You knew it had to come... an unseen hand of circumstance has ripped the smiling Kabuki mask away and it’s clear that there is no Iraqi government. There is no Iraqi army, there is no Iraqi police. The surge didn’t work. There is never going to be any ‘mission accomplished’. It’s as empty of substance as the space between Bush’s ears and as much of a pumped up fantasy as the crotch-shot on the deck of the carrier.
Now they are offering money for weapons in Iraq. Let’s see, you got a job working for a powerful crime boss from across the water who took over your country and you thought you’d flex your muscles and go after one of the big guys in your back yard and then he not only kicks your ass but some of your guys take off their uniforms and go over to the other side. The big crime boss sends in some tactical help; some on site, out of town boys with heavy artillery and... the financial comptroller for the powerful crime boss who took over your country and who is across the water in another direction sends in some heavy hitters too and they wack some families that are ‘connected’ to the big guy in your back yard but that doesn’t mean anything because that happens every day anyway and... you, you decide that you’ll offer the guys who kicked your ass some money in exchange for the weapons they used to defend themselves against you. Have I got it right?
Yeah, that’ll work. How about some short term, no interest loans for houses? It worked in the United States. Of course, the United States doesn’t have an insurgency unless you count an entire nation of people with their heads turned, scuttling down the street like crabs looking for a hole in the ground.
America, “land of the free, home of the brave” should be called, “Land of... who me? Home of the slave.” It’s got a nice ring to it.
For a long time now I have been trying to trouble shoot my way around, under, through, any which way, to understand how three hundred million people turned into ambulatory lumps of Jello that tremble and shake like rats on Warfarin every time somebody coughs in the back of the subway tunnel.
America has had trouble before and risen to the challenge. Even if the Civil War was caused by European bankers there was a mad rush to save the country from itself. People were willing to give their lives. When the bankers went to work again to create the First World War, everybody pitched in again to help them out. When they engineered the Second World War, Johnny went and got his gun again. Now they’re working on the Third World War and this time Johnny Anonymous is shouting in all caps across the new frontier of the internet.
The way they do it is they mess with the money and create fear and turmoil just like you are reading about now. Did you think I was coming to some kind of a point? Actually I was but the point was to make a sharp right turn without signaling and pull into this empty parking lot here so that we could have a little chat. You see, this post is not about what it was supposed to be about, just like everything you are being told is not what it is about.
You’re being squeezed by these same money men so that life will become so intolerable that you’ll be glad to run through the bloody trenches and razor wire to free yourself from the conditions created by the people who sent you running in the first place.
There’s too many of you. You’re taking up too much space. Over here and over there people are breeding like rabbits because that is what people do when they are starving and short of resources, shelter, food, opportunity and the value of their labor has disappeared because they already dug up and sold everything they had to the people who bought off their leaders and created the unbearable debt they find themselves in. Maybe they’ll get lucky and these people will find something else they want and they can start all over again.
Yeah, yeah... I’ve got a point. It’s in here somewhere. Let’s just sit here for awhile. It’s quiet here in the back-lot of Best Buy; just you and me and the homeless, foraging in the dumpsters behind the Sack and Save. I’ve eaten in a lot of fine restaurants in my life but I’ll tell you, some of the happiest days of my life were spent barbecuing rats on an old refrigerator grill down by the river. Afterwards we’d share a gallon of wine and sing Woody Guthrie songs.
Well, I may be back down by that river one of these days singing my own songs. The Recording Industry Association of America thinks I’m getting too much money but I understand we’re all going to be okay if we just shake like Jello and let them tap our trembling for a new energy source. They’ve already put generators between the legs of all the obese people who now make electricity from the friction of their legs rubbing together and that’s all going to Las Vegas. They solved the water problem too. Did I tell you about that? They’re going to harvest all the human tears and can you imagine what that’s going to come to?
Well... it didn’t take that long. Everybody in the car with me has fallen asleep so I’m going to run a hose from the exhaust in through one of the windows. I’m glad I gassed up before I started this composition. I’ll just close the door softly and walk away. It will be a kindness I think.
I don’t know how much space I’ve got left to say something meaningful here or how long anybody reading this anywhere is going to be able to stay awake with that gigantic hose that’s pumping carbon monoxide through the vents of the nation.
Okay... let’s pretend it’s not like this. I know it’s a bummer when I talk this way. I want to end on a high note, let the right hand travel some distance over from middle C.
We could have had a better world and I suppose we still can but it’s so much harder to accomplish it when so many of us with the talent to lead and inform are working for the people who made things the way that they are. I don’t know what their payoff is. They’re going to wind up down by the river too. It may be a better section of the river with a better class of grilled rat. They might have paper cups for their wine but... they’re still down by the river.
What did they promise all of those congressmen and senators when they agreed not to impeach the president for high crimes and treason? Did they promise them blowjobs or just show them some of the photos of their own blowjobs in the past? What did they do to stop everyone who might have made a difference from pointing out that 9/11 was an inside job? What goes on in the minds of everyone who knows the truth as they go thought their days on their way to the river?
I hope you can hear me speaking right now. I’m telling you, you need to get out of the car because something doesn’t smell right. Is that true that you can’t smell carbon monoxide? Just take my word for it. You need to learn what Al Sadr knows. You can’t reason with these people and you can’t trust these people. You’ve got to learn what Al Sadr knows, you’re stronger than these people. I do believe a lot of you are getting out of the car. I don’t know where it’s coming from but there’s fresh air coming in from somewhere. We just need to get a little distance and clear our heads for a moment. Then I think we’ve got to see that the right people head down to the river and don’t come back.
'Spread Your Wings' is track no. 1 of 11 on Visible's 2001 album 'God in Country'
Lyrics (pops up)
