HUNKA LOWANPI: PLANTING THE STAFF

FROM THE NOVEL: CRIES FOR A VISION BY JACK RANDOM.

Dedicated to Ward Churchill
On the Occasion of His Recent Trials


Ina went to her spirit guide, an elder of the Cheyenne known as Red Tail. He was a friend to the Lakota and a scholar of the sacred rites. She told him the danger before she made an offering and he accepted, as she knew he would.

They spent three days building the sweat lodge, setting up the ceremonial tipi, gathering supplies and organizing the participants. On the evening of the third night, they would cleanse themselves in Inipi. All was well. All was ready. At sunrise on the fourth day, the healing ceremony, the ancient ritual of Hunka Lowanpi, would begin.

Grandfather said: If you do something every day, it will become a part of you. If a man drinks the wasichu firewater every day, the bottle will own him. If a man prays to the Great Spirit every day, he will find spiritual guidance. Jerico prayed:

“Give me the vision that the red road may unfold before me. Surround me and my relations with the light of protection and guidance, in the infinite wisdom of Mother Earth, Father Sky and the Great Spirit. Mitakuye oyasin.”

This day the words seemed heavy and foreboding. They stuck in his throat as if an invisible hand choked him. It was the day of Hunka Lowanpi. It was the day he faced his enemy once again: The wasichu killing spirit.

A fire rose to the height of a tall man before calming to glowing embers. The fire keeper tended the large, round white-hot Inipi stones and Red Tail chanted as he smoked the participants with sage. He was a small man, stern but thin, the lines of his face deep and knowing. A sense of kindness surrounded him, in his manner and movements. He regarded his fellow beings with respect and compassion so that trust flowed easily to him.

They entered the sweat lodge as Red Tail invoked the powers of the six directions. His words floated in the still of the evening and each time a direction was summoned, the people called out in the Lakota way, “How!”

At the moment of sunset, a red-orange glow flooded the eastern horizon and the ceremony began with the passing of the sacred pipe. The stones were brought in and placed in the pit, radiating in darkness like planets in the emptiness of space. Water was poured over the stones, unleashing an explosion of steam. Waves of heat rose from the earth, saturating the skin, penetrating the flesh, the blood, the organs of the body, breaking through to the bone and marrow, flooding the darkness that creeps into all, as it had Billy and Ina, Jerico and Marie, the old one and the drummers, the fire keeper, the water keeper, and all their relations. The darkness that is evil was released through the same passage, burning as it passed, until it was expelled and banished to the heavens, scattering amongst the stars.

The heat that was unbearable became a mother’s warmth as faces appeared in the stones, in the steam, in the darkness itself. Faces of the ancestors, chanting and singing, drums pounding, and with those faces ancient memories appeared in visions, spilling into the lodge: Visions of great victories and horrible massacres, visions of Sand Creek, the Greasy Grass, of counting coup, of sickness and disease, visions of buffalo hunts and buffalo slaughters, visions of wonder before the white man came, visions of blood flowing into the Washita, visions of Sitting Bull and Red Cloud, of Yellow Hair and General Crook, of Spotted Tail and Crazy Horse, of Little Big Man and the frozen dance of death, Big Foot at Wounded Knee.

Red Tail said that all must be held in the heart, joy and sorrow, darkness and light, virtue and evil, for it is all a part of our being, our heritage, and our spirit as a people. The whole of the past will make us strong in remembering.

When the vision faded and the faces returned to steam, stone and darkness, Jerico felt his body was cleansed and his spirit renewed. He silently wished that this was only an Inipi, only another sweat on a summer night. He would sleep but lightly.

Ina’s heart was full with gratitude, Billy’s with relief, and all was forgiven in the still cool air of night. Red Tail was uneasy for he had seen the spirit beneath the vision, a malevolence lurking. He had heard the voice beneath voices and he knew this spirit well. It was an ancient spirit and familiar to all who had lived through the days of the white man’s wrath, the genocide that was never spoken, never recorded in the white man’s histories, and never settled in the soul. His father had spoken of this spirit and his grandfather before him. It was there in the before times, foreshadowing the arrival of the wasichu, the onset of disease, the slaughter of the buffalo, famine and bloodshed. Elders of the spirit world spoke of its shadowed presence at Sand Creek, the Washita and Wounded Knee. It attended the killing of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

He knew that this was a powerful spirit that could not be defeated without the spilling of blood but he held his tongue. He was an old man but still strong and he determined to fight this battle alone, even if it was to be his last. The others would sleep in peace and dream of the Great Spirit’s blessing. For him, there would be no peace.

Jerico ran. In the cold dark of sleepless night, while the house succumbed to pleasant dreams, he slipped out like a wisp of air, slid into Lala and crept down the gravel driveway to the open road. He ran though he was ashamed of running. He ran though everything he knew and cherished told him to stand and fight. He ran because he was afraid, because he could not shake the belief that the killing spirit was within him, tied to him, connected, clinging like an invisible leach.

He chose to run, praying that the spirit would follow as he followed the pools of white light piercing the night, following the dotted line on black asphalt, the streaking road signs, and the yellow glow of industry that never rests alongside the endless highway.

He rolled the windows down and let the chill wind dry his tears. He would run through the night until the rolling hills gave way to barren landscape, until the earth dried and the desert surrounded him with a promise of death. He would make his stand where the four winds howled, where the blinding heat would lift his spirit off the earth, and there he would cry for a vision. He would stand alone, one man against an ancient darkness. He would challenge the great evil, killer of men, destroyer of civilizations, and he would kill or be killed.

Lala reared and charged down the highway, nostrils flared, eyes wide and roaring thunder. A surge rushed through Jerico, gripping his muscles, pushing him on, faster and faster. He would not be broken. He would not back down. He would face the enemy here and now, beneath the stars of a summer sky, and he would wreak his revenge.

An explosion of steam lifted him from his ranting, raving, maniacal thoughts, pulling him back to the earth. There was no rain but Lala’s windshield was spotted with drops. He lifted his foot from the gas and drifted to a stop. The water hose had given way, releasing a torrent of water and coolant with a hiss that slowly faded to silence, black and cold as the starlit night.

The ceremony could not wait for a lost Lakota brother. A circle of warriors was posted around the sacred tipi and none would be allowed to enter until the ceremony was complete. Red Tail assembled the gathering, Billy’s relations to his left and Ina’s to his right. He accepted their offerings of corn, tobacco and dried buffalo. With a wave of the ceremonial wands, he told them in the tongue of the ancients that the ceremony would bind them together as the earth is bound to the sky. He summoned the powers of the four directions and all spirit beings that walk or crawl upon the earth. He instructed them to share in all things: If one was hungry, the other should take the food from her mouth; if one was cold, the other should shelter her with his robe.

He gave a signal and the air was filled with the sound of drums pounding and rattles shaking. He began his song of the Hunka, inviting the spirits in. He summoned the spirit of Sitting Bull and his adopted brother Jumping Bull, once a fierce enemy whom the great chief saved from death by the Hunka ceremony. Red Tail sang of Jumping Bull’s bravery in fighting at his brother’s side. He sang of his death when he fought to protect the great chief when the turncoat Agency Indians came to arrest him. He sang of how they died together, a proud and good death, a death of two brothers bound by the sacred bond of the spirit world.

Red Tail waved the wands and an ear of corn over all the participants and painted their faces with red stripes from forehead to chin. “By this marking the spirits will know you.” He approached the sacred buffalo skull, howling like a wolf, and the spirit of the buffalo rose from the earth. There was a whirlwind of smoke, choking the weak hearted.

He ordered Ina and Billy to stand before him. Beneath the waving wands, drums and rattles, smoke and dust, he instructed them that they were now one being, of one mind and heart. “If one is killed, the other must avenge. If one is threatened, the other must offer protection.”

He draped their bodies in a buffalo robe and tied them together with thongs of rawhide. “You are now bound together forever. You are one, inseparable.”

Freed from the robe, Ina was given buffalo meat, which she placed in her mouth.

“I am hungry,” said Red Tail.

Ina removed the meat from her mouth and gave it to him.

“I am cold and have no robe,” said Red Tail.

Billy stepped forward, placing the robe around his shoulders.

“As you care for each other,” said Red Tail, “so must you care for all the people.”

The ceremony complete, they filed out of the lodge, with Red Tail the last to emerge. He presented sacred bundles to Billy, Ina, the Ate Hunka and the Mihunka, and then he suddenly seemed frail and old. He would not join them for the feast. He asked for Jerico but Jerico had not returned.

“I must go home to rest,” he said. “When you find him, tell him to come.”

They asked if there was anything they could do for him but Red Tail declined. They understood. A man of the spirit world does not ask for the white man’s medicine in the last hours of his life. He had already made his peace.

“Find Jerico,” he repeated. “Tell him to come.”

They found him alongside the road with his thumb out, having no luck. They told what had happened and took him to the old man’s bedside as quickly as they could.

“You wanted to see me?” asked Jerico.

Red Tail waved him closer and asked him to sit. His voice was soft and quivering, more air than sound.

“I am an old man,” he said. “In my life I have seen both good and evil. I know the spirit that visits your dreams and I know your spirit as well. You have been at war for a very long time, longer than I have walked the earth. It is the black robe, Yellow Hair, the blue coat, and more. It is the fascist, the Nazi, the emperors and the Inquisition. It has raised the flag of nations and the staff of the church. Where it walks, death follows. It is not always the death of men; it is sometimes the death of spirit. It wants to destroy us by removing us from our past, by killing off the old ways, by taking from us our culture, our language, our beliefs and sacred rites. You were born to fight this spirit for the spirit that lives within you has fought back for a thousand years.”

“It follows me,” said Jerico.

“It follows no man,” replied Red Tail. “It was here before you and it will remain when you have gone. You have the gift to see it, to sense its presence and its purpose. Others are powerless against it. It is for this reason, it chooses you.”

“If I choose to fight,” said Jerico, “someone is harmed. If I choose not to fight, it is the same.”

“You have saved one who would have died by its hands. You have given another a good death. I planted my staff knowing the price. My brothers and sisters are already gone. My companions on the red road await me in the overworld. I welcomed this last battle. I have played my part. Your relations will find peace. The evil one will do no more harm here. I am pleased. It is a good day to die.”

Jerico held the old one’s hand, strong and full of life.

“I must tell you,” said Red Tail, “what you already know. You cannot run from this battle. If you remain strong, it will never defeat you. You alone must not surrender.”

Jerico felt the old one’s power leaving his body and finding its home within. It was the last gift of a dying man.

“Use it wisely,” the old one said.

With that the old man died and Jerico began his mourning song. It would cloud his vision, make heavy his heart, and remain with him all the days of his life.


JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS) AND THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS). THE CHRONICLES ARE POSTED ON BUZZLE.COM.

NEPAL & DEMOCRACY

THE MANSEL REPORT
By Chris Mansel

An item on CNN.COM reported on Friday, January 21, 2005 stated, “ Bush called on the "force of human freedom" to "break the reign of hatred" and "expose the pretensions of tyrants in the world.”

Ok, President Bush, on February 10, 2005, I call your attention to the situation in Nepal. The AP reports from Katmandu, Nepal, “ Police in Nepal's capital arrested 12 rights activists and quashed a rally to protest the king's emergency rule Thursday, while rebels in the southwest killed five policemen and freed comrades from a jail during a raid on a town.”

In Nepal, the government is detaining activists who are pro-democracy, Mr. President. Now you called on the “force of human freedom” to “break the reign of hatred” and “expose the pretensions of tyrants in the world” remember Mr. President? You have said now and then, time and again, all the time and very often that you have supported those that seek freedom. But then, Mr. President, I recall that there are men and women who believe in peace that are jailed all around the world and you haven’t done anything to help them either. The AP continues with, “Police in Katmandu detained the activists as they arrived for a rally by human rights group Peace Society Nepal, hustling them into police vans and slapping a security cordon around the planned rally site to block other activists from gathering.”

In this land, which is the exiled home to His Holiness, the Dali Lama, the government is acting like a tyrant Mr. President. Mr. President the AP also reports, “It was one of the first attempts to hold such a rally since Feb. 1, when King Gyanendra sacked an interim government, imposed emergency rule and suspended civil liberties, saying the moves were needed to control the intensifying Maoist insurgency. Security forces have arrested dozens of politicians and activists, drawing strong protests from foreign capitals including Washington, which urged Nepal to return to the "democratic path."

Mr. President someone in your administration has issued a return to the “democratic path” in Nepal. But Mr. President, imagine if the “left-wing extremists” in this country prevented your own Jeff Gannon to pursue his civil liberties in establishing porn websites, what if your own Scott McClellan wasn’t able to call on members of the press sympathetic to your cause or ability to answer their questions? Well, I hope you or someone in your administration will look into this matter in Nepal. Just close your eyes Mr. President, and pretend there are vast oil fields in Nepal, huge contracts for Halliburton. If nothing else Mr. President, do it for His Holiness, you have met him before and spoke to him, remember? If you don’t I have a photograph of this meeting I can send it to you.

Mansel Report: Let Freedom Cling

aid workers pass in airports
commenting blurrily of the previous war’s inferno
the remains of bloodied and shattered car windows
have replaced the oil fires

the numbers of civilian dead rarely detail the number of children
their little faces twisted into metal, gored by dust
where will you find a mass grave in the sand of Iraq?

through an interpreter that we don’t need
we can understand the anguish of the mothers
just like we understood them in Rwanda, and Kosovo
we knew what they were saying in Vietnam, in Poland
but we ignored their cries and brandished their lives
with democracy and freedom
just like the Christian missionaries that ventured into the rainforest
we brought sickness and death in order to save their souls


How much has changed?


- Chris Mansel

RE: Jack Random's Lines in The Sand

WATCHING THE EDIFICE CRUMBLE
By Jake Berry


A wonderful article and I think a hopeful one because ultimately it takes us toward the inevitable realization of the irrelevance of the Bush administration. The irony of the "mission accomplished" banner was that it really advertised a failure. In an administration that purports to export democracy, that declares "freedom is on the march" it has done little more than destabilize world politics and the global economy. It succeeded in removing Saddam from power only to leave a violent breeding ground for terror and hatred. It removed the Taliban only to return control of the country to warlords and terrorists. And these are their greatest successes. In all other respects, they have publicly, abjectly failed. They have no tools left but violence, and even that violence will now be irrelevant because no one believes in whatever reason they give for the violence. Not two weeks into his second term and the U.S. and the world read Bush as a thing of the past, a sputtering relic of failed policy. Whatever the Iraqi's can do to end the occupation, by voting, writing a constitution, will be a good thing because not until the occupying forces leave can they get an honest glimpse of what lies before them and what is possible for them. The neo-conservatives had hoped to Americanize, to Disneyfy and Wal-Martize Iraq. Even they now realize that the degree to which these things may or may not happen lies completely beyond their control. We are spectators to our own disaster and the November elections assured us that for the next four years there is little we can do but watch the edifice crumble. There is hope in this. Because now, once again, the world is on its own and American imperialism is realized for what is truly is: a defunct comedy, bankrupt, shut down and laughed out of town.

[Note: Lines in The Sand is posted on Buzzle.com -- Government & Politics ]

THE MANSEL REPORT 1.29.05

By Chris Mansel

Don’t Look In The Mirror, It Don’t See You Anymore

(for Betty Jo Tucker)

The deepening wound of what is going on in Iraq is that now, right now, we know it is wrong. We know it is wrong now and in fifty years, it will still be wrong. Time will show that this was a war fought for the sole purpose of greed. For our troops, for the civilians in Iraq who must try to live day-to-day it is a horror, a true horror. Remember the footage of the women and men in Kosovo running in the streets after doing their shopping, hoping the snipers would not get them? What the snipers didn’t get the onslaught of ethnic cleansing did.

From the Oklahoma City bombing to the elections in Iraq we have watched as our eyes glazed over with panic and ignored that shaking in our body so that we have become accustomed to the sight of bodies lined up on the street or parking lot. Mourners gather and placed flowers in Oklahoma City, in New York at the site of the World Trade Center. America was moved and the media exploited even that. We saw daily photographs of the notes, the cards, the flowers etc. In Iraq, it is a different story. I can imagine Iraqis lining up to place the flowers they don’t have on the site of a bombing and being hit by the shrapnel of another bombing just a few feet away, those that manage to make it home are bombed accidentally by an American plane that had mechanical trouble. I heard on the news today that gunmen took over a school that was to be used for a voting place. They drove everybody out of the building and then blew it up. Where exactly does this fit into the budget of rebuilding Iraq and its allotment for education? An estimate of three hundred billion dollars has been spent on a war that could not wait for diplomacy.

President Bush cannot dig enough graves on this earth and that aftershock you feel is not an earthquake but the earth trembling not only in fear, but also in sorrow. That shaking is the center of our only planet’s heart breaking.

- Chris Mansel

THE PRAYER BIRDS by Jake Berry

What the Caliphate left undone
stumbles naked out the mosque.
A great Mouth
opens in the wires,
roars down the ruined streets,
populates the cafes
with massive grotesque angels
the color of an exploded chest
or a face half torn away –
the color of shattered skull
and exposed brain
spread across their sullen wings.
They are the voice embodied,
vulture proof
of a promise delivered.

On this cold day in Alabama
I feel the brush of their feathers
against my face
and study the swollen moss
and the bare overhanging limbs
leaved only by wrens
and a bright red cardinal
falling to the damp ground
to feed
on the seed I spread.

Jake Berry 1.29.05

THOUGHTS ON THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS

THE IMPUGNITY OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE
By Anna Pages

Today, I watched the body language, I heard the inflections, and listened to the speech, written by someone else, as they AGAIN turn the knife in us re: 9/11, and BUSH called his pre-emptive, aggressive actions righteous and ordained by GOD.

I hear the shrill hate coming from the radio (the only thing MORE shrill are the commercials that are paying these talk shows hosts' salaries), calling Barbara Boxer all sorts of names, and saying how could she ask such questions and create such doubt at such a time as when we are at war?? How dare she “impugn the character” of CONDE RICE? (IMPUGN=attack/blame)

Conde, she couldn't IMPUGN your character if, in fact, you and the rest of the white house gang had not LIED TO THE PUBLIC in the FIRST PLACE. She is just bringing to the fore what you hope will stay in the aft.

Conde's condescension: "Don't ask me hard questions that make me look bad or shed light on my questionable actions, and the questionable actions of this administration"

Conde Rice's condescending attitude is the tone we have to look forward to for the next four years. Any questioning of their actions is to threaten their character...well, a character that hasn't done anything wrong has no fear of being impugned. She was cornered, and lashed out in defense with a smoke screen of "impugning her character", instead of answering the questions! Any dissidence will be tantamount to criminal actions.

The White house crew is to be viewed above reproach. Any question can be viewed as questioning their character? Why did she even go there? Just answer the questions, Dr Rice. YOU are OUR public servant.

Dissidents can look forward to their credit ratings being smeared, the IRS audits taking everything or making the dissidents spend years fighting them. It's not prison that I worry about, it's the corporate stymie...try to get someone who knows what is going on in ANY customer service number. Wait for hours to talk to them, send certified letters and dispute their claims against you on your credit report...after you do all of this, do you have time to PROTEST, or time to follow the legislative rulings, spins, subterfuge?

THIS IS BY DESIGN. THANKS TO OUR POLITICIANS...THEY HAVE CREATED A LITIGIOUS SPECTOR OF WHAT USED TO BE OUR COUNTRY TIS OF THEE, SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY OF THEE I SING. SO SUE ME.

PEOPLE...WATCH, LISTEN, AND LEARN AS MUCH AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN ABOUT WHAT IS MAKING YOUR CITY/STATE/COUNTRY TICK.

FOUR MORE YEARS OF THE FORCED SPREAD OF FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIAN VALUES INTO AN ISLAM COUNTRY. FOUR MORE YEARS OF CORPORATE GOV'T PARADING AS RIGHTEOUS AND PIOUS.

RETOOL FOR NEW FUELS! DON'T LET IT BE ABOUT OIL OR MONEY, OR POWER, OR OWNERSHIP. WHAT HAPPENED TO "GIVE UP ALL POSSESSIONS"??

WHAT IF A CHRISTIAN DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOING TO WAR? What WOULD Christ do, Mr.. Bush? Ms Rice? Mr.. Rumsfeld? Mr.. Rove?

Perhaps if the USA gov't was not trying to convert everyone to Christianity AND get into their oil fields, we might not have such massive and fanatic opposition to Democratic elections in Iraq.

GOD BLESS THE WORLD, MR. PRESIDENT.

