The Trickster Tales

Billionaires for WealthCare

2009-10-05T15:00:00.000-07:00

18 Reasons to Oppose Health Care Reform

2009-09-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

1. Although efforts have been made to reform the healthcare industry

since 1912, we should not be too hasty in enacting change.

2. The federal government has no business interfering in people's

healthcare decisions, unless a woman is trying to terminate a

pregnancy, or the patient’s last name is Schiavo.

3. The government is incapable of running anything efficiently, and if

allowed to offer a healthcare option, will run it so efficiently that

it will put private insurers out of business.

4. We are a Christian nation, and we don’t believe in helping the

least among us. Some people just don’t deserve healthcare. Getting

sick is God's punishment for doing something wrong.

5. The current system, with 47,000,000 uninsured, a million medical

bankruptcies annually, and 18,000 deaths annually due to lack of

insurance, is working just fine. In fact, we have the best health care

system in the world!

6. Even though many older couples are forced to divorce in order to

avoid catastrophic financial losses due to medical expenses, it’s the

homosexuals who are destroying families.

7. A conversation with your doctor about end-of-life issues is an

opportunity for your doctor to convince you to kill yourself.

8. We can afford to spend more on our military than all other nations

combined, but we can’t afford universal health care.

9. Single-payer, government-run healthcare is good enough for our

men and women in uniform, but to offer the same to the general public

would be socialism.

10. Pooling our resources to provide roads, schools, clean water,

military, police, and fire protection for each other is not socialism.

Pooling our resources to provide each other health care is socialism.

11. Socialism is bad. Very bad. Bad!

12. Health care is an issue best handled by individual states; like

slavery.

13. We can afford to subsidize Iraq and Afghanistan ,

both of whom have universal healthcare, but we can’t afford it ourselves.

14. Money and corporate profits are more important than people's

health. Sure, reforming the insurance companies would save thousands

of lives, but shareholders’ portfolios might be damaged.

15. Freeing people from holding on to their dead-end jobs for the

insurance and allowing them to become entrepreneurs would bankrupt

our country.

16. Someone like physicist Stephen Hawking would have been allowed to

die under the British healthcare system. Oh, he’s British? And alive?

Never mind.

17. We already have universal health care: it’s called the Emergency

Room. Uninsured people can go there for all their health needs

(checkups, cancer pre-screening, chemotherapy, etc.), and it only costs the taxpayers a few thousand dollars per visit.

18. The Obama healthcare initiative is part of the liberal- communist-Nazi-socialist-Islamofascist-gay-atheist-zombie-transsexual-cannibal- sociopath-evolutionist indoctrinating school children agenda to take away your freedom!

Fran Yehle

And now Ladies and Gentlemen, Billionaires for Wealth Care

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVwrCzRUX0

2009-09-07T18:05:00.001-07:00

Religious

Voodoo

Rag

Rag Doll livin' in a movie, Hot tramp Daddy's little cutie

You're so fine they'll never see ya leavin' by the back door, ma’am

Hot time get it while it's easy, Don't mind come on up and

see me. Rag Doll baby won't you do me like you done before

Barbies

In the classic years, the perfect US white woman measured 36-24-36” as did Marilyn Monroe and the pinups of previous generations (although the average white American female was around 35-27-37. Barbie, introduced in the late 1950s, if she were life size would be 39-23-33. In 1997 Barbie had her 3rd plastic surgery to align herself more with young women, but she has not kept up with the times since by 2004, the average American woman: 40-34-43.

Babies

Plastic

Oh, you beautiful doll!
You great, big, beautiful doll!
If you ever leave me how my heart would ache,
I want to hug you but I fear you'd break

Idols

Ethnic

Porcelain

I'm tired of cry-y-yin', and all her lie-ie-iein'. That's why I'm buy-y-in'

A china doll.

Her eyes are blu-u-uer. Her faults are few-ewer. Her lips are tru-uer

My china doll

I'd rather have a doll of clay

That I could call my own

Than someone else just like you

With a heart of stone

She'll never lea-eave me

She'll not decei-eive me

And never grie-ieve me

My china doll

Storybook

Puppets

Collectibles

Sex

You used to be my party doll.
But now you say the party’s over.

You used to be my party doll, party doll, party doll,

but now you say the party’s over.

Faddish

Art

Boxed

Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin', livin' doll

Got to do my best to please her just cos she's a livin' doll

Got a rovin' eye and that is why she satisfies my soul

Got the one and only walkin', talkin', livin' doll

Take a look at her hair, it's real If you don't believe what I say, just feel

I'm gonna lock her up in a trunk so no big hunk can steal

her away from me.

Medical

Kewpie

Wooden

Blowup

All I want is a party doll to come along with me when I'm feelin' wild

To be everlovin', true, and fair, to run her fingers through my hair.

Come along and be my party doll, Come along and be my

party doll, Come along and be my party doll, And I'll make love

to you, to you. I saw the kind of a gal I'd love to meet

She had blonde hair and eyes of blue. Baby,

I wanna have a party with you.

Paper

Moveable

Handmade

Manufactured

Cherished or Not,

the Signifier or the Signified

Equipped With

Sports wear

Evening gowns

Business suits

Diapers

Blankets

Fans

Veils

Beach towels

Friends

Bikinis

Furs

Wigs

Tea sets

Rings

Makeup

Houses

Mirrors

Shoes

Keys

Lovers………

Or Not

Accoutrements.

with Love Or Not

Manifesting…….over thousands of years ago as shadow puppets in Asia, a panoply of characters rife with life conveying chronicles as they silently stalked across soft lit walls. Moving across Europe in the 1700s, purveyors of culture, paper dolls acted upon paper stages, questing amid universal themes, contemplating life and death, love and betrayal, meaning and purpose…….

What fine dolls, as thought grew, so carefully designed and cut, embellished with handmade gowns made with bits of silk, lace cut Valentines, glittery department store packing tissue, and the fragile—kept between the pages of books, preserving dreams of lives to be—for the fortunate.

The not so favored, be they paper or fabric, wood or plastic

—the rest—

the laboring preponderance,

the replicating bulk,

as the heedless abscission neuronitically unfolds, evolving

(or not)

across vast centuries,

Begot BY the Bovinely-minded Bludgbeater-handed—

Ever

Aspiring,
yet

Inept

NO.

the

torrrrn,/shhhhheeeeared/sssssplaaaayed.

Breeder-spawner-makers quarried the USA-grade street slop off their shoes: tissue thin newsprint, toilet paper, raw pulp—thin skin—flesh grighed ‘n crumpchled into terrolyzed folds.

(Parental——Godly?)

Oversized hands

Impatient,

smash a crooked face
not caring if
a leg left dangling
from paper tendon fiber hooks
tork twisted hips.
Webbed fingers? Of no consequence.

Razored corners where curves could be

attention shifted; half-cuts inflicted.

just pulp

and more where it came from.

Fist press

Good enough for pulp fiction
and

Scars, threnody-dreams, contorted myths in the wind with every moan

OF:

Just……dolls

dolls cannibalizing their own parts for dreams they do not understand

and have no eyes to see

acidic leakage? Slather with perfume.

skinned anorexic to the core? Drape with Versace.

A soul squeezed to paper width? Anyone notice?

Jacked out eyes? Buy colored contact lenses.

Trapped in a formula tale, pages stuck together—

only rape can open them.

Mutilated—don’t mourn:
dolls come in dozens—

and the market needs only a few not mangled.

Note: not on the list are Male Dolls, most commonly plastic, most commonly with weapon accessories & one set of clothing—logo attached—a 20th century assault on the male ego, but not to be called dolls. (See, Toy Biz v. United States)

They are “action figures.” The Court of International Trade determined that Toy Biz’ action figures were toys, not dolls, but "nonhuman creatures." To save money, Marvel Comics subsidiary Toy Biz argued that their action figures (i.e., X-Men and Fantastic Four) represented "nonhuman creatures" and thus subject to the lower tariff rates for toys, shocking fans since a common theme in Marvel Comics had been the struggle for mutants like the X-Men to prove their humanity. Fans expected more? G.I. Joe, modeled from a very human soldier, willing to die for his country, is not considered human enough to be a doll either. He, too, is just an “action figure,” even when he bleeds red on battle fields for wars he doesn’t believe in, and in the metaphoric battle of good and evil, the franchises are making a killing.

As his action friends have developed more musculature over time, rivaling those of even the largest human bodybuilders, so US males struggle, like many of their female counterparts, with body dsymorphia, eating disorders, and physical insecurity—lost in the protean dreamish/nightmarish abscission fighting amid the dolls.

A New Look at an Old Post - Update

2009-08-19T18:01:00.000-07:00

Update to Venom in the Veins: the racial issues that will continue to plague us until we are all truly informed about the past and present racism in this country:

In this time quickly labeled post-racial America, now that we have a Black president (more accurately, biracial), so many are eager to use him to ignore the poison running through our veins. In our wonderful post-racial coitus world, a summer camp of black children were denied use of a swimming pool they had contracted for before their “race” was known, and over 60% of African-American mortgage applicants were and are deliberately, systemically steered into “sub prime” predatory mortgage loans.

According to well-known studies by the Federal Reserve Board and the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL), African Americans are 250% more likely to get a loan with an "exploding interest" clause than white borrowers - and the higher the income and the better the credit rating of a Black borrower, the more likely the discrimination.

And our esteemed president who once gave a speech broaching this carnivorous issue still gripping our nation? He smiles, grins, and gazes proudly upon Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, an honored guest of the Board of Directors of JP Morgan, owner of one of the most outrageous of the financial predators, Washington Mutual (Morgan/WaMu)—and as of last week, it just so happens that the NAACP is suing J.P. Morgan for "systematic, institutionalized racism in making home mortgage loans."

And the outrage over Henry Louis Gates being denied his 1st amendment rights by an obviously too powerful police person, was that really about racism? Or was that more about class. For in this country we worship money. And while Obama used to walk through the neighborhoods made destitute by the financiers he now pals with, he does nothing so simple as putting conditions on the banks being bailed out. No, he has once again made clear what he holds dear now. Even as he did when he chose the very architects of the financial crisis to guide us through it with the same policies that caused it, so has he shown again and again: class and money matter more to him than justice and addressing the race hatred still coursing through the hate breeding beast we call America.

Venom

in the

Veins

It’s my property! Why, I paid $985 for this here piece of flesh, and I have the right to do what I want with it.

