The Marble Global

Burnished Rows of Steel

2014-06-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

Burnished Rows of Steel

By Marc A. Belisle

“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.”

—Carl Jung

“Good morning, soldier.”

“Sir, thank you, sir.”

“At ease, boy. I’m Major Yates. But please just call me Pete. I’m your friend in here, okay? Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable. Here, let’s just set your crutches down there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’m going to be keeping this tape recorder running for the purpose of tracking your progress. No one but you and I will ever hear it. Is that okay?”

“I reckon it is.”

“Please state your name, rank and social security number.”

“Colt Douglas Wade, Sergeant, 034 71 4896.”

“What’s your unit?”

“Fifty-first Armored Cavalry, Bravo Company. Damon’s Devils, sir.”

“Damon’s Devils. It says here you told your C. O. that you’re having trouble sleeping.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t reckon I rightly know, sir.”

“Do you have nightmares?”

“They’s a kinda nightmare, I s’pose. I ain’t exactly awake n’ ain’t exactly sleepin’ but I still havin’ a nightmare ceptin’ I know it ain’t real but I cain’t stop it.”

“What happens when you have a nightmare?”

“Well, I start tossin’ n’ turnin’ real fitful-like n’ I’ll get outta bed like I’m chasin’ folks ‘cept then they chasin’ me n’ I gotta find cover. ‘Cept with ma leg bust up, I done fell right over n’ I cain’t crawl missin’ a finger, sir. The nurses come n’ grab me, ceptin’ I was a’ready onna floor I reckon most the night and I done wetted ma ownself a lil, on account a the bedpan still in ma bed. Them nurses is real precious, they know how to make a fella feel real good. Nurse Debbie Rosamund, I reckon she’s a angel, she sent right from Jesus to watch out for us banged up soldiers, she somethin’ real special, sir.”

“Have you ever had any experience like that before?”

“Not a’fore I been sent here in Germ’ny with ma leg banged up, sir.”

“How often would you say you have these nightmares?”

“Ah ain’t real sure, sir. Also’s I ain’t sure they rightly a nightmare, like I said, cuz I ain’t all sleepin’, only a lil.”

“Would you say you have them every night?”

“Seems nearly so, sir. Some’s worse’n others.”

“Are they always the same nightmare, more or less?”

“I reckon so, sir.

“What are the nightmares about exactly?”

“Seems I almos’ always chasin’ er gittin’ chased.”

“Do you know the person chasing you?”

“Well, sometimes, I reckon it’s a emeny n’ I gotta chase him, or he’s chasin’ me. But sometimes, I’m a lil shameful to say, sir, I’m chasin’ af’er ma mama.”

“Have you spoken to your mom recently?”

“No, sir, she been in heaven near about two years now, I reckon.

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that, Colt.

“Thank you, sir.”

“How many tours of duty have you done, Colt?”

“I was on ma third one. I been there since 2003, sir, when we went in. I been home twice, in between.”

“Where’s home?”

“Ashland, Miss’ippi, sir. Just on the east bank a’ the river. Ma Mama Suzie Edith Berenice had got the cancer when I went home, I didn’t wanna go back but my unit was gettin’ hit by them IEDs, sir n’ we los’ twelve men, so I knew I hadda go back n’ help out. But we had a good time.”

“What did you do while you were home?”

“I done swapped war stories with ma older half-brother Ben Jer’my Cane. He was there in ’91, sir inna first Gulf War. He was there six months, n’ they was only fightin’ not even a week. Merka was real powerful in them days, ain’t like today, we been fightin’ near on five years now. He tol’ me the only Eye-Rackies he saw was at the en’ after the ceasefire. See he was in a artillery unit, he loaded mortar rockets in them big launchers they got on the trailers. He said they was tol’ the Eye-Rackies was gonna amass against ‘em, and they’d be up behind a sand dune or somethin’, ‘bout a mile outta the town n’ the tanks s’posed to bait the Eye-Rackies like you bait a fish with a worm, sir, n’ then they’d fire mortars on ‘em, n’ then the apaches would swoop in on what was lef’. They called that maneuver a ‘kill sack,’ sir. He said he heard about them usin’ kill sacks in Basra but Ben Jeremy was held in reserve, so he didn’t see no action.

“He had a gas mask Preacher Lamont asked the congregation to scrape together for to send over to the boys from our county. Folks was ‘fraid those days Saddam was gon’ use mustar’ gas ‘gainst ‘em. He said the boys in his unit was settin’ aroun’ playin’ poker in tents when a san’storm started fixin’ to whip up somethin’ real fierce, sir. So they dug out those gas masks and put ‘em on n’ there they was settin’ aroun’ lookin’ like crickets playin’ poker when hunnerds a Eye-Rackies come in outta the san’storm askin’ to get arrested jus’ polite as you please. They was usin’ their shirts for wrappin’ their eyes n’ nose ‘gainst the sand, n’ wavin’ white flags. Ben Jeremy was none too amused, sir, he had a pair a kings n’ he said he had a hunch another one was comin’ on the river n’ there was a hunnerd bucks in that pot. N’ he was losin’ that day and he needed to make it back. I tell you what, sir, I know better than to go ‘gainst my older half-brother’s hunch, sir. He’s a uncanny poker player. He reckons he made nearabout ten grand in the first Eye-Rack War. He said, them Eye-Rackies was jus’ polite as you please, n’ lookin’ real tired, but they was happy the Merkins saved ‘em from gettin’ blowed up by our planes n’ apaches or Saddam killin’ their families for them desertin’ the army. So Ben Jeremy said ‘there I was a card away from a hunnerd dollars, n’ next thing I know I’m escortin’ a hunnerd Eye-Rackies with a gas mask n’ a emp’y rifle to the base in a blowin’ san’storm.’ Could you imagine that sir? It’s real strange, things ain’t what you a’spect sometimes. I think we a’spected that sorta thing when we started this time, too, but we been fightin’ a long time now. I tol’ Ben Jeremy, it ain’t like that this time. Now they ain’t so happy to see us.”

“What was your first tour like?”

“My first tour things was quieter’n now. There was a sorta hush in Baghdad when we went in in our APCs, like a snappin’ turtle with wheels. We was a little twittery. We knew we gon’ over there to bring the fight to the emeny. We knew the terrists was gon’ fight us but we didn’t know if they was hidin’ or if they was gon’ come out n’ fight us fair. Leastwise, I didn’ know. I reckon Gen’ral Abizaid musta knowed, sir. Turns out they was hidin’. They hided for a long while, sir. We secured neighborhoods in Baghdad near the Tigers River. At first the Eye-Rackies seen us comin’ n’ they went runnin’. After a few days they come out n’ Ah ermember a ol’ man knocked on the APC. Danny Ambrose, he was a real twitchy mouse type, right outta high school, sir. He gets all wil’ eyed jus’ like a spooked horse. He shot a man n’ never got that wil’ eye ‘gain after that. He got real distant n’ dark but he was a funny little kid at firs’. N’ he says ‘holy shit there’s a ol’ man knockin’ on the APC, sir.’ N’ Lieutenant Paulson said, ‘well, open up the hatch n’ see what he wants.’ Danny looks at me, spookin’, n’ I said, come on, Danny Ambrose, we’ll do it together. Ah admit I was a lil scurred too, ma heart was a little rabbitty, but I was try’na be strong cuz he was a couple years younger’n me n’ a real scaredy-cat. I think Lieutenant Paulson understood, cuz he nodded.

“Danny Ambrose slung his helmet on, straps all danglin’ like a lil girl’s pigtails. We cracked open the hatch n’ Lieutenant Paulson pounded ‘gainst the front n’ the driver stopped the APC. I seen a woman watchin’ us real suspicious-like from a attic above us. I reckon that mighta been the ol’ man’s wife. The ol’ man had a real bushy beard. I recollec’ he had streaks a’ white hair and was missin’ him a couple teeth. He bowed a bunch shakin’ his hands like he was rollin’ some dice. We reached out the APC and we shaked his hand. He was speakin’ real fast Eye-Racky. I think he mighta said Merka, sir. We said real slow, ‘we friends, we save you, Saddam bad.’ He nodded real fast then n’ he said ‘Okay! Okay!’ a whole buncha times. I reckon that mighta been all the English he spoke, sir. N’ Lieutenant Paulson leaned over n’ said ‘Bakarubaba,’ n’ we left. Afterward, Danny Ambrose was real giddy like he done just kissed his firs’ girl, n’ he said, ‘sir, whadjyou say back there, sir?’ N’ Lieutenant Paulson said ‘that’s hello in Arbic.’ He’s a real smart fella, Lieutenant Paulson, he was from Denver, Col’rado.”

“Did you ever see any combat in your first tour?”

“Yeah, a few times. The first time was real funny on accounta I didn’t realize we was fightin’ till after. We was clearin’ houses, n’ we done got ambushed. We got into a house n’ they threw a grenade down the stairs. Lieutenant Paulson yelled ‘grenade!’ n’ we got down. I reckon it saved our lives, he was quick. Somebody else mighta got bug-eyed by a grenade but not Lieutenant Paulson. Simon, he was new, I never got to know him, he was cov’rin’ the east side a’ the door. I don’t know how he didn’ hear the Lieutenant. We were all hoppin’ like toads, hittin’ the deck, the grenade rolled down the stairs, and Simon’s crouchin’ there pointin’ his rifle east like he’s thinkin’ ‘bout if he’s gon’ have chicken or pasta for supper. Then there’s a huge bang, n’ Simon’s dead on the floor n’ a lotta smoke. I didn’ hesitate, sir, I stepped over Simon n’ I run up the stairs firin’. I shot a man full in the chest n’ he gurgled a minute like he was tryin’a say somethin’. When the shootin’ was done a minute later he was dead, n’ his mouth was open like he was surprised n’ sayin’ ‘Oh.’ We cleared out the upstairs, n’ there was four others n’ we got ‘em. I believe they was Saddam loyalists, sir.”

“How did you feel after that?”

“The younger boys was real upset we los’ Simon. They was braggin’ the next day they was gon’ bag a raghead for Simon, n’ Lieutenant Paulson heard ‘em n’ said he’d beat the snot outta ‘em n’ skin their hides n’ then they’d get court-martialed n’ their mamas would have to see ‘em in prison n’ they’d have to know they made their mamas cry ever’ day cuz they betrayed their country. He said ‘we all real sad when a man dies but you don’ shoot nobody less I tell you.’ They was still real obst’nate n’ Lieutenant Paulson said ‘you hear me?’ n’ he made ‘em say ‘sir yes, sir.’ I reckon folks grieve differn’ly, sir.”

“Did that attack have much effect on you?”

“Not at firs’, sir. I seen a drown’ man in the river back home all bloated n’ purple. I realized, though, I coulda died n’ I hadn’t said no prayers. I decided when we was gettin’ shot at next time, I’d pray to Jesus n’ Mary n’ God. Sure ‘nough, we was pinned down on a roof the nex’ week. They had them AK-47s n’ a RPG launcher. Them RPGs done scurred me somethin’ fierce. I ain’t never been so ‘fraid, sir. Them RPGs blew holes out the side the buildin’ we was in. They was tryin’ a shoot ‘em through the windows n’ git us. Keith Alton got a shrapnel wound in the shoulder. We scrambled up to the roof, n’ they was shootin’ up at us up there n’ they was on a differn’ roof maybe a hunnerd feet away so they couldn’t hit us direc’ with the RPGs. Keith Alton tried to crawl down the stairs, he was bleedin’ like a stuck pig, but we had to drag him up to the roof cuz he mighta got blowed up if the terrists saw him runnin’ out the buildin’. Danny Ambrose was gettin’ squirrelly with the RPGs, so we made him keep pressure on Keith Alton’s shoulder back from the firin’ line. That was Lieutenant Paulson thinkin’ quick agin. He said, ‘Colty, they got the drop on us here, we need a better angle.’ So’s we took the high ground. Ah ermember it was dusk n’ them tracer roun’s whippin’ ‘cross to their position glowin’ like fireflies. We called in a apache, cuz we couldn’ hit ‘em all even after a hour of shootin’. The apache blew the whole buildin’ near apart. We hadda get a bulldozer to fin’ the bodies.

“While I was shootin’ I was sayin’ Hail Mary’s n’ Our Father Who Art in Heaven’s n’ I was prayin’ ‘Jesus, please let me hit the bad guys n’ not no innocent people n’ keep my men safe n’ let me get out in one piece n’ cure my mama’s cancer so I could see her again.’ I think that prayin’ done help me focus on ma shootin’ cuz I knowed if I got hit, I’d go to heaven cuz I died while I was prayin’.”

“Did you see your mom again?”

“Yeah, things was gettin’ real heavy in Eye-Rack at that time n’ I gone home thinkin’ I’s done. My mama was bald then n’ she was a outpatien’. My mama said, ‘Colt, you ermember when you was real little you’d snuggle up real close with ya mama when you was scareda monsters n’ you couldn’ sleep?’ I said, ‘I reckon I do.’ There was a IV drippin’ in ‘er arm. Her skin was thin n’ yella. She didn’ have to say nothin’ more. I laid down next to ma Mama. She sung to me like she ain’t done since I was a tadpole. She sung ‘I looked over Jordan n’ what did I see?’ I recollec’ that machine beepin’ behin’ our head was beepin’ in tune to mama’s sweet voice. She said, ‘Colt, you learn anythin’ intrestin’ there in Eye-Rack? I thought ‘bout it a moment n’ I thoughta somethin’ from the way she said Eye-Rack, actually n’ I said ‘Mama, I reckon that them Eye-Rackies say their Qs differen’ly. They don’ say Eye-Rack like we do. They say it E-Rock n’ you gotta cluck your tongue jus’ like a hen when you hit them Qs.’ N’ my mama said, ‘that’s somethin’ real precious, Colt.’ N’ she said, ‘you know what? I feel safe from the monsters now with you here. I know you over there slayin’ monsters n’ I know you mighta broke a comman’ment er two, but ermember, when I’m with Jesus, I’m gon’ watch you n’ keep you safe. N’ when you tuck in at night, I’m gon’ be there keepin’ you safe from monsters like I done when you was a lil one.’ N’ I said ‘thank you, Mama, that’s real special.’ I dozed off with ma mama whisperin’ ‘swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ forth to carry me home.’

“Jesus musta heard her soulful singin’ ‘bout chariots carryin’ home cuz ma Mama passed on that Tuesday. I walk in ‘er room with eggs n’ bacon n’ cornbread n’ lemonade cuz that was her favorite breakfas’ sir. She couldn’ eat no more but she jus’ wanna look at it n’ perten’. I walk in n’ she had a surprised look on her face like she just figured somethin’ out and was sayin’, “Oh.” Her eyes n’ mouth was open n’ I hadn’ thought none ‘bout it but that’s nearabout how the Eye-Racky I shot on them stairs looked after we was done shootin’. Havin’ that same look on ma Mama’s face, I ain’t ‘shamed to say, sir, that done gave ma mind a tickle somethin’ fierce like a itchin’ on yer back ya cain’t rightly scritch. N’ I wished fer the firs’ time I hadn’ kilt a man even if’n he was a terrist. Ma older half-brother gave the eul’gy. He got a real way with words, sir. He said ma Mama was God’s favor’t angel now n’ I reckon that’s true. I shipped back to Eye-Rack the nex’ Sunday, sir.”

