Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Part 5

(Parts 1-4 below)

Driving through the wasteland that has become Iraq you pray you'll run into an arms dealer and you'll also pray he'll have some legs and a few hands, some teeth and eyes. You hope he'll start the bidding with a request for just a drop of water to pour atop the loaves and fishes he has brought to feed the warring tribes as they sit down and start to calmly discuss the atrocity that is unfolding on american television that has been unbelieved so far on Al Jezerra. Maybe you'll cringe when he says offhandly that he was kept out of Rwanda because the prosthetics he had brought along couldn't make it through customs years before the tightened security of 9/11. But then again in Iraq as in many other war zones in modern times the dust will get in your eyes and you'll be able to blame the blurred lines of aggression, of morality, on the weather and the politics of plurality, the obscenity of greater good, on something in your eye. but to the racist marine Jack was dealing with it was something eaten away at his soul a long time ago. Not a speck of dust introduced at the factory but a giant ball of hatred either beaten or lovingly enthralled upon a young boy who before he knew hot to hate was taught that one man was better simply by the color of his skin and it was unfortunate for his fellow Marines and the citizens of Iraq that this individual was not weeded out and was armed and set loose in a war zone. A casualty is a number in any year whether it contains an election or not, and in Iraq as well in America the news was not good.

Then almost as if on cue came the Marine from Tennessee behind the wheel of a Humvee. In the distance came a mortar attack, it's the sound you'll never forget if you ever hear it once. The entire camp reacted at once. The Major that Jack had interviewed came out of his command post and was scanning the desert for the action. Marines were running for their companies and there was hollering all around us. The Marine from Tennessee seemed unfazed. In Jack he saw a direct line to the killing and he was not about to be tied down to waiting for orders and seeing whether or not he would see action that day.

The Humvee came to a sudden stop in front of Jack as he tried not to jump out of his skin. The Marine jumped out and started counting the clips for his M16. "Gotta go get some, just a mortar, maybe just a few of'em!"

Jack was still keeping an eye out for the Major who hadn't discovered us just yet. But we had a problem. Jack was on one side of the camp and I was on the other and in the middle was the Major and a camp in a frenzy stocked full of Marines with posters of Osama Bin Laden with supermodels taking a dump on his face and handdrawn pictures of Bin Laden on diaylsis being tied down to an electric chair repeatedly.

Just as Jack and I were about to lock eyes across the camp and exchange a voiceless means of communication we had managed to develop in some of the world's worst hot spots, an incendiary device went off inside of the camp and the mess tent went up in flames. The explosion was minimal but sent a surge further into the camp as another mortar landed about a hundred yards away from the camp.

Jack grabbed the Marine from Tennessee and screamed, "What are you boy a Dixie Chick or Daniel Boone? Get in there and get some!" Pointing at the spot whers the mortars landed he got the Marine's attention and he raced off to where Jack had pointed. Jack seized the moment and jumped behind the wheel of the Humvee. Dodging troops who were running for the mess hall more from curiousity than anything, Jack skirted the perimeter and made his way to me and I jumped in the open driver's side and we were off. Speeding down the only road out of the camp that wasn't being hit by mortars we were on our way to the site of an ambush knowing all along that a marine Colonel knew who we were and that we knew that he was related in more than one way to the incident.

The words of the racist marine rung in my ears, "You think no one has fragged anybody since Vietnam?"


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq, Parts 3 & 4

JR and I in Iraq - part 3

Dodge city, that's what the Marine's called the area we were in. One marine, so young he shaved once or at least twice a week whether he needed it or not had already killed three people. When I asked whether or not they were insurgents or civilians he just answered, "Well, one was shooting back and the others weren't, but screw'em man. I say arm yourself, shit we're MWA bitch, Marines with attitude!" Raised on MTV this white marine was born in Tennessee and had served a tour in the KKK while still in high school he told me before I even asked where he was from. When I asked him how he liked serving alongside other Marines he laughed and spit at the burning sand.

"You want to know what I think about all these highly esteemed people of color? They're all marines ain't they?" Then he laughed and patted his weapon and slapped it down to his side and saluted me and added, "You think nobody fragged anybody since Vietnam?"

How bad an epidemic racial strife between soldiers serving in Iraq was we might never know. Jack had secured an interview with a Major and was coming back across the camp and looked worried. As he walked he looked around, his head looking this way and that the way someone does before they tell you a secret or avoid someone they do not want to see. In the soundtrack in my head I instantly heard "Peace Frog" by the Doors. I don't know why these things always occur to me but they do. I remember a time in Chicago when I was covering a story on the heated talks betwen labor and management and War's "Spill That Wine" hit me all of a sudden and within minutes violence broke out and I spent the night in a jail cell fighting for my life.

Jack got over to me and his voice was quiet which was unlike him in so many ways. "This Major I went to talk to just got a call about an ambush of civilians. They were targeted by security forces." I looked around now because I wanted to be the first to get there and because the security forces always have friends serving in just about every platoon in Iraq and many after their tour is up will join private security to cash in.

