though i speak with the tongues of men and of angels
and have not charity
i am become as sounding brass
or a tinkling cymbal
and though i have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge
and though i have all faith
so that i could remove mountains
and have not charity
i am nothing
One Thanksgiving I spent in jail. I was young, and therefore brash and rash, and so thought myself immortal, impervious. Didn't think then, there in stir, about doing serious prison time, which is what I was facing. Just had to wait for the holiday weekend to pass, I figured, then the lawyer could tease the bail down to a Sane level. Which is what happened. The serious grinding over the prison time, that came later.
Thanksgiving was my third or so day in the place. I occupied alone a single-cell, which I belatedly learned was supposed to be a sort of punishment. I could smoke in there—can't do that no more, in the jails here—and I could think and plan and wonder and reflect. There were tolerable volumes from the jail library with which I could pass the time. Nobody bothered me. I could talk to the folks—though yes I couldn't see them—in the cells on either side of me. But I could choose not to, too.
This was 25 years or so ago, when they still fed you decently in the jails around here. And so on Thanksgiving they shoved through the bars a fair approximation of a traditional American Thanksgiving repast: turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, cranberry sauce, yams, etc. I ate all of it. Yams I hadn't much eaten before, and I haven't eaten them since. But I had already discovered, there a monkey confined to a cage, that I'd eat just about anything the keepers slid my way. You do tend to get hungry, in every way, when your life is caged.
After Thanksgiving dinner the screws punched a video into the TV/VCR combo that sat on a low metal table rolled about on casters in the hall outside the cells occupied by we "serious felons." I absolutely could not believe it: the film was The Black Stallion, one of my favorite movies, a tone poem completely about freedom, but one that I figured these cynical magpies in the "serious felon" row would hoot out and away, dismissing it as a "children's flick." How wrong I was. They, as it developed, had been on this row much longer than I; they had seen this film several times before, and they valued it. They got it as only people who don't have it could get it.
Because it was Thanksgiving, that night we got a double feature. The second film was a ninja thing. As soon as it was punched in, we heard a groan from the guy in the cell to the far right.
"What bullshit," he groused in his gravelly voice. "This is the one with the guy who takes more bullets and still lives than even the guy in Scarface. What bullshit."
And it was true. The ninja hero at one point was riddled with what looked like 20 or 30 bullets, mostly to the head and chest . . . but still, he kept on coming. As this nonsense approached its zenith, the guy in the cell at the far right kept muttering variations on "bullshit" and "check out this shit" and "no way."
My unseen jailbird companion to my left eventually whispered to me: "That dude at the end, the reason why he's pissed at this stupid shit: he's in here on murder. He knows what it takes to kill a person. And it ain't much."
Several years later I spent Thanksgiving at Denny's. I didn't have to be there; I could have been other places, with other people. But Denny's is where that Thanksgiving I chose to be.
Even at the time, I knew that my Thanksgiving in Denny's was worse than the Thanksgiving I'd spent in jail. Because then, in jail, somebody else had locked me up. But in dining at Denny's, I had entered a jail of my own making.
Usually, these days, I don't associate Thanksgiving with jail. But this year, it came back at me. Because the day before Thanksgiving, here in 2010, a jury out of Texas decided that Tom DeLay, former majority leader of the United States House of Representatives, had committed enough crimes to stash him away in a cage for the rest of his life.
DeLay is a person who is not that hard to fathom.
Like many among us, he chose to be a simpleton, wedded to his own private personal phantasmagorical vision of The Way We Were.
In DeLay's particular phantasmagorical world, there exists a Golden Age when all was Good and Decent, before Negroes got uppity, and women burned their bras, and homos flaunted theyselves before all and sundry, and no-account po' folk commenced the St. Vitus Dance about how there iz jist No Reason, far as they kin see, why they shouldn't get doctors jist as good as those who attentively pore over the aging flesh and paling blood of an American aristocrat like Barbara Bush.
And so DeLay roared out of Texas, and into Washington DC, determined there to reverse the course of the world, return it to that place where he imagined it once was and should forever be.
