I recall from my early teens, the “Judgment at Nuremberg” movie, which made a big impression then about “justice” and the “rightness and virtue” of the Allied cause.\u00a0 But when I watched the movie on TV, years later, it was the Richard Widmark character–one of the prosecuting colonels, I believe–who made the deepest impression because, by the end of the movie, it was he who saw how the whole process would devolve, how the “winners” would become corrupt and misuse their power, and, in fact, become just like the people they conquered!<\/p>\n
As usual, I have much to absorb and learn\u2026.<\/p>\n
Those political, Republicratic \u201cConventions\u201d clarified nothing and–despite the glitter, sparkle, balloons and flags, the pledges of allegiance, hands over the Constitution &\/or one\u2019s heart, the pretty words and gruff challenges\u2014they succeeded in confounding and bewildering.<\/p>\n
I have had 2 songs playing in my head since then.\u00a0 (That\u2019s not unusual because so much of modern life involves dredging up the subconscious fantasies and mingling them with the real horrors and fantasies of our Zeitgeist<\/u>.)\u00a0 \u201cWe are what we eat\u201d\u2026 and think, and feel, and dream\u2026.<\/p>\n
A recent song running thru my head is from the 1941 movie \u201cThe Strawberry Blonde,\u201d with James Cagney, Rita Hayworth and (the amazing centenarian–) Olivia de Haviland.\u00a0 If you\u2019re of my parents\u2019 generation and a (New Year\u2019s Eve) Guy Lombardo fan, you may hear a recording of this 1895 song here:<\/p>\n
httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=2bDo0dN3d5o<\/p>\n
It begins thus:<\/p>\n
\u201cCasey would waltz with the strawberry blond\u2026<\/p>\n
and the band played on.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d glide \u2018cross the floor with the girl he adored\u2026<\/p>\n
and the band played on.<\/p>\n
His brain was so loaded it nearly exploded,<\/p>\n
the poor girl would shake with alarm\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
And it continues\u2026.<\/p>\n
Somehow, Casey doesn\u2019t explode, the girl\u2019s alarm is assuaged, and \u201cthe band plays on.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this is the US political scene now!\u00a0 A barrage of imagery and fantasies\u2014onrushing and nearly exploding our heads\u2026 and the band plays on!<\/p>\n
Look for substance, and you will not find it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mirage.\u00a0 A chimera.\u00a0 It\u2019s smoke in your hands.<\/p>\n
I wondered about what some smart friends were thinking.\u00a0 After all, this is not just our phantasmagoria!.\u00a0 \u201cWe are the world,\u201d Michael Jackson sang.\u00a0 \u201cWe are the children.\u201d \u00a0(And, are we not the \u201cexceptional people\u201d?\u00a0 And doesn\u2019t that mean, as Obama informs us, that we have the duty to lead, and, as \u201cFull Spectrum Dominance\u201d implies: We have the right to define the terms\u2026?)<\/p>\n
A new friend, writing from Nigeria, responds:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US media is\u2026 foaming at the mouth with unsubstantiated allegations that Russia is attempting to influence US elections!\u00a0 The commentators on the US mainstream media declare: \u201cHow dare Russia try to influence our elections!\u201d Frankly, I can’t believe this level of foolishness and arrogance!\u2014coming from a country with such an unclean record of involvement in other countries for decades!\u00a0 This is another case of “we are exceptional and indispensable”<\/em>; and, “we involve ourselves in other countries\u2019 affairs for the sake of democracy and human rights<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Frankly, that makes me sick!\u201d<\/p>\n Wow!\u00a0 I remember Bette Davis in the movie based on Somerset Maugham\u2019s classic, Of Human Bondage<\/em>.\u00a0 Bette is telling her hapless lover, Leslie Howard, how, every time he kissed her he \u201cmade me sick!\u00a0 Made me sick!\u201d\u00a0 (Here Bette emphatically\u2014as only she could!–wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, expunging the horrid taste and memory!\u00a0 Just Google it!)<\/p>\n Could things be that bad?<\/p>\n I read an article by much-admired economist, political and social commentator, Paul Craig Roberts.\u00a0 I pass on the news to poet-friend and sometime-collaborator Charles Orloski:<\/p>\n \u201cI just read PCR’s latest, “Fissures in the Empire.”\u00a0 For the first time, as far as I know, he is calling Hillary “Hitlery”!\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 He\u2019s saying that the Dems want a war with Russia\u2014at least Cold War II.\u00a0 What do you think?\u00a0 Is that where we\u2019re headed?\u201d<\/p>\n Orloski replies:<\/p>\n \u201cI am 64 and I’m nearing life’s 9th Inning, & I’m fearful (angry!)\u2026. To hold my tongue now would be a betrayal of all that my life has amounted to.