Pacific Views

The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USA - Dispatch 20

... by Mike Palecek

"I ain't got no home. I'm just a ramblin' round, I go from town to town." -- Woody Guthrie

NOT IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND —These perfect towns of Connecticut make me want to puke.

Yesterday I was heading toward Providence on I-95. I started to shake, sweat, and pulled the Honda off onto the exit for Madison, Conn.

After waiting for one hundred traffic lights I saw to my right a big yard, maybe a park. I pulled around, down the lane, hurried out and got on one knee and dry-heaved on the front lawn of the First Congregational Church of Madison.

You would think the yard would be filled with folks leaning out their windows, beside their cars, on both knees, hurling — to see this sight.

This humongous white church: six pillars on the front porch that two strong men could not reach around and touch pinky fingers.

And behind the pillars, blowing in the breeze. Of course, a gigantic American flag.

This is turning into the I Hate America Tour. I thought I hated America because of it's being a killer. Turns out there are more specific reasons.

Indiana. Democrats. Connecticut.

And I can't get into Canada because I am not rehabilitated from my jail terms in the 1980s. I sent in a crossed-out tax form before I left to protest against Bush & Cheney & Rove killing all those Americans on 9-11. I will soon be wanted in New York State for not paying a stay in your own lane buddy ticket. I did not pay my parking ticket in Iowa City a few weeks ago. And now I am wanted in Rhode Island for failure to appear.

Well, I didn't make it to Providence because I was too sick to drive. Too many cans of Coors in the New Haven Days Inn. No joke. Poisoning myself. How stupid is that?

And therefore, I think that this is an excellent time for us to talk about the rotten churches we have in this country.

From The American Dream:

"A woman pastor from Franklin: We Christians will bomb and rape and steal and lie. We might as well call ourselves tree trimmers as Christians. We have turned it into a nonsense word. ... We will sit there and listen to the pastor. He dares say nothing about the poor or poverty or our own riches and home, our ultimate concern for our own undisturbed routines — nothing about building bombs to kill rather than bread to feed, and Oh, God, we do not remind him.

... He will never mention Thou Shall Not Kill or the true spirit of Christianity and this well be repeated week after week in thousands of churches around the country and we shall never be bothered with the real you, Jesus, who would rather see these crystal crappers laid down brick upon brick and our own phony hearts torn from our chests, because we are scoundrels, Lord."

This morning I am at the Econo Lodge inn Groton, Conn., the home of a humongous United States submarine base. Last night as I was searching for the ball game on the television I came across The Pentagon Channel. The woman announcer had on a military uniform.

At least she was honest. I would think Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings could have been as truthful in their on-camera attire.

Well, last night I had the Yankees-Mariners game on TV with no sound as I watched a documentary on my laptop about the John Kennedy murder.

Put out by the History Channel, it is probably twenty-five years old by now, but a lot of it is the same as what has recently appeared regarding Lyndon Baines Johnson's involvement in killing his boss.

[http://www.kget.com/entertainment/weirdnews/story.aspx?
content_id=69c22563-45ff-46f7-9bcc-99aa5804cffd
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?
docid=1929769365635576415&q=mistress%20LBJ
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13893143/
the_last_confessions_of_e_howard_hunt]

The actor Bruce Willis has recently said that he believes some of those involved in the Kennedy murder are still in the United States government.

I agree.

I remember when I was a kid in Norfolk, Nebraska in the 1960s when all this was happening. Back then we were certain Oswald did it. The Norfolk Daily News told us so, the network news told us so, hometown hero Johnny Carson told us so, and Sacred Heart Catholic Church told us so.

Dan Rather saw the Zapruder film and assured us the shots came from behind. And then they hid the film for a hundred years.

It would have been considered insane to even consider that any of the shots came from the grassy knoll area.

And now we learn that it was Lyndon-effing-Johnson who did it? And that he met the night before, in Texas, with a bunch of oil tycoons, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon and who knows who else?

And when he came out of the meeting he told his mistress, "those s.o.b.'s will never embarrass me again."

Maybe from Vermont I will tell you about the letter I received from Johnny Carson when I asked him about his television interview with Jim Garrison.

Can you imagine what secrets about the current government wait to be revealed? Some that perhaps connect the killings of the 1960s with today's headlines?

["May you live in exciting times." — Big Bird]

And that is why I need to go to Brattleboro today and keep plugging away on this tour.

Remember what Joe Wilson told Dave from Detroit?

"There are no tinfoil hats. These people are capable of anything."

When we really discover the truth about the death of Paul Wellstone, 9-11, the anthrax, the murders of the Kennedy brothers, Martin Luther King Jr., the presidential elections of 2000, 2004 — the front lawns of all the churches in America will be running with puke.

— Mike

_________________________________

*FYI: About my books, from a Jason Miller interview on Tom Paine's Corner.

He asked me which book of mine I liked the best.

I like KGB because it tells the story of prisoners and conspiracy theorists and people slaughtered by Bush Sr. in Panama and women and children in jail visiting rooms and other stuff.

I like Joe Coffee because it tells the truth about the Democratic Party and about farmer revolutionaries and farm kitchen tables.

I like Twins because it talks about a prison burning and about the Twin Cities, which I love, and about robbing Twin Cities banks to give the money to the poor on Hennepin Ave.

I like Outlaw because it talks about a reporter in a small town doing what a reporter in a small town should do, pay attention to the commas and oppose the construction of the prison near town.

I like The Truth because it was written in the run-up to the current war and was written in a rage against pre-war stupidity in Iowa.

I like Bigfoot because I think there is a Bigfoot and I think Bush did 9/11 and I think the CIA killed the Kennedy's, and I like baseball, a lot.

I like Terror Nation because I think it would be cool to be a small town sports reporter who was put into the local mental institution for writing anti-Bush letters to the editor. And a dream of mine would be to cover Iowa sports or coach baseball and have that be good enough.

I like The American Dream because it's like punching America in the nose, it's like punching George W. Bush in the nose and Karl Rove in the nose. And I think those two pussies need to be punched in the nose.

-------------------------
Next stops on The American Dream Book Tour & Protest Across the USA:

May 8, The Book Cellar, Brattleboro, Vermont, 120 Main St.
May 10, Lucy Parsons Center, Columbus Avenue, Boston, 7 pm.
May 11, Elizabeth, New Jersey Catholic Worker, 7 pm.
May 12, Richmond, Virginia [To Be Determined]
May 14, Robin's Books, Philadelphia, 7 pm.
May 16, McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, North Carolina, 7 pm.
May 17, Internationalist Books, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 7 pm.
May 19, Bound To Be Read Books, Atlanta, 7 pm.
May 20, Koinonia Community, Americus, Georgia, 7 pm.
May 21, The Iron Rail Bookstore, New Orleans, 6 pm.
May 22, That Bookstore in Blytheville, Blytheville, Arkansas, 7 pm.
May 23, Monkeywrench Books, Austin, Texas, 8 pm.

Palecek books:

www.iowapeace.com
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

Contact Mike: mpalecek@rconnect.com

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