Apology to the World from a Lone American

Hello world.
First let me begin with
I am sorry......
I hang my head low with shame for what some of my fellow americans have done...
for what they continue to do.....
I apologize that though I have millions of others that feel the way that I do, that we have not had it within our personal power to stop the injustice.
I tell you that I am sorry because even now I cower away at doing my part to fight these crimes of humanity...for fear that they will also turn upon me.
I apologize for the greed that has been bred into my nation....for the over consumption, for the blindness to the needs of other peoples in distant lands.
On this day of inauguration....this rubbing our face in the muck of lies that this nation is mounting before all of humanity.....I stood before the sea and prayed to something larger than all earthly existence.....I prayed that the rest of the world could forgive a nation of peoples whose established hierarchy has been misusing their powers to the effect of ruining and destroying the lives of an entire planet.
I pray to all of you to forgive...I pray that this forgiveness will be the gentle force to collapse these wrongdoings on a level so high that it cannot be refused.
second
May all positive energy go forth to healing... and refrain from joining their game of hate by hating those that wrong us. It only fuels the fire....a solution? I am sorry ... so sorry.
Forgive me world...
Forgive my people.

wz 1 20 05 5 53pm

THE INTEGRITY OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE

WELCOME TO CASA BLANCA
By Jack Random


If you are going to serve as the president’s point on war propaganda, you have to expect a certain amount of criticism. If you accepted the job of testifying to the American people that no one could have imagined terrorists using passenger planes as missiles when you had in your possession innumerable intelligence reports describing that precise scenario, you have already sacrificed whatever credibility you had and your integrity is as questionable as the president’s intellect.

We cannot pretend that nations do not engage in propaganda; they most assuredly do. There is, however, a distinction between righteous propaganda, which appeals to both heart and mind in the service of a just cause, and malicious propaganda which stirs emotions to a corrupt cause. By its very nature, righteous propaganda adheres to the boundaries of truth while its counterpoint is bound only by the limits of credulity.

Short of kidnapping or extortion, no power on earth could compel an honorable person to serve a dishonorable cause. Likewise, no power could force an honest voice to betray known and acknowledged truths. Dr. Condoleezza Rice’s response to Senator Barbara Boxer’s challenge was a fallback to the oldest trick in the book of rhetoric: evasion by indignation. When the good doctor struck a pose and uttered the words, “I really hope that you will refrain from impugning my integrity,” it conjured the image of Casa Blanca’s chief of police closing Rick’s on charges of gambling before collecting his evening’s winnings.

In keeping with the decorum of the Senate, Boxer was too polite to utter the obvious retort: You cannot impugn what does not exist. Better yet: Welcome to Casa Blanca!

I submit that any analyst or commentator who took the positions advocated by Condoleezza Rice would have arrived at Point Zero on the credibility scale long ago:

1. In reference to a memo on the president’s desk days before September 11, 2001 entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike inside US,” Dr. Rice argued that it was an historical document. Indeed it was.

2. Based on the infamous aluminum tubes and Nigerian yellow cake frauds, Dr. Rice melodramatically warned America to beware the mushroom cloud.

3. Months ago, when the lie of weapons of mass destruction was exposed, it was Dr. Rice who led the chorus in a rousing rendition of “We never said that.” Yes, they did. They just never used the words “imminent threat.” The fact that they carefully avoided that phrase is compelling evidence that they knew it was a phantom all along.

4. As a tireless advocate for democracy in the ever-evolving wheel of war rationalizations, Dr. Rice spoke a little too soon when she expressed satisfaction at a military coup overturning the democratic presidency of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The more we learn, the more certain we are that this failed coup as well as the successful coup in Haiti was the work of this administration’s black ops.

On virtually every issue of substance over the last four years, Condoleezza Rice has willingly danced the dance of smoke and mirrors. Duplicity is her game and, as long as the media is corporate owned and dominated, she will continue the dance as Secretary of State, secure in knowing that she will not be held accountable. In contemporary politics, it is understood.

In the trial of history, however, it remains to be seen whether the truth will hold sway over obstinacy. Like the president himself, Condoleezza Rice is only a mouthpiece in the circle of warlords who run this White House. Thus far, the likes of Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith prefer to be relatively off camera. Cheney and Rumsfeld are up front but they have always preferred to delegate State with matters of official deception.

To those who believe it no longer matters, the damage done, and now is the time to move on, we should all reflect that the recent election was partly a referendum on the war in Vietnam. If the rightwing ideologues can redefine the horrors of Vietnam as a victory left wanting by the weakness of American resolve, little wonder that they hold faith in the virtues of Middle East occupation.

Barbara Boxer (curiously joined by John Kerry) struck a lonely blow for the party of opposition when she challenged the credibility of Condoleezza Rice. As the Senator said, “It is too soon to start rewriting history.” Indeed, it is better to wait three decades. By then you will be able to convince all America that Saddam Hussein was the aggressor, that he in fact did possess weapons of mass destruction, and that America’s decisive action struck to the heart of the enemy that attacked us on September 11, 2001.

Let the record be clear and let the facts be fully vetted by a multitude of independent investigators: This administration deliberately and painstakingly deceived the American public in order to justify a war that could not otherwise be justified.

That concerted effort to rewrite history before it appears on the page continues to this day in the denials of the administration that weapons of mass destruction ever were a primary justification for the war. It continues in the repeated assertions that the entire world agreed that Iraq posed a threat. If you believe that, reread the transcripts of the United Nations Security Council. In all the world, only three nations perceived anything approaching a significant threat: America, Israel and a disingenuous Great Britain (to wit: the dodgy dossier).

History matters and the truth is not negotiable. We have already begun to hear the beginnings of rationalizations for future wars. If we forget or tolerate the lies and deceptions of this war, even as our soldiers are on the field of battle, the price will be more severe than the bruised sensibilities of our future Secretary of State.

Jazz.

FOR MORE JACK RANDOM COMMENTARIES, SEE BUZZLE.COM.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

THE CASE OF ANDRES RAYA
By Jack Random

My recent commentary on the case of Andres Raya, the young Marine who lured police into a trap, killing a police officer, wounding another, and resulting in his own death, has triggered a backlash of critical response.

The critics have made a number of points: 1) Raya did not participate in the assault on Fallujah and may not have seen combat in Iraq at all. 2) Raya was a member of the California Latino gang known as the Nortenos. 3) A toxicology report found significant amounts of cocaine in Raya’s blood. For these reasons, it is wrong and somehow disingenuous to suggest that Raya was “a victim” or a casualty of war.

While I sincerely appreciate objective criticism, there is a line of civility which some critics cross all too easily. The mother of a Marine in New Mexico wrote to inform me that Raya could not have been involved in the attack on Fallujah. Her tone was civil and her argument persuasive. Hers is an example of objective criticism. She is proud of her son, as well she should be. Though I oppose the war as immoral, I respect those who put their lives on the line for what they believe. My prayers join with hers in wishing for his safe return home.

Other critics assume a less civil posture. They are quick to use derogatory terms and seem personally offended not only by the argument but by the character of the author. It is generally not useful to respond to such critics but in the interest of setting the record straight, I will respond to the factual bases of their objections.

First, there is a distinction between commentary and news reporting. A commentator observes the stories of the day and makes inferences, drawing conclusions that may challenge the reader’s view of the event. Often, as in the case of Andres Raya, a story’s power is in its immediacy. Unlike the reporter, the commentator has no obligation to report all the facts or to withhold conclusions until all the facts are available.

The Andres Raya story unfolded over the course of several days. As one who has long been on record regarding the untold consequences of war, from the veterans of Nam to the victims of the Gulf War Syndrome, the Raya story struck an immediate chord. My initial response was a commentary entitled “Casualties of War” which was posted by CounterPunch (1/12/05). When more information was available, including the statements of family members, I rewrote the commentary under the title “A Marine Comes Home.” This version was posted by Buzzle.com (1/13) and Dissident Voice (1/14). Unlike the first version, this commentary stated, “the military denied he had participated in the assault on Fallujah.” Aside from observing that the statement is factually correct, the readers were right in perceiving the author’s doubt. It is uncharacteristic of the military to issue statements and denials without a comprehensive review. They were apparently concerned that the story would throw new light on what happened in Fallujah – a massacre by any objective standard.

On Sunday, January 15, Andres Raya’s hometown paper, The Modesto Bee, ran three front page stories under the banner headline: Marine’s Gang Ties Revealed. Local law enforcement uncovered evidence of ties to the Norteno gang from a safe in Raya’s room. Toxicologists reported cocaine in Raya’s blood. Raya’s service in Iraq consisted of driving Humvees and trucks in supply convoys. The four medals he received were given to all Marines serving in Iraq. He reportedly bragged to fellow Marines that he was a gangster and had purchased an SKS assault weapon. Authorities also implicated Raya in a break-in at the local high school, in which a flag was cut up and the words F--- Bush were spelled out on the gymnasium floor. The paper also reported that friends and family members, some 600 of them gathered at Raya’s funeral at St. Jude’s Catholic Church, denied the gang charges.

These are the relevant facts as I now know them. Let us each examine them and arrive at our own conclusions. The local authorities and the military would like us to conclude that Raya’s horribly misguided actions were not related to his involvement in the war. They want us to conclude that drug use and gang association are solely responsible.

I believe that is a flawed and simplistic explanation of what happened. It does not explain why this young man volunteered for service in the Marine Corps. Presumably, he could have written his own ticket out by revealing his own past. Presumably, at that moment in time, Andres Raya wanted to serve his country. Something changed. Something clouded his vision and turned his world to darkness. In my judgment, that something was the war in Iraq.

I stand by my analysis and its conclusion: With no apologies for his brutal and misguided act of violence, victimizing two innocent police officers, both Raya and the officers are casualties of the war.

I stand by my point of advocacy: Get the military out of our schools or, at least, give our young people both sides of the story.

As for my reputation as a modest contributor to public discourse, I stand by my words. Having written dozens if not hundreds of essays and commentaries over the past several years, I have made more than a few mistakes. For example, in a published commentary entitled, “Defending Dan? Rather Not,” I erred in blaming Dan Rather for killing the insider tobacco story. It was in fact Mike Wallace’s story and I should have blamed the network.

We all make mistakes. If they are honestly made, there is neither shame nor regret. To the contrary, learning from our mistakes is a measure of wisdom and the greatest assurance that we will not repeat them.

Let the readers draw their own conclusions.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS COMMENTARIES ARE WIDELY POSTED: SEE WWW.JACKRANDOM.COM.

A MARINE COMES HOME

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.

THE UNTOLD STORY OF WAR
By Jack Random


On Sunday, January 9, 2005, nineteen-year-old Andres Raya shot two police officers, killing Sergeant Howard Stevenson of the Ceres Police Department, and was himself killed in the ensuing gun battle.

Raya had served seven months in Iraq with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines of the 1st Marine Division. Though he served in the infamous Sunni Triangle, the military denied he had participated in the assault on Fallujah.

Andres Raya and Howard Stevenson will not be entered on the official casualty list for the war in Iraq but they are both casualties of the war as certainly as the Iraqi civilians who were not targeted by American bombs but died under them just the same.

