Our Constitution really looks like crap, doesn't it? I can only hope our descendants will laugh their asses off reading it someday. We start with the statement "all men are created equal" and spend the next four hundred years having to write in, "that means black people too," "that means women, too," "that means native Americans, too..." And here we stand in the far off year of 2010 - where flying cars dot the sky - arguing over whether it should mean homosexuals too. Not to mention whether torture counts as cruel and unusual; whether water-boarding counts as torture; whether a citizen has a right to their citizenship; whether it's illegal to spy on people sans cause or warrant; whether an individual gets a say in their own proliferation; whether the opinion of the department of justice should be held as incontrovertible fiat; whether war-crimes are war-crimes; and what the definition of the word 'is' is.
The mutual lunacies of American politics, law, and the media organizations claiming to cover it in a "fair and balanced" way drove me to NPR at first. NPR provided the only news media I could entertain without being driven to fits of fury by the "common sense" stupidity being bandied about as wisdom. Eventually, NPR couldn't keep me sane either. I found that even -they- were guilty of filtering and censoring content and contributors based upon popular consensus, regardless of that body's irrationality. In fairness, I suppose no one can present the daily news in a tolerable way when the day's news itself is become utterly intolerable.
The Bush era of lies, ignorance, bigotry, lawlessness, murder, and conspiracy nearly drove me to what some have politely called 'direct action.' Thankfully I managed to pull myself away for a view from a longer perspective and concluded that the world, taken en masse, is really just some sort of sickness. That there's a reason all the great spiritual figures of the various religions teach abandonment of it and its concerns, and that I could only do myself and others harm by taking personal responsibility for the behavior and policies of nations.
As I say I started by switching to NPR, then even that had to go. As of today I don't watch television; I don't listen to the radio; I don't read the paper. To quote Joseph Heller, "I don't spend much time keeping track of the world and can't see that it would change much if I did. I mind my own business. What's important I hear about."
Despite my media blackout I still hear more than I want to about politics. How people can be angry about Obama's health plan, which is so paltry an act of legislation, such a band-aid on a hemorrhage... That some should deride it as being "socialist" when it's the most capital-centric, corporate-friendly thing that could have happened to the private insurers... That no one, for all the months of commentary and conjecture and idiots shouting into the wind, ever saw fit to propose the concept of simply collecting and allocating enough federal tax dollars to cover everyone's health needs, all the time; and especially in a country that claims to be eighty percent Christian, and is thereby obliged to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick and imprisoned, lest their God should forsake them...
Well, it's all just as ridiculous and meaningless as ever and I'm happier to turn a blind eye and deaf ear and let the devil put on his little stage show. I figure, if you do what's right on an individual level, person to person, then all the lofty declarations of all the over-educated, under-literate, morons wearing suits, feigning global-ownership, don't amount to any effect anyway.
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label justice. Show all posts
Obama's a Bitch: Live on Stage
This space used to host the YouTube video-recital of my article "Obama's a Bitch." I've chosen to delete the video from YouTube and direct all inquirers to the original written form; at last concluding the video fails, where the written form exceeds, the test of time.
Obama's a Bitch
Let me tell you why Obama's a bitch.
Obama's a bitch because he didn't withdraw the troops; because he's still trying to make hay out of an indefensible act of unprovoked aggression. Because he thinks he and his staff can do, in eighteen months, what a thousand military and sociopolitical strategists haven't been able to figure in half a decade spent eating, sleeping, and breathing Iraq. That is, to somehow split the nation's oil properties among the three dissident factions in such a way as every one of them can hold the majority alone. And thereby prevent the surely inevitable civil war what came foaming up with the cork when we loosed Iraq from Saddam's, albeit dictatorial, politically steadying influence.
And Obama's a bitch because he won't let that civil war come; because he'd rather silence the will of the Iraqi people under a stifling, American-made government that bids to hold the peace by an unpopulist, overwhelming force, than allow the people of Iraq, for whom those institutions are supposed to be, the self determination of a civil war. No, we've too much invested in Iraq's exports to let the people rise up and have it out. Why, that would lead to burning oil fields and broken pipelines, and we'll be damned if we traveled half way around the world, killed, tortured, and imprisoned all those innocent people, only to walk out the door without a steady flow of natural resources to show for it! Obama's a bitch because he's still trying to make G.W.'s bloodshed pay.