“Can you tell me more about the itch in your mind?”
“Well I don’ rightly know, sir. Jus’ seem like I saw ma mama ever’where affer I got back ta Eye-Rack. Ah ermember, sir there was one time we was on patrol in a convoy a humvees, n’ we was still bein’ greeted as lib’rators, cept only a lil bit by then. See when I lef’ Eye-Rack on ma firs’ tour folks was cheerin’ n’ we was tearin’ down statues a Saddam n’ pitchers n’ folks was throwin’ rocks at ‘im n’ stompin’ on ‘im n’ we bulldozin’ Saddam’s pitcher n’ they cheerin’ us on, chantin’ n’ hootin’ n’ holl’rin’. It was a regular ol’ party atmosphere, sir, jus’ as excitin’ as you please. N’ when I wen’ back that feelin’ weren’ rightly there no more. Mos’ folks was happy ‘nough to see us, but you could feel it a bit I reckon. No one was sure who was really runnin’ things n’ them terrists was fixin’ to start puttin’ up a fight n’ I reckon mos’ folks didn’ wanna be on the wrong side of a fight, n’ so they was stayin’ indoors n’ watchin’ real s’spicious-like.

“N’ when I got back, sir, there was some new soldiers. There was a big tall soldier, they was callin’ him Bucky when I firs’ got there. Ah ain’ sure why ceptin’ maybe cuz he got him some pretty big fron’ teeth. Always done his work n’ don’ never bother nobody. Real friendly with the boys in the radio tower, sir. I think he mighta owned a ham radio back home er somethin’. He said he was gon’ go ta college n’ he was gonna be a chem’stry teacher n’ he was always chatterin’ ‘bout chemicals n’ sci’ntific stuff, sir. N’ I reckon he’d a been a good teacher, cuz he was a smart fella, n’ frien’ly. Ma bes’ teachers was real frien’ly types, sir. I reckon that’s the mos’ importan’ thing for bein’ a good teacher.

Ah ermember like I was sayin’ we was still bein’ greeted as lib’rators only not as much as afore. So we was always carryin’ candy on our persons. When chil’ren come runnin’ out to our vehicles we done thrown ‘em a whole mess a candy. We was winnin’ hearts n’ min’s that a way, sir. N’ them rugrats would hoot n’ holler n’ run off again.

“Well, sir, one time we hit a pothole real good n’ our axle was rattlin’ some to beat the band. Lieutenant Paulson got out n’ stuck his head under the wheel well n’ he was cursin’ un’er his breath. Me n’ Bucky got out the humvee as sentries, sir n’ we was scannin’ aroun’ fer emenies. There was a lotta buildin’s, sir, so folks coulda been hidin’ nearabout anywheres. I heard my older half-brother shoot a coyote one time, sir, n’ I reckon I was a football field away from ‘im. N’ when that Eye-Racky done fired one shot at us, that’s what it sounded like, ‘kaplow!’ cept real distant, so it got a sorta echo. Bucky was layin’ on the ground squirmin’, his face lookin’ like he done sucked a lemon.

“It took us a moment to realize it, sir. I reckon I was a mite surprised. Them snipers wasn’t real common yet ‘roun’about then, sir. I realized sooner’n anybody prolly on accounta ma bein’ nearer to ‘im. N’ I yelled ‘Shooter! Shooter in the Eas’!’ I run up n’ pounded on the nex’ humvee n’ relayed the message there was a shooter, n’ they wheeled aroun’ n’ we made a defensive formation.

“Danny Ambrose was in the 30 cal n’ he was scannin’ real angry. He reckons he done seen a fella in a window nearabout where he reckons the shot come from. N’ he cranks the gun ‘roun’ n’ he starts firin’ all over that window. When that gun gets rollin’ sir, it sounds like somebody done trapped a lightnin’ bolt in a washin’ machine. Lieutenant Paulson bellows ‘ceasefire!’ loud as Ah ever heard a man, sir. N’ he orders, ‘Ambrose, git outta that gun! Babbot git in it.’ N’ they switch places n’ Joey Dugan was cryin’ sir. The medic was attendin’ ta Bucky whiles Lieutenant Paulson was crouched behin’ a humvee, scannin’ buildin’s with binoculars. But we didn’t fin’ nobody.

“Bucky died real quick, sir. The strange thing ‘bout Bucky dyin’ was the bullet ennered his back n’ exited his chest at his pocket where he was keepin’ his candy. The candy sprayed outta him in a sorta trail leadin’ from his chest all over the street. N’ we never foun’ the bullet. But that candy was real weird, sir, n’ kin’a spooky fer me cuz we was all given govermen’ issue gener’c candy. But he had these real special kin’a Russel Stovers mints n’ they was the same kin’a mints ma mama always kep’ by the fron’ door for offerin’ to folks who callin’ ‘roun’. So’s the candy that got shot outta Bucky’s pocket made me think maybe ma mama done got kill’t all over ‘gain.”

“How did you feel after that?”

“Well, I felt real strangely. Firs’ ma mama lookin’ like the Eye-Racky I kill’t when she died n’ then ma mama’s candy fallin’ outta a dyin’ man. I couldn’ shake them crazy feelin’s ma mama ain’ in heaven where she s’posed a be n’ it’s ma fault somehows. N’ I done tried to scratch them itches in ma min’, sir.”

“How did you do that?”

“I spoke to the chaplain, sir n’ I confessed ma dilemma to ‘im, n he tol’ me if ma mama was a vir’chus believer then she’d be in heaven, like she oughta be. N’ that sorted me out some, cuz I reckon ain’ no sweet ol’ lady more vir’chus a believer than ma mama. But now n’ then, sir, I was a lyin’ in bed er settin’ in the humvee er playin’ cards, actually, seemed nearabout only when ma min’ was over idle, n’ I had them images a ma mama’s dead surprised face, like it was jus’ floatin’ there, right in fron’ a me.

“Did you see any other combat in your second tour?”

“No, sir.”

“What happened when you went back home the second time?”

“Well, sir, things was real lonely. When I got back, things was real dusty n’ they’s a note on the kitchen table sayin’ ‘Colty, I know you comin’ back. Hadda run from loan sharks af’er me. Gon’ try ta come back n’ see ya. Ain’ sure where I headed, but I’m gon’ letchya’ll know soon.’ Ain’ never seen Ben Jer’my again sir. Don’ know where he run off to. Sure hope the loan sharks ain’ got ‘im.”

“What did you do while you were at home?”

“I cleaned up the house a bit. I sold some a ma mama’s belongin’s to a pawn store, sir, but I couldn’ bring ma self to get rid of a few things. I kep’ the sewin’ machine where ma mama done made ma clothes when I was a tadpole, sir. I was feelin’ real lonely. I sat on ma mama’s bed, n’ I reckoned it still smelt a lil like ma mama’s perfume even after she a’ready been in heaven near on nine months, sir.”

“Did you have anyone to talk to while you were home?”

“Well, sir, I’m a mite shameful to say, cuz I reckon a gen’leman ain’ oughta gossip ‘bout a lady frien’.”

“I understand, Colt. But we’re not gossiping here. If you don’t think it can help your progress to talk about it, though, then I’ll understand.”

“Well, I don’t rightly know sir. But she said somethin’ to me that got me a bit worryin’.”

“Okay, well why don’t you tell me about that.”

“A’right, sir. I was shoppin’ fer groc’ries n’ a loudspeaker done clicked on n’ made me jump some. It was a loud surprise clickin’ almos’ like a emeny cockin’ a weapon, n’ I… whatchyou writin’ there, sir?”

“Oh, just some notes, Colt. It’s okay, please continue.”

“I was a lil bit spookin’ when I felt hands pushin’ my shoulders and a loud ‘Boo!’ N’ I spun right roun’, sir, ma heart all rabbitty, n’ fer half a secon’ I reckoned I was in a marketplace in Eye-Rack, cuz I ain’ never been rabbitty shoppin’ in Ashland, so it didn’t seem quite right, but I weren’ in Eye-Rack.”

“Right.”

“So I turn roun’ n’ who’d ya reckon’s there but ol’ Rebecca Catherine Phillips. She’s the firs’ girl I kissed in high school, n’ she’s a right frien’ly neighbor girl n’ real purty, n’ if I can say, sir, she filled out real nice, as ma mama would say. N’ she standin’ there all smiles. She whistled n’ hollered ‘I cain’ believe it! How you been, Colt?’”

“How did you feel about seeing her?”

“Well, at firs’ I was a mite confused, sir, seein’ as we weren’ zackly real frien’ly when we finished datin’. But I was real lonely at home with ma mama gone n’ ma older half-brother AWOL. It seem like she forgot ‘bout some a our fightin’ n’ only remembered our frien’ly times, n’ I reckoned, well I could perten’ that, too.

“N’ so’s we got a chattin’ n’ we walked ‘long the bank a the Miss’ippi some n’ we was holdin’ han’s after a spell. She said she done read in the paper ma mama died of the cancer. I jus’ said I was real sad ‘bout it but now ma mama’s in heaven n’ she’s the good lord’s favorite angel n’ that’s a happy ‘currence.”

“Yeah.”

“N’ she squeezed ma han’ a little, n’ done popped up on ‘er tip-toes n’ she pecked me on the cheek like the sweetes’ lil chickadee. N’ she musta seen me reckonin’ cuz she asked me ‘what’s Eye-Rack like?’ I surprised ma own self, but I said ‘I don’ wanna talk ‘bout it none.’ N’ she started prattlin’ straight away ‘bout college n’ parties n’ such n’ I listened to her talkin’ n’ it soun’ like she done foun’ a life a the botchery, like ma mama’d say, a regular Herod’s palace, but I was tryin’a be frien’ly so I didn’ pass no judgmen’, sir.”

“So she said something that bothered you, you said?”

“Yes, sir. Well, see, we made our way to a ferryboat n’ I reckoned it would be a romantic lil cruise a ways down the Miss’ippi. N’ we was chatt’rin n’ it was nearabout sunset, n’ the river was shimm’rin’ all red, sir, n’ it reminded me a somethin’. N’ I recollected this one time we was on patrol near a market in Baghdad, near the Tigers River, sir. Me n’ Danny Ambrose n’ Guy Conway was walkin’ roun’. Danny Ambrose was chattin’ with Guy ‘bout video games, wavin’ his hands aroun’ n’ I was pokin’ through some fruit a ol’ woman was sellin’. They got fruit in Baghdad I ain’ never seen a’fore, sir. N’ the ol’ woman were tryin’a get me to buy somethin’ n’ it was real cheap, n’ we was tryin’a win hearts n’ minds again, then, sir, so I was fixin’ to buy a pom’granate when Danny Ambrose gets wil’ eyed n’ pointin’ n’ sputt’rin.”

“What was he pointing at?”
“Well, I followed where his arm was pointin’, n’ I seen a car comin’ straight at us. It was real hot, n’ the sun was shinin’ real bright on the win’shield, but I saw a older man soon ‘nough n’ his eyes was scurred n’ he was gesturin’ with his head. N’ soon ‘nough I saw why, cuz his hands was handcuffed to the steerin’ wheel. I didn’ think none ‘bout it. Danny Ambrose was standin’ next to me, n’ I grabbed his collar, n’ we hopped over the fruit stan’ n’ got down. Next thing, sir, the car crashes ‘gainst a wall, n’ pinned Guy ‘gainst the wall n’ he’s yellin’ n’ bangin’ his fists ‘gainst the hood a the car. Then time got stopped a bit.”

“I’m sorry, did you say time stopped?”

“Yes, sir, I know it don’ soun’ right, but time stopped, just a bit. N’ prolly only fer me, cuz no other folks said nothin’ ‘bout time stoppin’, but I know it did. Cuz I looked ‘roun’ n’ weren’ nobody movin’, froze in place, like a pitcher, er a bunch a dolls in a store they put the clothes on, sir, ceptin’ they weren’ plastic, they was real. When time got froze a moment, there weren’ no air, n’ I hadda hold ma breath, n’ there weren’ no sounds. Nex’ thing, though, sir, time come back on, n’ it’s hot as hell n’ the car shootin’ a whole mess a fire n’ smoke up in the sky, n’ it’s rainin’ down pieces a fire. N’ I shielded ma face, n’ started walkin’ away, n’ then Ah ermembered Danny Ambrose n’ I looked back, n’ I seen him lookin’ real dazed n’ lookin’ back at the car, n’ you couldn’ rightly look at it, but outta the corner a my eye, through gusts a smoke n’ flame, I saw Guy Conway, like a man-shaped piece a charcoal froze poundin’ on the hood a the car.”

“Then what happened?”

“Danny Ambrose lookin’ off in the distance, dazed n’ he says real simple-like, ‘there he is.’ N’ I said, ‘there who is?’ N’ Danny said, ‘the bomber, I seen him stick somethin’ in his pocket, musta been a remote.’ Sure ‘nough, sir, there’s a man in a turban all wrapped up, n’ he don’ seem rightly panicky like the rest a folks runnin’ roun’. But I said, ‘you don’ know he’s a terrist, jus’ cuz he don’ seem ‘fraid.’ N’ Danny Ambrose said, ‘why you gotta play devil’s advocate? Come on, let’s git ‘im.’ N’ he starts runnin’ after ‘im.”

“What did you do?”

“Well I didn’ wanna see him gettin’ in no trouble, so I run af’er ‘im. Danny Ambrose was skedaddlin’ through food stands, knockin’ over carts, n’ bumpin’ folks, n’ they was yellin’ at him real angry, but he didn’ seem to notice. Then the fella he said he seen took off, runnin' away from 'im so's I reckoned maybe Danny Ambrose was right 'bout 'im bein' a terrist. N' I was pantin real hard, tryin'a keep up, n' I was feelin' faint like I might fall over from the heat n' the runnin' n' breathin' in smoke from the bombin' n' the whole world was fixin' to spin right roun' me when I los' sight a Danny Ambrose. I kep' goin' somehows n' I come outta the market onto a wide street that were runnin' right long the Tigers River. N' I hadda stop sprintin' n' I stopped n' catched ma breath n' I was wheezin' n' my skin was boilin', n' I reckoned later, I mighta had breathed in pieces a Guy Conway."

"Did you catch the terrorist?"
"Well, I seen Danny Ambrose runnin' cross the street, cars honkin' at 'im n' he's swingin' his rifle roun'. I felt I mighta got sick but I hadda catch 'im a'fore he got hurt or foun' him some trouble. N' I couldn't see the terrist he was chasin' no more. But I reckoned he looked like he knowed where he was goin' n' I chased 'im, jumpin' roun' cars zippin' past. N' he got to the banks a the Tigers River, n' I seen him go behin' a bridge. I caught up with him a moment later n' he was pointin' his weapon at a man who's wavin' his arms n' panickin' n' proteckin' a woman wearin' all black cov'rin's n' huddlin' with two cryin' lil chil'ren. N' I hollered 'this ain' the terrist!'

