Gil Scot-Heron (April 1, 1949-May 27, 2011)
by MAT CALLAHAN
The poet is dead
Now he lives forever
He delivered the word
Did we hear it?
Did we hear the word of Spartacus?
Did we hear the word of the Zanj?
Did we hear the word of Queen Nanny of the Maroons?
Did we hear the word of Toussaint L'Overture?
Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman and Old John Brown?
Did we hear the word of Fred Hampton-
"You can murder a revolutionary,
But you can't murder revolution."
Gil Scot-Heron, the poet, is dead
But he is not silent.
Death cannot silence him.
Words flung back into the crack of the whip, the rattle of the chain, the slam of the prison door,
cannot be buried with their speaker, they resound across the universe:
"You can shackle my body but never my mind"
And once they have been uttered,
They belong to everyone
The poet is dead
But never alone, always in good company
With Hughes and Neruda, Dubois and Garcia-Lorca, Baldwin and Brecht,
Shakespeare and Malcolm, Milton and Robeson, Lady Day and John Coltrane
-No Jump Jim Crows, no Minstrel Shows, no coon songs, Toms or showbiz niggerism to ghettoize the ghetto's eyes, to trap the light you shed upon the world
-No "colored only" comparisons to pop tart rhymsters and great white fathers to keep you from sharing a seat with Rosa Parks or Aimé Césaire
No and no again.
The poet is dead
we are living
given a task, a duty to perform
Divide: the mortal lie from the immortal truth
Divine: the future from rhythms, blue hues and sunrise
Decide: never fear forever here
Gil Scot won't let you down
If you stand up!
Mat Callahan can be reached at http://www.matcallahan.com.
1996
by H. WECHSLER
we were buried in snow,
poetically,
one weekend
a poem a week
a word an hour
when you’re 23
& hungry
& the rest of the world is a motel
with weekly rates
& cheap excitement
& the Tragically Hip sang “words cannot touch beauty”
& Kathy Change wrote “break out of the ranks of evil, do a dance for freedom”
& burned to death
in West Philadelphia
burned the way the Ozone Disco Club
burned in Quezon seven months before
the way MOVE burned on Osage Avenue
eleven years before
the way Watts burned
& Detroit burned
& Miami burned
ten thousand years before
& Liz Phair sang “I’m like a wild flame that catches on whatever’s near”
& Kathy Change wrote “call me a flaming radical burning for attention”
& burned to death
in West Philadelphia
where IF MUMIA BURNS,
PHILLY BURNS
was written on a wall on 40th Street
two years before
& WHO HAD SIX ACES,
BID SEVEN ACES, & LOST?
JIMMY!!!
and WHAT IF TODD WAS ONE OF US
were written on the wall at Frank Clement’s,
an even dirtier bar than
Dirty Frank’s on 13th Street,
where I would one day
order meatballs on New Year’s Eve
in the old, weird Philadelphia
a Philadelphia of ill repute
we heard Bob Mould at the Troc
Warren Zevon at the TLA on Valentine’s Day
before it became the Fillmore
poetry at the Quarry
where someone once referred to Los Angeles as “Omaha with a beach”
& in the Penn Review
where someone once wrote a poem called “Sometimes Death Wears a Party Hat”
I wrote a poem called “A Bomb Is A Metaphor That Won’t”
& one called “Satan” with the word “detritus”
the monkey house at the Philadelphia Zoo burned down on Christmas Eve
the year before
& I wrote a poem called “Do You Want To Burn the Monkey House Down”
& someone told me an ex broke up with me because
“he’s too hyper and he talks too much about Kafka”
& the Trappist monks of Tibhirine were executed
& the Tamil Tigers won Mullaitivu
& Bob Mould sang “now the myth disintegrates, nothing else is permanent”
& Kathy Change wrote “I’m terrified of entering those eerie shadows”
& burned to death
in West Philadelphia
& became a poem
& became a name
& became a number
one more John Africa
one more Holly Maddux
one more Moez Alimohamed
one more number
one more name
one more moth
one more flame
I would walk past
& never know
I went home with you
one weekend
before the snow fell
before winter came
& buried us
poetically, when you’re 23
& the rest of the world is a moment
we can never outrun
& Warren Defever sang “this world is not my home, I’m just passing through”
& Kathy Change wrote “I have crashed this party, I don’t belong here”
I went home with you
one weekend
& never went back
H. Wechsler is a writer/editor/researcher/proofreader/L.A. exile from Oaklyn, New Jersey. His work has appeared in RIBOT, Voyage Out, The Poet’s Attic, Poets’ Basement, The Pennsylvania Review, The Philadelphia Daily News, and HiNgE as well as THE HUMAN MUSEUM (with Al Ferber, Xlibris 2002). He can be reached at dejesus54@comcast.net. The Transformation Party honors the memory of Kathy Change at www.kathychange.org.
We Will See
by FAIZ AHMED FAIZ
translated from the Urdu by RAFIQ KATHWARI
That promised day
Written into tablets of pre eternity
It’s inevitable
We, too, will see
Colossal mountains of tyranny
Floating like wisps of cotton
The earth shaking and rattling
Beneath our stomping feet
Swords of lightning clashing
Over the heads of despots
Idols flung out
From sacred monuments
Crowns tossed into the air
Thrones demolished
And we the pure and the rejected
Seated on cushions.
Only the name of God will remain
Who is both absent and present
The witness, the witnessed
A cry will rend the sky
“I am Truth”
Which is you as well as I
And the beloved of God will reign
You I We Us
Faiz Ahmed Faiz (1911–1984) “was a renowned Pakistani intellectual, poet, and one of the most famous poets of the Urdu language. He was a member of the Anjuman Tarraqi Pasand Mussanafin-e-Hind (All India Progressive Writers' Movement) and an avowed Marxist. In 1962, he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union” (Wikipedia). His official website is http://www.faiz.com.
Rafiq Kathwari, a rebel poet and social entrepreneur, divides his time between his adopted home New York and his native Kashmir, where he empowers artisans. Poke him on Facebook or email rmk28@columbia.edu.
Editorial Note: (Please Read Closely Before Submitting)
To submit to Poets’ Basement, send an e-mail to CounterPunch’s poetry editor, Marc Beaudin at counterpunchpoetry@gmail.com with your name, the titles being submitted, and your website url or e-mail address (if you’d like this to appear with your work). Also indicate whether or not your poems have been previously published and where. Attach up to 5 poems and a short bio, written in 3rd person, as a single Word Document (.doc or .rtf attachments only; no .docx). Expect a response within one month (occasionally longer during periods of heavy submissions).
Poems accepted for online publication will be considered for possible inclusion of an upcoming print anthology.
