’ve seen on TV or in Disney movies, or been told by their parents or their commanding officers. And fantasy and delusion have made it possible for a handful of chickenshits who never spent an hour in Vietnam to denigrate and malign the military service of men who were actually there, who were under fire, wounded and decorated for it.
Yes, it’s the triumph of lies, the triumph of the fringe lunatics, of the kind of folk who are driven by fear, anger, greed and superstition, believers in angels, devils and hobgoblins, who reject science, ignore history, despise education, hate liberals and resent freedom, and who probably, for the life of them, have no idea why they reject, despise, and hate these things. And that’s what makes them so spooky, because the thing that drives them, pushes them, goads them relentlessly on is—Each Other, is the Crowd Itself, without which, they must instantly revert to the level of harmless, if irritating, gnats. The crowd is their drink of courage, for that is the one attribute of which they are in short supply. In the recent past, we would expect to see them smiling blandly for the cameras at lynchings. Now, bolstered by each other in sufficient quantities, they are the folk who ban books or burn them, who run over musicians’ CD’s with bulldozers, and compare the torture of prisoners to fraternity hazings. In short, they are the ever-eager mindless followers, obedient to father-authority, that corrupt leaders down through the march of history are drawn to and feed on like birds of prey.
Germany may yet have the last laugh.
Can they win? You bet. Between the rigged voting machines and purged voter lists (in many states, now, not just Florida) they may already have the ten percent edge they need to win. Fear and intimidation tactics used on minority voters may pull another one or two percent. In short, Karl Rove leaves nothing up to chance. The fix is in.
Our best hope is to get out of our houses, suit up and stand guard at the polls, or get out there and register people to vote, as many as possible, then stand over them like nannies, ply them with food or drink, and drive them to the polls, if necessary.
It’s a weird world and getting weirder by the day. George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future.” Yes, history is in jeopardy. They are trying to disappear it. We are watching it disappear from under us. And for as much as that is happening, it feels very much as if the future is disappearing, as well.
We must stop this train.
God, how they love lies, and how they do love to be lied to! It’s been four years watching the triumph of lies, the triumph of paranoid fantasy and delusion over reality. As Tennessee Williams would say, we are now operating on the “fantastic level,” and so it is fantasy and delusion which are actually driving decision-making and policy.
Fantasy and delusion have brought on this needless war, which has killed upwards of 1,000 American and 12,000 Iraqi people. Fantasy and delusion have gifted us, our children and grandchildren, the biggest deficit in U.S. history, upwards of $4 trillion—from a surplus of $5 trillion. Fantasy and delusion have handed us corporate malfeasance on a scale the fat rats of the Gilded Age could only dream of. Fantasy and delusion have given us higher gas prices, Hummers, assault weapons, Fox News, and a cartoon character for governor of California. It’s why so many of our baby soldiers in Iraq are completely mystified as to why Iraqis would want to kill them instead of kiss their feet, because all they’ve ever known is what they’ve seen on TV or in Disney movies, or been told by their parents or their commanding officers. And fantasy and delusion have made it possible for a handful of chickenshits who never spent an hour in Vietnam to denigrate and malign the military service of men who were actually there, who were under fire, wounded and decorated for it.
Yes, it’s the triumph of lies, the triumph of the fringe lunatics, of the kind of folk who are driven by fear, anger, greed and superstition, believers in angels, devils and hobgoblins, who reject science, ignore history, despise education, hate liberals and resent freedom, and who probably, for the life of them, have no idea why they reject, despise, and hate these things. And that’s what makes them so spooky, because the thing that drives them, pushes them, goads them relentlessly on is—Each Other, is the Crowd Itself, without which, they must instantly revert to the level of harmless, if irritating, gnats. The crowd is their drink of courage, for that is the one attribute of which they are in short supply. In the recent past, we would expect to see them smiling blandly for the cameras at lynchings. Now, bolstered by each other in sufficient quantities, they are the folk who ban books or burn them, who run over musicians’ CD’s with bulldozers, and compare the torture of prisoners to fraternity hazings. In short, they are the ever-eager mindless followers, obedient to father-authority, that corrupt leaders down through the march of history are drawn to and feed on like birds of prey.
