RECALL THE GOVERNATOR
By Jack Random
Aside from the fact that the governator suddenly looks old and fragile, there is little encouraging about Schwarzenegger’s latest political maneuvering. His call for a special election might be admirable if he or his sponsors were paying for it. After all, it is more about a man’s ego and ambition than any concept of good governance.
The worst thing about the governor’s abuse of the initiative process is that it will likely damage the process itself. Initiatives and referendums are the application of direct democracy and those of us who truly believe in democracy are wary when politicians attack the process when it does not serve their purposes. Certainly, there should be reform to remove big money and restore the grassroots to the process. No one should be paid to collect signatures and contributions should be limited to individuals at fixed limits but that is not the issue now. The real question is: Since we are going ahead with this lame brained special election, why is the governor not on the ballot?
It is not difficult to understand the governor’s motives. Arnold loves the lights. A Democratic legislature has brazenly chosen to stand in his way rather than to demure and assist him in building a national campaign. If a constitutional amendment is not in the cards, Schwarzenegger’s persona ought to be good for a cabinet post or a high-profile ambassadorship. Certainly, he would be a suitable Emperor for the next occupation.
I understand the governor’s distaste for teachers and nurses. They tend to read, listen to the news, analyze policies and events, and communicate their ideas to family and friends. They know a fraud when they see one and Arnold’s compassionate conservative act is growing old. He wants to get rid of tenure so unruly teachers can be fired, neglecting the critical shortage facing both the state and the nation for years to come. He wants to deny the nurse-to-teacher ratio demanded by the people in a previous initiative. If he succeeds, health professionals will find greener pastures elsewhere but the governator will be able to hire more energy and political consultants.
I understand the need for redistricting reform but it is not a pressing matter for a state in fiscal crisis and it is nothing more than self-serving in the hands of this governor.
What I do not understand is why Recall Arnold has not already qualified for this ballot. Where is the party of opposition? Asleep at the wheel? Gone fishing? Striking a pose for the cameras? There is only one effective restraint to the abuse of the initiative process that began with the recall of Gray Davis: Recall Arnold. What comes around goes around and all that jazz. Unfortunately, we are saddled with a gutless and self-serving brand of politician on both sides of the proverbial aisle.
It is thick with irony that this special election ballot will offer a proposition to “re-regulate the power industry.” How special indeed. It has been five years since the fleecing of California to the tune of fifty billion dollars by a handful of Texas energy companies. Made possible by a Republican drive for deregulation that is still in process, with the corrupt cooperation of corporate Democrats, it is in fact the reason for our current crisis. There is something truly rotten in the bowels of the state legislature. What have they been waiting for? Another episode of massive fraud and redistribution of wealth, California to Texas, with the blessings of both parties? The last chapter ended with the crucifixion of the governor. Who will take the blame for the next?
If we have learned anything at all from these sorry events, it is that neither major party offers any real solution to our long-term problems. Both are more interested in securing their power base and lining their pockets with corporate payoffs. The obvious answer is not to disable direct democracy but to enable greater, broader and uncorrupted participation in electoral politics. Give democracy a chance: Vote for an independent or third party candidate. When enough people say no the political machinations of entrenched politicians, they will finally begin to listen.
Meantime, regulation of the energy industry is the only sure Yes on the special election ballot but there ought to be another: Shall the governor of the state of California be removed from office? Yes, Yes, a thousand times Yes!
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE APPEARED ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES. SEE JACKRANDOM.COM.
Monday, June 13, 2005
Friday, June 10, 2005
RANDOM'S SOUND & FURY
A Random Death & Resurrection by Chris Mansel
The body of Jack Random is being exhumed for the second time in this exhaustive trial, a trial that began with the demise of Jack Random after he experienced the ?sickness? of righteousness in the Bush namesake. Jack Random started supporting the war in Iraq and began soliciting his friends for donations to elect Bill Frist, the scourge of Tennessee.
Jack Random was done away with in the simplest of ways and it is that vivid night that brings the jury to this desert known as the Joshua Tree monument. First the body was exhumed to see if the body was in fact located in the grave. The second was for the carbon dating to exact the time of death in concert with the phase of the moon. Both times the body was unearthed the corpse of Jack Random had managed to roll him self over and hide his face in shame.
Upon the exhumation of the body of Jack Random it was found that Jack Random had obviously been forgiven by his demons and reassumed his life's work known as the Jazz Chronicles. Jack Random disappeared in the back of a red Cadillac being driven by a mysterious figure from Alabama known only as that guy who writes those reports. That night in the sunset several spectators swore they saw Gram Parsons strumming a guitar and smoking a joint the size of Texas.
SEE THE MANSEL REPORT (www.chrismansel.com)
The body of Jack Random is being exhumed for the second time in this exhaustive trial, a trial that began with the demise of Jack Random after he experienced the ?sickness? of righteousness in the Bush namesake. Jack Random started supporting the war in Iraq and began soliciting his friends for donations to elect Bill Frist, the scourge of Tennessee.
Jack Random was done away with in the simplest of ways and it is that vivid night that brings the jury to this desert known as the Joshua Tree monument. First the body was exhumed to see if the body was in fact located in the grave. The second was for the carbon dating to exact the time of death in concert with the phase of the moon. Both times the body was unearthed the corpse of Jack Random had managed to roll him self over and hide his face in shame.
Upon the exhumation of the body of Jack Random it was found that Jack Random had obviously been forgiven by his demons and reassumed his life's work known as the Jazz Chronicles. Jack Random disappeared in the back of a red Cadillac being driven by a mysterious figure from Alabama known only as that guy who writes those reports. That night in the sunset several spectators swore they saw Gram Parsons strumming a guitar and smoking a joint the size of Texas.
SEE THE MANSEL REPORT (www.chrismansel.com)
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
APOLOGY TO IKE (& Gonzo)
By Jack Random
It has been brought to my attention that it was Truman and not Eisenhower who made the decision to drop the big ones on Nagasaki and Hiroshima as I stated in a recent chronicle (Defending Dick Nixon). To be falsely accused of unleashing the horror of the millennia on an unsuspecting world, even fifty years after the fact, is simply inexcusable.
I feel like Hunter Thompson on a desolate highway somewhere in the Amargosa Desert. The highway patrol with its swirling red light and screaming siren is bearing down in the rear view mirror. I go through a checklist of must do activities in this circumstance: Hide incriminating evidence, assume a posture of calm sincerity and polite respect, license and registration, straighten the shades, take a breath. The officer pulls over, steps out of his patrol car and approaches, one hand on his pistol.
“Name?” he asks as I hand over the documents.
“Crap!” I reply. It is the one question for which I am not prepared.
As one who is profoundly appreciative of historical ironies, it is irony upon irony that I should forget that arguably the most important decision in history to date was made by a man who assumed the presidency only months before decision time. Roosevelt died and Truman stood in for the end of the war and the beginning of the Cold War era.
My personal theory is that the chemicals in our water supply and the trails that are being used to create artificial cloud covers are affecting the channels of my brain, leaving gaps and holes that may trigger a jump in the continuum of my knowledge at any given time. I am fearful that the mass consciousness is similarly afflicted. I am fearful that our senses are being dulled and our ability to see through the distractions, decoys and deceptions is being impaired.
If my theory is correct, the reader may begin to see an increase in the usual errors gradually glossed over while the underlying analytical process is increasingly diseased. You may find the chronicles defending international monetary policy and the occupation of Iraq. You may find the Jazzman attacking the liberal press and the radical fringe. You may find Random referring to himself in third person and advocating a constitutional amendment to enable a canonized president to serve a third and fourth term. Who needs an Arnold when you can have another round of Bush? Sin of all sins, you may find me defending the two party system as if it was enshrined in the constitution.
If these things come to pass, you will know my disease has progress too far. You have my permission in advance to put me out of my misery.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES. SEE JACKRANDOM.COM. See Defending Dick Nixon on Albion Monitor (www.monitor.com).
It has been brought to my attention that it was Truman and not Eisenhower who made the decision to drop the big ones on Nagasaki and Hiroshima as I stated in a recent chronicle (Defending Dick Nixon). To be falsely accused of unleashing the horror of the millennia on an unsuspecting world, even fifty years after the fact, is simply inexcusable.
