DRONES OVER MALTA?

BY JOSEPH CACHIA

[Editor's Note: A passionate voice and guest writer from Malta.]


“Whatever one thinks of the justifiability of drone attacks, it's one of the least 'brave' or courageous modes of warfare ever invented. It's one thing to call it just, but to pretend it's 'brave' is Orwellian in the extreme.”

Glenn Greenwald


The Italian government has quietly began allowing armed American drones to fly out from its soil at the Sigonella station (a NATO and U.S. naval air base) near Catania in Sicily, Italy for military operations against (allegedly) the Islamic State in Libya and across North Africa. This is a breakthrough for Washington, as after more than a year of negotiations, Italy backed down and surrendered. Although the American media, through a political message, is trying to minimise this abuse by calling it 'defensive', it is not difficult to note the falsity and hypocrisy of such pretensions, as U.S. officials are constantly pushing for drones destined for offensive operations, while reports say that the Pentagon is attempting to persuade the Italians to allow the drones to be used for offensive operations, too. The 'Al-Arabiya', Middle East newspaper, reported that neither Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's office nor U.S. defence officials responded to requests for comment.

So, while European officials have remained reticent to intervene more fully in this highly factionalised and destabilized country, Italy has become a base for armed U.S. drone operations in Libya. And this time without any United Nations sanctions!

So now we have arrived at the Age of Drone Wars, the latest technological warfare, as the weapon of choice of most advanced countries – and right on our doorstep.

Although we are more than concerned and worried about our Italian neighbours, we don't want to meddle in their internal affairs. If Italian Prime Minister Renzi is in any way risking or endangering the safety of his people, through any possible retaliatory terrorist actions on his country, is surely the affair of Italians and none of our business. This rests solely on the concern, judgment and reaction of his own countrymen. Hopefully, we wouldn't have to cancel any plans we might have had for a pleasant night out in Rome!

However, as our country lies in direct line between these warring countries (Italy and Libya) any implications and repercussions through this situation may eventually concern and immerse Malta in serious trouble. We do not feel confident in asking anything of Renzi, though it would not be amiss to know if any considerations in any part of the negotiations had been given, before taking this dangerous step, of any possible or probable spin-off to be borne and suffered by other neighbouring countries.

But notwithstanding all considerations, we feel it incumbent to indulge in striving hard to know what OUR government perceives and acknowledges of this situation. We could not wait to get any internal official information, which after all should have even been divulged to the public before our knowledge from foreign sources. Are there any possible implications for Malta? And if so, how grave could these be?

And so, while we are stupidly bickering on whose swimming pool is the largest, we have, most probably, agents of death flying over our heads while we are peacefully (?) slumbering our lives away! If our population is dormant, could we, at least, dutifully be informed of such more serious and worrying matters?

Unfortunately and very often, this stunning silence by our government on matters of grave national concern is divorcing our civil community from its elected administrators.

In this specific case, we feel that it is our duty to ask responsible authorities to enlighten us of our situation and of any eventualities. The Minister of Home Affairs and National Security and the Minister for Foreign Affairs are explicitly obliged to furnish the public with all relevant available information and not shoulder further additional responsibility for the needless secrecy of any data and any defensive and protection measures.

The most pertinent questions would include, among others, the following:

Was our government involved, in any, way, in the decision taken by the Italian government, considering the friendliness and goodwill existing between our two countries?

Is our air space being violated through the trajectories of these drones? Or was previous permission requested and granted?

Does our government know how many of these drones are going through our airspace? And if so, is our government cognizant of this fact?

Is Italy offering any insurance cover in the case of any mishaps?

How conversant and observant is our government of the legislation governing 'airspace in an age of drones'?

Why do I get the feeling that there's about to be a sharp increase in reported attacks on special forces engaged in anti-ISIS missions?

Brussels attack hits all of Europe, EU leaders say, in which case, blunders committed b y any one member puts all in danger of reprisals. As Albert Einstein had predicted “ It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Most probably, the majority of the Maltese population hardly knows what's going on and much less the reason and technicalities of these ongoings. Still, we have a right to know what our government knows! Telling us that 'there is nothing to worry about', surely is not enough to put our minds at rest!


“Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate.”

Alvin Toffler

MALTA SOCIALIST PARTY / March, 2016
P.O. Box 1 / Cospicua

A REVIEW: MYSTERY SONGS BY JAKE BERRY

MYSTERY SONGS BY JAKE BERRY


The first thing that comes to mind upon listening to Mystery Songs is the profound underlying presence of spirits in the house of poetry. There be ghosts here and shadows rising from the earth, inhabiting the air and swimming in the water, haunting the blood and the bloodline of all sentient beings. There is sentiment and memories and depth of feeling beyond the reach of mere mortals.

So many of these spirits are women with the strength to endure and thrive and rise like blooming flowers. We feel the decay, the heartfelt mourning, the long decline before the rising. Let your ghosts shine through. Let the water be your blood. The land, the Jimson Hollow, is who you are. You cannot escape. You can only drink and find the poet within your soul. After a while you begin to glimpse the truth, the longing and the love.

Master poet Jake Berry has been working his chops, polishing his licks and it shows on this new solo work. I love the down home feel and naked emotion of this work. I believe it is a work of love, a tribute to the female seed of his soul, to the loves of his life, no doubt his mother, his grandmother and the woman who stands by his side through the ages, his loving wife.

Mystery Songs can never be solved but they give me hope that we can survive and thrive and grow despite the darkest days and the most haunting nights.

Thank you, once again, Mr. Berry, for yet another masterwork.


Jack Random

DONALD J. TRUMP: MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN!

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.






POLITICS OF THE WALL

Make America White Again!

By Jack Random



Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
There's one in the spotlight, he don't look right to me
Get him up against the wall!
That one looks Jewish!
And that one's a coon!
Who let all of this riff-raff into the room?
There's one smoking a joint
And another with spots!
If I had my way,
I'd have all of you shot!

Roger Waters
Pink Floyd’s The Wall



The Donald Trump campaign has made it impossible to ignore the Nazi analogy. His rallies summon memories of the fascist movement in 1930’s Germany. He demands that his followers raise their right hands to take a pledge of loyalty, recalling the infamous Nazi salute. He instructs his security forces to remove from the gathering anyone who fails to fall in line, many of them unmistakably with darker skins than the loyal brood.

To anyone of my generation who remembers Pink Floyd’s epic rock opera, a metaphor for the Third Reich on British soil, the analogy could not be clearer.

Donald Trump is not a joke. Not any more. He’s pushed this movement, grounded in the Deep South where racism and bigotry are not so subtle, a step too far for any American who believes in diversity, tolerance and the founding principles of the republic to ignore.

Donald Trump is right about one thing: He made the wall a defining issue in this presidential campaign. The Republicans, having learned from their defeat in consecutive elections, were poised to let immigration recede into the background of public discourse. They had three minority candidates (two prominent Latinos and one token African American) teed up and ready to go. They only needed to boost their numbers in the minority vote by a five or ten percent margin to give themselves a chance.

Donald Trump undid the grand strategy of the Grand Old Party in his opening salvo. He accused the government of Mexico of deliberately sending criminals and rapists north of the border. Despite an absolute lack of evidence to support his accusation, he staked claim to the anti-Mexican immigrant vote. When he delayed his disavowal of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan on the eve of the Louisiana primary, he erased all doubt as to the nature of his campaign.

Bigotry is a defining characteristic. A candidate cannot play for the racist vote so boldly and directly without being a racist. A voter cannot vote for a bigoted candidate without being a bigot. White supremacists do not unite behind a single candidate unless that candidate has delivered a clear message.

Anyone who voted for George Wallace in 1968 (Stand Up for America!) was not excited about his education policy and anyone who votes for Donald Trump today (Make America Great Again!) is not moved by his trade policy.

So this is where we are in the year 2016: A large as yet undetermined segment of our electorate is openly racist. This segment of the population does not care about reforming the criminal justice system. This segment does not care about rounding up ten to twelve million undocumented immigrants, ripping them from their homes and families, and sending them back to their country of origin. They don’t care about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, and they don’t care about the mass disenfranchisement of Latinos or African Americans.

What does the Trump movement care about? They care about sticking it to the establishment politicians who have allowed their America to slip away. They care about reclaiming their place at the head of the ruling class table. They care about white America.

When I was in high school, though I attended school on the Westside where virtually all black and Hispanic students were enrolled, racial epithets were commonplace. The white students who ruled the campus were virtually required to tolerate bigotry. This was after Watts and the summer of flames when we really should have known better.

When I left high school I left attitudes of tolerated bigotry behind – or I thought I did. In the 1990’s I lived in Nashville for five years and witnessed enduring segregation and economic discrimination on a grand scale. Predominantly black schools were poorly funded while predominantly white schools enjoyed the financial blessings of their surroundings. Racial bigotry was a constant underlying all issues and policies.

Thirty years later I wonder if anything has really changed. In a new America where bias and bigotry have been left behind, the repeated documentation of black Americans shot down by white cops should have united us. Instead, it has divided us. The mind-numbing statistics on the disproportionate mass incarceration of black and Hispanic Americans should have shocked the entire populace into corrective action. Instead, it only motivated a segment of our society. Whether the Black Lives Matter movement translates into long-overdue reforms remains to be seen. It seems just as possible at this juncture that a backlash will occur.