Germany may yet have the last laugh.
Can they win? You bet. Between the rigged voting machines and purged voter lists (in many states, now, not just Florida) they may already have the ten percent edge they need to win. Fear and intimidation tactics used on minority voters may pull another one or two percent. In short, Karl Rove leaves nothing up to chance. The fix is in.
Our best hope is to get out of our houses, suit up and stand guard at the polls, or get out there and register people to vote, as many as possible, then stand over them like nannies, ply them with food or drink, and drive them to the polls, if necessary.
It’s a weird world and getting weirder by the day. George Orwell said, “Who controls the past controls the future.” Yes, history is in jeopardy. They are trying to disappear it. We are watching it disappear from under us. And for as much as that is happening, it feels very much as if the future is disappearing, as well.
We must stop this train.
Saturday, September 04, 2004
REPUBLICANS ABANDON REALITY AT THE GARDEN
Today's Republican Party has perfected the rhetoric of fear and anxiety in post-9/11 America, and is using the power of that rhetoric to maintain George W. Bush's hold on the White House. The Republican War Machine picked up momentum, under the banner of aggression against Iraq. And Republican delegates cheered whenever the United Nations was put down, and America's duty to wage preventative war was being praised. There seemed to be an arrogant consensus among the Republican faithful to ignore their country's increased international isolation.
There was no mention of the President's diabolic process of deception, manipulation, and misinformation, that had steered the nation toward war and occupation of Iraq. There was no clue offered as to why things have gone so badly there. Well, it's impossible to find a Republican pessimist. As US casualties were mounting in advance of the Republican Convention, President Bush was heard to describe our military operation in Iraq as a "catastrophic success". When asked for a response, John Edwards, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, replied...
"Like most Americans, I have no idea what that means."
Impatient to simply rewrite history, speakers at this Convention clearly opted to create an alternative reality as they went along. In the state of stupefaction created by this Republican narrative, it would be impossible to separate terrorists or the September 2001 attack from the unrelated situation of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. It didn't bother them that the 9/11 Commission had cleared all that up, by its finding that there was no connection between Iraq and the 2001 attack in New York.
John McCain made a speech to the assembled delegates, and suggested that the removal of Saddam Hussein justified everything. Would we (the critics of the war) want Saddam in power, instead? But it's not a particularly honest accusation, considering that we were attacked by an altogether different enemy, in 2001. With better leadership, this travesty in Iraq would never have happened. A clear majority of Americans indicate, in polls, that they would like to take back this last, horrible year-and-a-half. Would that we could unwrite Abu Ghraib. Would that we could restore our country's shattered reputation. Would that we could bring back those 600 civilians shot down by Marine snipers in Fallujah. Would that we could bring back our own dead, or heal our own mangled soldiers.. But it is certain, as well, that tens of thousands of Iraqis are beyond help, and others bear the harder burden, as survivors.
George W. Bush and his cabal have not liberated Iraq; they have only played at liberating Iraq, and with disastrous results.
The Republicans were incapable of facing reality in New York, and simply fell back on their habit of inverting the facts. But we have the laconic Dick Cheney and the homespun figure of George W. Bush to comfort us. Nevermind the raw sewage in the streets of Baghdad. Pay no attention to fifty percent unemployment in Iraq. Don't be troubled by the black smoke on the horizon, the burning pipelines, the mostly unfunctional electrical grid.
Meanwhile, we have to wonder if it was ever the intention of this Bush Gang to rebuild Iraq. John McLaughlin, the host of TV's McLaughlin Group, characterized this convention experience as Kafkaesque, for the way it turned reality upside down.
Gov. Schwarzenegger, former Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain were only trotted out as window-dressing. They represent no trend and present no challenge to the extreme faction that controls the Republican Party. Before Gov. Schwarzenegger spoke, there was another speaker at the podium, giving a terse and manifestly unbelievable little pitch for the Patriot Act.
The little homily to surveillance only lent an air of dissonance to the speech that came after it. Schwarzenegger's speech went on to describe how he came to America in 1968. He admitted to deciding that he was a Republican, while part of a television debate was being translated into German for him, by a friend. Listening to both Humphrey and Nixon, he was particularly attracted to Nixon's position for strong national defense, lower taxes, and getting Big Government off our backs.
