MY OWN PERSONAL LITTLE
Fahrenheit (Minus) 911
By Michael Caddell
"The early twentieth-century fascisms didn't enter their golden age until the proletariat in the countries that gave them birth had been reduced to abject poverty. The music and the marching songs rose with the cry of eagles from the wreckage of the domestic economy. On the evidence of the wonderful work currently being done by the Bush Administration with respect to the trade deficit and the national debt -- to say nothing of expanding the markets for global terrorism -- I think we can look forward with confidence to character-building bankruptcies, picturesque bread riots, thrilling cavalcades of splendidly costumed motorcycle police."
- Lewis Lapham, Harper’s Magazine, Oct. 2005, pg. 7-9
NIGHTMARE COURTESY: LYMAN, A FRIEND AND READER IN N. CENTRAL KANSAS. CLICK BELOW. SELECT VIDEO.
POST PETROLEUM CIVIL WAR BLUES.
American children will be using clubs and rocks to build their public schools in the future.
"But I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided, unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength in our land."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938
A kaleidoscope of visions appeared in my head, my throat and nose felt like they were on fire, then the joints of my arms and legs ached, stiff and hurting as I moved them about in the bed. I looked through the darkness at the clock and began to realize it had been over five hours since falling asleep. Four days and nights and that was the longest block of slumber time accumulated and unlike the youthful years of amphetamine propelled “exam crams” at the university, my ability to endure had been tested and the age of my pained body was slowing in it’s ability to rise again to the challenges ahead.
I had staffed the fire watch for too long, hauling wood – sleeping in front of the stove, then the diesel fuel gelled and the radiators stopped heating. The farmhouse was freezing after days and days of fighting to keep warm.
Was that a dream I had?
Her hand on my shaking shoulder trying to calm me as I squatted over the oil burner in our cold basement turning the tightly machined screws to drain the air out of the line and bleed the red diesel onto a pie plate. The red diesel, was that the dream?
The blood ahead, behind, around me – it wasn’t blood, but the diesel smell still on my fingers. I thought, don’t rub your eyes – the fumes will blind you.
What if the water lines freeze?
I won’t be able to wash the stink of the fuel – my legs and arms, the whole body was shivering involuntarily.
The limit, the ribbon at the end of the track, John Lennon sitting in an easy chair, arms on the rests, his hair blowing backwards in front of the speakers. “Is it real or is it Memorex?” His chest covered in blood from five holes by a .38 caliber pistol. He had that look, that damn blank stare of a corpse, a corpse I investigated years ago, was it suicide or murder?
The face was caught in death by surprise.
The crime scene photographs appeared in my head.
Was that the coroner’s voice? “Many people don’t know that the gun barrel’s gases cause such a large bubble under the skin, here on the bullet’s entry into the skull,” he said while pointing with his pencil at the bulge on the corpse’s head.
CHRISTIAN PRO – LIFERS SHOW LARGE ABORTED FETUS PICTURES TO WOMEN ENTERING ABORTION CLINICS.
AMERICAN CHRISTIAN PRO – LIFERS AT WORK IN IRAQ!
IRAQIS CHILDREN. MORE “DEAD – ENDERS” ACCORDING TO RUMSFELD.
ACCORDING TO VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY OUR SUICIDAL AMERICAN LIFE – STYLE “IS NON – NEGOTIABLE”.
PRAISE JESUS AND PASS THE NAPALM.
William Blake’s “Oh Jerusalem”, the words to Hubert Parry’s tune sang by Billy Bragg in my head – outside the howling wind blows to a bone – chilling minus nine degrees, my horses running in the snow, kicking their legs up above their backs, was this a dream, the cold front going on and on and on?
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Amongst these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spear: o clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire.
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.
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