A DIRTY WORD—AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT
Raven is wretched;
kicking along in tidepools,
sniffing at garbage—
he feels the world is ending,
and there’s nothing he can do.
He’s probably right.
All of us feel impotent
in the face of death—
more so when life seems to be
moving along like always….
********************
Just a bit of minor transitory depression for The Bird for All Seasons. He’ll be rocking and rolling again in no time.
I--his lesser half, his anima--am a different story. After reading the Strategy Document of the National Endowment for Democracy, dated January 2002 and NOT FOR PUBLIC CIRCULATION (the pages of the plan dealing with North Korea, China and Burma are even “scrambled”—any Navajo code-busters interested in this one?), I am ready to upchuck my breakfast of, yes, scrambled eggs at the mere mention of the word DEMOCRACY.
Yesterday Raven and I talked about Instant Mix Democracy, Totalitarian Democracy and even Fascist Democracy. The word has become so perverted by its misuse as the rationale for imposing free trade zones, neutralizing competition, institutionalizing greed and violence and hunger, grabbing other countries’ natural resources, dumping surplus products to ruin other economies, mounting and supporting military coups against democratically elected presidents, authorizing the running of guns and drugs and dirty tricks all over the globe by the CIA, cluster bombing women and children in mideast markets—and generally heating the planet to the boiling point—that it would be difficult to find a more cynical word to substitute for Imperialism.
Give it a try, though. If you think of one, send Raven and me a message in a bottle with The Word written on the outside of an envelope containing anthrax, the SARS virus, a medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe minted in Florida and blessed by Jeb Bush or the Bill of Rights shredded into confetti. We don’t care what you put in the envelope—we won’t open it anyway—but here in this broken down beach town we’ll use just about anything as toilet paper. (Especially copies of the Strategy Document for the National Endowment for Democracy….)
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Monday, May 19, 2003
BRING TO A BOIL, ADD OIL, THEN BOMB
Raven and I made do with cinnamon rolls and coffee this morning.
“They would have been tastier if you had heated them.” Raven looks a bit sulky around the edges.
Maybe. Listen, Rave, I am reading a piece by Arundhati Roy in the Common Dreams site called “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy”. Apropos your comment about heating things up, she says the following:
“Here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).”
“She is certainly right to call it Imperial Democracy, since it has little or nothing in common with the traditional use of the term. Maybe she should have gone for the whole hog (paz, domestic animals) and called it Totalitarian Democracy?”
Or even Fascist Democracy, to be congruent with the US government’s official policy of Doublespeak?
“The cooking instructions make it clear why the US government has fomented civil unrest in, for example, Venezuela—to bring social conditions to a boil.” Raven takes a swig of his coffee.
Oil was already part of the mix. Venezuela sits on a lake of oil and gas that comprises almost half of the reserves of this hemisphere. Since The Bush Gang planned to invade Iraq, and they weren’t sure to what lengths the Iraquis might go to keep their oil out of the US clutches, The Gang decided to go after Venezuela first.
“So they cooked up the idea that Chávez—excuse me, The Leo of Your Dreams—was a dictator, so that they could depose him and enforce their brand of what you called Fascist Democracy—I like that term—in Venezuela.”
And it was necessary to make a coup in order to throw out the Constitution which says that PDVSA is not privatizable. Remember that the first thing self-proclaimed president Pedro Carmona did on April 12, 2002, was annul the Constitution.
“No bombing was necessary.”
No, it was not a time-capsule replay of the coup in Chile of Sept. 11, 1973, when Pinochet ordered the bombing of the president, Salavador Allende, in La Moneda. But it could have been. Which is one of the reasons why in June of last year Chávez installed anti-aircraft weapons around Miraflores, cut the military budget by 25% and put the money to social programs.
“But the The Gang is still agitating for a takeover.”
And using the power of the media, which is what they used to bring things to a boil in the first place. The irony of Charley Shapiro orchestrating a Free Speech event to ridicule Chávez last week in the US ambassador’s residence in Caracas is the enormous power of the media in Venezuela. Lots of money from Gustavo Cisneros, fishing buddy of Daddy Warbucks Bush, is behind the media. Despite his crying “poormouth” that he doesn’t have enough money to send Miss Venzuela to compete for the Miss Universe crown.
“What!? I thought Venezuela was a veritable factory for beauty queens.”
That’s the point, Rave. To make folks think that Chávez’ monetary controls are unpatriotic because they are stopping poor little Miss Venezuela from displaying the wonders of silcone in a swim suit.
“Quite a complicated situation, ain’t it? Now it’s a cultural war they’re bringing to a boil. Seems like a good moment to feel nostalgia for the good old days of The Cold War.”
Well, Venezuelan intellectual Luis Britto called this The Hot Cultural War, so I guess you are right on target, Rave.
“I would be if I were ready to bomb Miraflores. With money from the National Endowment for Democracy crammed in my tiny pockets. But I wouldn’t like to see Chávez test his anti-aircarft weaponry on my very elegant and excruciatingly expensive War on Iraq army surplus toilet seats. Especially the pink ones.”
Jesus, Rave, you’re a one-note samba.
“No way, José. I am your friendly Rantin’ Raven Rock ‘n’ Roller—from way back in the days of The Cold War, baby.”
Raven boogies his way to the sink with his coffee cup.
Raven and I made do with cinnamon rolls and coffee this morning.
“They would have been tastier if you had heated them.” Raven looks a bit sulky around the edges.
Maybe. Listen, Rave, I am reading a piece by Arundhati Roy in the Common Dreams site called “Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy”. Apropos your comment about heating things up, she says the following:
“Here we are, the people of the world, confronted with an Empire armed with a mandate from heaven (and, as added insurance, the most formidable arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in history). Here we are, confronted with an Empire that has conferred upon itself the right to go to war at will, and the right to deliver people from corrupting ideologies, from religious fundamentalists, dictators, sexism, and poverty by the age-old, tried-and-tested practice of extermination. Empire is on the move, and Democracy is its sly new war cry. Democracy, home-delivered to your doorstep by daisy cutters. Death is a small price for people to pay for the privilege of sampling this new product: Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy (bring to a boil, add oil, then bomb).”
“She is certainly right to call it Imperial Democracy, since it has little or nothing in common with the traditional use of the term. Maybe she should have gone for the whole hog (paz, domestic animals) and called it Totalitarian Democracy?”
Or even Fascist Democracy, to be congruent with the US government’s official policy of Doublespeak?
“The cooking instructions make it clear why the US government has fomented civil unrest in, for example, Venezuela—to bring social conditions to a boil.” Raven takes a swig of his coffee.
Oil was already part of the mix. Venezuela sits on a lake of oil and gas that comprises almost half of the reserves of this hemisphere. Since The Bush Gang planned to invade Iraq, and they weren’t sure to what lengths the Iraquis might go to keep their oil out of the US clutches, The Gang decided to go after Venezuela first.
“So they cooked up the idea that Chávez—excuse me, The Leo of Your Dreams—was a dictator, so that they could depose him and enforce their brand of what you called Fascist Democracy—I like that term—in Venezuela.”
And it was necessary to make a coup in order to throw out the Constitution which says that PDVSA is not privatizable. Remember that the first thing self-proclaimed president Pedro Carmona did on April 12, 2002, was annul the Constitution.
“No bombing was necessary.”
No, it was not a time-capsule replay of the coup in Chile of Sept. 11, 1973, when Pinochet ordered the bombing of the president, Salavador Allende, in La Moneda. But it could have been. Which is one of the reasons why in June of last year Chávez installed anti-aircraft weapons around Miraflores, cut the military budget by 25% and put the money to social programs.
“But the The Gang is still agitating for a takeover.”
And using the power of the media, which is what they used to bring things to a boil in the first place. The irony of Charley Shapiro orchestrating a Free Speech event to ridicule Chávez last week in the US ambassador’s residence in Caracas is the enormous power of the media in Venezuela. Lots of money from Gustavo Cisneros, fishing buddy of Daddy Warbucks Bush, is behind the media. Despite his crying “poormouth” that he doesn’t have enough money to send Miss Venzuela to compete for the Miss Universe crown.
“What!? I thought Venezuela was a veritable factory for beauty queens.”
That’s the point, Rave. To make folks think that Chávez’ monetary controls are unpatriotic because they are stopping poor little Miss Venezuela from displaying the wonders of silcone in a swim suit.
“Quite a complicated situation, ain’t it? Now it’s a cultural war they’re bringing to a boil. Seems like a good moment to feel nostalgia for the good old days of The Cold War.”
Well, Venezuelan intellectual Luis Britto called this The Hot Cultural War, so I guess you are right on target, Rave.
“I would be if I were ready to bomb Miraflores. With money from the National Endowment for Democracy crammed in my tiny pockets. But I wouldn’t like to see Chávez test his anti-aircarft weaponry on my very elegant and excruciatingly expensive War on Iraq army surplus toilet seats. Especially the pink ones.”
Jesus, Rave, you’re a one-note samba.
“No way, José. I am your friendly Rantin’ Raven Rock ‘n’ Roller—from way back in the days of The Cold War, baby.”
Raven boogies his way to the sink with his coffee cup.
Friday, May 16, 2003
CLOWNING IN CARACAS
This morning Raven and I sent a letter to Colin Powell of the U. S. State Department, asking for the removal of Charles Shapiro as Ambassador to Venezuela, as well as a quick trip to the woodshed for a blast of traditional discipline for the same individual.
Venezuela is calling for an official apology on the part of the US government for Shapiro’s actions—which consisted essentially of hosting an event in his residence on Tuesday—ostensibly to call for free speech—in which he promoted a comedian’s ridiculing of President Hugo Chávez Frías (aka The Leo of My Dreams) by means of a puppet.
“There’s probably more free speech in Venezuela than in any other country in the world”, opines Raven, as he crunches a potato chip. “An excess of free speech, maybe. Anybody can say whatever he wants there and nobody does anything.”
Theoretically, Rave, democracies are like that. Unlike fascist countries like the US, where the FBI rummages through e-mails and taps phones and searches the houses of citizens without a warrant.
