Patriot: a Painting

Patriot: a painting in oil by Dale Hartman

Mommy, Why is the Flag Upside Down?

I heard a child ask his mother this not long ago. It’s a good question. The answer is, an upside-down flag is a distress signal. It’s a serious thing, a cry for help. It means somebody is in trouble, often a whole lot of somebodys. It means something is wrong and needs to be fixed. It means the ship is sinking, the fort is burning. This is not a frivolous gesture, and should never be used as such. Nobody anywhere should ever, ever display a flag upside down unless they really mean it! Below is another example of an upside down flag. It’s here so you remember what not to do. Not unless you are absolutely certain that a situation fully qualifies as an imminent disaster! Not unless something is definitely circling the drain!

Here are some places where you can learn more about this revered symbol:

PrisonPlanet

“Upside Down, Torn, and Tattered”

Threat of Death Should Cause Distress Signal, Not the Other Way Around

Always and Everywhere, Politics Suck - Part 2

More of The Hippest Things Anybody Ever Said About Politics

The people in Berkeley and in New York don’t need my pictures. That’s not where the battle’s going to be won. Tom Laughlin (of the Billy Jack movies)

The U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? Think about it - it was written by very smart people, it’s served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we’re not using it anymore. Jay Leno

Just because something works doesn’t mean it is desirable. Sy Leon

A piece of blank paper is the only thing in the world I have a serious ambition to control. Peter Levi

When Dick Nixon was going like this and smiling, what do you think he was telling you? ‘Fuck you four times.’ Swami X

Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That’s how we get things done. Any opposition … is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. … Of course we’re nonpolitical. The real power always is. C.S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength, 1945

The government can’t give out more than it takes in, and since the process of taking and redistributing costs something, the government actually gives out less than it takes in. This is why all “share the wealth” programs are actually “share the poverty” scams. Jim Lewis

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly. Lazarus Long

In my grandparents’ generation, they felt enlightened to know multiple languages and have lived in several lands. Now today, there are dummies who can’t even spell or speak in English properly but they feel threatened by Spanish or Korean. Everything is a threat to some people. Marc Madow

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. Groucho Marx

From time to time, writers have engaged in politics. Its effect on them as writers has been injurious. W. Somerset Maugham

Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important. Eugene McCarthy

Autonomy and cooperation make government irrelevant. Luke McGuff

Think like a free man and you will not be a slave. Menander

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. H.L. Mencken

I’d be perfectly fine with all the rules and red tape if we didn’t have to wait in line for so long that the people in the line eventually develop their own regional dialect. Dennis Miller

I regard politics as a thoroughly foul, rotten world. We get nowhere through politics. It debases everything. Henry Miller

Government is the only agency that can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless. Ludwig von Mises

Revolutionaries’ love is not something isolated from their activities, but rather is related to their political ideals. Tina Modotti

The one must be sacrificed for the good of the many, until the many are all sacrificed, one by one. Ward Moore and Avram Davidson

Conservativism used to be defined by a fear, if not a loathing, of government. Now conservatives pay deference to the state. Bill Moyers

The enemy is not conservatism. The enemy is not liberalism. The enemy is bullshit. Lars Erik Nelson

I don’t believe democracy should have a totally professional military force. I believe the military should be in large number made up of people who don’t want to be there and will help make the generals honest. Willie Nelson

I would be willing to get along with less information about this or that officeholder’s tax return or bedroom activities if I could get him or her to speak more clearly about maters of public policy. Edwin H. Newman

To have a career you need a society to have it in. You go off and you make works of art and you present them here. You’re glad to be making a contribution. America doesn’t provide that society any more. Phil Ochs

We conservatives don’t have gulags because they aren’t tax deductible. You can’t leverage gulag assets, and gulag merchandising rights are worth zilch. P.J. O’Rourke

People took politics seriously in those days. They used to start storing up rotten eggs weeks before an election. George Orwell

History is a bloody testament that sincerity can achieve atrocities which cynicism could never conceive. Jack Parsons

With my own weapons, design and color, I have wanted to conquer the conscience of mankind, so that this knowledge can lead us each day a step ahead on the road of liberty. Pablo Picasso

I’m more comfortable allowing individuals to be stupid, than requiring they not be. Brick Pillow

Prisons and schools are baby-sitting institutions so that we don’t glut the labor market. Baba Ram Dass

It is not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is great enough, you do not care to exist without it. This applies to any alleged sacrifice for those one loves. Ayn Rand

(re: NATO, IMF, World Bank, GATT, WTO)
One of the oddities of the political situation in the United States since [WWII] has been the persistent belief on some sections of the right that the creation of these and similar international institutions are threats to America; when it is these institutions - backed up by force, over and covert, which have enabled the United States to consume substantially more than its share of the world’s energy and minerals. Robin Ramsey

I don’t wave a flag for anything. I’m a musician. Keith Richards

Of course, like the cliché’ moth courting the trite candle, the lit-up libertarian runs a constant risk. Is it not finer, however, to sizzle whole in the flame of freedom than to slowly stew to pieces in one’s own diminishing juices? Tom Robbins

I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts. Will Rogers

Liberal - one whose heart is in the right place, but whose head is not. L.A. Rollins

Events are only real in the present tense - before they happen they’re hype, and after they happen they’re spin. Douglas Rushkoff

The criminal law can be used to prevent anti-social action on the part of those who do not belong to the government. Bertrand Russell

Much of the difficulty in attempting to restructure American and other societies arises from this resistance by groups with vested interests in the status quo. Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable and is resisted. Carl Sagan

Politicians fuck with people. That’s what they do. That’s their job. Every day they get up and wonder who they’re gonna fuck with that day. They they go and do it. John Sandford

I have a friend who’s collecting unemployment insurance. This guy has never worked so hard in his life as he has to to keep this thing going. He’s down there every week, waiting in the line and getting interviews and making up all these lies about looking for jobs. If they had any idea of the effort and energy that he is expending to avoid work, I’m sure they’d give him a raise. Jerry Seinfeld

I have no country - and the more I see of countries the better I like the idea. line from film The Shanghai Gesture

From Nixon on, every paranoid suspicion about the dirty tricks of government had proved an underestimate. Samuel Shem

I suggest that we resist apparent solutions that require victims to surrender their freedom, and freedom of expression, as a means of survival. Mary Simmerling

Many hackers tend to be reflexive liars….at least the ones found in newspaper and TV news stories - [they] can be counted on to perform for the listener, telling the gullible just about anything he or she wishes to hear. The result has been that almost any claim, no matter how nonsensical, has been published. George Smith

It is part of the sordid reality of our times that Hollywood is about the only institution left in our country big and powerful enough to challenge the influence of state propaganda that controls our lives with hardly a murmur from the same journalists so incensed by Stone. (re the JFK film) Sam Smith

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. C. P. Snow

The simple truth of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. Thomas Sowell

As estimated by the Bureau of National Affairs, the dollar cost of corporate crime in America is over ten times greater than the combined larcenies, thefts, robberies and burglaries committed by individuals. Gerry Spence

I used to believe that a real unitary world government would be a good idea but I changed my mind because of something Lenny Bruce said about the Soviet Union- if you want to imagine what it’s like in the Soviet Union, imagine an entire country run by the phone company. Norman Spinrad

