giving observations, not thanks

took an evening walk through the empty streets this thanksgiving. saw a sign outside the fire department building, showing a child with a toy. the poster read "toys for tots." toys for tots is a toy give away done by the marines. hopefully, it will be better than their original production, "bombs for babies." the facade of compassion and decency in this culture is almost as hateful as the brutality of our actions. almost. when you think of all the children our military has harmed, something like toys for tots becomes a sickening thing. it is not enough for us to kill. we must also pretend to be peaceful.

the hypocrisy is ongoing. we celebrate family on this day as we destroy families throughout the world. it would shock if it wasn't so mundane. we are such hypocrites that our hypocrisy has taken on a normality. honesty is a foreign trait. it would blind us if we came face to face with it. if someone asked the firemen, many of whom ride their trucks with a plethora of american flags, what do they make of an institution which kills children sponsoring a toy drive, they would look at this person as if he had three heads. or, they would tell him off. for, truth is no where to be found. it is buried deep, hidden within our degraded culture, but we are too busy digging for oil to notice. for, there are stars to be danced with, and songs to be sung, so simon says. it is bleak. we have pushed out the sun with lightbulbs, gigi gryce with lady gaga, home cooked meals with burger king. the bombs are dropped, as we debate the merits of adam lambert. yes, he kissed a man on stage. that's neither here nor there. but, what was he doing on tv in the first place? and, while children starve, what does it say about us that we spend precious time speaking of such matters?

surely, they will talk of us years from now. and oh, how vulgar the conversation will be.

just a walk down quiet streets. as the alcoholic once said, you can rum but you can't hide, so you might as well gin and bear it. it's better than singing the scotch blues.

toys for tots, sponsored by the marines. the walk for hunger, sponsored by raytheon.

war is peace

ignorance is strength

obama is bush

2009 is 1984

well, i give thanks that i am 5 again.



but there is noise in my head.

first slaughter turkeys, then people.

word is that the obama administration will not make the decision to send more troops to afghanistan until after the thanksgiving holiday. isn't that nice? but, what if it were october? would he wait until after halloween, or columbus day?

of course, a holiday which glorifies the slaughtering of past people is more important than the slaughtering of present people. indeed, whether to fight a war is not nearly as important as who gets the turkey leg, or first crack at the banana pudding. and you can't expect obama to make such a decision before he has the opportunity to pardon a turkey.

war is something that is done after the holidays. let it not ruin our joy, or cramp our styles. yes, there are impoverished children to kill. surely, we will get to that. but, let us entertain our annoying relatives first. all things in time. i suppose the afghans can give thanks that those 40,000 additional troops won't arrive for a while longer. aren't they the lucky ones.

you know, i wonder what the liberals would say if bush determined policies around his holiday schedule? in fact, i know what they would say..."he's an idiot." "his turkey comes first." shit like that. but, when their guy acts like a fool, it passes without comment. and there has been a lot of foolishness that has passed without comment within liberal circles during the last year. of course, the far right has been hard at work, painting obama as a radical socialist that wants to destroy our cracker civilization. but, does their insanity excuse their intellectual dishonesty? i think not. for, the liberals have always been this way. when clinton bombed serbia, they put their hands in their pants and jerked off, while thousands died. it's ok, as long as they are doing the killing.

saul alinsky once said that the conservative laughs as he stabs you in the back, while the liberal cries. well, that would be bad enough, but i'm not even seeing tears anymore. the liberal no longer apologizes. rather, he arrogantly struts on the big stage, killing easily. he always did, but he no longer hides his ferocity.

except at thanksgiving.

well, the turkey may feel differently.

especially, knowing that a jive turkey in the white house will be eating him.

just a piece in a puzzle

they changed my schedule today. there was no notice. dude claimed he had been trying to reach me, but i'm always in the same place.

it really doesn't matter, but the kids wondered where i was. it matters to them. they haven't learned yet that we are all just parts on a giant chess board. when they decide to move us, we move. every once in a while, we refuse to move, but those times are exceedingly rare. in this case, it all seemed a bit silly. the teachers who were introduced to me where unaware that i would be joining them. friendly fascism, if you will. i felt as if i were a bit player in a marx brothers routine. it couldn't be taken seriously. where i am doesn't seem to much matter. that i have to be anywhere is the real crime. that i have to get up in the morning, put on my clothes, catch the bus, and take direction from men and women who aren't worthy of scratching my ass, is the problem of all problems.

and yet, the kids don't know yet. and it's sweet. they like you. they don't care that you are only a para. to them, all that counts is that you are a good guy. and we teach them.

so, i will be in some different classes from now on. mellish the gypsy. if only i could play blues for ike. as oppression goes, it ain't much. but, it would be nice to determine my own movements.

as it was, i was sitting in the teacher's lounge, listening to gene ammons, when a bearded man with a voice higher than little anthony, approached, claiming he wanted to talk to me. in actuality, he didn't want to talk to me, but to the position i hold. very few people want to talk to me, but that may be for the best. the bearded wonder laid out his plan, seemingly improvised on the spot. zoot sims he wasn't.

