I AM NOT AFRAID (the final post on this blog)

*English translation of the video
Open [+/-]

I am not afraid.

I am not afraid if in the turmoils of these conspicuous times I will be accused of conspiracy.

I am not afraid to be accused of stirring unrest, but you cannot deny that I am a mother; not only the mother of "Tandis & Baran" [refering to her daughter Baran Kowsari], but also the mother of all that youth who has been witnessing their own mothers through the windows of my films; mother of "Touba", "Gilaneh", "Forough", "Narges", "Seema" and ... [names of female protagonists of her films]

I am the mother of all those who have opened their homes to me; who have told me their suppressed pains of years, such that I can depict their life sufferings on film.

Out of respect for the trust of all my audience, I feel entitled to the right of seek justice for all these mothers who, in the chaos of this crisis, are helpless and vulnerable, either having lost their children, or frantically and frightened seek the missing ones in the four corners of the city. [I feel entitled] to writing this open letter to say that no law, no concern, and no politics justify the pain they are suffering.

In a condition that no media is there to report the truth and no official takes the responsibility of helping the killer anxiety of these parents, how can we not tremble on every rumor of the torture of killing of a young son or daughter?

Give my camera a break to provide you a naked picture, perhaps you do not know what is really happening under the skin of the city.

___________________________________________________________________________________

*And here is a translation of her first public statement on this matter:
Open [+/-]

We are documentary filmmakers.

Our job is to uncover and express truth. expressing truth from several points of view. In the events of the past few days, by hiding reality, the national media is making it impossible for the members of the society to have access to the reality.

We are documentary filmmakers, our job is communication.

Iranian national TV belongs to the whole of the country and is obliged to reflect the opinions and the events of society, hence it must not be the mouth peace of a specific faction and exclude a large portion of the society.

We are documentary filmmakers, and our job is art, committed to culture and the language of our country. Reporting language has to be the guardian of the dignity of the nation. By censoring, spinning and using an inappropriate reporting languahe, the national TV has on the one hand, made lying a norm in the society, and on the other uses disrespectful language against people and in so doing provokes people into chaos and revolt.

We warn you that at the current inflamed situation, depriving the society from ability from peaceful expression of their demands draws the society into violent reactions in people who prior to election were expressing their opinions on their favorite candidates, peacefully side by side.

We warn that these actions [of the national TV, Seda o Seema] lead to violence and unrest and makes them liable for any massacre and chaos in the society and endangers a country that if guaranteed of justice, can reach a true national unity.

Every single one of these people, in every single day of every single year of the past 30 years have been compassionate to each other's sorrow and happiness. They have fought next to each other and have given martyrs and victims.

We are a people of thousand years of history. We are all together, we all share the history of this land.
Don't break us apart!
June 16, 2009
Translated from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2VFBWRJfAQ

________________________________________________________

~thepoetryman's ode, The Sword of Damocles, to the Iranian people~

The demoralizing phantom holding the cudgel can strike us
Like a rapist would, or screech like an injured swine,
Or reflect our disgraced and beaten will, as the ghouls have.
The vapors cannot cleave from our hearts our children’s dawn
Or their passion, tendered willingly as falling rain from heaven,
Like Gibran’s silver thread’s fetching them laughter in front of misery.

They are the heirs, the warriors to lift Damocles’ blade from the sky and
Mightily point it as proof they’ll not breathe another minute next to fear.
They will evermore admonish the failing ghosts of this day’s shadow
And fend off the hounds of cruelty with the strength they’ve resurrected.
There will be no reason to shrink from this; their destiny; they’ve seen her
Floating over their heads, grace and harmony hanging by a thread.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

The Sword of Damocles

Bloggers of Iran

Tip of my hat to Naj
for her wonderful post on
Mrs Rakshan Bani-Etemad...

Imperialism's Rant

What is one of the bigger problems facing the USA today?

-video removed by You Tube :>/-

All the products of people like Ted Nugent, and Ted Nugent, for he is a product of other "Ted Nugent’s", and they are all the byproduct of years and years of the (1) dumbing down of the American education system, particularly K through 12, (2) which includes the educators. They are a product as well of (3) the lack of any worthy historical perspectives and of (4) the growing divide and disconnect between the rich and the middleclass/poor.

(1) George W. Bush: “The illiteracy rate of our children are appalling.”

