Truth and Consequences

it's axiomatic that people need to organize their experiences, observations, and feelings into a structure and framework that provides them with a sense of meaning as they survey the chaos that really constitutes the world ....

oh .... you don't think it's chaotic? perhaps if you were to visit iraq, or afghanistan, you might reconsider?

i know i've told you about the young gentleman i worked with who lived in a world inhabited by pirates and ghosts, and whose girlfriend was a flying martial artist ..... outside his house it was like kosovo, or fallujah, or any of the other myriad places the united states has blessed with the gift of freedom and democracy .... only this, of course, was an inner american city--makes you wonder why they hate our freedoms and don't get a goddam job -- but the point, pete, the point, mr. flipper, is .....

there was nothing through the the medications i offered him that would provide him with a better world, or a better sense of it, than what he experienced around the clock ...

i feel as though i'll be repeating myself, but hey .... if you won't buy my records and keep me busy, shipping them out, rolling madly in my money bins, burrowing through my millions like a gopher or diving through them like a porpoise .... or recording new music, then to hell with you .... this is what i'm left with .... time on my hand, unable to play guitar or ride a bike, a pailful of dirty diapers ..... and my fevered thoughts ........

so ......

i often say that understanding won't really help us rectify the depredations of a venal, incompetent, corrupt administration .... i've said that, just as i could not dialogue with my delusional client so, too, am i skeptical about those would would "build bridges" with the religious right, seeking to find "moral equivalencies" and "common ground ...." moral issues are always more compelling than real ones and, as far as the bible biters go, what dialogue can there be? they know that they're god's chosen and that you're not; they know that they'll be watching widescreen tv with jesus while satan roasts your nuts over an open fire; they know that you're the reason for everything that's wrong with america: lliberalism, equality, and a sense of social obligation; women's rights, abortion, and eminent domain ..... but wait a minute .... what am i thinking? most of that's been repealed.....

the only thing left wrong in america is .....

you .....

still, i have intellectual pretensions and i find myself at variance with mainstream america in that i read books ..... and so it is that i find myself researching paradigms and overviews of the seachanges in the american sociopolitical landscape since the '60s and the vietnam war ..... if i can't figure out how to get out of where we are right now (and i can't; that's not my job .... my job is whining, bitching, moaning ......) then maybe i'll solace myself with the belief that i ......

understand it .....

understanding: how liberals masturbate ......

i don't know why i insist on reading; it's nothing but trouble ..... still, i continue to read, and so i'll be formulating concepts, theories, pipe dreams, and fantasms over the next couple of weeks ...... then i'll tell you, then we'll both know and, with seven dollars and fifty cents, we'll be able to buy a cup of coffee ....

or a gallon of gasoline .....

now, dig: on the one hand the bush administration has been characterized as the most secretive administration since that of josef stalin ..... why, they're so secretive, they keep secrets from each other; no one saw fit to show george the presidential daily briefing with "osama determined to attack in the united states," or inform him that our ports were in the process of being sold, or that there was a hurricane heading towards new orleans (actually today's associated press reports that he was apprised, and they have the video to prove it), or that there were poor people in america ....

or maybe, with all his tax cuts for the wealthy, they just didn't want him to tax himself .....

at the same time we hear so much about "transparency ...." we're told that we need to have transparency in government, that there's not enough of it in implementation of corporate policies, and that we would surely benefit if we only had more of it .....well, folks .... we don't need to buy x-ray specs to critique the the emperor's new clothes ...... the fact is, there's been no shortage of transparency .....we've had coverage about electoral theft in two presidential elections; we know there were no wmd; we have the downing street memos; we have the presidential daily briefing, "bin laden determined to strike ....;" we have coverage of the social security debacle, the medicare fiasco, and the usurpation of the legislative process by corporations and their lackeys; we know that americans, as policy, torture ..... we know that americans kidnap people, we know that we send some of them off to places where they're boiled alive, and we know about sanctioned murder through death squads in iraq; we see--not the inability--but the refusal of our government to protect and succor its citizens in the aftermath of natural disasters (unless, of course, they're white people, live in florida with jeb bush, and it's an election year); we see our government "outing" its own secret agents ..... we see critical security functions being turned over to people and countries who, not too long ago, were characterized as fiends and our arch-enemies; we have the pentagon ponying up billions of our taxpayers' dollars to pay halliburton the overcharges caught--and dismissed as spurious--by the government account office .... we have bankruptcy law written by credit lobbyists, energy policy written by energy lobbyists, health pollicy written by pharmaceutical lobbyists, national park lands managed by timber industry, food safety regulation written by food lobbyists ......

oh, there's lots more, but i think you get the idea .....

and the point?

the point, mr. flipper, is ...... there are no consequences .....

there are no [legitimate] investigations, no oversight committees, no callbacks .... it's the same old cast of characters doing the same old same old things, and there are no consequences .... there are no consequences for falsifying justification for an illegal war; the consequences for stealing elections are .... being elected .... there are no consequences for an administration that holds itself aloof, unassailable, and unaccountable after promising accountability ..... there are no consequences, other than the deaths of twelve miners, for an administration that took payoffs from the mining industry and didn't enforce safety regulations ..... there are no consequences, other than the deaths and disappearance of over three thousand people, for an administration that pissed all over new orleans, even as the levees were breaking and the winds were blowing strong .....

three thousand people .... that's more than died on 9/11 ..... do you think we should invade washington to capture the perpetrators and bring about regime change?

as i was saying .... there are no consequences for the perpetrators, but there is no dearth of consequences for the people who need health care and medication; who use energy; who eat food; who ..... who ..... who .....

hoooo hoooo ...... hoooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooooooooo ....... hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo ........................................

etc., etc., etc. ......... yada yada yada yada yada yada yada ..... woof woof woof woof woof ..... arf arf arf arf arf arf arf ..... yacka yacka yacka yacka yacka yackity yak ..... etc., etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum ad fucking nauseum ...............

hello, america ..... anybody home?

i just read about some twelve-year old kid who put a wad of gum on a million dollar painting ..... excuse me? it doesn't matter how much the painting is or isn't worth ..... that little shit should know better, his parents should know better and should have taught him better and, goddam it, america should know better, too ......

oh, i know you're thinking that oral sex between two consenting adults poses great threats to the moral fibre of a great nation bent on sodomizing lady liberty while bending over .... oh .... have i said this before?

i'll probably say it again, along with lots more, in the weeks to come ......

that's what happens when you won't buy my records ..............

next: mr. flipper makes sense