For more details, tips and suggestions, visit CrowVoiceJournal.blogspot.com and check the links on the top right. Thanks!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Over to Panetta What Gates Didn't Fix By WINSLOW T. WHEELER
Rachel Simon's "The Story of Beautiful Girl" and Rahul Bhattacharya "The Sly Company of People Who Care"
Two Summer Reads
By CHARLES R. LARSON
Here are two widely different summer reads—for a lounge in your back yard, at the beach, or in bed late at night—The Story of Beautiful Girl, by American novelist Rachel Simon, and The Sly Company of People Who Care, by Indian writer Rahul Bhattacharya. They could hardly be more different in form and content, though both share a sense of humanity and concern for others.
Simon has an agenda which sometimes intrudes into her story but more often is kept under control. In a note at the end, she mentions a sister with an intellectual disability and that when she was growing up family discussions often centered on parents who "put away" such children in institutions—mostly because they don't want to deal with them. Her highly-charged and complex narrative begins in 1968, when late one night a widow, named Martha, who lives on a farm in Pennsylvania, hears a commotion outside in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm. When she opens the door, she sees two people huddled there, drenched and wrapped in wet blankets: a young woman and an older black man.
Quickly, she understands that the two figures have fled from a near-by mental institution (the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded), though it doesn't take long to realize that neither fugitive really fits the category. The black man is a deaf mute; the woman almost equally silent but showing no evidence of being challenged. The widow helps them get cleaned up, provides them with warm clothing, and feeds them. Then, not much later, the authorities knock on the widow's door, having tracked down the two escapees. In the disruption that follows, the black man escapes and the white woman is apprehended, but she manages to whisper to Martha as she is taken away, "Hide her." Upstairs, Martha discovers a baby girl a few hours old.
A rather spectacular opening to a fast-paced novel that continues its narration down through the years, ending in 2000. Homan, the black man, is smart and talented at fixing things, but he was given no education in the institution after he was taken there. Ditto, the young girl, named Lynnie, who is a young woman by the time the story begins. Both have endured unspeakable treatment at the institution and no education, although the institution is charged with providing its inmates not only with their well-being but their schooling. The deep passion that Homan and Lynnie share for one another is profound, capable of sustaining them until they are finally reunited decades later, after which time the institution's policies have been exposed and the place has been shut down.
There are loose ends to Simon's story, plus a tendency to be both talky and cutsie, but you will find yourself turning pages as the narration shifts its focus to the characters already mentioned and a couple of others, including the child left in Martha's care. Homan is skillfully drawn, Lynnie (the "beautiful girl" in Homan's eyes) less so, no doubt because Homan survives in a world outside the institution while Lynnie is kept imprisoned for years. Above all, The Story of Beautiful Girl is well plotted and engaging.
Bhattacharya's The Sly Company of People Who Care is plot less but equally addictive, demonstrating that there is no single way to present a story. The unnamed narrator in his mid-twenties is an Indian from Bombay returning to Guyana for a second time because of a brief trip when he fell in love with the country. This time he's come for a year. What he relates is not so much a story about himself but a travel narrative describing what he loves about the country. For example, "Guyana had the feel of an accidental place. Partly it was the epic indolence. Partly it was the ethnic composition. In the slang of the street there was chinee, putagee, buck, coolie, blackman, and the combinations emanating from these, a separate and larger lexicon. On the ramble in such a land you could encounter a story every day." Later, he adds, "Guyana was elemental, water and earth, mud and fruit, race and crime, innocent and full of scoundrels."
The narrator meets plenty of those scoundrels on the streets and during his travels around the country. On the highway, he states, "We passed mandirs tiered like pagodas, and the sickly new cricket stadium the government of Indian nationals was constructing. Car shells grew out of mud, shot through with razor grass. We whizzed by a dozen dead kokers—sluice gates, fallen sentries. Run-over dogs were ground into the asphalt." His companion named Baby (an adult male) explains to him, "Guyana having hardtime. Worlprice of bauxite low, worlprice of sugar low, worlprice of timber low. Is only diamond and gold which could do the job." Increasingly, the language of the narrative slips into street Guyanese, the patois of the people.
Baby tries to offer an explanation for people's names: "Amsterdam [someone they have encountered] had a little shop here, supplying the dredges in the area, run by a girl people seemed to be calling Fatgirl. A thing was what it was in Guyana. As a coolieman was a coolieman, as a man with one arm was Onehand, as the elephantiasis-afflicted was Bigfoot, so a thin man was Fineman and a fat girl was Fatgirl." The country is an incredible melting pot. The narrator's observations, his astute eye, become the source of energy of the story, culminating in a several-month relationship with a young Guyanese woman, with whom he continues his travels around the country.
Bhattacharya's title tells it all. It's the people—their decency (even of the supposed scoundrels)—who keep the story moving, people with a rich ethnicity and curiosity about others.
The Story of Beautiful Girl.
By Rachel Simon.
Grand Central, 346 pp., $24.99
The Sly Company of People Who Care.
Rahul Bhattacharya
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 278 pp., $26
Two Summer Reads
By CHARLES R. LARSON
Here are two widely different summer reads—for a lounge in your back yard, at the beach, or in bed late at night—The Story of Beautiful Girl, by American novelist Rachel Simon, and The Sly Company of People Who Care, by Indian writer Rahul Bhattacharya. They could hardly be more different in form and content, though both share a sense of humanity and concern for others.
Simon has an agenda which sometimes intrudes into her story but more often is kept under control. In a note at the end, she mentions a sister with an intellectual disability and that when she was growing up family discussions often centered on parents who "put away" such children in institutions—mostly because they don't want to deal with them. Her highly-charged and complex narrative begins in 1968, when late one night a widow, named Martha, who lives on a farm in Pennsylvania, hears a commotion outside in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm. When she opens the door, she sees two people huddled there, drenched and wrapped in wet blankets: a young woman and an older black man.
Quickly, she understands that the two figures have fled from a near-by mental institution (the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded), though it doesn't take long to realize that neither fugitive really fits the category. The black man is a deaf mute; the woman almost equally silent but showing no evidence of being challenged. The widow helps them get cleaned up, provides them with warm clothing, and feeds them. Then, not much later, the authorities knock on the widow's door, having tracked down the two escapees. In the disruption that follows, the black man escapes and the white woman is apprehended, but she manages to whisper to Martha as she is taken away, "Hide her." Upstairs, Martha discovers a baby girl a few hours old.
A rather spectacular opening to a fast-paced novel that continues its narration down through the years, ending in 2000. Homan, the black man, is smart and talented at fixing things, but he was given no education in the institution after he was taken there. Ditto, the young girl, named Lynnie, who is a young woman by the time the story begins. Both have endured unspeakable treatment at the institution and no education, although the institution is charged with providing its inmates not only with their well-being but their schooling. The deep passion that Homan and Lynnie share for one another is profound, capable of sustaining them until they are finally reunited decades later, after which time the institution's policies have been exposed and the place has been shut down.