Characterized as a possible suicide by cop, the story of Andres Raya made national news because it was captured on the surveillance tape of a local liquor store. It is symbolic of the untold story of war. In the coming years, thousands of similar stories will unfold in towns and cities across America. They will not make the national news wires. They will not be featured on television newscasts. They will not usually be so dramatic: Stories of domestic abuse, alcohol or drug related rage, homelessness and crime statistics. They will only be reported as local interest stories, buried in the back pages where few will notice – like the fallen soldiers themselves.

The untold stories of war fall under the category of collateral damage. Hundreds and thousands of trained killers survive their missions only to come home to a life for which they are no longer prepared. They have seen what men and women should not see. They have engaged in operations that brought them face to face with the death of innocents, women and children. They have lived in an environment where no one could be trusted, where the father of a smiling, waving child could be the enemy, where local hatred for the occupying army is ubiquitous, and where they learn to hate and kill indiscriminately, before an unknown enemy strikes first.

The untold story of the first Gulf War was sickness and infirmity, a debilitating syndrome neglected and denied by both the government and the military. The untold story of Vietnam was a lost generation of soldiers not unlike Andres Raya, whose family and friends agree, did not want to go back to Iraq.

Raya was recruited at Ceres High School where Staff Sergeant Robert Tellez pegged him as a possible career man. He knew what he was signing up for but, when he returned, as Araceli Valdez told San Francisco Chronicle reporters Meredith May and Matthew B. Stannard (1/12/05), “That man on the liquor store surveillance cameras wasn’t our cousin. He wasn’t Andy anymore.”

According to the Marines, while Raya’s battalion was engaged in the assault on Fallujah, his unit was not involved and Raya saw little direct combat.

According to Alex Raya: “He told us about going into homes and shooting them up. He said he wouldn’t pull the trigger a lot because he didn’t want to kill anyone. He kept saying it was a war that had no point, that it was all for oil, and it made no sense that we were after bin Laden but went after Saddam Hussein instead.”

He had nightmares, often staring into space and locking himself in his room for hours.

As Marisa Raya said, “How can you see the things he saw and not be affected in your soul?”

To those who continue to ignore the deceptions and lies of our government because of their overriding need to support our troops, take a good hard look at Andres Raya. He was a Marine, strong and tough as they come. He wanted to make a life for himself. He wanted his family to be proud. He was not so different from any other mother’s son or daughter until he came home from the war.

At a time when the military is hitting our high schools, malls and soda shops, looking for fresh recruits, talking tough about patriotism, honor and duty, who will tell the story of Andres Raya? Who will give testimony to the dark side of war? Who will talk about the Gulf War Syndrome, the soldiers who threw their medals away, or the veterans who could no longer endure? Who will tell them why daddy turned to drugs or ended his own life? Who will tell them about Hearts and Minds or Johnny Get Your Gun?

It is time to get the military out of our high schools or, if they will not, it is time to call on the veterans of war for the other side of truth. If we send our kids to war without giving them the full and unvarnished picture of what they will face, we are almost as guilty as the warlords themselves, who never served, who never risked their own lives or the lives of their loved ones, but who are perfectly willing to raise the flag for the Fourth of July parade.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS COMMENTARIES ARE WIDELY POSTED. SEE WWW.BUZZLE.COM.

ARNOLD'S REFORM: STANDARD RIGHTWING FODDER

BY JACK RANDOM


Arnold Schwarzenegger’s political career began in earnest with his sponsorship of a ballot initiative funding after-school programs, a measure that passed overwhelmingly but never took effect. It was designed as a public relations campaign, highlighting Arnold’s love of children, but the funds were cleverly tied to budgetary restraints. The children never saw a penny’s worth of Arnold’s love. It was all fluff, no muscle.

The Governor has continued the practice of talking big but producing little in his brief tenure as California’s chief administrator. His primary achievement thus far is his enthusiastic support of America’s Vore Leader (sic). While the Bush-Cheney-Rove campaign welcomed his support, it has not produced any benefits for California’s beleaguered economy.

It is a good time to review why California’s economy is beleaguered. The root and cause is made to order for the Governor’s incisive political mind: simple and pure. In the year 2000, a handful of Texas energy corporations manufactured a west coast energy crisis and gamed the system to the tune of $50 billion. (The amount dwarfs the state’s deficit and places the amounts pledged by wealthy nations to tsunami relief in proper perspective.) These corrupt but well-connected corporations have been allowed to profit by California’s misfortune and their profits are skyrocketing under the friendly leadership of Washington, Austin and Sacramento. We may never know whether the ouster of a Democratic governor and the rise of Arnold was a part of the package or merely a fringe benefit. We do know that, while the old governor was in bed with California’s rapists, the new governor is having their babies.

The first order of business for the new governor of da people should have been reparations. Tellingly, it was not. It is revealing, however, that the governor could not match his condemnation of corporate contributions by refusing to accept them. It is equally revealing that corporate corruption, campaign finance, and the wasteland of California’s burgeoning private prison industry are missing from the governor’s program. Clearly, it is not da corporations that will pay for his reforms; it is da people.

Mainstream media, of course, remains enchanted by the very image of Arnold being cast in the title role of Mr. Smith Goes to Sacramento. Politicos are so used to second tier celebrities that the presence of a bona fide Hollywood movie star is enough to trigger salivation. It is not surprising, then, that the governor can do no wrong. His state of the state reform program is characterized as bold, new and broad as the governor’s implanted biceps. A less mystified analysis would reveal that there is literally nothing new in the Arnold approach to governating. It is the standard package of rightwing fodder, full of self-interest and blatant partisanship, devoid of compassion.

The proposed spending cap for budgetary restraint is at the top of every fiscal conservative wish list. Few seriously object to spending limits in a time of deficits (except perhaps the current inhabitants of the White House), but this proposal is designed to punish the governor’s political enemies. It disallows flexibility in governance at time when flexibility is most needed. The cuts go across the board and will inevitably hurt all interests that do not have a corporate sponsor. Multibillion-dollar contracts for everything from roads, bridges and highways to prisons and computer networks are safe as long as they are privately owned. Caps are a cover for cuts in education, welfare, worker training and homeless programs, cuts in mental health and medical care, cuts in everything public, and these cuts will not require debate. They will simply happen beneath the radar.

Pension reform, like most rightwing ventures, is another scheme for privatization. It has worked so well in foreign countries (operating under perpetual debt while eviscerating social programs is the new third world occupation), the governor wishes to bring it home to Caleefornia. With any luck, Arnold will move on to bigger and better scripts by the time the state joins the third world and secedes from the nation by mutual consent.

Education reform is the rightwing politician’s favorite whipping post. It is of no consequence that the model promoted by Texas crooks and adopted by the nation was itself a failure. It does not matter that No Child Left Behind is the most disastrous educational initiative since California essentially banned phonics instruction in the early nineties. It does not matter that private schools, which are not saddled with massive compulsory testing, are less effective than public schools and charter schools are pretty much a bust. It only matters that Arnold loves kids and those nasty teachers are ruining their bright future. (Here is the nasty little secret: their future has been exported by the same anti-labor politicians who make sport of publicly flogging educators). Teachers would have little problem with pay by merit except they know that merit will be determined by administrators who are pimping test scores. Most of these administrators are sincere people who really do not like what they are being forced to do but they are left no choice by deceitful politicians like the governor. Why not pay the politicians by their merit – and that should be measured by the real effects on people, not whether they are positioned for a run at the White House.

Government reorganization is just a way of clearing out the remaining Gray Davis appointees. Mark it: this governor will appoint his own. It is the way of government: when there is nothing you can or will do, appoint a commission.

On the face of it, the governor’s proposal to eliminate designer redistricting is long overdue and desperately needed on a national scale. When one factors in the party, however, it becomes an obvious partisan ploy. The Democrats still control the state and the governor wants to do away with gerrymandering until his own party takes over.

As for the governor’s paltry prescription drug benefit, one can only assume it is a duplication of the fraud perpetuated by the president with extremely limited application. One must be careful in abusing the elderly. Someone might notice.

When it all comes down, the Governator’s bold new program is like his featured address at the Republican National Convention: full of platitudes, plumage and aplomb but signifying absolutely nothing.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE WRITES FOR BUZZLE.COM. SEE WWW.JACKRANDOM.COM.

ARUNDHATI ROY, SPEAK TO US

MAKING DISASTER PERSONAL
By Jack Random

As the magnitude of the tsunami catastrophe comes into view, there is a danger that we will soon grow numb; we may forget that numbers are only symbols of individual human beings, with lives as rich as our own and promise yet untold. I think of India’s renowned writer.

Arundhati Roy, speak to us.

We long to hear your singular voice. We need to know that you are well or, at least, that you and your loved ones have survived this catastrophe and that you will not suffer the cruelest fate: to have survived to witness the misery unfold.

Arundhati Roy, you have so often given words of comfort, words of solace, words of wisdom to ease us through our trials. We wish now to give some of them back.

Perhaps you do not live near the coast. Perhaps you were not vacationing with western visitors in your corner of the world. Perhaps you do not know how deeply you have touched so many of us. Perhaps you do not recognize the bond you have tied to those who have consumed your words. Still, we need to know you are safe. We have learned that Sri Lanka’s most distinguished writer (at least, from a western view), Arthur Clarke, has survived but we have yet to hear from you.

Perhaps it is selfish and ignoble but we would rather lose a thousand ordinary men, women, even children, than to lose one extraordinary being. Of course, the difficulty is: one never knows who is or might become extraordinary. Perhaps we will never know the full extent of our loss in this disaster. Who knows but that a small child in Bangladesh, if not for an untimely death, might have grown up to be the next Gandhi, the next Einstein, or indeed the next Arundhati Roy.

In America, we are mourning the loss of one of our own most precious beings. Susan Sontag was a voice of reason and, above all, a voice of compassion. She understood the value of human life.

We know in our hearts that every being is precious, that every child is or should be loved, and that every mother’s grief runs as deep as the divide that cracked the ocean floor. If only we cared as much for dark skinned children as we do for those draped in red, white and blue.

We cannot save those who are already lost but we can save those who will be lost if the world does not rally to this cause.

Arundhati Roy, speak.

CRY AMERICA

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
THE STATE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
By Jack Random

Perhaps the most dubious decision in American legal history (Bush v. Gore 2000), has cast a growing shadow on Democracy in America.

The valiant effort of Jesse Jackson to bring to light the deplorable state of our democracy and the introduction of legislation by Jesse Jackson, Jr., to establish a constitutional right to vote, has garnered little attention in American mainstream media. In the new standard of journalism, anything that is not on the White House list of approved topics is to be regarded as peripheral, including the very principles and foundations of democracy.