“Great country you’ve got there.” I can barely hear the bird for the crunching.
Rave, didn’t your mother ever teach you table manners?
“Ha! Our mother didn’t forage for potato chips for us when we were wee ones. We barged out of the eggshell and started downing earthworms.”
Let’s get back to the puppet incident, okay. Try to keep the crunching down to a dull roar?
“Whatever”, Rave clacks his beak. “Puppets are the key to this entire incident of boorishness, racism, arrogance, misbehavior and (in the words of the embassy’s official statement) bad taste. They trotted out a puppet of Chávez and made fun of it because Chávez refuses to be a puppet for the Bush Gang.”
More to the point, Rave, he has pretty much drawn a line in the sand in regard to them. A resounding NO to the free trade—aka imposition of US goods—agreement from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego. YES to Opec countries receiving decent prices for their non-renewable hydrocarbons. NO to being a colony, in short.
“Ah, colonies. Consumers of these greasy chips. Swillers of Coca-Cola.” Raven looks guilty.
Yeah. Inhabitants of the Heart of Darkness. Shrunken heads. Poachers. Ivory. Kurtz. The horror.
“More than that, in Latin America they are all characters out of Nostromo. Conrad had this all novelistically charted a hundred years ago. I guess nobody paid attention because they thought it was fiction?”
Sadly, Rave, we Sagittarians are always ahead of our time….
This morning Raven and I sent a letter to Colin Powell of the U. S. State Department, asking for the removal of Charles Shapiro as Ambassador to Venezuela, as well as a quick trip to the woodshed for a blast of traditional discipline for the same individual.
Venezuela is calling for an official apology on the part of the US government for Shapiro’s actions—which consisted essentially of hosting an event in his residence on Tuesday—ostensibly to call for free speech—in which he promoted a comedian’s ridiculing of President Hugo Chávez Frías (aka The Leo of My Dreams) by means of a puppet.
“There’s probably more free speech in Venezuela than in any other country in the world”, opines Raven, as he crunches a potato chip. “An excess of free speech, maybe. Anybody can say whatever he wants there and nobody does anything.”
Theoretically, Rave, democracies are like that. Unlike fascist countries like the US, where the FBI rummages through e-mails and taps phones and searches the houses of citizens without a warrant.
“Great country you’ve got there.” I can barely hear the bird for the crunching.
Rave, didn’t your mother ever teach you table manners?
“Ha! Our mother didn’t forage for potato chips for us when we were wee ones. We barged out of the eggshell and started downing earthworms.”
Let’s get back to the puppet incident, okay. Try to keep the crunching down to a dull roar?
“Whatever”, Rave clacks his beak. “Puppets are the key to this entire incident of boorishness, racism, arrogance, misbehavior and (in the words of the embassy’s official statement) bad taste. They trotted out a puppet of Chávez and made fun of it because Chávez refuses to be a puppet for the Bush Gang.”
More to the point, Rave, he has pretty much drawn a line in the sand in regard to them. A resounding NO to the free trade—aka imposition of US goods—agreement from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Tierra del Fuego. YES to Opec countries receiving decent prices for their non-renewable hydrocarbons. NO to being a colony, in short.
“Ah, colonies. Consumers of these greasy chips. Swillers of Coca-Cola.” Raven looks guilty.
Yeah. Inhabitants of the Heart of Darkness. Shrunken heads. Poachers. Ivory. Kurtz. The horror.
“More than that, in Latin America they are all characters out of Nostromo. Conrad had this all novelistically charted a hundred years ago. I guess nobody paid attention because they thought it was fiction?”
Sadly, Rave, we Sagittarians are always ahead of our time….
Thursday, May 15, 2003
RAVEN REDUX
***************************************************
He arado en el mar.
(I have ploughed the sea.)
S. Bolívar
***************************************************
Raven feels restless.
He’s combing the beach hoping
for inspiration
during the lunar eclipse,
for some flight information
to appear and lift
him out of this tropical
imagination.
He is ready to wing it,
now, just like in the old days—
freer than the bird
he has been here, hunkered down
in stale images
of waves, sand bars and palm trees.
He wants to sail on the big
wind currents again—
his beak aimed like an arrow
at the Andes, or
on to Patagonia—
his eyes ploughing the ocean,
planting reflections
of stars that burst into bloom
every moonrise;
in his retinae the failed
dreams of Simón Bolívar.
***************************************************
He arado en el mar.
(I have ploughed the sea.)
S. Bolívar
***************************************************
Raven feels restless.
He’s combing the beach hoping
for inspiration
during the lunar eclipse,
for some flight information
to appear and lift
him out of this tropical
imagination.
He is ready to wing it,
now, just like in the old days—
freer than the bird
he has been here, hunkered down
in stale images
of waves, sand bars and palm trees.
He wants to sail on the big
wind currents again—
his beak aimed like an arrow
at the Andes, or
on to Patagonia—
his eyes ploughing the ocean,
planting reflections
of stars that burst into bloom
every moonrise;
in his retinae the failed
dreams of Simón Bolívar.
Wednesday, May 14, 2003
TRADING MIGRANTS’ LIVES FOR PEMEX AND A PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER
Raven is cheery this morning.
“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.
Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.
“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”
Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.
“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.
Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.
“Is that a petroleum product?”
I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?
“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”
I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.
“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.
God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.
“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”
Raven is cheery this morning.
“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.
Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.
“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”
Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.
“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.
Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.
“Is that a petroleum product?”
I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?
“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”
I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.
“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.
God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.
“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”
TRADING MIGRANTS’ LIVES FOR PEMEX AND A PLAYER TO BE NAMED LATER
Raven is cheery this morning.
“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.
Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.
“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”
Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.
“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.
Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.
“Is that a petroleum product?”
I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?
“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”
I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.
“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.
God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.
“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”
Raven is cheery this morning.
“Wow, cinnamon rolls! It’s about time we had something tasty for breakfast.” Raven reaches for a napkin and tucks in.
Gee, Rave, you know we are at the mercy of Puerto Angel, Village Without Services.
“Town Without Pity, too. And speaking of pitiless—or maybe pitiful—George Bush padre visited Fox in Los Pinos yesterday. What do you think that was all about?”
Well, considering that Mexico received a proposal from the Republicans just a few days ago to trade the long-sought migratory agreement for private—aka foreign—aka Bush Gang—investment in PEMEX, and the Congress here in Mexico is not eager to slither back to the old pre-Lázaro Cárdenas days—before Mexico’s petroleum pumping operation was nationalized—I believe we only draw one conclusion: that he was here to follow up the “offer” with arm-twisting, make it an “offer Fox couldn’t resist”, in the words of don Vito Corleone.
“The stuff that movies are made of, in short.” Raven flaps his wings slowly.
Rave, you’re getting cinnamon roll crumbs everywhere. Settle down, will you? Movies are made of celluloid. Well, they were.
“Is that a petroleum product?”
I don’t think so. I think it was made from plants. At least it pre-dated oil wells. Rave, you have the Internet in front of your beady eyes. Why not look it up?
“Naw. It’s a peripheral issue. So, do you think Fox promised Daddy Warbucks Mexico’s petroleum?”
I think even Fox is brighter than to have done that. Not with elections 6 weeks away and Mexicans equating PEMEX with patriotism. Fox has wrapped himself in the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, not Malinche.
“So you think he put off making a decision.” Rave pours crumbs from his napkin into the garbage basket.
God knows what he did. Or what he said. It’s not his decision to make, anyway. And he should realize that if those petrocriminals got their hands on PEMEX production they’d be able to renege on any migratory agreement, leaving all the migrants unprotected—and he wouldn’t be able to do squat about it.
“Sounds like horse-trading, all right. Or baseball player trading. Wonder who the player to be named later is….”
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
DON’T BLAME ME; I’M FROM MASSACHUSSETS
Raven was singing in the garden while I was splattering bacon grease on myself in the kitchen. Some folks always choose the better part—as in the biblical story of Mary and Martha, the latter who was always “busy about many things”.
“This coffee is not delcious. Too much cinnamon.” Raven pushes his cup aside. “Who is this guy, George McGovern anyway? It says here he was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972.”
That he was, Rave. An ill-fated campaign. Nixon was running for re-election, pulling dirty tricks like mad in his best style. McGovern was against the Vietnam war, so he looked like a real alternative to more of the same with Tricky Dick. Unfortunately, his first running mate bit the dust almost immediately because it came out that he had been treated for depression.
“How could any sane person not have been depressed, that’s what I´d like to know.” Raven bites into his peach jam-slathered toast.
We’re talking about the 70s, guy. When taking a pill for depression was hypocritically regarded as the same as dropping acid. Anyway, that candidate was jerked from the ticket and replaced by Sargent Shriver—one of the Kennedy clan who’d been running the Peace Corps, and my dissertation adviser, Harvey Swados, was recruited to write his speeches. A thankless task, but Harvey had to make the sacrifice to try to knock out Nixon—not to mention that a racist Alabama governor named George Wallace was making another run at the White House. We were living in Springfield, Massachusetts and drove up to Amherst to vote for McGovern.
“Springfield. The home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, right?”
It’s only claim to fame, probably. I didn’t know you were a basketball fan, Rave.
“I’m not. Too short. But I like sports trivia.”
All sports are trivial. Anyway, we voted because although we knew McGovern was not going to win, our polling place was an auction house in North Amherst and I wanted to preview the weekend’s selection of stuff.
“A bit cynical, aren’t we?”
Rave, I was trying to run an antiques business. Give me a break. McGovern lost, and because Massachusetts was the only state he carried, we printed up bumper stickers that said: Don’t blame me; I’m from Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Harvey Swados died a month after the presidential election. Writing political speeches literally killed the novelist.
“Ah. Politics killed the wrong person. But the bumper stickers were a good way to weasel out of the blame for Nixon. Didn’t he have to resign?”
Of course he did. But Rave, why did you bring up McGovern in the first place?
“Because he has a piece on the Common Dreams site. Republished from the Washington Post. It’s called A More Constructive Internationalism.”
What does he say?
“Basically, he takes offense at his being called anti-internationalist. Something like that.”
Because he opposed the Vietnam war?