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Lysander Spooner

The average fifth-grader these days doesn’t know whether Japan is a state or a city; wonders what happens when you get to the “edge” of the United states on a map; doesn’t know, and can’t understand what a glacier is, and even believes that the government is there to protect him! Rev. Ivan Stang (The Church of the Subgenius)

Let my own life go on undisturbed, and my private affairs prosper - and I don’t give a continental whether the government is being run by a Communist, or a Seventh-Day Adventist, or a Hottentot. Gertrude Stein

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small space. Gloria Steinem

That’s how the government is. It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn’t bother with, which means that there is probably no reason for it. Neal Stephenson

Good health turns out to be a positive by-product of the pursuit of other things. Edward Tenner

Any country which displays more than one statue of a living politician is a country which is headed for trouble. Paul Theroux

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. Henry David Thoreau

Anyone who puts his own conscience above the state is an anarchist. Allen Thornton

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then–we elected them. Lily Tomlin

Washington is like Calcutta, full of beggars, only they wear $1500 suits and don’t say please or thank you. Traffic

Liberalism, free-thinking and open inquiry will never object to appear in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit to think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will not appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking and open inquiry. Anthony Trollope

You may be willing to give up your rights, but I won’t let you give up MY rights. Hal Turner

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy. Mark Twain

Q. What’s the difference between God and the Government?
A. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away; the government taketh and giveth away. Unknown

A policeman’s job is easy only in a police state. Unknown

It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. Unknown

No bird flies too high when he flies with his own wings. Unknown

You can always find free cheese in a mousetrap. Unknown

Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. Unknown

When the government tells me not to do something I feel that it’s my patriotic duty to immediately go out and do it. Rico Vaselino

The American Revolution was over in 1781; Washington wasn’t elected our first president until 1789, and he was not elected by the people in a free election but by the select, male-only Federal Constitutional Convention. Michael Ventura

There is only one party, which is People with Money. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Third World rebels are great at exposing and overthrowing corrupt hypocritical regimes, but they seem noticeably less great at the mundane, non-negative task of then establishing a superior governing alternative. Victorious rebels, in fact, seem best at using their tough, cynical rebel-skills to avoid being rebelled against themselves - in other words, they just become better tyrants. David Foster Wallace

I am so weary about having been consistently right in all my political predictions for ten years. It is so boring seeing it all happen for the second time after one has gone through it in imagination. For you and Duff and Randolph life must be all one lovely surprise after another. Evelyn Waugh

Mom and Dad are biology, but you’re most like sick
if you get your kicks from politics.
Wean yourself now. Clean your own diapers.
Watch out for shoe tiers and nose wipers.
William Wharton in Scumbler

Fraudulence has become a national virtue and is well thought of in many circles. E. B. White

Since this is my first official government rapport I have chosen to write it by hand, because my favorite government documents are handwritten and they seem to work okay. Mason Williams

The Academy…Nobody seriously thought they’d rally behind the Branch Davidians and give the documentary Oscar to Waco: Rules of Engagement, perhaps the most chilling, revealing documentary about our present police-state mentality….Why recognize a new, present villain like the ATF….when you can trot those photogenic Nazis out, year after year?…You’d think impending murders would have some clout over ones committed fifty years ago, but nooooooooooo, not to the guys who cut the checks in Emerald City. Cintra Wilson

All governments are evil in one way or another. Leonard Woolf

In my Utopia, people would more or less give up on politics. Steve Wozniak

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well. Stephen Wright

When you’ve seen one stifling transnational media conglomerate, you’re seen them all. Jamie Zawinski

I wouldn’t call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either. Edward Zehr

Always and Everywhere, Politics Suck

The Hippest Things Anybody Ever Said About Politics

Big Brother is like the Uncertainty Principle. You can’t tell where he is and how fast he’s moving at the same moment. Dr. Agon

Apathy, lack of caring, isn’t the problem. The problem is caring too much about the wrong things. Anne Alexander

We weren’t put on this earth to be politicians. Jeff Ament

Once people have learned how to disengage their souls when being abused by the powers that be, the powers that be lose traction rapidly. Kirsten Anderberg

Don’t make the mistake of equating anarchy with liberty. Anarchy is liberty only for the strongest and cruelest. Real liberty is when people respect each other’s liberty, and are willing to voluntarily restrain themselves from doing things that impinge on the liberty of others. Carl Aron

So far, I’ve concluded that politics is all bullshit, but I haven’t worked up any political ideology much more sophisticated than that. Ace Backwords

This is a country with 250 million people who don’t want any news from Washington and, even if they did, wouldn’t expect any news from Washington because they don’t think Washington could pour stale beer out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

Governments exist to limit freedom. That’s their job. And to the extent that utterly unbridled liberty seems to favor the reptile in us, a little government is not such a bad thing. But it never knows when to quit. John Perry Barlow

For them, the question is always, “What kind of government intervention should we impose on the world?” They never think that maybe we shouldn’t. Dave Barry

To remain distinct within the mass we must be branded with a series of numbers and must recite them to be known and served and allowed to pursue our lives. Jacques Barzun

A reminder from history: the American Revolution was not financed with matching grants from the Crown.
David Bayles and Ted Orland

Every anarchist is in part a hedonist and wants to enjoy his freedom. Fighting is too likely to interfere with that enjoyment. Ned Beaumont

Because I don’t have a job, because I don’t have children, I can get up and say something at a public hearing other blacks can’t say. I can’t be threatened about my job or my children. MaVynee Betsch

Today, problems aren’t solved, they’re attacked. Like the War on Poverty. Remember that? I’m happy to report that it’s finally over. The poor people have all surrendered. Swami Beyondananda

Conspiracy Theory, Unofficial Definition: Anything which, were it true, we couldn’t handle. Steve Bhaerman

We can probably do more for peace and freedom in the world right here, on our own turf, than by exporting ideology to the rest of the world which has perhaps had its fill of our imperial outreach offerings. Bob Black

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis

Capitalism with its appeal to greed was not on the face of it an attractive system, but it provided a counterweight to the power of the state, besides quickening the life of society by providing competition. Socialism, or rule by bureaucracy, meant, I thought, the dead hand on everything, the life-destroying tyranny of the anonymous. Gerald Brenan

Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you. Harry Browne

One’s got to be against the government, any government, because the people in it are bad people or else they wouldn’t have got in. Anthony Burgess

Public work should be avoided by men who care for their own peace of mind. Daniel Hudson Burnham

Drug control is a thin pretext, and getting thinner, to increase police powers and to brand dissent as criminal…. I now suggest to all competent young people that they emigrate to Canada, before they get busted. If you have a record, it is much more difficult. William S. Burroughs

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. George W. Bush

Christianity may be a powerful tonic, but Hislam remains the one true faith of the Republican party. John Calderazzo

Nothing could be more inaccurate than the lazy assumption of the policy elites that groups such as the Freemen and the various militia movements represent anarchistic ‘anti-government’ tendencies. If anything, the so-called anti-government forces of the radical right are among the most fanatical devotees of legal authority among us. Paul F. Campos

Politics is so corrupt even the dishonest people get fucked. George Carlin

It seems what is most feared by a lot of people is somebody else’s ability to act in an organized manner. Casale

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. Douglas Casey

Some people are cursed with personalities that disqualify them for anything except strident movements and, when one comes along, they tune up and howl. Dick Cavett

The way to move society on its axis is not to play politics. It is to persuade teachable people to think as you do. And the best way to do this is to be a good personal living example of the philosophy you hope to spread. John Chamberlain

