NOTES FROM SRI LANKA.
(December '05)
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12/4/05
Howdee.
This is the hammer mill calling. Do you read? I said, do you read? What the hell is wrong with this thing? Astra, astra... we've lost your signal. Raise the gain. Lower the loss. Tote that barge. Is this sucker plugged in, even?
Oy.
I'm here in the Big Green radio shack, trying to make contact with the outside
world. No luck, yet. Yes, we're operating a little pirate ham radio operation
here in Sri Lanka -- part of how we stay connected with the so-called "real
world." Though I must admit, this thing doesn't seem to reach anyone. Could
be problems with those tubes again. I yanked a few drive tubes out of one of sFshzenKlyrn's
spare amp heads, so maybe now if we turn the thing up to eleven someone,
somewhere will hear us. In fact, we should just use his guitar amp, then we
wouldn't need a freaking radio. People in Alaska will be able to hear us,
for chrissake. (Behind his "back", we call sFshzenKlyrn
"mister loud," but don't tell him so. He's been a little sensitive
about that since the time a few years back when he grew to be ten stories tall
and got cited for breaking local noise ordinances.)
I
know what you're going to say -- we shouldn't be wasting our time on these
pointless activities, right? We should be working on our next album, now that
we're back on terra firma, right? Am I right? No? Okay... well, the fact is, we should
be working on our next album, whether you think so or not. (I'm starting to
sound a bit like Steven Colbert. Scary.) And in the interests of full
disclosure, I should also tell you that we have, in fact, been 
working on
the sucker. Oh, yes. And I don't mean just listening to playbacks, my friend. We
have been tracking and tracking hard, working our lousy fingers to the bone to
pump out more Big Green Hits for you deserving folks out there, all anxious and
waiting for new ring-tones to download to your shmeensy little cell phones. Even
Big Zamboola has sidled up to the microphone to do some blistering backing
vocals, so it's
coming, friends, it's coming. Even now, we're hammering away in the bowels of
the old Cheney Hammer Mill. (Pass me another Tofurkey sandwich, will you?
Thanks.)
All
right -- so we're not working that hard. We're working -- that's the
point. Marvin (my personal robot assistant) has been placed in charge of
overseeing the production schedule. He has flip-charts, calendars, even a PDA
strapped to his tin hide. (We're vaulting forward into the 1990's my friends,
ready or not.) Sure, it might seem more appropriate to hire an outsider to be
uber-producer, but remember... we're working on a shoe string here. Anyway,
Marvin can be a stern task master when he wants to be, particularly in the
studio. Why just the other night he cut the mic on me because I was a little
off-key. And he keeps waving off the refreshment cart, even after six or seven
hours straight of studio time. After all, he doesn't need refreshments... he's
got that built-in fridge to keep him happy. 
Padlock on the sucker, besides.
Nothing like it. (That's why I can never find my juice boxes. Damn.
They're probably all wine boxes by now.)
Enforcer or not, we are making progress... or at least, making noise. Hopefully at some point those assorted noises will be fixed in some listenable format on a compact disc, which you can then purchase, borrow, steal, etc., for your own purposes. Not making any predictions at this point, friends. Not until I can raise Rangoon. C-Q! C-Q! Come in, Rangoon!
Good Fortune: This came to me in a fortune cookie the other day:
"Now is the time to make circles with mints, do not haste any longer."
If you know what this means, for God's sake, e-mail me.
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Least
Resistance. The administration has come up with a strategy for victory in
Iraq. It appears to consist entirely of denial, obfuscation, and evasion. (If
Bush really wants to be king of denial, you'd think he would have invaded
Egypt.) Oh, then there's the part about getting it wrong... namely, using terror/terrorist/terrorism
several times in each paragraph. So in this sense, too, the new strategy is just
the old strategy in a new cover; to wit, the mess in Iraq is part of the war on
terror and anyone who takes up arms against the "order" we impose is a
terrorist. Iraq=terror=9/11. This is what the president is still telling
us...sort of. (What I mean is, he doesn't actually tell us anything. We
only get to listen and watch as he speaks to large gatherings of people in
uniform.) Bush and company started this war saying that Saddam Hussein was
allied with Al Qaeda, a claim wholly unsupported by fact. Now we are supposed to
accept some continuity of 
purpose
between that pathetic lie and the forceful resistance that is a direct
consequence of our invasion and occupation.