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst, I suggest that the majority of people (who ever lived) have wisely concluded that the “Law of the Lion” dampens their enthusiasm for having an actual “say” in world processes, including that of the “brimming” US Empire. \u00a0\u00a0 Second, many will accept being brought “lower” and will numbly work in suffocating cages, be happy with the US Empire’s general dehumanization program, and being served a bi-weekly paycheck that’s rapidly taken away by the negative pressure of appetites and bills!\u201d<\/p>\n And I respond: \u201cI\u2019m just finishing a book called \u2018Meet You in Hell,\u201d by Les Standiford–about Carnegie and Frick, the mass-killings during the Homestead Strike of 1892, our \u2018Gilded Age\u2019 (Twain\u2019s description) of the 1890s and early 1900s.\u00a0 Most Americans have no idea how long we have been in this circle of Hell!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Orloski: \u201cThere’s a very minimal percentage of humanity who see things from the long perspective\u2026. Knowing physical life is short, they try to mentally\/spiritually surmount ANYTHING which desires to make them \u2018lower.\u2019\u00a0 I can spend lots of time recounting American people and institutions which have tried to make me sink lower–to their futile exhaustion!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, I\u00a0can recall too many such people.\u00a0 The memories gnaw!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou may recall, how I noted in a previous email how de Chardin asserted, \u2018Anything that makes me sink lower, that is the real evil.\u2019\u2026 For me, as one who believes in both Man and God as described by de Chardin, I hope for the straight of mind and body to keep making positive progress despite all shapes & sizes of impediments, presented by evil “Lions,” Would Be Lions\u2026, and, lest I forget, the evil that lurks in my lower self.\u201d<\/p>\n Spoken\/written as a true poet\/seeker\/thinker.\u00a0 If only the hoi polloi<\/em> had done their homework, too!\u00a0 If only they were reading Tiellard de Chardin, thinking about evil lurking there\u2026 and within!<\/p>\n Most of us are not that advanced!\u00a0 Most Americans are still getting their news from the Howdy-Doody-TV-Network \u201cnewsmen\u201d and the Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring dolls of Fox.\u00a0 Six corporations\u2014and a very special group it is!– control our news \u201cmedia,\u201d and we best recall what Voltaire wrote:\u00a0 \u201cIf you want to know who controls you, look at those you are forbidden to criticize!\u201d<\/p>\n Some people do manage to get through the morass!\u00a0 I missed most of the Dem Convention (thank God!), including most of the Khan family mini-drama.\u00a0 But the mini-series ignited by the media played on\u2026 and on\u2026 and on.\u00a0 Friends sent me links, and I watched as that pathetic couple was exploited by the Dems and the Media–the hydra-headed Beast!<\/p>\n And no one asked, \u201cHow did their son wind up dying in a \u2018War on Terror\u2019 precipitated by the USA?\u201d<\/p>\n Or, \u201cWho is this maniac General Allen, whooping up the audience from the stage with war-cries about US exceptionalism, and who are these fools shouting back, \u2018USA!\u00a0 USA!\u00a0 USA!\u2019…?\u201d\u00a0 (It is reported later\u2014mostly in the Alternative Media, but also at Fox News, that those cries were drowning out protests from the \u201cBernie\u201d crowd and others: \u201cNo more war!\u201d\u00a0 The lights were also turned off on them!\u00a0 How symbolic!)<\/p>\n And what is the hydra-headed media response to this war-fever, this crazed American version of the Nuremberg Rally?<\/p>\n Well, remember Voltaire\u2019s dictum!<\/p>\n Fortunately, not all of us are dead or deadened by the US war-machine and its very complicit \u201cmedia.\u201d\u00a0 Activist-actress Margot Kidder would not be silenced:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2016\/07\/29\/my-fellow-americans-we-are-fools\/<\/a><\/p>\n Pivotal NATO \u201cally\u201d Turkey has an aborted coup de tat<\/em>, but our non-bright lights in the MSM can\u2019t cover that because they\u2019re too busy going over and over and over Trump\u2019s latest gaffe!\u00a0 This week, \u201cthe Donald\u201d has said a little too much about the \u201c2nd<\/sup> Amendment\u201d people getting together to defeat Hillary so that she can\u2019t appoint the next Supreme Court Justices.\u00a0 Anybody who watches the tape\u2014which is played over and over, as \u201cthe band plays on,\u201d will easily understand what he\u2019s saying.\u00a0 But, Dan Rather, revived from mummy-land, where he has been under wraps since his absurd performances as ABC news anchor, informs us\u2014as do others of his ilk\u2014that Trump is threatening assassination!\u00a0 What universe are these chumps living in?\u00a0 What shape-shifting lizards are they channeling?\u00a0 Why does no one of that inky ilk criticize former CIA head-honcho Mike Morell who writes a lead article for the New York Times <\/u>(\u201call the news that\u2019s fit to print\u201d) about how a Trump presidency threatens the Republic?