[Newspoetry] poetry from W. & Chris Mann

[gillespie william k]

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  "In his book on globalism, `The Lexus and the Olive Tree,' Thomas L.
   Friedman argues that no two countries with McDonald's franchises have
   ever gone to war. The price of this supersized Pax Romana is, well,
   a McDonald's in every country."

   Rick Marin, The Least Likely Burning Man, The New York Times,
   Sep 10, 2000.

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[This is a poem made up entirely of actual quotes from George W. Bush.
The quotes have been arranged only for aesthetic purposes, by Washington
Post writer Richard Thompson.]

MAKE THE PIE HIGHER
by George W. Bush

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
and potential mental losses.
Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?
They misunderestimate me.
I am a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope,
where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!
Vulcanize Society!
Make the pie higher! Make the pie higher!

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Two War Poems by Chris Mann

19 Sept:

The stolen crime.

On sanctimonious debt and the looting of grief:

Experiment: Unlike, for example, Union Carbide's experience in India, an
industrial crime perpetrated at the coal face of capitalism has been
embraced by its intended victims and redefined as an attack on the nation
state. Like the British instigation of the Opium Wars, the state is being
resurrected by those who write its obituary and conscripted into the very
coup it was designed to prevent.

Results: 1. The Bush revolution is now complete and the tax system is now
a wholly owned subsidiary of the stock market. 2. The American Congress
has abrogated any and all rights and responsibilities and invested its
presidency with absolute power. This is most readily observed in the now
complete legislative disappearance of civil liberties and rights to
privacy. Nato, Echelon, Nafta and the World Trade Organisation are used to
unilaterally extend these powers extra territorially. 3.The perpetrators
(most of whom were trained by the self-identified victim) have been
disappeared and replaced by an impossible enemy. 4. Our task is,
therefore, to make the enemy possible.

21 Nov:

The guy who was head of the FBI's task force on bin Laden resigned in
august because he thought the State Department was being obstructionist.
He blamed the oil lobby. His new job was head of security at the World
Trade Centre.

Why is this not a joke? Because he was Irish?

George Bush's first business venture was with bin Laden's brother. Dick
Cheney's current major business partner is bin Laden's brother. They own
oil pipelines together. Condoleeza Rice used to work for Chevron. What is
it about the privatisation of history that is so offensive? That it's a
joke?

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* with thanks to Anu Garg & Warren Burt *