A BLACK HILLS FOOTNOTE

Hey Jack Random,

Reading your post "The Wounds from Wounded Knee" (http://www.counterpunch.org/random02262005.html), I thought you might like to know a small footnote in the Paha Sapa/Black Hills story. Once upon a university...

Back in 1988-89 i was t.a.-ing a big intro. anthropology class at Tufts (near Boston), and the department received a letter out of the blue. Eventually they handed it to me: introducing Phil Stevens, nuclear engineer and Indian Chief, ready to make a presentation on the pending Bradley Bill (U.S. Senate) and the Black Hills mineral rights. No fee, and he would pay for his own plane fare and room at the Marriott. Interested?

At the same time it happened that I was advising an undergrad anthro. student at Harvard: Judy Rabinowitz, daughter of a progressive judge and with Native American heritage herself. Judy, check out this letter, who is this guy in the fancy dance outfit? She sent me to the Harvard American Indian Law Students Association, in the person of Steve Emery. Steve said, yeah we know the guy, he's a shill trying to sell out the sacred lands, but go ahead and invite him, then say there will also be a student presentation, and our group will invite a speaker from the other side, Mr. Gerald Clifford of the Oglala-Lakhota Black Hills Steering Committee. But hey, it's gonna cost something to fly Gerald here, how can we raise the money? I suggested a benefit concert, and Steve said he could sing and play Hokha Wichasha (Lakhota music), let's try. So we rented a church hall in Harvard Square for 80 bucks and I postered all around, advertising Steve paired with Nurudafina, a good friend of mine who plays and teaches Afrocuban rumba in the Boston area. Sliding scale. About 10 paying customers showed up, and we ended the evening dancing in a circle with Gerald. (I have a tape, and man, Steve can sing, and talk too.) When everyone left, the hat contained about 80 bucks; I gave the whole thing to Steve (and defaulted on the church--they didn't fuss too much). Steve suggested we should keep a video record of the forum the next day, and one of the non-paying customers promised to bring a video camera. I borrowed another handycam from a classmate just in case.

Three nights later at Tufts, the department had reserved the main hall in the diplomacy school, and when our team arrived, there in the front row sat Dr. Jean Mayer (college president, Republican, now late) and some "cigar store" stereotype in red makeup and the full Hollywood regalia. I introduced Stevens to the audience (mostly comprising the students in that intro. class), then announced a cultural presentation before the Chief's special talk and slide show.

Steve took the stage with a big drum in hand.

"Before we begin, everyone stand for the Lakhota National Anthem..."

Wow, with the first notes everybody's hair was already on end.

He followed right up with a welcome song to Gerald, but before handing over the stage, said he had a short folk story: about the Duck People. One day, the Fox came by and told them he had a new drum to play, but in order to dance to it you have to close your eyes. So they did, but as each dancing Duck Person passed the Fox, he'd grab it by the neck and stuff it into his gunny sack. Then the next one and the next one until... as Steve illustrated Fox's actions, each time he'd swing his big right arm a little closer to Stevens' delicately coiffed head. ...until a little Baby Duck disobeyed the rules and opened up his eyes. Hey everyone, the Fox is killing all of us! So they chased the fox away. Don't dance with your eyes closed.

Then Gerald Clifford gave a basic intro to law and politics on the res, and described how Stevens was not the first outsider to tell different stories depending on who was listening, or to throw around lots of cash to rig the votes and sell off resources like uranium.

Lastly Stevens got up, his voice not so firm as before, and ran through a slick slide show: self-promotion, Stars & Stripes, nukes for energy independence from those Arab Sheikhs, blah blah blah, but his heart wasn't in it for sure.

With the last slide, questions please? The hall erupted in recriminations, accusations, and order rapidly broke down, class dismissed. One student (fellow Italo-American, sad to say) stands up and calls me a damn commie. I reply that at least I'm no Bluecoat like Stevens. Mayer hustles Stevens out of the room. The End (almost). Not bad educational value for one evening, total cost 80 bucks, not a dime from the university. Some nice term papers came out of it too, if I remember.