And he's a bitch because he didn't put that bloodthirsty sociopath, his generals, and all the rest of the Bush staff up for war crimes charges. He's left all the evils committed thereby to stand as evidence of their lack of fault. Thousands tortured; tens of thousands imprisoned without cause or means of redress; hundreds of thousands slaughtered by excessive use of force; American citizens stripped of citizenship and imprisoned without charges; warrantless, indiscriminate, nationwide surveillance programs... And all abominations go unrebuked! All are justified in a deafening silence; in the absence of a trial.
A trial is not a conviction, by the way -- it does not mean guilt. It means that there is sufficient evidence for inquiry. Is there not that?! Is there no question in the people or their leaders - in Obama - as to the legality and righteousness of all that has been done in these dark days? Yet here is placidity. Here is tranquility. There is no inquiry, nor outrage for this trial's absence. So it shall be remembered that none were injured. None called for justice, so all must be right and justly done.
Obama's a bitch because he won't apologize to Iraq and the world for a war no man alive can defend or justify. We are all stained black and red with the blood of millions - every one of us - and he bids us all to walk about pretending cleanliness, as though we did a good thing; as liberators rather than the harbingers of murder, unrest, and destruction.
Obama's a bitch because his health care plan is a fucking coupon, and nothing else. Because if he passes his discount 'crap care' plan we're all doomed to another fifty years as the world's only peoples so heartless - so shamelessly greedy - as to have the means but not the interest in establishing a Universal Health package that would cover everybody, all the time. This so-called Christian man, Obama, means to leave this so-called Christian nation, America, an affront to the very God he claims to worship, by keeping health and reasonable care a commodity on the exchange. This one never read the story of the Good Samaritan, it seems.
And if he gets his way we will be saddled with this for-profit, rack'em and stack'em, system of medicine for another half century without the political capital of the people's unrest to move us an inch toward real progress. In other words, I will not, in my lifetime, see a fair and equitable system of health care in America. I will have died before it comes. And presumably of some Cancer, the fighting of which produced costs so great that my wife and children will be left not only widowed and fatherless, but homeless and penniless as well. These I will credit to Obama.
Obama's a bitch because everything he has done and said, with the exception, perhaps, of closing Guantanamo, is a middle of the road, fence-sitting, fiscally conservative, politically viable, corporate-centric, safe and agreeable, popular consensus seeking, "p'weese evew'ybody wuv me awl at wunce," stop-gap half-measure of ambiguity. Because after eight years of unabashed evil, the likes known only under rule of Hitler, Kahn, and the Catholic church, Obama's great answer to these dark ages - his plan to put these moral miseries behind us - is nothing more than a return to slow and steady moderation. Back to the status quo everyone! For Christ's sake, yesterday the ruler of this nation was on TV saying human torture is a-okay, now's the changing of the guard and here's the backlash come in the image of a skinny, straightened man, hands folded neatly over his finely pressed linen suit, saying quietly, "I disagree." You should be fucking shouting! You should be livid! Hell, even if you don't care, for the general morale of the public a leader at least feigns outrage!
Obama's a bitch because, for popularity's sake, for his continued political viability, he has toed the line. He has let every significant injustice of the previous administration go unredressed. We needed a hero for sanity. We needed someone to pull America in a new direction, and to pull as hard, harder still, than Bush had pulled us all toward unfeeling capitalistic imperialism. We needed a hero to lead us into an age of compassion, peace, and charity. What we got was a colorless, odorless centrist. A man so deeply absorbed into the middle ground that he could no more tow us away than he could resist being floated along with the wayward nation himself.
And this man, this is the answer to Bush-brand conservatism? This is the rebuttal? This is the people's response to insanity, oppression, fear, and hatred? You know what? Forget Obama. Obama's not the bitch. You're the bitch... Bitch.
Obama's a bitch because he didn't withdraw the troops; because he's still trying to make hay out of an indefensible act of unprovoked aggression. Because he thinks he and his staff can do, in eighteen months, what a thousand military and sociopolitical strategists haven't been able to figure in half a decade spent eating, sleeping, and breathing Iraq. That is, to somehow split the nation's oil properties among the three dissident factions in such a way as every one of them can hold the majority alone. And thereby prevent the surely inevitable civil war what came foaming up with the cork when we loosed Iraq from Saddam's, albeit dictatorial, politically steadying influence.
