NOTE FROM AN ANGRY DEMOCRAT

From my friend, Benny, the firecracker salesman. By the way, this is what a real live progressive Democrat sounds like--or SHOULD sound like at this particular moment, if he is the real thing. Born in deep East Texas, but he crawled out of that red dirt loblolly wilderness, shed the alligator suit and learned how to think for himself. This is the real McCoy--no compromise with the truth, no pusillanimous half-measures. The code he lives by: "The only thing you find in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos."

So, here's the note I just received from him in my e-mail box:

Did you get a thing from Camp Casey Easter meet-up and act-up? I don't think I'm up to it. What is going on in our Congress is simply that the half-way Blue Dog Democrats won't sign onto anything unless it is deeply compromised, watered-down, and ineffective. They represent districts that contain voters that resent being forced to elect Democrats in the first place and think that the oceans rising to cover Hillsboro and Texarkana is not nearly so scary as taking the Confederate flag down from the Georgia statehouse. There are a few good progressives left, but before they can vote for anything that makes a nickel's worth of difference, they have to be elected to office, and have you looked lately at the American citizen who does the deciding of whom to elect? Parts of Massachusetts and California and Oregon is all that remains of the nation inspired and devoted to the Enlightenment. The best and brightest were sitting at University Christian Church when you were the only speaker in the entire lousy temple with a shred of ordinary human decency, and not a one of them gave a flying fuck for any principle or any virtue, or for anyone but their own goddamn self. And one is branded a bomb-throwing red if you're not sitting in the Amen section of the First Baptist Church every Sunday morning listening to the most puerile, hateful, clap-trap you can possibly imagine in your sweatiest, bourbon-soaked dream. If Pelosi had an ounce less grit or single-minded devotion to working her ass off for a country that doesn't feel a dime's worth of gratitude for her leadership or for her diamond-hard devotion to doing the best job possible for this ungrateful, self-absorbed nation, which hasn't even a willingness to become informed of what is happening in the world besides a big-breasted blond bimbo over-dosing and killing her stinking, trifling ass with grossly over-priced pills from Rexall drugstore or the Dallas goddamn Cowboys beating Washington in a football game on television, she would go back to San Francisco and leave the malignant greed-heads to do whatever they wanted without anyone to interfere or do one fucking thing to impede their rule, just like before she was chosen to serve as Speaker. It is, I am accepting a bit more every day, a rare privilege to be acquainted with even a handful of friends and family that remain kind and steadfast and thoughtful. I can't imagine Ms. Pelosi or any other intelligent member of Congress maintaining a willingness to give a shit, or certainly not to beat their head against a brick wall day after day for a nation of selfish, rich, stupid, and mean citizens. If I continue to look honestly at my country, or even at humanity its own self for more than a few quick minutes, a craving for whiskey becomes pretty bothersome. Reality has been difficult for me for some reason since I was a kid. I'm really glad I'm not trying to fix this unworthy country like those losers in our Congress. --Ben H.

wislawa szymborska DINOSAUR SKELETON

Beloved Brethren,
we have before us an example of incorrect proportions.
Behold! the dinosaur's skeleton looms above--

Dear Friends,
on the left we see the tail trailing into one infinity,
on the right, the neck juts into another--

Esteemed Comrades,
in between, four legs that finally mired in the slime
beneath this hillock of a trunk--

Gentle Citizens,
nature does not err, but it loves its little joke:
please note the laughably small head--

Ladies, Gentlemen,
a head this size does not have room for foresight,
and that is why its owner is extinct--

Honored Dignitaries,
a mind too small, an appetite too large,
more senseless sleep than prudent apprehension--

Distinguished Guests,
we're in far better shape in this regard,
life is beautiful and the world is ours--

Venerated Delegation,
the starry sky above the thinking reed
and moral law within it--

Most Reverend Deputation,
such success does not come twice
and perhaps beneath this single sun alone--

Inestimable Council,
how deft the hands,
how eloquent the lips,
what a head on these shoulders--

Supremest of Courts,
so much responsibility in place of a vanished tail--

CHAVEZ GIVES A SPANKING WHILE BUSH STUTTERS

From Democracy Now, This excerpt from Hugo Chavez's speech in Buenos Aires:

"The imperial little gentleman that's visiting Latin America today said about seventy-two or forty-eight hours ago in one of his speeches, when he was announcing that he was leaving for Latin America, he compared Simon Bolivar to George Washington. In fact, he even said the ridiculous thing -- and I can't say it's hypocrisy, because it is simply ridiculous, the most ridiculous thing he could say. He said, today we are all children of Washington and Bolivar. That is, he thinks that he is a son of Bolivar. What he is is a son of a -- but I can't say that word here.

So he has said -- he has said -- and you should listen to what he said here -- he said that now is the time to finish the revolution that Washington and Bolivar commenced . How's that for heresy? That is heresy and ignorance, because we have to remember -- and I say this with all due respect to George Washington, who is historically one of the founding fathers of that country -- but we must also remember the differences and how different George Washington and Simon Bolivar were, are and will always be.

