Furniture

--
Of shipwreck and stranded souls
desiring rescue on distant shoals...
---
Thick with
homicidal natives,
painting pianos,
straight-backed chairs,
and hands that gesture
but never touch...
                our space was found.
----
This bed a gentler shore
bodies bank upon
with no desire for rescue.

Winning the Past, or The New Gilded Age

We are now suffering the wages of Reagan's sins of

debilitating labor value, increased military spending,

and deregulating corporate entities the successive four

Presidents have irresponsibly continued. The American

people have masochistically elected candidates who will

not only continue the sins of Reagan but go further and

usher in the social inequalities of the 19th century.

------------------------Me, 11/03/2010.

--------------------------------------------------------

The present financial crisis was entirely created by

private financiers. A collapse engineered by investment

banks utilizing collateralized debt securities to create

a leveraged ponzi scheme that resulted in the public

bailing out these bad actors with trillions. Now the debts

come home. Pensions lost billions through buying these

triple A rated CDS "crap". For years the Right has demonized

Labor as a danger to the Market. It continues this bogus

scapegoating when they pin the present debt crisis on them.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

People all over the US have uncritically accepted the

idea that Labor Unions are an enemy to "American

Enterprise". Nothing can be further from the truth. It is

an essential part of any Market that Laborers can join

together and form Cartels(Unions) to lobby for better

conditions, rights and pay. The interest of Labor has a

right to be heard. It is interesting to note in the past 30

years, as Labor Unions have been considerably weakened,

wages have remained stagnant or went down and income

inequality is at record levels. When tax burdens are eased

for Corporations and the super wealthy who is asked to

shoulder the burden? The economically disadvantaged

are asked to tighten belts they don't have the luxury of

owning. Scapegoating the poor has been a successful

political strategy for 30 years. If Union busting efforts

in the Midwest are granted success the United States will

descend to Gilded Age squalor.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Obama's relative silence on this issue is telling.

It's better to shore up Corporate Donors than support Labor.

He's established himself as a lackey for Corporatist and Finance

interests. We're already close to Gilded Age conditions. One

hopes the Union busting effort is defeated and inspires a

backlash.

Diplomatic Immunity and Drone Bombing: Life Can't Get Any Cheaper in Pakistan

"Certainly a dangerous gift, power without kindness, inventive

slyness without understanding. The corruptedly cultivated human

being wants only to be able, to have, to rule, to enjoy, without

considering to what end he is able, what he has, and whether what

he calls enjoyment does not eventually turn into the killing of all

enjoyment."

----Herder, Letters for the Advancement of Humanity, #115.

Recently in Lahore, Pakistan a US private security contractor,

Raymond Davis, was arrested by Pakistani police for the murder

of two men. He was alone with an unregistered gun in a crowded

business district of the city. One of the victims was shot in the

back. The first few days after the alleged crime a tale was spun

that Davis had no connections to the US Embassy in Pakistan and

that he killed the two men out of self defense. When the ballistics

of the event were established and numerous witnesses stepped

forward the self defense argument evaporated. Strangely, after

guilt seemed more likely from forensics, the US Embassy reversed

it's early dismissal of Davis by stating he's a diplomat and deserves

immunity. Yesterday President Obama stated, falsely I might add,

that Davis should not be held for the crime of murder because of

International Standards on Diplomatic Immunity. First, immunity

does not cover all crimes committed by Diplomatic personnel. Grave

crimes, and we believe a double murder reaches this standard, do

not, by those same standards, merit the protections of Diplomatic

Immunity. Second, Diplomatic Immunity can only be enforced when

a diplomat is in the process of performing diplomatic functions. I

doubt Davis was attending a function illegally armed and shooting

two men. Can one foresee the tortuous casuistry in attempting to

state a double murder while alone in a business district was a

Diplomatic Function. Third, since when are private security

contractors labelled "diplomats"? And what of the early disavowals

of the alleged murderer as an "outside actor" not connected to the

US Government?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The President of the United States is now trying to help an alleged

murderer escape due process in Pakistan. Ironic the US denies

due process and all rights of recourse, habeas corpus etc., when

when we suspect a Pakistani may be connected to the killing of

an American. The US drone bombing policy is based on a Legal

Standard that people alleged to be "terrorists" can be killed,

along with innocent bystanders, without any legal process observed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US policy explicitly states it can murder suspects in foreign lands

without any judicial consideration while US financed private security

contractors are allowed to murder people in the same land under

the protection of Diplomatic Immunity. This policy is consistent

in its standard of providing impunity for the lawless enforcement of

executions committed by the forces of US empire in foreign lands.