Certainly, if Donald Trump finds his way to the White House, we can say goodbye to any progress on civil rights, voting rights, affirmative action or equal treatment under the law.

I have come to this conclusion: Human beings are inherently prone to bias. This inherent bias will manifest itself in racial, religious and cultural discrimination unless it is addressed, recognized and condemned.

I was recently invited to play golf at a local country club as a guest of a member. After the round, the members gathered in the clubhouse to consume libations and engage in verbal interplay. I felt like I was back in high school. Racial epithets flowed into the open air and I perceived, just as I did in high school, that those who used them were testing my willingness to tolerate their bigotry.

I did not challenge them though I should have. I’m fairly certain they know I did not belong among them. If by chance I should be invited back I will decline with a frank explanation.

I believe that racism and all forms of bigotry persist and are allowed to spread because good people refuse to call it out.

So the next time you encounter someone who confesses sympathy for Donald Trump, remind them of his comments regarding Mexican rapists and his apparent ambivalence toward David Duke and the KKK. You don’t have to be angry. You don’t have to accuse. Just let them know that you know, that we all know, what lies beneath their support for the Donald.

Jazz.



JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, THE GRAND CANYON ZEN GOLF TOUR, HARD TIMES: THE WRATH OF AN ANGRY GOD AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

Grand Canyon Zen Golf Tour: A review by Jake Berry

THE GRAND CANYON ZEN GOLF TOUR - A Memoir by Jack Random – Featuring the Handbook of Zen Golf (Crow Dog Press) $13.95 available at http://www.amazon.com/Jack-Random/e/…/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1…


Lest you think this a light new age collection of clichés wrapped around zen and golf, think again. Jack Random (aka Ray Miller) brings to both subjects, and their inevitable coalescence, the gravity of experience and the music of a master story teller. This is a road story, and is not out of place among the ancient tales from Gilgamesh's search for the plant of immortality to the Odyssey or Twain and Kerouac. Written in a voice that sounds like a cool concoction of Dashiell Hammett and Hunter S. Thompson, yet never imitative of them, Random's odyssey is born of a time when he lived on the sweet edge always barely one step ahead of the courting allies of death, madness and the ultimate ecstasy from which no one returns. Despite the dangers he never abandons his brooding wit. One feels that no matter how difficult the circumstance he retains enough detachment to laugh at himself and Wiz, his traveling companion (and better known to some as James Wisniewski – musician, visual artist and designer), as they wander from golf course to canyon to locations so stark and abandoned it chills the bones. Random does not take his zen sitting down or his golf along carefully manicured greens – though he's no stranger to either – he makes demands of himself and the world he encounters in the manner of a sorcerer and seer. The two wandering bodhisattvas might tee off anywhere, and nowhere, and transform the entire landscape before them into a rough that will deliver enlightenment or else. The book is appended by a revised version of the Handbook of Zen Golf composed by Miller and Wisniewski and published under other nom de plumes. The original was small enough to fit in a pocket and designed to be carried on the course. The wisdom it contains is certainly as valid as it was then for a round of golf, or for a lifetime. Even if you don't golf or care anything for the sport you'll find yourself caught in the pleasure of following the journey through one adventure to the next. This is a fine example of Miller's style – awake to the harsh realities of the world and forever seeking the spiritual in confident, unflinching prose loaded with no small amount of poetry.

The Grand Canyon Zen Golf Tour is only one of many volumes by Jack Random now available online at amazon.com in both print and digital versions. There are novels, screeds and collections of the political writings that frequently appear on the Random Jack blog. Random is that rare combination of a writer of genuine substance that is always a pleasure to read.

Editor's Note: From Chapter 12: "Jake Berry is a poet’s poet, a master craftsman of words, an inventor of language and an architect of letters and imagery. His name in the underground circle of poets is legendary. Poet, musician, songwriter and graphic artist, his seminal work Brambu Drezi as well as Species of Abandoned Light have found a noted publisher in San Francisco."

The Pocketbook of Zen Golf was designed to fit in a pocket; the Handbook was a little large for the average pocket.

NO TEARS FOR SCALIA

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY.


GOODNIGHT, DARK PRINCE:

NO TEARS FOR SCALIA

By Jack Random


“A brilliant legal mind with an energetic style, an incisive wit and colorful opinions…he will no doubt be remembered as one of the most consequential judges and thinkers to serve on the Supreme Court.” -- Barack Obama

“Go gentle into that good night, you angry toad man.” -- Natasha Vargas-Cooper



It is always amusing to observe the twisted testimonials of politicians and politicos when a prominent enemy shuffles off this mortal coil. In the year of The Donald, I prefer the indelicate approach. Even in the hour of his death, I have no tears for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. I have long wished for his departure from the nation’s highest court and I refuse to pretend otherwise in the name of civility.

If I have any sympathy at all it is for Clarence Thomas, the George W. Bush of Supreme Court justices, the puppet who lost his puppet master, the justice without a voice.

To anyone who believes in civil rights, the rights of women, the rights of minorities, the cleansing of the planet, voting rights and the principles of democracy, the sudden absence of one of our most prominent enemies is a cause for celebration.

In one of his last appearances on the bench, in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas (2015), Scalia delivered an extensive diatribe on the inferiority of African Americans, including this gem: “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.”

It is not a surprise that we had a racist on the Supreme Court. We have had many racists and bigots on the high court (see Dred Scot v. Sandford 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson 1896, Korematsu v. United States 1944, on and on). It is stunning, however, that in the year 2015 we had a Supreme Court justice who felt free to express his racism openly and blatantly from the bench. Outrage regarding the senior justice’s diatribe was widespread but absent from the reportage was the response of the man who has served as Scalia’s faithful lap dog for the last quarter century. Did Justice Thomas manage a modest exception or did he fade into Scalia’s shadow as usual?

Scalia’s death leaves Clarence Thomas as the court’s last adherent to the infamous “originalist” school of constitutional jurisprudence. The school requires its followers to interpret the constitution by attempting to decipher what the author(s) intended at the time of its adoption. As interpreted by Scalia and (with a large measure of sarcasm) Thomas, its application dutifully transports us back in time: Slavery is not a crime against humanity but an accepted and legitimate business practice, the right to hold office and indeed the right to vote is reserved to white male property owners, labor rights do not exist, racial minorities are not protected and women have no standing.

How convenient that the America of the late eighteenth century so closely resembles the ideal world of Antonin Scalia. The toad man served as the bedrock of a regressive court long enough to fix his name and opinion on some of the court’s worst and most destructive decisions, including:

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services 1989 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey 1992: rulings that upheld the state-by-state assault on abortion rights by blocking access to women.

Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Commission 1992: one in a series of anti-environment rulings, this one undermining government authority to protect public resources from private exploitation.

Bush v. Gore 2000: the openly political decision negating the individual right to vote and enabling George W. Bush to wreak havoc in the Middle East and crash the global economy.

Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber: a convoluted decision negating a woman’s right to equal pay for equal work.

Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker 2008: a ruling that reduced damages for the Exxon-Valdez disaster from five billion to 500 million dollars and serving notice that corporations will not suffer consequences proportionate to harm.

Shelby County v. Holder 2013: a decision that effectively repealed the voting rights act and enabled southern states to disenfranchise minority voters through redistricting and voter identification laws.

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 2010 and McCutcheon v. FEC 2014: rulings that defined corporate contributions to political campaigns as protected free speech, overruled limits on corporate contributions and granted corporations the rights of citizens.

These are just a sampling from the legacy of Justice Antonin Scalia. It is a legacy of antagonism, repression and intolerance. It is a legacy of environmental destruction, dismantling human rights and defying the principles of democracy. Perhaps above all it is a legacy that lifts corporations to the level of a new American ruling class. It pushes us toward oligarchy and asks us to sacrifice our right to protest. It promotes a worldview that relegates women, racial minorities, sexual identity minorities and laborers to second or third class citizenship.

I am not inhuman. I understand that Antonin Scalia had a family and a circle of friends who are now mourning his death. I understand that some individuals of progressive leanings, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, found him engaging. I understand and empathize on a human level. But this was not some distant relative who delivers a rightwing rant and stimulates a lively discussion at the dinner table once in a blue moon. Scalia wielded great power, arguably more power than any president in the modern era, and he used that power to affect great harm.

Forgive me if my empathy is limited and my tears run dry. I did not wish him death but I am glad his run on the court has ended.

To those GOP members of the United States Senate who are sworn to block Scalia’s replacement by the current president (and to the president, himself, who has always been too willing to compromise) I offer this warning and prediction:

You will lose the next presidential election to the same voters your party and Justice Scalia fought so fervently to repress: minorities. You will lose the Senate as well. You will then enable the next president to appoint Barrack Obama to the Supreme Court.

Be careful what you wish for. As T.S. Eliot once wrote: Our beginnings never know our ends.

Jazz.

Sources:

“Obama’s Views on Antonin Scalia and the Justice’s Successor” by Kishnadev Calamur, The Atlantic, February 13, 2016.

“Bye Scalicia: Antonin Scalia’s Worst Decisions on the Rights of Women and LGBTQs” by Natasha Vargas-Cooper, Vice, February 13, 2016.

“Justice Scalia Suggests Blacks Belong at ‘Slower’ Colleges” by Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, December 9, 2015.

