"Introducing The American Party"

[cakebelly]

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/03/introducing-the-american-party/

extract: Introducing The American Party

Posted by R. Talmadge Lacy on March 16, 2011

ressurection-10Dear Friends, Countrymen, Freethinking Radicals and Brainwashed Monkeys,

Thank you for coming. Thank you for showing your support. Thank you all for making The American Party happen. If this is your first time learning of us then an introduction is in order.

We?re responsible for creating the petition to free Patricia Marilyn Spottedcrow. A mother of four sent to ten years in prison for selling $31 of marijuana. On April 20th, 2011  we?re going to march on Washington D.C. and petition President Obama to pardon her of all criminal charges and penalties.

But I got to let you in on a little secret. This isn?t entirely about Patricia or getting her out of prison. This is bigger than that. This movement is about the fact that everything in this country is fucked up on every level: top to bottom, large to small. Patricia was just the straw that broke the camels back. And the Camel was America. The sound of that judge?s gavel sealing Patricia?s fate was the sound of America cracking. ?The center does not hold,? as the American Indians used to say. Yes. That was the sound that signaled the collapse of western civilization. When someone was sent to ten years in prison for selling a plant.* Let me tell you something ? I believe in God ? I believe in a higher power. And I does believe it works in mysterious ways. Because to me that sound was all those things and more. To me it was a wake-up call.

[Banjo Dude]

WB Yeats was an American Indian?

Learn somethin' new every day, man.  Here I thought he was Irish.

(He was, as it happens, an Irishman of no recorded Indian ancestry. Sorry, disinfo guy, but you're makin' shit up.  Imagine that, misinformation coming from disinfo.com.  Wild, baby, wild.     Anyway, here's the poem that line comes from; it also has another well-known image, "what rough beast," and all that, down the end.  As with most, if not all, poetry, I would suggest this be read aloud.)

"The Second Coming"

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- 
Written in 1919 by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)


... I'm suddenly taken by the urge to say,

The Red man is not the issue here, Dude ... Also, Dude, "Red man" is not the preferred nomenclature;  "Native American," please.

[cakebelly]

Indeed, neither  the "red man"  or the "Irishman" are the issue - so the Dude got his references wrong. The phrase has become part of the parlance of our times. The issue is the fact that a mother of four was sentenced to 10 fuckin' years of prison time for selling $31 worth of fuckin' pot. 10 years.  Your response would have had more relevance - besides the fact that it's St. Patrick's Day and you're from Boston - if you had of posted it on the site in question.

[Banjo Dude]

[edited in an attempt to take the high road]

Wow, man.  Didn't mean to hit any buttons.  


My apologies.


I have, since reading your last, posted a response to the disinfo page, and I wasn't even a dick about it!  (Hey, I'm proud of me.)


I was most assuredly not attempting to wage any sort of attack on you, (by "disinfo guy," I meant the author of that article, not you!) nor do I believe the prison sentence in question is even remotely appropriate for the "crime" in question, which (in case my scare-quotes there don't make it clear) I do not believe to be anything resembling criminal behavior at all.


I merely thought you might be interested in the actual context of the line, which is not really a part of the "parlance of our times," and was, I feel, pretty poorly used by this writer.

The poem in question uses Christian imagery allegorically to talk about the aftermath of World War I, a fact that I believe escaped the author of the piece on disinfo, along with the quote's origin.  

Sorry, I just feel that misappropriating literature is nigh-unto intellectual dishonesty.


My reference to "red men" (kinda bugs me to have done it, my apologies for that _alone_; I abhor racism) was an attempt to make a semi-sequitur joke, patterned after the "chinaman" line, given the propensity of the denizens here to quote "The Big Lebowski" ad nauseum  


While it is true I am an Irish-American living in Boston, the Catholic holiday that today happens to be had no bearing on my post; it did not even occur to me what day it was until reading your response.

