- It's fall here in New England. The busloads of guests
(no longer tourists--sounds too greedy) have arrived to observe the yearly
cacophony of riotous color of our mountains. I hate the fall of the year.
I am put in mind of attending a two month wake, as the cold-mind-numbing
bleakness of winter approaches.
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- The lush green, of hazy-lazy summer days, flowers in
bloom, the croaking of frogs in the marshes, county fairs, and dancing
puppets on rainbow grass, will soon be encased in glacial snow and ice.
I'm reminded of a mass suicide of colossal proportions as leaves of rust-yellows-burnt
orange-and blood red leap from their lofty perches and lie in crumpled
decaying forgetfulness at our feet. No I am not a winter person.
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- Last October saw millions upon millions throughout the
whole of the earth; in riotous song-banners-and song, crying out for "Peace".
Like the leaves of fall, their cries went unheeded trampled underfoot,
with the crashing of unimaginable weaponry in its obliterating madness
to rid the world of "terrorism". A desert land, some thousands
of miles from our shores, was presented as an imminent threat to our safety.
A monster (whom we'd funded and supported for years) needed to be put out
of his misery of untold abuses against his people. Of course, their are
similar monsters throughout the whole of the earth causing great suffering,
deprivation, and horrors upon their people; but this particular monster,
with his opulent palaces, held possession of vast reservoirs of oozing
black gold. But this wasn't, and isn't about oil, or so we're told. It
isn't about conquest nor mindless power run amuck. This is about liberating
the poor wretched masses of Iraq into McFreedom.
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- In May our leader, his gonads strapped in McPride, declared
a victory on the deck of a carrier far from choking desert sands; carrying
on it's winds, the poison of tens of thousands of pounds of depleted uranium.
A thumbs up and a "Bring 'em on", a few months later, saw our
leader off to the ranch, his gonads dressed in cowboy denim on R&R,
recuperating for a month, from the climatic stress of it all.
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- Not so, for the multitudes of others dealing with the
"Bring 'em on" challenge. Towns and villages across the land
saw the same scenes that were played out in our rural area of, Johnny and
Annie back from war being laid to rest. The lush summer blossoms of their
young lives gone out, far from the fervor of bands and flags that saw them
off. Youngsters, mostly poor from work-a-day families, from ghettos, from
abandoned farms and rusted mill towns; like the multitudes of wars gone
by, their hopes their dreams blowing in the wind; with families and orphaned
children facing the barren chill of forever winter.
- I hate winter.
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- The halls of Congress these past weeks has heard many
a Democratic Congressman/woman, speaking of the conditions that our soldiers
are being subjected to, in this quagmire of seeming war without end. Reservists,
time now extended, the lack of fresh water, suicides, improper equipment,
lack of nourishing food, unexplained deaths from respiratory distress and
unknowns? "Bring 'em on" has soldiers dying daily from sniper
attacks and mined roads. The millions upon millions appropriated for proper
vests, never realized, by tens of thousands of these youngsters and middle
aged reservists facing death daily. Last spring saw some $75 billion appropriated
for this war without end, and now another $87 billion, and soldiers in
unrelenting 130 degree heat, don't have adequate equipment or water? What's
wrong with this picture? Meantime the military industrial complex is salivating
over the money being realized in these lucrative contracts, which has the
home front footing the massive overcharges. The home front, facing millions
upon millions of unemployed, as corporate hucksters locate manufacturing
and computer technology jobs overseas. Their R&R sees them off to exotic
lands, fly fishing or building another Trophy Home, much like the Kuwaiti
citizens (their youth) waited out Gulf War I, on the Riviera, and got a
$25,000 bonus upon their return home for the stress of it all.
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- And so once more, millions upon millions of mothers,
grandmothers, students, professionals, veterans, musicians, writers, poets,
etc., will gather this October crying; "Bring 'em Home" not "Bring
'em On".
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- "When the leaders speak of peace the common folk
know that war is coming. When the leaders curse war the mobilization order
is already written out. Those at the top say: Peace and War are of different
substance. But their peace like their war are like the wind and the storm.
War grows from their peace, like son from his mother. He bears her frightful
features. Their war kills whatever their peace has left over. Those at
the top say: This way to glory. Those down below say: This way to the grave."
- -- Bertoft Brecht
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