Epilogue: theory meets praxis. One of the two videos (not mine) came out pretty good and Steve arranged for it to be seen in Rosebud and elsewhere back home. Stevens' cover is thereby blown and his anti-Bradley operation fades away. Probably more to that part of the story, but anyway there was feedback/blowback/other unintended consequences from the p.r. job. Not that anyone had been dancing with their eyes closed...

Next spring, Steve Emery graduated and drove his van back west. I heard from him indirectly once or twice before disappearing into my dissertation (on Southern Nigerian languages). Years later while browsing in a 1960's photo book about Lakhota culture, Steve's Picture jumps off the page: a skinny teenager, caption: "well known, up and coming singer" or words to that effect. No kidding.

Just a small footnote in a very long story.

Best regards,

Victor Manfredi

United Native America on Ward Churchill

United Native America
02, 27, 05
American Indian Professor Ward Churchill
On to Wisconsin UV Whitewater

Mike Graham founder of United Native America, attended professor Ward Churchill's speaking event at the University of Hawaii on February 22, 2005. His group was invited by faculty members sponsoring Ward Churchill.

The Honolulu Star Bulletin newspaper stated in their report that Professor Ward Churchill said he was not Native American, this was a misquote of what Churchill actually said. Graham having a front row seat at the Churchill event states what Churchill did say, Churchill said I'm not Native American "I'm Indian. "

A retraction is being issued from the Star Bulletin newspaper concerning their misquote of Ward Churchill. United Native America is outraged over the way some national media people are reporting on the Churchill issue. Ann Coulter a talking head reporter for the Republican Party and Bill O'Reilly are attacking the American Indian community in their zealous attempt to have Churchill fired.

Ann Coulter press release "The Little Injun That Could" stated that "Churchill should pack up his teepee and hit the trail of tears." Ann Coulter's statement clearly dehumanizes the loss of lives of over five thousand Indian men, women and children! The trail of tears is just one of many hundreds of  9-11's Indians had to endure because of U.S.  Policy's against their race.

Ann Coulter in her report "Not Crazy Horse Just Crazy" attacked Ward Churchill over his comments of comparing Indian reservations to the equivalent of Nazi concentration camps. Ann Coulter fired back at him by stating "I forgot Auschwitz had a casino." This statement by Ann Coulter goes to the heart of the Republican party's stand against Indians economic well being. Republican party members across our country use every tactic at their disposal to hinder or stop legislation that would bring economic relief to the Indian community. Ann Coulter is obviously uneducated and oblivious to true documented history of Indians in America.

Bill O'Reilly attacks Ward Churchill by trying to link Indian nations with casino's to Wisconsin's Democrat Governor Jim Doyle for his silence on the issue of  professor Ward Churchill. Bill O'Reilly had former republican Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum on his fox News TV show this past week trying to connect the dots that Indian casino money played a major role in electing Jim Doyle as state governor. Former governor Scott McCullum told Bill O'Reilly that he was also offered money from state Indian tribes as was Jim Doyle, the tribes money was offered at the end of the election and really played no part in who won the governor's race.

Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and the republican party need to get off the Indians back! Bill O'Reilly's infamous words are, "the buck stops here, the no spin zone" It's obvious that O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and the republican party are very worried about how many bucks Indian's are making today and how their spending their money. Their riding across America acting like Custer, warning the American people that the Indian's are coming. Their heads are spinning faster than Linda Blaire in the Exorcist.

It's true American history that Indians endured a for real holocaust over U.S. policy against them. Indians in America today stand united with all Americans in defending their true homeland against foreign and domestic enemies. The manor in how America came about as we know it today concerning Indians should never happen again in mans history. Today all Americans are in the same boat in defending our country. 

Ann Coulter web page:
http://www.anncoulter.org/cgi-local/archives.cgi

United Native America web site:
http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/main.html

Mike L. Graham, member Oklahoma Cherokee Nation
Founder United Native America
www.UnitedNativeAmerica.com

