From The Daily Beast.,..

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Accomplished?

by Zachary Iscol

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Maya Alleruzzo / AP PhotoToday’s pullout from Iraqi cities vindicates Bush’s "surge" strategy, says former Marine Zachary Iscol. The change in tactics—which reversed our fortunes in Iraq—could even help Obama in Iran.

As a Marine, I learned that peace is predicated on compromise, not superior firepower or belligerence.

Today, witnessing U.S. troops withdraw from Iraqi cities, I find the right’s accusations of appeasement levied on President Obama about most issues in the Middle East incredibly ironic. Today’s withdrawal, perhaps the greatest success of the Bush administration, would not have occurred if we hadn’t learned to appease.

Today’s withdrawal, perhaps the greatest success of the Bush administration, would not have occurred if we hadn’t learned to appease.

When President Bush announced the "surge," on January 11, 2007, he was announcing much more than the deployment of 35,000 additional troops to Iraq. He also was adopting a set of successful tactics that had already been implemented successfully by a few industrious officers. It amounted to a radically different approach to how troops would be employed on the ground.

In 2004, I took little risk with the lives of my Marines. It was simply too dangerous. If a vehicle failed to stop as it crashed through our checkpoint, we used deadly force. If a military-aged male was in the vicinity after a roadside bomb detonated, he would be detained. I often wonder if some of our tactics created more insurgents than we were able to kill or capture.

In the violent summer months of 2004, we put the risk on the civilian population, but in 2007, as the surge began and General David Petraeus took over, the force began to accept more risk in order to protect the population. Troops moved out of large, fortified bases and lived in smaller outposts among the population. They patrolled more often on foot instead of in armored vehicles. At first, casualties went up, but then something remarkable happened: Coalition casualties plummeted.

FM 3-24, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Manual, published on December 16, 2006, encapsulates a number of the paradoxes of counterinsurgency. It turns out, “The more you protect the force, the less secure you may be.” And “Sometimes the more force is used, the less effective it is.”

Perhaps former Bushies are so quick to criticize Obama because they never really bought into the change in tactics and strategy that reversed our fortunes in Iraq. Over time, it was our military, mainly junior officers and NCOs, who realized that the vast majority of people in Iraq were not our enemy—but that our tactics and emphasis on force were turning many of them into enemies. This, more than anything else, is the Achilles’ heel of the counterinsurgent.

Antagonizing and creating new enemies is much more dangerous than failing to kill one, which is why Obama’s limited response to the political unrest and demonstrations in Iran is commendable. Action or support from the United States would largely alienate the demonstrators from greater support from the population of Iran. As the counterinsurgency manual states, “Sometimes, doing nothing is the best reaction” especially when action would be counterproductive or foster greater resentment. Those critical of Obama’s initially tepid response would do better to explain what they hope to accomplish and how through more active support for the demonstrators in Iran.

In 2004, as a young Marine lieutenant, I gave a poster of George Washington crossing the Delaware River to a local tribal leader named Sheik Jabbar. I was 25 years old and he was a foot taller than me, regal, wise, and twice my age. As I handed him the poster, I explained that he had the opportunity to be his nation’s Thomas Jefferson. He graciously accepted the poster and then asked me if I meant he would write his country’s declaration of independence, be its ambassador to France, or serve as its president. He then listed the names of his family’s patriarchs going back 1,200 years. He wanted to be like his forefathers, not mine.

Last Friday, Obama clearly articulated that what is going on in Iran is not about us. It is about the Iranian people seeking justice for themselves. Obama understands, much better than I did, the folly in thinking otherwise. He also understands the incredible danger of taking action and siding with the protesters. Creating the illusion that the protesters are American pawns would alienate them and fracture their ranks. Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction.

Over kabobs, chai tea, and the hookah, I learned a tremendous amount about Iraq’s history and local issues from Sheik Jabbar, and he would often complain to me about the local city council. Unelected bodies, the city councils had been appointed by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority with the intent that they would become legislative bodies after elections were held. For Sheik Jabbar and most of the local people, they were an illegitimate and corrupt governing body that would siphon funds for local municipal projects for personal gain. I soon learned that the tribal councils were much more democratic and just than our appointed councils, but we treated them as an archaic remnant of Iraq’s past and alienated them. So they came to see us as occupiers, supported al Qaeda as liberators, and fought against us.

But in 2005, two years before the surge, along the Euphrates River Valley, Marine company commanders began working closely with tribal leaders, shifting their emphasis from promoting democracy to promoting the peace. Former enemies became close allies. Soon battalion commanders and regimental commanders were following the path laid out to them by junior officers. The generals followed. Soon even Bush was gripping and grinning with the tribal leaders of Iraq as Democrats in Congress cried appeasement and debated the merits of a bill deriding the Maliki government for offering asylum to former nationalist insurgents with American blood on their hands. Almost overnight, the most violent province in Iraq became one of the most peaceful. This willingness to appease fostered the peace that now enables us to withdraw our troops from Iraq’s cities.

I recently returned to Fallujah, this time as a journalist, and I was astonished at how different the city had become. Four years earlier, the city lay in ruin. It reeked of death and was littered with trash and human remains. As I accompanied one of the last Marine patrols through the city, I wondered where we would be and how long we would still be there if we had never learned to appease.s work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

Soldiers Pulling out of Iraq's Cities...