“Thirteen Worst Supreme Court Decisions of All Time” by Casey C. Sullivan, FindLaw.com, October 14, 2015.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, THE GRAND CANYON ZEN GOLF TOUR AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

UNCLE BERNIE DROPS THE BALL: REPARATIONS

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY. POSTED BY COUNTERPUNCH 1/25/16.


MORAL COURAGE & THE POLITICS OF REPARATIONS

UNCLE BERNIE DROPS THE BALL

By Jack Random



On Fusion Television’s Iowa Black and Brown Forum, Senator Bernie Sanders was asked if he favored reparations for African Americans. Uncle Bernie delivered what I can only describe as a Clintonian response, arguing that favoring reparations would be both futile and divisive.

At a time when the Clinton machine is on the defensive and actively building a Southern strategy to counter potential losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, Senator Sanders passed on an opportunity to deliver a powerful appeal for the black vote. Reparations is a place Hillary Clinton will not go. It is a word she will not utter. It is a debate she does not wish to have. Senator Sanders could have and should have.

Instead, Uncle Bernie dropped the ball.

I support Bernie Sanders for president. In the age of unlimited corporate contributions, the fact that Sanders could even mount a serious run is astounding. But I find the rationale of the senator from Vermont desperately inadequate. We expect Hillary Clinton to take the easy road. We expect the triangulator to sidestep difficult and potentially divisive issues. We do not expect Uncle Bernie to take the same path.

Had the good senator taken the issue head on and welcomed the debate, he would have demonstrated not only moral courage but political acumen as well. He would have forced Hillary to respond and that response would very likely have exposed her loyalty to the black community as a politically expedient fabrication.

Reparations belongs in the public forum. Americans are long overdue for a full, open and in-depth discussion of the debt this nation owes for its past misdeeds. That discussion does not begin with slavery. It begins with genocide. It begins with a concerted attempt by our government, under a succession of presidents, to exterminate the Native American population. When that attempt failed, we slaughtered the buffalo to eliminate the vital resource upon which the plains Indians relied. We rounded up the tribes and relocated them to lands the white folks did not want. We later seized those same lands and divided them into individual allotments (the Dawes Act of 1887) in an attempt to destroy tribal and cultural identification.

When Europeans first set foot on American soil an estimated ten million Native Americans populated the North American continent. By 1900 the Census estimated the native population at just over 237,000. [1]

Genocide. Plain and simple. Do we really think we’ve paid our debt to the surviving Native American communities by allowing casinos on reservation lands? Plain and simple: We have not. Native Americans remain the most impoverished and under-represented minority in the land.

In 2010 Congress passed the Claims Resolution Act in an attempt to settle long-standing grievances of mismanagement and outright theft of tribal resources for 3.4 billion dollars. The settlement remains in stasis while the courts try to determine its fairness.

In 1988 Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act compensating more than 100,000 Japanese Americans who were wrongfully imprisoned during World War II. Surviving members of the aggrieved community were given $20,000 and a formal apology.

In both cases, the compensation was and is woefully inadequate but the precedent is set: Reparations is an issue in American law. Why should it not have a place in American politics? Why should the American electorate be denied a full hearing?

Every year since 1989 Representative John Conyers of Michigan has introduced a bill to establish a commission to study the enduring impact of slavery and make recommendations for appropriate remedies. The proposal has never reached the floor of the House of Representatives for an up or down vote.

Notwithstanding the feud between Cornel West and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, the latter makes a strong case for reparations in the June 2014 edition of The Atlantic:

“Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Deep South, a second slavery ruled. In the North, legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos, where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated. Businesses discriminated against them, awarding them the worst jobs and the worst wages. Police brutalized them in the streets. And the notion that black lives, black bodies, and black wealth were rightful targets remained deeply rooted in the broader society.”

I made a distinctly different case in May of 2006:

“We are not a nation of justice. If we were … we would honor our debts. We would make just reparations to natives and African Americans who were compelled to migrate as slaves. What the nation owes to the Lakota [4] and Cherokee [5] alone amounts to more than what we will ultimately spend to destroy the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq – more even than our national debt.”

This nation has never made account for the crimes of genocide and slavery. Generation after generation of Americans were taught in our public schools that the native population had to give way to the manifest destiny of a superior civilization and the great Civil War was not fought to abolish the scourge of slavery but to preserve the union.

America may never be able to make just reparations for crimes against humanity on this scale but it is a discussion we desperately need to have. At the very least, if we taught our children the truth, we would no longer have to hear arguments by Supreme Court justices that the real problem now is reverse discrimination. We would no longer have to endure the prevailing opinion that affirmative action is no longer necessary.

I appeal to the Sanders campaign as one who supports his candidacy: Change your mind. If you cannot support reparations outright then at least support the Conyers bill to study the issue. Challenge your presidential opponents to do the same.

It is the right thing to do. It is what we expect of Bernie Sanders that we could never expect of Hillary Clinton.

Jazz.


[1] Native American History by Judith Nies, Ballantine Books, 1996.


[2] “The Case for Reparations” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Atlantic, June 2014.


[3] “Misconceptions in the Immigration Debate: What Would Crazy Horse Do?” Dissident Voice, May 19, 2006.

[4] Payment for the Black Hills and all the resources extracted there from in accordance with the Fort Laramie Treaty.

[5] Recognized as a sovereign nation by the US Supreme Court (Worcester v. Georgia 1832) in a decision that was ignored by President Andrew Jackson who subsequently carried out the mass relocation recorded in history as The Trail of Tears.



JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, THE GRAND CANYON ZEN GOLF TOUR AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

TED CRUZ & THE RIGHT TO REBELLION

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES. DISSEMINATE FREELY.
[This Chronicle posted by CounterPunch.]



THE STENCH OF HYPOCRISY

Ted Cruz & The Right to Rebellion

By Jack Random


We Americans are disparate group. Put a hundred of us in a room and we are likely to have ninety-nine opinions on any given subject. But one thing we can all agree on is this: We don’t like hypocrites. We especially don’t like hypocrisy when it comes from politicians who pretend to be the exception to the rule.

We especially don’t like hypocrisy from a presidential candidate who wants to be known as a straight shooter, a man who speaks his mind, never backs down and fearlessly defies political correctness.

Imagine the surprise in the Bundy camp when Senator Ted Cruz used their occupation of an Oregon federal wildlife refuge to take a giant step back from the second amendment right of citizens to take up arms against tyranny and to defend liberty against the forces of oppression, even to rebel against a lawless government.

Said Cruz recently on the campaign trail in Boone, Iowa: "Every one of us has a constitutional right to protest, to speak our minds, but we don’t have a constitutional right to use force of violence or threaten force of violence on others." [1]

This is the same Ted Cruz who placed himself at the forefront of gun right advocates in a fundraising email in April 2015: “The second amendment…is a constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny -- for the protection of liberty." [2]

While the senator from Texas is always careful to phrase his thoughts for subsequent adjustment, there is no amount of parsing that can bring harmony to these conflicting statements on the right to bear and use arms. While the former incarnation of Senator Cruz seems to boldly proclaim the right of citizens to rebel against a tyrannical government, the more recent presidential incarnation seems downright pacifistic.

Which is it, Senator Cruz? Do citizens have the right to take up arms to protect our liberty or do we lack constitutional authority to use force or the threat of force in all cases whatsoever?

Maybe the senator doesn’t believe this particular case rises to the level of justifiable rebellion but that is not what his statement addresses. Maybe he doesn’t consider this particular federal government sufficiently tyrannical. That would not seem to be the case, as any number of his past statements will attest:

In January 2014, the senator wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary: “Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the president’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat... In more than two centuries of our nation’s history there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.” [3]

In March 2014, addressing the Obama administration’s abuse of executive power: “If you care about liberty, an imperial president who defies his constitutional obligation to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed’ is an extraordinary threat to the liberty of this country... A president who is not bound by the law is no longer a president.” [4]

Addressing the president’s veto of a regressive environmental protection law in November 2015, Cruz said: “The president’s radical attempt to destabilize the nation’s energy system is flatly illegal… What the Obama administration is doing to harm the American economy is the sort of power grab that our founders would have recognized as tyranny.” [5]

Finally, addressing the Bundy Ranch standoff in Nevada, an event engaging many of the same militia rights activists involved in the Oregon siege, Cruz sang a very different tune on a Texas radio interview: “The reason this issue is resonating…is that for five years, we have seen our liberty under assault. We have seen our liberty under assault from a federal government that seems hell-bent on expanding its authority over every aspect of our lives.” [6]

What we have witnessed in the refusal of Senator Ted Cruz to stand up for the rights of a citizen militia against an oppressive government is by no means an evolution in the candidate’s thoughts or policies. There was no evolution. There was no hint of a change in thought. Rather, it is the calculation of a triangulating, conniving and consummate politician plotting his course to the presidency. The calculation is simple: Defending an armed militia bent on confronting the government at this time would threaten his recent surge in the polls.

We have all heard that Ted Cruz is not exactly what he appears to be. He is not a knee-jerk reactionary bent on recapturing the glory of the fifties, when America was pure and its leaders were almost uniformly white male Christians. No, Ted Cruz is a strategic mastermind. He’s Karl Rove with pretty eyes and a smile that never travels far from his lips. He sees an opportunity and he seizes it.

He lets the Donald take the lead and stands ready to take up the banner as a viable option when the Donald inevitably implodes. Like Mr. Trump, he is adept at manipulating the gun loving, tax hating, Muslim fearing, intolerant Christian fundamentalist right to his own ambitious purpose. He will say and do anything at any cost to anyone but himself if it will lead him to the promise land.

