Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 16 March, 2003: My life is feeling way too complicated, my love. It would be wonderful if I could make myself focus on a single woman, Europa being my preference, but the influence of the waxing moon has already taken me. Fashionable suddenly seems more accessible, Elusive is always on my mind and every woman suddenly seems appealing. Is this what they call "Spring Fever"? If so, I have got it. Bad.

I am thinking about starting a pool for the day the war (in Iraq) begins. The war in Kosovo started on my birthday in 1999. We were bombing Belgrade as I turned a year older. But this year the full moon and my birthday coincide, so I am betting the war begins before I turn fifty-one.

My friend Mary and I are celebrating the anniversary of our births together at The Cat next Sunday. Hers is the day before mine, so I have decided that, it being a Sunday, it is the appropriate time for the formal celebration. I am working the next day, my own actual birthday, but most people won't be around then.

And now this magazine is older, too. I was bemused that one of the contributors here chose this occasion to comment on this Glass House. It's interesting to read about how these ruminations of mine are viewed from "the outside", as it were.

And I constantly wonder how you perceive me, darling, as I rush toward my dotage. I wonder if you still find me lovable, if you sympathize with political passions, if you believe that I shall eventually find love. I wonder if I shall ever see you in the flesh again before I disappear from this life and if you will be glad of it.

I can tell you one thing: I am glad to soon to be shed of being fifty. It was difficult for me to reconcile, psychologically. ("No lie?") Having a new digit behind that age will be a relief. Fifty-something just seems so much better to me.

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AN EPIPHANOUS MOMENT occurred at the bar yesterday. My old roomie, Bryan, was regaling us about a hoax being perpetrated here in New Orleans. A fake petition was being circulated in the French Quarter, recommending that that district of our fair city be renamed the Freedom Quarter as a sign of scorn for the nation of France's opposition to His Fraudulency's war. The hoax was being perpetrated, he explained to the assembled tipplers, in order to show how bogus most mainstream media in this country can be. No sooner had the words come off his lips than we witnessed the local ABC affiliate - where we had been watching a hockey game (sound off, of course, while we listened to a Lyle Lovett CD) - showed people in our Jackson Square signing the petition.

The bar rolled with laughter. Bryan practically jumped off his bar stool!

"Good Lord!" he chortled. "I don't believe it! It's on the news already!"

The Freedom Quarter.

Yeah. Right.

I'm not sure whether Barnum or Goebbels is spinning underground over this one.

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18 March, 2003: Fashionable and I are supposed to go to dinner at this chi-chi restaurant here called Belle Forche. We thought we would go tonight, but neither of us were up to it. She had tossed and turned all night and Tuesdays are my stocking day at The Cat and I'm feeling out of sorts after bartending (unexpectedly) for St. Patrick's Day weekend. Rain-check time.

At the end of our telephone conversation, she said, "Okay. I'll talk to you during the week, Sweetheart." Fashionable has no idea, Schweetheart, that that is a term of endearment that I only use with members of my personal inner circle. There was a part of me that wanted to say, "Don't use that word unless you mean it!" But I didn't.

She's too young for me anyway.

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19 March, 2003: Listening to Mike Malloy today, I was informed that Security czar Casperson, of the state of New Jersey, announced that if the U.S. Homeland Security Office declares a state of Red Alert (you know the color codes) then you will be assumed to be The Enemy if you leave your home. The only exemptions go to police and health workers. Let's get this straight: if you leave your home in New Jersey, you will be considered The Enemy.

This is breath-taking!

What happened to our Constitution? Well, Antonin Scalia claimed this week that the suspension of Constitutional rights in America is within the authority of the government.

This is the same Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia who was instrumental in selecting the current occupant of the White House, whose son immediately received a fat appointment from that occupant, and who insisted that the press be banned from a meeting where he was receiving a FREE SPEECH award.

Wow ...

It is not so much that these people are in power that is irksome, it is that they arrogantly abuse that power. They show no grace, no finesse, no restraint. I find myself asking, What's next? Will they demand that we have them proclaimed deities?

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I HAVE TO THANK COLIN POWELL'S STATE DEPARTMENT for giving us a list of the "coalition of the willing." I'm sure that, like myself, you were wondering who these (until now) mystery countries were. Get ready.

Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. Source: US State Department.

