Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Shaping some affluent ass
Brendan Behan’s statement bears repeating, “...Ironically Behan once observed, that the man with a big bomb is a statesman, while the man with a small bomb is a terrorist....” Bill Blum says something similar.
Also, if work is such a good thing, why is it taxed at a higher rate in the usa. The cap on payroll taxes should be removed so that income above $90,000 (?) would be taxed at the same rate as the income below that amount. I have pushed for removal of that cap for years now. I am not sure if the current number is $90,000 or not. It has been raised in recent years but the cap should be completely removed on ALL income. Non-earned income from investments should also be included. The fact is, that Capitalists do not like work, unless it is someone else’s work.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/09 at 08:52 AMI’m with Bill Hicks on work: “You get paid more than me, *you* fantasize.”
Story Alert:
Listening to the choices wasn’t as easy as making one. Attend the week-long class camping trip on Cape Cod, or come to school for those five days and sit in with another class. I had neither the money to attend, the interest to spend time with a group to which I had ceased to belong, and certainly wouldn’t go beyond that into complete strangerhood in a different part of the building.“I’m not going on that trip,” I said defiantly to the White Guy In Charge, who could clearly see that there was no chance in Vegas that I would be spotted in school next week. “Then you will have to report to...” the voice faded into AM static as I considered the freedom I would soon exploit to the fullest. “For the entire week,” he finished. Uh-huh.
The first day arrived and I was, in fact, sitting in another class. I don’t remember why this transpired, but it didn’t last long. I ducked out without permission before noon on the first day, heady stuff for an 11 year old soon-to-be-washout from the ‘advanced’ program. (It was run on the ‘tracking model,’ not unlike what a junkie does, except with public money and young lives.) I was away from the downtown, on a bus to the fringe where untroubled life existed. Walking down long paths and fire roads that led to the closest thing to wilderness for miles around. Trees, dirt, water, sky, living things, weather that changed frequently enough to make the day interesting, and sounds that reminded you of life instead of crushing it out of you.
The class trip dodge was only a speed bump for access to this sanctuary. I can’t remember a week of those few years when at least two days of “school” weren’t willingly sacrificed to the nature gods. I made out like a bandit on that exchange, missing out on all that indoctrination, gaining in return a priceless education in the natural world. Watching the seasons pass instead of passing tests (though I did that too, without molesting many textbooks, to the outrage of stymied disciplinarians), observing the pace and pulse of life as the sky and earth ran their own curriculum.
Though we (I had accomplices) fished and hiked and learned all over that sizable area, never bored or lost for something to say, I always wondered what it was like *before*. Reading faded fishing magazines from the mid-1960’s, I would marvel at the catch from Yellowstone, from Massachusetts Bay, from Minnesota lakes and Puget Sound. People must have once caught fish like that here.
I’ve seen the water quality change for the worse in that pond, where we caught and released everything except sunken treasure. A little less circulation here, not as many young forms of life there. Will it ever recover? Will we?
Posted by Zenprole on from Urth 12/09 at 09:47 AMGood morning, Expendables. Seems like it’ll be much warmer here today.
RMJ: I had a feeling that Behan quote would capture your attention. Along those lines, I’ve added another hyperlink to the original post. Click on the words “meet a client.”
Zen: Thanks for kicking things off. Great tale. I like your style...and my answers to your closing questions are:
Will it ever recover? YES
Will we? NOBtw, I have not forgotten your contest idea, re: naming America’s withdrawal effort. Watch for it some time before year’s end.
Who else has a story?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/09 at 10:01 AMYes Mickey, the statistics you link to in “meet a client” should be given more publicity. Most people up here know about them because back in the days when our Congressman Bernie was a Socialist, he always made them part of his political speeches.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/09 at 11:08 AMi got a story. someone else wrote it but its a good approximation of a 3 year relationship i once had…
band is called ‘half man, half biscuit’ song is called ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’
She stayed with me until,
She moved to Notting Hill,
She Said it was the place she needs to be,
Where the cocaine is fair-trade,
and frequently displayed,
is the Buena Vista Social Club CD,I thought you’d be back in three weeks,
and we’d go wandering in the peaks,
sojourn in my uncle Joe’s ashram,
And when you’re in Matlock Bath,
You dont need Sylvia Plath,
Not while we’ve got mrs. Gibsons jam,
Alas I’m brooding along by the runnel,
while shes in Capri with her swain,
and the light at the end of the tunnel,
Is the light of an oncoming train.Well we both grew up in Eyam,
and strange as it may seem,
niether of us thought we’d ever leave,
but the beak in Leek is weak,
and she’s moved it so to speak,
with featureless TV producer Steve,
And now it’s all Eva Cassidy,
and aphids in piccady,
and so I can only assertain,
That the light at the end of the tunnel,
Is the light of an oncoming train.No frills, handy for the hills,
that’s the way you spell New Mills,
brooding along by the runnel,
while shes in Capri with her swain,
and the light at the end of the tunnel,
Is the light of an oncoming train.
