Subkommander Dred

Dr Elks Medicine Show

2006-03-02T13:52:00.000-08:00

Dr Elk’s Medicine Show

Blasting west along I-10, Fiona was in the last stretch of a thousand mile hell-ride she had begun long before dawn this morning. Stopping only for gas, food and exhaustion, the Dakar had remained a faithful servant, as bike and rider… woman and machine coming together on this mad dash to the Gulf. As the mendacity and mediocrity of her institutional and governmental leaders expanded to record (if not outright criminal) incompetence, her anger and frustration with the response to such a public health catastrophe grew with each passing day. How could a person look at what was happening along the Gulf Coast and not feel an obligation to help?
Fiona was now in the last few miles of  her high speed, cross country run, and she was very tired, buffeted by wind and rain squalls, slowing but never stopping her. She had ridden cross country before on a bike, years ago as a wild teen dropout, bought a motorcycle and took to the road. But that was a long time ago, and her body was not as quick to forgive episodes like this nowadays. This was the first time she had tried such a long run in such short time. Given the urgency, even at 2 weeks post impact, things were as bad, if not worse in some places, one of which she was headed to know. As Fiona was contemplating this thought and others, suddenly the 650 cc GS motorcycle (with attached sidecar, packed to the gunwhales with MRE’s, bottled water, assorted tools and survival gear) had a near-miss with the debris of a metal billboard. A gust of wind had picked up the piece of sheet metal from the side of the road, hurling it like a missile, missing the front tire and slamming with a ‘thud’ off Fiona’s crash armor. She barely had enough time to realize what had happened, much less react, and it was all she could do after the fact to pull the bike over to the side of the highway, dismount, undo her full face helmet, and puke.
   “Damn that little prick! Damn him all to hell!” she screamed, cursing the small, stupid man in the Executive Mansion for the 1728th time in the past 24 hours, reverting to Charleton Heston Mode for emphasis. She made a very weird site out there along the side of the highway, a BMW Motoraad ridden by a small woman with short red hair and lots of freckles dressed as a fugitive from some kind of ‘Mad Max’ alternate universe, hurling her lunch and cursing a blue streak. Fiona had been on the road since before dawn, and though she was very close to her destination, it had been the most stressful and dangerous motorcycle ride of her life.
Fiona stood after a few moments, and steadying herself, walked back over to the bike, fished around in the bowels of the tank bag and took out a thermos of stale, cold coffee. She took are large swig, swished it around, spat on the pavement, repeated, and took a large gulp. It tasted awful, but she needed the caffeine.
  “So, this is Mississippi.” she said to herself, looking off into the evening gloom. But instead of the usual fry shacks and used car dealerships, it was utter destruction. Suburban McMansions ripped apart like Lincoln logs. SUV’s by the dozens floating in the bayou. A 150 foot, 300 ton shrimper, the Spartina Marie, lay on its side, 2 miles from the coast. This close to ground zero, no structures of any significance remained undamaged, and a great many completely destroyed. The ugly blight of giant metal highway billboards had been turned into an abstract artist’s version of a post-industrial-apocalyptic mutant forest of scrap metal.
     Fiona took another good, long swig of bitter coldness. She could see more debris and dead animals along the side of the road. Due to the danger of flying debris and worsening weather from Rita, Katrina’s evil sister lurking off in the Gulf, Fiona had cut her speed way down, making a long journey more so. Even though she was tired and in need of food and sleep, she was determined to get to New Hancock by curfew. The last thing she wanted was to crack up herself or her bike in the last few miles of his journey.
Further west on I-10, she followed the interstate, then turned for the exit that would take her into New Hancock. As she descended the highway off ramp and turned left at the bottom, Fiona noted a couple of flashing blue lights and a large industrial grade work light about a ¼ mile ahead on the right.
Slowing and pulling over to the side of the road, Fiona came upon a unit of soldiers from the Florida National Guard. As she rolled out of the darkness, Fiona must have looked a very peculiar sight indeed, helmet and leather duster covered almost black with the remains of dead lovebugs, large swarms of which she had to ride through earlier in the day. Killing the Dakar’s engine and doffing her helmet, she proceeded to explain to a fresh faced sergeant from Dade County (a claims adjuster when not confronting insane biker chicks in the middle of disaster areas) what her business was.
  “Uh, Ma’am, can I help you?” stuttered the nice young man carrying a machine gun.
“It’s more like, can I help you?” replied Fiona, undoing the chin strap on her helmet.
   “Uh…I don’t think I know what you’re getting at, Ma’am?”