In deference to the new standard, even traditionally progressive media have opted for a policy of forward-looking news coverage. The elections of 2000 and 2004, along with the impeachment proceedings and the decision to invade Iraq, are regarded as yesterday’s news and delegated to the renderings of dead history.

We have too often forgotten the historian’s admonition: Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it. Moreover, the events of the last two elections are living history. They have a direct and profound effect on our system of governance today. As such, they must be revisited and addressed now if we are not to be condemned to live with their consequences in perpetuity.

In revisiting Bush v. Gore 2000, it is revealing to apply the reasoning of second amendment advocates to the right to vote. The second amendment refers to the right of the state to maintain well-regulated militias yet it is commonly interpreted as the right of the individual to bear arms. The 15th and 19th amendments, in prohibiting racial and sexual discrimination, refer specifically to “the right of citizens…to vote” yet the Supreme Court, in one of the most convoluted decisions in history, specifically denies the individual’s right to vote in presidential elections.

“The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States.”

Here is a decision so damaging and so brazenly undemocratic it deserves to be remembered to the end of time as a model of judicial treason. The decision placed the franchise of all citizens in legal limbo and rendered the 15th, 19th, 24th and 26th amendments feckless to the point of absurdity. Of what use is it to prohibit discrimination in the application of a right that no longer exists? It is revealing indeed that George the Dubious could never have ascended to the nation’s highest office without a denial of democracy’s most fundamental right.

By arriving at this remarkable conclusion, the court presumably cleared the way to invoke the constitution’s kickback clause: the tenth amendment delegates authority not founded in the federal constitution to the states or to the people. Ironically, in the case of the 2000 election, both Congress (as representatives of the people) and the state of Florida, whose laws clearly mandated a complete and comprehensive recount, were denied.

Today, four years after that dark and fateful hour of democracy’s supreme betrayal, we are left with the bitter fruits of partisan judicial bias. A decision ostensibly rendered to avoid a constitutional crisis has created the same. We are left with a system in which massive and deliberate disenfranchisement is not only tolerated but institutionalized.

When the individual does not possess the right to vote, there is no legal recourse to the most blatant and despicable crimes against democracy. When there is no individual right to vote, partisan Secretaries of State are allowed to establish discriminatory guidelines and to purge entire blocks of the electorate with impunity. Without the individual right to vote, computer-assisted gerrymandering (tailoring districts to partisan demands), a practice that systematically disenfranchises all minority representation, is given the official stamp of approval and sanctuary from legal retort. (It will be fascinating to watch the court rule on several pending cases of designer redistricting for it is logically impossible to see how they cannot fall back on their own precedent. Of course, in a virtual confession of their own fallacy, the court took pains to discount the precedent value of their own ruling but how legal scholars can discard the precedent of one of the most critical decisions in history is beyond the scope of reason.)

It is neither disloyal nor an exaggeration to declare that, without the fundamental right to vote, whatever our system is it is neither a democracy nor a republic; rather, it is a cheap façade that will soon crumble before the halls of power.

In the year 2004, when the corruption of the electoral process in the critical state of Ohio is regarded by our media as the shenanigans of playful politicos, even to the extent of lifting its chief engineer to the status of political genius, it is clear that a constitutional amendment is the only remedy left to the people of this nation. At a time when all branches of government are controlled by the party which reaped the rewards of the court’s betrayal, that remedy is as likely as the moon falling from the sky. At a time when the only viable party of “opposition” seems more resigned than indignant, the only real remedy is to throw both parties out on their collective arse.

At a time when we pretend to be the world’s champion for democracy, the state of our own democracy is little more than the sentimental remembrance of the promise of our founders.

Cry America, for it seems our fate is to value that which we have lost only when it has receded beyond our reach.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). SEE JACKRANDOM.COM.

THE HEAD OF DE SOTO

FROM THE NOVEL: CRIES FOR A VISION BY JACK RANDOM.

Tohocua burned with a fire that would never cease. He hated the invaders from across the great waters with a passion that refused to abate in time. Even now that the conquistadors had been driven from their lands, now that their heads rested on stakes, eyes open to the celebration of their defeat. Even now, the memory of Umpiqua, a massacre of old men, women and children, burned in his soul. Even now, he remembered the horror in his daughter’s eyes when he rescued her from De Soto’s camp in the stealth of night.

For seven moons before this day, he carried the death of his wife from the black robe disease, the killing of his sons in battle, the abduction and rape of his daughter in a heart too heavy with grief. It was not enough to kill these men, not enough to cut off their heads, not enough to burn them at the stake or dismember their bodies. No torture yet invented could satisfy his need or the need of his people for revenge.

Tohocua had himself witnessed the conquistadors’ excess on the battlefield. Sword against spear, steel against carved wood and stone, they pressed their advantage with a brutality unknown to the people of the mounds. They enslaved the men, raped the women, killed the children and humiliated the chiefs.

All of the conquistadors – Cortez, De Leon and De Soto – had scorched the land from Florida to Mississippi, leaving behind a vast trail of destruction and disease. They were a plague upon the earth and now, at long last, the plague was vanquished.

As leader of the seven tribes, Tohocua sat on his throne atop the tallest of seven earthen mounds in a forest clearing beneath a sky of a million stars, his body still aching for Spanish blood, his heart pulsating with righteous indignation, crying out for still more vengeance. With a wave of his hand, he acknowledged the people below and they roared their approval at a shooting star, a sign of the gods, as a thousand drums pounded in unison, sending forth a reverberation that shook the trees, boiled blood and raised hot spirits in the victorious night. Five hundred warriors, their golden skin still glistening with the sweat of battle, danced around blazing fires, flames reaching to the heavens.

Tohocua gave them what they longed to see with their own eyes, thrusting before them the head of De Soto, himself, still encased in the silver crown of the Spanish cock, the headdress of the conquistador. It was a sickening sight, almost unrecognizable for the disease that marked it with sores and stole what little color it once possessed, yet the people were satisfied and rose as one in a deafening roar. This was the proof they required that the evil ones, the fearless warriors with coats of steel no arrow could pierce, the white eyes with fire sticks and strange dark magic, the shameless ones who killed everyone and everything they could not use or possess, the monsters were finally dead.

He held the trophy out to the warriors who had joined together to track and fight this powerful foe, who defeated and pushed him from the continent. He heaved it into their midst where the strongest battled for the prize, for the honor of being the one to stake it and light the fire that would burn the darkness from the mind, the heart and the memory of the people.

Surely, the enemy would never return. Surely, when the survivors told what happened here, how the tribes united against them, they would no longer venture into the land of the Mound Builders. Surely, the Great Spirit would deny them passage. Surely, they would recognize that the balance had tipped against them. Surely, they were not so bold, so full of themselves that they would march again into the cauldron of destruction.

On the one occasion when Tohocua spoke to the Conquistadors directly, he told them that the only way to defeat the people that belonged to the land was to kill them all.

He felt the presence of his daughter at his side, her body warm and her eyes aglow in firelight. He brushed her silken hair from her golden cheek and remembered the girl she had been. She was a woman now. The Spaniards made her a woman before her time but they could not take from her the spark that was her own. They could not kill her spirit.

She had her mother’s eyes and, like her mother, she was groomed to one day take a seat in the counsel of elders. Perhaps she would fulfill her destiny after all. It warmed his heart to see her come alive. In her eyes resided the hope of all her people. In her eyes, as the head of De Soto was engulfed in flames below, the future revealed itself in slow moving, flowing, changing pictures. As the celebration erupted, drums pounding, fire and dance, singing, feasting and laughter, Tohocua saw the truth and it changed his heart to stone.

He saw the white man’s boats with towering white sails emerge on the eastern horizon in hundreds, then thousands, then too many to count. He saw them transformed into titans of steel with smoke billowing from chambers of fire. He saw the invaders swarming over the land like a cloud of locusts, blocking the sun and choking the earth. He saw the forests reduced to barren landscapes. He saw rivers of fire and skies thick with poisons. He saw his brethren spirits of the forest – deer, elk, mountain lion, bear, beaver, hawk and eagle – hunted for their skins, for feathers and for sport. He saw the people walk the western trail into the dying sun, heads bowed, ravaged with hunger and disease, their spirits broken. He saw them captured and held like the white man’s spotted cows, whipped, chained, beaten and forced to march the long path to the land where death awaited. He saw once proud warriors and women with white painted faces and others hiding in the shadows of the sacred mountains. He saw himself alone on this same earthen mound, only now it was covered in tall grass and he was chief to no one.

The earth rumbled and the vision was shaken from his view. He looked to the skies where dark clouds swallowed the moon and blocked the stars. The people stopped dancing, singing, celebrating, the drums stopped pounding, owls halted in their silent flight, cicada stopped chirping, and even the fireflies stopped flying as a fresh new wave of dark silence washed over them. The people turned to their chief, expecting some reassurance, a show of defiance and strength, but the chief had nothing more to give. He had seen tomorrow and it left him dumb.

A clap of thunder and rain buckled from the clouds and the people broke for shelter. Tohocua reached for his daughter’s shoulder but found no one in her place. The earth crumbled beneath his feet and blood red clay swallowed him to the waist. Through his daughter’s eyes he saw her running through the trees in endless circles of fright, chasing echoes, following shadows and reflections, her fear building with every step, with every bog and hollow, searching for the way out, searching for a tunnel of light, searching for her father, her fearless chief, searching for her people and a way of life that no longer existed.

The people cowered behind boulders, in caverns and caves, beneath rotting wood and fallen leaves, hiding like corpses in shallow graves. Everywhere the black robes, the twisted shamans of the conquistadors, wandered the earth and wherever they walked, death followed.

He heard his daughter scream but he could not answer. His heart in his throat, he could not cry out. He heard her torment but the earth gripped his legs, swallowed his body and he could not move. He heard her struggle followed by silence, followed by dead cold empty silence, and still he could not move.

[Editor’s Note: To date, the only successful occupation of a foreign land is that of the Europeans in North America. That it was achieved by genocide is undeniable fact.]

HONOR & IRONY

By Jack Random


In a world gone mad, where fools are crowned king, we honor the dishonored and shower integrity with scorn.

We are living in an age when audacity, hypocrisy and obstinacy are elevated, through the miracle of media spin, to the highest honors while simple honesty, integrity and courage are qualities deserving only scorn and those who possess them must be brought down a rung on the ladder of prestige.

We have witnessed a dual assault on the characters of the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, and the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei.

Based on nothing more than conjecture, innuendo and connections so nebulous they invite comparison to Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, an American congressman calls for the head of Kofi Annan. When the congressman is joined by a chorus of neoconservative war criers and their media consorts, the motive comes into focus. At a time when it still mattered, the Secretary General spoke the words that virtually every member of the international community (including Tony Blair) knew and accepted but few dared speak: That the American invasion of Iraq was in violation of international law.