It also exposes the psychotic insistence that the US can murder

suspects without any standard of legality and can also evade any

kind of accountability when a contractor is caught murdering

people. A complete lack of fealty to any standard of International

Law is what the US demands. But when a single actor is caught

committing a grave crime they run for the protections of that

same disparaged International Law.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pakistan is on the brink of chaos. Senator John Kerry has been

sent to Pakistan to negotiate for Davis' release. If the Pakistani

gov't succumbs to US pressure there will be riots. Our supposed

ally will suffer a grave debasement in its people's eyes. If he is

released there will be unrest and the likelihood of a Coup by

the military. No future regime will be unable to cool the rage of

the people by aiding US interests concerning AF-PAK efforts.

The people are already deeply enraged by the escalating Drone

Bombing policy of President Obama inside Pakistan. Thousands

of women and children have been killed. Add an American

private security contractor granted immunity from judgement on

a murder charge and one more match will be thrown on dry grass.

Revolting Myopia

"Liberalism and revolution, restoring Louis XVI with tears
and listening to him(out of goodness)."
-----Dostoyevsky, Notes to The Double.



Western Corpress and their attendant barnacles, think tank
funded pundits , are taken by the Romanticism of the revolts
in Tunisia and Egypt. They chant paeans to Social Media and
Democracy while never stating the clear cause of these revolts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Their Myopic predilection for pageantry and aerial view camera
shots of crowds below and "peaceful demonstrations" has taken
up all analysis--except, of course, when one wishes to stress the
threats to our "indispensible friend", Israel. But, even then,
fearmongering falls to the joie de vivre of poor young folks
protesting penury. Who funded this economic inequality? Who
loaded Egyptian leaders and their monolithic Military/Security
State with arms and treasure?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Western economic policy, feeding the tyrannical state, created
this oppression. Present day US currency policy has also spiked
food prices throughout the world. These rises have hit poor
nations hard. There have been Food and Fuel Price riots in Africa,
Asia, Eastern Europe and South America.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Revolutions have always found a trigger in rumbling bellies.
Economic inequality and hunger are a recipe for Revolt in all
societies, regardless of political or religious adherence.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Debasement of currencies coupled with inflating commodity prices
is the underlying cause of these revolts. It is strange none of the
experts mention this. Instead we have ready made villains, Ali and
Mubarak(who, indeed were kleptocratic tyrants). These two tyrants
lasted for decades. Why did they fall now? It's fitting to label them
as monsters, but doing so solely to erase the true trigger for these
revolts does a disservice. Americans are quite happy living under
a Government that rewards Banks that commit larceny on a scale
never seen in human history. At the same time they accept the
continuing destruction of their wealth and rights as the wealth and
rights of corporate entities increase. Why aren't they revolting?--Not
enough rumbling tummies. Commodity inflation has yet to hit US shores
as hard as it has hit North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. When it
does, US Corpress types and think tank lackeys don't want you adding
2+2 to get 4. The US isn't led by monsters like Ali or Mubarak. Why
would their people ever revolt?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Narrative control methodically keeps silent what's most feared. It's an
elective myopia which displaces the underlying cause of events for a
greater cause.

A Peaceful Transition No One Can Believe In

“To ask a dictator to implement democratic measures

after thirty years in power is an oxymoron. It will not

end until he leaves."

-----------Mohamed ElBaradei.

--------------------------------------------------------

Expecting time to peacefully usher in meaningful reforms while

an autocrat clings to his throne is exemplary of either extreme

naivete or blithe calculation.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Knowing US policy in the Middle East hinges on Israeli concerns

one would choose the latter. As I have written before, the US is

publicly extending and pretending bland support for "the people"

while secretly hoping Mubarak or his chief torturer, Suleiman,

remains and the world's attention span decamps.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incremental reform is an insult to people who have lived under

oppression for three decades wholly financed by US leadership.

The longer this crisis goes the worse the outcome will be for

US interests in the Middle East. By dithering and riding the fence

to look "correct" the world sees fumbling calculation. Obama's

administration is being too clever by more than half. Mubarak

is openly defying US demands with their own "stability"

rhetoric. He has learned well from Netanyahu. You can openly

insult the hypocritical and corrupt US government with impunity.

