[Newspoetry] Newsplay 2

[William at Spineless Books]

Scene 4: 22 October 2004

NYT: ...so you see, the administration did not forsee a second  war.

NP: Isn't this a third war? For this administration.

NYT:I should have said a second Iraq war. Thank you.  Look, that article 
is already two days old. Take today's.  I thought you'd appreciate that 
caption there.

NP: Hunting for Votes, Hunting for Votes. Right below a photo of Bush 
campaigning joined to a photo of Kerry hunting. The caption not only makes 
no bones about the fact that Kerry has no business hunting in, or even 
setting foot in, Ohio other than to sway voters, but has a nice parallel 
structure. In the first case--Bush's--"hunting for" is a metaphor and a 
transitive verb; in the second case--Kerry's--"hunting" is literal, 
intransitive, and "for votes" is a prepositional phrase.

There's John Kerry in camo with a gorgeous and photogenic hunting dog. It 
pisses  me off that they don't give the name of the dog, who is the only 
one who looks  straight into the camera and appears willing to, at a 
second's notice, race  up to the American people and start licking their 
face. Not so the shorn secret service in their hunting costumes. Nor Kerry 
who glances cameraward but appears lost  in his photo op fantasy, the 
fantasy of being one of them. I am not  rich, he thinks, I am not Ivy 
League. Just a good old boy, nothing  wrong with that. My statements in 
the early 70s against the war in Vietnam  only meant that I don't  think 
rich  people  like  myself should  have to serve, and I wish those 
liberals would understand that. The purpose  of war is profit and our best 
accountants need to remain stateside and be paid comfortably because if we 
mismanage the profits the war will be a catastrophic  failure, and 
eventually we have to acknowledge the casualties, those on your  sides, 
the future accountants and planners or laborers. My statements  against 
the first Gulf War, just like my statements not against the second  Gulf 
War, merely expressed the intentions of my party. Too much has been made  
of my flip-flopping. I have not struggled even that much. If I 
flip-flopped  it is because I was flip-flopped by the politics of the 
moment. If only I had had the spine to flip-flop.

I feel  one or two rural Americans almost stirred by this manufactured 
image. Why  are the three  hunters wearing camo? Shouldn't they be wearing 
orange so that other hunters don't  mistake them for deer? Or perhaps 
whether you wear green or orange depends  on your quarry and their ability 
to perceive colors. Why Ohio? Kerry doesn't hunt in Ohio, if he ever 
hunts, but  it is a swing state and the Springfield Township will pay the 
tab for the  police who worked overtime clearing the forest of any and all 
other possible  geese  hunters. Thus wearing camo. There is no danger of 
some Libertarian redneck  taking a potshot at the candidate by accident, 
mistaking him for a goose,  because even if said redneck and his hound had 
somehow managed to get their truck near  the site  by now they would be 
face down in the mud being frisked by authorities, probably  the local 
constabulary working overtime, costing Springfield the money it  needed to 
build a new school next year, for which the Kerry campaign will not  
reimburse them.


Newspoem 7 October 2004 Swing States Pay  The Price



So instead of orange hunting gear (I believe  someone thought this through 
very carefully and never mind whether geese  can see orange) he  wears 
camouflage because this gives his hunting entourage a military look,  
thereby soothing his true contingents, the war profiteerers, demonstrating  
that he is willing to disgust his liberal and environmentalist contingent 
for  a slice of the war-profiteer vote.

Dick Cheney called this camo an "October Disguise." Here we have a 
distortion of scale. Cheney is comparing the October Surprise--illegal  
arms sales to Iraq to delay, yes delay, the release of the American 
hostages--to  Kerry's silly hunting outing. There is no comparison. This 
is like comparing Bush's dereliction of duty in the Texas Air National 
Guard to disagreements  about what actually happened when John Kerry was 
under fire in Vietnam. The  scale is not comparable. The October Surprise 
was a grotesque criminal enterprise.  Kerry's hunting photo op involved 
the loss of life of perhaps not even one goose (because there were no 
witnesses), much  less cavorting and wheeling and dealing with enemies of 
the state. And the  typography used on a document that confirms Bush's 
dereliction of duty  is not comparable to a disagreement about what 
happened in a particular battle  in Vietnam. Either way, Kerry served and 
Bush did not. And either way, the  Republican precursor to the 
administration now seeking reelection committed  egregious crimes against 
America, while Kerry went Duck Hunting.