There are loose ends to Simon's story, plus a tendency to be both talky and cutsie, but you will find yourself turning pages as the narration shifts its focus to the characters already mentioned and a couple of others, including the child left in Martha's care. Homan is skillfully drawn, Lynnie (the "beautiful girl" in Homan's eyes) less so, no doubt because Homan survives in a world outside the institution while Lynnie is kept imprisoned for years. Above all, The Story of Beautiful Girl is well plotted and engaging.
Bhattacharya's The Sly Company of People Who Care is plot less but equally addictive, demonstrating that there is no single way to present a story. The unnamed narrator in his mid-twenties is an Indian from Bombay returning to Guyana for a second time because of a brief trip when he fell in love with the country. This time he's come for a year. What he relates is not so much a story about himself but a travel narrative describing what he loves about the country. For example, "Guyana had the feel of an accidental place. Partly it was the epic indolence. Partly it was the ethnic composition. In the slang of the street there was chinee, putagee, buck, coolie, blackman, and the combinations emanating from these, a separate and larger lexicon. On the ramble in such a land you could encounter a story every day." Later, he adds, "Guyana was elemental, water and earth, mud and fruit, race and crime, innocent and full of scoundrels."
The narrator meets plenty of those scoundrels on the streets and during his travels around the country. On the highway, he states, "We passed mandirs tiered like pagodas, and the sickly new cricket stadium the government of Indian nationals was constructing. Car shells grew out of mud, shot through with razor grass. We whizzed by a dozen dead kokers—sluice gates, fallen sentries. Run-over dogs were ground into the asphalt." His companion named Baby (an adult male) explains to him, "Guyana having hardtime. Worlprice of bauxite low, worlprice of sugar low, worlprice of timber low. Is only diamond and gold which could do the job." Increasingly, the language of the narrative slips into street Guyanese, the patois of the people.
Baby tries to offer an explanation for people's names: "Amsterdam [someone they have encountered] had a little shop here, supplying the dredges in the area, run by a girl people seemed to be calling Fatgirl. A thing was what it was in Guyana. As a coolieman was a coolieman, as a man with one arm was Onehand, as the elephantiasis-afflicted was Bigfoot, so a thin man was Fineman and a fat girl was Fatgirl." The country is an incredible melting pot. The narrator's observations, his astute eye, become the source of energy of the story, culminating in a several-month relationship with a young Guyanese woman, with whom he continues his travels around the country.
Bhattacharya's title tells it all. It's the people—their decency (even of the supposed scoundrels)—who keep the story moving, people with a rich ethnicity and curiosity about others.
The Story of Beautiful Girl.
By Rachel Simon.
Grand Central, 346 pp., $24.99
The Sly Company of People Who Care.
Rahul Bhattacharya
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 278 pp., $26
No More Nuclear Sequels! Godzilla, Stunned By JOE GIAMBRONE
The nuclear beast reels in confusion. Stopped cold in Germany, then in Japan where he had inflicted so much damage, the Italians have now risen up to put a halt to the big reckless lizard's reign of terror. Even the Chinese remain on the fence, waiting out this latest monster appearance to observe just how far he'll go this time.
Born from the uncontrolled atomic experiments of our ancestors, Godzilla remains an ever present threat to human life. He's been spotted in Southern California near an earthquake fault. Sightings just north of New York City caused some stir when one of the comandeered 9/11 passenger jets flew right over his head.
It seems that weekly some signs of the giant monster's shenanigans cause incidents and shut down reactors as our valiant Homer J. Simpsons struggle to keep forty and fifty year old machinery on-line, and the great radioactive reptile at bay.
And still the delusional mad scientists make apologies for their creation's lust for destruction. He's really not such a bad guy they tell us, once you get to know him. Your kids probably won't die. The big lumbering, fire breathing juggernaut just loves kids, and what a show he puts on. He even provides much needed jobs -- for them -- the delusional mad scientists of unnecessary risk and bottomless lies.
But Godzilla and his grandson Fukushima seem to have an agenda all their own. They seem quite oblivious to the blather and trolling of the nuclear apologist crowd. Despite the massive PR efforts of the entrenched interests, the monsters keep breaking out of their cages and flattening Tokyo, or at least threatening its population with one hell of a roar (that is if you wire your geiger counter through an amplifier).
With Italy's popular referendum overwhelmingly rejecting the monster, he's no-doubt going to be searching for more lizard friendly lands to call his home. Will Godzilla be nesting near your home? Find out in the sequel. There's always a sequel, as long as you people keep buying these tickets.
In the end, you moviegoers will have to make your preferences known and say no more Godzilla sequels. Not here, not anywhere.
The mad scientists can put their talents to work building truly "clean" energy, and stop trying to pass off their raging, poison spewing, maniacal beast as some kind of philanthropic girl scout. That plot line is far too ludicrous for any audience to maintain its suspension of disbelief.
The Devil is on the Loose Letting It Bleed By RON JACOBS
January 1970. One of the top ten albums was the Rolling Stones Let It Bleed. Another was the Beatles Abbey Road. Then there was The Doors and Creedence Clearwater. It was the winter of 1970. The Chicago 8 minus 1 trial was coming to an end. There were lots of rumors about a new Beatles album. Local radio stations in the DC area played "Let It Be" and other cuts from it. The John Lennon//Yoko Ono exercise in opiate withdrawal known as "Cold Turkey" was on the radio. So was "A Boy Named Sue" and "Give Peace A Chance." A police state apocalypse was considered a real possibility among the people I knew. The Stones-headlined fest known as Altamont only encouraged this fear. For those who were paying attention, so did the police hit on Black Panthers Mark Clark and Fred Hampton. So, of course, did the recent election of Richard Nixon apparatus.
The opening bars of the first song on Let it Be titled "Gimme Shelter" makes this sentiment clear. Menace. Fear. Death. This was darkness at the break of noon kind of stuff. War. Killing. Rape. Murder. Little hope for redemption except in love. Just a kiss away. The Stones' journey had already taken a member in the summer of 1969 when Brian Jones died at the bottom of his pool. Another casualty of the experience. One record before they sang praises to the salt of the earth and the battles in the streets while acknowledging that evil provided the impetus for so much that was so hard to understand. Hope you guess it's name.
"Gimme Shelter" is the natural sequel to "Sympathy For the Devil." Perhaps, jacobstoo, "Midnight Rambler" is the sequel to "Stray Cat Blues." Both songs assume a certain perception of the sexual interaction between male and female, after all. In between the sheets or under a parachute, there are no madonnas or sugar magnolias in Rolling Stones songs. Indeed, there are very few Angies. In Rolling Stones songs, like their blues godfathers, there are only rough and tumble women who are either with the band or working girls. Any woman who isn't working class is almost guaranteed to be met with derision well beyond the ken.
