Zen Second Memorial Dais
June 1st, 2011 | 
Author: I used to dread dressing professionally. Now I’m okay with it despite my lack of professional clothes. I compensate for ordinary shoes. I have just enough to get through a week of work. I hate how obvious it is when I drip after pissing because I don’t wear underwear. Tan slacks tend to belie the fact that you just took a leak if you’re not very careful. I’ve hated underwear since I was in jr high; made my crotch itch like bugs were having a rodeo in my burgeoning thatch of barely pubescent straw.
The whole showering with other sometimes enormous dicks and harrier balls traumatized me too. The last thing you want when you’re twelve is overgrown jocks evaluating your package and discussing it with cheerleaders.
Just like starting a new job.
It seems I’ve had as many new jobs in the last year as months on the calendar. There was at least one asshole I couldn’t possibly work for without punching him in the mouth or bombing his house. I absolutely could have made it rain for him but he couldn’t see past the line of blow in front of him. Complete loser. Been there, done that. There was another group of people that I wish could taste their bad behavior like rancid their breath. Dicks in vaginal clothing. Seriously. In between were all the random sales jobs. Window treatments at Costco, two brief auto warranty jobs and a stint as a door to door for the environment. I’ve got humility and experience. I’ve sold everything from glass dildos to pot pipes, merchant services to customized rolling papers.
All the sudden I’m well rounded and middle aged.
I wash my hands and shake them at my pants to make the issue smaller.
My life is crazier than I ever would have imagined but I’ve learned that I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid.
Still, sometimes I try to think but nothing happens.
I see people. I’m pretty sure I do. It’s obvious when they’re amplified by the media. Yet ordinary people are easy to spot but not so easy to figure out. I’ve made a living for quite some time by figuring people out. It’s what I do.
I am public. I have become a face for yet another company.
Sales is one of the craziest things anyone could ever choose. A former best friend drug me into it fifteen years ago. He and I no longer talk. He wasn’t my best or only friend but he was a good one while it lasted. I’m grateful he pushed my face into it.
It’s hard.
But it is nothing.
It ain’t shit.
Yesterday was Memorial Day.
I’m a peacenik. A pacifist. I’m absolutely confident that the war we chose to wage in Iraq was without reason. Zero logical justification. The sheer number of dead on either side was for not one goddamn good reason. Not one. It breaks my heart. Because it was stupid. Because it was never about justice or honor or decency. Never about a legitimate threat or an impending threat or an inevitable consequence. All of it, in it’s entirety, was absolute bullshit. Talk about wanting to punch motherfuckers in the mouth.
It really pisses me off.
America has not waded into a conflict with just cause since WWII. We are dangerously stupid and absurdly wealthy and our most convenient currency is human life, whether it’s us or them, and that makes us inexcusably evil. What we are about now and how we are perceived beneath the world’s proscenium is abhorrent, audacious and awful. Without question, America is now the glassy eyed bully in the bar. Six foot five, two hundred and eighty pounds, fully willing to swing on you and give you a life threatening concussion for objecting to grabbing your girlfriend’s ass on her way back from the ladies room. That is us. That is America today.
There are lots of things, aspects of this reality that engender my bitter disgust. The most profound is exactly how and without any care or compassion we execute such egregious and ridiculous madness with the currency of human life like it matters so little. Pennies from heaven and dollars from hell. Our four plus thousand dead and their hundreds of thousands dead don’t matter nearly as much as Dick Cheney’s buddies profiting like fucking pirates from the whole thing. Profiteering. Raping and pillaging both us and them. I swear to you that if they lost a handful of thousands of lives and we lost hundreds of thousands, it would still be the same. They would sell and we would buy the fear and it would be the same. They don’t give a mad fuck because our military is nothing if not expendable in their eyes. Because human life is currency to them.
Our men and women are free money and an absolute means to an end. The end belongs to them and so does the means.
It is how they see it.
They should all be in prison. They should all be waterboarded. They should all be tortured and when it’s over, nail their gray bearded ball sacks to the floor, set the goddamn house on fire and give the bastards a dull knife to get away with.
God Bless America.
Afghanistan is the same deal. Osama Bin Laden is dead. So what? Like he had anymore to do with anything than we did. We made him. We made Saddam Hussein. Somebody tell me exactly what we’re up to and why we’re spending ten billion a month on this war while earnestly attempting to push Medicare and Social Security through the floor and into the basement. Who’s brainchild is this? How is it that any responsible American can countenance it?
