CONFESSIONS OF A POSER

BUSH AND HUSSEIN SHOULD HAVE WRASSLED ON PAY PER VIEW Current mood: grumpy Category: MEAN News and Politics CONFESSIONS OF A POSER Ever since I realized I was not bound for college, I have improvised a host of bit parts to realize my need to be important, and very righteous too. I did finally make to Wayne State University, and hope still kindled of a professional life of suit wearing and golf, but like instead a lot of work and reality was typical in the cave-in of auto economy, I remember fund raising events where people paid $5 to lay into a Toyota with a ten pound sledgehammer-all for a good cause. I married young and divorced young. The army washout, the Detroit factory rat, short order cook, sometimes savior of thirsty skid row inebriates in my hikes among the ruins of Motown, a capital of our history's productive industrial past. I was a flop, there was no Big 3 job waiting for me; but I listened to the pep talk in my head telling me it was for the good; I was a Bohemian, a reader of books and a museum spectator. I would publish a book some day, read the free Worker's Party rags, ubiquitous along my route walking from the bus along Woodward Ave. to a 'service sector' job cooking and bussing tables for those who already had it made. My blood boiled for the early days of the Union movement, the Wobblies, Workers of the World United, oh well. I just knew sooner or later I'd get a chance to be heard on my own Truth Telling Express, Depression and physical injury, surgery and metal screws and parts l attached to my neck bone and ankle bone, were not in that dream; but a chance to regroup, drink my beer and formulate my rap about the crooked politicians picking on the working man.My life's ambition of rabble-rousing was suddenly an afterthought when kamikaze Arabs steered the Boeings that killed more than had died at Pearl Harbor. The President, a mediocre prep school type, a grown rich kid, I previously ignored after his rise to power with unlimited funds, henchmen willing to say anything to besmirch John McCain a war hero and a Navy flyer like Dad, who was flying combat missions or confined in hellish squalor. Bush had arrived at Harvard chewing tobacco, wearing the cowboy boots he would traipse the venerable campus in a cocaine haze on occasion; later he did fly a jet in the skies above Alabama in service to the the nation. The mad dash he made to Renquist over the dead body of fair election, running arm in arm with more millionaire lawyers than OJ needed to be coronated by more gangster lawyers his Dad or "Uncle Ron" had hired, to sit on the Supreme Court and turn every progressive law passed since the 19th century on its head. HE HAD EVERYONE'S EAR after those hideous crimes. His words at first were attempts at fatherly comfort and raising up a stricken people, and beyond any but the pettiest criticism. As time advanced and the first U.S. President of the 21st century spoke of Muslims in the same breath with Hitler's Nazi minions, using the tautisms of the pulpit; It sensed an inner life and dialogue in Bush's head was at stake. As the son of a bonafide war hero, a decorated Navy flyer, like Sen. John McCain who had outshone him in every category except the old money one. By 2003 his act had narrowed to giving speeches demonizing Iraq and Hussein as Devil exceeding the Nazi-Fascist tandem history has long held guilty for inciting a war and racial haulocaust that claimed 40 million lives on the Eurasian land mass; leaving aside the Pacific Theatre of Operations, the biggest villian in recorded history. As more Americans run out of gas in the face of the pointlessness of continuing the placement of our combat in Iraq; Hussein's neck was streched long ago, the formation of independent regional militia despite U.S. military presence, and economic pressure has the appearance of mideval warlord rule. The slightest appearance that infidels have authority over them increases Iraqi resentment and worsens the Worldwide interfaith disconnect each day our deployment continues. The Iraqi death toll has been extremely high, and unreported, as many as 250, 000 are dead since the 2003 start of hostilities. We have blasted the countryside back to the stone age twice in less than twenty years. The interminible hatred and murder in Iraq, against a largely immobilized American detachment whose are largely incurred procuring and transporting supplies. There is little or nothing of lasting import that can now be done for Iraq or Iraqis by foreign troops. Material aid will be an indefinate (permanent) American obligation. Southfield High School had a run of several years leading the state in SAT scores (I made over 1600 on it in 1978.) . Southfield is just across Eight Mile Rd, but it was five miles from SHS to Detroit Country Day School, prep school to the rich kids of Beverly Hills, MI, I came to learn one of them was Mork from Ork Robin Williams, a millionaire many several times over, the result of depending on his wits.I made people laugh too. Those years and days were spent preoccupied with Claire Friedman, burning cheap gasoline in Detroit rustbuckets, a mammoth '64 Dodge then a '67 Buick Skylark with a 350; the abundant high grade pot, plus a legacy that VietNam bequeathed the class of 1978, an18 year old drinking age law. "If I'm Old enough to fight I'm old enough to have a beer." Due to