"N' he said 'how would you know? Look at 'im hidin' here!' N' he jabbed his rifle at 'im n' I didn' know what got into Danny Ambrose, so's I grabbed the muzzle a his weapon n' started yankin' it from 'im but he had it strapped on his shoulder.

"Then he yanked back n' los' his balance n' 'Pow!' I fell on 'im. I got the gun from 'im n' he started gittin' up n' I yelled 'stay down!' I done surprised ma own self how angry I got at 'im. N' when I hollered, I felt a sharp stabbin' pain in ma hand, n' I looked down n' seen ma hand pourin' blood sir. Ma finger weren' there no more. I looked roun' for it n' the man I done saved from Danny Ambrose seen me n' he pointed in the Tigers River, n' I seen ma right pointin' finger floatin' n' swirlin' away on down the Tigers River."

“How did you feel about that?"

“Well, I was right rageful, sir. I grabbed Danny Ambrose by the lapels n' hurled 'im right in the Tigers. N' I pounced on 'im n' started stranglin' on 'im under the water n' I banged him up n' down n' I hollered 'you stupid motherfucker!' N' he was gurglin' n' air bubbles comin' up from his mouth, n' my blood was floatin' away in the river gettin' pushed on by his breathin' bubbles. N' that's why when I was in Ashland on the ferry with Becca Catherine n' the sunset shimm'rin' red on the Miss'ippi River, I recollected that incident, sir, on the Tigers River, with ma blood ripplin' out down that Eye-Racky River."

"I see. It says here in your medical file that you lost your finger in the car bombing."

“That's what I tol' 'em. I'm pinnin' Danny Ambrose down n' I hear 'Colt!' I reckon that snapped me outta ma ragin'. I seen Lt. Paulson marchin' at me n' I hauled Danny Ambrose outta the river. Ambrose breathin' in sounded like a vaccuum cleaner got turned on in his throat n' I felt mighty shameful for nearabout drownin' 'im. N' Lt. Paulson looks real angry like n' he says 'What the hell are you two doin' here?' Danny Ambrose was coughin' so's I said, 'I reckoned I done seen a terrist n' we run af'er 'im.'

“N' Lt. Paulson, real impatient, asked, 'Did ya git 'im?'

“'No sir,' I shook ma head, 'I reckon we lost 'im.'

“'Colt, what happened to your hand?' he asked me.

“N' I was feelin' right nervous right then n' I said, 'the car bombin', sir.'

“'Why the hell is Ambrose almos' drowned?' he asked, his voice high n’ squeakin’ from runnin’ n’ fear.

“N' I kinda murmured 'he done tripped n' rolled right in, n' I gone in af'er 'im. N' Danny Ambrose nodded while he was wheezin', sir.

“N' Lt. Paulson said, 'A'right, you two, Wade, get over to the medical tent, pronto. Ambrose, catch your breath and come with me, we gotta provide security for the triage at the bombing site. Hurry the hell up, both a you.'"

“Why did you lie to him?”

“Well, I didn' wanna see Danny Ambrose gittin' in no trouble, sir, n' truth be tol' I didn' want no court-martialin' for nearabout drownin' a comrade even if'n he did blow ma finger off n' was fixin' to kill a innocen' man. But I reckoned right then n' there, sir, both of us is un'er a lotta stress, n' you cain't blame nobody for a lil stupidness now n' then."

"So what was it that Rebecca told you?"

"Well, we was on the railin' a the ferry, marv'lin' at the Miss'ippi River, n' I done recollected that day on the Tigers River, n' she was real patient while I was recollectin' n' then she said, 'you're real quiet.' I reckoned she was right 'bout that, n' I had lots to say, but didn' wanna say it."

"Why not?"

"Cuz it's like you when you's a teenager, n' you got a big ol' pimple on yer nose, n' it feels tight n' painful, n' it's ugly, n' you know you could jus' squeeze it n' it'd go away, but when you're squeezin' it, it's gon' hurt a whole lot more'n when ya ain't squeezin', n' you're gonna bleed some n' make a right mess, n' maybe too much'll come out n' there won' be no more a you lef'."

"I see."

“So's I jus' said 'the weather's real nice.' N' she come over ma house, n' I done made us up some lemonade, n' we was settin' swingin' on the porch listenin' to the crickets chirpin'.

"N' she said, ‘I ermember when I met you, you was a right happy fella fixin' them cars up. You know I done whacked ma own headlight so's I could watch you fixin' it, ya sweat glistenin' with ya shirt off?'

"N' I said, 'I know, that's why I done charged ya double,' n' she laughed right out loud n' punched me in the arm. N' she said, 'there's ma old Colty 'gain.' I thought 'bout that a moment n' I said, 'whatchoo mean by that?'

"N' she shrugged, 'oh nothin'.

"I said, 'no, tell me.'

"She hesitated and got real serious like n' said, 'it's kinda like there's two a ya, Colt. Like there's one a ya here n' now, n' one a ya that's there n' gone. I ain' sure which one you gonna be from time to time.'"

"Is that what she said that bothered you?"

"Yes sir, that made me feel kinda... weird, sir. N' I got a mite snappy n' I said, 'you talkin' 'bout changin', you been tellin' me 'bout parties n' folks smokin' maryjuana, n' all sorts a sinfulnesses.'

"She frowned, 'Oh, Colt, you wouldn' un'erstan'.'

"I retorted, 'I reckon I un'erstan' you makin' baby Jesus cry since you gone off ta college n' become a drughead.'

"She shook her head n' got up n' stomped into the house, bangin' the screen door. N' I seen her cryin' in the kitchen, n' I wen' indoors af'er 'er n' I tried huggin' 'er 'cept she jerked away from me.

"She sobbed, 'why you gotta hurt me?'

"I hollered, 'you done jus' nearabout called me crazy!'

"She whined, 'I'm worried 'bout you!'

"I took a deep breath n’ sighed, 'I reckon I only said you sinnin' cuz I care 'bout you n' I expect better from ya!'

"She start laughin' n' cryin' at the same time, a funny thing she done when we been fightin', like she a lonely cloud drippin’ on a sunny day. She wiped her eyes by and by n' said 'I'm sorry I hurt you.'

"N' I said, 'I'm sorry too, n' I reckon a smart girl like you needs to do some explorin' now n' then.'

"'Thank you, Colt,' she whispered. 'N' I reckon you had a real tough time over in Eye-Rack n' you doin' the bes' you can un'er the circumstances.'

"I said I reckon so. Sir, I reckon, when the good lord gets to talkin' 'bout kingdom come, maybe he jus' means... maybe he... I'm sorry sir."

“Here, use these tissues, Colt."

"Thank you sir. I reckon maybe he jus' means folks embracin' n' un'erstandin' each other's ways the way me n' Becca Catherine was that night. I reckon maybe that's what heaven's like, sir. Do you reckon that's so, sir?"

"Um, I... I don't know, Colt, I haven't thought about it too much. I think you could be right, though."

“I sure do hope so, sir. I walked Becca Catherine home n' she done give me a big kiss, n' we made some promises 'bout how we was gonna call each other. N' I went home, n' I was gettin' ready to go to bed, n' I was brushin' ma teeth n' I looked in the mirror n' I seen ma reflection, lookin' differn'ly than I ermembered it, sir. I started thinkin' maybe Becca Catherine was right after all. I begun reckonin' I didn' know which side a the mirror I was on n' maybe when time got stopped, it didn' rightly restart but only in a mirror world, sir."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, it seems ever since the car bombin' I could travel back n' forth in time but I cain' control it."

“Okay, Colt. That's called a flashback. Sometimes after a very traumatic event, like several you've had in Iraq, our mind can replay the event like we're really there, but we're not really there. Our mind is tricking us."

“No sir. I heard folks talkin' 'bout flashbacks, but I weren' rightly flashin' back, cuz I reckon the terrists done put a wormhole in the carbomb n' I got trapped in it. N' that terrist with the remote we didn' never catch he can turn it on n' off n' make me time travel. You heard folks tellin' 'bout wormholes, sir?"

"Um... Yes, I've heard of them."

"Well, I reckon the terrists done harnessed 'em like you harness a horse, n' I got sucked in it, n' I'm a worm wigglin' roun' in a wormhole, going from time to time."

"Where else have you time traveled to?"
"I been travelin' back to the EFP bombin' on my last tour, sir. When I was in the EFP bombin', I traveled back to the car bombin' n' when I got there n' time froze again, that time I traveled back to the nightmare I done had in Ashland af'er I walked Becca Catherine home, n' the nightmare sent me travelin' back up into the future at the EFP bombin'."

“Okay, slow down. So one memory triggers another one and you..."

"With all due respect, sir, I tol' you, I ain' flashin' back er havin' memories. Ah ain' crazy. Them terrists done stuffed a wormhole in their bombs somehows n' I get sent to differn' times cuz of 'em.

"Okay, so you've time traveled forward to the EFP bombing from the car bombing?"

“No, sir from the car bombin' to the nightmare in the woods in Ashland, n' then to the EFP bombin'."

"Okay, got it. Tell me about the nightmare."

"Well, sir, I standin' there lookin' in the mirror, n' I felt a lil spookin', wond'rin' if I's in a mirror world or a wormhole or both, n' I settle into bed, n' I had a dream that night I's chasin' a emeny through a marketplace, n' then there's burnt people that are emenies chasin' at me, n' I'm runnin' toward the Tigers, 'cept I get there n' it's the Miss'ippi River n' ma Mama settin' in the river 'cept it's real shallow n' clear n' got little pebbles, n' she sees me me comin' n' I splashed out to her, n' she starts singin' but no sound come out, n' blood flows outta her mouth n' her eyes is surprised, n' the whole river turns red with her blood, n' she's garglin' her own blood n' her singin’ becomes screams n’ she shrieks, 'Where's ma goddamn chariot, Colt?' N' I woke up screamin' n' I know I time traveled cuz I weren' in bed no more, n' weren' even in ma house no more. Sir, I was somewhere's out in the woods, n' I hadda wait till dawn, n' fin' the river n' follow it home. I reckon my dead finger mighta time traveled too, cuz it was hurtin' on ma han' even though it weren' even there, like it were tryin'a come back but it cain't time travel cuz it's dead. Sir, at firs' when I los' ma finger I thought that's ma shootin' finger, n' since ma Mama died lookin' like the Eye-Racky I done shot I reckoned maybe losin' that finger woulda helped ma Mama get into heaven if she ain' there a'ready. But I’m purty sure seein' ma Mama bleedin' a whole river, that she's in hell, or for sure ain' in heaven, maybe in purg'tory, sir. Specially since a'fore she died, she done tol' me when I lied down, she was gon' keep me safe from demons n' devils, but I reckon she ain't safe from 'em if she bleedin' a whole river a blood. Maybe she in hell n' she done become a demon, n' how'm I gonna keep her safe, n' how she gon' keep me safe from her own self. N' I musta goed there right to hell n' seen ma Mama in hell when I time traveled. N' maybe ma Mama's there in hell with ma finger. But then I reckoned, what if we done switched places when I time traveled to her n' she come out one end a the wormhole, n' I come out the other end through the mirror, n' now I'm in hell, sir. I'd prefer that to ma Mama bein' there, truth be tol'. Sir, do you reckon I'm in hell or ma Mama is?"

“Well, I'm not a priest, Colt, but I guess I believe your mother is probably in heaven and you have had some very stressful experiences. Please listen to me. You have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You're experiencing your mind's attempt to sort through the painful information it's been receiving and assimilate it into your world view. Your sense of personal security has been repeatedly violated and it's going to take a long time for you to feel safe again and be able to move forward. But we can help you do that."

"Sir, with all due respect, I know you’s a psychiatrist but I ain' crazy. I been time trav'lin'. I know it don' sound right, sir, but I know what I seen, n' I ain' havin' plain memories, I'm there again, back in time. The nightmare sent me to the EFP bombin' after I was los' in the woods at night."

"Okay, well tell me about the EFP bombing."

“I was startin' out ma third tour a duty n' folks was gittin' fifteen month tour duties then, so's I knowed I'd be there a long while. Since I done los' ma shootin' finger, I was drivin' the humvee ever' day, sir. That was a good duty, sir. We got ordered outta Baghdad n' hadda help fight terrists in Ramadi in Anbar province, sir. I was drivin' a humvee in the convoy on our way from Baghdad to Ramadi, n' I seen a street sign on the highway sayin' somethin' in Eye-Racky n' English below it, n' it had a arrow going straight n' it said, this way to Jordan.' N' I kep' seein' those signs ever' few minutes, sir. N' that done gave me the same weird feelin' Becca Catherine did sayin’ I was there and gone, 'cuz ma Mama done sung to me 'bout Jordan n' chariots a'fore she died. I a'ready time traveled there from the woods in Ashland, so I knowed a'ready how it was gonna happen. N' we was gettin' closer to Ramadi, n' I was chatt'rin' with Lt. Paulson settin' next to me 'bout cars n' college football, n' skiin' in the Rocky Mountains. We got to a bridge over the Euphrates River, n' we got stuck in traffic, n' the humvees got bunched up together. There was a lotta debris n' bags n' boxes 'long the side a the bridge, sir. N' I reckon that's where the terrists done hided the EFP bomb.

"The EFP bombs was special bombs they done made outta copper that got melted and shot atcha when it ‘sploded. Lt. Paulson was talkin' 'bout his favor'te ski run n' how fast you get goin' down that hill n' you cain' see nothin' n' then time got froze again. I went back in time to when ma Mama dead in bed, n' me holdin' a tray with her breakfas' I done fixed up, n' I was floatin' down a river of blood n' fire when time come back on, 'cept I got dumped out the wormhole real violent like when you trip in a dream n' you wake up slammin' down, 'cept a lot worse. N' I looked down n' pieces a ma leg bone was shattered all over the floor a the humvee, like a egg got cracked, like I's a regular humpty dumpty, sir. N' I looked over n' I saw Lt. Paulson settin' there shootin' a fountain a blood in the air where his head was, n' it was splatt'rin' 'gainst the ceilin' a the humvee n' sprayin' ma face all hot n' greasy. N' I heard someone screamin' n' I looked at Lt. Paulson, n' he weren't screamin' without no mouth, so's I looked back n' there's a new young soldier named Seth whimp'rin' like a tadpole somebody done just tol' there ain' no San'a Claus. N' next to him's Danny Ambrose starin' out the window like he's bored. N' they wasn't the one screamin'. So's I looked up at the gunner n' his legs was danglin' from the gun position like broken tree branches but the rest a him weren' rightly there, so I knowed he weren' the one screamin'. N' I looked down, n' I seen a eyeball in ma lap n' it was blue, so I reckoned it was Lt. Paulson's eye, n' it was lookin' straight at me. Somehow I reckoned that with Lt. Paulson ain' got no head for givin' orders, I was in charge now. N' ma firs' order bein' in charge, I done hollered 'fin' cover!' 'Cept I couldn' make no soun' n' that's how I figured' out I was the one screamin'. Then I passed out."

"How long were you out for?"

"A couple days, n' lots a surg'ries. I recollec' a moment bein' in a helicopter whippin cross the desert, but not nothin' else, sir. When I woke up, Colonel. Damon come in ma room n' done pinned a purple heart n' a medal a brav'ry on ma chest. That's somethin' real special, sir."