  “The reason why I’m here. Why else to you think I came all this way, packed all this equipment and suffering a butt rash the size of Arkansas ever since I hit Hattiesburg? I’m here as a physician to help however I can. I’m pissed off about this continual circle jerk of politicians posing for pictures while my fellow citizens get screwed, and I decided to come down here and do something about it. These are my bona fides, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could let me by so I can get to the relief station set up in town. I’m down here at the request of a colleague to help provide medical care at a first aid station.”
Fiona was off the bike now, stiff, sore and beat but very glad to get off the machine. She had taken off her helmet, revealing what was not a conventionally pretty face. Indeed, at first glance, she could have been mistaken as ‘plain’ or ‘average.’ Nothing could have been further from the truth. Fiona Elk was about as far from ‘plain’ or ‘average’ as a woman could get. In fact, many folk, after the briefest of interactions, come away with the impression of her as a cross between Janis Joplin, Lt. Ellen Ripley (the Sigourney Weaver character in “Aliens”) and a matronly sort of Cub Scout Den Mother, tough as nails but loving and gentle, teaching the kids how to start a garage band, skin a rattlesnake for their survival merit badge, or how to bake cupcakes for the bake sale.
       Sergeant Mandrake (as denoted from the patch on his battle tunic) looked at Fiona quizzically for a moment, then took the proffered documents (Fiona’s hospital ID, physicians license and business card) and held a brief conversation with his assembled comrades, all of whom were now staring intensely at the small woman with the motorcycle and of town plates.
Dr Fiona Elk, MD, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, Jesuit University Medical Center, Washington, D.C. had come a far distance. Unfortunately, she had failed to make curfew by about 30 minutes. And though the nice young men with machine guns were pleasant and polite, they were firm in that she was NOT going to be allowed in without an escort.
“I’m sorry, doc. Orders.”
“Yeah, I know all about orders. All right, sarge. Is the cell service around here working?”
“It’s been intermittent at best, Ma’am. I was able to call my wife about an hour ago, but otherwise it’s pretty haphazard.”
Fiona took out her phone, and seeing that the antenna signal was good, punched in the numbers and waited. Lloyd picked up on the 3rd ring.
“Lloyd, this is Fiona. From D.C. I talked to you yesterday. Did you get my email? I’m here now, just outside the checkpoint. I just missed curfew. Can you get me in?”
  “Wow, you made it. Cool! You mean, you really came all that way on a motorcycle?”
said the wide awake and enthusiastic voice at the other end.
“Yes, I really did. And I am really, really tired, and I would like to just put up my hammock and sleep for a little while. So, you think you can get me into your camp?”
  “Yeah, sure, Fiona! Anything you need! I got a nice cop from Florida here at my side and he is right now, as we speak, getting into his patrol car and coming to fetch you, so he should be there in about 5 minutes.”
Fiona rung off and thought about the long, strange journey she had undertaken. Her anger at the ‘official’ response to the gulf disaster had grown with each passing day, and it was made all the worse by keen avoidance for blame or accountability, or even outright fraud in the midst of such an awful and completely predictable disaster. The final straw came 2 days ago, when, hard at work in her vocation as an ER doc in the nation’s capital, the intoxicated congressman she was taking care of (who was so drunk he had fallen down some stairs and cut open his head) began to rant mercilessly about all those “Useless niggers and white trash down in Crackerville, drowning in their own filth.” Perhaps it was that, or the fact that while Fiona was sitting there, stitching up this pig’s head, he suddenly made a grab for her tit. Or maybe she was just fed up with all of it, her life in the big city, her big deal and highly prestigious but (increasingly) frustrating position as clinical faculty at a prestigious medical center…whatever it was, by the time she had been pulled away from the distinguished gentlemen from Virginia’s throat (which she had grabbed with both hands and attempted to strangle with all her strength in response to the Family Research Council’s  “Family Man of the Year” groping of her) by several of the congressmen’s aides and hospital security staff, she had decided that the only thing left to do was to go down south and see what she could do to help.  Hospital administration eagerly assisted her on this course, as they suspended her pending their “investigation” of the events surrounding here care and subsequent attack on the Democratic-turned-Republican congressional representative from Stony Mount. Getting out of town for a while had suddenly become an option not previously available to her, given the hectic and busy schedule of a woman in her position. That led to a series of phone calls, which led to email contacts, which is how she found out about this particular spot on the coast of Mississippi that had sustained the greatest damage yet was still in desperate need of help. Which led to her being escorted by a Florida Highway Patrol officer, blue lights flashing, past the checkpoint into town, and finally to the end of her journey, the New Hancock Café.