I asked Jack, "How do we get there?"

Jack replied, "That's just it, the guy that called him while I was sitting there is his brother, and his nephew was in charge of the group that opened fire. I just got out of the office before the crazy bastard could call a corporal to detain me."

I looked around and as far as I could see were Marines with weapons at the ready, well trained and loyal to their commanding officer, the chain of command. I stood to scout a method of transportation, a friendly ride to anywhere other than where we were and saw the Marine from Tennessee. I turned to Jack and looked back at the racist marine and I thought I might have a plan. Shit it worked in Hollywood.

-----------------

Author's Note: (Before beginning to write this next installment I see this excerpt from the New York Times, and I am constantly reminded that the ugliest of man often occurs to me and as I see through their eyes it makes me want to close mine. I had no idea of this report before I wrote about the racist Marine but I am not surprised as human nature often tends to lean toward that line from Apocalypse Now that quotes Abraham Lincoln, you know the one, "Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature and good does not always triumph." I don't see any good in this, after all where can there be good in starting out to shoot someone because of thier skin color?)


"Lance Corporal Woods is black. He smoked in the darkness and said it has been a topic of conversation in his unit, Mobile Assault Platoon Five. "Valdez and me talked about that," he said. "He's Hispanic. He said, 'Man, I'm going to paint my skin darker, man.' That's what he said. And the next day he got shot."

"I hate this place," he said..."Out here, it really makes you love your country. I love my country, man. I love my country. I didn't hate my country before, man. But I had some problems with it."

"The United States of America," he said. "That sounds like heaven right now."

C.J. Chivers, "Marine Unit and Iraqis Fend Off Attacks and Boredom," NY Times, 7 December 2006.


JR and I in Iraq - part 4

Jack and I came up with a plan. Racists are notoriously patriotic, reference most of America's history, governmental and citizenry for evidence of this, and certianly ignorant, so Jack approached the marine from Tennessee playing the role of a C.I.A. agent.

Jack approached the racist marine who was kicking at the sand and aiming his weapon at the horizon.

"Hey, you hear about that American got shot in Fallujah yesterday?"

The marine looked around and then looked Jack up and down. He didn't take but a second or two to size up Jack. "Yeah, terrible shot that guy, took'em two."

Jack laughed, "Yeah well, what are you gonna do, poor training."

They both laughed and Jack shot me a worried and disgusted look.

Jack went on, "Say, John Russell, C.I.A., in country to take care of some loose ends. Not saying we need some help but always looking for some willing participants, those who can be covert and keep their goddamn mouth shut. It's below the radar of course." Then Jack snatched the weapon from the racist marine's hands so fast he told me later it scared even him, "So, you got the balls to pull the trigger without caring where the rounds land or are you just another weekend faggot here till your wife fucks the whole town back home?"

The racist Marine stood up and drew a knife and said, "I'm an American, ever since 9/11 I wanted to do what was necessary for my country to fight terrorism!"

Jack didn't break a sweat and went back after him, throwing the weapon to the ground, "Since 9/11? What were you doing before that? Working in a conveinence store and cheating on your mother? Real American? Shit!"

The racist Marine was livid now and was ready to open fire on anyone. Jack knew he was ready and in less than five minutes.

Jack said, "Ok,you're what we need. What we need right now is a humvee. Think you can get one here and I mean now Marine?"

The Marine flashed a shit-eating grin, "Before you know it!."


- Chris Mansel

Mind of Mansel: JR & I in Iraq

Jack Random and I in Iraq - part 1

Jack Random and I burst into Iraq like a widow at a train station all out of quarters for the condom machine for that last ride to New Jersey for the High school reunion. The White House press office kept offering us our own poppy fields in the hills of Afghanistan if we just wouldn't go to Iraq. After breaking the story of Karl Rove and the Washington sex trade they would do anything to keep us away from the story. We were determined and even thought to go thru the wilds of Pakistan but why muddle in with the retreat of the Taliban, we end up in their clutches soon enough we were wagering.

Anyway, we hit the Iraq oil fields to the sight of an american truck broke down. Roadside bombs it was said weren't going off near the oil fields anymore since it was common knowledge the americans would be out of the country in force by the end of 2007. The George Baker plan had just hit amazon.com and all of Beirut we had read over the wires had ordered a copy and soon all of Iraq would be reading it through the black market. Once again Ed Meese would be popular among those who killed for pleasure.

The drivers of the two trucks both U.S. military soldiers were cursing at the four Iraqi members of the police who had driven by earlier and had took off quickly and laughed at the two of them stranded. One of the soldiers wanted to go off and shoot the Iraqi police and the other had for weeks left on the most recent one year tour in country. When we asked them about the term "boots on the ground" they responded with as much hate and vigor as they had when we asked about the Iraqi police.

"Boots on the ground, goddamn! I tell you what the boots on the ground think about this f-cking war, there's too much blood, too much Iraqi blood and too much american blood, and not enough old blue blood from any red states!" The soldier kicked the front of the truck violently and looked back at us quickly, "Just why are you here anyway? I don't see no boots on the ground here between you two."