I saw a picture today on the BBC site, with a line of soldiers outlined on an horizon, marching as if toward home.

We are at a very tricky point in Iraq. If the extremists decide to come back in and fight the Police and Iraqi military after our troops pull out. the USA will be forced to possibly make an unpopular decision.

I want the war to end. I sympathisize with the security concerns that make the ending of this conflict so complicated that years are involved. We have to leave behind in the country a seed of Democracy. Saddam Gone. Democracy declared. The battle line drawn between the extremist jihadists and the forces of the free. I do salute the soldiers for fighting this hard, horrible battle. They are the front line. Between us and the masses of folk who would reduce our lives to their particular religous vision.

I am sympathetic to anyone who is oppressed, at war, etc... However, the Taliban and their influence is the fucking enemy to people like me, and the people I love. Oppressing women. Period. Nothing else I have to say about that religous delusion. Add to that stoning adultererr's, killing Christians, etc... Taking the women out of school is a sin against humanity itself. This is pure and simple prejudice, and however institutionalized and sanitized it is in some countries (like saudi arabia, where women cannot have drivers licenses, passports, fly on their own... the system is built to enslave, and indeed, a many servants have found themselves enslaved in such system -- remember, there is more slavery now than ever before in the history of the planet... if you do not see it all over the place, that is simply because you are not looking. People run around making opinions about Paris Hilton, instead of going after slave masters.

I mean, have you ever heard of a charity that free's slaves? You would think the black community in Chicago would be involved in such an endeavor, but they tend to think they have enough on their hands representing their communities, and with everything so ultimatly out of control in certain ways, they have to choose their battles carefully because war can break out anywhere.

The allied forces in the Middle East are the predecessors of the wars to come. Iran and Syria and other countries who are not under Russia, america or China's nuclear net, are going to be scrambling for the bomb. Lot of countries already have it, and they will not stop until they have one. One of the countries they consider their worst enemy, Israel, has nukes... so there is no way that they can go against the most demonized government in the area, unless they can fight nuke-fire with fire...

I like to think the USA could lead the world in reducing nuclear bombs, and offering help to countries who wish to use nuclear power, as long as they then sign a treaty allowing inspections, etc. Why not? They are going to get bombs if they want them bad enough, and pretending otherwise is foolish. I hope I am wrong, but I doubt that very much.... We need to go in now and do everything we can to settle this peacefully. If we continue to fly in,like Israel did with Syria, and blow up their nuclear facilities, we are inevitably going to miss one. All it takes is One Bomb, mind you, to bring nightmares to life.

How does one start a movement that transcends religous and political differences, and peacefully applies a few universal principle? I think of the soldiers like this to some degree. The principles may be written in blood at first, but freedom is something that we breath here in the usa like air, and we notice it almost as much... take it away, like happened to me when I went to jail, and you realize just what is meaningful in this world. Being Free is more important than being alive to.

Soldiers have fought for this creed on american soil for as long as humans have existed. Native Americans fought one another, enslaved one another. Europeans kept serfs and treated them like slaves. African tribes sold each other. The middle east is filled with endentured servents, the eastern block overflowing with enslaved prostitutes, children being exploited almost anywhere the law has short arms or is just plain old corrupt. These are wars that we expect the police force to deal with, and they don't.

Why cannot a people's movement be started that supports worldwide activists who call out theses industries, expose them, and try to get the attention of law enforcement officials? People would donate money to buy children and others out of slavery. I dream of being a millionaire and hiring a small army of mercenaries, killing our way through the organized crime behind the slavery, and setting the women and children free to heal in some mountain retreat.

Soldiers and activists, activists and soldiers. What we really are is the infantry -- as in how the Romans used the term, which meant sending out the youngest soldiers first into battle so they would get killed and not them. We still send our young out first to die.

I am proud of soldiers. Have quite a few in my famalies history, stretching back over a thousand years of blood. I respect the sacrifice, know what they are going through is much worse than I could ever imagine. I see their names on the tv on Sunday Mornings, the weeks' dead, as George Stephanapolous looks all serious. Some are too young to have lived much of a life at all. Others old enough to leave a life half lived behind.

I wonder at such times, if George Bush, in lying about nuclear bombs and al queda connections in Iraq, didn't cause all these deaths for no good reason at all? I remember than how much I despised Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, even before america declared them the enemy. And I wanted to see their movements stopped. I could see how dangerous religous extremists would be with nuclear bombs. God could tell them to do something that no sane man would. They want to be martyred, you see, so it is win/win to them if they kill us and die. Like playing a video game where whoever you kill goes to hell, while your fallen rise to heaven into a horizon filled with 72 virgins spread eagle, their labias looking all pink and juicy... dripping into small pools at their feet as they await their Martyr.

In times of war, no matter what our Mullah's or ministers mumble, God takes the side of widows and orphans, and soldiers on all sides, forced to go into a war where the enemy could be anywhere, anytime. How appalling. Can you imagine living in a place where at any moment, an enemy could be lurking, driving by, watching you from a window as they plan their next attack on you and yours? The very ground at your feet could betray you and just fuckig explode.

I was raised on a library in Garrett, Indiana, and heavily influenced by a series of elementary level biographies about Great Men; Lincoln, Washington, etc.. a lot of them were soldiers. I played soldier like anyone. Loved the John Wayne movies...