I feel like Hunter Thompson on a desolate highway somewhere in the Amargosa Desert. The highway patrol with its swirling red light and screaming siren is bearing down in the rear view mirror. I go through a checklist of must do activities in this circumstance: Hide incriminating evidence, assume a posture of calm sincerity and polite respect, license and registration, straighten the shades, take a breath. The officer pulls over, steps out of his patrol car and approaches, one hand on his pistol.
“Name?” he asks as I hand over the documents.
“Crap!” I reply. It is the one question for which I am not prepared.
As one who is profoundly appreciative of historical ironies, it is irony upon irony that I should forget that arguably the most important decision in history to date was made by a man who assumed the presidency only months before decision time. Roosevelt died and Truman stood in for the end of the war and the beginning of the Cold War era.
My personal theory is that the chemicals in our water supply and the trails that are being used to create artificial cloud covers are affecting the channels of my brain, leaving gaps and holes that may trigger a jump in the continuum of my knowledge at any given time. I am fearful that the mass consciousness is similarly afflicted. I am fearful that our senses are being dulled and our ability to see through the distractions, decoys and deceptions is being impaired.
If my theory is correct, the reader may begin to see an increase in the usual errors gradually glossed over while the underlying analytical process is increasingly diseased. You may find the chronicles defending international monetary policy and the occupation of Iraq. You may find the Jazzman attacking the liberal press and the radical fringe. You may find Random referring to himself in third person and advocating a constitutional amendment to enable a canonized president to serve a third and fourth term. Who needs an Arnold when you can have another round of Bush? Sin of all sins, you may find me defending the two party system as if it was enshrined in the constitution.
If these things come to pass, you will know my disease has progress too far. You have my permission in advance to put me out of my misery.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON THE ALBION MONITOR, BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES. SEE JACKRANDOM.COM. See Defending Dick Nixon on Albion Monitor (www.monitor.com).
Sunday, June 05, 2005
TAO 30: A Message for Our Leaders
He who knows how to guide a ruler in the path of Tao
Does not try to override the world with the force of arms.
It is in the nature of a military weapon to turn against its wielder.
Wherever armies are stationed, thorny bushes grow.
After a great war, bad years invariably follow.
What you want is to protect efficiently your own state.
But not to aim at self aggrandizement.
After you have attained your purpose
You must not parade your success,
You must not boast of your ability,
You must not feel proud,
You must rather regret that you had not been able to prevent war.
You must never think of conquering others by force.
For to be over-developed is to hasten decay.
And this is the Tao,
And what is against Tao will cease to be.
Lao Tzu,
Tao teh ching (XXX)
Does not try to override the world with the force of arms.
It is in the nature of a military weapon to turn against its wielder.
Wherever armies are stationed, thorny bushes grow.
After a great war, bad years invariably follow.
What you want is to protect efficiently your own state.
But not to aim at self aggrandizement.
After you have attained your purpose
You must not parade your success,
You must not boast of your ability,
You must not feel proud,
You must rather regret that you had not been able to prevent war.
You must never think of conquering others by force.
For to be over-developed is to hasten decay.
And this is the Tao,
And what is against Tao will cease to be.
Lao Tzu,
Tao teh ching (XXX)
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
STIR IT UP!
By Chris Mansel
Just a day after Memorial Day and the celebrating is over. A new story breaks about the suspected deep throat and the news wires and television erupt over his identity. Pundits get face time on television and the required stand-up message from the family is read. But in South Africa on Memorial Day over 6,000 people died of AIDS. In Iraq a child was too terrified to tell his parents about the soldier he saw poking a weapon into a car. In the streets of America a man sits in a truck on the Arizona border and waits for a man to cross the fence and illegally detain him at gunpoint until the authorities arrive. A woman dies trying to give birth by herself. Where is the holiday from suffering? If they could pick a day would it be observed? If a day off from work is all the public wants from Memorial day, Martin Luther King day, or New Year?s day then give them a day off. Give them every day they want off with pay and let an immigrant who doesn?t take a work day for granted do their work. This immigrant who came to America to escape starvation, or to escape torture, who is now in hiding in the same country that detained him in his home country. The land of the free and the home of the brave are but a melting pot stirred with someone else's hand.
SEE THE MANSEL REPORT
Just a day after Memorial Day and the celebrating is over. A new story breaks about the suspected deep throat and the news wires and television erupt over his identity. Pundits get face time on television and the required stand-up message from the family is read. But in South Africa on Memorial Day over 6,000 people died of AIDS. In Iraq a child was too terrified to tell his parents about the soldier he saw poking a weapon into a car. In the streets of America a man sits in a truck on the Arizona border and waits for a man to cross the fence and illegally detain him at gunpoint until the authorities arrive. A woman dies trying to give birth by herself. Where is the holiday from suffering? If they could pick a day would it be observed? If a day off from work is all the public wants from Memorial day, Martin Luther King day, or New Year?s day then give them a day off. Give them every day they want off with pay and let an immigrant who doesn?t take a work day for granted do their work. This immigrant who came to America to escape starvation, or to escape torture, who is now in hiding in the same country that detained him in his home country. The land of the free and the home of the brave are but a melting pot stirred with someone else's hand.
SEE THE MANSEL REPORT
Sunday, May 29, 2005
In Memorium: A Tribute to The Fallen
NOTE: JACK RANDOM WILL BE INTERVIEWED ON GORILLA RADIO MEMORIAL DAY 5PM PACIFIC TIME. WEBCAST AT http://cfuv.uvic.ca.
MEMORIAL DAY 2005
By Jack Random
It is Memorial Day. It is a time to remember those who have fallen in war. It is a time to pay tribute to the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in duty to country. It is a time to reflect on the absence of so many, on the sorrow and loneliness of those they left behind, and the contributions they might have made in fuller, richer lives.
On this Memorial Day, of all memorial days, it is a time to wonder why.
Today, there will be speeches in every town and city, in parades decorated with stars and stripes, in gatherings of uniformed veterans and the halls of the American Legion, giving praise to the nation’s best and bravest who gave their lives so that we might be free.
Here we must take pause and reflect that rhetoric has meaning and words can be employed to both good and harmful purpose. For too long we have nodded in thoughtless agreement to words that must be questioned for the good of our nation and the betterment of humankind.
It has been a long time since the end of World War II. While few would deny the justification and righteousness of that war, all subsequent military actions are far less clear. The history of intervention from the Cold War era (Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Panama, Columbia, Lebanon, etc.) to the modern anti-terrorism era (Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq) is shrouded in doubt. Even the most loyal and patriotic historian will have difficulty rescuing the narrative of modern American warfare from the moral purgatory that former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara christened the “fog of war.”
Now, on this Memorial Day, as our troops are on the fields of battle in two foreign wars, let us finally take an honest account and a solemn oath that we will never again commit a single soldier to a cause of war that is neither necessary nor justified.
We can no longer place our faith in the leaders of both major parties who accede to war at every calling. If ever there was a clear example of unnecessary and unjustified war, we are currently engaged in it. It is one thing to hold accountable an administration so bent on war it twisted intelligence and tailored facts to its own design, yet what can be said of an opposition party that instantly threw up its hands in unison once the bombs began to rain on Baghdad?
I do not believe that any man or woman, in war or civilian life, dies in vain. People die in vain only when the lessons of their fallen lives are not learned by those who survive them.
The lessons of every soldier lost and wounded in the land of ancient Mesopotamia are that we cannot rule the world by virtue of our might; that we cannot make a cause righteous when it is founded on lies and deceptions; that we cannot right a wrong by continuing the abuse to its bitter end; and that we cannot trust our own government on the critical matter of war.
Let us pay tribute to our fallen soldiers by withdrawing those who have survived, by granting amnesty to those who have abandoned an immoral cause, by dismantling our military bases, by making just reparations and by declaring an end to this modern day crusade.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
MEMORIAL DAY 2005
By Jack Random
It is Memorial Day. It is a time to remember those who have fallen in war. It is a time to pay tribute to the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in duty to country. It is a time to reflect on the absence of so many, on the sorrow and loneliness of those they left behind, and the contributions they might have made in fuller, richer lives.
On this Memorial Day, of all memorial days, it is a time to wonder why.
Today, there will be speeches in every town and city, in parades decorated with stars and stripes, in gatherings of uniformed veterans and the halls of the American Legion, giving praise to the nation’s best and bravest who gave their lives so that we might be free.