And Obama's a bitch because he won't let that civil war come; because he'd rather silence the will of the Iraqi people under a stifling, American-made government that bids to hold the peace by an unpopulist, overwhelming force, than allow the people of Iraq, for whom those institutions are supposed to be, the self determination of a civil war. No, we've too much invested in Iraq's exports to let the people rise up and have it out. Why, that would lead to burning oil fields and broken pipelines, and we'll be damned if we traveled half way around the world, killed, tortured, and imprisoned all those innocent people, only to walk out the door without a steady flow of natural resources to show for it! Obama's a bitch because he's still trying to make G.W.'s bloodshed pay.
And he's a bitch because he didn't put that bloodthirsty sociopath, his generals, and all the rest of the Bush staff up for war crimes charges. He's left all the evils committed thereby to stand as evidence of their lack of fault. Thousands tortured; tens of thousands imprisoned without cause or means of redress; hundreds of thousands slaughtered by excessive use of force; American citizens stripped of citizenship and imprisoned without charges; warrantless, indiscriminate, nationwide surveillance programs... And all abominations go unrebuked! All are justified in a deafening silence; in the absence of a trial.
A trial is not a conviction, by the way -- it does not mean guilt. It means that there is sufficient evidence for inquiry. Is there not that?! Is there no question in the people or their leaders - in Obama - as to the legality and righteousness of all that has been done in these dark days? Yet here is placidity. Here is tranquility. There is no inquiry, nor outrage for this trial's absence. So it shall be remembered that none were injured. None called for justice, so all must be right and justly done.
Obama's a bitch because he won't apologize to Iraq and the world for a war no man alive can defend or justify. We are all stained black and red with the blood of millions - every one of us - and he bids us all to walk about pretending cleanliness, as though we did a good thing; as liberators rather than the harbingers of murder, unrest, and destruction.
Obama's a bitch because his health care plan is a fucking coupon, and nothing else. Because if he passes his discount 'crap care' plan we're all doomed to another fifty years as the world's only peoples so heartless - so shamelessly greedy - as to have the means but not the interest in establishing a Universal Health package that would cover everybody, all the time. This so-called Christian man, Obama, means to leave this so-called Christian nation, America, an affront to the very God he claims to worship, by keeping health and reasonable care a commodity on the exchange. This one never read the story of the Good Samaritan, it seems.
And if he gets his way we will be saddled with this for-profit, rack'em and stack'em, system of medicine for another half century without the political capital of the people's unrest to move us an inch toward real progress. In other words, I will not, in my lifetime, see a fair and equitable system of health care in America. I will have died before it comes. And presumably of some Cancer, the fighting of which produced costs so great that my wife and children will be left not only widowed and fatherless, but homeless and penniless as well. These I will credit to Obama.
Obama's a bitch because everything he has done and said, with the exception, perhaps, of closing Guantanamo, is a middle of the road, fence-sitting, fiscally conservative, politically viable, corporate-centric, safe and agreeable, popular consensus seeking, "p'weese evew'ybody wuv me awl at wunce," stop-gap half-measure of ambiguity. Because after eight years of unabashed evil, the likes known only under rule of Hitler, Kahn, and the Catholic church, Obama's great answer to these dark ages - his plan to put these moral miseries behind us - is nothing more than a return to slow and steady moderation. Back to the status quo everyone! For Christ's sake, yesterday the ruler of this nation was on TV saying human torture is a-okay, now's the changing of the guard and here's the backlash come in the image of a skinny, straightened man, hands folded neatly over his finely pressed linen suit, saying quietly, "I disagree." You should be fucking shouting! You should be livid! Hell, even if you don't care, for the general morale of the public a leader at least feigns outrage!
Obama's a bitch because, for popularity's sake, for his continued political viability, he has toed the line. He has let every significant injustice of the previous administration go unredressed. We needed a hero for sanity. We needed someone to pull America in a new direction, and to pull as hard, harder still, than Bush had pulled us all toward unfeeling capitalistic imperialism. We needed a hero to lead us into an age of compassion, peace, and charity. What we got was a colorless, odorless centrist. A man so deeply absorbed into the middle ground that he could no more tow us away than he could resist being floated along with the wayward nation himself.