Then I saw the Vietnam war as a huge mistake. We were the colonialists. Most would argue that the history comes down to this -- we not only fought on the wrong side, we created it ourselves. I lost a lot of faith in the judgement of the armed forces, as well as the politicians, during those years. This one war stopped the USA from wanting to send troops anywhere -- Bosnia's Ethnic Cleansing -- the mass murder and land grab that stains their culture -- finally got Clinton to act. We saved lives. The situation was horrifying.

This was a noble cause. Not some Big Brother machine that was out to take my mind and body for the usages of theMilitary Industrial Complex; just an army sent out across the planet to stop mass murder. Had we not opened our two front war, I would have liked to see our soldiers in Darfur. Years ago. Why not?

Iraq, however we got there, is where we are... the pile of shit George Bush left behind has to be cleaned up. Obama has to make sure that the citizens of Iraq are not left livingin war zones when we leave. If the peace is that tentative, then our pledges to remove troops from Iraq should be changed. Period. It is that simple. Just say, to the american people, this is the only way we can guarantee the safety of the civilians.

Probably will not come to that. Our soldiers will pull out, mostly, and spend their time training new troops to maintain the lines of order that they have left behind in the hands of the fledging Iraqi Police Force, Army, etc...

Others will go where we should have went, after al queda, in Afganistan.

I want to see our soldiers stop the spread of this mental virus. Someone has to do confront the kind of warped minds that blow up a statue of Buddha on a mountain because it offends their religous sensibilities... bans music, keeps women our of schools, etc...

I am proud of the soldiers who removed Saddam Hussein. The people of that country have been given a gift that they will understand as the years pass and the wounds heal. There will be a day when their history books will tell about the Americans who saved their country from a dictator. Afganistan will one day tell their children about how the americans fought of the Taliban, so their country could remain a democracy. This is their revolution. Their chance change for the better. Seize that fucking day.

Why not? Today they were all out celebrating that the American soldiers leaving their city.

I follow the war. Try to imagine what the soldiers are going through, research what the stat's say about how their minds have been effected -- especially after the Stop Gapping started to unravel otherwise sane soldiers.

What are our soldiers symbolically representing as they slouch into Bethelhem? In a way, they are the secular soldiers stopping religous fanaticism. The Taliban originally got a toe hold in Afganistan and other countries, because they offered Law where there was none. They were willing to give up freedoms to get security. First things first, I understand. No one should have to make such choices, and no one can be blamed for doing whatever they could to stop the lawlesnes that was erroding their countries.

Our soldiers give them an option, now. They may hate us a bit, because we brought Hell's Own Fire when we attacked them; later they will benefit from our efforts, whether they acknowledge our footnote in their story.

TO BE CONTINUED....

.. yet writing about the world of war is difficult for me. What else can I add to the endless chatter about these wars?

Some 131,000 US troops remain in Iraq, including 12 combat brigades, and the total is not expected to drop below 128,000 until after the Iraqi national election next January.

'Now is the time'

Iraqi soldiers paraded through Baghdad's streets on Monday in vehicles decorated with flowers and Iraqi flags, while patriotic songs were played through loudspeakers at checkpoints.

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

Once more.... I was not involved in the Green River killings ... that much.

Johnny Pain here... I know that I haven't been in here writing about my murderous ways very much. Had to go a little underground there for awhile, to keep the Obama campaigns murders quiet. Did a little contract work, for the hell of it, like the Rev. Fallwell job... a heart attack they called it in the paper. I got that license to kill so they can't say or do shit because it is a national security issue. I can talk about this because of certain arrangements I made with the government. I did some work for them, they let me kill... they know I stick to scumbags, or people who annoy me... or people who say hi to me when I am in certain moods.

I was raised in a family of serial killers. We go way back. There is a religious streak to our missions that dates make hundreds of years, but mostly all I know is that my family is deadly as hell, and we never make it through the holidays without someone killing this cousin, or that uncle or sister... Hell, I shot my sister dead last year for something... I can't remember. A couple cousins. I did not start it. Ma shot my brother Sol when he said that he was going to call the police about something or another. He had married into the family, but that was not enough to protect him from saying something about calling the cops in front of my mom. She shot him dead right there at the table.

But me... and the green river killings... well... that was just sick. Horrible stuff. Pay whores, do not kill them. Period. People who break this rule should be shot down like someone I catch leaning on my car or something.

Honestly, folks...

There is not one shred of evidence tying me to the serial murders known as The Green River Slayings. Yes, Gary told me it was cheaper to kill prostitutes than pay them, but I thought he was kidding. This led to a serious surprise the first time we partied hard with coke and whores, obviously. I met him through Charlie Sheen, who just didn't seem... Read More to give a dam when Gary killed the prostitutes... he just kept going at them... like they were still alive. OH, good times, good times... I mean, for shame... for shame.

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

Fuentes Last Hit.... short story

Afterwards you sit around wondering how you ended up here, and everyone else you grew up with ended out there?

He tells himself to quit dwelling on his years in prison. There was little chance he was going back for this. Hell, the cops called him a hero. Old Man kills two gang bangers who were trying to abduct a young woman. The cops were nice enough not to bring up his record at the press conferance.