George Washington won a war to gain the independence of the North American economic elite from the English empire, and when Washington died, or, rather, after his independence and after having been the president of the United States, after ordering the massacre of the indigenous peoples of North America, after defending slavery, he ended up being a very rich owner of slaves and of a plantation. He was a great landowner. That was George Washington.

Simon Bolivar, however, was born with a silver spoon, and at eight years old his parents died and he inherited a large fortune, together with his brothers, and he inherited haciendas and slaves. Simon Bolivar, when history led him -- and as Karl Marx said, men can make history, but only as far as history allows us to do so -- when history took Bolivar and made him the leader of the independence process in Venezuela, he made that process revolutionary. Simon Bolivar turned over all of his land. He freed all of his slaves, and he turned them into soldiers, and he brought them here. He brought them to Peru and Carabobo, and he worked together with the troops of San Martin to liberate this continent. That is Simon Bolivar.

And Simon Bolivar, having been born with that silver spoon in his mouth, when he died on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, when he died on December 17 in 1830, he was dressed with a shirt of someone else, because he had no clothes. Simon Bolivar is the leader of the revolution of this land. He is the leader of the social revolution, the people's revolution, the historical revolution. George Washington has nothing -- nothing -- to do with this history."

{snip}

"It would appear that [Bush] doesn't even dare mention my name, because he was asked in Brasilia today in a press conference -- I saw it, I watched it at the hotel -- and the journalist asked him, “It is said that you are here to stop Chavez's movement in South America.” And it looked like he almost had a heart attack when he heard "Chavez," because he actually stuttered a couple of times, and he actually changed the subject. He didn't answer the question. He didn't answer the question at all. So he doesn't even dare."

CHENEY'S BLOOD CLOT

Vice President Dick Cheney has a blood clot in his leg, tests revealed on Monday. Cheney went to the doctor's office in Washington D.C. complaining of a “mild calf discomfort,” following a nine day trip to Asia and the Middle East that ended last week.

Ultrasound revealed a deep venous thrombosis or blood clot in his left lower leg. Blood clots of this type are normally considered dangerous, since they can move to the heart and cause heart attack or stroke. But this particular blood clot is actually quite old, and has apparently been inside the Vice President for most of his life.

“In fact, I would say this clot has been in Dick Cheney's brain since he was about twelve years old,” says Dr. Sam Cleavern, Chief Surgeon at Jacob And Wilhelm Grimm Memorial Hospital, and Cheney's personal physician. “You might say, it's more like an entity than a common blood clot,” Cleavern added.

When pressed further for a description, Cleavern hesitated, then said, “Well, you might say it's something like a troll or a homunculus.” Apparently, it's been feeding off Cheney's brain, sucking it out in minute degrees till now there's virtually nothing left. It appears the homunculus has literally taken the place of the Vice President's brain.

Dr. Hans Bordeleou of New York University says that when a blood clot occurs in the leg, there can be pain or swelling. If the condition worsens, some people suffer shortness of breath or may even cough blood. He disputes the notion of a homunculus at large in the Vice President's body, calling the theory absurd.

Nevertheless, when Cheney addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting at a Washington hotel on Monday morning, several witnesses reported seeing his eyes bulge, become reddened, and blood shoot from his mouth over the podium. However, the Vice President continued his speech as if nothing unusual had happened.

Rumors of Cheney's odd behavior have been flying around the blogosphere for several years, none of which have been confirmed. A nurse at the hospital that treated 79-year-old Harry Whittington, whom Cheney shot in the face with a 28-guage shotgun in February, 2006, said the Austin lawyer had confided to her that just before Cheney squeezed the trigger, Whittington thought he saw the Vice President's eyes bulge and blood spray from his mouth. Reached for comment, Whittington would neither confirm nor deny the story.

During his recent trip to the Middle East to talk about the “surge” in Iraq and possible war with Iran, several witnesses reported seeing the Vice President's eyes bulge as he spoke. At least two high ranking military commanders described the Vice President's expression as "pop-eyed," and said that blood either "spurted" or "dripped" from his mouth.

Another officer, Major General William Fefferman, noticed blood spray on his uniform after speaking with the Vice President face to face. He said he saw the flecks of blood in a mirror a few minutes after speaking with Cheney about attacking Iran. He recalled the air between them appeared to turn pale red as Cheney spoke of “annihilating America's enemies.”

Said General Fefferman, “If you want to know what I really think, I believe it was God talking to me. God is now speaking through Dick Cheney. I love God and I love Dick Cheney, and whatever God or Dick wants me to do, I will do it, no questions asked.”

Dr. Cleavern believes the homunculus is now acting on its own, traveling freely throughout Cheney's body. “Currently, it's in his left leg. Tomorrow, it could be in his right leg. Or it may travel elsewhere,” Dr. Cleavern said. “It may even decide to return to the Vice President's head. We just don't know what it's next move is going to be. It's subject to change at a moment's notice.”

Currently, the medical staff at the D.C. hospital is uncertain how to treat the condition.