Isn't it ironic that anti-terrorist laws are now being used on our domestic scene, in order to intimidate protesters. It happened in New York during the Republican convention. Due process laws were being violated, not to make the nation safer or to deter terrorists; but simply as a blunt instrument, used on those Americans who actively oppose the Bush Administration and its policies. Many New York protesters were held in a disused warehouse, made to stand and sleep on oily floors, denied access to a phone call.
And authorities made it impossible for concerned relatives and friends to confirm if those not accounted for, were actually in custody.
During the PBS coverage, there was a moment or two of comic relief from the floor of the Convention. After Michael Moore and his recent film were attacked from the podium, a chant of "four more years" came up from the delegates. Immediately, the camera switched to a shot of Moore, seated in a balcony area, waving at the crowd, two fingers of one hand waving a V-for-Victory salute. And although there was no audio, it was possible to read Moore's lips, saying "two more months".
There was no mention of the President's diabolic process of deception, manipulation, and misinformation, that had steered the nation toward war and occupation of Iraq. There was no clue offered as to why things have gone so badly there. Well, it's impossible to find a Republican pessimist. As US casualties were mounting in advance of the Republican Convention, President Bush was heard to describe our military operation in Iraq as a "catastrophic success". When asked for a response, John Edwards, the Democratic candidate for Vice-President, replied...
"Like most Americans, I have no idea what that means."
Impatient to simply rewrite history, speakers at this Convention clearly opted to create an alternative reality as they went along. In the state of stupefaction created by this Republican narrative, it would be impossible to separate terrorists or the September 2001 attack from the unrelated situation of Iraq and Saddam Hussein. It didn't bother them that the 9/11 Commission had cleared all that up, by its finding that there was no connection between Iraq and the 2001 attack in New York.
John McCain made a speech to the assembled delegates, and suggested that the removal of Saddam Hussein justified everything. Would we (the critics of the war) want Saddam in power, instead? But it's not a particularly honest accusation, considering that we were attacked by an altogether different enemy, in 2001. With better leadership, this travesty in Iraq would never have happened. A clear majority of Americans indicate, in polls, that they would like to take back this last, horrible year-and-a-half. Would that we could unwrite Abu Ghraib. Would that we could restore our country's shattered reputation. Would that we could bring back those 600 civilians shot down by Marine snipers in Fallujah. Would that we could bring back our own dead, or heal our own mangled soldiers.. But it is certain, as well, that tens of thousands of Iraqis are beyond help, and others bear the harder burden, as survivors.
George W. Bush and his cabal have not liberated Iraq; they have only played at liberating Iraq, and with disastrous results.
The Republicans were incapable of facing reality in New York, and simply fell back on their habit of inverting the facts. But we have the laconic Dick Cheney and the homespun figure of George W. Bush to comfort us. Nevermind the raw sewage in the streets of Baghdad. Pay no attention to fifty percent unemployment in Iraq. Don't be troubled by the black smoke on the horizon, the burning pipelines, the mostly unfunctional electrical grid.
Meanwhile, we have to wonder if it was ever the intention of this Bush Gang to rebuild Iraq. John McLaughlin, the host of TV's McLaughlin Group, characterized this convention experience as Kafkaesque, for the way it turned reality upside down.
Gov. Schwarzenegger, former Mayor Giuliani and Sen. McCain were only trotted out as window-dressing. They represent no trend and present no challenge to the extreme faction that controls the Republican Party. Before Gov. Schwarzenegger spoke, there was another speaker at the podium, giving a terse and manifestly unbelievable little pitch for the Patriot Act.
The little homily to surveillance only lent an air of dissonance to the speech that came after it. Schwarzenegger's speech went on to describe how he came to America in 1968. He admitted to deciding that he was a Republican, while part of a television debate was being translated into German for him, by a friend. Listening to both Humphrey and Nixon, he was particularly attracted to Nixon's position for strong national defense, lower taxes, and getting Big Government off our backs.