“Maybe. It’s not too clear. Anyway, he gives a list of activities he’s done which he feels indicate his internationalism—especially his work to reduce global hunger. Not exactly a resounding success there, but…And goes on to say:
‘I am opposed to the Bush doctrine of "preemptive war" -- what heretofore has been known as aggression or invasion. I am also opposed to congressional resolutions that give the president a blank check to go to war when he pleases.
I have always thought America to be the greatest country on earth. One of the reasons I think so is because of our great founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, who spoke of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Is there any doubt that the opinion of mankind was overwhelmingly against our wars in Vietnam and Iraq?’”
No doubt in my mind, at all, Rave. That’s why I am so angry and concerned about the US government’s completely blowing off world opinion.
“He also makes a little jab at Bush’s neo-Hitlerism:
'We don't measure a nation's internationalism by the number of troops it sends to other countries. By that test, Adolf Hitler would be the greatest internationalist of the 20th century. I might add thatI would not have won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 -- winning 11 primaries, including the two largest states, New York and California -- if I had been perceived as an isolationist. I also believe that if the disgraceful conduct of President Richard Nixon during that campaign had been known before the election, I would have been elected. If so, I would have led as an internationalist unafraid to use force in the national interest.'
Seems like he’s saying not to blame him. Is he from Massachusetts?”
No, Rave. From South Dakota. But South Dakota doesn’t look as good on a bumper sticker.
"Sounds like it's in the middle of Nowhere. Sort of like here." Raven looks very sly.
I think I see where you're going, Rave. Forget about Don't blame me; I'm from Puerto Angel....
Raven was singing in the garden while I was splattering bacon grease on myself in the kitchen. Some folks always choose the better part—as in the biblical story of Mary and Martha, the latter who was always “busy about many things”.
“This coffee is not delcious. Too much cinnamon.” Raven pushes his cup aside. “Who is this guy, George McGovern anyway? It says here he was the Democratic presidential candidate in 1972.”
That he was, Rave. An ill-fated campaign. Nixon was running for re-election, pulling dirty tricks like mad in his best style. McGovern was against the Vietnam war, so he looked like a real alternative to more of the same with Tricky Dick. Unfortunately, his first running mate bit the dust almost immediately because it came out that he had been treated for depression.
“How could any sane person not have been depressed, that’s what I´d like to know.” Raven bites into his peach jam-slathered toast.
We’re talking about the 70s, guy. When taking a pill for depression was hypocritically regarded as the same as dropping acid. Anyway, that candidate was jerked from the ticket and replaced by Sargent Shriver—one of the Kennedy clan who’d been running the Peace Corps, and my dissertation adviser, Harvey Swados, was recruited to write his speeches. A thankless task, but Harvey had to make the sacrifice to try to knock out Nixon—not to mention that a racist Alabama governor named George Wallace was making another run at the White House. We were living in Springfield, Massachusetts and drove up to Amherst to vote for McGovern.
“Springfield. The home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, right?”
It’s only claim to fame, probably. I didn’t know you were a basketball fan, Rave.
“I’m not. Too short. But I like sports trivia.”
All sports are trivial. Anyway, we voted because although we knew McGovern was not going to win, our polling place was an auction house in North Amherst and I wanted to preview the weekend’s selection of stuff.
“A bit cynical, aren’t we?”
Rave, I was trying to run an antiques business. Give me a break. McGovern lost, and because Massachusetts was the only state he carried, we printed up bumper stickers that said: Don’t blame me; I’m from Massachusetts. Unfortunately, Harvey Swados died a month after the presidential election. Writing political speeches literally killed the novelist.
“Ah. Politics killed the wrong person. But the bumper stickers were a good way to weasel out of the blame for Nixon. Didn’t he have to resign?”
Of course he did. But Rave, why did you bring up McGovern in the first place?
“Because he has a piece on the Common Dreams site. Republished from the Washington Post. It’s called A More Constructive Internationalism.”
What does he say?
“Basically, he takes offense at his being called anti-internationalist. Something like that.”
Because he opposed the Vietnam war?
“Maybe. It’s not too clear. Anyway, he gives a list of activities he’s done which he feels indicate his internationalism—especially his work to reduce global hunger. Not exactly a resounding success there, but…And goes on to say:
‘I am opposed to the Bush doctrine of "preemptive war" -- what heretofore has been known as aggression or invasion. I am also opposed to congressional resolutions that give the president a blank check to go to war when he pleases.
I have always thought America to be the greatest country on earth. One of the reasons I think so is because of our great founding fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, who spoke of "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind." Is there any doubt that the opinion of mankind was overwhelmingly against our wars in Vietnam and Iraq?’”
No doubt in my mind, at all, Rave. That’s why I am so angry and concerned about the US government’s completely blowing off world opinion.
“He also makes a little jab at Bush’s neo-Hitlerism:
'We don't measure a nation's internationalism by the number of troops it sends to other countries. By that test, Adolf Hitler would be the greatest internationalist of the 20th century. I might add thatI would not have won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 -- winning 11 primaries, including the two largest states, New York and California -- if I had been perceived as an isolationist. I also believe that if the disgraceful conduct of President Richard Nixon during that campaign had been known before the election, I would have been elected. If so, I would have led as an internationalist unafraid to use force in the national interest.'
Seems like he’s saying not to blame him. Is he from Massachusetts?”
No, Rave. From South Dakota. But South Dakota doesn’t look as good on a bumper sticker.
"Sounds like it's in the middle of Nowhere. Sort of like here." Raven looks very sly.
I think I see where you're going, Rave. Forget about Don't blame me; I'm from Puerto Angel....
Monday, May 12, 2003
HASTA AQUÍ LLEGUÉ
“So,” Raven takes a bite from his ersatz croissant (from Panadería 5 Regiones) “Castro has finally responded to José Saramago´s ‘Hasta aquí llegué’ commentary.”
I think standing up those 3 kidnappers against the wall and calling in the firing squad may have been an extreme reaction on the part of Castro. But I also remember when I was a child in the 50s there was a lot of controversy about the death penalty because of the Caryl Chessman case.”
“Before my time, I’m afraid. Don’t we have some jam for this bread?”
Check the refri, Rave. I am looking for something in Internet about Chessman for you. He was given 2 death sentences for a 1948 crime that charged him with being a kidnapper and rapist, and was finally executed in the gas chamber in San Quentin in 1960. He always claimed that he was not guilty. But the climate of the 50s was not apt for rebellious guys like Chessman, who was a pretty good writer, too. They basically slapped the kidnapping charge on him because since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, it was a capital offense. Ah, here we have a quote from him:
“I learned too late and only after coming to Death Row that each of us ever must be aware of the brotherhood of man . . . . Circumstances may compel us to become our brother’s keeper; I think we destroy something in ourselves when we become his executioner.”
“He’s right about that.” Rave spreads some peach jam on his bread. “So he wasn’t really a kidnapper?”
It was a very intolerant time, Rave. Joe McCarthy was ranting and raving every day about Reds under the bed, in Hollywood, in the military, in Congress—you name it, Reds were in it. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted in Sing Sing in 1953 for supposedly passing atomic weapons secrets to the Russians. People were building backyard bomb shelters. It was a climate of mass hysteria. Caryl Chessman was too rational, too much of an individual. Somebody—I don’t remember who—said he was executed for being a smart ass.
“Sounds very much like this moment. And we also know that Bush presided over the execution of 153 people in Texas before he actualized his plan to preside over The World. So why has he been beating the pan about Castro’s government shooting 3 guys who were trying to get to the US in a little boat?” Raven scrapes the scraps of his eggs, delicately, into the garbage.
Because they were going to the US, I’m sure. If they had been heading for Venezuela, I am sure Bush would have applauded Castro’s sentence. As he applauded his own decision to lethally inject black and hispanic prisoners in Texas.
“Good point. And the stiff prison terms they gave the dissidents?”
Obviously, the US has a lot of guilt around that, as they gave the green light to those folks.
“And money, and tvs and other stuff, too.”
Apparently. So Saramago thought or felt that Castro had over-reacted, had gone too far. That dissent should have been allowed. And he said “Hasta aquí llegué” in the sense that this was as far as he was going, that he could not go along with Castro´s recent decisions—even as a long-time communist and supporter of the Cuban Revolution. Then he said a few days later that he was not withdrawing his solidarity from the Revolution. Frankly, I am confused. I can understand his being against the death penalty and against having political prisoners, and why he emotionally singled out Cuba for his disappointment. But maybe he should have thought it over before making a public statement. What did Castro say?
“Castro says :
‘Saramago is a good writer. It really hurts us that he hasn’t understood a word about the realities that the world and Cuba are living. He should have expressed his disagreement, but he shouldn’t have said anything to feed the agression of the US government against Cuba, nor offer arguments that would be received with delight by the brutal imperialist system that’s trying to justify an agression against Cuba.’
What he goes on to say is perhaps more important:
‘Something more worrisome—Saramago, and some others who have acted in good faith seem completely unaware that the planet is marching rapidly towards a global nazifascist tyranny. I am sure that he let himself be carried away by a moment of anger and disagreement which clouded his capacity to reason. Also, maybe a passing element of self-importance and vanity—nothing extraordinary in a good communist accustomed during many years to calumny and diatribes who has suddenly been elevated to the Olympus of a Nobel Prize.’”
Other people have said that Castro made a bad decision because he is senile, Rave. It doesn’t sound to me that he is. He is younger than Saramago by a few years, if I remember correctly. Maybe the point is that all of us oldsters should be talking less than we are?
“Okay…I’ll bite. Why?” Raven looks unsure.
Maybe if we had taken the world situation more seriously, had read the handwriting on the wall—so to speak—things would not have gotten to the point where it’s the Law of the Jungle.
Raven shakes his head. “I think I have mentioned before that the jungle is a peaceful place because it doesn’t have people in it.”
Bad word choice, sorry. I am trying to say that we all share the guilt of allowing what Castro very rightly has called a global fascist tyranny to take place. That it’s not just the moron Bush and his gang of petrocriminals who are to blame—but all of us who allowed them to come to power thinking that arrogance, stupidity, greed and violence could not possibly be institutionalized.
