fort hood shooting coverage: thanks a lot, assholes

Photo by anonymous photographer

Thursday November 5th 2009. A day that will forever live in infamy.

…Or something.

At the Military Base in Fort Hood, TX on that day, Major Nidal Hassan, an army psychologist of Muslim conviction, had the fabulous idea of loading his arsenal and spraying about 100 bullets haphazardly in whichever direction he saw fit, killing 12 soldiers, 1 civilian, and wounding a couple dozen more unlucky passerby’s. What a flippin’ idiot.

So I want to, first of all, stress a few brief points contained in the above paragraph, then we can move on:

1) Fort Hood, TEXAS.

Hmm… Texas. The most liberal, tolerant and progressive state in the Union… What a surprise that this should happen in the home state of the Bush family, the death penalty, the dark side of Roe vs. Wade, and countless other manifestations of bigotry and intolerance. What a fuckin’ SHOCK. Never in our wildest dreams could we imagine that some dude would just go ape-shit in such a haven of tolerance and human decency as Texas, let alone in the ONE military post with the highest suicide rates since the 2003 invasion of Iraq: Fort Hood.

2) An Army Psychologist.

Once again: hmm… The US Army. The one army in the world with a brilliant record of treating it’s soldiers from the trauma and shock of their delightful tours of duty in bloody, war torn, fanatic infested areas. Here is an institution which has failed badly enough at treating it’s wounded and/or psychologically traumatized soldiers and veterans that it has engendered high-profile investigations, law suits, protests, and has discharged many soldiers (by the thousands, mind you) who have since gone to become severely depressed sociopaths, psychopaths, rapists, racists and (hey, whadya know!) religious fanatics and murderers. That is, of course, if they haven’t already taken their own life.

3) Major Nidal Hassan of Muslim Conviction.

Great. Now all we need to know is the guy’s name and his religion, to cry wolf and run around screaming “TERRORIST!!!!”.  As Yogi Berra famously said: it’s Deja Vu all over again…  Seriously though:  who the hell exactly is this dude? And if he DID have some link with radical Islamists, wouldn’t one think that he would have planned and executed a much more elaborate and thought-out rampage – as is the norm, usually, with Islamist cells – rather than look like the fucked up kid from Virginia Tech? Shouldn’t we know a tad bit more? The answer, obviously, is Yes. But you won’t hear it from your government (nope, not from Obama himself) nor from your shining “independent” media.

Ok, now we can move on.

PS: Make sure you check out the links. I know they’re easy to overlook, but they’re quite important.

PALESTINE: A Message to the Israeli Government

To the Israeli Government (but NOT to the Jewish people):

“This scarf i wear, and that you threaten everytime you see it, this scarf that you use to frighten your dependents, that you abuse of everytime you wish to portray the idea of a threat… this scarf is all we have to protect us against your tear gas, it is all we have to protect us from the asbestos from the buildings you bomb, it is all we have to protect us from the fumes, the dust and the smell of death that you spread around our neighborhood… and it is all we have to cover the faces of those you have killed, women and children who have done you no harm, and kids in the street who know nothing of politics and whose worst crime is having hurled a stone at you.

You are a disgrace to the Jewish people, with whom we have lived in HARMONY, not just peace, for hundreds, for THOUSANDS of years, as Nomadic Arabs and Berbers, and as Muslim Arabs and Berbers, as Yemenese, Moroccans, Tunisians and on and on… Why all of a sudden are we mortal enemies??

YOU have CREATED this rivalry.We are not the enemies of the Jewish people, YOU ARE. Your arrogance and your unabashed display of military power reveals a superiority complex that is DANGEROUS and UNACCEPTABLE to ANY decent human being of ANY religion. People who have lived under South Africa’s apartheid government and who have been to Palestine denounce your government’s treatment of Arabs as FAR WORSE. And like that government, you will simply have to GO.

In the meantime, dear Mr. and Mrs. Israeli government, it is my duty, I feel, to lay down a biiiiiiig FUCK YOU, for preventing us from living in peace with our brothers and sisters of the holy land, MY fucking friends, not yours: the JEWS.”

