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A Flock of ICBMs, or
That Mad God-guy, When Money Runs So Far Away

By CEE

    As our culture dips in one way, expanding another, dropping parts of itself, redefining some (I personally, live in a Town where “Down”, is spelled, “Up”), very much a home expanding and contracting with the freeze-thaw of its populace, there’s a thinking we hound, our Western version of the inevitability of Change (something I dispute). Typical of Americans, we treat this faux “acceptance” as swirl ice cream, “It’s probably all for the best, it’s a different world, blahblah-dust” woven nummers with “Ya know, what can ya do?” In a country of compiled histories of fortunes waxing and waning, this is assumed to be good, common sense, that hard core of American bedrock systematically removed by the courts (fresh coffee is hot; she was old, she spilled it; God Save Mickey D’s). What follows the “=”, is that whatever bad, change is good, or will result in that...in the case of larger conflict(s), it shall be a force for Good, simply in that It Is Different.
    This equation, like me fighting through a proof in Geometry, leaves out elements which make for something tenuous and three times as long. Here, our McCommon Sense, has left out big ones: YHWH, and a green dollar bill.
    The United States, via covert operations no one’s denied in decades, installed young Mohammad Reza Pahlavi on the Peacock Throne, as the absolute ruler and Shah of Iran, in 1941. As many of you know through a scholarly factoid thrown like a chunk of winter ice, “Iran”, is a made up country...and by me, any MLB franchise from the Bluejays/Mariners on, are made up teams, but no one sits in their dugouts, flips them off and forfeits. Yes, we manufactured Iran...and we then taught them about a powdered wigged guy named Adam Smith, and principles he set down called “capitalism”, and we led our new toy nation by the hand, away from Not Jesus as Life, into a cool, secular world of cool shit you could make, sell, buy. And live for. ‘Cause it’s cool. “Minimalism”, over half a century ago, was for the people who, since they were starving, I had to choke down my goddammed Yankee Pot Roast for the eighth time that month. Life had to have God in it, oh, God, yes, but quiet and rote and understated and yes, we believe thus and so, oh, yeah?, well I got an ElectroShot Shooting Gallery for Christmas! Top that!
    The people of Iran, weren’t so certain of their new “beliefs”, but angry voices and the distrust of the threatened, were made go away by the secret police, magically vanished like if Monica had bothered to SHOUT it out! Another, more powerful angry voice stumping for a penitent return to God-Over-There, was sent packing, all the way to Jerry Lewisville, France. And Iran eventually showcased as a prime example of Wall Street Works.
    Until it didn’t.
    The nation, modernized, powerful, a comer in the larger world, hit a sticky, slow period in its economy, and easier days scaled back. So, now, the faithbased was truncated, the cool shit was pulling out of reach, as were necessaries, and the Shah, a despot inattentive to Plan (I never understood those guys; it was like every tinpot was a villain on BATMAN), made a point of blowing off certain duties, appearances and otherwise expectations, religiously speaking. And the people—a lot of them—realized they had monkey nuts. And in something between Frankenstein’s lab in a storm and a supercollider, God as Screw the West, was fused with the very foundation and heart of political government. From there, you most all have the history. Go to YouTube, and pick it up from Reagan laughing at silly Jimmy, as there he went, again.
    Moving forward to this Reality you know best, it’s said atheism, formerly known as Get to Sleep on Sunday, is on the upswing. And talking torsos on any monitor, begin to create a chess board minus God as King but with every Pawn as caseworker intact and hearing the opposing pieces, calculating that by resigning, we can all then break for punch and pie. What keeps nagging at me is the war along the Soviet border and in Afghanistan, when I was a teen. We later had Stallone’s Rambo trotting out the notion this was an autonomous Revolution, but it was no “this is my land, revenuer” as cornerstone, instead, “but...you assholes are Atheists!”
