ALL MY RELATIONS

FROM THE NOVEL: CRIES FOR A VISION.

By Jack Random


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

EYES & EARS

by Jack Random

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

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

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

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

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

The right to privacy is overrated
Security is what we need

After all, what have you to hide?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

YOU WILL KNOW

From Beatlicks Joe Speer and Pamela Hirst.

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

THE LONG JOURNEY

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

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

THE DISSIDENT

TAPPING THE LOWER DEPTHS
By Jack Random

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

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

Everything changed on the morning the towers fell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GUERNICA

THE ARTIST IN A TIME OF WAR
By Jack Random

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

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

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

She is not alone.

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

We remember Dresden. We remember Guernica.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

A FEVERISH VISION

The Rings of Power
By Jack Random

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lords of avarice have regained the rings of power.

Jazz.

THE WEDGE

A REASONED ALTERNATIVE
By Jack Random

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

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

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

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

There is another way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where would the Republicans be then?

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

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

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

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

It is time to get smart.

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

There is another way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

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

THE FIX

DEMOCRACY BETRAYED
By Jack Random

In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the bold defenders of the Electoral College cannot suddenly fall back on the popular vote to assert the validity of the result.

The Electoral College is an affront to every individual, red-blue or gray, who believes in the principles of democracy but this election was fought in the battleground states because both sides agreed to play by the rules of the game.

On May 4, 1970, the counterculture of the late sixties was forced underground and the mass protest movement was effectively assassinated when four students at Kent State University in Ohio were gunned down by the National Guard. Ten days later, two more were gunned down at Jackson State in Mississippi. The administration of Richard Nixon (the man who so inspired Governor Schwarzenegger) had served notice: There is a price to pay for exercising your freedom of speech and that price may be your life. It was an act of terror and a betrayal of fundamental liberty so brazen it deserves no other title than treasonous.

Thirty-four years later, in the critical state of Ohio, the state that decided the presidential election, something stinks to high Heaven and the cry of treason is on the breath of every true believer, red-blue or gray.

Voting machines unaccountably cast thousands of votes for the president where no votes existed. In key counties, election monitors from the press were barred from observing the proceedings (allegedly the result of a government issued terror alert), while boxes of mail-in ballots went uncounted or simply disappeared. In precincts with registered voters in the hundreds, thousands of votes were recorded. In nearly all cases, the “error rate” decidedly favored the president. As any beginning student of statistics knows, “error” that consistently favors one result over another is not error at all: It is known as bias and, in the case of electoral politics, it is known as the fix.

CNN’s exit polls showed John Kerry winning Ohio by 53 to 47 percent among women and 51 to 49 percent among men. Unless there was an extraordinary turnout among the gender-neutral, something was rotten on Election Day.

Contrary to the cursory explanations given by the exit pollsters, random sampling is not guesswork. It is the foundation of the scientific method and its track record is rock solid. If the numbers were off by such an astounding margin, it cannot be rationalized by random error.

In the name of democracy, we must demand to see the raw data, the methodology and techniques for sampling. There can be no defense of shielding this information from objective review that is not corrupt to the core. It is in the compelling interest of every American to know beyond all doubt that our democracy is in working order. At the very least, we can be certain that a great many operatives were engaged in a conscious effort to defraud this election. We must demand an investigation that will uncover the offenders. We must demand that they be prosecuted and sentenced to the full extent of democracy’s righteous wrath.

John Kerry was wrong to concede the election before every vote was counted and every vote was accounted for. Once again, the Democratic Party was complicit in the betrayal of democracy. Once again, we must ask: What are you afraid of? Were the Democrats also guilty of conspiracy to defraud an election?

If the price of defending democracy is the appearance of a poor loser, the choice should be clear to any individual of conscience.

Once again, we may never actually know who won this election but we do know who lost: We, the people, lost. When the Parties are at play, the people lose every time and that is a result we can all mourn as one.

Jazz.

THE BUSH BLUES

AND HOW TO GET OVER IT
By Michael D. Caine

George Bush has squeaked out the most narrow of victories by using the same tactics that the Nazi’s and Communists built their power with: the big lie and pounding propaganda. The Neo Conservatives will try to solidify their control with ruthless extension of the same tactics. There is no logic in his position but Bush is claiming a mandate. Why are the media not scoffing at that attempt? It’s not an unusual position for a re-elected President but in light the narrowness of the two victories that have brought him to power and sustained him there, it is mere hubris to make the claim of mandate, but hubris is Bush’s most important trait. The truth is he and the neo-conservatives are trying to do what Hitler did, magnify their power using the media lens to make his victory appear like a landslide. Now he will hide the truth by simply ignoring and omitting it and fill in the empty spaces in the history of this election with spin.

We have watched G.W. and his puppet masters do the unthinkable but we can’t take only negative lessons from this defeat. We have learned the strength of our opposition. The Republican Party had more volunteers, they were devoted to G.W., and what they perceive him as representing. His supporters believe in him like they believe in God. I had a boss that invited everyone into his office each morning to pray. In the middle of one of those prayers he looked up at a picture of Bush and with tears in his eyes said, “I love that man.” He is not alone.

We just saw our candidate get defeated by a team that is that devoted to their President. Give it to G.W., he never wavered from the ideas that got him elected the first time, and what he said and did immediately after 9/11 blocked the sunlight from exposing the dark side of his policies. When he and his followers are attacked, they respond with force. Forget the Gospels, they believe in the Old Testament stuff. “Eye for Eye” is the operative text. His followers fundamentally understand Bush and his actions feed into their beliefs. The linkage to the economy of any of his policies is beyond them. They are the faithful.