HOUSE OF COMMONS SPEECH

by Harold Pinter.

Harold Pinter was recently award the Nobel Prize in literature. In 1995, he won the David Cohen British Literature Prize, awarded for a lifetime's achievement in literature. In 1996 he was given the Laurence Olivier Award for a lifetime's achievement in theater. In 2002 he was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature.

There's an old story about Oliver Cromwell. After he had taken the town of Drogheda, the citizens were brought to the main square. Cromwell announced to his lieutenants, "Right! Kill all the women and rape all the men." One of his aides said, "Excuse me, General. Isn't it the other way around?" A voice from the crowd called out, "Mr. Cromwell knows what he's doing!" That voice is the voice of Tony Blair. "Mr. Bush knows what he's doing!"

But the fact is that Mr. Bush and his gang do know what they're doing and Blair, unless he really is the deluded idiot he often appears to be, also knows what they're doing. They are determined, quite simply, to control the world and the world's resources. And they don't give a damn how many people they murder on the way. And Blair goes along with it.

He hasn't the support of the Labour Party, he hasn't the support of the country or of the celebrated "international community." How can he justify taking this country into a war nobody wants? He can't. He can only resort to rhetoric, cliche, and propaganda. Little did we think when we voted Blair into power that we would come to despise him. The idea that he has influence over Bush is laughable. His supine acceptance of American bullying is pathetic.

Bullying is of course a time-honored American tradition. In 1965, Lyndon Johnson said to the Greek Ambassador to the United States, "Fuck your parliament and your constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. Greece is a flea. If these two fellows continue itching the elephant they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good."

He meant what he said. Shortly afterward the Colonels, supported by the United States, took over, and the Greek people spent seven years in hell.

As for the American elephant, it has grown to be a monster of grotesque and obscene proportions.

The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom has, in the last twelve years, brought about the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Serbia. All this in pursuit of the American and British "moral crusade" to bring "peace and stability to the world."

The use of depleted uranium in the Gulf War has been particularly effective. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies are born with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears, mouths, or rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood.

Blair and Bush are of course totally indifferent to such facts, not forgetting the charming, grinning, beguiling Bill Clinton, who was apparently given a standing ovation at the Labour Party Conference. For what, killing Iraqi children? Or Serbian children?

Bush has said, "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders." Quite right. Look in the mirror, chum. That's you.

The United States is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and is prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow any inspection of its own factories.

It is holding hundreds of Afghans prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, allowing them no legal redress although they are charged with nothing, holding them captive virtually forever.

It is insisting on immunity from the international criminal court, a stance which beggars belief but which is now supported by Great Britain.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Tony Blair's contemptible subservience to this criminal American regime demeans and dishonors this country.

October 15, 2002

SO LONG, GOODBYE

Honey bees are disappearing. Nobody seems to know why. Perhaps another casualty of pollution and global warming. With the latest gloomy report of environmental scientists, it appears we humans are short-listed for extinction on our doomed planet along with polar bears, whales and the already vanquished do-do bird.

No doubt the first to go will be those who will be unable to afford to get to higher ground or pay what is certain to be a very high premium to live there. In other words, they will look a lot like the thousands left behind after Hurricane Katrina. Only, this time, they will number in the millions.

Already we're finding out who can or cannot afford the basic necessities, not just food and running water, but heat in winter. Forget health care. Here in Texas, the rich oil man, T. Boone Pickens, is buying up acreage overlying the Ogallala aquifer. Basically, he plans to drain the aquifer needed by West Texas farmers and sell off the water at colossal profits. This will be the sunset of our brief sojourn here. The rich will continue to plunder and profiteer off the rest of us right up to the end—at which point, I suppose, there will be nobody left but them, clutching their purses as they breathe their last in a world that will barely sustain them or their spoiled offspring.

For the present, we are locked in mortal combat over the earth's dwindling oil reserves, all under the guise of making the world “safe for Democracy.” And millionaires. The proposed new oil law cooked up between the U.S. and the Iraqi government leaves no doubt what the real objective was for the Iraq War. Under the new law, Iraq's oil will be handed over to foreign oil corporations, such as Exxon-Mobil, Shell and British Petroleum.

Well, if you can't win the war on the ground, at least you can win it on paper. The new definition of Democracy.

Not all that new, I suppose. From the Mexican War to the present day, Americans have always had a soft spot for bringing freedom and religion to backward people neatly packaged in the latest generation of exploding devices.

And make no mistake. Merely because folks are momentarily disheartened by the present disaster in Iraq should in no way be interpreted to mean they are tired of war, only that they are tired of losing. Give them a new one, such as Iran—looking more imminent by the hour—and once again their optimism will soar.

You would think the announcement of the world's leading scientists that global warming is well-nigh irreversible would render absurd all wars or even the thought of war. Yet, the best thinking of our leaders is not to halt the one in Iraq, but to expand it. And to move aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf, poised to heap destruction on Iran.

And while bullying other countries (puny enough to be bullied) to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons, we are working night and day on a whole new generation of WMDs for ourselves. To what end? To gain dominion over a world that may not be able to support human life another hundred years? To hand the spoils over to the likes of Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil and WalMart?