Re: Wounded Knee

Sir,
I read with interest your article posted in Counterpunch, as well as your exchange with Mr. Brook. Mr. Brook sounds a little like the type of person who sits in the audience of a daytime TV talk show and becomes foam-at-the-mouth angry at whatever topic is under discussion.
This is our land. Period. Far as I know there's no statute of limitations on genocide. Like you, I wonder when a crime is no longer a crime. I sometimes make the analogy of a car thief giving a stolen car to his son. Does that make it no longer stolen ? Should the victim then cease legal address because the original malefactor is no longer in posession of the stolen property ?
I entertain no serious belief that the non-Indians are gonna pack their bags and head back to Europe-Asia-wherever, but I certainly do support our people in their struggles everywhere. I take so much pride in my race that I refuse to cite statistics of victimhood, it makes me feel helpless.
With that said, I resent people making " Get over it" statements. Mr. Brook has no sympathy for my people, that's fine. I haven't asked for it and don't expect it. But it's very annoying to hear the horrors of colonialism reduced to "Get over it".
Regards,
Joe Osorio
Quechan
Oakland

[Editor's Note: The CounterPunch article was posted 2/26/05; the exchange with Mr. Brook is posted below.]

RE: THE WOUNDS OF WOUNDED KNEE

A FRANK INTERCHANGE: GREG BROOK VS. JACK RANDOM

[Editor’s Note: A reader’s response to the commentary “The Wounds of Wounded Knee” posted on CounterPunch 2/26/05 triggered the following interchange.]

GREG BROOK 2/26/05 at 10:16 am:

Subject: Wake up

Your essay about Wounded Knee was another example of self-imposed guilt that no rational person would take part in. What's done is done. Native Americans do not have any sort of "birth right" to the Americas simply because their ancestors lived there, just like you don't have any sort of birth right to Europe or wherever your ancestors were from. The land belongs to the people who were born to it. People have been living on American soil for generations and had nothing to do with its stealing. Telling them that it is isn't really their land is like telling the Palestinians that none of Palestine is really their land because it used to belong to the Jews about 2,000 years ago, or telling all of the Hispanic Cubans to get lost because [they’re] on conquered land, or the Mexican Hispanics or any other of a hundred displaced and reconquered peoples/terroritories. Native Americans aren't still stewing over Wounded Knee, so speak for yourself and stop pretending like you speak for them, because no one is owed an apology for something that wasn't done to them, wasn't done by anyone living today, and to state the opposite is pure arrogance. Grow up.

RANDOM RESPONSE 2/26/05 at 12:05 pm:

In all sincerity, the quickest way to short circuit reasoned discourse is to punctuate your argument with personal insult. You are clearly a rationale person with a distinct point of view so please take it as a constructive criticism: Your case would be more persuasive without the last two words.

That said, I would offer the following points of contention:

> However I might feel personally, I do realize that giving the nation back to the Indians is not on the table. Does it follow that the indigenous peoples have forfeited equal justice under the law? Given the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty, that is precisely what is at stake in the land of the Lakota. Moreover, the mismanagement of BIA funds is the finding of a court of law, the resolution of which is pending the government's refusal to comply with a court order.

> There is a world of difference between ancestors who left the land of their birth and those who were dispossessed.

> You must have miswrote when you stated: "The land belongs to the people who were born to it." As Crazy Horse said, "My land is where my people lay buried." I couldn't agree more.

> I'm not asking for guilt, only for justice and the nation's misdeeds (genocide) are a part of the equation.

> Where do you draw the line of accountability? A hundred years? Fifty years? Twenty years? It seems an arbitrary delineation.

> Are you sure about your history? Were not the Palestinians there as well?

> Did I give the impression that I was speaking for anyone but myself? I am not.

> Apologies are neither called for nor particularly important: It is a matter of justice.

> Arrogance? I'm afraid I don't see it.

I do wish to thank you for taking the time to to set down your thoughts and forward them. Despite our disagreement, I appreciate the interchange.

Peace,
Random

P.S. With your permission, I may wish to post this exchange on my site.

GREG BROOK 2/26/05 at 1:01 pm:

"There is a world of difference between ancestors who left the land of their birth and those who were dispossessed."

Right, and that's unfortunate, however you seem to be missing the word of critical importance here: ANCESTORS. It doesn't matter where your ANCESTORS were displaced from, since that has no bearing on who you are or where you grew up. My ancestors were forced to flee Ireland because of British oppression and apathy towards the potato famine, which is arguably equal to being dispossessed, yet I don't rant on about how the British owe me reparations, nor has the Irish government ever done the same, nor do I hold some insane belief that I own a little crop of land in some corner of Ireland.

