Songs that no one will hear

My Dear,

There always the good life
away
scrawled in ash
alone amongst the fawns
a breath finely drawn.

"I hope you find Old Mexico but I can't show you the way.
It's darker and treacherous right here at home but...
And surely you must see
the fortune before me
For that alone I make my way."

Communist Stooge?

According to Labour MP Chris Bryant, all Eurosceptics are conservative stooges. Would that there were more commie stooges.

Ghosts now and then

Every morning. Palimpsests of fabrics – an inglorious mix of cotton, nylon, wool, rayon, polyester and plastic – strewn about the floor. Crescent, waxing and waning, pools of charred coffee running out like mice through uncountable arcane warrens. Starched collars and vein red and blue ties knife through disintegrating t-shirts. Wet boots at the foot of each hideous cropping. Little clowns them all.

The sink no different. Long and short, unwanted, black and grey hairs float about in fetid lakes of water. Toothbrushes leaning, like rotten stalks of corn in festering unworked holdings. The shower running. Clouds of steam gathering around burning lights.

Next, the phone. Its ancient sidecar traps the four same voices everyday. One comforting, another bruised and silent, the third and fourth playful and wailing.

“Please. Leave.”

The house silent in the afternoon. The baby an unkempt jejune pig in awe of his father. The towering figure’s once furrowed brow relaxed in sight of his child. Starless rooms kept just alive by the low-grade humming life-support of the many functioning appliances. The rest of the afternoon spent cleaning: amidst hopes of finding himself the next morning; alone.

The evening, a mix of discourse and silence. First, banal eulogies of the passed day. After, fits of outrage aimed television-ward. The news, of hypocrisy, immorality and untruth. His righteous rants fiery displays of ineptitude.

“Fucking government”

Exhaustion ruffling the bed sheets. The room lurching in anticipation of the visitor. The immaculate order portends a restless sleep. Father still alert.

Past midnight. Lilting trees trace their ominous outlines along the bathroom wall. The wife sprawled dead and numb, exhausted and happy from the slaughter. Drooping eyelids fend off her soporific breathing.

Early hours. His somnambulist fingers falling on a truncheon. He’ll hide in an indeterminate space behind the door. Timid ankles turning over. The venomous boudoir punctures his bilious head.

In the morning, the long-awaited solitude.

Children are YOUR Future

In the age of JS Mill, only interest can compel the individual – in the nomenclature of business, these compulsions are called incentives, the literary vocabulary of spectral state secretaries, carrots. What then of virtue? Surely it too must be driven by ends?

In a bid to upend the liberal virtues of murder and theft, leaders in the culture war have turned to their own brand of incentive-laden morality – children. Sometimes a national duty(think pre-world war threats, now reality, of the Orient overtaking the West in numbers), other times for sources of labour, still others an act of defiance in the face of population control measures, procreation is now for the parent’s benefit.

Before taking that not yet fully-formed innocent’s life, think of the fame, popularity, and esteem you may earn. Note the emphasis on earn, because creating a do-no-wrong, Heisman Trophy-winning, messianic pillar of holistic and mesomorphic health is no easy task. Break them. Socialise them. Do whatever it takes. If you fail, you may have a fat, magic the gatherer on your hands. Or worse, they may be poor. Either case, it’s ultimately your fault.

If you can’t create the ideal, try second best, a soldier. At least then you’ll be responsible for saving lives vicariously through your offspring’s soul-taking of other far more deleterious creatures.

Ideolotik 0: How to Say Absolutely Nothing

At dinner last week amongst the cognoscenti, I witnessed the horror of democracy’s interpersonal vacuity. Awkwardly juxtaposed between specialists, experts, and academics of all stripes, I, still an amateur, found myself frozen in my inability to engage in the simple, free and open discussion. Having hid in the open behind smacking gums and other ameliorants long enough, I wished for someone - Tito, Amin, Chavez, damn near anyone - to come and clampdown on this hideous institution of free speech.

To my awe, the conversation instead continued at full bore, shifting to the dreaded democratic deficit debate. Ordinarily framed within the context of the European Parliament, democratic deficit is supposed to gauge the level of disenfranchisement amongst Europe’s variegated citizens. Pro and anti forces, Hix on one and Moravscik on the other, both believe in its general Existence,

The Arguments: a. it does exist, and it does matter; Europe needs politics –Or- b. it does exist, but it does not matter; Europe is only a supranational administrative state.

The illustrious legal colleague to my right proposed a third frame thusly: as long as there is government, there will be those who disagree with it or c. it exists, it may or may not matter, but it is a subjective fact of politics. The problem with the concept itself, he argued, is that it explains Nothing.

