Wear Your Love Like Heaven

Color in sky prussian blue
Scarlet fleece changes hue
Crimson ball sinks from view

CHORUS
Wear your love like heaven
Wear your love like heaven
Wear your love like heaven

Lord kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah kiss me once more
That I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven
Wear my love like heaven

Color sky havana lake
Color sky rose carmethene
Alizarian crimson

CHORUS

Lord kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah kiss me once more
That I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven
Wear my love like heaven

Lord kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah kiss me once more
That I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven
Wear my love like heaven

Cannot believe what I see
All I have wished for will be
All of our race proud and free

CHORUS

Lord kiss me once more
Fill me with song
Allah kiss me once more
That I may, that I may
Wear my love like heaven
Wear my love like heaven

--Donovan P. Leitch

Pareles Reviews Bruce at the Garden

Let the naysayers and non-believers cavil. This man was and remains the future of rock-n-roll.

A Full Analysis of the Sanchez Speech

Once again, the WSWS reads between the lines.

Too Little, Too Late

Sanchez: Iraq war 'a nightmare with no end in sight'

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former commander of coalition forces in Iraq issued a harsh assessment of U.S. management of the war, saying that American political leaders cost American lives on the battlefield with their "lust for power."

Sanchez: No concerted effort in U.S. to devise a strategy to win the war in Iraq.

Retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, coalition commander in 2003 and 2004, called the Iraq war "a nightmare with no end in sight," for which he said the Bush administration, the State Department and Congress all share blame.

Sanchez told a group of military reporters in Arlington, Virginia, on Friday that such dereliction of duty by a military officer would mean immediate dismissal or court martial, but the politicians have not been held accountable.

He said the Iraq war plan from the start was "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic," and the administration has not provided the resources necessary for victory, which he said the military could never achieve on its own.

Still, he said, the U.S. cannot pull out of Iraq without causing chaos that would have global implications.

"After more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism," Sanchez said.

Sanchez pointed to what he said was "neglect and incompetence at the National Security Council level" which has put the U.S. military into "an intractable situation" in Iraq.

Sanchez, who retired in 2006, said it was his duty to obey orders and not object publicly when he was on active duty, but now that he is retired he has an obligation to speak out.

"While the politicians espouse a rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die," he said.

The administration, he said, has ignored messages from field commanders that warned repeatedly that "our military alone could not achieve victory" without corresponding help from the State Department.

"Our National leadership ignored the lessons of World War Two as we entered into this war and to this day continue to believe that victory can be achieved through the application of military power alone," he said.

"From a catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan, to the administration's latest surge strategy, this administration has failed to employ and synchronize its political, economical and military power," he said.

Sanchez said the current strategy, which included a "surge" of troops into Iraq, was "a desperate attempt by the administration that has not accepted the political and economic realities of this war and they have definitely not been able to communicate effectively that reality to the American people."

"Too often, our politicians have been distracted and they have chosen loyalty to their political parties above loyalty to the Constitution because of their lust for power," he said.

Congress, he said, has failed its job of oversight.

"Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leadership involved in the management of this war," he said. "They have unquestionably been derelict in in the performance of their duty. In my profession, these types of leaders would be immediately relieved or court-martialed."

Sanchez was pessimistic about the chances of victory in Iraq unless there is a major change in commitment.

"Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory," he said. "The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."

"There is no question America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," he said.

The nightmare will not end, he said, until the partisan struggle for power in Washington ends.

"National efforts to date have been corrupted by partisan politics that have prevented us from devising an effective, executable and supportable strategies," he said. "At times, these partisan struggles have led us to political decisions that endangered the lives of our sons and daughters on the battlefield. The unmistakable message was that political power had greater priority than our national security objectives."

"Overcoming this strategic failure is the first step toward achieving victory in Iraq," he said. "Without bipartisan cooperation, we are doomed to fail. There is nothing going on today in Washington that would give us hope."

When We Finally Grow Up...

and learn to take responsibility for the consequences of our own actions at home and abroad, we will acknowledge the tragedy of September 11, 2001 as a 21st century version of Nat Turner's slave rebellion.

Unfortunately, we have no true moral leadership in this country's government; bluster and posturing passes for courage these days; threats and photo-ops on aircraft carriers.