We reassued the two soldiers that we wanted to report an honest portrayal of what was going on in Iraq. The other soldier who had remained quiet for most of the time spoke up, "Let me tell you something. We were on a patrol about a month ago maybe two. A roadside bomb goes off and these Iraqi troops start firing at one another, ripping each other apart and we have to mop it up. How long have we been here and we are getting killed every day. Sometimes I just want to start shooting and I don't honestly give a shit what I hit."

Jack Random and I In Iraq - part 2

How many screams did you hear until you knew they were coming from someone you could identify as someone other than yourself? That's a question you need to ask yourself when you have spent any time in a war zone.

Here we were in a war zone and as soon as we arrived we noticed that the poppy had followed here from the shores of america, from the rocky cliffs of Afghanistan. We investigated the cities amidts the sound of automatic gunfire and saw parents in the desert grip of drug addiction dealing with the unthinkable loss of three children in one day. We saw one child get his legs torn apart as visiting dignitaries bid farewell to the high security fences of Halliburton's white table cloths on CNN and its high rise bleachers. The grimace of Donald Rumsfeld quoting the words real or imagined from a wounded soldier at Walter Reed hospital.

In the days of slavery the crowd were treated to question and answer sessions between the seller and the slave. The slave was usually being judged by the crowd as to their build or visual strength so the Q&A were usually for the delight of the crowd and so in Iraq are the questions to Iraqi civilians as weapons are put in their faces by privately hired security, militia anywhere else in the world, or if you like insurgents in Iraq if it were not for the tax form they can produce given six months notice. We ran into these thugs several times and had our lives threatened until we lied and said we were with some government agency we made up on the spot. This never ceased to amazed us as it always pumped them up more in their blood lust and obscene patriotism for the red in the flag.

On american television the obsession is with crime scene investigation and forensics. There are no investigations to speak of in a war zone, especially not in Iraq. For instance, if you wanted to dig a mass grave and hide it with any education it wouldn't be too difficult, after all it is a desert region. This can work to the benefit of both sides in any war. Body counts make for headlines a soldier said once, just draw a line straight to the head, and you'll usually find more than one.

- Chris Mansel

The Ribbon That Hung The Hanging Tree

(the mind of mansel)

its a crisis of burden to spread
quasi-political hellhounds of the dead
pentagon militias hired away privately
these dead look nothing like you and me
neighborhoods of america waiting they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display

its an administrative change just one more
lets clean up some of that blood from the floor
this humvee don't make left turns
this civil war won't be televised by ken burns
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display

bin laden could be in london sending back food
for all we know he could be under the unabomber's hood
maybe he's not really hooked to a machine
what is real and what's really obscene
neighborhoods of america they say
waiting for the next colored ribbon to display


Chris Mansel

Contact: christophermansel@hotmail.com.

Parts of Africa

It was in a country as small
as a country road stretches across an american county
that lives were taken for no other
reason than they could be taken
like wolves process for fur and meat
and the chickens allowed to run free
the shadows must be pulled from the limbs
the leaves of warfare pulled from the fruit
the bark of the machete, the stems of the aroma
wafting back upon the earth

- Chris Mansel

And Here's to Bolivia...

for Jack Random

and here's to Boliva
I've held your export in my hand
my government uses it to fund the Taliban
but it doesn't matter anyway
the U.N. changed the charter
and the weapons were never seized
that killed the Doctors Without Borders

- Chris Mansel

Jake's Word: Hamilton Rising

x

Claustrophobia sets in.
She muscles out of the dirt.
Can she really summon the determination
to shed the wasted dollars?

smells more of bread than meat.
Too clever to read the odor’s intent,
but followed, begging
ruined sap
low and hot
growling – The wolves came
nuzzled your crotch
talking backward
until the old stairs fell
around the red maple
grown through the floor.

Take your passage then,
wallow all day in bed and
speak when summoned,
feet on cold wet floor
remembered, clutched the post
and spoke remembering –
The moths in the old stone church
glad to be done
with the Paraclete’s bickering.
Silent, finished,
roaming her legs again for grace.

Still, the mourners in a line proceed,
scarfheaded and faking it
in digital clicks
like teeth broken in
bread not meat.
Welcome to quicklime and virus
and the coming green.

Jake Berry 11.6.06

KING JOHN & GEORGE

According to historical lore, King John (circa 1215) was a little man, out of touch with the affairs of state and so recklessly ineffectual that nearly he lost hold of Britannia’s golden crown.

Humankind was the beneficiary of King John’s incompetence. Compelled to sign the Magna Carta or risk losing both his throne and his head, that document was the essential beginning of a new era in government: the age of human rights.

At its foundation was the principle of Habeas Corpus: The right to challenge one’s imprisonment by requiring that the government produce evidence before a court of law.

Nearly eight centuries later, a little man from Crawford, Texas, out of touch and recklessly ineffectual, has somehow parlayed a mandate of fear into a repeal of Habeas Corpus in the most powerful and influential democracy on earth.