You must have miswrote when you stated: "The land belongs to the people who were born to it." As Crazy Horse said, "My land is where my people lay buried." I couldn't agree more."

Our ancestors are buried in Africa from generally 10 - 20 thousand years ago, does that give us a right to African land. Tell me, when was the last time you brushed up on your Zulu? No one has a right to claim that because their ancestors are buried in a certain land that it is theirs. You offer no reasonable argument, you simply say it is.

"I'm not asking for guilt, only for justice and the nation's misdeeds (genocide) are a part of the equation."

I take it you are one of the cult followers of the belief that the Native American people were purposely "massacred". Indeed, there were many massacres. However, if you truly believe that 15 million (Yes the actual number of Native Americans living in North America was 15 million not 10 million, you should conduct better research) Native Americans were exterminated by lethal force, then you must not have gone to college. Disease wiped them out. Yes, their land was robbed, congratulations on knowing something so fundamental about American history that it would qualify you for a second grader's student of the month award (indeed the other 99% of America is ignorant of this because they teach us in school that Native Americans left on a flying saucer). The only argument you can put up that they were "genocided" as it were, is the [fictitious] rant forwarded by Ward Churchill about American soldiers purposely giving infected blankets to Native Americans, which has been discounted by credited sources across the academic board.

"Where do you draw the line of accountability? A hundred years? Fifty years? Twenty years? It seems an arbitrary delineation."

I found this question particularly odd. Aren't you supposed to be the one who answers this? What is your proposal? That every civilization [in] history suddenly be held to account for the mistakes of its ancestors? That Italy step up for the misdeeds of the Roman Empire? That Turkey step up for the Hittites? How about Mongolia [paying] reparations for Ghengis Khan's rampages? Japan for Korean and Chinese colonization? England for half the planet? While we're at it, let's loot the Vatican's banks because those sons-of-bitches launched the crusades and set up the Inquisition.

To answer your question though, in order to be rational, you HAVE to draw the line somewhere, and I personally say 80 years seems an appropriate time. I don't care how arbitrary that number is, you HAVE to set some number or you can't just start randomly deciding who deserves this and who deserves that. I personally supported reparations to the Japanese-Americans wrongfully interred in camps during WWII because when they were paid many of them were still alive and their children certainly were (and of course that was a monetary transaction and they weren't asking for half the West Coast).

"Are you sure about your history? Were not the Palestinians there as well?"

Yes, there were no Palestinians. Everyone living in Israel was either a Pagan Roman or a Jewish Israelite. In 33 AD the Jews were finally massacred and the temple destroyed, and in the years afterward Semitic Animists began to drift in in nomadic tribes until the coming of Islam centuries later. So yes, the Jews were there first.

RANDOM RESPONSE 2/26/05 at 2:23 pm:

There is a concept in rhetoric known as bird walking. Your argument runs all over the map and each step takes you further from the point.

What is your point? That Native Americans do not deserve reparations but interned Japanese Americans and Holocaust victims do? That indigenous peoples do not deserve equal justice under the law because the original crimes predate an arbitrary line of delineation? How about the crimes of the last eighty years? That Native American genocide was an accidental manifestation of European destiny (and not official US policy for some forty years: "Nits make fleas.") and therefore all crimes must be deleted from the national conscience?

No mention of John Graham, Leonard Peltier, [the Fort Laramie Treaty], BIA mismanagement (very deliberate), or Wounded Knee? Apparently, your pool of knowledge is limited after all. By the way, even a second grade teacher knows that early estimates of native populations vary widely. My source is Native American History (Ballantine Books 1996) by that famous radical Judith Nies. What's yours?

As a conservative once said to me, "You have acquitted yourself well." I say the same to you. You rant with the best of them.

Meantime, permission to post your comments? Yes? No?