As a true believer, DeLay presumed, like all true believers, that any and all weapons at his disposal were righteous for him to wield.
"If thy laws offend thee," Delay borrowed from Matthew 5:29, "pluck them out."
And so DeLay, for the Greater Good of more GOoPers in Congress, which he perceived as Absolutely Necessary in order to turn back the clock and return us all to The Way We Were, pulled down his drawers and shat upon the laws governing wheeling-dealing financial contributions to politicos He Happened To Like.
The prosecution alleged that Mr. DeLay skirted the state ban on direct corporate donations to candidates using a sort of shell game. Corporate donations to Mr. DeLay's political action committee were transferred to an arm of the Republican National Committee; the same amount of cash, raised by the RNC from individual donors, was then donated to the candidates.
Those campaign dollars were credited with helping more Republicans win seats in the Texas House; they used their power to redraw congressional districts that favored Republicans, prosecutors argued.
The redistricting plan, which was engineered by Mr. DeLay, was later enacted by the Legislature. A number of longtime Democrats subsequently lost their congressional seats, increasing Mr. DeLay's own power and prestige.
It was a kind of political money-laundering operation that had very important consequences. With the help of those six victories, Republicans took back control of the Texas legislature for the first time since the end of slavery. But most important was this: that same legislature was later in charge of a deeply controversial redrawing of constituency boundaries in the state that helped DeLay significantly to reduce the number of Democrats sent by the Lone Star state to the US Congress in Washington.
The Texas jury condemned DeLay as a money-launderer—akin to a drug-dealer, or a Mafia capo—and returned verdicts on counts that could lock him away as a convicted felon for up to 99 years.
"Law" as we know it hasn't really been around all that long.
Back in the day, white Europeans settled serious disputes via "trial by combat." That is, I'd send out a "champion," and you'd send out a "champion," and whomsoever physically prevailed in a brute-force tangle would establish, via "might," who was "right."
Eventually it came to be understood that this was Ridiculous and Embarrassing. And so scribblers were set to work codifying Rules. So, henceforth, if, say, you brazenly stole my cow, instead of me slipping coin to some beefy mercenary to take on your beefy mercenary, or simply tramping over to your place to steal one of your cows, I'd go to something called a "court," and there I would obtain "justice," by way of a "remedy."
The "remedy" was intended as a way to fairly recompense a loss. In the case of a stolen cow, the remedy was simple: if it was found that you indeed stole my cow, you returned that cow, or another cow, or something of equal worth. The court meanwhile denounced you from the bench as a form of rat bastard, for stealing my cow, and the community commenced to shun you, for some appropriate period of time.
Unfortunately, not everything is as simple and straight-forward as cow theft. And so white Europeans, in formulating this "law" business, soon flapped completely out of control. If you stole an apple from a market—hey, cut off the dude's hand. You steal shit with your hand, so, if we lop the thing off, you won't steal shit no more. Too, hanging's good: if you die, you sure as shit can't commit no more crimes. By Charles Dickens' time, the English were hanging people—including children—for all sorts of no-account offenses. Solves the problem. A little muss. Not much fuss.
Here in the USA, in 2010, still blindly stumbling behind our forebears, we don't much lop off hands, or hang 'em high, anymore, though we do bubble up into the veins of The Accursed sufficent poisons to kill 'em, and meanwhile lash into any foul cage any old miscreant we can lay our paws on.
It is hard to determine what sort of "remedy" best serves as punishment for Tom DeLay. It is clear that the guy flouted the nation's laws in order to subvert the government of the United States. But there is no precedent for simply stomping into the halls of Congress to grab by the neck those who, via DeLayed illegalities, had come to be seated there, and rudely depositing them in the street. The cause and effect, under our laws, is too attenuated.
So we are, instead, faced with the reductionist notion of confining DeLay to a cage.
I've been in a cage. Three times. And I am here to tell you that a cage is not a place that any human being wants to confine another human being, without extremely just cause. Like, you're pretty darn sure that, if the person is not immediately confined to a cage, sometime in the next 24 hours s/he will unaccountably run amok, and, for No Reason, bite someone in the neck.