We lost because we didn’t have faith in our candidate; we were joined primarily in our opposition to the other candidate. We for the most part disagreed with our candidate’s stand on the war and the single most important issue in the campaign, as it turns out, was the war on terror and the two were allowed to be inextricably linked when in fact they are not. Kerry couldn’t explain what he would have done differently than Bush because in the beginning he voted for the President’s ability to wage the war. Ours was a candidate that came to fame fighting against a war he fought bravely in and to many that makes him a walking contradiction. His policies on this war could barely be distinguished from those of his opponent, and they differed only long after the fact. Kerry did, in fact, support the President’s ability to wage the war and pledged to support it’s continuation if he were elected because… well who knows?

We lost because we got out politicked. We couldn’t muster a single issue that rose to the importance of National Security and we offered up a candidate that had, in the final analysis, no credibility concerning that issue. We offered a candidate that stole his version of that issue from Howard Dean and then lost the election because he couldn’t run with it. We offered up a candidate that single mothers couldn’t vote for because they were afraid of new 9/11’s even though there has been only one of those and it’s been three years since it happened. We should have known this election was over when a week from the election the polls started showing those single mothers breaking for G.W.

We lost because we couldn’t see the forest for the trees even though the thing that hung us together was the forest. Blame Kerry if you want, and he should take a lion’s share of the blame for a strategy that emphasized his weaknesses, but we didn’t do what it took to get a real candidate onto the ticket. Why was that? That’s not Kerry’s fault. We have to start finding candidates that articulate our issues and have the backbone to stand up for them. The conservative issues are not winning the elections. Kerry led the polls on every issue except leadership in national security, but lost the election. We are losing these elections mainly because our spokesmen are inarticulate on the issues that are most important to us. That is what must change.

The Internet is turning out to be the best tool to get people together on the issues. We should stop worrying about what party someone with good ideas is a member of and ask only for the ability to articulate those ideas, and start supporting those candidates. Let’s just find the right people and support them because they are the right people. We need to get on the Internet and spread the word about these candidates. I’m not against the two party system so much as I am against excluding ideas before they are tested by argument. How can I find a serious liberal candidate for a real office? Where are the people that have better ideas? How do we find them? Where is the place to look for them? The Democratic Party may still be the best place to find viable candidates for liberals, but it is looking more and more like a conservative think tank. We need to change it or treat it as such, letting it split the conservative vote with the Republicans. If the two party system excludes debate on important issues and only elects conservative candidates, it must be destroyed. If Democrats can’t find electable candidates it is because they are too entrenched in a party that is out of touch with the electorate and incapable of finding it’s own base.

Progressives need to find the candidates that can stand at a podium and express ideas so right and powerful that they give the electorate Goosebumps. Our schools cannot turn out the scholars and skilled work force that a successful twenty first century economy will demand and will leave our children in the third world if it’s not rejuvenated. Our health care system is the best in the world for the rich and third world for the 35% who don’t have health insurance. It’s obvious that in the next 20 to 50 years our economy will be surpassed by the Chinese and Indians and the geo-political effects will be that we will no longer be able wield the economic club with impunity to effect policy, and our military will no longer be unchallenged. Manifest destiny is apt to be our downfall if we can’t find the leaders to adjust our current policies. We need to be seeking our allies in the next fight whether it’s economic, scientific, or military. We need to be finding common ground with others not excluding them, persuading not bullying and we should be learning from others not dictating to them. History doesn’t justify our greatness, as the conservatives want us to believe, it simply points the way to the future. Greatness is in the eye of the beholder not in our own. We need to find the leaders that can take us into the future with joy and grace; otherwise, the rightwing, neo-conservative warlords will drag us all there, screaming and yelling.

Contact: mikecaine@comcast.net

QUEST FOR HOPE, SEARCH FOR BLAME

By Jack Random

As the grim reality of the 2004 election settles in, we are torn between seeking blame and finding new direction, all in a desperate quest for that most illusive human treasure: hope.

The search for blame is a ritual of healing. In many ways, it is a useful endeavor for it may enable us to reconcile our understanding of reality with a completely incompatible result. In other ways, it is a harmful practice for it tends to divide us at a time when we need unity more than ever. The Democrats, having lost their favorite scapegoat in Ralph Nader, have begun pointing the finger of liability at gay rights and pro-choice activists. Having already turned their backs on the antiwar movement, they will resume the rightward migration that Bill Clinton championed.

The new reality is this: We can have no reasonable expectation that our dissent, however vocal and massive, will have any real impact on our elected leaders. For the next four years, the administration can claim, with documented validity, that a silent majority supports their cause regardless of the lies and deceptions, regardless of world opinion, regardless the mounting debt, and regardless the rising tide of blood for oil.

The stark, horrifying reality is this: Our collective voice of opposition to war, occupation and empire on the streets of America’s cities may actually produce the opposite effect in America’s heartland. It is no longer the Bush war; it is America’s war and the threat of terrorist attacks on this nation’s soil has grown exponentially.

Why then should we continue the struggle?

The answer must come from within.

In the days following the reelection of GW Bush, I have heard powerful and insightful voices from within the antiwar movement appeal to the esoteric. They speak of the Mayan calendar, the Hopi elders and the native prophecies that we are on the eve of an evolution in human consciousness. Inevitably, these prophecies hold that it must get worse before the dawn of a new enlightenment.

While I value these voices greatly, they do not speak to me. They appeal to our faith in summoning forces beyond our control. While I respect the sentiment and honor the faith, I cannot substantially differentiate the appeal from that of the fundamentalist right that effectively elected a war president.

I require more earthly objectives. From my perspective, we must march on if only to inform the world that we are still a deeply divided nation. We must speak out to proclaim that we are not complicit in the crimes of our government.