This is the main thrust of the information war, and we (the people) are the primary target -- the "enemy", if you will. We are, after all, the only thing that can stand in the way of our own military juggernaut, so we must be kept either supportive of the conflict or apathetic enough to stay out of the way. In more coercive societies, this is done through threats, intimidation, and direct violence. Here in the land of the free, it's done through public relations and "perception management"... with a measure of intimidation thrown in here and there. Because the United States has evolved into a nation of people who will not very easily tolerate bald, unprovoked aggression against another people, our government has to deploy information in such a way that war will be made to seem the easiest option to a majority of Americans...the path of least resistance.
The
insipid neocon Wolfowitz once glibly remarked that the administration might have
used any of a number of good arguments for invading Iraq, but that the WMD line
was one everyone could agree upon. Of course, he and his chicken-hawk colleagues
knew that talking trash about nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons would
inspire the right level of domestic terror to get the populace on board,
especially when leavened with the equally specious suggestion that Hussein was
affiliated with Bin Laden's network of fanatics. In the face of nearly unanimous
evidence to the contrary, they flogged their "mushroom cloud" rhetoric
until they were certain Americans would accept their mad plan for regime change
in Iraq -- a strategy wholly dependent on the fact that U.S. consumers would not
be asked to a.) fight the war, or b.) pay for it... right away. Of course, once
the 
war begins, the
path of least resistance becomes "staying the course," owing to the
principle of political inertia. So even though a supermajority of Americans
think this war is a mistake and not worth continuing, they do not perceive it as
directly affecting their lives. Fought by volunteers on borrowed money, the war
may be relatively easily ignored in favor of personal issues, the cost of fuel,
who's getting what for Christmas, etc.
It doesn't reflect well on us as a people that we allow these military folks to be slaughtered for nothing (another ten Marines killed just yesterday!) while we "do our part" by being mindless consumers.
What's Next? Buoyed by his success in conning us into the Iraq invasion, Dubya will put on a carrot suit and declare war on international vegetarianism. You heard it here first. (Thanks to Big Green friend J. Yeandle for the illustration.)
luv u,
jp
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12/11/05
Saints preserve us.
Oh when them saints come marching in. Marching? Saints march? I thought only freedom marched. Unless them saints are marching to freedom... Now I'm lost. Where's my pocket compass? Where's my atlas?
An
incoherent and cantankerous start to this week's ravings, to be sure. Hey -- you
spend a week cooped up in this drafty old Hammer Mill and see how sunny your
disposition becomes. Yeah, sure...I know -- we only just got back from an
interplanetary, interstellar, even inter-dimensional tour, and it has only taken
me a few weeks to complain about being home. Has wanderlust taken hold of my
mortal soul? Am I never content to feel the warm earth below my feet? Can a man
truly BE a man without a distant star to draw him on? All good questions. I put
them to Marvin (my personal robot assistant), since he also serves as my data
computer and primary analysis engine. These are the answers he gave me, in the
order the questions were asked:
1.) No. (squx)
2.) 7 pounds times ten to the 23rd. (fzzzt.)
3.) Null set. Please resubmit query. Not valid as posed. (squx.)
4.) Bzzzt. There is no question four! Bzzzzt. There is no question...
Enlightening,
as always. I'm grateful for Marvin's support in these days of trial and
tribulation. You already know about my bedroom fire and how I have been packed
off to an abandoned machine shop for my rest. Then there's the blistering
production schedule we have imposed upon ourselves 
in a final push to finish our
much-anticipated follow-up LP to 2000 Years To
Christmas. Now, of course, to make things more complicated, Marvin's
inventor Mitch Macaphee has been noodling around with terrestrial gravitation
again (his favorite of studies!) and, in his zeal, negated the gravity in the
section of the Cheney Hammer Mill that houses our project studio. We didn't
actually notice until Matt saw, out of the corner of his eye, the somewhat
disconcerting sight of John White floating upside-down, still whamming on that
piccolo snare of his. The snare was propelled forward through the air with each
hit, and John swam after it, swinging wildly. Disconcerting, indeed.