Here we must take pause and reflect that rhetoric has meaning and words can be employed to both good and harmful purpose. For too long we have nodded in thoughtless agreement to words that must be questioned for the good of our nation and the betterment of humankind.
It has been a long time since the end of World War II. While few would deny the justification and righteousness of that war, all subsequent military actions are far less clear. The history of intervention from the Cold War era (Korea, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Panama, Columbia, Lebanon, etc.) to the modern anti-terrorism era (Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq) is shrouded in doubt. Even the most loyal and patriotic historian will have difficulty rescuing the narrative of modern American warfare from the moral purgatory that former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara christened the “fog of war.”
Now, on this Memorial Day, as our troops are on the fields of battle in two foreign wars, let us finally take an honest account and a solemn oath that we will never again commit a single soldier to a cause of war that is neither necessary nor justified.
We can no longer place our faith in the leaders of both major parties who accede to war at every calling. If ever there was a clear example of unnecessary and unjustified war, we are currently engaged in it. It is one thing to hold accountable an administration so bent on war it twisted intelligence and tailored facts to its own design, yet what can be said of an opposition party that instantly threw up its hands in unison once the bombs began to rain on Baghdad?
I do not believe that any man or woman, in war or civilian life, dies in vain. People die in vain only when the lessons of their fallen lives are not learned by those who survive them.
The lessons of every soldier lost and wounded in the land of ancient Mesopotamia are that we cannot rule the world by virtue of our might; that we cannot make a cause righteous when it is founded on lies and deceptions; that we cannot right a wrong by continuing the abuse to its bitter end; and that we cannot trust our own government on the critical matter of war.
Let us pay tribute to our fallen soldiers by withdrawing those who have survived, by granting amnesty to those who have abandoned an immoral cause, by dismantling our military bases, by making just reparations and by declaring an end to this modern day crusade.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
ADDICTED TO WAR
By Evan Augustine Peterson III, J.D.
Warlust eventually ravages nations just like a highly addictive narcotic ravages people. Warfare’s savagery inflicts destruction on prey nations immediately, whereas it destroys predator nations mediately. War initially produces a stimulative “high” for the predator’s domestic economy. Leaders in predator nations ignore this opiate-like economic addiction to war because it serves to enrich their upper classes. Warfare is instantaneously lucrative for the military-industrial complex’s depraved war profiteers but can cause an entire region’s economy to become depraved war addicts over time.
Consider that the economic high from an addiction to war is always a Faustian bargain. It compels the addicted nation to start an endless succession of destructive wars in order to avoid severe withdrawal symptoms, which otherwise would appear in the form of recessions and depressions. Penultimately, it forces the working class to pay the highest price in blood and treasure. Their children become cannon fodder and their taxes are squandered to finance military adventures. Ultimately, war destroys empires as well as it does people. Militaristic nations always collapse because their criminal acts of aggression are not only morally indefensible but also economically unsustainable.
One certainly need not be a pacifist to recognize that …the USA is economically addicted to war. If so, this would explain why our political system is dominated by the ultra-militarist War Party and the crypto-fascist Bush family (i.e., the pushers), while our economic system is dominated by the military-industrial complex and its mafiosiesque war profiteers (i.e., the kingpins).
Finally, if the USA is economically addicted to war, that raises some important moral questions. Readers of good conscience should be asking themselves: Am I willing to engage in loving acts of nonviolent noncooperation with evil in order to stop my nation’s wars of aggression? Or will I watch in craven silence as this nation descends – like the Bush family’s multigenerational war profiteers – into a vampiric career of bloodthirsty murderousness? If it’s the latter, won’t I be sending America’s children the depraved message that it’s permissible to murder people, so long as it’s profitable? Which destiny am I going to choose – nonviolent redemption or militaristic perdition?
In short, we’ve proved in Iraq that violence only begets more violence, and war more wars. It’s time to show the world the force of our example, not the example of our force.
[Excerpted from “American Militarism: Is the USA Addicted to War?” See Orb Standard at http://orbstandard.com/News/Peterson/peterson_is_the_us_addicted_to_war.html.]
Warlust eventually ravages nations just like a highly addictive narcotic ravages people. Warfare’s savagery inflicts destruction on prey nations immediately, whereas it destroys predator nations mediately. War initially produces a stimulative “high” for the predator’s domestic economy. Leaders in predator nations ignore this opiate-like economic addiction to war because it serves to enrich their upper classes. Warfare is instantaneously lucrative for the military-industrial complex’s depraved war profiteers but can cause an entire region’s economy to become depraved war addicts over time.
Consider that the economic high from an addiction to war is always a Faustian bargain. It compels the addicted nation to start an endless succession of destructive wars in order to avoid severe withdrawal symptoms, which otherwise would appear in the form of recessions and depressions. Penultimately, it forces the working class to pay the highest price in blood and treasure. Their children become cannon fodder and their taxes are squandered to finance military adventures. Ultimately, war destroys empires as well as it does people. Militaristic nations always collapse because their criminal acts of aggression are not only morally indefensible but also economically unsustainable.
One certainly need not be a pacifist to recognize that …the USA is economically addicted to war. If so, this would explain why our political system is dominated by the ultra-militarist War Party and the crypto-fascist Bush family (i.e., the pushers), while our economic system is dominated by the military-industrial complex and its mafiosiesque war profiteers (i.e., the kingpins).
Finally, if the USA is economically addicted to war, that raises some important moral questions. Readers of good conscience should be asking themselves: Am I willing to engage in loving acts of nonviolent noncooperation with evil in order to stop my nation’s wars of aggression? Or will I watch in craven silence as this nation descends – like the Bush family’s multigenerational war profiteers – into a vampiric career of bloodthirsty murderousness? If it’s the latter, won’t I be sending America’s children the depraved message that it’s permissible to murder people, so long as it’s profitable? Which destiny am I going to choose – nonviolent redemption or militaristic perdition?
In short, we’ve proved in Iraq that violence only begets more violence, and war more wars. It’s time to show the world the force of our example, not the example of our force.
[Excerpted from “American Militarism: Is the USA Addicted to War?” See Orb Standard at http://orbstandard.com/News/Peterson/peterson_is_the_us_addicted_to_war.html.]
Sunday, May 22, 2005
SF JAZZ & OTHER PLEASURES
Everything is politics but politics is not everything. Those of us who are fortunate to live on the left coast, particularly in the greater San Francisco area, enjoy the opportunity to engage in a rich cultural life as well as enlightened politics.
In its sixth season, San Francisco Jazz has featured such icons and luminaries as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Dianne Reeves and Etta James. The torch has been carried forward by Portuguese Fado singer, Mariza, whose performance is as much a seduction as an entertainment, by Brazilian Maria Rita, who summons the memory of Etta Fitzgerald, and this Saturday last at the Palace of Fine Arts by Madeleine Peyroux, a Brooklyn kid by way of Paris who channels the voice and spirit of the immortal Lady Day and, in sacred moments, captures her very soul.
The San Francisco Jazz Collective has featured the masterful renditions of Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis and Bobby Hutcherson among others, with this year's work dedicated to the incomparable John Coltrane, whose son Ravi played a magnificent set as warmup to the Marsalis Quartet.
Theatres are offering challenging materials (see The Intersection for the Arts) and theatres beyond the bay have rediscovered Beckett, Stoppard and Miller. Even cinema has suddenly come alive for the audience that wants more than candy (Kingdom of Heaven, The Interpreter, Crash).
For baseball fans, Pac Bell (I refuse to rename it) remains the greatest ball park in America east of Fenway. This weekend the Giants unveiled a statue of the Dominican-born legend, Juan Maricial, and for the first time in Major League history, sported uniforms with a Spanish team logo: Viva Gigantes!
Politics aside, life is good on the left coast.
Jazz.
In its sixth season, San Francisco Jazz has featured such icons and luminaries as Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Michael Brecker, McCoy Tyner, Dianne Reeves and Etta James. The torch has been carried forward by Portuguese Fado singer, Mariza, whose performance is as much a seduction as an entertainment, by Brazilian Maria Rita, who summons the memory of Etta Fitzgerald, and this Saturday last at the Palace of Fine Arts by Madeleine Peyroux, a Brooklyn kid by way of Paris who channels the voice and spirit of the immortal Lady Day and, in sacred moments, captures her very soul.
The San Francisco Jazz Collective has featured the masterful renditions of Joshua Redman, Branford Marsalis and Bobby Hutcherson among others, with this year's work dedicated to the incomparable John Coltrane, whose son Ravi played a magnificent set as warmup to the Marsalis Quartet.
