Arafat dies... Cat Stevens gets a peace prize
Well I was trying to drag up our old cat stevens thread but you beat me to it. I thought this was a joke until I went downstairs and saw it in the paper. Why is it these days that I read things in the news that I just can't believe? Is it fact or fiction? Will someone please tell me what is going on? Is this 1984? Are we at war with eurasia or east asia? Who were we at war with yesterday?
Here's the story for anyone who can actually believe it:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 281.htm?1c
Here's the story for anyone who can actually believe it:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 281.htm?1c
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mccutcheon
- New York Scribbler
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Tommy Martyn
- Mile High Club
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- Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 8:01 am
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I have been in Texas for a week now. Another 4 days to go. Traveling gives one a lot of time to think. I have been to Houston, Victoria, San Marcos, Comfort, Dallas, and Waco.
It is am amazing how if I rank all the things important to me in my life how nothing really matters much beyond friends, family and Pax Acidus.
Politics is a bullshit distraction from Art and drinking. Freedom is an internal feeling. External freedom is getting more obscure, meaningless and transitory. Time to get out of the USA! The writing is on the wall. Tommy? Are the Pools of Liver calling you and your fecalphiliac brood home?
I am using the time in between driving and business meetings to work on my novels and do some much needed editing. It is painful that it is taking me so long to finish a novel and that now the whole thing seems to be some sort of compromise. And after all the editing and pain, the book is unpublishable. It's not something I can envision on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. A pill popping sex crazed alien teenage boy who starts a revolution? Oh well. I am working on another unpublishable novel with is 80% done. That one is about a world-traveling drug addicted rock band losing their grip on reality with a shared hallucination about mutated sloths.
So a lot of the time I am sad… and looking forward to being reunited with McCutcheon next week and also leaving America for good in March. I also miss Linda and it makes my evening drinking sessions a necessary escape from loneliness instead of a pleasant escape from the workday.
When I pass by the strip malls, and the corporate food chains, and the 24-hour Walmart Superstores, I realize that the land is truly uninhabitable. Without a revolution there can be no hope. And the people are more like sheep than monkeys now. A right wing revolution seems more likely than a left wing one. People escape into sports. The basketball game is more important than our loved ones dying for Bush's family inheritance.
When I turn on the TV and Fox News is airing footage of Bush calling Arafat a terrorist and Israelis are dancing in the streets on the same day as his funeral, it makes me sad. When Israelis bearing overwhelming US supplied weapons crushed the Palestinian resistance in the 50's and 60's, Arafat almost emigrated to Texas(!) and go to school at UT. But he chose to stay and fight. And anyone who calls him a terrorist at the same time calls the American Revolution terrorists.
I did cry when Bush won the election. I felt helpless like a kid who lost his mom. But inside there as well was shame, and sorrow for the Arabs. None of the arguments against the Iraqis make sense. It is hegemony. Pure and simple colonialism. It's about a chance to flex ones muscles and steal some oil while we're at it. It's a clear message to the world: Do what we say or feel the wrath of the New USA, Army of Jesus Marching Onward.
Another think while I'm on it… I am sick of the liberal versus conservative argument. The tags mean nothing to me and are completely ambiguous when a “conservative� politician puts the country so far into debt.
And the election is decided on “moral� issues when we are killing people for a lie, and we have more problems in out country than most European countries. We are the only Western power with routine executions, rampant poverty and homelessness, a system where people cannot afford education and health care. Those are the moral values we have as a country? With Bush at the helm we are morally, spiritually, and soon financially bankrupt.
It's so bizarre it's almost like Bush is secretly on Bin Laden's side in the stupid way that he behaves. It's almost like he's forcing the country to the right. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse. When we are 10 trillion dollars in debt by the end of 2008, we are going to have to start more wars to pay for our previous ones. Look at the 10 year olds around you. They will be dead on the battleground in 8 years.
Cat Stevens? Terrorist? Peace price winner?
James Taylor is the real terrorist. Everyone knows that.
It is am amazing how if I rank all the things important to me in my life how nothing really matters much beyond friends, family and Pax Acidus.