In the blood stained eyes of the White House and the neoconservatives who actually run the ship of state, that was an unforgivable crime. It had everything to do with blood for oil and absolutely nothing to do with oil for food. Like mafia thugs working an extortion sting, if they cannot get to you directly, they will get to your son. If they cannot build a substantial case, they will settle for dragging you through the mire.

They may yet have their way with world’s most prominent diplomat. They desperately need him to lend an air of legitimacy to the upcoming election in Iraq. If Annan withstands the latest round of pressure, he will secure his place in the annals of integrity.

By all accounts, the White House failed to uncover incriminating or even compromising evidence to encourage Inspector ElBaradei’s resignation. It is apparent that the inspector is as honorable as he appears. The question dutifully avoided by American media is: By what right and authority can the White House eavesdrop on the communications of a high-ranking United Nations official? If this is a measure of America’s regard for the United Nations, then perhaps the United Nations should seek a more gracious host.

The inspector’s real crime was being first in a long line of officials, diplomats and analysts to expose the blatant fallacies of Colin Powell’s Security Council charade. It does not matter that the facts have thoroughly vindicated the inspector. It does not matter that he was right and that it was his sworn duty to say so. He failed to play ball at the behest of the most powerful nation on earth and that is intolerable.

Against this backdrop, we were treated to a spectacle so absurd it threatened the mind with immediate arrest. Our president, in a display of unwavering mendacity, bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, on a conqueror, an emperor and a fall guy.

When General Tommy Franks (how many Tommy Boys can we stand?) took the podium at the Republican National Convention, he lowered the bar for military officers by becoming a blatant partisan. General Franks was the commander of a great army that disarmed its third rate opponent before it attacked. There is a story that his advance to Baghdad was so swift it foiled a CIA operation to loot the Iraqi treasury and plant convincing evidence of weapons of mass destruction (was that the “slam dunk” DCI George Tenet was counting on?) but that is of little consequence. General Franks stood up to a virtual consensus among military experts that the force was too small to secure and occupy Iraq. It does not matter that he was spectacularly wrong; he played ball with the White House and that is what garnered him the nation’s highest honor.

Paul Bremer, Washington’s man in Baghdad for thirteen memorably catastrophic months, played the part of the little emperor, replete with neocon suit and brown desert boots. He disbanded the Iraqi army, erected a sixteen-foot wall around the Green Zone, brought in Starbucks and McDonalds, and alienated every tribe, sect and party in Iraqi politics before taking the long ride home. What are the accomplishments of Emperor Bremer other than survival behind the concrete walls of America’s fortress in downtown Baghdad? Did he win the peace? Did he establish order? Did he capture the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? Did he ease the tensions that threaten to rip the nation apart from within? No, if Paul Bremer had done nothing at all it would have been better than what he did; moreover, it could not have been worse. Nevertheless, the little emperor delivered the White House line with a straight face and for that he has cheapened the Medal of Freedom.

Former Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet: What more can be said that has not already been? In the buildup to war, those of us who observed with keen eyes were astounded at how frequently and forcefully the CIA spoke out against the administration’s Iraq policy. That is in fact why the agency was subsequently purged. It was George Tenet himself who debunked the Iraq-al Qaeda connection in defiance of neocon directives. It was Tenet who testified that an invasion of Iraq would only increase the likelihood of chemical weapons being employed against us. It was the CIA, under Tenet’s leadership, that cast doubt on the dubious claim of Iraqi nuclear weapons. George Tenet got it right but he yielded to White House pressures in the last hour, issuing the now infamous “slam dunk” statement and taking his appointed seat behind Colin Powell at the Security Council disgrace. The former DCI was honored for the act of selling out and, in so doing, betraying his country’s best interest for political expedience.

Is there no end to the credulity this nation is required to suffer under this administration?

We are asked to believe that our president is not the befuddled fool he so convincingly portrays. We are told that he is cagey like a fox. We are told that it was not so much Karl Rove but the Dubya, himself, who orchestrated the strategy for retaking the White House. He is not to be held accountable for the disaster in Iraq, for the decline of the dollar, for the mounting debt, for the exportation of the middle class, or for the massive fraud and disenfranchisement campaign in Ohio and elsewhere. No, he is only accountable for sticking to his guns, for arousing the righteous indignation of religious zealots, and for stubbornly clinging to policies that have consistently failed.

For that, and not for any greatness of character, policy, strategy or initiative, the president was accorded the “honor” of being named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

Thus, we may conclude that audacity is without bounds and Orwell was far too modest in projecting his vision of a future world.

Jazz.

NOTE: FOR AN ARCHIVE OF JAZZMAN CHRONICLES SEE BUZZLE.COM.

ALL MY RELATIONS

FROM THE NOVEL: CRIES FOR A VISION.

By Jack Random


To the Cherokee west is where souls go to die. To the Lakota it is home to the terrible thunderbird. Perched atop the tallest mountain, it has no form yet its wings span the horizon. It has no head, no legs, yet its talons are the size of Grizzlies and its beak is fanged and lined with the teeth of wolves. Its voice is thunder and its glance is lightning. It is only one yet it is many. It devours its own young and all who come before it. It is the great avenger, the Dragon of Deganawidah (whose name must never be spoken); it is the one who cleanses the earth to make way for the coming world.

West is where the crow flies at dusk and west is where Jerico Whitehorse resumed his journey, riding into a rust red sunset. He left behind the Mississippi Valley and the dark clouds that shrouded his vision. He prayed they would not visit him again. He left with the blessings of the people. He had discovered once again the central truth in Lakota philosophy: that all creatures that walk the earth were one; that the Lakota, the Cherokee, the Choctaw and Chickasaw were all one people, one tribe.

He watched the sun melt into the distant trees of the great forest as if for the last time. By morning the forest would give way to the rolling hills of Indian Territory, modern day Oklahoma. By tomorrow, he would reach the open desert of the southwest, land of the Apache and the Navaho. For now he followed the path the Cherokee walked in a time no longer remembered. He pulled off the road and listened to the haunting night song of hoot owls, cicada and the nightingale. This was the Trail of Tears where the lost souls of the civilized tribe still walked the long summer nights.

The Cherokee are the only tribe ever to be granted the status of a nation in their native lands. The Great White Father, whom the Cherokee once called a brother when they fought side by side in a white man’s war, defied the highest court of the land and showed his former brothers the long trail from Tennessee to Oklahoma that would define their existence for posterity. This night, Jerico walked with them.

He shared their sorrow, felt their suffering, and welcomed to his soul their defiance, strength and courage. He watched men carrying women, women carrying children, and the strong carrying the dead. He saw their eyes, filled with memories, but their expressions wiped clean. This was no funeral procession. It was a march of destiny. They would betray no pain, no fear, no pride. They would give the white man nothing for their suffering, nothing for their betrayal, nothing that they could hold in their hearts and minds for vengeance.

What was their crime but to perceive themselves as human beings, equal and worthy? Even the children were too tired to fear. They marched blankly in a line, eyes dead ahead, following the sun to where souls go to die.

Jerico saw the tears of strangers alongside the trail, poor white people, brown and black, choked by their own impotence and guilt at not suffering enough, at not having the courage to march with them, at not belonging to the land as the Cherokee did.

He saw the march of generations, mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, children and grandchildren. He saw a child in the arms of her mother. He saw the ones that fell off the trail, some of whom would die or be killed, others who would find their way back to their own land in the mountain forest of copperheads and red tails.

He saw and understood: Mitakuye Oyasin. All my relations.

Editor’s Note: Leonard Peltier, political prisoner and warrior of Wounded Knee, remains in a federal penitentiary. Have you thought of Leonard Peltier lately?

Jazz.

EYES & EARS

by Jack Random

Our eyes and ears are everywhere
and everywhere the same
the fly on the wall
the creep down the hall
the web is public domain

We're listening on the telephone lines
We're in the hotel suites
We're watching public bathroom stalls
We're everyone you meet

Your Visa tells a thousand stories
Your friends and foes tell more
We know the lies, the quirks, perversions
We know your favorite stores

You watch TV six hours a day
while the TV watches you

It's no big deal there's naught to fear
All the agencies agree:

The right to privacy is overrated
Security is what we need

After all, what have you to hide?

You're safe if you eat your daily meat
and don't lay awake at night

You're safe if you watch Survivors
and safe if you don't take flight

You're safe if you pay your taxes
and return your books on time

You're safe if you live in silence
safe if you don't read or write

Safe if you're sorry we lost the war
safe if you're in the light

You're safe if you laugh at conspiracy
and believe in the party line:

We provide for your security
We serve the nation's cause
and those who tell you otherwise
have violated several laws

Leave a name and number at the beep
Your anonymity is assured

We're only here to assist you
no matter what you've heard

Jazz.

YOU WILL KNOW

From Beatlicks Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst.

YOU WILL KNOW
when the pepper spray hits your eyes
when you are sittng peacefully for peace
when the baton cracks your head
when you are lying on a road for peace
when the TASER shocks you electrically
you will know a little of what eye mean
Now-surround yourself with a prison
walls blank and the lights always on
you may not have a blanket
you may feel cold or be hosed down
so you stay wet and shivering
you may be forced into fixed positions
where you cannot move-and if you disobey
be sent to solitary confinement
where the cell is even smaller
and the food portions smaller
and the light always on
or you are left in endless darkness
What is next? at any time,you will be hooded
handcuffed,beaten ,questioned,struck down
and told threats against your life
and the life of those you love
You think this is Russia? China? Cuba?
Yes-Guantenamo Bay-training ground for Abu Ghraib
US Territory torture as trained at Fort Bening
and practised at every US detention center
for at least the past three years
You do not believe? Do not be naive!
At any moment,the Patriot Act empowers arrest
of any who do not display loyalist sentiments...
Who is next?
THOM DEC 6,2004

THE LONG JOURNEY

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.


THE LONG JOURNEY
THREE ROADS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
By Jack Random


In the late sixties to mid seventies, a caravan of wisdom seekers set out from the east in VW vans, bound for glory and enlightenment on the golden west coast. Some reached their destiny in a testament to ingenuity, perseverance and will. Countless others stalled, broke down, and either settled in the places where they came to rest, creating islands of resistance to middle American thought and values, or they found their way back home. Some would retool, regenerate, and try again and again, reluctant to accept the cold reality that their vehicles were not designed for the long journey and their destiny was to settle for something less than the land of their dreams.

As a long-standing advocate of independent and third party politics, like the idealistic pilgrims of the late sixties, I have grown weary of the road. I am no longer satisfied with symbolic protest or movements that will never reach their destiny because, in fact, they were never designed to do so. Unlike the many who have walked this path before, I am not ready to settle in an island of resistance. I am not prepared to erect the walls of isolation, if only to shield myself from complicity in the crimes my nation will unleash upon the world.