The privileged people who actually run the country, they don’t want the state to have power to go after people like them. So they’ll actually protect the civil rights of people they hate if they come from the right class. Noam Chomsky

We seem to think having everyone vote works when it comes to running a country that can start wars, appropriate property, and execute malefactors, yet we assume it’s a bad way to run a business. The Cluetrain Manifesto (four authors)

A mixed herd of both sexes and all ages is the easiest kind to manage. Cowboy saying

Politics means nothing more than the ability to make the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice. Quentin Crisp

As soon as you talk about social or political responsibility, you’ve amputated the best limbs you’ve got as an artist. You are plugging into a very restrictive system that is going to push and pull and mold you and is going to make your art totally useless and ineffective. David Cronenberg

The only way the Bill of Rights will protect you from much of anything nowadays is if you hold it over your head when it rains. Samantha Crouse

Legislative interference with the habits of the people produces the sneak, the spy, the fanatic, and the artful dodger. Aleister Crowley

Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in. Robertson Davies

The sad truth is that individuals will always be under-equipped. We’re always going to have smaller engines. The CIA or whoever is always going to have the bigger infrastructure. Mark Dippe’

Dissent is seen as a form of betrayal. Free speech is seen as being most appropriately exercised when it is not exercised at all. Democracy is maintained by not thinking democratically. E. L. Doctorow

Neither charm nor patience nor endurance has ever wrested power from those who hold it. Frederick Douglass

Politics is an indigenous art form cultivated primarily by lawyers. Politics is about the only way for lawyers to get a little excitement. Peter Drucker

If one were to bring together all customs considered sacred by some group, and were then to take away all customs considered immoral by some group, nothing would remain. Will Durant

The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein

I didn’t even know those people out there had gotten shoes yet, much less learned to read! I mean, if they could read, then they must have seen there were other names on the ballot than Reagan or Nixon. Harlan Ellison

It isn’t just propaganda any more, it’s ‘prop-agenda’. It’s not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. Brian Eno

By the time anybody gets around to saying “leadership”, it’s all over. Werner Erhard

The Bill of Rights and the First Amendment in particular are monuments to the right to doubt, and to the right of one person to doubt the rightness of 200 million. Steve Erickson

(about Russia) There has been a dictatorship there for so long, with so little real resistance, you must ask yourself how much sympathy you can have. Orianna Fallaci

There are these 12 guys running the country, and they all went to the right schools and they’re all trained for their jobs and they all have drawers full of classified information and they all have direct lines to the White House. So they resent it terribly when outsiders, like the American people, try to butt into their foreign policy. Jules Feiffer

Free your ass and your mind will follow. Gerry Fialka

It is the most opulent, most gorgeous land on earth, a land whose wisest are but little wiser than its dullest, where the rulers have minds like little children and the lawgivers believe in Santa Claus. F. Scott Fitzgerald

(On Hitler, 1936) He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good - his mind is made up. Janet Flanner

I think Nixon did this country a great favor when he reinstilled in the American people a mistrust of government. Carol Fondiller

I don’t say this is a bad country - I say countries are bad. FrancEye

Gentlemen, you see we have been living under anarchy, yet the business of living has gone on as usual. Be careful; if our debates go on too much longer, people may come to see that they can get along very well without us. Ben Franklin

The liberal views of Robert Montgomery, professor of economics at the University of Texas, made him unpopular with the Texas legislature. An investigation was set in motion. When he was asked if he favored private property, Montgomery replied “I do - so strongly that I want everyone in Texas to have some.” John Kenneth Galbraith

The truth, as always, will set you free, but first it will make you sound dangerous. Kaye Gibbons

How small of all that human hearts endure/ That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Oliver Goldsmith

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Barry Goldwater

It is hard to give understanding to someone with no will, and more difficult to give will to someone with no understanding. Baltasar Gracian

It is true, of course, that war not only arouses suppressed forces slumbering in us, but also really does librate some people, be it from a hated environment, the slavery of daily work, or the burden of one’s own personality. That is one of the mysteries that will perpetuate wars forever. George Grosz

You are strangling freedom but the soul of the people knows no bondage. Graffiti in Moscow in the 70s

Coming back into this country is more horrifying than leaving. Graffiti

Politicians are like polkas - they have different names, but they all sound alike. Graffiti

Politicians are like diapers. They both should be changed often, and for the same reason. Graffiti

The word ‘politics’ is derived from the words ‘poly’ meaning many, and the word ‘tics’ meaning blood-sucking parasites. Larry Hardiman

The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. Sam Harris

A lot of people who say they want a smaller government really do - it’s just that they want to be it. Dale Hartman

Freedom is doing what you want, when you please, and not being made to do anything. Freedom is not having to spend time with people in whose company you don’t want to spend time. Pat Hartman

What experience and history teach is this: that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. George Hegel

Politicians are required to be full of shit because they have to thread their ways to the top through the hordes of amibitious, narcissistic, amoral, back-stabbing dickheads who run things in Washington. Cynthia Heimel

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can’t conquer a free man, the most you can do is kill him. Robert Heinlein

The notion of making the government behave as if it were really around to help people is radical in itself, and will cause tremors in the community that you cannot tell where it will lead. Karl Hess

The nonconformist is a more stable type than the conforming individual. It is the average man of today who shows the most striking differences from people of other ages and other civilizations. The rebel of today is twin brother of rebels in all ages and climes. Eric Hoffer

Identity politics, based on racial and gender categories, and on nihilistic assumptions that power is all, culminate in a posture in which the rules of civility and democratic process, not to mention the principles of academic freedom, are dismissed as so much social mystification. David Horowitz

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds, I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
A.E. Housman

If you don’t have a flag sticking out of your ass, you must be a communist. Chrissie Hynde

Medical bureaucracy creates ill-health by increasing stress, by multiplying disabling dependence, by generating new painful needs, by lowering the levels of tolerance for discomfort or pain, by reducing the leeway that people are wont to concede to an individual when he suffers, and by abolishing even the right to self-care. Ivan Illich

Everyone who has ever lost someone he or she loved in a war has an obligation to talk back to these chest-thumping jackasses who are so anxious to get other people’s sons killed. Molly Ivins

People ought to be free and the way to keep people free is to keep people in charge of politicians rather than the other way around. Paul Jacob

Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future. P. D. James (character)

The idea of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. Thomas Jefferson

It’s one thing to sacrifice truth for fairness. It’s another thing to sacrifice truth for success. You can only sacrifice an ethical principle for another ethical principle. Michael Josephson

To believe in conspiracies, one must assume that the government is organized. That is a leap of faith I am unwilling to make. PM Kellermann

I have discovered what previously I didn’t believe possible - that politicians behave in private life and say exactly the same things as they do in public. Their stupidity is inhuman. John Maynard Keynes

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Martin Luther King

To vanish, to take a powder, to cut and run - from an army one can’t fight for, a community one can’t live with, or a directive one can’t obey - can be a legitimate political act, and sometimes the consummate political act. Walter Kirn

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. Henry Kissinger

The War on Terror was never a war in the traditional sense. It is, instead, a kind of brand, an idea that can be easily franchised by any government in the market for an all-purpose opposition cleanser. Naomi Klein

The game that our politicians play with us is one of constraining political decisions to one of two equally worthless alternatives and portraying them as “the only game in town.” Thomas L. Knapp

Pseudo-patriots will employ their perverted nationalistic views of Americanism to work for their own freedom but to deprive others of theirs. Joe Knight

This is what we wanted, back in the Sixties. And now we have it. It used to be that only people with pigmented skin would get beat up by the cops. Now, anybody can get beat up be the cops. White grannies, Girl Scouts, nuns, anybody. Equality. Will Knott

Giving, Government and God: One Year After

(Originally published September 25, 2002)

After the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, it was enlightening to read news from elsewhere, like the BBC and Pravda. The mirror hasn’t been invented yet to let us “see ourselves as other see us,” but foreign newspapers come pretty close.