(2) The educators, both k-12 and college professors, are, in many cases just plain lazy and do not search for the truths under the sheen of their own phantom power, or they have incorporated the lies they’ve been sold into their own fixed paradigm of reality (truth) and then pass this “truth” down from generation to generation until the result is practically impossible to salvage and the “truth” is barely discernable from the lie.

(3) A byproduct of the entrenched lies is the inability for us to view reality with the educated perspective of our own countries history, especially the last fifty years of it. One mention of empire or atrocities perpetrated by the US government and you’re likely to be labeled a “traitor” or a “terrorist”, two readily lobbed words from those with no bona fide perspective.

(4) The divide of rich and poor and its inevitable disconnect are not just a result of “the way the ball bounced”, in other words they are not happenstance. They are a concerted effort to maximize empire. It is designed to line the pockets of the few and place the “slave” population in the untenable position of survival without turning to crime or escaping through drug use, which includes caffeine, nicotine, over the counter type drugs and the illicit types. It’s important to note that the imperialist gets richer from this scenario. Big pharmacy equals big money and is, in and of itself, a virulent and extremely profitable turntable of recidivism. Big Pharma is the energizer bunny for all the other imperialist corporations.

Ted Nugent and the gentleman featured in the video are the direct result of a concerted effort (imperialism) by the powers that be to reduce the debate in this country to a driveling, unimaginative, inane, rant. A rant that benefits neither the speaker nor the listener, all it does is create a greater ignorance and further distances any hope of our actually hearing “the truth”, or better yet, acting upon this truth when we do hear it.

There are also a good number of intelligent people in this country that are just as ignorant, some willful, others not, only these people have positions of power and influence which makes them all the more dangerous to the much needed truth.

Coming after these influential souls, are the true power brokers, the powers that be, as they are oft called. Whether they are the products of willful ignorance or just pure narcissists matters not, for they all stem from the same vine and they know precisely what their actions are producing. Take Iraq for instance; the occupation of Iraq may not seem as it has gone as planned, or even Afghanistan, for that matter, but in truth, it has gone masterfully well for the imperialists. Follow the money.

It will take many, many years for Iraq to recover from American (imperialistic) intervention, yet, during this time, America will have placed itself strategically within Iraq’s borders and never give her the chance. The imperialist will allow her to resemble a beacon of democracy while not actually ever being one. Appearances can be rather deceiving, especially when viewed through the lens of empire.

The imperialist needs Iraq to be poor and vacant of resistance and empty of rebellious puppets like Saddam Hussein. The imperialist does not want an independent Iraq; it wants an Iraq that is a partner to “US interests” until the time comes that it is drained of any and all resources (oil) and no longer holds any strategic value, save for a pathway toward more conquests. For this reason it is logical, at least to the neocon, that Iran is next in line. It is not because Iran poses a real and lasting threat to its neighbors or to the American people, far from it. If anything Iran is a self-sufficient, self-sustaining state with no more of a crazed and evil man at the helm than has the US, more intelligent, yes, but no more sinister. Iran is self-sustaining and that doesn’t fit the imperial mold; any nation that does not readily allow empire’s temptress to climb into its bed (only to take all the covers) will not be tolerated.

So, as with Iraq, Iran is in the path of the only kind of empire there is; lethal.

If you are not aware that America is indeed a ruthless empire, might I suggest you begin listening to the voices of real power, I mean really listen! Stop merely ingesting their words as an inevitable path that the world is naturally taking and instead begin to dissect their words, test them, and weigh them against the actions of their orator. It matters not the speakers party affiliation, their gender or race or color or religion, for empire recognizes and is allegiant only to empire. The only question that truly matters when it comes to the voices of real power, do their words, combined with their actions, benefit the entire peoples of this world?

Here is my gut and head talking and listening and my eyes witnessing:
Iraq was never meant to be a beacon of democracy for the Middle East to emulate. Never. It is merely a stepping stone for the power hungry elite and has all the bloody markings of empire on the march. It cannot end well, not for the people of the world, unless we begin to listen and act- now...

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Ted Nugent: Draft Dodging Coward

Hannity Hearts Nugent


Do you have something you need to say? Maybe a rant to get off your chest?

Then follow this link and liberate it!