I have just discovered that Kerry emerged from the underbrush with four 
dead  geese, claiming each member of the party shot one, his hand stained 
with blood,  though he was the only member of his party not carrying a 
carcass.

1100 identified dead Americans in Iraq since the start of the Iraq 
war--which one?

NYT: Shut up.

Newspoet: --today. With the death of Andrew C Ehrlich, 21, Specialist, 
Army; Mesa, Ariz., First Infantry Division.


Scene 5: 27 October 2004


[this scene takes place nearly in darkness. wsws remains in shadow, a band  
of light falling across his face]



NP: what purpose this write
just to sharpen my knives
my friend
just to sharpen my knives
we cant wait until the election is over so we can get back to more  important 
work

But wait, here's a headline that might save me: Crocodile Husbandry is 
Really  Hard, China Finds
Cambodia's New King Dances Into a Land of the Absurd
a sleepy filling overtakes me
trying to read the newspaper choking on frozen vomit.
now wondering because he's left and my lungs ache and the day is 
mercilessly  cold and without sun and the lies get thicker and thicker in 
the newspaper

The story starts, the story starts, the story starts, the motifs enter the 
symphony. war on drugs, war on terrorism, the melodies intertwine.

What business do I taking on the New York Times in a poetry duel? That's a 
huge organization.  A juggernaut. I'm just some guy.

WSWS:He needs you.

NP:That's a laugh. Needs me. Ha... Really?

WSWS:Oh you bet. You're one of them.

NP: I'm not.

WSWS: You are. An educated reader. A tough crowd. You're almost good 
enough to read between the lies. But you, like America, have a short 
memory.

NP: Huh?

WSWS: You are right that it is an aircraft carrier, and you are a paper 
airplane. But it needs you. You are the last person left to fool. When it 
finally fools you, then it has Amewrica sewn up.

NP:Not gonna happen.

WSWS:Has happened. Is happening. Will continue to happen.

NP: Fool me? Did you read this story? Have you ever seen a more stable 
edifice of fact? .

WSWS: Do you remember what you were saying about America having a short 
memory?

NP: I don't.


WSWS: Do you remember how, December 13, 2000, one day after the supreme  
court ruling establishing Bush as president, the Times urged the American 
people  to "respect the authority and legitimacy of the new president?"


NP: That sounds like the Times I remember.


WSWS: Or how about October 12, 2001? It described Bush, in the wake  of 
the invasion of Afghanistan--the first first war, as "confident," 
"determined,"  "sure," "firm."


NP: Oh yeah. Ew.


WSWS: Or July 17, 2004?


NP: No.


WSWS: In an editorial, the Times dismissed the administration's 
frightening "contingency  plans" to cancel the presidential election in 
the event of a  terrorist attack. That creep William Safire wrote a glib 
editorial New Years Eve predicting orecisely such an attack.


Or Monday, April 21, 2003?


NP: I forget.


WSWS: Front page article, written by Judith Miller, asserting that  "Iraq 
destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days  
before  the war began." Trouble is, this article had no evidence 
whatsoever, only  a conversation with an unnamed Iraqi. Thereby paving the 
way for the invasion,  providing much-needed credibility to the 
administration's claim that Iraq  was harboring weapons of mass 
destruction, the very claim debunked by last  Sunday's article.


NP: Why has the newspaper turned against Bush?


WSWS: I don't know. But when it tells the truth, remember that it  has a 
false reason for doing so. In the editorial endorsing Kerry on the 17th,  
it claimed  that the Bush administration was undemocratically appointed by 
the Supreme  Court.


NP: It was.


WSWS: But why has the Times remained silent on this important point  for 
four years?


NP: I see what you're saying. Thomas Pynchon writes that " Everybody gets  
told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at  
the earlier stages of life we think we know everything
or to put it  more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and 
structure of our ignorance.  Ignorance is not just a blank space on a 
person
s mental map. It has  contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of 
operation as well."


How can we read the newspaper noticing only that which is not there? 
Reading the whitespaces through its record, a  layered patchwork of 
different reporters, different years. Did September 11th scare  them that 
badly?


