Their Ism's Are My Wasm's

Tiring argument with a Texan calling himself a "libertarian"...who does not listen...Why should he listen...already knows everything...introduces himself says he's interested in my writing...he's a screenwriter...successful... actually published...presenting credentials...Tony Bennett singing "San Francisco"...unable to hear it though I try between our words...we talk back & forth over around and thru each other...He was in a movie...I was in a film too...ho hum...I want to get back to computer...finally we get to politics...not afraid to share what I think I show blog and read aloud ending of National Security upbraid...can you feel anything...he can agree with me but he can show me a different point-of-view...oh really one I never heard before...he starts I recognize it...the common ages-old worn-out whining conservative-fascist litany...the rich should rule the workers should stay in their place...let capitalism reign!...free markets!...no regulations!...law of the jungle...everybody should carry a gun...why should he feel anything for the bombed-out Pakistanis they hit the World Trade Center killing 3,000...ahem they were Arabians...irrelevant that we killed that many in single Vietnam bombing raids ...irrelevant that their only kinship with WTC terrorists was sharing same Muslim religion...okay if he is made to answer for crimes of Christians...I cut to the chase...start talking about communism...why humans who try it determine its character and legend...he doesn't get it...keeps saying "Show me a communist country that works"...makes me tired...won't let me finish a sentence...I'm not talking about whether it works but why it hasn't yet...he doesn't hear a word keeps asking the same stupid question...maybe he's drunk...I tell him that he just doesn't listen...wants "to defeat me in argument"...I terminate conversation in a rather-loud heat...tell him I want to get back to my writing...he offers hand...a gentleman fascist...I shake it...what difference does it make...he leaves......his friends chuckle when he returns to pool table..."Did you make a friend Eric?"...good God I can't stand to talk politics with these people...know-it-all Texans...intellectual dwarves...politcal infants to me...wish I could just shoot it out instead get it over when it starts...I know that's where any serious disagreement with this type leads...if you won't agree and toe the line they'll kill you eventually...bullies will be bullies...couldn't make him understand that communism in Soviet Union was different than communism in Cuba Vietnam China etc...due to character history and personality of the people...how was it different he challenged...knows nothing about the xenophobic Vietnamese...zero about open & generous musical passionate dancing courageous Cubans...or long-suffering poetic Nicaraguans...US Marine-oppressed Haitians...ultimately they're all only niggers to him...different people...different communisms...different niggers...different cultures...different foods...different histories...different manners...different ideas......different democracies...different methods...exasperating...waste of time...now The Doors...different music.



American people...man I'm so tired of you...no place in this country where I can go and be deaf to infantile political argument...liberals and conservatives so certain in their delusions...the grandeur of chosen ignorance...uneasy that these post-John Wayne intellectual toddlers are becoming "politically-involved" thru Rush Limbaugh and his fatassed army of simple-minded malicious drunken morons...and Ron Paul who wants to do away with government...who will fix streets & keep sewers open Ron...volunteers...HA, HA!... from Stephen King and Danielle Steele to Rush Limbaugh and now Ayn Rand again...Good God I got over Ayn Rand in 1964...Objectivism my ass...PURE ROMANCE!...have we given up on the idea of injecting a million gallons of lsd into the water supply?...what will it take to break your hypnotic spell America?...Some people get up humming The Star Spangled Banner...YOU ARE LIVING IN A HYPNOTIC TRANCE!...in an actual trance...business trance...political trance...religious trance...hedonist trance...criminal trance...military trance...music trance...sex trance...drug trance...you are walking around in a daze...A TRANCE!...HYPNOTIZED BY TELEVISION MOVIES BOOKS!...captive of natural desires exaggerated into obsessions...IMPOSED FROM WITHOUT...CAPITALIST ADVERTISING TRICKS!...MIND CONTROL!...CONDITIONED TO TURN ON TELEVISION!...TV YOUR OLD BABYSITTER!...working your asses off in a daze...confused minds...you actually think you know what's going on...you saw it in the movies...you read it in a book...you saw it on the Hitler Channel...you read it in a MAGAZINE...you picked it up on the internet...YOU LEARNED IT IN COLLEGE!...mastered the jargon of your profession...NOW YOU'RE AN EXPERT!...you smart-assed common know-nothing redneck conscience-less Texas bully...congatulations...probably the only thing I have on you is I know I don't know...know you don't either...he parroted lines from Ron Paul...Congressman Paul much-smarter than he is...but never heard about left wing of Libertarian Party...Can't imagine libertarian SOCIALISM...contradiction in terms to him...he wants to exterminate all leftists & liberal thought...we're the cancer he's the cure...well let's all rush to Texas and get murdered so it can be a perfect world!...Libertarian Socialism the present home of classical Rennaisance liberalism...proved by Noam Chomsky...smarter than Ron Paul...but I don't follow Chomsky either...The One I want to follow is everywhere but elusive...hard to pick up the trail...some trackers are better than others.



Sure, I'm a liberal if you insist and believe in woman's right to choose...but I don't think abortion should be a method of birth-control...teach self-control with accurate sex information...TEACH VIRTUE!...TEACH HONOR!...TEACH CRITCAL THINKING!...TEACH SEX!...(I need lessons)...I want a socialist state but I can live with capitalism if it can be humane...I don't own a gun but believe in my right to...home-invading murderers out there!...but I have no use for artillery or missiles...I won't tolerate an active fascist in my home if I ever find one...damned bullies like Hemingway said...Nazis be damned...it's clear they want to kill us all...so kill them first...why screw around...only way to deal with a true nazi is to kill him and that is all...if we didn't learn anything else from World War Two we should have learned that...we kill mad dogs and try not to be mad dogs ...get the big nazis I mean...the little ones the followers and cowards get some of them too..they are victims though...the rest will scatter... become libertarians...or socialists!...whatever works!...you'll never kill fascism though...like communism and democracy it's an Idea...you can't kill an Idea...you can suppress it but sooner or later someone will find and promote it again...you have to live with it and try to make it humane...even if you know it can't...if I'm a bit of a Marxist I'm with Marcuse: "BE NICE"...it's no secret I'm with Abbie Hoffman: "Their ism's are my wasm's."



