CONSPIRACIES COMING IN FROM THE COLD?

Raven has been doing a lot of reading this week—some of it over my shoulder, yes—but
he has also called my attention to things that he has been reading in Internet while I have
been working.

True to his trickster nature, Raven always gets a gleam in his eye for anything to do with
conspiracies. This week he has spent a lot of time reading a 90 page PLAN written in
2000—before Bush stole the presidential election--reviving the Bush Padre plan from 1991
on the build-up of US military forces with the goal of taking over the world’s resources and
squashing any threats of competition—especially from the European Union.

Raven passed me this excerpt from the article in the Common Dreams site that got him
reading the PLAN:

***
Published on Tuesday, February 11, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
Full Spectrum Conspiracy?
by Joy-Ann Lomena Reid

...Now that they have come in from the cold, the ultra-hawks of the
neoconservative movement -- political veterans Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney,
Paul Wolfowitz and Condoleezza Rice, and their extra-governmental think-tank
and media cohorts (men like Richard Perle, Daniel Pipes, Bill Kristol and William Safire),
are pressing their long-hatched agenda from inside the Bush administration -- or so the
conspiracy theory goes.

Their goal is "full spectrum dominance" -- an unchallenged America
sitting astride the world -- controlling its natural resources and reshaping or replacing
governments that don't go along with the program, and even controlling allies (with
something akin to economic blackmail) in order to prevent a collusion of would-be equals
from growing up in Europe. The key to getting the program started is Iraq, which as early
as 2000, the Rumsfeld Cabal (conspiracy lingo here,) were plotting to invade.

The narrative for the plot comes in the form of a report drawn up in 2000 by the neo-conservative
Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think-tank peopled by Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Wolfowitz, Florida Governor Jeb Bush (the president's brother,) Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Cheney's
chief of staff) and others. The document was entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies,
Forces And Resources For A New Century (Check this for link) and it was published in September
2000 -- a full year before the 9/11 attacks.
The document maps out a "proposed" global strategy for America in the 21st century -- and its
tenets are being followed almost to the letter by the current Bush administration....
***
I took the bait. My eyes slithered through the 90 pages of mostly double-column text that
spells out the Bush administration’s Game of Risk strategies to control planet Earth.

Rave, I think you hit pay dirt with this one. The early bird getting the worm, and all that.

“Or the early worm gets the bird....”

EL PAJARO DEL DULCE ENCANTO

In Sergio Ramírez’ book of essays, “Mentiras verdaderas” (True Lies),
he talks about the most emblematic figure in the mythical zoo of Nicaragua:
el pajaro del dulce encanto (the bird of sweet charm, literally). This
bird is a creature of singular beauty, with a highly colored plumage that
takes one’s breath away when it appears (okay, Raven, when he or she
appears) winging along out of nowhere. Its sweet charm lies in the fact
that it cannot be grabbed hold of and held. It must always be admired from
a distance, because if someone grabs it, it immediately turns to excrement
in the person’s hand.

Raven was reading over my shoulder as usual last night, and when he got
to the line in which the operative word was “mierda”, he let out one of his
ear-splitting shrieks of joy. “Serves the bastard right!"

I asked him, expecting to be too deaf to hear his response, which bastard he
had in mind.

"Wasn’t it Benito Juárez who said ‘El respecto al derecho ajeno es la paz’
(Peace is respect for others’rights)?”

It had served Benito Juárez right?

“Of course not! He was a hero. He impounded the property of the Catholic
Church. They had to wait more than a century for Salinas to let them start
running their scams again.”

I saw where he had been the past couple of days, but I still wanted to know
if there was something less than the obvious lurking behind his rhetorical
question about Juárez. (With Raven, there usually is.)

Raven turned his head so that only one of his beady eyes was giving me the eye.
“Don’t you read the papers? The government of YOUR country is going to war
to get its hands on the planet’s oil. Besides the obvious similarity in the appearances
of oil and shit, hasn’t it occurred to you when those bastards grab for other people’s
stuff, everything turns to shit?!”

Raven crossed his feet with a feigned resignation that was vaguely reminiscent of
Jeanne Moreau sitting on a stool in a tavern in Brest in the Fassbinder film “Querelle”
and singing “You always kill the thing you love....”

