The Other Shoe
(Dropping in)

    The time has come to talk of things real and imaginary. Real People are at war. Death is common, far more than usual. Fools Of The Hill chase shadows, spending The Treasury like tomorrow's revenue is a certainty. Military Ships of State are well-built, well-stocked, and run like the well-oiled machines they must. It is still very early in the War Against Great Fear. However, this machine is captained by a harliquine with deluded visions of grandeur, from a station of privilege and unprincipled advantage. That alone may cost dearly before the current conflict is over.
    In fact, when it will be over is not easily defined. No specifics are in the works. There are no enemy governments named, beyond the foolish SchitzoWab TallyBon, who are mostly dead, dying or about to be. There is some quiet talk questioning the lands around the battleground, and the Holy Kingdoms of Kindred they contain, as possibly being the enemy. There is no defining legislative object, no declaration of war, no scholarly works from which actions are rooted. The war, it seems, is entirely improvisationa and driven emotionallyl.
However, there is a plethora of dogma on all sides. The why's run amuck amid the who's and how's and what's and where's. There is enough blame to go around the Universe twice. But it goes nowhere. It is the past moving toward the past. It is retrograde wisdom with no view toward the events common of an ever shrinking Sphere of Human Influence.
    The High Clown is occasionally seen, mouthing elemental and magically common phraseology. The Common People sit in front of their Electron Mirrors, still weeping in outrage at the death of thousands of their fellow citizens. Some cower at the threat created from incidents of Tiny Worms, unleashed on the unsuspecting through common message carriers. Since the first cases, the Fools Of The Hill have lied, even covering up facts. They truly live in fear. The Truth would create revelations that could cost them their positions of Trust.
    At Ground One, site of one Attack of Horror, humble men with huge machines attack a mountain of rubble that contains the remaining pulverized victims. They have many months of work ahead. Each night, Storytellers Of The Electron Mirror relate tales of credible courage or incredible irony. The coming Holidays will not be as Merry as Before. Nothing will ever be as Before.
    The Alliances formed since the Attack stand in kindredship against a common criminal enemy. This has created an atmosphere in where old enemies remain shoulder-to-shoulder. It is a formation against largely invisible attackers. Acts of Horror have borne a common reactive resolve. This has already cost many lives, both innocent and guilty, as every war does. Demands of the psyche drive a righteousness that cement this resolve, and certainly damn the future to further repercussions. There are no common goals defined, no treaties of mutual trust; nothing more than common threads of threat personified in the Evil Doer and his henchmen.
    The rule of law has been whetted on the throwing stone of ill thought; molded to a dictum, deemed a "necessity of war." This was not "deemed necessary" in Korea, Viet Namn, Guyana, Panama, Kuwait, or Kosovo; but the High Clown's Dark Prince of Rules ran it quickly through The Congregation of Upset Whores. Its intent is to maintain secrecy, citing incidents during WWII when similar acts were enacted. They all say this is different, a war unlike any other. But it is not. Promises have been made, as an excuse, and without specific commitment, we are told to trust High Clown because he is a good guy.. In that there is unstated self-righteousness, which the law also lacks. The High Clown has been given the power to weigh life and death, and has a history of caring little for either. The past eight years have been devoted, by his party, to a principle that "no man is above the law." Now one man is the law. The Foolish Many, half who voted for High Clown, or said and did nothing when his backroom manuvers stole the election, wait for another shoe to drop. This says so much about out system of justice and how it is influenced to the lesser of its good intentions by events small men deem greater than they are. 
    Meanwhile, a Wondrous Machine, which recently created great wealth and widespread common good, has been shackled to devious electrical illnesses, controlled by the Invisible Bad Fighters without active oversight. What has been the River of Freedata is to be stemmed to another form of fear; of unjust imprisonment. Value has shifted from production to paranoid repression. The goal of the High Clown's political party, it seems, is to make Established Wealth worth more through denial of opportunity to everybody else. The Wonderous Machine suffers and may die. It was, in the long run, a challenge that may be too great for common people. It certainly threatened somebody.
    The Evil Doer remains at bay, still remaining with great influence; now, mostly derived from Followers of High Clown. Finding and killing Evil Doer may bring the Great Owls to the west into the fray. They sit quietly, with great weapons, waiting also for another shoe to drop. Northeast of the battleground is the land of the Many Many, who also wait for events to unfold before creating a policy. To their north and east is the Humble Giant, known throughout time for immense strength and incredible stamina, probably due to their very terrible weather. West of there sits the Land of the Alliances, a hodge podge of people with common interest in commerce but historically diversity. All seek the Evil Doer, who remains as invisible as wind. But, he is probably staying comfortably these days in Iraq.
   The battleground is an ancient one. Throughout history, it has seen conquerors come and go. As bombs rain down on the belligerents, the tribes vie for homelands centuries in contention. With a very low expectation of future gains, and very low educational opportunity, the prospect for a continuation over a long period of time is very real. There is no discussion of any political goal strategy, as it is widely deemed "too early." There, women of the battleground, following years of repression, staged a protest march, but were turned back. This was by men who carry firearms as commonly as men here carry car keys. There, children have only known war. Firearms are set aside when they are born as a matter of culture. There, leaders from the people seem interested in nothing other than taking and holding their own ground. Here, thinking too much is stifling our precious freedom. Weigh the odds.They are very thin at this point.
    This is the environment that created the Evil Doer. It seems totally built to insure that, when he is dead, another Evil Doer will step in and continue in his way. It is a Treadmill to Oblivion, if there ever was one. Don't bother asking who created it. Does not matter.
     Without wisdom, fear will replace this festering sore on the ass of humanity with another. Already, there are rumors that the High Clown is said to be plotting the death of the Hairy Arab, who somehow escaped a recent war with his life and remained in power. Don't wonder how that happened. Does not matter.
    Simpletons may lay the reason for all this to the automobile, and the Otto reciprocating internal combustion engines' thurst for crude oil. While SUVs may be an abstract and minor factor, the evolution of this event is historically laid anywhere you want to draw the line. Looking forward is the only singular way to distract minds shackled to past but ever-present ignorance.
    Only education and doing by example will ever effect a change in hearts that wish now only to martyr themselves by killing Americans. Our government has no intent to "build nations." It will indeed be a long war.