Theatres are offering challenging materials (see The Intersection for the Arts) and theatres beyond the bay have rediscovered Beckett, Stoppard and Miller. Even cinema has suddenly come alive for the audience that wants more than candy (Kingdom of Heaven, The Interpreter, Crash).
For baseball fans, Pac Bell (I refuse to rename it) remains the greatest ball park in America east of Fenway. This weekend the Giants unveiled a statue of the Dominican-born legend, Juan Maricial, and for the first time in Major League history, sported uniforms with a Spanish team logo: Viva Gigantes!
Politics aside, life is good on the left coast.
Jazz.
Monday, May 16, 2005
HOLLYWOOD, POLITICS & RELIGION
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
REFLECTIONS ON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
By Jack Random
The role of religion in the 2004 presidential election is well chronicled. Much has been written regarding the exploitation of religious issues by the Karl Rove machine, less so about the role of Hollywood in the convergence of politics and religion.
The right wing of the Republican Party (is there a another wing?) was so incensed by Michael Moore’s straightforward political documentary Fahrenheit 911, they condemned him on the floor of the national convention. The media played ball by challenging the objectivity of Moore’s work and largely dismissing it as leftist propaganda.
By contrast, the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ evolved around its historical accuracy and its inflammatory treatment of the Jews. The greater truth that it was made to order for the Republican political strategy was never broached by media analysts or political pundits.
There is in fact a potent argument that The Passion is largely if not wholly responsible for the reelection of the president and the White House is therefore beholden to Gibson’s Opus Dei, an extremist Catholic sect dedicated to 12th century morality, self-flagellation, and the fulfillment of the Biblical end of days.
It is a shame that Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was not released concurrent with The Passion of Christ. It might have brought the real issue to the fore and set the stage for a meaningful exchange of ideas. The central issue is not the depth of devotion as measured by one’s empathy for the suffering of Jesus; rather, it pits the gospel of the crusaders against the enlightened testament of Christ himself. It is the preaching of those who wish to deliver their interpretation of the word of God to all, at any cost, by all means, including the sword, against those who preach tolerance, forbearance and peace.
Opus Dei and its appointed Hollywood Holy Warrior are the embodiment of the new crusade. Like their adversaries at another extreme, they believe in Holy War. They believe that the war in Iraq is a battle for ancient Mesopotamia. They believe that the conflict in the Middle East is centered over the Temple Mound. They believe that strategic nuclear weapons may be employed to the greater good and for the Glory of God.
There is a particularly poignant moment in the Kingdom of Heaven. It occurs at the Port of Messina where the crusaders await boarding for the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem. Virtually unnoticed and pointedly unobstructed, a crier repeats the slogan “Killing a Muslim is not a sin” as the followers of Mohammed pray to a dying sun on the rocky shore below.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about true history. Its purpose is to set the record straight. In contrast to the popular historical novel, The DaVinci Code, it depicts the Knights Templar as vicious, bloodthirsty killers fomenting hatred and war. It is the story of the Islamic Holy Warrior Saladin’s reconquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1187. It portrays a divide within the occupying forces, one favoring moderation, tolerance and coexistence and the other obsessed with a vision of eternal war. It observes that when the crusaders conquered Jerusalem they killed every man, woman and Muslim child for the Glory of God. It bears witness that when Saladin took Jerusalem back, he granted all its inhabitants safe passage out of the region.
The underlying question inevitably arises in the mind of the observer: On which side of the crusades would Jesus walk? Indeed, if Jesus were alive today, would he be an advocate for tolerance and diplomacy or a crusader for war?
Sometime in the coming months, we will be treated to the Hollywood version of The DaVinci Code. Like The Last Temptation of Christ, the book has already brought to the public mind the question of the role of Mary Magdalene among the apostles of Christ. It is an intriguing question with profound implications and ones that would alter the Christian universe. (As the flat earth society will attest, it is a universe that has undergone revision before and surely will again.)
Another question that is rarely if ever asked is this: Where is the Gospel of Christ?
I offer it now as a proper subject for inquisitive minds with a penchant for the spiritual. If you believe, as I do, that Jesus was among the most enlightened and educated beings on the planet, it is inconceivable that Christ was illiterate. If we conclude that he possessed the facility of writing, how can any reasonable person believe that the man who integrated eastern and western thought and earned a sacred place in three of the world’s great religions, could not find the time or did not appreciate the importance of setting his words in written form? How is it that he chose not to write the gospel upon which all others would be based and against which all would be measured?
Allow me to suggest an alternative hypothesis: Either the written works of Christ exist as a closely guarded secret or they were destroyed by men with an ulterior motive. If they existed, his true followers would have taken every measure to protect them. If they were destroyed, it was a determined act with a deliberate purpose.
If the words of Christ exist, it is time for them to be revealed. If they were destroyed, it is time for the truth.
In any case, the universe of religious belief must always yield to acquired knowledge.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
REFLECTIONS ON THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
By Jack Random
The role of religion in the 2004 presidential election is well chronicled. Much has been written regarding the exploitation of religious issues by the Karl Rove machine, less so about the role of Hollywood in the convergence of politics and religion.
The right wing of the Republican Party (is there a another wing?) was so incensed by Michael Moore’s straightforward political documentary Fahrenheit 911, they condemned him on the floor of the national convention. The media played ball by challenging the objectivity of Moore’s work and largely dismissing it as leftist propaganda.
By contrast, the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ evolved around its historical accuracy and its inflammatory treatment of the Jews. The greater truth that it was made to order for the Republican political strategy was never broached by media analysts or political pundits.
There is in fact a potent argument that The Passion is largely if not wholly responsible for the reelection of the president and the White House is therefore beholden to Gibson’s Opus Dei, an extremist Catholic sect dedicated to 12th century morality, self-flagellation, and the fulfillment of the Biblical end of days.
It is a shame that Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven was not released concurrent with The Passion of Christ. It might have brought the real issue to the fore and set the stage for a meaningful exchange of ideas. The central issue is not the depth of devotion as measured by one’s empathy for the suffering of Jesus; rather, it pits the gospel of the crusaders against the enlightened testament of Christ himself. It is the preaching of those who wish to deliver their interpretation of the word of God to all, at any cost, by all means, including the sword, against those who preach tolerance, forbearance and peace.
Opus Dei and its appointed Hollywood Holy Warrior are the embodiment of the new crusade. Like their adversaries at another extreme, they believe in Holy War. They believe that the war in Iraq is a battle for ancient Mesopotamia. They believe that the conflict in the Middle East is centered over the Temple Mound. They believe that strategic nuclear weapons may be employed to the greater good and for the Glory of God.
There is a particularly poignant moment in the Kingdom of Heaven. It occurs at the Port of Messina where the crusaders await boarding for the last leg of their journey to Jerusalem. Virtually unnoticed and pointedly unobstructed, a crier repeats the slogan “Killing a Muslim is not a sin” as the followers of Mohammed pray to a dying sun on the rocky shore below.
The Kingdom of Heaven is about true history. Its purpose is to set the record straight. In contrast to the popular historical novel, The DaVinci Code, it depicts the Knights Templar as vicious, bloodthirsty killers fomenting hatred and war. It is the story of the Islamic Holy Warrior Saladin’s reconquest of the city of Jerusalem in 1187. It portrays a divide within the occupying forces, one favoring moderation, tolerance and coexistence and the other obsessed with a vision of eternal war. It observes that when the crusaders conquered Jerusalem they killed every man, woman and Muslim child for the Glory of God. It bears witness that when Saladin took Jerusalem back, he granted all its inhabitants safe passage out of the region.
The underlying question inevitably arises in the mind of the observer: On which side of the crusades would Jesus walk? Indeed, if Jesus were alive today, would he be an advocate for tolerance and diplomacy or a crusader for war?
Sometime in the coming months, we will be treated to the Hollywood version of The DaVinci Code. Like The Last Temptation of Christ, the book has already brought to the public mind the question of the role of Mary Magdalene among the apostles of Christ. It is an intriguing question with profound implications and ones that would alter the Christian universe. (As the flat earth society will attest, it is a universe that has undergone revision before and surely will again.)
Another question that is rarely if ever asked is this: Where is the Gospel of Christ?