"I'm sorry, Colt. We're about out of time."

“That's a'right, sir. I un'erstan'. Sir, you reckon ma Mama could progress through purg'tory now I done confessed ma sins to ya?"

"I don't know, Colt. I hope so."

"Me too, sir. Maybe I could time travel to purg'tory again n' see her n' ask her how she's doin' n' if she's progressin' to heaven, n' if I should confess some more."

"When do you ship back to the US, Colt?"

"Monday, sir."

"Well, when you ship back stateside, next week, you should continue your therapy. I'll send the tape and your file to your new doctor in Mississippi."

"That's awful kin'a you, sir."

"Okay, it was nice meeting you, Colt. Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

"Here, let me help you get up. There we go. On your way out, please tell the next soldier in the waiting room to come in."

"I will sir."

William Kristol: Armchair Generalizer

2012-05-05T16:14:00.001-07:00

Check out my latest blog post on ATD:

http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/05/05/william-kristol-armchair-generalizer/

Mission Accomplished

2012-04-29T22:19:00.002-07:00

Check out my latest blog post on ATD:

http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/04/29/mission-accomplished/

A Justice Circus

2012-04-15T14:34:00.001-07:00

Check out my latest blog post on ATD:
http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/04/15/a-justice-circus/

Supreme Court Justices Deliberate in Obamacare vs. Ayn Rand

2012-04-01T16:19:00.002-07:00

Check out my latest blog post at ATD:

http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/04/01/supreme-court-justices-deliberate-in-obamacare-vs-ayn-rand/

Shoot Unto Others

2012-03-25T14:05:00.002-07:00

Check out my latest blog post on ATD: http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/03/25/shoot-unto-others/

I go after Florida's Stand Your Ground law.

Ovaries of Steel

2012-03-11T08:53:00.000-07:00

Check out my latest blog post on allthingsdemocrat.com. I break down Rush Limbaugh's motives for attacking Sandra Fluke.

http://allthingsdemocrat.com/2012/03/11/ovaries-of-steel/

The Ayatollah's Cat

2012-03-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

Check out my latest blog post on allthingsdemocrat.com. Obama and Netanyahu are meeting tomorrow while the Republican presidential candidates repeat Netanyahu's talking points.

Tax Cuts, Condoms and Tea: The GOP’s Bermuda Triangle

2012-02-27T20:01:00.001-08:00

Check out my latest blog post on All Things Democrat!

Tennessee No Evil

2012-02-19T21:10:00.000-08:00

Check out my latest post on All Things Democrat: Tennessee No Evil. The Tennessee Tea Party wants to remove slavery from history textbooks.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

2012-02-14T18:38:00.000-08:00

For the duration of the 2012 election, I will be a guest blogger at All Things Democrat.

Check out my first post!

Oakland Raiders

2012-01-28T21:17:00.000-08:00

To Serve and Protect

—Police Motto

This is a prime example of how subtly pernicious corporate propaganda is. Today, Oakland police raided an Occupy rally. The headline of a CNN article says "19 Occupy activists arrested in Oakland after clashing with police." The first sentence of the article is: "Occupy activists tossed pipes, bottles, burning flares and other objects Saturday at Oakland police, who responded by using tear gas and smoke grenades and arresting 19 demonstrators, police said."

Notice how "police said" is buried at the end of the paragraph. A more factual rendering would begin with: "Police claimed without providing evidence that Occupy activists..." Reporters, regardless of their political views, want access to the authorities for information and interviews so they won't overtly say or do anything to put the police in a bad light. They know that if they don't frame the story in a favorable way, they will lose access. This means that, barring any hard evidence to the contrary, they will report whatever the police say at face value. That then becomes the narrative regardless of what actually happened. It is at least as likely that the police claimed there was a "clash" to cover their own behinds.

Police stations around the country are becoming increasingly militarized. Clearly, the Oakland police department is leading the charge. This is the same district where BART police officer Johannes Mehserle fatally shot Oscar Grant in the back of the head while he was unarmed and pinned to the ground. Mehserle served two years for "involuntary manslaughter." Oakland was also the site of the violent crackdown against Occupiers that left Iraq veteran Scott Olsen with a fractured skull. Police in Oakland have also arrested a journalist, lacerated a man's spleen by beating him with batons while he was handcuffed, fired a rubber bullet at a man who was filming police, and allowed a hit-and-run driver who ran over protesters to leave the scene without charges.

It may or may not be true that activists threw things at the police. But even if a handful of people lobbed water bottles at a few hundred cops who were wearing bullet-proof vests, helmets and gas masks while carrying shields and truncheons, that doesn't justify a violent crackdown against all 2,000 or so of the protesters who included children. The degree of force that the police deployed dwarfs anything that protesters might summon in a pinch.

The bottom line is, there was no "clash" regardless of what may or may not have happened, or why. It was completely one-sided. Some people may have vehemently objected to their impending arrest for speaking. But the police cracked down violently, using chemical weapons and explosive devices then beating and arresting people among hundreds who had peaceably assembled. American citizens were attacked by paramilitary police and arrested for speaking, because they were criticizing the plutocratic elite. The First Amendment and the right to speech that it enshrines so concisely is becoming almost entirely meaningless in America.

As this blog post goes to print, the number of arrests is continuing to climb and may be in the dozens or hundreds.

Liberty and Justice for All

2012-01-18T05:53:00.002-08:00

I pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands every day in school when I was a child as I know you did. I firmly believed in that pledge, because I was taught that in the American Dream everyone had an equal opportunity to be anyone and do anything in the freest fairest country in the world. I believed our politicians served the public and our government guaranteed our rights.

Today I have a different view of my country. I still believe in America, but I believe in it the way I would believe in a relative who had a drinking problem. I love this country with all my heart, I want it to overcome its problems more than anything, but I know the battle is uphill and time is running out.

In 2008, Wall Street, the White House and the Federal Reserve conspired to reorganize the economy around financial monopoly. After 30 years of eroding the New Deal protections against dangerous speculation, failed banks nearly brought the economy to its knees. We The People bailed out Wall Street to prevent a second Great Depression. We were forced to write a blank check worth a generation of growth with no strings attached. There was no major reform to re-erect the wall between investment and commercial banking. There have been no investigations, no charges, no trials to root out the corruption. The plutocracy picked the poor’s pockets and mugged the middle class. They smashed America’s piggy banks full of mortgage payments, college funds and retirement savings. They took our money to tally historic profits and CEO bonuses while laying off their employees.

We don’t argue against the merits of using trade to engender productivity, commerce and invention. We know Capitalism is the fire that fuels growth. But fire needs to be contained to be useful. We need to regulate finance to harness its creative power for the good of society, while preventing it from unleashing its destructive potential. A fire can keep your house warm and put hot meals on your table if you contain it in your fire place. That same fire will burn your house down if you let it spread to the walls. Those who argue that we should not regulate Wall Street are arguing that we should light our walls on fire to keep our house warm.

Under our unregulated radical capitalism, the plutocracy orchestrated inverse Marxism for themselves: a welfare state in which the top 2% own more than the bottom 90%; a control economy in which the richest hog all the profits while the laborers shoulder all the penalties.

From the Atlantic coast to the shores of Hawaii, an Iron Ceiling has descended across the country. Beneath that Ceiling lies the disappearing middle class and its endeavors to produce American culture. Above the Iron Ceiling a few hundred billionaires and a few dozen conglomerations dictate the direction of our society from the shadows. Above the Iron Ceiling, Wall Street makes our elected officials dance on strings of gold.

This degree of divide between the rich and the rest has not been seen since the Great Depression. One in five children face poverty, hunger and homelessness. Half of young adults are unemployed or underemployed while enslaved to Sallie Mae debts of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education that hasn’t opened any doors. In numbers not seen since the 1940s, the young are putting off leaving home, getting married and starting families. Middle aged folks are struggling to support their families. They are working longer and longer hours to pay the mortgage, feed the family and put the kids through school. Older Americans are delaying retirement. They are stuck in the race after crossing the finish line, taking menial jobs to stave off poverty in their golden years. Some have faced horrible decisions about whether to bankrupt their families to cover medical costs or accept an early grave.

Amid all this, the ratio of average rent to average income has tripled since the 1970s. The middle class has not had a raise in a quarter century. Homelessness has increased by a third since 2007. Meanwhile, millions of foreclosed homes gather dust while people shiver on the sidewalk.

Yet, our economy is still growing. Our Gross Domestic Product is as strong as ever. Since the 1980s, the top 1% have lit cigars to celebrate their income doubling, tripling, quadrupling, while the middle class has flat-lined. Since the Great Recession, the middle class is getting poorer while the rich, who caused the crash, are becoming stupendously wealthy.

This situation was entirely avoidable. The New Deal tamed the boom and bust cycle and enforced economic justice. In the last thirty years, the very rich have bought both parties and all three branches of government and used them to dismantle the New Deal. Their massive media companies saturate our discourse with pro-corporate propaganda. Many pundits are merely corporate marionettes who sling names and innuendo at anyone who questions the billionaires’ agenda.

There are over 25 lobbyists for every one member of Congress. By a rate of 10 to 1, those lobbyists represent large corporations over any other interest. They create a pervasive culture of bribery, favors and gifts. Corruption is the norm in this town. Lobbyists write their own legislation for their corporate clients and bribe our representatives to vote for it. Wall Street used K Street to sideline Main Street and take our democracy away from us.

Their control over our Congress is rapidly snowballing. The Citizens United ruling allows Super PACs to flood our campaigns with millions and millions of secret dollars. With campaigns so expensive, an honest politician who refused to be corrupted would drown under a tsunami of negative advertising from shadowy sources.

The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law prohibiting free speech. Free speech. Not expensive speech. Free speech is the dam that holds back the flood of tyranny. As long as We The People have an absolute right to express ourselves, we will always be a free people. But the corporate puppet masters seek to make speech too expensive for us, so that only they will have the right to speak. Corporate Big Brother tells us words are not speech but dollars are. If money is free speech, then logically, buying crack, paying a prostitute and hiring a hitman are all forms of protected speech. As a society, we have decided that paying for those things should be illegal. So obviously, it must be illegal to buy a politician or an election.

Since September, we have been sounding the alarm. We occupied Wall Street. And the corporations flexed their muscles. They have privatized municipal police departments around the country with huge corporate gifts and they sent the cops after us. We have seen the images of a veteran who served his country in Iraq terribly wounded while serving his country by protesting corruption. We have seen students pepper sprayed for the audacity of sitting together in a park. Nearly 6,000 people have been arrested for speaking in public. Nearly 300 have needed medical treatment after being beaten or gassed for the sin of peaceably assembling. Still, zero bankers have been arrested, charged or jailed for the illegal trading that blew up our economy.

By taking our message to the streets, the Occupiers have captured America’s imagination and seized the moment. They have flushed out the corporate puppets that seek to ridicule, undermine and intimidate anti-corruption protesters into silence. We are recreating our public sphere while the corporations seek to shut it down. A vibrant public sphere is essential to democracy. The Founders saw that the marketplace of ideas was the key to their early organization and ultimate success against the British crown. In the years before the Declaration of Independence, the 13 colonies were abuzz with underground newspapers debating political ideas, publishing houses cranking out pamphlets, protests on public squares which evolved into boycotts, coffeehouses serving up hours of caffeinated discussion. These sparks of public debate lit the fire of Revolution on which our nation was founded. Today, we are keeping our Founders’ vision alive by carrying on the ancient discussion of what makes a free and fair society.

The beauty of open discourse assessed under the bright light of reason is that good ideas gain steam and bad ideas fall to the wayside. In a healthy democracy, bad ideas are not dangerous because they inevitably self-destruct. If Occupy had bad ideas, everyone could safely ignore us. Regressive mayors, funded by corporations, wielding privatized and militarized police departments, have ordered a crackdown on the Occupation BECAUSE our ideas have merit. Our ideas that America’s economy should be democratic and work for our whole society are dangerous ideas BECAUSE they are good ideas.

Our ideas are a profound threat to the power structure that enriches the wealthy elite. The police raids against the Occupation announce that the billionaires running our country will use all their formidable influence to crush any notion of economic justice or government accountability. But they are terrified. They know that their position is morally untenable. They know that if the people awaken to the reality of the power dynamics in our institutions, they will fall. We can no longer tiptoe around the issue of class war. The 1% have openly declared total war on the middle class who are becoming poor and the poor who are becoming desperate.

We have come here today to draw a line in the sand. Big money has pushed our democracy to the edge of a cliff. Below lies an abyss of ceaseless corruption which can only lead to poverty, decline and tyranny. We will not let you push us any further. You picked this fight, but we will make you wage it on our terms and on our turf. We will use the power of nonviolence, as demonstrated by Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, to monopolize the moral high ground the same way you have monopolized our economy. We will adapt and evolve. Kick us out of parks and we will Occupy foreclosed homes. We will be Bugs Bunny to Wall Street’s Elmer Fudd, Roadrunner to the corporate Wile E. Coyote.

We have come here today to stage an intervention in Congress’ addiction to Wall Street’s cash. To tell Congress: say no to corruption. Represent the needs and wants of your constituents. We need a new New Deal for a new era of economic suffering and we want jobs. We are here to tell Congress: restore the Glass-Steagall Act that prevented banks from gambling with people’s homes; Amend the Constitution to outlaw Citizens United and any law that gives corporations a free pass to expensive speech. Cap the outrageous costs of our for-profit healthcare and higher education industries. Congress: restore the level playing field for the middle class. Congress: tear down the Iron Ceiling that the 1% paved over the 99%. Congress: relight the torch of the American Dream.

Today, I pledge allegiance to the people of the United States of America and to the Republic which we built with our labor. I pledge to resist unjust laws. To boycott corrupting banks and corporations. To vote corrupt politicians out of office. I pledge to educate myself, my friends and my family about the role of creeping greed in America. To inform the public and expose corporate propaganda. I pledge to support the Occupation. I pledge that we will occupy Wall Street, occupy K Street, occupy Main Street and take control of the economy and the government back to the American people so together we can restore America to one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Occupy the Open Mic

2012-01-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

So there I was standing in a sea of about 2,000 Occupiers from around the country literally in the shadow of Congress. I was all pumped up to give the speech I had spent a weekend preparing to lambaste Congress loudly and closely enough that they might actually hear it. I found the open-mic coordinator and told her I was here for my time slot. Our conversation went like this:

Me: I’m here for the 6:30 time slot.

Her: What’s your name?
Me: Marc Belisle.

Her: You’re not on the list.

Me: I signed up a week ago. I double checked the wiki today and I was still on it.
Her: Okay, no problem. We have a free time slot coming up anyway.

Me: Okay, good.

Her: So do you have an instrument or something?
Me: No, I’m giving a speech.

Her: Oh, that’s why you’re not on the list. We had to move speeches off the mic.

Me: What?
Her: Yeah, when we opened up the mic, we had politicians signing up to speak. The organizers didn’t want that and we decided it wouldn’t be fair if we had to pick who could speak and who couldn’t, so we just decided to cancel speeches in general. We sent out an email about that to everyone. Didn’t you get the email?

Me: No. No, I didn’t. I did not get that email.

