Friday, 5 December 2003

The Other Shoe

Pessimistic but not far off reality, unfortunately.

America Built A Prison And Put The World On Death Row

by John Kaminski


Uncle Sam wants YOU to die for big business My life is like a cage of pain. Oh, I'm healthy enough for my age, though I eat too much junk and don't exercise enough. I talk to the most brilliant people, caring people, the ones most aghast at the way the world has become a slick cistern of vicious lies, where the truth is what powerful men say it is, and the old values like honor and sacrifice are laughed at by teenage boys boogie boarding in the surf and trying to figure out a way to live their lives without working. In this still warm November sunshine, trudging aimlessly along a pristine beach, amid shorebirds scurrying for their next meal, I feel like I am on Death Row.

Of course, I am embarrassed to say this, with my easy life and available contentment all around me. I am shamed by men like Ernst Zundel, who languishes in his tiny prison cell in Canada, abused by callous guards and corrupt judges, who can speak of the noble nature of mankind and how it is time to organize that urge and rise up against the maniacs who enslave us with their jingoistic doublespeak. How can he, who has so little, see so much freedom, and how can I, who have so much, feel so imprisoned?

Sometimes I imagine I am living the life of the world, and try my darnedest to see where it is going, where things are headed. I haven't seen any dolphins this year, all year. Used to be, last year and before, I'd see them everytime I looked out to sea. But red tide's been in all summer. Shouldn't swim in it. Get a sore throat. But usually it doesn't smell like it sometimes does, when it makes you cough. The blight doesn't keep the tourists away. They're happy enough to have escaped the snows of New Jersey. But it miss my dolphins. It's not a good sign.

And I miss other things, too. Yes, of course that girl who lit my life but insisted I was lying. That's probably a lump of coal that will never leave my throat. But I miss my country, too, the one I was taught to believe meant liberty and justice for all. What a joke that was, when you finally get around to reading how George Washington slaughtered Indians in Ohio or American soldiers went around executing peasants in Vietnam without anybody ever hearing about it until 40 years later.

Of course, of course, and about American soldiers murdering innocent families in Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom, right? Freedom from life, is what.

I miss my country, the one I was taught I had. I think soon, too, I will miss my planet, given the condition of the fractured ionosphere, the particulated air, the poisoned oceans, and the toxic soil. (A friend put her hands in her garden in a well-heeled Sarasota subdivision recently and came out with chemical burns that took weeks to heel.) This is not to even mention the radioactivity being spread around the planet. You know. It's in the bullets. Oh yes, and also in the sperm of the soldiers who come home in one piece.

In the bright sunshine, dimmed somewhat by those curious chemtrails in the sky, I feel like I am on Death Row. And it's more than the doctrinaire existential dilemma of turning 59. Death from old age would be a comfort to look forward to. It's just that more and more I feel hope is being systematically removed from the world. That a great extermination is about to take place. And, through my inattention to things economic and my willingness to speak about my dreams, I am in the lead phalanx on America's inexorable death march toward Camp Ashcroft.

Others I talk to share my malaise. I hope they have more food in their cupboards than I do. But they, too, will face this moment.

It was compelling to read the other day of the interview in Cigar Aficionado magazine of retired Gen. Tommy Franks saying one more terrorist attack in this country and all Constitutional guarantees will be terminated. It is one of the great satisfactions of my life that ten minutes after the so-called terrorist attacks of 9/11, I exclaimed: "This was an inside job!" It's nice to have been proven right, even though a majority of Americans have yet to catch up with the obvious evidence.

Looking forward to that first Red Alert, where nobody will be allowed to leave their homes, and the military will come around, checking out everybody, house by house, no doubt dragging a few away kicking and screaming. Or, maybe they'll sedate you on the spot.

Full story...