History is filled with ironies but this is an irony of epic proportions.

Memo to Congress: Repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and restore the judiciary to its rightful role as the ultimate check on executive power.

JRandom

Coronado

(With respect to Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer”)


Well they came across the ocean
With a dream of finding gold
And they marched across the mountains
To where the buffalo once roamed

And the Black Robes went before them
To turn heathens into stone
And they gave them poison blankets
And they promised to take them home

Where are all the warriors?
Where have they all gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we have wronged?

[Drumbeat of the warrior.]

Geronimo roamed the desert
Crazy Horse roamed the plains
And they vowed to fight forever
While the blood flowed through their veins

So they took them all to prisons
That the white man calls reserves
And they fed them moldy biscuits
While they laid waste to the earth

Where are all the warriors?
Where have they gone?
And where are all the leaders
To right what we’ve done wrong?

[Drumbeat of the warrior.]

Copyright 2006 Jack Random.

Thomas Merton on Democracy

"It is no exaggeration to say that democratic society is founded on a kind of faith: on the conviction that each citizen is capable of, and assumes, complete political responsibility. Each one not only broadly understands the problems of government but is willing and ready to take part in their solution. In a word, democracy assumes that the citizen knows what is going on, understands the difficulties of the situation, and has worked out for himself an answer that will help him to contribute, intelligently and constructively, to the common work (or "liturgy") of running his society.

"For this to be true, there must be a considerable amount of solid educational preparation. A real training of the mind. A genuine formation in those intellectual and spiritual disciplines without which freedom is impossible.

"There must be a completely free exchange of ideas. Minority opinions, even opinions which may appear to be dangerous, must be given a hearing, clearly understood and seriously evaluated on their own merits, not merely suppressed. Religious beliefs and disciplines must be respected. The rights of the individual conscience must be protected against every kind of open or occult encroachment.

"Democracy cannot exist when men prefer ideas and opinions that are fabricated for them. The actions and statements of the citizen must not be mere automatic "reactions"-mere mechanical salutes, gesticulations signifying passive conformity with the dictates of those in power.

"To be truthful, we will have to admit that one cannot expect this to be realized in all the citizens of a democracy. But if it is not realized in a significant proportion of them, democracy ceases to be an objective fact and becomes nothing but an emotionally loaded word.

"What is the situation in the United States today?"

Conjectures of a Guilty Bystanderby Thomas Merton,
New York: Doubleday & Co, Inc., 1968 edition, p. 100-101

__________________________________
Submitted by: Jon Berry
Project Editor, The University of Alabama Press

Profiles in Cowardice: The Nominees

A recent Jazzman Chronicle described the state of American politics, on the eve of the midterm elections, under the heading: Profiles in Cowardice.

Here are the leading nominees of both parties, in alphabetical order, subject to modification:

1. George "Makaka" Allen (R VA). Here is a candidate who shamelessly played the race card and got caught on tape. Rather than coming clean, he claimed to have invented the derogatory term out of thin air.

2. Hillary Clinton (D NY). Mindful of her reputation as a liberal (whatever that means), the Senator has refashioned herself a moderate, teaming with John McCain to ban flag burning (a burning issue!). She voted for the war, for the Patriot Act, and watched the death of habeas corpus without a whimper.

3. Bob Corker (R TN). He exemplifies the awkward duplicity created by McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform. The RNC takes responsibility for a race-baiting character assault while Corker distances himself from the mud -- just as he distances himself from an unpopular president and an unpopular war.

4. Mike DeWine (R OH). Another Republican taking big money from the White House political machine while proclaiming his independence. What war? George who?

5. Mark Foley (R FL). Mendacity had a new champion until the Ted Haggard revelation came along.

6. Harold Ford (D TN). He hands out a calling card with the ten commandments on the back. Fine. Another lesson for Democrats: Republican light is a losing strategy.

7. Bill Frist (R TN). Remember Terri Schiavo?

8. Tom Kean Jr. (R NJ). Start up the sludge machine and run away from the White House.

9. John McCain (R AZ). He called himself a friend of John Kerry. He was a victim of the Bush sludge machine himself, yet when it came time to pounce on Kerry for a botched joke, he could not even wait for an explanation.

10. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R CA). There is a word for remaking yourself in the image of your opposition: It is not pragmatism, it is pandering.

11. Michael Steele (R MD). Let's blame it all on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

12. Jim Talent (R MO). See Mike DeWine.

Nominees for Profiles in Courage (a short list):

1. Sherrod Brown (D OH). He came out against the war strong when it counted most: In the beginning. He remains one of the most principle antiwar voices.

2. Russ Feingold (D WI). He also came out against the war when it counted -- a lonely position in the US Senate. He has refused to take a stronger position on getting our troops out -- a position I disagree with but it takes courage to buck a growing tide that would have placed his name at the top of the presidential candidates list.

3. Bernie Sanders (VT). Bernie never pulls his punches. He has been right (left) on all the issues no matter how much derision he has had to suffer. A candidate to watch.

