FEAR & LOATHING IN CRAWFORD, TEXAS

(for Hunter and Jack Random)
by Chris Mansel - The Mansel Report

We were somewhere near Crawford, Texas when the bullshit began to take hold. I remember saying something like, ”Terror cells could camp out in the brush by that ditch over there.” Then what looked like strange gothic entanglements of James Dobson started swooping around the car! The radio was blasting the BBC and my friend Jack Random was hanging out the window trying to shoot the Dobsons with a shotgun we had bought at the truck stop before we left Wyoming.

Between the two of us we had the severed heads of several Ohio delegates, twenty-three photos from Abu Ghraib, four sheets of the state of the union, a filing cabinet of the Mansel Report, and a entire Gigabyte of Jack Random’s writings, two copies of Jake Berry’s Brambu Drezzi. Also, we had affidavits of testimony from Florida vote counters, the depositions of detainees, and secret documents sent to us anonymously from a Congressman from the hill proving the existence of Karl Rove’s secret vault of Nazi memorabilia. It wasn’t as if we needed all this to make our case against the Bush regime, but you never can tell when you are faced with a dozen drooling Republicans.

- Chris Mansel. See http://themanselreport.blogspot.com/

GONZO IS DEAD, LONG LIVE GONZO

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
IN MEMORY OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON
By Jack Random

Tornadoes in California, twice the rainfall of Seattle in Los Angeles, melting glaciers in Alaska, a triple slam of hurricanes, the harshest weather in recorded time, and you still don’t believe in global climate change? You don’t believe that filling our atmosphere with more contaminants in the last decade than in the previous history of human life on earth has any impact on the climate?

“Standing knee deep in garbage, throwing rockets at the moon.” Pete Seeger.

We are stoking the fires and stripping the brakes, like a bat out of hell on a train to nowhere, headed straight for an environmental Armageddon that (surprise!) will make no distinction between the righteous and the heathens.

“There ain’t no time to wonder why, whoopee! We’re all going to die!” Country Joe MacDonald.

While we were watching the latest in the Jeff Gannon saga or the give-and-take on the secret tapes of GW Bush (did anyone fail to notice they are nothing less than a promotional for the president?), the world’s scientific community reached absolute consensus that global warming is real, that its effects are happening now, and that human pollution is a prominent cause.

While we were watching the spectacle of a royal wedding (how can anyone possibly care about the rituals of a feckless and antiquated monarchy?), the presumptive American Emperor lectured Russia before a European audience on the prerequisites of democracy: a free press, a strong opposition, shared power and respect for international law. Curiously, he omitted any reference to free and fair elections (and no, I do not concede that Bush won in Ohio when the evidence is compelling that he did not). He did not mention government or corporate-government controlled media (hello Italy), corporate control of political parties, government sponsored propaganda, the Kyoto Accords, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, or the International Criminal Court.

As he demanded an end to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, he seemed unable to appreciate the irony. As he praised “the world’s newest democracy,” he seemed oblivious to the obvious: There can be no democracy in an occupied land and an election does not a democracy make.

There was an election in Vietnam: remember when?

The French opposition is slowly eroding. What was that nasty business in the Gold Coast and how about democracy in Haiti? No training for the Vichy agents! Remember the Bastille!

Ukrainian troops are still in Iraq! Where is the sea of orange protesters now?

The Canadians are giving up John Graham after all these years and the wounds of Wounded Knee will never heal!

Gerhard Schroeder, hold the line! The captain is drunk and the ship is going down!

Another injection! The patient is dead. Give him comfort in his passing!

Somalia-Mogadishu, Sudan-Darfur, everyone is dead and dying!

East Timor and the avian flu, dead and dying!

Earthquake-tsunami, dead and dying!

Ramadi, Mosul, dead and dying!

Starvation, hunger, dead and dying!

Pharmaceutical killers, dead and dying!

Peace and freedom, dead and dying!

Sandra Dee (whatever happened?)… Kerouac, Arthur Miller, dead and dying!

The Gonzo is dead! Long live the Gonzo!

We loved you, man, even when we shot you down.

We loved your fearless loathing.

We loved the way you hated Nixon, the way we could never hate Bush.

The old man is dead. The most irreverent of them all.

May you rest in peace.

Jazz.

ELEGY FOR HUNTER S. THOMPSON

As the great writer against all names seemed to say this morning
There goes a southern gentleman
Deep, deep into the light
Swinging a lantern at the gates of hell he ascended to heaven
The death of Hemingway, a bullet roaring through his mind
These hallowed halls know only bloodshed now
The windows open, the mountain air rushing in
He is dead and I am alive
My eyes are sore and my tears have fallen
I’ll forever miss what I may not have ever really known.

- Chris Mansel

SEE http://themanselreport.blogspot.com/

STALEMATE

The Ramblings of ANNA PAGES 

There will be no changing of minds, or hearts, just because a gun is held to their heads. Or a bible is thrown at them. There is no way to win the argument over whose god is right or wrong. This is a losing proposition for both sides. Forget the oil, forget Halliburton, and forget the fool in office who thinks he's shown the Iraq people freedom. It's a religious quagmire that is causing the "insurgents" to continue fighting the invading troops into their domain. It's not about oil for them; it's about the sovereignty of their land and religion (just as it would be for us if someone were coming into our borders, telling us their way of life/religion was better). 