If "Midnight Rambler" is the sequel to "Stray Cat Blues," then the Stones' version of Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" might very well be an unfortunate acknowledgment that the love the Beatles said was all we needed was actually all in vain. In January 1970 it certainly looked that way. By May 1970, it was clear. Police massacres of students and more black men dead in the US of A. Another country invaded by Washington's military. The devil was most certainly on the loose. Hell, he was in control. In 2011, his efforts continue to succeed.
Let It Bleed featured Keith Richards on most of the guitar work. Mick Taylor had recently joined the band after Brian Jones' death and may have pushed Richards to greater virtuosity than his usual playing. Rock critic Robert Palmer noted that Richards should join the list of greatest rock guitarists based solely on his work on Let It Bleed. As noted above, his opening licks on the album's first song “Gimme Shelter” are what make the song by providing the aura of menace the lyrics demand. His acoustic work on “Country Tonk” is underlines the song's sound so reminiscent of a lazy jam in the American South. Furthermore, the album featured Richards' first recorded vocals on the song “You Got the Silver.”
This album was the second of an incredible run of four albums released by the Stones that not only define the band for most of its listeners; they also are among those rock music works that define the period of transition from the 1960s to the 1970s. Some of the others that belong are The Beatles' Abbey Road and Bob Dylan's countrified and introspective material from John Wesley Harding to New Morning; the Grateful Dead's Live/Dead, Workingmans's Dead and American Beauty. In each of these transitions--whether one is talking about just one album like Abbey Road or multiple albums like those of Dylan, the Stones and the Dead, thoughtful listeners become aware that they are listening to the songs of a culture pushed to the edge through its own excesses and the evils of the world it existed in. The bizarre lyrics and beats of "Come Together" to the closing lines of "Maggie May." Bob Dylan's two riders approaching to the retreat in the mountains described in "Time Passes Slowly." The Dead's mindsplitting psychedelic blues that defines almost the entire show Live/Dead is taken from to the river that just ro-oo-olls in American Beauty's "Brokedown Palace." Retreat seemed to be the only way to insure we would not die. For some this meant suicide (often slowly through drugs and drink), a place in the country or a permanent home on the road. For some, there was event the option of joining the corporation one despised or a religion full of lies.
Perhaps that edge was not a precipice but a portal. Perhaps the Doors were right. Perhaps we should have broken on through to the other side. The current situation of the planet makes me wonder even more.
Striking Out at Wa Po The Recline of the West By RICH BRODERICK
A few days ago, I made a trip to Wat Po, a huge complex of Buddhist temples, stupas and learning halls attached to the Royal Palace in the center of Bangkok. I was there not to gain enlightenment, however, but a Thai massage. In the end, I got some of both.
Wat Po is a busy tourist destination, crowded with farangs, or Westerners, even in the sweltering heat of the long tropical summer. The massages there cost about twice as much as they do elsewhere. Even so, they are still cheap by American standards -- about $14 for an hour. And since Wat Po is home to Thailand's leading Thai massage school, you can be sure that your therapist will know what he or she is doing, which is not always the case with other practitioners.
After the massage, feeling loose and with some time to kill, I decided to revisit the temple that holds Thailand's largest statue of the Reclining Buddha. But before I ever got to see the Buddha, I witnessed the most disturbing -- and infuriating thing -- I have seen so far while in this country.
Clinging to the railing halfway up the side stairs to the temple entrance was a little farang girl of perhaps three years old. As is usual in Bangkok at this time of the year, the weather was hot and extremely humid. There is also absolutely nothing at Wat Po that might interest a young child. Lots of things for grownups to see, but not kids. As I climbed the steps the little girl gave me a look of utter misery.
When I glanced around to see where her parents might be I spotted her mother, a woman in her mid-thirties with a cross expression on her face. Half turned away from the little girl, she scowled back over her shoulder. "Au revoir, Gabrielle!" she taunted. "Au revoir," she repeated, making as if to leave Gabrielle behind.
Gabrielle looked up me, eyes welling, lip quivering. I turned to glare at the woman.
That's when I witnessed it.
A few feet beyond the woman, her husband was standing with the couple's son, who looked to be about the same age as Gabrielle, perhaps her twin. I didn't hear what the little boy was saying, but whatever it was, it ticked off the old man. Without warning he leaned over and slapped the child across the cheek. When the boy let out a howl his pére raised his hand as if to hit him again.
I couldn't help myself. "Hey!" I bellowed.
My intervention had the desired effect. The man pretended not to hear, but did lower his hand. The little boy continued to simper. Gabrielle rose disconsolately and began the long trip down the steps to join maman.
I remained rooted to the spot, staring in disbelief as the couple shuffled off around another temple, the children in tow.
Really?!! I thought. Really?!! You take a couple of small children to a place like Wat Po and get bent out of shape because they're spoiling your tour? Then you hit one of them in plain view of a Buddhist temple, of all places?!! I mean, the Buddha was no Father of the Year -- he abandoned his wife and son to take up a life of meditation and teaching – but surely, he ranks right up there alongside Jesus as an all-time champion of non-violence.
And, on top of that, you lash out at your kid in a country where not only are you guests but where the "natives" seem to have a genuine fondness for children, their own and others.
I mean -- really?!!
And then I had another, even darker thought.
Why is it, I wondered, so many of us Westerners feel entitled to take out our frustrations on those too small and weak to defend themselves?
And how far does that sense of entitlement go in explaining the role the West has played -- and continues to play -- in a world engulfed in violence?
I mean -- really?!!
Wat Po is a busy tourist destination, crowded with farangs, or Westerners, even in the sweltering heat of the long tropical summer. The massages there cost about twice as much as they do elsewhere. Even so, they are still cheap by American standards -- about $14 for an hour. And since Wat Po is home to Thailand's leading Thai massage school, you can be sure that your therapist will know what he or she is doing, which is not always the case with other practitioners.
After the massage, feeling loose and with some time to kill, I decided to revisit the temple that holds Thailand's largest statue of the Reclining Buddha. But before I ever got to see the Buddha, I witnessed the most disturbing -- and infuriating thing -- I have seen so far while in this country.
Clinging to the railing halfway up the side stairs to the temple entrance was a little farang girl of perhaps three years old. As is usual in Bangkok at this time of the year, the weather was hot and extremely humid. There is also absolutely nothing at Wat Po that might interest a young child. Lots of things for grownups to see, but not kids. As I climbed the steps the little girl gave me a look of utter misery.
When I glanced around to see where her parents might be I spotted her mother, a woman in her mid-thirties with a cross expression on her face. Half turned away from the little girl, she scowled back over her shoulder. "Au revoir, Gabrielle!" she taunted. "Au revoir," she repeated, making as if to leave Gabrielle behind.