Look at the War Criminals of our previous and present

administration. Our leaders mouth fine phrases and endorse

the rule of law but grant implicit pardon for all crimes with the

bromides "looking forward" and "change we can believe in".

How do the empty phrases "peaceful transition" and "stability"

sound any different to Mubarak? He hears, much like the Bankers

did when Obama vowed "to allow markets to sort out results" in

foreclosure fraud, carte blanche permission to crack down on the

people regardless of tough rhetoric. Obama's policy is an inverted

form of Theodore Roosevelt's:

He speaks harshly but carries no stick.

-------------------------------------------------------

President Obama and the US State Department clearly show

more concern about Public Relations than the Egyptian

people and, ironically, their own interests. All easily see

post festum palliatives of a bankrupt empire straining to be

meaningful and "stately" in all the official announcements of

Obama, Biden and Clinton. Like a surprised autocrat they

miss a clear and present truth by seeking shelter from the

fear of being on the wrong side of a popular movement.

Power is always terrified of change and over-promotes

stability and peace in defense.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mubarak and his US paymasters are caught colluding openly

to save face by attempting to maintain previous conditions

under a new name. This rebranding of oppression is doomed.

The Egyptian people, and every sane person on this planet,

sees through the comical disconnect of rhetoric from action.

City of Victory

The river runs from us.
Above it's hum
our cries lift up to
take the false one.

We gather like grass
along the banks
and stretch green limbs
to the sun.

In measured light
we take given right
and claim ourselves
over the false one.

We fashion crowns
in the pressing square
and perfect our share
in equal victory.

"Let Them Eat Massacre"

"I don’t like to use labels for folks. Mubarak is a good man.

He has done good things. He has maintained stability. We

will continue to support him. He is a friend."

--U.S. President Obama before Cairo Speech, June 2009.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The US Gov't's fence-riding on Egypt allows time and space for

Mubarak to call out henchmen to create violence as a pretext

for a crackdown in the interests of "stability". It is a cynical

approach that awaits the failure of state sponsored violence

or its success. In essence, President Obama and Secretary of

State Clinton are allowing their friend Mubarak some time to

kill and maim enough people to quell a revolution to rid Egypt

of his tyranny. Maybe he can outlast the uprising with

intransigence. Clearly the US wants Mubarak or someone like

him, General Suleiman, to keep US friendly "stability" in place.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The latest State Department trial balloon of suggesting Mubarak's

torture master, General Suleiman, take over and Mubarak leave

insults anyone who knows Egypt and likely infuriates Egyptians.

It is a clear sign the US is not interested in democracy for Egypt.

And the Corpress alive with fearmongering about the Muslim

Brotherhood shows the elite are terrified of Egyptian people

choosing their own rulers.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

US folks sould take notes about how Mubarak is cracking down

by shutting down the internet and then turning it back on as

he brutalizes protesters and assaults journalists. The same may

occur within a few years here in the land of "freedom".

US Loath to Lose Tyrants and Designated Torture Masters of Egypt

The United States government stands to lose a

"great friend and stable ally" in Mubarak's Egypt.

President Mubarak and his Chief of Interior, General

Omar Suleiman, Head of Secret Police and its torture

chambers,freshly minted as Vice President, are now

sending provocateurs out to sow anarchy in the streets

inspiring fear in the people who despise them. They have

even opened prisons to increase anomie in the hopes

that people will long for their brand of "order". President

Obama is keen to stress that peaceful demonstrators have

rights setting the defense for Mubarak and Suleiman to

crack down on "violent protestors" to foster "good old days"

stability.

--------------------------------------------------------

Since the Presidency of George W. Bush the

government of Egypt has been a proxy torturing

center for the US in the Global War on Terror.

General Suleiman not only appeases US demands

for torture but goes further and heads an extensive

army of Secret Police which also terrorizes and tortures

Egyptian people who dare oppose President Mubarak's

tyranny. President Mubarak and General Suleiman are

also great friends of Israel and aid the blockade of Gaza.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Egyptian Military receives over a billion dollars in

US aid every year. The Tear Gas canisters, tanks and guns

used in the streets of major Egyptian cities are paid for by

US taxpayers. Our tax dollars bolster up torturers and tyrants

in Egypt. It is no surprise an Egyptian protestor shouts at

US Corporate Media cameras, "Get out of our country!".

US leadership backs a tyrannical and torturing kleptocracy

that lives on the backs of the people with arms and money.

They are well paid torturers and follow their paymaster's

lead in the Middle East, ignoring the plight of the people.