Peace,
Random

GREG BROOK 2/26/05 at 3:25 pm:

Post away, since you didn't actually answer any of my points. Regarding the mismanagement of Native American funds, I have no interest in that and if it is true then yes, they deserve reparations, but only for that, because that has happened recently in history according to you, and is still happening. Perhaps you should answer my question if you want to continue pretending that you are the one who isn't drawing an arbitrary line in the middle of history: how far back is too far? When do we stop going back into history trying to "make right" the wrongs of the past? If you're going back a full two and a half to four centuries, then should we also set right all of the other wrongs committed by all the peoples all across the world in that time span? Should we go even further? Should the Church take financial responsibility for the crusades? Should all of the countries of North/South America pay reparations to their respective Indigenous populations, and Australia? Should all of the whites be forced to leave Africa? Where do you personally draw the line, because you have obviously drawn it somewhere, and why?

RANDOM'S LAST COMMENT: Justice has no bounds. Estimates of BIA mismanagement include 5.8 billion in uncollected funds from oil and gas extraction since 1979. The BIA admits 1.97 billion in “unreconciled transactions.” Meantime, free Leonard Peltier, give the Black Hills back to the Lakota and we’ll call it a good beginning. Let the reader decide.

JAKE'S DOCTOR

Capital
(Went to See the Doctor)

$150
the price of admission
to see the good Dr. R
just on the other side
of that thin wall

I had $80 in my pocket
to cover the day's half-hour

but, No, she said
we need the 150,
that's the deductible

I said, I'll pay it off
a little at a time
say, $25 a month
you can add a finance charge

"I'll have to ask 'Her,'" she said
and she walked away behind a wall
where the omniscient 'Her'
could not be seen or heard

She came back with "No."
so 'Her' had declared
(though I never heard a word)
it was 150 today, right now,
or I'd not see the doctor

That impenetrable wall
That thin thread of hope

I offered every penny
in my bank account
all $120 of it

No, again, said Invisible 'Her'
and that was the end of it

I guess without cash up front
you might as well be dead

Oh, that'll cost you, too
The undertaker said


Jake Berry 2.25.05

FEAR & LOATHING IN CRAWFORD, TEXAS

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

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

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

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

GONZO IS DEAD, LONG LIVE GONZO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was an election in Vietnam: remember when?

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

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

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

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

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

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

East Timor and the avian flu, dead and dying!

Earthquake-tsunami, dead and dying!

Ramadi, Mosul, dead and dying!

Starvation, hunger, dead and dying!

Pharmaceutical killers, dead and dying!

Peace and freedom, dead and dying!

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

The Gonzo is dead! Long live the Gonzo!

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

We loved your fearless loathing.

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

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

May you rest in peace.

Jazz.

ELEGY FOR HUNTER S. THOMPSON

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

- Chris Mansel

SEE http://themanselreport.blogspot.com/

STALEMATE

The Ramblings of ANNA PAGES 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anna Pages

INFANT NATION & INFANT PEOPLE

In Response to the essay: Infant Nation
By Thomas Miller


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

The House at Heart by Jake Berry

for Bridget, Valentine’s Day 2005

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

The house we build inside this one

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

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

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



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


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

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

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

Jake Berry 2.14.05

HUNKA LOWANPI: PLANTING THE STAFF

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

Dedicated to Ward Churchill
On the Occasion of His Recent Trials


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am hungry,” said Red Tail.

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

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

Billy stepped forward, placing the robe around his shoulders.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You wanted to see me?” asked Jerico.

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

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

“It follows me,” said Jerico.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Use it wisely,” the old one said.

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


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

NEPAL & DEMOCRACY

THE MANSEL REPORT
By Chris Mansel

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

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

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

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

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

Mansel Report: Let Freedom Cling

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

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

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


How much has changed?


- Chris Mansel

RE: Jack Random's Lines in The Sand

WATCHING THE EDIFICE CRUMBLE
By Jake Berry


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

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

THE MANSEL REPORT 1.29.05

By Chris Mansel

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

(for Betty Jo Tucker)

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

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

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

- Chris Mansel

THE PRAYER BIRDS by Jake Berry

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

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

Jake Berry 1.29.05

THOUGHTS ON THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS

THE IMPUGNITY OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE
By Anna Pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GOD BLESS THE WORLD, MR. PRESIDENT.

Apology to the World from a Lone American

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

wz 1 20 05 5 53pm

THE INTEGRITY OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE

WELCOME TO CASA BLANCA
By Jack Random


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jazz.

FOR MORE JACK RANDOM COMMENTARIES, SEE BUZZLE.COM.