This was the first glimpse of the man behind the mask. It is not a pretty picture.

Voter Beware: He is not who you think he is. And the unsettling smell emanating from his general direction is not a dead rat; it is the stench of hypocrisy.

Jazz.

[1] Des Moines Register, January 4, 2016.

[2] “Ted Cruz’s Strange Gun Argument” by Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times, April 17, 2015.

[3] “The Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama” by Ted Cruz, Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2014.

[4] Breakfast Keynote: The Honorable Ted Cruz, Texas Public Policy Foundation, March 19, 2014.

[5] Video address to the Texas Public Policy Foundation: At the Crossroads: Energy and Climate Policy Summit, “Ted Cruz calls Obama’s ‘Radical’ Climate Plan ‘Tyranny” by Cole Mellino, EcoWatch, November 21, 2015.

[6] “Ted Cruz: Bundy Ranch Standoff ‘Tragic Culmination’ of Obama’s ‘Jackboot of Authoritarianism” submitted by Miranda Blue, Right Wing Watch, April 23, 2014.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

I Want to Go Home, Part III

[Editor's Note: A wise and impassioned voice from Malta.]


I WANT TO GO HOME...
BUT I HAVE NONE
(Part Three - Conclusion)

By Joseph M. Cachia

You (could this well mean also you, dear reader?) took it away from me!

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."

Archbishop Helder Camara


There is no place like home, but...

Don't be shocked! Just admit it. We're all hypocrites from time to time. Obviously, none of us try to be, but it can happen to the best of us and, as it turns out, it's not our direct fault, but rather caused through our corrupted media and perhaps our way of living. But the thought hardly exculpates us from the injustices and hardships we are causing.

One would like us to believe that creating a world of 'free trade' will promote global understanding, justice and peace and thus various organizations are invented, claiming the scope. On the contrary, the domination of international trade by rich countries for the benefit of their individual interests fuels anger and resentment and definitely makes us less just and safe, while it tramples on workers' and human rights.

In spite of impacting all aspects of society and the entire world, the WTO (World Trade Organization) is neither a democratic nor a transparent institution, while its structure enables the richer countries to win what they desire and consequently they are the prime and only benefactors. Likewise, the ILO (International Labour Organization), in spite of highlighting that the era of globalization has made many aspects of economic insecurity worse, has done next to nothing in this regard and consequently today we are still in the same distressing situation.

It's no secret that our leaders are hardly perfect, but there's a difference between blundering and flagrantly violating international treaties, breaking your own laws and throwing morality out of the window all in the name of making a quick profit.

It has been estimated that corruption costs around 120 billion euros each year to the EU (European Union) economy and surveys show that the problem has worsened in recent years – and this in spite of the harsh financial regulations reining in Europe. So one can hardly imagine what goes on in developing countries, such as those in the African continent, where you have free-for-all exploitation. I can't imagine poorer chaps than you and I through our hypocrite outlook towards this situation.

The story of African immigration is a long one, but its newest chapters are still being written today. Migrants and refugees streaming into Europe from Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia have presented European leaders and policymakers with their greatest challenge.

The International Organization for Migration calls Europe the most dangerous destination for irregular migration in the world, and the Mediterranean the world's most dangerous border crossing. Yet despite the escalating human toll, the European Union's collective response to its current migrant influx has been more focused on securing the bloc's borders than on protecting the rights of migrants and refugees or, better still, securing stability in their homeland.

The West responds to economic crises with swift government intervention, while it tells Third World nations to do the opposite. Third World countries were ordered to cut government spending, allow private companies to take over state functions (like providing water, electricity and education), and borrow at extremely high interest rates. Wealth was created, but only at the top, while the rest of the country crumbled. We may believe colonialism is dead, but our treatment of the Third World countries reveals otherwise. We may not govern their countries directly, but the results are tragically similar. It is only the methods that differ. While we are suffering the same imposition, we want to play gods!

For more than half a century the Alpine nation of Switzerland has built a reputation as the world's center for tax evasion, fraud accounting, money laundering, racketeering, and above all a staunch ally of corrupt third-world leaders and a great beneficiary of third world corruption. But Switzerland has had it both ways with its hypocrisy and double standards. Her politicians condemn corruption in Africa and the third world while her banks make fortunes off that corruption.

But we must also stop to think why resource-rich African and other developing countries have done even more poorly than countries without resources and if Africa will ever benefit from its natural resources.

Africans live on a continent owned by Europeans! Isn't perhaps 'Africa without Africans' the dream of the local predatory, supremacist white minority? A recent report came out to challenge the well-spread deceptive idea that the West is pouring money into Africa through aid, without receiving much in return. All in contrary, the report proved that Africa through has lost up to 1.4 trillion (1,400,000,000,000) in illicit financial flows to the West from 1980 to 2009. This amount is 233 times the 60 billions foreign 'aid' Africa supposedly received every year from the West.

In Nigeria, the continent's biggest oil producer, at least $400bn of oil revenue has been stolen or misspent since independence in 1960. Meanwhile, 90% of people live on less than $2 per day.

In 1991, the government of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since, and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump their nuclear waste in their seas.

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation and now we have moved on to theirs.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? “Why do I have to come to YOUR country to eat MY food?” they rightfully ask. And why did tiny Malta send its soldiers, not to help us, but to confront us for fighting for what is rightfully ours [Malta’s]? It is sincerely hoped that it will never find itself in our precarious position!

Not unlike the EU (European Union) exploitative maneuverings, much of the merchandise produced by U.S. companies and sold to U.S. consumers is manufactured by workers in third world countries who earn as little as 12 cents per hour, drudging away in harsh and even dangerous work environments, commonly known as 'sweatshops', especially common in apparel and shoe industries. But none are my relatives or friends and not close to me!

What is wrong with us? Do we not care? Are we so absorbed in our own lives or groups or in competition with others that pity for the less fortunate has disappeared from our souls? Do we justify our inaction by stubbornly holding on to weak excuses for our inactivity? How long are we going to continue to be misled by the media and by our governments as to ignore the glaring truth?

In all faith, we want to believe that possibly only perhaps 5% of the populace (mostly governmental) is responsible for these appalling crimes. But we can't help asking: Why are the 95% not doing anything or enough to stop it? Or worse still, abetting and aiding, though maybe unknowingly, these barbaric and cowardly dealings! Surely disgusted with this criminality, why don't you stop and think how you can change this predicament? Aren't you willing or brave enough to voice your protestation to make a change to all this?

However, environmental catastrophes yet loom on the horizon, and, even if the disasters can be averted, who wants to live in a world where inequality, manipulation, conflict, exploitation, alienation, and violence are so commonplace that we often hardly notice them? You may, but not this human!

Africans are now only guests on their own continent. The dream of [the] Europeans is to transform the whole African continent into an entire colony where a white minority owns and controls the local economy, while Africans are just like good consumers or their servants. If [it] materializes, it looks that, as the West would be occupying both continents, it won't make much difference where I, am immigrant, [end up] I'm always in your territory. Yes, you asked for this through your sheer greed, Europe!

It's not dependence; but colonization, because it's a situation where Europeans use brutal military force to maintain corrupted leaders who only will help them exploit the continent. Multinational corporations are the new colonizers in Africa. It is commonly known that various international business corporations, including those dealing in coffee shops, fast foods, shoes, clothing, toys and other similar products, continue to adopt a global policy aggressive towards suppliers and employees.

The Middle East hasn't fared much better. Beyond sanctions, the West's presence across the Middle East has had a negative impact on public perception both across the region and back home. This is owed to a larger pattern of hypocrisy, deceit, and meddling that has been done under various pretenses but for obvious self-serving interests.

Agreeing that child labor is wrong, and then not checking labels to see where your clothes are made! Ignorance is no excuse for this one since it is regularly reported by mainstream media that certain well-known brands use and abuse children to make clothing and other textile/leather goods. Who is not guilty of this from time to time?

Back home for most of us immigrant people there is only unemployment and underemployment, high mortality, little or no medical care, little or no schooling, poor housing, semi-starvation, rigid class structure and exploitation. It is undeniable that many, the high majority of well-meaning Western folk grieve for our sad predicament. But what is grief without wisdom, and what is wisdom without action? Wanting the latest technological gadget, even if it came from a country where people are oppressed? Do you know where your cell phone came from, who made it and how they were treated? Why should I care - it's the latest model!! So, this isn't necessarily you, although we suppose it could well be!

Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by justifiably blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. And this is totally refuted by our own Maltese government by pronouncing itself as 'pro-business' as if such ways differ. Pope Francis blames poverty on what other people are doing or not doing. Is our blame of 'omission'?

'What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him? But wilt thou known, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?'

James 2:14,20

In his encyclical, the Pontiff said: "It is morally unacceptable, politically dangerous, environmentally unsustainable and economically unjustifiable for developing countries to continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future."

The West holds some tragic lessons for Africa concerning what happens when the sense of community is lost. News of old people dying in their homes, alone and with no one to care for them, undiscovered until months later, paint a scary picture of what happens when people forget one another.

