3342Eulogy for America

 

 

Jul. 5, 2005

 

 

http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/101/399/14555_euology.html

Eulogy for America
11/08/2004 16:49
The epitaph reads:
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Born July 4, 1776 - Died November 2, 2004

Ladies and gentlemen, we gather here today to mourn the passing of
the United States of America, a nation that once stood as a beacon
light of hope for the world.

America was betrayed and murdered on November 2, 2004. Also killed
during this time of madness were the following virtues: truth,
justice, integrity, freedom, compassion, brotherhood, tolerance,
faith, hope, charity, peace, and respect for other cultures and
nations. These virtues are survived by their antitheses--deceit,
injustice, hypocrisy, fascism, selfishness, hatred, fear,
hopelessness, greed, perpetual warfare and arrogant hegemony.

Also murdered were seven platitudes, which parents once used to
convince their children that America was a rational and honorable
nation:

1. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY died during the coup of 2000, when
Americans nonchalantly stood by while an election was stolen. This
death provided the Bush dictatorship with the incentive to test the
accuracy of Alexander Hamilton"s belief that, "Those who stand for
nothing will fall for anything." That accuracy was authenticated
when both the American media and the American public unquestioningly
embraced the lies that led the nation into the war against Iraq.

2. VERACITY IS THE HEART OF MORALITY (by Thomas Huxley) has been
replaced by these words from Robert Burns: "Morality, thou deadly
bane, thy tens o" thousands thou has slain."

Ironically this platitude was zealously enforced when Bill Clinton
was President, after he was caught lying about his affair with a
White House intern. During the debate leading up to his impeachment
trial, right-wing pundits incessantly chanted, "It"s not about the
sexual activity. It"s about the immorality of lying."

Yet commensurate concerns over the immorality of lying about the
existence of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq have been
conspicuously absent. And while Clinton"s lies wrought neither death
nor destruction, the lies of George W. Bush have, to date, resulted
in the deaths of over one thousand Americans, and the slaughter of
over one hundred thousand Iraqis, many of them innocent men, women
and children. Yet, under the bizarre morality that recently caused
the death of America, Clinton"s dishonesty is viewed with more
disdain than Bush"s. Ironically, if this "new morality" does not
prevent a lying mass murderer from holding political office, then
convicted killer Charles Manson has the credentials to become
president.

It was allegedly this "new morality," that swayed the recent
election. But what does it truly entail? Besides the egregious
belief that lying about a sexual relationship is more immoral than
lying about the motives for war, this "new morality" also claims to
defend the rights of the unborn, yet is blissfully unconcerned about
those already here. Millions of children throughout the nation
suffer needless pain because their parents lack health insurance and
cannot afford to take them to the doctor. Millions of the elderly
suffer similar pain because they cannot afford the prescription
medication they rely upon to survive. Yet while universal health
care is derided as a "socialist" concept by politicians bought and
paid for by the insurance and health care industries, all Iraqi
citizens are being provided with universal health coverage.

This "new morality" vociferously rebels if taxes are raised even a
single dollar to supply impoverished school systems with computers or
up-to-date textbooks, or to feed and clothe the homeless and
destitute. Yet the expenditure of billions of dollars on a war based
on nothing but lies does not even create a whimper.

Under this "new morality" a block of granite is more important than a
human life. The indiscriminate bombing of civilians and the torture
and "disappearances" that occurred (and are still occurring) in
United States controlled detention camps throughout the world did not
inspire outrage, but the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from
government property does, even though this monument can be openly
displayed on private property.

While so-called "Christians" exploit this "new morality" to
pontificate about "family values," and to condemn the "intolerance"
shown by other faiths, they furtively seek, in the wake of America"s
death, to establish a dogmatic Social Darwinistic theocracy
themselves, building their so-called "faith" on the pillars of
hatred, egomania, greed, lust for mortal power, and the selfish
desire to force their beliefs upon others, many of the very evils
that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, condemned.