In prison, you killed somebody in a gang and you expected to have to fight for that right at any moment. He was sixty when he got out. An old timer to the young gang bangers, who had given him the respect their codes demanded. No one wanted to violate in prison, where they were sure as hell going to get a beatdown.

He gets up from the bed with a low moan that is half/back, half/mood. Ten years of living in the cheap motel, tied down by the poverty of social security, he had barely changed the life style he lived in prison. His body was too old to go out and try to start over. He was living his last years; years that had followed decades of him having to constantly try to make the best of a very bad situation.

He retired from the gangs when he started to sense the young guns were sick of listening to him. Death was not someting he looked forward to, like some of the more depressed, fatalist guys he had met over the years. The guy who took over after him was grateful for the easy transition. They feared him, of course. Killing was something he learned to do young and well.

Out ten years living on Milwaukee, he told nobody who he was. Occasionally he was recognized, said hello. He made no plans with such people. He didn't need the shit easy money would buy. The only connection he kept on the street were for weed. An old friend from way back who considered it part of his retirement plan to keep the old gang banger stoned. Really helped his back. He wasn't quite hypocritical enough to say he smoked for his physcal health, and people didn't want to hear that he smoked for his emotional health.

Old as he was, people didn't suspect he smoked, so he didn't worry about the cops. He knew cops well enough to make them like him. A survival skill in a prisoner who was negoitiating for his soldiers with the warden and the guards with every interaction.

The woman was being dragged into a car by three guys, right in broad daylight. One of them had a knife. The stores along the block were all open, people here and there... her screams stopped them all. He was close. Had a cane in his hand with heavy, steel handle. One of them had a knife but they weren't looking for him to give them any trouble.

He had been in that situation a lot of times. One of his own being jumped. Usually he was gettting jumped too. Without thinking, be swung the head of the can up and caught one in the temple. The next one he came down on the top of his head. Before they even noticed him, they were out cold -- one already dead. The third one looked into his eyes and saw something he recognized from battle and let the girl go, jumped up into the drivers seat and took off.

Then everyone wanted to help. Kept asking if he was alright. They expected a heart-attack. He was calm over a slight nervousness that he wasn't about to show. The cops talked to everyone, the cheif came down with a tv camera, and thanked him, on Channel Two, for saving this young girl. He just kept looking at the blood on his cane. Trying to keep his distance from what had happened, say as little as possible. No one seemd to think he had just put himself in danger by attacking another gang. He told himself this was probably true, out here. Prison was prison, freedom, freedom.

The hotel clerk called up to his room around ten, said some kid was there to see him. "What's he look like?"

"Hispanic kid, red bandana. Want me to send him up."

"Hell, no. I'll come down."

The bandana meant he was in his old gang. Why a young kid? Why just hours after the fight? The answer came to him, but he hoped he was going to hear different.

He walks off the elevator scanning the lobby. Just a kid, smiling, friendly, wearing sunglasses at night... high, drunk?

"Hey, man... we need to talk?"

"Yea, who are you?

"Sorry, capo.. Juan. You okay?"

"What's going on. Somebody tell you to come talk to me?"

"Frankie. He said you don't know what you done."

Shit. That is all he has to hear. Rival gang, figures out who he is from the news, decides a soldiers business is to counter-attack.

"Who were those pricks?"

"Bloods."

"The girl?"

"She was one of ours. We've got some homeys across the street. You gotta stay someplace else, man. We'll get ya there, c'mon."

"No."

"I don't have anywhere to go. I just got out of prison, man. Forty years. Everybody I know is dead of drifted off, except Frankie. Frankie, who takes care of the few of us who are still alive. You know why he does that? Everybody is dead."

"Yea, well, we'll get ya a hotel for a couple nights. They're out hunting tonight, so we're gonna do us some hunting, too. That was my buddies girlfreind they were trying to beat down, man. He's pissed, too."

The kid starts laughing and he almost smiles himself, before the crushing knowledge of his situation obliterates all of hope of him feeling good for... he could dwell on shit like this a long time, had to. Staying alive was the only rule for most of his years.

The get into a black Hummer and make it about three blocks before the cops pull them over. They use the speaker to tell them to stay in the car, and show their hands. "These cops know us, man. Don't worry, we're cool."

The cops shine their flashlights in, get a look at everyone's face. His presence surprises them. "Hey, Ed, this is the old man who clocked those kidnappers on Clybourn. What you doing in there?"

He rolls down his window, looks up into the cops smiling face, tells him, "These boys seem to think I am in danger."

"Mother fucker." The thought pisses the cop off. He goes around behind the car and talks to the other cop. Comes back and waves his flashlight up the road. "You know these kids?"

About then his partner comes walking up holding something in his hand. He guesses they pulled his record.

"Hey, old man, come on out. The rest of you just sit there . This will only take a minute, then you can go."

"You got quite a record."

"I was a kid. Now, nothing like that. One of the guys who I knew, way back, saw the news. I didn't know these guys were in gangs... and of course, it's a fucking gang that is still at war with... well, the people I ran with in prison, and shit. I got no reason to lie."

"Yea, well, it obviously wasn't a gang hit when you did those guys. The other one died, too. Guess you learned to take care of yourself in jail."

"Just lucky."

"Here...." The cop hands him a fifty. "We got this poverty fund, sign this.

"I can use it."

"Yea, living in the Mark Twain, you obviously ain't making no money off these shits anymore."

