What You See Is Not What You Get.

There are various ways to fool people. One of them is to tell them what they want to hear. That sounds like a funny example doesn’t it? Yet people are fooled this way all the time, fooling themselves first. Then there is “the hand is quicker than the eye” which often includes misdirection to enhance the subterfuge. Another way people are fooled is in their natural inclination to believe authority. For instance, if some one asks me what my source is; why do I need a source? Do you ask the New York Times what their source is? Often, they are the source; being the paper of record means being the source sometimes, even if you are quoting unidentified sources or anonymous high ranking members of the administration. People are inclined to believe their leaders. It’s too scary to consider that they are lying to you. And why would they lie to you? That is the $64,000 question. You can get two toilet seats and a hammer for that.

People buy into lies for a lot of reasons; they are basically dishonest, they share in the profits, they are afraid, they are stupid, they are confused or they live in Alabama. People also believe if they just go along they will get along. Don’t make waves and maybe the boat will get to shore. You can lose your job if you open your mouth, that’s been happening a lot lately. You can go to jail and never get out. Never has the cost of telling the truth been so high. Never has it been so risky to stand up and be counted in the cross hairs.

Some time ago Guiliana Sgrena got kidnapped by alleged insurgents in Iraq. From what we know about so much of what goes on there, there is no telling who these insurgents were. We’ve got a lot of evidence these days in the form of phony Bin Laden videos, fake Al Qaeda cells in Palestine that are staffed by Mossad members.

Al Qaeda in Palestine

We’ve got camouflaged Brits posing as Arabs with carloads of explosives. We’ve got far more evidence of consistent lying, skullduggery and horrific abuse than we have of anything remotely resembling democracy in action. Italian national hero Nicola Calipari rescued her and then died in a hail of gun-bullets courtesy of American forces. Much has been said about what happened there and the preponderance of evidence clearly shows that it was a calculated assassination attempt. You see, Sgrena had proof of a massacre in Faluja; proof of the use of napalm and phosphorus, proof of wholesale slaughter, the strafing of Red Cross vehicles, proof of ugly, ugly things.

Now you’ve got the Italian film that shows what happened and takes us back to what happened with Sgrena, sort of like one and one is two; or is one and one still two? Beauty is only skin deep but white phosphorous burns all the way to the bone.

I don’t know that it matters in the minds of many American and UK people. They are all at a distance from this and what do they care? It’s just something they saw on TV. Tucker Carlson will explain it; if there ever was a cat that needed a few years in an ethnically mixed state prison it is Carlson. “You can leave your bow tie on. You can leave your bow tie on.”

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, one ugly psychopathic stunt after another comes up in the windshield. Relentlessly, the neo-cons at work the world over are just cutting people and countries to pieces. So much evidence has been added up and added to that the camel, the camel’s back and everybody the camel knows and the landscape as far as the camel used to be able to see is buried under a mountain of straw.

In any system, be it natural or political or economic- balance is key to stability. Upset the balance of nature and you see what you get. Skewer the balance politically and either revolution or massacre will follow eventually. Tilt the economic balance to where a handful of Animal Farm characters own nearly everything and… suffering, want and death will follow and will begin to spread because, after all, when you want it all you can never have too much.

Yes, of course they used banned weapons of the sort that we went into Iraq to find but knew were not there so… what the Hell, let’s bring some of our own and use them on them; we’re all about irony here. Oh, and could you give me a couple of cartons of depleted Uranium too? Just put it on my bill.

So, unless you live under a rock; and I mean that in every sense, you know that these beasts in human form are being just as bad as they can be. You know they’ve got a dancing Halloween skeleton called Al Qaeda that goes into your living room window. You know that since the US has turned supreme in firepower its time for Imperial Rome again, only this time it's not the one in Italy.

What is it about nations and their citizens that once you get on top you naturally feel entitled to shit all over everybody else? Because, unless you live under a rock you can see what is happening. It is clear as daylight that you are either really, really stupid or really, really indifferent and, mind the bottom line.

I have asked people how they can believe as they do and I find their understanding of things and their access to a wider view is about as discerning as their taste in golf outfits. Unbelievably I have found that a lot of people really don’t care. It’s not happening down the street. It’s not happening in the living room except on the TV and all that is being explained. All through Vietnam the lies emerged and we now know what that was all about. Iran Contra, we know what that was about. Iraq, we know what that is about.

I haven’t been in the US for awhile. I don’t fare well there given my capacity to see and feel and comment on it. I hear its really grim now, or so my friends tell me. Yet, I find it hard to believe that most Americans support this. Do you really think this won’t come back on you some day? Are you so incurious or stupid that you actually think the WTC buildings came down at the speed they did right into their own footprints? Has it become impossible to organize at all? And what happened to the opposition? How did everybody in Congress turn into a yellow-tailed flounder?

