Month: March 2015

I am a member (and leader, I suppose) of a small community of the King centered around Joe’s Addiction coffee shop in Oklahoma City.  The shop is actually in a small town called Valley Brook, a “Lesotho style” incorporated town within the surrounding environs of Oklahoma City.  Valley Brook exists for one reason and one reason only; to nurture and propel the businesses that thrive on the sexual exploitation of women as far into perpetuity as they can.

But that’s another post; back to Joe’s…

One of the most popular pass-times there is to play a card game called skip-bo.  Pretty much everybody plays and since it’s a low-stress game, or intended to be anyway, it offers an opportunity to sit around, engage in light competition, and great conversation over, you guessed it, a crazy good cup of coffee.

Because of the pervasiveness of the game within the community, we have long sought to have a fun tournament at the coffee shop.  However, the questions of exactly how to organize the tournament and determine who advances, etcetera went unanswered until recently.  On an anonymous day in February, 2015, I and two other members of our community sat down and laid out a workable plan on how to organize and run a skip-bo tournament.  Thus was born “Skip-Bo Super Bowl 1.”

Those of us who sat down and organized the tournament also looked at the costs that would be associated with it.  They were, to be honest, quite staggering in relation to the financial resources of this community.  We thought we would have, maybe, 20 people sign up, and if that were the case, we would need 40 decks of skip-bo cards.  At approximately $8.00 each online (which is the cheapest option), that meant that we would already be spending more money on cards alone than the money we expected to bring in from people signing up to play.  It would take more money than we initially anticipated to pull this thing off.  On top of that, we wanted a nice prize for the people who came in 1st and 2nd.  Local thrift shops have used trophies, and we could get two of those fairly inexpensively and that would be fine.

We decided that in order to help offset the fiscal outlay we would experience, we would charge everybody a $5.00 entry fee.  Whoops.

We have a fairly large number of homeless people in our community at Joe’s, but even so, we were certain that even the most destitute of them could come up with a way to earn $5.00 if they really wanted to play in the tournament.

What happened instead was that one of the people who is currently “couch surfing” for a place to sleep each night threatened to report us to local government officials for running a gambling operation.  Another local resident, who is much more peripheral to the core community at Joe’s, threatened to do essentially the same thing, only her threat was to go to one of the local pimps who holds sway over the local town council and report us for running said gambling operation.

I had a conversation with the owner of the shop and we decided that we would scrap the $5.00 entry fee, and that the Valley Brook Vineyard Church, with whom we are associated, would pick up whatever costs were involved.  I therefore reprinted all of the advertising flyers to say that the tournament was free, put them up, and returned the money already collected to its rightful owners.

Was I pissed off when I heard about those threats?  You’re damned right I was; especially at the couch surfer whom we have fed and cared for years now; offering him refuge from the world outside, supplying him with free tents, several bicycles, free food when we can come up with it, and free coffee on a daily basis.  I have even invited him to stay the night in my home during severely cold winter weather.

Though the initial level of anger I experienced subsided fairly quickly, I was still determined to talk to him about his threat the next time I saw him.  I wanted to tell him how disappointed I was in him that he would threaten us with such action simply because, as I saw it, he didn’t want to get up off of his ass and earn $5.00 to help out.

Yesterday afternoon changed all of that.  I had a “textversation” with another of the people with whom I sat down and organized the tournament.  He was incredibly angry and even though these threats against the shop were almost a week old, his anger was growing and not subsiding.

It didn’t take long for me to see my own anger in his and seek repentance.

I began to counsel him that his anger was misplaced and that the people who made the threats of reporting our “gambling operation” were already experiencing the fruits of their actions.  It was not up to us to make things harder on them.  Their actions are now well known throughout the community and neither of them have been to the coffee shop since Monday, March 16th.  I think this is especially hard on the couch surfer.  The local resident only comes to the shop every so often.

The person to whom I was speaking about all of this, and whose anger began to worry me told me flat out “…Joe’s will never reach it’s full potential until it rids itself of these parasites.”  At this point I began to really feel guilty about my own anger and scheduled lack of forgiveness.  I replied thusly: “A parasite is an animal that feeds off of the life force of another, but Joe’s is not about biology.  It’s about forgiveness and acceptance for all.  We all need it and [name deleted] will need it from you and me.  It won’t be easy, but it will be necessary.  Not for how being forgiven will change him…it may not change him…but it will change us, and that’s the important thing here.”