4. Jim Webb (D VA). A military man takes an antiwar stand and refuses to disavow his work as a novelist. Likewise, he takes responsibility for sexist statements he made decades ago. He does not look or act like a politician. Whatever our views on policy, the man possesses courage.

Jazz.

Iraq: Get Out Now

We have to get out.

We have to get out before the tide turns again, before Karl Rove gets his groove, before a Tonkin incident triggers a new invasion, before the tactical nuke is fully deployable, before the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, the cradle of civilization, is filled with Iraqi and American blood.

We have to get out before another half million lives are lost and the ghost of Vietnam rises from the sands of ancient Mesopotamia.

We have to get out before the cry of mourning becomes a cry of vengeance that overwhelms and buries wisdom and reason.

We have to get out before a terrorist incident, real or invented, uncovers once again the dark side of the American character.

We have to get out before it is too late to negotiate a compromise, before the passions are so inflamed that no one talks and no one listens.

We have to get out before the next Iraqi strongman rises from the ranks to impose order with the iron hand of despotism and oppression.

We have to get out before nuclear technologies yield nuclear weapons that place the human species on the edge of extinction.

We have to get out before a new American president plays the patriot card and persuades the masses that “victory at any cost” is the national destiny.

We have to get out before Afghanistan implodes and a new Osama bin Laden is hailed as a liberator and a prophet.

We have to get out.

Now.

The Neocon Playbook

Up Against the Wall


The trouble with the neocons is: You never know when they’re playing.

They started by flashing their trump cards. They wanted all players at the table to know what was coming. The axis of evil jive was more than rhetoric, more than a self-fulfilling prophecy, it was a warning: Get out of the way or we’ll take you down with our designated enemies.

They put a down payment on Afghanistan, flipped it to NATO, and the put the real money on Iraq. When they were still flying high, cruising through elections with an unlimited gold card (make that platinum), they flashed a hold card, the big one, the tactical nuke.

Things look different today than they did two years ago when little George had some capital to play with. Deuces came up against threes, jacks against queens, and aces against straights. Little George is on a losing streak and he can’t stop playing. He never could.

Little George and the neocons are up against the wall and they’re likely to do what any compulsive gamblers would do: raise the stakes.

The only votes that count in the next election belong to Diebold, ES&S and Hart InterCivic voting machines. The only card the neocons have left is the nuke.

Hang on, folks, its going to be a rough ride.

Jazz.

Jefferson in Hell by Jake Berry

Cough.
Flagellation.
Requiem.
We have seen the process heaving.
He can’t suffer it again,
another cold alabaster mannequin
disrobed
& trailed in gray debris.

Trapped inside her petticoats
Venus sneezes, barks and wheezes.

Who’d believe if she confessed
a low rebellion in Storyville.
The fishmonger sold his grave
to Marie Laveau
who rolled the dice to thieve
him grace.
The feast of crescent
deadlight Ramadan –
16 chaingang
republicans bleached
in Plato’s toilet
if you can bear the newsprint stench.

Come down to mama
Come down to mama
Come on down to your bone sad mama
and drink the good Lord’s tit.

Jake Berry 10.5.06 7:40 am

A Poem by Ivan Arguelles

[jihad]

it was a inflammatory thing very
the pope read quoting a palaeologus
Michael II emperor of byzant about
the holy war proclaimed by the Prophet
in the year who knows when and
all around are fires burning are
moats being considered around Baghdad
are the very ramparts of are
nothing is pure the stratosphere
is a hell of pollution waste gas
noxious fumes of human thought
rising from the abscess in the tooth
being employed by presidents of
Moloch with his jaws churning in
dream the oval office rose tinted
and will appoint as generals
Gog and Magog on either side
money is the fuel for love are
ardent desire to overcome bad sleep
habits when passing through deserts
it says in the Bible what are
the envious doing here what are
the thing is about the eglantine branch
the dogwood in flower the white
intense upon white before bleeding
the insane who are kept inside
Jerusalem who cannot explain mother
who assume father is the target
raising the blazing scimitar high
to cut the dove neatly in half
wonder in what century it will end
can it end the hypothetical iron
now rusting inside Shulamit’s breast
it will end the nerve defiant
in the resembling Eye! motionless
the wave immobile the wind senseless
the north of sky toward which
crawls the Beast unerring in song
are then others so removed from
is such the capacity of man to
why is the garden thus laid bare
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
painted universe descried from afar
out of control in its infinite gyres
does then the sheep cote sink in dark
the hundred asbestos angels are quick
in their flashing quicker still Krishna
passing silently through 3000 brides
“be thou my Love, still the beating heart”
for each constructed city a paragraph
of ire and spite for each other side
the reckless banks of sand collapse
are fortune and its Hollywood a reality
as is no more the small drugstore
where for a magazine of powder one
could purchase the end result
fallen to the curbside and armless
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
which is the century of the Golden Horn
and which the minute past caesar’s death
why it matters on the flickering screen
who dances in red beside a dread japan
who eats china in a repeated trance
why are they at the door why are
for this brief instant the multiples
of history shine like malibu neon
but for the sluggish ethiop stream
psychiatry metempsychosis lethargy
why they are not with us this day
the fabulous planets of Poesy
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
plunge then the tinsel Primavera
into her dry well, suck out the soul
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
dynasties like argent cobras pass
through migrations of awful dust
one is there who but none instead
stand outside the cycle in review
watching unidentified armies clash
watching each still point dissolve
it is never resolved but brain dead
in palo alto trying to match Boolean
ciphers the world of intransigence
some small some lesser yet and some
for whom a lunar madness fits
for whom the
attach
slumbering Air
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
resist the Call

