This Can't Be Happening!

I approached him at the party
Because I didn’t know anyone,
Because he looked harmless,
Because he stood alone,
And I introduced myself.
I said,
You must know a lot of these people,
And he looked straight ahead and said,
All my friends live underground.
And then I realized that he was almost dead,
And I had the idiotic notion that I could help him.
But then he looked right at me
And it hit me that I too was almost dead,
That nobody knew anybody here,
And that he was the only one who could stand the truth.
So I left,
Passing through rooms full of people,
Through the mudroom,
The ice-room,
The wind-room,
Out onto the sidewalk.
And I just started walking,
Following the angling streets
Breathing in the sour breath
Of an exhausted planet,
Trying to remember how to live.

To hear Lindorff, McGovern and DeBar on PressTV, click here or on the picture

The New Year's give to Americans from Obama and Congress: a police state featuring indefinite detention without trial

Ever since George W. Bush lost the popular vote by 500,000 souls and was selected President by a right-leaning Supreme Court, the United States has seemed to me devoted to a twisted fate of slow-motion Armageddon.

What seems to guarantee this is one of our most characteristic American traits: We don’t learn from the past; instead, we choose to officially forget embarrassing history so we can move on from our debacles without losing an ounce of glory. We all know how it goes: Sure, mistakes were made, but we need to keep our eye on the ball and move forward. The costs are paid in slow motion and out of sight.

Our leaders are either complicit in the gig or they feel compelled to pander to this weakness for forgetting history as they pump up the boilerplate myth and symbols. We’re now, of course, officially entering the silly season in America, so maybe we should not be surprised that the idea of going to war is in the air.

Torture victims of the Shah's Savak, an election office in Teheran and an Iranian guided missile test

The fear of history became clear to me back in 1992 when President George Bush Senior was pushing something called Education 2000 and decided to make a speech at Norristown High School outside Philadelphia, where my wife taught Art. The President’s advance team asked that the school’s Art Department provide a painted backdrop for the President; they wanted a large book. Being artists and, thus, by nature subversive, my dear wife and her colleagues asked themselves what was the subject matter the President of the United States would be most uncomfortable with. They chose HISTORY and painted that word on the cover of the book.

Early on the day of the speech, the White House advance party arrived and right away told the Art Department to change the book’s title from HISTORY to MATH. History, of course, was not even a part of the President’s Education 2000 program. The America of the first George Bush was forward looking. Yes, mistakes had been made in our history, but it was mathematics and cold-blooded technological advancement that had to be emphasized. We want to hear the confident hum of a machine future, not the human shrieks of horror from the past.

The officer rested his arm holding the stock of the assault rifle on the top of a log pile, and aimed directly between the target’s eyes. She was looking directly at him, unblinking, from 30 feet away, and exhibited no fear. “I hate doing this,” he muttered, before finally pulling the trigger.

A sharp “bang!” rang out, her head jerked up and then her whole body sagged to the ground, followed by some muscle jerks, and it was over.

The officer went over and checked the body, decided no second shot was needed to finish the job, and then walked back to his squad car, took out his phone, and called in the serial number of his rifle, reporting his firing of one round, as required by regulations.

Our doe was dead.

She was a beautiful animal, and had adopted our forested 2.3-acre lot in suburban Montgomery County, PA for the past five years. We could always recognize her by a game front leg that she usually held up, bent slightly, above the ground. She would sometimes lower her hoof while grazing, but when she ran or walked, it was always on three legs. The fourth, almost certainly broken by a long-ago run-in with a car, must have hurt to put weight on.

Our doe, game leg raised, with two fauns earlier this year–her own on the right and an 'adopted' one on the left

Having spent the better part of two months as an embedded reporter with Occupy OKC’s camp in Kerr Park (aka Poet’s Park) I have often praised both the city and police department. Oklahoma City’s occupation has so far managed to avoid the mass arrests and police brutality seen in other cities around the nation. In my opinion, this is largely due to the group’s respect for the park and city ordinances, as well as the city’s respect for the First Amendment. I frequently pointed to OKC as a model city, setting an example for how a local government and occupiers can peacefully coexist.