    Fiona was guided into the parking lot of the remains of a strip mall along Route 90, pulling into a maze of old school buses, retrofitted for long term living while mobile and painted all manner of colors, along with a number of tent’s and even a few Tipi’s set up further back. With the fury of Rita threatening not far off shore and local bayous already beginning to flood again, a large number of the volunteers had already left, leaving the entire parking lot feeling like an abandoned logistics depot, with all manner of canned goods, bottled water, food and MRE’s stacked head high. However, a hardy and dedicated band of volunteers had chosen to stay, and it was with the Rainbow family that Fiona hooked up with. Think of a mix of earthy, crunchy hippies, salty road dogs, new-agers, geeks, freaks, rednecks, bikers and angry young punks who spontaneously showed up in the middle of a disaster zone to help out their fellow citizens. A week before Katrina a wandering caravan such as this would have been run out of town. Now, they were not only welcomed with open arms for the aid and sustenance they were providing, gratis, to the good citizens of the gulf, but were camped directly in front of the police station and given around the clock protection from looters and other bad folk. Fiona knew she had come into a completely different world than the one she had left in D.C., and all through the next week, her time and experience here would do more to effect her life than anything before.
   Lloyd and Fiona made an unlikely team over the week to come. Lloyd, the nice Jewish boy skipping his 4th year at Harvard Med to be here (“a form of independent study” he called it) and Fiona, the cool biker chick/ ER doc, running a MASH like aid station, seeing all manner of ailments, from cuts to vaccinations to the more serious cardiac and emergent medical stuff. Despite the chronic lack of sleep, the sweltering heat and humidity, the smell, the trash and hardship, they couldn’t work hard enough. When they weren’t seeing patients, she was hauling ice or putting up tents while he ran a forklift, or they would both hang out with Weasel, an older biker brother with a long white beard, down from North Carolina on his KLR 650, helping out the elderly folks clean up their homes, volunteering their time. As the threat from Rita declared itself elsewhere and the relief operations resumed in full gear, in the following days it was to become a great and grand mix of America; hippies, punks, Baptists from Texas, 7th Day Adventists from Florida, Shriners from Jersey and Rotarians from Michigan, straight, gay, black, white, brown, from all over the country…from all over the globe…they all came together, as common citizens, to help their neighbor and fellow members of the human family. The support from FEMA or the Red Cross, despite the help of a few dedicated individuals on the ground, was almost non-existent. Despite that (or maybe because of it) this newly formed community became a place of life and love and even laughter once again.
    Fiona was cynical enough to know that it would not last, this new utopian vision in the midst of such apocalyptic destruction, but she was also enough of an idealist to still hope for something better. And to be honest, this feeling of community and partnership was something very potent and unique, much stronger than any drug she had ever taken. It left her wanting more. “It allowed me to live in a society that is better than the one I live in now” she later wrote in an email to a friend, “and allowed me to be the person I knew I could be.” Alas, like all good things…