In accepting our electoral defeat, we must also accept that we can no longer pander to the right. We cannot convert the faith-based supporters of GW Bush. We can only strengthen our own base and appeal to the one demographic that voted strongly against the war and its faith-based master: the youth vote. If we can keep these voters as they mature and win the emerging youth, there is constructive hope for real change.

The most predictable outcome of this election is that the Democratic Party will move to the right. In the aftermath of defeat, it was revealed that former president Bill Clinton (fast becoming the Democratic version of Karl Rove) advised John Kerry to come out against gay marriage. To his credit, Kerry refused. He had already moved to the middle ground on virtually every issue. As a candidate, he was in fact inflicted with the disease of his supporters: We saw a darkness so profound that we were willing to do almost anything, to say almost anything, to advocate positions against our interest and convictions, in order to defeat this president. When he spoke of winning the war, we whispered to our friends on the left: Don’t worry; he doesn’t mean it. The stain of core compromise does not belong to John Kerry alone; it belongs to most of us.

Mark it: The Democrats are serving notice to every oppressed community, every dissident, every progressive, every antiwar activist and everyone else not substantially represented in red America, that they are poised and ready to throw us overboard if we prove a political liability. Get out your life jackets, folks, the boat is listing and the Democrats are planning our funerals.

The only recourse we will have in 2008 will be the one we rejected in 2004: the Independence Movement. Having been removed from the table of mainstream politics, our only forum will be the underground and the streets of America.

If we need a reminder of why we are fighting, ten thousand troops have surrounded the city of Fallujah in preparation for a full-scale assault. The election over, political restraint has been removed and the fear of horrific images on American television has subsided. We are called upon to bear witness and plead for the lives of countless Iraqis whose only crime is to resist foreign occupation. We are called upon to plead for our soldiers as well, as they carry out the orders that will alter their vision of the world forever.

When we consider the plight of Fallujah, our electoral pain becomes sufferable. We have no choice. We must continue the relentless march with uncompromised conviction. We must rally to the cry of Independence and demand that the rule of two parties controlled by the same interests must finally be defeated.

In the end, we are the hope of America and we must never give in.

No retreat, no surrender.

Jazz.

[Note: Originally posted on Buzzle.com 11/7/04]

CONFESSIONS OF A KERRY ADVOCATE

A CALL TO ACTION
By Jack Random

The election is over. The ballots have been cast and the people have rendered a decision. Coming on the heels of the millennial election, it remains to be seen if that decision will be honored or if it will once again be thrown into the court of political operatives and the absurdly anti-democratic Electoral College.

In any event, win, lose or draw, the election is over and the first chapter of the latest incarnation of the antiwar movement has reached its final punctuation. Let there be no ambiguity: the cause is neither won nor lost. The occupation of Iraq has not ended. Afghanistan remains a dysfunctional nation. We have not reached the summer of peace, love and understanding; we have only survived the winter of our discontent.

Those who would stand down now never belonged in the army of resisters that marched in the streets throughout much of the world. We began this journey knowing that it would be long and trying. We appealed to the courage that is born of conviction. We renew that appeal today. We are fighting a war, not the manner of its conduct. Those who believe that a Democrat in the White House guarantees a real change in foreign policy have not studied their history. It was a Democrat that invented the Gulf of Tonkin incident to transform a disturbing conflict in Southeast Asia into a devastating war, costing the lives of millions, including 58,000 American soldiers. It was a Democrat that established the policy of regime change in Iraq and enforced the most punitive illegal sanctions the world has ever known.

It was never about John Kerry; it was always about Bush.

The time has now arrived for all individuals of conscience to come home. The time has come to claim the alliances that were born in the antiwar movement. Independents, Greens, Libertarians and the ideologues of the left have found common cause. The time has come for disenchanted party loyalists to stand with those who have stood against the tide of war from day one. The time has come to lift the veil of compromise, to break the vow of silence, to clear the filth from our faces and the stench from our souls.

Never again.

Never again will we be compelled to choose between a butcher and a bagman. Never again will we throw our support to a party on the take, collecting contributions from the same corporate entities that demand global dominance, that strip the world of its resources, that bankrupt all nations that fall for their flimflam game, and that demand blood for oil, truth, justice and democracy be damned!

Never again.

Never again will we be lulled into passivity by the empty promise of a Democratic administration. The time to acknowledge the sorry truth has arrived. The prosperity of the nineties was in some measure built on the bubble of fraudulent accounting. The legacy of Bill Clinton, welfare reform and free trade, more resembles the wish list of Newt Gingrich than that of Franklin Roosevelt. The time for reckoning has come. The Clinton administration reigned over the deadliest and most abused sanctions in history and, when challenged to rationalize the death of a half million Iraqi children, replied: We think it is worth the price. The liberation of Kosovo (wag the dog) was a disaster founded on lies and deception. The Clinton foreign policy was no more and no less than a warm up for the Bush Doctrine and its ensuing invasions. Moreover, in a perfect symbol of promise betrayed, Clinton kowtowed to the FBI, leaving Leonard Peltier to rot in a federal penitentiary.

My vote for president of the United States in the year 2004 did not go to Democrat John Kerry. My vote was a vote of conscience for a political prisoner, the victim of a federal government terrorist operation in Pine Ridge, North Dakota, for a martyr of the sacred ground of Wounded Knee. Until Leonard Peltier is free, we are all prisoners of conscience. Until Peltier is allowed to walk through the iron gates of oppression, American justice is a hollow promise and American democracy a shattered dream.

If I seem bitter, it is because I am. Among the many crimes of George W. Bush, with his mandate from God, his unabashed patronage of the elite, his salivation over the prospect of unending war, his exploitation of the blood of the innocent dead, his development of tactical nuclear weapons, his resurrection of Star Wars, was the compromise of the soul he compelled.

Never again.