Let's see now, Spain's leader announced to his parliament that NO, ZERO, ZIP Spanish troops would shed blood in the war with Iraq. Hmmn. Ethiopian troops? I don't think so. The Turkish parliament rejected the notion of U.S. troops launching attacks from their soil. How about the mighty Danes? By now you know where I'm going with this sarcasm. The Brits and the Aussies might die with American troops in the desert, but I'm really not expecting to hear about the valor of the Japanese army. So who's on this list of the "coalition of the willing": client states. Nations that can't afford to stop sucking at the United States sugar tit. You know it and I know it.

Try not to retch.

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20 March, 2003: Mr. Bush must sleep peacefully tonight. After many distracting and frustrating delays, he has begun his massacre in Iraq.

Despite the propaganda the Mouthpiece Media (MM) is feeding you, there is very clear evidence that 50% of the American people oppose this war. The percentages in the rest of the world are even higher, as one might expect, since they don't ingest the filtered corporate so-called "news" we are force-fed in this television-adled country. People took to the streets in massive numbers again today.

I received an e-mail asking me to sign yet another citizens' declaration for peace. (Actually, I received five during the course of today.) This is the last e-mail exchange between myself and the woman who sent me that plea first:

Rod, what can we do? Are you sick about the attitude and actions of The Imposter in the White House? You must be in touch with 100s of times more people than I am. Do you have any idea what we can do besides lighting candles and causing traffic jams for already frustrated people?

Do you have any idea who these people really are:

http://votetoimpeach.org/

http://www.impeachbush.tv/

I'd love to hear any ideas you have.

:-)Cheryl .


Cheryl,

Good to hear from you, as always. I've seen Ramsey Clark's initiative and this one:

http://www.impeach-bush-now.org/

and would suspect that the latter is on more solid ground. I do know that former Att'y Gen'l Clark and Professor Boyle met with Michigan Congressman John Conyers about a possible impeachment initiative last week. The upshot was that the Democrats don't feel it would be politically expedient to seek an impeachment resolution when we have just commenced a war.

More of the same from the one party system. Sadly, there is no opposition party in this country. There hasn't been for years.

For spiritual encouragement, I highly recommend listening to the Webcasts of Peter Werbe and Juline Jordan on ieAmerica.com. They'll make you feel a lot less isolated. (Peter links to G21.net, BTW, so this is partly self-serving.)

My take, frankly, is that protest has to escalate away from puppet shows and carrying signs, at this point, up to serious acts of passive resistance. People have to be willing to go to jails again, and others in the community of peace have to be willing to support them and their families during such acts of resistance, much as happened in the early Labor movement. The economies of whole cities have to be shut down. This kind of power only reacts to having its wallet hurt, sadly. That would be the most effective next stage.

Whether the movement, via the Internet, can organize at that level remains to be seen.

Otherwise, I suggest you have a valid passport.

Thanks for asking.

Regards,
Rod

So I find myself responding to the heartfelt fears of people of goodwill as this country continues its march toward fascism - yes, I do think it's time to use the f-word - under the Bush junta with the notion that leaving the country is among their best options. Shades of Americans fleeing to Canada during the Vietnam era.

I'm not the only one seeing things this way, read the latest writings of Gore Vidal or Jonathan Schell or a myriad of other much more prominent commentators. The American republic is in its death-throes and a brain-washed citizenry plays Nintendo and watches "South Park" rather than getting politically engaged. The imperium is being installed.

Don't be surprised when the Office of Homeland Security ramps an alert up to Code Red and the so-called President declares a State of Emergency, effectively canceling the next election. This is already written into law. You missed it while you were mourning the 9/11 attacks. But some of us didn't. That is why we are mourning the loss of our country.

Ask yourselves this one question: IS IT POSSIBLE FOR A COUNTRY REPUDIATING THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY ON ITS OWN SHORES TO ESTABLISH A DEMOCRAY ANYWHERE ELSE?

I believe you already know the answer.

Some days I feel like Cicero, writing in favor of a republic that is already dead.

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ONE MORE QUESTION: Why does Richard Perle of the Defence Policy Board of the United States call Seymour Hersh, an award-winning investigative journalist, " a terrorist" for featuring this story in the New Yorker?

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MORE & MORE I DEPEND UPON THE FOREIGN PRESS to tell me what is going on in my own country. I had to go to the BBC (again!) to discover that over a thousand people were arrested in the San Francisco anti-war protests. That's more arrests at a protest in that city than in decades. I wouldn't have known that if I had restricted myself to CNN, the New York Times or Los Angeles Times.