Her: Oh, sorry.

And that is the story of how I didn’t give a speech at Occupy Congress.

I’m convinced that closing the mic to speeches is a major tactical error and a missed opportunity. Honestly, I’m not saying this to gripe. Obviously I’m disappointed but I’m not mad at anyone. I’m saying it because I really want the Occupation to succeed. I also don’t believe that my speech is so important or anyone else’s would have been. But I do believe that speech itself is important. It would have been a very powerful symbol to open a platform for open political discourse virtually on the steps of Congress.

Instead, you had people playing music and reading slam poetry. Granted, I was only there for an hour, and your event went on all day, so I can’t comment in general. But from what I saw, it seemed that most presenters had either taken the sound-byte chants of Occupy marches and set them to folk guitar or rehashed them into snappy little couplets. Or both. That’s all cool, but you’re not inviting anyone into the movement when you’re just using the mic to reiterate the lingo that you use with each other.

I’m trying to understand what exactly it was the organizers were afraid of. I know that Occupy has been sensitive about being co-opted by professional liberals. But allowing someone to speak is not the same as endorsing their speech. Besides, let’s say someone like Marion Barry came to Occupy Congress and sneakily used your lingo to his own ends. So what? That’s not co-opting the movement. As long as he’s not giving you money, he doesn’t have any say in how the movement is run. Or let’s imagine the opposite. Say Eric Cantor walked out of the Capitol, down the steps, hopped up onto your stage, grabbed the mic and called you all a bunch of filthy communists and intoned about the wonders of capitalism for fifteen minutes. First of all, you wouldn’t even be able to hear him over all the booing. But again, so what? Would it not have been an opportunity to allow one of your detractors enough rope to hang himself? Or to find some common ground with someone of a different philosophy, and thereby—to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln—destroy an enemy by turning him into a friend?

I think it’s important to always keep in mind who the real enemies are. The real enemies are the purveyors of very big money who use that money to corrupt our political system for their own ends. Everyone else is a potential friend. And in the battle of winning hearts and minds, apart from nonviolent demonstration, well-crafted open discourse is the most potent weapon we have. I realize that there is this all-consuming ethos of ‘the movement is the message.’ But in the fight to stay in the parks, you’re losing to municipal authorities and the weather. Camping out needed to be phase one. If nothing else, you should have at least opened the mic for a dialogue along the lines of: what should phase two be? You obviously can’t beat Wall Street on ability to fund and organize. So you have to argue more convincingly than they do. Occupy needs to be about ideas, not about clinging to a few square acres of real estate. The decision to close off discourse is a self-inflicted wound.

Walking around the West lawn of the Capitol, every single person I saw seemed to be a hardened veteran of Occupations. I didn’t notice any DC residents poking around the event out of curiosity. The first weekend that Stop the Machine set up shop here in DC, at any given time there were about 2 locals to every 1 Occupier, because they had prepared interactive demonstrations, and they even had an outreach tent. They seemed to be getting people to think and to feel strong outrage, what with the boots and dogtags of fallen soldiers.

I’m not saying you had to go to that extent. What I’m saying is that there seemed to be this bright red line between them and us. And ‘them’ seemed to be anyone who hadn’t been camping in a park for the last few months. I wore a tie for my speech, and as I was walking around, I received several snide or suspicious comments about my dress. I am not The Man. I was not judging you. I did feel a little judged myself though. I wore the tie to create the symbolism that an average American supports you. Maybe you don’t want average Americans to support you? If so, I believe that’s a potentially fatal mistake. Occupy risks irrelevancy if you allow a herd mentality to begin defining the movement.

For what it’s worth, this is the speech I had prepared.

You Are Invited!

2012-01-11T13:28:00.000-08:00

You are cordially invited to attend a speech that I will deliver on the steps of Congress. The speech is entitled "Liberty and Justice For All" and will incorporate themes that I've written about in this blog. It is part of Occupy Congress' open mic. I will speak for 15 minutes at 6:30 PM on Tuesday, January 17th on the West lawn of the Capitol building.

Come support and watch me help the Occupiers deliver our message to Congress, the message of our Founders: that government derives its power from the consent of the governed.

Links for the event:

http://www.occupyyourcongress.info/

http://wiki.occupyyourcongress.info/index.php?title=Sign_Up_Page_for_Open_Mic

The Hunt

2012-01-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

I know our first ancestor
echoing across the grand
canyon of an age ducked in

to the cave after an unlucky hunt
to face his moaning children’s sunken
eyes. He wrapped their shoulders

in bear skin, showed them

to pluck a smoking stick

from the fire, sketch a bison

with the charcoal tip upon

the cool shale. For a time

soot spears pierced wool hide

twig people ripped open the animal

grilled its flesh, filled their bellies

and danced under the stars

on the wall of rock. He who

passed his bones down showed

us the imagination is a hawk.

Let's illiterate.

2011-12-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.’

—George Orwell, 1984

As an ESL teacher, an important part of my job is keeping a straight face when a student becomes unfortunately confused about the finer points of our language. Over the years, I’ve encountered classic examples of this, such as when I taught a class the expression to beat someone up. An innocent student then went to the administration and jokingly chirped about how she was going to beat them off. I had to delicately explain to her the difference between beating someone up and beating someone off.

So I recently girded myself for silent chuckling at what seemed to be a misunderstanding only to be horrified by corporate Newspeak. I was brainstorming a list of holiday-related expressions with my students. Our list had only gone as far as “Happy Holidays!” and “Merry Christmas!” when a caffeine-addicted student shouted out, “Let’s merry!” Ahh, the pitfalls of the English language, I thought to myself. I diagnosed it as merely a verb/adjective mix-up. It would be simple enough to correct.

“No,” I began, “‘merry’ is only an adjective. We have to use a verb after ‘Let’s.’ ‘Let’s be merry’ would be fine, though not really something we would say.”

“No!” my class cried out in unison. “‘Let’s merry’ is a common English expression!”

Then my students showed me this:

and I involuntarily taught them a slew of rare English expressions until I was hoarse. The class dutifully wrote down each one.

As a writer, reader, teacher, native English speaker—and frankly as a human being with a cerebral cortex—this nonchalant raping of grammar for no apparent reason boils the very marrow in my bones.

I would like to sit down for a cup of coffee with the advertising executive at Starbucks who came up with this. After dumping the coffee on his head, I’d just want to ask him: Why? Why did you omit the verb? It’s not a play on words. It’s not a pun. It’s not funny, witty, catchy or clever. It doesn’t evoke nostalgic holiday cheer or vogue slang. Even the obnoxious Microsoft Word paperclip is begging me not to write it.

Let’s merry. Is just. Bad grammar. For no reason. Whatsoever.

How stupid do you think we are, Starbucks? Are your customers drooling Neanderthals dragging a woman by her hair into a coffee shop? Do we line up at your dollar-green counters and grunt “Me want coffee!”? The whole shtick of Starbucks is supposed to be that we’re all a bunch of hip urbanites: the type of people padding down an ironic spiral staircase in a postmodern brick penthouse. We hop in a cab for a mile ride downtown while tweeting our angst for the environment. Then we sashay into Starbucks to tap on our iPad while cooing shipping orders into a blue-tooth. A floppy notepad displays our sketches we wield while wooing a client. We are the uncommoners sipping our venti lattes, designing and selling half a million units of cool in sleek little packages to the commoners.

So why, Starbucks, did you pick this holiday season to start peddling idiocy to us? Illiteracy is a serious problem affecting the lives of millions of poor, undereducated people in this country, and the economy itself. There’s nothing noble about contributing to that problem.

While I’m at it, train your cashiers to say something other than “Can I help who’s next?” This is terrible grammar and doesn’t make any sense. “Can I help? Who’s next?” would be a huge improvement. But really, what’s wrong with a pleasant “Next, please!” The sizes, “tall,” “grande” and “venti” aren’t doing anything to inspire the zeitgeist either. The English word “tall,” the Spanish word for “large” and the Italian word for “twenty” don’t mean anything together. English has three perfectly good words: “small,” “medium” and “large.”

In 1984, George Orwell described how the party of Big Brother would slowly whittle away at the language until nuance became impossible. This would leave the populace literally incapable of saying or even thinking anything critical of the ruling regime. Across society, words and their meanings are disappearing into a memory hole of vapid convenience. Facebook’s baby-faced billionaire is rubbing the verb “befriend” from the dictionary, as well as what it means to be someone’s friend, as he encourages us to “friend” everyone we’ve ever met. He then sells our every impulse to advertisers in lab coats training us, like mice, to press the lever again and again and again for consumer food pellets. Our politics are disappearing into soundbytes shorter than a handful of syllables. Popular discourse is flitting away into 140-character tweets texted from twits.

And Starbucks takes a phrasal noun, an adjective, a period, and calls it a day. This is reason enough to walk past Starbucks and say “Next please!” when searching for a coffee.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Pyongyang Porcelain

2011-12-23T11:29:00.000-08:00

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

—Confucius

The Dear Leader’s train pulled into his terminal station ahead of schedule. Though dictators have been dropping like home values this year, the Koreans won’t be celebrating. The peninsula and the region’s power brokers are entering a period of extraordinary uncertainty.

In the 1590s, Japanese Shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi struck out to conquer Korea. The allied forces of China and Korea eventually repulsed the invasion after devastating years of war, but not before the Samurai made off with fortunes in loot. One of the most valuable items they pilfered wholesale was Pyongyang porcelain. They stole not only shiploads of pottery and kilns but also kidnapped tens of thousands of the artisans who made the pottery. Upon disembarking in chains, the potters faced a lifetime of forced labor, crafting their luxury for Japanese lords. In doing so, they fundamentally altered the Japanese aesthetic. Many of the most priceless Asian ceramics were spun by Korean artists of the period. This is an origin of our sense of the beauty of the Far East: art, and the life it imitates, is mysterious, ferocious and fragile. These same descriptions apply to the situation in Pyongyang.

Like the elegant whorls on a ceramic jar, North Korea is mysterious. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld’s metaphysical poem about Iraq, there are “known knowns,” “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns.” We know that North Korea is the most isolated and opaque country on earth. The military runs the country and staffs all the most important positions at every level of government. The top generals form a sort of elderly House of Lords believed to be a political scorpion pit in which one misstep can spell ruin. We know that an untested twenty-something-year-old Kim Jong-un is about to be dipped into this pit as de facto head of the country. He hails from the dynasty established by Maoist-guerrilla-turned-Stalinist-dictator Kim Il-sung. Jong-un’s grandfather and father derived power from the most thorough cult of personality possibly since the pharaohs built the pyramids.

Aside from this basic information, there is little beyond questions. The regime, realizing Kim Jong-il’s days were numbered, was in the middle of a rushed transition. It is not known how much training Jong-un had, how much real political influence he has with the ruling elite, whether the elite will accept him and whether he is capable of taking the reins. Given Jong-un’s tender age, he may serve as a sort of dauphin while regents actually rule the country behind the scenes. Likely candidates for this role include his aunt and uncle. Both of them are recent rising stars in the late dictator’s ruling clique. They may be in the best position to instill stability. It is not known, though, whether they were chosen in a grand succession bargain or whether they would step in by default. Assuming that there is a plan for interim regency, there is no way to know whether Jong-un or the country’s ruling generals will go along with it once Jong-il is cold.

The North Korean people could also become a wild card if the transition gets messy. North Korea observers have always wondered whether the people are genuinely brainwashed or whether they role-play starry-eyed revolutionaries for fear of the consequences. Many North Korean defectors have suggested that it’s more the latter. But it’s possible that there is a bit of both. If so, regional and socioeconomic animosities could become important if the regime fails to consolidate authority. As in any country, and especially one as impoverished and hierarchical as North Korea, there are likely to be social divisions that could become inflamed during a turbulent transition. Candidates for this type of schism include: the farmers vs. the military, a secondary city vs. the capital, one branch of the military vs. another.

A test of Kim Jong-un’s ability to lead, or at least control, his people will come quickly. Early next year, the DPRK will launch a series of festivals to mark the centennial of Kim Il-sung’s birth and to celebrate North Korea’s status as a “strong and prosperous nation.” North Koreans are several inches shorter than their Southern cousins due to malnutrition. So, this celebration of ‘prosperity’ will stress how much the people will tolerate a new regime’s barrage of baloney and how much the regime in its infancy can cram obvious propaganda down their throats. The degree of the plebs’ cognitive dissonance may illuminate how closely a new big brother can watch them.

We, the American and South Korean people, don’t know how much our governments know. South Korean pundits are squawking that their government only learned about Jong-il’s death when North Korea announced it. They are imploring their intelligence services to gain a fuller view of the situation in the North. There are two possible explanations for this. One is that they truly did not know. The other is that they did know, but feigned ignorance to protect their spies. Furthermore, if Seoul had announced the dictator’s demise before Pyongyang did, that could have triggered a high-level purge at precisely the wrong moment.

We don’t know how much Uncle Sam knows. All the space age electronic intelligence in the world won’t crack open a country just this side of feudal. It is likely that the US only knows what South Korea decides to share with them. Any spies would have to be DPRK defectors contacted by ROK handlers. Infiltrating the hierarchy and gaining access to sensitive information could then take years. It seems unlikely that the South could turn anyone already very high level. Hollywood encourages us to believe that our government sees everything. Yet, consider the fact that Hezbollah, a politically organized militia in a relatively open society, recently unraveled a CIA spy ring. If such a second-rate rival can break up our intelligence, imagine the intensity of a cat and mouse game in a state founded upon paranoia. It is entirely possible that we are blind in North Korea. If so, there are probably key actors and dynamics at play that we are completely unaware of.

Like a ceramic dragon rearing to strike, North Korea is ferocious. There was a time when the North’s economy kept pace with and even threatened to surpass the South’s. But the tides of the Cold War, terrible policy stemming from fanatical devotion to Maoism, American sanctions and snowballing isolation have utterly and irreversibly crushed the DPRK’s economy. As a result, for the last twenty years, Jong-il has pursued a foreign policy of acting like a cornered snake, hissing and snapping. The North is so devoid of resources and productivity that it begs and blackmails to get the food and fuel it needs to sustain the military (not the people). When that doesn’t work, the world’s fifth largest (though significantly outdated) military lashes out, usually at the South, in the hopes that its neighbors and the US will pay it to be reasonable for a while. The most recent examples of this are the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong island in disputed waters.

These attacks seem to coincide with suspected domestic strife, when the regime is desperate for aid or is seeking the attention of Washington or Seoul. Provocations like these would lead to conflict in most places, but are treated like bad weather in the South. The danger is always present, though, that a tit-for-tat exchange could spiral catastrophically out of control. If the new regime faces difficulty consolidating its authority, we can expect more attacks. This is especially true if Jong-un senses the need to hold the generals at his side in the capital while sending their troops out into the field. Keeping the military busy would be tempting for a beleaguered young dictator seeking to keep his friends close and his enemies closer. Indeed, his first order as ruler was for all military personnel to return to their bases. Apart from demonstrating control, this is also likely an effort to flush out any officers who don’t click their heels quickly enough.