The sad history of our last stand on the planet will not be any noble effort to join hands with our brothers and sisters around the globe to try to halt what is happening to our beleaguered planet, but instead to bring more destruction, more bloodshed, more misery, as we continue our campaign to grab all that remains of the oil, the gas, the gold, the precious minerals, the jewels, the dinars, the shekels, and finally, inevitably, the water, for ourselves.

Our end, I imagine, will not be unlike the end of that great book by William Golding that I read long ago as a freshman in college, Lord Of The Flies. The adults finally arrive to rescue the children who have been stranded on an island after a plane crash, only to find a rabble of half-naked and painted savages, stalking each other with sharpened sticks. In a final touch of irony, the adult leading the rescue party is decked out in a crisp white naval uniform with brass buttons and epaulets. Now, the question is who will rescue him?

As for those honey bees, once they're gone, I reckon we'll have no more flowers. Which suggests a new line for Pete Seeger's famous song. Well, you'll still be able to get plastic ones—all you want. We'll need oil to make them with, of course. Ah, thus may our wars acquire a whole new relevance—not only to quench the voracious thirst of our cars, but also to maintain a steady crop of flowers—albeit plastic ones—for soldiers' graves.

--Published in the current online issue (Feb. 26) of The Lonestar Iconoclast.

"TELL ME,...WHERE DO YOU WANT THIS KILLING DONE?"

"...generally accepted in Christianity [is that] all mankind is tainted by the sin of Adam...and in all of us there is a disposition to the evil character responsible for that terrible deed. But in all of us, besides the inclination to revolt against the deity...is something of that exaggerated pride and hypertrophic vanity that makes us think of ourselves as godlike."

"Brushing away all religious veneer and looking at the question from the viewpoint of sober scientific research, is there, in reality, in all human beings a kind of innate overconfidence in their own powers?"

"It is very likely, however, that the assumption of such a general disposition does not regard actions, but rather activity in thoughts: in other words, overevaluation of mental activities, fantasies, wishes."

"Psychoanalysis asserts that children have really a grandiose concept of the power of their own thoughts and learn only late to acknowledge the limitations set to their daydreams and wishes. A small boy or a small girl will at first believe that he or she can grasp the moon looking into the nursery. Such extraordinary belief in one's own mental processes is often unconsciously maintained and kept in spite of opposite rational views."

"In psychoanalysis of neurotic patients, especially in obsessive cases, we regularly encounter manifestations of that old belief in the omnipotence of their thoughts." --Theodor Reik, MYTH AND GUILT, p. 413-14

On the other hand, as Dr. Reik points out, the neurotic who successfully resists temptation is still quite harsh on himself, because the moderator of conscience (his superego) "treats certain wishes as though they were real transgressions." Neurosis is a common enough feature, and the conclusion about guilt. that Reik arrives at, is that it is grounded in aggression, often aimed at a loved one, which conscience forbids the person to even think about. This inner conflict cannot be expressly resolved.

"The tension between the strict superego and the subordinate ego is called "sense of guilt"...and it manifests itself as a need for punishment".

This goes back to the most fundamental moral affect, which we encounter as children. And Dr. Reik identifies the genesis of guilt as directly connected to the dread of losing love. "A bad deed precipitates discovery of the misdeed which precipitates loss of love (and protection) for the child."

We have to be worried about our President, George W. Bush, because he shows very little sign of this moral grounding. "The guilt feelings of mankind have their root in aggression and violence"; but there is extreme danger arising in the rare man who operates without any sense of guilt. Will America lead the world toward total war, at the bidding of such a man? This curious President who has so often clowned and mugged for the cameras, is one who has always been more dangerous than he appears to be on the surface.

H.L. Mencken's admonishment that "Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking" does not seem to be working in the case of President Bush. The whole world is looking at the President's prevarications as he makes his preparations for an attack on Iran.

Our desperate hope is that Congress will act in time to prevent the escalation against Iran that Bush seems determined to mount. As US Occupation forces pass through Iraq's shattered communities, this war may spread further, with apocalyptic violence, as it swirls on, and burns through Iran and Afghanistan.

President Bush seems to think that America should sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. He may think he has been given the access code to the nation's messianic buttons. He may think that God has chosen him to activate the Book of Revelations. But the President can no longer coax the public into seeing him as some poor neurotic (like them), obsessed with his past failures, and driven to prove himself as his father's equal. The reality is much more sinister. There is no moral agent in this man, no conscience, nothing to curb ambition or deter omnipotent moods.

Chris Hedges has warned us about the Christian Right and its seductive vision of absolutism and apocalyptic violence, in his new book called American Fascists.