I offer it now as a proper subject for inquisitive minds with a penchant for the spiritual. If you believe, as I do, that Jesus was among the most enlightened and educated beings on the planet, it is inconceivable that Christ was illiterate. If we conclude that he possessed the facility of writing, how can any reasonable person believe that the man who integrated eastern and western thought and earned a sacred place in three of the world’s great religions, could not find the time or did not appreciate the importance of setting his words in written form? How is it that he chose not to write the gospel upon which all others would be based and against which all would be measured?
Allow me to suggest an alternative hypothesis: Either the written works of Christ exist as a closely guarded secret or they were destroyed by men with an ulterior motive. If they existed, his true followers would have taken every measure to protect them. If they were destroyed, it was a determined act with a deliberate purpose.
If the words of Christ exist, it is time for them to be revealed. If they were destroyed, it is time for the truth.
In any case, the universe of religious belief must always yield to acquired knowledge.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). HIS CHRONICLES APPEAR ON BUZZLE.COM, COUNTERPUNCH, DISSIDENT VOICE & OTHER SITES.
Monday, May 09, 2005
RALLY FOR LEONARD PELTIER
Contact: Coordinator, Lakota Student Alliance > lakotastudentalliance@yahoo.com (605) 441-9453 (ph)
The 6th Annual Oglala Commemoration Event set to begin on June 26, 2005 at the Jumping Bull Property south of Oglala South Dakota marks the 30th anniversary of the Incident at Oglala. The event is free to the public, and begins at Noon (MST).
"It's a time for healing and prayers to remember those warriors who lost their freedom and their lives during the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge. Hopefully the healing emphasis will prevent another bloody civil war from happening again on the sacred land of the Lakota Nation," said Event coordinator Robert Quiver Jr. Quiver, a student at Oglala Lakota College, is co-founder of the Lakota Student Alliance, a grassroots group on Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Student Alliance and Oglala Commemoration Committee jointly sponsor the event to honor and remember the lives lost during the 1970s civil conflict on the reservation and to also raise awareness toward the unjust imprisonment of AIM member Leonard Peltier, currently jailed in Leavenworth Kansas. Peltier's imprisonment resulted from a shooting Incident between AIM members and Federal Agents at the Jumping Bull property which was precipitated by numerous unjust deaths of AIM supporters during a tumultuous 1970s Civil War on Pine Ridge Reservation known as the "Reign of Terror."
"Leonard Peltier needs to be set free," said Commemoration Committee member Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala. Rosalyn remembers the year the FBI ransacked and shot at her elder mothers home following the deaths of two FBI agents. It's those kind of days that Rosalyn does not wish upon the future generations of Lakota people who will be living on the reservation.
Annually, normal activities scheduled for this event include a traditional Lakota ceremonial prayer service near the gravesites of AIM members Jun Little and Joe Stuntz (Little Family cemetary). A memorial walk for justice follows from the gravesites to the Jumping Bull Property. This is followed by a special memorial and giveaway for deceased relatives, coordinated by the Jumping Bull Family. Finally, a concert for youth awareness is held, concluding this special day. Speakers for the 2004 event include important figures that played a vital role in the justice movement for Peltier's freedom. They include: Vernon Bellecourt, principle spokesperson for American Indian Movement; Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala; Harvey Arden, an Author and Advocate for Peltier's release; Members of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Members of Leonard Peltier's Legal Team, and International Guests as well. Special Entertainment Performances from: Lakota Hoopdancer Clem Holy Eagle, Nammy Award Winner Wayquay, Oglala Hiphop artists Native Era, Muscogee Hiphop artist Julian B., Spyderzback, Pop Rocker Darren Geffre and more to be announced. Oglala Commemoration Committee members Wayquay (2000 Native American Music Award Winner), and Andy Mader will co-emcee this year's event. We invite the public to this free event. For more information on this event you can visit the website at http://www.oglalacommemoration.com
Lakota Student Alliance (LaStAlli) PO Box 225 Kyle, SD 57752 > http://www.geocities.com/lakotastudentalliance/index.html
The 6th Annual Oglala Commemoration Event set to begin on June 26, 2005 at the Jumping Bull Property south of Oglala South Dakota marks the 30th anniversary of the Incident at Oglala. The event is free to the public, and begins at Noon (MST).
"It's a time for healing and prayers to remember those warriors who lost their freedom and their lives during the Reign of Terror on Pine Ridge. Hopefully the healing emphasis will prevent another bloody civil war from happening again on the sacred land of the Lakota Nation," said Event coordinator Robert Quiver Jr. Quiver, a student at Oglala Lakota College, is co-founder of the Lakota Student Alliance, a grassroots group on Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota Student Alliance and Oglala Commemoration Committee jointly sponsor the event to honor and remember the lives lost during the 1970s civil conflict on the reservation and to also raise awareness toward the unjust imprisonment of AIM member Leonard Peltier, currently jailed in Leavenworth Kansas. Peltier's imprisonment resulted from a shooting Incident between AIM members and Federal Agents at the Jumping Bull property which was precipitated by numerous unjust deaths of AIM supporters during a tumultuous 1970s Civil War on Pine Ridge Reservation known as the "Reign of Terror."
"Leonard Peltier needs to be set free," said Commemoration Committee member Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala. Rosalyn remembers the year the FBI ransacked and shot at her elder mothers home following the deaths of two FBI agents. It's those kind of days that Rosalyn does not wish upon the future generations of Lakota people who will be living on the reservation.
Annually, normal activities scheduled for this event include a traditional Lakota ceremonial prayer service near the gravesites of AIM members Jun Little and Joe Stuntz (Little Family cemetary). A memorial walk for justice follows from the gravesites to the Jumping Bull Property. This is followed by a special memorial and giveaway for deceased relatives, coordinated by the Jumping Bull Family. Finally, a concert for youth awareness is held, concluding this special day. Speakers for the 2004 event include important figures that played a vital role in the justice movement for Peltier's freedom. They include: Vernon Bellecourt, principle spokesperson for American Indian Movement; Rosalyn Jumping Bull of Oglala; Harvey Arden, an Author and Advocate for Peltier's release; Members of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee; Members of Leonard Peltier's Legal Team, and International Guests as well. Special Entertainment Performances from: Lakota Hoopdancer Clem Holy Eagle, Nammy Award Winner Wayquay, Oglala Hiphop artists Native Era, Muscogee Hiphop artist Julian B., Spyderzback, Pop Rocker Darren Geffre and more to be announced. Oglala Commemoration Committee members Wayquay (2000 Native American Music Award Winner), and Andy Mader will co-emcee this year's event. We invite the public to this free event. For more information on this event you can visit the website at http://www.oglalacommemoration.com
Lakota Student Alliance (LaStAlli) PO Box 225 Kyle, SD 57752
Saturday, May 07, 2005
FREE LEONARD PELTIER!
A message from The Dreamkeeper...
A SINGLE AFTERNOON
There shall soon be a day when
We, the People of America,
will stand up together as One
on a Single Afternoon
--yes, a Single Afternoon--
and shake these criminals from our national life
as a dog shakes off its fleas.
We will show then compassion as human beings--as they never did to us--
but the leash of power will never be put back in their bloodied hands again.
Yes, in a Single Afternoon.
It CAN be DONE!!
We CAN do it!
Rise shoulder-to-shoulder
and heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul
and physically occupy the corridors of power
in every town, every city, every state, every corporation.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon.
Leave the comfort of your home and join the People
in the peaceful retrieval of our own Power
and in the re-establishment of the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon it can be done.
By ALL & EACH of us.
AMERICA WILL BE AMERICA AGAIN!!
-Harvey Arden
Mitakuye Oyasin--We are ALL related
~FREE LEONARD PELTIER~ (And we WILL!!)
A SINGLE AFTERNOON
There shall soon be a day when
We, the People of America,
will stand up together as One
on a Single Afternoon
--yes, a Single Afternoon--
and shake these criminals from our national life
as a dog shakes off its fleas.
We will show then compassion as human beings--as they never did to us--
but the leash of power will never be put back in their bloodied hands again.
Yes, in a Single Afternoon.
It CAN be DONE!!
We CAN do it!
Rise shoulder-to-shoulder
and heart-to-heart and soul-to-soul
and physically occupy the corridors of power
in every town, every city, every state, every corporation.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon.
Leave the comfort of your home and join the People
in the peaceful retrieval of our own Power
and in the re-establishment of the Constitution of the United States.