We must heed the cry for justice, for natives' retrieval of lost lands, against violence, threats and corruption, for trampled human rights, against dire working conditions, slavery and human trafficking and the pollution of water, air and soil. We must acquire and cultivate the power of moral sanctions. Examples of moral resistance to injustice in the last millennium, and the associated lessons of leadership, are now examined for insights and essential truths we will need in order to keep our bearings in the next. Moral sanctions, however, are not expressed solely in words; to be made visible; they must be dramatized in deeds.

We face a defining choice between two contrasting models for organizing affairs. Give them the generic names: Empire and Earth Community.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

Joseph M. Cachia, Freelance Journalist
January 2016
Email: mailto:jmcachia@maltanet.net
Vittoriosa - Malta (Europe) / Tel: 21807566 - 99866151

Donny Diamond & The Silly Season

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY




DONNY DIAMOND & THE SILLY SEASON

PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS 2016

By Jack Random



The rage of the electorate on the far right of the political spectrum has extended the silly season far past its due date, enabling individuals completely unqualified for the presidency to pose as legitimate candidates. The only qualifications that matter during silly season are financial backing and notoriety.

The most notorious pretender this season is CEO and entrepreneur Donny Diamond, aka Donald Trump, who inherited vast wealth, built it into an empire and attempted to satisfy his insatiable ego by hosting a reality-based television show that captured a devoted fan base. It worked remarkably well but it was hardly enough for the Donald. He believes he can and should be anointed the next president of the United States and who’s to say he shouldn’t?

Despite his occasional forays into verboten policies like fair trade and unnecessary wars, he remains by and large the darling of rightwing radio. The Donald, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage are made of the same stuff, feeding on conspiracy theory, inventing facts to attract an audience and justify their view of the world. The folks at FOX, mindful that Donny thrives on the attacks of his adversaries, practice neutrality and wait for his campaign to implode.

What will they do if the Diamond Jubilee continues into the primary season? Nobody knows for sure. My guess is the party players and power brokers will make a simple calculation: Can they work with him or not? The Donald would not be the first ignorant candidate with an ego the size of Texas that they placed in the Oval Office. The last one launched a couple of catastrophic wars and nearly blew up the global economy. Other than that it went just fine. The players made out like the bandits they in fact were. They made a fortune and squared it. Mission accomplished.

That said: No one in the power structure seriously wants an egomaniac in the most powerful office on earth. Say what you will, little George was always manageable. He did what he was told. If the train ran off the tracks, you can no more blame George than you can the public spokesperson for Halliburton or BP for the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. It wasn’t his job.

If they determine that the Donald is in fact unworkable, he will be eliminated. By hook or by crook, he will be eliminated. Donny Boy may think he’s king of the world but there are dozens if not hundreds richer and thousands if not millions brighter and more knowledgeable in the game he has chosen to engage. Donny either plays ball or he’s tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail.

Donny plays ball. He’s said it all along: He’s a negotiator. Only on this table he is the apprentice and what the power players must determine is: Can they trust him? Four years is a long time for a loose cannon with nuclear missiles at his disposal. The amount of harm he could do is immeasurable and quite possibly irreversible.

Guided by the principle that it is better to deal with a known enemy than an unknown adversary, even if the Donald is allowed to grab the golden ring and captures the nomination of the Grand Old Party, the power brokers will cut their losses in the general election. Of course, the “known enemy” metaphor fails because the anointed one in the Democratic Party is neither an enemy nor an adversary. Hillary Clinton is a friend to Wall Street and any friend to Wall Street is in turn a friend to every big banking and big business concern on the planet.

The power brokers and their elite clients may prefer Republican policies but they are more than comfortable with a second coming of the Clinton administration.

Here’s where it gets tricky. To date there is only one serious challenger to Clinton in the Democratic Primaries and old Uncle Bernie is not acceptable to the power structure. That is why, of course, former Governor Martin O’Malley continues to hang on despite his low poll numbers. He sounds all the right chords for a progressive Democrat and faces none of the criticism the Sanders campaign confronts yet he fails to attract a significant following.

Push all the derision from the left aside, Bernie may not be the pureblood democratic socialist of the Howard Zinn mode, but he is far too progressive to be allowed anywhere near the White House. As president he would reopen the healthcare debate with Medicare for All front and center. He would strengthen rather than curtail Social Security. He would fight hard and long for meaningful Wall Street and banking reform. He would push to restructure the tax burden and resist the relentless call to perpetual war.

If for any reason (an email revelation, a scandal featuring the DNC data breach or some new and unforeseen debacle) the Clinton campaign stumbles and falls, the power brokers will not allow an Uncle Bernie versus The Donald showdown in the main event. It is an inconceivable outcome of a contrived and highly controlled process. It cannot and will not happen.

The power structure loves a fixed game. They like a game in which both sides serve their interests. From here on, the players that control the reins of power will protect Hillary Clinton at all costs and they will find a way to eliminate Donny Diamond from the playing field.

Mark it, post and save: The Donald is going down.

To paraphrase former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (in reference to the CIA coup that supplanted president Salvador Allende with dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile, September 11, 1973): There is far too much at stake to allow our interests to be determined or indeed influenced by the will of the people.

Jazz.


JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

IN THE WAKE OF HORROR

JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY




IN THE WAKE OF HORROR
Paris 13 November 2015

By Jack Random


At first we are stunned, senses deadened, mind and body paralyzed.
We see without seeing, hear without sound, absorb without taste, touch or smell.
It is not real.
It is a video game, a you-tube contrivance, a trick of the mind.
At length it seeps into our conscious minds.
We deny it as if denying can make it stop.
It does not stop.

Our senses kick in and we are overwhelmed with horror.
We fear and our fear breeds contempt and contempt yields to anger and anger becomes rage and rage cries out for revenge.
We hate because we sorrow and sorrow cannot fill the void.
We mourn not to heal but to bury the pain.
We send our soldiers off to war to make them suffer as we have suffered.
We wreak a horrible vengeance and it numbs our senses.

We are stunned, deadened, paralyzed.
It is not real.


Only time can heal the wounds of Paris. We are in mourning but our need for vengeance has not yet been fulfilled. We have arrived at the most dangerous phase of the response cycle where any actions we might take will almost certainly be unwise yet act we must. The need takes hold of our collective soul and overwhelms.

At this stage in our response to September 11 we set our sights on the Taliban and launched the Long War in Afghanistan, a war that continues to this day. Contrary to neocon mythology, a mythology perpetuated by our current president, the Taliban did not intentionally harbor international terrorists, the Taliban did not bring Al Qaeda to their country (the CIA did), the Taliban did not arm Al Qaeda (the CIA did) and the Taliban did not refuse to hand over Osama bin Laden. They offered to hand him over to an international tribunal and we refused the offer. We did not crush Al Qaida in Afghanistan. We did not kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

Our need for vengeance unfulfilled, we moved on to Iraq and launched another war that continues to this day. In a strategic blunder of epic proportions, we captured and killed Saddam Hussein (letting the Iraqis carry out the deed), destroying a delicate balance of power in the world’s most dangerous region. That our actions gave rise to the Islamic State and the chaos that reigns throughout the Middle East today is the litmus test that divides historians from propagandists.

Americans will recall that the French took the lead, standing almost alone among European nations, in opposing our march to war in Iraq. We condemned them in the strongest terms, all but accusing them of aiding the enemy, for offering truth to power. By now we should all know and accept that they were right and we were wrong. There were no weapons of mass destruction. There was no connection to September 11. Saddam Hussein was in fact an enemy of Al Qaeda.

Had we listened to the French then the world would look very different today. But we were in no mood to listen to anyone. The United Nations Security Council voted down our motion for war and we did not listen. Three million people took to the streets in a single day of protest, the largest demonstration in history, and we did not listen. Every foreign policy expert who did not drink from the poisoned well of the neocon imperialist vision warned us of the dangers in occupying Iraq but we did not listen.

We cannot know what follows. We can only hope that we have learned something from the past. Not the distant past, not the failures of the British and French empires, not Viet Nam or Algiers: We know we have learned little of value from these failures. We can only hope that we have learned something from the immediate past, the living past, the current nightmare born of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Among the lessons we should have learned:

That we cannot and should not invade and occupy foreign nations that pose no existential threat to us or indeed our allies without dangerous, unpredictable and potentially disastrous consequences.

That we cannot and should not engage militarily in what is fundamentally a civil war, involving the powers of a foreign land.

Despite its ambition, ISIS is not a nation but it is a regional power that has engaged in the civil wars of Syria and Iraq. ISIS is not an existential threat to any nation outside the region. It is an existential threat to the governments of Iraq and Syria but neither can be considered our ally at this juncture – except perhaps in the abstract world of strategic maneuvering. It is a threat to the Kurds, a people without a nation and an enemy to Turkey, our official NATO ally.

The situation quickly escalates to the complicated level of a master chess game. The Kurds despise the Turks with their history of genocide and the Turks would like to see the Kurdish military force decimated – perhaps as much as ISIS. The Saudis, whose teachings produced Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, have their own problem with radical elements but their primary concern is the rise of Iran. Like the western world, Iran is fundamentally opposed to ISIS but unlike the western world supports Bashar al-Assad, the beleaguered president of Syria.

Enter the Russians, playing four sides against the middle to protect their own interests and the presidency of Assad. ISIS takes down a Russian passenger plane and then, in a strategic move of mind-numbing audacity, Turkey shoots down a Russian fighter jet.

It is a minefield and a very dangerous game. The potential for intended or unintended disasters are everywhere.