He lets them drop him off in front of the hotel, goes into the lobby and gets a pop, waits until they leave... He has four hundred bucks on him. He was going tohave to move. Go to the po, the social security, food stamps... everyone of them and change his address. He hated shit like that. Seemed worse than being in danger.

He starts walking back toward his hotel, finally see's a cab and hops in. He can't run. No fucking way. Life was fine. He could put in his time like the best con. No one is front of the hotel, so he pays the cabbie and goes up to his room. He puts in his key, turns the latch and hears something inside... or did he? There was always some damn noise in the hall of the SRO. He pushes the door open and stays in the hallway, looking around the small room. "This is what I have to lose?"

He rolls a joint, pours a shot of tequila and gets the lime juice out of his cooler. "I ain't worth getting some kid killed over. Let em' come. I'll give my fucking ten years for their fifty. What the fuck... I took away enough years from enough people. Be good to give a few back."

The shots brought back his bravado a bit, then made him sleepy. He thought about what an irony it would be if he was to die in his sleep that very night...

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

forgive forgive forgive

I come on strong about shit that annoys me. In this world, one can forgive a human being, and still hate their behavior.

In the end, I really just feel like, hey... there is more we agree on than disagree on, more than likely. Even the politicians here in town who do things I don't like, occasionally do something I really do. Todd Stroger, who runs Cook County, put through a tax hike that was needed -- the poor were going to lose their health care if he did not put through an unpopular tax. He stood up and did what was right. He deserves respect for that. I wish him well.

Mayor Daly -- I always liked him, and probably always will, but I do not agree with the idea of a machine controlling Chicago, making inside deals with pensions funds, etc... I think he has a great legacy and all that. I am never going to try to be politically expediant (which is different than the often misused term politcally correct) about how shit like selling public property makes me feel and write. I do not think he should be selling off bits of government to the most savvy bidder. That he doesn't know better, tells me that his time truly is over. He should take a few years to just live his life and not be the mayor. I do not know how anyone can do the kind of high pressure job a mayor does. I like to think I can rise to whatever occasion, but that does not mean I will do so without said occasion...

Politics is all about taking sides. People choose their sides in good ways, stupid ways, indifferent ways, and dangerous ways. I take the stand that money should not be the center of ones life. We have worshiped at that sacred cow too long. I think living for luxury is empty and frustrating. The Tao says that the happiest man is the one who can hear his neighbors cock crow, yet has no urge to even venture off his property to investigate.

Of course, give me a few million bucks and I would probably sing a slightly different tune. Of course, it would be much harder for me to fly through the eye of that needle.

There was a time when I viewed wealth as property stolen from the people. The anarchistic idea that no one owns anything appeals to me in spirit, though the practicality of that is to trust a great big old beuracracy, like in the soviet union, to give everyone apartments and jobs, etc... I thinik the spirit of independence inside of most people would rebel from giving anyone that kind of power over the united states. Private property. I think there are other areas that real change can be made in, and getting rid of property in the states would mean war.

A horrifying war. The French Revolution, but fought not between some great US and little them, but between the army of the US and Cops and Intelligent operatives and the civilians who did not want to give up their mansions. Do people deserve mansions?

I do not think anyone gets what they deserve, and a lot of us are thankful for that. We do not want what we deserve, we want mercy. Everyone who has lived a human life has a few regrets... if they have any wits about them at all. So, if someone has a lot of money, what the hell? I hope they use their bucks wisely. I wish I had more. But... I see the other side, the socialistic viewpoint of Castro. If that were even possible in this country, I would think about throwing myself behind major structural changes for the US. BUT... only if there was wide support, and that is just not going to happen.

All evidence to the contrary, americans are convinced that they have a chance of being rich, so they do not want to do away with riches. Certainly, the media mostly covers people who have a lot of money. We worship Hilton because she has money. Otherwise, she would have ended up in jail, treatment, etc... far from the big screen. In the eighties, this impulse was sickening, under the dreaded Reagan, when everyone wanted to make as much money as possible, and Trump was worshipped. The media acknowledges that most people are not living quite the same story book life in People magazine, and dismisses them as just not quite as interesting as a celebrity baby story.

So, how is that for obtuse meanderings. I have given my okay for the continued use of public property, going against the anarchists -- though loving thier spirit and wishing them well, I still think that they over-estimate the sanity of the masses. I am one of those big government democrats in that respect. I think that a combination of capatalism and nationalism is basically a reality in this world. Almost every country operates on these two principles.

People have in their heads that the government is terrible at everything. This isn't true. It is if they are underfunded and over worked, or corrupt... okay, but normally the government does a decent job on a lot of things. Removing the middle men and providing services directly to the people seems like it would save everyone a lot of money, except the rich industrialists who presently own stocks or whatever in the industries.

If I could just set up a country from scratch, I would nationalize electricity, wi fi service, health care... the electricity because we have to ignore what the market says on this, and make our move away from fossil fuels. I like nuke energy, personally. WHY NOT? The big fears that they will blow up? Unlikely. Wind, water, whatever... the government needs to use their powers to force the shift away from gasoline. Again, this is never going to happen in the states.

