The Guns of August

i started writing this on august 10, in the san francisco airport, as i waited to board a plane out for jfk airport on the 10th of august ......

in the wake of the media's blitzing the terror quotient of shampoo, conditioner, bottled water, and starbucks coffee, other putatively newsworthy items went unheralded, to wit, "baghdad's morgues announced 2000 customers in the month of july ....." (other news reports state 3,492 people killed this month; that's more than a 9/11 every month ..... )

by rudimentary math that computes to 24,000 people dead per year, and that doesn't include falujah, kirkuk, the sunny (bad joke! bad joke!) triangle (there's always a triangle, isn't there? why, in the old days it was "the iron triangle," the opium growing and heroin refining territory the central intelligence agency ran in laos and cambodia ....") and other parts of iraq that are enjoying our freedoms and democracy just like we taught 'em ..... i'm thinking that the flowers rumsfeld predicted we'd be greeted with are still there, only they're being used for funerals .....

now, you'd think that a conservatively estimated 24,000 dead per year would merit some attention, that it would generate some commentary, wouldn't you? and what shall we call this institutionally generated charnel house? charnel number 5? what are we waiting for before we call this a fucking civil war? and when was war ever fucking civil? "excuse me, sir, but allow me to introduce myself as the agent of your demise; now that we've been properly introduced, i'm going to shoot your fucking lips off, put semtex up your ass, and scatter your fucking body parts to the corner of the souk here ..... "

with all due respect, deference, and politesse .....

and what shall we call the pyre upon which our international good will has been incinerated, while the region itself, with bush's palsied hand on the wheel of our unsteady ship of state, with the israelis as our cabin boys, founders and goes down .....

taking the world with it ......

blub fucking blub ......

there is no perspective any more, not in this country and not with our great media .... one risk of "balancing" "real" stories against stories of a "terror plot" in england, propounded by retards and wankers who had no passports--let alone airline ticket--against the incomprehensible slaughter of a monthly 9//1 in the region we "made safe for democracy" which, i must presume, means freedom for our corporations and contractors to, with no oversight or constraints, do whatever it is they want to do while pissing away our national treasury, would be misconstrued as trivializing the very real dangers of terrorists, dangers which multiply like the dragon's teeth we sow in the fields we salt .....

now is neither the time nor the place to weigh in against the legitimacy of this "terror plot" story, or how i wonder about the timing of these revelations corresponding with the defeat of joe "i am your republican fuckboy" liebermann and his being ushered off the connecticut democratic stage .... the point is that, when news becomes a commodity, it is no longer news, for items must be manufactured--just like all the cheap chinese products that flood wal-mart--for the insatiable corporate furnaces firming up their bottom line as they serve the higher cause of republican fear mongering, while consumers--gullible, credulous, conditioned by generations of television and advertising to be insecure about the rings on their collars, the stench of their armpits, and the allure of empty, hollow want founded on hyperbolic images of spurious sexuality--with the attention span of an attention deficit disordered fruitfly, are bombarded with an endless stream of inconsequential goatshit in supermarket checkout aisles; in waiting rooms; in television crawl panels that purport to "keep you informed" even as they shove garbage down your throat and their fist up your ass: brittany, brad, and ben; paris, j.lo, there's a kitty up a tree, the bible forecasts armageddon, and who or what the fuck else i don't even fucking know let alone give a shit ....... 400,000 dark skinned people killed in a tsunami .... george w. bush, america's greatest leader? democrats: do they really hate america? jen jen jen .... brad 'n' tom, brad 'n' tom ..... vince ..... who the fuck is vince?

and democrats: why do they hate america?

2,000 dead in one fucking month, in one fucking city, and i don't mean new orleans; i think that ought to get some attention, and i think it'd make a good counterpoint to "israel: poised to assfuck lebanese civilians one more time ....."

jesus .... one thing about being on the road is sidestepping the barrage of media bullshit ..... the new york times went straight into the trash, i had no radio, and i never do tv .... funny, how ..... mmmm ..... i still seem to know what's going on, only it gets worse that i can even imagine .....

this morning my clock radio woke me up to mr. george "hi i'm howdy doody pull my strings and watch my wooden fucking jaws stumble over simple words and sentences while you media fuckholes take my dick .... tation .... in your mouths and swallow it all up whole" saying that now that "ever'thang's in place .... it's ..... unnnnhhhhhh ..... up to ..... unnnhhhh ...... the state and ...... hmmmmmm ...... mayor nagin and ..... governor ...... huunnnnnhhh ..... blanco ..... to ...... fahnd the money ......."

blow me, you cretinous fuck ..... we have .... oh, excuse me: i meant "had" ...... a federal government to take care of our people, not our fucking corporations ...... the state has to find the money? what about the nine billion that went missing in iraq? the 360 tons of paper money that was shipped over there? that went missing?

do you think that might help those cute l'il darkies down in n'orleans git their houses on?

oh, just call me a dreamer .....

i sure am glad jon benet is back in the news again! boy, there's some vital shit .... mmmmmm ...... 3,000 dead per month in .... what's that country? yawn .... but .... another white girl dead?

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! up 'n' at 'em, boys!

the truth of it is, george bush murdered jon benet because he knew he'd need another diversion to defocus attention away from corporate theft, genocide, incompetence, illegitimacy, corruption, mass murder, mayhem, bankruptcy--both moral and fiscal--and all the other virtues that made this country great .....

there's more, but ..... i need to run to the wastebasket and puke up some fucking arterial blood; it's been much too long ......

my sojourn with the starship was great; i had a wonderful time and played very very very very very well ..... i'll tell you more about it when i pick the clots out from between my teeth ......

next: dr. pete gets irate again

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PETER KAUKONEN, San Francisco Bay Area guitarist, has played, toured, and recorded with Black Kangaroo, Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Johnny Winter.

2 Comments

Steven Schuster says:

If everything you've said wasn't absolutely true, I'd suspect you of having a negative attitude.

Submitted by Steven Schuster on Thu, 07/17/2014 - 12:35
"Wildman" Dave says:

Fingers crossed, maybe any day now OJ will announce he found the real killers...ah-hem.

Submitted by "Wildman" Dave on Thu, 07/17/2014 - 12:36

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