In the days following the tragedy, what we needed was sober assessment: of the crime that was committed and the degree to which conditions for which we ourselves are responsible contributed to the inevitability of that crime's commission. What we got instead was our Cheerleader-in-Chief standing at Ground Zero with a bull-horn doing the only thing he has ever been successful at doing: shouting, "Rah Rah Rah! Sis Boom Bah! Hit 'Em Back! Hit 'Em Back! Rah Rah Rah!"

And so one criminal act was replied to with a series of retaliatory criminal acts that continue to this day. The United States government: Black House, Transgress, Supine Court, and Satanic Pentagon, have no moral legitimacy whatsoever. All they have is political power.

It is most instructive to read the statement of T. R. Gray, published as a preface to the alleged "confessions" of Nat Turner. Entitled "To the Public" and dated November 5, 1831, this piece of condemnatory prose demonstrates the moral stupefaction that afflicted the slave-holder class of ante-bellum America. That same moral stupefaction afflicts the globalizing American plutocracy today: smug, clueless, outraged by the impudence of an underclass that would dare to raise a defiant hand against its masters and do so with a claim to Divine guidance.

Sound familiar? It gets better. Gray describes bin Laden--I mean, Nat Turner--as "a gloomy fanatic...[who conceived] in the recesses of his own dark, bewildered and overwrought mind schemes of indiscriminate massacre...[s]chemes too fearfully executed as far as his fiendish band proceeded in their desolating march. No cry for mercy penetrated their flinty bosoms. No acts of remembered kindness made the least impression upon these remorseless murderers. Men, women and children, from hoary age to helpless infancy, were involved in the same cruel fate. Never did a band of savages do their work of death more unsparingly...."

Until 9/11/01.

I hold no brief for the murderers of 9/11, nor for Nat Turner and his crew. But I understand a thing or two about human beings. And I know the world we inhabit is not composed of the guys with the white hats and the guys with the black. There's a whole lot of gray in the world; and those who cannot understand or accept it and learn to cope with it charitably become Nat Turners, bin Ladens, and George Bushes.

I look forward to the arrest and trial of OBL and the arrest and trial of GWB.

Reflections on the 60 Minutes Springsteen Interview

See it here first....

The level of discourse in this country is at an all-time low. I cannot account for it. Sometimes I think that someone has been putting stupid pills in the water supply. What passes for common knowledge is undisguised ignorance and bigotry. People express opinions today about all manner of subjects of which they know next to nothing and no one bothers to correct their views. It is considered impolite to point out to another person that they have their head up their ass. Instead, you are expected to say, "Well, you have a good point but..." when, in fact, their point was baseless and idiotic.

George Bush continues to receive the approval of 1/3 of all Americans. This is presented in the media as embarrassingly low, but i find it appallingly high. One out of three of my fellow citizens finds that imbecile impressive. What can one say? As Harold Bloom would say, there is an affrontery in this that leaves one speechless.

Watching the 60 Minutes interview, I observe how Bruce has learned to laugh off the idiotic questions. I have to say, having listened to Magic through a few times, that I don't find it overtly political at all. I find the lyrics are often dense, writerly, and suggestive; but the political climate in this country today is such that if you even SUGGEST that maybe all is not well in our world, you are committing treason.

Bruce mentioned the distance between the America we live in and the America of our ideals. My greatest fear is that the America we live in IS the ideal America for many of us. In order to realize that ideal, Homeland Security has been rounding up immigrants by the thousands and deporting them. The xenophobia in this country is unbelievable. It is not just directed at Muslims either. Hispanics are also demonized. White people seem to thrive on witch hunts and their victims are, predictably, brown people. African Americans are keeping their mouths shut, understandably relieved that it's not them this time. But then there is the Jena 6. Everybody is just hanging on, trying to retain what little ground they gained in the '60's and '70's. The Reagan Revanchement remains in full swing. What started as a correction of abuses has become a crusade to overturn every decency we once regarded as our birthright as Americans.

My American ideal is the Whitmanian Republic. The America I live in, however, is the Benighted States of Leviathan. Hear the good gray poet sing:

How solemn as one by one,
As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand,
As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the
masks,
(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,
whoever you are,)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks,
and to you!
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab O friend.


And again:


As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air
I resume,
I know I am restless and make others so,
I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to
unsettle them,
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have
been had all accepted me,
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,
majorities, nor ridicule,
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still
urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.


And again:


Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor
am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the
martial dirge,
With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral;)
What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes,
For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.


