Now ain’t the time for your tears

From Mick Farren, founder of the legendary Brit band, The Deviants, novelist, and seriously pissed off social critic, comes this polemic, titled Now ain’t the time for your tears, which comes from an long ago Bob Dylan song, sadly applicable again. 

“Long ago, I saw Bob Dylan perform ‘Masters of War’. Ol’ Bob was in a nasty mood that night, and had the band tuned to a wrathful howl. “And I’ll stand over your grave ‘til I’m sure that you’re dead.” That was closer to the noise in my head, because, as of now, I am nobody’s pacifist. A repressive horror bears down. The stench of the new McCarthyism streams from Fox and CNN at short attention-span speed, and accompanied by the theme from Gladiator. And damn me if all the night-vision pride and blitzkrieg glory isn’t punctuated by an older Bob, in new mode, singing how he’s sick of love in a Victoria’s Secret commercial.

Better look to the less compromised Hunter S. Thompson to confirm my fears. “This country has been having a nationwide nervous breakdown since 9/11. A nation of people suddenly broke, the market economy goes to shit, and they’re threatened on every side by an unknown, sinister enemy. These are not philosopher-kings we’re talking about. These are politicians.”

And where is fighting talk of rock and roll in this terrible 21st century? Well muffled, brothers and sisters, coming as it does by courtesy of the mighty Clear Channel and the like, who have seemingly warned the too-malleable tour talent about how they’ll pull the plugs on any anti-war talk.

Hell, I’ve had the plugs pulled on me more times than I can remember. The drummer refuses to stop and a riot starts. Did poor Jim Morrison die in vain? So far it has been the movie stars manning barricades; Martin Sheen, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, and Janine Garafolo have putting their futures on the line, being told by TV pundits to shut their ignorant mouths, as though an actor is not entitled to an opinion, and everyone has forgotten the resume of that old right wing cowboy Ronald Reagan.

It takes Michael Moore to “disgrace” the Oscars while Bono stands mute. Elvis Costello (God bless him) snarls his way through ‘Peace, Love, and Understanding’ while guest-hosting the Letterman show. A Dixie Chick blurts her Texas shame for having Bush as a homeboy, but is then forced to recant like some 12th century nun faced with the instruments and the fire. I hear Eddie Vedder has been sticking it to Bush on Pearl Jam’s Bush League tour, and this has resulted in everything from rousing cheers to mass walkouts depending on which managed news channel you’re watching, or what web page you’re reading. Thurston Moore has his website, and Steve Earle stands tall, but why is Bruce so damned quiet when the shot-and-beer boys from New Jersey, in the Motorhead t-shirts, are baying for the blood of towel-heads and peace-fags — “America, love it or leave it, motherfucker!” — and gung-ho for a crack at Syria or Iran.

But watch out, it moves too fast, the aftermath will be on us before we know it. JFK understood, and so did Khrushchev, but the Crusaders of this New Order are too aggressively dumb to comprehend that the Beast of War takes on a life of its own, shrugs off all control, and the only power that remains in their hands — if they’re lucky — is the choice of striking or not striking the match in the room full of gasoline.

I feel like a fool, regurgitating the clichés of my youth, to actually ask if rock ‘n’ roll is going to be part of the problem or part of the solution, but much more is at stake here than me appearing foolish, or risking any cultivated cynicism. One of the few perks of not dying before you grow old is that you don’t have to fear being mocked as a fool. I no longer give a damn. I know the music I love is at its very pinnacle when it’s played with a no-prisoners passion, and bellows the battle cry of freedom directly into the mouth of Hell. That is a law immutable.

So c’mon, everybody. You’ve taken the drugs, and you’ve taken the cures, you’ve fucked and forgotten the names of the lovers, and you’ve all made far too much money. Like it or not, the time to hesitate is once more through. There’s even a rumour that Bush is back on the bottle. Gotta save the bloody world again.“

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Who woulda thunk it?

“As Iraqi Shiite demands for a dominant role in Iraq’s future mount, Bush administration officials say they underestimated the Shiites’ organizational strength and are unprepared to prevent the rise of an anti-American, Islamic fundamentalist government in the country.”

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The War…

By Alfredo Gonzalez y Aguilar

We can identify this time for the gnash in many mouths.
It could identify the sky for the red and oranges colors on it,
and the black smoke column that it is elevated to the blue,
as an incense sent to the gods of violence.

When the “Intelligent Bombs” (sent by estupid people)
explode and burn hospitals, houses, markets, and kills children
and left hundreds of civilians at raw weather
without roofs, blankets, electricity, water and food.

When the explosion left women widows,
or children without their parents, or mothers without kids.
It identified this time when we saw the faces of bestiality
on the television screens asking for more money,
to kill more and “better”, and chauvinist faces
saying and bragging about high technology
to assassinate entire families, destroy crops,
tore down buildings, stops the production,
and demolish cities that were builded
in thousands of years (throughout innumerable generations),
in just one minute what its costs a lot of time
to erect and create.

We can know that there is a war some place else,
when bodies starts to come in plastic bags
in huge dark-gray planes,
when Generals came to the public
and try to very hard to explain what it has no explanation,
and they have to change tactics
and beg for more money and soldiers
to replace the ones who has been already expended.
And you see expressions in the visages of mothers,
and relatives crying publicly saying in front of cameras
the good persons they were when they were alive.

You know for sure that is a war some place,
when you are carrying a cardboard sign
made by your own hands with color markers
trying to express your self in your anger and frustration,
marching with thousands of fellows country
yelling shibboletes and countersigns in chorus,
and you see the policemen around you
armed to the teeth, ready for combat,
threaten you, provoking you to have
the most minimum excuse to beat you to death.

Your know is there a war some place else
when you can smell the gun powder in the wind,
when you see bloody bodies in crude pain,
when thousands of people shun from cities
in an interminable line with theirs belongings
(the ones they could save)
been carrying in an old cart, trying
to make the impossible to save their children’s lives.

We can easily identified that time for the slaughter,
and the tears in the eyes of the mourning ones,
and see in photos or in TV persons very well dressed
with fine white gloves on their hands
but tints in red blood of the innocents.

Your know is there is a war some place else
when you understand that your inalienable duty
is to make wherever you can to stop that madness,
and you are convinced that only you,
as part of the people, can and have to stop that war.

Los Angeles, Korea Town, April the first 2003

(Alfredo is an artist, painter, and poet from El Salvador, living in Los Angeles.)

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Will you invade them too, Colin?

“United States Secretary of State Colin Powell has said France will suffer consequences for having opposed the US over the war with Iraq.”

Not to mention Germany, Russia, and China…

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There is only one way to check American power

and that is to support the euro, says The Guardian 

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Fox reality show to determine next ruler of Iraq

And you’re really really hoping this is a gag, right?

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Upcoming L.A. peace events

Thu May 1st, 6 PM
Immigrants Right march and rally
Assemble at Olympic & Broadway downtown
March to Federal Building for a rally.

Called by many major immigrant groups, including MIWON, KIWA, Sweatshop Watch, and CHIRLA. ANSWER LA is helping provide logistics. 10,000 people expected.

Sat May 10, 11 am - 6 pm
Emergency Anti-war conference
Sponsored by ANSWER LA

First Baptist Church of L.A.
760 S. Westmoreland Ave.

Speakers, break-out groups, literature
Planning what comes next.
Suggested donation $5-10, no one turned away.
500-1,000 people expected.

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