Pounded under the slave block’s gavel,

bid-$1-2-430 bid-$2-4-580 bid-$3-4-850 bid-$5-6-1,000

& Sold, & Sold, & Sold, & Sold,

heart beats, heart beats, heart beats, heart beats

Four million hearts beating

Imprisoned

For Life

For Greed

For Lust

for

the rhythm of planting, picking—

FLESH

Turned into MONEY,

Blood

Poured into crops,

Fusing with the dirt

And

Raining from the sky—

Southern trees bore a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Across the street,

in the White Churches,

BREAD turned to CHRIST’S FLESH,

and

BLOOD

to WINE

So if’in I want to rape it, hate it, mutilate it, that ain’t none of your business. I can even kill it if I want to ‘cause it’s mine, and you can’t stop me. Though me killin’ it would mean I was downright crazy given what I just paid for it. But when it gets old and useless, and I’ve gotten my money’s worth, I just might hunt it for fun. Now you just get on out of my way before I start to showin’ my hate for you, you anti-Christian piece of Northern trash! It’s in the Bible; they’re heathens, savages, inferior, don’t believe in Jesus, and even when converted, they still the sons of Ham. My preacher taught me the word of God. He should know. God’s never wrong, and We Southerners have God on our sidde [ssssss-slap]

God on our siiiiid- [sssss-slap]

God on our siiii- [ssss-slap]

God on our sssss- [ssss-slap]

God on ouuur- [ssss-slap]

God onnn -[ssss-slap]

“Oh, yes ye converted heathen, God has a message for thee; be meek and mild my child in the face of thy travails. Submit and repent; think only of Heaven, not this world, and the next will be yours.”

So said the Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and cohorts.

(and the country whispers but that was so long ago; that was not us; I’m not to blame…. but look and listen and understand it is here now; it is racism; it is killing you, me, the haters and the hated—and yes, even most the ones that stand by, doing nothing)

The vomiting has begun

AGAIN

The bile is rising

AGAIN

The venom in the veins

Courses hardy

Again,

Throbbing, pulsing

AGAINf

Lub dub, Lub dub, Lub dub:

The throb of life calling for

MURder, MURder, MURder, MURder

chanting in a viperous tongue

slithering from

the Reptilian brain,

spitting

H A T E

K I L L.

When did slavery end?

When did it end?

Physical fact,

State of mind?

Emotional?

Spiritual?

Cultural?

As law?

Law enforcement?

But only the sightless believe

It ended in 1864.

Jim Crow’s reign, segregation, culture of terror, KKK, politicians, Good-White-Men-with-Family-Values. Black ink on White paper records 3,437 African-American lynched up to 1951. Not recorded: every Beating, Stabbing, Crippling, Broken bone, Fried human, Burnt house, Vigilantes Hunting in packs…..

Rising in the pride of the South, strong in their conviction, pleased with their Tradition, Southern Governors and Senators spoke out for what their cold, lizard hearts and squalid eyes and fetid brains claimed as Truth. the “Negro” is inferior. With God (& their ‘way of life’) on their side, they made sure no African American sat on a jury; lynchings took place with impunity as community picnic entertainment, photographed with pride—placed in the family album next to the wedding reception.

(and the country whispers….but that was so long ago… that was not us; I’m not to blame…. but mark and listen and understand it is here now; it is racism; it is killing you, me, the haters and the hated—the Lovers and the Loved—and yes, even most, the ones that stand by, doing nothing)

Woodrow Wilson, a racist Enforcer, segregated the federal government: 1902-1910. One man—the country followed.

1955, a 14-year-old Chicago boy visiting in Mississippi crossed an invisible “white’s only” boundary he didn’t even know existed. His punishment: eyes gouged out, beaten to death, then, finally, shot in the head, thrown into the Tallahatchie River, a 75-pound fan tied around his neck with barbed wire weighing his small body down. Only 54 years ago (and the country pretends… it was so long ago…but oh how wrong we are. It happened during my lifetime. And it was not the end.). Two men arrested, not held or punished; the haters enforced their reign of terror, and J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI promulgated hate, intimidating civil rights workers, giving aid to lynchers, discrediting Martin Luther King, Jr., serving him up to the murdering mob.

1968, only 41 years ago, racism killed Martin Luther King, Jr.

1981, two KKK members in Alabama randomly chose to lynch 19-year-old Michael Donald. For the very first time, the killers were found guilty, but the prosecutor has been number 1 on the Aryan Nation hit list ever since. 1981, Only 28 years ago, during the lives of my children.

I beheld my caring, open-hearted lover

Ignored

Every month, every week, every day, every hour

We strolled through a store

Sat together for coffee—or more.

Eyes glided blankly past her to see only me,

Ask me what I wanted

Fuss over me

Serve me

While she stood next to me:

Invisible

Black

But

Invisible

Except in the Glares of the Police.

The Stares of the Guards

The Malevolence of the Whites

Sniggering, Blithering

As we passed by.

I learned to read

The nerve-quickened pulsing

at the edge

Of her jaw,

The muscles set

—Tightly—

from

neck

shoulder

blade,

Petrify,

and

Rip

her throbbing, open heart

APART.

1998, three men, all members of a white supremacist prison gang, murdered James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old Texas father of three, who had accepted an early-morning ride home from work with the three men. Because it’s what white racists do, they attacked him, dragging him to his death behind their truck, then moseyed off to a barbecue. 1998, only 11 years ago, as the radical Christian Right gained its stranglehold on the Republican party, fought for religion in politics, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-everything “not them.” They’ve perfected the attack ad, blaming the “other,” hunting the scapegoat, preying on and harnessing the collective ugliness within us. And as they’ve discovered, there is more than enough to destroy this country without the need of a nuclear bomb. (and the country ignores….IT is not going away…IT grows on hate, and the agony is ascending once again, again, and again, flooding the land.)

Finally, on June 13, 2005, the US Senate formally apologized for its failure to previously enact a Federal anti-lynching law. All earlier attempts had been defeated by filibusters by powerful Southern senators. 2005, only 4 years ago (and the country sighs, it is over…Oh, how very wrong are we. Look anywhere; there IT is).

And once again the lynching comes

as mobs find courage in numbers.

Have Faith for Faith’s sake,

preserve Tradition for Tradition’s sake

Hate for Hate’s sake

With God, Government, and Police on their side.

For as far back as we have evidence, humans have practiced human sacrifice: scapegoats, the pariah, the “other” to put upon them the blame and shame of the community, to be the sacrifice for the sins of all, originally to drive them out of the community and leave them to die—or ritually kill them in cleansing ceremonies. Human sacrifice for the rest of our sakes; human sacrifice to the gods. The one we know best is the dying/rising god, the god that promises immortality. The names may change but the promise of sin-free immortality remains the same: Osiris, Dionysus, Tammuz, Odin, Ishtar, Persephone, Baal—Jesus. Christians say Jesus is the last; THEY say Jesus took the sins of all so no one else would have to suffer; THEY say they follow him….and yet…and yet….and yet, THEY continue scape-goating—sacrificing others, projecting fears, hatred, anger, perverted thoughts onto entire populations.

What an excuse to commit genocide (Indians, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Immigrants—take your pick).

What an excuse to kill ( so many to choose from).

What an excuse to be a vigilante (a buffet of life to slaughter).

What an excuse for murdering in the name of love.

Diagnosis:

The psychosis of humanity made manifest, running amuck, ranting, wrecking, reeking havoc, assaulting, lynching, Effacing to avoid facing themselves.

Playing God, they slaughter.

The herd hunts again,

Rulers of Deceit:

The Rogue and the Righteous

—The McPalins of the World—

Forging the grandiose

Hate-Fest

To Feast,

Draped

in rancid lies

They

Dredge

the

Sludge in the drains—the slime—

Lining the social plumbing,

Lurking in the twisted shadows

Out of sight

But

Never

Out of mind.

Left too long to rot and mold

In the grime

of history

—denied—

Bubbles in repression,

Churns sour in our souls,

Flings out its tentacles for the light of day

Births hate from guilt,

Pain from shame,

Displaced blame gobbles the refusal to atone

No matter how hard we try to scrub the claims of conscience away,

Racism

Our Nemesis,

Our cyanide rage,

Our Gangrenous hate.

Crawling on the unmasked:

Neighbors,

Church members,

Farmers,

Butchers,

Jury-sitters

Bakers

Law-makers,

ALL

Beasts craving to be fed Again

US-made

Vampires

Raping

Their Country,

Devouring

Their Young.

(With God on their side)

Thanks to:

Abel Meeropol for the lyrics Strange Fruit

The Southern Poverty Law Center:

Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin, Jr., and Julian Bond,

Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, all those who’ve been hurt & still will,

All who’ve fought and still continue to

Charging Shame to:

All that aid & abet fear of those who are different

All that feed off hate

All that incite violence against those who disagree

All that are complicitous, consciously or not

I'm Back

2009-08-18T15:11:00.001-07:00

here at Blogspot now. The WordPress blog just didn't work out for the style of writing that I do. Coming up will be a new look at the "Venom in the Veins" post!

Relocating

2009-05-01T13:20:00.000-07:00

to a WordPress blog

Not for my ego

2009-04-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

[‘take another little piece of my heart now baby; you know you got it if it makes you feel good"]

My door has never known

a lock nor key,

My door has never known

a lock nor key,

Twill always be free

to all who dream,

and any who wonder

how to combine

fire with the sea.

So many invitations have now become

trampled in the gutter scum;

as no one sought to wander

—without their armor casings—

through this

maze of passion-candles burning.

Nor did they care to undress

in compassion-veined corridors.

But I pay homage to Ms. Janis,

A soul carved deep with scars;

she gave away

pieces of her heart,

asking nothing in return.

She sang the Blues till the end

and died alone—

but, oh, mother,

she knew,

that so do we all.

And this I know

from the depths of my soul,

Southern Comfort

kept her company

as keening lyrics

burst with Empathy,

and no one sang her to the grave.

Oh, of the many that live,=2 0so few

ever quest their hearts.

Oh yea, they hold only

replicas in metal and diamonds cold,

hoarded tight within their chest,

for only in things do they trust.

Oh, yea, oh yea, oh yea.

They hope, covet, crave

and Pray—

to remain unscathed

as they whine and walk

the one and only journey

that so must we all,

the road upon which they fear to touch another

the road that batters, marks, and scars,

no matter how hard we stall.

Though jagged cuts cleave muscles,

Still, I fling open wide

the etched glass doors to my heart,

and, oh, you can be sure,

I say to everyone,

Come in, and in return, I’ll give you the sum

of all I am and all that I will become.

Some bold and some just curious

stepped inside my mind,

Oh, my, did we spin works of art,

Slide from coral-red, painted arcs

Climb galaxies of physics,

Float in glossy cobalt quarks,

free-fall in tingling canyon drops down synapses—

wrapped safely in these dancer arms,

leaping and spinning into the unknown…

But one by one they stopped,

before the central mystery….

Blinded by precious stones, they grabbed—

Hearts’ opals, unique in facet and swirl,

and flung the jagged chunks, now scattered before swine.

One by one they walked away—a piece of my heart in tow.

I hocked my wounds at peep shows,

and watched fissures erupt through my art.

With a laser in one hand, an IV in the other,

head bowed and body bruised,

I cauterized the leaking veins,

yet and always my heart renews…

Marked forever outside in,

Crying hearts,

Inscribed in ink,

Drip and Slide across my skin.