We are already engaged in an intensive bombing campaign. Now, in the wake of Paris, there is talk of a grand coalition to defeat and destroy ISIS by military means. All the media experts agree: It requires a large and long commitment of soldiers on the ground.

Never mind that ISIS cannot be defeated and destroyed militarily. ISIS represents a religious ideology and that ideology appeals to a significant portion of the Islamic population. An ideology representing millions of people cannot be destroyed on the battlefield. To the contrary such an effort would reinforce their belief that they are engaged in a holy war. It would increase their appeal to young devotees.

If we were to defeat ISIS on the ground, its soldiers would fold back into the population and rise again when our eyes inevitably turn elsewhere. If it sounds familiar, it should. It happened in Iraq. If we occupied the Middle East a hundred or a thousand years – something we cannot, should not and will not do – the outcome would be the same.

It is difficult and unpopular to advise caution and patience in the wake of the Paris attack. I love Paris. I love its people, its spirit and its love of art. I love a culture that embraces creative minds and makes the irreverence of Charlie Hebdo possible. I mourn the loss of innocence and the loss of lives. I mourn for who they might have been and what they might have contributed to this world had their lives not ended on a bloody Friday evening in the city of lights.

I am myself still going through the cycle of response to this tragedy but I have drawn one conclusion and it is my duty to advise France as France advised us after September 11: Vengeance is not the way.

The powers in the region must address the threat of ISIS and the problem of radical Islam. It took centuries for Christians to abandon the crusades. It seems Islam is still working on it. The Turks must decide that the threat of ISIS overrides their fear and hatred of the Kurds. The Saudis must similarly decide that ISIS is their primary threat and recognize that their own Islamic teachings are at least part of the problem.

What we should not do is what the leaders of ISIS no doubt want: Holy war in the Middle East.

Je suis Paris.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION – JAZZMAN SERIES (DRY BONES PRESS), WASICHU: THE KILLING SPIRIT, NUMBER NINE: THE ADVENTURES OF JAKE JONES AND RUBY DAULTON, A PATRIOT DIRGE – JAZZMAN SERIES, PAWNS TO PLAYERS: THE STAIRWAY SCANDAL – CHESS SERIES, AND JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: VOLUMES I – X (CROW DOG PRESS). HIS WORKS ARE AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.

Cigar Store Indian by Chris Mansel

Cigar store Indian carries a gun
shoots white people and doesn't run
He's been dealing with this since Bull Run
White People come and they take his land
sit him out front and they shake his hand
Cigar store Indian carries a gun
shoots white people and doesn't run
lock his people on tiny dirty land
tell him he can't even be a man
Cigar store Indian carries a gun
protests peacefully over Leonard Peltier's
imprisonment in federal land
No one cares except for comrades
and the sympathetic woman and man

Chris Mansel

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

PRESS RELEASE: PUBLICATION OF NUMBER NINE

CROW DOG PRESS
PRESS RELEASE: August 29, 2015.


On the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s arrival in New Orleans, Crow Dog Press is pleased to announce the publication of Number Nine: The Adventures of Jake Jones and Ruby Daulton by Jack Random.

Written in twenty-seven cinematic scenes, complete with its own soundtrack, Ruby Jones picks up hitchhiker Jake Jones somewhere outside of Bakersfield and together they embark on a cross-country adventure filled with intrigue, mysticism and danger. Confronting sex-crazed bikers, forces of nature, the wrath of an angry mob boss and the betrayal of friends, they survive by reading the signs and exploiting their special talents until the King of the New Orleans underground, driven by his infatuation with Ruby, captures and transports her to the Big Easy on the Mississippi Riverboat Queen, leaving Jake unconscious in a Memphis hotel.

In the mold of Billie Holiday, Ruby is in fact a singer of rare and extraordinary talent. Pale Louie keeps her in a drug-induced haze, letting her sing in his underground kingdom every night. Word gets out and Ruby captures the heart of the Easy, becoming a legend in her own time.

Jake possesses Kachina magic and employs all his skills in a concerted effort to rescue Ruby from her captivity. Armed with a bundle of cash won in a poker game, he makes allies in the underground and wins the respect of Louie’s most trusted servant. With the help of his friends he stages an improbable rescue and seeks refuge in a safe house in the lower ninth ward.

It is the summer of 2005, America is engaged in multiple wars and a storm named Katrina has her own date with destiny in New Orleans.

Rain pounding and wind howling with the rage of a hurricane, a determined Louie tracks Jake and Ruby down just as the levees give way. Pale Louie is swept away into the swampy waters of Lake Pontchartrain where dozens if not hundreds of his past victims are rumored to await him.

Jake and Ruby must finally survive the ravages of Katrina and its devastating aftermath. After all the challenges, the dangers and hardships, not only on their journey but throughout their young lives, they will not back down.

“Nothing could stop them. They had the magic of destiny and the medicine of the crow. They were a force of nature, undeniable and pure. Like Bonnie and Clyde, Cisco and Poncho, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, they were bound for glory on the road of adventure and nothing but nothing could stand in their way!”

Number Nine will be available on Amazon beginning August 29.

CRIPPLED GREECE BROKE THE EUROPEAN UNION'S BACKBONE

By Joseph M. Cachia, Malta

“If governments let themselves be fully bound by the decisions of their parliaments without protecting their own freedom to act, a breakup of Europe would be a more probable outcome than deeper integration.”

Mario Monti


Following the resounding “No” from Greek voters in a referendum on austerity, which could send the country crashing out of the Eurozone, European leaders were scrambling in total disarray and confusion.

Greece may be ‘broke’, but it surely broke the backbone of the European Union. It may have lost the economic, financial and political battle, but not the war.

Whatever the EU’s response to the courageous Greek “No”, this daring vote blasts wide open the volatility and frailty of the Union. Another bailout would shatter all propositions and self-imposed regulations of the euro-zone, while its negation would send Greece tumbling out of the euro-zone and possibly out of the EU and NATO!

Is the prophecy of the ‘The New York Times’ coming to fruition? “Economy Shows Cracks in European Union”, it had predicted. “But even many committed Europeanists believe that the alliance is failing the test…. and they have rushed to protect jobs in their home markets at the expense of those in other member countries”.

“We are in a moment of a very severe crisis,” said Joschka Fischer, a Green Party politician and former German foreign minister. “We have a traumatic lack of leadership; we are caught right in the middle by the flood.”

The strains are evident in the way countries have worked to bail out their own banks and rescue national factories of global automobile companies.

Divisions are also evident between northern Europe and southern Europe, with more fiscally responsible countries like Germany only reluctantly promising to help floundering economies like those of Spain and Greece.

There is, also, another cleavage that has to do with the nature of the policies required to end the euro crisis. This concerns the euro-zone states in particular, and is embodied in the contrast between the northern states (generally creditors) and the southern states (generally debtors).

Many have wondered if Greece's economy would get so bad that it would eventually break away from the euro zone - a move that could encourage other countries to follow and therefore splinter the currency union.

Most assuredly, all know of the controversial and much-discussed possible Greek EU exit, often referred to as ‘Grexit’! But how many are conscious of the ‘PLAN Z’, the name given to a 2012 secret plan drawn up by the troika (EU/ECB/IMF) to prepare the Greek withdrawal from the euro-zone? For that matter, ‘Z’ could also be a play on alpha and omega i.e. "the end"!

When Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, was asked whether there existed any plan in case any country wants or is forced to leave the euro-zone, so that the markets don’t basically collapse, he simply replied that the question is so hypothetical that he didn’t have any answer - “No Plan B”. Well, here we are now!

A Greek exit from the euro-zone would have immense consequences for the European Union. This is why it is something that the EU wants to avoid at all costs. This is the stark truth now facing, not only the euro zone, but also the entire European Union.

A look into the dictatorial running of the European Union was grossly exposed by the reaction of Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE President) on Merkel’s remarks on Greece when he expressed his shock at the proposals of Angela Merkel in the German Bundestag on the eventual eviction of a member of the euro-zone. He stated thus: “Angela Merkel's lack of solidarity with Greece is shocking. The proposals by the German Chancellor are very disturbing. In the Bundestag, she declared that solidarity towards a country like Greece is not the right response. Her suggestion that consideration should be given to an eventual exclusion from the euro-zone is, frankly, shocking. Above all, it is incomprehensible because it is precisely a European response that is the quickest and least costly solution. If the European Commission issues a loan to Greece, it will not cost a cent for anyone. It's as simple as that. Obviously Merkel no longer wants European solutions. The summit had sent a signal to markets that no euro country risks default,” he concluded.

What is Europe doing? First it launches accusations provoking speculation against Greek debt. Then a debate on how to aid Greece ensues, during which proposals are made in every direction. And now we are at the point where some are publicly asking if we really should be helping Greece at all. Over the last few days this debate has become absurd. The EU finance ministers decided that it wanted to do something but didn't want to say exactly what. Apparently this action would take the form of a bilateral loan from the 19 euro-zone countries, that is, a single loan that is paid for by the taxpayers of the euro-zone and which will therefore increase the debt level of each member state. These are nothing but imperial politics.

Not unlike other southern EU. countries, including Malta, Greece is a small vassal state of a Greater Franco-German economic empire. The Greek people were used and tricked into joining the European Union, abused and largely left forgotten but now never to be allowed to threaten the empire builders.

