War Preparers Anonymous by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut on the @@ scheme

"Compulsive preparers for World War III,
in this country or any other,
are as tragically and, yes, as repulsively
addicted as any stockbroker passed out
with his head in a toilet in Port Authority Bus Terminal.

"For an alcoholic to experience a little joy,
he needs maybe three ounces of grain alcohol.
Alcoholics, when they are close to hitting bottom,
customarily can't hold much alcohol.

"If we know a compulsive gambler who is dead broke,
we can probably make him happy with a dollar to bet
on who can spit further than someone else.

"For us to give a compulsive war-preparer a fleeting moment
of happiness, we may have to buy him three Trident submarines
and a hundred intercontinental ballistic missiles mounted
on choo-choo trains.

"If Western Civilization were a person --

"If Western Civilization, which blankets the world now,
as far as I can tell,
were a person --

"If Western Civilization, which surely now includes the Soviet Union
and China and India and Pakistan and on and on, were a person --

"If Western Civilization were a person,
we would be directing it to the nearest meeting of
War Preparers Anonymous.
We would be telling it to stand up before the meeting and say,
'My name is Western Civilization. I am a compulsive war-preparer.
I have lost everything I ever cared about.
I should have come here long ago.
I first hit bottom in World War 1.'

"Western Civilization cannot be represented by a single person, of course, but a single explanation for the catastrophic course it has followed during this bloody century is possible. We the people, because of our ignorance of the disease, have again and again entrusted power to people we did not know were sickies.
"And let us not mock them now, any more than we would mock someone with syphillis or smallpox or leprosy or yaws or typhoid fever or any of the other diseases to which the flesh is heir. All we have to do is separate them from the levers of power, I think.
"And then what?
"Western Civilization's long, hard trip back to sobriety might begin.

found poem in "Fates Worse Than Death" page 134, 135

The Great Deglobalization

1 sky needs 350
350 needs 1 sky
they both need
a political party

do i have to tell you why?

peace department needs teaparty
teaparty needs peace department
we can cut tax dollar in half! @ home (eco)
& make the world safe for
EVERYONE
freedom
democracy
Great Transition Great Relocalization
via Great Reskilling
[fullstops the killing]

give the children
all the skills
they need
for
joy!

from a letter by 100 scientists

(i) The planet is warming due to increased concentrations of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. A snowy winter in Washington does not alter this fact.
(ii) Most of the increase in the concentration of these gases over the last century is due to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
(iii) Natural causes always play a role in changing Earth's climate, but are now being overwhelmed by human-induced changes.
(iv) Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.
(v) The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.

virtual virtue doesn't cut it

"Tax his  tobacco,
Tax his  drink,
Tax him if  he
Tries to  think.

Tax his  cigars,
Tax his  beers,
If he  cries
Tax his  tears."

we do need to tax vices
addictive pleasures
we can't tax thinking
or feelings

it's taxes for war
that kill them and us
taxes to slop
corporate hogs

exxon's 40 billion in profits
goes untaxed year after year
that's what i hear
techno-pacified americans
cocooned & entertained
pay no attention to capital's gains
that's what i fear

war is waste peace is prosperity

big weapons no good against anthrax
big weapons can't stop dirty nukes
big weapons compound chemo messes
big weapons have no purpose or use

weapons of mass destruction are tiny
just a sneeze, a suitcase, a parcel
give no person a reason to use them
and get rid of a huge useless arsenal

peace is extremely cost effective
gives us friends everywhere in the world
& it's the only way to stop the 6th extinction
let the 7th generation have a whirl

ten palin haiku - vote now

17 syllables to deplore
discovery's eye sore

"Red drops on white snow
A thousand howling deaths reaps
A million dollars"

Edited to:
Red blood on white snow
A thousand howling deaths reap
A million dollars

much better
"deaths reaps" is awful
blood stronger than "drops"
the last haiku on the list
as good as the one I voted for

should have used "instant run off voting"
get people used to it
3 haiku better than one

Friends of the Earth
can you get together with 1 Sky and 350
ask people to form a deeply conserving
far right T for Transition Party?
a 7th Generation Party?
a long term future for speciation party?
a deep ecology party calling for
fiscal responsibility
balanced budgets
get rid of Federal Income Tax
super simple 3 flat taxes for rich, not so rich
the poor too can participate
phase out War Dept. 10% a year
phase in a tiny budget super-efficient Peace Dept.
costs 1% of so-called "Defense Budget"
accomplishes much, much, more homeland security
moves us steadily
toward a sustainable
joyous
future

skills for joy!