  …it came to an end with a phone call from one J. Mitchell Hopkins, MD, chief of staff, Jesuit University Medical Center.
“Fiona, I need you to come back here. The hospital lawyers have some questions for you about your assault on the congressman.”
  “Look, I’m a little busy here. And that son of a bitch groped me. He’s lucky I didn’t have a scalpel in my hand or I might have slit his throat.”
“Now, Fiona, you shouldn’t say such things…”
“Can’t this wait until I get back. And besides, why haven’t you responded to my request to bring down a medical team?
   “Dr. Elk, the disposition of hospital personnel must be coordinated at the Federal level, and that is not your area of responsibility…”
“Listen to me as hard as you can and try to concentrate on the sounds coming out of my mouth. I am willing to put together a volunteer team of EMT’s, RN’s and doctors, all on my own time. All I need from you is that huge Tonka toy you conned half a million dollars out of the Department of Homeland Security for.”
“Doctor, as I have explained to you time and again, I am afraid the deployment of the Disaster Response Unit is also out of your area of responsibility. Now, if you don’t mind, I would greatly appreciate it if you caught the next flight back here and made this meeting with hospital counsel. There are very serious ramifications…”
                 She hung up on him in mid sentence, turning off her cell phone so he couldn’t call back. “OK Jackoff,” she said quietly. “You want a meeting. You got it.”
    The flight from Gulfport to Washington National was crowded but uneventful. Among the passengers, Fiona noted a few of the more prominent political apparatchiks from inside the beltway up in first class, living it up on the public dollar after a short run down to the distressed Gulf states for photo ops with the rubes, before jetting back home in time for afternoon cocktails at the Cosmos Club. She managed to keep herself under control until the plane landed, when after she had deplaned, she spotted one of the more officious executive branch geeks, the hapless and most recently infamous Assistant Secretary of Disaster Response, give an incoherent and completely self serving interview while dodging questions regarding his last posting as legal counsel for the Daughters of the American Revolution, his only professional qualifications.
   “You’re doing a great job there, Brownie. Keep up the good work...Wanker!” she yelled out as she casually walked by, making direct eye contact with the fool before she moved on.
    “Now, Dr. Elk, what you really have to understand” started J. Mitchell Hopkins, MD, FACS, distinguished chief of staff at Jesuit Medical Center, “is that we take the safety and security of our patients here very seriously…”
They were sitting in Hopkins’s penthouse office, with a commanding view of the DC skyline beyond and the university quad below. In attendance were several hospital lawyers, but the only ones engaged in conversation were the two physicians in the room. The discussion was far from collegial.
“Stop. Stop right there. Now you listen to me, and you listen to me good. I just came out of a place where the closest working hospital is over an hour away. The stink and the heat and humidity cling to your body 24 hours a day. I met families that lost everything they own, including loved ones. I took care of one woman, she had fallen and broken some teeth, and while I was treating her in the stifling heat of that place, she just started crying and sobbing. I told her it was OK and she would be fine, then she told me that no, it wasn’t going to be fine, it was never going to be fine, ever again. And then she told me her son and his family had been missing since the storm, and his house was completely destroyed by the high water…”
There was a silence in the room for a moment.
“Fiona, that’s very heartwrenching but I don’t think you understand just how much influence Congressman Dooge has on the appropriations committee for N.I.H. which is directly responsible for a lot of our funding. Now, I am certain he regrets his behavior, but really, Doctor, your own conduct in this matter has been less than professional…” started Dr. Hopkins.
“You know, I will never really understand your kind. With people like you, it’s all just so much smoke and mirrors. You want a grand P
  “For reasons I can’t understand, whether it’s incompetence, or laziness, or both, this august facility, with it’s rich history of service to the nation, with all of the resources at it’s disposal can’t spare sending not much more than the functional equivalent a few band aids and Tylenol. You are a joke, our conversation is over, and this meeting has been a waste of my time. You’ll get my resignation when I’ll have a chance to type it up. I quit.”
About 20 minutes later, after she walked out of Hopkins’s office and leaving the assembled suits with expressions of disbelief, Fiona was in the hospital garage, after first carefully lifting the keys to her new ride. The EMS office, as usual, was unlocked and unoccupied. Looking back on it, it’s really amazing the medical center didn’t lose more vehicles that way. After all, you would think something like a $500,000 specially equipped disaster vehicle would be a little more carefully guarded from damage or theft. Indeed, Fiona was planning on writing an email to that effect to her former colleague, Dr. Hopkins, along with her letter of resignation, whenever she got around to doing so.
The DRU was a substantial machine, not unlike the heavy rescue squad she used to drive as a volunteer EMT all those years ago. She settled into the driver’s seat, switched on the batteries, turned over the diesel engine, and as it roared to life, she took a moment to look around and familiarize herself with the interior.
Shifting into drive and pulling into late the afternoon traffic, Fiona eased onto Foxhall Road and out of the city. Seat belt on, window rolled down and air blowing freely into her face at 70 mph, Fiona tuned into a local radio station. She was last seen heading south, listening to Cream’s “I Feel Free.”

