Jack Burns Lives!

Happy Birthday, you grumpy, inspiring, enviro-meddling bastard.

With every year that passes, it seems as if we need you even more. You’d say “bullshit,” of course, and say we don’t need you. All we need to do is get up off our fat asses and do something ourselves.

I agree. Yes, we’re pretty much failures. We tried (half ass effort…at least for some of us), but we didn’t get it done. We’ve let corporations take over damn near everything. Washington and Wall Street have merged. “Green” might as well have its own stock symbol. The pestiferous capitalist killing machine has expanded.

And we’re now terrorists. We used to be monkeywrenchers or saboteurs, but we allowed the powerbrokers to up the ante, take control of words and their meanings, the press, our schools our freedom. And as of last week, we allowed ourselves to be plunged directly into fascism by a bunch of old white guys wearing black robes. We have private police, private prisons and greedy profiteers sucking the life right out of everything.

But what could we have done? What would you do? I reckon about all we can do is retreat into small enclaves, protect what we can, take care of one another and prepare the survivors to emerge from the ashes and rebuild The Land of the Free. Be like medieval monks, inscribing the whole sordid tale to paper in the hope someone intelligent will find it and take heed.

I haven’t given up hope for The Great Uprising, and I’d happy risk it all to be part of it. I’m going to die anyway. Might as well die doing something interesting and not end up in a corporate hospital with tubes hanging out of every orifice. I dream of millions marching on Washington and taking it back for the people. Throwing out the interlopers of freedom and replacing them with a federation of cooperative bioregions. Yeah, it’s a bit of a stretch, a dream, but sometimes a dream is all that keeps you going. It’s all that keeps you from throwing in the towel, running to the hills and cowering in a cabin like Ted Kaczynski.

That, and my family and my friends. I’m here for them, human and non-human, and will happily fight on to protect them from the aforementioned enemy.

ONWARD

Jack Burns

I’ve always found myself fascinated by images that show emerging plant life in landscapes recently burned to crisp by volcanic eruptions. Even out of what appears to be sheer and utter destruction, life abides. Like a snake shedding its skin for a new scaly coat of armament, the earth renews and recreates itself.

For those of us still reeling from the mind blogging Supreme Court decision this week, I offer hope. Yes, hope, that little word Obama used to sway us like a Pied Piper and lead us to believing change was coming to America. We got change, alright. Just not the kind we hoped for.

With this week’s decision, the Supreme Court essentially killed any notion that the United States was a democratic nation and gave full notice that we were in fact a corporate state. A fascist nightmare run by greedy, callous people, mostly Christians, possessing nuclear weapons and guns with Bible verses inscribed on their sights. Their mantra is growth and profit, and for those that can’t keep up, well, you get kicked to the curb to suffer. Shoulda prayed more, I suppose.

It didn’t take a battle or revolution to do it. All it took was five appointed people, people appointed by rich and powerful men, and a few short paragraphs within the context of a nearly 1000 word document to kill America, Land of the Free.

Not a single shot was fired.

The silver lining is this. Perhaps this once unfathomable turn of events will hasten the demise of what we mistakenly believed was representative democracy and give birth to real democracy. Our generation will bear the brunt of the ugliness, as will our children, but perhaps our grandchildren (or for some, great-grandchildren) will live to see a much more democratic, sustainable society. Maybe even a semi-pastoral, anarchistic society based on the egalitarian principle of mutual aid.

I’m one of the few hold outs that still embraces Edward Abbey’s ideals. That anarchism is not a romantic fable but a viable, tried and true alternative for organizing human society.

What’s next? I tend to agree with Keith Olbermann’s assessment on things. The first step is to insert paid for politicians. To a lesser degree, we’ve had that for some time, but we’re entering an age where no one can win without the correct corporate imprimatur. Goodbye Dennis Kucinich. Then, once the whores are in place, their corporate pimps will instruct them to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations, and we’ll see development and industry running amok. The real Dark Ages lie ahead.

As that starts to collapse, violence will erupt. Corporate brutality, state brutality, desperate people roaming the streets. Perhaps not too far from scenarios envisioned by Cormac McCarthy or Edward Abbey. Police forces will be privatized and rule with the cudgel and the boot.

Eventually, however, the corporate toadies will go too far. To help expand their reach, they’ll probably try to privatize parts of the military, but I have faith that wise generals will see through this ruse and draw a line in the sand. One thing about West Point men is they know history. They won’t be fooled by a bunch of necktie wearing power brokers any more than Smedley Butler was fooled. A few will drink (a few have already) from the poison chalice, but not all. So, instead of a Civil War like we had in 1863, you could see a State vs. Corporate war. What’s to keep Lockheed from hiring its own pilots? Blackwater from expanding to unheard of levels? They’ll have their appointed Congress critters to help them! They’ll be oaths of allegiance to the company and to God. I can imagine all sorts of scenarios where this could get beyond butt ugly over the coming years.

