I spoke at a rather large symposium with several well known congressmen and women on the current initiatives to impeach gw bush and his admin for high crimes under the Geneva convention and Article II, section 4 of the constitution; all the lies that got us into the invasion of Iraq and the unnecessary killing of something close to one hundred thousand Iraqis so far, etc… In a large town hall meeting type of a scenario on the upper west side. Must have been a good thousand people or more there. Candy Rhodes the talk show host was there along with a few other motivated congressional notables from the left. I did my best to rile things up a bit, but in general was bored because each of the other speakers spent over an hour taking the pulpit telling everyone in the giant hall what we all already knew. if we didn’t already know all this, then we wouldn’t have all been there. true that. so instead, why not take these one thousand people, brainstorm an action item list and start dividing up tasks that need to be done to actually do something about these atrocities.

The only thing I personally learned from the event (besides my utter shock that over a thousand people showed up for it on a beautiful summer day) was that many of the acts that the bush administration has done in the last two years are actually illegal and he and his entire administration could be impeached and even sent to prison. Good news of course, but I found myself very agitated by the event because truly it seems like the war has already been lost. We play along, I play my part, but in the end it does not appear that much can be done about these dark forces at play in the former-white house. I don’t mean the war against terrorism. I mean yes we have definitely lost that war because lets face it we have more terrorism going on in the world now since they stirred up this bee’s nest than we had two years ago. That’s for sure. The bees are so angry with us now that we have terrorist attacks going on everyday. AND now WE are committing much more severe terrorist attacks of our own over in Iraq. So even if we win — (what exactly are we doing there?) — we still lose.

How long before another attack on America? Well who knows. we can only pray that our government will get even more disciplined with immigration and do whatever it takes to oust whoever the hell is the least bit suspect… but I mean the war that we the enlightened were fighting with the barbarians who have taken over the American government. I mean, lets face it, they won. They’re in the white house. they’re in Iraq. They do whatever the hell they want to. we the people sit back and watch their insane shenanigans on TV every night and that’s that. we have our marches and protests every now and then and it does next to nothing. They did nothing to stop Vietnam and it will do nothing to stop the invasion and occupation of Iraq or any other country. I know I know, I’m a cynic now. once an activist and now a cynic. How quickly I gave up. I know. but truly. If they couldn’t impeach Clinton for lying right on television to the American people and the entire world about his affair with monica. lying right on fucking TV… they’re not going to stop bush from lying about a potential threat of weapons of mass destruction from the people of Iraq.

So that’s my current stance. Hey if it looks like we ever will win this war, if we even get close to taking any real action besides marching in the streets carrying stupid banners and shouting ‘this is what democracy looks like…” then I’ll jump back in, but for now, I’m going to go back to making my difference right here at home and in my own backyard. What really bothered me the most is that my fellow speakers who all had much to gain from promoting these “democratic ideals” kept referring to the impeachment of (republican) Nixon that one of the congresswomen was responsible for that led to his eventual resignation, but they didn’t once refer to our failure to impeach (democrat) Clinton. And one assumes it was because the room was full of democrats, and me being one who thinks that they’re both just as sinister and dangerous as the other, I felt no camaraderie with their stance. After all, I’ve said it before. Clinton lied. Period. He should have been impeached. I don’t care if he was a republican or a democrat of if he would have been my own father. And no I don’t care that he was lying to protect his family or his privacy. He was the president and he lied. See ya. If you all are serious in all your flag waving democracy cattle calls, then you’ll cross that political party line and you’ll get somewhere in the middle where the rest of the smart and enlightened among you are, and you’ll work for real change. If you’re just here to hoot and holler behind a podium to preach to the already converted to eventually ask us to donate to the democratic party or any party for that matter, then I’m taking my pale face out to the park to get some much needed sun, a cool breeze, and an iced coffee. I’m not going to be used for political fund raising. You want to impeach bush? Or any other president or social servant who does wrong or breaks the law? Lets do it. But lets get on with it.

In any case, if you are interested the first step is voicing your concern to your own congress-person that you want in on this action, and believe it or not its happening, just not as fast as some of us would like. you can find the form and all the pertinent data here: http://democrats.com/peoplesmailnetwork/50

If you are interested in the actual facts and information that show the criminal acts committed by the dark forces, go here: http://afterdowningstreet.org interesting stuff.

Anyway, after the heated affair I was off with a good friend for some Korean barbeque and then to walk the streets in the village for a few hours before hitting a local producer’s show in the lower east side. Besides scoring some cool vintage Ts, I also happened across a bootleg DVD of the infamous stones movie Cocksucker blues, which I’d always heard about and always wanted to see. Couldn’t believe that there it was just sitting on this table after all these years. Also picked up a bootleg copy of two stones shows in Texas from June of ’72 that the guy showed me on this little TV he had there. And I swear to God it was the best rock concert I had ever seen. ever. It made you all of sudden in one epiphenal moment understand why the stones are the best fucking rock band of all time. I watched about three songs and I just couldn’t fucking believe it. this was the stones?! They were unfuckingbelievable. Like you know, the stones, but good stones. Live. like fucking a no fucking way good. that kind of good.

Last screening: the corporation. A MUST SEE. Be warned now: this is no light-fare easy watching Saturday night flick. This is hard core. Documentary about the birth and history of the corporation and the harm it can and has caused to the earth, the animals, the environment, and humanity itself. Couldn’t make it through the whole thing. just too depressing. Such as:
*the milk in America was and still is being poisoned by growth hormone being injected into the cows here in the states. the government knows about it and doesn’t care. In every other country in the world it is illegal, but in America, it is still legal. The culprit is of course Monsanto. The same company that gave us agent orange and DDT, both poisons. Although the company is still allowed to exist and still poisons the milk supply. But only in America.
*In American there is a cancer epidemic. 1 in every 2 men gets cancer now. and 1 in every 3 women gets cancer in America. Due to poison chemicals in our food supply, pollution in our air, etc. but everyone walks around and acts like they don’t know what’s causing it. The hospitals doctors and drug companies of course profit enormously from this. they are having a field day with our current epidemic of cancer. that’s not their fault of course. its just a byproduct of the fact that we allow ourselves to be poisoned to death here in the states regardless of what we know to prevent it.
*every living system and every life support system on the earth is now officially on the decline according to the latest research. Great news.
*by 2025, twenty years, two-thirds of the worlds population will not have access to fresh drinking water thanks to pollution from big corporations. Again, great fucking news.
*it goes on and on. a truly devastating onslaught of harrowing and depressing information.

again don’t see this movie if you’re looking for a good pick me up after a hard days work.

And I’ll tell you, it occurs to me as I’m sitting here typing away, what in the hell can we really do about any of this at this point? If I were an alien from another planet and was looking at the human race, specifically the American portion of it, I would say, hey in 2000 you had na opportunity to vote in an environmentally friendly president and you passed it up. in 2004 you had an opportunity to vote for an anti-war president and you passed it up. so you wake up one day and you discover that you’re killing a thousand people a day in a country half way around the world who posed no threat to you, you’re torturing people in your prisons in the name of God knows what, you’re air is poisoned, your forests are being destroyed and sold off tens of thousands of acres a day to Asia for lumber, you’ve denigrated your environment so bad that in less than twenty years more than half of you won’t have access to safe drinking water, and more than half of you are statistically guaranteed to get cancer in your life. it’s only a matter of time… but what the hell do you silly humans expect?