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Entries in poverty (50)

Sunday
May162010

Free Fire Zone

Greetings,

A modified version of this entry was originally posted 28 April. Future tense in the present tense Bangkok tick tock. The alarm bells are ringing. Ding-dong, the witch is dead.

Central Bangkok is now a free fire zone. You know it's come down to the basics when citizens trapped like rats fight with sharp bamboo poles, slingshots and stones against tanks, armored personnel carriers and frightened conscripts.

They shoot arrows at helicopters. Amazon Indians tried this tactic. The arrow of time points to entropy and chaos.

David and Goliath. The city is a glass and brick jungle. Welcome to the urban jungle. In real time.

Arrows, slingshots and rocks. Primitive vs. Machine. Avatar.

A sniper takes out a man in fatigues. Fatigue sets in. Poor people say, fight to the death. A man with a wheelbarrow rolls through the city village, "Bring out your dead, bring out your dead."

A spokesperson says. Starve them out. Turn off the electricity. Give them a taste of high tech military power. Liberate the masses. 1984. ONE STATE rules.

Citizens wait for an 82-year old king to say something like, Go home. Go back to your poor rural villages. Support glass and brass high rise city development. Support the monarchy. Why is it anarchy? Mon-anarchy. It's the rule of law says the government. Our law. We print money. We hire armies. We make laws. Obey or die. Guns and intimidation and inequality and laws. 

The poor need affordable food, clean water, opportunity, health care, fair wages, education, and so forth.

It has been reported, via movement sensors people dance a little faster as explosions scatter metal, debris and death outside the neon splashed venues. The DJ simply turns the music up a decibel level drowning out the yelling and screaming of red shirts, yellow shirts, polo shirts, ambulances, innocent victims and bass driven hip-hop tick tock.

Red shirts represent the poor people. Yellow shirts represent the middle class.

"Poverty and corruption has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say or do about this issue," said B.S. Sympathy, a well respected scion of foreign banking firms, investment and real estate development companies.

She spoke from her heavily fortified villa in an undisclosed Bangkok location while eating caviar, drinking champagne and petting twin poodles named Lucky and Fortunate. "Let them eat cake."

The Department of Tourism said this will have no effect on:

a) tourists desperate to get out
b) tourists desperate to get in
Ships from England are now standing by in Bangkok sewage canals to evacuate nationals.

"....But taken together, they suggest a campaign by shadowy elements in Thailand to stir fear and create a sense of instability."

It's highly plausible to insert the country of your choice in the aforementioned sentence other than Thailand. You have roughly 170 choices. Start with the letter A and work toward Z, say, Algeria, Afghanistan, Bulimia, any central Asian country, China, and so on.

They stare at you from the vacuum of their eyes and say, "Would you like to make a deal?"

Metta.

 

Thursday
May062010

Secret debt

Greetings,

weave me a silk tie to economic terror
corruption, greed, illusions
goldman on sack-cloth bespoke tailor

mr. goldman uses asian foreign workers in the middle eats
to smuggle gold out 
rag and bone merchants chant profit buy low sell high
insider trading cards i buy you buy we buy inflate the price
legalized tender is the night running gold, drugs, weapons, passports, people

all the camels, donkeys, mules running trade routes

 

money is the enabler
the game is over they told greece
goodbye athens goodbye ottomans goodbye nazis goodbye easy government money goodbye eu(poria)

sell me a white sand island

here comes the money honey

circumvent the corrupt banking industry
so i can file a be spoke suit tailored
by pure fabrication
woven on historical looms

lucky bamboo said i’d find you here
fit to be tied to anything
where spirit is good 
matter is a matter of objective consciousness
spinning on its axis
unraveling threads
into patterns, endless knot 

undertime, overtime, inside time's beauty
sharing information with intelligence agencies

now - yesterday, today, tomorrow
now a days - last decade, this decade, next decade
the long now - 20,000 years
let me introduce myself
married to consumption 
my name is fear
fear of poverty 
an acronym
consolation 
my timid friends say it indicates
Fuck Everything And Runaway 

the bigger the fear the bigger the defense
one does not need a compass in the land of dreams
Face Everything And Recover

the bigger the obstacle the bigger the joy
read ‘operating instructions for plants’
growth flow initiation 
dispense resistance
correct motives, means
patience generosity

inside the people's labyrinth
honor receptive side of warrior nature light

complex adaptive system

tendency for increased complexity
make the wrong decision for the right reason

sublime paradox
it was love & passion that made us suffer
it’s not so much that there is something strange about time
the thing that’s strange is what’s going on inside time  
we will understand how simple the universe is when we recognize how strange it is

fate gives you two choices, the one you should take and the one you take

Metta.

 

 

Friday
Apr232010

Bangkok tick tock

Greetings,

Speaking of Earth day and all the planting, reaping and enjoying a bountiful harvest here's a line from a recent NYT piece about the civil disturbance in Bangkok. In context. Down below where it says MORE...