Gabrielle looked up me, eyes welling, lip quivering. I turned to glare at the woman.
That's when I witnessed it.
A few feet beyond the woman, her husband was standing with the couple's son, who looked to be about the same age as Gabrielle, perhaps her twin. I didn't hear what the little boy was saying, but whatever it was, it ticked off the old man. Without warning he leaned over and slapped the child across the cheek. When the boy let out a howl his pére raised his hand as if to hit him again.
I couldn't help myself. "Hey!" I bellowed.
My intervention had the desired effect. The man pretended not to hear, but did lower his hand. The little boy continued to simper. Gabrielle rose disconsolately and began the long trip down the steps to join maman.
I remained rooted to the spot, staring in disbelief as the couple shuffled off around another temple, the children in tow.
Really?!! I thought. Really?!! You take a couple of small children to a place like Wat Po and get bent out of shape because they're spoiling your tour? Then you hit one of them in plain view of a Buddhist temple, of all places?!! I mean, the Buddha was no Father of the Year -- he abandoned his wife and son to take up a life of meditation and teaching – but surely, he ranks right up there alongside Jesus as an all-time champion of non-violence.
And, on top of that, you lash out at your kid in a country where not only are you guests but where the "natives" seem to have a genuine fondness for children, their own and others.
I mean -- really?!!
And then I had another, even darker thought.
Why is it, I wondered, so many of us Westerners feel entitled to take out our frustrations on those too small and weak to defend themselves?
And how far does that sense of entitlement go in explaining the role the West has played -- and continues to play -- in a world engulfed in violence?
I mean -- really?!!
Bloated Leeches A Bloody Awful Question of Liquidity By STEPHEN MARTIN
When they can get you asking the wrong questions they don’t have to worry about the answers
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Proverbs for Paranoids," Gravity's Rainbow
It is a dangerous form of treatment for a body infested with leeches which proposes to feed those leeches enough blood via ‘transfusion’ and they’ll get so bloated that they will burst; or will disengage themselves as they ‘can’t take any more’ - sense of parasitic feast on the host body ‘abandoned’ either way. But in analogical sense this is what the treatment of ‘Quantitative Ease’ by increasing the quantity of money or liquidity in an Economy proposes?
Or is this an example of a ‘wrong question’?
In such analogy the body is the Economy, and the Leeches are Global Financiers, who are Stateless or external to the body of Sovereign State in taking advantage of Tax Havens in a ‘Shadow Economy’.
The transfusion of blood into the body of the host is the equivalent of the injection of additional currency into the Economy; the problem where there is parasitic infection form of hematophagy is that such injection goes ‘straight to leech’ rather than serving to improve the health or metabolism which the host body as Economy represents.
The more money injected, the bigger the leeches get - and the more the host body struggles to survive.
In a healthy body blood circulates freely through the arteries and veins and supports the metabolism of that body by way of respiration. In a healthy Economy as can support Democracy money circulates throughout and there is investment in Industry in that Economy; the circulation of money supports job creation, it distributes wealth, it supports an anabolic ‘Consumption and Production Cycle’ to ‘velocity’ of circulation widespread commensurate in that Economy.
When the blood in a body fails to so circulate as a result of being extracted by external parasites such as leeches attached to that body, then there could be said to be an ‘austerity’ of blood reaching the parts as it would under absence of such parasitic infestation - and the body is weakened under such austerity.
The demand of the leech in such catabolic context ‘incorporating’ host body is for even greater austerity; for more ‘transfusion’ as can be fed upon. Such feed upon the blood of a body is what leeches do; in fact it almost all that leeches do. That is to say, ‘austerity’ imposed upon the body can have a ‘rationale’ when seen from the perspective of leech.
Leeches suck blood, such the despicable parasitical niche they occupy. Leeches borrow at half a percent and loan at twenty percent; they leverage their assets to manipulate markets, they disassociate value from any rational Economic or productive context through the creation of ‘bubble’, or ‘asset strip’, they tend towards monopoly, and in so many other ways exploit a ‘free market’ as can facilitate the illusion of ‘money for nothing’ where deregulation benefits parasite by permitting financial abuse, such the state of the host body disregarded.
Leeches do not ‘build’ other than bloody illusions; they destroy healthy host body through parasitical expropriation, such the bloody reality.
The real problem with ‘Quantitative Ease’ concerning treatment of the body administered by mere ‘Quack’ masquerading as ‘Doctor’ is that money does not reach the parts it is supposed to reach when there is infestation of leech. ‘Finance’ as ‘paramount’ or ‘too big to fail’ such masquerade, sense of hegemony of leech attaining dominance exemplified in the Orthodoxy of ‘Quantitative Ease’ as treatment, no longer lives in the body as Economy, it ‘lives’ in the ‘Shadow Economy’ where there is a control and manipulation of ‘value’; it lives in a darkness which bears little relevance to real value in a real Economy – in a darkness where circulation is primarily from leech to leech, in a Shadow Economy which would be as unseen as tax evasion.
The bloody reality of the leech is that it is an organism which gives very little if anything back in relation to that which it takes; it is a mere parasite which lives by depriving other bodies of Life.
When we talk analogically of leeches in an economic context in relation to the body of the Economy, it must be acknowledged that leeches are cunning?
The anticoagulants which leeches secrete to keep the blood flowing in the host body are the analogical equivalent of preventing a body of thought forming which would acknowledge the reality of their presence, and which would call not for the transfusion of more blood - but for surgical amputation? Think ‘RICO’ and the ‘Sequestration of Assets’ by the State, think not of ‘Socialism for the Wealthy’ but of ‘Socialism for the Citizen’, think not of ‘Socialism for the Minority’ but ‘Socialism for the Majority’. Think ’Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ rather than ‘Subsistence, Manipulation and Control and Immiseration’?
Think ‘Plenty to go round’ rather than ‘Austerity’, of ‘Democracy’ rather than ‘Corporatism’.
To the cunning of the leech in such analogy, ‘Socialism’ is a filthy word reflective of an obscenity which it is criminal to contemplate. A world independent of leeches would be impossible. Leeches are the creatures who bring you Democracy. Leeches are necessary. Leeches are respectable and have been around a long time. Leeches are good for you. Leeches are ‘too big to fail’. Leeches are not just red; they are white and blue too. Leeches are Patriotic. Leeches believe in a Sovereign State.
These statements are as ridiculous as the Age in which we ‘live’; they parallel the Orwellian:‘War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength’;such the absurd world where ‘Globalization’ is progressing as to the best laid scheme of cunning leech concerning the imposition of austerity through the expropriation of control and issue of currency, and the destruction of Sovereign State?
Where has all the transfused blood gone? – Into the leeches.