3. CRIME DOESN"T PAY holds true only when the crime opposes or
offends the power structure. It does not apply when stealing
elections or waging illegal wars.

In fact, as the Bush precedent has demonstrated, all an incumbent
president has to do to maintain office is dupe the people and the
Congress into supporting an illegal war, mismanage this war until
election time, then tell the people they should not change
the "commander-in-chief" during wartime.

4. ALWAYS LEAD BY EXAMPLE has been replaced by, "Always be willing
to shed anyone"s blood, except your own." When the opportunity arose
for Bush, and his partner-in-crime Dick Cheney, to personally
participate in combat during the Vietnamese war, Bush instead used
his family influence to perform some still nebulous National Guard
Service, while Cheney obtained five deferments to avoid being
drafted. Yet today they stand on the decks of aircraft carriers and
behind podiums in some of the most fortified buildings in the world,
telling Iraqi insurgents to "bring it on."

5. PATRIOTISM IS THE LAST REFUGE OF A SCOUNDREL (by Samuel Johnson)
has been replaced by the verity that patriotism is the FIRST refuge
of a scoundrel. The build-up to the Iraqi war illustrated how easily
the Bush regime, through the repetition of words like "freedom and
democracy," could distract people from the reality that the greatest
loss of freedom Americans suffered in recent years was not because of
some overseas enemy, but through the passage by lawmakers of the
deceptively named "Patriot Act." Now that America is dead, the "new
morality" is determined to destroy what little remains of the Bill of
Rights.

The irony is that patriotism is only expected of the poor and middle-
classes, who make up the bulk of America"s military personnel. Multi-
national corporations, who outsourced jobs and threw employees out of
work, and who retained ornate office buildings in the late United
States while profiting from virtual slave labor in other nations,
were never asked to be "patriotic," nor were they chastised for
disloyalty when their practices harmed the national economy. Instead
they were rewarded with tax breaks and the financial windfalls that
Bush"s warmongering spawned.

6. WORK HARD AND YOU WILL BE REWARDED must now read, "It is not
what you know, but who you know that matters." Although Bush and
his supporters have stridently condemned as "preferential treatment"
affirmative action policies designed to help minorities who have been
historically victimized by discrimination, no one condemns the fact
that Bush has profited from preferential treatment his entire life,
as have countless other politicians, pundits and celebrities.
Affirmative action is not being attacked because it
provides "preferential treatment." It is being attacked because it
intrudes upon the nepotism, cronyism and sense of entitlement
exploited by those born into wealth and power.

7. ALL LIFE IS SACRED was a common platitude in the late United
States. But the massacre of November 2, 2004 has replaced this myth
with a paraphrase from George Orwell"s classic book ANIMAL
FARM: "All lives are sacred, but some are more sacred than others."

In truth the lives of the expendable and exploited were never as
valued as the lives of the expenders and exploiters. And while the
Iraqi war is a constant reminder of the absurdity of this platitude,
the ordeals of Dr. Jack Kevorkian and Maurice Carter have graphically
underscored its hypocrisy.

Dr. Kevorkian is currently imprisoned in the State of Michigan for
helping the terminally ill end their lives, allegedly because his
actions violated "the sanctity of life." Yet, just over three months
ago, an African-American man named Maurice Carter was also in a
Michigan prison, serving a sentence for a crime that many believe he
did not commit. At some point during his twenty-eight years of
incarceration, Carter contracted a liver disease that became
progressively worse because of the inadequate medical treatment he
received in prison. When Carter supporters filed a petition to gain
him a new trial, the judge hearing the case condescendingly joked
about the severity of Carter"s illness.

Although Maurice Carter was ultimately released after being granted a
medical commutation by Michigan"s governor, it was too late. He
enjoyed only three months of freedom before he died. Yet few have
condemned the hypocrisy of a government that makes it a crime to end
the suffering of the terminally ill, yet causes terminal illnesses
itself through inadequate medical care.