So imagine my surprise upon learning that the City of Oklahoma City recently refused to accept the group’s $55/day permit fee. Assistant City Manager M.T. Berry told Occupy OKC that not only were they being evicted from Poet’s Park, all city parks would be closed to them. Protesters were further informed that anyone remaining in Poet’s Park after curfew would face citation or arrest, effective immediately.

The word was blasted out in urgent text messages, Facebook posts and Twitters: “EVICTION IMMINENT! Please come to Poet’s Park NOW!”

Occupiers Jay Vehige (carrying flag) and Army veteran Jaymie Johnson rally to keep the park. Nov. 28, 2011. (photo courtesy Garrett Fisbeck, “The Vista”)

It’s fascinating to watch the long knives coming out for Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, now that according to some mainstream polls he has become the front-running candidate in the Jan. 3 GOP caucus race in Iowa, and perhaps also in the first primary campaign in New Hampshire.

Remember, we’re talking about a guy who has been in Congress on and off for 12 terms, dating back to 1976. His views have been pretty consistent, and because he has run for president several times, also pretty well known. A practicing physician who claims to have helped in the births of over 4000 babies in his career, the 76-year-old Paul is a free-market advocate, an abortion opponent, an uncompromising defender of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, an opponent of government regulation, the Federal Reserve and the IRS, and of big government in general–especially big federal government.

What’s interesting is what he’s being attacked for: being a racist, being “anti-Israel” and being an isolationist.

The racist bit is funny. After all, if we’re honest, the whole political infrastructure of the US is riven with racism. Just check out the public schools in any urban area, where you’ll find most of the students are non-white, or check out the schools in rural parts of the southeast in areas where most of the students are black — compare the condition of those schools and the class sizes to schools in the white neighborhoods. Check out the wildly different jobless figures for whites and for blacks. Check out the (very pale) complexion of the student bodies at just about any state university, check out the skin tones of the judges on the US Supreme Court, or for that matter, the whole federal bench. Check out the racial breakdown of the nation’s jails, and especially on the country’s many death rows, where you’ll find a wildly outsized percentage of people with black or brown skin waiting to be killed by the state.

Being a racist is clearly no disqualifier for national political office. It’s just that you are not supposed to say overtly racist things, at least in public.
Ron Paul says he'd end the wars, end the drug "war" and "war" on terror, and respect the Bill of Rights. Who else would do that?

Dear friend, timing is everything these days.
But if we wait for the “right moment” we might lose the day.
I have been wondering, of late, what the 60s have in store for me,

as I am done re-inventing myself.

But there is an essence, a honeyed core

that I have always been able to track through all my permutations, without which all is lost.
The night-sea-journey no longer works for me. I am a white beard now. The time for shadow-work is past.
Dumpster diving is for younger folk.

There is nothing in the dumpster for me
but self-acceptance.
And I will be disappointed.
And I will lose much that I love and am attached to.
Pieces of this thousand piece puzzle are missing.

They are just gone!
And people around me will turn to others in conversation,

and I must not wonder why.
The conversation is the bees in the barley.
It is the rain making inaudible circles on the pond.
It is about the future.
The conversation is sub- and super-sonic.
Sometimes I feel I am holding a door open in the middle of a field.
Sometimes I feel I am living in a great steaming dump

that stretches for miles in all directions,

so why bother cleaning my house!
Sometimes I wish I was Saint Francis.
Sometimes I am Saint Francis.
I care so much about this little pocket world, called Earth.
How small it is! How much smaller I!
Maybe time will be good to me.
Maybe I have a friend in time.
Who are my friends?
Are they the ones who leave me alone?
Or are they the ones who hold my finger to the flame?
I care so much about this little pocket Earth.
Just teach me what that looks like.
Now, ring the singing bowl.

Predator Odrona is about to sign a military authorization bill [Carl Levin’s S-1867] that puts every one of us at risk of being detained by our own military. If the government decides that you are a terrorist threat, the military will be able to kidnap you and deny you the right to a trial or even the right to know why you’re being held.

The arrogant and short-sighted leaders who “govern” us have granted the government the right to detain you anywhere in the world, including inside the U.S., and there is no limit to the amount of time that they can hold you once they’ve got you.