Where has all the Quantitative Ease money gone? – Into the Tax Havens of Global Financiers.
One of the lessons to be learned from the source and application of TARP funds; that which bloody leeches would rather have you not know about ‘Bailout’, is how ‘Global’ it was, and remains. The money expropriated from the American People went, and is continuing to go - courtesy of said ‘quantitative ease’ - to a lot of other Countries sense of Banks have Economies of Origination though they would be ‘Stateless’, and in as much as there is a best laid scheme not of mice or man, but of leech?
Such the Globalization.
When a leech attaches itself to a host body, it is a form of ‘War’; that leech will continue to gorge at expense of the host body until it is stopped, it will continue to take as much lifeblood as it can by way of giving as little as it can back. As it sucks gleefully away, the leech diminishes Life; it deprives the host of Liberty and undermines the Pursuit of Happiness.
As acknowledged earlier, in this analogy we are dealing with a variety of leech which is as cunning as it is greedy; as pernicious as it would be Panopticonic.
It will disguise its presence. It will be known by another name. It will pretend to be carrying out different activity. It will distract the attention and have focus directed elsewhere. It will have the ‘wrong questions’ asked. It will foster ‘Orthodoxy’. It will ‘co-opt’ protection. It will corrupt the Politics of the Body through purchase as an ‘externalisation’. It will misinform. It will have Corporatism prevail as a ‘power of mind over mind’.
By way of deception, it will ‘do war’.
You are fortunate to be reading about the ‘Panopticonic Leech’ in one of the few Political Journals left which has managed to escape their corruptive influence.
The reality is that there is only one cure for infestation of Leech, and it is ‘revolutionary’ - in so far as it rejects entirely the paradigm of feeding them further through ‘quantitative ease’ and austerity.
The only cure for infestation of Panopticonic Leech is surgical removal.
The Panopticonic Leech must be treated as a highly organised syndicate operating diversity of racket; it must be identified as a criminal entity, and the assets it controls subject to such identification as proceeds of crime must be sequestrated by the State. The true voice of Democracy as a Body of Life must silence the lying sycophantic whine of Corporatism as a Body of death. The illusion must be seen for what it is, and why it is. The Wars fought on the basis of lies must be stopped. Nations must arise again to be Nations, and States to be States. Finance must return to being a lubricant of Industry and not a destroyer of Industry; it must cease to operate primarily in the shadow Economy, but be brought out into the light where it can transparently and accountably serve Democracy, and support Sovereign State. The stopping of the bloodletting as serves mere leech must occur as peacefully as possible. The shadow economy must be destroyed.
Those as could have been of the body of Humanity yet who serve Panopticonic Leech will not ‘get’ such analogy ; when Humanity is abrogated there can be embrace of Orthodoxy which denies ‘thought’ as much else which is Humane.
When Humanity is abrogated a missile blowing up children can be seen as ‘Humanitarian’, others can be seen as ‘sub human’ worthy of concentration camp, illusion can be accepted as reality, and ‘denial’ can be embraced. Loss of blood can be seen as necessary. Mere leeches can be seen as ‘too big to fail’.
When a Man abrogates Humanity, hope ceases to spring.
When it gets down to abominable abrogation, mere leech can be glorified as a ‘pillar of society’, much as degenerate warmonger can be awarded a Peace Prize; or mere corporate stooge seen as a Man.
Such the deception as War can be done by when it comes to the ‘power of mind over mind’ - and as a shill for leeches can be bloody awful when it comes to Quack masquerading as Doctor concerning treatment?
Such the Truth that hope is good and nothing good ever dies – and that quantitative ease has unquestionably been a bloody awful failure?
Of course the real bloody awful question of the liquidity of Quantitative Ease is whether it was ever designed to rid the host body of leech, or to help the Economy of a Sovereign State in the first place.
Could it be that quantitative ease was implemented as a treatment in the knowledge that it would be at the expense of Economy and to the benefit of the shadow economy in which leeches thrive?
Do Panopticonic leeches with Global Dominance have such cunning?
One wonders how Pynchon would categorize such a question.
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Proverbs for Paranoids," Gravity's Rainbow
It is a dangerous form of treatment for a body infested with leeches which proposes to feed those leeches enough blood via ‘transfusion’ and they’ll get so bloated that they will burst; or will disengage themselves as they ‘can’t take any more’ - sense of parasitic feast on the host body ‘abandoned’ either way. But in analogical sense this is what the treatment of ‘Quantitative Ease’ by increasing the quantity of money or liquidity in an Economy proposes?
Or is this an example of a ‘wrong question’?
In such analogy the body is the Economy, and the Leeches are Global Financiers, who are Stateless or external to the body of Sovereign State in taking advantage of Tax Havens in a ‘Shadow Economy’.
The transfusion of blood into the body of the host is the equivalent of the injection of additional currency into the Economy; the problem where there is parasitic infection form of hematophagy is that such injection goes ‘straight to leech’ rather than serving to improve the health or metabolism which the host body as Economy represents.
The more money injected, the bigger the leeches get - and the more the host body struggles to survive.
In a healthy body blood circulates freely through the arteries and veins and supports the metabolism of that body by way of respiration. In a healthy Economy as can support Democracy money circulates throughout and there is investment in Industry in that Economy; the circulation of money supports job creation, it distributes wealth, it supports an anabolic ‘Consumption and Production Cycle’ to ‘velocity’ of circulation widespread commensurate in that Economy.
When the blood in a body fails to so circulate as a result of being extracted by external parasites such as leeches attached to that body, then there could be said to be an ‘austerity’ of blood reaching the parts as it would under absence of such parasitic infestation - and the body is weakened under such austerity.
The demand of the leech in such catabolic context ‘incorporating’ host body is for even greater austerity; for more ‘transfusion’ as can be fed upon. Such feed upon the blood of a body is what leeches do; in fact it almost all that leeches do. That is to say, ‘austerity’ imposed upon the body can have a ‘rationale’ when seen from the perspective of leech.
Leeches suck blood, such the despicable parasitical niche they occupy. Leeches borrow at half a percent and loan at twenty percent; they leverage their assets to manipulate markets, they disassociate value from any rational Economic or productive context through the creation of ‘bubble’, or ‘asset strip’, they tend towards monopoly, and in so many other ways exploit a ‘free market’ as can facilitate the illusion of ‘money for nothing’ where deregulation benefits parasite by permitting financial abuse, such the state of the host body disregarded.
Leeches do not ‘build’ other than bloody illusions; they destroy healthy host body through parasitical expropriation, such the bloody reality.