I see it happening every day. I watch the course of the world as it turns. I wonder about Sgrena and the shooting and the real reasons behind the French riots and how France and America have been getting along. I study all of the incidences of Americans and others masquerading as something else while perpetrating the acts they accuse the people they are killing of perpetrating. I see this trend of constant lies and violence and misrepresentation. I see it every day. And I see the sad, thick, obese, cotton candy minds of the addicts junked out on a poisonous cartoon culture and I think… Let me see how far back I can sit while this goes down. I’d do most anything to help but I’m no longer sure what that might be. I have been concerned with what I see on the horizon for the human race, yet some portion of them seems eager for it. It’s just another kick on the way. Maybe it’s a new thrill?

Imperial Rome went away and you can see how and why. It is amazing how much this culture presently mirrors it in decline. Sometimes all you can do is get on your water buffalo and ride out through the gates in the Great Wall of China. I’ve a lot of respect for the man who did that. Sometimes there just isn’t anymore to say when so many people just don’t seem to care.

You hear a lot these days about this so-called Asian Bird flu. Believe me, that’s the least of your concerns. You’ve got several other viruses far more deadly; the virus of ignorance and indifference will kill you while you are still walking around. How deep into your own flesh do you have to go before you just don’t see or hear anymore? Measure where you are now and tell me how deep is that?

"9/11 Dreaming in a World of Flesh"

flesh

in a world of flesh

sees flesh only

the heart and the mind may suspect
but still too often
see
flesh only

back of the flesh in the world of gears
manipulated triggers pull at the limbs
that dance in the world of flesh

orchestration
and the high art of fraud
are an easy task
in the world of flesh

and the tumbling bodies hit
and the dust rolls in clouds from the streets
but another dust comes
from the smoke machines
and the mirror exchange of the press

some say the Arabs were angry that day
some say there's more to the ruse
beneath the veils are a number of things
that
SOMEONE
has put to good use

other intentions have come through the fire
and now they would burn the world

the convenient timing

the fabulous deaths

the great down winding
diminished regrets

in the unseeing world of flesh

now comes
the junk and the tedious songs
on and on
ad nauseum

the Twin Towers Watch
the speeches and banners

"on Comet and Cupid"

and Tiny Dancer

the peacocks are fanning

the demagogues struttin'

the survivors are jostlin'

through cables and grips

very important envelopes of flesh will
inflate their gills
with the shimmering scales of eminence

and gravitas

and their importance as flesh

and

remind
you
of
that

and... remind you... of that


it goes on forever

it lasts for an age

and-
….. THERE'S NO MORE FUCKING ROOM ON THE STAGE!

for the flesh

that encompasses space in a world of flesh

forget Rwanda,
Sierra Leone

the Congo?

where that's at?

I lost my cell phone

where's my goddamn latte?

is this lettuce fresh?

it's so hard for me
in this world of flesh

no one understands what it's like
for ME!

no one understands!

I don't understand

"why can't we all just get along?"

in the world of flesh

in the world of flesh

flesh expands and presses out over the clothing
and all restraint

flesh billows with the fruit of appetite

the soft melting encapsulated lard
of chewy TV goodies

and somebody

somebody...

blew up the church of the flesh

the goalposts of the empire of flesh
came down

the towers of flesh motivating upwards

the upwardly mobile flesh

flesh...

the lightening struck tower

somebody....

somebody....

now walk with me...
take a walk with me…

behind the world of flesh

back into the gears

back behind the tech's

behind the bankers

behind the money

behind the images

behind the ideas

behind the numbers

and behind the initial divide

far from the world of flesh you have

the uninvited guest

the forgotten lover

the fruit of desirous quest

someone forgot

SOMEONE FORGOT!

a lot of fragmented flesh puppets forgot

a whole lot of somebody
seriously forgot

to invite God into the world of flesh

and God showed up anyway

like the sword

as the spirit-
informing matter of it's presence

but it will never do to look for truth in the rubble

it will never do to think in terms
that flesh cannot accept

it will never do to consider
the absolute precision of the act

the fluid grace

that caught everyone flat footed
with a stupid look on their face

things can only be a certain way in the world of flesh

the impermanent flesh demands it

the vanishing melting vulnerable flesh is trumpeting

and cannot hear beyond it's own noise

the flesh is God unto itself

in the land of stuff

where stuff is God

there is never enough
there is NEVER enough...

just the wanting of the flesh
in a landscape of desired things

the temporary paradise on disappearing wings

rage on flesh

RAGE ON!

wrap yourself in the colored images of dream

wrap yourself in the vain exhortation

wrap yourself in the clamoring

clanging detuned symbols
of the empire of flesh

scream
and laugh

and weep
and carry on

it is never a moment too soon
in a world that is too soon gone

one should never disturb the dangerous dreams
of the lords of the kingdoms of flesh

the heart and the mind may suspect

but they can't get there yet

the tiny voice in the silence may speak

but cannot be heard

not in the world of flesh

sometimes a greater noise is needed

from the lover you have forgotten

the lover
who
has not forgotten
you…

I know you're in there….

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU"RE IN THERE!!!!!!”

[BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!!!]

“I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!!!!!!!”

I know you're in there...

hidden in a world of flesh.

Buried in a world of flesh