For I pay homage to Ms. Janis,

A soul mapped deep with scars;

she gave away pieces of her heart,

asking nothing in return.

She sang the Blues till the end

and died alone,

but, oh, mother,

she knew,

that so do we all.

And this I know,

from the depths of my soul,

Southern Comfort

kept her company

as keening lyrics

burst with Empathy,

and no one sang her to the grave.

Oh, of the many that live, so few

ever quest their hearts.

Oh yea, they hold only

replicas in metal and diamonds cold

hoarded tight within their chest,

for only in things do they trust.

Oh, yea, oh yea, oh yea.

They hope, covet, crave

and Pray—

to remain unscathed

as they whine and walk

the one and only journey

that we must all,

the road upon which they fear to touch another

the road that batters, marks, and scars,

no matter how hard we stall.

So I pay homage to Ms. Janis,

And follow in her path.

My soul is gouged deep with wounds,

Still, away I give pieces of my heart

And ask nothing in return.

I’ll dance the Blues till the end;

I’ll die alone,

but, oh, mother, I know,

that so do we all.

And this I know

from the depths of my soul,

seeds of dance

keep me company

as keening words

jolt with Empathy

and no one dances me to the grave.

Yes, seeds of dance

keep me company

as keening words

jolt with Empathy

and no one dances me to the grave.

The Hunger Site

2009-03-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

Ego Manifesto

2009-03-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

Ego Manifesto

Appetites….grow….

Grow…. &….Swell—

till they spllliittit

atoms spinning

with desire.

mushrooming egos,

fiber-optically connecting

the world,

greedily

seizing

Every

Pumping

Pulsing

Craving,

(minted-dollar-verdant-green),

dusting off even the dullest chimera,

And Lo,

Behold,

Halcyon dreams to

gilded Gimcrack turn,

and cockaignes continually heave—

Broadcasting Nightly,

Daily:

Analog,

Digital,

Virtual,

MySpace, MyFace

[MyReality, YourReality]—

MYBlog, YourBlog

YouTube, BoobTube

9,999 channels—

Can’t find

One

Crooning

Your Delusions?

Then make your own—

Dreams Double-Bubble, Thwart, Extort, Shriek, and Reek

Blogfog,

Slithering through the wire-waves, Meming across the air-waves

And you too can

Aspire to

Empire,

Replicating

posters photos voices videos

and

Grab for that brain-washed, culturally God-promised 15 minutes of fame:

Blogster, reality-sphere, apprentice-crawl, designer-discovered, chef-picked…

And to hell with everyone else on the

Stinking,

Sinking

Ship.

Modern Entertainment

2009-02-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

Modern Entertainment

On weekends, the people get so bored

With the athletes paid to parade before us

There: the hockey rink, the basketball court, the arena

There, the players prepare to battle for our pleasure.

Businessmen become ringside heroes

and prize bimbos strut as cheerleaders.

Who can say of what they’re made

that the testosterone ones turn and bray,

then, suddenly, they’ve swelled, bloodied and battered.

Who can say of what they dream,

those entertainers now drowned in the inflamed screams

spewed from the mouths of the multitudes—

Hurray!

On Sundays the athletes get so bored

When required to suffer for us.

They line up for their cortisone boosts

while mobs everywhere chant for revenge,

and when results bequeath only broken bones,

the mobs cry out with disgruntled groans:

A signal for businessmen to display Machismo

And use women to echo their punching blows.

Every day we news whores get so bored

waiting for the other to drop dead for us

The bombs will reign down and the mob will drool

The blood will pour and bodies stack up—

Hurray! Hurray!

Then the businessmen become champions,

and in triumph, we all scream and shout,

praising the necessary assault.

And when those in the way finally fell

Did not the victims dream of some hell

Where war mongers and worn-out soldiers still burn

Or perhaps with their last breaths

Would the scapegoats not pardon us their deaths

Knowing what we did—or did not do—

At:

the Crusades—Hurray!

Wounded Knee—Hurray!

Versailles—Hurray!

Iwo Jima—Hurray!

Hiroshima—Hurray!

Saigon

The Killing Fields

Rwanda

South America

Afghanistan

Iraq

Gaza!

Special thanks to Jaques Brell’s song “The Bulls”

and to Picasso for Guernica

When a Man Loves a Man

2009-01-10T15:09:00.000-08:00

Over the past decade, one of the most divisive issues in American culture has been same sex marriage. There are many legal, religious, historical, psychological, and societal ramifications to this debate. Ultimately, however, this all comes down to a single catalyst: what happens in the United States when a man loves a man or a woman loves a woman?

Fibroid Pipes

2008-12-29T15:46:00.000-08:00

Her doorbell works. Her phone works. Her heat works. Her plumbing works; it aspirates, wheezes, and thwoofes—the galvanized copper pipes sweat blood. Perfectly natural, irony-red blood, bleeding and osmosing through arterial, moil-aged disintegrating pipes worldwide. It’s the way the world works. People never notice, no, never notice that the rust-crust layers ironically rich are not rust and the acrid metal smell is blood-swaddled Pipes, radiating moldy, sour-spore cheese ….

young Chinese village girls, feet-bound to the family farm, brother-beaten, birth to death, minds bandage-wrapped tied to lovingly hand feed hungry baby silk worms [their own children dumped in the closest city’s gutters] and coax forth threads for hand-dying.

A [jaundiced yellow] flower blossom 100% woven silk jacket: on sale at Dillards now: $185.95, last year’s style…..

She stops breathing as she peels stinking saffron blood-stained bandages from the sink’s clogged throat, remnants of the blood-soaked, urine stained sheets her AIDS-riddled lover, Patrick, had lain on? Had they not burned long ago along with his body? His blood, her love, their mildewed memories—fibroid filaments—chaining, webbing, metastasizing through her Pipes, into the city’s and….

boys in the Sam Yang Vietnam Nike factory make $1.60 a day, but it is below subsistence. They starve, body fat melting into the shoe’s rubber souls-soles worth $159.99 to a suburban kid in upper state New York, the fat globules greasing just the right amount of glide quality [with friendly service provided by Pakistan, India, Korea….]. And the workers’ life-giving blood dripped down the factory drain to the sewage system supplying irrigation on the local rice farms exporting grain feeding the fat in the land of Milk and Honey and Big Rock Candy Mountain…..

In deathly dark dank recesses under her bed lie detritus dregs of denatured humanity: fingernail clippings, hair threads, bone chips, clinging to dust balls quivering in the far corners blown hither and thither with the hot, sweat-filled air fueled and forged from furnaces in the meatpacking, food processing, garment-skin-stitching interment-immigrant factories—the heartbeat of the industrial North….

boiled in vats of recycled residue, remnants, and relics swept up with sliced, diced, slivered and shivered phalanges —shucked of skivvies, dead cells clinging, modestly, to gouged wounds, stripped skin sent knuckle-dusted to the shop floors, face-mangled scabs scrubbed into sloshing buckets, the proceeds slung into the food seasoned with blood in the hum, suck, and thump-in-the-night-pumps of Upton Sinclair’s Chicago Jungle exposed and bzzz shock discarded on the gov-controlled-abort.-history dump. Eraser heads sweep the streets clean for the flip, flop, flip, flap, flap of Mexican-made industry garments Clinton-pimped by way of NAFTA, signed, sealed, delivered slave labor, so you can have Calvin-baby-Klein and Ralphy boy Lauren’s designer jeans—back at you sexy boys and girls for those oh-so stylin’ gilt guile leach-lusting topstitching on white slim-trim stretch jeans [finger them in the store; buy them off the Internet]: only $325, stitched-strung by Rosa Maria Martinez, a Maquiladora worker paid 60 cents an hour…..

‘Tis the Season to be givin’ …. Addicted shopper sends her hand-made, hand-wrapped, rice paper lining packed via Fancy Asian Gourmet, found online—just: type, click, link click, enter, click, shopping cart, compare site, best quality from computer to door—flick, flick hit, print. Contents: four-noodle sampler with five mini-garnish sauces all golden glow bowed, hand-looped. Imported from Vietnam: only $52. A foot stomping, deliriously demented plugged-in buying, linked-in, your pay pal, all season bow-tied anytime. Factory. Billboard. Magazine ad targeted to your zip code. TV commercial made just for your demographic. Internet wired in, light popping, electric pulsing, twittering savory image, luscious words, [insidious ideas…] vindicating props-to-gander-at. To expel the peanut packed, monstrous fibrous-horde, she slams it on the knobbly faucet and—flip, switch, link, gurgle, google—all the Connecting PiPes under- over-ground, intertwining, intersecting time/space meshing, spew forth stocking stuffers rotted rats’ tails, crushed snails, diseased cells and boys toys cheap and neat to please and squeeze wasted, crumpled bodies into slag for the cement blocks, the hard- and soft-ware, the mixed and mashed pixels—all—the market builds on—and strings with bulbous lights blinking out the crushed american dreams cycling and recycling from house to job to hyway and byway [paved, plumbed, and broadcast], bursting forth, Pipe-puking, contaminating gifts for the Holidays, Holly LollyPop Days, the Season’s Greetings, Xmus, Xmax, Holy Days erected on:

Solstice Days, grow and reap days, nature cycling days, Dying/Rising Gods Days

The days of Life, Love, Birth, Death coursing/pulsing with our blood,

sacred blood,

forever tainted blood,

usurped blood

dripping from one-upon-a-cross devaluing human blood,

bought and sold blood,

another product banked on to spout Profit Pipes.

Circa 1985

Blood Banks tubing people with HIV-infected blood—cheaper than screening. Blood money speaking—louder than shouts, protests, and dying spillage from AIDS victims. Infection odds from transfusion: 1 in 487.

And Reagan’s Regime, with God on their side, declared AIDS a gay disease, wages of sin. He killed funding. When a rich, morally pure, woman received the gift of death—tainted blood—the lawsuit pressured banks to screen. The White House, cloaked eight years in Christmas white, played Silent Night. That December, her lover Patrick, not rich, unknown, one of many, died, phlegm choked in winding sheets, amid the thousands unwinding ever since. The cause: a truly priceless gift that Christmas didn’t bring. And the Band Played On; blood bloomed dead red and pus ran sallow thick. There was no season for giving—or forgiving. Blood in the streets of America, blood in the streets of Africa. And Christmas, black, red recurring season of cooked books, layoffs, downsizing, and Capitalist Faith, came and went, along with many more just like them.

Circa 1994

FDA claims blood-bank HIV testing not cost effective. Not mandatory. Consumers on the FDA board? How ridiculous! Repeat after me:

Econ 101, Reaganomics

Trust the market, the market, the market.

Like God, like God, like God.

Invisible, Invisible, Invisible.

Have Faith, Have Faith, Have Faith.