We shouldn’t worry though, they claim, because this new law is only meant for the terrorists among us.

So just who represents a terrorist threat? Well, protesters for starts, according to a Pentagon training test, which defines protests as acts of low-level terrorism. Quaker peace meetings in Vermont and across the country have been registered as “suspicious incidents” by the Defense Department’s secretive TALON snooping system. Once your name has been entered into one of these lovely surveillance systems, you can rest assured that it will never disappear.

The muslims in America certainly know that they are perceived as potential or likely terrorists by an alarming number of law enforcement agencies across the land. Reports have documented blatant anti-muslim profiling by “experts” presenting at law enforcement terrorism training events.

And let’s not forget the right side of the spectrum. Radical back-to-the-landers who wave guns and evade taxes have long been a government favorite for keeping their kill squads sharp. Just ask Randy Weaver. Washington state recently requested an was granted the use of a military surveillance drone to lead SWAT teams, a bomb squad, the highway patrol and four counties’ worth deputy sheriffs to arrest three unarmed brothers over a six-cow dispute.

The new military authorization bill makes the US a "war zone" in the "war" on terror, and makes us all potential terrorists with no constitutional rights, while further blurring any distinction between cops and soldiers

Lahore — Ever since 9/11 and the subsequent 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by the US, Pakistan’s world has been in turmoil.

Officially America’s ally in the so-called War on Terror, Pakstan has actually been one of its biggest victims. Just recently, Pakistan was punished as the US Congress passed a bill imposing more conditions on aid,  including specifically linking receipt of that aid to Islamabad’s cooperation in the War on Terror, and to efforts to curb terrorists, including the Haqqani network.

 Myra McDonald in her recent article states:
 

 “The society which is being shaped by the Afghan war in ways which neither Pakistan’s neighbors, nor western powers, would choose.  The airstrikes, coming soon after the forced resignation of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani for allegedly seeking American help to curb the power of the military, have added fresh oxygen to a combustible mix of anti-Americanism and religious nationalism enveloping Pakistan.”
 

So where should Pakistan go from here?

A good start would be for Pakistan to work at becoming less dependent upon the US. For while the interests of Pakistan and the US may converge on many points, including in Afghanistan, on many deeper, more vital points, they do not.

Pakistan needs to recognize that US aid is a trap. The country is better off without it says the author

Yesterday, I hitch-hiked to the gym.

If I tell that to any of my friends, they look at me like I’m crazy.

Yet if I had said the same thing 40 years ago, it would have been like saying, “I just drove over to the store” or “I just had lunch.” No one would have batted an eye.

Actually though, it was a remarkable experience. The day was pretty cold, with a biting dry wind, and I had planned to walk the three-mile distance, because my wife had one car and my son had the other, my bicycle had a flat tire, and I was happy for the extra exercise. But then, when I got into the little market center of Maple Glen, about a quarter mile from my house, I decided it would be a good time to stick out my thumb and take a reading on the state of American community-mindedness. It’s a week before Christmas, after all, so people should be in an especially friendly, sympathetic mood, right?

Wrong.

I watched in wonder as over 100 cars drove past me, most of the drivers averting their faces or staring stonily ahead so as to appear not to notice me. Some of the cars were driven by women. Okay I get that. Everyone’s a potential rapist when you’re a woman alone, but then again, it’s daytime, and I’m a 62-year-old guy with a Santa-like white beard. And how about two women in a car or three? Well, I’m a forgiving guy, so I still get that.

But what about all the guys who drove past? Big guys in pick-up trucks. Often two guys or even three guys in a car. What are they afraid of? Really nothing. It’s more about not wanting to let anyone else in your bubble, I think. Having to converse with a stranger. Having to be a minute or two later getting to the mall (this was a Sunday afternoon).

Remember too, Maple Glen, PA is a small town. Certainly some of the people passing me had seen me in the local stores. But because they were so intent on avoiding my gaze, they weren’t really looking closely.

Hitch-hiking, once commonplace in America, is no longer easy in a land of mindless fear and self-absorbtion