President Obama and the State Department refuse to place

pressure on President Mubarak to leave a nation that rejects

him. United States aid is the only thing that props up

Mubarak's reign. The longer US rides the fence on Mubarak

the messier the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez will

become.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It must be said that US Economic policy, driven by Federal

Reserve currency printing and Wall Street Speculators, has

created worldwide inflation in the prices of essential

commodities. Food and fuel prices have skyrocketed. People

of all nations are suffering as champagne glasses sparkle and

toasts ring out in Davos. The International Banking Cartel

asks for trillions more dollars to "handle" world wealth for

their benefit. The beginning of the revolt in North Africa

began as a protest against inflation and the kleptocratic rule

of a crony political class. How removed are those conditions

from the US and many other "Western Democracies"?

If Mubarak falls in Egypt, which appears inevitable, he will be

the second ally of the US War on Terror to fall in North Africa.

Is Colonel Qhaddafi next?

Myshkina's Discretion

A voice slips from virgin
lips bunted in lush crimson.

It whisks away accounted gray.

Her hand in mine runs current
of pneuma flooding everything.

Praise of Bullets

A pull of the trigger and magically, with scant effort, opposition
is abolished...the crisp scent of gunpowder spells a pointed
calm...every bullet a tiny urn crammed with enchanted dust...
Ithyphallic and industrially pristine with a sharp
metallic profile...oversized bottom a pedestal for the shaft's
rise to pointed head...Rockets we pocket in chambers cold as 
mortician's heart...

Struck by the infernal ingenuity of man contriving to
so easily erase life...this glory we build upon...why 
shouldn't all engage? Enough bullets to plink every star 
from clear night skies...shoot down heaven to liberate fortune...

This envoi is carried on wafer shaped dishes unsettling
the peace in our smiles...it makes hearts swell...
they open and drink up blood spilled...the 
anonymity of those passed discovered, 
just as the humble stone cutter from Galilee played 
Deicide...One universal gesture of grace...a movement, 
Parmenides' sail bruising Terpsichore's heel...we hiss 
like broken samovars, eyes wider than evil's gate. 
Let me lick my fingers to part your hair and love
you with well aimed words. Carve our names on every 
bullet and we'll commune in massacre.

Pellic Abyss

Dark tresses spun
from Fallen Angel's wing.
Black lace covers Sun
where damned souls sing.


Starless heaven's robe
from God's rage wove,
curb the dizzy globe
where lustful eyes rove.


Sated hearts shun
where flush limbs bend,
and hands lushly run
to the delicate end.

The MLK They Hide

YouTube - Martin Luther King, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"


MLK speaking out against a criminal war and social injustice.

Happy MLK Day.

Rhetorical Wishes

We cannot shed imperfection. If rhetoric was less about
suggestion and more about forensics, i.e. openly accepting
limitations, embarking on discovery and not solely aiming
to vanquish rhetorical "foes", maybe it'd touch what's best
in us and not incite the worst. Here I invoke the Socratic
ideal: Midwivery in discussion, not combat.

The contemporary inability to discuss things openly without
descending into partisan bromides is the symptom of an age
that embraces anti-intellectualism and worships success,
especially via force majeure.

I realize these are vague notions and not rigorous prescriptions.
They do not address any issue directly. It is not evasive to
welcome tangential reflections and allow words to essay every
association freely without shame.


"Mind" is a vague locus for everything arbitrarily placed above
sensation. A surplus value that, sadly, can't escape the division
of labor.

Twilight 'Zona: American Exceptionalism and the Collapse of Civility

"By isolating the case and by depriving it of the right to be

examined in conjunction with the generic whole(and therein

consists the only defense of the unfortunate "delusioned" ones),

you thereby, as it were, not only seal the final verdict against

them, but you even alienate from them mercy itself, because you

are directly asserting that their very errors were caused solely

by their repulsive qualities and that these youths, who even are

guilty of no crime, must arouse contempt and disgust."

----Dostoevsky, "One of the Contemporaneous Falsehoods".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the quote above Dostoevsky notes the denial of the Russian

Intellegentsia to honestly examine the Nechaev case. Newspapers

and journals were filled with stories about deluded loners and

exceptionally insane idiots leading the anarchist group's murder

of a doubting member. Nobody could except that a sane and educated

Russian could ever do such evil. Peruse US newspapers after the

recent massacre in Arizona. History is sadly repeating itself. No

way a sane, educated "American" could plan and carry out this

kind of massacre! Mentioning the "Guns and Ammo" rhetoric of

reactionary US politicians was deemed irresponsible and unfair.