When an individual buries the truth too long, when he betrays that part of himself that touches the core of his being, it is not easily explained away. It is not easily forgotten nor should it be. It must give rise to a healthy rage. It must be unleashed in a storm of retribution.

We have dealt with the devil but we have not sacrificed our souls and we will never deal again.

The time for the truth has come.

Against our better judgment, against all that we believe and hold dear, we have given our all to make John Kerry president. If he should win the election, he will hold no marker greater than that of the antiwar movement. We showed him the way, stiffened his spine, and all but guided him to the White House door, but it was never about Kerry. It was always about Bush. John Kerry was not the candidate of the antiwar movement. Having voted for the abdication of war powers and the Patriot Act, he was in fact the antithesis of an antiwar candidate. Howard Dean might have championed the cause but he dropped the banner at shock and awe, long before the infamous scream. Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton never approached the viability of Ralph Nader and Nader never approached the threshold of faith. The stakes were far too high for yet another symbolic march of protest so we swallowed our pride, compromised our convictions, and took a temporary vow of pragmatism for peace. There were many, many occasions when the candidate pushed us to the edge of open rebellion (or worse yet, passive resolve) but we held strong.

If I sound ungracious, let me be clear: I would like nothing more than to eat my own words in this regard. If John Kerry becomes president and demonstrates the courage to withdraw from Iraq and redirect our foreign policy within a reasonable timeframe, he will have earned the support we have given him. If he does not, he will have earned our righteous scorn.

The one thing we can be sure of is that the next president will not answer to the people without the voice of a million protesters in the streets of America. We owe him that much and, more importantly, we owe it to ourselves.

The time to prepare for the 2008 election is now. We desperately need new candidates at all levels of government. We need organizations in all states. We need to unify disparate camps under the banner of Independence. We cannot afford to wait.

The time has come to renew the pledge of the independence movement for only when we have broken free of two parties controlled by the same corporate interests will we be given a true choice of leadership. It is a scandal surpassing the election fraud of 2000 that the party of opposition could not give the people a clear referendum on the war in Iraq in the year 2004.

Never again.

The most important demonstration against the war and, more importantly, against the war machine, is not in our past but in our immediate future. The call has gone out to every man, woman and child of conscience to stand up and be counted on Inauguration Day. No matter who is in the Oval Office at the end of the Inaugural Parade, January 20, 2005 must go down as the day we shook the earth to her core.

Jazz.

NOT IN THE NAME OF JESUS

By Jack Random

If the Christian version of the word is truth, then Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and George W. Bush will have some explaining to do. I do not know what force of spirit guides the thoughts and actions of these men but they do no honor to the philosophy and character of the man known as Jesus Christ.

Jesus was not a writer or, if he was, his written word did not survive the ensuing ages. What we know of Jesus we learn from the accounts of others.

When Jesus walked the earth, he was a voice of enlightenment. In the tradition of Confucius, the Tao and the Zen masters of the Orient, he preached a morality of tolerance, understanding, peace, love and equality, reserving his wrath for the money changers, an oppressive government bent on world domination, and the priesthood that supported both.

From The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine:

“That such a person as Jesus Christ existed and that he was crucified…are historical relations strictly within the limits of probability. He preached most excellent morality and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of priesthood.

“The accusation which those priests brought against him was that of sedition and conspiracy against the Roman government…and it is not improbable that the Roman government might have some secret apprehensions of the effects of his doctrine, as well as the Jewish priests; neither is it improbable that Jesus Christ had in contemplation the delivery of the Jewish nation from the bondage of the Romans. Between the two, however, this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life.”

In his time and place, Jesus was a dissident whose greatest crime was that he crossed the threshold of influence. His voice was being heard and the powers of the day would not allow his ideas to grow to fruition. He died not so much for our sins as for standing up against the established order.

If the spirit lives on and Jesus is walking the earth today, then I believe he has walked with me. He was on the streets of San Francisco when ten million people worldwide stood up in opposition to war. He was with a young Palestinian girl walking to school when she was gunned down by an Israeli commander. He was in the rubble of a Fallujah wedding party when American bombs were used to punish a city of resistance. He was in a crowd of some twenty civilians (who may or may not have been insurgents), walking calmly down a cobblestone lane when they were wiped from existence in the flash of an American missile.

The rightwing religious zealots (like the littlest Baldwin at the Republican National Convention), who claim to be following Jesus as they lend their support to the Bush Doctrine of eternal war, ought to have acquired a greater appreciation for the character of the man, himself. If you want to spread the scourge of war to the four corners of the planet, do not do so in the name of Jesus.

If Jesus could be seen and heard today, his sadness would be pervasive. He would sigh from the depths of his soul and say, “Forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Churches no more belong in politics than bankers belong in churches.

Jazz.

THE WAR PRESIDENT

AN ELECTION EVE REVISION
By Jack Random

It is the season when all promises and all actions must be taken with a great deal of cynicism. Having waited four years for an economic recovery to register beyond corporate profits, the president is searching for answers to joblessness and the loss of living wages. Having failed to slow the rising trade deficit or reduce the national debt, he renews his call for permanent tax cuts. Having failed to deliver a prescription drug benefit to seniors, he pushes through a Medicare reform bill written by the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Having failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he no longer believes the question is relevant. It is sufficient that Saddam Hussein had the intention to develop such weapons. It is sufficient that Saddam committed crimes against humanity. It is sufficient that Saddam was a very bad man.

Given the president’s enormous insight and incomparable certitude, he is confident he did the right thing. He is confident that American soldiers are not dying in a mistaken war. He is so confident that he swears, knowing what we know now, that there were no weapons of mass destruction, that there was no link between Saddam and Al Qaeda, he would still go to war.

“I’m a war president,” he intoned with a smirk.