Greenspan, Greenspan, Greenspan.

Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand, Ayn Rand

Bang! Market decision: House rules; you, unknowingly, gamble with your life. Three dollars. The cost antigen testing would add to a unit of blood. Trust the Red Cross? Don’t bet on it. Trust the Association of Blood Banking Industry? Wouldn’t bet on it. Trust the CDC’s calculations more cases are on the way, bank on it. Infection odds from transfusion: 1 in 11,111.

Circa 2008

The Pipes still rumble, the blood still pours, the wires hum, and all is well in our fantasy world as Poof, a make-believe P.E.A.C.E prize, magically minted in the mind of a [radical right] make-believe compassionate evangelical preacher of a mega-grossing, mega-church, socially tuned to the season of pretend concocts an award for P.E.A.C.E. that isn’t for PEACE: Rev. Rick Warren sought to give what no one could to Georgie Porgie W.

‘Tis a medal whose initials stand for: Plant churches; Equip servant leaders; Assist [not alleviate?] the poor; Care [not cure?] for the sick; and Educate the next generation [in his oh-so-make-no-mistake-about-it Evangelical, anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-any female who does not submit in everything to her husband, everyone but those who believe as I do are going to hell literal interpretation of the Bible, evolution doesn’t exist Religion],. ‘Tis given for global work in a/the/one/any/maybe: pandemic diseases, extreme poverty, illiteracy, self-centered leadership and/or spiritual emptiness to his friend and ally, who he frequently advised but never thought saying torture not a Christian idea. Now why is that? For as an Evangelical, evil-doers must be punished and his nonnegotiable issues: abortion, stem-cell research, gay marriage, cloning and euthanasia. And while thousands of evangelicals got a fast-track email down the pipe and into the box reminder just in time for the 2004 Bush re-election bid, the rest of us got the PR package.

‘Tis for AIDS Help [?!]. Note: work on AIDS in Africa, not the US. [I’ll give you a hint in case you didn’t get it already: Africa, ‘cause it’s ah, maybe ah, a heterosexual problem there—oh, and of course, the intertwining of ooh, la la, $, power, insemination and dissemination for all on the gravy planes and lightening news Flash! of anti-choice, ‘tis awarded to, Drumrolllllll, sliding trumpet, clash cymbal, hit spotlight: shucks, two-war, economic collapse, let’s eat cake while people die in Katrina, and so much more—Bush. Ah, gosh, not me, he smirked, in his sleek, high- thread count, fine weave linen, not on sale—ever—suit.

The deed: blood money for Pipe-lining generic drugs to Africa, perhaps saving two million. The cost/gain ratio: blocking family planning, banning handing out or talk of condoms, forbidding prevention education, indoctrinating religious guilt, disregarding nutrition, side-effects, poverty, female emancipation from rape and prostitution in the spread of AIDS A gift of damning stupor, ignoring that African nations funding for education and prevention have lower infection rates. A gift of Christian Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. And a nice tidy side-line for Rev. Warren: co-opting the Anglican schism supporting the Nigerian Anglican bishop in anti-gay laws “mak[ing] it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant” and to withdraw from the Anglican church over including gays. But, as he also says, he supports equal rights for gays, just not marriage [Do I have a hearing problem? Have my lines got crossed? But no, one set runs on money and the other on sweat.] And on Dancer and Prancer and Doner and Blitzen—as Warren with new-found dollars to spend, sped quickly to Virginia, Rwanda, and Nigeria….oh, not for AIDS sufferers, but for rebelling Anglican-hating gays.

Alas, again ‘tis the season for bloodshed as wars rage, bashing minorities grows and ads accuse victims of the cause. Not satisfied with Christ’s blood, with a faith founded on blood—stolen pagan blood—lusting with vampiric dreams of everlasting life. O’ yea worship death in the mire of blood-covered swords, crusaders and avengers, frothing anger and hate. Rev. Warren grins and he grins, turns and he turns, unwinding the same incestuous, corrupt linen sown with a hidden [malignant] blossoming pattern: not in the fancy lizard suits of a Falwell or a Robertson, but the flowery sugary-cane fields, pigment-dyed, Old Testament Red, 100% cotton fiber, still standing, still marching, still spitting in the blood of others, looking for his Purpose Driven Empire, proclaiming Christianity as the future for Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Ancient blood, ancient stink of rusted iron strings whipping up cries for blood—others blood—gays, non-evangelicals, humanists, feminists: selected sinners seen through the stye burning in his God’s eye.

‘Tis not for me.

I will celebrate the Solstice—

Seasonal

Sacred

Truth.…

Mystery

spinning in the

moon and the sun

and the winter,

the changing summer heat,

in the riddle of the

Sphinx,

in the earth revolving

and Galileo Gazing,

Searching the heart

of the heavens:

know.

Symbolized in the inexorable dying/rising gods of imagination. And the momentary, fragile spark of our little lives against the scintillating background of stardust to which we will return—dust to dust, ashes to ashes……. Recycled Be. ‘Tis that Season, the eternal season of understanding the suffering of every human’s blood in this blood-drenched world in which I will commingle my own. And not one dollar will I mete out to a season of bloodshed and plunder.

Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On

Bush award: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/01/bush-peace/

Ambroise Bierce definition of Faith

The Anglican Church Integrity site

The Guardian

Timothy Kincaid

My 2 Cents Worth

CNN

Slaying Heritage

2008-12-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

I am a woman

No history,

bequeathed by ghostly ancestors,

Abandoning origins,

lost

amid the 22 million

—broken—

shamed,

cattle-prodded

through the cavernous,

Ellis Island halls

sweating human misery

They willed to me:

no stories, no customs, no heirlooms,

no words from the languages

of their births.

Just—

Whispers

streaming,

waves of fear fleeing hostility and bigotry

—pogroms—

sweaping Europe

executing

Jews.

They willed to me

only

a handful of sepia-faded faces—

with

places,

dates,

and

names.

Dirty Immigrants.

Victims.

Beguiled

by the American dream of oblivion,

they requested their pasts be cremated

along-side them.

And so it was done, in honor of their

broken backs

rendered in the melting pot—

skin worn to shoe leather.

Probed for labor fitness,

Stripped

Searched,

Inspected,

Renamed,

Mandated

Labeled

Tagged

Mass processed.

Branded

at Ellis Island,

(aliens) (untrustworthy)

Indentured servants for the fat old English Man that vouchsafed them,

(Eastern European—different)

Slaves

for Northern Factories.

Scurrying to his Summons:

Kykes, Hymies, Shylocks, Krauts, Jerrys….

(At least Not Chinks, banned 1862)

One more group exploited

(And Not Japs, barred 1902)

Tote that barge,and lift that bale.

Fettered.

Bull-penned in Factory towns

Shilled in Factory stores,

—Trapped—

before Northern Europeans only quotas 1924,

legislated, legalized more

discrimination, detention and deportation as the norm,

the very sentiments my grandparents

tried to bury before begetting progeny.

They’d all been lured by metaphors

of streets paved with gold,

Only to find beneath their feet

Not even wooden planks,

Just shovels, mud and jumbled stones

To learn that servitude

required

they be the ones to

Pave them.

I want to dredge up their ashes,

And minuscule,

fragmented bones,

Festively gilding them to tie into my hair.

Ornaments and Amulets,

bearing witness to my origins.

But their inscrutable faces murmur,

Let dead relatives be.

They do not understand my need.

You are the last, they accuse,

as if my only worth lay

in the passing on of genes.

Soon enough, they sigh,

soon enough you will

also be

a handful of dusty ashes

meaningful to no one

and nobody

will ever know you were.

Buried in the Nothingness

Of the

Chimera

They call America

Black Friday in the Red

2008-12-01T17:15:00.000-08:00

Capitalism Run Amuck--Follow the Money

The Shearing Cuts

2008-11-25T21:25:00.000-08:00

Snowing outside—bright, glazed white porcelain snow glinting diagonal streaks across the dull, matte white, horizontal blinds. Warm inside, light grey steamy mists rising perpendicular to darker grey, vertical heating pipes. Cold sunlight crosses hot lamp light, casting a lace collar on the faded, ash-blonde wood floor. A chiaroscuro painting.

My black hair drifts in clumps to the floor—point, counterpoint, snippets alternating with the white, old man's hair falling outside. A mulch-covering ritual of renewal.

Clip, clip, snip scissors, the shears shearing. A perfect haiku: white spring snow and me, thick, black hair on a diminutive Japanese girl. Or, thick, harsh snow burning a cold January day and me, tall, heavy-boned black woman, crimps of wiry hair, hair in glassy, black waves—an ocean tangling into the African ivory coastline. The snow's cruel light gleams, thick and gagging, a chalky milkshake, threatening to choke and kill. Or, a dense, onerous snow trudging across the Russian Steppes, asphyxiating the land, crushing the houses, and me, moon-faced, unblinking—staunch. And inside I am warm, surrounded by tufts of hair, molting clumps from a stuffed Panda Bear.

I tenderly collect hair to braid into a rug, to cover with dust, cover with cat hair, cover as it covers—to be worn down back into the elements. Or, this gathering of hair, I will weave as the bottom of a wicker chair, supporting friends that come and go, supporting dust, supporting cat hair, supporting as it is supported. Thus start the years of collecting hair, hair constantly pruned short to fulfill such purposes.

I beg (steal) hair. Rescued from lovers, from friends, from strangers, …. swept from beauty parlors finely stained wood, from barbershops dust-covered, dull linoleum floors, from waste baskets in bathrooms, from brushes and combs patiently culled without breaking the knots and tangles. Workrooms deep in drifting, shifting color-spectrumnal hair—cotton white to Tupelo honey, Poppy red to the deep purple of ripe plums, leisurely loops to ringlets, electric shock waves to water flows. A wondrous fey-lock palette.

Space and history, I weave, time and emotion, I weave—shirts, jackets, dresses, pants…. Chiaroscuro body maps lined with purple amethyst Chinese silk. Hair-knittes huggings holding humans against the cold, the dirt, the outside that sometimes taps, sometimes scratches against my windows. My closests spill stories of dead cells shorn to be renewed, journeys of celebrations and mournings, of beginnings, changes, and ends—people I have never met, people I thought I knew, people I knew for only a while, and the very few I knew forever in the rhythm of their heartbeat. No, they never stay….. But I have their hair—and all that encompasses.

The Painful Truth

2008-11-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

Dun-colored dust flings from the supply wagons plodding ahead of me. We trudge, in our fifth year, lacerating the landscape out of Alexander's compulsion to conquer. We vomit groans in the night. Alexander, in his desire to command us, supplies the "flower of mercy"—OPIUM. The Poppy: red - of blood and death, white - of purity and oblivion. We live for these brief respites.
And we endure.
Beyond words, beyond sense of self… just… beyond. One of our philosophers—Aristotle, Alexander's teacher—proclaimed death as the great leveler of all beings. But we, the warriors that may live to go home, if we talk of our experience at all, will say that which equalizes is Pain.
As a Roman gladiator, I embody strength, bravery, the valor and terrifying, magnificent potency of the Roman Empire. But I am a myth, a myth built on a body operating on opium. We are condemned criminals, prisoners of war, or slaves bought for the purpose of gladiatorial combat. A few of us are professionals, free men so low on the social scale we volunteer to participate in the games. Our life spans: two to three years. Oh yes, we fight, with the help of opium, we fight, die, and…escape.