Isn't it ironic that anti-terrorist laws are now being used on our domestic scene, in order to intimidate protesters. It happened in New York during the Republican convention. Due process laws were being violated, not to make the nation safer or to deter terrorists; but simply as a blunt instrument, used on those Americans who actively oppose the Bush Administration and its policies. Many New York protesters were held in a disused warehouse, made to stand and sleep on oily floors, denied access to a phone call.
And authorities made it impossible for concerned relatives and friends to confirm if those not accounted for, were actually in custody.
During the PBS coverage, there was a moment or two of comic relief from the floor of the Convention. After Michael Moore and his recent film were attacked from the podium, a chant of "four more years" came up from the delegates. Immediately, the camera switched to a shot of Moore, seated in a balcony area, waving at the crowd, two fingers of one hand waving a V-for-Victory salute. And although there was no audio, it was possible to read Moore's lips, saying "two more months".
Friday, September 03, 2004
copeland morris MARLENE
The ring was spur of the moment.
Offered my grandmother's gold,
Marlene kept it, reluctantly.
She wrote about Lutheran hymns,
The Nygaards in forests of stone,
Norwegians in the Dakotas,
Perfume that she carefully dripped
On envelopes with her slanted hand.
In crowded barracks I savored
Each letter, proverb and dove,
The desert moon, unsleeping.
Did she mean to write cancer?
Marlene's abbreviation
Threw me: "CA. in the ankle".
"A hell of a thing", the buddy
Next to me said; "I'm sorry".
Offered my grandmother's gold,
Marlene kept it, reluctantly.
She wrote about Lutheran hymns,
The Nygaards in forests of stone,
Norwegians in the Dakotas,
Perfume that she carefully dripped
On envelopes with her slanted hand.
In crowded barracks I savored
Each letter, proverb and dove,
The desert moon, unsleeping.
Did she mean to write cancer?
Marlene's abbreviation
Threw me: "CA. in the ankle".
"A hell of a thing", the buddy
Next to me said; "I'm sorry".
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
The Religion Problem
Religion is starting to get slightly weird. Did I say “starting”? Well, let’s just say it’s getting out of control. But let’s be clear. It’s not the mainstream religions that are causing the problem. In fact, polls show a majority of religious folk still favor the wall between church and state, which they see as essential to protecting their right to worship as they please, free of any state-mandated or “policed” religious dogma. Many mainstream people of faith are angry with the Bush Administration for seeming to cater to religious extremists. They may not consider themselves as progressives, but a clear majority “are unequivocal in their support for most just policies for the neediest, for peacemaking, for protecting the environment, for enhancing the common good.” (See Eyal Press, "Closing The Religion Gap," The Nation, August 30, '04.)
As usual, the real problem is the religious zealots. And though they are assuredly in the minority, they are the most organized and strident. They never rest. They are on the job 24/7. And I have no problem with people running around espousing beliefs in fairies or demons or taking off their clothes and barking at the moon. I just don’t think they should be allowed access to our law making and governing apparatus. I’m especially uncomfortable when I think that some of them might actually be put in positions of authority over vast armies and navies and their itchy ideological fingers allowed to hover anywhere near the red button on the little black box.
But of course, that’s exactly what’s happened here. It’s why we’re in Iraq today. And why there’s a whole new arsenal of “battlefield nukes”—so-called “bunker busters” being readied for deployment as I write. Because we have allowed a fringe of the most loony elements among us to become enmeshed in our government—True Believers who consult no one but each other before changing or making law, because God is on their side and speaks only to them. (As recently as July 9, Bush, speaking to the Amish, claimed that God speaks through him.) Operating in this kind of perpetual delusion, any action, any lie is justifiable, even necessary, since it is seen as carrying out the will of divine authority.
There’s something almost eerie and a bit frightening about these folks. I’m reminded of the old movie of the 1950’s, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, where gradually more and more “normal” people are taken over by the invaders from outer space. Yes, I know it was meant to be an anti-Communist movie, but I think it works perfectly well as an attack against any form of mindless ideology. The only way you could discern that something was wrong with the people in the movie was by the glazed look in their eyes, and how they went about their ordinary business like spooks or zombies, with no reflection or thought. For me, watching that movie, there was something more monstrous and sinister in those mindless automatons than if there had been a recognizable “creature” with the usual hideous attributes. Forget Godzilla, forget the Mummy, forget the Creature From The Black Lagoon. The idea that quite ordinary looking people are walking around whose brains have simply been sucked out of their heads by their own weird superstitions and beliefs, now that’s frightening!