Democracy to Dictatorship in 5 years or less...

2005-12-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

Democracy to Dictatorship in 5 years or less…

Charlottesville, Virginia
December 19, 2005

Brothers, Sisters, Citizens, Comrades!
    I think by now that my thoughts on freedom, democracy, respect for individual liberty and the inherent, inalienable rights of all people, not just those lucky enough to be born in our great country would be plain for all who are regular readers of this blog (all 2 of them). Alas, the news that the continuing criminal enterprise that constitutes the administration of George W. Bush has engaged in blatantly illegal domestic spying on our own citizens comes simultaneously as no great revelation and yet another outrage against our constitutional form of government.  It’s not enough that George II conducts illegal wars of aggression dressed up in the language of democracy and liberation, or that he bankrupts our country at the expense of his rich buddies, or that his environmental policies will make the planet an unlivable place to live for our children and generations to follow. No, apparently that is not enough. It’s not enough that “terror suspects” are captured off the streets of other sovereign nations, and sent to secret prisons to be mercilessly tortured (is there any other kind?), whether or not they actually had anything to do with terrorism or even have committed any crime at all.
     No, now it appears that we are living in a dictatorship, where the actions of the political elite are now considered above the law. I am not sure which is worse: The cheap political hacks that are running this country into the ground, or the mainstream media that eagerly does its bidding. My outrage and indignation at the level of incompetence, mediocrity and outright lies of the current administration is matched only by my disgust of the whores of the media-industrial complex, all too eager to please the powers that be for “access” to the highest levels of idiocy that now constitutes our federal government.  How could such a state of affairs exist in our once grand democratic republic?
     Now comes the news that our own government is now spying on us based on not on the legal findings of a judge (as set forth in a rather quaint document called The Bill of Rights) but on the capriciousness and whims of one man. And a rather stupid one at that. To those who say that we should let the president do what he thinks best in the “Global War on Terror,” my response is, would you feel the same way if Bill Clinton (or, God forbid, perhaps even Hillary someday) decided to engage in the same type of criminal behavior? Why, the pundits and pinheads at Fox News, Newsmax, Free Republic , The Wall Street Journal and others of their ilk would fall into fits of apoplexy of such anger and derision as to require the administration of large amounts of tranquilizers, administered at short range with a dart gun, to prevent the amassed  blowhards of various stripes from running amok in the streets, spewing out their collective hot breathed rantings at the blatantly illegal and unconstitutional acts of the Commander in Chief.
  I pulled the following article off the MSNBC/Newsweek website. I think it speaks for itself:
BUSH’S SNOOPGATE
Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.
No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.
The problem was not that the disclosures would compromise national security, as Bush claimed at his press conference. His comparison to the damaging pre-9/11 revelation of Osama bin Laden’s use of a satellite phone, which caused bin Laden to change tactics, is fallacious; any Americans with ties to Muslim extremists—in fact, all American Muslims, period—have long since suspected that the U.S. government might be listening in to their conversations. Bush claimed that “the fact that we are discussing this program is helping the enemy.” But there is simply no evidence, or even reasonable presumption, that this is so. And rather than the leaking being a “shameful act,” it was the work of a patriot inside the government who was trying to stop a presidential power grab.
No, Bush was desperate to keep the Times from running this important story—which the paper had already inexplicably held for a year—because he knew that it would reveal him as a law-breaker. He insists he had “legal authority derived from the Constitution and congressional resolution authorizing force.” But the Constitution explicitly requires the president to obey the law (emphasis mine…SKDRED) and the post 9/11 congressional resolution authorizing “all necessary force” in fighting terrorism was made in clear reference to military intervention. It did not scrap the Constitution and allow the president to do whatever he pleased in any area in the name of fighting terrorism.
What is especially perplexing about this story is that the 1978 law set up a special court to approve eavesdropping in hours, even minutes, if necessary. In fact, the law allows the government to eavesdrop on its own, then retroactively justify it to the court, essentially obtaining a warrant after the fact. Since 1979, the FISA court has approved tens of thousands of eavesdropping requests and rejected only four. There was no indication the existing system was slow—as the president seemed to claim in his press conference—or in any way required extra-constitutional action.
This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.
In the meantime, it is unlikely that Bush will echo President Kennedy in 1961. After JFK managed to tone down a New York Times story by Tad Szulc on the Bay of Pigs invasion, he confided to Times editor Turner Catledge that he wished the paper had printed the whole story because it might have spared him such a stunning defeat in Cuba.
This time, the president knew publication would cause him great embarrassment and trouble for the rest of his presidency. It was for that reason—and less out of genuine concern about national security—that George W. Bush tried so hard to kill the New York Times story.
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc. Jonathan Alter, reporting