I, We, humans have dragged our ravaged, diseased bodies out of Africa. For millions of years, we have lugged them across land, over mountains, through water. We have walked, run—crawled—from wretchedness. Searching for relief, first, in our struggle to survive, we developed receptors for what already existed. Then, we sought relief in what we could conjure into existence:

A Lesson in Evolution

: Plantisis Verse I:IV, In the beginning there was

Opium

Chemistrum Verse V:IX, Opium begat a son named

Morphine

Synthenim Verse X: IX, Morphine begat a son named

Heroin

Morphine came to us in the early 1800s, thanks to a German chemist looking for something to increase the strength of opium. And in 1898, Heroin, which generated quite a lucrative trade, advertised via the famous Bayer aspirin company came in the guise of cough medicine, a combatant for pneumonia, and also tuberculosis, among other things. Not till after W.W. II did the League of Nations finally demand that it be pulled off the market. But Bayer kept the profits, along with the money the company made manufacturing the gas used in the Jewish death camps (with full government knowledge from the start).

And now, chemical labs known and unknown

beget

a multitude of Drugs, in perpetuity, forever more,

in which we seek to obliterate torturous pain,

Amen

Pain: the stigmata. Holes ripping through life. Pain: The word made flesh. How to describe it?—the etiology, the history, the geography of pain. Pain that encompasses, pain that courses through breath, heartbeat, organs, joints, muscles, tendons, and bones. To sleep in pain. To wake in pain. To walk in pain. To breath in pain.

Stumping North from the Civil War on one leg, I cried out my suffering: Skrale. Krolde. Brachlin. Brackle. Chale. Chaleskine. Schriln. Grache. Harsh sounds racking my body in the synaptic firings of infinite anguish. Skin slit open and turned inside out, my nerves exposed to all the elements. The surgeons did try to mitigate the pain, but they only had four tools available: a butcher knife (to slice muscle and fat, a saw (to hack bone), a wire cutter (for tendons). . . and morphine.

A Theoretical Aside

Pain, according to socio-biologists, is an evolutionary mechanism serving to warn creatures that something needs fixing. But what a crude contrivance it surely is as so often there is nothing that can be done; when an animal in the wild suffers an abscessed tooth, that creature will most likely starve to death. And as for the human beast, too many physical afflictions reduce us to putrid skin bags stuffed with agony. Perhaps a particular interpretation of such torment—that it is noble and righteous to suffer for its own sake, an end in itself—developed to provide succor in the midst of our helplessness. As a political tool, its lucrative result has been to keep the masses from fomenting rebellion. Then, taking into account the Christian/Puritan penchant for suffering as punishment for sin along with pain and self-flagellation as expressions of the spiritual, we get the strong, cultural view: "Grin and bear it." "Stiff upper lip." "Suffer in silence." "Put up with it." "No pain no gain." …..i.e., No one wants to hear about it, so SHUT UP.

There is simply overwhelming torment, torment that does not lead to god, that doesn't ennoble us, that we do not learn from. The Opium Wars: a reaction to, an escape from, physical and psychic pain. The poppy field—to sleep and wake no more—death—oblivion. Opium, mixed with tobacco as early as the 1600s, gave the opium high its intense ability to relieve pain. The abysmal conditions for the billions in China led to opium dens; one-third of all Chinese sought relief while the British reaped the monetary rewards. The US offered China help in order to abolish the opium trade—in exchange for China opening its borders to American goods.

A Theoretical Aside

Viewed from a Marxist point of view, the workers toil and hurt, and those that own the means of production benefit off their suffering. Supply and demand. Money makes the world go round. And capitalism rules.

We live in the slums of Yantai and day and night unload the boats that fill the harbor. My father and his father before him have held their families together this way in a rotting, one-room shanty built against the backside of the main dock's garbage depository. Generations back, our family survived off fishing, but then we were told that that displeased the provincial representative of the Emperor. The Great One owned the sea, the fish, the land, and the ships that had begun delivering wondrous goods for his excellency's pleasure. And so we became the backs on which to unload these precious items for Him and, now, for this new group that has taken command after the last Emperor. But the few coins they deign to give us cannot pay for the acupuncture my father needs for his hurting, crippled hands and crooked legs. Nor can it pay for the medicine needed to cure the painful growths on my first born's back and buttocks. And my mother-in-law screams through the night from the horrible sufferings that come with the burden of age. And then there is myself. My family is …. hungry and tired. We understand this is our fate. We understand this. But it is a hard life to live. The gift of opium offers a little ease. As it does also for my father. And my mother-in-law. And my first born.

I have seen those around me kill and die, die and kill, and I have been told that a revolution has taken place, that now the sea, the land, the fish, the ships, and their miraculous goods belong to me, to my family, to my neighbors. But still we labor at the docks for far less than will provide for our most fundamental needs. And of late, soldiers of this new order have taken what little we have and demand even more. They say we must hand over our opium; we must tell them the names of those we get it from—although they offer no recompense—in money or to lessen the burden of our bodies. They say the opium causes pain. They say it will kill us. They say they will kill us. I have seen them take entire families to the community square and shoot them……..
My family has chosen the opium.

A Theoretical Aside

Twenty-first century theory regarding pain control has meant cutting the nerve bundles that carry the pain message to the brain. Unfortunately, this surgical procedure affects the body the same way amputation does, the brain responding as if the pain signals were still being sent. Furthermore, they try to grow back—thus doubling the initial messages' intensities. But doctors ignore the data coming in from their patients since they have determined that their theory is based in logic. Their only other type of treatment available—pain medication. The AMA prefers neither alternative. Their final word: Let the patients live by pain alone.

Biological evolution. Adaptation. Adapt or die. Though we declare we do not know what use it does for a chemical in the Poppy plant to develop interlocking adapters with the endorphin receptors of Homo Sapiens, for us, evolving receptors for substances that helped us ignore pain often meant the difference between life and death.
And so we endured.

- - - - - - -

Chronic back pain, 30 years. Days, sometimes weeks, of crawling to the bathroom. Never knowing when the 4th lumbar vertebrae would slip and I'd lose all control over being able to move my legs. Take anti-inflammatories. Live with the pain. Tried acupuncture and massage; neither worked. Practitioners blame me. Nor did Western medicine. Indiscriminate nerve pain in my neck and side of my head (known as Neuralgia), 20 years. Western medicine has no permanent drug for it, and since the worst pain is right under the temple of my glasses (I can't wear contacts), my glasses trigger the pain. Nothing for alternative medicine to do. Live with it. Fibromyalgia, 10 years. An auto-immune disease causing widespread pain in the muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Fatigue. Severe insomnia. Muscles and tendons twitch and at other times they burn. Always ache. Cause unknown. One nurse spits out, "It's all in your head." So is everything, but she meant I was simply crazy.

I only begged for pain management from my doctor that I had been seeing for over 6 years when the pain inhaled my time and space and every motion of every neuron. The AMA's public position: it is unethical and immoral to relieve such suffering with an opiate, despite the known fact that regular pain relievers do not work, as addiction is far worse than suffering excruciating, unmanageable, life-consuming pain. So, my doctor refused to prescribe.
Agony. Pain from my cells attacking and eating my tissues, my mind, my thoughts, my soul, my very being. Physical: pain in my neck, epileptic pain messages spasming through my shoulders, along the side of my head, down my shoulder blades, wrapping my fingers and elbows and wrists and hip joints and knees and legs—worst of all, the bottoms of my feet. It hurt too much to put on a pair of socks. I could not hold the weight of a coffee cup. I couldn't hold a pen or a fork for the pressure against my fingers sent stabbing, radiating pain. I could not sit, stand, drive, or walk for longer than 20 minutes. Mental: words seared, thoughts mangled, connections bloodily hacked and dangling beyond repair.
Emotional: No room, no room, no room for........... any.............. self............... just............ pain................... exists..................Chronic.............Forever. The doctor could accept that. The AMA could. Society could. The War on Drugs could.

I could not

I had the plan and means for suicide. The time and the place. Only when my sister, PHD clinical psychology, told my doctor—as I had done—that I was indeed suicidal did I finally get synthetic morphine—Only a Facade covering the pain, drilling, exploding, ravaging what I once called a life. No cure. Minimal reprieve. Constant pain boiling through the pitiful blockade.

The Afterbirth: How cool! You get to be high all the time.
That's a myth.
Hey—got any to share?
No. It's a medication.
Lucky you. I'd love to be "out of it" all the time.
You try working with no memory, fatigue, and pain.
You shouldn't be on that stuff. It's bad for you. Learn to cope some other way.
Thanks for the advice.
Oh, come on, picking up that book can't possibly hurt.
Based on what? Your health?
You're kidding! That slight brush with the edge of the table hurt? I can't believe it.
You don't have to.
So you can't sit in any of these chairs. I guess you'll just have to live with it.
I do.
So what do you expect from me? Pity? Boo hoo?
From you? I just want you to leave me the fuck alone.

Medical research has documented that pain is the most under treated medical problem in the U.S. Congress wants to further restrict pain research, doctors' rights to prescribe pain medication, criminalize the issue, and refuse pain control even to the terminally ill.
If they succeed, I also will choose death

Dedication for A Painful Truth

While I wrote this piece six years ago, as far as the attitudes of the people I casually run into these days, when my disability comes up [in reality a combination of several chronic illnesses], unfortunately, the lack of understanding as well as the unwillingness to understand—even to insist that they know more than the doctors, researchers, biologists, myself, etc., combined, has grown exponentially. Not only do so many people adamantly believe they know what is right for me, this belief now extends to prejudging me: condescendingly, arrogantly, belittllingly, debasingly…. And this judgment extends far beyond me.

So I am dedicating this piece to everyone who has been made to feel less than equal, less than full—to everyone who has been condescended to, been prejudged and dismissed simply because they do not fit within the petty, minuscule box the abusers have decided defines “normal.” This piece, though it is limited to my particular circumstances dealing just with my illness [as opposed to all the other ways people have attempted to demean me], is written for all who have experienced prejudice in whatever form. In fact, almost every piece on this blog deals with some form of injustice and bigotry. As long as I have the ability, I hope to continue to speak out on such issues.

Blog Blast for Peace

2008-11-06T14:26:00.001-08:00

2008-10-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

Venom

in the

Veins

It's my property! Why, I paid $985 for this here piece of flesh, and I have the right to do what I want with it.