I would fund the government, partially, with income from providing basic services which are right now, basically, monopolies. Like electric companies. One has no choice. I thought this was outlawed in this country, the whole monopoly thing? The Governement provides such services in a lot of countries. In my country, we would too. This would make us unpopular with the US, maybe get a coup attempt started on me by the CIA. So, health care and maybe major utilities could easily be nationalized.

Of course, this is a slippery slope to go down. When does the individual matter to such an entity as a government that can come in and take thier businesses? This again leads to giving governments too much power. The balancing act between wanting Big Brother around when you need him, and not when he is just a third wheel... is the american experience.

Ahh, and what the hell does this have to do with forgiveness? I feel forgiving right now, and the idea of violence, disruptions, chaos.... well, I feel them enough, too.

I think often of the soldiers fighting around the globe. I really grieve for them one and all, and wish them all the best, in my way. I wish that I could get behind the entire idea of ending war once and for all. Unfortunatly, that requires the agreement of people who simply will not stop fighting. The Taliban gets more powerful because they become the force of Islam fighting the great satan of the Christians. A Holy battle that promises virgins. God's own war, you are told.

I can sympathize with the killed and the killers. I have definate ideas on how hard I personally would fight against any government that tried to Taliban the states with a government based on religous extremism. I simply would not go down without a fight, a big fucking fight. But, do I have a right to tell others how to run their countries? Sure. And they have a right to ignore me and do what they think is best, as well they should...

In a pefect world, though... open education systems would offer people the ideas of liberty, and a caring government would nurture this as a sacred right for all people. There would be no need for the Taliban. They simply would have to follow more secular laws. This does not mean they have to go against their God. There are a lot of Muslims in the states who get along just fine living here. Ask them if they want to go back and live under the Taliban, and they will point out that their americanized children would probably get stoned to death for the shit they pulled in junior high. I like societies that allow for personal freedom.

The utmost freedom. Freedom. More precious than anything man can put in the bank. As a writer who explores everything and anything, and sometimes uses inflammatory language when I do, I can understand that I am a threat to the status quo, however small. But, what status quo are we talking about? I certainly do not want to throw bombs at anyone, or force an ideology down their throats, or convince them of some religious commandment...

Writers want to inspire. Writers like me also enjoy pure, old fashioned rabble rousing. Sometimes a poet should try to stir the savage blood, sometimes they should chastise it.

Oh well...

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OTHERS.... a short story

Their keepers have not returned. They are alone. They have been alone for over a week. There was no precedent. They were hungry, confused. Slowly, it was dawning on them, that their life on the mountain was about to take a drastic change. They had only lived there for the short years spent on the planet. Their keepers were still training them. There were years left before they were to be allowed to venture down among the others.

He has no name. More a color of thought that was all his own. They knew how to use words to communicate with humans; they were too slow and limited for conversations between the two.
They were thinking together, coming to the same conclusion. The keepers had run into some kind of problem. They would not leave them hungry.

"We were warned." She told him, again and again, as if the mantra could shore up their resolve to act. "We are going to have to... get some food. If they are gone... years will pass before anyone would come to contact us."

"They must have been captured or killed."
"They said ...."
"Yes, if they did not come back, it would be one or the other."
at
They withstand the hunger for another day before making their decision. The risk of going among humans without an intact personality was a sure path to madness. They had known as much since migrating to the planet. Reaching into their minds, and becoming whatever would best suit the situation was an easy trick for an adult. They could become the picture of a tourist if there a hiker happened upon them in the mountains.

As egg as they were, there was a danger that they would start changing without any control, becoming one figure after another as they passed the humans. Some of their kind, in the early years, the first explorers to off ship on the planet, had become so disoriented by their unconscious chameleon changes that they were unable to recover their original selves. A few had responded to treatment, other rs were too far adrift, going from personality to personality like a serial amnesiac. . . until the strain destroyed their minds.

By their egging, their kind were well aware of the problems with the indigenous population of earth. They had been raised carefully isolated, taught to resist the impulse to please... which had been glorified on their last planet, where their kind had been pleasing to one another as a norm. A piece of rock adrift in space, half as large as their planet, was coming in on a collision course and they left. There were centuries of sleep on the ships, as their automatic pilot searched the cosmos for a planet with an atmosphere that they could adapt to live within.


One has taken the female form, the other male. They were going to live together as a couple among the humans, when they were ready. To humans they appeared in their teens, though they had egged three years before.

Some humans knew of their existence. They were considered hostile by the Others, as they called themselves; two of their ships had been discovered, and many glimpsed over the years. Eight of them had been caught, and were said to still be alive. They were constantly drilled on security, self-defense, and how to expire -- one of the Others had been rescued, after various experiments by the humans... who were intent on inter-breeding human and other.

As they went over the situation together, they came to the understanding that if their keepers had been captured, leaving their mountain was the only course of action. They stood up from their seats on the floor of the cave, and walked out into the sunlight and toward the pine forest that lead to the path... they had studied human hikers on the path, all the way down to where they parked their cars. That was as far as they had been,

in progress...


synopsis of what is to come... they begin to use hypnotic like illusions to make people think they are seeing a particular type of person, hiding the alien appearance of the Others. They have two at rest forms. They can either appear as they are, or appear as someone else. They make their decisions based on what they see in other peoples minds.

Immediately, this begins to cause them trouble. The girl begins to attract lust,when she discovers how to become whatever is wanted. The boy learns to appear as whatever a person fears the most, or what a woman wants.