The Fierce Stupidity of Now

(photo taken on election day 2008,  after the original post on 9/11/08. This is by the corner of Ashland and Division in Chicago)

I will admit it: 8 years ago, and after the long Clinton and Grunge years that were the Nineties, little did I care about the upcoming 2000 elections. Nothing to be proud of, naturally, but at the time and at the tender age (tender age?) of 19, nothing to be alarmed about. And let’s face it: I couldn’t even vote, and I still can’t, not in this country anyway.

One day, early that semester, a fellow classmate claims that “If Bush wins, I am moving to Italy.” My initial reaction is to take it as a joke. My second is “well, she’s exaggerating a bit; I’m sure she’d wait and see what would come of it.” As it turns out, however, she was’t joking, and she didn’t wait one bit. A few months after Bush’s, um… “victory,” she’s on her way to the Mediterranean, and It didn’t take long for me to begin to understand.

When shit hit the fan, seven years ago today, and when the Bush agenda could (and did) finally take full swing, I developed a theory: that within the next 10 to 15 years, the American demographics would change dramatically. That Americans would be hit by a severe case of identity crisis and that a large chunk of them would move en-masse out of the country, leaving behind them those who live by the words “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists,” thus turning the USA into a country the world would soon have to confront and to keep it from going berserk on it.

The mass exodus in my “vision” did not happen. Well, not yet. The Bush administration may have calmed down a bit (just a bit) in the past couple years (which, in itself, is frightening and very disconcerting). But something is happening, AGAIN, this election year, and it’s irking me to the core of my being, to the point of catching myself thinking “If McCain and Palin win, I am moving out of here.” Not so much because I think McCain is a hypocrite to himself or that Palin frightens the living crap out of me, and not because they would both screw America (and the world) over even further. That’s not special. This time what really gets to me is not the politicians, it’s not even the men “behind the curtain” and influence groups: it’s the people.

This became clear long before Palin (who apparently, and after a lifetime of strengthening the patriarchal system, is now all about fighting sexism) joined the party. Long before Hillary made a fool out of herself and had her supporters blame it on the “sexist media”. As I said: it’s not the politicians. The politicians are only an outlet for people’s misguided opinions. What I take issue with is the people’s near lack of ability to challenge those opinions, think critically for themselves and take rational action.

Some would argue, justifiably, that the people are being stifled from all sides and are literally trained to be passive, distracted, deprived of any ability to think critically and – to make sure they stay that way – treated as separate entities (black white christian muslim rich poor etc…) to keep them focused on their own differences. They would argue that such setbacks are usually courtesy of your government and the mainstream media, and that the two organizations, often time, seem to be one and the same. And I do agree to a certain level with this stance. That being said, however, and for the sake of my argument today, I will dismiss such a claim as, well, passive, detached, acquiescent and pretty much emanating from the same mindset as the victims they portray. One would think that a strategy employed by governments for centuries – if not millennia – to control their subjects (divide and conquer) would somehow make a dent in human consciousness, causing us to learn our lesson and not be fooled again. One would think.

Now we’re down to hoping…

Let’s be clear on one thing: people who vote for someone just because they remind them of themselves (be it on the basis of gender, social class, or gun collection) and believe them when they claim that “they’re just like them” (George Bush used that line extensively…) should revolt us just as much as those who stand outside picketing peacefully against war, then return to their 4 bedroom homes, 2 cars and their precious paychecks and insurance bills. That fear of challenging the status quo – the fear that jumping outside of your comfort zone will spell the end of the world – is precisely what angers me, ESPECIALLY when that very fear is hidden behind a veil of confrontation, defensiveness and aggression . Fear is one thing, and one thing only: loss of trust in oneself and abandonment of all the strength and power (physical yes, but mainly mental) that each one of us HAS otherwise. Fear of ANYTHING cancels out all of your ability to get MAD; and if someone doesn’t get mad sometime soon, you can kiss your sweet democracy goodbye because, frankly, it already is on its way out, and something tells me you already know that.