And this man, this is the answer to Bush-brand conservatism? This is the rebuttal? This is the people's response to insanity, oppression, fear, and hatred? You know what? Forget Obama. Obama's not the bitch. You're the bitch... Bitch.
Ain't Nothing Free
Last weekend I went camping with my dad. I was put in charge of procuring the firewood. At first I couldn't fathom spending the sixty dollars or so my dad said a half cord of firewood might cost me. It's just wood, after all. It's just a tree somebody didn't want there anymore, for chrissakes. So I set myself to finding a freebie.
I spread the word I was looking for firewood and my boss, Kevin, invited me over to his house to take as much wood as I wanted from a growing pile of scrap the neighborhood had been dumping lumber on for years, I guess. I met Kevin at his house the day before the trip, hoping to find even just a little worth cherry picking. After about an hour digging through the pile and cutting the bigger pieces down to size, I finally capitulated and threw everything I'd pulled back. A lot of it was rotted through or just too damned wet. And most of what wasn't had those little wormy lines that I've seen associated with the much-dreaded Emerald Ash Borer - last year's 'Summer of the Shark' if you ask me. Still I wasn't going to risk it on some moldy, old wood. So I threw it all back. Every scrap.
Across the street a nosy neighbor looked on as I carefully drove my van away from the pile and back out into the road. I parked the van at curbside and jumped back out to return the gloves Kevin lent me while I was picking through the wood. Just then two police cars came cruising up the way. One of the cops flagged me down as he pulled passed and turned around. Once he'd parked he walked up to me and, with an air of superiority and accusation in his voice, said "What'd you dump back there?"
I laughed out loud as the next ten minutes of my life flashed before my eyes. I, of course, explained that I hadn't been dumping anything but instead had eyes on taking some away from the pile; that I'd finally abandoned the attempt, and all the reasons why...
If it had been a lie, it was a damned good one, really. Air-tight. It explained everything so well that all the evidence in the world couldn't have pierced the cloud of reasonable doubt it created. It's almost a shame it was true, if you think about it.
The cop had me open my van and show him what was inside. I had a blue tarp laid out, held down at the edges with a heavy chain. The tarp was covered in bits of bark and splinters of wood from the pieces I'd loaded into the van before I recanted and threw them back on the pile. It really could've looked bad if my story weren't so perfect. "If you didn't dump anything than where'd all these splinters come from? Clearly you've had wood in here," he might have queried. He didn't, but he might've! It would've been in vain though -- my airtight alibi backing me up; That I'd loaded some wood and then unloaded it for fear of bringing the ash borer into our precious state park grounds. I can imagine the single tear forming in the corner of my eye as I spoke of all the fallen ash trees, dead because of the world's thoughtless campers. "Cruel villains!" I'd have screamed, and the officer would've consoled me, wrapping me in one of those emergency blankets they have and bringing me some instant cocoa before giving me a commendation for courage in the face of eco-terrorism and sending me on my way. Oh, what a perfect lie it would have been.
Sadly, it was just the truth and so I sat in my van as he ran my license for warrants. Even though I've never been in any real trouble it still unsettles me when they do that. Just think, all it takes is one little snafu... An eensy little error in the intrastate police database; one flipped bit in a memory bank decides whether the "Known Pederast" column answers "true" or "false," and whether you'll be spending the night in jail.
Or even worse, something like a summons to appear in court that some errant clerk never sent you or that got lost in the mail might have, completely without your knowledge, resulted in an actual, "legitimate" court order for your arrest. That would take even longer to straighten out, if you ever could; if they'd ever believe you! The notion that an innocent man has nothing to fear only applies if the innocent man has four days to spend in a holding cell at county, and doesn't mind his car, his wallet, his belt and shoelaces, shirt, pants, socks, undies, and everything therein being seized, bagged, labeled, pilfered, and parked behind a six foot thick, iron wall of bureaucratic red tape that'll take two months and fifteen signed, notarized affidavits affirming to recover. Just one little hiccup in the incessant, unrepentant gears of "progress" could tear your life to shreds without even pausing to appreciate its work. Without doing anything at all any one of us might be sucked into the pneumatic tubes of what passes for justice 'round here.
