1953

I was born in 53, the year Congress changed the national motto from" E Pluribus Unim" to "In God We Trust". The year the CIA facilitated the removal ofMogadesh in Iran and Arbentz in Guatemala, setting off a chain of events leading to now. The year the Korean War stalemated at the 38th parallel, a strange,bloody horrible conflict still basically unresolved. The year Fidel attacked the barracks at Santiago and the Rosenbergs were executed. The year in which the US supplied 80% of the arms and financing of the French war effort in Viet Nam. And the year Joseph Mc Carthy had The Selected Works of Thomas Jefferson removed from libraries.

But that was then and this is now and here we are! Condi Rice has plans to help Cuba "transition" to democracy but they are on hold because The Lonely One is pretty busy not remembering and then remembering hearing about some "immanent attack" on the US. Paul Bremmer, Iraqs first, how shall I put this, "crummy" administrator after the invasion, worked for Kissinger and Associates. Who did James Baker work for? Everybody and Anybody with cash. Speaking of cash, Wal Mart has decided to go from a 20 to 40% part-time work force and curtail staff health care options to "better serve their customers." Dick Cheney is in Montana today stumping for Burns and hopefully they are going hunting together. In what he calls "a revolution within the revolution", the Chavez government is spending billions on anti-poverty programs and "handing a large degree of authority over the spending to thousands of elected local councils."

In an article in the NLR July/Aug called Offshore Zionism, written by Gadi Algazi, we find out what a "sweetheart deal" is all about. It seems the largest IT firm in Israel, Matrix, makes use of it's "comparative advantage" by hiring ultra-orthodox women from state -subsidized settlements in the Occupied Territories. They don't have to be paid much because their living costs are subsidized (for being willing colonizers), and they work hard because they are brain -washed fertility units, ie,baby producers . It is the first "Zionist local off-shore outsourcing", and the perfect marriage of State and Capital.

In Memory ofW.B.Yeats by W.H.Auden

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark
And the living nations wait
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.