LOVELESS BALM

Conn. Senator Says The U.S. Should Strike If Tehran Keeps Helping Anti-U.S. Forces In Iraq

(CBS) The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation. "I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."
The Indepedent former Democrat from Connecticut said that he was not calling for an invasion of Iran, but he did say the U.S. should target specific training camps. "I think you could probably do a lot of it from the air, but they can't believe that they have immunity for training and equipping people to come in and kill Americans," Lieberman said. Lieberman, who has been one of Congress's most outspoken supporters of the Bush Administration's Iraq war policies, said that confronting continuing the fight in Iraq and confronting Iran are necessary for achieving a wider peace in the Middle East. If the U.S. does not act against Iran, "they'll take that as a sign of weakness on our part and we will pay for it in Iraq and throughout the region and ultimately right here at home," Lieberman said. He said that he has seen evidence that the Iranians are supplying insurgents and foreign fighters in Iran.

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Lieberman: Bomb Iran If It Doesn't Stop

O! Your jagged lips again are upon my throat. Made rough by their drought
Hiding behind the broker of death.

There upon them is certain madness puckered and prepared to kiss,
To wet their looming course with deceit and blood.

Are these bone-dry lips not pursed upon my willful sightlessness,
Yet succulent in their own lusty course?

Your parched and loveless words lick the heels of a world’s sorrow
And I'll not soothe them with the balm of innocents.

I will not gaze upon their countenance or even touch them
To arouse their hunger or give them any weight.

They’ve not extended any love to me
or the world.

They can only teach the craving for it...
They cannot teach its need.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Iranologie

(One year ago today) THE SENSE OF THE WHITE BIRDS

O! White birds fly down the raging river line
And white hot are the sun’s rays bathing the shore,
And I think of this war and of my own borrowed complicity
That will be my shrieking, loathsome marrow felt forevermore!

You cast it masterfully, dangling your lure
Of every feeble people’s swindler in your damn book.
You’d rather not have “pull out” swim the raging water,
But it’s out there! The nibblers bleed from your despotic hook!

I think of all the Iraqi people, and I weep.
And of their homes and shame at having believed in us;
Freedom, democracy, clean water, safe streets, living;
I think of your lies and at once am asphyxiated by our oily lust!

O! The white birds flying the river can see it,
They can see the shoreline and they can see the nectar,
They glimpse a fabrication in America’s half-truths,
For they see the ancient beauty of Iraq swilling in fumes of war!

The bird senses our pandering, illicit ambition,
The looming and buckling hell of shorelines stony crust
As the warring winds change course for eastern shores
And would hold you from humanity if given reign over the quaking dust!

Copyright © 2006 mrp

GRAVITY

The flags aren't flying like they used to.

They're not riding on cars, fastened
To newly bent, molten beams
Wafting in the prickled air
Where gray spines of steel sliced
Open our fortified tranquility,
Where the most we had to fear
Was ourselves.

“Where is the wind?” we call out.
“Why do we still bury our poor
children in the flag draped caskets
of a rich man’s war?”
Have our principles plummeted
Into the craven jaws of gravity
Where a once proud people reveled
In the reasoned hope of humankind?

Where is the wind?
The pennants to their flying?
They’re not waving red, white and blue.
They’re not beaming over the living,
Or wafting in the haggled air
Where bodies coursed downward,
Hands empty of symbols.


© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

EMPIRE'S COFFIN

READ THE POEM +/-

US generals ‘will quit’ if Bush orders Iran attack

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.
Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.” (More...)

(A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

The prowling empire’s a coffin;
a burial plot of shattered lies,
and within its quagmire of bleached bone,
warriors lurch from its grasp
making a mess

out of the flesh,
the living disturbed,
torn away in the streets.

Instead of guns the warriors are using dissent,
breaking ranks, deciding for themselves.

Their decorated humanity opens fire
on the puppet master’s strings,
shouting down the noise machine
with brazen dispute.

The red cackle of life’s rising up
with a screeching horn to its lips
leading us forward, tongues wagging.

High above the newly lifted ground
the warriors are sensing movement.
Upon the surface, the wet ground,
feet have begun to move,
eyes to open.
All this commotion,
tap-tapping under hopeful skies
filled with clouds made of string.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Previous Post - RUMORS OF GLORY

ANOTHER (BAPTISM OF HASTE)

READ THE POEM +/-

Karl: But [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair recently said that the only sensible solution to this crisis is diplomacy. Do you agree with that?

Cheney: We hope that we can solve the problem diplomatically. The president has indicated he wants to do everything he can to resolve it diplomatically. That's why we've been working with the EU and going through the United Nations with sanctions. But the president has also made it clear that we haven't taken any options off the table.