WSWS: It has to do with profit. Follow the money.


NP: Wait, why are you telling me this?


WSWS: Political reasons.


NP: Who are you?


WSWS: Just a Trotskyite website.


NP: Oh, so you're biased.


WSWS: Yes, straightforwardly and consistently. This election signifies a  
fissure in the borgeoisie. I gotta go, the papers are just starting to 
come  out in New Zealand. There's a strike  on.



[blackout]


Scene 6: 28 October 2004



I can't write nature poetry, no matter how beautiful the leaves turning to  
flame. "What kind of times are these / when to write about trees is  
almost a crime / because it implies silence about so many horrors?" -- 
Bertholt Brecht


There are certain  quotes that guide me. For example:


"Art means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner-table of power  which 
holds it hostage." -- Adrienne Rich


I hate William Safire. Today he is gloating about how we've helped 
Afghanistan  become democratic, and elect its own U.S.-installed leader in 
an election  marred by as many allegations of fraud as the democratic 
election in this  country four years ago.


Right now the moon is turning red with indignation. Or it is a lunar 
eclipse?  Robert Creeley had to drive to Canada to get flu shots. Ashlee 
Simpson was  caught lip-synching on Saturday Night Live. And the remains 
of a one-meter  high person, who lived 12,000 years ago, was discovered on 
an island off of Indonesia. Living with tiny elephants, they were killed 
off by a volcano arouind  the time human beings crossed into North America 
over a land bridge.


No matter who wins the election, European-American relations will be 
strained. Eminem has released a video on the internet  showing hooded 
rappers storming the capitol in order to vote.  A new study suggests that 
there have been more than 100,000 Iraqi civilian  casualties since the 
beginning of the war. Iraqis have been 2.5 times more  likely to die since 
the evil dictator was removed. The leading cause of death, disease, has 
been far outpaced by violent death, usually women and children,  usually 
through US airstrikes. The Bush campaign has publicly retracted  a 
doctored campaign photo that shows  a digitally enlarged  crowd  of 
soldiers listening to Bush speak. This is at least the third such 
allegation  since Bush took office. Remember the staged photo of Iraqi 
civilians tearing  down a statue of Saddam Hussein? Remember that when 
Bush made his historic  landing on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, 
the aircraft carrier had  positioned itself so the nearby San Diego 
coastline was not visible, creating  the impression that Bush had landed 
at sea. Is the lying of this administration  not sufficiently documented? 
See Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who  Tell Them, or listen to the 
Prince Myshkins' sing "Liars." Or read  the New York Times. To give yet 
another example, today's front page features  a story that a Minneapolis 
TV crew filmed explosives at Al Qaqaa on a day when the Bush 
administration claimed they were none there, having been removed by the 
evil dictator. The military  broke into warehouses using bolt cutters, 
leaving them open. Kerry's trumpeted  claims that the Bush invasion let 
tons of military-grade explosives  slip into the hands of looters are 
truer than ever, Bush's repeated denials and evasions thinner than ever. 
The story is even careful to point out that,  though HMX can be used in 
developing nuclear explosives, there was no evidence  that Iraq any longer 
had plans to do so. It's safe to say that some very dangerous,  very 
useful explosives have fallen into the wrong hands. Nobody is any safer  
as a result of the occupation.


Meanwhile, today Vice President Cheney was quoted as saying the war in 
Iraq  was a "remarkable success story."


See?


New York Times, I'd like to ask you a few questions if I may.


NYT: Of course.


NP: No matter who wins this election, European-American relations will not  
be the winner, it is too late for Iraq to be the winner, according to a 
cusory  reading of your business section, the oil industry shows little 
sign of being  the winner. Let's hope America will win something like the 
Red Sox won the  World Series for the first time since 1918. I hope this 
year will bring a  double victory for Massachusetts. Newspoetry is pulling 
for you, M.A. But which newspaper will come out ahead?


NYT: If Kerry wins, it will be me. My status of newspaper of record will  
be reinforced.


NP: Well, then, I'm voting for you, New York Times.
i am so going to vote
i am way voting
i will vote fast and furious, early and often
i'm gonna cast like a motha
like you never seen


Meanwhile, such wonderful discoveries in the scientific community. Homo  
Florentius. The cracked and gnarled surface of Titan. These are excited 
times.