     So then. What is a patriot to do? Write my congressman? Pen a letter to the editor? Confront those in power and tell them to go to hell? Have a protest? Refuse to pay taxes? March on the White House leading an army of White Trash and Proud Negroes, Freaks, Geeks, Stoners, Nerds, Aging Hipsters, Angry Young Punks, Brothers, Sisters, Gay, Straight, Unaffiliated, armed with slingshots, baseball bats, motorcycle chains or perhaps shotguns loaded with rock salt and bacon fat, take over the reigns of our government and restore our once grand constitutional democracy by mob rule? What is the course that we must follow? Are we to let our great nation, founded by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, James Madison (fine Virginians and patriots all, despite their profound faults and prejudices), protected and defended at great cost in blood and treasure over the past 230 years, only to be turned into a parody of a brutish police state by a cheap, two-bit authoritarian regime, who’s efforts would be laughable if they weren’t all too real?
    Friends, I don’t know what the answers to these questions are. I think we are all going to have to look within ourselves and find our own course of action to take. But I want to end this short communiqué with a quote from another great American (and Virginian) Patrick Henry. “Give me liberty, or give me death.”

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

Senator Robert Byrd and the war in Iraq

2005-11-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Comrades, friends and fellow citizens;
There are a great many politicians in our country today, from both of the major parties, that seem to strive for a level of mediocrity that not only cheapens our republic but threatens its very existence. However, Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia is not one of them. His eloquence and rhetoric are matched only by his love for our country, and as evidence I thought I would post his most recent speech in the Senate.

Senator Byrd on Iraq and VP Cheney
Mr. President, if we look out the window in most of our great country, we can witness the season change. The air has become crisp with autumnal chill. The leaves on the trees change color: from the exuberant, green lushness of the summer months, to the tired brown, yellow and red of autumn, much like the graying hair of a man advancing in age.

Nature can sometimes mimic human events with a subtlety that no words can quite convey. As our country heads into the season that is celebrated with the love of family and home, Americans should also look across the landscape of America and reflect upon the loss of so many young Americans in the twelve months since autumn last fell upon us. In the past year, more than 820 service members have lost their lives in Iraq.

The evening news features pictures of American troops who have perished in service to our country. I am struck by these colorful mosaics of these troops: the green and blue of their uniforms, set against the background of the bold colors of our flag. Each of these proud troops holds an expression of pride and courage, even though many of them appear to be so young -- 18 or 19 years old.

I can only imagine the grief of their loving families during this time of the year, as the somber tones of fall contrast with the joy of being with family during the upcoming holidays. I pray that God will comfort those who have suffered losses, that He will bless the fallen in their everlasting life, and that His hand will protect those who still serve in harm's way.

That so many have sacrificed during this war in Iraq is reason enough to ask questions about our government's policy in that faraway country. Our troops continue to shed their blood, and our nation continues to devote enormous sums of our national wealth, to continue that war. Whether one supported or opposed the war at its outset: no American must ever surrender the right to question the government.

The Constitution protects the American people from unjust laws that seek to stifle the patriotic duty to question those who are in power, but it is the courage of the American people that compels them to actually speak out when those in power call for silence. If anything, attacks on the patriotism of freedom-loving Americans may result in even more Americans fighting against attempts to squelch the Constitutional protections of freedom.