Karl: Now, Tony Blair seemed to be suggesting that military action really isn't an option by saying the only sensible solution here is diplomacy. Is there realistically a military solution to this?

Cheney: I'm not going to go beyond where I am, Jonathan. As we've said, we're doing everything we can to resolve it diplomatically... but we haven't taken any options off the table.


These words glow dimly, palely, slowly
Upon this; our sweltering sphere,
In their imposing haste
They scurry near
Our worship.

The words descend too easily upon us
Baptizing our sodden counterfeit,
Whose dark black throat warbles
Puffed in contempt;
Our warring.

Conflicted of their malignant meaning
We, the congregation, bow down
And return again to madness;
Our fixed arrogance,
Our waste.

The discourse of our grand reprisal
Has yet to find its untidy rest
Within the bellicose shores.
"...we haven't taken any options off the table" ,
Its refrain.

Forebodingly we examine the hours
Of our vast encounter with death
And attend to the war cries
Of "I'm not backing down."
Again and again and again and again.

O! Die away this your everlasting babble!
We’ve enough of your squalling!
It is not time to endure madness,
It is time to abscond,
Enter freedom!

These words glow dimly, palely, slowly
Upon this; our sweltering sphere,
In their imposing haste
They scurry near
Our worship.

© 2007 mrp/thepoetryman

Cheney Interview

Previous Post - WE ROAM HERE TOGETHER

WHAT WOULD THOU WANT US HEAR

READ THE POEM +/-

(Ben Heine - Cartoons)
What would thou want us hear;
Blind demons squat above us eyeing this sacred world,
Barefoot giants swim our streets and forests unnoticed,
Gigantic godheads kneel `tween our standing worlds,
Medusa rises to greet us with a droll, frowning death,
Arab snakes coil `round snowballs along the Tigris,
The deceased will shake themselves upright again,
The bloodthirsty saints stride near our latent sleep,
The shadows of beasts come too distant our own,
The knotted rope hangs slack in the rigid wind,
The weapons of destruction are pointed inward,
That another madman’s `bout to happily kill,
Stone horses mount the fury of passive death,
Day’s light looms large upon our darkness,
Or is't that the blue faces of deceit are smiling
upside down?

copyright 2006 thepoetryman

Previous Post - I AM SPARTACUS

DEEPER IN THE SAND

READ THE POEM +/-

Same as it ever was
As we stand contented, safe.

Clear of harm from the desert
Death makes its sordid plans
To seek its steel elsewhere
Deeper in the sand
Nearer the sea.

Patiently it runs its fingers
Over the necks of the people.

Eastward it courses...

COORDINATES (2/13/07)Coordinates:
Latitude 33 degrees
Diamond Republic
20 minutes north
O! Shrieking wonderment!
Longitude 44 degrees
Awash with grief
24 minutes east
Baghdad, Iraq
Will these injuries attain
Her neck aloft in wrath?

Coordinates:
Latitude 35 degrees
Prosper Thy Neighbor
45 minutes north
O! Sisterhood of oil!
Longitude 51 degrees
The Hormuz Strait
45 minutes east
Tehran, Iran
Over a billion barrels
Of bobbing death await!

Come!
About face!
Why are we waiting?
Fly this blackbird!
Hover that craft!
Roll that tank!
Lock and load!
Check your pack!
Let’s bang some flesh
To Hell and back!
Let’s roll!

RESET COORDINATES (
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 V-Day) ZERO HOUR: (Iran)

The birds have thus gone silent in the gray sky,
Nothing flies between this life and this death;
Solid ground and space and breathing flesh;
Naught hovers now but the murderous device.

Latitude 33 modify to latitude 35.
20 minutes north alter to 45.

Horror fails even our most tested imagination,
Thus we’ll not sense our own fluttering demise
Caught then, perched, set to firmly plunge
The feet, landing unhappily, upon the blade.

Longitude 44 change to 51.
24 minutes east to 45.

Only in catastrophe does hush go unnoticed,
As the smallest gasp of the smallest possible breath,
Only in the inescapable horror-show do they enter
Exhaling through our dreadful sinking exactness.

Lock and load! Goddamnit! Now drop that shell!
Let’s bang some brown flesh to everlasting hell!
Over a billion barrels of bobbing death await
Silent in the gray sky, zero hour knell!



Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman



Previous Post - TUMBLE DOWN (A short absurd play)

WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR

READ THE POEM +/-

(A Ben Heine Cartoon) & (A Poetic Justice Photomontage)

Iran to `hit back' if US attacks

Iran's supreme leader has given warning that his country will hit back at US interests worldwide if America attacks Iran to thwart its nuclear programme.

On Thursday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said: "The enemies [the US] understand well that the Iranian nation will give a comprehensive response to the aggressors and their interests worldwide."
In response, Gordon Johndroe, a US national security council spokesman, said: "Khamenei from time to time makes these unprovoked statements and we would certainly hope they are not directed at the United States because President Bush has made it clear we have no intention of going to war with Iran."

The US has said it wants the standoff over the Iranian nuclear programme solved through diplomacy, but it has not ruled out military action against Iran.

Khamenei said: "They should not intimidate the Iranian people with these things, since the United States has previously attacked Iran."

The Greatest Generation?
by Howard Zinn

They tell me I am a member of the greatest generation. That's because I saw combat duty as a bombardier in World War II, and we (I almost said "I") won the war against fascism. I am told this by Tom Brokaw, who wrote a book called The Greatest Generation, which is all about us. He is an anchorman for a big television network, meaning that he is anchored to orthodoxy, and there is no greater orthodoxy than to ascribe greatness to military valor.
That idea is perpetuated by an artillery barrage of books and films about World War II: Pearl Harbor, Saving Private Ryan, and the HBO multi-episode story of the 101st Airborne, Band of Brothers, based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name. And Ambrose has just published an exciting history of the valiant "men and boys" who flew B-24s.
The crews who flew those planes died in great numbers. We who flew the more graceful-looking B-17s sardonically called those other planes Bdash2crash4. I wrote from my air base in England to my friend Joe Perry, who was flying B-24s out of Italy, kidding him about his big clunk of a plane, but the humor was extinguished when my last letter to him came back with the notation "Deceased."
Those who saw combat in World War II, whether they lived or died, are celebrated as heroes. But it seems clear that the degree of heroism attributed to soldiers varies according to the moral reputation of the war. The fighters of World War II share a special glory because that war has always been considered a "good war," more easily justified (except by those who refuse to justify any war) than the wars our nation waged against Vietnam or Korea or Iraq or Panama or Grenada. And so they are "the greatest generation."
What makes them so great? These men-the sailors of Pearl Harbor, the soldiers of the D-Day invasion, the crews of the bombers and fighters- risked their lives in war, perhaps because they believed the war was just, perhaps because they wanted to save a friend, perhaps because they had some vague idea they were doing this "for my country." And even if I believe that there is no such thing as a just war, even if I think that men do not fight for "our country" but for those who run our country, the sacrifice of soldiers who believe, even wrongly, that they are fighting for a good cause is to be acknowledged. But not admired.
I refuse to celebrate them as "the greatest generation" because in doing so we are celebrating courage and sacrifice in the cause of war. And we are miseducating the young to believe that military heroism is the noblest form of heroism, when it should be remembered only as the tragic accompaniment of horrendous policies driven by power and profit. Indeed, the current infatuation with World War II prepares us-innocently on the part of some, deliberately on the part of others-for more war, more military adventures, more attempts to emulate the military heroes of the past.
To decide which is "the greatest generation" involves a double choice. One is the choice of a particular time period. The other is the choice of who will represent that time period, that generation. Neither is decided arbitrarily, but rather on the basis of one's political philosophy. So there is an ideological purpose in choosing the generation of World War II, and then in choosing the warriors of that time to represent "greatness."
I would propose other choices if we are to educate the young people of our time in the values of peace and justice.
We might take the generation of the American Revolution, another generation almost universally considered "great." I would not choose the Founding Fathers to represent it. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Madison have had enough adulation, and their biographies clog the book review sections of the major media.
The Founding Fathers did lead the war for independence from Britain. But they did not do it for the equal right of all to life, liberty, and equality. Their intention was to set up a new government that would protect the property of slave owners, land speculators, merchants, and bondholders. Independence from England had already been secured in parts of the country by grassroots rebellion a year before the battles at Lexington and Concord that initiated hostilities with Britain. (See Ray Raphael's A Peoples History of the American Revolution, New Press, 2001.) It is one of the phenomena of modern times that revolutions are not favored unless they are led by people who are not revolutionaries at heart.
I would rather recognize the greatness of all those who fought to make sure that the Founding Fathers would not betray the principles of the Declaration of Independence, to make sure that the dead and maimed of the Revolutionary War did not make their sacrifices in vain. And so I would honor the soldiers of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey lines, who mutinied against George Washington and Mad Anthony Wayne. They were rebelling against the luxurious treatment of their gentry officers, and their own mistreatment: 500 lashes for misconduct, Washington decreed, and execute a few mutinous leaders to set an example.
Add to the honors list in that great generation the farmers of western Massachusetts who resisted the taking of their homes and land for nonpayment of exorbitant taxes. This was the Shays Rebellion, which put a fright into the Founding Fathers, especially as it led to uprisings in Maryland, South Carolina, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. That rebellion persuaded the Founding Fathers that a strong central government was needed to maintain law and order against unruly dissidents, slave rebels, and Indians. These were the true revolutionaries of the Revolutionary generation.
I submit as additional candidates for "the greatest generation" those Americans who, in the decades before the Civil War, struggled against the takeover of Indian and Mexican lands. These were the Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes, and especially the Seminoles, who resisted their removal from Florida in eight years of guerrilla warfare, succumbing finally to a combination of deception and superior force. And the dissidents of the Mexican War: Seven regiments deserted on the way to Mexico City. And the Massachusetts volunteers- that half of them who survived-who booed their commanding officer at a reception after the war ended.