Seriously, are you people new? Are you retarded? Was your nursery and crib painted with lead based paint? Was the garage too close to your bedroom? Why aren’t we in the streets when our very own people are dying tragically and violently for no good reason? When hundreds of thousands who never wanted it and have no idea why there’s this sudden, lethal shitststorm, are facing death everyday? When our veterans and mentally handicapped are living out of shopping carts and sleeping in cardboard boxes? Or when our seniors or chronically ill can’t afford life sustaining medical care? When our good and honorable soldiers are dealing death and destruction on a scale that I guarantee most, if not all of us, are ill equipped to comprehend? Fuck me this is beyond stupid. They keep ramming down our necks how broke America is and we keep spending the amounts of money it would take to fix it all every goddamn month on killing people who will never, ever be any kind of threat to any of us in any way.
Holy shit this is stupid, and so are we.
Sometimes I try to think about it and nothing happens.
I don’t wonder at all about why the rest of the world thinks we’re a bunch of ignorant, self obsessed jackasses without an ounce of compassion or self awareness. That is precisely who and what we are. We are dicks, losers and idiots. How many actually took Donald Trump, the world’s most penultimate, most accomplished blowhard seriously as a viable candidate for president of the United States? How many will actually entertain similar notions regarding Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann? It’s looking more and more like both intend to run. Both will end up as queens of fodder for comedians everywhere but what does it say about America when two such obviously brain dead bitches think they have a chance? Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait. But really? It, they, give me pause.
But I can’t wait because I still have a sense of humor.
So with all sincerity, here’s my toast for the fallen. For the brave and unselfish. I am sincerely sorry that your life was offered and given. I can’t tell you how sorry I am about your missing limbs or that your blind or deaf or unable to process a thought or ever get a reasonable night of sleep. I respect and admire your courage and commitment. Thank you. I don’t doubt you signed on with noble and selfless intentions.
Thank you. And I’m really sorry about all of this.
It pains me to recognize that what you aspired to was never going to be what you hoped and thought it would. What you were told and what you died for for was a lie. It’s not your fault. They lied to you. Sixty years ago, men and women like you fought and died for very good reason. Men and women like you did a wonderful thing. You still did the best you could to be the best you could and you died trying to be the best you could. You still died for your country. Or now you’re an eggplant because of your country. Your country has changed. And that makes me sorry. When I think about it and something does happen, my stomach rolls over and I want to puke and cry. I am sorry to and for everyone who survives you. All the people who now live without you or what you once were, with giant, gaping unfillable holes in their hearts. I’m sorry and sad because sooner or later, many if not most of the people who survive you, will realize that you died for just south of nothing.
I hate that. It breaks my heart, but it’s true.
What do I know?
I’m just a salesman.
Happy Memorial Day.
Drinks for my friends.
Posted in Uncategorized
Have you ever thought about running for president. I have NEVER read any of your pieces that I don’t agree with.
I am so sick by the state of this country and I blame mostly the republican fucks who have lined their pockets at every given opportunity. Makes me absolutely SICK to my stomach. However my republican friends have every rationalization for all their evil deeds. Democrats are not much better but they seem to care about social ills. I’d like to see a MASS distribution of the wealth of our country. There is not ONE PERSON on this planet who needs more than 100 million. Lets have a wealth ceiling and let them be ridiculously wealthy, but the excess should help all boats rise with the tide. Don’t even get me started on how stupid we’ve become.
Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Donald Trump and the list goes on….
I’m feeling sick now. Gotta go throw up. Drinks for YOU! Cheers
I’m pro choice, couldn’t pass a drug test and have a very big mouth; it’s not gonna happen. But thanks. You’re supposed to hurl after the drinks. Thanks for reading.
Brilliant!
Thanks man.
I agree with your sentiment about the war but hate, Hate, HATE how you ended the piece.
It’s not enough that a young man or woman had to die – no, you want them to know that they were never what they hoped to be. That it was all a sham. That they died for a lie.
My son is a Marine. Fought in Iraq. I HATED the fact that he enlisted and deployed. He knew I would hate it and that’s why he didn’t tell me about it until he had already signed and it was a done deal.
He knew how I felt about the war over there. He knew I didn’t think we should be there and that I didn’t want him to go.
I knew that he was trained to believe some b.s. propaganda that would hype him up to do what he was sent to do.
I knew we didn’t see it eye to eye. So did he. That was enough.
Why would I tell him before or after that everything he was doing and believed in was crap? Why would I do that? Personally, I would rather he believe the hype than be conflicted while he was there. I would rather he believe what he was told than have a moment’s hesitation in firing and risk being killed himself. I would rather he believed in what he was doing than come home with a twisted head and be a trigger temper away from a complete melt down. I would rather he figure it out over time on his own, with the forever loving embrace of his family and the sentiments of the world around him. Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to kick a troop when they’re down. And I’m certainly not going to humiliate them or shame them for being in the military – a position most of us in America are too scared to do.
So FUCK YOU for doing so. Save the hyperbole for the government. Not the ones who are doing what they were told to do and the ones who believed in good conscience that they were doing the right thing. And if you’re going to recognize a fallen military person, just leave it at “thank you for your service and giving the ultimate sacrifice” and give the finger to the ones who sent them there instead.
