heretical musings on Democracy and preordained convention

the Democrats' nominee for president is one of the major, most fabulously
reimbursed war criminals of our time, with nothing but contempt for the lives
and Democracies of those unprivileged persons who happen to lack European
ancestry, or abundant sources of funding, the world over.  just ask the
Palestinians, the Hondurans, or the Haitians.  she has promised to be more
dangerous than the Great S'Trumpet himself.  her campaign staff actually carry
around her very own 'enemies' list.  she counts Mubarak as a 'family friend'
and Kissinger as an inspiration.  she is so keen on playing nuclear roulette
that she pulled the levers that led to the Nazi coup in the Ukraine.  she's an
ardent supporter of the ethnic cleansing neo-gestapo, demonstrating the
latest in lethal technology on their captive civilians and representing, with
their mandated 'state-religion' theocracy, the only actual nuclear threat
(besides ourselves) to haunt the Middle East.  without so much as batting
her gleaming eyes, she informs us that she finds the boycott of their
apartheid occupation "alarming."  she convinced Bill to bomb Serbia,
and Obama to destroy Libya, for which untold numbers of North Africans
will suffer for many years to come.

i realize this doesn't matter to a lot of people, who consider themselves
"Americans" and are chiefly concerned with financial inequality here
in the stolen "Homeland."  but i've never been able to believe in this
separation that walls us off from the rest of our family.  artificial boundaries
are self defeating and stem from the most ancient propaganda, though
obviously, they are highly 'profitable.'  and it seems to me that it is our
responsibility to give a voice to our nieces and nephews.  the ones we
allow to be killed, in our name, every single day, and who, most assuredly
have no voice here, where a pompous and pious patriotism blinds its
clueless followers to a terror-soaked legacy that eclipses the seven deadly
plagues, and would embarrass Jehovah on one of his most self-absorbed,
decimatingly righteous days.

confining ourselves, then, to the land of the frightened, Hillary was a major
force behind Bill's decisions that led to the mushroom cloud of the U.S. prison
industry, filling up exponentially with citizens of color and those in dire need
of mental help.  the divisive insults she added to that injury are still ringing
in many ears.  she and her husband pioneered the new Democrats, with their
eagle-eyed, chameleon allegiance to pocket-lining puppeteers.  she is the
heir apparent for the oligarchs, the clear choice of the Military Industrial
Complex, and the darling of Wall Street.

every four years we are told to pick the "lesser" evil.  and the version of evil
that wins always claims to have our mandate.  it goes without saying, in a
system like this, that evil never loses.  evil never even blinks.  every four
years the alternative in the carefully framed menu of the Powers that Own
is even more horrendous than the last time around, thus effectively gutting
the very concept of Democracy.

they tell us we may sleep in either of two rooms.  one room is on fire while
the other, practical one is being filled with noxious gas.  they demand that
we give our consent so they may call it "Democracy."  a hollow word if ever
there was one.  the very thing they claim to be "exporting" to the world
with their bombs and drones and coercion.

yet as Russell Brand points out to anyone who will listen, "we have more
in common with the people we are bombing than the people we are bombing
them for."  one day we will have to stand up to the quadrennial popularity
contest and profitable media circus that covers for the complete absence
of OUR SAY in the POLICIES of this delusional for-by-and-of-the-people nation.
we'll have to rise up and say NO to the oligarchs.  their zombie army of
(unelected) corporate operatives are destroying the planet faster than we
can comprehend.  Hillary is in fact their chosen spokesperson.  they would
not give her their money if they thought for one second that she might
disrupt the status quo that literally threatens life on earth.  there's no time
like the present and absolutely no logic in putting it off.  we must stop them
in their bloodied, well-heeled, apocalyptic tracks.

so if you must vote from fear, how's that?  let the fear of a global meltdown
motivate you in a way that the consistent bludgeoning of manufactured
consent never could.  vote for an actual decent human being who's not
afflicted with E.D.D.  (Empathy Deficit Disorder), like Dr. Jill Stein, who's
already discussed dismantling NATO with Jeremy Corbyn, and peace
initiatives with the Russians.  who selflessly offered to let Bernie run
above her on the Green Party ticket after Hillary's Democrat minions
displayed their disdain for Democracy.  (i'm afraid it's quite revealing
that, given his powerful popularity at this decisive moment, he chose
to not even respond to this offer.)

failing this, you could follow Jose Saramago's advice and submit a blank ballot
as a conscious protest - the first step in a revolution that might actually, given
the power We the People hold within ourselves, 'take' the United States
FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.  (forward, not 'back.')  into the long-suffering arms
of humanity, and out of the arms of indiscriminate death.

- Evan Hawthorn, the 29^th of July, 2016

"lesser evil"

whilst the uninterrupted evil
of a "sole"
[blind to others' existence],
"exceptional"
[arrogant and lawless]
"Superpower"
[a republic devoting ALL
its resources to war]
is "free"
[the instilled notion that
delusion, violence,
and self-obsession
are 'god-given']
to continue killing
LIFE ON EARTH.

just powers

police, evidently confusing
"derived from" with "enforced on,"
displaying their "just powers"
whilst rearranging
"the consent of the governed"

'exclusive' people

i suppose in a land that defines freedom as the right to commit
organized, mass murder in the benighted nations not anointed
with exceptionalism, it should come as no surprise that Jesse
Williams' declaration of freedom from exclusion, intolerance,
and brutality, his demand for the colorful citizens of America
to be re-categorized as "us" instead of "other", has been seen
by the astonishingly self-focused, privilege-protecting,
'exclusive' people as something they choose to call "racism".

how they got separated (an excerpt from my novella-poem in progress, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons")

the forest, rolling in myopic vapors

was carpeted with a cruising occlusion

compelling its denizens to forage

in a cocoon of claustrophobic confusion.

condensing droplets fell from spectral elms

smudging skewed wrinkles on the surfaces of creeks,

etching the windows of the spookhouse in the woods

with scrawny, stretched signs in cascading streaks.