And what of the abolitionist generation-the leaders of slave revolts, the conductors of the underground railroad, the speakers and writers, the likes of David Walker and Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass? It was they who gave honor to the decades leading up to the Civil War, they who pressured Lincoln and the Congress into ending slavery.
Why do we use the term "greatest generation" for participants in war? Why not for those who have opposed war, who have tried to make us understand that war has never solved fundamental problems? Should we not honor, instead of parachutists and bomber pilots, those conscientious objectors who refused to fight or the radicals and pacifists who opposed the idea that young people of one nation should kill young people of another nation to serve the purposes of politicians and financiers?
The generation of the First World War was not made honorable by Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, by General Pershing and Admiral Dewey. What nobility it had came from the courage of Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Kate Richard O'Hare, and the leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, all of whom were imprisoned for opposing the entrance of the United States into the slaughterhouse of Europe.
If there is to be a label "the greatest generation," let us consider attaching it also to the men and women of the sixties: the black people who changed the South and educated the nation, the civilians and soldiers who opposed the war in Vietnam, the women who put sexual equality on the national agenda, the homosexuals who declared their humanity in defiance of deep prejudices, the disabled people who insisted that the government recognize the discrimination against them.
And I suggest that some future writer-not an anchorman, but someone unmoored from traditional ways of thinking-may, if the rebels of Seattle and Genoa persist and grow, recognize the greatness of this generation, the first of the new century, for launching a world movement against corporate domination, for asserting human rights against guns and greed.
Howard Zinn is a columnist for The Progressive.


WAR WAR WAR WAR WAR

O! In these times, this infant land; in our sour belly, the warriors
Of old and new are dying
To the filthy refrain of war, war, war, war, war…

Those that came before
Breathed toward a fresher world,
A sea green life in a globe drearier than this;
Yet we have cultivated the flavor of battle
Without actually pulling the joyful trigger.
Distanced ourselves from the entry wound.
Taken leave of the truth behind a looming void,
Ate of it so that we’ve dulled the senses.
We’ve lost the will to foretaste
And now stand agape outside our pleading hope
With no tools to dig our way to her;
Is this what we want of our love; suffocation?

O! In these times, this infant land; in our sour belly, the warriors
Of old and new are dying
To the filthy refrain of war, war, war, war, war...

A stranger at the door;
It is we,
Wringing our flesh of war…

Might we tunnel forth to rescue her?
Will the world lend us its many shovels?

Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman


Four Marines Killed; US toll now 3,114

It is no use blaming Iran for the insurgency in Iraq
Previous Post - OCCASION FOR ALL NATIONS (again)

FETID WAR

READ THE POEM +/-

"NO PICTURE AVAILABLE DUE TO WAR"

US commander denies Iraq failure

The leading US military commander in Iraq has told US senators that Baghdad could be secured with less than the 21,500 extra troops being sent as part of a new strategy to end the sectarian violence.General George Casey also denied that US policy had failed in Iraq despite heavy criticism from the Armed Services Committee.