What
makes this truly annoying is that...well....just the day before, our other
resident scientist installed these pointy metal orgone transmission arrays
everywhere, including on the ceiling in the studio. I don't think I have to tell
you that we're all bearing the scars of this particular 
experiment. The poor
man-sized tuber got himself impaled once or twice, and we spent the better part
of that evening plying plastic wood into his wounds. Not a good thing. Why the
hell don't these "men of science" consult with one another before they
start screwing around with the forces of nature? Do they have to pick the
same day every time? It's like when Trevor James invented a new
trans-dimensional knish, and Mitch Macaphee chose that particular day to run a
culture on potato blight. I was sick for two weeks, for chrissake.
Hey... if anybody's curious about "intelligent design", I've got some news for you. Our scientific contingent has proven that there's no intelligence behind anything that happens in this corner of god's country. Trevor James -- get these spikes the hell out of here!!
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Bitter
End. Ready for a surprise? Dick "five deferments" Cheney says
we shouldn't pull out of that war he helped lie us into because to do so would
be to abandon Iraq to car bombers. He made his remarks at Fort Drumm in upstate
New York -- spitting distance from where I now sit -- while pinning purple
hearts to Iraq veterans (real purple hearts, not the band-aid versions Cheney's
pals handed out at last year's Republican convention). Sounds like old Dick is
ready to make up for his failure to serve during the Vietnam "era". I
say put him in a uniform (if you can find one big enough) and ship him over to
Mesopotamia -- we'll soon get him down to his fighting weight, one way or the
other. And while we're at it, why don't we size up a uniform for Dubya as well.
Let's make him a specialist -- maybe put him in that 
hazmat-like calving outfit
James Herriot had to wear as a gag. Progress, my friends, progress.
Sadly, those most enthusiastic for this war will never come close to fighting it. I suppose this is often the case, but I can't recall a more stark example of such a brutal foreign policy being advanced by a bunch of officials who -- to a man -- avoided combat when the opportunity presented itself. Don't get me wrong -- I've got nothing against folks who refuse to participate in an unjust war...but it's supremely hypocritical to exempt yourself from a conflagration you wholeheartedly support, so long as someone else (or someone else's kid) does the actual fighting. Now these Vietnam-era chicken hawks are strutting about, lantern-jawed, lecturing everyone else on hanging tough and not losing one's nerve. It would be laughable if it weren't so ugly. Even more absurd than this is the Bush Administration's attempt to portray itself as driven by humanitarian concern over the fate of the Iraqi people. For christ's sake, they can't even be bothered to keep track of how many Iraqis we've killed, let alone admit to the degree to which we're selling their national treasure out from under them.
Of
course, the Saddam Hussein trial is an opportunity for Dubya and company to play
up their specious humanitarian invasion rationale -- let's take a close look at
the crimes of the dictator we deposed... so long as we avoid the issue of how
closely we were allied with him when he committed them. The specific atrocity
under scrutiny offers particular irony, as well -- 
an assassination attempt on
Hussein that resulted in collective punishment against an entire community.
Hmmmm.... sounds familiar. Isn't that a whole lot like what we did to Falluja
after those U.S. "contractors" were killed? Then there were the
bombings that followed the alleged assassination attempt against Bush's father
back in the early '90s, which some say helped propel Dubya to implement the
ongoing collective punishment code-named "Iraqi Freedom". (I don't buy
that argument myself, but the fact remains that we are no strangers to the
concept of collective punishment, meting it out regularly in Ramadi, Tel Afar,
and elsewhere.) Saddam may be in the dock, but we are the ones truly on trial
right now, with an entire planet (hint: ours) watching what we do each
day in occupied Iraq.
Rumsfeldian Humor. "Pentagon Don" was on the PBS News Hour Thursday night complaining that the good news about Iraq is overshadowed by the bad, then making the ridiculous claim that he'd never predicted how long the war would last. Does "Six days....six weeks...I doubt six months" ring a bell? Hi-larious.
luv u,
jp
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12/18/05
Oh, well....