and so it goes. i'm just another piece of the puzzle. i can be moved whenever "they" decide i should be moved. there is sadness to it, and humor as well. it's meaningless and profound, simple and complex. like everything else.

they own me from 8:20 to 2:45, as long as they don't personally insult me.

they can impersonally insult me all they want.

sad, but true.

by the way, i told the kids that they would see me around. that i would drop by, still bring my basketball, sing in the hallway, all of that.

i'm still here, folks.

kind of.

today is veteran's day. our nation will always make sure that there are plenty of veterans to honor. obama has just approved 40,000 more troops to afghanistan. 40,000. surely, those 40,000 troops will end up killing more than 13 people, the amount of people killed at fort hood, an event which has temporarily made us compassionate again. surely, obama, by continuing to prosecute wars in afghanistan, pakistan, and iraq, has been responsible for thousands of deaths. but, no one in the media has tried to figure out his state of mind. no one seems to think that the pressure has gotten to him, that he is suffering from ptsd, that religion is forcing him to kill. obama remains a liberal to both liberals and conservatives alike, the mounting death toll notwithstanding. in truth, truth doesn't matter. to the liberals, he wants peace. it doesn't matter that he makes war, for they know what he "wants." he has to move slowly, they tell us. why he has to add troops, they neglect to mention. supposedly, obama wants to do good, but it is tough. but, why is it easier to add troops than to subtract them? and to the conservatives, he is not sending enough troops. whatever he does, it doesn't matter, for he is a muslim socialist that wants to hand everything to black america. with two sides such as this, there is nothing to discuss. there is nowhere to turn.

we are left with the results of many more veteran's days to come. and come they will, courtesy of democrats and republicans, liberals and conservatives. whoever drops them, the bombs feel the same.

we worry about the madmen, as the sane ones continue to kill in far greater numbers. erich fromm called us "the sane society," meaning that we are all nuts. in such a world, sanity is relative, as is madness.

it is mad to shoot 13 people, sane to send 40,000 troops to kill and be killed into afghanistan. what is the connection between sanity and madness? if it is sane to fight wars, why is it madness for individuals to pick up the gun and decide for themselves who they will kill? if we are willing to condemn the latter, why do we insist on condoning the former? we malign safe victims, knock the approved villian, as we salute killers of far greater magnitude. the big killers go to ivy league schools, lead countries. some even have african fathers. not many, but a few of them do.

just trying to judge men by the content of their characters. don't beat up on me too much.

i suppose tilberg won't post this one on facebook. too many would be offended.

well, that's when you know you're doing your job.

happy veteran's day.

here's to many more.

violence in the hood

fort hood. not the hood, but a violent place indeed. always so, but usually, violent in a way that we are comfortable with. we don't mind killers, as long as we get to train them. as long as they kill the right people. you know, the ones with "funny" names and small bank accounts.

but, once in a while, violence comes back to bite those seemingly expert at only giving and not receiving. sometimes, they are victimized by "one of their own," who, in a blaze of crazed heroism, decides it is better to use his skills against the home team.

and, it is at that point, where we all suddenly become non-violent. a plethora of pacifists is born. now, we care about each life that has been taken, for the ones killed were american, and had names that may have been our own. this compassion was not in evidence before, and will soon go back into its hiding place, waiting for the right victims to present themselves. iraqis, afghanis, surely they will not do, for they are being killed by us, so therefore, our compassion can only go toward the murderers.

13 killed at a military base. the biggest military base in the country. the shooter? an army man of 9 years. a muslim. deeply disturbed by u.s. foreign policy. worried that he would soon be deployed to afghanistan. a madman? perhaps, but if he was mad, what drove him to madness? could it be the destruction of iraq and afghanistan? surely, more than 13 people have been killed by our troops in these two nations. who among us is willing to speak of the madness of the u.s war machine, a madness that dwarfs any response to its horrors.

what are troops doing at a military base? surely, they are learning to be better killers, are they not? well, it seems that at least one of them learned his lessons fairly well.

now, i would like you to imagine a scenario. it's the early 1940's, and the place is a german military base. a soldier at the base is deeply disturbed by germany's invasions of russia and poland. he loses it, can't take it anymore. he has to act. he picks up the gun and kills 13 people at the base. today, how would this man be judged? my guess is that many would judge him to be a hero. and yet, we have no more right to be in iraq than germany had to be in russia.

madmen are the violent ones who act against the wishes of the powerful.

and, so it goes. if a chilean soldier at a chilean military base, during the terror of the early pinochet years, turned his gun on his fellow soldiers, how would he be judged today by those of us on the "left?"

speaking of which, where is the left? where is the modern emma goldman, where is that someone who will humanize him whom the society will portray as a craven madman? who is it that will acknowledge the profound ugliness which led this man to act. the ugliness which is war, occupation, and religious bigotry.

as always, the real crimes will go unmentioned. our compassion will be selective. we won't learn anything, for to learn would mean that we have to change, and change we won't. we can not acknowledge the extent of our evil.

and therefore, we can not understand.

and we never will.