So, yeah, man.  Sorry to get up your nose with all my poetry and shit  

Peace, you know?


And now, I shall say, "fuck it."

Oh, and, I guess, Happy St. Pat's, I hope you have the opportunity to hoist a pint or three!

[DigitalBuddha]

Great post, cake dude. 10 years! Jesus, has the world gone crazy!? And great website. Thanks for posting, mang.

[cakebelly]

[edited in an attempt to take the high road]

Wow, man.  Didn't mean to hit any buttons.  


My apologies.


I have, since reading your last, posted a response to the disinfo page, and I wasn't even a dick about it!  (Hey, I'm proud of me.)


I was most assuredly not attempting to wage any sort of attack on you, (by "disinfo guy," I meant the author of that article, not you!) nor do I believe the prison sentence in question is even remotely appropriate for the "crime" in question, which (in case my scare-quotes there don't make it clear) I do not believe to be anything resembling criminal behavior at all.


I merely thought you might be interested in the actual context of the line, which is not really a part of the "parlance of our times," and was, I feel, pretty poorly used by this writer.

The poem in question uses Christian imagery allegorically to talk about the aftermath of World War I, a fact that I believe escaped the author of the piece on disinfo, along with the quote's origin.  

Sorry, I just feel that misappropriating literature is nigh-unto intellectual dishonesty.


My reference to "red men" (kinda bugs me to have done it, my apologies for that _alone_; I abhor racism) was an attempt to make a semi-sequitur joke, patterned after the "chinaman" line, given the propensity of the denizens here to quote "The Big Lebowski" ad nauseum  


While it is true I am an Irish-American living in Boston, the Catholic holiday that today happens to be had no bearing on my post; it did not even occur to me what day it was until reading your response.

So, yeah, man.  Sorry to get up your nose with all my poetry and shit  

Peace, you know?


And now, I shall say, "fuck it."

Oh, and, I guess, Happy St. Pat's, I hope you have the opportunity to hoist a pint or three!

I was angry when I posted the extract/link and still feel the echo of that anger when I think about that woman in jail. I'm not sure why this case in particular got to me; after all there are thousands in jail who should not be there especially since jailing people became such a profitable exercise in the Sates. Maybe, for a moment, she became the avatar  - for me - of all those poor fuckers. Either way, I should not have been so curt in my response (the swearing would have still been there - it is an emotive topic).

"the centre cannot hold" may not be in common usage (although I have used it myself once or twice) but it has seeped into our collective noggins as evidenced by the guy's usage. He didn't know where the phrase originated but its part of his linguistic resume (if you will) much like Shakespeare's influence on our language, today. His use of the term was an attempt to convey   - I suspect, but cannot know - the importance of the topic in hand and the depth of his feeling on the matter.

I am familiar with Yeats (although not overly familiar) and the poem as, I imagine, are a few Dudes here; personally I'm for Mr. Wilde when it comes to Irish exports. Yeats is, of course, popular in the Isles but more so among the Irish-American community over here. I'm half-Irish (Mother) half English - born and raised in London and, thanks to my Mother who dropped all the Catholic shit when she hit Blighty shores was not raised Catholic and don't know how to hail Mary or feel guilty about shit I am supposed to have inherited from some geezer called Adam. So, fuck St. Patrick and his 'day' - but thanks for the good wishes.

I note that you are a musician - if you have any lyrics, poems - what-have-yous then Dudes on here will be keen to view them (for the Dudeku ebook - see boards). If you have any songs, we'd be keen to hear them, too - but be advised: material may be mashed and incorporated into something else (although credits are given).

Hope you have yourself a cool weekend, peace indeed.

[Banjo Dude]

Wilde is a fucking riot.  I remember being a kid, and having a kid's predictable attitude about "The Importance of Being Ernest" (or is the title spelled "earnest?" .. can't remember) 

"AAAhhhrgh! This is gonna SUCK! Waaah! I don't wanna read this boring stuffy old dusty Mick poof's blah blah blah"

... Then I read it.  Hi-LAR-ious.