Politics is a bullshit distraction from Art and drinking. Freedom is an internal feeling. External freedom is getting more obscure, meaningless and transitory. Time to get out of the USA! The writing is on the wall. Tommy? Are the Pools of Liver calling you and your fecalphiliac brood home?
I am using the time in between driving and business meetings to work on my novels and do some much needed editing. It is painful that it is taking me so long to finish a novel and that now the whole thing seems to be some sort of compromise. And after all the editing and pain, the book is unpublishable. It's not something I can envision on the shelves of Barnes and Noble. A pill popping sex crazed alien teenage boy who starts a revolution? Oh well. I am working on another unpublishable novel with is 80% done. That one is about a world-traveling drug addicted rock band losing their grip on reality with a shared hallucination about mutated sloths.
So a lot of the time I am sad… and looking forward to being reunited with McCutcheon next week and also leaving America for good in March. I also miss Linda and it makes my evening drinking sessions a necessary escape from loneliness instead of a pleasant escape from the workday.
When I pass by the strip malls, and the corporate food chains, and the 24-hour Walmart Superstores, I realize that the land is truly uninhabitable. Without a revolution there can be no hope. And the people are more like sheep than monkeys now. A right wing revolution seems more likely than a left wing one. People escape into sports. The basketball game is more important than our loved ones dying for Bush's family inheritance.
When I turn on the TV and Fox News is airing footage of Bush calling Arafat a terrorist and Israelis are dancing in the streets on the same day as his funeral, it makes me sad. When Israelis bearing overwhelming US supplied weapons crushed the Palestinian resistance in the 50's and 60's, Arafat almost emigrated to Texas(!) and go to school at UT. But he chose to stay and fight. And anyone who calls him a terrorist at the same time calls the American Revolution terrorists.
I did cry when Bush won the election. I felt helpless like a kid who lost his mom. But inside there as well was shame, and sorrow for the Arabs. None of the arguments against the Iraqis make sense. It is hegemony. Pure and simple colonialism. It's about a chance to flex ones muscles and steal some oil while we're at it. It's a clear message to the world: Do what we say or feel the wrath of the New USA, Army of Jesus Marching Onward.
Another think while I'm on it… I am sick of the liberal versus conservative argument. The tags mean nothing to me and are completely ambiguous when a “conservative� politician puts the country so far into debt.
And the election is decided on “moral� issues when we are killing people for a lie, and we have more problems in out country than most European countries. We are the only Western power with routine executions, rampant poverty and homelessness, a system where people cannot afford education and health care. Those are the moral values we have as a country? With Bush at the helm we are morally, spiritually, and soon financially bankrupt.
It's so bizarre it's almost like Bush is secretly on Bin Laden's side in the stupid way that he behaves. It's almost like he's forcing the country to the right. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse. When we are 10 trillion dollars in debt by the end of 2008, we are going to have to start more wars to pay for our previous ones. Look at the 10 year olds around you. They will be dead on the battleground in 8 years.
Cat Stevens? Terrorist? Peace price winner?
James Taylor is the real terrorist. Everyone knows that.
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mccutcheon
- New York Scribbler
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- Joined: Tue Oct 03, 2000 8:01 am
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Relax
I hear ya. In America it is morally right to lie and start a war. It is morally wrong to let 2 gay people wed. I guess no one really got Frankie Goes To Hollywood: War! What is it good for? Me and the poofters are gonna just sit back and Relax. And CUM.
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Tommy Martyn
- Mile High Club
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- Joined: Mon May 19, 2003 8:01 am
- Location: a desk
Of all the ironies concerning the last election, my favourite comes out of California. Like many other places, California has a "three strikes" policy. Unlike some of the others, which are limited to major or violent felonies, the third strike, the one that sends you away for life can be something as trivial as shoplifting. This blanket sentencing was addressed in the last election via a ballot initiative. (For the record it failed) The part of the story I like best, concerns the union of prison officers - I don't know their official title, brotherhood of corrections officers? - they threw their weight and money behind defeating the initiative. They did this because if people started to be released from these ludicrous sentences it would impact upon the job security of their members. The phrase, "Only in America," is sometimes over used. I feel in this instance that that it is, sadly, more than apt.