Marla:
“Why would I tell him before or after that everything he was doing and believed in was crap? Why would I do that? Personally, I would rather he believe the hype than be conflicted while he was there. I would rather he believe what he was told than have a moment’s hesitation in firing and risk being killed himself. … Ain’t no way in hell I’m going to kick a troop when they’re down. And I’m certainly not going to humiliate them or shame them for being in the military – a position most of us in America are too scared to do.”
Your son knows you think it’s crap. He may, after all, think it’s crap too – in which case he decided to go anyway, because he believes that protecting his country is the greater good.
People do unselfish things like this all the time.
Do not, for one moment, fool yourself into believing that your son and others in the military are not brainwashed into believing what their government tells them so that they can get the job done. That is how the military works, and most of us on the outside know it and accept it for what it is. But why are we okay with civilians being brainwashed about it too?
This post is NOT shunning military members for being involved in the war. This post is NOT trying to shame the men and women who fight and die for us, not in any way.
It is instead a call for them, and for us all, to realize that the promise that our government has made to them, the promise that they are upholding peace and freedom throughout the world, is a twisted and broken lie.
They have the right to know that.
Marla, first of all, as a mom, I can’t imagine how torn your heart has been, knowing that you do not agree with a war your son signed up to go in to. God bless you both! Sad to say, he WILL figure out eventually, if not by now, that these wars were never about freeing or protecting people. It is much easier to see that being outside the confines of the military and what it feeds to these men and women. I would never want him to hesitate to pull the trigger when needed, either. As he gets older, when he is home, and the war is over for him physically, I hope he can mentally put it to rest while understanding what his government did to him. He could be the very best hope for peace, having seen war and what it does.
I appreciate your position but your assessment that I’m somehow impugning the troops is wrongheaded and misguided. You’re missing the point. They are the victims of contemporary foreign policy. That’s my point.
Don’t get it twisted. They, people like your son, are the pawns. Why don’t you understand that’s what I’m pointing out?
And again, as much as I see and understand your point, I disagree entirely. Your son needs to understand the bullshit quotient so he might at least be equipped enough to avoid unnecessary heroics.
Until all of us realize and act on the fact that this is complete bullshit, nothing changes and we continue to lose. I can imagine him coming home twisted in one way or another more likely because he bought the bullshit. I could go much further but I won’t because I haven’t walked a single step in your shoes.
It would be lovely to have all the troops home. Obama’s position on the Iraq war was one of the two reasons I supported him. I removed the blue star flag from my front porch after my son returned home safely but I still have the “Bring Them Home” sign pasted on my front door for all the world to see.
It’s not that I disagree with your position on the war and the destruction it has caused. It’s your assessment that we “owe” the troops the “truth” about what they’re doing or have done.
Once the cultural shift takes place about our warring presence in a region takes place, they’re going to figure it out anyway. They don’t need us to educate them. While you push for peace, what you’re advocating is an assault of a different kind. Who are we to drop the bomb (every pun intended) that everything they believed in was bullshit and then leave them in the wreckage to come to terms with that on their own?
Don’t think so? Vietnam comes to mind.
Just what is an “unnecessary heroic”? And what is it that will equip him to deal with avoiding same?
The difference between understanding “the bullshit quotient” or not is the coming home alive or in a body bag.
I agree Mike. Both wars were and still are without merit. Would Bush have died for either war? Hell no. Would ANYONE die for either war? Same answer. What has been accomplished by either of these wars? I know the military personnel wants a paycheck but if I were them, I’d probably have walked off the job by now. The sacrifice is too large for this war. Any war.
War. What is it good for? Nothing. Fuck this shit. Thanks Pam.
You hit the nail on the head.
Thanks for reading.
I swear my Father saw this shit coming.
There has been a member of my family in every war this country has fought since the American Revolution. EVERY war. The ones I’m most familiar with: My great grandfather died in WWI when the allied unit he was with was hit with mustard gas. My Grandfather floated in the northern Pacific for three days after the ship he was on was shot out from under him. My grandmother (on my Mom’s side) was one of the first female Marines. My Great-Uncle died in Korea. My father and his brother were Vietnam era, and my uncle was a POW for 3 years. My Dad volunteered instead of being drafted, was sent to Germany instead of Vietnam and saw no combat until Desert Storm (at the tail end of his military career). Fighting, bleeding and dying for this country was a family tradition.
I graduated from High School in 1992. I had always taken it for granted that I would follow in my family’s footsteps and join some branch of the service. My Father shit a brick when I told him what I was going to do. He forbade me from enlisting. My uncles situation in Vietnam and his own experience in Kuwait shook him up, made him see things differently. These were not the righteous, justified conflicts of the old days. These were hyper-politicized attempts to establish American dominance in places we had no call to be. Imperialist power- and money-grabs that cheapened the sacrifices of Americans who had come before us.