After the profoundly disturbing experience of the recent election, which I am compelled to write about in the past tense despite the ongoing recount effort in Ohio which has the potential to shock and awe all Americans into recognizing the patent absurdity of our system, I am more convinced than ever that real change can only come when we have broken the monopoly of two parties controlled by the same corporate interests and shattered it into a thousand pieces.

What we desperately need now are leaders that recognize the long-term nature of the political journey. What we need now are movements that do not sleep for three years after a presidential election. What we need now is an acknowledgement that the age of symbolic struggle is over. It has only allowed the power elite to point at us with mocking glee as proof positive that we are a free society, free to speak (though our words will never be heard), free to assemble (in concrete pens surrounded by barbed wire), free to organize and participate as long as we are removed from real influence and remote from exerting our influence on the policies of governance.

At this stage in our history, I am uncertain which is more self-defeating: those who believe we can accomplish our goals by working within the system or those who believe we can exert our influence by staging yet another symbolic campaign.

As Karl Rove can attest, the road to the White House is long and hard. It requires decades of planning and work. By my reckoning, there are only three paths to a viable presidential candidacy. No matter how we might wish it otherwise, a viable candidate must either have won statewide election or risen to the rank of a military commander.

Like it or not, these are the criteria that qualify a candidate for a run at the nation’s highest office. Any candidate that does not fulfill them is a dreamer, an influence broker, or a charlatan. The words may be harsh but the reality is no less severe. If the intention of the last two Nader campaigns was to influence the major parties toward a more progressive or populist stance, all indications are they have failed. Indeed, both parties have moved in the opposite direction and the only discernable change is that both parties have expended time and resources facilitating or obstructing third party efforts for strategic purposes. It is difficult at best to see how these efforts have forwarded the cause of independence; to the contrary, they appear to have done considerable harm.

Given these parameters of legitimacy, there are few viable candidates on the independent horizon for the next presidential campaign. Former Governor Jesse Ventura may have alienated some within and without his own state but he is the only candidate to have demonstrated the methodology of third party success: divide and conquer. Ventura aside, there is no independent or third party governors (former or current) and the only independent senator, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, is seventy years old. Former Senator Bill Bradley has been virtually silent in this time of crisis and former Governor Mario Cuomo, even if he were to awaken from a long slumber, is too entrenched in the Democratic Party.

The most viable candidates for 2008 may come from the military realm: Former Generals Wesley Clarke and Colin Powell. For different reasons, both are distinctly unsatisfactory at present but nothing is broken that could not be mended by breaking free from the yoke of party constraints.

Barring the unforeseen and unlikely, the candidates we should be scouting, encouraging and supporting now are those that are relatively young and dedicated to the long haul. Matt Gonzalez, the Green Party candidate who should have been mayor of San Francisco and would have been if not for the ironic intervention of the Democratic big wigs (ironic because the party’s choice, Gavin Newsom, is now being blamed for tipping the national election to the evangelical right) is a clear and uncompromising choice. Another is Amy Goodman, a well-spoken and passionate voice who has made her mark with Democracy Now! Still another is Winona LaDuke, the Green Party vice-presidential candidate whom we did not hear enough from during the 2000 campaign but when we did, we listened.

The black community must also answer the call. We have heard much of their discontent. They have finally begun to wonder if their allegiance to one party has rendered them powerless. The consideration is valid but the inference that blacks should align themselves with the party that has developed tokenism to an artform and given rebirth to Jim Crow is worse than absurd. All minorities, by color and philosophy, are disenfranchised by the two-party system. When the black community is serious about real change, they will join the Independence Movement and their leaders (Kweisi Mfume, Jesse Jackson, Barbara Lee, Al Sharpton, Carol Mosley-Braun, et al) should begin with a run at statewide office.

While I am not yet aware of any suitable candidates from the Libertarian position, I am open to them and hope they emerge in the days and months ahead. As the outsiders trying to crack the system open, we must be inclusive and able to embrace a variety of philosophical perspectives. It is often observed that the traditional left-right divide no longer applies in American politics. There is nothing conservative about the war in Iraq, the Bush Doctrine or inane economic policies that exponentially multiply the national debt. Legislating morality is antithetical to traditional conservatism. Similarly, there is little liberal left in a Democratic Party built on the Clinton legacy of free trade and welfare reform.

Our arms must be open to the possibilities but they can never again be open so wide as to embrace the great compromise of 2004: A war candidate who forced us all to hold our collective nose as he promised to be tougher, stronger and even more brutal than our obscenely brutal incumbent president.

The most important message we can take to heart now is that we must keep moving. We need candidates at every level of the political spectrum and we must deliver for them as we did for Dean and Kerry in the Anybody but Bush campaign.

As Barrack Obama can attest, success in politics is being prepared for the unexpected. Our nation faces potential catastrophe on all fronts, foreign and domestic. The parties in power have no satisfactory solutions to the systemic failures we must soon confront. They have built their empires by catering to the elite and, therefore, they cannot offer initiatives beyond the limits of their power base.

When disaster strikes, as it must, a window of opportunity will open wide. If we have done our work and properly positioned our candidates, our destiny will beckon and success will be within reach.

The war is not over. Indeed, it has only just begun.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS COMMENTARIES ARE WIDELY DISSEMINATED. WWW.JACKRANDOM.COM.

THE DISSIDENT

TAPPING THE LOWER DEPTHS
By Jack Random

It was not the rage or the sorrow that ripped his life apart. It was humiliation.

John Christianson had abandoned his cause, the cause of independence, the cause he had worked for tirelessly and selflessly for more than a decade. He had built an organization that operated in twenty seven states. They were a force on the political landscape. His was an important voice, one that demanded to be heard.
It would have been easier if he had been seduced in the traditional manner of political operatives but he was immune to the temptations of influence, power or money. He could not be bought and he could not be corrupted. He was secure in his life. He was committed and responsible. There was nothing outside the cause that he desired or needed. For the first time in his life, he had everything. Most importantly, he was engaged in a relationship of mutual trust, respect and affection. If Maggie was not the center of his life, she was at the center. She centered John, bringing together his diversity of thought, interests and dreams. She balanced his ambitions with a firm grasp of the earth. She satisfied his animal need as he satisfied hers.

Everything changed on the morning the towers fell.

Looking out the high-perched windows over Puget Sound, he imagined the devastation of a war come home. He saw the plumes of magnificent bombs rising from Farmer’s Marker. He saw the Space Needle buckle and collapse. He witnessed the beautiful horror of the Sound on fire. He saw chaos in swarms of unbridled humanity and the birth of anarchy. The orchestra was tuned to cacophony and the smell of degradation was palpable as smoke. He secretly desired to experience it all.

He knew at once his cause was dead. With the swiftness of Louisiana lightning, the answer to every question had become war. The only response that mattered now was No! No! to the end of an age of civil liberties! No! to the blackmail of international communities! No! to the wars and the lies that justified them! No! to lawlessness and the occupation of foreign lands!

He understood at once that a window of opportunity had slammed shut. No one cared about the politics of independence now. It didn’t matter that any cause would eventually come face to face in opposition to the two-party system. Now was not the time. Now there was only the matter of war.

With the blessings of his allies and comrades, he redirected his political campaign to defeat the administration in power, a presidency that promised to conduct forty years of war, an administration infused with the leaders of the oil industry, an administration incapable of responding to any crisis without a jerk of the knee.

Come October it all seemed worthwhile. The president was poised to lose his bid for a second term. Karl Rove and his band of dirty tricksters, however, were not done. They had brought Reagan back from the edge of disgrace in the Iran-Contra affair. They had resurrected Dick Nixon as an elder statesman. They had orchestrated a Supreme Court decision on the presidency of the United States of America. It was a gang that would never give up.

In retrospect, it was hard to tell how long they held their trump cards but they played them brilliantly and in tandem with a double slam to steal a second term. Irrationally, John blamed himself. How could he have been so naïve? He anticipated the last minute capture of Osama bin Laden and was prepared to counter it by going to the source and documenting the truth: that Pervez Musharef of Pakistan had captured Osama long ago and held him until the prescribed time as a favor to the American president. He did not, however, anticipate the profound effect of the evangelical movement. He anticipated the usual disenfranchisement, voter intimidation and selective fraud but he did not anticipate the lengths they would go to exploit electronic voting machines. Literally tens of thousands of votes were created and deleted by machines designed and coded by Republican operatives. Without a paper trail, it would be years before they could expose the fraud and by then a corporate media would have absolutely no interest. It would be recorded under the heading Conspiracy Theories, most of which would be validated half a century hence.

It was particularly disarming because John had at his disposal an army of hackers, the kind politicos can only dream of. It would have been easy to tilt the election the other way had they so chosen but an allegiance to the principles of democracy held them back. Now, in light of what had transpired, he would not have hesitated.

John was unprepared to counter the post 9-11 atmosphere of irrational support. Even if he had been able to prove that those in power had knowingly failed to prevent the attack for political purposes, it was lost on a mob that no longer bothered with fact.

Now, it was only academic. The reality that confronted him now was the undeniable failure of his life. He had squandered his years of labor. He was outplayed when it counted most and the cost of his failure would be measured in blood.

Maggie stood by him. She knew he was a man of many moods and she had guided him through many crises. She understood his struggles with the duality of his father. She was with him through the death of loved ones. She expected flaws, failures and disappointments but she was unprepared for how profoundly this defeated wounded him. She was a member of Congress. She had her own life. She could only spend so much of her time nursing him back to himself before he would turn his darkness against her. Even her understanding, patience and compassion would become daggers to his fragile psyche.

When John made a decision to withdraw from the world, Maggie was relieved. She went back to Washington and hoped that he would find a way to climb out of the hole he was digging for his own burial. She was surprised when he sent her the papers outlining the terms of divorce but she was not devastated. She understood. She would still be there if he returned to the world in one piece.

John went to his cabin on the Olympic Peninsula. It was a secluded location overlooking the ragged cliffs of the northern Pacific. This was where he had always felt alive. This was where he had discovered the spirit of the raven, conversed with ancient voices, and heard his first call to arms. This was the place that fed his soul and healed his wounds. This granite mountain and ocean air would breathe him back to life if there were any more to live.

John knew it would be long, hard road. He would descend ever deeper into the void before he could even begin to see the light. He knew he would come to hate everyone and everything he valued. He would turn that hatred against himself and, if he survived, he would emerge from the hole a man reborn with newly discovered purpose.