Jam Echelon Day, a protest against electronic surveillance, had been scheduled for October 21, 2001. I wondered if it would be called off, but apparently it was still carried out by thousands of people, who sent e-mails with trigger words in the subject lines. According to the organizers of Jam Echelon, the apparatus is so huge it would be impossible to seriously impact it by any amount of toying around. Still, public awareness was increased.

Mr. Cheney and his friends warn that the Middle Eastern bandits want to “take control of a great portion of the world’s energy supplies.” Like solar power, perhaps? I’d like to see them try. The renewable resources folks have been saying for years that with a crop such as, for instance, hemp biomass, we could not only become energy-independent but incidentally save the American farmer, the topsoil, the Alaskan wilderness, and the lives that are bound to be squandered in future petroleum wars. Sound too good to be true? It is, but only because it won’t be allowed to happen. No amount of goodness or truth can overcome America’s addiction to anti-drug hysteria. Any plan as sensible as growing hemp has a snowball’s chance in hell.

Of course the U.S. military is busy training and arming a whole new batch of developing countries and factions - just like we did with Osama and the boys, among many regrettable others. The U.S. military seems to be a slow learner. As a child the first joke I ever heard was, “Why did the moron keep hitting himself on the head with a hammer?” “Because it felt so good when he stopped.” Will we ever stop?

In February, New Scientist reported that less than 1% of the blood donated in response to the 9/11 disaster was actually used. Blood, like other perishable organic products, has an expiration date. It only lasts for so long, and then it is just biohazardous waste. Thousands of pints of donated blood were destroyed - one source says 50,000 units, others say from 4 to 10 times that amount, but even the lowest estimate is appalling.

There are also disturbing reports of warehouses packed to the rafters with donated goods and huge amounts of money undistributed - as recently as September of 2002, a billion dollars is said to be sitting around unused. Incredibly, fund-raising campaigns are still being conducted by well-meaning organizations. On the other hand, the rent for all those warehouses does need to be paid.

A column in Entrepreneur magazine claims that since the attack, American workers don’t care so much about salaries and promotions, what they want is meaning, significance, spiritual values, and to make a difference. Thanks a lot, whoever thought up that theory. What a splendid excuse for employers to scrimp, downsize, cut benefits, and then give themselves raises.

The September attacks were a boon to every government official and career military person with a long-cherished master plan for How Everyone Should Live. By the next day, a number of these plans, some ostensibly benign, others palpably sinister, were brought out for an airing. The President encouraged us to each give 4,000 hours or 2 years to national service. He says voluntary, but some of his buddies want mandatory. It brings back the old days of Mussolini, Hitler and Mao Tse-Tung. If two years of national service is good, fifty years is better. Why not just move to someplace where they’ve already made arrangements for giving your whole life to national service? Or stick around here a while longer and do the same.

One local businessman took the President’s national service exhortation to heart and leaped to answer his nation’s call. To serve the public good, on Friday and Saturday nights he hops in the van emblazoned with the name of his business, parks downtown, and then at bar closing time, he drives inebriated revelers home. (And gives interviews about it.) The fellow Americans he serves in this way are mainly college women less than half his age - a mere coincidence, don’t worry about it.

It’s been said that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels. The worst tragedy to hit our country in decades has provided fertile soil for a whole garden of con artists. It didn’t take long for websites to spring up touting fraudulent charities. There’s a proliferation of “advance fee” scam e-mails, elaborate tales of wealthy refugees who need to get money out of belligerent countries and you can help, and get rich into the bargain. The Secret Service gets around 100 calls per diem from victims or potential victims.

In photos of the burning twin towers, many people perceived Satan in the smoke, which is their privilege and right. In fairness, I hope they all grant the same courtesy to those who see Jesus on a tortilla and a human face on Mars.

In November I heard someone say, “I’m not going to talk about the war any more except to God,” a remark that resonated on more than one level. (I believe, by the way, that the true Muslim fundamentalists are the reasonable ones, and the villains we have trouble with are the lunatic fringe, and the whole nation of Islam shouldn’t be judged on the basis of their behavior.) In this conflict, both sides have dragged the Deity into it like never before. Both sides claim to be God’s favorite children. It’s weirdly reminiscent of the Smothers Brothers: “Mom always liked you best.” Given the way humans have been acting lately, it can’t be easy for God to like any of us very much.

Culture and Women: One Year After

(Originally published September 18, 2002)

In literature, the events of 9/11 resulted in a fine piece of satire, “French Intellectuals Deployed to Afghanistan to Convince Al-Queda of Non-Existence of God;” and a sublime personal statement, the Tamim Ansary essay that circled the earth via e-mail. And a letter to the President from Amber Amundson, whose husband was killed in the Pentagon crash, asking that he be excused from the “list of victims used to justify further attacks.” And a funny Allen Thornton take on the Afghan version of TV guide.

A widely-read magazine offered advice on which books to read for comfort and guidance during our national time of confusion. One recommendation was Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon, an old favorite of mine. And the various writings of C.S. Lewis on pain, grief, and miracles. I would have added to their list his Screwtape Letters, the sections that discuss the effects of war on the soul. But when it comes to a book that makes some kind of sense of the whole thing, my pick is The True Believer by Eric Hoffer, a brilliant study of delusion and the roots of tyranny everywhere and at all times.

Personally, I discovered an odd connection. One of my all-time top ten desert island movies is Remember My Name, which for some incomprehensible and probably reprehensible reason never made it to videotape. I’m in awe of Geraldine Chaplin’s portrayal of a recently freed convict who decides to get her husband back. The movie had Alberta Hunter on the sound track, and also starred Anthony Perkins and his real-life wife Berry Berenson - and she died as a passenger in the plane that hit the Pentagon.

It is said that on VH1 and public radio, the “unofficial anthem” for the 9/11 attack was Jeff Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah.” As performed by its creator, Leonard Cohen, this just happens to be one of my all-time top ten desert island songs. Its refrain is, “Even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the Lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.” Unless Buckley wrote new lyrics, I don’t see the connection. But here’s a strange thing: many years ago Leonard Cohen wrote another song, “First We Take Manhattan.” This one was in the voice of, from the point of view of, and could be considered sympathetic to, an international terrorist.

In the USA, images of the World Trade Center provoked a public reaction that was at first aversive. In late September of 2001, everybody in the entertainment business was falling all over themselves to remove images of the twin towers from album covers and book jackets. Then there was a quick rebound to attraction. By December, the New Yorker was running an ad for a $449 decorative metal wall sculpture, “Remembrance” by name, featuring the towers.

Perhaps the most amazing sequel of the destruction is the transformation of the hole in the ground into a tourist mecca. The number of visitors in the past year is said to exceed three and a half million. (It’s too bad three and a half million people don’t stay home and read Eric Hoffer, which would be more useful and to the point.) The tourist total is supplemented by vendors, whose free enterprise was forbidden and trade restrained on the actual 9/11 anniversary when they were told not to peddle anything. But wait - how can this be? The entrepreneurial spirit is a bedrock value of our nation. What’s more quintessentially American than a bunch of people selling stuff?