1 sky needs 350
350 needs 1 sky
they both need
a political party

do i have to tell you why?

peace department needs ron paul
ron paul needs peace department
we can cut tax dollar in half!
& make the world safe for
freedom
democracy
relocalization
deglobalization
give the children
all the skills they need
for
joy!

missing subjects

Dear Ron Paul,

Peace is the subject of my message.
Eco-balance is next on my list.
Great-great-grandchildren unto the 7th generation
should be at the top of your list.
Followed by Peace.
And Eco-balance.
Why is your list
missing the most
important subjects
when you and I think alike
about the Constitution?
I know, "bring ALL the troops home"
is about minding our own business.
But it is also about peace and eco-balance
and a sustainable future for our 7th generation
because those troops abroad need to be brought home today
to plant trees for tomorrow.
Peach trees.
Pear trees.
Quince and apple.
Citrus trees in the gulf coast district.
Permaculture trees appropriate
to each of the 435 districts.

Best wishes and many thanks
for your leadership on many issues.
Wish you had come up with the courage
to join Kucinich in impeaching Bush/Cheynie
for their many crimes against the Constitution
and humanity.

Git Out Of Our House now

repeal 16th amendment
to make this april o.k.

pass the 28th amendment
GOOOH is coming your way

same rule of law for all
let's clean House this fall

separate unequal health care for reps?
can't be sued for sex harassment?
retire with full pay after 2 years?
let 435 citizen-reps pass term limit
of one 2 year term only to become law
the day after we retire with full pay
by 2012 we'll deserve it
for cleaning House
so thoroughly
creating peace
& eco-balance
returning joy
to children's
lives

bring all the troops home

bring them home
it's so simple
bring them home

well regulated militia
in each state
planting trees instead of hate

invest in peach trees
give a peach to a sick child

invest in bombs
democracy defiled

support your local thinkthank

a strong interest in prioritizing

1) eco-balance
2) peace-play
3) the full and free expression of young children as dancers
drummers poets singers cartoonists instrument players
mimes sculptors comedians dramatizers

Wanted: people who will "crawl for Congress" as candidates
in all 435 Congressional districts for 12 to 20 minutes a day
as 7th generation paleocons with the above priorities

immediate goals and action
cultivating the free and full expression of children
comes first because it is deeply satisfying
and the peace movement is small elderly
needs many young people who are fully alive
not technococooned
not alienated
not addicted
not passive consumers
a large and lively peace movement
diverting resources
from stewpit counterproductive wasteful wars
to ecological problem solving
will make radicle (rooted) decentralism
Jeffersonian yeoman farming communities
free states
retribalization
participatory democracy & sociable socialism
local music & dance traditions
possible and sustainable now
& for the 7th generation
& beyond

peace ecological balance children @ play
homo ludens collaboratus (r species being) the American way
this is the mom the libertarian apple pie has been missing
Old Mothernature OMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm
so simple -- "mom & apple pie" the very pie mother mary
imagined eve cooking up for her man adam full of know-how
modest nourishing reality-as-it-is-Nature feeds us every day
in every way no more no less, enuf for life -- free of stuffff

National Glory same olde story

from Dr. Benjamin Rush's Plan for a Peace Office


In order more deeply to affect the minds of the citizens
of the United States with the blessings of peace,
by contrasting them with the evils of war,
let the following inscriptions be painted
upon the sign which is placed over the door
of the War Office.
1. An office for butchering the human species.
2. A Widow and Orphan making office.
3. A broken bone making office.
4. A Wooden leg making office.
5. An office for the creating of public and private vices.
6. An office for creating a public debt.
7. An office for creating speculators, stock jobbers, and bankrupts.
8. An office for creating famine.
9. An office for creating pestilential diseases.
10. An office for creating poverty, and the destruction of liberty,
and national happiness.
In the lobby of this office let there be painted
representations of all the common military instruments of death,
also human skulls, broken bones, unburied and putrefying dead bodies,
hospitals crowded with sick and wounded soldiers,
villages on fire, mothers in besieged towns
eating the flesh of their children,
ships sinking in the ocean, rivers dyed with blood,
and extensive plains without a tree or fence, or any object,
but the ruins of deserted farm houses.
Above this group of woeful figures, –
let the following words be inserted,
in red characters to represent human blood,
"NATIONAL GLORY."

