Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

photo by doreen peri

Dead Soldiers
for release 05-30-05
Washington D.C.

It's Memorial Day. I feel it is my duty to honor our dead soldiers. To that end I have created a small memorial on my desk and there are seven dead soldiers in a neat row, all saying Budweiser. The budget didn't provide for Michelob, which I prefer and perhaps would have been more fitting for this ceremony, because Michelob is just Budweiser that's been aged a little longer and as everyone knows it is good to be older bud wiser.

My head is pounding out a swirving version of taps, and before the rocket's red glare and before I get sentimental about all the poor young fools who have died so that oligarchy can reign in our great and wealthy land, I must pause.

Days like this cause my patriotism to emerge from the closet. The thought that brave men have sacrificed their lives to preserve our liberties and protect our shores is all very warm and cuddly. When I have seven empty beer bottles on my desk I can get in the mood to place wreaths on the tomb of the Unknowns.

That's until I remember that they are all unknowns after they make what George Bush cavalierly calls 'the ultimate sacrifice.' They have served their purpose, they are empty bottles all in a row because no matter what they and we are told, these young men and women aren't protecting our shores or freedoms, they are protecting the financial interests of the racketeers that are running our country.

As I watch the line of dead soldiers grow, I feel more and more inclined to weep. Perhaps I'm just a sloppy drunk. Or perhaps there is really something to cry about. It's sad that the last fifteen hundred Americans in the row of dead soldiers are cold and dead, but it is tragic that they died in the cause of lies and greed.

All In A Row

memorial day pagent on tv
happy woman in audience
a very big smile on her face
smiling because her son in Iraq
when she reallized the camera was on her she got really happy, really proud, her smile even brighter, I shouldn't critize but dam she looked like she just got picked as a contestant on lets make a deal.

she even had little carboard sign
with his name and rank on it
why did she look so happy?

a look of concern
tears in her eyes
maybe that would mean more for him

Was he writting home, "don't worry about me mom"
I am surrounded by angels nothing can happen to me
or did she think he had one of the Sioux Ghost Shirts on
Dear Mrs Smiley face we regret to inform you...

I called it dead heroes day, I meant no disrespect,
There was a interview with a Mother of a dead soldier on NPR a couple weeks ago. She sad her son had wrote the week before his death don't worry about me mom, nothing is going to happen to me, I am surrounded by angels.


How Wars Are Made
The loud little handful -as usual -will shout for the war. The pulpit will -wearily and cautiously -object -at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing, the speakers stoned from the platforms, and the free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers -as earlier -but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation -pulpit and all -will take up the war-cry and shout itself hoarse and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception." -Mark Twain, in "The Mysterious Stranger."

Observation, keep on observation. I unsubscribed from the Poet's Eye because it was too tempting to pop over here and start posting again. Keep that poet's eye ball observing. I think just by observing we can turn things around, observations, vigils, and witnesses.

my short list of heroes for mem day
judih
To tell you how smart my uncle Joe was he snuck over the border from Canada in the nineteen thirties. How he got to Canada from Poland was a miracle, but Canada was not good enough, he had to come to America. He married a woman with small pox scars to get his US Citizenship. Thirty years later it was still a happy marriage. Aunt Ruth our rich Aunt of the bountiful flannel shirst and warm socks of the chanuka gifts. Take care sister

Clay
I got to stay the way the fuck away from here clay, burned out, that exchange between you and cecil on the last stream convinced me I needed a break,

compulsive scribbler that I am. I can't even look at this place for three or four months. Got to stay the fuck away. Meanwhile keep on keeping on.
BTW I would go for the adultry myself, it can be very sweet.

Good piece, elRod... me gusta.

I was wondering how many remembered some friends of mine, John, Phil, Jeff, Lester... the list goes on, but they are VN Vets like me and I know nobody remembered them. Why? Because they weren't killed.

It's interesting that our government has established a day of rememberance to those military people that have been killed in 'defense' of our freedoms... the fallen heroes in Columbia, Nicaragua, Chile... the heroes that sacrificed their lives in Cambodia... we shouldn't forget the lost ones in Beirut, Lebanon or Rwanda, or the few and the proud that were so exhausted from lack of sleep they were not totally tuned in to the dangers in the alleyways of Baghdad. The mortally wounded in conflicts from Cuba, the Philipines, the Yanks that gave their lives in the South during the Civil War... the list is incredibly long for a nation that apparently lives for war.

How many years passes in our country before one of our politicians screams out for another war? We are a country of warriors... it has to be in the genes of the nation. Peace is our war cry but war is our means to peace.

We don't flourish under peacetime... we seem to grow weary of peace. There is always some country that needs to have our troops to help defend their political needs. We rise to the occasion under the banner of freedom.

Even within our own borders violence is a way of life. The most notorious murderers, those we label 'serial killers', are Americans, our our brand of terrorists born of fear and discontent that have hitched up with the Aryan factions, the kids that have armed themselves and willfully murdered their classmates and teachers.. again, the list goes on, but the fact remains - these are 'freedom loving' Americans.

Sure, we are a country of good people... the good far out number the fanatical few... that is a given, but there are times when I have to stop and wonder if those fanatical few have snuck their way into our highest offices..?

Witness today's headlines - the reports of prisoner abuse in Gitmo and our Vice President's remarks - condeming the messenger... he is 'offended' by those reports. Kill the messenger. The death stalkers in our country... kinda puts a chill of terror up the spine.

Memorial day... those are what I remember, unfortunately I presume... but nevertheless...

Nobody remembers the survivors of our nations wars. It's easier to remeber the fallen.. they were fewer. It's always been that way.. world wide, the few fall for the warmakers.