The human face of Afghanistan, for me, has always been the girl on the cover of National Geographic 17 years ago. Eleven or twelve at the time, she had a solemn, wary, spooked expression and amazing eyes, the irises gold near the centers, then turquoise, with gray rims. Last year the photographer set out to find her again and astonishingly, considering the chaos in that part of the world, succeeded. Sharbat Gula is now the mother of three living children, a handsome woman still, but showing the effects of her rough life as a refugee. .

As homeland security buffs in U.S. salivated over the prospect of biometric face scanning as a way to keep tabs on potential saboteurs, the rulers of Afghanistan were unable to adopt this measure. Their most subversive foes, the courageous Muslim women who videotaped and smuggled out evidence of the worst criminal excesses, could never be indexed and tracked by this means because of the Taliban’s own repressive law requiring women to cover their faces with veils. Hah! We were told that irony died on 9/11, but rest assured, it still thrives.

Not long ago I read the memoirs of the Dalai Lama’s mother, who described the old ways in her homeland, and it made me wonder why Americans are so sentimental about Tibet. The condition of women in that society sounds as shitty as anything the Taliban ever cooked up. When a Tibetan girl married, she became the property of her inlaws, with the rank of household appliance, a labor-saving device the son presented to his parents in recompense for the trouble and expense of his upbringing. The new bride became, and remained, a drudge, on call 24/7. No degree of ill treatment was deemed abusive. Traditionally, a Tibetan woman was at the mercy of her husband’s parents and a slave to their every whim, with no say about any aspect of her own life or those of her children. Can Chinese communism be any worse?

Snitches and Headlights: One Year After

(Originally published September 10, 2002)

For our safety, Mr. Ashcroft got the government to spend lots of money to beef up Neighborhood Watch, run by the Sheriffs’ Association, supervised by FEMA. We also got TIPS - the Terrorist Information and Protection System, otherwise known as “Totalitarianism In Place Soon” or “Totally Insane Police State.” Run by the Justice Department, this program encourages truckers, bus drivers, etc. to spy on you. Or, if you happen to be a trucker or bus driver, encourages you to become a ratfink informer. It is claimed that because of objections about possible invasions of individual privacy, postal and utility workers are not be included in the program. We are solemnly promised that those workers will not be given the special hotline number. This is akin to telling a jury to disregard testimony they just heard. You can’t unring the bell. Assure the citizens it’s right to spy on each other, and some of them will believe it. In late 20th century Russian novels, a recurring character is the ubiquitous Party informant in every apartment building, or possibly on every floor. Being Americans, we can do the government snitch thing better, faster, and more efficiently. Eat our dust, Commies.

A quotation we see a lot these days is from Benjamin Franklin: “People who are willing to sacrifice essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security.” One freedom I cherish is the freedom to drive around in the daytime with the car headlights off. It’s like this. A chain email has been circulating, regarding September 11, which urges patriotic Americans to have their headlights on. We won’t even go into how meaningless this is as a gesture, since with many recent vehicles “on” is the default position for headlights.

I can see it now. Put the headlights on, drive to the dentist, get held up because the previous appointment ran overtime, stop in the drugstore, go back to the car, and it won’t start because the battery is dead. When you don’t routinely have headlights on during the day, it’s easy to forget to turn them off. So you beg strangers for the loan of jumper cables or wait around for a tow truck and get home to find the kids at each other’s throats because there’s no dinner and they’ve stuffed themselves with sugary cereal.

Here’s the payoff question: What possible connection does any of this have with commemorating mass murder by jet aircraft? Beats me. It’s a dumb idea. So let’s keep the headlights off. Even at the risk of a citizen’s arrest performed by a pizza delivery person who is plugged into the Citizencorps website and proud to be a TIPSter.

Some people think, “I have nothing to worry about. My conscience is clear and I don’t have a swarthy complexion.” When the government started rounding up hundreds of suspicious characters, it didn’t even need to wait for new laws to be passed, but had plenty of grounds in existing immigration laws and the legal power to detain people as material witnesses, etc. In fact we would all do well to remember that we’re all just as vulnerable in some way as a foreigner with a lapsed visa. There are so many various laws on the books that the excuse is there to nail anybody, should the government choose to do so. Now more than ever, everybody’s ass is up for grabs.

Words and Towers: One Year After

(Originally published Sept. 9, 2002)

One immediate effect was the unleashing of a semantic extravaganza. The anti-terrorism effort’s first moniker, Operation Infinite Justice, drew objections of sacrilege and was dropped, replaced by Operation Enduring Freedom. Then there’s Operation Noble Eagle, homeland defense, and Operation Noble Shield, the surveillance arm. The military has these names all made up ahead of time, entire handbooks full of inspiring sobriquets in readiness for any number of conflicts. Yeah! A war! Finally we get to use those cool names we thought up!

If the Defense Department were a company it would be the country’s largest, with a couple million employees and a yearly budget of $300 billion to play with. Unlike other companies, it produces nothing, and its customers have no choice but to buy its non-product. On the plus side, it does inspire some nifty gadgets.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has a program called the Babylon Project, whose goal is to develop a hand-held language translator for military use. Naturally, Afghanistan-related tongues are the first priority. The program’s insignia depicts two towers struck by lightning, some Chinese ideograms, and a pissed-off looking black cat accessorized by what appears to be an AIDS ribbon.

Where else have we seen a tower in conjunction with a lightning bolt? In the Tarot deck, where its meaning has to do with ambition built on false premises, and its destruction points to the fall of Satan’s kingdom. The crown of materialistic preoccupation falls from the tower, struck by the divine fire that destroys evil and refines good.

There’s a tower in the Quran, built by Pharaoh, who thought Moses was putting him on about God, so he had it constructed in order to climb up and take a peek for himself.

In the book of Genesis, the tower story sounds like a good argument against Esperanto and the European Union. Back in the day, everyone on earth spoke the same language. A bunch of people got together and decided to make a name for themselves by building a structure that would touch the heavens. In other words, the humans were getting uppity. So God said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do, and nothing that they now propose to do will now be impossible for them.” The Lord comes out in favor of cultural diversity - take note, fundamentalists. Anyhow, to prevent future conspiracies of lese majeste, God scattered the people to different places and made them speak different languages. It doesn’t say anything about knocking down the tower, though.

In Proverbs 12:12, “the strong tower of the wicked comes to ruin, but the root of the righteous stands firm.”

If God used bin Laden and company to send America some kind of wake-up call, the message is ambiguous at best. She does, after all, move in mysterious ways. The country may have gotten on the wrong track, but I doubt if either homosexuality or feminism are involved. Maybe we’re supposed to build more bilingual schools.

The Death of Irony: Reports are Exaggerated

(written October 2001)

They say September 11 was the day irony died. Yet I believe irony lives.

Plenty of it can be found in the way things are so different, depending on which part of the earth’s surface you happened to have been set down on.

In one place, dogs eat vitamin-enriched kibble, wear clothes, and have their nails clipped by professionals. In another place, rabid dogs eat human corpses.