I thought about grabbing him by the neck, but....

At the same moment as the world staggers toward some
kind of apocalyptic future, certain items from the menus of
the past are being recycled and offered for consumption.

Yesterday in these pages Raven took us on a brief flight
back to the times of—let’s see—Chaucer, in “The Pardoner’s
Tale”? Or maybe Luther, poised to nail his indignations to a
church door? Simony—or the selling of blessings and pardons—
and Luther’s reaction to that crass mercantilism were major
factors that led not only to the Protestant Reformation, but also,
eventually, to the Enlightenment. Suddenly, the rector of the Basilica
of Our Lady of Guadalupe has slapped the Mexican Catholic Church
back to the Dark Ages. That means centuries before the Virgin
may, or may not, have printed her image on Juan Diego’s “ayate”.
(Perhaps that percursor of tee shirts printed with everything from
beer logos to...you name it...caused the rector to feel legitimized in
his plan to splash his blessing on cigarettes lighters bearing the
Virgin’s likeness?)

Another blast from the (literary) past was detonated last week by
The Usual Suspect—aka Saddam Hussein. In Paris it isn’t necessary
to wear a gas mask nor wolf down handfuls of cipro capsules in order
to read “Zabiba et le roi”, a love story on the order of “The Thousand
and One Nights”. It took a couple of years to get permission to publish
the book in French translation, but when it first came out in Iraq the CIA
and Mossad hired translators and code specialists right and left to root out
any secret messages as well as elements which could reveal more of
Hussein’spsychological profile.

By means of the dialog between Zabiba and the king, Hussein presents
his ideas about the loneliness of the absolute monarch, the contribution
of women to social and national development, and the struggle against
enemy conspiracies, at the same time as he reiterates the inescapable
character of the power of the people and examines the question of sexuality
in arab societies. Interesting—too bad the book’s chances of coming out in
English are so low....

The model for Hussein’s bestseller—the perennially compelling Thousand
and One Nights—showed Scheherezade spinning a new and fascinating tale
every night in order to prevent being beheaded by the scimtar of King Shahriyar.
(Are Shahriyar’s descendants still receiving due payment for his contribution to
the conceptual prototype of The Big Hook of vaudeville usage, and the gong
from the show of the same name?) The general consensus appears to be
that Hussein’s characters are not intended to be “real”, that the king is just a
mouthpiece for the author. Maybe—but another possibility occurs to me.

My question, and maybe it’s not a fair one since I have not read the book, is:
couldn’t the book itself be an analogy—or in literary language, a metaphor—for
Hussein’s own situation? Maybe Hussein is Scheherazade, spinning the story
of the book in an effort to forestall the entry of a new “intelligent weapon” (the site
underdark.netdemons gives scimtars only a 25% chance of having intelligence)
through the window of his bedroom in Bagdad?

Raven isn’t buying any of that. The image of Saddam Hussein in a belly dancer’s
costume has him rolling on the floor. (Raven isn’t known to subscribe to
The Tragic Sense of Life.)

Raven is really down in the beak today.

Seems that it had never occurred to him, despite
all of his scams and scatological capers that have
been the source of legends for millennia (well, that
may be overstating his audience drawing power just a
feather), he discovered when he read this week’s Proceso
(over my shoulder, of course) that he had been rotundly
one-upped by the rector of the Basilica of Our Lady of
Guadalupe in Mexico City!

Turns out that this guy, monseñor Diego Monroy Ponce,
has pulled off one of the All Time (for the Book of Records)
Scams: He managed to sell exclusive rights to the image
of Our Lady of Guadalupe for 12.5 million dollars to a
company called Viotran, based in Disney World! (well, at
least in Orlando, Florida) whose previous dedication had been
the transfer of money between Mexico and the US. According
to the CONFIDENTIAL contract signed by Monroy Ponce
and Viotran’s agent, María Teresa Herrera Fedyk, only Viotran
may use the image of the Virgin on posters, jackets, lighters,
telephone cards, plastic and wooden products, cds, watches,
candles, votive lights, ceramic articles, textiles, holy cards, gold
and silver objects...and anything else that it occurrs to them could
bring in a few bucks. These are special lighters, candles, condoms
(oops, maybe not those), etc. because they will be guaranteed to
be “BLESSED” by either Monroy or by the archbishop Norberto
Rivera Carrera. All profits will be split 50/50 by the Basilica and Viotran.

