Enough

I remember fragments of a poem

by Gil Scott-Heron

I think the title was “Not Enough”

or “Never Enough”

something like that

GHS said, not enough that we were chained;

you had to be superior

to something,

so your ancestors raped my foremothers;

what in hell is enough?

In Sacramento,

another African-American male

has been gunned down by

police officers

in the dark,

8 of 20 shots

in his back,

Stephon Clark, father of 2,

dead.

GSH knew because he

saw it all the time

that black men get shot and

white men walk.

The white ex-student who killed 17 former

classmates in Parkland

was captured,

led away in handcuffs,

very much alive.

Stephon Clark, father of 2

is dead,

dead,

dead.

How many

more Stephon Clark’s will there

be

before enough

is

enough?

Hey Mr. Jefferson

America was conceived as a nation

of property

whether African flesh,

land

or the tallow factory.

Yet the 18th century minds that

wrote the rules

understood the dangers of concentrated

power.

Where is that notion now, Mr. Jefferson?

No way you and the boys

could imagine Google, Amazon, or Facebook;

undeclared wars that drag on so long we forget

why we fight them;

a spent and disgraceful 2-party system

stymied and rent

by

factionalism

irrationality

and money, money, money;

dark money, dirty money, blood money

chased by prostitutes who claim

to represent the

people.

You knew the face of tyranny

if you could see us now,

sir,

waiting for the next insane

pronouncement

from our duly (by the antiquated, un-democratic Electoral College)

elected

Mad “Would Be” King.

It’s all going to shit, Mr. Jefferson

the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit

of property.

Too few have too much

too many have too little.

Is this what you had in mind?

Time To Be Afraid

If you weren’t

scared of Trump before

you should be now

that unrepentant warmonger

John Bolton

will be

whispering in Trump’s ear.

Bolton insists that our

invasion

of Iraq

in 2003

was a success.

His wettest wet dream

is war with

Iran,

but a pre-emptive strike

against

North Korea

might satisfy.

Listen for the

drums of war

it’s a good bet that

they will

begin

beating

soon.

Operation Iraqi Freedom

“The only certain way of remaining above suspicion was to regurgitate the official catchphrases and to echo the insipid pronouncements of the Leader. Statistics were as threatening as hand grenades…” Victor Serge and Natalia Sedova Trotsky, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky

Shock & Awe turns 15 this week
an American War of Choice
sold to the American public and the world as absolutely necessary

Once the missiles began to slam Baghdad, 
the American media shifted into full war overdrive,
fawning over ex-Generals who praised the US military
day and night on cable TV
millions of people around the globe who marched against this manufactured war
were ignored as if invisible

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Missile strikes described as surgical
harmless to civilians, women and children, old men, newborn babies
meant only for Saddam, the dictator, the evil tyrant holding WMD’s that were never found
because they never existed

Bush knew that, Blair knew that, Cheney knew that, Powell knew that, Rumsfeld knew that,
but emblematic of our time, none of them were held to account for the chaos they unleashed;
W. Bush paints portraits and tosses out the first pitch at the World Series,
plays the jovial ex-president,
oblivious to the bloodstains on his hands;
his accomplices walk free

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Sold with sleight of hand worthy of a traveling carnival,
flogged by the best PR machine the Pentagon could buy
hired masters of illusion,
wizards of “perception management,” 
dim and dark arts
more potent than any wielded by Joseph Goebbels

Embedded reporters loyal to everything but the simple, obvious Truth -- Shock & Awe was unnecessary, unjustified, illegal, a crime against humanity 

Never did we bother to accurately count the Iraqis killed as we “liberated” them
from Saddam’s iron fist;
200,000, 600,000, 1,000,000?
most Americans could care less,
crowds roared when F-14’s streaked over baseball and football stadiums
the lowliest private feted as a conquering hero,
a defender of every beautiful American myth;
we learned to repeat thank you for your service,
until the words were bled of meaning

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Deeper into blissful ignorance we sank
Bush said we won, toppled Saddam, made the world safe again
war had produced peace,
the use of overwhelming military force against a nation that posed
no threat was justified then sanctified
Mission Accomplished

It’s said that the meek shall inherit the Earth
try the line on an Iraqi from Fallujah
who lost his wife, his brother, his baby daughter
everything he once held dear;
now the street where he played as a child
is divided by a bullet-pocked blast wall

Operation Iraqi Freedom

A lie then, a lie now,
a crime then, a crime now
A war of choice waged by the ultimate rogue nation;
for the Iraqi people the war and the suffering are present,
not past

Gone Team

“Brilliant, gifted, energetic, yes, but also anxious, greedy, bland, and risk-averse, with no courage and no vision -- that is our elite today.” William Deresiewicz

Imagine the person in the White House whose job it is to update the staff directory, produce stationery, business cards and signage for the offices and the Cabinet. During a “normal” administration, where the key players are largely static for a few years, at least, the gig isn’t too hectic. But we now live in Trump World where chaos and incoherence is the norm, and people come and go in droves. Rex Tillerson, the Secretary of State from Exxon-Mobil, is gone; Hope Hicks, gone; Sean Spicer, gone; Gary Cohn, gone; Steve Bannon, gone; Mike Flynn, gone; Tom Price, gone. A host of lesser people have also been escorted out the revolving door of the White House. Trump, who lives in his own fantasy world of made up facts, claims to be close to having the Cabinet he really wants, which means, most likely, a Cabinet and advisors who will not contradict him or make him feel intellectually inferior, but who will constantly tell Trump that he is the greatest president of all time.