Some time ago, MEP (Member European Parliament) Alfred Sant chose to address the Greek issue and titled his article as ‘The Greek Vortex’, a whirling force of suction intended on European funds. Up to there he was quite right – the whole charade centred on Greece’s insoluble debt. However, unfortunately, he failed to mention and further illustrate which banks, corporations and other creditors were siphoning off the Greek economy, including earlier bailouts. What were the final bellies of these handouts? Definitely, not the Greek people! So rich people need more money and tax cuts to ‘motivate’ them, while poor people need less money and more austerity to ‘motivate’ them.

One reason Greece has been forced to seek bailouts from its EU partners is that Greece ceded control over its currency when it joined the European Union and much of Greece’s deficit was caused by excessive military spending, as dictated by the EU, which remains among the largest in the European Union.

William Hague summed it all up when he said: “ People feel that the EU is a one-way process, a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments to the European level until everything is decided by the EU.” How long can this remain?

So, Tsipras gave the people the choice in a referendum, even urging and spurring the people to vote ‘No’. And he got a resounding ‘No’, but then he goes to the EU. and votes ‘Yes’! Well, is Greece a country or a party? This is unconditional surrender!

International inspectors will have the power to veto Greek legislation. The Syriza government will be forced to repeal a heap of laws passed since it took power, stripping away the last fig leaf of sovereignty.

From now on the Troika will be governing Greece. There definitely is going to be a real conflict about this. There is already a strong groundswell of anger brewing and an inevitable battle is looming on the horizon. Most Greeks know that the only way out of this neo-colonial servitude is to break free of the monetary union and of the EU.

The Greek Parliament cannot override the people’s ‘NO’ vote. The agreement with the creditors is illegal! Greece should have ditched the euro and gone for the drachma, instead of this whole farce.

And finally, may I offer an honest and unpretentious advice to my friend, Tsipras?

Get back on board all the staunch members of parliament whom you ditched because of their unwavering principle based on the people’s hopeful cry. Only they can help you save your country. Then, my friend take their (EU) money (after all they had stolen it from you) and run…as fast and as far as you can away from them all: the EU, NATO and all the other whole greedy lot. After all, it’s only a sinking ship you’ll be escaping from. Nothing in the EU is what it seems. It’s a total mess!

Greece is suffering and the rest of us don’t realise that it could just as easily be us later!

Perhaps this endorses the fact that the alternative to capitalism can only be achieved through revolution!

I think you'll dream of a revolution of free people long after I'm safely dead.

“ We must break up the eurozone. We must set those Mediterranean countries free.” Nigel Farage

Joseph M. Cachia, Freelance Journalist
Email: jmcachia@maltanet.net
Vittoriosa, Malta (Europe)

July 2015

BURNING CHURCHES by Jack Random

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Recent events in South Carolina and throughout the old South have served to remind me that even as things change they so often remain the same. This is the first story I published under the name Jack Random. Because it seems as pertinent today as it was nearly twenty years ago, I am posting it pretty much as it appeared in AIM Magazine 1996.]





BURNING CHURCHES

By Jack Random


“It is not the temperature,” the Major said in a lazy drawl so pronounced only a fellow Southerner would lend it credibility. “It is not the temperature,” he repeated for no other reason than that he derived pleasure from the sensation as the word temperature rolled off his tongue, slow and clinging like Georgia molasses.

“It is not the temperature, it is the viscosity.”

He puffed what remained of his Cuban cigar and blew the smoke in concentric circles that hovered in the hot, viscous air. It was a vile habit and one that he embraced with all his southern pride. Hot. Damnably hot. But from where he sat on the porch of a century old cabin overlooking the Great Smokey Mountains, it might have been heaven. You could tell by the way he fidgeted in his rocker that the Major was feeling frisky.

Cousin Billy Bob, a young man of the transitional age when it was only slightly impolite to address him as a boy, stood in camouflage khakis bearing a message of good news. He could only smile in appreciation of the Major’s witticism. It was only slightly over his head.

Billy Bob was what the culture made of William Robert Moss. He was not the Major’s cousin but, then, the Major was not a Major. It was a term of endearment more or less. He was here to deliver a progress report on the organization’s master plan. His report was primarily responsible for the Major’s good humor.

The organization was neither the Klan nor Klan related. The Klan was old news, forever grounded in the past. Theirs was an organization with its eyes set dead ahead. They were well-respected men at the top of their games, collecting converts more rapidly than collecting Baptist missionaries in the Congo. They were businessmen, politicians, lawyers, civil servants, artists, artisans, writers, musicians, clerks, accountants, sportsmen, hikers, survivalists, religious zealots and atheists. In short, they were every mother’s son with one distinction: They were all white.

xxx

“We are all God’s children!” the preacher cried out in the distinctive cadence made famous by the likes of Reverend Ike, Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King. “We are all God’s children – black, white, brown, yellow and red – united as one people in the eyes of our Lord and comforted in the hands of our Savior, Jesus of Nazareth.”

The Reverend William James Jackson was known as Willie Jay to his congregation of just under one hundred in one of the better sections of the small town of Waynesborough, North Carolina. They were the more fortunate of the greater community of African Americans, well respected, socially involved, and financially secure if not truly affluent. Several decades removed from the direct effects of racial discrimination, they had grounded their economic well-being in the black community and conscientiously repaid the community with job development, charitable contributions, rehabilitation centers, and active participation in the schools, local government and churches.

They were not surprised by the subject of the good Reverend’s sermon. For months it had been a dominant theme: The burning of churches with predominantly or exclusively black congregations. The latest count was in the eighties nation wide, but the vast majority were south of the Mason-Dixon line. They had established a relief fund and some of their members had traveled hundreds of miles to assist in rebuilding not only churches but also faith in the greater society of human kind.

They were not surprised but they did not expect the hateful phenomenon – a legacy of racial violence, intolerance and bigotry – to come home.

xxx

The Major was spearheading a special project for an organization that, for all practical purposes, did not exist. They had no official meetings. They elected no officers. They collected no dues. They did not publish a newsletter and their business was rarely conducted over any medium. When it was it was carefully coded. Anonymity and secrecy were of paramount concern.

It all began in the smoking room at one of the many black tie gala events to which his wife was devoted. He adored his wife and, after the expected period of pleading and protestation, he always consented to attend. The truth was his social life was severely limited since his retirement from the army with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He enjoyed these formal gatherings almost as much as she did.

On this particular occasion, a very distinguished gentleman – a former District Attorney – was commenting on the crime situation, with the not so subtle implication that those of darker complexion were responsible for making the streets unsafe. He lamented at some length the exorbitant costs of adequate security – an absolute necessity even and especially in the finest of neighborhoods.

“It is unfortunate,” the Major finally replied, “that the race war of the late sixties never fully materialized. We might have exterminated half of them and sent the other half back to the Dark Continent.”

It was a shocking comment and an almost unforgivable breech of etiquette at a social affair – even when confined to the smoking room. Within minutes, of course, it circulated throughout the gathering and within days, naturally, it had permeated much of the state, giving the Major and indelible reputation as a man of integrity.

Owing partly to his virtue of drinking to excess at such affairs, he was forgiven by his social peers and he had made his first converts. In the coming months, he discovered that he had made many more. The secret society grew and prospered. It seemed the mood of the country and the south was at last ripe.

xxx

The Reverend cast his line, set his jig, and settled back on his haunches, letting the boat drift slowly in the shallows of the pond. It was well stocked with catfish and smallmouth bass, but it was not the fishing that kept Willie Jay coming back to the pond like clockwork every Monday morning. It was the time with his trusted companion, friend and the sole employee of the Missionary Baptist Church, which he valued.

Jackie Robinson Brown was a former prizefighter, a Golden Glove champion, who had once contended for the bantamweight crown. He still carried the 1949 Ring Magazine that listed his name among the top ten contenders and showed it to anyone who politely expressed an interest.

Jackie, himself, had lost interest in almost everything after the death of his wife and only child in a freak automobile accident. He was wandering the streets, begging for loose change (not acceptable behavior in Waynesborough, North Carolina), when the Reverend took him under his wing. In his younger days, Willie Jay was both a fight fan and a gambling man. He had won a fair amount of pocket money betting on the local pugilistic hero and he considered it the work of God that he was in a position to repay him with an honest job and shelter.

For the past twelve years, Jackie had been the janitor at the finest African American church in Waynesborough. He was proud of his position, proud of his relationship with the Reverend Willie Jay, and he took pride in his work. Many were the nights he would sleep on a cot in the church loft, too tired to make the trek home. Or maybe he just liked being close to God.

“Got me a nibbler,” Jackie whispered, one eye on his jig and the other on Willie Jay. He was a fine fisherman and he was proud of that too. He enjoyed Monday mornings as much as the Reverend did.

Willie Jay watched him grasp his rod with delicate touch of a surgeon. The jig darted in the still water and Jackie jerked his rod back and reeled it in with the smile of a seven-year-old who just hit a home run in little league baseball. He admired his catch briefly. It was a keeper – a fourteen-inch cat – but he released it back into the pond as was his habit. Willie Jay accused him of catching the same fish over and over but he could never prove it. In all these many years, he had kept only a handful and those he gave away to people “less fortunate than myself.”

“You haven’t mentioned the sermon.” The Reverend waited before breaching the subject. They always touched on the Sunday sermon as a starting point to general discussions on the meaning of life and the state of human affairs. It was traditional for Jackie to initiate the discussion but on this Monday morning, he fell silent.