 I am SO happy for the Iraq women who get to come out from underneath their burkas and vote. But why wasn't this an issue when we knew the Taliban were killing women in the Soccer Field, forcing all to come to the stadium to watch them being shot in the head. BEFORE 9/11? America/president Bush was not worried about these people then. They were on the golf course, leisurely putting their TEAM together, taking vacations from the harsh politics of "winning" a presidential election. 

 And what has happened to the search for Ben Laden? Or is he in witness protection system at this point? He was and probably still is their (CIA, FBI) own stooge... and is being comfortably held in some country club on a remote continent. After all, he created the means for our government to abolish privacy, and create a police state. They are in deep to him. 

Valentine was jailed for his love for the Queen. He wrote his love letters from prison. And they've turned it around, commercialized this sad tale, and made it a billion dollar industry. Commercialism is grand. All the pagan lore now brings billions to the coffers of huge packaged food venders......Easter, the eggs and the bunny (fertilization and proliferation has nothing to do with Jesus on the cross, it has EVERYTHING to do with Beltane fires, and pagan earth worshipping). These religious zealots would be horrified if you brought this up to them face to face...but as long as no one says anything, their children participate in the old world magic. Halloween. CHRISTmas is nothing about CHRIST, ALL about commercialism. THINK ABOUT THE COMMERCIALISM of our children. The ads on TV and radio that are twice as loud as the program... screaming at you about the deals, "buy now!!!" After 9/11, for two weeks, we had our silence and thoughts handed back to us. 

NO commercialism on TV or radio, only coverage of the events. Not one company could advertise their product, with the possibility of seeming careless, hard-hearted to what was going on. No commercials for two weeks. There was a clearing of the air, and minds, an easing out from under a blanket of audible assaults on the publics' collective thoughts. We could actually come together and talk about what was happening. The radio and TV were on purpose. 

Then they snuck the commercials back on with apologies and well wishes to the families of the victims...then the commercials started selling again, yelling again, and we shut down, again. The children's songs that we sing to them from the time they are tiny... "Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy Ashes we all fall down" was about the plague... "Rock a bye baby in the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock, when the bough breaks, the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all" "...and if I die before I wake...." "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...." What are we feeding our children's bodies and heads? Prepackaged processed food...dead. No live nutrients in "fast food"...and then we are drugging them to keep them quiet, when their blood sugar goes through the ceiling or floor (Ritalin). And we think we know enough to go into another country and tell them how to live and worship? 

Anna Pages

INFANT NATION & INFANT PEOPLE

In Response to the essay: Infant Nation
By Thomas Miller


“From an historical perspective it is undeniable: In the great expanse of recorded time, America is but an infant nation. Given this simple and unquestionable observation our behavior in the world suddenly comes into focus. As an infant nation our behavior is as predictable as the salivation of Pavlov’s dogs.”

From the essay, Infant Nation, The Jazzman Chronicles, Vol. II: The War Chronicles.


I strongly believe the human race is intrinsically lazy, greedy, and shortsighted: The characteristics I fight more consciously everyday.

At the beginning of recorded time on earth, we needed to have these attributes to survive: Survival of the fittest.

Our leaders want us to believe we have evolved to a more humane level but it is not true. Even though we are loving beings at heart these fact still hold true.

Understanding our complex world is a difficult task. It is easy to believe what the machine is selling.

Now that the media is controlled by the same machine, the wealthy elite, it is even harder to find truth.

I am sorry; I do not think Americans are ready to see the truth. The majority is not personally suffering enough.

The House at Heart by Jake Berry

for Bridget, Valentine’s Day 2005

Do you remember
how we entered this house
before Time swallowed us?

The house we build inside this one

where I fold the clothes,
sweep the floor
fuss over the dishes,
patch the light and broken doors,
where our thoughts swarm around us
and set the cadence of the day –

Where our voices, dreams and memories,
hanging in these rooms like incense
with their attendant ghosts,
simultaneously kin and alien,
pour light in comfortable sloughs
and let us believe we are alone.

Where you blanket the bed
with newspapers, magazines, and a book in hand,
and I wonder at the miracle of these long prostrations
in a soft sea of linen and disheveled words –
The plot thickens, the heroine escapes,
the book is over. But there are articles to read,
endless catalogs and a season’s fashions to discover,
and the imbroglio of film noir television –
a nurse’s rest from stressed decisions



Where I see fossil eyes in the ceiling,
or, hovering in the kitchen air,
that recoil when you notice –
or they are dreaming you forward
out of the desire suspended
in an impulsive gesture –
the way you move your hands
through a black cat’s fur,
or the scraps of yarn you trail from your knitting
like discarded feathers.


It is the song of these Others
we disregard in our closed routines –
but we wear their faces
and bear their blood
into an impossible future.
They saturate the house’s shadowing places,
of a different order
in the Complexities and traces of black cords
and secret veins that innervate what Real is.

We are bodies here
and we must dance and love
and interweave the shapes and spaces
in a reservoir of flesh –
it’s blind mercies, depths and tides,
that take us down
violated and baptized into a body’s cool gnosis.
We pass through one another wet and hungry,
but no more Real
than these Others shine and gather
in the cat’s twilit eye
or drink our dreams
to taste again what heart and nerves
and breathing means.

This house
where we make our Being
is true
in all its forms and concentrations
of wood and glass and
the objective weight of its furnishings –
but the diaphanous congregation
gives the Real its music,
wrapt inside the brooding serenity
of our all cluttered talk and nesting
in the quiet habitation
of effortless infinity

Jake Berry 2.14.05

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.