Bruce is in the Whitmanian line. But he is, as he said, a canary in a coal mine.

Over the Carnage Rose Prophetic a Voice

Over the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten'd, affection shall solve the problems of freedom yet,
Those who love each other shall become invincible,
They shall yet make Columbia victorious.
Sons of the Mother of All, you shall yet be victorious,
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the
earth.
No danger shall balk Columbia's lovers,
If need be a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.
One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian's comrade,
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another an Oregonese, shall
be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.
To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come,
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.
It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection,
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly,
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.
These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron,
I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.
(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)


--Walt Whitman

The Whitmanian Vision

Listen to Peter Coviello, editor of Walt Whitman's "Memoranda During the War," on this edition of The Connection with Dick Gordon. Whitman was the poet-prophet of the American Republic in internal exile; the Whitmanian Republic that Cindy Sheehan represents. George W. Bush and his neo-fascist co-conspirators are the anti-Whitman. I pledge my allegiance to the Whitmanian Republic, and to the principles on which it stands...

A Pretzel Could Have Changed Everything

I recall the feeling well. It was early January, 2002, and there was a report on the news that our Imbecilic Leader had nearly choked to death on a pretzel...For a moment, I glimpsed a ray of light penetrating the gloom of the persistent post-9/11 jingoism, bigotry, and hate that Bush had been riding to record popularity --when he wasn't watching football or working out with Condi. When I learned that he had survived his savage encounter with a baked snack, I looked into the possibility of sending a case of pretzels to the White House in the desperate hope that lightning might strike twice. But, alas, I knew in my bones that we would be saddled with this walking (and choking and falling) disaster for many years to come.

Masters of War

Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead


Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

9/11 Is Over

While this particular column of Tom Friedman's is not enough to make up for the many bigoted, loathsome, uninformed "my Zion right or wrong" columns he has published in the past, I am willing to give credit where credit is due and to hope for the eventual moral rehabilitation of the man. Please read this one: it's a keeper.

1,000 Attempt Citizen's Arrest of Bush at UN; Blocked by Police, 10 to 12 Arrests

9/25/07

A citizen's arrest warrant has been issued! Please do your duty and see that it is served!

As George Bush made his appearance and speech today at the United Nations in NYC, 1,000 people issued a citizen's arrest warrant against him for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The day began with twelve separate feeder marches converging from across the city, consisting of perhaps several hundred protesters. The people carried 20 large coffins with them and marched from all five boroughs toward Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza and the UN Building where Bush was speaking. The feeder marches were organized by Arrest Cheney First, the War Resister's League, Witness Against Torture, Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS-NYC) and others.

Police had already set up a protest pen outside of the UN for a rally called by the vanguardist World Can't Wait, and quickly moved to herd the marchers into the pens. When members of the War Resister's League exited the pen to deliver the arrest warrant, police arrested 8 of them and grabbed three or four unaffiliated protesters from the pen as well, at approximately 10:30 am.

Eventually, the original contingent of marchers and several hundred others got tired of the pens and began to march south on Second Avenue toward Washington Square Park. A few attempts were made to march in the street, but police reacted violently, shoving and pushing marchers back onto the sidewalk. In the process, police also seized any megaphones they saw. Several protesters sustained injuries in these encounters, but no arrests were made. In all, about 500 people made their way to Washington Square Park.

The idea of citizen's arrest has its roots in common law, and allows for any citizen to execute an arrest on someone who they witness committing a felony offense. All states in the United States allow for citizen's arrest, except for North Carolina, which follows different statutes. Those undertaking a citizen's arrest can still be held liable in civil or criminal court for any damages they inflict in the process. However, they have full rights to detain and arrest a suspect who they witness in commission of a felony.

Applicable felonies in this case include, but are not limited to: treason, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, conspiracy malfeasance in office, fraud, embezzlement, and kidnapping.

Under established international and military law, also, the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity, for which, as commander in chief, Bush bears command responsibility for the actions of those under his command as well as for his own policies.

Under the principles of the Nuremburg Trials at the end of World War Two, Bush would be indictable for all four counts established back then:

1. Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of crime against peace;

2. Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace;

3. War crimes;

4. Crimes against humanity.

While the efforts of citizens today to serve an arrest warrant on Bush failed, be advised: the warrant stands. Please do you duty, and try at every opportunity to bring this criminal to justice.

http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=4181