    Cut to a deaf neighbor cycling to work, when I was a callow youth, being hit by a car and bouncing off the windshield, as he had not heard its approach on our lazy, less traveled block, and had not bothered to do as The Electric Company taught us, i.e. Look Both Ways. The eventual ruling was made in favor of the Plaintiff, and my neighbor, uninjured, blessed with actually having insurance as a bicyclist, was in good shape...or so he thought until ordered by mail, to pay damages. A childlike fellow, he waved his passbook with respectable balance before my face, insisting the bill was untenable, as his savings balance was “not supposed to go down! Only up!”
    ...this being what’s wrong with any Monster of God and Mammon in a “shit happens” world.
    Few reading this, would question the maxim, “the political is personal”. The old adage opposed to arguing the two hottest planks, religion and politics, is wise in its juxtaposition of these Top Two...but there would be only small outcry for need of fighting priests or imams, if money systems only grew, bringing their peoples and nations upward, the proverbial mighty oak. Redwood. Ancient conifer. This of course being a fantasy much as the endless, water blue gaze of the dream lover. I’m no Alan Greenspan, nor even those Not Greenspans in temporary charge, but I’ve watched enough houses of cards built and played enough Jenga, I can affirm that collapse is a natural—nasty and upsetting, but natural—step in the sequence of societal order. And no Common Man, not bedouin, not Halo addict, is ever prepared. I won’t test copyright via quoting aphorisms by Malcolm Forbes, but indeed, No One sufficiently plans in any culture, save the few with hard eyes and little other direction...and any solution to the reality of Tough Shit, will not be simple. Or easy. Or fill bellies by next week, let alone have you back on eBay to Make Offer on that rare Karman Ghia with the automatic shift. There are low points and seemingly bottoming out points and there are times of suffering right out of Joseph’s amazing interp of seven technicolor years’ starvation...or archival, silent footage I have, of still-destroyed 1947 Germany. Only a handful are ready for that, clutching their Crown Royal bag of Revelation gold and bristling with armaments inside their Maple Street bunker...these being the monsters the rest of the neighborhood would’ve voted off the volcano’s edge first, even in better times. Likewise, akin to social collapse in a scary-doozie by Good Mister King, the voice of the prophetess is too soon heard, when bull market becomes a real bear. If the bean counters and the readers of prompter fail us, if banks and investments and institutions and the assurance of public ledgers and private show as false, any society has a pair of choices. That involving charity and caring and passing the biscuits, takes way too much time, for far too long. Worse, it still doesn’t get us our cable turned back on, so orange can be the new passion fruit. The warmth of a contrived, local Swiss Red Cross, doesn’t repair the only vehicle to avoid walking 30 miles a day. Or keep a family member an appendage or their life. It doesn’t give a roof but temporarily, as we are sanitized through programming, for The Future’s protection. And, that’s here, the West. The 21st Century. In hardened cultures less LCD, some portion can be taken well on the chin. Acceptance is a tool The East wields by rote, that this indeed is Life on The Ball, death itself sometimes just a bit of bad luck...but if the idea of “We Are All One” and of interconnectedness means monies and securities mingling like the ocean—and it does—then honest, hard working persons of their own, understood ethic, those committed, resolute, that original purpose-driven element, People as families and tribes...these, did not create the problem. Yet the problem exists, and the pain and the hunger. Here, Other Culture is now bathed in shadow, and as Humanity with its affected dance and too much talk (“what is this ‘equality’, of which you speak?”) has failed and offers mere aspirin for open sores, what remains is (forgive me, George) a Force. And, let’s not quibble. It’s the one clad in our team uniform. Carrying a big stick the size of Rhode Island. And, no sense waiting on It to set up shop. Let’s us start swinging like Harmon Killebrew for the upper decks, Right Now.