It occurs to me, I think that's the only Wilde I've read.  I think I shall have to rectify that.

Oh, and the St Pat's day wishes have nothing to do with it being a churchy day or anything.  Here in the States, it's just a socially-acceptable (sort of, anyway) excuse to upend a few brews and act like an idiot.  I'm personally fond of the ridiculous hats everyone seems to have.

[Abideist]

Yes this is already a pretty big deal i've heard all my friends local talking about, some texas people i know are heartbroken.

unfortunatley there are people even my own age who don't care and dont listen. one guy even said "She was exposing her children to a dangerous element and enviornment, and should be in jail", this is coming from the same guy who buys cigarettes and beer and drinks and smokes just the same around his children, while swearing and watching violent movies playing violent games and eating fast food and giving them chemically loaded mcdonalds death packages.

It's not about america or laws, it's about private prisons, and private citizens with too much power and control and it's world wide, they don't make examples, they just make money, we need to make examples of their law and use it against them. Catch a judge or some states men, or political journalist, etc in a debaucherous act, perahaps smoking in front of a child, or drinking a beer at a family reunion. I'm not a lawyer , but i study enough law to know how to make a jury see the facts,

suffocate them with statistical data and cold hard facts, and challenge the validity of their own data. It's as simple as that, and you can't ever ever lose if you're on the just side, the right side, the winning side.

Choose right, not wrong.

Vote for me.

Koog-Meister, president of planet earth.

[Banjo Dude]

It saddens, but does not surprise me that Ms. Spottedcrow, an American Indian, would get such a harsh sentence; I have to say, I don't see this as a pot issue as much as one of race.  Well, maybe both, but I don't think one should discount the endless capacity of one "racial" group to persecute another.  My country's entire history centers on it.

Check this out, this is from the OK Department of Corrections web site:

Eddie Warrior was appointed business manager for the Deaf, Blind and Orphan Institute by Governor Roy Turner.  Warrior was later promoted to principal and subsequently to superintendent of the Taft school system in 1961. The E.W. Warrior Junior High School was dedicated in his honor in 1975.  He retired in February 1979 after 18 years of service.  Eddie Warrior died in June 1979.

(http://www.doc.state.ok.us/facilities/institutions/ewcc.htm)

It appears to be all they have to say about the place...
I spent some time digging around, but cannot find any mention of "Eddie Warrior" other than this prison.
But, this one page, again, on Oklahoma DOC's own web site, seems to me to indicate that ten years after this Dr. Warrior (again, a pretty Indian-sounding name, and as a side-note, I cannot find any mention of him other than this) dies, a SCHOOL that was named after him gets, shall we say "re-purposed?" as a PRISON.  I mean, the above paragraph, which makes no mention of "correctional facility" or whatever the euphemism they prefer is, is the sole text on the page, and serves to caption a photo of what is implied to be the prison.  I don't know how else to interpret this!  Seriously, look at that link: above, it says "correctional center," then a photo of a boring little institutional-looking building with bars in the windows, then below it says "junior high school."

Geronimo must be positively *spinning* in his grave, assuming, of course, that Prescott Bush and his Skull-and-Bones buddies did not actually desecrate said grave.

[Banjo Dude]

Here's a couple white boys who were in a group of teens who beat an illegal immigrant to death:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20035527-504083.html

The sentence?  Nine years.  Really casts an interesting light on the Spottedcrow case, doesn't it?
Just do yourselves a favor and do NOT read any blog commentary on this one; it'll just give you ulcers.

[nlferts]

I'll tell you what really bugs me. That those kids are going to grow up without a mom. Forget the weed for a second, the weed is not the issue. We're talking about four kids without a mom. That just isn't right. Celebrities can kill their wives, beat up hookers, and do all the drugs they can handle yet four kids lose their mom because she sold a little weed. What a sick judicial system we have.