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that signaling some nincompoop-patriot to assassinate Trump for the sake of preserving our \u201cdemocracy\u201d?<\/p>\n I ask with Job, \u201cWhere can wisdom be found?\u00a0 Where is the place of understanding?\u201d<\/p>\n If we are not constantly striving for the whole truths of history, we shall surely bury ourselves in the half-truths of it!<\/p>\n The extent of the delusions on all sides of our political system ascend and descend under the August heat dome!<\/p>\n Another song has been playing in my head these past few weeks\u2014a pleasant\u00a0 distraction from the insane distractions of the US media-political circus.\u00a0 It\u2019s \u00a0\u201cThe Strangest Dream\u201d by Paul Simon.\u00a0 (Listen to the Simon and Garfunkle rendition, as I first did decades ago, and it will play in your head, too):<\/p>\n \u201cLast night I had the strangest dream I’ve ever known before \u201cWhat will it take to revive our moribund peace movement?\u201d I wonder to new friend-correspondent-writer, Eric Walberg.\u00a0 (It turns out this Canadian knows the work of my freshman roommate, David Noble\u2014too soon, no longer with us–who was a \u201cdraft dodger\u201d during the Vietnam war, settled in Toronto, taught at York University, wrote books about the Luddites and the dislocations and anomie of modern technological \u201cbreakthroughs.\u201d)\u00a0 Surely, it would have been better if there had been a \u201cdraft\u201d for the \u201cWar on Terror?\u201d I wonder.<\/p>\n Eric responds: \u201cYes.\u00a0 Conscription did\u00a0[motivate the peace movement] in Vietnam. And why wasn’t that enough?! Mind you–the US had lots of other non-conscript wars – Canada,\u00a0Mexico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Philippines….<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States first employed a form of conscription during the War of 1812\u2026. The imposition of a draft during the American Civil War touched off the New York Draft Riots in July, 1863. The Confederate States instituted conscription in 1862, and resistance was both widespread and violent, with comparisons made between conscription and slavery. Both sides permitted conscripts to hire substitutes\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Good info!\u00a0 And here\u2019s Eric\u2019s kicker: \u201cNo one has been prosecuted for failure to comply with draft registration since 1986, in part because prosecutions of draft resisters proved counter-productive for the government, and in part because of the difficulty of proving that noncompliance with the law was “knowing and willful.\u201d Many people don’t register at all, register late, or change addresses without notifying the Selective Service System.\u201d<\/p>\n To put it another way: the Government, the War-Machine, figured out how to deal with war-resistance.\u00a0 The Machine could grind the resistance up, and spit it out, cover the tombs at Arlington with little red-white-and-blue flags made-in-China.\u00a0 It could \u201cre-tool\u201d warfare, robotize it, \u201cdrone\u201d it, eliminate the \u201cgrunts\u201d\u2014the questioners, the non-believers.<\/p>\n The Machine could teach us to sing in chorus the patriotic songs\u2014from \u201cOver There\u201d to \u201cBorn in the USA.\u201d<\/p>\n It could mesmerize us with flag-waving \u201cConventions\u201d and re-playing tapes of towers falling magically into their footprints\u2026.<\/p>\n And, though our heads might nearly \u201cexplode\u201d while holding the \u201cgirl with strawberry curls\u201d–that fragile, evanescent image of beauty, grace and wonder\u2014<\/p>\n the band would play on, and we would dance\u2026, and we would succumb to the momentary dream.<\/p>\n ____________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n Gary Corseri has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including,<\/em> TMS (Transcend Media Service)<\/a>, The New York Times, Village Voice, Redbook Magazine and<\/em> Counterpunch.\u00a0 He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on<\/em> PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere.\u00a0 He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and he has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons.\u00a0 Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most Americans are still getting their news from the Howdy-Doody-TV-Network \u201cnewsmen\u201d and the Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring dolls of Fox. Six corporations\u2014and a very special group it is!– control our news \u201cmedia,\u201d and we best recall what Voltaire wrote: \u201cIf you want to know who controls you, look at those you are forbidden to criticize!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI dreamed that all the world agreed to put an end to war
\nI dreamed
\nI saw a mighty room
\nThe room was filled with men
\nAnd the papers
\nThey were signing said they’d never fight again\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n