Thankfully I wasn't. The officer returned my license and gave me an idea where I could find campfire wood for sale. Taking the officer's advice I left Kevin's house, following Grange Hall Rd up to Dixie Hwy where I scored a half cord of firewood for forty-five dollars. Ain't nothing free, kids.
I spread the word I was looking for firewood and my boss, Kevin, invited me over to his house to take as much wood as I wanted from a growing pile of scrap the neighborhood had been dumping lumber on for years, I guess. I met Kevin at his house the day before the trip, hoping to find even just a little worth cherry picking. After about an hour digging through the pile and cutting the bigger pieces down to size, I finally capitulated and threw everything I'd pulled back. A lot of it was rotted through or just too damned wet. And most of what wasn't had those little wormy lines that I've seen associated with the much-dreaded Emerald Ash Borer - last year's 'Summer of the Shark' if you ask me. Still I wasn't going to risk it on some moldy, old wood. So I threw it all back. Every scrap.
Across the street a nosy neighbor looked on as I carefully drove my van away from the pile and back out into the road. I parked the van at curbside and jumped back out to return the gloves Kevin lent me while I was picking through the wood. Just then two police cars came cruising up the way. One of the cops flagged me down as he pulled passed and turned around. Once he'd parked he walked up to me and, with an air of superiority and accusation in his voice, said "What'd you dump back there?"
I laughed out loud as the next ten minutes of my life flashed before my eyes. I, of course, explained that I hadn't been dumping anything but instead had eyes on taking some away from the pile; that I'd finally abandoned the attempt, and all the reasons why...
If it had been a lie, it was a damned good one, really. Air-tight. It explained everything so well that all the evidence in the world couldn't have pierced the cloud of reasonable doubt it created. It's almost a shame it was true, if you think about it.
The cop had me open my van and show him what was inside. I had a blue tarp laid out, held down at the edges with a heavy chain. The tarp was covered in bits of bark and splinters of wood from the pieces I'd loaded into the van before I recanted and threw them back on the pile. It really could've looked bad if my story weren't so perfect. "If you didn't dump anything than where'd all these splinters come from? Clearly you've had wood in here," he might have queried. He didn't, but he might've! It would've been in vain though -- my airtight alibi backing me up; That I'd loaded some wood and then unloaded it for fear of bringing the ash borer into our precious state park grounds. I can imagine the single tear forming in the corner of my eye as I spoke of all the fallen ash trees, dead because of the world's thoughtless campers. "Cruel villains!" I'd have screamed, and the officer would've consoled me, wrapping me in one of those emergency blankets they have and bringing me some instant cocoa before giving me a commendation for courage in the face of eco-terrorism and sending me on my way. Oh, what a perfect lie it would have been.
Sadly, it was just the truth and so I sat in my van as he ran my license for warrants. Even though I've never been in any real trouble it still unsettles me when they do that. Just think, all it takes is one little snafu... An eensy little error in the intrastate police database; one flipped bit in a memory bank decides whether the "Known Pederast" column answers "true" or "false," and whether you'll be spending the night in jail.
Or even worse, something like a summons to appear in court that some errant clerk never sent you or that got lost in the mail might have, completely without your knowledge, resulted in an actual, "legitimate" court order for your arrest. That would take even longer to straighten out, if you ever could; if they'd ever believe you! The notion that an innocent man has nothing to fear only applies if the innocent man has four days to spend in a holding cell at county, and doesn't mind his car, his wallet, his belt and shoelaces, shirt, pants, socks, undies, and everything therein being seized, bagged, labeled, pilfered, and parked behind a six foot thick, iron wall of bureaucratic red tape that'll take two months and fifteen signed, notarized affidavits affirming to recover. Just one little hiccup in the incessant, unrepentant gears of "progress" could tear your life to shreds without even pausing to appreciate its work. Without doing anything at all any one of us might be sucked into the pneumatic tubes of what passes for justice 'round here.
Thankfully I wasn't. The officer returned my license and gave me an idea where I could find campfire wood for sale. Taking the officer's advice I left Kevin's house, following Grange Hall Rd up to Dixie Hwy where I scored a half cord of firewood for forty-five dollars. Ain't nothing free, kids.
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