Pacific Views
You've been had. You've been took. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok. - Malcolm X
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| Pacific ViewsYou've been had. You've been took. You've been hoodwinked, bamboozled, led astray, run amok. - Malcolm X |
... by Mike Palecek
What you do is of little significance, but it is very important that you do it. — Ghandi
UNDISCLOSED LOCATION BETWEEN THE INTERSTATE & THE WOODS — I made it into Wisconsin this afternoon.
Slipped across the border in between a Fed Ex van and a white Ford pickup.
Shhh. I think there might be Canadians in the hall.
If I am captured in Wisconsin I suspect I will be sent back to Minnesota — just as I was sent packing from Canada yesterday and deported to North Dakota — then no doubt, back to Iowa, where I will be tortured, without a doubt, by endless hours of being exposed to coffee chatter, country music, nine hours of Rush Limbaugh every day, and no minimum speed limit.
I can't go back to Iowa. I won't.
I won't be taken alive.
Shhhh.
The next time I go back to Iowa, it's for life.
I can't do that kind of time.
Shhh!
Somewhere around two o'clock this afternoon, driving south on Highway 53 out of Duluth, headed for Eau Claire, I saw a bald eagle in the ditch, sitting on a deer carcass.
I hate road kill. That's one of the worst things about driving so much, seeing all the dead animals.
In Kansas I saw a couple of coyotes.
In Nebraska I saw deer waiting on the shoulder for cars and trucks to jump in front of, just to get it over with. In Iowa, I saw raccoons getting nudged by cars driven by elderly couples and staring down the white hairs with angry scowls.
Here's something I was not aware of.
Everyone in Wisconsin works on a dairy farm. Not the same farm, of course.
And because dairy farms never-ever shut down — milk does not take a holiday — that means that nobody in Wisconsin ever has a day off. And so anyone you see working any other job, mowing lawns, putting out fires, waiting tables, running the friendly bank, comes from somewhere else, an immigrant. A day without a Minnesotan, they couldn't do it here. It would spell disaster.
Hey.
I was passing through Park Rapids, Minnesota earlier today and I was stopped at a light and looked to my left and saw this very impressive two-story brick firehouse with two equally impressive big, red fire trucks inside, and guys inside walking fast with their heads down.
Okay.
We take fires very seriously.
Why couldn't we also have a big, brick building in every town and big, shiny trucks, and when somebody is lonely, or has to make a choice between working for an asshole boss or facing an angry wife, these guys put on their big, red helmets and slick yellow coats and leap into the truck.
How about if somebody wants to work and has little kids and a wife and is walking to Wisconsin from about a million miles away, just to try to get a little house for the wife and the kids on a school bus route.
Hey.
Here's a little more about my book, "The American Dream" — the reason I am sitting here in a safe house in Wisconsin, surrounded by resistance fighters smoking thin brown cigarettes, wearing black berets, and sporting Tommy guns over their shoulders, on the lookout for white-haired couples trying to return me to Iowa.
Okay, listen up — there are kind of three layers to why it's called "The American Dream."
One: our history is fake: Gulf of Tonkin, John Kennedy assassination, Robert Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King Jr. assassination, stolen elections, 9-11, propaganda distributed daily by our mainstream press organizations, etc. etc.
Two: the obscenity of pursuing the American Dream while people all over the world struggle to get enough to eat each day.
Three: the futility of pursuing the American Dream — we work two, three, twelve jobs in order to give our children a "good" life — get up at 5 a.m. to take the kids to daycare, then 4 a.m., then 3:30, and people like the Bush family, and other very, very wealthy people keep moving the carrot further and further out of our reach. We can never-ever reach it. The game is rigged.
Hey.
I remember sitting in The Waiting Room of the vehicle search garage thing at the Pembina Port of Entry yesterday. The sign on the wall said "Homeland Security — Making the United States and Canada Safer."
Really?
You really think so?
George W. Bush and Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and nine other guys did 9-11.
Immigration Persons — what you need to do is go set up your blockade and sensors and computers and stuff in Karl Rove's driveway. Stand there with your bulletproof vests and handguns. Don't let him into the country.
Putting up a fence across Mexico or Canada to keep poor people out, or people wanting to go read books in Canada is kind of ... well ... stupid.
Let the poor people in, send fire trucks down there to the Arizona border to get them up here as fast as possible so they can get their kids into school and don't make them walk all the way and have to hide from dumb guys to do it.
And let people read books wherever they want. I don't think that's the problem.
The problem is that George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld carried out 9-11 themselves and murdered Senator Paul Wellstone in order to start a war and get rich.
Mr. Immigration Man in the big garage thing. Come over here. Yep. Stand right there. No. Little bit left. Stop.
Open the hood and take a look inside.
There's your leak, and those guys didn't sneak in here inside the hubcap of an old Honda Accord. They were driven in by limousine.
See, there's your problem. Right there. Yep.
American Goober, c'mere. Canadian Goober, c'mere.
See? Right thar. Yyyeepp ...
Hey.
Did I ever tell you about the time I woke up a whole Wisconsin state park because I thought there was a bear eating our Doritos in our campsite, and it was really a raccoon? People came running from all over the campground carrying torches and axes and shit. And I had to say, oops, I guess it was a raccoon. Really? I thought I told you about that.
Nah, forget it.
Hey.
See you in Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago.
Madison, April 21, 2 pm., Rainbow Books
Milwaukee, April 22, 6 pm., Cream City Collective, 732 E. Clarke St.
Chicago: April 23, New World Resource Center, 1300 N. Western Ave., 5
pm.; 8 pm. Unitarian Church, Park Forest.
April 24, Revolution Books, 530 pm.; Barbara's Books, Halsted St., 730
pm.
— Mike
Palecek books:
www.amazon.com (search: Mike Palecek)
http://www.cwgpress.com
http://www.mainstaypress.org/
http://www.algora.com/2002/Prophets.htm
http://www.howlingdogpress.com/bigfoot.htm
http://www.badgerbooks.com/books/twins.shtm
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Posted by PV Guest at April 23, 2007 10:01 PM | Guest Writings | TrackBack(1) | Technorati links |