Remember, these are people that have already leveled threats like “We’ll bury you with our money.”

Think that’s unimaginable? Who would have thought 25 years ago we’d be dealing with this catastrophe? Emma Goldman, Edward Abbey and a few other marginalized radicals and dissenters probably saw it coming but not too many others. Never underestimate what people will do when billions of dollars are at stake.

I believe we’re at war. I believe we’re fighting to keep freedom alive in our bleeding country. I believe anyone that cares about freedom and that doesn’t want to see our country turned over to corporate, fascist bastards needs to stand up and be heard. We need writers, agitators, creative subversives in art, music and even high tech to wage war against this onslaught of idiocy sweeping the country. Now, more than any time since the time of Jim Crow, we need warriors. People willing to peacefully stand against the tide and refuse to flow with it. We need people to light the way and establish a sound path for future generations.

We need a massive injection of common sense, and we need it now, and if you’re a praying sort, pray these evil bastards hang themselves with their neckties.

“Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties.”

“I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.”
-Chief Luther Standing Bear

When confronted with the choice of reading The New York Times or watching the varying array of avian life outside my kitchen window, the decision was simple. Bankruptcy, war, terror, homelessness or the Tufted titmouse, Prairie warbler and Downy woodpecker?

It seems obvious to me the nobility of their simple lives far exceeds that of most men and is equally if not more so deserving of our attention.

It’s good that we have our non-human friends to free our spirits from ugliness of civilization. Especially those of us trapped in cities of concrete, steel, sirens and mayhem. They remind us there is another world, a simpler more beautiful place. And while winter gently cloaks the South in a blanket of grayish cold death, colorful life still abounds. Yellows, reds, blues. They’re all there, hiding in the cedars, pines and holly. In the remains of last summer’s wildflowers and in the blueberry. In the towering, leafless oaks, hickory and elm.

In the season when depression gains its firmest root, these little creatures bring calm and lasting joy. And while there is no meaning to their existence or even to my own, life is, as its often said, what you make of it. We can choose to live cooperatively or we can choose to make life a Hobbesian hell, a struggle against all, for all.

Why is that? Why are humans so prone to petulance and determined to wage war on all life? Why do so few see the needed beauty and necessary role of the warbler or of the lynx? What’s wrong with us that we seemingly place greater value on televisions and cellphones than that of a living things?

Ah, a new year. A clean slate, you say. Time to renew and forge ahead.

To hell with that. I woke up with a frown on my face, feeling quite curmudgeonly and perfectly satisfied with that sentiment. After all, let’s take stock of what’s happening in the world.

Gas prices are dropping. Economists and bankers are talking about opening up credit again. The damned guvment is expanding the war and using “The Christmas Terror Plot” as an excuse to extend the life of a national embarrassment known as Guantanamo Bay.

Affordable healthcare for all is dead. Ed Abbey is still dead.

We have no political leadership and The Democratic party is apparently devoid of anyone with guts, save Dennis Kucinich a paltry dozen or so others.

The majority of the populace is hopelessly propagandized and ignorant.

People are trying to replace books with electronic gizmos.

And if you thought Tiny Tim and Twisted Sister were bad, we now have Lady Gaga.

We can’t even make decent movies these days. I go to the movie theater maybe once a year, because everything is so completely awful. Most indie films are so abstract and depressing they make me want to slice my wrist with a plastic butter knife.

So, I retreat to what’s real. What gives me hope and joy. The woods, mountains, watching birds. Reading Abbey, Jeffers, Snyder, Welch or Thoreau. Watching old movies and enjoying a glass of wine by the fire. I don’t even care to go to parties any longer. I’ve become a social recluse. The Grinch.

Anarchy? Don’t dare mention such ridiculous ideas, especially on a list devoted to Edward Abbey. No one cares. No one talks about it, as it seems most folks have accepted their fate and just don’t care. And I’m frankly dumbfounded by the number of so-called “progressives,” some really intelligent people, that continue to look to War$hington for answers. Simply amazing!

It’s like looking to guns to solve the murder problem.

I think a lot about cowboys these days. Yeah, a lot of it is mythical, but there’s much that’s real. Yeah, the cattle industry is horrible, a direct contributor to the ecocide we now find ourselves in, but it’s not the cow that intrigues me. It’s just the idea of a man and his horse. A Jack Burns type. Hat and boots, riding freely in a world with no fences. No drivers license, no draft card, just a man. A man trying to live freely in an insane world.

I think a lot about a world that doesn’t exist.