The real problem with ‘Quantitative Ease’ concerning treatment of the body administered by mere ‘Quack’ masquerading as ‘Doctor’ is that money does not reach the parts it is supposed to reach when there is infestation of leech. ‘Finance’ as ‘paramount’ or ‘too big to fail’ such masquerade, sense of hegemony of leech attaining dominance exemplified in the Orthodoxy of ‘Quantitative Ease’ as treatment, no longer lives in the body as Economy, it ‘lives’ in the ‘Shadow Economy’ where there is a control and manipulation of ‘value’; it lives in a darkness which bears little relevance to real value in a real Economy – in a darkness where circulation is primarily from leech to leech, in a Shadow Economy which would be as unseen as tax evasion.
The bloody reality of the leech is that it is an organism which gives very little if anything back in relation to that which it takes; it is a mere parasite which lives by depriving other bodies of Life.
When we talk analogically of leeches in an economic context in relation to the body of the Economy, it must be acknowledged that leeches are cunning?
The anticoagulants which leeches secrete to keep the blood flowing in the host body are the analogical equivalent of preventing a body of thought forming which would acknowledge the reality of their presence, and which would call not for the transfusion of more blood - but for surgical amputation? Think ‘RICO’ and the ‘Sequestration of Assets’ by the State, think not of ‘Socialism for the Wealthy’ but of ‘Socialism for the Citizen’, think not of ‘Socialism for the Minority’ but ‘Socialism for the Majority’. Think ’Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’ rather than ‘Subsistence, Manipulation and Control and Immiseration’?
Think ‘Plenty to go round’ rather than ‘Austerity’, of ‘Democracy’ rather than ‘Corporatism’.
To the cunning of the leech in such analogy, ‘Socialism’ is a filthy word reflective of an obscenity which it is criminal to contemplate. A world independent of leeches would be impossible. Leeches are the creatures who bring you Democracy. Leeches are necessary. Leeches are respectable and have been around a long time. Leeches are good for you. Leeches are ‘too big to fail’. Leeches are not just red; they are white and blue too. Leeches are Patriotic. Leeches believe in a Sovereign State.
These statements are as ridiculous as the Age in which we ‘live’; they parallel the Orwellian:‘War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery and Ignorance is Strength’;such the absurd world where ‘Globalization’ is progressing as to the best laid scheme of cunning leech concerning the imposition of austerity through the expropriation of control and issue of currency, and the destruction of Sovereign State?
Where has all the transfused blood gone? – Into the leeches.
Where has all the Quantitative Ease money gone? – Into the Tax Havens of Global Financiers.
One of the lessons to be learned from the source and application of TARP funds; that which bloody leeches would rather have you not know about ‘Bailout’, is how ‘Global’ it was, and remains. The money expropriated from the American People went, and is continuing to go - courtesy of said ‘quantitative ease’ - to a lot of other Countries sense of Banks have Economies of Origination though they would be ‘Stateless’, and in as much as there is a best laid scheme not of mice or man, but of leech?
Such the Globalization.
When a leech attaches itself to a host body, it is a form of ‘War’; that leech will continue to gorge at expense of the host body until it is stopped, it will continue to take as much lifeblood as it can by way of giving as little as it can back. As it sucks gleefully away, the leech diminishes Life; it deprives the host of Liberty and undermines the Pursuit of Happiness.
As acknowledged earlier, in this analogy we are dealing with a variety of leech which is as cunning as it is greedy; as pernicious as it would be Panopticonic.
It will disguise its presence. It will be known by another name. It will pretend to be carrying out different activity. It will distract the attention and have focus directed elsewhere. It will have the ‘wrong questions’ asked. It will foster ‘Orthodoxy’. It will ‘co-opt’ protection. It will corrupt the Politics of the Body through purchase as an ‘externalisation’. It will misinform. It will have Corporatism prevail as a ‘power of mind over mind’.
By way of deception, it will ‘do war’.
You are fortunate to be reading about the ‘Panopticonic Leech’ in one of the few Political Journals left which has managed to escape their corruptive influence.
The reality is that there is only one cure for infestation of Leech, and it is ‘revolutionary’ - in so far as it rejects entirely the paradigm of feeding them further through ‘quantitative ease’ and austerity.
The only cure for infestation of Panopticonic Leech is surgical removal.
The Panopticonic Leech must be treated as a highly organised syndicate operating diversity of racket; it must be identified as a criminal entity, and the assets it controls subject to such identification as proceeds of crime must be sequestrated by the State. The true voice of Democracy as a Body of Life must silence the lying sycophantic whine of Corporatism as a Body of death. The illusion must be seen for what it is, and why it is. The Wars fought on the basis of lies must be stopped. Nations must arise again to be Nations, and States to be States. Finance must return to being a lubricant of Industry and not a destroyer of Industry; it must cease to operate primarily in the shadow Economy, but be brought out into the light where it can transparently and accountably serve Democracy, and support Sovereign State. The stopping of the bloodletting as serves mere leech must occur as peacefully as possible. The shadow economy must be destroyed.
Those as could have been of the body of Humanity yet who serve Panopticonic Leech will not ‘get’ such analogy ; when Humanity is abrogated there can be embrace of Orthodoxy which denies ‘thought’ as much else which is Humane.
When Humanity is abrogated a missile blowing up children can be seen as ‘Humanitarian’, others can be seen as ‘sub human’ worthy of concentration camp, illusion can be accepted as reality, and ‘denial’ can be embraced. Loss of blood can be seen as necessary. Mere leeches can be seen as ‘too big to fail’.
When a Man abrogates Humanity, hope ceases to spring.
When it gets down to abominable abrogation, mere leech can be glorified as a ‘pillar of society’, much as degenerate warmonger can be awarded a Peace Prize; or mere corporate stooge seen as a Man.
Such the deception as War can be done by when it comes to the ‘power of mind over mind’ - and as a shill for leeches can be bloody awful when it comes to Quack masquerading as Doctor concerning treatment?
Such the Truth that hope is good and nothing good ever dies – and that quantitative ease has unquestionably been a bloody awful failure?
Of course the real bloody awful question of the liquidity of Quantitative Ease is whether it was ever designed to rid the host body of leech, or to help the Economy of a Sovereign State in the first place.
Could it be that quantitative ease was implemented as a treatment in the knowledge that it would be at the expense of Economy and to the benefit of the shadow economy in which leeches thrive?
Do Panopticonic leeches with Global Dominance have such cunning?
One wonders how Pynchon would categorize such a question.
The Merger of Military, Law Enforcement and Public Safety America's Judge Dredd Moment By JOHN STANTON
According to the US Department of Justice, “Defending national security from both internal and external threats remains the [Department’s] highest priority. National security threats are constantly evolving and adapting, requiring additional resources to address new critical areas. Increasing global access to technological advancements results in new vulnerabilities that must be addressed…. technological and human capital [is needed] to detect, disrupt, and deter threats to our national security.” The DOJ’s FY 2012 Budget requested a total of $128.6 million and 170 positions in program increases that provide essential technological and human capital to detect, disrupt, and deter threats to our national security.