In some countries, people pay for the pleasures of sado-masochism. In others, it’s not difficult to wind up in the hands of those who wield whips and cattle prods for free. In our country, the mass murderers store severed body parts in the refrigerator, out of public view. Elsewhere, the pieces are strewn all over the place as a warning.

In some places, a man who makes an unwelcome sexual advance can be taken to court. Elsewhere, the total subjugation of women is an unquestioned fact of life, every kind of abuse their daily expectation. The women of Afghanistan, for instance, are ruled by lunatics, the kind of men who will rape a woman and then execute her on a prostitution charge. Just one of these guys would keep Freud busy for years. Here, such a man would rate the attention of an entire team of FBI profilers. Over there, he gets to call himself holy and run everything.

In one place, a sports arena is where the soccer moms and dads bring their kids for healthful family fun. Elsewhere, a sports arena is where crowds gather to watch executions. In the US, an amputated hand brings out half a dozen emergency vehicles and the limb is packed in ice. The victim goes in for fourteen hours of surgery, perhaps transported by a med-evac helicopter. Elsewhere, hands are cut off on purpose, watched by throngs of people, none of whom can do anything to help, and any civilian taken up in a helicopter is likely to be pushed out of it.

A block from where I live, one household got a head start on Halloween. In a low window there’s a lifesize color picture of a grinning skull. In any of several places throughout the world, if a sideways glance toward a neighbor’s house revealed a partly decomposed human head, chances are that partly decomposed human head would be real.

To Americans the grinning skull is a party decoration. To someone in another place, it’s their parent or child. Like the grinning skull I saw on the website of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. These RAWA women specialize in concealing cameras beneath their burqas, the voluminous tentlike coverings they are forced to wear. Their pictures of beatings, executions, freshly severed limbs, the desiccated remains of massacre victims, and other horrors lit by bright sun against a backdrop of blue sky, are smuggled out to the free world. Many hundreds of women risk their lives to make atrocity photos Afghanistan’s number one export. The obscuring veil, the very symbol and instrument of oppression, becomes a weapon turned against the Taliban. The irony of this is nothing short of delicious.

Before proceeding I have to say, clearly and loudly, America is the best country in the world. Unfortunately, that’s a lot like being the wellest patient in the hospital. It’s still a long way from being healthy.

Our government has a habit of interfering with the internal affairs of other countries at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons, but standing back, if not actually turning away, at other times and for reasons equally as wrong. America comforts itself with the rationalization, “They just hate us because we are rich and powerful.” America is like a vainglorious movie star who thinks the critics are only jealous of his wealth and fame. If someone came right out and told him, “No, we hate you because you can’t act, you’re a jerk, and your breath reeks,” he still wouldn’t believe it. Jonathan Kwitney’s book Endless Enemies is a good place to start understanding the anger felt toward us. As Susan Sontag puts it, “a few shreds of historical awareness” show another side of September 11 and place it in perspective as “a consequence of specific American alliances and actions.”

Some commentators call the NY/Washington attacks an “unprovoked blow.” But hadn’t the US military destroyed a pharmaceuticals factory which turned out to be only a pharmaceuticals factory? Something like that could be construed as provocation. Yeah, but they did something else first, to provoke us…Tracing this stuff back is like listening to your kids squabble in the back seat. “He pinched me first.” “Did not. He started it when he kicked me.” Pretty soon they’re fighting about who did what on a different car trip, last year. You don’t want to hear this, you just want them to put a sock in it. One of those kids will have to be the first to grow up and figure out some different way of doing things.

Speaking of maturity, the President’s pronouncement that anyone who isn’t on our side is on the side of the terrorists, is exactly the type of thinking that’s created so much bloodshed and sorrow throughout history.

The national character of America is self-absorbed, uncomprehending, and oblivious to what passes for reality in other places. There are many things about which it can be said of Americans, “They just don’t get it.” The relative opulence of our society blinds us to so much. When we hear of other people being injured, we may hark back to medical experiences of our own, which may have been at least partly pleasant. Painkillers, flowers, candy, attention, being treated like someone special. It’s a whole different thing to be wounded or ill in a place where there are no antibiotics, clinics, or clean water, and nobody can be bothered with you because their own problems are even worse.

Whenever Americans are targeted, there’s a collective gasp of disbelief that might puzzle an eavesdropping visitor from outer space. This stranger might form the impression that an American life is worth five, ten, or a hundred times as much as any other kind of life. America is smug in its superiority. For instance, there’s an attitude about how everybody in the world should speak English, and why in hell should we bother to learn their stupid languages? The result: several governmental departments are wishing, right about now, that they had more Arabic speakers on staff.

Corporate America sells every weapon of destruction to every side in every war. How could we have expected to go on indefinitely, building our national wealth on armaments, with nary a repercussion? Military America equips the world with money, guns and advanced training, then it’s “Ta ta, run along now and kill each other.” How could we have thought all that evil karma would never rebound on us? The truly ironic part is, if World War III really gets up and rolling, nobody’s going to get rich off it. People who own yachts die from nuclear, biotoxic, or chemical warfare just like regular folks. We’ll all be equally dead. All our bank accounts will be set back to zero. All our credit cards will expire.

A military analyst named Joseph C Cyrulik wrote in an Army publication, “an enemy can inflict pain to the point that the people demand a change in the government’s policies.” For some Americans, the changes they demand are inimical to every principle of the Constitution. They want more restrictions, more face scanning, more wiretaps - more of every item on an outrageous shopping list that must have the founding fathers spinning in their graves.

But all the surveillance that’s already been imposed didn’t prevent those attacks. Isn’t it rather naive to think doubling or tripling the amount of techno-spying will prevent future catastrophes? What’s needed is not more of the same, but something entirely different.

By the way, how did suspects on the FBI’s watch list manage to board airplanes without the FAA hearing about it? Yeah I know, the sharing of information between federal agencies is a freedom-slayer, and no libertarian ought to be in favor of it. But we know that federal agencies do share a ton of information every day, to catch deadbeat dads, illegal immigrants, child molesters, and other undesirables. So as long as they’re going to do it anyhow, how come they didn’t do it when it really mattered?

There’s a lot to be said for the idea that terrorism only works if it causes people to change the way they live their lives. The Taliban mob have already succeeded in setting us on the road to totalitarianism. “If we allow these attacks to alter our basic freedoms, then the enemy will have won,” says the ACLU, and it’s right.

“……to the point that the people demand a change in the government’s policies.” What if, instead of begging for more useless “security” measures, there could be a whole different kind of change? What if the change America demanded of its government was for it to stop doing the things that cause so much of the world to justifiably hate us? Maybe we do need to change the way we live our lives. Some definitive thing is needed to convince America to change for the better. Sadly, terrorism isn’t it.

But hey, I’m very, very glad to be a citizen of the US for so many reasons. For instance, we’ve got the American Red Cross to offer advice on how to survive the stress of a terrorist attack.

“Avoid viewing repeated media coverage of the event.” Here, we can choose whether to do that or not. Elsewhere, TVs and VCRs and rounded up and burned, and the Internet is banned.

“Talk it out,” the Red Cross advises anxious Americans. Over here, that’s good advice. You join a support group and share your innermost feelings and the emotional turmoil subsides. Elsewhere, a wrong word in the wrong ear can get you taken away at 3 a.m. Imagine being a woman in Afghanistan, knowing the little son you cuddle today will likely grow up to be a Talib. In just a few short years he’s going to be your absolute master, with the power of life and death over you. Here, parents worry that their kids will blow them in to DARE for smoking pot.