“Not much to say,” he replied after a time to punctuate his consternation. “You been givin’ that same sermon for five weeks now.”

“They’re burning churches, Jackie! Our churches!”

They had been through this before but the Reverend never gave up trying to bend Jackie to his views, despite the immutable fact that Jackie’s opinions were set in something more solid than granite – namely, true conviction. The only individual in the county more obstinate than Jackie was the Reverend Willie Jay, himself.

“The Lord don’t see it that way.”

“You got a pipeline to the Lord, do you?”

The Reverend knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. Jackie would not respond to the semantic traps Willie Jay so often set. He would just roll his eyes as he was doing now.

“Don’t do no good stirring up trouble,” Jackie said finally, putting a cap on their discussion of the Sunday sermon. As it turned out, it was a good day for fishing – just fishing.

xxx

The Major was preparing for a reunion of Army buddies in Detroit. As a matter of policy, he always arranged a social engagement during an operation – especially one in his region of the country.

It was carefully planned to appear unplanned: The reckless, drunken act of a couple of kids. A generous amount of whiskey would be found on the premises. None would be hurt. It was not their intention to kill. They only wanted to stir things up, to ignite the racial tension that was as much southern heritage as Old Hickory and Robert E. Lee. If it spread to the rest of the country so much the better. Unlike previous periods of unrest, this time they would be prepared for what followed.

The days of affirmative action were graciously coming to a close. The welfare nation would soon be history. Poverty was an indelible fact. That it affected more black Americans than white was a fact open to interpretation. When the proverbial crap hit the fan, two communities would be armed and ready: the drug pushers and the survivalists. Handcuffed though they might be, the Major figured he could count on the government to enter the fray on their side. It was his job to make sure his people were better armed than the enemy was.

He provided cousin Billy Bob with the names and addresses of two local boys and a map of Waynesborough. It would take place between two and three in the morning – just after the Major checked in to a Detroit hotel.

xxx

Monday was Jackie’s day off. On occasion, however, when he was feeling restless, after fishing and an afternoon nap, he would put in a few hours of work to take the edge off whatever was troubling him. On this particular Monday, he was feeling restless. Fishing could be hard time when it was just fishing. He could not quite get a grip on it – which was why it would not leave him in peace. Of course, he wanted to help. Who wouldn’t? It was something else: a sense of foreboding, unease, maybe a premonition. It was as if he had been through this before.

He was three generations removed from the scourge of slavery. He had spent his share of time in the cotton fields, on the backs of busses, and in the shantytowns of the segregated South. He had gone from colored to Negro to black to Afro to African American. He had lived through the civil rights movement, the assassinations, black pride, the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers and the first race war. He was boxing out of Chicago when the streets went up in flames and all hell broke loose. He was not then politically aware but he was caught in the crossfire and neither the police nor the National Guard was asking which side you were on. If you were on the streets and you were black, you were the enemy.

He survived but not without casualty. He spent three days in the hospital and three years paying for it. At the time, he considered himself fortunate because, if he had still been standing, they would have taken him to jail. As it was, his boxing career was over and with it his dream of a better life for his children all but died. His life was turned head over feet.

Now Jackie smelled trouble. Big trouble. The same kind of trouble he sensed way back when in Chicago. The last thing he wanted was another race war. Nothing good would come of it. He did not know, however, how to deal with the sort of people who made sport of burning churches.

It was late in the evening by the time he glanced at his watch. His mind had been racing so swiftly he did not notice the time until he realized he had waxed and polished every bench in the worship hall. He was suddenly drained and took only a moment to decide: he would not make the walk home. He turned out the lights, climbed the stairs to the loft, and quickly fell asleep.

xxx

Jimmy and Braden were the sons of good old boys. They shared a lot in life. They played sports, liked pretty girls, cold beer, hot cars and country music. They graduated from high school with mediocre grades and virtually no job skills – unless you counted auto mechanics, which had nothing whatsoever to do with the high school curriculum.

They were both well trained in the ways of good old boys by the examples of their fathers – an amazing feat when you consider their fathers were gone by the time they were seven years old. They were best friends, roommates, and they knew exactly what life had in store for them. So when they were offered an opportunity for a little off-the-road excitement, while serving a cause they vaguely believed in, forging a connection with what they considered the power source, and picking up some serious spending money, they jumped on it like fleas on a sleeping dog.

They were the grunts of the organization and it did not bother them. They were well groomed. They knew no names, no faces, and no phone numbers. They were contacted through a vendor at a traveling gun show. They knew only to expect a man wearing a Confederate ball cap near the witching hour.

Cousin Billy Bob arrived exactly at two o’clock, shook hands, and laid out the plan. Everything they needed – gloves, ski masks, two bottles of whiskey, six Molotov cocktails – were in the back of his truck. There were windows on both sides of the building. The boys would hit each side with two cocktails apiece, while he took care of the front. The structure was constructed of bricks but the interior and roofing was all wood. It would go up like a bed of dry pine boughs.

“It’s hit and run, boys. We don’t stand around to admire the work.”

The last thing Billy Bob told them was what to say in the event they were caught: They were drinking and they did it on a dare. The cocktails were kerosene with white rags, torn from tee shirts and dipped in kerosene. They learned how to make them from a TV show. The kerosene was already in the house for camping supplies. If Billy Bob was caught with them, he was just someone they met at the Sunday flea market who stayed over. If not, he did not exist. Anything else they could not remember or did not know.

When everything seemed clear enough they each took a hit of whiskey and got under way, like three secret agents on a mission in Moscow, too young, too ignorant or too dazed to see the folly of their own footsteps.

xxx

“Doggone kids!” Jackie said as he sat up, flipped on the lam glanced at the clock, and wondered if it was worth the effort.

It was unusual in this part of town but, during the summer months, an occasional act of youthful vandalism was not unexpected. He had been through it before. They’ll be long gone by the time I … That’s when he smelled burning wax and kerosene and fear gripped his gut.

He heard the front door being kicked in as he coaxed his legs to the door of the loft. He knew from the sound of erupting fire what he would see when he opened it. There was no way out. The small window in the loft was barred for security. He opened the door and confirmed the nightmare. The fresh wax acted as tinder. The entire church was filled from floor to rafters with the flames of racial hatred.

The sound of a man’s screams when his body is engulfed in flames is terrifying. It touches a raw nerve. It sends a chill down the spine and sets hair on end. What begins as horror is soon supplanted by a sickening feeling, bone deep, that makes a man want to cry and regurgitate at the same time.

Jimmy did neither. He stopped on a dime and tore off his ski mask. Braden made it almost to the truck when Jimmy cried out.

“Shit! That’s Jackie, man!”

Cousin Billy Bob was enraged, his face beet red beneath his mask. He was pissed that they had miscalculated, pissed that there was a man in the church, pissed that the Major would surely blame this on him, pissed that they had set him up with a couple of losers, but mostly he was pissed that they were still there.

“Get in the damned truck!”

Jimmy looked straight into Braden’s eyes. “It’s Jackie!” he repeated.

Jackie Robinson Brown was more than a local sports hero to the boys of Waynesborough. In a series of community outreach programs, he had taught many of them how to box. Jimmy and Braden were among them. Jackie was the one African American they liked and respected. Even their fathers had called him “a credit to his race.”

Jimmy delayed no longer. He dashed into the burning church, his tears clouding his vision and his judgment almost as much as the smoke and fire. Braden waited a few moments longer.

“Get in the goddamned truck!”

By the time Braden reached the front doors of the church, the fire and heat were so intense it nearly knocked him to the ground. It was too late. His best friend and the town’s hero were both surely dead. The truck was gone. He heard Jimmy’s scream just as they had heard Jackie’s before. He stumbled to the lawn of the church, collapsed, and wept as a baby plucked from his mama’s breast, until the firemen and police arrived.

xxx

Braden still wept when the Reverend Willie Jay arrived. When he the story and learned of his friend’s horrible death, he wanted to relinquish his theological oath and batter this boy to submission. But one look at the sobbing, stuttering youth and his tears were joined to the offender’s.
He realized that God’s punishment was swift, indeed, and that the survivor of this tragedy was the most unfortunate of all. In all the years of his still young life, he would never recover from the tormenting, haunting stain of his unwitting part in this drama.

No threats, no deals, no lengthy interrogation was required. Braden opened like a field of wildflowers in morning light and all he knew came spilling forth. He provided an accurate description of cousin Billy Bob and the Chevy pickup truck he drove. He identified the gun dealer and remembered just enough of the Chevy’s license number to track down its owner.

Billy Bob was stopped at a gas station before he could get home where one the Major’s cleanup agents was waiting. They had heard the news and they would take no chances on Billy Bob ending up in the hands of the law. They had not misjudged the extent of his loyalty but they never expected him to face a charge of murder.

After two days of questioning, two days of dealing with an unsympathetic public defender, and not a word from the Major, Billy Bob gave it up. The Major would take the fall.

The last rites of Jackie Robinson Brown were a fitting tribute to a great man who had accepted a modest role in life. It was one of the best-attended funerals in the county’s history. People from all over the country – including the families of two misguided youths – came to pay their respects to the roughhewn man who had touched so many hearts. The Reverend Willie Jay reflected that it was little compensation for the absence he felt and would always feel in the pit of his soul – but it was at least some consolation and it would have to do.

The Major took the honorable way out. His veiled wife and two members of the immediate family attended his funeral.