Since our country was sent to war on March 19, 2003, two thousand and seventy-three Americans have been killed. Nearly 16,000 troops have been wounded. Our military is straining under the repeated deployment of our troops, including the members of the National Guard. More than $214 billion has been spent in Iraq. Urban combat takes place each and every day in Baghdad. Veterans hospitals in our own country are threatened by budget shortfalls. And yet, Americans are still left to wonder, when will our brave troops be coming home?

I opposed the war in Iraq from the outset. But our troops were ordered to go to Iraq, and they went. The question is now: When will they come home? The Administration has so far laid out only a vague policy, saying our troops will come home when the Iraqi government is ready to take responsibility for its country. That sort of political doublespeak is small comfort to the mothers and fathers of our fighting men and women.

Wednesday evening, the Vice President of the United States even claimed that criticism of the Administration's war in Iraq was "dishonest and reprehensible." The Vice President's comments come on the heels of comments from President Bush, who said, "What bothers me is when people are irresponsibly using their positions and playing politics. That's exactly what is taking place in America."

The President and the Vice President need to reread the Constitution. Asking questions, seeking honesty and truth, and pressing for accountability is exactly what the Framers had in mind. Questioning policies and practices, especially ones that have cost this nation more than 2,000 of her bravest sons and daughters, is a responsibility of every American. It is also a central role of Congress. We are the elected representatives of the American people. We are the men and women who are tasked with seeking the truth. But instead of working with the Congress, instead of clearing the air, the White House falls back to the irksome practice of attack, attack, attack, obscure, obscure, obscure.

The American people are tired of these reprehensible tactics. Circling the wagons will not serve this Administration well. What the people demand are the facts. They want their elected leaders to level with them. And, when it comes to the war in Iraq, this Administration seems willing to do anything it can to avoid the truth -- a truth that I believe will reveal that the Bush Administration manipulated the facts in order to lead this nation on the road to war.

The Administration claims that the Congress had the same intelligence as the President before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that there was no misrepresentation of the intelligence. But neither claim is true.

The intelligence agencies are in the control of the White House. All information given to the Congress was cleared through the White House, and the President had access to an enormous amount of data never shared with the Congress. There was a filter over the intelligence information that the Congress received, and that filter was the Administration which was actively engaged in hyping the danger and lusting after this war in Iraq. Remember the talk of weapons of mass destruction, mushroom clouds, and unmanned drones? The so-called proof for war was massaged before it was sent to the Congress to scare members and leaked to reporters to scare the people.

No independent commission has stated that the case for war was indisputable. Commissions have looked at how the intelligence fell short. But none have yet examined possible political manipulation.

Even the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence stalled in its examination of possible White House manipulation. My colleague from West Virginia, the Ranking Member of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Rockefeller, is rightly pressing for answers.

Right now, we are engaged in a mission with no definition. That is troubling, because without a clearly defined mission it is impossible to determine when our mission is truly accomplished.

This week, the United States Senate had the opportunity to establish some very basic benchmarks for progress in Iraq, benchmarks that would have clearly outlined goals and provided accountability in meeting them. The proposal, offered by the Senior Senator from Michigan, Senator Levin, was a modest, flexible approach that would have given our troops, their families, the American people, and the Iraqi people some basic guide posts. Unfortunately, the Senate could not see the wisdom of this approach.

It is vital that we have benchmarks against which to gauge our progress. That is how we can measure effectiveness and, most importantly, how we know when the job is done.

The Administration's strategy of keeping our troops in Iraq for "as long as it takes" is the wrong strategy. Who knows how long it will take for the Iraqi government to institute order in that fractured country?

Unfortunately, the questions that the American people are asking about the missteps and mistakes in the war in Iraq are not being answered by the Administration. Vice President Cheney has dismissed these important questions as "making a play for political advantage in the middle of a war."

Perhaps the Vice President should question White House aides about using war for political advantage. For example, on January 19, 2002, the Washington Post reported that Karl Rove advised Republicans to "make the president's handling of the war on terrorism the centerpiece of their strategy to win back the Senate and keep control of the House in this year's midterm elections." Does the Vice President have anything to say about that?

The Vice President also lashed out at those who might deceive our troops: "The saddest part is that our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out." Was the Vice President was trying to clarify some of his past statements on Iraq?

On March 24, 2002, the Vice President said that Iraq "is actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time."

On August 26, 2002, the Vice President said, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

On March 16, 2003, the Vice President said, "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."