Tom DeLay—Wrong as he is—is not that sort of person. He's just a has-been sadsack, who once was somebody. Who, torn down off his throne and thrown in with the pretty-much nobodies, today may run his mouth, may run, at best, a PAC or two. But who can no longer be feared as someone capable of subverting the government of the United States.
In my real life, these days, I spend most of my time, when I'm working for coin, trying to convince judges that they shouldn't sock people away in a cage to beyond their last breath. My task is to discover and explain who these people are, and how they got to where they are, and argue that life in prison is not the right, true, moral, just place for them to end their days.
Then I come here and howl like Jehovah.
I recognize now that there is a disconnect there. In this place, frankly, I've become a scold. I come down on people like fuckin' Yahweh with the thunderbolts. Judgemental, unforgiving, eternal memory, rain down the fire and the ice.
That's not who I am. At least that's not who I want to be.
Sure, I feel justified behind every line I type . . . but so what? Jehovah thought he had a good reason for firing Sodom and Gomorrah, and flooding all the world unto extinction but Noah and his bibulous clan.
But, you know, even if you read The Guy's own book, it becomes pretty clear that he was, soup to nuts, an asshole. He never would give people a break. Until finally he decided, like a chickenshit, to send his own son to get slaughtered, to atone for the mistakes he himself had made.
Saul came along later and said The Dude was all about "charity." I don't think so. Otherwise, we wouldn't all be, where we now find ourselves to be.
Recently my eyes wide shut opened to the fact that I am no longer the best of myself on this site. Maybe, I never was. I do know that, here, these days, I don't speak true. And I don't know now, really, whether I ever really did.
Because there is something about this place that is feral, predatory, aggressive. That encourages a person to either become that, or to do the pillbug roll, to go protective, to shield how one walks this way.
There are a few—very few—people here, who, like the Fool of the Tarot, constitutionally can't walk that way, can't armor themselves in some sort of protective metal caul. They are, here, on this site, who they are: naked, open. And the very best people I have encountered on this site, like Avila, have been those who, though extremely strong, fierce, dominating personalities, have deliberately intervened to protect these Holy Fools, who otherwise would have been picked clean, like ragged lost-out chickens, eagerly devoured, then discarded, as the bungled and the botched.
I used to do that. But mostly now I just attack people. They've pissed me off, so I get righteous and go Jehovah. That's bullshit. So I'm going away from here for awhile.
Last year I tangled with LaughingPlanet when he introduced the kOscars thing. Though the kOsacrs thing, it was a great idea.
But I suspicioned that he was trying to work the voting to jazz up his own karass. And he suspicioned that I was some wild-eyed wild-hair trying to burn down the cornfield.
So, for a time, we flapped around the site foaming at one another. I was aggressive, he was defensive; we saw red, instead of one another. We are at peace now, he and I. Though our conflict, back then, seemed Very Important. When, in reality, it was just Silly.
I just don't want to be involved in that sort of thing anymore.
In LP's inaugural 2010 kOscars diary, Laurence Lewis arrived to nominate as Diary of the Year occams hatchet's truly beautiful tribute to exmearden. And this caused me to reflect upon a notion that has fleetingly occurred to me, from time to time, on this site, over the years: what if we determined to pretend that we were all dead?
That is, instead of waiting until one of us had truly passed into the place of forever young, each day there appeared a diary about a Kossack as if that Kossack had slipped the night before from off the mortal coil.
One by one. Until we had been introduced to, and really understood, each one of us. One by one.
I understand that it is not possible for this to come to pass: for on this site one may remain anonymous, and that anonymity is fiercely defended by pretty much all and sundry.
Still, I think it would be a useful exercise. What new understanding, I wonder, might be attained, if, say, Uberbah were to write about me, as if I had passed, and I were to write about him, as if he had passed?
Fuck it. If I can't muster charity for somebody like Uberbah, who's right at least 17% to 71% of the time, then it's time for me to get off this site.