inventory of failures {n=17}

each flop a get moving shout

no hooks, no rippling tunes, i end up on the prong
afto eneh to paluki! in Greek

follow kc's tiv example of putting out what's coming thru
conscience of the lineage, here's what i dugh

peace echo-balance sounding-grooving what-we-knew
gainst text interpretation thru & thru

o when the saints in every key
shu fly don't bother me

we become pure music when we die
so stay on the path
musicdance replaces politics&religion-as-usual
artists-off-the-reservation
becoming plain 's pokin people
our only goal
avoid the wrath

the point of on the page is to pack more meanings in
punish more different sighs type faces
more 'confusion to the french!'
more mr. re
more m.c. k9 hornblower

&
put today's words into sad trad songs

answering pablo's questions

steady state economics would give time back to us
in more equal shares
time for peace
time for children

time for scooters, vacation, fall
time to discover the balance
between Nature's call and Human Nature's response
in an infinite variety of configurations

world right side up & soon

mary don't you weep, in still moments i hear you sighing
catholic worker woodcuts can bring on healthy crying

christians absorbed by empires in endless unchanging sames
now prince of peace just another player in the foul war games

tuba mira spargens sonum horn miraculous scattering sound
steady 'persistence of residual practices' turns world upside down

mom & apple pie

peace ecological balance children @ play
homo ludens collaboratus (r species being) the American way
this is the mom the libertarian apple pie has been missing
Old Mothernature OMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm
so simple -- "mom & apple pie" the very pie mother mary
imagined eve cooking up for her man adam full of know-how
modest nourishing reality-as-it-is-Nature feeds us every day
in every way no more no less enuf for life -- free of stufffff

3 basic principles

3 basic principles
3 wheels that reverse
peace ecology children
lift the curse

waging peace
we face the present
put the power tribes
to rest

ecological balance
slows us up
increases
zest

children's joy
followed closely
7th generation
blesst

war is waste

war is waste peace is prosperity

big weapons no good against anthrax
big weapons can't stop dirty nukes
big weapons compound chemo messes
big weapons have no purpose or use

weapons of mass destruction are tiny
just a sneeze, a suitcase, a parcel
give no person a reason to use them
and get rid of a huge useless arsenal

peace is extremely cost effective
gives us friends everywhere in the world
& it's the only way to stop the 6th extinction
let the 7th generation have a whirl

tons of poems
but so lite they float
from pencil to pen
to the great processing moat
surrounding the castle of mind

a castle full of dungeons
few dragons they float now
in friendly children's books
lacking fierceness in fantasy
'it's just a game'

that's what the recliner biker had to say
yesterday after the peace demo
no big or little pharma for him
rather die than live that way
found his paying gig
amongst the aged tucked away

have a strong interest in prioritizing
1) ecological balance
2) peace play
3) the full and free expression of young children as dancers
drummers poets singers cartoonists instrument players
mimes sculptors comedians dramatizers

Wanted: people who will "crawl for Congress" as write-in candidates
in all 435 Congressional districts for 12 to 20 minutes a day
as libertarian paleocons with the above priorities in play

immediate goals and action
cultivating the free and full expression of children
comes first because it is deeply satisfying
and the peace movement is small elderly
desperately needs young people who are fully alive
not technococooned
not alienated
not addicted
not passive consumers
a large and lively peace movement
diverting resources
from stupid counterproductive wasteful wars
to ecological problem solving
will make radicle (rooted) decentralism
Jeffersonian yeoman farming communities
free states
retribalization
participatory democracy
local music & dance traditions
possible and sustainable now
for the 7th generation
& beyond