Demonstration

I feel the wrath of remorse,
That there was nothing I could do,
Like 99.9999% of the world,
I was an observer,
As democracy,
Became demonstration of might and will,
The Coalition of the Willing,
Now billing,
US!

When is enough enough,
Capitalisms answer,
Never,
Communists,
When they say so,
Lost in ideological boundaries,
Created by a very powerful few,
Those willing to sacrifice,
Principle for results,
Maybe history will show me the fool,
Maybe it will show me right,
Yet,
In this moment,
I’m lost in confusion,
Muddled thoughts of the annals of time,
And I feel red in the face,
As I take my place as a man,
Curious about our collective fate,
If and when we ever wake up,
If and when,
How and why,
Ask yourself!

SDM

KIA

The newswoman speaks of today’s reports with a matter of factness that seems to suggest absolute awareness. Yet I wonder if the talking head can decipher the truth of our current state through the supposed objective reporting she duteously relays. I wonder if her mind, like mine, draws the obvious parallels between a suicide bombing report with five American soldiers dying in Iraq and the guerilla tactics which so ravaged the American war machine in full splendor in Vietnam. Obvious! Yet, how many are willing and able to draw that conclusion? At the beginning of Gulf War II, as is common of our western world, our arrogance, save that, the arrogance of the Coalition of the Willing, caused widespread belief that this war was going to be a cake walk. That all Iraqi’s would just roll over and play dead –

Tell that to the families of the roughly 55 killed in action this week.

SDM

Update Since I wrote this more than 3100 more soldiers have died and approximately 100 - 150,000 Iraqi's.

Rhetoic

Coalition of the Willing;
At one time 12 years ago, perhaps,
under different circumstances,
where Saddam had been the aggressor,
Small nations,
New Nations,
Needy nations,
Lining up, standing to be counted with their hands out,
A little aid here and a little aid there:
Coalition of the willing indeed.
Is Saddam a criminal? A tyrant? Dictator? Bastard? Terrorist?
No, No answer necessary – All rhetorical – Back for a moment;
Coalition of the willing; Sure with pockets filling;
Greenbacks, dollars and cents delivered by powerful gents who are anything but gentle –
Strong arm, buying the farm, Oh sure whether a gun to your head or the choice of a comfortable bed,
This coalition is willing to close an eye,
To ignore public opinion, to side step international law –
I wonder truly, the willing,
What do they know?

SDM

Red

My words on this page, the expression of thoughts floating through my mind like the Coalition of the Willings precision guided weapons;
Every bit as powerful as the intended shock and awe as an intellectual assault is about to make you uncomfortable.

I’m sorry,
Except that I’m not, as to my belief, these thoughts are at least part of what the world needs now.

Heavy, the burden on my soul, to feel the plight of an entire region that has not known peace since the beginning of what we call time.
Even without the interference and resolve of the likes of Bush and Blair the fuse on this powder keg was lit long ago.
I sit, awaiting the awful truth, that this is but the next falling point on a very slippery slope. Slippery from the crimson stain of blood that for millennia has run in the streets like rain.
Collecting in the sewers on the streets that I live.

It is visible to the naked eye that the sand is blood soaked and will soon boil over to the surface. That surface being another plateau which behind our own benign neglect we still will fail to correct the long standing iniquity of humanity. The result of which will surely be a fuse that is that much shorter.

Perhaps, and I pray first, and hope second, that years from now these will look like words that rang a bell that needn’t ring, But I fear, deep down, that reality, our reality, shared collectively will show that the next fall on the slippery slope will stain us all;

Red!

SDM

Fit to Print

What’s the story, all the news that’s fit to print, save that now so few of us seem to pay attention to the wholesale value of words and what they truly mean, let alone read, in this age of television. In days gone by long ago, words came from storytellers, first spoken through a glorious oral tradition to let us know of our past and where we came from. Soon, the spoken word gave way to the written word giving a freedom of conscience and consideration that the spoken never did, as from behind closed doors we could choose in dimly lit rooms whether to consume tawdry tales of the Marquis or moral dilemmas from Voltaire, Choice; Where should our minds advance? As technology advanced and the industrial revolution gave birth and rise to the marvels of invention again our focus changed, albeit temporarily to radio – The magic of invisible waves renewing and invigorating the spirit of the oral tradition. Families sat in rooms to listen to the news or stories of the world at war or of mystery and intrigue, our imaginations still active as with our minds eye we still had to create the images of people, places and things that we had no firm knowledge of, or belief that we could ever see. Still challenged by the media that fueled our souls by leaving us wanting and hungry. As history shows us, technology allowed us to become intellectually lazy, as again, invisible waves brought pictures to us of places we would never go, to see things we could never see, save for the images that now confronted our senses, first in black and white, then in colour.

The golden age of that technologies advance brought us presidential debates, the Cuban missile crisis, assassinations and the first step on the moon. Respected veterans of that by gone age like Cronkite, I can only imagine what they would think, as now, from the cradle of civilization, in stark contrast to an age of moderately objective truth I now see Babylon falling again brought to me by talking heads that talk a lot but don’t seem to be using their heads.

Brokaw, speaks of death, destruction and terror, Arnett of failed war plans, Mansbridge of suicide bombers and Entertainment Tonight of embedded reporters fired for not following the rules.

What is the story? Is it any of these? Or all? Or none – Was Pandora’s box opened when we gave our intellectual ability to services whose only job is to keep us dumbfounded and staring at the screen, why you might ask; so GE, GM, NIKE and McDonalds can sell me just one more, anything, as long as I watch and consume.

SDM