Casey told the committee on Thursday that he had recommended just two additional brigades would be needed for the Iraq capital, rather than the five brigades that have been ordered to Iraq as part of George Bush's new plan.

The new strategy will see more than 21,500 soldiers added to the 138,000-strong US force in Iraq and deployed mainly in Baghdad.

At Least 62 Killed in Iraqi Violence
By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer

A pair of suicide bombers detonated explosives Thursday among shoppers in a crowded outdoor market in a Shiite city south of Baghdad, killing at least 45 people and wounding 150, police said. Bombs and a mortar attack killed at least 17 others in both Shiite and Sunni areas of Baghdad.
Overall, more than 100 people were killed or found dead across the country, reflecting the ongoing wave of sectarian and insurgency bloodletting as the U.S. military gears up for a major security operation to stem the violence.
The biggest attack took place in the center of Hillah, a city about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Police and witnesses said the two bombers strolled into the Maktabat market about 6 p.m. when the area was packed with shoppers buying food for the evening meal.

Dark Clouds Gather on the Distant Horizon:
The World Awaits George W. Bush's Attack on Iran
Alexander - February 1st, 2007
Dark clouds gather on the distant horizon - their presence trumpets the undeniable reality that something sinister is coming this way. As the light of truth and reality fades from the nation's political consciousness, between the flashes of lies and deceit is seen the foreboding outline of vultures awaiting tragedy and their chance to feast on the death it is certain to deliver.

What necessitates our despicable failings?
Brings neither eye nor ear toward peace?
Slings us down instead of skyward?
Hurls love into the decaying bowels?

WAR! Fetid war is bringing the world to famine!

Neither kings nor subjects are nourished in wars grand feast.

The slender, flag-wrapped youth are starved of life
While round leaders drip and devour their stale plans
Leaving veteran men of reason drooling on themselves
To gibber-jabber-dribble maddening absurdities!

O! Goddamnit we recognize these things! We know them!

Complicity’s the pungent slope of life’s interment.
This; our indifference, coats the angels in fresh blood,
Their malleable wings dripping in dreadfulness;
They are massive, undulating and beautiful arcing things
Conjuring up the world’s looming storm.

Fetid war is bringing the world to famine!
To hell with it and all the Goddamned drooling cowards!

Come angel! Thrust thy immense wings down upon them
Smashing their dread-filled plans...
And feed the world.

Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman

The Progressive Daily Beacon

Previous Post - TEXAS TUMBLEWORDS

THUMP'S RUMBLIN' DRUMS

READ THE POEM +/-

Rice Defends Raids on Iranian Targets
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer

JERUSALEM (AP) -- U.S. raids that President Bush approved against Iranian targets in Iraq are part of broad efforts to confront Tehran's aggression, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.
"The United States is simply responding to Iranian activities that have been going on for a while now that threaten not just to destabilize the chance for Iraq to proceed to stability but also that endanger our forces," Rice said before meeting with Israel's foreign minister.
Bush approved the strategy several months ago, U.S. officials said, in response to what Washington claims is Iran's support for terrorists inside Iraq and the alleged funneling of bombs to anti-U.S. insurgents.

CONDI:

We think they are providing help to the militias as well, and maybe even the more violent element of these militias.

THUMP:
Oh! Lordy be `n Jesus, George!
You girl bout to give de green-light,
she be rumblin' de drums o’ hell,
signal to commence, ain’ dat right?

I know it been a time since I jawed at ya,
but fo' God’s sake you’s havin’ a damn stroke!
Thay’s times t’ rattle ‘n roar, but dis ain’ it.
Ain’ you learn nuttin’ since las’ we spoke?

Der ain’ no way de world gonna sit `roun
while you play Cowboys `n Iranians!
Ya best reel in de Rice-a-Roni train
an' lower dem big ol’ kingdom guns.

Las’ time I checked you's “stayin’ de course”,
but mid-terms plunked a hurt down on ya noggin!
What I’s sayin’ is dat ya best modify ya startegizin’
‘cuz de big ol’ worl’ gonna come o’ knock-knockin’!

I wouldn’ mind so much if it was jus’ you be burnt,
but deys a hell of a lotta folk gonna get broken!
Dey’s me... an' de sleepy folk o’ de land o’ de free,
an' de smilin’ chil'ren o’ de world’s gazin’ grim.