I don't understand people without doubts about what they think they know...so sure they're right...my own study of history says almost everybody got it wrong...somewhere back there the human race went haywire...berserk!...where?...I haven't any idea...millenia of living with man-eating predators...then a hundred thousand years of outright human slavery...armies like colonies of ants...all enslaved to warlord fealty...war without end...pillage rape murder torture terror without horizons...GENGHIS KHAN!...ATTILA THE HUN!...ADOLF HITLER!...(We call Alexander "the Great" because he was one of ours)...If Hitler had won they'd call him Hitler the Great...800 Sabine woman captured by woman-less Romans & made wives to give birth to Roman Empire...burning villages towns cities...enslaving everybody...killing the men...taking the women away...enslaving whole cities!..Agememnon was a selfish egotistical bastard...whole provinces driven into slavery!...the slave trade...slave ships built in Liverpool...home of the Beatles...transported slaves from Africa to the West Indies & Americas...later the British almost single-handedly put a stop to slavery with mighty Navy impounding ships...freeing slaves...sending slavers to prison...an aroused British populace!...petitions committees responsible literate ministers...LAWS!...give the English credit...their civilized barbarity...nothing is perfect...everything seen through cloudy glass of the present into non-existing past.



Someone said take yoga...I know this is right...need to chill in postures of meditation...practiced Hatha Yoga for years off and on...studied it in a solitary confinement cell of the Calcasieu Parish Jail 1969-71...learned it from a book...Adele Somebody...practiced for hours every day...condemned to that quiet green cell I got into it...stretched every muscle tendon vein and artery...sometimes four hours at a stretch...when they finally let me out I was calm open-eyed and a coiled spring...stand straight put head on knees 60 seconds 20 times a day you get limber...tight...calm...relaxed...stand on your head five times a day you find balance...blood on the brain stimulates it...stand on one foot with other resting on your upper pelvis your arm behind...hand resting on foot...I did most of the postures well...cleared my mind...later I slept flat on my back two years on a mere blanket over a board...kept body in shape for years...I still do it...only a one-inch pad between me and floor of van now...the 12 postures Greeting to the Sun...every now and then I do it to check if I still can...but I need room...can't hold the postures as long...left ACL ruined more than a dozen years now...can't run anymore...used to run 10 miles a day...hard to bend left leg...need to get back into yoga...sixty eight in August...what am I trying to do...postpone death!...and smoking...ha, ha!...worst thing I do to myself now...that, and torture self over what I lost...what I can't have...why I am telling you this...I have to tell someone...your mind the bowl I pour myself into.



When I emerged from jail 1971 guards had recently murdered George Jackson in San Quentin Prison...I'd been reading his books...IN JAIL!...then I was convinced he was unarmed today I'm not so sure...turns out someone else really wrote the books from his near-illiterate scribbling...it was outrageous...open race war in California...Attica was brewing...Panthers were still selling their paper in Port Authority..Nixon has just shot down student war protesters at Kent and Jackson State colleges...yeh my eyes were clear body firm ready & coiled like a whip at what?...everything amused me...yes I felt superior to it all...there's another Reality...I saw it then forgot during perilous travails I brought on myself...stupid irresponsible drug-and-alcohol-induced decisions...wrong choices...SUE ME!...marriage an incubator of pain...first mistake out of jail...whatever possessed me...romance...sex...noble promses...beauty...her particular beauty.



We started off in Joe & Elise's old apartment Thompson south of Spring...Joe had built a high loft...Joey working at J. Walter Thompson a writer of course...God what a gentle writer deep as an ocean...we were happy there...I know she was...her deep brown eyes sparkled with love for me and my blues for her...never forget walking with her to subway on crowded Spring Street early morning in the snow...bundled up she was a gentle doe of great strength and grace...my arm hugging her close snow in our eyes & hair...a warm dignity uniquely hers...so pleasant teasing humorous & loving ...my only wife...35 years ago...neither of us re-married.



Thinking out loud here...thoughts bouncing between Pakistan War & destruction of Brazilian Slavery 1888...failed marriage intruding...Dylan singing "Ring Them Bells"...earphones plugged into old remodeled computer...FINALLY RUNNING RIGHT!...what a mess that was...ran me ragged for a month...I surrender to my Dell laptop!...you're the boss I'm working to keep you alive...I'll do whatever you say your wish is my et cetera...can't make it without you I already tried...



...scribbled for years...typed...kept carbons...re-typed...proofreading marks all over the pages...wrote on paper bags,,,napkins...cardboard...saved every scrap a treasure of an idea in there somewhere...ah quit lying to yourself it's mostly crap...throw it away...I'm an endless re-writer...might as well try to transport from a beach a castle made of sand...never lose an original draft!...label everything!...read and re-read it...keep writing!...learned it all the hard way...don't talk politics 2 a.m. with a Texas "libertarian" who needs everyone to be like him...not when you are trying to write...he can get stuck in your literary craw...you can't spit him out...you chew him up and try to swallow him but...claws are indigestible.