Rant to A Friend

D,
There are times in my moments of deepest despair that I wonder if I ever did come back home. I went as an idealistic 18 year-old and seemed to come back with the cynicism of an old embittered man. Is that coming back? I don’t know. But that’s the way things happen in life. We make one fateful decision when we’re young and it changes the course of our entire life. I know you can certainly relate to that.
There are also some moments in time which I find life is glorious because by absolute happenstance I’ve met people or seen things that lift the darkness to reveal beauty, kindness and love; yeah love. Meeting P-- was one of those times. Seeing my sons born were also times like that. The path that led me to the struggle for peace has shown me many of those times. The introductions to the passionate and caring people like you are also such times.
Sometimes I wonder if being ignorant of world affairs, choosing to ignore poverty, buying into the great American dream of consumerism, being self-centered, allowing television to narcotize and insulate me and not wanting to hear anything that’s bad news isn’t healthier. Sometimes I almost wish I could overlook genocide, dying children every thirty seconds, smart bombs, collateral damage, destruction of the environment, consumerism that is epitomized by spending 5 billion dollars this year on Halloween and 500 billion dollars spent to destroy Iraq.
I wonder if there’s a balance in life that allows us to care but not be overwhelmed by all of it. If not overwhelmed, I wonder if there’s a way to not allow the anger to consume us. And yet not allow ourselves to believe we can meditate the world into peace and justice.

Yeah, I’m angrier than ever about the band (USMC band mentioned) and the dirge it plays. I’m pissed at Christians in name but despicable and hateful Pharisees in actions. I’m pissed at the smug and self-serving liberals who divide up in a thousand special interest groups fighting one another while the world burns in the background. Are they any better than the tyrants and fascists who have succeeded in their attempts to widen the gap between the rich and the poor? Can you own a hybrid and live in a 10,000 square foot home and still be considered progressive while the rest of the world lives in squalor?
In my youth I lost myself in sports. I played baseball from sunrise to sunset in the summers. I played football in the fall and basketball in the winter. When I wasn’t playing I was watching. I filled my mind with the inane statistics of the batting averages of people like Aaron and Mantle and the passing percentages of Unitas and Tarkenton. I imagined jumping like Elgin Baylor and shooting like Jerry West. These were my heroes.
As I matured the natural progression from the wars of the playing field became the wars of nationalism. Young men fighting for words like democracy and freedom became my heroes. Skilled liars from rich and elitist families indoctrinated us with the idealism of fantasy. They made us believe they were with us and like us instead of the pawns of empire we really were. And when my time was up on the playing fields of empire I was like a pawn taken by the knight in a chess game of war and nationalism; pushed aside and discarded.
Now I’ve become the bitter and angry old veteran who watches as a new roster of pawns play on a new field of death and lies. New liars with the same lies are better able to distribute their lies but they are the same lies. The constant weeding out of the impoverished and the weak continues while the obscenely wealthy become even more obscene.
Now the masses continue with the delusional belief they too can become wealthy and have the fairy tale life. Instead they become prisoners of debt in their foolish attempt to emulate the elite who grow even richer from the mindless spending. The children of the pawns continue to learn the lessons of capitalism and consumerism without thought of scenes like Cambodia in the 1970’s and Darfur in 2007. They can’t find Baghdad or Basra on the world map but know how to travel the fantasy world of Halo and Call of Duty.
The children no longer play on the vacant lots of my childhood. They no longer find the joy of school yard football. The adults found out they can control the kid’s games. They found out they can make billions from the games once played for the fans but now played for the corporate interests of mass media and their advertisers. The games once played in the sun are now played in “prime-time” with kids unable to watch unless they stay up well beyond their bedtime. Instead they play fantasy games with the images of the players on their X-Boxes.
Our games, our entertainment and our lives are part of the nationalistic plot of the military-industrial complex. Fear and wars keep the masses in line to perpetuate the game. Lies told often enough become truth to the feeble-minded. Right becomes wrong and wrong becomes truth and righteousness. Priests and men of God continue to push the lies that lead the poor to the killing fields. Fight for God, Allah or some other spiritual being that may or may not be myth or real.
People of color, people labeled “illegal” and people of poverty become either the pawns of war or the capital of the new prison industry. Prisons need bodies to flourish and the bodies of those unable to defend themselves in the “injustice system” of the wealthy bring great profits to private prisons without the word “rehabilitate” in their vocabulary.
The maintenance of fear requires the scapegoat. Hitler used the Jews, Christianity used the nations of Islamic belief and the tyrants of today use the invasion of “illegals” and the “Islamofascist” terrorists to continue the needed level of fear and hysteria.
The mindless masses tape windows with duct tape and store up water and food in fear of attack while their sons and daughters use weapons of horrific destruction to attack the innocents as well as the perceived enemy. They never question why there may be hate in the world for a nation that spends more on weapons than any other nation, spends 5 billion for a children’s holiday meant only to enrich the corporate coffers, utilizes slave labor to manufacture overpriced consumer items and rapes the environment of third world nations for the natural resources available to fuel the lifestyle of the few privileged to live in comfort.
I know I’ve been privileged to live in this land called America or to some the United States but the pride I once had has turned to shame. The words of the founders of this nation were grand and idealistic but shallow and hollow in truth. There never was a democracy in this nation. There never has been equality and justice for all. There’s never been freedom for all.
Division and hate continues to keep groups of people from joining together to bring the tyrants and criminals of war to justice. Foolish thinking that fosters racism, misogyny and injustice continues to flourish while the purveyors of evil hatefulness steal the soul and conscience of this nation.
America has become the Amerika of Franz Kafka in a way even the mind of Kafka couldn’t imagine. It has become Orwellian in ways “1984” failed to portray. Thought police and repression come in the guise of “homeland security” and anti-terrorism. The people endure searches and spying for security. They endorse torture to feel peace of mind. They look the other way as children die under the bombs of “peacekeepers”. The most important thing on their minds is the winner of American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
Politicians spend more than the GNP of most nations to win election and become the whores of the corporate masters who pay for special favors and looking the other way. If not the corporate masters, the Zionists use the guilt of the camps and the lure of geopolitical empire to push for the extinction of indigenous people and the theft of their lands. And still the progressives and liberals delude themselves into believing a letter or petition can make a difference. The sad truth is the system is broken and a revolution of ideas and new tactics will be necessary.
When I was young the thought of revolution seemed insane to me. But now I understand the words of Malcolm and Che were thoughtful and true. Now I understand Bobby Seale and the Panthers knew their letters and petitions were wasted efforts and only revolution could bring changes necessary for them to survive.
Every day I wonder why we fail to see the fantasy and lies we’ve been taught. I wonder why we can’t see the emperor without clothes and the wizard as the small man behind the curtain. I wonder what it takes before the darkness of nationalism will give way to the dawn of a new age of cooperation and awareness. And then I realize I’m the deluded one.
The lies of leaders and the corporations exploiting the workers continue unabated and yet the American people sit in a stupor without protest. The constant giving back to the company without loyalty or anything in return goes on without so much as a whimper because somehow the workers fear they’ll lose what little they’re left with. They long ago gave up the little dignity they once had before the unions were thrown out.
Ah, but you knew that anyway.
This is a response to your letter telling me of your love and gratitude I did return from my own personal nightmare. Such words of encouragement sustain me, believe me.
I write rants of discouraging things I observe. I should take time to write ones of the inspiring people like you who do sustain me. The dangers of dissent are great and the payoff is seldom what it should be. And yet there are so many willing to carry on. For all of you, I’m grateful and my heart full of love.
See you when I see you…..peace and love
T