Category: Uncategorized

It’s raining to beat the band. The wind last night sang and moaned in the telephone lines and howled in the chimneys. At times it reminded me of arcane Japanese flutes being played in a bamboo forest. I woke up this morning to a heavy sky and high winds. It seems as if global warming is working its magic. I remember reading somewhere once that the Northeast US will assume the weather patterns that we see more prominently in the Northwest, i.e. Seattle, Vancouver, etc…From the looks of this winter the predictions are correct. Thankfully my home is on high ground and there are already existing waterways around the house to carry the deluge downstream.

My own mental deluge continues, however. I calculated my future in terms of school credits, and, if I can stay in school full time (12 credits, or 3 classes) I will have achieved my B.A. in a little over 3 years. That “if” is the chance. Of course I was projecting the future, which never looks good, but I would like to stay on course if possible. It’s not the money I worry about, it’s the time that seems so elusive. That is the nature of time, though. It is purely relative and a figment of our imaginations. Many scholars believe that time does not exist at all and that the only reality is what is here, right now. So if I stay in the moment, live for today, and have gratitude for the present, I’m OK. So why do I project? It’s as if I want to find a certainty and an unwritten schedule of my future. I want to know that everything will be alright. Of course, if I use that philosophy to live in the present, everything will be alright, because the future is constantly becoming the present. Tomorrow will become today as surely as today will drift back into the wake of the past. Memory will replace the now experience and as waves behind a boat change shape with the passage of my craft, I move through the brine, creating and living in my amorphous future/present.

I neglected to post the haiku yesterday. These next three will be the last of the “Jail Haiku”. Although there are many more, I am becoming bored with this rehashing of my painful past. I will begin to write more haiku, specifically for this post, and have them up faithfully every Tuesday. I will try to pick these last three with a sense of closure. So, as I watch the wake of my boat from the transom, I will see how the waves fold back into one another, smoothing themselves out, falling back into the sea, undistinguished from the rest of the ocean.

#165.
Faded timetables
and a broken luggage cart:
forgotten station.

#241.
Through the grey morning,
and my narrow, stained, window,
illumination.

#14.
The brooks water flow
has increased triumphantly:
winter is thawing.

Johnnyboy

Like many Americans I spent the week keeping track of the Alito hearings on the radio and TV. For those not in the know, Judge Samuel Alito has been nominated by the White House as the replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He has a long and active judicial record and speaks very well in public, seeming to take a non-partisan, apolitical, stance on many of the questions raised by the panel of 18 US Senators over the course of 5 days. But, the outcome will, I believe, only draw this republic closer to fascism than ever before. In my opinion, Samuel Alito is a slimy, double-talking, toady, who will anything his master (George W. Bush) commands. He is as slick as lawyers come, playing his “fairness” cards to the end in his bid for this important lifetime office. His views on Roe v. Wade are just the tip of the iceberg. R v. Wade is symbolic of his views on personal privacy as a whole, and jeopardize all Americans regardless of political or economic standing. He believes that the attorney general should be exempt from prosecution and financial amends involving illegal wiretaps. He is quoted, by Professor Chemerinsky*, in The New York Times, as saying, “The president should have the last word as to the meaning of statutes. There should be an increase in executive power.” he believes in the unitary theory of the executive branch. Those who subscribe to this doctrine wish to limit Congress’s ability to control the executive branch. They put forth the idea that the Securities Exchange Commission, the FCC, and special prosecutors are all unconstitutional. Ms. Michaelman*, in her analysis, continues by stating that “…There is much in his record that indicates, I think, clearly and beyond the boundaries of reasonable dispute that he rejects the idea of privacy, personal privacy as a fundamental American ideal.”

This nation is moving quickly, not drifting, towards a fascist state. The government has already begun by using it’s military to secure global positions in key economic and politically charged sovereign states. The propaganda machine used by the current office holders rivals that of Mussolini and Hitler. In fact, they are demonizing many of the same types of groups as both of those 20th century dictators. Intellectuals are considered an enemy of the state because they question the motives behind the actions. Art, literature, free expression of ideas, and individuality, are shunned in favor of the mob mentality of ‘bread and circuses’. ‘Bread and circuses’, by the way, is what the Roman emperors used to placate the crowds, distracting them from the real goings on in the empire. These days I call that professional sports, reality TV, scandal, and celebrity cooze. Anyone who speaks out against the current administration, particularly its “war” on terror, is branded a traitor, or worse, even a terrorist themselves. Everyone knows that this “war” is unwinnable, which is its purpose. Killing only breeds more resentments and angers towards the New Empire. A perpetual state of war is a boon to any fascist state, keeping an industrial war economy booming and the rights of ordinary citizens down. Fear mongering insures that those who buy into the New Empire run to It for help instead of thinking for themselves.

A few years ago, author Norman Mailer wrote an Op-Ed piece for the Village Voice in which he posited that the ultimate result of man’s search for political stability was fascism. He likened it to an evolution, wherein we pass through the halls of democracy, republic, theocracy, monarchy, and finally reach the end of the line, where we all march in step to a common drummer. Niccolo Machiavelli believed that most men are stupid and irrational, unable and incapable of governing themselves with intelligence, so therefore, they look to a strongman for their answers. Thomas Hobbes believed that the best system of government was one with a strong leader at the top of the chain-of-command and everyone subservient to him. So perhaps Mailer is right.

George Orwell’s “1984” is another example of how the government works. The lies told by the current Bush administration are told so often that they become the truth. This is a trick learned from Joseph Goebbels, actually. Take for example the idea of fighting terrorism by invading Iraq. Few people remember that Saddam Hussein was the strongman the US depended upon in the 1980’s to balance the power of the fundamentalist Islamic state of Iran. The theory that religious terrorists could exist within the secular Baathist system is unthinkable. Hussein would have considered such people to be a threat to his own power, brutal and bloody as it was. “Osama bin Laden” is as elusive and evil as Orwell’s character “Immanuel Goldstein” the eternal enemy of Big Brother. ObL is pushed onto the screen, much the same as Goldstein, whenever the edge starts to wear thin. The horrible legacy of September 11th, 2001 has become a way for the administration to keep the nay-sayers at bay, shaming many people into submission and lock-step formation.

I fear for my country. I no longer consider it a nation, or united, in any way. We are divided along brutal and potentially bloody lines of demarcation concerning freedom, equality, and human rights. The Constitution of the United States has become ineffectual, being used to promote fascist, monarchical, power, rather than protecting all citizens from these dire ends. The camp at Guantanamo Bay is only the beginning, I believe. Soon there will be more camps, more jails, more prisons, and more people to keep them full. Soon the police will come knocking on the doors of ordinary citizens, just like you. This is not a theory. This has happened over and over again. There is proof of this kind of downward spiral. It is happening as we speak here in the USA.

So when they come knocking, knocking, on your chamber door…

What will you do?

Johnnyboy

*Erwin Chemerinsky, Duke University Law School
*Kate Michaelman, former president, Naral Pro-Choice America
quoted in The New York Times, 1/14/06, A10