I've come to the conclusion that, in the main, we're all right. We're just too wedded to expressing it in ways that too often divide.
On my own blog, a couple weeks ago, I put up a post that reflected my despair at the teabagger narratives that I've seen increasingly recited on this site.
And my own daughter, who—thank jeebus—maintains a mind independent of her father, responded with this:
I wish we were as willing to fight and frame the debate as they are, but that’s it. After all, could Democrats EVER so effectively use a minority to stall legislation? I doubt it.
I think, however, there are a lot of disappointed, disillusioned youngsters like myself out there. I really believed that policy was all that mattered, but sadly, ability and willingness to stand up for what you believe in against a barrage of unfair lies spewed by the Republicans and the media is also vital. Obama had no problem standing up for his beliefs when he voted against the Iraq War. So why, oh why, has he given the Republicans 90% of they want? I’m trying hard not to be a Daily Teabagger, but I honestly don’t think Obama is fighting hard enough, and his jabs at the left are REALLY starting to hurt me. I understand him being exasperated with people like those on kos, but there are plenty of reasonable, sane liberals and Democrats who oppose his position. I am really angry that Obama is now negotiating with his OWN PARTY in order to pass a bill that is not even HIS OWN position, but full of Republican policies. Why can’t Obama fight the Republicans instead of his own party? I cheered when I heard that the Democrats in Congress are FINALLY going to take a stand against this Republican bullying. Congressional Democrats are no bastions of liberalism. So Obama can stop insulting us now.
Obama make optimists like me look bad. He's done, and continues to do, great things, but he caves far to often when it is completely unnecessary. If he’d passed an effective stimulus and health care bill to begin with, and then actually encourage Congressional Democrats to run ON it, instead of away from it, we would not have lost so many seats. Obama is only part of the problem. Congressional Democrats are also to blame, but Obama has failed to lead when he need t. He should have pushed for the public option, when 73% of people wanted. And all of the Democrats need to learn how to bargain. It doesn’t mean before you even go in, give up slightly more than you want to, so that the Republicans end up doing away with most of what you proposed.
One thing I wish we’d emulate the Republicans on is their ability to frame the debate by insisting that their position is the "common" position. This is usually a lie, whereas our positions usually are the truth. We need to start pointing this out.
And I responded to that with this:
You say: "if he’d passed an effective stimulus and health care bill." But he put through Congress the maximum amount of stimulus money that Congress was willing to approve. Remember that the GOoPers were even then, that early, in "Party Of No" mode, and so in order to get the stimulus bill through at all, he had to peel off a couple of Republicans in the Senate. You ended up with a handful of Republicans dictating the amount for the whole country. These goons were bribed and cajoled until they agreed to go along, and the amount passed was the maximum they would sign on to. It’s easy to sit back and say—or, more precisely, scream—"the stimulus wasn’t enough!" But then you are obligated to pinpoint whose vote you might have obtained for what greater amount. Nobody has been able to do that, at least nobody I’ve read. Instead you get stuff like "leaders lead," which is just meaningless verbiage—duckspeak.
Similarly, on health care, it was a bear getting that legislation through at all; it too required all sorts of bribery and cajolery, as well as a bunch of procedural feints and dodges and end-arounds. You can cite a poll that says that 73% of the people in the US wanted a public option, but that accomplishes nothing unless 51% of the people in the House want it, and 60% of those in the Senate (or 51%, if through reconciliation, or the leadership decides to dynamite the filibuster). The health-care bill was again the maximum that the administration could push through that Congress. The votes simply didn’t exist in that Congress for single-payer, or public option, or anything else that wasn’t accomplished. They still don’t. The Obama administration made the decision that it wanted a health-care bill—some kind of health-care bill. It identified the forces that killed the Clinton health-care plan—insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, and the AMA—and then worked to craft something that would keep those same entities from swooping in to kill this one. Even then they barely succeeded. Administration officials had to make noxious deals all the way down to the deadline, often with mutants who were Democrats, like those fetus-fondling freaks. People who think that all that would have been required was Obama roaring out of the TV like Al Sharpton, thundering "we’re going to have single payer!," after which he would run over to Congress to grab several hundred legislators, shoving them into a closet in order to "twist their arms" until they magically agreed to go commie, are living in a dream world.