Like more affordable food, clean water, opportunity, health care, fair wages, education, and so forth.

Dancing go-go- girls in the red light district have not been affected. Check your piece at the door.

It has been reported, via movement sensors they dance a little faster as explosions scatter metal, debris and death outside the neon splashed venues. The DJ simply turns the music up a decibel level drowning out the yelling and screaming of red shirts, yellow shirts, polo shirts, ambulances, innocent victims and bass driven hip-hop tick tock.

Red shirts represent the poor people. Yellow shirts represent the middle class.

"Poverty and corruption has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say or do about this issue," said B.S. Sympathy, a well respected scion of foreign banking firms, investment and real estate development companies. She spoke from her heavily fortified villa in an undisclosed location while eating caviar, drinking champagne and petting twin poodles named Lucky and Fortunate. "Let them eat cake."

The Department of Tourism said this will have no effect on:

a) tourists desperate to get out
b) tourists desperate to get in
Ships from England are now standing by in Bangkok sewage canals to evacuate nationals.

"....But taken together, they suggest a campaign by shadowy elements in Thailand to stir fear and create a sense of instability." more... 

It's highly plausible to insert the country of your choice in the aforementioned sentence rather than Thailand. You have roughly 170 choices. Start with the letter A and work toward Z, say, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burma any central Asian country, China, and so on.

Metta.

 

 

 

Saturday
Apr032010

Priests Fool with boys

Greetings,

(Editor's note. Due to extreme pressure from conservative groups, abused children and hysterical media corporations involving the Catholic Church scandals revealing deep dark secrets, here is an excerpt from the vaguely popular epic, A Century Is Nothing.)

“May we resume our deliberations now?” said a pedophile priest with a Big Unit mobile attached to his ear. He listened to a long distance confession from Boston. Not wanting to make an ass of himself in public, he knew he’d face felony charges when they found his big hand had been on the little hand. 

 He’d knew he’d never make Cardinal being a stool pigeon without a prosthetic leg to stand on. He whispered to the congregation. “We have to make plans for the conquest. The heathen are massing their calvary as we speak, as we procrastinate on these most important matters of church and state.” 

They were in rapture and supported his religious ideology. A woman named Faith based her initiative in him.

Worm Hole, a mathematician, manipulated division tables on a child’s place mat covered with carnivores from a cereal box high in fiber. He created a series of black holes to explore their gravitational pull. Space, to him, was more beautiful and more mysterious than Time. 

“And now we’re here,” he said pointing to a small blue marble floating on a universal map. “Did you know the amazing thing is how many people don’t know it or get it?” 

“Yes,” said a knight errant, “and there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the earth’s beaches. Try putting that into your hourglass!” Everybody laughed except Bumsfeld and his buddy Dicky Chainsaw from Why O Ming.

Some knights spinning around the round table predicted the campaign might end by spring. They didn’t know what year so they surmised seasons. 

Veterans, children and women knew it’d be years if not decades. Someone had to take the fall. Someone had to clean leaves clogging rivers of tears out of the way. Seasons were theirs for the taking. It was a crap shoot and they all knew it. 

The dice man played his hand. “Snake eyes!” he shouted and the room became quieter than a field of mass graves where children played with unexploded ordnance. 

“We hit a Blue Cross building yesterday,” a psychotic coalition general said. “Was it red or blue, I can’t remember. You know how confusing things get in war.”

“Oh no,” said the priest, “not another cross to bear.”

At the word bear the mathematician looked up from his predator place mat in horror. A huge Alaskan brown bear with red fire in his eyes charged out of the forest carrying a decapitated wildlife ranger. 

“We have a situation,” radioed a Cobra helicopter pilot circling the grizzly scene.
“You have permission to fire,” crackled his radio. 

He pressed his magic red button. A $50 million dollar Hellfire Tomahawk Missile blasted the beast to kingdom come.

“We’re saved!” yelled gangs of orphan children. They gutted the beast immediately with their knives and daggers salvaging every part of the animal. A kid named Export packed the testicles in Ice-9 for shipment to a Hong Kong pharmacy. 

Easy money.

Authorities arrived and took the priest away for questioning after numerous children accused him of sexual abuse. He requested to speak with someone at the Holy See.

“We’ll see what we can do,” said a member of the Vatican SWAT team busy preventing anguished angry parents from strangling him with his rosary.

“Crucify the hypocrite!” yelled the high masses.

Priests in crisis management modus operandus looked at new cardinal points on their compass. They needed a new direction, an alibi. 

“Roast him over an open friar,” sobbed a sacred heart mother of all prattle battles.
“Rest in Peace,” sang a choir of angels.
“Let him write a check,” a banker said. 
“There’ll be a penalty for early withdrawals,” drawled a teller selling used condoms.

“Any causalities?” queried a Foreign Legion officer just back from the North African front where he was shortlisted as MIA. He’d hitched a ride with a camel caravan across Oman heading to southern Iraqi marshlands.