So rest in peace America. As St. Paul said, "You fought the good
fight." But the majority of your people did not keep the faith.
Your dream of "checking and balancing" the corrupting influence of
power to prevent the rise of evil was a noble endeavor. But history
has shown that evil can never be checked, that tolerance often sows
the seeds of intolerance, and that the majority of people will always
be susceptible to the machinations of madmen.

You have been ravaged by hatred disguised as "morality." You have
endured those who argued that the enslavement of Africans
was "moral," who agreed that counting these slaves as three/fifths of
a human being for census purposes was "moral," that stealing the
lands of Native-Americans, either through bloodshed or fraudulent
treaties, was "moral," that destroying Native-American traditions and
cultures was "moral," and that placing women into insane asylums for
demanding the right to vote was "moral." Now the hatred of the "new
morality" is directed towards gays and lesbians, towards those who
work for peace, and towards those who don"t simply blather about
freedom, but exercise it through dissent.

I know there will be some, perhaps many, basking in the afterglow of
their pyrrhic victory, who will dismiss this eulogy as "sour grapes,"
or the sentiments of a sore loser. But let it be said America that
we who truly loved you did not strip away one freedom; we did not
endorse one modicum of religious bigotry or intolerance; we did not
place your fate into the hands of liars, thieves and war criminals;
we did not brazenly abuse the resources of the American military
to "play cowboy" or to appease our father; we do not have the blood
of one American soldier or one Iraqi civilian on our hands. Because
of this we did not gain the world, but we also did not lose our
souls.

To those in other nations who read this eulogy, who are still
mystified by how swiftly a once great nation was transformed into a
neo-fascist nightmare, and how easily a man as hateful, hypocritical,
venal, bloodthirsty, warmongering, sadistic and deceitful as George
W. Bush was converted into a paradigm for "moral values," all I can
say is that millions in the late United States are pondering these
same questions. Perhaps the answer resides in three disturbing, yet
immutable, laws of human nature.

The first law is that human beings are obsessed with bringing about
their own destruction. Ever since the first caveman picked up the
first stone and bashed in the skull of his first enemy, humankind has
been devising more sophisticated ways to kill. Even though the
atavistic instincts of the cave dwellers are currently masked by the
veneer of neon lights and skyscrapers, the grim reality is that human
knowledge has always outpaced human wisdom, and it is rare indeed
when new technological advancements or discoveries are not explored
for their potential use as weapons. As long as this obsession
continues, it is inevitable that warmongers will always prevail over
peacemakers in the realm of political power.

The second law is that evil is the primary motivating force in human
affairs. Although George W. Bush and his minions personify all that
is loathsome about human nature, they are merely the reflections of a
self-loathing people repulsed by the responsibilities of living in a
free country. Edmund Burke once said, "All that is necessary for the
triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." But the madness
that murdered America on November 2, 2004 proves that evil will
always triumph, regardless of what good people do.

The third law is that humans are exceedingly receptive to appeals to
their basest instincts, which often compels them to act in ways
harmful to their personal interests. Karl Marx believed that
economic self-interest inspired people"s actions and reactions in
capitalist societies. But this is only partially correct. Although
economic self-interests consistently influence the rich and powerful,
they frequently fail to influence the poor and middle classes,
particularly when other interests are given priority.

In the antebellum American South, for example, many white residents
earned their incomes working as skilled laborers--such as
blacksmiths, silversmiths, cobblers and carpenters. But the wealthy
owners of large plantations normally possessed slaves who were
equally proficient in these skills. Consequently there was no
incentive to pay for work that slaves were required to perform for
free. Yet, when the Civil War erupted, many of these same white
laborers lost their lives fighting to uphold the very institution
that was impoverishing them.

This practice lingered into the civil rights era of the 1960s, as
evidenced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."s conversation with his white
jailers in Birmingham, Alabama. When they informed King of their
opposition to his efforts to desegregate the city, King inquired as
to how much these jailers were being paid. He then remarked, "You
are just as poorly paid as the average [African-American] man. You
should be out marching with us!"