Finally, we found an issue upon which we could take the president at his word. If by some miracle of incredulity, you were not frightened before, now is the time. Until now, the president has been constrained by the prospect of a coming election. If he were to be reelected, the true war-seeking nature of this administration would be unleashed upon the world.

As the Bush Doctrine clearly dictates, the warlords of this White House do not require an imminent threat. They do not require international alliances or the blessings of international law. They proclaim the right to strike any nation at any time in order to advance their cause of global supremacy. They speak glowingly of democracy but their actions belie their words. Democracy notwithstanding, they are content with controlling the world’s resources.

Much of the debate in civil society has been directed at the wars already begun. Considerably less has been devoted to the wars that will follow if the policy of global dominance is allowed to grow and flourish. The possibilities are as varied as moves on a chessboard but the signs are all around us and they are neither disguised nor hidden. The warlords are so arrogant that they promote their dark vision openly and without shame. They boldly state their plans for remaking the world but their portraits lack depth; they are not drawn in flesh and blood detail. It is time to take them at their word and follow the lines of their intentions to real world consequences.

Immediately upon election to a second term, the Bush team will confront a monumental problem. Plainly stated, there are not enough soldiers to pursue their objectives. They cannot continue to abuse the guard and reserves as they have. They will press for international support but it is a hopeless cause. They will expand the use of mercenary forces but it will not be enough. Mark it: They will find an occasion, real or fabricated, to renew military conscription. It will not be the first time the president has betrayed his word and he will no longer face the judgment of the electorate. To those who remained unconvinced: What in the president’s record suggests that we should believe him on the critical question of the draft? He has practiced a policy of deception on every issue from nation building and the war on terror to prescription drugs and the tenor of his tax cuts.

Mark it, post and save: If the president is reelected, there will be a military draft.

Young Americans, many of whom are woefully unprepared to make such judgments, will be compelled to choose between military service and civil disobedience. The antiwar movement will grow tenfold and the guard and reserves will come home to fight the battle on America’s streets. The machinery created by the Patriot Act will be brought to bear on our own citizens. More divided than ever, America will be at war from within.

Undaunted and eager to secure his legacy, the president will be in search of war. The search will begin where the staff has already been planted: The Middle East. Those of us who have listened carefully have come to realize that when he speaks of terrorist ties in Iraq he is no longer merely summoning Al Qaeda; he is speaking of Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations known for their efforts to free Palestine from Israeli occupation. By redefining the enemy to include such organizations, the war on terrorism will be expanded to engage the entire Arab and Islamic worlds, beginning with Syria, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine. Every nation in the region would be compelled to take sides: Us or them?

In this manner, the misbegotten policies of one president could easily evolve into a war of centuries, a battle of civilizations, and a march of death and destruction that would surpass anything the world has yet known. We cannot know what this president intends but the ends of warfare are often unpredictable and this administration, despite its vaunted brainpower, has displayed a startling lack of foresight.

The Middle East scenario is the most dangerous we will face. At its worst, it is Armageddon. At best, it is a horrifying waste of human life, a waste that would be inconceivable if not for the liquid treasure beneath the sands of Arabia. It is a scenario that engages the second of the president’s infamous Axis of Evil.

The third member of the exclusive club is North Korea, a nuclear threat that has grown seven fold in response to the Bush doctrine of war. Of course, it would be sheer madness to attack a power whose immediate response would bring death to hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Seoul but the Bush doctrinaires have a high tolerance for the deaths of dark skinned foreigners – especially when it supports their vision of unconscionably evil enemies.

It should not go unnoticed that the administration has pushed the development of a new class of tactical nuclear weapons. This alone is evidence that the madness of King George has taken hold and its names are Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle. Given the “bunker busting” bombs we have already demonstrated, it is unlikely that the tactical nuke is for this purpose. It is more likely that they are designed for a preemptive strike that would decimate all nuclear facilities in a target nation before that nation could strike back. While such a strike could be applied to North Korea, it could also apply to Pakistan – especially in the event of another military coup. Since the destruction would be somewhat contained, our leaders could claim humanitarian motives but the nuclear nightmare would be upon us and the world would shudder in horror.

As terrifying as these scenarios may be, we cannot leave the future wars in faraway lands. Latin America has long been the favorite playground of American warlords. When presidential adviser Condoleezza Rice prematurely expressed satisfaction at the news of a coup in Venezuela, she not only signaled American approval but probable American involvement. The admission was particularly revealing because Hugo Chavez was a lawfully elected president. Support for a military takeover exposed the lie of our support for democracy. It is also revealing that Venezuela has the richest oil reserves in the hemisphere.

All of Latin America is suffering under the failed policies of the US dominated World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Electorates have increasingly turned to progressive, anti-American parties. The people have begun to suspect that the WTO-IMF policies have not failed at all. Rather, they have enabled international corporations, America’s partners in global dominance, to take control of their natural resources. Poverty is good business except that it has a tendency to breed discontent. Discontent has a tendency to breed organized opposition and organized opposition has a tendency to be labeled “terrorism.”

America has a rich tradition of intervention in Latin America with only minimal cover. In Chile, 9-11 has a dual meaning: It was also the day the CIA overthrew Salvador Allende and supplanted him with the monstrous dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Throughout the region, the people are well acquainted with American foreign policy. Under prior administrations, the excuse was always the drug war or the Cold War. Now, it is the war on terror.

If the administration engages in Latin America, it will hope to draw Fidel Castro into the conflict. If it succeeds, the administration will achieve the one goal it cherishes even more than the overthrow of Hugo Chavez: Regime change in Cuba.

These are but a handful of the possibilities awaiting a second term of the Bush administration. Potential conflicts are as easy to foresee as geological surveys allow. Wherever oil is in the equation (Nigeria, Somalia), intervention is an excuse away. No longer will such scenarios belong in the realm of screenwriters and novelists. They will no longer be remote and many of them will most assuredly become stark realities.

