It's on the Tip of My Tongue...

What should we call our new form of government?

This can’t be a Republic any more. I’d say the Republic died November 4, 1952, when Truman let the National Security Agency start up without the knowledge of the citizens or most of Congress, but that’s just me.

Some other folks say the Republic ended the first time Congress neglected to either declare or put a stop to a war. Others blame Congress for a hundred years of dragging its heels on civil rights legislature forcing the people to fall back on the courts. Unexpected results: (1) George Bush, 5-4, 2000. (2) The Eminent Domain Principle neutered, 5-4, 2005. (3) The obliteration of First Amendment rights enabling public employees to protect the public, 5-4, last week.

Need more proof? Our executive branch now conducts searches without warrants and regularly tries to deny habeas corpus. Our elected president abuses signing statements to excuse the selective enforcement of laws, openly defying the power of Congress to make those laws.

It’s now deemed illegal to exercise the right of free speech except in a “free speech zone.” Military funerals have been nationally designated, now and forever, as free from free speech. Cries of “Protestor!” from security at the president’s appearances are signals to use violent force to remove and arrest such people as wear anti-Bush T-shirts, who are treated as enemies of the state.

Many have already been asking the question I began with, and come up with ideas of their own. Some say we should imitate Rome and call our government Empire. I think that the Romans were not precise enough; yes, it was an empire, but it was so much more. Let’s be precise where the Romans weren’t, because we care more about who we are.

Some say we now have a Fascist government. They point first to Mussolini’s definition: the repudiation of pacifism, the glorification of war, the claim to nevertheless be pro-life, the rejection of class struggle and explicit rejection of collective responsibility, the idea that citizens need to be preemptively deprived of freedoms that might only potentially be “harmful,” and the right of the state to assert itself in the world, by virtue of its power.

If all that doesn’t get you to buy the name, proponents point to Dr. Lawrence Britt’s Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, all of which apply to our government, from (1) “Powerful and Continuing Nationalism,” (2) “Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights,” all the way through to (13) “Rampant Cronyism and Corruption” and even (14) “Fraudulent Elections.” (Note the universal use by both parties of gerrymandering to lock incumbents into office -- a war on the representational system.)

I don’t think we should call our government Fascist, even if it fit everyone’s definition, because Fascism comes from the Italian Fascismo, and by golly, we speak American here. So we should have our own American name for our form of government.

“Totalitarianism” is technically valid, but like “Empire” hardly descriptive enough, and our leadership is not so narrow as the kind of one party dictatorship the term usually conjures up. George-Dick Bush-Cheney is not solely in control. He/it has to share power with Judge Roberts, Exxon, Halliburton and even some Democrats, like Zell Miller, for example.

So we would need to refer to what we have as some kind of oligarchy, but what kind is it?

For a clue I looked up the origin of the word “Republic.” It comes from the Latin res (meaning “thing” or “matter”) + public (meaning “public.”) So it means a Public Thing. Clearly, what we’ve got now is no kind of Public Thing. What we’ve got is a secret, private thing. We have a government of dissembling and disguise.

So my own recommendation is (tada!): Redissimulation.

Here it is, used in a sentence:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to The Redissimulation for which it stands, one oligarchy under Bush’s imaginary God, entrenched and unaccountable, with liberty and justice, but not for long.

Pigs Deny Sucking

My favorite line from all the movies put together: "It's not my fault!" – as said by both Han Solo and Lando Calrissian in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back.

I've always dreamed of an opportunity to say that, dramatically, while a wookie moans behind me. Other things I've wished I could say, dramatically, with or without a wookie on hand, are, "I sense a disturbance in The Force," and, "You still have much to learn, my young apprentice." I don't think I'll ever get the chance to pull those off convincingly, but surely I should be able to manage "It's not my fault!" at least if I drop the requirement of a wookie accompaniment.

What started me thinking about this recently was the announcement by Prince Charles' royal personal secretary that His Royalness didn't do it, "it" being unspecified.

Why didn't I ever think of that? All this time since Empire Strikes Back I could have been shouting "It's not my fault!" at random intervals without ever indicating what it was that wasn't my fault.