One more. (Uno mas, amigo.) Gracias. (Thanks.) What are you looking at? Haven't you ever seen subtitles before? We're going bilingual here at BigGreenHits.com -- at least to the extent that anyone gives a flying toss. Which is not at all. So what I said earlier about the subtitles? Um. Forget it. Just forget.
How
do you throw a birthday party for a robot? That's a question that had been
vexing us here at the Cheney Hammer Mill for the better part of the last three
days. You see, we're coming up on the anniversary of Marvin (my personal robot
assistant)'s invention by Mitch Macaphee -- Marvin's fifth "birthday",
if you will (and I hope you will). So naturally we were kicking around
ideas about how to observe this momentous milestone in the life of an automaton.
After an hour or so, most of our ideas were kicked beyond recognition...so we
resorted to the usual trappings of a five-year-old birthday party. Cake, ice
cream, streamers, party hats, banners, noisemakers, and...... toxic
chemicals?
That's
right, toxic chemicals, my friends. At least, that is what the local
constabulary alleged when they busted down the (unlocked) door with a battering
ram and came trooping into the Cheney Hammer Mill, four-abreast, in hazmat
suits. You see, Homeland Security is not an 
obsession confined to the land of
the free and the home of the brave. It's been globalized, baby, and some
security consultancy firm must have sold the village a police chemical weapon
detection package that works, well....just that good. So while we were tooting
our little tin horns and singing a merry song to Marvin, somewhere at police
headquarters a little light started flashing, and a little arrow pointed in our
direction. J'accuse!
Ever
seen a child's birthday party broken up by people in pressure suits? It's not a
pretty sight, I can tell you. Seems they thought it necessary to quarantine the
balloons -- can't imagine why. And decontaminating a piņata? I could understand
confiscating it, but burying the thing in a tub of sand seemed a little extreme.
I suppose when you have the technology, you tend to use it....but that goes a
bit beyond ridiculous. In fact, they were going to hose the whole place down (even though
it had recently been given a good hosing during that little fire we had).
Luckily the only hydrant on this block is no longer functional, thanks to one of
Trevor 
James's little etheric bioplasmic energy experiments with a modified
divining rod. (He knows how to make drinking water go away. Now if he can
REVERSE that process, he's in business.)
Somewhere along the line, the constabulary picked up one of those old decontamination chambers that NASA used to use with the moon-shot astronauts -- that silver trailer with all the gadgets. Must've gotten it cheap. Anyway, they chucked us all in that sucker -- including the BIG ZAMBOOLA -- and here we sit, waiting for the all's clear. Don't suppose you could order us a pizza or something...... please.....?
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Mr.
Responsible. Dubya Bush has been on a poll-driven quest lately to beat back
some of his negatives and shore up political support wherever he can. It appears
he's making a serious play for the "idealistic" hawks -- those to whom
Paul Wolfowitz is a paragon of altruism -- by hitting on the fanciful theme of
spreading democracy throughout the middle east and by (gulp) accepting some
responsibility for the failures of George Tenet. (Why the hell didn't he just
manufacture reality like the rest of us?) He's even stood up in front of a
largely non-presorted crowd and invited questions.... saints preserve us! The
aim here appears to be that of making Dubya seem less out-of-touch, more
statesman-like, so that they can take maximum 
advantage of the Iraq election
phenomenon (which appears not to have been a total disaster as compared to a
normal day in that wretched country). Though Bush never ceases talking about how
positive and uplifting this poll will be in a region starving for freedom, the
real objective of this effort is to rally domestic support for the occupation.
The political divide over the war is mostly driven by sham patriotism and crass political opportunism, as both Democrats and Republicans attempt to take possession of the concept of "winning" in Iraq. Of course, the G.O.P. sleaze machine has latched on to Howard Dean's comment that the U.S. can't win, equating this position with surrender and generalizing it to the rest of the party. This is doubly ironic -- Dean is no dove, and his observation was a rare moment of frankness; further, many of the most prominent names in his party are just as hawkish as (if not more so than) the President. The political climate is such that we cannot even discuss the possibility of not winning, even though no one really wants to discuss what "winning" truly means. For Bush and company, it means having a relatively compliant government in Baghdad that will allow permanent U.S. bases within Iraq and total penetration of Iraq's economy by multinationals. The goal is worth an unlimited number of U.S. military casualties, as far as they are concerned, and the more money it costs, the better -- more profits for preferred contractors and more strain on the U.S. federal treasury, forcing deep cuts in targeted social programs.