We cannot afford to test the hypotheses. We cannot afford to gamble the lives of so many soldiers and innocent bystanders. The world cannot afford four more years of a war president in the White House. For though we are shocked by the losses already sustained, they are but minor compared to the profound horror the future may reveal.

The lords of war and avarice will go to the ends of the world to maintain their hold on the reigns of power. If we fail to deny them, we will become the generation that lives forever in infamy and shame. Often has it been foretold but never with more urgency: We hold the future in our hands.

For all the derision heaped upon him in a campaign of partisan politics, Howard Dean was right: As long as we live in a democracy, we have the power. It is time we used it.

On Election Day 2004, the right and privilege of voting carries with it a heavy burden of responsibility. When you close the curtain, you will be alone with your conscience. Let your conscience cast your vote.

Jazz.

THE FINAL ESSAY OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES, VOLUME II: THE WAR CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS 2004), ORIGINAL VERSION PUBLISHED BY THE ALBION MONITOR 2/24/04.

OSAMA SURPRISE

ALIVE & WELL
By Jack Random

The October surprise has finally arrived and the real surprise is that it was delivered by Al Jazeera.

Four days before the election, America’s most despised appears on every television screen in the nation to deliver his pre-election message: He holds American leadership accountable for crimes against the Islamic world with specific reference to Israel, Lebanon, Beirut, and the Palestinian occupation. His issue is with the foreign policy of our nation and his alliance is with Palestine.

Lacking the reluctance to pronounce a clear winner after the massacre in Miami (the first presidential debate), media pundits were quick to declare that the appearance of Osama is a decisive blow to the Kerry campaign. It is of little consequence that the conclusion defies logic and assumes a guttural response of the electorate, rallying without reason to the support of the sitting president. It also assumes the political naivety of Osama.

Is there any compelling reason to believe that Osama prefers one candidate or the other? If we believe that Osama desires Jihad, the president has delivered it with his policies of war and his indifference to the plight of the Palestinians. If we assume that Osama desires survival, why replace the president who has turned his attention elsewhere? If we assume that Osama wanted a massive recruiting drive, what could have been better than Abu Ghraib and the atrocities of Iraq?

As Americans, we owe it to our democracy not to be swayed by the last minute machinations of the enemy.

Would Osama be alive and free if we had pursued him with American Special Forces in Tora Bora? We do not know.

Would Al Qaeda be operative and apparently flourishing if we had stayed the course in our pursuit of the real terrorists? Again, we do not know.

We do know, however, that by every objective measure, this is a failed presidency. It has failed the poor and infirm with blatant neglect. It has failed the middle class with false promises. It has failed even the elite by handing them a weak and unstable economy. It has failed the world with its arrogant isolationism. Most importantly, it has failed our soldiers with an unnecessary war.

Indeed, when all accounts are settled, honest historians will record the anomaly of George W. Bush as one of the worst presidencies in the annals of the Republic.

What will they write of us if we grant him a second term?

Vote your conscience.

Jazz.

WAITING FOR THE FACTS

THE REMARKABLE CONSISTENCY OF MR. BUSH
By Jack Random

“A president has to wait for all the facts before jumping to a conclusion.”
-- GW Bush on the campaign trail, October 2004.

Have we forgotten March 21, 2003, the day of Shock and Awe, so soon? Have we forgotten the pleadings of United Nations inspectors Hans Blix and Mahamed ElBaradei for the Security Council and the Bush administration to wait for the facts before we jump to the conclusion that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction? Have we forgotten that they were right, that the administration was wrong, and that Iraq did not in fact possess weapons of mass destruction?

The president lambastes his opponent for not waiting until after the election to level the charge of executive malfeasance in the loss of mass quantities of conventional explosives. It has been a year and a half since the invasion of Iraq. There is no question but that the administration was officially warned about the Al Qa Qaa facility well in advance of the war. We can assume, then, that the administration has had plenty of time to determine the facts and come to a reasoned conclusion. That they have either not done so or have chosen to bury the facts until after November 2, is all the revelation we require. The administration ought to know where the explosives went yet it appears they do not. The commander-in-chief ought to have gone to great lengths to secure the facility yet clearly did not.

That the president has been less than forthcoming with the American people is nothing new. His entire presidency has been based on the policies of exploitation under the cover of deceptive propaganda, with the all-too-eager cooperation of a corporate media. Questioning the president’s competence in his handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is also nothing new. It has never been a challenge to the courage or competence of our troops on the ground.

When we failed to capture or kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, it was the commander’s call. When we failed to take out Abu Musab Zarqawi in northern Iraq before the war, it was the commander’s decision. Finally, when we opted to guard the Oil Ministry before turning our attention to massive caches of explosives, it is the commander’s responsibility.

These are by no means the central issues of this election.

The president has taken the nation to war based on a package of lies and deceptions that millions of Americans still believe: that Saddam Hussein was connected to Al Qaeda and the attack on this nation; and that Iraq possessed massive stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. From all accounts, we know that the deception was planned and deliberate.

As a result, over 1,100 American soldiers and 100,000 Iraqis are dead.

On the central questions, the facts are in and they allow only one conclusion: The reign of George W. Bush must end.

Jazz.

THE CURSE IS LIFTED

A DAY WITHOUT POLITICS

For one glorious day, there is no politics. The Boston Red Sox have lifted the curse of the great Bambino. For the first time in eighty-six years, the little guys have risen to the top of the heap, the working stiffs have grabbed the glory, the sun has set on the eastern skyline and the world is somehow a better place.

