cops, cops, and more cops - foto by smithLady and I wrote this for a new Canadian magazine, but then they decided to use a couple poems of mine and fotos of ours instead, so i have a free blog.
The Red, White, Black & Blue
- by Steven B. Smith & Lady K
We’re taught simple values as children. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t steal. Don’t twist other kids. They tell us these rules will prepare us for the real world.
Yet we know politicians consider all these don’ts as tools of the trade–not something NOT to do, but something not to get CAUGHT doing. They promise not to do bad things, then they do do them and then they lie about having done them.
You can say the same about the police, priests, CEOs, corporations, organizations, business and the military. A thorough reading of news and history reveals most institutions are and always have been bad.
Our world is run by people who hurt, lie, cheat, steal, kill, bully, and slander. They kill women, children and the old for money, for bottom lines, for oil, and to get reelected. In Congress, Republicans don’t even pretend to tell the truth, and Democrats play both sides of the lie. While claiming to represent progressive, anti-imperialistic values, the Democrats continue to support the war in Iraq, vote ever more stupendous amounts of money for the occupation, and refuse to exercise their power to close the purse strings. They rationalize this as a pre-election strategy to ward off allegations of weakness. In effect, they murder more Iraqis and more US soldiers for the sake of an election. Murder for money, murder for oil, murder for votes.
Not all the ruling rich are bad, but most are. Not all priests molest children, but too many do. Not all cops are crooked, yet cops kill other cops for not being on the take. This is all stuff you see in mainstream news, so if corporate flack hacks tell us this much, it’s probably much worse
Even our field of “honor”–sports–is a pit of lies. Baseball considers cheating a trick of the trade, what with spitballs and spiking and of course the ubiquitous steroid use. Same’s true in track. Doping is rampant in bicycle racing. Anything for an edge. Skating judges are repeatedly caught favoring one competitor over another for love or money. In recent Olympics events, Chinese officials rattled gymnasts by speaking to them just as they began to compete or making them wait extra long times before performing. The Chinese gymnast team includes two 14 year olds, but the legal age limit is 16. The Chinese are so riddled with corruption that during the opening night of the ceremonies they used a beautiful child lip-syncing a song in lieu of showing an ugly girl with a perfect voice.
On our other field of “honor”–the Iraq war–our soldiers lie about who and why they kill. American soldiers rape 14 year old girls, then murder their family to cover it up. High percentages of female soldiers are raped by their fellow Americans. Officers lie about what happens. Our government says torture ain’t torture, murder for profit ain’t murder for profit, and the torturers at Abu Ghraib were just a low rogue few.
Even as citizens, lying is one of our main activities. We lie on income tax forms, expense accounts, to our spouses, our children, our co-workers, ourselves. We refuse to acknowledge our government has killed over two million Iraqi civilians during Bill Clinton’s and Dick Cheney’s presidencies.
Since the beginning of time, truth, honor and fairness were words for wishing for what never was and never is. The GOTS did what they wanted from day one while the rest of us paid their price. In The Beginning, the Strong took what they wanted and became the Gots. The Gots have. The Gots make the rules. The Gots hire their official enforcer thugs called Police, Army, Navy. The Gots steal from the Ungots and build Prisons and buy Weapons and more Police Thugs to make sure the Gots keep their gots and get your gots too. The weakness in their plan lies in us. WE outnumber them. Their power rests in our acquiescence. They get away with what they get away with because we let them.
We all know the people and corporations in power lie to us, steal from us, spy on us, kill us, use and abuse us, and we don’t do a damn thing about it except mill about the pen like good little sheep following orders. Ain’t much us in U.S.
We teach do not lie. We preach do not lie. Make movies and write novels about honor and honesty. Yet we walk, talk, act, live, breathe lie after lie in a country of lies in a world of lies. It’s always been a world of greed, lies and violence, and it’s getting worse.
But all is not doom and gloom. We each still have our own life to live. And we can live it better, or worse, spreading laughter and light, or darkness. We’re going down the tubes anyway, so we might as well do it with as much style, grace, light and kindness as possible.
It is up to us to provide these necessities. If we can slow the bad, maybe we can find some good.
oaxaca lives - foto by smith |