Yes, on a Single Afternoon it can be done.
By ALL & EACH of us.
AMERICA WILL BE AMERICA AGAIN!!
-Harvey Arden
Mitakuye Oyasin--We are ALL related
~FREE LEONARD PELTIER~ (And we WILL!!)
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
WAR & DEBT: WHO HOLDS THE CHIPS?
By Jack Random
“Even if the United States can lower its troop commitment to 40,000 by 2010, the war could still end up costing up to $646 billion by 2015. If insurgency, corruption and incompetence continue to plague the occupation as they have for the last two years, the number could surge to a trillion dollars or more.”
- Robert Scheer, “In Love with Conquest,” 4/27/05.
Regarding the dire prediction that the war and occupation could cost a trillion dollars, we must remember that this is only monopoly money. America is trillions in debt already and we have no intention of paying any of it.
The man in the White House gives the world a wink and a nod like a good old boy down in Laredo who sells confidence for the price of a favor. Unfortunately, the man in the White House is a second-string hustler in a game of Titans. He misreads the satisfied smile behind Asian eyes as they hold the markers for the mounting debt. They have us exactly where they want us: Throwing away borrowed cash in a Texas poker house, as if it really was monopoly money, while they patiently collect the chips.
We have the guns and the girls while they buy out the company store. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe they’ll let us hang around as security guards when the chips are called in. If not, we’re out in the cold.
The American holiday is over. The American empire was just a Texas nightmare, another bungled business deal by the second son of a grifter in over his head.
Meantime, the president’s soul mate, Vlady Putin, has decided to put his chips down on the other side of the table. Syria, you may recall, was our first choice in expanding the war but that prospect has now suffered a triple blow. First, the CIA announces that not only did Iraq not possess weapons of mass destruction, it did not hand them over to Syria either. Second, to the dismay of White House warlords, Syrian troops withdraw from Lebanon as promised. Finally, the steely-eyed Putin decides to sell Syria anti-aircraft defense systems.
So much for the spring invasion.
Tony Blair is back peddling as fast as he can. Facing a steady decline in support, the electorate is demanding that he withdraw British troops by the end of the year when the United Nations mandate ends. Silvio Berlusconi has already pledged withdrawal and may actually keep his promise now that the Americans have thumbed their noses at Italy’s request for justice in the shooting death of their most esteemed intelligence agent.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez boldly chides the boy king of the north and his ineffectual agents at every opportunity. New Europe’s Viktor Yushchenko decides to keep his electoral promise to withdraw Ukrainian troops despite the entreaties of the president, himself, and North Korea’s little dictator delivers his latest response to a Texas bluff: Stuff it in your ear.
It is as if the whole world is laughing and we are the only ones who do not get the joke.
We are the joke and we deserve it – at least to the extent that we elected him.
Jazz.
“Even if the United States can lower its troop commitment to 40,000 by 2010, the war could still end up costing up to $646 billion by 2015. If insurgency, corruption and incompetence continue to plague the occupation as they have for the last two years, the number could surge to a trillion dollars or more.”
- Robert Scheer, “In Love with Conquest,” 4/27/05.
Regarding the dire prediction that the war and occupation could cost a trillion dollars, we must remember that this is only monopoly money. America is trillions in debt already and we have no intention of paying any of it.
The man in the White House gives the world a wink and a nod like a good old boy down in Laredo who sells confidence for the price of a favor. Unfortunately, the man in the White House is a second-string hustler in a game of Titans. He misreads the satisfied smile behind Asian eyes as they hold the markers for the mounting debt. They have us exactly where they want us: Throwing away borrowed cash in a Texas poker house, as if it really was monopoly money, while they patiently collect the chips.
We have the guns and the girls while they buy out the company store. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe they’ll let us hang around as security guards when the chips are called in. If not, we’re out in the cold.
The American holiday is over. The American empire was just a Texas nightmare, another bungled business deal by the second son of a grifter in over his head.
Meantime, the president’s soul mate, Vlady Putin, has decided to put his chips down on the other side of the table. Syria, you may recall, was our first choice in expanding the war but that prospect has now suffered a triple blow. First, the CIA announces that not only did Iraq not possess weapons of mass destruction, it did not hand them over to Syria either. Second, to the dismay of White House warlords, Syrian troops withdraw from Lebanon as promised. Finally, the steely-eyed Putin decides to sell Syria anti-aircraft defense systems.
So much for the spring invasion.
Tony Blair is back peddling as fast as he can. Facing a steady decline in support, the electorate is demanding that he withdraw British troops by the end of the year when the United Nations mandate ends. Silvio Berlusconi has already pledged withdrawal and may actually keep his promise now that the Americans have thumbed their noses at Italy’s request for justice in the shooting death of their most esteemed intelligence agent.
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez boldly chides the boy king of the north and his ineffectual agents at every opportunity. New Europe’s Viktor Yushchenko decides to keep his electoral promise to withdraw Ukrainian troops despite the entreaties of the president, himself, and North Korea’s little dictator delivers his latest response to a Texas bluff: Stuff it in your ear.
It is as if the whole world is laughing and we are the only ones who do not get the joke.
We are the joke and we deserve it – at least to the extent that we elected him.
Jazz.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
The Iraqi Book of Living and Dying
by Chris Mansel
O son of noble family
Burnt Iraqi children
Separated bone from skin
The American process of democracy moves slowly
As you move through the bardo
Hold close to your soul
As it may soon depart leaving your skin to endure
The acts of degenerates
And commissioned officers
O son of noble family
If you are re-born and are recruited by your children
To join the assault of the free world
Heed the teachings of the Buddha
And not the passions of your heart
O son of noble family
There is love for you on the soil of the United States
If you look for it
(See The Mansel Report: chrismansel.blogspot.com)
O son of noble family
Burnt Iraqi children
Separated bone from skin
The American process of democracy moves slowly
As you move through the bardo
Hold close to your soul
As it may soon depart leaving your skin to endure
The acts of degenerates
And commissioned officers
O son of noble family
If you are re-born and are recruited by your children
To join the assault of the free world
Heed the teachings of the Buddha
And not the passions of your heart
O son of noble family
There is love for you on the soil of the United States
If you look for it
(See The Mansel Report: chrismansel.blogspot.com)
Sunday, April 10, 2005
DEFRAUDING AMERICA: STRANGER THAN FICTION
JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.
By Jack Random
When the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq failed to account for nine billion dollars in occupation expenditures, it was a little surprising how flippantly the White House discarded the matter. Like Kenny Boy Lay of Enron fame, the administrative warlords could not be bothered with details of accountability.
While the Bush administration does not consider nine billion dollars trivial when it comes to slashing social services, revelations regarding black budgets and “unsupported accounting entries” within various departments of government make it apparent that the individuals profiting from this accounting scheme consider nine billion little more than chump change.
The revelations begin with an estimated $40 billion in “black box” expenditures for intelligence (estimated by the Intelligence Resource Program). Given the most recent published budget of 26.7 billion in 1998, the estimate seems conservative in the post 911 environment. The current numbers are protected from public knowledge or congressional review with a rationale that the mere hint of an official sum would alert the world to our intentions – as if the world is not already alerted.
Forty billion dollars is roughly $150 for every man, woman and child in America yet, to the unknown overlords of secret wealth, it is the acorn of a mighty oak. Add to the total another 59.6 billion in unaccounted expenditures revealed in a partial audit of the Housing and Urban Development budget for the year 1999. Why the audit was left incomplete and uninvestigated by our fearless congressional leaders is left to the imagination.
Sixty billion dollars is a drop of water in an ocean of wealth and unworthy of investigation by a congress that finds more than enough time to stage public hearings on the burning issue of steroids in major league baseball (not to mention a 24-hour debate on the fate of an unfortunate woman in Florida).
A running total of one hundred billion dollars siphoned from public funds and shielded from public purview, is like a parking ticket to the apostles of holy capital.
Consider the official report of David Steensma, Acting Assistant Inspector General for auditing the Defense Department: $1.1 trillion (a trillion American = 1 followed by 12 zeroes) in “unsupported entries” for the fiscal year 2000.
Now we are talking real money, the kind of money that can topple governments, tip the balance of power, trigger recessions/depressions, and cripple a global economy, but even that is not the pinnacle of this mystifying story.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of Housing (HUD) under the first Bush administration, has estimated that four trillion dollars has been siphoned from government coffers by black budget operators whose identities are protected and whose operations will never be subject to government or public review.