GUERNICA

THE ARTIST IN A TIME OF WAR
By Jack Random

"Fiction and nonfiction are only different techniques of storytelling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Nonfiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning."
Arundhati Roy, War Talk.

Arundhati Roy wrote a beautiful novel of ancient sorrow (The God of Small Things) before the war. Now she writes about war and injustice (War Talk). She has heard the cry of her people and it has moved her pen to a more direct, more pressing message, a message that is not shaded by metaphor or interrupted by the sheer beauty of language, the depth of imagery or the distortion of personal history.

Arundhati Roy will return to her muse once the war is over, when the pervasive fear and outrage has abated, and the needs of her people are something less than imminent.

She is not alone.

There are countless thousands, even millions, of individuals who pushed aside their artistic desires in order to fulfill a responsibility to their brothers and sisters on this lonely, forsaken planet. We may not be as talented as Arundhati Roy (who is?) but our loss is no less tangible. We feel an absence in the depths of our souls. We feel the acceleration of time, works that may never be written, songs that may never be played, sculptures that may never take shape, and we mourn.

We remember Dresden. We remember Guernica.

We think of Hearts and Minds, Apocalypse Now, Johnny Get Your Gun, War and Peace, and we wonder if our works will ever advance beyond the pervasive sorrow of our times.

We think of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, whose grief is less abstract, the kind that cuts and burrows, twists and darkens the very soul. We see the tears we cannot cry. We hear the cries of anguish we can only translate from our own personal experience. We feel the pain of our fellow beings and know that we can only share a token of remorse.

The casualties of war are as endless as a sailor’s last voyage. It touches every being that has not lost its senses. It moves us to rage and shatters our sense of balance until at length we become numbed. We shunt that which no longer serves our daily survival. We are only human. We cannot live with war imbedded in our souls. We move away from our fragile humanity, our delicate sensibilities, our rage and sorrow, and we become something less than what we were intended to be.

But the artist cannot survive without his sorrow or her rage. The artist must move through life with every sense intact and fully tuned to the experience of the times.

Arundhati Roy will return to her muse. She will summon stories only she can tell in a language only she can hear. She will fill our hearts with joy and shatter our delusions. She will seduce the better part of us. She will return to being who she was, to doing what she did, before the war.

So will we all in time yet we will know that every passage and every image, every etching and every form, is forever altered by the disease that entered our lives in a time of war.

When they speak of collateral damage they rarely mention the hope, the beauty and the terrible madness that is only born of art, but it is there. It is always there.

Jazz.

A FEVERISH VISION

The Rings of Power
By Jack Random

The voice of an ancient sorrow came to me in a feverish dream. His face was marked with worry, his eyes bore endless wisdom, his tears were my tears and I recognized his grief. I knew this man. He had come to me before. So long ago I had to summon his name from the hollowed chamber of things forgotten: Song of the Wind.

He wanted to tell me about the future but his words came hard, stuck in his throat, like a dolphin in a fisherman’s net. He offered me the pipe of dreams and I accepted.

We walked on a little traveled trail in a forest of tall trees. The wind was crisp and nourishing. The scent of pine and moss-covered stone was comforting. The sky was clear, then clouded, then dark, but it was not the moon that glowed behind this darkness; it was the burning sun.

I rose above the trees, above the clouds, the smoke and haze, and a vision was revealed to me.

I saw deep caverns and whole mountains of poisonous waste, humankind’s gift to the bowels of mother earth. I saw the poisons spread, like bulging rivers finding their way through canyons and crevices of dry land. I saw eruptions of fire, liquid stone and ash from the four corners of the earth. I saw wars in distant lands grow and spread until they found their way back home to their beginnings. I saw flames dancing in the sky and clouds of unspeakable terror. I saw monuments to human grandeur, the towers of ancient Babylon, crash to the earth.

I heard the searing cry of mothers as they cradled lifeless babes in their arms. I saw fathers that would never be, their blood filled eyes crying vengeance. I saw children in arms, joining the armies of their brethren.

I watched the glaciers collapse, the oceans rise, and the waters encroach upon the land. I saw pestilence and disease choking the forest, sickening the wildlife and all living things. I saw the madness of desperation rampaging through ghost towns and cities in chaos. I saw the voices of elders fall silent in despair. I saw old, withered white men in smoke filled chambers, plotting profits on the fall of human civilization, building walls, raising mercenary armies, and erecting fortresses to protect their wealth, to ensure their places at the table of almighty power.

I saw the end times and the earth reborn in the image of corruption. I saw the rebirth of slavery. I saw mass genocide to crush rebellions, to stamp out hope, and to erase the memories of those who still recalled a land of liberty.

I returned to my body covered in cold shivering sweat, tears fresh in my eyes, and I remembered the only words the wise one had spoken:

The lords of avarice have regained the rings of power.

Jazz.

THE WEDGE

A REASONED ALTERNATIVE
By Jack Random

The extreme right wing of the Republican Party has been able to capture power, implementing policies of corporate cronyism, unlimited tax cuts for the corporate elite, privatization of social institutions, subversion of environmental protection and civil liberties, deliberate neglect of the social safety net, and the unbridled use of military force in place of diplomacy, largely because they have formed a solid base among the evangelical right and the single-issue advocates of the second amendment (the right to bear arms).

While it would appear irrational to reduce the complex questions of our times to a single, red-button issue, the fact is we all have them. In the recent election, for millions of Americans, the war in Iraq was just such an issue. For me, the sovereignty rights of American Indians come very close. For dedicated environmentalists, the Arctic Wildlife Reserve or the Kyoto Accords may be a deciding issue.

We should not be so quick to deride as simplistic those whose hot-button issues are abortion, gay marriage, gun rights, school prayer or stem cell research. We may and often do vehemently object to their positions on these issues but we should not discount the conviction with which they are held.

The progressive response to these issues has generally been to sidestep them, to point out that they are wedge issues, designed to polarize the electorate and distract us from the “real” issues that more directly affect our lives. Democrats seem to feel that it is sufficient to use key words (faith, values, God) but, in the end, the faithful are not converted and the amber waves are a sea of red.

There is another way.

It is frequently observed that, despite all the electoral rhetoric, little seems to change on the wedge issues regardless of which party controls the government. During eight years of Democratic governance, the most that could be accomplished on gun control was the feckless Brady Bill, an assault weapons ban easily circumvented by weapons peddlers. The most direct result of the Brady Bill was a dramatic rise in the sale of the banned weapons before the ban took effect.

On the issue of abortion rights, it is richly ironic that abortions went down every year of the Clinton administration, a pattern that was reversed under his Republican successor. After two full years of a Republican dominated government, the only significant legislation was a ban on late-term abortions, a law that is controversial only because of its legal vagueness and its refusal to exempt cases of incest, rape and the imperiled safety of the mother.

It is time to begin engaging the wedge issues, beginning with abortion.

The question of terminology on the issue of abortion rights is more than rhetorical or academic. If you are pro-life, then you must be pro-environment and antiwar. If you are pro-life, you must be opposed to weapon systems and unbridled military spending. If you are pro-life, you must advocate strict gun control. If you are pro-life, you must oppose capital punishment. If you are pro-life, the life of the mother must give you pause and it is an extraordinary stretch not to support stem cell research, which holds the promise of life for millions.

If you are all of these, then you may well call yourself “pro-life” but if your position on life issues is less clear, then you are anti-abortion.

It does not follow, however, that those on the opposing side are pro-abortion. When the question of abortion presents itself in the life of a woman or a girl, it is invariably tragic. It is a world of sorrow and despair, which can only be compounded, sorrow upon sorrow, when the choice is denied. This is not an abstraction. Women have lived in a world without legal choice. The horrors of that world are why so many women are determined that we should never return.

Who is more pro-abortion: Those who would offer education, condoms and unhindered access to the care of health professionals or those who pretend that abstinence is the only choice? Why is it so important to define life at conception when stem cell research offers such promise? Because an open and honest education, along with the availability of the morning after pill, could reduce mid and late term abortions to a bare minimum.

Where would the Republicans be then?

It is, of course, not within our power to ban abortion or stem cell research. We can only make it more difficult and costly. The world will carry on with promising research regardless of American participation. If we were to ban stem cell research in America, our best researchers would migrate to other nations. If we ban abortion, we would return to the days of illicit abortions for the poor and Canadian abortions for the better off.

On the issue of gay marriage, in an apparent last-minute change of heart, the president assumed the position of his Democratic rival: that same-sex couples should be accorded all the legal rights and protections as heterosexual couples. Where does that leave the Constitutional Amendment: In the land of smoke and mirrors.

To turn the issue on its head, why is it so important to the gay community to embrace the concept of marriage? As a secular progressive, I am uncertain that I support the concept of heterosexual marriage. Should a couple be compelled by social pressures to enter a union that binds them to a legal code of conduct and accountability? Of course, people should be able to marry if they choose, but as a social institution, I am ambivalent at best.

It should be sufficient that any two people (or three or four…) should be able to enter any sort of legal arrangement they find to their liking. No coupling should be denied any rights or privileges accorded other arrangements. In fact, society-at-large should have absolutely nothing to say about the matter as long as it does not, in a real and tangible way, do harm to any individual. It is beyond me why this battle must be fought on the grounds of an antiquated religious institution.

It is time to get smart.

We should realize that, outside of the radical fringe, the wedge issues are raised only at election time. It is the Republican interest to maintain these issues rather than to affect real change, yet the progressive response of evasion, obfuscation and patronization has been ineffectual at best.

There is another way.

The progressive response to the wedge issues should be this: While we respectfully and deeply disagree, we are willing to fight it out on the public forum. Moreover, though both parties in this great cultural divide may disagree, we all believe in democracy. Let the battle be waged on the public airwaves, let both sides be heard, and let the people decide.

It is time to give direct democracy a chance. It is the rightful role of leadership in a democracy to inform and persuade the people as to the righteousness of their cause. Let us have our day and let the chips fall where they may.

Within the confines of a judiciary charged with protecting the fundamental rights of all our citizens, let the people decide by national referendum. Let it be clear that no referendum can overrule the constitution, yet there are many issues that can be settled:

Whether an assault weapons ban and compulsory registration (in a time of terrorism) should be extended to gun shows,

Whether a mother’s safety, rape and incest, should be considered in the availability of legal abortion,

Whether stem cell research should enjoy the unrestricted funding of our government,

Whether the unions of gay and lesbian couples should be afforded equal protection under the law.

I believe that the people will stand strong for the common sense protection and civil liberties of all Americans. Even if they do not, I would consider the mandate of the people a stronger basis for social change than the manipulations of cynical politicians. Moreover, the wedge issues would be effectively disempowered in the process of electing our national leaders.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HE IS A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR ON BUZZLE.COM.