"The ecstatic belief in the cleansing power of apocalyptic violence does not recognize the right of the victims to self-preservation or self-defense. It does not admit them into a moral universe where they can have a criminal's right to be punished and rehabilitated. They are seen instead through this poisonous lens as pollutants, viruses, mutations that must be eradicated to halt further infection and degeneration within society and usher in utopia. This sacred violence--whether it arises from the Bible, Serbian nationalism, the dream of a classless society, or the goal of a world where all "subhumans" are eradicated--allows its perpetrators and henchmen to avoid moral responsibility for their crimes. The brutality they carry out is sanctified, an expression of not human volition but divine wrath. The victims, in a final irony, are considered responsible for their suffering and destruction."

"Societies that embrace apocalyptic visions and seek through sacred violence to implement them commit collective suicide."

The endgame is already set in motion.

MOLLY IVINS, AMERICA'S BELOVED HUMORIST, HAS DIED

Wisdom and humor were combined in such a delightful way, in the essays of Molly Ivins. And she deserves the laurel wreath that is given to the brave, having spent many years in a fight with recurrent cancer. Molly was a Texas original, an irrepressible spirit and an influential figure, whose political commentary was often hilarious and touching as well. She was supremely gifted in the art of lampooning the tragic and often ridiculous figures who haunt our political life. There was such a blessing in Molly's humor, and something deeply instructive.

I found myself laughing as I considered her persona, which always produced such satires and other fun in her artistic life, and there was the striking humanity in all her written words. After all, most talented humorists are admired for their wit; but only a select few, like Molly Ivins, have been so widely loved. There is either the pang of grief, or a sweet kind of laughter that arises when the memory of her life's work stands revealed. I wanted to find a poem to honor her; and The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran came to mind, immediately this passage:

Then a woman said, speak to us of Joy
and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your
laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your
tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your
being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very
cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your
spirit, the very wood that was hollowed
with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into
your heart and you shall find it is only that
which has given you sorrow that is giving
you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in
your heart, and you shall see that in truth
you are weeping for that which has been
your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than
sorrow,"and others say, "Nay, sorrow is
the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits
alone with you at your board, remember
that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales be-
tween your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at
standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to
weigh his gold and his silver, needs must
your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

"THAT'S HOW LONG YOU'VE GOT TO LIVE...AND IT ISN'T LONG, MY PRETTIES"

"The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding."

"The President is mischaracterizing U.S. action vis à vis Iran. In fact, the U.S. is already engaged in offensive and provocative acts against Iran."

"The President's strategy, by portraying our involvement as only being on the defensive, is laying out the groundwork for him to attack Iran and bypass authorization by Congress." --Congressman Dennis Kucinich, Rawstory

I saw a movie yesterday, "Pan's Labyrinth", set in General Franco's Spain (circa 1944) which was suffused with the dark energy of civil brutality, the outcome of a fascist ascendancy, filled with torture and extra-judicial murder that had become casual. The world is still under the thumb of people who bow to authority without questioning its orders or motives.

Our President who spoke so brazenly in pursuit of his lawless wiretapping a year ago is exactly the same man he was then, although now he dons another mask for his latest State of the Union speech, and his temporary lack of swagger becomes a useful tactic, as he methodically rolls out the war machine and sets his sights on Iran. The aggression is unthinkable. It is incalculable. It proceeds with malice aforethought. It is all cold-blooded murder, all meticulous and monstrous treason; and it would be the legacy Mr. Bush seems to covet, a set piece among the greatest crimes of history.

President Bush has expanded the Occupation of Iraq and his war in ways which are not immediately apparent. The writer, Jeremy Scahill, explained in a Democracy Now interview that Bush has widened the war with Blackwater fighters and other mercenary soldiers in Iraq. The deaths of these hired soldiers are not in the more accessible public records.

"...we should be counting the deaths of Blackwater soldiers in the total troop count."..."one of the ways we have found to discover the deaths of the number of contractors that have been killed is actually through the Department of Labor, because the government has a federal insurance scheme that's been set up"..."and it's insurance provided to contractors who service the US military abroad. And so, as of late last year, more than 600 families of contractors in Iraq had filed for those benefits."

"--and these are just US contractors that have rights to federal benefits inside of the United States. Remember it's not just Americans that make up the majority of these [100,000 contractors] that are operating in Iraq right now, 48,000 of whom are mercenaries, according to the GAO. So I don't think it's possible to put a fine point on the number of troops killed, because the Bush administration has found a backdoor way to engage in an undeclared expansion of the occupation by deploying these private armies."

State terror and violence are being placed in tandem with mercenary terror and violence. An ever-widening sphere of destruction and carnage is being allowed. The provocations against Iran have already been initiated. The war against Iran is already in motion. Like the Schlieffen Plan that took years of German preparation before World War I, this present war was well prepared in advance. And what we see is an agenda, a momentum toward a set of objectives.

Seymour Hersh and other investigative reporters have warned us of the relentless war aims of this administration. We can expect a ramped up series of skirmishes accompanied by bellicose statements from Bush's White House, increasing in frequency as the date set for the attack on Iran approaches. So many of us wonder whether the showdown with Congress that seems inevitable, will fall apart as a capitulation to Bush/Cheney's sadistic progress of brutality and ambition--or if on the other hand--courage might prevail in Congress. Bush will try to present his expanded war as part of his idealism, and as an inevitability; but Pelosi and the Democrats (and some Republicans) are not so stupid or naive as to fall for it, or allow it to stand.