“I have also mentioned before than your species has not adapted very well to the realities of this planet. And is therefore bound for extinction. As I am bound, at this moment, for the beach.” Raven wings it from the windowsill.
Thanks for making my day, Rave….
“So,” Raven takes a bite from his ersatz croissant (from Panadería 5 Regiones) “Castro has finally responded to José Saramago´s ‘Hasta aquí llegué’ commentary.”
I think standing up those 3 kidnappers against the wall and calling in the firing squad may have been an extreme reaction on the part of Castro. But I also remember when I was a child in the 50s there was a lot of controversy about the death penalty because of the Caryl Chessman case.”
“Before my time, I’m afraid. Don’t we have some jam for this bread?”
Check the refri, Rave. I am looking for something in Internet about Chessman for you. He was given 2 death sentences for a 1948 crime that charged him with being a kidnapper and rapist, and was finally executed in the gas chamber in San Quentin in 1960. He always claimed that he was not guilty. But the climate of the 50s was not apt for rebellious guys like Chessman, who was a pretty good writer, too. They basically slapped the kidnapping charge on him because since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, it was a capital offense. Ah, here we have a quote from him:
“I learned too late and only after coming to Death Row that each of us ever must be aware of the brotherhood of man . . . . Circumstances may compel us to become our brother’s keeper; I think we destroy something in ourselves when we become his executioner.”
“He’s right about that.” Rave spreads some peach jam on his bread. “So he wasn’t really a kidnapper?”
It was a very intolerant time, Rave. Joe McCarthy was ranting and raving every day about Reds under the bed, in Hollywood, in the military, in Congress—you name it, Reds were in it. The Rosenbergs were electrocuted in Sing Sing in 1953 for supposedly passing atomic weapons secrets to the Russians. People were building backyard bomb shelters. It was a climate of mass hysteria. Caryl Chessman was too rational, too much of an individual. Somebody—I don’t remember who—said he was executed for being a smart ass.
“Sounds very much like this moment. And we also know that Bush presided over the execution of 153 people in Texas before he actualized his plan to preside over The World. So why has he been beating the pan about Castro’s government shooting 3 guys who were trying to get to the US in a little boat?” Raven scrapes the scraps of his eggs, delicately, into the garbage.
Because they were going to the US, I’m sure. If they had been heading for Venezuela, I am sure Bush would have applauded Castro’s sentence. As he applauded his own decision to lethally inject black and hispanic prisoners in Texas.
“Good point. And the stiff prison terms they gave the dissidents?”
Obviously, the US has a lot of guilt around that, as they gave the green light to those folks.
“And money, and tvs and other stuff, too.”
Apparently. So Saramago thought or felt that Castro had over-reacted, had gone too far. That dissent should have been allowed. And he said “Hasta aquí llegué” in the sense that this was as far as he was going, that he could not go along with Castro´s recent decisions—even as a long-time communist and supporter of the Cuban Revolution. Then he said a few days later that he was not withdrawing his solidarity from the Revolution. Frankly, I am confused. I can understand his being against the death penalty and against having political prisoners, and why he emotionally singled out Cuba for his disappointment. But maybe he should have thought it over before making a public statement. What did Castro say?
“Castro says :
‘Saramago is a good writer. It really hurts us that he hasn’t understood a word about the realities that the world and Cuba are living. He should have expressed his disagreement, but he shouldn’t have said anything to feed the agression of the US government against Cuba, nor offer arguments that would be received with delight by the brutal imperialist system that’s trying to justify an agression against Cuba.’
What he goes on to say is perhaps more important:
‘Something more worrisome—Saramago, and some others who have acted in good faith seem completely unaware that the planet is marching rapidly towards a global nazifascist tyranny. I am sure that he let himself be carried away by a moment of anger and disagreement which clouded his capacity to reason. Also, maybe a passing element of self-importance and vanity—nothing extraordinary in a good communist accustomed during many years to calumny and diatribes who has suddenly been elevated to the Olympus of a Nobel Prize.’”
Other people have said that Castro made a bad decision because he is senile, Rave. It doesn’t sound to me that he is. He is younger than Saramago by a few years, if I remember correctly. Maybe the point is that all of us oldsters should be talking less than we are?
“Okay…I’ll bite. Why?” Raven looks unsure.
Maybe if we had taken the world situation more seriously, had read the handwriting on the wall—so to speak—things would not have gotten to the point where it’s the Law of the Jungle.
Raven shakes his head. “I think I have mentioned before that the jungle is a peaceful place because it doesn’t have people in it.”
Bad word choice, sorry. I am trying to say that we all share the guilt of allowing what Castro very rightly has called a global fascist tyranny to take place. That it’s not just the moron Bush and his gang of petrocriminals who are to blame—but all of us who allowed them to come to power thinking that arrogance, stupidity, greed and violence could not possibly be institutionalized.
“I have also mentioned before than your species has not adapted very well to the realities of this planet. And is therefore bound for extinction. As I am bound, at this moment, for the beach.” Raven wings it from the windowsill.
Thanks for making my day, Rave….
Saturday, May 10, 2003
HANDWRITING ON THE WALL
Raven is having a down day. So am I, for that matter; I didn't even get up to make our cups of earl grey until almost 11. Raven just picked at his mushroom and serrano chile omelet, and took his sweet roll out to the garden.
*************
Raven hears the roar
as the great incoming waves
gobble up the beach,
and he sees the sand shrinking.
Even as he watches it,
the ocean expands
its territory; inch by
inch it spreads across
the land with no intention
of receding. Now he knows
how the mammoth must
have felt when he saw the ice
approaching closer--
until it covered him up
like a fly trapped in amber.
Raven, though a bird,
has always lived on the land;
as pedestrian
as they come, he sees the sea
as an enemy taking
away his back yard,
sweeping him into the street
to scrap with the gulls
for his livelihood. Raven,
scavenging for ideas
on the beach, feels waves
erasing his best sources
and leaving tide pools
in their place. He knows that he
is becoming obsolete.
Raven is having a down day. So am I, for that matter; I didn't even get up to make our cups of earl grey until almost 11. Raven just picked at his mushroom and serrano chile omelet, and took his sweet roll out to the garden.
*************
Raven hears the roar
as the great incoming waves
gobble up the beach,
and he sees the sand shrinking.
Even as he watches it,
the ocean expands
its territory; inch by
inch it spreads across
the land with no intention
of receding. Now he knows
how the mammoth must
have felt when he saw the ice
approaching closer--
until it covered him up
like a fly trapped in amber.
Raven, though a bird,
has always lived on the land;
as pedestrian
as they come, he sees the sea
as an enemy taking
away his back yard,
sweeping him into the street
to scrap with the gulls
for his livelihood. Raven,
scavenging for ideas
on the beach, feels waves
erasing his best sources
and leaving tide pools
in their place. He knows that he
is becoming obsolete.
Friday, May 09, 2003
YESTERDAY CUBA, TODAY IRAN
Despite the bluster on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to:
first blowing Syria out of the desert and
then Cuba out of the water,
the reality of Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves has situated it in the cross-hairs of the Petrocriminals as the real next target for invasion.
Supposedly, Iran has been developing nuclear weapons in the reactor at Natanz.
Wow, are they fast!
That installation was just visited 3 months ago by the General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei, who reported nothing illegal or even unusual....
Now the Petrocriminals announced in The New York Times that Natanz is an “obvious” nuclear weapons factory!
I am really beginning to wonder if the US public has been so brainwashed by its government and its mass media that it no longer has 2 digits to rub together to make an IQ....
Raven is not at all optimistic. He feels if they had to invent fire again, they wouldn’t be able to rub 2 sticks together either.
Despite the bluster on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to:
first blowing Syria out of the desert and
then Cuba out of the water,
the reality of Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves has situated it in the cross-hairs of the Petrocriminals as the real next target for invasion.
Supposedly, Iran has been developing nuclear weapons in the reactor at Natanz.
Wow, are they fast!
That installation was just visited 3 months ago by the General Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed el Baradei, who reported nothing illegal or even unusual....
Now the Petrocriminals announced in The New York Times that Natanz is an “obvious” nuclear weapons factory!
I am really beginning to wonder if the US public has been so brainwashed by its government and its mass media that it no longer has 2 digits to rub together to make an IQ....
Raven is not at all optimistic. He feels if they had to invent fire again, they wouldn’t be able to rub 2 sticks together either.
Thursday, May 08, 2003
PRO CUBA
Raven and I are really busy this week, and tomorrow we will be showing "La revolución no será transmitida"--new documentary from Ireland about last year's brief "golpe de estado" in Venezuela that took Hugo Chávez out of the presidency for almost 48 hours--so that means preparations....
However, we are very concerned about the increasing saber rattling on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to Cuba--the one country in this hemisphere which has kept the imperial monster at bay for 44 years--as well as Otto Reich's delusions of grandeur about becoming the neo-nazi Reich-chancellor of Cuba. Here in Latin America many intellectuals have jumped on the bandwagon to protest the latest threats against a sovereign nation. You may add your name to that protest by going into this web site:
www.porcuba.cult.cu
Indicate at the top of the page that you want English, then click on SIGNATURES to fill out the form.
The following is the text of the protest statement:
TO THE CONSCIENCE OF THE WORLD
The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life an devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.
We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignity, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.
Mexico, April 2003
The Bush Gang is playing the board game of RISK with our planet.
Raven: "They are also not playing with a full deck. Stop them."
Raven and I are really busy this week, and tomorrow we will be showing "La revolución no será transmitida"--new documentary from Ireland about last year's brief "golpe de estado" in Venezuela that took Hugo Chávez out of the presidency for almost 48 hours--so that means preparations....
However, we are very concerned about the increasing saber rattling on the part of the Bush Gang in regard to Cuba--the one country in this hemisphere which has kept the imperial monster at bay for 44 years--as well as Otto Reich's delusions of grandeur about becoming the neo-nazi Reich-chancellor of Cuba. Here in Latin America many intellectuals have jumped on the bandwagon to protest the latest threats against a sovereign nation. You may add your name to that protest by going into this web site:
www.porcuba.cult.cu
Indicate at the top of the page that you want English, then click on SIGNATURES to fill out the form.