genetic luck or freak of nature, at 15 I sprouted just enough dark follicles to fool Ike at the Party Store with my ugly little mustache. I bought beer as freely as a grandpa. Staying out of the direct line of sight of teachers and parents; speaking only when unavoidable, mostly in earnest monosyllables of apathy, they would leave me alone. We avoided supervision. We deserved whatever came our way. Memories of that misspent idle youth are priceless to me. Gas tanks full of Regular; a house party loomed one after another throughout the cold months, at some other kid's house. I partied in some beautiful homes then. The parents who weren't out of town, and put up with us were Martians to me. Were they more permissive than my parents? Hell yes. My practiced invisibility eased their middle age ordeal. No one in the group I was in got arrested, I never got a speeding ticket while I lived at home. I worked and bought my own clothes. Idealism had been dealt with way before 1974-75, as I stuck my head out in the world truly unattended by grown-ups. The impetus to change the world nurtured for years by postwar kids started with little things, it was the number of kids born in that generation, large families were the very scenery of "normal" then and parents, far outnumbered, eventually faced a political counterpart certain to eventually provide a real challenge to the two party system. The VietNam war was another test of American prestige like Korea; against a Soviet sponsored proxy far from American shores or tangible interests. War was waged for the political abstract. Influence, prestige, against the "threat of Communist domination" known by academics to be so remote the red label was aimed aimed beyond union organizers so innured to hearing and reading it, the charges were ignored. Wherever progressive land reform movements took hold automatic American opposition appeared. The French ran out of gas fighting Ho Ghi Mien's army 8 years before Johnson began sending organized combat detachments in meaningful numbers. Another Texan, he vowed not to be the first U.S. President to lose a war. far flung pponent supplied fight on neutral ground between produced a powerful social class with dissent providing the glue. Young people were receptive to the aims of Civil Rights, and , proved to be a catalyst group I was int among those both beyond the a with billy clubs, revolvers and machine guns. If we got geeked up about anything it was concert tickets at venerable Cobo Arena where Bob seger recorded the Rock Masterpiece "Live Bullet". The truly high quality of that Public Education was met with scorn and bitching by those of us whose nicotine fits meant hotboxing Kools between classes, even in bitter cold. Many lofty plans were hatched, some realized by that set of kids. War was over. For us, me, from the age of 12, when I watched POW's, perhaps McCain himself, get off a plane in Hawaii going home, on the RCA TV , in color; until I was 23 our troops were in the woodsides of America training. It was 1983 when Reagan mobilized the USMC and the Isle of Grenada was liberated! And it was an event many reacted to like the football team had broken a long losing streak. Honorably Discharged from service after two brief stints; much time spent hearing hungover noncoms tell me with hostile gusto I had an "attitude problem", a syndrome never explained or understood, as I was on a par with with all the other poor bastards. I hated the sound of the very words which were soon predictable, it was a favorite catchphrase, to get a recruit riled up, and the U.S military know their business, a combined experience of centuries underlay that psychological approach. When I came home and told the family the story, they all agreed with Sarge. They never explained it either.I discharged without hearing a shot fired in anger, so how can I bitch? . I cannot claim any military honors, and I'm no expert on combat. I've been intentionally shot at once, then years later a drunken neighbor came out of his apartment just as I was checking my mail in the lobby of that shabby but humble apartment building; when he let off an errant blast in my general direction through the 30 feet of hallway between us. I wasn't the only person in the hall, he may have hit; one of those 'miracles' of dumb luck you hear on the news. On both occassions a shotgun was the weapon of choice, the first was a sawed off, I'm sure. He was messing with my wife and I was yelling at him, and he shot through a window. "Fuck it." I said to myself, he wasn't raping her; so I got in my 1972 Detroit rustbucket Pontiac Catalina, a land yaght of a car, threw gravel as I left, struck by the experience. I shot countless rounds of M-16, and M-60 fire, but the idea of really shooting at someone so casual like was alien to me. My father-in-law used to like to talk to his daughter's suitors with his piece laying on a coffee table between them, so I hear, he never did that to me, but he was the type, brilliant; too fucking smart for his sanity, The sound of proximate, unexpected gunfire spoils the taste of the beer. It doesn't matter I was acquanted with both triggermen, both were neighbors that I freely spoke and drank with. In the flash of time between the noise of the gunshot and the first unsteady knowledge that you aren't belly shot or worse those dudes may as well been from China, Iraq or