As the Ayatollah Sistani might ask: What kind of a democracy is this?
According to Fitts (www.solari.com), whose academic, governmental and business credentials are impressive, this process of semi-official siphoning of taxpayer money began in the 1940’s when our government first granted secrecy to intelligence operations. It was secured under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s when private corporations were contracted for government accounting. It was cemented in the aftermath of 911 by legislation erecting an impenetrable shroud around intelligence and their notorious secret operations.
Her observations and analysis lead to the inevitable conclusion that our economy is a house of cards, that it is largely founded on securities fraud and the relentless exploitation of the world’s resources, including our own.
One cannot help but wonder what will happen when the exploited nations of the world no longer believe in the false promise of a shared prosperity that does not exist – a theme soon to be promulgated by neoconservative icon Paul Wolfowitz at the head of the World Bank. One cannot help but wonder what will happen when it all comes crashing down.
America is like the addict whose addiction has advanced beyond redemption. We know it has gone too far. We know it has gone on too long yet we are powerless to alter the course.
Catherine Austin Fitts’ solution to the problem involves lifting the veil of secrecy and reversing the centralization of wealth. Economy should be controlled and accounted for at the local level. Her central point of advocacy is that we should vote with our money.
While I certainly agree, it is not enough. The magnitude of the problems we face as a nation can only begin to be addressed with a complete turnover of government personnel. As fictional character, Tony Soprano, might say: They’re all on the take. We cannot hope to avert disaster if we continue to rely on politicians whose best virtue is pandering to the issues of the day while the real problems of the nation go unattended.
The solution is to vote not only with our money but also with our brains when it comes to Election Day. Vote independent and third party. Vote Libertarian and Green. Vote against the corrupted machine (two parties controlled by the same interests). Refuse to believe it is beyond hope. Take the Independence Day Pledge: I will not vote for Democrats or Republicans. I will not contribute to their causes or candidates. I will vote my conscience every time.
In the year 2000, I published a work of fiction postulating the existence of a nefarious organization whose wealth and power was derived from securities fraud. Behind a veil of official secrecy, the organization was omnipotent and omnipresent, inviting small and independent businesses to either join or face extinction. Through extortion, fraud and bribery, they prospered at the expense of the poor and middle class.
When it all comes tumbling down and the truth is exposed for all to see, naked reality may be darker and stranger than fiction.
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.
By Jack Random
When the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq failed to account for nine billion dollars in occupation expenditures, it was a little surprising how flippantly the White House discarded the matter. Like Kenny Boy Lay of Enron fame, the administrative warlords could not be bothered with details of accountability.
While the Bush administration does not consider nine billion dollars trivial when it comes to slashing social services, revelations regarding black budgets and “unsupported accounting entries” within various departments of government make it apparent that the individuals profiting from this accounting scheme consider nine billion little more than chump change.
The revelations begin with an estimated $40 billion in “black box” expenditures for intelligence (estimated by the Intelligence Resource Program). Given the most recent published budget of 26.7 billion in 1998, the estimate seems conservative in the post 911 environment. The current numbers are protected from public knowledge or congressional review with a rationale that the mere hint of an official sum would alert the world to our intentions – as if the world is not already alerted.
Forty billion dollars is roughly $150 for every man, woman and child in America yet, to the unknown overlords of secret wealth, it is the acorn of a mighty oak. Add to the total another 59.6 billion in unaccounted expenditures revealed in a partial audit of the Housing and Urban Development budget for the year 1999. Why the audit was left incomplete and uninvestigated by our fearless congressional leaders is left to the imagination.
Sixty billion dollars is a drop of water in an ocean of wealth and unworthy of investigation by a congress that finds more than enough time to stage public hearings on the burning issue of steroids in major league baseball (not to mention a 24-hour debate on the fate of an unfortunate woman in Florida).
A running total of one hundred billion dollars siphoned from public funds and shielded from public purview, is like a parking ticket to the apostles of holy capital.
Consider the official report of David Steensma, Acting Assistant Inspector General for auditing the Defense Department: $1.1 trillion (a trillion American = 1 followed by 12 zeroes) in “unsupported entries” for the fiscal year 2000.
Now we are talking real money, the kind of money that can topple governments, tip the balance of power, trigger recessions/depressions, and cripple a global economy, but even that is not the pinnacle of this mystifying story.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Assistant Secretary of Housing (HUD) under the first Bush administration, has estimated that four trillion dollars has been siphoned from government coffers by black budget operators whose identities are protected and whose operations will never be subject to government or public review.
As the Ayatollah Sistani might ask: What kind of a democracy is this?
According to Fitts (www.solari.com), whose academic, governmental and business credentials are impressive, this process of semi-official siphoning of taxpayer money began in the 1940’s when our government first granted secrecy to intelligence operations. It was secured under Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s when private corporations were contracted for government accounting. It was cemented in the aftermath of 911 by legislation erecting an impenetrable shroud around intelligence and their notorious secret operations.
Her observations and analysis lead to the inevitable conclusion that our economy is a house of cards, that it is largely founded on securities fraud and the relentless exploitation of the world’s resources, including our own.
One cannot help but wonder what will happen when the exploited nations of the world no longer believe in the false promise of a shared prosperity that does not exist – a theme soon to be promulgated by neoconservative icon Paul Wolfowitz at the head of the World Bank. One cannot help but wonder what will happen when it all comes crashing down.
America is like the addict whose addiction has advanced beyond redemption. We know it has gone too far. We know it has gone on too long yet we are powerless to alter the course.
Catherine Austin Fitts’ solution to the problem involves lifting the veil of secrecy and reversing the centralization of wealth. Economy should be controlled and accounted for at the local level. Her central point of advocacy is that we should vote with our money.
While I certainly agree, it is not enough. The magnitude of the problems we face as a nation can only begin to be addressed with a complete turnover of government personnel. As fictional character, Tony Soprano, might say: They’re all on the take. We cannot hope to avert disaster if we continue to rely on politicians whose best virtue is pandering to the issues of the day while the real problems of the nation go unattended.
The solution is to vote not only with our money but also with our brains when it comes to Election Day. Vote independent and third party. Vote Libertarian and Green. Vote against the corrupted machine (two parties controlled by the same interests). Refuse to believe it is beyond hope. Take the Independence Day Pledge: I will not vote for Democrats or Republicans. I will not contribute to their causes or candidates. I will vote my conscience every time.
In the year 2000, I published a work of fiction postulating the existence of a nefarious organization whose wealth and power was derived from securities fraud. Behind a veil of official secrecy, the organization was omnipotent and omnipresent, inviting small and independent businesses to either join or face extinction. Through extortion, fraud and bribery, they prospered at the expense of the poor and middle class.
When it all comes tumbling down and the truth is exposed for all to see, naked reality may be darker and stranger than fiction.
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.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
I Don't Know by Van Eaton
things my father said to me, been putting me through the test
always walk a straight line son, I've been trying to do my best
sometimes i can't take it in, lord knows this world's gone wrong
i've been trying hard to let it all slide, and keep on keeping on.
now work it don’t come easy and oil has gone sky high
i would throw in the towel tomorrow, but i can't even afford to die
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
some folks follow fashion, and some folks they're just slow
the preacher man done played his hand, now we face a long hard road
what is right and what is wrong, the line used to be so clear
don't talk about the sign of the times, the end is always near
i see it all around me, how can so many be so blind
they're easily led when things get tough, and fear keeps them in line
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
Van 04-08-05
always walk a straight line son, I've been trying to do my best
sometimes i can't take it in, lord knows this world's gone wrong
i've been trying hard to let it all slide, and keep on keeping on.
now work it don’t come easy and oil has gone sky high
i would throw in the towel tomorrow, but i can't even afford to die
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
some folks follow fashion, and some folks they're just slow
the preacher man done played his hand, now we face a long hard road
what is right and what is wrong, the line used to be so clear
don't talk about the sign of the times, the end is always near
i see it all around me, how can so many be so blind
they're easily led when things get tough, and fear keeps them in line
look man, what's the deal, i'm a native of this land
seems the king loves to steal, it's time we took a stand
rise up to this call my brothers, rise up for this fight
how did it ever become a crime to do what we know is right
i don’t know ........oh lord ....... i don’t know
Van 04-08-05
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Mission Accomplished by James Wisniewski
(the day the Pope died)
It thunders and rains outside as I contemplate a dream
of my family attending my brother's funeral
(he was still alive in the dream).