“Ask for help if you need it,” is the ARC’s advice to Americans. Here, some degree of help is available for most people in dire predicaments, even if a series of bureaucratic hurdles must be jumped in order to qualify. Elsewhere, there is no help. Ask for it all you want , need it desperately - it’s simply not there.

Even when we want to do the right thing, our efforts are often maladroit and counterproductive - like buying slaves to end slavery. All over the world people think, “Look at those greedy Americans, why don’t they help us?” And no matter how many dollars we give for humanitarian aid, chances are the food we send will never reach its intended recipients, but be captured by the bad guys and sold on the black market to buy more guns. In Afghanistan, the ration packets we “snowdrop” for the innocent sufferers are just as easily harvested up by the monsters. No matter how much we want to help the starving, we probably can’t, and that’s pretty damn ironic.

“Listen to other people,” the Red Cross says. A tough assignment, but once in a while Americans manage it. Listening to others is, after all, a key value of our culture, advocated by all the self-improvement books. It helps us make friends, connections, and sales. Elsewhere, listening to the wrong people can get you taken away at 3:30 a.m.

“Be especially kind to others.” Again, we have the luxury of choice in this matter. By and large, Americans will do a kind thing that doesn’t involve too much inconvenience. Elsewhere, there are whole countries ruled by grim monomaniacal ogres who never give a thought to kindness and who have never, ever wished anyone a nice day.

“Spend time with your family.” Around here, most people have the option of getting together with the relatives for Thanksgiving. Elsewhere, “spend time with your family” is a bitter joke because they’re all in a stinking mass grave.

“Return to your usual routine.” I wish the ARC hadn’t put it quite that way. Maybe the more productive course would be to not return to our normal ways, but to put more energy into politically educating ourselves, and/or praying. Elsewhere, though, the idea of getting back to the mundane is another of those unfunny jokes.

And they just get unfunnier. “Find a peaceful, quiet place to reflect and gain perspective.” Most Americans could probably make it to some chapel or nature spot for a spell of meditation. Elsewhere, there are no cars to jump into, no buses or trains in which to escape. Find a peaceful place! Hordes of people are trying to do that very thing. They’re called refugees, and there are millions of them.

In the wake of September 11, the program directors of a giant radio syndicate put together a list of songs they didn’t think should be played. (If Dylan’s “Neighborhood Bully” wasn’t on the list, it should have been.) As it turned out, two of these songs were performed by stars during a disaster benefit telethon for the victims. Is that not ironic? How about the fact that an American entertainment corporation responded to an attack by narrow-minded intolerant religious cranks who hate freedom, by issuing a list of songs its employees shouldn’t play? Not ironic yet?

Madonna and thousands of others wear stars and stripes as clothing, and are cheered for their patriotism. During the Vietnam war, people got arrested for dressing in facsimile flags. I don’t know whether that’s irony, but it’s something very near.

In the light of what we’re learning about ubiquitous government surveillance of online communications, it’s laughably ironic that just a short time ago the big issue was those darn cookies snuck onto our hard drives for the benefit of advertisers.

One of the worst things about enemies is how they make you forget about your own most cherished values. It’s an ugly irony that the very principles America was founded on are being held up to question. That hurts. Thinking about religious tolerance, for instance - one of the bedrock values - can make us awfully uncomfortable these days. How are we supposed to react to a bunch of Islamist fanatics? Profile the hell out of them, round them up and kick their ass right out of here. Then there’s racial tolerance. We’re against ethnic cleansing, and we punish other nations for engaging in it. But plenty of Americans would like to wipe out every last Arab on the planet. “That’s different.” Of course it is. Irony, anyone?

And then there’s a whole category of stuff that would be ironic if it were true, but none of these items could possibly be true. Even though they are reported in reputable, big-league media, who in their right mind could believe these things? For instance, it seems that our Chief Executive used to be in business with Osama bin Laden’s big brother. Okay, let that one go for now. Nobody wants to be held accountable for the actions of their family members. Lord knows I don’t.

But how about this one? A New Yorker article quoted an FBI man who admitted “a scenario like the one that wrecked downtown Manhattan and part of the Pentagon had not been conceived of.” The Department of Defense has a $300 billion annual budget. In theory, some portion of the amount is allotted to paying people to think. All that money and military brainpower brought to bear on issues of national defense and security, and nobody thought of this possibility? Yet the Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare says his agency has known for years that Iran trained people to fly commercial aircraft into civilian targets. Hey, there were kamikaze pilots back in WWII. And nobody thought of it?

The New Yorker also interviewed an architect who worked in the WTC and is a great fan of its structural integrity. She says the towers were built to withstand the accidental impact of a jet (or at least the kind they had 30 years ago) but “nobody thought about the fuel.” A twelve-year-old developing his first computer game could have thought of it. All these high-priced smart talented experts, the people who run the world, who get the big bucks for making decisions and acting on our behalf - they didn’t think of it. Granted, there probably would still have been no way to prevent the tragedy. That they were unable to do anything about it is understandable. Not having thought of it is unforgivable.

Here’s another wild tale: Just 4 months before the attacks on NY and Washington, our government gave the bad Afghans $43 million. For not growing poppies. Isn’t that the silliest thing you ever heard? I could refer the govt. to someone who would agree not to grow poppies for a mere $1 million. Astute businessman that he is, our President wouldn’t pass up such an opportunity to save the taxpayers $42 million, would he? And my candidate wouldn’t have spent the money on fake passports or aviation school tuition.

There’s a really far out story about why the US got to be such good buddies with the Taliban in the first place. These supposedly reputable news sources would have us believe there’s an American business called Unocal that wanted to run a gigantic pipeline through Afghanistan to bring oil from central Asia to Pakistan and the sea. And the Taliban promised to fix it so they could. (Why is it that when some kind of really dirty dealing goes on in the international scene, so often what lurks behind it is the lust for oil? Oil has far surpassed gold in its power to corrupt and maim nations.) Anyhow, this would mean we cozied up to a coalition of murderous lunatics for the sake of fuel to run our jet skis and leaf blowers. Isn’t that the most absurd thing you ever heard?

Especially in the light of what the hemp proponents have been telling us all these years: with hemp biomass, we could produce enough fuel to be an energy-independent nation. If the US government weren’t addicted to anti-drug hysteria, it could tell the sheiks to get lost, and at the same time save the American farm with guaranteed full employment. Wouldn’t it be ironic if America remains in thrall to the Arab countries just because of its stubborn, paranoid refusal to acknowledge that industrial hemp is no more a drug than alfalfa is? If willful stupidity about one species of vegetation is the only reason the oil producing countries have us in a chokehold - wouldn’t it be ironic?

One more crazy story: the US created the Taliban. A while back, the American military sent out the call for every Islamist nutcase in the hemisphere to gather in Afghanistan. American power and influence patched together this monster and pointed it at the Russians. Osama bin Laden, good anti-Russian that he was, got from us $3 billion and top-notch training for his guerillas. (Some say he has gone to ground in a high-tech hidey hole constructed by our very own CIA. Irony may not be the most accurate word to describe this situation, but it is the kindest one.)

So what if his minions were behind the bombings of a couple embassies and of the World Trade Center in ‘93?. We knew the guy was a pit bull, but he was our pit bull, and we thought we had him on a leash. Just like with Iraq, Panama, Somalia, and Haiti, we supplied the weapons, technology and know-how to another military dictatorship that would turn around and bite its benefactor.