Tinbuktu. I never spoke to either again, unharmed we are dead to each other. The gun itself has a power over some. A trivial offense can occur and be percieved as a foul in a singular way on a particular day, it happens to all of us who live long enough. The person that has a pistol or a rifle is mathematically more apt to harm someone for reasons on one particular day, than they ever would attack with a knife or bare hands their whole life long. The freely available gun can occupy portions of daily thought life whether they often range shoot, or bought it at WalMart 10 years ago, and it remains unmoved in the closet from the date of sale. The instrument of certain death can occupy some part of thought life. The ability to retaliate a gun bestows is itself a warning. The Postal worker in Royal Oak, MI who randomly shot at and killed six coworkers, attacking them enmasse after arriving to have it out with his long seperated spouse, is one incident of thousands since, each a case study indicting the U.S. proliferation of guns. Many preach a gospel based on the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights, that hinges on the premise Madison and that assembly of well educated for 18th century standards, predominently Aristocratic Masons believed the citizens of the young Republic needed a legally unstoppable Niagra of guns to repel the possible future tyranny of the very government devised by democratic parley they had pledged their lives and honor to, imperfect with race , gender and class bigotry, a society as backward as the British. The repudiation of Divine Right of Kings, and the commitment to live without Titles of Nobility, Royalty, and the warlord control of land and resources practiced throughout Europe by King's and those appointed members of the Royal Court. The extended process that forged a way of life, copied the world over was covened in the preindustrial world that ruled the mass of humanity with the guarantee of a life of constant toil for a return that body and soul might stay together. This guarantee was more binding than any right or priviledge written down. While terms had changed, the lot in life of citizens of the new United States went on unchanged for generations, in the uncleared surrounding teeming with danger from wild animals, starvation, disease, exposure to the elements and armed confrontation by indigenous peoples. The musket was essential for individual and family survival. The Constitution refers to the national future using the words "…we and our posterity…" a phrase roughly meaning'forever'. Such boldly stated intentions meant facing the risks posed by corruption. and officialsadministration could revert under color of law use a program of general disarmament of law abiding people, and revert the Americas to a European style fiefdom where landlords alone were armed had to be met by responsible menwafuture with with ought guns I will say I was brighter than many other my age and mental level back in those early post VietNam years, and lots of armchair generals, gripping a can of Schlitz, the griping about 'losing' the war. It was no secret from the late sixties the kill ratio was more than 20 asian dead for every one American. As horrible 56,000 U.S war dead was then, is now, and continues to be in the midst of current casualty reports, news that will mean the end of any joy in life for so many families. Those nearly 4,000 now dead are like the High School kid I was in those peaceful Carter years, whose thought life should center around staying out of trouble, falling in love and finding a way to get by in this dog eat dog world. There has come no words to my ears, or from the printed press from Iraq, that anything has transpired since the days of Nebuchannezzar 2,500 years; worthy of such sacrifice on their behalf. While their misery is undeniable and the betrayal of strongmen among their number who suffer them to live under tyranny even to this very day, most who are surely as fine, innocent and religious a population there is under God. It is a common fate Iraqis share with their darker skinned Muslims brothers and sisters across the few hundred miles of desert and sea from the Arabian Peninsula. Those poor souls in West Africa are as worthy in humanity and need for relief of dire suffering, and committed assistance of good people everywhere in the world. They do not walk upon ground as full of oil as it was went Jesus preached and fed the poor in Galilee. The conflagrations that were World War I and II, ended when one side had run out of bullets and the blood of its young to water the soils of every inhabited earthly continent . These wars are justly commemorated in remembrance of the bravery and sacrifice of the millions caught up the maelstrom of modern war, and for the will of political leaders to lead their people to defeat those who would steal their honor and spoil their nation, which for better or worse remains the larger unit of which the family unit is tied with unbreakable bonds. Victory brought real but short lived joy. Among the veterans of war is the shared grief of the waste of life and the horror of seeing one's fellow man and one's self as wholly other than the products of civilized man; much less the rearing Mom and Dad provided. The martial tones of sabre rattling will fade away leaving silence to fill the raucous space, once more. 1:31 AM -