No mention of the complete absence of minimal Gun Laws in the

state of Arizona. No mention of the deep economic depression the

US now experiences. All of that is hushed and the actor is considered

a lone acting lunatic and nothing could be done. Lots of pious

hand wringing, no rational analysis of the inability of mental health

services for millions of "Americans" but, absurdly, easy access to

guns for the mentally ill. The thousands of women and children

killed by US drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen

do not merit a mention. Poor dark people are not as human or

innocently sacrosanct as white americans or a politician who

votes to fund the Drone bombing policy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Movies and TV glorify guns, explosions and violence. Torture was

glorified on fictional TV series like "24". The plight of US occupiers

in Iraq was wept over in a film that completely ignored over a million

Iraqi dead in "The Hurt Locker". Empire has its discontents for the

poor "Americans" killing wholesale and destroying the social fabric

of a nation. That's mainstream "Liberalism" in the US. "There's no

joy in being the world's largest arms dealer and mass murderer of

poor brown people!" "Torture is okay when we do it to Muslims and

we don't have to see it!" "Nevermind the daily torture of thousands

of prisoners in our own country! They're poor and they deserve it!"

Mainstream "Conservatism" is worse. It feels that any recognition

of something rather than the ardent celebration of US Military power

and excessive support for the inequality of wealth is akin to treason.

They mock paraplegics who ask for healthcare reform as commies.

They kick them and throw dollars down contemptuously and laugh

at their plight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now we have calls for greater Police State measures. Offers to make

laws against dangerous speech. Which is interesting bearing in mind

that most of the inflammatory speech in the US is coming from politicians

and their paid minions in Corporate Media. But Politicians and the Media

Elite can never be held accountable for their lapses. No, the people must

suffer for them. When the Big Banks failed who bailed them out? Who

was punished? The people. In this bizarro world where crimes are committed

by our supposed Government servants and cheered on by their corporate

media claques the criminals walk and the people are punished. If the shooter

in Arizona was Jamie Dimon we'd have editorials and news programs about

how he "never could have foreseen that a loaded gun fired into a crowd of

people would have killed anyone".

------------------------------------------------------------

In the US the love of comfort, wealth and success is oddly coupled with an

admiration for guns, military and torture. "Americans" also love to exalt

the wealthy while rushing to scapegoat the weakest and poor of the world

and their own society. Civil Society no longer exists in the US. It is a

consumption culture. Anything that gets in the way of business, comfort

and delusions of exceptionalism must be destroyed. The US is a psychotic

who abhors the truth. When Wikileaks exposed US policy, its policy of war

crime and torture, it was vilified as an enemy that must be wiped out. How are

the US politicians and Media commentators different from Islamic

Fundamentalists who issued Fatwas on Salman Rushdie when they call for

the elimination or assassination of Julian Assange? Americans refuse to

see the madness of their culture. They deny it. When it is shown to them

they either become enraged and call for the destruction of the messengers

or write it off as an aberration not exhibiting the "exceptional" nature of

what being "American" is about. When US citizens see mass murderers,

torturers and high level financial criminals walk and, furthermore, receive

greater rewards despite their heinous acts, why should they have qualms

about "joining the club"? The shooter's acts in Arizona mirror the psychosis

of US policy in the world and in its own society. Unfortunately the US Gov't

never asks for defense because overwhelming power needs none----

But, do not cry, they have an army of well paid claques in the MSM singing

their praises and celebrating the glorious expansion of "Free Markets"

and the eternally unmatched heroism of US Military personnel. So,

remember well, a mass murder committed by a US Citizen is an act of

unexplainable madness and delusion. Mass murder, torture and

destruction of civil society by US elites needs no defense because we're

the greatest nation in the Universe forever.

That's reasonable.

FAMAS(Corporal Patain)

Frigid, rough, and damp,
skin of Cimmerian eves
warping reflection
like father's curse

Seductive as a fallen Queen,
my sweet death

Angelus
of hollow mouths
and gutted breasts

Your cold surface
shakes me from sloth

Annunciation
of the Seraphic spell
of powder and shell.

A Scan's Echo

Her smile, a constellation,
marks eyes brightly
down.

A metaphysics hushed...

Breath lost as her hands,
clasped,
conjure dream.

Diachronous chorals 
sing the leaves,
days strewn carelessly, 
covering wishes.