The following is the text of the protest statement:
TO THE CONSCIENCE OF THE WORLD
The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life an devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.
We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignity, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.
Mexico, April 2003
The Bush Gang is playing the board game of RISK with our planet.
Raven: "They are also not playing with a full deck. Stop them."
Monday, May 05, 2003
THE USUAL SUSPECTS
Raven is grumpy this morning. We had french toast for breakfast (freedom toast, if we were in Washington, D.C.), and Raven hates french toast. He feels that soaking perfectly crunchy bread in a batter of milk and eggs and then frying it is a barbarity—and drenching it all in maple syrup is the final straw.
“The Final Solution, precisely”, Raven indicates as he pushes his plate away. “This is as close as it gets to Terrorism by Food.”
Surely you exaggerate, Rave—the annals of war are filled with run-ins with spoiled food, c-rations and other culinary culprits. On some Pacific islands during World War II there was cannibalism. Not to mention what has traditionally been served up in prisons.
“I suppose Guatanamo fare is not worse than this, but I think we could be eating better.”
What does it matter, if we can’t stomach what’s happening in the world? Rumsfeld has tipped his hand, and now we can expect Phase Two in Iraq: The War against Terrorist Networks.
“Maybe you could open a fast french toast eatery there”, Raven snickers.
I could be part of any of the network of terrorists he’s swearing to hunt down, I suppose. And about as legitimate as any group he’s identifying, too. It’s all a bit retro—probably more appropriate for the Algerian National Liberation Front, circa 1955—but as we talked about a couple of days ago, the 50s are back with a vengeance: North Korea, McCarthyism, the Military-Industrial Complex as Public Enemy Number 1.
“What about poodle skirts and hula hoops?”
They don’t need to retread those frivolous elements to create a diversion—they have the Patriot Act so they can put the screws to anyone who doesn’t conform to their standards of citizenry. They can barge into Chinese restaurants, stand the customers up against the wall for hours and drag undocumented Mexicans out of the kitchens and slap them in mini-Guatanamos with impunity—all the while shouting, “Don’t you assholes know we´re at war?”
“So, who’s next on the menu?”
Well, in the fifties the French blamed the terrorism in Algeria on Tunisia and Egypt. Robert Fisk mentions that in his piece in La Jornada today, “¿Terminó la guerra?”. He says that Rumsfeld will put the blame for the terrorism in Iraq (read: shiite resistance to the US military occupation) on Iran and Syria.
“Rounding up the Usual Suspects, in short.”
Right. Play it, Sam. Again.
Raven may be black, but he’s no Dooley Wilson. But then, I doubt that too many people would mistake me for Humphrey Bogart....
Raven is grumpy this morning. We had french toast for breakfast (freedom toast, if we were in Washington, D.C.), and Raven hates french toast. He feels that soaking perfectly crunchy bread in a batter of milk and eggs and then frying it is a barbarity—and drenching it all in maple syrup is the final straw.
“The Final Solution, precisely”, Raven indicates as he pushes his plate away. “This is as close as it gets to Terrorism by Food.”
Surely you exaggerate, Rave—the annals of war are filled with run-ins with spoiled food, c-rations and other culinary culprits. On some Pacific islands during World War II there was cannibalism. Not to mention what has traditionally been served up in prisons.
“I suppose Guatanamo fare is not worse than this, but I think we could be eating better.”
What does it matter, if we can’t stomach what’s happening in the world? Rumsfeld has tipped his hand, and now we can expect Phase Two in Iraq: The War against Terrorist Networks.
“Maybe you could open a fast french toast eatery there”, Raven snickers.
I could be part of any of the network of terrorists he’s swearing to hunt down, I suppose. And about as legitimate as any group he’s identifying, too. It’s all a bit retro—probably more appropriate for the Algerian National Liberation Front, circa 1955—but as we talked about a couple of days ago, the 50s are back with a vengeance: North Korea, McCarthyism, the Military-Industrial Complex as Public Enemy Number 1.
“What about poodle skirts and hula hoops?”
They don’t need to retread those frivolous elements to create a diversion—they have the Patriot Act so they can put the screws to anyone who doesn’t conform to their standards of citizenry. They can barge into Chinese restaurants, stand the customers up against the wall for hours and drag undocumented Mexicans out of the kitchens and slap them in mini-Guatanamos with impunity—all the while shouting, “Don’t you assholes know we´re at war?”
“So, who’s next on the menu?”
Well, in the fifties the French blamed the terrorism in Algeria on Tunisia and Egypt. Robert Fisk mentions that in his piece in La Jornada today, “¿Terminó la guerra?”. He says that Rumsfeld will put the blame for the terrorism in Iraq (read: shiite resistance to the US military occupation) on Iran and Syria.
“Rounding up the Usual Suspects, in short.”
Right. Play it, Sam. Again.
Raven may be black, but he’s no Dooley Wilson. But then, I doubt that too many people would mistake me for Humphrey Bogart....
Sunday, May 04, 2003
A NEW CAPER
This morning the sky is overcast above the bay. I walk to an Internet café past a number of rundown tour buses; clearly, it’s the end of the four day Labor Day “puente”. Tomorrow it’s back to work for all of us who have been loafing these days away. Raven, on the other hand, has been busy.
*****
Raven, that rascal,
has a new trick up his sleeve:
he is going to
start a business flying
his customers to heaven.
It sounds outrageous,
but he believes it will work.
Who am I to rain
my reservations on his
parade, when he reminds me
that people have shelled
out millions just to pretend
to be astronauts?
Raven is offering more:
A chance to interview God—
To ask Him or Her
the Big Questions: the meaning
of our existence
on this petroleum-cursed
planet; what really wiped out
all those dinosaurs;
if the Chicago Cubs will
win the World Series
before the world ends—the stuff
everyone wants to know, but
is afraid to ask.
And if God doesn’t exist?
Raven doesn’t care:
if there’s a heaven without
God, someone will step forward
and pay him double
for the chance to pretend to
be God—or to take
over up there. After all,
dictators go for a dime
a dozen down here.
Raven is cackling with glee
at his cleverness:
he’ll make himself a fortune
whether he wins or loses.
And the rest of us?
Raven is convinced that we’ll
get what we deserve—
that next we’ll be lining up
to take his charters to hell.
This morning the sky is overcast above the bay. I walk to an Internet café past a number of rundown tour buses; clearly, it’s the end of the four day Labor Day “puente”. Tomorrow it’s back to work for all of us who have been loafing these days away. Raven, on the other hand, has been busy.
*****
Raven, that rascal,
has a new trick up his sleeve:
he is going to
start a business flying
his customers to heaven.
It sounds outrageous,
but he believes it will work.
Who am I to rain
my reservations on his
parade, when he reminds me
that people have shelled
out millions just to pretend
to be astronauts?
Raven is offering more:
A chance to interview God—
To ask Him or Her
the Big Questions: the meaning
of our existence
on this petroleum-cursed
planet; what really wiped out
all those dinosaurs;
if the Chicago Cubs will
win the World Series
before the world ends—the stuff
everyone wants to know, but
is afraid to ask.
And if God doesn’t exist?
Raven doesn’t care:
if there’s a heaven without
God, someone will step forward
and pay him double
for the chance to pretend to
be God—or to take
over up there. After all,
dictators go for a dime
a dozen down here.
Raven is cackling with glee
at his cleverness:
he’ll make himself a fortune
whether he wins or loses.
And the rest of us?
Raven is convinced that we’ll
get what we deserve—
that next we’ll be lining up
to take his charters to hell.
Friday, May 02, 2003
Y DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN
Today is a quiet day for Raven and me. Tea instead of coffee. Soft-boiled eggs for me; bread and cheese for Raven.
We have been reading and discussing a book I brought back from Caracas: “Mensaje sin destino” (Message for No One in Particular?) by the historian Mario Briceño-Iragorry. The book was written in 1950 to address the crisis of Venezuela—primarily that of cultural identity—and includes, at the end, some pointed commentaries in regard to the “grand crisis of the universal civilization” which could easily have been written this morning, and which Raven and I have decided to translate:
“To find a way out of the problems of our world, it would be necessary ‘that people begin one day to separate themselves from the present, and to look for the way to disappear from it, advises Maritain. It would be necessary to turn our backs on the world of lies in which we live…If we believe in justice and equality and liberty as normative possibilities, let’s not cultivate injustice, nor celebrate inequality, nor even less serve plans which try to enslave people. If we talk about a Christian society, let’s install the fraternity, charity and justice which form the essence of Christianity, and let’s help our neighbor to live in such a way that he sees in us the realistic expression of a fraternal world. In this way we will have the peace sought by the same people, and not the armistice imposed as a balance of fierce forces of empires.”
“We just need to update to the singular,” Raven opines: “Empire—not empires.”
Don Mario continues:
“This past July (1950), while the Security Council of the United Nations was debating the problems of the world and inviting the peaceful nations to go, along with the great powers, to punish the North Korean aggression, I was walking one evening in a park off Riverside Drive, in New York. The plain folks gathered there uniformly demonstrated in their luminous faces the most intense joy—facing the marvellous spectacle of an exceptional sunset, whose blazing colors were more majestic that the architecture of the skyscrapers. I, too, enjoyed my part of the sunset; but I thought with grave sadness about the imminent war and the terrible bomb that could destroy tomorrow, in one minute of scientific barbary, the proud expression of the constructive power of the human intelligence. I thought about the uncertainty of man’s destiny and the madness with which certain financial interests proclaim the war as a favorable circumstance for their profits….”
I don’t think we need to update anything in that last part, Rave. More than half a century later the script is uncannily the same. Even North Korea as one of The Usual Suspects.
“Yeah, and it says here that the book prevented Don Mario from being given a visa to visit an old friend who was very ill in the US.”
They didn’t give a visa to Hugo Chávez, either, until he had been elected President.
