There is nothing new under the sun, the murder of Caesar or the shots in Dallas. Conspiracies demand either victims or adherents. You’re either with us or agin us, sound familiar? We must all hang together or certainly we shall all hang separately. Ah, but that’s the point entirely! To hang you separately! You, who toil for a living, to educate children or deliver bread, or drive a beer truck or embalm the dead, all separated like the fingers on a hand.
Able to wave and work and ask and plead, but unable to put those fingers together to demand what you need. To make a fist, to pound a desk, to stand together, to stand with the rest. Tis dangerous territory to stand up in this land of the free, home of the brave. There’s a policeman with your name on him or a bullet with your blood on it. For over a decade Martin Luther King marched through the most hate-filled streets in this country since the civil war, without fear. Only when his message changed from civil rights for African-Americans to social justice for all Americans did he become bullet fodder, within just a year.
Just another lone nut with a gun, the common scenario, the scenario of excuse and accommodation. Another Brutus, another Cassius, all are sad when the Presidential limo driver can’t find his way to the hospital in his own home town! But the President’s not dead, maybe another lap instead? Americans will believe anything, except perhaps the truth! Al Haig was in charge, suspecting the plot and fearing the worst, the culprit was out, the culprit, George the first.
Daddy was out of the loop, he couldn’t have known. A Syrian who kept his personal diary in English, but that’s not odd. Assassins often go back to the store to exchange rifles; Marines have their pictures taken with their rifles, holding a newspaper. Just makes good sense, doesn’t it? When Castro nationalized the oil wells they belonged to guess who? Oh no, Americans don’t believe in conspiracies, do you? Put the fingers together and see where they point. Assassins, arrested with military ID's, get killed in the joint, so now it doesn’t matter, don’t you see?
All random events in a random universe, yet the same people win and win and win. Your eyes lie to you and politicians tell the truth; try your luck again. Maybe ante up a son or two, that’s the patriotic thing to do. You see the wealthy lining up to sign their children up, don’t you? No, they make the news the old fashioned way, with million-dollar weddings and Paris Hilton sexcapades. No blood lust or love lost of paparazzi making their pampered life hell, no heavy backpacks or sand-filled crappy racks, no burning sands that don’t have oceans attached.
No, luxury condos are the order of the day, not the outdoor commodes, a hundred and fifteen in the shade. I don’t have to pay taxes on mine, I’m John McCa... Er, um, I mean, make the check payable to who? As long as the fingers stay separate, the fingers can’t see. There now, that’s a good boy, you don’t want to believe, it's not so. You didn’t like those jobs anyway, so you’re happy when they go. Let’s wave the flag, let’s watch the show. Join the contest, play the game, the winners get to be rock stars for a day! Far more noble than taking a bullet for a cause, a role model for the lemmings to follow, a shining star, an illusion to chase, like a dog chasing a car.
Do you mind? Will you pay? I left my millions in my other pants today, but still haven’t had my say. I hold your office, I work for you, this won’t hurt, the check's in the mail, now open wide, I ain’t through. I take the office, poor, but soon it wears off, suddenly you don’t know me and I damn sure don’t know you! I see the fingers waving, suckers through and through. I’m leaving for my vacation home, it's so hard working for you. You don’t mind, do you? If I take a month or two; it’s a junket you know, what say you?
Did you ever wonder why there were no secret service agents on the limo that November day? Not to guard the President but more likely to get in the bullets way! And where did all the bullets go? Why all those marks on the street? Shhh, pay no attention, the story's right here, a lone nut with a gun, a traitor, a turn coat, with military ID. The story's set, the evidence is lost and gone away, these are just random events you know, why do you look at me that way? It was so long ago, why not just let it go. The grassy knoll, two different bullets, two different guns, so?
All rivers flow from their fountainhead as the blood flows down from the exploding head, the assassins didn’t just kill him, they killed me and you. The politics of gunfire and warfare, of smart bombs and dumb asses. Of Hollywood movie campaigns, vote for me, vote for me, I’m Tweedle Dee! Of poison gas and graves in mass, but you know what we want, we do little to disguise it. We’re gonna get it for free but you’re gonna have to buy it. The winners win and the sinners sin and the poor boys die, face down in the sand. We promise, we’ll leave real soon, we’ll do the best we can.
I’ll mail you a check, I feel your pain, I took out a loan and I signed your name. I come to your town promising change in the end! I’m going to do it all just for you, I’ll ignore the millions from Wall Street, they’re not really my friends. Faith-based initiatives and bring the boys home, when? Seems I’m hearing the same change again and again. The rivers overflow and the lies fill our tanks; the banks are all rescued as the stock market tanks. Just the random events in a random universe. So go with the flow and don’t come back, just stay down for the third time, Jack!
The anchors all joke as the homeowners choke; don’t you get the punch line? Don’t worry, you will in time. Smile they do, these overpriced whores, the overdressed streetwalkers, these sellers of truth! Of random events and little girls lost, of amazing rescues and a dog that talks. Sycophantic sirens of serious silliness, of sinister sororities and swanky soirées, granting awards to each other for keeping the truth from getting away. My truth, your truth, run dog run truth, the run into the ground dog truth.
But Woody said, “This land is your land,” and I still believe that’s true; until we put the fingers together they’re just gonna screw with you. They hate you, they do. You who go to work each day, they don’t think you have a clue. They laugh as they steal from you and treat you with disdain. Of Gods and guns and queers to rule the world, Christ! You’ll believe anything, and as long as you do, they’ve got you by the balls, by God they own you! They do!
Outnumbered, a million to one, if the fingers bunched together they’d piss themselves and run. Just like they did in '33, the men of straw with feet of clay, fearing the public in the cold light of day. This is our land and we must let them know that! We won’t ask for it back, it's ours already, we own it. If they won’t give it back they’ll tote a busted ass. In a random universe of random events in a secret room in a secret place, lies, locked away under guard and mace, the universal truth: you need us to keep your wealth but we have no need of you!
I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in fact clouds and obscures who it is that I am really.
Given a front row seat for the generation of the 1960's I lived in Chicago in 1960. My father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge. His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux Klansman during a parade in the 1930's. I never felt as if I was raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think, yes. That is a part of who I am.
We find ourselves today living in a world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more medicine less life.
but, if you expect "Suckers" (Middle Class) to organize. it will almost never happen until fairly late in the game and until after endless agitation. "Suckers" are almost immovable because they have the threat of the kick in the pants to fear, while they are led by the nose with inducements and lies. Almost all "sucker" organization leads to a strange thing called a "demonstration" where the "suckers" confront the "crooks" in some gathering place. (The crooks are always in charge of every demonstration because they control the police, agent provacateurs, and the media.) I wouldn't go to the wall over this, but I think it would be much more effective to use a "demonstration" for some sort of doorway agitation, or even better, for simply picketing everywhere. I have been doing that alone in my medium town for over 5 years, and now I get a lot more signs of solidarity than insult.
by
John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1483 comments)
on Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 1:50:44 PM
2 comments
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