Pounded under the slave block's gavel,

bid-$1-2-430 bid-$2-4-580 bid-$3-4-850 bid-$5-6-1,000

& Sold, & Sold, & Sold, & Sold,

heart beats, heart beats, heart beats, heart beats

Four million hearts beating

Imprisoned

For Life

For Greed

For Lust

for

the rhythm of planting, picking—

FLESH

Turned into MONEY,

Blood

Poured into crops,

Fusing with the dirt

And

Raining from the sky—

Southern trees bore a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,

Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze,

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Across the street,

in the White Churches,

BREAD turned to CHRIST'S FLESH,

and

BLOOD

to WINE

So if'in I want to rape it, hate it, mutilate it, that ain't none of your business. I can even kill it if I want to 'cause it's mine, and you can't stop me. Though me killin' it would mean I was downright crazy given what I just paid for it. But when it gets old and useless, and I've gotten my money's worth, I just might hunt it for fun. Now you just get on out of my way before I start to showin' my hate for you, you anti-Christian piece of Northern trash! It's in the Bible; they're heathens, savages, inferior, don't believe in Jesus, and even when converted, they still the sons of Ham. My preacher taught me the word of God. He should know. God's never wrong, and We Southerners have God on our sidde [ssssss-slap]

God on our siiiiid- [sssss-slap]

God on our siiii- [ssss-slap]

God on our sssss- [ssss-slap]

God on ouuur- [ssss-slap]

God onnn -[ssss-slap]

"Oh, yes ye converted heathen, God has a message for thee; be meek and mild my child in the face of thy travails. Submit and repent; think only of Heaven, not this world, and the next will be yours."

So said the Southern Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and cohorts.

(and the country whispers but that was so long ago; that was not us; I'm not to blame…. but look and listen and understand it is here now; it is racism; it is killing you, me, the haters and the hated—and yes, even most the ones that stand by, doing nothing)

The vomiting has begun

AGAIN

The bile is rising

AGAIN

The venom in the veins

Courses hardy

Again,

Throbbing, pulsing

AGAINf

Lub dub, Lub dub, Lub dub:

The throb of life calling for

MURder, MURder, MURder, MURder

chanting in a viperous tongue

slithering from

the Reptilian brain,

spitting

H A T E

K I L L.

When did slavery end?

When did it end?

Physical fact,

State of mind?

Emotional?

Spiritual?

Cultural?

As law?

Law enforcement?

But only the sightless believe

It ended in 1864.

Jim Crow's reign, segregation, culture of terror, KKK, politicians, Good-White-Men-with-Family-Values. Black ink on White paper records 3,437 African-American lynched up to 1951. Not recorded: every Beating, Stabbing, Crippling, Broken bone, Fried human, Burnt house, Vigilantes Hunting in packs…..

Rising in the pride of the South, strong in their conviction, pleased with their Tradition, Southern Governors and Senators spoke out for what their cold, lizard hearts and squalid eyes and fetid brains claimed as Truth. the "Negro" is inferior. With God (& their 'way of life') on their side, they made sure no African American sat on a jury; lynchings took place with impunity as community picnic entertainment, photographed with pride—placed in the family album next to the wedding reception.

(and the country whispers….but that was so long ago… that was not us; I'm not to blame…. but mark and listen and understand it is here now; it is racism; it is killing you, me, the haters and the hated—the Lovers and the Loved—and yes, even most, the ones that stand by, doing nothing)

Woodrow Wilson, a racist Enforcer, segregated the federal government: 1902-1910. One man—the country followed.

1955, a 14-year-old Chicago boy visiting in Mississippi crossed an invisible "white's only" boundary he didn't even know existed. His punishment: eyes gouged out, beaten to death, then, finally, shot in the head, thrown into the Tallahatchie River, a 75-pound fan tied around his neck with barbed wire weighing his small body down. Only 54 years ago (and the country pretends… it was so long ago…but oh how wrong we are. It happened during my lifetime. And it was not the end.). Two men arrested, not held or punished; the haters enforced their reign of terror, and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI promulgated hate, intimidating civil rights workers, giving aid to lynchers, discrediting Martin Luther King, Jr., serving him up to the murdering mob.

1968, only 41 years ago, racism killed Martin Luther King, Jr.

I beheld my caring, open-hearted lover

Ignored

Every month, every week, every day, every hour

We strolled through a store

Sat together for coffee—or more.

Eyes glided blankly past her to see only me,

Ask me what I wanted

Fuss over me

Serve me

While she stood next to me:

Invisible

Black

But

Invisible

Except in the Glares of the Police.

The Stares of the Guards

The Malevolence of the Whites

Sniggering, Blithering

As we passed by.

I learned to read

The nerve-quickened pulsing

at the edge

Of her jaw,

The muscles set

—Tightly—

from

neck

shoulder

blade,

Petrify,

and

Rip

her throbbing, open heart

APART.

1998, three men, all members of a white supremacist prison gang, murdered James Byrd, Jr., a 49-year-old Texas father of three, who had accepted an early-morning ride home from work with the three men. Because it's what white racists do, they attacked him, dragging him to his death behind their truck, then moseyed off to a barbecue. 1998, only 11 years ago, as the radical Christian Right gained its stranglehold on the Republican party, fought for religion in politics, anti-immigration, anti-gay, anti-everything "not them." They've perfected the attack ad, blaming the "other," hunting the scapegoat, preying on and harnessing the collective ugliness within us. And as they've discovered, there is more than enough to destroy this country without the need of a nuclear bomb. (and the country ignores….IT is not going away…IT grows on hate, and the agony is ascending once again, again, and again, flooding the land.)

And once again the lynching comes

as mobs find courage in numbers.

Have Faith for Faith's sake,

preserve Tradition for Tradition's sake

Hate for Hate's sake

With God, Government, and Police on their side.

For as far back as we have evidence, humans have practiced human sacrifice: scapegoats, the pariah, the "other" to put upon them the blame and shame of the community, to be the sacrifice for the sins of all, originally to drive them out of the community and leave them to die—or ritually kill them in cleansing ceremonies. Human sacrifice for the rest of our sakes; human sacrifice to the gods. The one we know best is the dying/rising god, the god that promises immortality. The names may change but the promise of sin-free immortality remains the same: Osiris, Dionysus, Tammuz, Odin, Ishtar, Persephone, Baal—Jesus. Christians say Jesus is the last; THEY say Jesus took the sins of all so no one else would have to suffer; THEY say they follow him….and yet…and yet….and yet, THEY continue scape-goating—sacrificing others, projecting fears, hatred, anger, perverted thoughts onto entire populations.

What an excuse to commit genocide (Indians, Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Immigrants—take your pick).

What an excuse to kill ( so many to choose from).

What an excuse to be a vigilante (a buffet of life to slaughter).

What an excuse for murdering in the name of love.

Diagnosis:

The psychosis of humanity made manifest, running amuck, ranting, wrecking, reeking havoc, assaulting, lynching, Effacing to avoid facing themselves.

Playing God, they slaughter.

The herd hunts again,

Rulers of Deceit:

The Rogue and the Righteous

—The McPalins of the World—

Forging the grandiose

Hate-Fest

To Feast,

Draped

in rancid lies

They

Dredge

the

Sludge in the drains—the slime—

Lining the social plumbing,

Lurking in the twisted shadows

Out of sight

But

Never

Out of mind.

Left too long to rot and mold

In the grime

of history

—denied—

Bubbles in repression,

Churns sour in our souls,

Flings out its tentacles for the light of day

Births hate from guilt,

Pain from shame,

Displaced blame gobbles the refusal to atone

No matter how hard we try to scrub the claims of conscience away,

Racism

Our Nemesis,

Our cyanide rage,

Our Gangrenous hate.

Crawling on the unmasked:

Neighbors,

Church members,

Farmers,

Butchers,

Jury-sitters

Bakers

Law-makers,

ALL

Beasts craving to be fed Again

US-made

Vampires

Raping

Their Country,

Devouring

Their Young.

(With God on their side)

Thanks to:

Abel Meeropol for the lyrics Strange Fruit

The Southern Poverty Law Center:

Morris Dees, Joseph J. Levin, Jr., and Julian Bond,

Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, all those who've been hurt & still will,

All who've fought and still continue to

Charging Shame to:

All that aid & abet fear of those who are different

All that feed off hate

All that incite violence against those who disagree

All that are complicitous, consciously or not

Ode to Rabid Republicans

2008-10-18T12:55:00.000-07:00

Ye cravest certainty in a world

Ye knowest as boundless;

Thy dismay bleedest

Through the cracks in thy rusty and shackled armor

ye refuest to discard.

Thy time hast passed, yet ghostly ye cling, forlorn and lost.

Worn buckles fumbled shut,

Old steel boots mauled onto fungied feet,

Thou preparest thy latest onslaught.

Thou hast trodden into our minds for many a decade

Thy hatred for all;

Harvesting fear and frenzy, seeding anger to fester and explode.

In droves thy recruits swarm behind thee.

Proudly bannered in the American flag.

They slogan forth, fangs dripping Patriotism,

Screaming

Death to terrorists,

Death to Muslims,

Death to the Other,

Death to all

that lights this wondrous world,

Death to it all

But your dictums.

Though thy faith leadest to the valley of death,

Though thy faith leadest to the Killing Fields,

Though thy faith

forces

thou into befouled alleys,

Heaped in thy stinking deceipt,

Beset by bigotry, envy, grisly greed, lust, and dreadful deeds

that most surely will end in contrition,

Ye travelest it leaning on blind dogma—eschewest reason

and wonder not to justify the vile means nor the ends for that

which you seek.

Doest thou not thinkest of thy God thou invokest so facilely?

Doest thou truly believest thy God adorest thy offerings:

Burned flesh?

Charred children?

Drowned poor?

Suffering meek?

Did Christ not enjoin thy vows of love?

of mercy?

of compassion?

Methinks thou hast lost thy way,

To gather at the birthing of thine own making,

Yet not of the foretold nor desired Second Coming.

Nay,

Thou hast abandoned thine children

Foresworn thy duteous caretaking,

Forgotten the words of thy Savior,

The meaning of

Forgiveness

to woefully follow the

wrong

Messiah

—a Pied Piper—

A Traitor Made in Thine Image,

Gleefully

Enticing

Thee

Unto

A most private

Hell

Thou Designed for Thee.

SMall

2008-10-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

Family Values

Ah, just hearing Sarah Palin talk about good-old, small town values just warms the very cockles of my heart. I can see it now, a return to those idyllic days of small town idealization: the 1950s, when America was at its greatest. “Leave it to Beaver” ruled the airwaves, entering every middle-class home delivering the very fundamental values embodied by Mrs. Palin, her church, and the current Republican party. Nostalgic tears flood my cheeks—Ah yes, those were the days—and I most heartily look forward to reinstalling them.