Is the light of an oncoming train.
Is the light of an oncoming.....Gimme that old type religion,
Gimme that old type religion,
Gimme that old type religion,
It’s good enough for me.Posted by michael on from exile 12/09 at 11:17 AMHey everybody !!!! I think that we here at Mickey’s invented a new word. We have been using it for a while but I don’t know if anyone else has..."SYMULTYPING" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My captcha word is “added”. If “symultyping” gets added to the dictionary, the Expendables will have made a great contribution to the language.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/09 at 11:27 AMwho wrote that song/story, Michael? it quotes Captain Beefheart at the end, off Moonlight On Vermont.
Posted by owen on from sea turtle massage parlour 12/09 at 11:58 AMFrom the Raggae Book of Proverbs: “If Love Were A Thing That Money Could Buy The Rich Would Live And The Poor Would Die.”
And links to an article by another Behan (exceptional summary, The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War)
And a very short story (the very first that raised my political consciousness-- guess I was four or five when I heard it):
“There are some places in the world that are so poor that the kids don’t have kites like we do. They just have string.”
Posted by Robert B. Livingston on from San Francisco, California 12/09 at 01:27 PMA lot of really nice comments here today. About the one from Robert #8...it reminds me of a mental image that pops up in my mind often. It might be from a made-for-tv movie titled “A Home of Their Own”. It is one of the best I have ever seen that describes usa poverty as it really is. The image in my mind shows 2 very poor children looking in a toy store window. One child says to the other, “When you’re really poor, everything you see is something you can’t have.” That statement expresses what so many in this country face...the lack of any options. Too often the poor are “blamed” for their condition....Why don’t you just move to another place, Just get a better job and everything will be alright, etc. Those who criticize the poor often just don’t get it. Poverty means having no options. That’s what poverty is.
Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/09 at 02:29 PMHello Michael, Owen, and Robert.
RMJ #9: The perfect example is Katrina. The poor folks on the Gulf Coast had no options. Of course, all that is forgotten now as America goes through yet another year of Xmas shopping.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/09 at 05:16 PMHi Expendables.
No story from me, but I just read this. Way to go USA!
Posted by Keir on from The Gray Hague 12/09 at 05:35 PMKeir, when I think “land of the free,” I imagine: 7 million people—or one in every 32 American adults—were behind bars, on probation or on parole
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/09 at 06:08 PMThanks for the link, Keir. The US prison figures grow yet again. I found it odd that St. Kitts and Nevis are high on the list. The CIA Fact Book sez their population is about 40,000. That means a busy weekend of drunk and disorderly can push up the average.
Q to the Expendables: If there were one fact you could impress upon each and every American, about their country’s behavior, what would it be? I mention this because the prison population has long been my choice, a roadblock of sorts for flag-waving nutcases. Forget the looting of the economy, nonstop warring for 50 years, a poisonous food supply, and whatever else: we lock up more people and at a higher rate than China, a nation more than five times our size. That’s simply <nutty sound effect> mind-boggling.
MZ, thanks for the story response. And a “Name The Withdrawal Contest” would be more interesting when that possibility comes to the fore. Until then, a “Dick Cheney Sentencing Contest” might fly. Making him drive a subcompact car across Eurasia (Lisbon to Shanghai) gets my vote.
Posted by Zenprole on from Urth 12/09 at 06:45 PMGood link from Keir.
Zenprole about the legal system in China… In the last Motion that I filed with the Court I requested the level of justice that they have in China which is superior to the system in the usa in many ways. In China the court fees are paid by the government. In the usa a litigant is barred from the court unless he has money. My Motion was denied by the court.Posted by RMJ on from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts 12/09 at 07:04 PMZen, you ask: “If there were one fact you could impress upon each and every American, about their country’s behavior, what would it be?”
I genuinely don’t think such a fact exists.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/09 at 08:48 PMPossible answer for Zenprole: There’s no such thing as America (there’s just people and plants and animals and dirt).
Also, of those US prison figures, three quarters of a million are in the slammer for non-violent marijuana-related offences. God shed his grace on thee.
Posted by Keir on from The Gray Hague 12/10 at 05:14 AMMZ, I’m not going to make an ass of myself by posting a story. I’m well behind the rest in creativity, and I have no desire to be the butt of anyone’s literary criticisms, so I’ll take a seat in the rear. I prefer to bum around and pay tribute to the gluteus maximus.
RMJ, your comment #1 reminds me of St. Augustine’s pirate and emperor, sometimes repeated by Noam Chomsky.
Zenprole, in answer to your question, it’s tough to narrow it down to a specific topic. Generally, however, I would want to impress upon people a challenge to the notion that their government is benign and acts out of anything other than self-interest.
Posted by Jeremy on from Taipei, Taiwan 12/10 at 06:03 AMI’ve always said you were a wise ass, Jeremy.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 12/10 at 07:12 AM
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