I was stunned.. I hardly believed what he was telling me. Here was a man who had dedicated nearly 30 years of his life to serving his country in the military and the thought of his son doing the same made him ill?
Turns out, the old man was right on the money. I die just a little when I hear about my fellow countrymen dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for “reasons” so blatantly ludicrous it would make Nixon blush. My pride in being an American only survives because of these men and women who are fighting and dying in my name, but I want them home, safe, with their families. I want them here, with us, not halfway around the world bleeding on soil that literally means nothing to us as a nation.
All the other issues we have in this country, to me, pale in comparison to this: our bravest and best are – AS I WRITE THIS – bleeding and dying for the PROFIT OF OTHERS rather than for the protection and honor of our country. This is a travesty.
Thanks for writing this piece.
Peace
You’re welcome and thanks to the powers that be that your father saw it for what it was. Drinks for him.
Bringing the troops home, not just from war zones but from all bases far and wide, reining in the American empire is the solution to so many of our problems, financial, military, ethically and morally. I respect someones decision to serve their country but enlisting in the US military does not server the countries people, only the political class and the military industrial complex. You are right on the money that many military personnel reach a point where they see how pointless the effort is, that they are not serving the cause of freedom or democracy but instead serving the emperor and his cronies in quest for world hegemony that Caesar would be jealous of.
Nice! Thank you.
It’s simple. We, as a country, simply fall for this wheelbarrow full of lies and shit. Time and time again.
We have become a nation of sheep, pure and simple.
We let people tell us what to do even when we know it’s wrong and we don’t learn from our past mistakes. Ever.
We allow our financial institutions to basically rape us, then when they get caught, we give them the money to fix it, they give their CEO’s bonuses, do what they want and with no accountability whatsoever. None. We not only allowed them to do it, we bent over and spread the cheeks to make it easier.
We’re a two party system and both parties are retarded, self serving entities that just feed upon each other serving up sound bite politics that we swallow every time. You mean to tell me that with a population of nearly 400 million that the best we can come up with is Sarah Palin? Edwards? Gingrich? Bush? Weiner? Trump? etc., etc.??
Honestly, at this stage of the game, we deserve what we get.
Our own children go hungry in the streets. Our own families go without
proper healthcare, proper shelter and many without access to
satisfactory education for the kids. Our own workers go without jobs.
Yes. I support our troops 100%.
I just wish they were here in our own hometowns so that a mother who’s
run out of baby formula at 2 in the morning can maybe go to Walgreens
without worrying if she’s going to make it back home.
Instead of worrying about whether some child in some other country half
way around the world is getting access to clean water, wouldn’t it be
great if a tornado hit and there was an immediate response by the Army
with shovels, medicine and food.
We have become a retarded country. Slow to learn, never really getting the big picture, and doing the same thing over and over again like the next time it’ll be different.
Oh wait. That’s not retardation. It’s insanity.
Perhaps we don’t deserve it but there’s no denying we keep asking for it. Over and over and over……
Awesome commentary Mike. I’m so sick and tired of the repukes, moneyed interests and bought and paid for media directing the agenda. Hopefully changes for the better can be made to the message through the internet, blogs, social media, etc. But, as someone said earlier, it’s not just knowing, it’s also important that we (progressives) get the message out in all ways possible.
I can’t help but agree. Vigilance and diligence are everything. Keep talking and keep making sense.
Wow, rough… so difficult to spread around in a group with far ranging views but in the end I can’t disagree. I’ve taken to the streets, I can’t just talk about it and I wish others would do the same.
Thanks Midge. Always appreciate your input.
Marla, here’s an oldie but goodie for you: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” That’s why your son should have been told it’s brainwashing crapola. I’ve told my son (12) that if he ever follows family tradition and enlists I’ll shoot him in the knee. He knows I’m not kidding. Until everyone who knows this speaks the truth – that it’s all about profiteering for a few at the expense of the lives of young men and women and their families, leaving them if not dead with CBI and PTSD that the VA is poorly equipped to handle, which leads to ever-widening circles of hell; and until everyone stops conflating these pointless wars with the respect-and-support-the-troops jingoistic bullshit – because to truly respect and support them you tell them their efforts are wasted and you bring them home; there will be no end to this war because it’s a self-replenishing exercise in futility. We will never “vanquish the foe” nor will we “win hearts and minds” as long as we keep creating new enemies daily by committing the “collateral damage” that accompanies war. And as others have pointed out, that’s not what it’s about anyway. It’s all just a shell game.
PS – btw, geat post, Mike.
Nice. Well said. Well done. Thank you for reading and wading in.