Since the end of the First World War, when Woodrow Wilson was president and Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms, never has there been a more hopeless cause than that of the lowly Red Sox. Never has there been a more poignant display of the unbeatable human spirit than that of the Red Sox fan and their annual fall epitaph, “Wait ‘til next year.”

All hail the Boston Red Sox: A lone Indian and eight cowboys on the field of dreams that never die.

All hail the Red Sox nation. You have given every underdog, every lonesome sailor, every soul who has loved and lost, every forlorn soldier, every unemployed factory worker, every down-on-his-luck gambler, and every down-to-his-last-buck stranger fresh new hope for a better day.

Our sincere condolences to the Saint Louis Cardinals: You played the game honorably and well, but this one belongs to the kids from Fenway.

Here’s to the Babe and all the players who toiled beneath his enormous shadow. Here’s to the end of the curse.

Next year may it be the hapless Cubbies and the year after my beloved Giants.

Jazz.

CRIMES AGAINST DEMOCRACY

DISENFRANCHISEMENT, FRAUD & THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
By Jack Random

Ann Coulter, the blonde bombshell of rightwing ideologues, famously accused liberal Democrats of treason for not adhering to her narrowly defined vision of America’s role in the world. Where does Ann Coulter stand on the stealing of a presidential election? Where does she stand on disenfranchisement, voter fraud and intimidation? Indeed, where does Ann stand on the issue of democracy in America?

Seven days before the election, horror stories of electoral fraud have become a daily revelation, surpassed only by the daily accounts of horrors in Iraq. An election official in Ohio decides to enforce an obscure law requiring registration forms to be submitted on paper of a specified weight. Voters improperly disenfranchised in Florida 2000 have still not had their voting rights restored by a foot-dragging Governor Jeb Bush. Early voting offered in some states is unavailable in districts with a high proportion of black voters. Thugs disguised as law enforcement officers patrol polling places to discourage certain types of voters. In Nevada, officials destroy the application forms of newly registered Democrats.

The perpetrators of these despicable acts are guilty of crimes against democracy yet it is unlikely that any will face the consequence of a well-earned prison sentence. We proclaim ourselves the world’s champion of democracy yet we regard the blatant and willful betrayal of democracy at home as harmless shenanigans. Is it any wonder the world regards us as both hypocritical and arrogant?

If you believe in democracy as I do, with the unbridled passion of Jefferson, Franklin and Paine, then her deliberate betrayal, regardless of party loyalty, is comparable to providing state secrets to a sworn enemy. That such acts are not only tolerated but often glorified (as was the case with former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris) is symptomatic of a dangerous and profound sickness in American politics.

The solution to the problem of rampant election fraud is simple: Put the offenders in jail. Let Martha Stewart go free and Katherine Harris discover the virtues of a federal penitentiary. Let a hundred or a thousand petty drug abusers walk out and let those who destroyed registration forms in Nevada walk in through the iron gates of restitution.

The truth is that neither of the major parties is committed to the virtues of democracy. The Republicans are fond of pointing out that we are not literally a democracy (odd that we should want to bestow on other nations a system we do not employ), neglecting to note that a republic is nothing more nor less than a representative democracy. For their part, the Democrats failed to stand up for democracy in Florida 2000 by refusing to demand a full recount (as required by Florida law) and by refusing to even raise the question of disenfranchisement in deference to expediency. The Democrats lost the White House by their betrayal of democracy.

The fact is: A nation that still embraces the absurdly archaic and blatantly anti-democratic system of the Electoral College can never claim to be democracy’s champion.

The believers in democracy are rightfully appalled by the disenfranchisement of any citizen, yet the Electoral College effectively disenfranchises the vast majority of Americans in every presidential election. New Yorkers and Californians are disenfranchised. Since the Great Society of Lyndon Johnson, the entire south outside of Florida is essentially disenfranchised. A voter from Alabama, Wyoming, Washington or Texas can vote for the Virgin Mary with a clear conscience, assured that it will have no impact. The only votes that matter in a modern presidential election are those in a handful of battleground states.

If this is democratic, then Ann Coulter is a compassionate conservative and GW Bush is a competent chief executive.

That the Electoral College is anti-democratic is so obvious and clear it needs no further elaboration. The 2000 election was the third occasion where a president was selected with fewer votes than his primary opponent. No other democracy in the world would accept such a record of failure.

The proposition is simple: If we believe in democracy then we can no longer support a system that tolerates, sanctions and embraces crimes against democracy.

It is long past time to abandon a system that elevates the abstraction of a state over the simple and fundamental premise of democracy: One person, one vote.

Jazz.

THE NADER QUESTION

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.

A RESPONSE TO A LETTER FROM MINNESOTA
By Jack Random

As a voice for independence from political parties and an advocate for third parties as a means to that end, it was an agonizing decision to dedicate whatever small measure of influence I could muster toward replacing George W. Bush with the Democrat John Kerry. It would perhaps have been less agonizing had the Democrats found the courage to nominate a candidate with a strong antiwar position, but I have grown accustomed to disappointment in both sides of the mainstream political aisle.

The unwavering gravitation of the Democrats to the muddled middle ground has forced the Republicans to the far right so that the progressive left is no longer represented in what passes for fair and balanced political discourse.

To those who would question Nader’s integrity, sanity or character, save your breath. Do not give the words you will have to swallow in the next campaign. Nader is right: The politics of pragmatism is the foremost enemy in the battle for independence.

On the other hand, when Ralph Nader decries such luminaries as Studs Terkel and Howard Zinn as “liberal intelligentsia” and laments that they have lost their nerve, he is no longer fighting the good fight. He is no longer fearlessly striking out at the powers of corporate corruption. He is attacking the heart and soul of the progressive movement. He is further alienating those who were honestly torn by this critical dilemma.

It is one thing to disagree on the relative harm of GW Bush; it is another to accuse those who have arrived at a contrasting view of spinelessness.