They eventually begin to mentally unravel. They hear thoughts in humans about their purpose in life, after-life, etc.. things they have never considered. The religions and such seem like myths to them. They have been taught only one thing -- how to survive. With most of their education about themselves devoted merely in how to stay alive and mentally stable among humans.

One of them discovers how easy it is to kill a human, when she is attacked -- she becomes their most loathsome, horrible image... driving some mad, others to heart attacks.

In the end, they meet more of their own kind, and are finally told a bit more about themselves. There is a colony of them in South America, where they live in a gated community in the jungle, as many miles away from humanity as they can.

A war is being waged by humans around their encampment, and eventually the two are sent out to confuse soldiers, etc... in an attempt to stop the guerrilla war between a ruthless dictator and a guerrilla brigade. They take the side of the guerrillas, and end up almost getting bombed out of existence.... except, they mess with the minds of the pilots and make them bomb their own troops, etc...

Oh, well,... this is just something I am beginning to sketch out.

















this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

sick of politics again...

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

CHICAGO LOSES 5 million a year to corruption....

This from a study of local corruption by UIC's political science department. The belt strapping that I told you was going to finally force people to clean out politics is here, and paying a 500 million dollar a year price to keep Daly and his corrupt Machine in power is a luxury that we can no longer afford.

500 million. I guess he could give the cops their raise if he was not corrupt. Interesting Irony there.

Today, we are hearing that his nephew joins his son in being exposed as sleazily making his way through life with his criminal connections to the Machine. This time, the Daly faction took money out of retirement accounts and spent it wildly, losing millions... makes me think that 500 million figure is low balling -- especially when you consider the sale of the cities parking meters for a price that was much lower than it would have been if Daly insiders had not set themselves with a sweethear deal.

DALY IS SELLING PUBLIC PROPERTY BEHIND OUR BACKS, BECAUSE HE CONSIDERS THE CITY HIS PROPERTY. HE THINKS HE OWNS THIS TOWN. TIME TO SHOW DALY THAT WE OWN HIM. AS WE DO ALL POLITICIANS...

PEOPLE ARE BUYING THE PUBLIC'S PROPERTY, BUT DALY THINKS THAT IT IS HIS... The city has already been shown to be losing money on the deal with the parking meters -- they could have been sold for a lot more, but Daly wanted to keep the issue from being discussed by anyone before he shoved it down our throats. If he was serving the Public, he would have wanted a discussion of what he was doing, so he could get the best intelligence possible together to make a decision.

That kind of logical, round table logic bounces off dictators. Daly is as close to a king as this country has seen. Runs Chicago like a fiefdom. Since this is a Democratic terroritory in the states, his power base has proven vital in national politics. His power is our power, we think... if he is a little corrupt, oh well... he inherited that mess and had to deal with it best he could.

We forget that we pay for his standing army. Pay in getting officials in city positions that they are not qualified for. Pay in losing the representation that would be ours if the Alderman were not afraid to piss off Daly. We need a Mayor who you can hate or love without fear that you will not get what you want from the city unless you go along with da king.

As we continue our study of public corruption, we have discovered that our

original findings underestimated the level of corruption in recent years. We now know

that more than 1500 individuals have been convicted of myriad forms of public

corruption since 1970. Based upon the testimony before the Illinois Reform Commission

and our own research, we now believe that the cost of corruption, or “corruption tax,” for

the Chicago and Illinois taxpayer is at least $500 million a year. This is based upon

testimony before the commission that about 5% of state government contracts are given

out to political cronies and campaign contributors and on our own tallies of the costs of

the major scandals over the last four decades.

In our last report we provided a detailed analysis of the 30 aldermen and former

aldermen convicted of public corruption since 1970. In this report we describe some of

the major scandals of the last four decades, a timeline of more than 375 convicted

individuals at all levels of government, and a further analysis of some of the costs of

corruption which have caused us to revise our estimate of the corruption tax. The details

of these scandals and their costs are included in the appendices of this report.

Our research on all aspects of corruption is continuing. But we provide this

update to support the report of the Illinois Reform Commission and to contribute to the

ongoing debate in the state legislature. Only comprehensive reforms can lessen the level

of corruption in Chicago and Illinois, currently the capitals of corruption in the United

States.

Given the high cost of corruption, we cannot hope to adopt a prudent city, county,

or state budget without reform. Otherwise we will continue to pay too much for

government services; we will keep honest businesses from locating here; and we will

slow economic recovery from the current recession. Citizens will continue to distrust

government at all levels and consider tax increases unfair.

Here are a few examples of some of the costs of co

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DALY TOOK A CRITICAL ENTRY OFF MY WAKING UP JESUS SITE.. BRING IT ON, ASSHOLE

THIS ENTRY WAS ORIGINALLY written for my Waking Up Jesus site, and is written in the character of the Christ.... http"//wakingupjesus.blogspot.com

I just discovered that someone took a post down from this blog. One that was critical of Mayor Daly. The first of two I wrote just before my computer mysteriously could no longer access my internet account. When I called to tell Comcast the problem, they snottily told me that the problem was with my computer, and not theirs. Nothing showed that to be true on my end. I was suspicious at the timing, since I have been knocked off line before by the government and the other forces that oppose me. After writing this critical article, I saw people protesting downtown that Daly needed to be removed, and the two newspapers in town started a clean government campaign.