Like those people who say, “The Bible says it, I believe it and that’s the end of it.” Apart from the appalling closed mindedness of this strange mantra, which appears to dismiss out of hand all other religions, philosophies, and, indeed, virtually the sum-total of revealed wisdom through the ages, but the insistence on a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible is no less a bizarre and rather sad notion. To take a book as wondrous as the Bible--even taking into account the heavy-handed editing of the King James version, yet still, a book of high literature, replete with poetry, history, metaphor and fable--and reduce it almost to the level of some rigid legal code, in which the entire contents must be taken literally, word for word, thus draining it of all its vitality and mystery. . . . may as well try balancing the world on the head of a pin. I can’t imagine anything more stupid or illogical. Or frightening.
And they’re walking among us. They have Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, they have congressmen, judges, school board members, city councilmen, commissioners, lawyers, teachers, and on and on. They reject evolution, stem-cell research, global warming, sex education, the findings of eminent environmentalists, philosophers and historians; in fact they seem to reject most science and history, in general. It’s a full-scale retreat to the Dark Ages.
They even have their own editorial columnists in major newspapers across the country, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. One of them, writing in my local paper, actually defended Bush’s crazy war by arguing—with numerous quotes from scripture—that Jesus believed in self-defense, and therefore would have done the same as Bush. In other words, Jesus would launch a pre-emptive attack on a sovereign country, blasting cities, killing and maiming innocent civilians by the thousands. Not exactly the Messiah I remember from my Sunday school class. The columnist didn’t say, but I suppose Jesus would also nickname his attack, “Shock and Awe.”
And these are bonafide columnists! They get paid for this stuff! Many of them are in syndication. It’s as if somehow everyone has agreed that these proselytizers’ cockamamie beliefs have such gravitas that they should be disseminated throughout the land. I’m beginning to wonder at what point we’ll start to see space on the editorial pages given over to purveyors of witchcraft or self-flagellation or the idea that masturbation causes acne.
I really don’t know how we reached this point, other than we just sat around and let it happen. I do believe there was a time when somewhat responsible people were running things. There were good men and women—Republicans and Democrats alike—in positions of power who would never have gone for this deal, no, not in their wildest dreams. Because underneath their own selfish motivations, most of them, I think, still possessed some sense of civic duty, some allegiance to the most fundamental principles of our country.
So Lyndon Johnson stole his first election. But later, as President, he still had his War On Poverty, and passed more civil rights legislation than almost any other president.
But imagine asking the likes of F.D.R. or Eisenhower how they would feel if certain Christian Fundamentalists were to get control of our government, from the White House to the Justice Department. Imagine their reaction. Surely, it would begin with peals of laughter. But then, wouldn’t they screw up their faces a little and say, “Are you serious?” “Are you crazy?” I can just see the look of mirth in Lyndon Johnson’s eyes at such a question.
Well, as usual, I have no answers.
Except perhaps in the words of Frederick Douglass, who when asked by a young activist what he should do, responded thusly: “Just three words of advice for you, my friend: Agitate. Agitate. Agitate.”
And, oh yes. Vote, by God!
Addendum.
Lately, I’ve been reading from the journals of Edward Abbey (Confessions Of A Barbarian), author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Desert Solitaire, and other fine books, a man who had opinions about everything. Here he is actually talking about love and his own failings of the heart in that regard, but it leads him into a brief, but quite serious, discussion concerning religion, worth quoting, I think:
“. . .but I am aware that I may, semi-consciously, caught in a flush of general excitement and independence, have said or written things which could affect the one I love and who loves me just as painfully as if it had been an act of calculated malice. Of such sinful recklessness I may well be guilty, and the possibility troubles me greatly. To play with, to twist and stretch and rack the grave emotions of another human being—that is an awful thing. And I’m not so sure as I was a paragraph ago that love, even great and joyous love, can wash away such a sin.