In those few perceptive words King encapsulated how the rich, white
establishment had manipulated poorer whites into accepting the
concept of "white supremacy," when in reality they were being just as
exploited as their African-American counterparts.

This practice continues today under George W. Bush, the modern-day
Nero who fiddled while America burned, and who now enriches his
cronies with tax cuts, oil profits and lucrative "rebuilding"
contracts, while deceiving his supporters in the poor and middle
classes into believing their friends and relatives are dying in Iraq
for "freedom and democracy."

It would be easy for those of us who loved America to be apathetic in
the wake of its death. Why should we care how many have died and
will die in Iraq when a majority of people are so willing to
sacrifice their loved ones? Why should we clamor for truth, when
this majority is satisfied with illusion? Why should we be disturbed
about Halliburton profits, when this majority is gullible enough to
believe Bush"s lies about the war? Why should we protest the
bloodlust, butchery and bellicose braggadocio of a cabal of bullying
cowards when such behaviors do not offend the "new morality?" Why
speak out at all when history has proven that activism and compassion
usually destine one for scorn, blacklisting, false imprisonment,
suicide or assassination?

But please resist this apathy. There were many who believed the new
millennium signaled the end of the world. But with the corrupt
ascendancy of George W. Bush, maybe what the new millennium heralds
is the beginning of the end. Perhaps all we can hope for is that the
day after the apocalypse enough of the earth will be salvageable, so
the species that replaces humankind can understand the price of folly
and realize that even in humanity's darkest days there were prophets
and visionaries who recognized the face of evil and warned the world
against it, but whose words fell upon deadened souls and hardened
hearts.

Since this is a eulogy, permit me to end on a religious note. I
believe that one of the most unjustly maligned figures in history is
Judas Iscariot, the man who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of
silver. Judas, after all, acknowledged that he had betrayed
innocent blood, and returned the silver before killing himself in
remorse for his deed. Yet the betrayers and murderers of America
have not only kept the money, they have laughed at the suffering
they've caused.

Christ advised his followers to ignore the specks in the eyes of
others until they have removed the timbers from their own. But, in
today"s "new morality," far too many of those professing to
be "Christians" deceitfully fabricate specks in their neighbors'
eyes, so the world will remain oblivious to the timbers in their own.

So in our grief let us not forget that, just as America was finite,
the perpetrators of evil who infest the halls of power are finite as
well. If there is atonement in eternity, then those who do evil, and
those who enable them, will ultimately have to pay for their crimes.
But dark days are ahead my friends, and perhaps the best we can hope
for as this maelstrom of evil engulfs us is that we do not succumb to
its allure, lest we become, like those who murdered America on
November 2, 2004, people without souls.

David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor PRAVDA.RU

3343icq w/A

Jul. 5, 2005

 

 