Wait! Isn’t that the Pentagon’s gig?
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta expressed this view on the new national security planning and operating environment. “In the post-September 11th era, there have been significant benefits due to increased unity of effort and interagency cooperation. Civilian-military collaboration has improved, and our military commanders expect to operate in a coordinated and joint, multi-service environment. Diplomats, development experts, intelligence analysts, and law enforcement must work together in today’s complex operations.”
Does Panetta mean all levels of law enforcement in the USA?
According to the National Military Strategy of the United States, 2011, “There are no more vital interests than the security of the American people, our territory, and our way of life… Military power complements economic development, governance, and rule of law – the true bedrocks of counterterrorism efforts…We will defend the homeland and play a critical role in supporting homeland security…”
Isn’t the rule of law determined and enforced by civilians? Doesn’t he mean supports rather than “complements”?
The Department of Justice describes law enforcement as “the prevention, detection, and investigation of crime and the apprehension and detention of individuals suspected of law violation.”
Not Civil, Not Military: Judge Dredd
The fact is the uniformed services of the USA are not the premier caretakers of the American people’s security or freedom. That is myth. National security has become a team effort and it’s time to recognize that. The USA has gone completely paramilitary in every aspect of its local-state-national-international life. America has transmogrified into the movie character Judge Dredd played by Sly Stallone.
But what happens to a democratic republic, say the USA, when military and civilian law enforcement/public safety functions merge and become indistinguishable?
No one has a definitive answer to that question.
Most say that the civil-military divide is clear cut, a Rubicon that will never be crossed by the executive branch, the military, the defense industrial base and its many civilian employees, and uncritical supporters in the US Congress.
Admiral Mullen, outgoing Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that civilian rule in the USA will be maintained at all costs. In fact, in his National Military Strategy of the USA, emphasis is placed again and again on the matter of civilian control of the military.
That’s good, of course, but why the reminder now in 2011? After all, Americans know that the US Constitution makes the military subordinate to civilians.
And yet determining who is in charge/responsible for the nation’s security, public safety and law enforcement has become more difficult over the last decade. In fact, the US military and US law enforcement operate with the same end game in mind: preempt, deter, neutralize, and remediate. Or, in US COIN parlance-- clear, hold, and build (CHB). CHB applies to a drug infested neighborhood in Washington, DC, as it does in a community in Afghanistan.
The special operations units in the US military have much in common with their law enforcement/public safety counterparts. As far as the end game of an operation is concerned, SWAT and SEAL teams operate on similar kill-pacify chains and “jointness of operations”.
Perhaps it is time for a grand restructure of the national security machinery.
If it is to be the case that military and law enforcement/public safety operate under the same strategies, operations and tactics, should domestic and global law enforcement/public safety functions be placed under some sort of civil-military geographic combatant command based on legislation similar to the Goldwater-Nichols model?
Should the Pentagon, Department of Justice, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of State and Homeland Security, etc., be merged into some sort of National Security Department? Would centralization of the national security function alleviate interagency madness?
Can the President and Secretary of Defense continue to maintain direct control over the expanding national security machinery? This question speaks not to a military coup, but instead to how two human beings—and their Cold War era staffs—can make the best decisions for the USA in the face of waves of near instantaneous information/events that flood national security decision making centers? Should the role of the largely national security illiterate members of the US House and Senate be changed?
And who are the American people supposed to honor and salute—sometimes deify--each day? Is it the brave men and women of the US military stationed at an outpost in Afghanistan? The contractor who serves the food at CENTCOM HQ or the security contractor—from Peru, say—that guards a US State Department official? Is it the courageous Predator pilot sitting in an air conditioned trailer thousands of miles away from his/her target package? How about the uniformed “bean counters” in the Pentagon?
Or is it the law enforcement/public safety personnel in Detroit, Washington, DC, or Houston who should be thanked for their service? Or the FBI agent shot to death while serving an arrest warrant? How about the guards at a state prison who detect, deter and disrupt plans for an inmate rebellion?
According to the Pew Center, “Second only to Medicaid, corrections has become the fastest growing general fund expenditure in the United States. Two million three hundred thousand people in the U.S. are now in prison or jail—more than one in 100 adults. On any given day 7.3 million adults are under federal, state, or local correctional control (including those on probation, parole, and other forms of supervision)—one in 31 adults. In FY2008, the most recent year data are available, states spent an estimated $47 billion of general funds on corrections, an increase of 303 percent since 1988. They spent an additional $4 billion in special funds and bonds and $900 million in federal funds, bringing total corrections expenditures to nearly $52 billion.” And this excludes the scores of US military/intelligence clandestine prisons located around the globe.
It has all gotten very confusing.
Kill ‘em All or Lock ‘em All Up
Arguably, the security of the American people is primarily the responsibility of civilian law enforcement and public safety personnel. An F-16 pilot or SOF operator in Libya, Somalia, Mexico or Guatemala is of no consequence to Americans living in high crime areas who want to get to school or work without being murdered, raped, assaulted or robbed.
The latest uniformed crime statistics for the period January to December 2010 published by the Department of Justice show that 14, 627 Americans were murdered; 53, 481 were forcibly raped; 442, 932 were robbed, and 649, 650 were brutally assaulted. The Virginia Association of Police Chiefs reports that 56 law enforcement officers were “feloniously killed” in 2010.
The neighborhood fire station is more relevant to security in a local US community than a forward operating base or outpost in Afghanistan/Iraq. It’s a good thing too as the Department of Justice reports that there were 40,070 cases of arson from January to December 2010. That excludes the daily calls that firefighters must make to subdue other incendiary events. According to the US Fire Administration, “an estimated 103,000 multifamily residential building fires are reported each year and cause an estimated 390 deaths, 4,050 injuries, and $1.2 billion in property loss.” Over the first five months of 2011, 33 fire fighters lost their lives in the line-of-duty, according to the US Fire Administration.
The national security consciousness is preeminent now in the minds of Americans. Everything from seeds used to plant corn for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes to rare earth minerals are a matter of national security, of survival (agroterrorism). Americans have a dangerous disregard now for the sovereignty of other nations terminating-- 21st Century gang land style--any real or perceived enemy of the state.
The USA has planted the seeds of reprisal. American Homeland watch out!
There is only one other nation with a similar psyche as this and that is Israel. That nation provides a very useful comparative template, a sort of mirror in which to look. There is much to be admired about Israel and its people, but adopting their narrow security-minded view of the world is absolutely wrong for the USA. How has it come to pass that an Israeli official speaking before members of the US Congress receives more applause than the President of the United States of America delivering a State of the Union Address? Is there a clearer message of America’s move away from itself and its ideals?
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