Thank God
(I am still here)

 

     Christians around here are insistent on observing this day as memorial to a dinner long ago in Massachusetts. Pilgrims and Native Americans gathered and ate the bounty of the land, following the harvest. Turkey was the main course, as it was abundant. The day became an occasion to remember blessings and to be humble in giving thanks.

     Football was added later. It became a devise to keep men out of the kitchen while the women prepared the feast.
     On this day, Americans may hear of war and reprisal for terrorist attack. They may see parades with gigantic baloons, and read comic strips celebrating the occasion. They may overeat or make diet promise procratination that will soon be broken. They will gather with family and friends, in homes and restaurants.
Most will say a prayer of thankfulness.
Some will reflect and realize just how good we have it here.
>BR>     www.networkforgood.org

Read my other web log

Knee-jerk Nation
What other than money?

 

     There were 19 terrorists, 4 aircraft and [who-knows-how-many] anthrax assaults on and since September 11th. Thousands have been imprisoned with only the rudiment of law containing their persons and no charges have been formalized (against any I know of). Two laws have been passed and signed that assault the Bill of Rights so thoroughly that decades will pass before our law again is "of, by, and for, the people."
     What? Is this some un-American jingoistic propagandistic Attack on the System? Is this liberalistic tree-hugging wining or namby-pamby soft faggot girly gutlessness? What the hell do they mean by that?
     While the media tries to decide if it is a War On Terror (WOT) or a War Against Terrorism (WAT), the fact remains that Congress had the debate regarding a formal declaration of war. They passed on making such a declaration. This is neither a WOT or a WAT; but, war by any other name is still war.
     As attack aircraft have mutilated the hated enemy Taliban horseback and foot soldier, the rhetoric continues. No discussion of tactic is forthcoming (as the Taliban have satellite TVs in their holes and telling what we intend will cost American lives, I guess). No discussion of the political goals sought out of the conflict is forthcoming; beyond generalized elocution toward unspecific pie-in-the-sky idealism. It is too much to ask where we are going with this mayhem and how we intend to get there. 
     There is no question that a sophisticated and effective military strategy has been formulated and implemented. The military continues to "do their job" effectively and with only minimal peripheral casualty. Any organization, be it a nation, a terror cell, or the Boy Scouts, who thinks they may take on the American military machine and expects to even dent its capacity to bring death and destruction, is insane.  The uniform and the flag are well represented in this all-volunteer force.

 BUT?

     Ask yourself who is the enemy, really.
     Bin Lamen will die. It is a question of when and where. Although al Quida will disappear out of a very necessary political act, the Whabbism (Islam sect) that is its root will continue with support from Saudi Arabic interests from which it grew. This is not a communistic ideological threat, but the long term religious dictate threat; born out of thousands of madras Schools of Hate. In nations far flung as Somalia to the Philippines, Saudi oil money sponsors these mindwashing cells for children with no other opportunity to learn. Is the enemy ignorance or the Saudi?
     Afghanistan will have another useless governmental form, probably backed with United Nations "peacekeeping" forces. Certain privileged few will gain, while most will continue in poverty and squalor. Billions of dollars worth of ineffective-by-design aid will find its way into the country. In a decade, the effect on Afghan people will either be to further polarize their political form or to continue as a closed and secretive society of schizophrenic social order. What is the pervasive need for Afghanistan to continue as one nation anyway?
     Terrorism is not a physical thing. It is a choice of action against an enemy (usually a government) whose over-whelming superior force provides no other means of protest or avenue of social change. It is an idea that creates action, but with usual "collateral damage" to innocent civilians. It can be effective, but is usually contra-productive. As a choice of tactic, such underground activity is necessarily secretive. Thus, it seldom provides clear and specific political planning necessary to break its own integrated "ring of repetition". To conduct a War on Terror is sophomoric euphemism at best. At worst, it strives to connote an evil intent against a pristine solution, or is an outright lie. Is it either or both in this circumstance?
     Then listen to Dr. Condo-Lisa Rice and Colon Powell. Wonder what ever became of our Vice President and how he is spending his time these days. Look at the gargantulan numbers and wonder who is benefiting. Listen to the totality of the opposition and weigh their arguments. Ask yourself if The Shrub is up to this job or any job. Wonder why we never hear the end of blue comments against Bill Clinton. Think the unthinkable; consider that we have met the enemy and they are (mostly) we.