I forget sometimes that my words are so potent. They make an enemy of me at their own peril. The Daly administration is now on my list of entractable powers that need to be kicked the hell out of politics.

I do not care how strong they think they are... a simple, unending litany of the sins of this administration should be enough to drive the king con out of power.

The audacity of these people is matched only by their short sightedness; this is a system of law we live in that despite its faults, is ever-evolving. And we are evolving toward fairness -- the more people who demand it, the sooner it happens. The inter-net generation is not going to fall for the usual scams, simply because they will access to a diverse set of opinions to take their own from.

And people will look for other people to treat them fairly, and will act adversly to those who do not. Daly has set about launching a hell of a lot of unfair agreements with developers and god knows who else -- the most recent being the selling off of the parking meters in Chicago to an inside group for a huge discount that would not have survived being played out in the free market. He hid what he was doing until the lastt minute, then shoved it through.

He needs secrecy to survive. He can blow off all the reporters he wants at press conferences, but he cannot so easily blow off the voters.

The Democrats have to be ready to replace him with someone who is nationally known, and respected. Jessie or Johnathon Jackson should take a stab at the fat round baffoon. Sooner or later, someone is going to knock him out of power.., and since he has decided to fight me, you should expect this to be sooner rather than later.

Cleaning up the world has been my concern. Now I AM ready to put a razor focus on this Criminal. He rose from a family that bestows rights without qualifications. Think about that. Chicago politics, for most of their existence, have been run by people who looked at their core constituents as people who they had bought with jobs. You do not necessarily get the best people when any chump off the street who likes to take the easy way out is hired. This is part of why they are always ending up in jail.

Daly wants to come on my site and take down my criticism of him, ... that is a drum roll from their side that we at war. WITH A HEAVY HEART, I HAVE GATHERED MY WEAPONS FOR WAR AND RODE OUT TO MEET THE ONE WHO OPPRESSORS MYPEOPLE.

I am always sad to see someone is my enemy, though I knew as much when he double dealed with the cops on their raise. Chicago cops have a hellish job at times. They have made a lot of mistakes, as humans do, but like soldiers, they deserve every forgiveness for cracking under the pressure of protecting the public -- that is a natural reaction to having to do shit people would otherwise prefer to avoid all to hell. I do not want to romanticize cops. TV does that enough. Still, they deserve some respect for putting their lives on the line to protect society from predators. I am not saying they should be let off for crimes -- indeed, they should prosecuted to the full extent off the law, because part of your oath as a cop is to the law. When they break the law, they are no longer a cop. They may have the badge, etc... but then they are just another enemy of the people. Like Burge.

Torture is in right now in the highest rooms of this country, and in a lot of countries getting beat up by the cops and tortured into a confession is routine. I can understand the impulse. I also know that I would never give in to it. I have left JOBS where they asked me tell lies -- because I will lie for my own purposes, like everyone does, but when I am asked to lie for someone else, I am entering a conspiracy to protect another from what is obviously going to be criminal behavior, and that is uncompatible with most of my ethics (God knows I break unfair laws, but stealing from people, etc... is beyond my moral understanding -- I could not live with myself when I am acting immoral. My depressive side takes over. This is why I gave up the drinking.).

I need people like cops more than I need a Daly. I have a vast capacity to rally people, unprecedented in human history... which is exactly what has been prepared for the RETURN OF CHRIST. Like the people who immediatly left office when I wrote a poem about how the mighty will fall before this Christ.... Daly would be better off planning on getting out at his next attempt at re-election, though I suspect he is like Cheney, and will defy the people's rights to a choice in what their politicians do until the very end... when he learns that the people usually get what they want in the end, simply because there are more of them and time and society tend to work like that, or there never would have been such a thing as Democracy, and the entire world would by now be run by one king, who if he were a Hitler, would gas his enemies. Or a Cheney, who would send out his hit squad.

Daly is the face on a vast conspiracy of crime that has invaded politics and found a welcome home in a club that only the vastly wealthy or influential can even enter. Politics in this city has become a means of passing along a corrupt dynasty. We should be better people than this... we can be. The choice truly is ours, not Daly's..

Bring it on Dick, I will defeat you and take your soul to Hell. Ready to take the great gamble?

this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway

The state of the blog...

This blog has somewhat become a dumping ground, that I have kept because it has the same title as my book of short stories. The problem is, right now, since I have not been writing comedy, is that this blog now looks like the others. I want all of these things to works onto themselves in the end. One blog for Johnny Pain, another just me, another Christ... these three characters get expanded by whatever short story I am into at the moment...

After a few months off line, deciding more or less to just keep doing what I do, seems the only solution to my problems. I do not know how much any one reader knows when they come to my work, but I did have some problems, to put it mildly, with the usa over the kind of stuff I write. They do not like revolutionary poetics that tear at their power one bit.

Why do you think dissidents are jailed all over the world? Now think how many of them, probably including you, who feel like there is nothing they can due to effect the powers that be. . .

Sometimes I think I would letting people down if I was to return to mostly comedy, but that is insane. I will say the same things philosophically, and I too prefer to laugh sometimes. Constant, oppressive mourning for the world is one of my poetic driving forces.


I am just piddling around here.









this work is protected by a commercial common use license. Feel free to spread my words...john scott ridgway