“In fact, I don’t believe sins can be washed away by anything, not by the Blood of the Lamb, not by Christ on or off the Cross, not by love of God or God’s love, not by a billion Hail Marys or a Milky Way of candles or a thousand ages of penance or a million miles of contrition on broken glass and burning coals and leprous bodies.
“In fact, I indignantly reject, with horror and with loathing, the dark, ancient, vile and filthy lie that another man or God-Man can redeem us of our sins by his own suffering, or that we can purify ourselves and start over again by compounding our sins with more suffering, more ugliness, more filth and gibbering faith.
“What an utterly horrible doctrine! What a contemptible and nightmarish horror-story to preach to grave, thoughtful children. It’s time we stood up like men and faced our responsibilities, admitted and lived with our past sins, and cleared our hearts, in so far as we can, not by atonement or by condemning someone else to die for us, but by refusing to cooperate with evil and insisting upon doing good.”
Pray it may be so.
As usual, the real problem is the religious zealots. And though they are assuredly in the minority, they are the most organized and strident. They never rest. They are on the job 24/7. And I have no problem with people running around espousing beliefs in fairies or demons or taking off their clothes and barking at the moon. I just don’t think they should be allowed access to our law making and governing apparatus. I’m especially uncomfortable when I think that some of them might actually be put in positions of authority over vast armies and navies and their itchy ideological fingers allowed to hover anywhere near the red button on the little black box.
But of course, that’s exactly what’s happened here. It’s why we’re in Iraq today. And why there’s a whole new arsenal of “battlefield nukes”—so-called “bunker busters” being readied for deployment as I write. Because we have allowed a fringe of the most loony elements among us to become enmeshed in our government—True Believers who consult no one but each other before changing or making law, because God is on their side and speaks only to them. (As recently as July 9, Bush, speaking to the Amish, claimed that God speaks through him.) Operating in this kind of perpetual delusion, any action, any lie is justifiable, even necessary, since it is seen as carrying out the will of divine authority.
There’s something almost eerie and a bit frightening about these folks. I’m reminded of the old movie of the 1950’s, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, where gradually more and more “normal” people are taken over by the invaders from outer space. Yes, I know it was meant to be an anti-Communist movie, but I think it works perfectly well as an attack against any form of mindless ideology. The only way you could discern that something was wrong with the people in the movie was by the glazed look in their eyes, and how they went about their ordinary business like spooks or zombies, with no reflection or thought. For me, watching that movie, there was something more monstrous and sinister in those mindless automatons than if there had been a recognizable “creature” with the usual hideous attributes. Forget Godzilla, forget the Mummy, forget the Creature From The Black Lagoon. The idea that quite ordinary looking people are walking around whose brains have simply been sucked out of their heads by their own weird superstitions and beliefs, now that’s frightening!
Like those people who say, “The Bible says it, I believe it and that’s the end of it.” Apart from the appalling closed mindedness of this strange mantra, which appears to dismiss out of hand all other religions, philosophies, and, indeed, virtually the sum-total of revealed wisdom through the ages, but the insistence on a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible is no less a bizarre and rather sad notion. To take a book as wondrous as the Bible--even taking into account the heavy-handed editing of the King James version, yet still, a book of high literature, replete with poetry, history, metaphor and fable--and reduce it almost to the level of some rigid legal code, in which the entire contents must be taken literally, word for word, thus draining it of all its vitality and mystery. . . . may as well try balancing the world on the head of a pin. I can’t imagine anything more stupid or illogical. Or frightening.
And they’re walking among us. They have Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, they have congressmen, judges, school board members, city councilmen, commissioners, lawyers, teachers, and on and on. They reject evolution, stem-cell research, global warming, sex education, the findings of eminent environmentalists, philosophers and historians; in fact they seem to reject most science and history, in general. It’s a full-scale retreat to the Dark Ages.
They even have their own editorial columnists in major newspapers across the country, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. One of them, writing in my local paper, actually defended Bush’s crazy war by arguing—with numerous quotes from scripture—that Jesus believed in self-defense, and therefore would have done the same as Bush. In other words, Jesus would launch a pre-emptive attack on a sovereign country, blasting cities, killing and maiming innocent civilians by the thousands. Not exactly the Messiah I remember from my Sunday school class. The columnist didn’t say, but I suppose Jesus would also nickname his attack, “Shock and Awe.”