Congress must come to see that "unitary executive" powers and Bush's War represent a concerted assault on America's democratic institutions, harming our law and reason and decency, in ways that a foreign enemy could not.

DIARY OF A RAG AND BONE MAN

The Continuing Saga of a Homeless Man and his Dog
by Jack Rafter

Home For The Holidays

About a year after I lost my job, Lena, my wife, and I split the sheets. We had already begun to go sour on each other, especially once she turned Republican. She and her mother, Mary-Louise, actually worked in Tom Delay's campaign for awhile. Even after he got indicted, they were still working for him. I asked her if she didn't think working for a criminal asshole might be setting a bad example for our daughters, Winnie and Ophelia, aged eight and nine years. She insisted he was not a criminal. “He's a great American,” she said, “who's just being targeted by liberals.”

Now, I see by the papers that he's going around preaching sermons to audiences of Christian fundamentalists, about the last group left in America, I suppose—or in the world, for that matter—that still supports Bush; people who it seems base all their decisions and their lives almost exclusively on delusions.

After the divorce, Lena took our daughters and moved in with her mother. We had an arrangement whereby I could see the girls every other weekend, and it worked out pretty good. Mary Louise never cared for me much. She's Presbyterian. She has her own accounting firm, with three other accountants working for her. She's rather large in the girth, about an ax-handle wide, near as I can estimate, though it's not all fat. She and Lena work out every other day at the Ladies Only Health Spa. Lena's nice and trim, as a result, while Mary Louise just seems to get more and more stout. She dyes her hair a whitish blond and combs it back from her face. She looks like a Swedish weight-lifter.

Mary Louise likes to challenge men to arm-wrestling matches. She's won quite a few bets that way, apparently. She asks me to arm-wrestle every time I go over there, but I always refuse. I imagine she could take me easily. I'm certain she would like nothing better than to break my arm, if only I would give her half a chance. “C'mon, Jack, what are you afraid of?” she says. I always smile and say, “No, thanks, Mary Louise. I don't want to embarrass you.”

* * *

After losing my job, I went off my rocker for awhile. I guess you call it depression. After that, I lost my house. That seemed to bring about a change in Lena. Almost like she was looking at me through a different lens. Repulsion—I think that's what it's called. After that, she started making little threatening remarks. “I don't know if I want my children to see you since you're crazy,” she'd say. Or “I'm thinking about getting an injunction against you.” Things like that.

So far, it's been mostly words. I try not to pay too much attention to her. And I just keep on coming over to the house to see my little girls whenever I can, even though there are times when I can't seem to distinguish reality from the real thing, if you know what I mean; sometimes I'm not sure whether I'm walking or riding horseback.

As for the girls, they hit it off with Vincent right away. Which really irked Lena. She thinks Vincent's nothing but a flea-bit mongrel. I'm pretty sure she looks at me that way, too. But I think I do a pretty fair job keeping the bugs off of us. Maintaining a certain level of hygiene isn't so easy to achieve living out by the train yards, but you do what you can. I don't have much money, so about all the girls and I can do is go for little walks here and there, maybe to a movie, if they pay for it—and they usually can--or to the zoo with the Mexicans on the freebie day. Now and then on warm days, we set out for the duck pond with a loaf of Sunbeam and feed the ducks. (Have to tie Vincent to a tree when we do that, otherwise, he wants to chase the birds back in the water.)

Lena told me not to show up on Christmas Day this year. She said they were having guests over that day—some rich clients of Mary Louise—and she didn't want them to see me. She said they would treat me to lunch and assured me there would be plenty of leftover turkey and other good things if I didn't mind waiting a few days. I said, “Sure, what the hell.” I thought about showing up unannounced on Christmas day, but decided against it, thinking about that injunction Lena might try to serve me with.

* * *

Well, Christmas Day was so infernal cold, there were only a couple of us in the hobo camp. The rest had gone to the shelters. Vincent and I hoofed it over to Johnny Blair's Bizzy Bee Cafe. He was opened for breakfast, but planned on closing the rest of the day. He fed me breakfast and gave me a little work washing dishes and helping him clean up the place for the holidays. He also gave me a nice Christmas gift—all wrapped and everything. It was a book of poetry—Good Poems, edited by Garrison Keillor—you know, the guy that does the radio show. I couldn't believe it. My eyes just about misted over. Well, that's Johnny Blair for you. Real prince of a gentleman. He said I could come home and have turkey with him and his wife, if I wanted to, but I declined. I figured he should be alone with his sweetheart for Christmas.

That night, the temperature dropped below thirty. The shelter was full up, so I went down to the emergency room of the hospital and blended in with all the sick people, while Vincent hid out in the parking garage. I stayed in there all night. Didn't sleep a wink, but at least I kept warm. The walls were lined with miserable wretches all spewing and fizzling like leaky faucets. But luckily, I didn't catch anything from them.