Ya know, you could be de new all American hero.
You could nip it in de bud! Be de new Gandhi!
De innovator... or, de world’s unloved archenemy
stayin’ on de folly-trolley till de wheels come free!

You could be Superman! De one all de kids wanna hug
`n have ya read `em dey little-worded books,
or… you can be de ol’ trepidational kingdom comer
an' puncture dey slim, frail shell wit' sinful hubris…

Remember, George...
De cube-skied dreamer's waitin' on ya.


Copyright © 2007 mrp / thepoetryman

BTC News

From “catastrophic success” to “successful catastrophe”: Bush and Iran

See all of Thump Thump's Monologues

The ORIGIN Theatre

Previous Post - MARK MY WORDS

RESET COORDINATES TO ZERO HOUR

READ THE POEM +/-

RESET COORDINATES (Friday, March 17, 2006) TO ZERO HOUR:

The birds have thus gone silent in the gray sky,
Nothing flies between this life and this death;
Solid ground and space and breathing flesh;
Naught hovers now but the murderous device.

Latitude 33 modify to latitude 35.
20 minutes north alter to 45.

Horror fails even our most tested imagination,
Thus we’ll not sense our own fluttering demise
Caught then, perched, set to firmly plunge
The feet, landing unhappily, upon the blade.

Longitude 44 change to 51.
24 minutes east to 45.

Only in catastrophe does hush go unnoticed,
As the smallest gasp of the smallest possible breath,
Only in the inescapable horror-show do they enter
Exhaling through our dreadful sinking exactness.

Lock and load! Goddamnit! Now drop that shell!
Let’s bang some brown flesh to everlasting hell!
Over a billion barrels of bobbing death await
Silent in the gray sky, zero hour knell!

Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman


Plans For Iran

Coordinates Friday, March 17, 2006

PEACE IN THIS EMERALD DREAM

READ THE POEM +/-

I Have a Dream - Address at March on Washington- August 28, 1963. Washington, D.C.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. [Applause]
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.






I declare peace in this; thy emerald dream.
I declare peace in this; thy emerald dream.
I declare peace in this; thy emerald dream.
I declare peace in this; thy emerald dream.

Men, women, children, all and every color
Rise up to meet me in this nomadic vapor.
Rise up! Greet me with thy soul’s civility,
I can ask no more and no less of thee.

Affirm the worlds waiting stillness with me.
Bring thy grace, let go thy mortal weaponry.
Rise up in the streets of the towns and cities,
Rise up! Tilt thy angry faces toward the sun!

Emerald dream, I march with thee this day.
I stride with thee… sharing thy morning walk,
I sit with thee… and drink at thy table,
I speak with thee… though I see thee not.

O! Ghost in the shade of want come forth,
Walk with me, walk with me in my trance!
I declare peace in this; thy emerald dream,
Open eyed to it grasping thy bleeding chance!

O! We tongueless ones in our painful disgrace
Let us not use deceit to twist the patient hands failing,
Instead let us smile upon the poor lives of all men
and carry this emerald sheen with a proud face!






Copyright © 2006 mrp / thepoetryman


Dissendent Voice

MLK - I Have a Dream

SOMEWHERE SOMETHING

We hope that this letter would leave its impact with the same intention, view and expediency that it has been written… (more)
--Manuchehr Mottaki--Iranian foreign minister--

Somewhere something has plunged beneath the surface
Toward the fiery core of last rites.
We are now confronted with our assured darkness
In the bending supremacy, wet and ascending,
Nodding to God’s turned eyes.

We should be determined to face its pitiless shadow,
Lash it to truth and force it relinquish its wish.
And at the foot of the drifting tree of our knowledge
We must implore it lay down its malignancy
Now pointing upon the touch of heaven.

Somewhere something shall burst through the surface
Toward the stunned sky, wet and ravenous.
It will beckon the murderer. It will summon the thief.
We must beseech it free our reckless child
Now bending of annihilation’s reach.


Copyright © 2006 mrp

IN ORDER

Scrutinize
utilize
vulcanize
and a country you can lead!
Fraternize
sympathize
apologize
and neocons won't agree!
Fantasize
visualize
organize
and power you might seize!
But
ostracize
and
falsify
you bring a country to its knees...


Al Gore speaks on Iraq

Campaign for the Future

FREEDOM'S THROB

All the sovereignty in cultivated hatred
Slouches toward a saw-toothed ether
Within the throbbing entrails
Of wretched indifference



Nice article here: Tooning out Humanity