Upon further retrospection, I, the mirror as my witness, staged an intervention après coup. These tiny glass shards are what remain:

Indeed, the democratic deficit explains Nothing. The more words exchanged expose three theoretical lies:

One, any talk of a deficit presupposes an extant, therefore recoverable, idea.

Two, pure democracy and administration are possible.

Three, free speech can mask the abyss.

Some other impersonal examples:

1. In Dark Continent, distinguished Columbia Professor Mark Mazower(another dining partner), in alleged opposition to Eric Hobsbawm (Age of Extremes), asserts that the real struggle in 20th Century Europe was that between democracy and Fascism, before examining, in detail, the 70 year struggle between liberal democracy and communism (with a powdering of Nazism in between). In other words, as much as plebeians and elites, low and high, attempt to codify fascism (the radical right or its plus contents), as democracy’s dialectical abyss, the real Beast is the Left.

2. Since the financial crisis, in an effort to prove democracy’s existence via free speech and increased tolerance, the populist Right is given a mass media voice. The Right is naturalised as a genuine expression of frustration and anomie. Anti-immigration and anti-black presidents are rational, if abhorrent, responses. The two are reciprocal: democracy can level its violent excesses; the Right can prove democracy exists. The head of the British National Party, Nick Griffin is given a TV audience. The Tea Party movement dominates the American political scene.

3. Lee C. Bollinger publishes Uninhibited, Robust, and Wide-Open: A Free Press for a New Century.

4. Democracy continues…

April 13 2009 Baltimore Sun (Obama’s 4th Month) Unofficial Opposition

April 15 2009 Wall Street Journal Unofficial Opposition

April 15 2009 CBS News Unofficial Opposition

September 12 2009 Fox News (Obama’s 9th Month) Unofficial Opposition

December 16 2009 MSNBC News (Obama’s 12th Month) Unofficial Opposition


5. March 20 2003

Iraq’s 2nd Year (Other Countries) NY Times, Official Opposition

Iraq’s 4th Year (USA) CBS News, Official Opposition

The Heritage Card

Bobby Knight's Gary, Indiana Plessy Ferguson's defeated the Atlanta Self-Haters in dramatic fashion yesterday to secure the first ever WOBL(White's Only Basketball League) championship. Finals MVP Chris Mullin scored a game high 6 points to go along with 6 assists, 2 box outs, and 3 taken charges while hard-nosed, soft-spoken guard Bobby Hurley earned All Hustle honours for his basketball IQ and general mastery of the four corner offence.

Centre Jon Koncak had this to say: "I want to dedicate this victory to this once proud country and to the wider fallen idols of Western Civilization. The Kevin Love / Jason Williams combo is definitely a difficult ask. But in the end, I think we showed them the value of thrift, independence, and self-sufficiency. The fervent tea drinking, gun-permit holding, law-abiding crowd just goes to show that separate but equal really works."

Dreams, Finally

“Hello?” a monotone voice sputtered inquisitively through his antediluvian mainframe.

“Ciao”

“This is Gě”

“Gě?”

“It has come to our attention that you have abandoned your post.”

“Oh,” Francesco Basso replied awkwardly.

“Si, um, I, I must have drifted off.”

He had a habit of drifting. There was nothing particularly impetuous in it.

“We also see that you have been in contact with several people in your area about a putative meeting. As you know this abridges any one person’s right to online access.”

“Yes sir” he returned with all the enforced remorse of an unwitting child.

“Return to your unit. The silencer will be dispatched immediately.”

Francesco abandoned the window - today projecting a quiet city block, yesterday Victoria Falls in South africa - and returned to his unit, slipping the rusted earpiece into his better right ear. He typed to his mother about not forgetting to eat something tonight. She had grown especially fond of one of B-G-M’s new programmes and had gotten into the habit of not eating very much. He was afraid she would soon altogether forget. He shuttered at this promise. Most had already succumbed to hunger.

Italy ran through his mind. He thought about football and how he would love to see a game. He knew it was impossible though since B-G-M had banned crowds some 12 years ago. Everything had become impossible.

“If only Il Duce were here” he reminisced.

“He would never have let this happen.”

His thoughts turned to his youth and how, even though all the other boys pined for some or another neophyte sexpot, he loved the older actresses. There was something about black and white. He remembered being swept up in the furore over Mozambique - how they, after all they had suffered, rejected B-G-M’s overtures. How they tried to turn B-G-M’s words in on themselves. He remembered thinking how stupid they all were. Now he wished he was somewhere in Maputo - somewhere with the barbarians.

“Francesco” the voice, calm and comforting, called out.

“Give us your hands.”

He slipped his fingers in the awaiting holster. It closed cold and tight.

He watched as each lopped finger slipped to the floor. The blood shone brightly in the sallow room. Knowing he would never speak again, he passed out content.