“Guess they have it in for Venezuelans who tell it like it is. Although Don Mario was apparently no prophet in his own land, either. Not long after the book was published, in 1952, he entered the electoral fray as a candidate for Congress. Then the traditional electoral process—aka golpe de estado (military coup) forced him into exile in Spain. He returned in April of 1958, when the dictatorship fell—but died less than two months later.” Raven looks up from the book. “Don’t you suppose he died of a broken heart?”
Rave, how could he not have? My heart is very heavy after reading this, and seeing that nobody listened to him. How many times will we go down the same road to Bagdad?
“If the Mayans were right, only as many times as can be fit into the next 8 or 9 years.”
And if we follow the advice of Maritain, and distance ourselves from the present?
“That sounds very much like the question, If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to witness it, does it make a sound?”
Raven looks vaguely smug.
I think it does, Rave. The problem is we are deaf.
Sometimes I like to have the last word, too….
Today is a quiet day for Raven and me. Tea instead of coffee. Soft-boiled eggs for me; bread and cheese for Raven.
We have been reading and discussing a book I brought back from Caracas: “Mensaje sin destino” (Message for No One in Particular?) by the historian Mario Briceño-Iragorry. The book was written in 1950 to address the crisis of Venezuela—primarily that of cultural identity—and includes, at the end, some pointed commentaries in regard to the “grand crisis of the universal civilization” which could easily have been written this morning, and which Raven and I have decided to translate:
“To find a way out of the problems of our world, it would be necessary ‘that people begin one day to separate themselves from the present, and to look for the way to disappear from it, advises Maritain. It would be necessary to turn our backs on the world of lies in which we live…If we believe in justice and equality and liberty as normative possibilities, let’s not cultivate injustice, nor celebrate inequality, nor even less serve plans which try to enslave people. If we talk about a Christian society, let’s install the fraternity, charity and justice which form the essence of Christianity, and let’s help our neighbor to live in such a way that he sees in us the realistic expression of a fraternal world. In this way we will have the peace sought by the same people, and not the armistice imposed as a balance of fierce forces of empires.”
“We just need to update to the singular,” Raven opines: “Empire—not empires.”
Don Mario continues:
“This past July (1950), while the Security Council of the United Nations was debating the problems of the world and inviting the peaceful nations to go, along with the great powers, to punish the North Korean aggression, I was walking one evening in a park off Riverside Drive, in New York. The plain folks gathered there uniformly demonstrated in their luminous faces the most intense joy—facing the marvellous spectacle of an exceptional sunset, whose blazing colors were more majestic that the architecture of the skyscrapers. I, too, enjoyed my part of the sunset; but I thought with grave sadness about the imminent war and the terrible bomb that could destroy tomorrow, in one minute of scientific barbary, the proud expression of the constructive power of the human intelligence. I thought about the uncertainty of man’s destiny and the madness with which certain financial interests proclaim the war as a favorable circumstance for their profits….”
I don’t think we need to update anything in that last part, Rave. More than half a century later the script is uncannily the same. Even North Korea as one of The Usual Suspects.
“Yeah, and it says here that the book prevented Don Mario from being given a visa to visit an old friend who was very ill in the US.”
They didn’t give a visa to Hugo Chávez, either, until he had been elected President.
“Guess they have it in for Venezuelans who tell it like it is. Although Don Mario was apparently no prophet in his own land, either. Not long after the book was published, in 1952, he entered the electoral fray as a candidate for Congress. Then the traditional electoral process—aka golpe de estado (military coup) forced him into exile in Spain. He returned in April of 1958, when the dictatorship fell—but died less than two months later.” Raven looks up from the book. “Don’t you suppose he died of a broken heart?”
Rave, how could he not have? My heart is very heavy after reading this, and seeing that nobody listened to him. How many times will we go down the same road to Bagdad?
“If the Mayans were right, only as many times as can be fit into the next 8 or 9 years.”
And if we follow the advice of Maritain, and distance ourselves from the present?
“That sounds very much like the question, If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to witness it, does it make a sound?”
Raven looks vaguely smug.
I think it does, Rave. The problem is we are deaf.
Sometimes I like to have the last word, too….
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
TAKING ANOTHER CRACK AT THEM
“I can’t believe this!”
Raven is furious. He slams his coffee cup down on the table, and turns away from the computer screen.
Now what’s happening, Rave? Or do I want to know?
Raven levels a beady gaze at me.
“I sure as hell didn’t want to know. Remember the story we talked about yesterday?”
The people who were protesting the US soldiers living in their school? Who were shot?
Raven turns back to the screen.
“Precisely. Listen:
‘Residents of Falluja, 30 miles outside the capital where 13 people were killed in a rally late on Monday night, said U.S. troops shot dead two more people during a demonstration on Wednesday.
U.S. Maj. Michael Marti told Reuters that members of a convoy returned fire after shots were fired at them from a crowd outside a U.S. command post. He said soldiers counted "potentially" two injured Iraqis.’ Imagine! They protest because the soldiers shot them and they shoot them again!”
They shot different people, apparently. What does he mean, “potentially injured”?
“Beats me. It goes on to indicate the presence of Rumsfeld:
‘In Baghdad Rumsfeld held a meeting with Jay Garner, the retired general in charge of American efforts to rebuild the country and launch a democratic government.
Garner told reporters after the meeting that the media should concentrate less on anti-American protests and more on the way U.S. forces had toppled Saddam with relatively little damage to Iraq's infrastructure.
"We ought to be beating our chests every day," he said. "We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans'."
I think that is very possibly the single most outrageously stupid and arrogant statement I have heard in this lifetime, Rave.
“It’s high enough on my list that I’m ready to reincarnate to the next one right now.”
Raven always wants to have the last word. This time, I believe he deserves it.
“I can’t believe this!”
Raven is furious. He slams his coffee cup down on the table, and turns away from the computer screen.
Now what’s happening, Rave? Or do I want to know?
Raven levels a beady gaze at me.
“I sure as hell didn’t want to know. Remember the story we talked about yesterday?”
The people who were protesting the US soldiers living in their school? Who were shot?
Raven turns back to the screen.
“Precisely. Listen:
‘Residents of Falluja, 30 miles outside the capital where 13 people were killed in a rally late on Monday night, said U.S. troops shot dead two more people during a demonstration on Wednesday.
U.S. Maj. Michael Marti told Reuters that members of a convoy returned fire after shots were fired at them from a crowd outside a U.S. command post. He said soldiers counted "potentially" two injured Iraqis.’ Imagine! They protest because the soldiers shot them and they shoot them again!”
They shot different people, apparently. What does he mean, “potentially injured”?
“Beats me. It goes on to indicate the presence of Rumsfeld:
‘In Baghdad Rumsfeld held a meeting with Jay Garner, the retired general in charge of American efforts to rebuild the country and launch a democratic government.
Garner told reporters after the meeting that the media should concentrate less on anti-American protests and more on the way U.S. forces had toppled Saddam with relatively little damage to Iraq's infrastructure.
"We ought to be beating our chests every day," he said. "We ought to look in a mirror and get proud and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say: 'Damn, we're Americans'."
I think that is very possibly the single most outrageously stupid and arrogant statement I have heard in this lifetime, Rave.
“It’s high enough on my list that I’m ready to reincarnate to the next one right now.”
Raven always wants to have the last word. This time, I believe he deserves it.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
THE LATEST IN HORROR—FOR BREAKFAST
Raven is eating an unusal breakfast: leftover linguini. Clearly, he finds it entertaining eating it strand by strand.
At the rate you’re going, Rave, that pasta will last you all day!
“I’m slow,” he admits, “but determined. It distracts me from the waves of nausea that plague me while I’m reading the latest news from Iraq.”
Oh no. What’s the latest US war crime?
“Speaking of which, a group of Iraquis has asked for the arrest of General Tommy Franks for, precisely, war crimes. They have presented their accusation to a tribunal in Belgium. But, on to the latest horror:
‘U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqis at a demonstration in the town of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad—after being shot at with automatic rifles by some in the crowd, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured.
Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division, who gave the U.S. account of the clash, said at least seven Iraqis were hit by gunfire but could not confirm the reported deaths.
Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said there were 13 dead, including three boys no older than 10. He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he said numbered 75 people.
The demonstrators reportedly were protesting U.S. troops' presence in Fallujah. But some townspeople said the protest was held by students aged 5 to 20 to ask the soldiers to leave the school they were staying at so classes, scheduled to resume Tuesday, could take place.’”
I see. They already want to make sure that the people are ignorant by shooting the people who want to have their school open. Next they’ll want to make sure all the women are barefoot and pregnant, I suppose.
“There’s more:
‘U.S. troops in the town are headquartered in the school, and some in the crowd fired on the schoolhouse, Bray said. The al-Jazeera television station, quoting local residents, said the U.S. troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school.
Edtesam Shamsudeim, 37, said her 45-year-old brother died in the gunfire. She was shot in the leg and her husband was wounded.
"We were sitting in our house. When the shooting started, my husband tried to close the door to keep the children in, and he was shot," she said at the hospital, sitting in a chair with a bandaged leg, surrounded by some of her children. Their clothes stained with bloody handprints.
"Americans are criminals," she said.’”
Great image Bush and The Gang are creating in the hearts and minds of people around the world. I might as well have bloody handprints on the cover of my passport, Rave.
“One of the benefits of being a bird is being as free as one. We don’t need passports." Raven sucks down another strand of spaghetti. " We also don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.”
(Sigh.)
Raven is eating an unusal breakfast: leftover linguini. Clearly, he finds it entertaining eating it strand by strand.
At the rate you’re going, Rave, that pasta will last you all day!
“I’m slow,” he admits, “but determined. It distracts me from the waves of nausea that plague me while I’m reading the latest news from Iraq.”
Oh no. What’s the latest US war crime?
“Speaking of which, a group of Iraquis has asked for the arrest of General Tommy Franks for, precisely, war crimes. They have presented their accusation to a tribunal in Belgium. But, on to the latest horror:
‘U.S. soldiers opened fire on Iraqis at a demonstration in the town of Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad—after being shot at with automatic rifles by some in the crowd, a U.S. officer said Tuesday. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured.
Col. Arnold Bray of the 82nd Airborne Division, who gave the U.S. account of the clash, said at least seven Iraqis were hit by gunfire but could not confirm the reported deaths.