I'm going to do it right now: It's not my fault! And I'm not telling you what it is I didn't do. All I'll tell you is that someone may have said I was witnessed in a compromising incident, which is all England will let you know about Charles. By the way I don't know what Charles and that other man were compromising about, although I think it had something to do with the placement of their genitalia, and I scarcely see how you can call that a "compromise", but I guess to some people it's all about the art of negotiation. Anyway, I didn't do it either.

I also never said I wanted to come back in my next life as a feminine hygiene product. But I would like to come back as a rich prince of a constitutional monarchy.

Speaking of not doing anything, in the very same paper where I learned that Prince Charles didn't do it I read that the City of Tacoma didn't do it either. When it rains it pours, and when it doesn't rain all the water everywhere gets sucked up into space by giant planet-sucking pigs, right? That's what I've noticed.

The City of Tacoma has been sued for not protecting Crystal Brame from her husband and Tacoma's police chief David Brame, who had threatened her and physically abused her. You may recall that last April David Brame eventually murdered Crystal after Tacoma apparently did precisely nothing to protect Crystal, even though she specifically asked for help from Tacoma officials.

What Tacoma says now is, "It's not our fault!" Furthermore they say that if it were their fault it would also be other people's fault too, so there. For example the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote about the Brames' divorce one day before the murder-suicide. This proves that the P-I knew that David Brame was a threat to Crystal Brame, and yet the P-I did not do anything to protect her.

I mean, think of that! The P-I had almost all the same facts that Tacoma did (all except for maybe some that Tacoma was hiding, but hey, that's another issue), and yet the P-I didn't take David Brame's gun away from him, did they? No! And the P-I didn't suspend him as police chief either! So why isn't the P-I being sued, huh? That's what Tacoma wants to know.

Other entities whose fault it could be as much as Tacoma's include Pierce County and Gig Harbor, because the Brames lived there and they didn't take David's gun away from him, and an on-line publisher who didn't do all the same stuff the P-I didn't do.

I have a confession to make. I read the article the P-I printed the day before the murder. And I also did not suspend David Brame or disarm him.

So what do Han Solo, Lando Calrissian, Tacoma, Prince Charles, Gig Harbor, the P-I, and I have in common? We didn't do it, it's not our fault.

Bread and Circuses

Q. What is a meta phor, anyway?

A. Metaphors are bready things.

Good metaphors are the sacramental bread for our eucharists of meaning. (Not to be confused with the sermons of those eucharists, which are like similes.) Unpopular metaphors are fruitcakes. Over-extended metaphors are burnt toast. The current metaphor will be a little pile of smoking ashes by the time I am through with it.

From what I have said so far, it should be clear that anyone who would write, and publish, poetry without metaphors would eat peanut butter with a spoon, in public.

The True Poet does not use just any metaphor. Plain white bread will not do. The True Poet is, him- or her- self, a baker. If s/he is going to use stale bread, it will at least be his/her OWN stale bread, not store bought.

Nevertheless, there are one or two excellent off-the-shelf metaphors suitable for use by the Lazy Poet.

The Mother of All Metaphors

Grains barely need us to grow.

They are glorified grasses.

They are facts of life.

Facts that would fill fields forever

if we didn't bother to mow.

But from the field to the table

hands must intervene.

As from the fields to the poet

thoughts must intervene.

"Take this, and eat"

is not an abstract proposition,

it is an offer of humanity,

of hands AND thoughts.

Of course, as that poem illustrates so well by its deficiencies, poetry doth not live by bread alone. It also desires the meat of meaning itself, the cheese of rhyme, and the lettuce, tomato and onion of rhythm.

I will finish this month with a poetic cheeseburger:

A Brief Defense of Free Bread and Circuses

Many people have thought

free bread and circuses brought

the Roman Empire down so low.

And the same also say

that in a similar way

our own will collapse, you know.

They say it's a shame,

and the poor are to blame,

for demanding those shows and dough.

But I know it's a lie,

empires naturally die,

with or without the side-show,

And in dying ooze pus,

namely waste and surplus.

For me? - I`d like my share to go.