So came the day when Russia finally had to give up trying to subdue Afghanistan. In what one foreign policy expert characterizes as a typical example of “US intrusion followed by neglect,” America pretty much lost interest too. This year, we only gave the Taliban $125 million in foreign aid, and basically blew off Afghanistan. But the Taliban was still there. The oil boys and the anti-drug warriors energized and fed the monster, and set it loose on the villagers. Pretty soon the monster tired of such easy pickings and decided to go after Dr. Frankenstein.

Who in their right mind could ever believe a scenario like that? It would be just beyond ironic. It would be insane.

This conflict is a mess for sure, and the only good thing to come out of it so far is an impassioned and immortal piece of writing by Tamim Ansary. “An Afghan-American Speaks” started as an e-mail to a small circle of friends and has now been published around the globe. Ansary reminds us that the people of Afghanistan have been the victims of a “cult of ignorant psychotics” for a long time. He makes the excellent point that it’s no use bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age because the Soviets already took care of that little chore. He points out that the Taliban are the only people with the means to escape or hide, leaving behind a nation of disabled orphans as targets.

I have to agree with Mr. Bush on one thing - it’s stupid to waste missiles to knock down tents and camels. It would be useful to have something like a neutron bomb (kills people, spares buildings) only different. What’s needed here is a totally new concept - a bomb that eliminates homicidal maniacs and spares regular people. Unfortunately no bomb is that smart. Even the most surgical of strikes will kill the innocent. It really sucks, but ten to one the only workable solution is to send ground troops that can at least see what they’re shooting at. To wantonly destroy the people of Afghanistan can only help the Taliban. With a smaller, more controllable population they can get that oil pipeline built or whatever else they may want to do.

The people of Afghanistan are like the families in an inner city housing project that’s been taken over by the Crips or the Bloods, and we all know what that’s like. Of what use is it to make them suffer to the point where even the Taliban starts to look good?

This conflict isn’t really between the America and Afghanistan, or even between Christianity and Islam. It is, as always, between the psychopaths and the sane people; between the big guys who create and profit from war, and the ordinary people who just want to be left alone to live some kind of life.

The people in power over there do things against the will of the ordinary person, just like the people in power here often do things I don’t want them to do. But guess what? They don’t consult me. Never mind that nonsense about voting. I wasn’t asked to vote on giving bin Laden and his thugs all that money. Nobody gave the ordinary Afghan a chance to vote on destroying the World Trade Center, no more than my government gave me a chance to vote on whether to bomb a factory.

A long time ago I read in a science fiction anthology a story based on a memorable idea. Two countries had issues with each other, and instead of going to war they each chose one champion, the strongest, most fearsome soldier, to fight it out on everybody’s behalf. And I seem to remember a similar tale where the solution was even more refined - the two smartest chess players met up for a match to decide which side won. These stories were supposed to be futuristic, and the future is here. So how about it?

Yeah, it’s a crazy idea - but no crazier than what’s been showing up lately in the real news

Become a Thumbtack in the Heel of Fascism

(Note from Hartman: I didn’t write this. I cut it from a newspaper on May 6, 1981 (that’s the date I stamped on the clipping - I don’t know what date it was published) and it now exists as a yellowed clipping. I don’t think these words are anywhere online and I think they should be. So I transcribe it as closely as possible.)

YIPPIEE!

“…Become A Thumbtack In The Heel Of Fascism…”

By The National Resistance Conference, March 20-22

We the members of the Youth International Party, faced with a threat to everything we’ve known and worked for, call on the Real Majority, the majority in this country who did not vote for Ronald Reagan, to embark on a course of total obstinate non-cooperation with Haig, Reagan and the Moral Majority, wherever and whenever they strike. We believe that anyone that does not actively encourage resistance is in fact discouraging resistance, and for this reason we are setting forth the basic points of agreement the Real Majority have in common - to draw the line, past which we cannot compromise.

1. The greatest threat is not just war abroad, but regimentation at home. De-militarize America! Unionize the Army. We deplore the splits in the anti-war, anti-draft movement which are fostered by the attempt of one left-wing faction or another to take over the whole thing. And we feel that anything less than one hundred percent encouragement to draft resistance is doing the work of the Government.

2. We vow to stop Ronald Reagan from stealing from the poor to give to the rich. If he wants less government, snooping and intrusion, let’s start with the Feds, and the Defense Department. We will protest. We will demonstrate. We will haunt Reagan’s footsteps wherever he goes.

3. Uptight, upright bigots are the natural constituencies of the Haig-Reagan War Junta. Today’s attacks on the sexual freedoms we wrested from their control are the bigots’ payoff. Youth has a right to define their own sexuality! We demand full and equal rights for all people, gay, straight, and bisexual, to make love uncoerced.

4. We believe that any erosion of a woman’s right to choose contraception or an abortion is an attack at the underpinning of all sexual liberation. It was this right, more than any other, that cut the chains which bound us to a life of early, unwanted pregnancies, and a lifetime of working in factories to pay for it. Keep the government out of women’s wombs - stop forced sterilization of poor and Third World women!

5. The rising tide of racist incidents and murders shows that the Nazis, Klan and their friends amongst the authorities, have brought home to America the death squads of El Salvador and Soweto. We deplore and attempts to solve this problem by abolishing the Bill of Rights. We are working to build Rock Against Racism in this country to fight the fascists. We believe that these sick racists ought to be recognized as the genocidal maniacs they are, and treated accordingly. However we can no longer trust the government. We support neighborhood vigilantes like those in Atlanta.

6. Though we feel Nazis should be dealt with like “crazy people,” at the same time we oppose the use of phenothiazines against prisoners and dissidents in general. Nobody should be forced to take drugs to “cure them” that are more unhealthy than drugs they are already taking. No drugs should be forced on people at all.

7. The main drug that is being foisted off on our communities is heroin, by means of subtle media campaigns and deliberate and calculated diversion of enforcement by Reagan and such groups as the so-called War on Drugs. As long as 85% of all drug busts are still for pot, anyone who spouts the “War on Drugs” line is doing their work. Heroin is the ultimate commodity - the perfect instrument of neo-colonialist exploitation of our cities by the Mob, CIA Cubans, and neo-Nazis abroad. Both as a long-recognized tool of counter-insurgency, and because smack is controlled by World Fascism, we call for the formation of a new group, Citizens against Heroin, to struggle and educate around this issue.

8. At this moment, from the Indians of Dakota to the coal miners of West Virginia, people are being dispossessed by the energy barons and their cancerous conglomerates. The planet belongs to the people! We demand housing for the squatters, living wages and control of the workplace for the workers, respect for Native American Treaty Rights, land for all the dispossessed, and legal pot for the farmers. Multinationals out of North America now!

We will put out this call for resistance everywhere: Throughout the whole counterculture, throughout the schools, through the factories and neighborhoods, in the countryside, in the media, and the System itself - to all free-thinking people who are debating whether to go along or resist, wondering whether or not the Moralizing Majority is the majority, we call on you to rise up and become a stone in the jackboot heel, a thumbtack in the foot of fascism!

(NOTE: THE PHONE NUMBER AND ADDRESS ARE MORE THAN 25 YEARS OLD IN THIS HISTORICAL DOCUMENT.)

212-533-5028 P.O.B. 392 Canal Street Station N.Y.C. 10013