24 - Reprehension

Some of the Bush regime's chickens may be coming home to roost, but Hollywood could well be providing the fox that guards the hen house of public opinion. Of course, I'm referring to the new season of Torture is Us: "24 - Redemption", the television series that made torture acceptable to so many minds in the U.S. I'm not sure how many times it needs to be said in order for the obvious to sink in, but the ancient and despicable practice of waterboarding really IS torture (as opposed to "enhanced interrogation") and it really IS illegal. Ramming prisoner's heads into walls and a long list of similar atrocities are classified as torture as well. These are things "24"'s Jack Bauer has been "entertaining" audiences with for years now. What's wrong in this picture? Need you ask??

Now, in its' eternal wisdom, Hollywood is once again trying to cash-in on the next new thing; in this case collective guilt and shame for allowing this nation to slip quite a few notches below what's believed to be civilization. Truth be known, the lesser elements in the USA have always tortured. Cops, prison guards, criminals, abusive parents. But in terms of the military and federal law enforcement, the nation has always prided itself on a sort of righteous image of being above such vile practices.....until the likes of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush took the reins of power. With the onset of the post-9/11 security hysteria that swept the nation, Hollywood gave us "24" nearly 24/7 (recall that most mainstream TV news organizations are now arms of the entertainment industry). The corporate news media has been dancing around the terminology of torture for years now, perhaps hoping the whole thing would go away. This is merely justification or obfuscation dressed-up as news reporting. "24 - Redemption" apparently is more of the same.

It seems Jack Bauer will remain the true grit all-American hero trying to do the "right thing" with all his right stuff. In the series Bauer will be called before congress to explain his illegal tactics (that, in truth, are also immoral and that do not work in the real world) and it appears he will be given the Ollie North mantle of the beleaguered warrior going over the line to "defend America" against (your villain here). Least we forget: Ollie North was not only a far-right ideologue posing as righteous patriot, but also a crook. Television viewers watched Jack Bauer torture bad guys for years. Probably the vast majority of them thought that was OK. It wasn't. Jack Bauer represents a truly bad precedent: illegal, immoral and ineffective action dressed-up as patriotism. Bauer is so Bush era. It's time for change.

brother

the wheel in your hand
across this fertile land
so many songs you've sung
so many hours ground down
lenses scoping out the action
the reactions, surprised
parties averted gazes and
the twelve steps to nowhere.
vice grip pliers held that
wheel in place, a two-tone
bus with us half grown
steering our way, off to
the highway, the long, long
winding road home, the stolen flag
a bartender's gift, like a
splash in the plaza fountain
without all that fame to
distract us, to grab the wheel
coming loose in our hands.
 
 
 
 

bridge to nowhere

you're my own personal bridge
to     no    where
you collect people like stamps
the initial fascination before
closing the book, to return to
whenever, like social networking

done alone

in the privacy of your home,
another thumbnail, perfectly
preserved, among others, so
diverse, on your B-list, out
there in the wilderness, on
the path where snakes mate,
making you uneasy, too raw,
too close/this bridge leads
me to think i should turn
back. where are you
taking me    today?
 
 
 
 

Passages we have known

we thought we ought to have hope
or hopelessness would have won
the ballots stacked against us
the chains, all those chains linking
us to some strange history
a real page turner, a mystery
so many of us without a clue
so many graves, so many shoulders.
the chains fall away but
the cost is heavy.

Eight years without a President

Finally, we have a President after eight years of unelected, disastrous leadership from a political party whose ranks are, for the most part, filled with white neo-conservatives. This writer has not spoken the word "president" in those eight long years. Now I can. What a relief. The fact that The President is half black and half white is however, an even greater relief, especially for a recovering racist such as myself.

It seems like we've come full circle. The Middle Passage has led to that immaculate passage going into the Oval Office, the one Barack Obama will walk through in a White House built by black slaves; the house that was home to more than a few slave owning white presidents. His wife, Michelle, descended from slaves, will walk through that same passage; will live in that same house. So will their children.

Now, one day after the national holiday recognizing Martin Luther King and the struggle for civil rights, the nation's first African-American gets sworn into the highest office in the land. Soon, the first African-American Attorney General and the first African-American EPA Administrator in the nation will take office. All this and more, two-hundred and thirty three years after the words "all men are created equal" gave birth to this nation.

There's more. The President's mother was white, his father, black. The President was a senator from Illinois, the Land of Lincoln. The President quotes Lincoln, FDR, JFK and he just traveled to Washington for his inauguration as the 44th President of these United States in a parlor car on a train, just as Lincoln did. On a recent evening Obama took his family to the Lincoln Memorial to pay homage. Now, hundreds of thousands gather by that memorial for three days of celebration, jubilation, in the very place where Dr. King led the March on Washington in 1963 and revealed a dream "that (his) four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

The content of Barack Obama's character looks pretty good so far (though I take issue with some of his positions on the issues). I look forward to saying that often about his character in the future. I look forward to saying President Obama, often as well.