What
do the top Democrats mean by "winning"? Pretty much the same thing,
only in a more nebulous. way. Clinton, Biden, Lieberman.... they all support
putting more troops on the ground, not less. Lieberman actually went so far as
to revive the spirit of what was once called the "National Confidence
Committee" -- a Nixon-era group that counseled supporting the president unequivocally
between elections; if you disagree with the president you can vote against him
in the next election -- that's it. That's kind of what Lieberman was implying.
Of course, what he said about Dubya being commander in chief was pure horseshit,
because the President is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, NOT of the
people of the United States. (Note to democracy-lovers: free people have no
commander in chief.) So it's good to remember that this is not partisan terror
-- this is terror by consensus.
And if it weren't for an old soldier like John Murtha speaking up, Washington would probably still be focused on steroids in pro sports.
luv u,
jp
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12/25/05
Me Santa. You Jeebus...
How's that go again? Ah, yes. Chrrrrrrristmas comes but once a year, and when it does it brings good cheer, because we've got the #%*@$*#$@% mmmmm hmmmm hmmm for Christmas. Okay, now it's your turn. Ready? READY?
Goddamma.
It's so hard to get people to participate in a singalong when they're locked up
tight as a drum in a decontamination trailer. Yes, that's right, friends. We of Big
Green -- the galaxy's (ahem) foremost virtual pop group
(though we remain more than a bit obscure on our home planet -- you're never
appreciated in your hometown) -- best known for our self-produced album of
alternative songs on the general theme of Christmas, are still sitting in this
Apollo-era mobile quarantine thingy on Christmas day. Packed off by the lads at
our local constabulary without so much as a "how's your father?" we've
been declared hors de homeland security until they can figure out just
what to do with us. That is to say, whether to release us... or stick us in a
paper bag and set it on fire. (I'm hoping for something between those two poles.
You can hope right along with me, you know.... Hope harder!)
Sorry,
my friends. Just a little on edge after a week in this tank. I've seen what
enforced isolation can do to a man. Oh, yes... I could tell you stories that
would curl your hair (if it is not, in fact, already curled). Why just this last
Tuesday, our erstwhile companion Trevor James Constable put a bag over his head
and started emitting a low moan at 14.76 second intervals (he's very precise, is
Trevor James). We were able to talk him down, but not before his fellow man of
science, Mitch Macaphee, started clanging on the antique fittings and valves
with a handy sledgehammer. Luckily, Marvin (my personal robot assistant) was on
hand to distract his inventor while we pried the weapon from his grasp. The
bucket of water over the head made a 
world of difference, as well. Oh yeah -- he
came to his senses quickly, and was soon punching formulaic numbers into his PDA
once again. (I fear he may be devising some kind of anti-personnel device to use
on our captors. This could get ugly, people. Very ugly.)
All right, I admit the sing-along was my idea. I thought, you know, a little yuletide melody might soften the mood a bit. Man, I was so wrong. (Even the two Lincolns aren't talking to me now, and they never agree on anything!) The fact is, I think they've transported this trailer to somewhere deep within the bowels of the constabulary -- a large brick building with labyrinthine corridors and basement arches strongly reminiscent of those beneath our own abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. In fact, looking out the pillbox windows in this fetid, aging trailer, I could swear that we were in our own basement. But alas, our adopted home has been occupied by the men in blue and is now being swabbed down to within an inch of its life. About every six or seven hours, some pressure-suited guy comes in here with a piece of kit that I can only imagine is some kind of meter -- he just waves it in our faces once or twice then trudges off. (Last time he came in, a couple of us were tunelessly muttering the lyrics to some seasonal chestnut, and I swear he flipped me off... though it's hard to tell with those big nylon mittens on.)