At that point he was having none of my Jesus logic, but, having seen the error of my own anger, I persisted.  Sure enough, it didn’t take long for him to begin to soften his attitude, and though he never admitted his intent to forgive or love those he saw as his enemies, I could sense something greater: Just as I had seen my own faults in his anger, he began to see his faults in theirs.

Therein lies the lesson.  When we take the time to see our own faults in the imperfections of others, we learn forgiveness, enemy love, and, perhaps, we inch just a little bit closer to coming before God as the children we are.  It is in caring for and forgiving people we see has having wronged us that we grow closer to God, and it is only in these things that a place like Joe’s (like us) actually reaches its full potential.

Peace,

Niemand

Sometimes you start writing something, and in the middle of the damn thing you realize that you were wrong.  That happened to me here, and it’s not so much that I was wrong, but that I was approaching the subject from the wrong perspective.  I’ll let you know with a [*] when I realized my error.

Would somebody please tell me exactly when, if the date can be pinpointed, we lost the right of dissent in this country?  Through all of the warmongering vomit spewing out of the mouths of American patriots about how this is ‘the greatest country in the world’ I’ve had to endure in 55 years of life in the empire, the one thing that made me think that this was, actually, a pretty remarkable place, was the fact that as American citizens, we have the right, not only to possess dissenting opinions, but to also express them without fear of reprisal from the government or, hopefully, the hillbillies down the street.

Unfortunately, the ‘death of dissent’ date is hidden in the annals, or rather the asses, of America’s corporate power elite, and their marionettes; the insane fringe right of the tea party that now directs the war against the poor in vast swaths of the American social landscape (sort of like those ISIL guys).  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see the similarities between the tea party, the christian right, and ISIL…wow, now there’s an unholy trinity for you.

Soon, it will be like the the ‘death of the Jesus way’ in Christianity.  That was date on which being a Christian changed from being someone who sought to emulate the way Jesus lived his life and practice the things he taught, to getting your ass saved, then figuring out the absolute minimum you had to do in order to sneak that so-called “saved” ass of yours into heaven when you die.

This ass saving, of course, must now begin with the recitation of that idiotic prayer some baptist shit-head invented about (in your best hillbilly voice, now) “Jesus, I ask you into my heart.”  Excuse me while I go puke.  I’ve never said that prayer, and I never will.  It’s sort of like corndogs to me now; I’ve never had one of those nasty things and I never will.  Nobody knows the exact date Christianity devoled into the ass saving club; its perpetrators have hidden it from us forever.

The days of the right of dissent in America are gone, and it is with great regret that I write this post.  That’s quite a claim, so before I move on, allow me to clarify exactly what I mean by that.  We have the right to dissent against a limited number of individual policies pursued by our government, but the right to dissent against the jingoistic hyper-patriotism that has become the hallmark of American gun culture is gone.  If you do this loudly and publicly, then you will suffer retribution, both from the government and individuals.  At this point, dissent is no longer a right, it’s a risk.

Last week, this country arrested three men who were “suspected” of leaving the country in order to fight for the Islamic State.  Really?  Let me try to wrap my brain around that for a moment.  The government arrested three men, not even American citizens, who were suspected of traveling to fight for ISIL.

I have several questions.  First, since when can you arrest someone on suspicion of planning to do something, that is not a crime, at some unknown day in the future?  Don’t worry, I understand the charge of ‘conspiracy,’ but this does not meet even the most basic criteria for that.  Even if these men were planning to become ISIL fighters, so what?  We are not engaged in a war with them.  Sure, ISIL’s tactics are considered barbaric by even the most nominal western standards, but their status as enemies of America are based upon a long stretch of any sort of justifiable policy.  They are enemies of America merely because our government says they are so.  Certainly, they have gruesomely murdered a few Americans along with others, but that should make them enemies of these people’s families, not the American empire as a whole.

The government of a republic which claims to operate under the democratic system doe not have the right to tell me who is and who is not my enemy.  That is something that I alone can decide.  If I want to believe and say that ISIL is totally badass, that’s my right!  If I want to say this country’s free market theocracy is the most disgusting sack of shit human culture has ever produced, that’s my right!