Sleazy was slumped on the kitchen table,

dozing and dribbling a drooling stream of twaddle.

Rashful stood muttering, his hands on his hips,

irately eying the upended bottle.

he shrugged his shoulders and stumbled to the stove,

starting in on the breakfast preparations.

Sleazy awoke and snatched up his clutter,

a tidy avoiding of recriminations.

when Weepy and the otter came down the steps

Rashful was humming an out of tune ditty.

exchanging in glances their stunned disbelief,

the otter expressed an ear-flattened pity.

Weepy's twin Gropey plied his old vocation,

slinging laden dishes with dexterous hands

which paved the pair's passage with the pirates

menacing the shores of their plundered latin lands.

with the grace of a mime and a dash of panache

he shuffled muffins and plated pork pie,

stacking up crumpets and glittering fritters,

cramming the table in the blink of an eye.

the princess came in as Sleazy brewed coffee,

encumbered with flowers that filled up the sink.

she wrought a rose wreath to wear in her hair,

transfixing the otter with another sly wink.

then everyone ducked from pelting cutlery,

caroming with a cacophonous clatter,

after an accelerating butter knife

unnerved the salad forks, making them scatter.

upstairs, urgent tapping was rousing Nate,

while his wits untangled from a feeling of doom,

stemming from the visceral conviction

that something quite sinister had just left his room.

"come in" he croaked, comprehending he was alone.

Mock entered at once, as white as a sheet.

Nate tried to rise, but clung to Pally's essence,

still sensing his warmth and the press of his feet.

Mock said "i can't find Gramps.  i think somethin's wrong.

he's not in the cottage.  i've looked everywhere.

the only odd lead that's turned up so far

is a broken candle on the edge of a stair."

Nate threw off the covers, looking for his cape.

"what about Pally.  did you bump into him?"

Mock's jaw flew open.  "no, i never did.

i ought to have caught that.  sometimes i'm awfully dim."

"stuff and nonsense.  you're as sharp as they come.

but time's wasting, Br'er Mock.  let's alert the others."

"that fell fog's reinfested the forest.

i'd fain it rained brimstone, if i had me druthers!"

with the slippery knife safely apprehended

the serving spoons plunged back in their platters.

but though the splattered flatware had settled down

the tablecloth and napkins were in tatters.

it was clear from Nate's conduct something was wrong

when he prodded a possum out of his chair.

"Pally and Gramps have gone missing." he said.

"our sole clue's a candle, discarded on a stair."

searching looks scurried in concentric circles

while adding up the agitated faces.

a timid rabbit hopped out of the glare

that ominously clustered in vacant spaces.

the door sprung open and Sappy tumbled in,

a frantic, flopping fish shuddering for breath.

"something's in that fog.  and it followed me.

and i'd swear it intended to scare me to death!"

this second disquieting revelation

coming as it did in the wake of the first,

left the company in a shell-shocked state

their composure crumpled and their bonhomie burst.

the final whimper asked after Lumpy

radiating panic as it bathed them in gloom.

it trickled out of Weepy, frail as a whisper

and hung in the air like death in a tomb.

the birds outside were caroling chatter

embroidering dissonance from lyrical trill,

bantering with brethren from Pasty's bay window

fresh from their huddle, bunched up on her sill.

they strung out their perches on fanned out branches

despite the dingy, diminished perspective.

for though they loathed the malevolent mist,

they were fond of Sludge White, and fiercely protective.

with rapt attention they watched the six Curmudgeons

accompany Nate through the makeshift door,

with their hurricane lanterns and flaming pitch,

divvied up in parties, each composed of four.

Rashful's retinue included the twins,

with the spectacled otter draped on Weepy's neck.

he rallied their valor by warbling his ditty,

afflicting those in earshot all to heck.

Sleazy spun diversions for Nate and Mock

with his unrivalled flair for flinging dirty words,

ferried by echoes that twined through the trees

in varying directions, confounding the birds.

they vanished from sight as the writhing sallow swirls

swallowed the light that seeped from Sappy's torch.

then a deeply disturbing silhouette

darted from the shadows and sidled off the porch.
** ***** * ** * ***** * ** * ***** * ** * ***** **
- Evan Hawthorn, the 7^th of July, 2016

[the subjugated silent objective]:

the unnamed object in the sentence of death
that, regardless of partisan alignment
is invariably pronounced
"protecting your rights and freedom"

oh say, can you see

i stand with the People of Iraq, whose burdens surely exceed their share;
those that didn't drown in the sea, and those still suffering there,
running from America's freedom bombs, bursting in the rotting air.

in the dawn's eerie light with its cancerous, phosphorous glare,
our delusional, exceptional pride is too much for my heart to bear.