Though relations between the Koreas have never been great, they were less chilly in the 90s. The reason for this was the Sunshine Policy, in which the South kept aid flowing to the North. In return, the North was less bonkers. Relative calm mostly prevailed on the peninsula. South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, architect of the policy, won a Nobel Peace Prize for his brainchild. Roh Moo-hyun continued this policy in the following administration. Then came Lee Myung-bak. President Lee was nicknamed “the steamroller” for the trail of bodies he left in his wake as he relentlessly leapt from office to higher office in business and government. He is the South Korean equivalent of a neocon. He scrapped Sunshine in favor of building up the military and confronting and containing the North. The DPRK had grown to rely on ROK aid, so when Lee turned off the faucet and began confronting Pyongyang, this exacerbated the North’s poverty, which increased pressure on the regime, which caused it to lash out, which resulted in Lee confronting the North, and so on.

American leadership has played an important role in this story as well. During the 90s, the Clinton Administration acted in tandem with Sunshine, while playing the role of bad cop when necessary. In 2002, Bush fired a shot across Kim’s bow in his ‘Axis of Evil’ speech. Saddam’s fate was an object lesson to Jong-il (and Ayatollah Khameini) to seek weapons of mass destruction before Bush bombed him (further) into the Stone Age. In Bush’s first term, his administration refused to speak to North Korea, which didn’t go over well in Pyongyang. Bush officials justified this by crowing about not rewarding the North’s bad behavior. There is some truth to this, but only up to a point. The analogy to raising a child breaks down when you consider that children eventually grow up and become independent. North Korea isn’t going anywhere, and it’s always going to depend on outside food aid no matter how high you build the fence around them. It may be unpalatable but it is reality. Tons of free wheat is a small price to pay if it keeps them from blowing things up.

Early on, Obama seemed to have essentially ceded control of the agenda to Lee. The military buildup and the ‘no rewards’ ethos has continued unabated. Lately, though, he may be seeking to capitalize on the impending shift in the North and to demonstrate progress during his reelection campaign. His administration has been laying the groundwork for aid and a return to six-party talks. Jong-il’s abrupt death cast a media spotlight on a phone call regarding food aid that was probably supposed to be a secret.

The most unsettling element of these dynamics is North Korea’s nuclear program. If the transition fails for any reason, weapons of mass destruction could go missing. This is the nightmare scenario for strategic planners throughout the world. If the North began coming apart at the seams and the weapons were in jeopardy, the region’s power brokers, the US, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, would have to make some extremely difficult decisions with precious little time to deliberate.

A refugee crisis is the other threat that the North poses to the region. China takes this potentiality very seriously. Many observers believe this possibility drives China’s policy of sustaining the North. If the DPRK were to collapse abruptly, upwards of ten million starving North Koreans would shamble into China and swim or boat around the DMZ into South Korea. This would cause an immediate food shortage in Northeast Asia, one of the most crowded places on earth. A rippling economic crisis would follow. The whole world would have to pitch in. For efforts to manage the situation to succeed, the US and China would have to be quarterbacking from the same playbook. Even then, they’d be throwing a Hail Mary pass with the clock running out if they hoped to contain, direct and provide for a flow of millions of refugees. Nonetheless, it’s not clear that there’s ever been any high-level huddle on this possibility.

Like priceless pottery, North Korea is fragile. Kim Jong-il shadowed his father as apprentice and sidekick for 15 to 20 years before taking the reins of power. Even so, a 3-year transitional period followed which is believed to have been rocky. After a severe stroke in 2008, Jong-il seems to have launched a sweeping purge of mid-level officials which included a spate of public executions. He may have been paranoid about efforts to undermine his authority while he was debilitated. Or he may have had valid reasons to be worried.

In contrast, no one had ever heard of Jong-un two years ago. He seems to have been elevated to the role of heir-apparent much more swiftly than he could have naturally filled those shoes. The images of him at his father’s funeral surrounded by officials twice and thrice his age are striking. He is in over his head and you can bet many of the people in that room are thinking, ‘that should be me.’ In this atmosphere, there are almost certain to be opportunists sitting on a personal power base, lurking in the shadows, waiting for any sign of weakness, preparing for a moment to strike.

As we saw in Iraq, an authoritarian government can maintain order and stability for a long time even in a society that has completely collapsed. A strong dictator’s regime forms a sort of lid on a squirming can of worms. But when you remove the dictator and the regime, you rip the lid off, and you open the can of worms. North Korea takes both socioeconomic collapse and authoritarian government to chilling extremes. If the regime were to collapse, all kinds of unimaginable social, economic, political and military problems would wriggle out into the region. Such a collapse would be the biggest since East Germans started whacking the Berlin Wall with sledge hammers. But unlike the collapse of the Soviet Union, in North Korea there are no top level reformers ready to face the music and there is no underground political culture of democracy and liberalization (that we know of). If young Jong-un were to fail to complete his ascent to the throne, if the regime were to wobble, North Korea’s problems would become the world’s problems.

If the world were to suddenly inherit North Korea’s unfathomable frozen crises, it would come at a generational nadir of global malaise. The United States is facing an ongoing economic crisis. If history is any indication, after a decade of war, the US will have no stomach for open-ended foreign engagement for the next 20 years. Japan’s trilogy of disasters this year topped almost a decade and a half of stagnation. Given their checkered history, any Japanese intervention would be viewed with extreme suspicion on the Korean peninsula. Russia is facing domestic strife, striving mightily to maintain momentum in European oil and gas markets and has not been a serious player in the Far East since the end of the Cold War. China is in the strongest position to influence the DPRK, and Beijing is the only capital that barely tolerates Pyonyang’s shenanigans. Some hard-line mandarins from the old guard have a sort of admiration for the DPRK’s single-minded devotion to Maoism. But they are becoming fossils even in Beijing. Any unilateral attempt by China to take charge of a precipitous situation in Korea would draw vehement American protest. South Korea would be the most logical country to assume the North’s problems. Fifty years ago, this was viewed as the South’s destiny. Today, though, the few people left who remember the times before the Korean War are in their twilight years. The population is steadily becoming anti-unification due to the costs. The reunification of Korea may cost South Korea five times what the reunification of Germany cost West Germany. South Korean intervention in the North would draw Beijing’s suspicions about Washington’s role in a unified Korea on its border.

The Korean people have taken the division of their peninsula in stride for nearly a lifetime. But this moment of uncertainty is particularly acute. Anyone who has scrambled up a Chungcheong ridge in the dark to watch the rising sun toast the mist off the valley rice paddies as it has for millennia understands why Korea is fondly referred to as the Land of the Morning Calm. Let’s hope it stays that way.

The Right to Remain Silent

2011-12-14T20:19:00.000-08:00

“Democracy is the most difficult government to maintain, … everyone must have similar amounts of wealth, because economic inequality creates power differences that cannot exist in a democracy.”

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

By overreacting to the Occupation, Wall Street has revealed its hand. It maintains its power over the will of the people through an expensive strategy of: Ridicule, Undermine and Intimidate. The billionaires who bought our government are using the American people’s money to attack the American people. They hoard their power while perpetuating the illusion of justice and equality by cultivating a legion of liars, manipulators and attackers to do their bidding. This class of economic Uncle Toms consists of people who are tossed larger than average crumbs from the masters’ table. In return, they aggressively defend the interests of the rich by insisting on a fervent devotion to the status quo and by feigning horror at anything resembling a new idea.

In a scene in Lewis Carroll’s fable of disjointed reality, Alice in Wonderland, Alice flees with the Duchess from the Red Queen awfully fond of beheadings. As they get away, the Duchess scolds Alice for thinking. Alice protests, “I’ve a right to think,” to which the Duchess replies, “Just about as much right as pigs have to fly.” The same absurdity pervades current American discourse. The mega-rich have an absolute right to flood the public with their speech to behead any policy or the candidacy of any politician opposed to them. Now, people seeking to publicly discuss our society’s economic direction are told the only right they have is to remain silent.

Radical Ridicule

Once the 1% decided they couldn’t safely ignore the 99% movement, they primed their legion of media shills to sling any and all names they could at the people involved. Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol fired the first shot by claiming in an ad that OWS was anti-Semitic, so to support Occupy was to support hate. This serious charge is demonstrably false. The New York Times observed that there have been lots of Jews openly celebrating Judaism under the tarps at Liberty Plaza. OWS is intentionally decentralized, so it is inevitable that some fringe-minded people will show up to their protests. But this video predating Kristol’s ad shows what happens when someone unfurls a sign reading “Zionists Control Wall Street.” Other Occupiers surround him and chant “Nazi go home! No Nazis here!” Clearly the mainstream of OWS does not tolerate anti-Semitism in its ranks. It is also important to point out that Zionism is not the same as Judaism. Many devout Jews are opposed to Zionism.

The Weekly Standard is allied with the Koch brothers, the same billionaires who funded WI governor Scott Walker’s campaign to destroy public unions. Kristol’s attack serves the interests of politically active billionaires seeking to subvert American democracy and workers’ rights.

Rush Limbaugh claimed that the Occupiers were threatening to bomb Macy’s. This slander is disproved by OWS’ oft-repeated commitment to nonviolence and the fact that no one associated with the protests has been arrested for anything worse than trespassing. Rush Limbaugh shills for a number of industry lobbies, and is particularly tied in with the food and beverage lobby. This lobby has become powerful enough to field its own candidate for president in the form of Herman Cain.

In this rambling address, professional “paranoid” “delusional” Glenn Beck stands in front of an image of Barack Obama, Van Jones, George Soros, Michael Moore, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Vladimir Putin all rotating around a Nazi swastika and a communist flag while he asks a litany of zany rhetorical questions about OWS. This image is only on screen in the background for 15 seconds, and he doesn’t comment on it, but he implies that an international Nazi/communist plot is fueling OWS. During WWII, more people died in a shorter time in the fighting between the Nazis and the communists on the Eastern Front than in any other battle in history. The suggestion they would be teaming up to protest Wall Street is remarkable stupidity.

Beck insinuates that Van Jones founded the movement. In the latest issue of The Occupied Washington Post, Occupiers wrote an article titled, “Van Jones and Democratic Party Operatives: You Do Not Represent the Occupy Movement/ Make Your Own Program; Don’t Try to Steal Ours.” It’s possible that Glenn is right in that Van Jones wants to lead the movement. But OWS has unequivocally rejected all attempts by institutional liberals to co-opt the movement. Beck’s old lefty bogeyman falls flat in the face of a decentralized popular movement.

In this video, Beck feverishly implies OWS is in cahoots with radical Islam. He offers no facts to support this. He says

“we have the Marxist revolutionaries yet again, along this time with the Palestinian movement and the radical Islam movement and now we have the big progressive movement and it’s all happening. You would think somebody would see a pattern here, but apparently not. Apparently not.”

Apparently not, Glenn. Clearly, a conspiracy of communists, Nazis and anarchists isn’t enough. Why not throw ‘radical Islam’ into the mix too? Does he think that al Qaeda has shifted tactics from suicide bombings to drum circles? Or is he trying to prime his viewers for the argument that Americans who criticize Wall Street should be hauled off to Guantanamo?

In 2007, Glenn Beck was the token conservative voice on CNN subsidiary Headline News. He argued passionately for the US to launch a war with Iran while his show was funded by and hosted ads for Lockheed Martin, the largest military contractor in the United States. When criticized about this by a guest, he called his critic “out of your mind” and attempted to silence him.

Glenn Beck

On Fox News, Bill O’Reilly claims that OWS is a conspiracy of professional Democratic operatives. In the very next sentence he says that they are all jobless because they don’t want to work. As The Young Turks’ Cenk Uygur aptly notes, O’Reilly’s two claims directly contradict each other. O’Reilly says that with a college degree, unemployment is 4.5%. This statistic is meaningless. The national unemployment rate is around 9%, but if you include people who are underemployed and people not reporting unemployment because they’ve given up looking, the number may be 17% or higher. The 2010 Census demonstrated how hard the recession has hit the 16-29 age group. The most distressing fact facing job applicants, regardless of age, education or experience, is that there are 7 applicants for every 1 job opening in America.

In this segment on Fox and Friends entitled “From Mom to Mob,” Fox hosts blast a 38-year-old woman for “abandoning her family” to go to the OWS protests. She left her teenage children with no one to look after them except for (the horror!) their father. They smear her as a bad mother, imply that she’s cheating on her husband and tell her to take care of her kids. This profoundly sexist diatribe against a private citizen is just one example of Fox’s brave trailblazing into new lows in commentary.

In this video, Sean Hannity hosts Ann Coulter, who, while peddling her new book Demonic, says several times that the Occupiers are “demonic.” Maybe no one told her that ‘demonizing’ your opponents is only a figure of speech? She variously calls the protesters: “demonic loons,” “a demonic mob,” “brainless, brainwashed,” “losers,” “drug dealers,” “criminals,” “teenage runaways.” She says they are not Ivy League, but are “coming from bush league schools,” and says “they don’t know why they’re there.” Both Hannity and Coulter speculate that there is a strong potential for the protesters to become violent, again, in spite of their stated commitment to nonviolence. Hannity says, “this is the face of the Democratic party.” Like playground bullies, the two of them smugly call the protesters a litany of names and make no attempt to engage their arguments.

In this video, Steve Doocy hosts Fox News ‘legal analyst’ Peter Johnson Jr. Though you wouldn’t know it from watching the clip, Johnson is not just an ordinary corporate media shill, but also a Wall Street litigator. His job is to help people who are very rich sue people who are not very rich. Then he goes on cable TV to ridicule people who protest the very greed he helps make possible. He is the epitome of the economic Uncle Tom class that enables Wall Street power. Above a banner reading “Mayhem in Manhattan” Doocy says “the message is muddled.” This consonance, or repetition of the “M” sound, is specifically designed to cognitively short-circuit a person’s normal skepticism toward new information. Johnson says that OWS has “anarchist roots,” and “these folks are deluded in a lot of ways.” He points out “they’re decrying the policies of president Obama with regard to job creation and foreclosures.” Doocy then chimes in that it’s a “slap in the face of Obama.”

So which is it, Fox, are the protesters demonic Democratic operatives, and the face of the party? Or are they unemployed deluded losers, anarchists slapping Obama’s face? Apparently they’re both, because “Fair and Balanced” doesn’t mean “True and Honest,” it means, ‘We slime our opponents with whatever mud we can find, even if it’s contradictory, doesn’t hold up to even a threadbare examination of the facts, and makes us sound schizophrenic.’ The segment ends with Doocy asking Johnson what it all means, and Johnson says, “I don’t know what it is.” Albert Einstein once said, “The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.”

Fox News is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the second largest media corporation in the world. News Corp. owns over 100 media assets in numerous countries, including websites, cable channels, TV stations, production companies, magazines and newspapers. The company is embroiled in an ongoing scandal of appalling ethics violations, including hacking the phones of celebrities and terrorism victims. The Murdoch dynasty, which owns the multinational corporation, initially argued that they didn’t know about the hacking. Recently published emails disprove this argument. Clearly News Corp. is an extremely powerful opinion-forming machine which does not flinch at violating laws or normal standards of decency to generate ratings.