Dr. Ahmed Ghanim al-Ali, director of Fallujah General Hospital, said there were 13 dead, including three boys no older than 10. He said his medical crews were shot at when they went to retrieve the injured, which he said numbered 75 people.
The demonstrators reportedly were protesting U.S. troops' presence in Fallujah. But some townspeople said the protest was held by students aged 5 to 20 to ask the soldiers to leave the school they were staying at so classes, scheduled to resume Tuesday, could take place.’”
I see. They already want to make sure that the people are ignorant by shooting the people who want to have their school open. Next they’ll want to make sure all the women are barefoot and pregnant, I suppose.
“There’s more:
‘U.S. troops in the town are headquartered in the school, and some in the crowd fired on the schoolhouse, Bray said. The al-Jazeera television station, quoting local residents, said the U.S. troops opened fire after someone threw a rock at the school.
Edtesam Shamsudeim, 37, said her 45-year-old brother died in the gunfire. She was shot in the leg and her husband was wounded.
"We were sitting in our house. When the shooting started, my husband tried to close the door to keep the children in, and he was shot," she said at the hospital, sitting in a chair with a bandaged leg, surrounded by some of her children. Their clothes stained with bloody handprints.
"Americans are criminals," she said.’”
Great image Bush and The Gang are creating in the hearts and minds of people around the world. I might as well have bloody handprints on the cover of my passport, Rave.
“One of the benefits of being a bird is being as free as one. We don’t need passports." Raven sucks down another strand of spaghetti. " We also don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing.”
(Sigh.)
Monday, April 28, 2003
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW....
Raven is pecking thoughtfully at his toast.
Penny for your thoughts, guy.
“I was feeling a big blast of pity for the human species. I think it’s the only one where masochism is considered an acceptable lifestyle.”
What gave rise to this?
“Argentina. Where masochism has become a form of mass hysteria. Did you look at the results of the presidential election?”
No time, Rave. I was thinking that another country’s president—one who specializes in washing underwear—should be here helping with my laundry so that I could do things like read the news!
“Ah, The Leo of Your Dreams. Fat chance when it shows him here running around in Brazil. In Argentina they are going to have a run-off election—and it looks as if Menem could end up sitting in the prseidential chair again! Listen to the editorial from La Jornada (loosely translated, of course):
“When it seemed as if all possible catastrophes had taken a crack at Argentina and that nothing worse than what it has suffered up to now in the present century could happen, the verdict of the ballot boxes placed Argentinians before the perspective of a an historical, political and moral involution that could take them right back to the origin of their tragedies: a new presidency of Carlos Saul Menen, the maximum in corruption, the most unscrupulous privatizer, the most frivolous and irresponsible politician—and the principal culprit, in the eyes of the majority, of the socioeconomic nightmare that’s currently beating the crap out of the country.”
Beating the crap out of the country?
“I told you it was a loose translation. It says there were 21 candidates, and that although the voter turnout was around 80%, no candidate received more than 25% of the vote.”
Okay, how does that put Menem back in the Casa Rosada?
“He and Nestor Kirchner were the two who received the most votes, so the runoff election will be between the two of them. Both are “peronistas”, apparently. Incidentally, didn’t they have any whole grain bread in Pochutla?”
Juan and Evita must be spinning in their sarcophagi, Rave. The whole grain bread wasn’t fresh. If you had wanted it for playing carambola, it would have been fine—but for eating, no.
“Too bad. Anyway, I am looking at this situation in Argentina and seeing the handwriting on the wall: even when they have options they seem compelled to make the same bad choices. Over and over.”
Maybe they believe that the devil they know is better than going with an unknown element. Even if that devil put them in the hell they are living in now.
“Look, no bird—no matter how bird-brained—would make a choice like that. It’s not a choice that insures survival. I think your species is doomed to extinction.”
Which sounds bad. But maybe it isn’t really—if pathology implies extinction maybe there is hope for a fresh start?
Rave shrugs. He’s not putting his money on that....
Raven is pecking thoughtfully at his toast.
Penny for your thoughts, guy.
“I was feeling a big blast of pity for the human species. I think it’s the only one where masochism is considered an acceptable lifestyle.”
What gave rise to this?
“Argentina. Where masochism has become a form of mass hysteria. Did you look at the results of the presidential election?”
No time, Rave. I was thinking that another country’s president—one who specializes in washing underwear—should be here helping with my laundry so that I could do things like read the news!
“Ah, The Leo of Your Dreams. Fat chance when it shows him here running around in Brazil. In Argentina they are going to have a run-off election—and it looks as if Menem could end up sitting in the prseidential chair again! Listen to the editorial from La Jornada (loosely translated, of course):
“When it seemed as if all possible catastrophes had taken a crack at Argentina and that nothing worse than what it has suffered up to now in the present century could happen, the verdict of the ballot boxes placed Argentinians before the perspective of a an historical, political and moral involution that could take them right back to the origin of their tragedies: a new presidency of Carlos Saul Menen, the maximum in corruption, the most unscrupulous privatizer, the most frivolous and irresponsible politician—and the principal culprit, in the eyes of the majority, of the socioeconomic nightmare that’s currently beating the crap out of the country.”
Beating the crap out of the country?
“I told you it was a loose translation. It says there were 21 candidates, and that although the voter turnout was around 80%, no candidate received more than 25% of the vote.”
Okay, how does that put Menem back in the Casa Rosada?
“He and Nestor Kirchner were the two who received the most votes, so the runoff election will be between the two of them. Both are “peronistas”, apparently. Incidentally, didn’t they have any whole grain bread in Pochutla?”
Juan and Evita must be spinning in their sarcophagi, Rave. The whole grain bread wasn’t fresh. If you had wanted it for playing carambola, it would have been fine—but for eating, no.
“Too bad. Anyway, I am looking at this situation in Argentina and seeing the handwriting on the wall: even when they have options they seem compelled to make the same bad choices. Over and over.”
Maybe they believe that the devil they know is better than going with an unknown element. Even if that devil put them in the hell they are living in now.
“Look, no bird—no matter how bird-brained—would make a choice like that. It’s not a choice that insures survival. I think your species is doomed to extinction.”
Which sounds bad. But maybe it isn’t really—if pathology implies extinction maybe there is hope for a fresh start?
Rave shrugs. He’s not putting his money on that....
Saturday, April 26, 2003
¿Y EL FUTURO DE MANIQUEISMO?
Raven has had a short life, but his historical memory is very long. And because of his canny grasp of the Past, he’s nervous about the Future.
“You know,” he turns away from the computer screen and picks up his coffee cup, “I would like to be optimistic. I just don’t know if I can be.”
Well, Rave, I hear you. I believe most of us would like to think that the polarization that is being generated—the critical mass of positive energy that is gathering against the plan of the Bush Gang to grind the world’s population into chorizo and soak it in oil—will eventually prevail.
“That the Real Good will stand up against the Real Evil—and not be suckered by the Doublespeak of cynical bastards?” Raven sips his coffee, puts his cup back down.
Right now Manicheism is on pretty shaky ground, I think. Ever since George W. said we were either with him or against him. But dualistic thinking does allow us to draw the line against the intolerable.
“Careful. Didn’t Bush Padre draw a line in the sand against Saddam Hussein—somewhere back in the Dark Ages?”
In 1990, I think. We’re still in the Dark Ages, Rave. Looking for the Light at the End of the Tunnel. Trying to be hopeful.
“Here’s a hopeful guy. Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Phil Steger—executive director of Friends for a Non-Violent World says:
‘The time is coming when regimes that threaten the peace and security of the world's people will be promptly and peacefully removed from power by the nonviolent, political force of the people. It might have happened in Iraq. It will happen in America.’”
There isn’t much time though. Either 8 and a half years or 9 and a half, depending on whose calendrical correllation from the Mayan to Gregorian calendars you choose to believe. After that, even if the new consciousness does prevail, we won’t have an Iraq. Nor an America.
“If the choice is between being oil-soaked chorizo and having a peaceful process of regime change, I am inclined to be optimistic.” Raven shuts down the computer, goes to the sink and rinses his coffee cup.
You and Winston Churchill, Rave.
“How’s that?”
Churchill said he was an optimist because he didn’t see the point in being a pessimist and continuing to live. In those terms, I guess I am an optimist, too....
Raven has had a short life, but his historical memory is very long. And because of his canny grasp of the Past, he’s nervous about the Future.
“You know,” he turns away from the computer screen and picks up his coffee cup, “I would like to be optimistic. I just don’t know if I can be.”
Well, Rave, I hear you. I believe most of us would like to think that the polarization that is being generated—the critical mass of positive energy that is gathering against the plan of the Bush Gang to grind the world’s population into chorizo and soak it in oil—will eventually prevail.
“That the Real Good will stand up against the Real Evil—and not be suckered by the Doublespeak of cynical bastards?” Raven sips his coffee, puts his cup back down.
Right now Manicheism is on pretty shaky ground, I think. Ever since George W. said we were either with him or against him. But dualistic thinking does allow us to draw the line against the intolerable.
“Careful. Didn’t Bush Padre draw a line in the sand against Saddam Hussein—somewhere back in the Dark Ages?”
In 1990, I think. We’re still in the Dark Ages, Rave. Looking for the Light at the End of the Tunnel. Trying to be hopeful.
“Here’s a hopeful guy. Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Phil Steger—executive director of Friends for a Non-Violent World says:
‘The time is coming when regimes that threaten the peace and security of the world's people will be promptly and peacefully removed from power by the nonviolent, political force of the people. It might have happened in Iraq. It will happen in America.’”
There isn’t much time though. Either 8 and a half years or 9 and a half, depending on whose calendrical correllation from the Mayan to Gregorian calendars you choose to believe. After that, even if the new consciousness does prevail, we won’t have an Iraq. Nor an America.
“If the choice is between being oil-soaked chorizo and having a peaceful process of regime change, I am inclined to be optimistic.” Raven shuts down the computer, goes to the sink and rinses his coffee cup.
You and Winston Churchill, Rave.
“How’s that?”