ivan arguelles
09-17-06

See 9th Street Lab: http://9thstlab.blogspot.com

Keith Olbermann's 911 Rant

In the event you missed it, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann delivered the most eloquent, heart wrenching and profoundly truthful tribute to the fallen of 911. It was presented only moments before the president took the stage at the White House and gave the nation yet another push for war in the name of the dead. The full text is posted on Common Dreams (9/12/06) and the MSNBC web site. A brief excerpt:

"Five years later this space is still empty.

"Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

"Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

"Five years later this country's wound is still open.

"Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

"Five years later this is still just a backdrop for a photo op.

"It is beyond shameful."

Olbermann for President!

The Most Dangerous Politicians in America

From time to time in the next two years, we will consider the candidates to succeed George W. Bush. This installment considers those on both sides of the aisle most likely to continue the neocon fantasy of endless war.

The midterm election looms and the prospects for 2008 are staking their grounds. On the left are Russ Feingold, Albert Gore, John Kerry and John Edward. In the center are Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani. On the right are Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice and John McCain. The classifications are subject to change as the candidates seek a winning path through the unfolding political maze.

Though everything is in flux, some matters are resistant to change: For example, a candidate’s position on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terrorism. With that in mind, the following represents my current ranking of the most dangerous politicians in America (in reverse order):

6. Rudy Giuliani.

The hero of 9-11, America’s mayor, he marched bravely to ground zero, projecting confidence when our president was still bunkered down. He stood strong and urged New York’s finest to stand with him. Did he ever really say (“spontaneously like”), “Thank God George Bush is president!”? No one knows. Only later did we learn that Rudy was somewhat culpable for the tragic events of that September morn. It was his decision to place his command and control center in the towers – a known terrorist target. Rudy also contracted incompatible communications systems so that New York’s finest could not talk to each other in a catastrophic emergency.

What would Rudy do as president? Exactly what his advisers told him to do. Rudy knows how to play the game.

5. Dick Cheney.

He is the only certified neocon elected to office and the elevator in the White House runs straight from Cheney’s bunker to the Oval Office.

Could a man with a crooked grin, who looks like a cartoon personification of evil, ever become president of the United States? Yes. At this juncture, it would be difficult for Cheney to be elected dogcatcher in Orange County but there are other ways to ascend to power. If the Democrats get ahead of themselves and impeach the president before the vice president is safely shunted aside, Dick Cheney would not hesitate to fire a barrage of tactical nukes at our enemies. Nuke them all: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Spain!

If his heart holds out, Cheney would make a nice running mate for a new war president. He could keep the bunker.

4. Condoleezza Rice.

Is it even conceivable that the woman who failed to foresee the possibility of 9-11 despite a mountain of evidence, the woman who warned of a mushroom cloud from the evil Saddam, the woman who seconded every lie and deception the president ever delivered, could overcome all that baggage to become Commander-in-Chief? Ironically, the only thing that holds her back is her race and sex in a party that depends on the white southern fundamentalist vote. Despite the odds, if anointed, she would likely bring the Bush Doctrine to its illogical conclusion: a bankrupt nation and a collapsed empire.

3. Joe Lieberman.

He would rank higher if there were anything more than a whisper of a chance that this whining, rightwing Republican in a Democratic suit could win the White House. Then again, what were the odds that the most outspoken Democrat to impeach a Democratic president for a blowjob would become the party’s vice presidential candidate? No, Joe, we really don’t care what your record on civil rights is. What about civil liberties? On foreign policy, you’re as right and wrong as they come. One gets the impression that old Joe is suffering from macho envy squared. Nuking Iran would be such sweet sorrow if only Israel would nuke Syria first.

2. Hillary Clinton.

Hillary was for the war before it was popular to be for the war. Why not? Husband Bill set it all up for little George to knock down. It was Clinton who set the policy of regime change in Iraq. It was Clinton who first implemented the low casualty war plan, bombing from 15,000 feet in Bosnia even though it meant a lot of dead civilians, bombed media organizations and an occasional Chinese embassy. It was Clinton who kept the pressure on Iraq with deadly and criminal sanctions [1], periodic bombing and a cat-and-mouse game of weapons inspections. “Wag the dog” was a Clinton specialty. Everything that Clinton did was a logical extension of what the elder Bush did and a logical precursor to what followed. It would only be right to let Hillary finish the job.