If you think the rest of the world sees Americans as idiots, wait till we fuck this thing up.

they take away our jobs

(photographs taken at West Fest, in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood by Damen and Chicago Ave, summer 2008)

the story:

I belong to a kickball league (yes, kickball, I’m 27, sue me) which, to oversimplify it, consists of a horde of drunken degenerate punks that gathers every summer sunday in the Chicago area known as Humboldt Park. Why I do this is completely irrelevant at the moment (but it’s a whole lotta fun, lemme tell ya).

Humboldt park is a predominantly Puerto Rican area a little north-west of town and the main park is always a busy place come summertime. You would think Puerto Ricans would choose perhaps tuesday (or “toozdey”) to swarm the parks, but noooo. It just so happens that, just like the rest of us, Sunday is their day of choice to show up… all speaking Spanish and whatnot… A good time for family and friends, a good time to show off your 1950′s red Ford Crown, and a good time for small, mobile and portable business.

Thus, every so often in between kicking a ball and chugging a Pabst, we’d hear the jingling bells from a good old ice cream vendor‘s cart – we’ve all seen them . Some guy strolling slowly through the park with his cooler. So slow in fact that you wondered whether he came there to sell anything at all… Those dudes have no marketing strategy beyond the fruity stickers garnishing the cooler and the tiny bells, and for good reason: most of them do so without a permit, against city laws; so discretion is key. Unmistakably, however, they look happy; or satisfied at the very least. Selling cold treats on the street – and street food in general – is no novelty in Latin American culture or in any culture for that matter, and it must be a humbling experience to see tons of children everyday, all excited about a bunch of frozen sugary stuff, a universally bonding experience for the kid in us. And yet, though, I am sure that, somewhere inside, they wish their best days were worth a little more than $50. Just a bit.

Cut to about 6 short blocks east of that area one evening, in the Wicker Park / Ukranian Village neighborhood – once an industrial area; a hub for punks and artists; and now recently an upscale yuppy self-important Prius driving mecca – I suddenly heard one bright shiny bell ring in the distance as I was crossing the street. I turned my head in the direction of the sound… and there she was. The lady (trying hard not to call her “the blond chick”) with the ice cream cart.

Or “gellatto,” I should say. Because that’s what she called it, in her overly sweetened inquisitive voice, extending that last syllable just painfully enough to make it sound like an “eww.” Yeah, there she was; strolling down the street at a busy intersection, selling what surely must be some sort of organic ice cream made with milk from south-eastern France; and I am not exactly certain I thought those things had ever existed before that night. Let me clarify what I mean by “those things.” We’re not about to enter a debate on ice-cream ingredients.

A squeaky clean, blond haired, tank-top wearing, capri-jeans sporting, former sorority girl with a “college degree” and a tan, pushing an ice-cream cart with a business logo on it is nothing short of an anomaly in my book, and it quite honestly made me cringe. In a very odd way, this was borderline insulting. I am not so much upset at the girl as I am at the people who decided to implement that idea in that area, and using such a protagonist. But the ultimate anger goes to the ones who decided to ratify and allow a business permit for this shit just because they could afford it. These are the same people who handed out countless other permits, giving green light to ludicrous projects amounting to cultural snobbery. This most notably includes the handing out of permits to build overly-expensive, frankly unattractive “affordable housing” developments and overpriced “organic restaurants” that offer a choice of 12 different buns when you order a goddamn hamburger, thus resulting in the displacing of those (ethnic minorities mostly) who can’t afford soaring property and hamburger values.

The invasion of the suburbanites is upon us… and they want us to eat healthy, be clean, and go to bed early.

Gentrification spreads fast and while it may improve certain things, these improvements almost always come at the cost of something, or someone else at all levels of the cultural spectrum. Even at the ice cream level; and I am sorry, but until you hand out a decent job to our Puerto Rican kids and integrate them in your plan, I’m gonna want my street ice cream poorly packaged, made with basic ingredients, and stored in a dusty sticker laden cooler pushed by a guy who loves doing it and hates it at the same time. That’s why they call it street food. And while we’re at it, guess what, it’s supposed to be noisy too. You don’t whisper sweet “gellatto’s” at passer-by’s ears, you shout it the hell out, and we shout back! Because food is something worth celebrating with others.

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UPDATE: This is exactly the kind of bullshit i’m talking about. This time in Pilsen, another slowly gentrifying neighborhood.