evile: Hi there! How was jousting?
SkyeDS: very educational experience, professionals as opposed to sca
evile: cool.
SkyeDS: we're going to join the fourwinds family, a good time was had
by all, we all got too much sun, some of us in places God never meant
to get too much sun, etc
evile: oopsie. Oh well. As long as you had fun.
SkyeDS: how was your weekend?
evile: excellent.
evile: wrote about it in LJ
SkyeDS: just got here, so still tackling half a dozen tasks at once
evile: I'm really stoked for next month's Desert Passion. There will
be live music by a guy named Oliver Rajamani, who is apparently one
of the world's premier Romany musicians.
SkyeDS: when is Desert Passion?
evile: first Friday of the month
evile: On the 'yuck' side, looks like some of the Typsy Gypsy troupe
will be guest perfomers, but they are not being billed as such, so
perhaps as individuals htey'll actually behave and not talk and
laugh through everyone else's performances.
SkyeDS: they can be avoided
SkyeDS: and I won't be there in garb, freezing, with my headscarf
wrapped around my face looking like a burqqa
evile: I dont' really know how you can 'avoid' watching them dance,
without being very rude to your fellow audience members, but you can
certainly avoid socializing
SkyeDS: that's what I meant
evile: *nod*
SkyeDS: would be easy enough to avoid seeing them dance too, could
just shut my eyes
SkyeDS: nobody would notice unless they were watching me instead of
the dancer
evile: *nod*
evile: It should be fun. I'm excited about it. [Cousin B] is a newly
converted fan.
SkyeDS: :)
evile: Leila was one of the guest dancers--the blonde goddess PhD
candidate who used to dance with Z Helene at Cafe Mundi.
SkyeDS: yum
SkyeDS: does Z not do shows in Austin anymore?
evile: Apparently she dances at Pyramids on Saturdays,a nd during hte
school year, she dances with Mirage (I believe at the Carousel
Lounge). So I will need to go check that out.
evile: Z helene does maybe 2-4 shows a year now, and htey're indoors
at Austin Yoga (?) on S. Lamar. Dreadful acoustics. Not a good space,
IMHO.
SkyeDS: cafe mundi was such a nice venue, wonder what happened
evile: the children wouldn't stop tearing up the plants.
evile: so Cafe Mundi stopped allowing them to have dances there.
SkyeDS: her children, patrons' children or both?
evile: Mostly her daughter & the two little bellydance students, but
when other kids would come, they'd follow the lead of the other kids
and the parents didn't do a damn thing to stop them, just let them
run unsupervised
evile: Yay for irresponsible breeders ruining yet another nice thing.
SkyeDS: too bad she doesn't have better business sense, which would
have spurred her parental responsibility
evile: *shrug* A lot of artists seem to have lacks in other areas of
their lives.
evile: great musicians are bad with money, great writers are
immoderate in their alcohol consumption, etc. etc. It's practically
textbook.
evile: It looks to me like Z. Helene is focusing more on teaching
these days. And apparently her website says she's going to some kind
of workshop or competition in August. So, I guess she's just changed
gears a bit
SkyeDS: common sense would say, you hire someone/get a volunteer who
has the skills you don't
evile: *shrug* a lot of artistic personalities dont' have common
sense, either.
SkyeDS: the problem with cafe mundi being symptomatic and not causal
SkyeDS: ie gear shift or not, she'll keep creating the same problem
for herself over and over again
SkyeDS: don't learn from history you're doomed to repeat it, etc
evile: New performance space is Indoors, nothing but floor and
chairs, there's not much damage a kid can do. Plus parents seem to be
better about supervising kids indoors.
evile: she makes a point of saying her shows are kid friendly...being
that I'm not, I have found more suitable venues for my interest in
watching adults bellydancing.
SkyeDS: I don't perceive you as being unkidfriendly
SkyeDS: I perceive you as being unruly-kid-unfriendly
SkyeDS: you enjoy the well behaved children of your friends
evile: *nod*
evile: I even tolerated being drooled and puked by the baby on
Saturday.
SkyeDS: I don't remember having ever been drooled or puked on, so I'm
impressed. Can't say that I know how I would react to that.
evile: The baby is so durned cute, I just really didn't mind. amazing.
SkyeDS: drooling and puking, while aesthetically less than pleasing,
are natural, and not the byproducts of bad parenting either
evile: yup
evile: Looks like I may have to make TableRock a priority.
SkyeDS: why?
evile: Met up with some folks I hadn't seen in forever at the
bellydance show, they were talking about it, and then found out
Saturday that rengeek is bartending there. So..yeah, gotta go.
SkyeDS: ah.
evile: It's such a dinky little faire...there's nothing to it as far
as shows or booths, but if I know I will meet up with a bunch of
friends, that makes it worth my while to go.
SkyeDS: I have a couple of things I want to implement for 4winds faire
SkyeDS: that I might try out at Raven's Loft and Tablerock first,
maybe
evile: *nod*
SkyeDS: all of these faires have jousters
SkyeDS: but none of them have mounted archery (a specialty of the
Arabian battlemare)
SkyeDS: nor ballet du cheval - a precursor of dressage
SkyeDS: which the Egyptians had a form of, called "dancing horses"
evile: *nod*
evile: time for me to make the rounds & get gone. *hugs*