Churchill said he was an optimist because he didn’t see the point in being a pessimist and continuing to live. In those terms, I guess I am an optimist, too....
Friday, April 25, 2003
MUSICAL REGIME CHANGES
Raven has been listening to a cd of intense Venezuelan music by Cristóbal Jiménez. Which means I have been listening to it, too, since Raven can’t use headphones. His eyes are ready to pop out of his head—which bobs in time to the music as he reads the day’s news on the computer screen.
Rave, give us a break here. From the music. Please.
Rave gives me a bald stare.
“I did not bring these raucous tunes back from Caracas, now, did I?”
They were a gift from my friend Félix. But I doubt that even he listens to them 24/7.
Raven shuts off the music.
“Okay. Silence is golden. You want to talk, or what?” He helps himself to my stash of granola bars, tears off a wrapper, begins pecking at one of the peanut butter bars.
I was wondering which country is the target for a regime change this morning, that’s all.
“Well, let’s see. In less than two weeks we’ve had Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and Iran. The Iran change is somehow connected to the presidential elections in Argentina, apparently.”
I don’t think so. I think it’s connected to the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Maybe by Hezbollah. Which in turn is connected to elections and gun-running in Paraguay in the multi-country corner where all the terrorist groups like the CIA and Al Quaeda are supposedly hanging out selling each other weapons and secrets.
“And the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone? Key word apparently is Jewish, so we´re talking Mossad? And Ariel Sharon? Bush says the US is going to occupy Iraq for at least two years. His own private Idaho—er, Palestine.” Rave tosses the granola bar wrapper in the waste basket. “Cynical bastard is even now admitting it was all about oil.”
As if we hadn’t figured that out. Well, in that case for the moment, anyway, we can probably push Cuba and North Korea and even Syria to the back chairs of the musical chairs and move up Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
“Does that mean you’ll be flying off to Saudi Arabia to bring back cds of belly dance music?” Raven has a malicious gleam in his eye.
In your dreams, Rave.
“If it’s all about oil, maybe we’ll be looking at the Tomahawk missiles here in Mexico pretty soon.”
Naw, Fox will continue giving Bush all the oil he wants. Losing money on every barrel. Making up for it in volume.
“Another idiot at the controls. Isn’t that enough reason for a regime change?”
It should be. Do you have somebody in mind? Rave, you wouldn’t be planning to run for president of Mexico, would you?
“I’m strictly a behind-the-scenes guy. But what’s the name of that beetle sidekick of Subcomandante Marcos?”
Durito, I believe.
“¡Eso! I think I’ll send him an e-mail. Before Bush pours Tony Garza all over us again like a bad smell....”
Raven has been listening to a cd of intense Venezuelan music by Cristóbal Jiménez. Which means I have been listening to it, too, since Raven can’t use headphones. His eyes are ready to pop out of his head—which bobs in time to the music as he reads the day’s news on the computer screen.
Rave, give us a break here. From the music. Please.
Rave gives me a bald stare.
“I did not bring these raucous tunes back from Caracas, now, did I?”
They were a gift from my friend Félix. But I doubt that even he listens to them 24/7.
Raven shuts off the music.
“Okay. Silence is golden. You want to talk, or what?” He helps himself to my stash of granola bars, tears off a wrapper, begins pecking at one of the peanut butter bars.
I was wondering which country is the target for a regime change this morning, that’s all.
“Well, let’s see. In less than two weeks we’ve had Cuba, Syria, North Korea, and Iran. The Iran change is somehow connected to the presidential elections in Argentina, apparently.”
I don’t think so. I think it’s connected to the bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994. Maybe by Hezbollah. Which in turn is connected to elections and gun-running in Paraguay in the multi-country corner where all the terrorist groups like the CIA and Al Quaeda are supposedly hanging out selling each other weapons and secrets.
“And the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone? Key word apparently is Jewish, so we´re talking Mossad? And Ariel Sharon? Bush says the US is going to occupy Iraq for at least two years. His own private Idaho—er, Palestine.” Rave tosses the granola bar wrapper in the waste basket. “Cynical bastard is even now admitting it was all about oil.”
As if we hadn’t figured that out. Well, in that case for the moment, anyway, we can probably push Cuba and North Korea and even Syria to the back chairs of the musical chairs and move up Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
“Does that mean you’ll be flying off to Saudi Arabia to bring back cds of belly dance music?” Raven has a malicious gleam in his eye.
In your dreams, Rave.
“If it’s all about oil, maybe we’ll be looking at the Tomahawk missiles here in Mexico pretty soon.”
Naw, Fox will continue giving Bush all the oil he wants. Losing money on every barrel. Making up for it in volume.
“Another idiot at the controls. Isn’t that enough reason for a regime change?”
It should be. Do you have somebody in mind? Rave, you wouldn’t be planning to run for president of Mexico, would you?
“I’m strictly a behind-the-scenes guy. But what’s the name of that beetle sidekick of Subcomandante Marcos?”
Durito, I believe.
“¡Eso! I think I’ll send him an e-mail. Before Bush pours Tony Garza all over us again like a bad smell....”
Thursday, April 24, 2003
“DE JIHAD” ALL OVER AGAIN
Raven arches a feather at the long black and white tie-dyed skirt I bought in a craft fair in Caracas.
Is that a salute, Rave?
“Maybe. You’re very retrograde in your style lately, I think.”
It’s because we live at the beach. All the old hippies and burners that straggle through here on their way to Zipolite have left a mark in our consciousness, style section.
“What a bunch of bullshit. Let’s talk about real stuff—like the Middle East.” Rave scrolls down the computer screen. “For example, here we have Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Iraq, calling for a Jihad against the American occupiers.”
Sounds like fun. Just what the world needs is another war with God on its side. What’s the deal?
“It says here:
‘One million people commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, were not only determined to take part in the rites banned by Saddam Hussein and his Baathist predecessors, but also to lay their claim for a Shia-led government. Yesterday, the final prayers of the festival were different from the days that have gone before, with thousands of young men arriving from the cities of a de facto Shia confederacy, which is already taking shape.'
It sounds like a political convention, not a pilgrimage, Rave.
“Well, whatever it is it clearly very theatrical. Listen to this:
‘The young men left their Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers in their vehicles out of respect, they said, for the holiness of Karbala. But later, covered in blood from flagellation with chains and knife wounds they had ritually and frenziedly inflicted on themselves they roared their desire to avenge Ayatollah al-Sadr, murdered by the regime in 1999, and fight for a free, Islamic Iraq. In sermons, imam after imam called on Iraqis to take the destiny of the country into their own hands, and the Shia to take their "rightful place" in deciding how the country should be governed Some of the crowd carried banners saying "Bush equals Saddam", "Down USA" and "Yes, Yes, Islam". ‘”
A week ago I could have contributed a few choruses of “Ooh Ah, Chávez no se va”, and “Cuba sí, Yanquis no”, Rave.
“Very funny. Here they have quotes from some of the people:
‘One member of the Hawza, the Shia religious body based in Najaf, Abbas Nahidi, said: "The Hawza believe there should be elections so people can decide who should govern us. We want an Islamic state. We do not want to be ruled by any foreign powers including the United States."
Yusef al-Hababi agreed."We are all prepared to take part in the jihad to throw out the Americans. Look at the way they conducted this war."’
Everybody’s a critic. The first step toward democracy, Rave. But seriously, there’s nothing like the Bush foreign policy of bombing the shit out of everybody for putting everybody with a US passport in the crosshairs of one of those Kalashnikovs.
“Then it’s a good thing you are melding into the tie-dyed universe of our own little Beach Blanket Bingo parlor.”
I think I already said everybody’s a critic....
Raven arches a feather at the long black and white tie-dyed skirt I bought in a craft fair in Caracas.
Is that a salute, Rave?
“Maybe. You’re very retrograde in your style lately, I think.”
It’s because we live at the beach. All the old hippies and burners that straggle through here on their way to Zipolite have left a mark in our consciousness, style section.
“What a bunch of bullshit. Let’s talk about real stuff—like the Middle East.” Rave scrolls down the computer screen. “For example, here we have Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Iraq, calling for a Jihad against the American occupiers.”
Sounds like fun. Just what the world needs is another war with God on its side. What’s the deal?
“It says here:
‘One million people commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, were not only determined to take part in the rites banned by Saddam Hussein and his Baathist predecessors, but also to lay their claim for a Shia-led government. Yesterday, the final prayers of the festival were different from the days that have gone before, with thousands of young men arriving from the cities of a de facto Shia confederacy, which is already taking shape.'
It sounds like a political convention, not a pilgrimage, Rave.
“Well, whatever it is it clearly very theatrical. Listen to this:
‘The young men left their Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers in their vehicles out of respect, they said, for the holiness of Karbala. But later, covered in blood from flagellation with chains and knife wounds they had ritually and frenziedly inflicted on themselves they roared their desire to avenge Ayatollah al-Sadr, murdered by the regime in 1999, and fight for a free, Islamic Iraq. In sermons, imam after imam called on Iraqis to take the destiny of the country into their own hands, and the Shia to take their "rightful place" in deciding how the country should be governed Some of the crowd carried banners saying "Bush equals Saddam", "Down USA" and "Yes, Yes, Islam". ‘”
A week ago I could have contributed a few choruses of “Ooh Ah, Chávez no se va”, and “Cuba sí, Yanquis no”, Rave.
“Very funny. Here they have quotes from some of the people:
‘One member of the Hawza, the Shia religious body based in Najaf, Abbas Nahidi, said: "The Hawza believe there should be elections so people can decide who should govern us. We want an Islamic state. We do not want to be ruled by any foreign powers including the United States."
Yusef al-Hababi agreed."We are all prepared to take part in the jihad to throw out the Americans. Look at the way they conducted this war."’
Everybody’s a critic. The first step toward democracy, Rave. But seriously, there’s nothing like the Bush foreign policy of bombing the shit out of everybody for putting everybody with a US passport in the crosshairs of one of those Kalashnikovs.
“Then it’s a good thing you are melding into the tie-dyed universe of our own little Beach Blanket Bingo parlor.”
I think I already said everybody’s a critic....
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