News Corp. is owned and run by a fascinating crew. Australian Rupert Murdoch is the 117^th richest person in the world. He is a media tycoon with a long track record of using his bully pulpit to support pro-business and anti-regulatory politicians and policies in numerous countries. His media empire has lent support to invasions, resource imperialism, brutal dictatorships and the repression of democracy and human rights. He has threatened to sue critics and has promoted nepotism within his own family and the families of powerful political allies. When the British government outlawed media graft to tamp down on anti-competitive political/media relations, many lawmakers referred to the law as “The Murdoch Clause.” Murdoch has promoted offshore tax havens, dodged corporate taxes and exploited tax loopholes. His media have reported the outcomes of close elections before they were officially tallied in an effort to influence the outcome, including the 2000 US presidential election.

Other owners and high-level managers of News Corp. include:

· John L. Thornton: a former President and Co-COO of Goldman Sachs.

· Natalie Bancroft: a member of the powerful Bancroft dynasty, which owned Dow Jones & Company for decades.

· Jose Maria Aznar: the former prime minister of Spain. He launched his career as a propagandist for the Fascist Franco government.

· Viet Dinh: originally from Vietnam, Dinh is a Republican legal adviser and was the primary author of the USA Patriot Act.

· Rod Eddington: an Australian who was the CEO of British Airways.

· Andrew Knight: a British media entrepreneur and current Chairman of J. Rothschild Capital Management Limited.

· Thomas James Perkins: a founder of premier investment capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

· Roger Ailes: former media consultant for Presidents Nixon, Reagan and H. W. Bush and NYC Mayor Giuliani.

· Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal: a Saudi prince, the 26^th richest man in the world and the richest Saudi. He founded and owns the Kingdom Holding Company which holds investments in industries including “banking, real estate, telecommunications, broadcasting and media, entertainment, hospitality, computers and electronics, agriculture, restaurants, upscale fashion, retailing, supermarkets, tourism, travel and automotive manufacturing.” He is deeply invested in Wall Street, and owns stock in major firms including Citigroup. Some economists have observed that his publicly acknowledged income does not add up and have speculated his company may be a front for arms dealers.

This prince is Fair and Balanced™

This list of ~~James Bond villains~~ the most influential players at Fox is only the tip of the iceberg, yet their combined wealth is greater than most countries. They are deeply invested in so many business interests and hail from so many countries, it is impossible to know what their principal motivations are. But their claim that their main concern is to inform the American public is an assault on logic. It is all but certain that their media corporation is a Trojan horse for all kinds of corruption and conflicts of interest. They are closely allied to the biggest banks and deeply invested in the illicit trading that blew up the economy in 2008. Their tentacles wiggle powerfully in almost every government institution and political office in America.

These billionaires own a legion of lying puppets who dance on strings of gold at the pleasure of Wall Street and large corporations. The media marionettes are rewarded with prizes like lucrative lobbying deals. In return they shill for powerful interests while framing, spinning and lying to the American people. They will say anything to ridicule, slime, smear and demonize anyone who criticizes the policies that are enriching the wealthy and impoverishing the rest. Their commentary is not journalism, it is not an effort to analyze, understand and explain the facts. It is an effort to throw any mud they can find until something sticks. Americans are beginning to publicly question the direction of our economy. Wall Street is making sure they do so in a cloud of poison floating around anyone who asks the salient questions.

We are used to seeing the two parties do this to each other, which is largely why they can’t get anything done. But now the corporations and their puppets are turning their rhetorical guns on the American people themselves. This amounts to a siege on democracy. As the American people have begun to challenge the broken system impoverishing them, the broken system has responded by declaring war on the notion that we can insist on progress. In this climate, we have as much right to think as pigs have to fly. We only have the right to remain silent.

In the end, their attacks will fail. The American people will reject the Wall Street sliming of Main Street Americans exercising their rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. We held our hands to our hearts every morning as we grew up and pledged allegiance to the Republic where Liberty and Justice are guaranteed for all. We took that pledge seriously. We have come to demand a return on that pledge.

As our message spreads, don’t be a sucker. Accept nothing at face value. Demand greater context. Investigate the source. Follow the money. Our political culture is drowning in propaganda. Build a life raft in your mind.

Speech Is Free But You Will Be Charged

2011-11-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

It is dangerous to be right when the rulers are wrong.

—Voltaire

While anti-tax activists wrapped themselves in the ethos of the Boston Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street is beginning to resemble the Boston Massacre. Very early Tuesday, an army of hundreds of cops in riot gear blockaded Liberty Plaza. They then barred reporters from covering the action. Police pushed away or arrested reporters at barricades blocks away from the park. NYPD helicopters refused to allow news helicopters from filming the raid from the air. Once they had secured a media blackout, the NYPD stormed the camp. As they did, the Occupiers reportedly chanted “This is what a police state looks like…” You can’t really argue with them. Their “crime” may have been a technical violation of sanitation codes. By the city’s own logic, then, a massive SWAT team was deployed on a military scale to prevent littering. This is self-evidently nonsense. Their real crime was speaking.

This escalation of the police intimidation campaign against OWS reveals that “free speech” may be an oxymoron in America. As grainy cellphone videos attest, police gassed and viciously beat protesters without apparent provocation.

The raid makes Mayor Michael Bloomberg look like a cartoon villain. Bloomberg is the 12^th richest man in America. He made his billions with Bloomberg News, which reports on Wall Street for the super rich. He changed term limit laws so that he could be mayor indefinitely. After the raid, a judge ordered the city to allow the protesters to return and give them back their tents. Bloomberg used the police to barricade the square for several hours while he shopped around for a different judge who would give him the ruling he wanted. Bloomberg News hosted a parade of elitist shills on its programming, including this gem with Niall Ferguson who, lifting his nose at the common rabble and their horrid tents, thanked Bloomberg for restoring the rule of law. This extraordinary concentration of financial, government and media power in the hands of one man epitomizes how broken our system is. Over the last 30 years, powerful financial interests quietly tore down the walls that prevented corruption. The person of Michael Bloomberg is the entire feedback loop of influence between corporations, government and the media which chills democratic participation.

Speech is supposed to be free but has become extremely costly in two ways. On one hand, speaking has become costly in the sense that if you voice the idea in public that government should work for the bottom 99% of wage earners a little more you stand a good chance of being pepper sprayed, beaten and violently arrested.

On the other hand, it has become costly in the sense that it costs a lot of money. To really have your voice heard, you have to own, manage or be in the good graces of large media corporations, hire an army of lobbyists or donate enormous sums to politicians in the form of newly legalized money laundering. Either way you’re looking at writing a check with at least 6 or 7 zeros if you want to be taken seriously. For the average citizen, coughing up millions to be heard by the government is inconceivable. For the corporations, Wall Street and the billionaires, it’s pocket change. For the 1%, speech is free except for a relatively nominal surcharge. For the rest, it is becoming illegal.

This dichotomy between speech for the rich and the rest is widening. The Supreme Court cavalierly ruled that money is speech, so campaign donations cannot be limited. This ruling took ‘speech’ which is rightfully ‘free’ and made it into a commodity that can be bought and sold like oil or gold. This is the most radical reinterpretation of ‘free speech’ in history. So it is ironic that speech is being interpreted in such a pedantic, technical way when it comes to protests, as a judge—clearly in Bloomberg’s pocket—ruled that speech does not extend to tents. But someone spent money to buy those tents, and thus those tents are protected speech, right? If we expand our definition of “speech” beyond “words” to “money,” why not expand it to “tents”? Especially when those tents are essential to the peaceable assembly whereby words are formed?

One of the greatest services that Occupy Wall Street has performed is to illuminate how sick our public sphere is. They have flushed out the institutions that seek to ridicule, undermine and intimidate anti-corruption protesters into silence. A vibrant public sphere is essential to a healthy democracy. The Founders saw that the marketplace of ideas was the key to their early organization and ultimate success against the British crown. In the years preceding the Declaration of Independence, the 13 colonies were abuzz with underground newspapers debating political ideas, publishing houses cranking out pamphlets, protests on public squares which evolved into boycotts, coffeehouses serving up hours of discussion. These sparks of public debate lit the fire of Revolution on which our nation was founded.

The Founders feared nothing more than tyranny and believed the antidote was an absolute right to free expression. The First Amendment to the Constitution enshrines the right of the population to speak:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

No law. It is impossible, impermissible, unconstitutional, for any legislature to make any law that would abridge the freedom of speech or of the right to assemble peaceably. When Bloomberg says the protesters—who are peaceably assembled and exercising free speech—are making a mess, there is no law for him to refer to. There is no law that the police can enforce. There is no law on which a judge can slam her gavel. The way the authorities in New York and around the country speak about the movement, you would think there’s a clause at the end of the First Amendment that says “unless the rabble shall be making a mess.” Free Speech does not end when it becomes messy. Democracy is messy. Freedom is messy. The Founding Fathers made a mess when they declared that government derives its power from the consent of the governed. A capitalist oligarchy ensured by brute police force is clean. Those who insist that citizen expression be neat and orderly are outing themselves as pro-plutocracy and anti-democracy. The time has come to make a mess.

The raid violated the “freedom of speech” and the “right of the people peaceably to assemble” phrases of the Amendment. It also significantly violated the “freedom…of the press” phrase. NYPD roughed up journalists, arrested the ones who tried to pass them and created a media-free bubble on the ground and in the air around Liberty Plaza. Again, there is no law that limits press access to a protest for them to enforce. The First Amendment does not say “freedom of the press unless the rabble shall be making a mess whereupon constables beat them forthwith.” Authorities arrest protesters and silence the media in dictatorships. That does not happen in free, open, democratic societies. If the mayor and the police genuinely have nothing to hide in their raid, then why hide it?

In a healthy democracy, the public sphere allows for all ideas to be voiced equally and considered on their merits under the bright light of reason. Ideally all citizens have an equal chance to voice their thoughts on the issues that confront society. In this way, ideas are weighed in the open, ensuring the population’s freedom and its active participation in the unending project of civilization. The beauty of this free approach, in theory, is that good ideas gain steam and bad ideas fall to the wayside. In a healthy democracy, bad ideas are not dangerous because they will inevitably self-destruct. Thus, if the protesters in Liberty Plaza had bad ideas, everyone could safely ignore them. Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered the NYPD to embargo the press and raid the Occupy Wall Street protest BECAUSE the protesters’ ideas have merit. Their ideas that America is a democracy and that our economy should work for our society, not just the corporations are dangerous ideas BECAUSE they are good ideas. They are simple and straightforward. They cut right to the heart of the biggest problem facing our society: financial and corporate interests bought all three branches and both parties of our government.
America is barely capable of considering ideas on their merits anymore, because our public sphere has been privatized. The 1% rely on their monopoly of speech to muffle the public sphere. The protesters propose to re-create a public sphere by bringing the real issues into the streets. This is a profound threat to the power structure that enriches the wealthy elite. Bloomberg's raid announces that the billionaires who are really running our country will use all of their formidable power and influence to crush any notion of economic justice or government accountability. But they are terrified. They know that their position is morally untenable. They know that if the populace awakens to the reality of the power dynamics in our institutions, they will fall. We can no longer tiptoe around the issue of class war. The 1% have openly declared total war on the middle class who are becoming poor and the poor who are becoming desperate.

A slow silent coup took place in America over the last 30 years. Government of the money by the money for the money has swallowed our democratic way of life. The real rulers will not give up their power and privilege without a fight. They can break protesters’ bones but they cannot club an idea. They can poison protesters’ lungs, but they cannot gas an idea. They can raid a protest but they cannot evict the idea that American society could be freer and more just.

This Is What Democracy Looks Like

2011-10-09T09:47:00.000-07:00

Thursday evening I marched beside half a dozen people holding aloft a 15-foot-tall mockup of the preamble to the Constitution. Beneath “We The People,” scrawled in Jefferson’s iconic calligraphy, corporate labels like Exxon and Koch Industries plastered the old parchment like the paintjob on a Nascar. The message was clear: We The People were sold out to corporate greed. Indeed, one of the most popular chants that reverberated through the parade of 2-3000 people was the staccato accusation, “Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!”

We marched past the White House crying “How to end the deficit? End the wars! Tax the rich!” We shook our fists and inquired “Where are the jobs?!” at the ominous barred portcullis of the Chamber of Commerce. We then marched on K Street where we reminded the nation’s brigades of lobbyists that “This is what democracy looks like!”

The protest was organized by Stop the Machine, an organization allied with Code Pink and Veterans for Peace, among others. They camped out at Freedom Plaza where visitors could peruse moving displays such as rows of combat boots with dog tags of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was planned weeks before anyone heard of Occupy Wall Street. And it was just a coincidence that it happened at the same time, and a few blocks, from where Occupy DC began growing more spontaneously from the grass roots in McPherson Square. The two quite likeminded movements joined forces for the march on the Chamber of Commerce to achieve the numbers they did.

As the afternoon wound on, as police atop growling motorcycles herded us down DC streets, as people waiting at bus stops filmed us with iPhones and passing cars honked in solidarity, it became clear to me that there were some demands. For a couple days, I accepted at face value the media’s trope that the protesters just need to settle on a list of demands. But after returning yesterday and spending time talking to people camped out at McPherson Square, it became clear to me why there isn’t a list of demands.

A Social Network of Protest

Occupy DC is only a fraction of the size of Occupy Wall Street, yet is a big tent intellectually. Individuals’ major concerns run a gamut from traditional liberal causes such as the environment, corporate influence in politics and ending the wars to more vague or sweeping ideas like building a fairer society and teaching people to be more empathetic. Some of them are passionately and overtly political while others are more countercultural or simply generally concerned about the direction of our society. But the important reason why there is no list of demands is not because of the diversity of ideas, but because of how those ideas are shared.

Their discussion process, “the people’s mic,” really drove home the point that no one is in charge. There are some coordinators, but they seem to see themselves as facilitators or moderators of discussion rather than leaders. General Assembly is held every day and proceeds on a set of rules akin to ‘Robert’s Rules of Order.’ This is a board meeting of hundreds of people. Everyone who wants to has a say. The person who has the floor will say “mic check” and then hundreds of voices will repeat “MIC CHECK.” This way, everyone can hear the discussion at hand. Agreement, neutrality and disagreement with the speaker can be expressed by rippling one’s fingers up, outward or down, respectively. This way, the speaker can gauge the crowd’s reception without being interrupted. The discussion proceeds slowly but methodically, and the bulk of it pertains to housekeeping for those staying long-term in the park. Mic check. MIC CHECK. I think we need. I THINK WE NEED. To discuss. TO DISCUSS. The issue of. THE ISSUE OF. Comfort with. COMFORT WITH. Pets. PETS. A sea of fingers twinkles toward the sky, and the speaker presses on with encouragement.

Thus, it became clear to me that the Occupy project is not simply a protest, but it is also an experimental society. It is a small community in which everyone is invested, everyone is equal, everyone can lead but no one is in charge. In a sense, this is the protest of the Facebook generation. The ideas and the process are fused into a social network of protestation. There is a crucial difference between Occupy and Facebook, though. People are coming together in the flesh to be a real, living, breathing community in each other’s presence. Facebook and sites like it are illusions of socializing. People are really alone, tapping away in front of a glowing screen. At Occupy DC, people are living and discussing together. Open dialogue is the magnet that is holding them all together, causing more people to join and more branches to open in different cities and now different countries.