    In process of crisis, Religion, though it tear at Bill Maher’s absence of a soul, is not culprit, but goto—as Rhett told Scarlett in the original novel, “The darkies aren’t the reason...they’re just the excuse.” God, is a confident bet as My Bodyguard. Or Rondo Hatton. Any leg breaker you like. Human, is a contentious cat. Human, would rather force it done their way or as early Cartman, beat animals with a stick, than to keep salving wounds and be part of the solution. God’s Aces, there, too, and with sprinkles, per “making obey”. I can impugn no one’s sincerity, if they don’t travel with a podium, but deities usually enter the picture as Goliath, or the insane mofo hired in Karate Kid III. Even the eensy backup hardware in Gary Sinise’s bloody Ransom sock. A giant fist, is there to back you up, as your problems weren’t your creation. God understands that. He’s a bro.
    The Iran of The Shah, running well-oiled, had no need of God outside His breadbox; ditto our Father Coughlin silenced and all but duct-taped, because The War was fact, no longer debate, and a war’s economy came with it. Hairy thunderers of all persuasions and arm counts, can be at least minimized, as MONEY and every joy it brings, is the only drug of choice, rubber to road. In Oprah’s dreary Beloved, before it all went to Final Shit, they enjoyed the largesse of a mad party. Drowning in sweetmeats and fabrics and trinkets so that the air itself seemed rainbow mist. Chill, nonfriend, nothing is to fear, up to and including a flesh and blood succubus in your home.
    The infamous 1%ers don’t, but to scattered chicken feed of malcontents, enrage via educated principle alone. It’s not graduate course-grist sparking gut level debate, but the simple idea that endlessly drowning in gold, frankincense and FrankenNook Tablets, is horseshit, if for those few, the urban manna never stops. Humans do have convictions, but almost none would play the sackcloth and ashes game for the discount corn kernel of rubbernecking. Not when more’s to be had. Faith and all its ideals, are shed as easily as clothes in the boudoir, when fun or affirmation are a given. God as Clubber Lang or Drago, we hold in reserve, for when the bandwagon breaks down, as we seek to assign predetermined guilt. Our battle cries involving any Force wielding a Louisville Slugger signed by us, are a marathoner’s kick, to pull ahead or away. The breath released, before the bowstring. The summoning of the chi, in full, felt hesitation. We believe Might needs make Right, for someone fucked with our pocketbook. We probably believe anyway, but easy or relaxed. Smiling at the sky. Under no duress, facing but mundane strife, Humans believe as they love: from a distance, in their hearts, back at the airport... Any devotion friendly, is minus zeal. Caring and doing for the Other, is a job. Faith’s “industry”. Jimmy Carter, putting a hammer to a nail. We at least give ol’ Jim an “attaboy”, here, as his actions are, Today, decidedly unique. In the personal, The Other, shoeless in the rain, is a burden, and we know that. God, faith, religion as Mother Teresa, we want on CNN Headline News, not even the real CNN...but as Fat Albert as Buck Buck hole card, deity is powder and shot for all batteries poised to respond. I’ll needlessly point out as Footnote, the atom was first split, more than 70 years ago.
    Belief or lack of same, doesn’t cause the problem of empty stomachs or empty shells of houses. It does, however, eliminate any bloodless solution, past a near-immediate point. So, once Adam Smith and that diseased green dollar bill fail you, frightening things, unsimple, unsettling, are on deck. And telling the one fighting for Alternate Bend of Knee, “I don’t care, I don’t give a fuck! Iss all booshit, anyways. Can’t prove dat stuff, iss all stu-pid, you can go ahead and believe dat shit, it’s all fuckin’ stu-pid, I don’t care!”, is not some UNO “Reverse” play. As much as you think you’re giving Romney’s Etch-a-Sketch a violent shake, to ears of vastly differing “ways”, your rude spew sounds exactly like “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
    Payout: A Jewish writer of David Spade’s Comedy Central material, was starting to pile on anti-Semitic humor of edgy quality. When Spade, doubtful of the heavyhanded jokes, expressed concern, the writer, confident, told him, “No, it’s okay, go ahead! I don’t care!” Spade, mindful of the irony, returned a glaring smile and said, “Yeah, I know YOU don’t care...!”
    You can slam the door, really hard, on Witnesses or LDS. It’s not a universal solution.

— CEE



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