The next day, two more guys showed up at the hobo camp. The sun came out, but it was still bitter cold. We built up the fire, pooled our money, and sent a couple of fellas off to buy a chicken. They came back with a bird, some canned blackeyed peas and a bottle of wine. Napa Valley, no less. We threw the bird on the fire and made busy with the wine. Charlie Apthekir, had gone off on a foray in a swank neighborhood and came trudging back into camp with a tow-sack full of stuff he'd rummaged from the mountains of boxes and glitz and shiny trash thrown out on the curbs.

Among all his boodle, were a pair of pingpong paddles and a tube full of white plastic balls. Brand new, they were. Charlie says the gifting in some of those houses is so extravagant that quite often brand new stuff gets thrown out with the trash. Especially toys. “Those rich kids can't keep track of all their swag,” Charlie said with a gap-toothed grin, “so they don't even notice when they've thrown something out.”

His plunder included a few items that hadn't even been opened. And others where the wrappings had been removed, but the items were still in the box. We ended up with three men's ties, four pair of socks, a sweater, a bag of t-shirts, another bag of underdrawers, a shoe-box containing one woman's black high-heel shoe (the other one missing), some nice lingerie, six packages of pantyhose, three bottles of men's cologne, by Brut, a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume, a jar of orange marmalade, a big bag of walnuts, and a Black and Decker drill with a complete set of drill bits. There was a thing that looked like a fancy sling shot that had us all stumped for awhile, till someone guessed it was a woman's thong. We had a lot of fun thinking about that.

We divided up the booty among those present. We all agreed Charlie should keep the drill since he did all the work. The next day he went straight to the nearest pawnshop. He asked me if I thought my girls might like to play ping-pong. I said I didn't know, I'd give it a try. So he gave me the paddles and the balls.

Three days after Christmas, I showed up at Mary Louise's house. Lena looked me over real close before letting me in, just to make sure I was presentable. I was way ahead of her. That morning, I'd taken Vincent and gone to the Y for a shower. I slipped the dog in through a basement window and gave him a good scrubbing, as well. I also had on a nice clean pair of Dickies work pants and a flannel shirt, purchased for five dollars at the Goodwill Store. My hair was slicked down and my beard trimmed. I wore my old tweed coat—purchased twenty years ago for a slap hundred dollars. Now, it's threadbare and drafty, but I had hung it in the wind all night to get the campfire smell out, so I made a fair appearance.

Mary Louise's house was all festooned with Martha Stewart cut-outs and decorations. She had an eight-foot tall tree and a nice fire in the fireplace. We made a meal of the leftovers, just as promised, and the conversation was civil enough, I guess. Afterwards, the girls and I took to the street for a little ping-pong. We didn't have a net, but we had a helluva party for awhile. Yes, I played, too—found a piece of board in Mary Louise's garage and used it for a paddle, and man, we bat those balls all over the place. The girls were giggling like hyenas, diving under cars and into trash piles to retrieve the balls, and so on. At one point, I noticed Lena and Mary Louise peering at us from the livingroom window. They didn't look too happy. I knew the two of them were finding it somewhat trying to see their squeaky clean little girls reduced to playing ping-pong with discarded paddles out in the street with their bum father. But to Lena's credit, they left us alone.

Some of the other brats on the street stood around watching us with pinched faces as if we were out of our minds. I guess they thought it wasn't ping-pong if you don't have a nice table and a net. Fortunately, Winnie and Ophelia don't have too high expectations of me. They just seem to take everything in stride and have a jolly old time no matter what we do. I don't understand it, but somehow they didn't get spoiled. They just get a kick out of life. I hope they continue to feel that way awhile longer, but I suspect these times of innocence will pass into memory one of these days.

* * *

We played as long as we could, but at last Lena called the girls in, and I realized it was time to leave. I was surprised when she told me it was almost seven o'clock. I wanted badly to stay, to sit by Mary Louise's big fireplace and read a story to my children. I started to ask Lena if I could, but she had that clipped tone in her voice, and I figured it was a no sale. The girls came for goodbyes. I got down and hugged them both. Damn near misted up again. Then, I looked at Lena, and we just nodded at each other. Half an hour later, I was on the bus riding across town with Vincent.

We both crawled in the tent that night there in the woods, by the freight yard. In a little while, it started to snow. I turned the flashlight on and found my gift from Johnny Blair, the book of poems, in my tweed coat pocket. I'd been carrying it all day. I opened it and read aloud the first poem my eyes landed on, a poem called “Let Evening Come,” by Jane Kenyon.

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the crickets take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go back inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.

DEMOCRACY OR EMPIRE?...WHEN WILL AMERICA DECIDE?

“[Rome] creates a desert”...