ISIL will have its day in the sun, there is no stopping that, but are we to lose our souls in pursuit of them?  Arresting these men was exactly that: sacrificing our souls to say were are fighting a perceived enemy.  This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, either.  People should remember that we have sacrificed our souls for all sorts of things: Denying minorities of all races, creeds, and female gender the same status under the constitution that white males have enjoyed since its ratification.

Americans need to also remember several other things:

1. The first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, commonly referred to as the ‘bill of rights,’ are legal expressions of those ‘unalienable rights’ of which Thomas Jefferson spoke so eloquently in the Declaration of Independence.  These rights, being unalienable, are not based upon a person’s citizenship.  They are not presented as gifts to people of certain nationalities, but are to all people “endowed by their creator.”

2. As recently as World War II there were organized groups in the United States who declared their support for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.  They were largely ignored, but they had the right of dissent.  Oh, yeah, I almost forgot; they were white males. [*]

So there you have it; the point at which I realized my error.  The issue is not that we do not have the right to dissent, but that dissent against white, corporate, right wing America is outside the rules.

Dissent by people of color against white corporate America is what has been lost.  Dissent against hyper-patrotism has been lost.  Dissent against what we consider our right to  violate any state’s territorial integrity for our own purposes has been lost.

Our soul as the United States of America has been lost, and we are now the most dangerous rogue state on the planet.

I dissent!

Peace,

Niemand

Damn!  That last post on drone warfare was heavy!  Sorry, but I just had to get all of that off my chest.  Anyway, I want to lighten the mood here for a bit, so I’m going to attach a piece I wrote, hell, almost eight years ago.  It’s called “A Fairy Tale.”  It’s pretty short and I hope you enjoy it…

“She was once a tall, beautiful woman, as much at home in the fashion halls of Paris or Milan, as she was in her native subdivision of Sunnyvale Heights; the trailer park on the outskirts of Marlow, Oklahoma from which she hailed.  She was desired by men and women alike, and chose her lovers as freely as a bird chooses the tree in which to make her nest for a short time.  The world was hers to take as she wished, and like the bird she seemed to emulate, she would flutter from tree to tree; from lover to lover, gracing each in turn with her beautiful song of life and love.

She was elegant at her very essence, and when she walked, it was not as if she was walking at all, but rather floating on a cushion of sweet, spring air.  When she spoke, her voice was indescribable.  It was sexy yet not promiscuous, soft yet full of confidence, and in the final calculation, operatic.  Although I never had the honor, her kiss was said to always have the hint of the taste of fine champagne; as a crystal glass was never far from her delicate hand.  In the impregnable circles of the European haute couture she was “known,” and to know her was to be “known” as well.

After years of this fantasy-laden Bohemian existence, the combination of 30 or so filter-less Lucky Strikes each day and hours upon hours of daily exposure to the Mediterranean sun shriveled her once lovely, svelte frame into a wrinkled, raisin-like shell barely five feet in height.  This was compounded by the inescapable desire for the rush of meth-amphetamines coursing through her veins.  No matter how high into society she would climb, the hillbilly heroin of Sunnyvale would always be her nemesis in hiding: her secret no one could ever know.

Eventually, as society moved ever higher, she reached her peak and began her descent.  As these vices took their toll upon her body her spirit began to rebel, and in an attempt to regain the life she had once known and lost, she turned to vodka for the confidence and courage which were once her calling card.  A glass “on the rocks” a couple of days each week became a couple of glasses “straight up” each day.

Now, between the bottles of vodka, the occasional glass of Martini & Rossi takes her back to those gay nights in evening gowns that are now lifetimes, if not light years, away.  She works as a B2B inside sales representative for an office supply company and speaks to her reluctant customers with a crone-like cackle which brings to mind an amateur thespian’s portrayal of some ancient and evil witch from a Greek tragedy.

Drunk and covered in “imposter” body-sprays, she seeks her prince in the local pool halls, and honky-tonks.  She is as anonymous as the men who write of her on public restroom walls, giving her phone number to any who happen to stop there.  Many call, and these desperate, lonely, and angry lovers are now all that is left to her: none of them are still there when she awakens late in the morning, rolls over, and lights her first cigarette.

Without a passport or prospects, she is both forgotten by the bon-vivant of Europe and shunned by the trailer queens of Sunnyvale.”

Okay, so that sad little story didn’t lighten the mood that much.  Oh well.  Still, I hope you enjoyed it.

Peace and Love to all,

Niemand