Yes, the memories overwhelm me . . . . time spent watching those wise TV fathers instructing their raptly attentive wives fresh from doing their domestic chores dressed impeccably, high heels and tastefully coordinated jewelry, while happy children with perfect manners played harmoniously, then said their Christian prayers before meekly popping off to bed. The good old nuclear family.

Sure was dreamy baby, though it didn’t have an iota of similarity to any family I knew—families where fathers beat their children and mothers called them stupid morons. Disgruntled housewives and single women who’d gotten a taste for working during the war “let go” because the men needed the jobs more. The mommies on my block drug around unintended, unwanted children. Effective birth control wasn’t available and those who perhaps aborted, well, given the morality of the times, that would stay buried in the closet, so how would we know? Unless they died, of course. Even then, it’s amazing the secrets behind closed doors. Don’t know why they were so unhappy; after all, research back then showed that only 7% of Americans thought a single woman could ever be happy. Maybe they just didn’t know enough to know what was best for them.

And as for single moms? Why, I knew of one….but she was obviously immoral, so the entire community blackballed her, and everyone had someone they could gossip about. That’s always good for keeping cohesion in a small town. Yep, nothing like being the outcast, looked down on, unable to find work, having your child laughed at and called names to let everyone else know what they better not do. That went for divorce as well, rightfully scandalous among us average folk, a good cause for a lot of tongue wagging.

The home was a man’s undisputed castle, and his word ruled—we learned that from TV, from our teachers, from, well, from everywhere. Boy oh boy, my best friend’s dad knew that. Punishment meted out in the basement with PVC pipe against bare arms and legs, metal belt buckles across the butt till she couldn’t sit. One time, she got it so bad, she had to sleep on her stomach for a week. Of course I knew, but as far as I could figure, that’s what went on in every home. Even in “Father Knows Best” or “My Three Sons” or “Ozzie and Harriet.” Children were supposed to keep their mouths shut and show proper respect for grownups, and, well, basically, do everything they were told. Now how those parents got their kids to mind themt was the fuzzy part to us as w didn’t know any kid or parent that acted like those on TV. We couldn’t figure it out: were they just being mean like our parents were in private, or were we the only ones in America whose families didn’t look like theirs?

What with all the evidence—TV, Uncle Sam, our teachers and what they had to say about us….my best friend and I guessed we just had to be the sinful little boogers, the deviants, deserving of a good beating or some other torture. If I misbehaved, I got sent to my room without dinner—zip, nothing, even if I hadn’t gotten lunch either because some school bully had taken it. My own fault my parents said. And they never did explain what I’d done to not get dinner. I remember once going a whole week without. That time I collapsed, but no doctor visit; we couldn’t afford a doctor back then. They say we got what we deserved, and I guess we turned out the better for it.

Strict rules were all part of family values back then. And it was the Dad’s job to enforce them. Men had it tough, for sure. You had to give them slack, coming back from the war and all, starting life again. So what if husbands cheated? Good, dutiful wives put up with it. Come to think of it, they never showed any of that on The Family Hour….but hard to believe it was only going on in our small town; whatever, we kept our mouths shut when it came to the men; what could you expect from men? It was in their nature after all; everyone said so. And those women still trying to keep their places in the workforce certainly didn’t help a man’s morale; they were just giving ‘em a reason to wander.

Uppity women. Selfish. Got a taste for working and now couldn’t let go, do the right thing for the country. Their place was in the home having babies—whether they wanted to or not. Uncle Sam knew best; the government made it very clear women owed it to our future to give the jobs back to the men, stay home and raise children—White children that is. I understood that some of my moms acquaintances were doing their civic duty when they told my mom she should give up the job she got during the war . . . . even . . . even if my dad wasn’t bringing home enough money to pay all the bills. I agreed with what they said behind her back, that by working my mom was undermining my dad’s ego, ‘cause her actions were making him think he couldn’t do it by himself; she was making him look bad in front of his buddies and, and, and . . . . that’s why he was running around. Yup. It was my mom’s fault for, now what was the word they used. . . for. . . for . . .I know—emasculating him.

She was white and Uncle Sam had said we needed white babies; he hadn’t said anything about the minority women that’d been working before, through, and after the war cleaning up after the rest; of course they were supposed to continue working, and be thankful they got paid at all. They needed to prove they deserved the American Dream—just like we already had.

And we had that dream, almost all that dream: we got a government loan to buy a home on Dad’s GI bill; he got a new Cadillac every year he never paid for thanks to bank credit; he was a salesman with a fine diamond pinkie ring—and it didn’t even matter that he never sold anything! We had the look of prosperity; that’s what mattered. That’s all that mattered when it came to the money game. And best of all back in the 1950s, we had the Cold War.

Now that pulled us together. A strong common enemy sure brings out true blue American patriotism, do or die, no questioning authority, no sir. Why, just like the beginning of the war in Iraq. It was that same thrill of fear, terror, panic, lashing out, and squashing anyone who spoke out against our government all rolled into one—and it lasted for years and years longer than the crap war we got going on now. Just nothing beat it for getting people all gung-ho and rah, rah, rah for the principles of the USA. I definitely know why folks want to go back to those simpler, halcyon days of yore.

We lived in the bosom of great faith we did, positive that could survive a direct nuclear attack. At my school we faithfully practiced duck and cover under our desks while those of us that lived within 20 minutes walking distance were sent home, the alarm sirens blaring from every corner, to take refuge in our basements, our storage bins, or if we had the dough, newly installed bomb shelters. With fear and pride mingling in our devoted hearts, we banded together behind the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, and Senator Joseph McCarthy—that fierce fighter of Godless Communism and minority groups trying to undermine us from within.

With our government’s encouragement, we spied on our neighbors, anonymously reported anything that looked suspicious to the authorities, rooted when the Rosenbergs were put to death, and couldn’t wait for the next round of so-called traitors to be thrown in jail or lose their jobs [sorry you were framed Ethel, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and there’s nothing like catching bad guys to keep morale up]. We felt awe and empowerment as Cold War bands of thugs channeled our fears for us, demanding blind loyalty tests from government employees, kicking out any who disagreed with any policy of President Truman and then Eisenhower, ruining careers and lives with a snap of their fingers. With total impunity, knowing what this country needed, they ignored the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, planted forged documents, leaked fake information to the press, accused and declared people enemies of the state in private trials.

They fueled the public’s rage and fear, and with pit bull McCarthy at the helm, we got to not only watch, but be co-conspirators in one of the greatest dramatic plays in America. Even though McCarthy was muzzled, we weren’t done expressing our unleashed passion; we stuck to our duty and joined The John Birch Society. Yes, we were the best Americans, finally able to overcome any family troubles and, instead, turn our righteous anger and suspicions on Semites, Blacks and any other minority that wanted to invade WASP America. Boy, oh, boy, those were the days of strong, single-minded conservative values alright.

We surged in patriotism and fear thanks to the Cold War and, naturally, we surged with Christianity to emotionally bond Americans together to save us from hellfire and Godless Communism as well. Making an official Pledge of Allegiance, still itself brand new out of 1942, overtly religious by adding “under God” in 1954 sure helped send a message to any deviants here. And then adding “In God We Trust” onto all our paper money, thanks to an act of Congress in 1955, we magically became that Christian church-going nation the family values people always thought right.

Again we turned to our trusty TVs for the right message, adding Televangelists to our favorite family programs, eagerly soaking up Oral Roberts of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches who offered fake, I mean faith healing of the blind and crippled in front of thousands and directly into our living rooms through the TV screen, and the nation sure was in need of that to keep us strong in the face of our enemies. God spoke directly to him. Imagine how thrilling that was for us watching this movie star preacher getting divine revelations at the same time he spoke to us. Of course we sent him our money—isn’t that the American way? Don’t we get rich through the grace of God just like anyone can grow up to be President? You won’t find me faulting him for his $100 shoes or $500 suits or the $9 million we sent to save his life. He and so many others have taught us the true American virtues of capitalism, which he simply followed.

And we just had to watch Billy Graham as well with his own fiery fundamentalist/evangelical rhetoric. He explained it in terms we could all understand: war with Russia being the millennial Biblical showdown, God’s test of our goodness and strength. Like the great prophet Moses appearing before us on the Universal stage, God compelled us to follow him….we embraced him especially.

Blessed by God and Eisenhower, backed by Standard Oil and the precursor of Haliburton, he, like McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover—his personal friend—focused our rage on the correct targets, the unions, the traitor liberals in government, and anyone who was anti-big business. Yes, he showed us whose side God was on There we stood, the proud towns, nay, the proud nation composed of small towns and our small town American values.

“Gimme them old time values,
“Gimme them old time values,
“Gimme them old time values,
“They were good enough for my growing years, they’re good enough for me now
“They were good enough for my growing years, they’re good enough for me now

…………………………Ah……………..
Ah………………. Well……………………
…..ah, actually, the more I think about it…. you know, they, they, you know, they look a lot like what we’ve had for the last eight years…..

Life Control in the US Under McCain/Palin

2008-09-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Life Control in the US Under McCain/Palin

When I look at McCain’s advisors, the same ones that shaped the Bush/Cheney White House, I realize that nothing will change, only the top names stamped on the policies. And the more I watch the invectives spewing out of the GOP humanity grinder, as they count on us to mistake our baser selves for the best in us, I am sickened by the stench emanating from their lies, innuendoes, and true disgust for all of us who have tried to help each other through the catastrophes and hard times made worse by the Bush administration. McCain, Maverick no more, in 2007 voted for Bush-favored policies 95% of the time. Nor will I ever forget that as Katrina, at category 5-level hit, as people clung to rooftops, as governors from Louisiana and Mississippi pleaded for more government help, Bush and McCain orchestrated a madhatter’s tea party—with cake instead of jam. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before McCain did; he finally got there in March 2006.

McCain voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in mid-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief. Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.

And McCain’s economic policy, which he tries so hard to hide—with good reason—is to eliminate ALL regulatory agencies along with unemployment benefits, Medicare and Medicaid while making tax cuts to the wealthy permanent and funding only the military industrial complex. Stripped to the minimum now, thanks to Republican ideology, the agencies that are there to come to our aid during natural disasters, to prevent food contamination, to research and contain disease, provide vaccines for our children, and so on, would be axed under the McCain/Palin administration. McCain claims country first, but I must ask whose country does he mean? Certainly not the country of the poor, the workers, single women, minorities, the sick, or those trying to get an education.

I worked for 30 years teaching college and high school (recognized in Who’s Who for my contributions to the US, to education, to women) before I became disabled; now I depend on a poverty level pittance from Medicare to survive. Myself and others like me, despite what we have given to our country, would eventually be cut off with no government support under the McCain/Palin ideology, even veterans—as McCain has repeatedly voted against bills to help them, still, McCain runs on his story of being a POW as qualifying him to be president while denying veterans further benefits, and so I ask again, just what kind of country does he mean? Those willing to give their lives for this country get slaughtered or maimed for a pittance while those who got their money through inheritance or by investing, those living off the money others make …. get government subsidies.