On substance, Ralph Nader is right on every major issue and most especially on the matter of extracting ourselves from the disaster in Iraq, but he is wrong when he suggests that we have not pushed Kerry toward a more progressive stance, most especially on the war. That we have not done so in the name of Ralph Nader does not render our efforts meaningless. In fact, I believe we have had some effect.

I would also note that my perception of the role of a third party movement differs from Nader’s in one important respect. He appears to believe that the goal is to apply pressure to the lesser of two evils (i.e., the Democrats). This is also the politics of pragmatism. I believe that the only goal worth pursuing is the defeat of the two-party system.

The real question at this time and place in history is this: Who has done more to forward the cause of independence in this election: Ralph Nader, standing strong on principle and sacrificing much of the dedicated support he once enjoyed, or those of us who have compromised by acknowledging that there are times when our own cause must yield to a greater cause – in this case, the cause of peace?

It is not an easy question. It is a question that each and every one of us should ask and answer conscientiously. It is a question that has the power to divide. Bear in mind that we have not asked the gay and lesbian community to stand down because the issue of gay marriage can only feed the religious right and therefore help George Bush. We have not asked abortion rights to take a holiday. In fact, we have not asked any group or individual to sacrifice their cause for political expedience, nor should we, except for the candidacy of Ralph Nader.

I will never side with those who claim that Nader betrayed the cause or the greater good. It is rarely that simple and the electoral dilemma of this election is no exception. When all is said, Ralph Nader’s legacy will place him alongside Martin Luther King and Cesar Chavez as a champion of the common people. His virtue has always been that he never regarded the working people as somehow inferior or less deserving of American justice and prosperity as the members of the elite.

In the waning days of this campaign, let there be peace within the progressive ranks. Let there be no more recriminations between Nader and those who stand with him on all matters but one. Let us look beyond Election Day and recognize that our cause and movement begins anew on November 3.

We stand together against the war, against corporate corruption and against the inherently corrupt two-party system. We stand for the rights of workers both here and abroad. We stand for living wages. We stand for civil liberties. We stand for universal health care. We stand for real equality and a woman’s right to choose. We stand for reparations for the American Indian and all oppressed minority communities. We stand for debt forgiveness of third world nations and an end to the global dominance schemes of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. We stand for the right of all the world’s inhabitants to be free of industrial contamination. We stand with the world against the war machine.

Let us not forget that when we supported Ralph Nader in the year 2000, we also supported Winona LaDuke. We stand with LaDuke today.

Jazz.

ZARQAWI: MYTH OR SUPERMAN?

THE OCTOBER SURPISE?
By Jack Random

We have heard the name Abu Musab Zarqawi all too often in recent weeks. We have heard it in connection with suicide bombings, beheadings and, just today, with the massacre of some 48 new Iraqi Army recruits near the Iranian border. In a recent New Jersey appearance, the president expounded on the subject in a manner reminiscent of his Saddam tirades. It seemed an odd choice for the president since Zarqawi was one the keynotes of Colin Powell’s now notoriously discredited United Nations presentation to justify the war in Iraq.

As I wrote at the time: “Of all the half truths and misleading statements uttered by our Secretary of State, the most insidious was the assertion that an Al Qaeda training camp was operative in northern Iraq. The question immediately arose: If we knew of an active Al Qaeda camp in Iraq, in a region controlled by the Kurds under American and British protection, why then had we not eliminated it? The obvious answer is that it was more important to fabricate an Iraqi Gulf of Tonkin (the lie that committed us to the Vietnam War) than to eliminate a direct terrorist threat.” (Jazzman Chronicles, Volume II: The War Chronicles, Crow Dog Press 2004)

Although the claim that it was an Al Qaeda camp was pointedly false, the president’s audience should be curious to learn that the Pentagon drew up plans to wipe out the Ansar al-Islam camp and the mastermind Zarqawi on no less than three separate occasions (June 2002, October 2002, January 2003). On each occasion, the White House refused to grant approval. Why? The only reason given was offered in a report by NBC on March 2, 2004: “the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.”

So why are we hearing so much about Zarqawi now? Is he in fact the be-all and end-all of the Iraqi resistance? Not according to Iraqi-born terrorism expert Mustafa Alani: “Everybody blames Zarqawi but I think it’s a series of assumptions. It’s of great publicity value to say he is trying to stir a civil war. With all the attacks they blame him for, he’s either superman or a myth.” (LA Times, March 7, 2004)

The question remains: Why? The administration is clearly promoting Zarqawi as the new face of our enemy. He is in the process of supplanting Saddam Hussein just as Saddam supplanted Osama bin Laden. Why?

Could it be that the administration’s plans for capturing the illusive Osama before Election Day have run into a few unexpected obstacles? Could it be that General Musharef of Pakistan is not in position to deliver the goods? Is the White House feeling the need for an alternative October surprise?

If so, so be it.

Let us then be prepared to tell the sordid tale of Abu Musab Zarqawi. It is the story of a terrorist who owes his life to the politics of Karl Rove and the overriding need of the White House to justify an unlawful, immoral and unjustifiable war.

Let us ask the hard question: If what the administration claims is true – that Zarqawi is responsible for countless suicide bombings, beheadings and massacres – then how many lives were lost because the president needed to protect his blatantly fictitious rationale for war?

If this is, in fact, what the administration intends, frankly, we expected better. Frankly, we expected a manacled Osama to be paraded down the aisle at the Republican National Convention, bent to his knees center stage, and forced to recite “God Bless America” with an electric prod to his private parts. Frankly, knowing the extremes to which operatives will resort in times of desperation, we expected that which must not be mentioned.

As Ali said to Frazier in the Thrilla from Manila: “Is that all you’ve got?”

Jazz.