A Cabinet and White House staff populated with mediocrities loyal to Trump no matter how outrageous or dangerous his behavior.

It’s no surprise that Trump is making madness ordinary, just as he is making conflicts of interest ordinary, hardly worthy of notice. The corporate media reacts to every Trump tweet but fails to see and acknowledge the rot and gangrene at the heart of the system, and by “system” I mean predatory capitalism at home, and imperial designs abroad. As long as Trump occupies the national stage I’m going to keep saying this: he’s only a symptom, not the disease. If Trump were to keel over and expire tomorrow, the system -- in all its heartless cruelty, stupidity, and disregard for the common good -- would continue to function.

As a society we can’t agree about facts, even when the evidence is compelling and visible. America has lost its vision, its boldness, and its confidence. When polled most citizens express a desire for  government to provide services that will make their lives easier, less precarious; single-payer health care, free tuition at public colleges and universities, affordable housing, retirement security, clean air and water, safe roads and bridges, but the political class consistently, and blatantly, ignores the will of the people, claiming that such social benefits are too costly and a drag on the country’s “producers” and “job creators.” It was once accepted that creating a broad middle-class was a worthy objective, but that was before Ayn Rand and neoliberal economic ideas infected the policy stance of both parties.

This nation’s priorities emerge in stark relief when we look at what is always affordable: weapons of war, military invasions and occupations, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, subsidies for energy extractors, and bailouts when the elites overreach and crash the economy. Owners and investors are afforded a cushioned landing, no matter the cost, workers and the poor foot the bill.

This is a sobering date in American history, the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre, when US soldiers murdered some 500 Vietnamese women, children and elderly villagers. The My Lai carnage lasted four hours. These days the US kills civilians with drones, a more sophisticated method, but one no less savage and immoral.

A Shot at a Meaningful Life

“I think after going through the common humiliations of a human life, I realized it just doesn’t matter. There’s nobody who can disguise himself. Eventually we’re all outed in one way or another.” Denis Johnson

Survived another week in TrumpLand. The Orange Menace didn’t blow up the world. Trump and his mafia family, Jared and Ivanka, all the corrupt hangers-on, the grifters, and the outright idiots, profaning the White House, day after day. Mike Pence and the Mad Hatter Christians wait in the shadows, Paul Ryan holds the bloody scalps of the poor. Cruel nation, up by your bootstraps or into the gutter with the rest of the losers.

My wife is on the phone with Verizon Wireless, trying to add international calling to her mother’s line ahead of an upcoming trip to the UK. The voice on the other end is that of an African-American male, and he’s obviously reading from a script, and I’m certain that he’s a prison inmate, somewhere. I give him the name Jerome Pettis, guest of the state, working for a Verizon call center, cheap, accessible labor with no rights -- a capitalist’s dream of heaven. Jerome has a southern accent, Arkansas or Mississippi, and talks slowly: “I can definitely help you with that, Ma’am, can I tell you about our packages…” I wonder what Jerome did that landed him in prison, armed robbery, rape, murder? More likely a minor drug crime for which, in the great American tradition of injustice, the big book was flung at him. Black and poor has always equaled injustice. At heart I imagine Jerome is a decent man, simply trying to make the best of his situation, there are worse things than talking to a cranky widow from Toledo, Ohio about her new iPhone. Jerome is patient as he reads from the approved script, but of course, he’s got nothing but time, slow time. Jerome tears me in two: part of me applauds his desire to improve his circumstances, and part wants him to rebel, to refuse, to rise from his cubicle quoting Malcolm X, and demand to be remanded to his cell.

The heaviness of this stupid country, my country, the heaviness of injustice, in contrast to the simple joys of my little family, our spats and petty arguments about who left the milk out all night or forgot to take the trash out. Simple, everyday life. Domestic chores, grocery shopping, my wife watching Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. I want my children to have a solid liberal arts education so they can understand who they are as people, their place in the world; I want them to think independently and to see issues from all sides, to question, to stand up to authority figures who often misuse their power; I hope they will revere books and writers as I do, and painting and theater as their mother does. Like all parents, Syrian, German, Yemeni, Chinese, I want my children to have a shot at a meaningful life. Why do we make this so hard for so many? Why do we cause so much needless suffering? Because some are never satisfied, they must have bigger, faster, shinier, and they must have control over others. Story of humankind -- let me impose my religion, beliefs, culture, and economy upon you. What? You will not submit willingly? Well, no problem, we have many other ways to extract your obedience.

And on it goes, on we go, into the unknown.