“Friendly fire wiped out a few of our forces which is to be expected,” reported an analyst. “Some journalists, photographers and an Italian intelligence agent bit the bullet so to speak. They’ve filed their final report. Wrong coordinates I’d suggest. They’ll be embedded forever. We also have unconfirmed reports that local Iraqi and Afghan hospitals are overwhelmed with dead, dying, mangled, amputees, grieving mothers and widows. 500,000 and rising.”

“So it goes,” said a historian turning their hourglass over watching Sands Of Time fall in love with gravity.

“We suspect they are executing their own,” a common house junior minion added. “Meanwhile, we’ve bombed beans, rice, blankets, cooking oil, water treatment facilities, power plants and oil refineries. The price of crude is escalating as members of OPEC agree to disagree. Over $50 a barrel by now. Any sheik maintaining four wives has to keep pumping. Basic staples went through the roof at the fire sale. The cost of staples are driven by supply and demand.”

“Humanitarian aid is a noble casualty for the price of peace,” said an officer from a Rio slum waiting for extradition on mass murder charges. “Politically cheaper than body bags.” 

“Those are back ordered,” said a supply clerk from Kansas City with an 8th grade education. “77,000 body bags were shipped to a southern Italian military installation before we invaded with the intention to occupy. Boxes of imported democracy lie stranded offshore of drained Basra marshes. Pallets of democracy on trucks are melting in desert heat along the road from Damascus and Kuwait.”

“We can’t wait. We’re screwed,” said a two-faced selected Fascist president from O-Zone. “They bought the ranch and I’m moving to Argentina a.s.a.p.”

“No we’re not,” whined a minimum wage slave. “When the factories are finished making more precision weapons of mass destruction, recycled petroleum products for happy meals and flags, they will reconfigure their machines and production quotas.”

“May I speak?” requested a poet. 

“If you must,“ replied an officer long in the canine tooth buffing his medals with Brasso.

The poet tuned his Arabic oud instrument of mass distraction.

Parts were back ordered 
including body bags
their future called for heavy lifting
 
heavy duty cleaning materials
manipulation of material 
inside entropy
 
Refugees streamed into screaming 
broadband media found work 
in multinational international conglomerates
 
manufacturing sectors grinded poverty 
constructing their dream for export
 
Near the door to their cave of hunger 
at refugee camps 
they blended barley seeds 
with leaves of grass for delicious breads

“Ingenious,” said a literary critic from The Times. “Uses language in free imaginary and metaphorical ways. Gives it a goof feel.”

“We’ve allocated a percentage to Asian sweat shops,” said a textile importer. “To be specific, China, Thailand, Saipan, Malaysia, Burma and Cambodia - where one-third of the 14 million people make less than 56¢ a day - and Laotian factory slaves are working overtime. They have absolutely no choice in the matter and a buck a day is a hell of a deal. Once the feds and W.T.O. leave us alone we should realize a handsome profit when all is said and done.”

“That’s nothing,” said an analyst, “it’s a two prong effort. We construct air bases and military installations to control Middle East air space and two, we let American corporations buy all the Iraqi assets. We’re sitting on vast oil fields. Sweetmeat.”

“Perfect,” said the V.P. “Where’s my cut?” staring at a fleischer dripping blood.

A security advisor spoke. “Last March we launched the largest psychological operations in our 225 year history. We have 11 Psychological Operations Companies with 1,000 PSYOP personnel working to sway Iraqis and Afghans to join the rebuilding effort.”

“Are the PSYOP leaflets proving effective?” asked Colonel Sanderson with extra crispy clipped wings on his shoulders. He was molting. “We want them to see the democratic side of our occupation and walk on the bright side of life.”

“It's a fine line, but propaganda is more based on untruth,” said a philosopher.

End of transmission.

Metta.

 

Wednesday
Mar032010

One River

Greetings,

One key to survival in the jungle is to be silent. Patient. Move slowly.

A stranger goes for a bike ride on a dusty red potholed road. Very common, these roads. It runs parallel to a river.

Locals stare and then forget. They are busy trying to find food.

He's been been on this river before. The river in the world and other places. It winds past simple bamboo thatched homes. There are one, perhaps two rooms. Wood floor. The rear opens to the river. They have wells for drinking, washing, bathing. If the home's on stilts, the lower area is for hammocks, resting in the shade, family gatherings and eating.

Palm trees line the road. Plastic bags litter the river and adjacent patches of dry unproductive soil. He sees one garden. It's large and fenced off with barb wire, wood slats, fragmented sticks and string. The vegetables are bright green and strong. 

Rare middle class glass and brass stone homes scream "We are rich!" They are monsters with stone front yards, weird plastic toy animals, high cement walls, sharp lancer fences and imposing gates. Protection from whom or what? Bored butterflies? Machete wielding lizards?

Metta.

They discuss love and space travel.