1. John McCain.

The man never saw a war he did not like. Never. He wants to be king so bad he will swim through the muck for as long as required if he believes it will enhance his chances. He portrays himself a straight-shooting Joe with simple, unassailable values yet he bows on command to the most extreme leaders of the religious right. He will alter his positions on right to life and decry homosexuals as mortal sinners. He will begin and end every speech with “praise the lord” if he thinks it will win the Republican nomination. When and if he wins the White House, toss out all the pandering on social issues: It’s all about war.

I have a vision of McCain riding the nuke into the great beyond like Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

The US military has engaged in four major wars and dozens of military interventions since the end of World War II and the only criticism John McCain has ever uttered is that we did not go far enough. In Vietnam, we should have killed a million more “gooks” – only McCain is allowed to use racial slurs in deference to his prisoner-of-war status.

If McCain were president today, we would already be at war with five nations and the ultimate showdown would be rapidly approaching. Radiation would fill the air and military conscription would fill the ranks.

Manna from heaven for the fundamentalist doomsayers but pure hell for the rest of us.


[1] Recall former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous reply to a question concerning half a million dead Iraqi children: “We think the price is worth it.”


SEE CHRIS MANSEL’S RANDOM INTERVIEW: www.interviewsbychrismansel.blogspot.com.

How We Leave The Beaten In The Well by Chris Mansel

A vengeful act born out of necessity, a scholar's translation born of prejudice and ending in legislation. The vengeful act originating from the ancient text those that are parasitic and agitated who have enjoyed and profited from these acts can and will suffer the growth of this industry. No matter your belief system, the margin to discredit has been abscessed. If you have grown to accept death in front of you, on television, death by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the millions then are you as guilty as the text, as guilty as the translator? The act of killing was easy to learn and easy to teach and so history has been translated into every language known to man and woman. Now, every man and woman not only knows how to kill but accept it.

We leave the body in the well and wait for it to rain? We leave the body in the well because we want someone to find it? The body was already dead? Pre-destined? In terms of political reality it really doesn't matter. How many wars have been started in your lifetime and what was the body count?

But wait, you're not dead yet. So while you await your death you'll have to keep a steady count, concentrate now.

- Chris Mansel

See The Mansel Report: www.themanselreport.blogspot.com.

Rumors From The Mansel Report

I've heard that Condi Rice's per diem includes a small plastic baggie of salted fruit and a dispenser of face lotion easily allowed on Air Force One.

The Secret Service agents say her thrust is all-wrong but she pays for the room. They really can't keep the earpieces in when she is going on the downbeat but it's a good duty.

George Bush is upset that Cindy Sheehan bought some property adjacent to his in Crawford, Texas. What he is upset about the most is that she used the money from the insurance policy from her dead son to buy something. Now the Washington press core is in shock that the President now wants to enlist his daughters into military service because he has his eye on some property in Havana.

The FBI has set up a scenario in case there is a problem with John Mark Karr. A crime scene negotiator has been placed on call. The negotiator is none other than Clay Aiken.

The armed suspect arrested yesterday at the University of Virginia campus it has been discovered was asking passersby if they knew the home address of Don Blankenship because he was running low on ready cash.

After hearing of the dinner John Mark Karr enjoyed on his flight the focus will now be off fava beans and will now be on Prawns?

- Chris Mansel

A Change of Routine by Joe Speer

The Investigating Magistrate asked Mr. Eugene Groat to explain the circumstances of his outbreak. Groat talked loudly, making wide circular motions with his arms. The magistrate listened, wrote in his file, and said, "Start before the troika appears."

"Maybe if I start before the fight. It might help explain."

"Please do," said the investigator, "start at the beginning."

"I'm not sure where to begin. I'm usually told what to do. When I was young my parents me told what to do. Teachers at school told me when to do it. In the work place the boss and company policy told me how. I never had to think for myself, you see.

"I had a job in a bookstore. Then one day the manager got onto me about zoning my area instead of reading from random books. My spleen turned mauve. That same day I had a dispute with a co-worker. Yeah, I raised my voice a few decibels. I was fired that day. All this zero tolerance.

Without direction the only places I know to go are the public library and my post office box. That was enough excitement for me, accessing my mail late at night. A press in Berkeley printed one of my chapbooks and we sent proofs and whatnot back and forth.

I was distraught so I called a friend from work. He asked, "What up? I heard you wigged out."

"Oh, my emotions are overthrown!"

I told him I'm reading "The Brothers Karamazov". It makes me so agitated and resentful. It really bothers me because Dmitri is sentenced to twenty years in Siberia. The patricide he is accused of he didn't even commit. I think the father's rigor mortis is a cleansing of the community. He is a dissolute no-count money lender. Granted, we can't have people on a busting heads spree, but the old viper used his son's inheritance to coax his own girlfriend away from him. The old bugger had 3,000 rubles with her name on it. I'm outraged over all this injustice. The whole situation has crossed the line into my everyday life. It caused the scene in the bookstore. I asked him what I should do with myself and he said I could do whatever I wanted. I thanked him and hung up.