And these are bonafide columnists! They get paid for this stuff! Many of them are in syndication. It’s as if somehow everyone has agreed that these proselytizers’ cockamamie beliefs have such gravitas that they should be disseminated throughout the land. I’m beginning to wonder at what point we’ll start to see space on the editorial pages given over to purveyors of witchcraft or self-flagellation or the idea that masturbation causes acne.
I really don’t know how we reached this point, other than we just sat around and let it happen. I do believe there was a time when somewhat responsible people were running things. There were good men and women—Republicans and Democrats alike—in positions of power who would never have gone for this deal, no, not in their wildest dreams. Because underneath their own selfish motivations, most of them, I think, still possessed some sense of civic duty, some allegiance to the most fundamental principles of our country.
So Lyndon Johnson stole his first election. But later, as President, he still had his War On Poverty, and passed more civil rights legislation than almost any other president.
But imagine asking the likes of F.D.R. or Eisenhower how they would feel if certain Christian Fundamentalists were to get control of our government, from the White House to the Justice Department. Imagine their reaction. Surely, it would begin with peals of laughter. But then, wouldn’t they screw up their faces a little and say, “Are you serious?” “Are you crazy?” I can just see the look of mirth in Lyndon Johnson’s eyes at such a question.
Well, as usual, I have no answers.
Except perhaps in the words of Frederick Douglass, who when asked by a young activist what he should do, responded thusly: “Just three words of advice for you, my friend: Agitate. Agitate. Agitate.”
And, oh yes. Vote, by God!
Addendum.
Lately, I’ve been reading from the journals of Edward Abbey (Confessions Of A Barbarian), author of The Monkey Wrench Gang, Desert Solitaire, and other fine books, a man who had opinions about everything. Here he is actually talking about love and his own failings of the heart in that regard, but it leads him into a brief, but quite serious, discussion concerning religion, worth quoting, I think:
“. . .but I am aware that I may, semi-consciously, caught in a flush of general excitement and independence, have said or written things which could affect the one I love and who loves me just as painfully as if it had been an act of calculated malice. Of such sinful recklessness I may well be guilty, and the possibility troubles me greatly. To play with, to twist and stretch and rack the grave emotions of another human being—that is an awful thing. And I’m not so sure as I was a paragraph ago that love, even great and joyous love, can wash away such a sin.
“In fact, I don’t believe sins can be washed away by anything, not by the Blood of the Lamb, not by Christ on or off the Cross, not by love of God or God’s love, not by a billion Hail Marys or a Milky Way of candles or a thousand ages of penance or a million miles of contrition on broken glass and burning coals and leprous bodies.
“In fact, I indignantly reject, with horror and with loathing, the dark, ancient, vile and filthy lie that another man or God-Man can redeem us of our sins by his own suffering, or that we can purify ourselves and start over again by compounding our sins with more suffering, more ugliness, more filth and gibbering faith.
“What an utterly horrible doctrine! What a contemptible and nightmarish horror-story to preach to grave, thoughtful children. It’s time we stood up like men and faced our responsibilities, admitted and lived with our past sins, and cleared our hearts, in so far as we can, not by atonement or by condemning someone else to die for us, but by refusing to cooperate with evil and insisting upon doing good.”
Pray it may be so.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
copeland morris A DREAM
Wrap-around sunglasses
Ear to ear you wore
In mourning at the sermon;
Addressed me as "sir"
As curtly as you could,
Embraced me once more.
You were still like a willow;
Asked
What was I doing.
"For me it's normal", I said,
"Dividing balance...
What will break, what mend."
I dreamed I was living in
My car, when you
Discovered my embarrassment.
I'm rolling the window down,
Pulling on socks and shoes.
Ear to ear you wore
In mourning at the sermon;
Addressed me as "sir"
As curtly as you could,
Embraced me once more.
You were still like a willow;
Asked
What was I doing.
"For me it's normal", I said,
"Dividing balance...
What will break, what mend."
I dreamed I was living in
My car, when you
Discovered my embarrassment.
I'm rolling the window down,
Pulling on socks and shoes.
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