The nearness of nature's retrieval taking
my good friend and next door neighbor.
Sixty seven, and we had joked around
the morning that he hit the ground, eyes closed,
never to open again.
Now his grandchildren peer over the balcony
waiting for the flute guy to come joke with them.
Lessons to be learned....
In his last days he told his wife,
"I've finally got my shed organized the way I want it"......
Mission accomplished.
-- James Wisniewski / aka, wZ
It thunders and rains outside as I contemplate a dream
of my family attending my brother's funeral
(he was still alive in the dream).
The nearness of nature's retrieval taking
my good friend and next door neighbor.
Sixty seven, and we had joked around
the morning that he hit the ground, eyes closed,
never to open again.
Now his grandchildren peer over the balcony
waiting for the flute guy to come joke with them.
Lessons to be learned....
In his last days he told his wife,
"I've finally got my shed organized the way I want it"......
Mission accomplished.
-- James Wisniewski / aka, wZ
Saturday, April 02, 2005
SACRED FLIGHT
It is the season of death and dying, death and dying,
death and dying…
The sun breaks through clouds of gloom
reminding us that we live on in grief and mourning,
through tears of sorrow, we live on in tribute and
in servitude to those who walked before,
whose gentle words and genteel manner
will comfort us no more.
What is sacred but that we most fear?
Nature is sacred as she wreaks havoc unmoved
by cries for mercy, immutable & Holy
God by any name, Almighty forces brought to bear
the more so by the myth of prayer
(and I believe in prayer)
Love, perhaps the greatest fear, trading places
in light and dark, lightning strikes and fills
the heart with horror…
Towers in the mind’s eye, symbols of the Great Terror
(the Phoenix) from dust to sacred art…
Life and its eternal foil
shuffling off this mortal coil
journeys to the endless night &
humankind’s most sacred fright
Goodnight, sweet Prince, &
flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
-- Random 4/2/05.
death and dying…
The sun breaks through clouds of gloom
reminding us that we live on in grief and mourning,
through tears of sorrow, we live on in tribute and
in servitude to those who walked before,
whose gentle words and genteel manner
will comfort us no more.
What is sacred but that we most fear?
Nature is sacred as she wreaks havoc unmoved
by cries for mercy, immutable & Holy
God by any name, Almighty forces brought to bear
the more so by the myth of prayer
(and I believe in prayer)
Love, perhaps the greatest fear, trading places
in light and dark, lightning strikes and fills
the heart with horror…
Towers in the mind’s eye, symbols of the Great Terror
(the Phoenix) from dust to sacred art…
Life and its eternal foil
shuffling off this mortal coil
journeys to the endless night &
humankind’s most sacred fright
Goodnight, sweet Prince, &
flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
-- Random 4/2/05.
From There Outward by Jake Berry
(for Philip Lamantia and Robert Creeley, liberated)
There was a time
many years ago,
when I was a young child,
I did not write poetry.
In those days
my imagination lived me –
it overtook my body
and shaped it to every delightful and
mysterious purpose it could create.
I was imagination’s living form.
I had no mind, no self
I was motionless
until imagination stirred
some portion to song
(and every word was singing)
or dance
(and every movement was a dance).
Then I felt compelled
to make words.
So I wrote a poem,
then another and another
and people laughed
or made pleasant remarks.
And the girls were pleased
when I wrote for them –
those were kisses worth the poems.
But I recognized that
words failed imagination.
They were so carefully
reigned by books and teachers.
I had become imagination’s loss.
So I destroyed myself
and freed the constricted words.
I liberated them to
imagination’s tongue
and they once again
took their natural form
like a tree, or a sun, or a boy.
And people were confused.
they were afraid and turned away.
and I became serious,
a solid man.
I had to destroy myself
again and again
to liberate the words.
and speech was singing
and movement was dancing.
And today,
I hear the great poet’s death
and I think how lucky he is
to be nothing but
free imagination again,
to become pure poetry,
without a world of fools
that make us work
for what we already are.
Jake Berry 3.30.05
There was a time
many years ago,
when I was a young child,
I did not write poetry.
In those days
my imagination lived me –
it overtook my body
and shaped it to every delightful and
mysterious purpose it could create.
I was imagination’s living form.
I had no mind, no self
I was motionless
until imagination stirred
some portion to song
(and every word was singing)
or dance
(and every movement was a dance).
Then I felt compelled
to make words.
So I wrote a poem,
then another and another
and people laughed
or made pleasant remarks.
And the girls were pleased
when I wrote for them –
those were kisses worth the poems.
But I recognized that
words failed imagination.
They were so carefully
reigned by books and teachers.
I had become imagination’s loss.
So I destroyed myself
and freed the constricted words.
I liberated them to
imagination’s tongue
and they once again
took their natural form
like a tree, or a sun, or a boy.
And people were confused.
they were afraid and turned away.
and I became serious,
a solid man.
I had to destroy myself
again and again
to liberate the words.
and speech was singing
and movement was dancing.
And today,
I hear the great poet’s death
and I think how lucky he is
to be nothing but
free imagination again,
to become pure poetry,
without a world of fools
that make us work
for what we already are.
Jake Berry 3.30.05
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Passing by Chris Mansel
An epic of transition is death. The body is a vessel of incarceration. There are horrors in the skies that descend to us a web of illness we are drawn to even as we attempt escape. The disease on the ground, the emaciation of the air, draws us inside and therefore closes and seals the process of death. Somewhere between the skies and the earth, somewhere in the bardo do we appear as we really are, clear thoughts amidst a solution of matter both gray and dark. Death always reminds us of where we are going and then we start to think of where we have been. Georges Bataille wrote, "There is no better way to know death than to link it with some licentious image." Either way you look at it death is a continuing process that if captured in a display of DNA would be a round strand that circles endlessly in a poetic path, tragic and ethereal.
- Chris Mansel
- Chris Mansel
A Portion of the Soul Carries the Heart
By Chris Mansel
America, above purpose, defines itself as the last toll on the road to democracy. It creates its own vision of an idea and betrays it as often as it recites it. Defying international law and reconsidering its reasons it invades and assumes the population's wealth. Natural resources, the acquiring of by force, are not listed in the constitution or in any of its amendments. Democracy wastes itself on the definition of morality and indecision. Defending its agenda on the basis of the rights of the wealthy democracy completely undermines the rights of the poor to earn a living and concentrates itself upon the furthering of its principles of the class warfare it defends so abundantly through a two party system that only falls in the path of the law when it forgets itself and rushes ahead without the payment of graft and favors. William Julius Mickle wrote, "The less criminal spirits animate bees, singing birds, and other innocent creatures; while those of deeper guilt become wolves or tigers." These wolves don't disguise themselves and they eat their prey in front of the young to remind those looking that if you have none they will still take what you don't have. The antidote to patience is not resolve, but action. Words define only what the memory will allow. Choice is the omnipresent wage that drives the open minded and cannot be assumed by anyone through force or by law. The ability to vote, to write in a vote, clarifies what the two party system might describe as an un-American activity. To not employ the television media for news is to off load the spin for the truth.
America, above purpose, defines itself as the last toll on the road to democracy. It creates its own vision of an idea and betrays it as often as it recites it. Defying international law and reconsidering its reasons it invades and assumes the population's wealth. Natural resources, the acquiring of by force, are not listed in the constitution or in any of its amendments. Democracy wastes itself on the definition of morality and indecision. Defending its agenda on the basis of the rights of the wealthy democracy completely undermines the rights of the poor to earn a living and concentrates itself upon the furthering of its principles of the class warfare it defends so abundantly through a two party system that only falls in the path of the law when it forgets itself and rushes ahead without the payment of graft and favors. William Julius Mickle wrote, "The less criminal spirits animate bees, singing birds, and other innocent creatures; while those of deeper guilt become wolves or tigers." These wolves don't disguise themselves and they eat their prey in front of the young to remind those looking that if you have none they will still take what you don't have. The antidote to patience is not resolve, but action. Words define only what the memory will allow. Choice is the omnipresent wage that drives the open minded and cannot be assumed by anyone through force or by law. The ability to vote, to write in a vote, clarifies what the two party system might describe as an un-American activity. To not employ the television media for news is to off load the spin for the truth.
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