This advice put my life in a new perspective. I was excited and rushed about the apartment doing whatever I wanted. I piled books all over my bed and urinated in the sink. I felt free, but knew I would have to test myself to see if it was a true feeling. I could feign in my own apartment because no one was watching. I had to go out into the street and see what would happen.

I promised myself for the rest of the day no one would tell me what to do.

I hadn't gone anywhere for a long time. I became excited about just exploring different parts of the city. I left the apartment and when I got to the street corner I encountered my first test - a red stop light.

Here, already I was being told what to do by a an innate object. I thought about crossing the street, but I cowered, the cars were rapid and it looked like they would not stop for a misplaced bibliophile . I pretended to search the ground for lost change. But that was only kidding myself. Besides, it was only a red light, a stupid machine, and it didn't count because I could smash the lights out if I wanted. It was only people I wasn't going to listen to. The light changed green and I crossed the street.

I tell you I was angry with the judgment against Dmitri. All the brothers knew who killed their father. I'm so sorry Ivan has brain fever. He is so brilliant, having conversations with the devil and such. After walking several blocks I saw a woman leaning against a doorway. Round, bulging breasts, thrust out onto the sidewalk, loosely fitting sack dress smiling and touching herself. She asked if I wanted a date. She put her hand on my chest, undid a couple of buttons, and began to massage my stomach. Smiling, she told me to go upstairs with her. I refused.

Well, she wasn't really telling me what to do she just moved her hand down past my navel and lead me through the doorway by my belt. A man inside said I had to pay twenty dollars for the room. I refused.

He looked angrily at me, but the girl smiled him away. I followed her up a staircase and into a little room. There was a single bed against the wall, threadbare chenille spread lay on the mattress. She told me to take my clothes off. I refused.

Her hand went to my zipper as I stood looking at putrid stains and yellow spots. She inserted her fingers into my back pocket and moved into me with her hips. I stood looking at a crack in the wall, my arms dangling flaccidly at my sides. She was perturbed and asked what was wrong with me.

Suddenly two men burst in through the door. They were big with padded shoulders, sleeves rolled up, scowling beetle-browed. One of the men asked me what was I doing with his wife. I asked what was she doing with me. He got angry and told me to give him all my money. I refused.

They started after me and the woman coaxed them away. She told them I was crazy. They let me go and I hurried down the stairs and out into the street. A couple of small boys on the sidewalk pointed and laughed at me - small, impish, laughing through missing teeth. I pulled up my zipper and walked away.

Several blocks on down the street I entered a bar. Dark, tinny music hung in the air, smoke floated over two-toppers, sounds of glasses clicking, and ice drinks stirring, audible under music. I sat on a stool at the bar and ordered a Harvey Wallbanger.

Two men in suits were next to me talking in low voices but I couldn't help overhearing parts of what they said. One man said the heist was set for ten o'clock that night and the only people they had to worry about were on his payroll, ... he stopped suddenly.

I looked in their direction and they were staring at me. The man told me to move to another stool. I refused.

He reached into his coat and the other man stayed his arm. He said I must be crazy and motioned with his head. They both walked away. I felt good, had been tested twice and found worthy, felt my brain expand, felt I could encompass all the world, felt that space was not enough to contain me.

I had a few more drinks and walked back out into the street. I cut through an alley and halfway through it I saw a gang of boys circled around someone crumpled on the ground. Fists flying, shoes flashing, blood streaming from corner of mouth, eyes swollen puffy, cruel shrieks and demonic laughter. I walked past them quickly and out through the other end of the alley.

Back on the street I saw two men standing near a car. Looking about warily, prying at vent with tool, dropping tool in disgust, crowbar, broken glass, door flung open. I walked away and circled the block so as not to pass them. I walked tiredly in the direction of my apartment. The feeling of power was gone. I felt like I no longer lived in the world much less encompassed it. The world was something inscrutable I wanted to forget. I wanted to close the door and be left alone.

I was eager to get back to the quiet of my room. I wanted to finish the novel and see if there was a chance for Dmitri to escape his character. It is the way he acts that makes him culpable. I walked on the opposite side of the street until I was about a block away from my apartment. I crossed in the middle of the block and saw the steps of my apartment and a troika appeared. A driver reined in the horses, leaned out, and asked me if I thought Dmitri was guilty. He is innocent and why wouldn't you believe the word of an ex-monk over circumstantial evidence. "Stop!" a voice shouted. I refused. A hand touched my shoulder. I swung around, my fingers in his throat. I stabbed him with my jackknife. Then I attacked a second person. I struck out against the legal system's misguided judgments. I hammered his head against a post.

There were witnesses from my own apartment building. The police found me with a copy of "The Brothers Karamazov". I had just finished the part at the funeral of the young boy. Dmitri's fate is still doubtful. It was a long shot but maybe he could be happy one day. That's all there is to tell about my outbreak."

There was a noise at the cell door and the iron bars slid back. With notebook in hand the investigator walked out of the cell. The heavy door slammed closed and he said, "Just do what you are told and we won't have any trouble."

Joe Speer

contact: beatlickjoe@yahoo.com.