I'm cooking a $2.57 chunk of vat-grown salmon, drinking a tall boy of Pabst & listening to the live feed of Congress debating whether or not to support the resolution to attack Iraq.

posted by jeremy on November 13, 2002

Some of these men are displaying an upmost eloquence. I'm wondering how many of these speeches, at five minutes a pop, were actually written by their own hand. Most seem to be leaning towards waiting for UN support & the Security Council's decision. Not all though. Some are either thinking purely politically, or not thinking at all.

This is the heaviest of matters. It certainly seems they would rather not be dealing with all of this & resent our rhesus monkey president generating the issue out of thin air.

I listen. I drink. I cook my food. I am an American citizen.

Oregon's DeFazio just fearlessly laid certain truths down. First he spoke of Bush & his oil magnate, breaking that particular cowardly silence & then, with a greater passion than any congressman I have heard so far, he told this gathering of old men that.... "We should not, cannot , be responsible for the United State's first pre-emptive war." So once again, I suppose, go, GO! My motherfuckin' Oregon..... (Later: Seven of our representatives voted NO to this war shit while the other three, two of which were Republicans, voted yes. This, really, is heartening.)

I eat my fish. It's yummy but I find a fly cooked in with my vegetables. Hell. I smoke my cigarette & find a small piece of brown glass in my can of beer. I'm really disturbed now. Should I sue someone? How could I prove it? I throw the can in the recycling. Open another & pour it in a glass, looking carefully. I'll never be able to drink a can of beer with an easy heart again.

There's something evil in the air.

Still, the House of Representatives represents who? Me? Not me. Of course I rarely vote. Why not? Because I find voting for whichever alpha-fuck to run off to Washington & get fat bribes from lobbyist to be even worse than not voting. It's like trying to pick out which color of riding lawnmower I want. I don't want a fucking riding lawnmower. I barely even have a yard.

All this shit will move forward no matter what I do: Not that I want to discourage anybody. Just don't try to encourage me. I know what I'm doing. I'm aware of the ramifications & right now, I'm listening closely to the careful calculations in these men's voices. Some of these shitheads are marvelous actors. Really good at what they do. This is how they got to where they are. The subtle art of the thespian is also the prime skill of governance: The deliverance of the lie.

& I'm suddenly wondering what percentage of these men would really love to fuck a preteen girl in the ass? Or maybe suck off a little boy? Really, look, because they sodomize the populace all the time & even as they verbally suck our constitual dicks... Do you not think that these are viable questions? What are the sexual habits of economic & political predators?

I'm also wondering if I have glass churning in my stomach as I write this.

Goddam it, Saddam was not responsible for 9/11. He is responsible for untold suffering in his own nation, but then again so is America, what with our economic sanctions on Iraq. People dying in droves due to the inability to access resources. Food For Oil, my ass. Just the name makes my skin crawl. Still, Saddam is a monster but then again so is little George B. Maybe the UN should put a stop to both of our nations. I'm thinking of how Michael Moore wrote the UN after the 2000 elections asking them intercede due to the illegal nature of the (supposed) election. A recount in Florida, anyone? I know that one was eventually done & (supposedly) illustrated that Bush would have won anyway, but I think it was done by the Society of Republicans for Presidential Pre-eminence or something like that. Right. Got it. Anyway...

What should we do about all the fucking intolerable back-water dictators of the world? Nothing? Something? Is it the ultimately the final responsibility of the inhabitants of such countries to depose such regimes? The US did it. We kicked the scurvy rats right the fuck out.

(& I still hate the British. What a miserable fucking isle full of a miserable & amazingly un-funny people. ( & I don't fucking like Monty Python, so don't mention it... ) The only funny thing about Britain is how much they have to grovel before our wanker colony now. Blair is so Bush's little bitch: I can just picture the boot-licking, the whipping, the long lengths of rope, the fancy knots, & the rough-ass fellatio.... Oh & God-fuck the geriatric queen.)

Anyway, if we did it, couldn't anyone? Or how lucky were we? We definitely had geography & various socio-economic situations on our side, but in nations of little luck, should violators of human rights be deposed? Where does this leave any nation? As the world grows smaller, these questions will grow more complex & more persistent & we already have so many tough questions to be posed to the meat-grinder of continuing existence.

Personally, I think that a supra-national entity, as Einstein put it, should be entrusted to a radically non-nationalistic group of super-select human beings & given the power to negotiate & enforce a democratic set of accords & standards for all of the Earth's nations. Especially in relation to Human Rights & environmental strictures. Kind of like the UN but with a backbone.

( Of course, I want a pony for Christmas too... )

& isn't that what this is all about? Saddam is breaking his agreement with the UN & the UN is too pussy to do anything about it & thus Bush is going to break our agreements & accords with the UN in order to depose Saddam.

The UN should be able to enforce its own deliberations. Whats the point of the UN if its too fucking weak to accomplish any of the peacekeeping that composes the heart of its own existence? Goddam utopian masturbation.... I want some goddam utopian action! I want something that will stop the horror of nationalism...

But Bush isn't doing this over the atrocities of Saddam's regime... Anybody with half a wit knows why he is doing this.... Shit. He's going to start this for all the wrong reasons & innocents will die. Iraqi civilians, fucking women & children.... & American soldiers, if you care.... & if Saddam pushes the war outwards: (Launches whatever missiles at a nuke-hoarding & psychotic Israel) The precarious Mideast could go a round of which hasn't been seen since WW2.... The fucking idiot fucks.

There are so many contradictions in this state of affairs, I can't begin to fathom them all. I do know that if the US were a nation of great & beautiful intent then maybe I could get behind the concept of using our military force to depose a dictator but....

1) We are not a nation of beautiful intent. Bush is doing this over oil & for political cover concerning domestic situations. These facts have been recognized by, well, fuck... damn near everyone on the fucking planet.

2) We are not a nation of beautiful intent. Saddam probably wouldn't even be in power were it not for the US backing his evil ass in his conflict with Iran.

3) We are not a nation of beautiful intent seeing especially how we (they) spend a ridiculous amount of our (the taxpayers who can't even get health-care..) money on weapons systems. ( The last Gulf War was nothing but a fucking info-mercial for our fucking weapons systems. Sales went up by something like 65% following our CNN broadcast of the war.) We spend six times the amount of money on weapons than the next greatest weapons producing nation.

4) We are not a nation of beautiful intent. We (they) are, mainly, a commercially expansionist coalition of corporate-heads-turned-politicians intent only on our (their) own interest: Money & power.

& me? I'm intent only on another beer. I'll be right back.

The radios voices grow more & more distorted. No matter the half-hearted attempts by certain individuals to stop this maddeningly idiot endeavor, the fact remains: The war is go. I turn off my tiny radio but the silence is not silent. The boring hypocrisy of our pseudo-republic still resonates everywhere I turn.

I find myself wondering when exactly an Empire reaches terminal velocity concerning its slide towards a hideous & in-escapable decay. It might not be too late for us but I'm afraid it probably is. It was probably too late 75 years ago. The terrible & hidden history of these United States of America: I doubt much. Hope for little. March on, brave world.

Still, we've probably got a century or more in us, provided we avoid something utterly cataclysmic like a nuke exchange, total environmental collapse or super-epidemic. All of which are completely feasible but America's gibsonesque future is also certainly possible... hell, upon us. Most days, when I ride out into this city, I find that I feel like we're living in some incredibly hard-edged cyber-punk novel & you know why?

Because we fucking are.