Raven finds this singular—and I as a lapsed protoCatholic do, too—that
the guy running the Basilica has managed to sell exclusive rights to
traffic with a religious image in the PUBLIC DOMAIN (not to mention
arguably being a big part of Mexico’s patrimony) to a US hot bucks
company (maybe the idea came because a US company holds the
copyright to Mexico’s national anthem?) This beats the archbishop’s
1999 papal visit Sabritas potato chips campaign (which a lawsuit stopped
in its tracks) all to hell. Legal specialists—especially those in canon law,
have indicated also that a deal of this magnitude must have had the collusion
of the Vatican, in that any deals over 250,000 dollars must be approved by
that entity.

Meanwhile, Monroy Ponce is buying up expensive houses in Michoacan and
Mexico City (on the deeds he has had the audacity to identify himself as a
“professor”, as opposed to a con artist of the first order) and along with the
Viotran agent is spearheading a campain called Help Your Loving Mother to
raise funds for the Basilica—because 20 million visitors a year have tapped
out the budget for keeping toilets clean and paying security guards to see that
nobody runs off without any rosaries without paying.

Raven is unconsolable. How did this one get by him?

***
Tomorrow: Saddam Hussein's bestselling book--some thoughts.

Yesterday Colin “Good Cop” Powell (henceforth referred to
in these pages as GC) called the Franco-German proposals
to disarm Iraq “distractions” that wouldn’t “solve the problem”.

What, precisely, is The Problem? That the US is not among
the top 5 countries in petroleum reserves? GC is right; proposals
to disarm Iraq are a distraction.

Raven spent most of the weekend distracted....

***
Raven is transfixed
by his face in a puddle
of dirty water
on the dock. Where fishermen
have emptied out their buckets

aromas of fish
leave a tantalizing stew,
and Raven tries to
identify each species
by its distinctive perfume.

This exercise in
discovering essences
of other creatures
prepares Raven to assume
their shapes, their identities,

add to his power.
He is sure he sees the quick
glisten of a fin
opening under his wing,
his beak becoming a mouth.

Evaporating
skyward, the puddle leaves him
gasping on the dock.
Raven’s foolishness, his pride
made him grab the bait, again.

***
And solving the Other Problem, aka Terrorism,
is like shooting at Raven on a moonless night
with a shotgun.

On “La Voz del Pacifico Sur” this morning a candidate
for mayor of Huatulco announces he wants to meet with
young people—14 to 28 years old—because their input
is “fundamental”. He has a point: those young people will
have to live in the nest we have been so persevering in fouling....

***
Raven is weaving
his way along the highway,
gliding back and forth
through the nearly naked trees.
This February morning

on a hillside pale
as paper Raven inks his
typographic dance,
daring the world to read his
news, decipher his language.

A young man slaps his
machete against a tree:
clack, like a rifle
shot echoing in the brain
of Raven, void of meaning

but full of purpose.
If Raven can hold one thought
until afternoon,
he will release the silent
bullet of revolution.

When Raven brought his friend to my garden yesterday,
he looked tense, restless, stressed out. It’s hard for a
creature to keep his/her head these days when so many
have lost theirs or have inserted it into an unusual orifice,
and are blaming the resultant chaos (blindness?) on
The Goat of the Moment (a nod to Kipling....)

Turns out Raven wanted to know who Adlai Stevenson
was. I don’t know who he had been talking with, but
clearly it was someone with a longer life expectancy than
Raven and his feathered folk. (Although these days, the
“dicho”: Nadie tiene la vida comprada, seems more
prophecy than folklore.)

A glance through a few websites today solved the mystery
of Raven’s sudden interest in a two-time presidential
candidate from the 50s: Apparently a few irreverant
journalists either remembered or had read about Stevenson’s
presentation in 1962 of photographs of Soviet missiles in
Cuba, and had usurped the liberty of unfavorably comparing
Colin (Professional Good Cop) Powell´s performance in the
UN yesterday to Stevenson’s during his term of Ambassador
to that same body.