Shafted by the Great Recession

The media are trying to goad Occupy Wall Street into outing themselves as a group of radicals with a megaphone. They want a list of demands—and in fact what they really want is sound bytes—so that institutional conservatives can condemn them as unwashed hippies too lazy to work while institutional liberals can tweet ‘we told you so’ from the backs of limousines. Then the media can say “Look! Conflict! Fire up the presses!”

As long as the Occupy movement sticks to its process of leaderless open dialogue, it literally cannot be co-opted, and cannot be pigeonholed. It defies definition. But there’s something kind of funny about a community in which every person is equal, all voices are heard and considered on their merits, and governance proceeds through open dialogue. The funny thing about it is: THAT IS WHAT DEMOCRACY IS SUPPOSED TO BE!

The very existence of Occupy is a slap across the smug faces of the businessmen, politicians and media folks who are trying to ignore, denounce, define, co-opt, pigeonhole, embrace or pepper spray the movement. The inherent message to the powers that be is, effectively: you have screwed up so badly that we are now completely ignoring you. We no longer consider you to be in charge of anything or to be running this country. We are creating a safe place to open dialogue on how best to proceed. This dialogue itself will become the model whereby you will be replaced. But we’re not going to bother telling you that because what you think is irrelevant. You are now obsolete. Goodbye.

The relationship between the Occupy movement and the actual ‘leaders’ of this country is like the relationship between grown children and their parents who are going through a divorce. In this analogy, the divorce is so messy that both sides are trying to take everything and can no longer speak to each other. The children have to step in to calmly, rationally and fairly mediate the split. The Occupy movement is essentially stepping in to rationally mediate the dysfunctional marriage between America’s government and business institutions.

It’s important to point out that they’re not all kids. It’s true that most of them are the ones who were tossing their graduate caps into the air on college greens across the country just as Lehman Brothers was collapsing. They see no job prospects but are shackled to 5- or 6-figure student loan debts. Indeed, one popular theme of the protests is “End Sallie Mae Slavery!” Yet, there is significant diversity among the Occupiers. There are veterans of past countercultural movements and veterans of wars. There are older people who were laid off at an age when they have no real hope of being hired again for a decent job. There are many Black folks protesting the fact that the recession wiped out half a century of economic growth in their community. There are political independents and libertarians as well as people who once considered themselves conservatives. They share a common experience of having been shafted in a real, tangible way by the Great Recession. Some of them traveled for hours or days to be there. One young man with a rich Tennessee twang spoke emotionally about how his father’s small business was possessed by a national bank on trumped up charges. They tried to sue the bank, but the government refused to prosecute. Now they are selling their house and he can’t afford to finish college.

Let Them Eat Cake

Their vision of what our society has become and what it should be is what binds the protesters together. To use another analogy, there is a sense that our society is like a birthday party for ten kids. One very greedy boy (Wall St./corporations) shows up to the party with his mother (the government). His mother proceeds to cut the cake into ten slices and then gives nine of them to her son. The other nine kids (the Occupiers as they see themselves) are left to split the one slice of cake between them. The mother pats her son on the head while he stuffs his face with cake. The other kids say, “wait, that’s not fair.” And she ignores them while her son gobbles more cake. The nine kids become agitated, and cry out “hey, you can’t do that!” She purrs to her son, “good boy, just ignore them.” The other nine indignantly shout, “stop that, now!” The boy, his voice muffled with cake, looks to his mother and whines, “I want to eat all the cake!” His mother replies, “Of course you eat all the cake.” She then slaps the last slice on a plate, hands it to the nine kids and barks, “Look, I’m letting you eat cake.” The kids look at the slice, look at each other and shake their heads, “No. We won’t fight each other over this slice of cake.” The mother then screams, “WHAT?! You are all filthy, communist socialists! You are lazy, greedy, worthless children!” The nine children then reach for the cake the greedy boy hasn’t eaten yet. His mother reaches into her purse, pulls out pepper spray and sprays all the children in the face. But, for some reason, this doesn’t make them want to fight each other for that last slice of cake. It makes them more determined to stop the greedy boy and his mother.

Gandhi’s observation that “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they fight you. Then you win,” provides an eerily accurate description of the responses thus far by the entrenched powers in our society. The media are only beginning to take the movement seriously after ignoring it for weeks. Politicians have begun calling them names and trying to label them. Eric Cantor called them a “mob.” Mitt Romney called them “dangerous.” NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg accused them of “trying to destroy…jobs” (seriously?). Now the (corporate-sponsored) NYPD is pepper spraying them, beating them with clubs, arresting them for resisting arrest—a brilliantly Orwellian Catch-22. Yet, their numbers are growing.

After taking part in the protests and observing the branch of their community here in DC, my message to Wall Street, K Street, the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, the corporations, the politicians and the media is: begin implementing real reforms to break the corporate/government nexus. A good place to start would be to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 which erected a wall between investment and commercial banking; and to legislate against the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional misinterpretation of the Citizens United vs. FEC case which allowed unlimited secret corporate campaign donations. These two gestures would be real and would go a long way toward reining in destructive corporate greed and restoring government of the people by the people for the people in this country. But they would only be a beginning. In the end, we will need a new New Deal for a new age of economic suffering and a radical reassessment of our priorities as a society. Submit to real reforms now before our resistance to your misrule and mismanagement intensifies.

We know you hear those drums outside your towers and blast-proof walls. We know that you know that those drums are for you. “Show me what democracy looks like!”

The Enemy of My Enemy is My Enemy

2011-08-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

Libyan rebels are currently overrunning the last lines of defense for Moammar Gaddafi’s regime. As of midnight EST, the rebels are two miles from downtown Tripoli. Only time will tell, but the West may have swapped the devil we know for one we don’t.

No one should be sad to see Gaddafi go. His regime has mismanaged his country and tormented the Libyan people while exporting terrorism and provoking the West for four decades. Nonetheless, Gaddafi had ostensibly changed. After 9/11 he disarmed, renounced terrorism and paid massive reparations to Lockerbie victims’ families. At least in the halls of Western power, Gaddafi was seen as a new man, a partner for peace, a regime reformed.

Then events of the early spring unfolded cruelly. The Arab Spring heated up as Europe’s economy cooled down. France was caught exporting teargas to Tunisia at the height of its crackdown against democratic protestors. By the ides of March, Gaddafi’s forces were ferociously beating back the nascent rebellion. Then they were at the gates of Benghazi. A bloodbath was imminent. Sarkozy seized on the opportunity to make it up to his southern neighbors. The UN invoked Responsibility to Protect. NATO obligingly fired up the war machine as international bickering over command spilled into the media. Quickly it became obvious that—apart from the threat of slaughter—the major consideration was the destruction of the oil refineries in Benghazi. Libya provides 20% of Italy’s oil and a significant portion of other EU countries’. Europe faced the very real possibility that the valves in North Africa would squeak shut under an artillery barrage. The Roman economy teetered on the edge of default and would sink into the Mediterranean and drag Europa with it if the energy dried up for even a few days.

The decision to intervene was made with hours to spare and there seemed to be scant strategy behind the move. Then there was a long stalemate and the world saw the rebels’ lack of battle-readiness. At some point, the same forces who were firing on their own air support and running away in flip-flops five months ago gained the capacity to sweep the army from every inch of Libya. This empirically reveals that the West has been surreptitiously arming, training and supplying the rebels. France has provided the rebels with a significant arsenal including assault rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-tank missiles. Western special forces have likely been training the rebels in asymmetric combat. The full extent of the West’s support for the rebels may never be known, but it was enough to create a modern fighting force from scratch in a few months.

So who are the Benghazi rebels? What do they want? What will they do when they are in power? The only thing the West truly knows about them is that eastern Libya was the largest supplier per capita of foreign fighters to the Iraqi insurgency. That is to say, many of them are likely to be Islamists. The US, UK and France, wearing their NATO hats, are arming and training militants who are probably not quite sympathetic to Western ideals.

Rooting Gaddafi from power twenty years ago might have been appropriate had the opportunity arisen. But such punishment now comes at an awkward time since Gaddafi had demonstrated a desire to join the community of responsible nations. This sends an unfortunate message. Bush threatened to invade the “Axis of Evil” for pursuing weapons of mass destruction and proceeded to invade the weakest of the three and the one incapable of pursuing such weapons. This sent the message to Iran and North Korea that they would be fools not to develop such weapons to deter invasion. So too, toppling a reformed pariah sends the message that cooperating with the West, and especially disarming, will only invite a Western-backed overthrow in the end. Other ‘rogues’ seeking to join the ‘normal’ world may now hesitate to do so.

NATO also opted to back uncertainty in a relatively stable country on Europe’s frontier. There is no guarantee that a smooth transition will follow Gaddafi's tumble. If power remains in contention, Libya could become a lawless country infested with disaffection and militancy, exporting instability. This conveys the rather bizarre message that the West doesn’t necessarily act in its own strategic interest but may use NATO to lash out to settle old scores. In a world of rising powers, this perception could greatly diminish NATO’s credibility as a global partner for peace.

In spite of all this, it is important to highlight that the decisions made in March reflected a stark choice between evil and greater evil. It would be childishly simplistic to second-guess those decisions in light of the thorny moral and strategic calculations involved. Above all else, the world had a real responsibility to protect the innocent civilians in Benghazi. Undoubtedly, leaders of the North Atlantic will take a moment to pat themselves on the back for a swift NATO victory. With the US and NATO mired in two unending wars and the EU and US economies drooping, they could all use the good PR.

Nonetheless, they should remember that the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. We must be very careful about whom we heavily arm. Some of these rebels likely fought American soldiers in Iraq, and may not hesitate to do so again, in spite of the Western assistance. If they do, it would not be the first time that we were haunted by a monster of our own creation. In the 1980s, along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the US armed, trained and supplied a fighting force in Afghanistan to evict the Soviets. The conduit for this assistance was our friend Osama bin Laden.

Tear Down the Iron Ceiling (part 2)

2011-05-08T18:07:00.001-07:00

We know you are bankrupting America’s democracy.

The principle of an open public sphere drives democratic society. Yet you seek to privatize America’s political debate.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporate funding for electioneering cannot be limited because it is free speech. This is manifestly absurd. Those with the most money may buy the right to speak loudly enough to be heard. Those who dwell beneath the Iron Ceiling of profit and privilege lose that right. The ruling blesses corporations with the same right to speech as a breathing citizen but with none of the accountability. If money is a form of speech, then logically, buying crack, paying a prostitute and hiring a hitman must be protected by the First Amendment. They are not because our laws recognize that money and speech are different.

Reagan was the first president to use ‘soft money’ to circumvent the FEC rules established in post-Watergate campaign regulations. By election day in 1980, corporations had donated 50% more than the amount allowed under public financing laws to Reagan's campaign. While in office, Reagan rewarded his corporate donors by installing staunchly pro-corporation justices Kennedy and Scalia to the bench. These justices, in turn, helped George W. Bush become the first candidate to secure the presidency after losing the popular vote since 1876. While in office Bush appointed two more dogmatically pro-business justices, Roberts and Alito. Along with Thomas, appointed by George H. W. Bush, these justices ruled that money equals speech.

Since 2006, non-party campaign spending has risen 338%. Donations from undisclosed sources have risen from 1 to 47% while disclosed donations have plummeted. In 2010, “Super PACs” and 501c groups spent 67% of all non-party campaign spending, totaling almost $200 million. Newly allowed sources funded 72% of non-party campaigning in 2010. The Supreme Court sold our democracy to the highest bidders.

Candidates cannot hope to win elections without corporate funding. Once in office, they face a stark choice: bow to corporate wishes or be buried beneath armies of lobbyists and PR firms. Corporate influence is a cancer rapidly consuming the organs of America’s body politic. Citizens United is a tipping point that will allow the cancer to kill the host.

The 2010 freshman class, funded by an unprecedented tsunami of secret corporate funding, seeks to further the plutocracy’s agenda. Thirty states have written legislation requiring voter IDs. Approximately 11% of voters don’t currently have a photo ID. These are predominantly young, poor and minority voters. They may have to choose between losing a day’s wage to register for a state ID or lose their right to vote. There is an old Cold War joke that, under communism, the people were so enthusiastic they voted three or four times. Will our children joke that under capitalism, the people were so enthusiastic they wouldn’t leave work to vote?

Since forging a beachhead in the 1980s, the plutocracy has fought to expand its influence deeper into the heart of our democracy. With every success, they invest their new clout to push for greater influence and marginalize more voters. Beneath the Iron Ceiling, Americans have lost the right to be heard and are losing their right to vote.

Stay tuned for part 3: We know you are bankrupting our foreign policy.

Tear Down the Iron Ceiling (part 1)

2011-04-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

An open letter from The Millennial Generation's over-educated, under-employed to America’s corporate plutocracy:

From the Atlantic coast to the shores of Hawaii, an Iron Ceiling has descended across the country. Beneath that Ceiling lies the production of America’s economy, democracy, foreign policy, health, technology, education and culture. All these fields of endeavor, which once rightly made our nation famous, fall in the corporate sphere; and all are subject not only to corporate influence, but to increasing corporate control.

We know that you bankrupted America’s economy.

The principle of competition drives the free market. Yet you quash competition. In every major industry, production is increasingly consolidated and centralized. Until World War II, small, family-run businesses were America’s bread and butter. Today, they are relics of the past. Even mid-sized corporations are disappearing, devoured by massive conglomerations. Roughly fifty multinational conglomerations each gobble up tens of billions of dollars a year. Together, these behemoths—such as Carlisle Companies, Honeywell International, Koch Industries, News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Tyco International and Viacom Inc.—control the majority of the economy.

These conglomerations own interests in various industries that multiply their influence and create an unbreakable feedback loop of flattering publicity. A conglomeration that owns a bath products company, a research institute and a cable news company recently began marketing a new deodorant, published research that the deodorant is good for you and reported the ‘research’ as news. Under this concentration of business interests, control over the American economy has fallen into the hands of a few hundred people.

In 2008, Wall Street, the White House and the Federal Reserve conspired to double down on this anti-competitive spirit. Failed banks nearly brought the national economy to its knees. But there were no investigations, no charges, no trials, no campaigns to root out the corruption. Instead, the corporations rewarded themselves. The American plutocracy picked the poor’s pockets and mugged the middle class. They smashed America’s piggy banks full of mortgage payments, college funds and retirement savings. Now they tally historic profits and record CEO bonuses. Still, beneath the Iron Ceiling, they do not create new jobs other than McDonald's servers.

This is not capitalism. This is not free market economics. This is inverse Marxism. The American plutocracy turned the Communist Manifesto on its head and made that their mantra. America’s corporate puppet masters orchestrated socialism for themselves: a welfare state in which the top 1% own more than the bottom 90%; a control economy in which the richest hog the profits while the laborers shoulder the risks and penalties. This degree of divide between the rich and the rest has not been seen since the Great Depression. Today, in America, all benefits rise above, and all costs sink below the Iron Ceiling the American plutocracy has created.

Tune in next time for part 2: We know you are bankrupting America's democracy.