Enough.

shit

yeah the survivors
he was the best trucking partner in crime I ever had, He could not watch slasher movies, he was a big man, six four built like a gorilla. One night he shot a man in a alley behind a bar. Just a reflex, he warned him away twice, "leave me a lone" but the drunk had blood in his eyes, but did not realize it was going to be his own. then he just shot him. what goes around comes around. the violence don't stop when the boys come home. When my big buddy told me his story, all I could do was shrugg and say if I was you I would stay out of bars and avoid drunks. I wonder how he knew I was a priest to give his confession to.
ft bragg last year sharp spike in wives being murdered by returning vets. Don't want to paint the sterotype picture of crazy vets that the viet nam vets had to endure, but I hope the military is gearing up for a shit storm of pysche problems, maybe get some buddhists monks in there with the shrinks.


of course none of this is true, you know the difference between a truck driver and a cowboy
cowboys have the bullshit on the outside of their boots.

way enough
way too much
dam I got to stop coming here.

shoot me the next time I post before september.

ST your posts are all OK, just you doubt yourself, release your brakes.

L Rod, thanks to the POet's Eye for the Memorial Day thoughts.
I skipped out on the Vets for Peace vigil held across town as I had to be up early next morning for work. Got extra sleep and dogged it for two marathon days.....next year I'll reserve off both Memorial Day and also the next day as Tampa Bay Vets for Peace will have another vigil then, presuming the impending Iraq civil war hasn't chased all the surviving Yankee troops away by then.....

here is a video link to local news coverage of the Tampa Bay Vets for Peace vigil,
http://www.wtsp.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=14523
news story plus the video, need to wait thru the ad.

Bill Hines is the black fellow, speaks as clear as anyone.
The tall fellow is Jay, just back with a new liver!
We even had a Greek not-so Orthodox priest.

L Rod there are Poets Eye fans, telling you to keep them coming!

beer can memorial
canned heroes spent
nothing left but empty crumpled memories
and next year's blues

A Nation of what?

Conspiracies, CoverUps, Truths,
Facts, Oddities, Research



Research Material

REPORT FROM IRON MOUNTAIN ON THE POSSIBILITY
AND DESIRABILITY OF PEACE

WITH INTRODUCTORY MATERIAL BY
LEONARD C. LEWIN

"A BOOK THAT SHOOK THE WHITE HOUSE."
--US. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT


Report from Iron Mountain unveils a hitherto top-secret report of
a government commission that was requested to explore the
consequences of lasting peace on American society. The shocking
results of the study, as revealed in this report, led the government
to conceal the existence of the commission--they had found that,
among other things, peace may never be possible; that even if it
were, it would probably be un-desirable, that "defending the
national interest" is not the real purpose of war; that war is
necessary; that war deaths should be planned and budgeted.
REPORT FROM IRON MOUNTAIN tells the story of how the
project was formed, how it operated, What happened to it. It
includes the complete verbatim text of the commission's hitherto
classified report.

". . . so elaborate and ingenious and so substantively original,
acute, interesting and horrifying, that it will receive serious
attention regardless of its origin."
--The New York Times

"The first major result of the transformation of the war game
into the peace game."
--Irving Louis Horowitz,
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

"Should be the occasion for new public demand for a
penetrating examination and evaluation of government reports on
strategic planning for disarmament and peace."
--The Editors of Trans-action

http://www.davidicke.net/tellthetruth/r ... iron1.html
A little bit before your time kido but this was one of the greatest hoaxes of the past fifty years. The power of myth. Thinking about a line from J. Krishnamurti, something about a religious man does not seek god, a religious man seeks to change society which is he himself, he does not chant endless mantras, try to explain the Gita or the Bible, he does not cling to a dead cultrue.
Warriors what do we do when war must be made obsolete.


Yeah jimbo can't you smell that smell,

Well, I was drivin' off the top when she jarred and the driveshaft broke,
started pumpin' up the brakes, saw 'em going in a big cloud of smoke.

Hard for me to work from anger, doing my compassionate best with them, buddhists freaks not as dangerous as jesus freaks, but annoying. did I tell you about my dream last night, I had this enormous prick and it was hard as a rock. If you got my back door partner I am going to keep on trucking. This place too much fun to say good bye. Just correct me when I a wrong, and then we can fight about that.
gracias my amigo
Cecil going just run with it. Nothing personal, just a compulsive scribbler, that is why I wound up a four f hippy conscientious objector, a zennist from budda (texas) Those steams of yours as close as I can get to a quacker meeting. We quackers are very tolerant of heathens. We have no dogma but a lot of Katma, we have the amygdala of a tiger surgically inserted into our brains. We also have a five day sabbath. Because in our religion we have not killed off the goddess, that abomination on the mountain tops that scared those hebrew children shitless

kissassinger was there for sure,
the iron man of the moun tain,
undelpeted bullshit
the peace dividend planned out
rejected
for more of the same
a planned game underneath economic, political, military crapola

oh don't know what to seek any more, it's really a game of hide and seek anyhow!

still trucking
with a priapism
when he woke
needs to take a toke
of pot to smoke
and ponder once again all these things, ahem.

I think there is a silent vigil every tuesday in Sanato, never hear anything about it on the happy news hour but I think it is still going on. I got check it out.


Hey Kido
Sorry about that Mr. Mynd, I know you ain’t no spring chicken, you just sound young. And I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. But Levi occasionally sounded like a fourteen year old Methodist. “dues fucking paid” imagine that. I used to think I was exempt from dues too, I got a with drawl card from the teamsters. But my dues to the goddess are way in arrears.

when you think your dues are paid
you'll be laid out dead
everyday dues
the sky is blue
chop wood carry water
and remember
the young person's life you save
with your counter-recruiting
will accord you absolutely no merit
no matter no mind
the empty beer can altar memorial shrine
saves all sentient beings!

http://www.orr.justblow.us/joint