And speaking of bodies—one of the more notable products
of war have always been the bodies of the poor. Not too
many CEOs of multinational companies, or their sons, or
their grandsons are lining up to bite the dust in the desert of
Iraq. To be shipped home in a body bag (such elegant luggage),
or--if counted a survivor--to suffer the inexplicable malaise of
radiation sickness are the roles available, for a cast of thousands
of poor black and hispanic soldiers who signed up for 3 hots and
a flop and will get more than they bargained for. Not to mention
the bodies of the poor people of Iraq (which after 12 years of
inhumane sanctions includes just about everybody...)

No, Colin Powell is not Adlai Stevenson.

And Raven is not Woody Woodpecker.

But that’s all, folks.

Raven claims to have telescopic eyes.

(Today his retinas are burning with questions:)

How is it possible that the UN, through the use
of only 10,000 soldiers supposedly scouring the
countryside for Osama Bin Laden, was able
to return Afghanistan to the top of the chart of
opium producing countries in 2002, with the second
highest production in its history—3, 422 tons—
when in 2001 the production under the Talibans
was only 185 tons?

What happened to that 1 billion, 500 million dollars
in drug revenue, when people in Afghanistan have
incomes of less than 2 dollars a day? Whose hands
received that money, and what was it used to purchase?

(Raven stands on one foot, scratches his head.)

He seems to remember that in past years money from
the Afghan opium production passed through the hands
of the usual suspects—the hands of the CIA;
the hands of Osama Bin Laden’s “freedom fighters”
(Reagan dixit), later Al Qaeda; the hands of who knows
which warlord—an embarrassment of riches glittering
out of the reach of the hands of the Afghan people who
have nothing.

(At the end of the tunnels of his eyes Raven glimpses
a question mark vibrating in the darkness.)

In the abrupt disintegration of the space shuttle it is difficult not
to notice some mythical reverberations related to this moment.
In the best--and most innocent--of cases, we remember the flight
of Icarus, whose approximation to the sun caused his wax wings to melt.

Pride exhibited as a tragic flaw has had a record run in theaters
and churches without diminishing its likelihood as the deadly sin
of choice for most of us, and especially for our leaders.
Pride displayed as arrogance is singularly ascendant in this
moment--an arrogance which simply dismisses prudence and
caution as symptoms of weakness.

Several prominent figures have recently revealed that from behind
the curtain of arrogance of the US government a small, naked figure
--reminiscent of MAD’s Alfred E. Newman, but without his innocence
—spews an amplified tirade of moral superiority (sic) and military right
to control the planet’s resources to an audience more convinced daily
that they aren’t in Kansas anymore. I would like to hope that the voices
of John LeCarré, Jimmy Carter and especially Nelson Mandela will be
given the weight of reason that they merit.


In the midst of all these apocalytpic shenanagins, Raven appears
to be in love. At least yesterday he brought a smaller raven
with him when he came to visit me in the garden. Which reminds me
that when the amps go up on messages of hate, we shouldn’t stop loving.

Raven is making // his New Year’s resolutions.
In what looks to be // one of the worst years ever,
prioritize his efforts

means more than resolve: // he needs imagination,
the vein he hasn’t // bothered mining since he came
to this tropical hideout.

He resolves to be // creative, stop scavenging
phrases and give up // found poetry completely;
no more combing the beach for

discarded lyrics, // nor accepting whatever
images the waves // break open for him like eggs.
He put the sun in the sky

epochs ago, and // can do better than spew out
political pap // (my fellow creatures, hope blooms
in the darkness of moonrise,

etcetera—no.) He resolves to fight against
slothful warfare // with images that etch glass
in their rationality,

and coax dreams out of // their banishment in batshit-
ridden caves; release // sensitivity from the
stone clutches of avarice;

pry loose the paving // stones of good intentions,
and use them for new walls // to preserve fragile cultures.
A good year is possible?

(Raven and I will take a couple of days off to meditate on what Mandela labeled a
"holocaust".)