---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 00:02:29 -0700
From: drieux just drieux <drieux@wetware.com>
To: Helen Gore <hyg@onemain.com>, jtmiller@uiuc.edu, joe@countryjoe.com,
webmaster@BRIGHT-IDEA.COM, mwbibb@ARK.SHIP.EDU, epm2@LEHIGH.EDU,
mruland@erols.com, sixties@lists.village.virginia.edu
Cc: jhw woodyatt <jhw@wetware.com>
Subject: Re: near and long term fixes for the cause of PTSD
> on 04/22/2001 18:34, Helen Gore at hyg@onemain.com wrote:
[..]
> When you see that IT'S ALL POLITICAL, you'll see that we're all on the same
> side, or should be.
>
> Regards,
> Martin via Helen's account
Maybe that is the core failure we are having in this not quite a discussion.
Maybe the presumption that it is 'all political' is too myopic a context?
I notice countryjoe's place in the mailing list, and I do not mean to bore
him with the ongoing comedic and clearly unintended parts of the process
that he has unintentionally played in my life.
When I was a kid, and my father was the first part of the house to have
'bell bottoms' - because my step mother thought they were 'cool' - along
with the fact that we got the first 'rock and roll' albums - one of which
happened to have the cleaned up 'fish cheer' that 'corporate america' would
allow out on vinyl, there was a growing awareness that there was more going
on than merely the
Freedom Under Clark Kerr
which would give us the FSM. Maybe there were more 'cosmic' forces at work
in the process. An irony festival that I love to share, when I was swapping
email with a 'brother' who had served in the 'russian' "vietnam" up in
afghanistan, and the common ground he and I shared, about what it was like
to execute on the rhetoric of
"Ask not what your nation can do for you...."
while the sons of the political apparachniki were as equally engaged in
'porking bertha of the khokholzt' as were our current president, and his
former, and the VP before him.... and being so impolite as to post a query
to a 'veterans group' for the correct phrasing in russian, as mine is
limited to merely 'engineering issues' - if you can imagine the complexity
of trying to explain first to one's housemates, and then to the nice persons
at the Sears maintenance counter, that one needed the sort of 'pump' that
is similar to the type used on russian first generation nuclear submarines,
but is installed in american washing machines.... And finding that asking
my english language speakers how to say,
"but the navy is the senior service"
would get the response from english speakers, outside of the UK's Royal
Navy, as being 'non-sensical'..... Knowing full well the prejudices of the
various inter-service rivalries that infest my trade....
So you ask, ok, what does this have to do with country joe? He was so
impertinent a 'vietnam era veteran' as would ask to have the moving wall
brought to Bezerkley, as a part of the 'peace process' that would allow
us all to come and meander through the side streets .... And we would,
as a part of our culture, use the current communicative means, to sort
out who had the time 'to take the watch' - and as I would ask brother
C4Bob - "take for action, and inform me where I stand on the watch bill."
because that was the way we did it before - and we came out to hold
perimeter guard, to offer our brother's access to the memories that they
might not be able to touch, because they didn't have the 'where withall'
to make it to DC.... and still they would haunt us, beyond the perimeter
lights, because they just could not make the gap to come inside, and deal
with their memories..... but we stood there.... a vigil, holding the line.
When the 'technical glitches' occurred, we did as we were trained, in spite
of our former service of employment, and any 'interservice rivalry', sorted
ourselves out as best as we could for those best able to solve the problem.
"Work The Problem...."
and the nice person from the mayor's office was 'amazed' at the fact that we
really did not care about who had to do what that had to be done - because
we showed up 'to take for action as required' - and didn't worry about the
little things that might be obliged, we were there to 'stand the watch bill
as assigned'....
Yeah, You are right.... there are those who do not 'get it' and allow their
employer's to 'supress them' - but this sounds awfully weak to those of us
who have made one heap of all of our winnings, and placed it all on one
chance of pitch and toss, to get to the USA, with $65 in our pocket, our
world on our back, and an address of people from the old country.
The next time around I would be dismounting from active duty service, and
would be blessed by the fact that my last generation of hippies were wired
in enough to know that the VVAW was bringing in Country Joe and his folks
to do an "alternative veteran's day celebration" at the ratskeller in
madison and so clearly it was the unequivical choice of where we were gonna
be that night.... And we would watch as the fire lights told us we might
not be wrong about rolling a doobie under the table, in spite of the
presensce of those who were not too sure how to deal with the fact that
there was way too many camo covered vets, burning weed in the night, for
those who were not there to listen to the lilting remains of
"go go, Johnny Rambo...."
as the picker sang his song not merely into the night, but into a history
he scarcely could understand or imagine, was the presience of the yet to
arrive '30th anniversary of the summer of love' that I would ask my new
generation of hippies to provide me with flanking support - because I was
still not sure in myself what ghosts I would have to deal with to be there
in S.F. for the party my dead could not attend.... and we laughed as we saw
the clear sign from God:
'why not call in sick,
and take on the day?'
Maybe the real problem is not political.....
Maybe it really is 'spiritual' in nature.
Maybe the real problem for those who are 'suppressed' by their employers,
and must face the 'trauma' is that they haven't yet decided how to opt in,
or out, of supporting their 'digger brothers' in the process of
create the vision you describe....
rests in their unwillingness to 'revision' the process..... an unpleasantry
that those of us who have had to resolve, on a day to day basis, why we
still put up with the 'civilian pukes' have so internalized as a part of
the process, that we are no longer even surprised to find that we have the
vast array of publications about 'software options' as will help us overcome
some minor technical problem with 'web page scraping' that our employer has
not even considered as an option!
So yeah, we may not 'laugh' appropriately at the company flunky who heads up
our 'division' for 'corporate' - because we understand jokes he has never
even thought about - and laughed at the cosmic moments that only lao tzu
would know well enough not to write about in his 'exit permit'.....
maybe a core problem that the new-new left shares with their New-Neo-Con
breatheran across the political aisle, is that perchance the problem
never really was 'political' to begin with....
Maybe the real issue is keeping faith with the dead, and plowing furrows for
those not yet old enough to know why their parents are INSANE.
Or as I like to say, my son david gave me the grounds to forgive my father
the things I never really understood about how well he did with what he had.
If I am lucky, who knows, a new generation of hippies will offer my son the
safe haven they offered his father.... And he will stand to the paripets,
like his grandfather before him... to hold a line, so that his hippies will
not have to know what unpleasantries could befall them.... and between the
polls, the vast wasteland in the middle will have to sort out which parts
of their philosophical failures are patchable with software, and which with
a mere kharma repair kit.....
Maybe the core problem is that it really is not political....
it's about falling in love, and doing what must be done....
ciao
drieux
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Apr 25 2001 - 20:12:45 EDT