For a journalist, that fact alone is a crying shame.

I was walking through this Crescent City with my friend Fashionable tonight, before we went to dinner, talking with her about her fears engendered by this war. She said that she had chills, goose-bumps, felt out-of-sorts but was most amazed that there were no protests in this country, as opposed to Europe. I suggested to her at the time that we don't get any actual news in America anymore.

To give myself perspective, I actually went back to my own reporting - when I used to do that sort of thing - on the Cambodian elections in 1998. In those days, I would spend months on a story. I was younger and had not been beaten down by life's disappointments and seeing the results of too much bad journalism and too many American wars. The Cambodian election was a six part series, as I recall.

I was so incensed by the shoddy reporting featured in the New York Times on that story that I wrote them an Open Letter. I followed up with a commentary on PBS' "Reality Check" site months later.

I look at the lame-ass coverage of the peace movement resurgent in the United States today and think: same story, different series of events

It reaches a point where you have seen too much and don't trust anything you read in the MM anymore.

As has happened in a number of cities I've inhabited, most pre-eminently San Francisco, I find that I am spending most of my time - when not retreating from the world - with women these days. They seem to understand my reserve and my sensitivity to falsehood and callousness better than men.

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21 March, 2003: Those of you who have read this column for years will notice that my tone has changed this week. How could it not? I am sitting as comfortably as a poor man can in my hovel and listening to people talk about how my country, this America, is committing one of the greatest crimes since the bombing of Dresden.

Meanwhile, Secretary of Defence "Rummy", when asked if we should be considered bullies for bombing a city of civilians mercilessly, feels that he cannot respect the question with an answer.

But I am a reasonable man. I am not enflamed with disgust and frustration. So I shall leave you with some predictions, based on earlier statements made in this space all of which have been proven true these last few days.

1. This massacre of Iraqis probably won't last as long as the first Gulf War. It will be over by this time next week. Then the real problems to be addressed in Iraq will come to the fore. The glorious American victory will take all restraints off the Shi'ites in the south of what is now Iraq and the Kurds in the north. Score-settling will be rampant in cities and villages all over the country. I have mentioned these issues months ago, when you didn't have a real reasons to listen to me. What is being then faced by the new American Proconsul is the potential for the Balkanization of Iraq.

   What I'm saying is that, based on the fact that Iraq was already disarmed, the military campaign will be a piece of cake. What will be hard will be making soldiers who are trained to fight suddenly become adminstrators and policeman.

   Let me add one more point: the Turkish military will not -- I repeat, WILL NOT -- tolerate a Kurdistan on their borders.
   
   

2. The peace movement will either evaporate OR GET REAL. What do I mean by "get real"? I mean there is the need for regime change in this country. I mean that now is the time to stop doing puppet shows and holding candles and get involved in serious political organizing, as I mentioned to reader Cheryl above. That means a commitment to social and economic justice on a global basis, across the planet. That means putting yourself at risk of being jailed. That means a commitment to social change that many of the Germans wished they had taken BEFORE the "Big War". This is HARD WORK. You have to decide which side you are on or get a valid passport, my second suggestion, and move somewhere where your conscience won't keep you awake all night.
   
   
3. If you choose to stay in this empire, you must commit yourself to the defense of the Constitution here at home. It will, I promise you, be torn to threads if you allow this junta to succeed in its efforts under the guise of patriotism and security.

I'm sorry to end on such a heavy note. I should be celebrating the anniversary of this magazine, but my country has ruined it again, as they did the anniversary and my birthday in 1999.

Two years later, when I went to Belgrade, my friend Dragan told me the story of how he had almost been killed in an American bombing of that city. He made me promise not to share his story with his wife. I never have.

Only weeks ago, in an off-handed comment during her e-mail, she revealed that she knew about the night and the time her husband had nearly been killed by an American bomb.

Think of yourself or one of your loved ones on the receiving end of "shock and awe" and tell me how you feel.

PEACE!

Things I Pray For This Week

1. As little death as possible in any conflict on earth.

2. A "Home" committed to human dignity.

3. Getting away from a country that supports the bombing of 21 March, 2003 (EST), and never having to return to this new imperium of death.

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Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

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ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

Last year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now our Resident Philosopher has joined the pantheon of New Orleans bartenders and still doesn't know when he'll have a "permanent residence" that he likes.. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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