We've
got a pool going on when they're planning to let us loose. I've got my money on
Boxing Day; Matt says New Year's. Marvin took Christmas, but that's here
already ... so maybe he means Orthodox Christmas. Personally, I think
this is going to require intervention from our "man" on the outside, sFshzenKlyrn.
Trouble is, he was last seen digging into a stack of flapjacks twelve high. Hey,
do us a favor, will you? E-mail
our Zenite friend and tell him where we are:
Big Green
dank basement
Constabulary Building 4A
Outer Colombo, Sri Lanka
Thanks a million. And have a happy.
(Note to readers: for those of you only interested in my political ravings, start here. For those who only wish to inspect my band-related ravings,...well...you get the drift.)
Is
it safe? This is just too good. We've got a national government that puts
everything in the context of 9/11, that brings up terror attacks on the WTC and
the Pentagon at every possible opportunity, that justifies every imbecilic
policy they devise with an anti-terror rationale. And now this week we discover
that, in addition to dumping resources (and lives) into an asinine war in Iraq,
the Pentagon has been spying on anti-war groups and characterizing local people
who demonstrate against recruitment at schools as "threats". This just
after the 9/11 commission issued a report on how woefully unprepared we are for
another major terror attack. It's not hard to see why. Instead of checking those
cargo containers and keeping an eye on nuclear and chemical plants, these
fuckers have been infiltrating some goddamn sewing circle in Des Moines. It
amazes me that this story isn't bigger than the one about the NSA tapping our
international calls without a 
warrant.
Sure, that's bad too... but this intensive, coordinated
domestic spying and infiltration effort by the military goes far deeper than a
violation of privacy rights. (I suspect the reason we've heard more about the
NSA story is that more journalists make international calls than stand in picket
lines. I call this the "curbside check-in"
syndrome.*)
Here's the rub -- this confirms and broadens the scope of the program of intimidation and criminalization of dissent that has been increasingly evident in recent years. The database that was recently reported on suggest that files are being maintained on many small and obviously benign groups, a practice ominously reminiscent of the bad old days of COINTELPRO, the 60s-70s era national counterintelligence program that entailed harassment, infiltration, sabotage, and worse against anti-war activists, civil rights workers, the American Indian Movement, the Panthers, etc. Today's operations appear to focus largely on anti-recruitment efforts. So let's see -- people who are trying to keep recruiters away from their children are being treated like security "threats". So their definition of national security encompasses what would seem a purely political or at least institutional interest in maintaining the all-volunteer military. Because of Bush's seemingly endless (and entirely optional) war in Iraq, recruitment is way down and the military is straining to maintain such a major deployment, sending reservists, national guard, and full-time soldiers in for repeated tours of duty. Even marginal resistance to recruitment makes the situation worse.
With
all the rhetoric about the insidious threat we face, one might suppose our great
leader (or is it dear leader?) would re-institute the draft. Not a chance. As
soon as they start forcing people to take part in this catastrophe, the game is
up, and they know it. What has evolved in this country since the Vietnam war is
a volunteer-only armed forces culture -- 
that
is the only basis upon which phony wars like Iraq can be prosecuted. If the U.S.
was actually under attack from a powerful and determined foreign foe, they could
institute a draft and it would probably fly. But short of that unambiguous
reality, it's the professional army who'll do the fighting. I like to think of
this as a kind of progress; we as a people seem to know what's not worth
fighting for. Now if we can just take that essential next step towards
recognizing that if it's not worth our lives, it isn't worth that of the poor
recruit. In any case, you can see why the armed forces regard any interruption
of their recruitment as a "threat." It's volunteers or nothing for this
"army of one."
Look ahead dimly. Chuck Krauthammer is channeling the neocons again in agitating for war against Iran. His column this week begins: "Lest you get carried away with the good news from Iraq..." Sunshine appears to be drinking the Kool-Aid again. If my son had been among those killed this week, that rat bastard would be hearing from me.
luv u,
jp
* Right after 9/11, I recall listening to the McLaughlin Group or some other gaggle of pundits complain about how Congress might eliminate curbside check-in, apparently a major pillar of our constitutional freedoms. (Back to column.)