The Obama administration wanted a vote on the Bush tax cuts before the 2010 election. Congressional Democrats refused to hold one, because they feared it would harm their re-election chances. So here we are. I’m not sure what I think of this three-legged tax proposal yet, but to lay all the blame at Daddy Obama’s feet is folly. Too, he is "negotiating with his own party now," as you say, because when he attempted to negotiate with Dem Congressional leaders before turning to the Biden idea of cutting a deal with Mitch M on taxes so the GOoPers would unlock in the lame-duck things like START/DADT/unemployment etc., he was besieged by hand-wringing/wild-eyed jabberers who had no coherent plan on how to get something that would pass through their own chambers.
There are a lot of disillusioned youngsters like yourself because you’re getting a good long look at how this government works. A government designed for an 18th Century rural agricultural isolationist slave-owning nation, that is attempting to function in a 21st Century urban technological imperial nation busting out all over with historically oppressed peoples stepping up for a piece of the pie. Introduced to that government via BushCo, it looked like Evil, and it was presumed the Evil could be cleansed simply by replacing the Evil with Good. It was determined that Obama was Good, and so he was swept into office, to make again of our land "a shining city on a hill." But now, two years on, when we’re not all sailing into the mystic, it has been decided instead that he is actually Evil, he just pretended to be Good. Or, alternatively, that he is a dumb weak lazy black man interested only in basketball.
I absolutely believe that both of us are right.
But I'm not sure we can easily occupy that space. Not on this site. Because this, to me, reads, as it pretty much always has, as a Janus place. Born that way, this site, under BushCo, with all here signing on to turning their faces away from the face of BushCo.
And now, though having secured "more and better Democrats"—originally the site's goal—but through that having failed to sail at once into the mystic, this site increasingly resolved that, original goal achieved or no, we are mired still in the muck of the Wrong.
And so turning our faces away again.
This is going to be difficult to express. If I haven't already failed wildly, in the words above, to get across what I mean to say, surely I will fail here.
Back in the day, as we were preparing to relaunch Never In Our Names—the blog that cared about torture and related human-rights issues when very few others did—melvin put up a trial post that consisted wholly of a video.
My undies immediately went into an uproar. I fired off a frenzied IM to Avila, whose blog it was, saying I'd rather plunge needles into my eyes than be associated with a blog that permitted posts that consisted wholly of videos.
Several years on, I routinely put up posts on my own site that consist solely of videos.
Then, back then, I was simply being a reactionary, a Leo. Reflexively saying "no" to anything that reeked of Difference, of Change. Because, you know, I'm just that way.
The point is, I've learned from people here. In many places, in many ways, you all have been ahead of me. I have, on occasion, lagged, pathetically panting, behind. I am grateful to you: for dragging me along.
Know too that I believe that, at root, all of you wish to ease suffering in this world. Which is all that is, in the end, to me, important. Despite the horrible things we may say to one another, I believe that, in our common core, all of us wish for a world in which there is no suffering. That is the world that is at present impossible. But the one that we must seek to attain.
And that is why, when Willy DeVille says in the video clip embedded below, "I love ya'll too," I mean it not only in the way that he says it, but sincerely, too. For I have learned belatedly the lesson of melvin—a man who, through misunderstanding, I inadvertently helped run off this site—that sometimes only music can say what needs to be said. And it is in the notes that sound from the strings of Freddy The Frenchman's guitar, in the video below, that are all I've ever really meant to say. Here, or anywhere else. That is the best of me. The rest, is folly.
DeVille's song, embedded below, is pure projection. He claimed it was "about a woman I know who was a drug addict. She was mixed up and she was shook up. That’s what it’s about." This is bullshit. The song is about him, Willy DeVille. He’s the one mixed-up, shook-up, strung-out. What he projected unto The Other, that was him. I see that. You see that, too.
Be well, people.
Selah.