Now McCain has chosen Sarah Palin for VP, the anathema of feminist and humanist values. As many before me have said, I yearn for qualified, independent, thinking women in all roles---but Palin has none of these qualities. A person, man or woman, with Palin’s record, being sheltered from the press, needing to be protected from questions crucial to the direction of this country, is not an appropriate candidate. We are told Palin’s religion, record, and family are off limits by the same people that demeaned Obama’s family, clamored he was racist, a sexist, that his religion was not the “right” kind of religion, even attacked his patriotism and his qualifications. That she should be held to an entirely different set of standards is despicable.

She has lied about lobbying congress for earmarks, for supporting the bridge to nowhere. She wants to force her beliefs upon the entire country, throwing out wholesale the concepts of liberty and freedom, ignoring the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Of course she is the darling of the extremist right; she believes that a grouping of undifferentiated embryonic cells is of more value than the living, breathing, thinking, laughing, crying female in which the cells reside. Make no mistake; she is not interested in educating women in order to reduce the need for abortion; she is against helping women make wise choices, helping them have the tools to prevent abortion, but when it comes to once the damage is done, she is all for forcing a woman to give birth even if the woman was raped, a victim of incest, or, yes, the woman will die from the pregnancy. I believe, as do all women, that abortion is tragic. But I do not see the extreme right taking on the burden of prenatal, natal, and postnatal care—including the millions of dollars it now costs to raise a child—due to their extremist, toxic mix of no education regarding birth control, no access to birth control, and then forcing a woman to give birth against her wishes. I simply cannot see that this helps women or children, and while[now wile] the majority of Americans are against it, the Federal government under the Republicans and the conservative judges they’ve gotten appointed, is forcing the rest of us against our will to follow.

And for the brave women raising their children alone, Palin’s brand of religion and GOP ideology has plenty of names for them: irresponsible, lazy, immoral, unworthy of help. But far be it for anyone to make a judgment about Palin’s family “choice.” Where I come from, that is called hypocritical, and it most certainly is not feminist, compassionate, or the type of country I want to live in. It is not a country that respects all women, that recognizes all women’s contributions to the fabric of this land.

In an age where anyone being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan makes you VP material and thus potential presidential material makes me cry for the future of this country. If I sent out a resume claiming I had foreign affairs experience because I lived “close to” Russia, I wouldn’t get even a first look from any capable business. In an age where the man running for President blatantly lies and when caught continues to lie (just like George Bush), who believes smearing his opponent with the most vile pejoratives passes for “straight talk” yet has the gall to talk about honor and duty to his country clarifies for me the problems we face: we can choose to descend back into the Middle Ages of chronic warfare (the cost of Iraq alone is clocking close to $545, no 6, billion as I write), abject poverty, financial ruin, pettiness, ignorance, narrow-minded hateful rage, and extremist religious rule—or we can choose to rise out of the muck, work together, and leave a better world for all.

Perhaps McCain's contempt toward everyone but those who weave his webs of deceit comes through best in his exchange with a concerned citizen who asked him a legitimate question about his ability to lead given his age; McCain, rather than simply answering the question, called the man a "little jerk." As a life-long educator, I know that there is a calling to become our better selves. Let this be the time that we realize it is critical to answer that call.

“All of us are in the gutter; only some of us are looking at the stars”-Oscar Wilde

Riki Matthews

Holy Money

2008-09-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

O come all Ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant
O come Ye, O come Ye to the altar,
of the al mighty dollar
O come let us adore it
O come let us adore it
O come let us adore it
Money, and, Our Lord

Let me preach it, brothers and sisters! Are we losing our faith? Have we forgotten the power of our joint saviors so intertwined that we have stamped “In God We Trust” on our money. A religious revival after the Civil War got the ball rolling, and we persevered. That’s what Christians do! And so finally, threatened by “Godless Communism,” as one particularly pious letter asked, “ … relieve us from the ignominy of heathenish. This would place us openly under the Divine protection we have personally claimed. From my heart I have felt our national shame in disowning God as not the least of our present national disasters.” Congress concurred because "In these days when imperialistic and materialistic Communism seeks to attack and destroy freedom, it is proper" to "remind all of us of this self-evident truth" that "as long as this country trusts in God, it will prevail."

Now, just because our founding fathers did not do so from the beginning does not mean that they disagreed! Just because the Constitution never once mentions God and the Bill of Rights strictly calls for the separation of church and state does not mean they intended us to leave God out. Absolutely not! Don’t you believe that factual mumbo jumbo for one minute. And never you mind that the most significant founding fathers wrote that they were Deists, believing only in a prime mover that had no personal engagement with us! And you can just ignore all the letters and treaties and statements they wrote saying how much damage Christianity did to freedom. You only have to remember one thing: like God, they meant it all to test our faith and see if we would persevere in spite of all the facts to the contrary. Why, it’s just like testing our faith with all the garbage manufactured by the scientific community to get us to believe the Earth wasn’t created in seven days when we know it sure as all get out was. Or in attempting to convince us that global warming is an issue. We know that faith conquers all and that God works in mysterious ways so we just have to trust. And for our trust, God provides protection.

Is this not why we pray, pray for divine salvation and protection from our enemies? Our spiritual leaders know the heavy prices for building proper churches, that Glory must be displayed according to its power, and that takes money, money to establish a hierarchy, to outfit a bishop in the style his faith tells him he’s due, to hang a gaggle of golden crosses around the Pope’s neck—and wield the power to make and take down governments. We have been instructed to tithe, to give one-tenth of our income. (Never mind the minor abuses over selling indulgences and other matters throughout initial history of the Catholic Church. After all, we all make mistakes. Oh, and some of those televangelists who mismanaged the funds; I know that God has them crying out with pain and suffering in hell as we speak.) The Bible tells us that this ten percent of our income belongs to the Lord (Leviticus 27:30). A person is stealing from God (Malachi 3:8) if he fails to give to his church hierarchy so that it may be used for the purposes of church support and growth.

Even Mormons must give this amount to the church or they may be barred from temples where ceremonies take place. And I openly applaud those evangelical Protestant churches that require new members to sign covenants, promising to tithe or give generously. And those who openly refuse to tithe should indeed be denied leadership roles or asked to leave the congregation. As God is my witness, I can say Steve Sorensen, director of pastoral ministries at Cornerstone, acts righteously when his church demands its paid and volunteer leaders to tithe, and teaches new members to do so, with or without proof of income. "When you tithe, God makes promises to us, that He ... is not going to let anything bad or destructive come about," says Mr. Sorensen. For those who don't tithe, he states, the Lord "is not obligated to do those things for you." Sorensen is right, true believers; he is right, and he is practicing God’s justice. “In God We Trust”; it’s on our money: therefore, our money belongs to God, to do God’s work. And you must give! Give down to your last dime!! For how else will Jesus know that you are with him, not against him?

What more proof do you need?

Rev. Rob Peters, trained by Crown Financial Ministries to teach parishioners to, manage debt and still make giving a priority, states, "When they obey His word, that is to give, God creates opportunities supernaturally for them to save more and spend less." A true miracle: giving to the church rose 31% the first year the classes were taught compared with the year before. Of course some members objected, but just as God does not show mercy if we do not do His bidding, neither did the church, quoting stern scripture from Hebrews 13:17: "Obey your leaders, and submit to them; for they keep watch over your souls; as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.” The key word, as I’m sure my God-fearing worshipers have discerned, is profit. In obeying the Lord we will profit.

We know in our hearts, people, that our God is a vengeful God, that our God is an “eye for an eye” God, a tit-for-tat God, who rewards the golden-tongued preachers who trust in money: Cadillacs, silk suits, multi-million dollar houses…

God bestows his gifts on the wealthy; just look around you—at the CEOs, the politicians, the judges that have heard the word and listened to the money of the Focus on the Family Action lobbying arm (Praise be!, they raised $9 million in only 6 months) or American Family Association or any of our other vigorous, vital, well-funded action networks. We, and they, place their faith in the power of money, in capitalism. Oh yes, dear followers, those without faith have money, but it is Godless Money, just as their politics are Godless communism or Godless socialist democracies or some other offshoot, but most certainly not God Blessed Capitalism, and in time, they will suffer. Now I’m sure some of you are confused right now as to what the difference is, given the lies you have been told by various leftists that try to undermine our great country, pointing out that in reality we are a “representative republic.” [“A government under the rule of people acting on the behalf of and, to a lesser extent, in the interests of the voting blocks by which they were elected.”] And others who try to confound your senses claiming that capitalism is the economic system and the two, as those of little faith would have you believe, do not go together like peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese or a hamburger and fries.

Shock time. Breath, breath, breath. Shake your head. (Lies I tell you! Words of the devil! Ignore them when they ask why the conventional wisdom that if we export capitalism, democracy will follow hasn’t worked.)

Faith in God and Money has made us Great, has built this country. Desire for money is good; money is the incentive that makes us produce, for without the fear of where our next meal is coming from, we would just be lazy bums, slothful and weak. And that is why we must resist universal healthcare, taxes on God’s chosen rich, spending collectively to keep education public, to fund the FDA, or any other watchdog agencies and other such dangerous socialist notions. It is fear that keeps us from giving in to our vile natures, fear that forces us to deserve healthcare, to deserve education, to deserve a job, to turn to God to protect us from salmonella in our food supply, and so on. Just look at filthy socialism [the economic system of “social and economic equality, collective and public control of productive capital and natural resources”]. It has produced happy, guilt-free, high-quality-of-life, little debt, universal healthcare, democratic nations.

Godless nations I tell you! For only those who do not believe in the Christian God could possibly think themselves happy! A proper Christian knows he is full of sin, that his nature is evil and base and that only through prostrating himself before God, begging for forgiveness, and trusting in what money can buy may he even hope to possibly avoid God’s wrath and hell. Enjoying their work? Enjoying a high standard of living? Enjoying quality medical care? Living without fear? Spending more of their national budget on foreign aid than the less than one half of one percent that we do? This is Godless I repeat! GODLESS!!! Sacrilege—it isn’t capitalism.

And China with its strong economy based on buying our debt and our high consumption of their goods. So they aren’t democratic yet. And they have human rights violations that God cannot forgive, unlike us, a Christian nation. Have faith. That’s what religion—and money are for—to have faith. We will buy this country and then we can force God’s agenda on everyone living there, just as we are here. Just as we have bought judges to break down the barriers between church and state, bought politicians to pass bills so we control what a woman can do with her body and who we can discriminate against, bought preachers to scare their flocks into voting the right way…

And the liberal-commie-peace-tolerance Christians that don’t agree? We will eradicate them; we need a crusade to bring us together. And have faith, God is always on our side, as is Jesus: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. -Matthew 10:34 (KJV)