O eight thanks

while we're giving thanks
be glad if no one's shooting
at you, in the desert or
from the blind, a platform
dressed in camo or blood
red, the last color we saw
has changed, pray for that
give thanks out of the blue
just in time we hope
to save the planet and
what's left of tattered
documents penned by hand
long before social networking
was done alone, thanks
for broken banks and an
opening for what's real:
your warm embrace, words that
smooth the edges of this page
a family at the table with
little to argue, forgiving
thanks.

The White House Torture Sonnets

[These offerings are a poetic protest covering the past eight years in U.S. political history. I am not of the opinion (like many so-called major poets are) that political or protest poetry is somehow less valid than yet another poem about oneself. I have used the out-of-fashion sonnet format (loosely, i might add) given that sonnets are so often associated with love poems or other lofty matters. Get real: White House sanctioned torture is a major crime on so many levels; it is the opposite of love; it is also YOUR tax dollars at work.

The White House Torture Sonnets are now available in pocketbook form. Proceeds for its' sale will go toward furthering the work of independent media at Valley Free Radio in Western Massachusetts. To order a copy send an email to lionoak@gmail.com - d.o. ]





I.

Gathered in an oval office
projecting a new american century
with an awful callus calmness
deceit, betrayal at every entry;
filthy rich and unelected
commanding views, manufactured consent,
all dissent firmly rejected
all reality to reinvent.
Outside the roses in the garden
drop their flowers, shed their leaves
as the land begins to harden
resisting footprints of traitors, of thieves;
when will their plans be laid bare open
and justice brought to such as these?


II.

Towers burning, we all fall down,
crimes go unpunished, plots are drawn,
flags unfurled, doubtful come around
and all sense of reason seemingly gone.
The young line up and take an oath,
fed, housed and clothed, then reconfigured,
taught to kill, taught to loath
then cast into the fire undeterred
and held in the fire, time after time
as the family shops in the distance
and they are cut down in their prime
or come home to a kind of resistance
or worse, and the greatest crime,
a long and enduring silence.


III.

They will invest with others' blood
amass more wealth than ever seen
their base will toast the coming flood
tell us exactly what does this mean?
Oil and empire, desert sand,
a knock on the door, a false alert.
It's pain and fear that sweeps the land,
hooded figures rise from the dirt.
There's something secured there to his hand,
there are dogs and blood, a world of hurt.
Your honor, may we take the stand?
You may speak but do not say a word
You may look but you must not observe,
pay no attention to what you've heard.

IV.

Medieval acts, brand new renditions,
basement level, bad situations,
more deprivation, more inquisitions,
more thrown elections, more bad relations,
unscheduled flights to painful places,
tropical views through chain link fences,
news reports of disappearing faces,
lost and forgotten in small screen trances.
Far overhead travels Air Force One,
grounded in blood, burning up heaven,
covering up the light from the Sun,
so many dreams so sadly riven
by those within and unattached
cruel, obsessed and madly driven.


V.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way"
high school civics, Hollywood
"we do not torture in the USA"
(at least not in the neighborhood).
It takes a certain kind of person
to attach electrodes to another
to administer pain, conditions worsen
as if they never knew a mother, a lover.
Monsters walk among us, don't be fooled
some obtain high office and such
some are born, some are schooled
White House grim shadow's clutch
beating hearts and reeling minds
as dark storms batter each parade.


VI.

Record these names in infamy too,
Bush; Cheney; Hadley; Rice;
Rumsfeld; Tenet; and Yoo,
All with malice and bad advice,
all traitors to humanity,
to the nation, habeas corpus, history
and any semblance of sanity,
lack of punishment a mystery.
Strange fruit and burning witches
the past burdens todays presentation,
turn the page to Republican niches,
greed, selfishness and conflagration,
the clock on the wall says time for justice,
it doesn't take much imagination.



VII.

Now we close this eight year trial,
the judge distracted, the jury dazed,
reporters’ scripts in deep denial,
the guilty set free; justice praised.
Another election to test the nation,
a new lot of fiction, counterfeit change
on sale today with disinformation
and attractive baubles, all very strange.
As pain is applied to taxpaying masses
and yachts sail off into sunset and shelter,
leaders forget history for what passes
and the peoples’ dreams go into the smelter.
A nation dissolving, principles in flames;
Who will resist? Who will swelter?



VIII.

You can fool some people all of the time
you can steal another election
the heralds will edit what's really a crime
then bury or spike the correction.
That other power can take to the street
but their efforts seem governed by ease
unless they are willing to turn up the heat
and the places of power are seized,
yes, the law will "administer compliance holds"
and inflict both misery and pain
but unless we are willing to break the molds
don't expect to win in this game.
You can't fool all the people all the time
even where the criminals reign.