“But there are no tribes beyond us, nothing indeed but waves and rocks, and the yet more terrible Romans, from whose oppression escape is vainly sought by obedience and submission. Robbers of the world, having by their universal plunder exhausted the land, they rifle the deep. If the enemy be rich, they are rapacious; if he be poor, they lust for dominion; neither the east nor the west has been able to satisfy them. Alone among men they covet with equal eagerness poverty and riches. To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a solitude and call it peace.”--Tacitus

The precise problem which faces us is which road the United States will take. Chalmers Johnson, writing in the January 2007 issue of Harper's Magazine, leaves no doubt that the choice is stark. In one part of his article, Republic or Empire, he contrasts the fate of Imperial Rome with that of Great Britain. The Romans, as Johnson says, were ultimately unwilling to part with the Empire, and this in itself, was the undoing of democracy. But in the aftermath of World War II, the British were ready to let go of imperial power, and this was a decision in favor of their democracy.

Americans have not awakened to this moment of truth, or even come to recognize the problem as a distinct political issue, owing to what Albert Einstein once said: "Problems cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." The problem is only in part the present political crisis; that is to say the power struggle of a rogue President against our courageous representatives in the House and Senate. Rather, we as Americans have largely failed to confront the level of thinking, not to mention the associated problems, brought about by a National Security State and a Military Industrial Complex. A shift of consciousness is required of Americans, and a willingness to take collective responsibility for what our country has become.

There are no ruthless means that an empire will not resort to; if the leaders feel that the nation's prerogatives and base of power are threatened. Why are those things which get done in our national interest, the same things the historian Tacitus describes? Robbery, slaughter, plunder?

“[America's] imperial project is expensive. The flow of the nation's wealth—from taxpayers and (increasingly) foreign lenders through the government to military contractors and (decreasingly) back to the taxpayers—has created a form of “military Keynesianism,” in which the domestic economy requires sustained military ambition in order to avoid recession or collapse.” (Johnson)

During the Great depression of the 1930s the theories of British economist, John Maynard Keynes, were being put to the test by President Franklin Roosevelt. Putting unemployed men to work in newly created public works projects was one way of dealing with the economic disaster at hand.

"To prevent the economy from contracting, a development typically accompanied by social unrest, Keynes thought the government should take on debt in order to put people back to work. Some of these deficit financed government jobs might be socially useful, but Keynes was not averse to creating make-work tasks if necessary. During periods of prosperity, the government would cut spending and rebuild the treasury." (ibid)

Military Keynesianism, as described by Chalmers Johnson, seems to be the weapon of choice in the hands of a rogue administration. Any fantasy of violence and domination, from scorched earth to rape, from torture to the death squads, from bribery to larceny to embezzlement has been possible, once the nation became, first and foremost, since 2001, a military state. And the the money has gone here, there, and back again, with the shoddiest kind of accounting practices. And it is no accident.

"In 2005, the Government Accountability Office reported to Congress that “neither DOD nor Congress can reliably know how much the war is costing” or “details on the appropriated money is being spent.” Indeed, the GAO found that , lacking a reliable method for tracking military costs, the Army had taken to simply inserting into its accounts figures that matched the available budget. Such actions seem absurd in terms of military logic. But they are perfectly logical responses to the requirements of military Keynesianism, which places its emphasis not on the demand for defense but rather on the available supply of money.”

“This creates a feedback loop: American presidents know that military Keynesianism tends to concentrate power in the executive branch, and so president's who seek greater power have a natural inducement to encourage growth of the military-industrial complex. As the phenomena feed on each other, the usual outcome is real war, based not on the needs of national defense but rather on the domestic political logic of military Keynesianism. As US Senator Robert La Follette Sr. observed, “In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparations for war. As soon as prepared for war, it insists on making war.””(ibid)(my emphasis)

And the fantasy world will be the last thing to end, as the President's Press Secretary proved just a few days ago:

TONY SNOW:

"Also, I want to address kind of a rumor, an urban legend that's going around--and it comes from the language in the President's Wednesday night address to the nation, that in talking about Iran and Syria, that he was trying to prepare the way for war with either country and that there are war preparations underway: There are not."

Someone should tell Tony that his "urban legend" has been upgraded with those US nuclear subs lying off the coast of Iran, not to mention the two carrier battle groups gathering in the region, the Patriot Missile Batteries headed for the Gulf States, in addition to the 20,000 GIs the President is trying to get funded for some disagreeable duty. And Tony says there are no preparations for war.

Speaking for myself, I'd be pleased to embrace some new level of thinking and share what I could with my fellow Americans and everyone. Some help seems to be available; and if we do as Albert Einstein recommended with a thought experiment of our own, we might be able to find some renewal in Eastern thought.Here are the words of a man Mahatma Gandhi called "The Great Sentinel":

"We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for him. Civilization must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity. The first question and the last which it has to answer is, Whether and how far it recognizes man more as a spirit than a machine? Whenever some ancient civilization fell into decay and died, it was owing to causes which produced callousness of heart and led to the cheapening of man's worth; when either the state or some powerful group of men began to look upon the people as a mere instrument of their power; when, by compelling weaker races to slavery and trying to keep them down by every means, man struck at the foundation of his greatness, his own love of freedom and fair-play. Civilization can never sustain itself upon cannibalism of any form. For that by which alone man is true can only be nourished by love and justice."

--Rabindranath Tagore, The Realization of Life, 1916