Are these the "pernicious falsehoods" that the Vice President believes our troops have been subjected to? That is, of course, a rhetorical question. Far from questioning his own statements about the war in Iraq, the Vice President's comments are a ham-handed attempt to squelch the questions that the American people are asking about the Administration's policies in Iraq. The American people should not be cowed by these attempts to intimidate us. The American people should not allow the subject to be changed from the war in Iraq to partisan sniping in Washington. Instead, the American people must raise their voices even louder to ask the Administration the same simple questions: What is your policy for Iraq? When will the war be over? How many more lives will this war cost? And when will our troops return home?

Mr. President, the holiday season is almost upon us. Americans will soon gather together to give thanks for the blessings that have been bestowed upon our families. But as we gather, there will be an empty seat at many tables. Some chairs will be empty because a service member is serving his country in a faraway land. Other seats will be empty as a silent tribute to those who will never return.

Each of these troops has fought to protect our freedoms, including the freedom of Americans to ask questions of their government -- the people's government.

The whole picture -- the truth -- is that the continued occupation of Iraq only serves to drive that country closer to civil war. American troops are now perceived as occupiers not liberators. The longer we stay, the more dangerous Iraq becomes, and the more likely it is that we will drive the future government farther from a democratic republic and closer to religious fundamentalism and, not insignificantly, the more American and Iraqi lives will be lost.

I for one believe that it is time to say "well done" to our brave fighting men and women. May Almighty God bless them -- one and all. Let's say, job well done, and start to bring the troops home.

All Hallows Eve

2005-11-02T22:34:00.000-08:00

All Hallows Eve

November 3, 2005

Dear Comrades;
    It has been sometime since I have addressed you, and I do apologize for my absence. It would appear that my Clark Kent alter ego has kept me busy of late. Rather than bore you with tales from the local neighborhood Trauma Center, instead I shall focus with this communiqué on an episode that happened very early on Sunday morning. As it so happened, the Subkommander had just arrived home around 1:30 am from a rather bracing Motorradfaht in the middle of a brisk autumn night. I had returned from a midnight run in the Blue Ridge Mountains (a rather harrowing tale in an of itself, including heavy fog and curving mountain roads astride a BMW Dakar) and was listening to some music on my headphones when I heard a very loud cracking noise, as though someone were attempting to break into something, outside the heavily reinforced, slit Lexan window of The Bunker.
    Of course, I ceased my recreational music activity and listened keenly to the sounds of some person (or persons) were attempting to break into my next door neighbor’s porch. I heard no voices and could see no one since they were on the opposite side of a wooden fence, a tall one that obscures the view from anyone looking into the back yard. But I could clearly see the door being crashed and battered in a way to make the lock or hinges give. In fact, the hooligan was making a bit of a racket, and I am surprised I am only one that bothered to alert the authorities to his presence. Naturally, my first inclination was to lock and load my shotgun and creep warily outside to surprise the enemy in the act of sabotage. I had even planned the short speech I was going to give once I had the drop on the criminal, up to and including racking a round into chamber, a noise which has a rather intimidating effect on the most aggressive of criminals.
    A point of clarification is in order here. Although I hold the rank of Subkommander, I have never particularly been a big fan of firearms. I am not opposed to them, and indeed, believe that the right to keep and bear arms is a valuable civil liberty. As such, I support it wholeheartedly. After all, I am a native Virginian, thus being a proper southerner would cause me to also have a genetic predisposition to firearms.  However, as a rule, I don’t go out into my back yard in the middle of the night carrying a loaded weapon capable of blowing a hole in someone the size of a baseball.  I have this to be a sound policy to follow, and see no reason to alter it either now or in the foreseeable future. And since the local authorities would take a dim view of such activity, with the local Gendarmarie in this locale reasonably competent, I resisted my urge to live out a Dirty Harry fantasy and called the cops. The following unfolded within 50 feet of my observation post here in The Bunker:

     I could see the cops pull up in the apartment complex behind mine, and could even see them depart from their vehicles. Flashlights in hand, illuminating a cool Halloween night, the light darting along the lawn and the sides of the apartments as they approached the perp. I watched in silence, with the light out, so that my presence would remain unbetrayed. The cops were curiously unstressed, no weapons out, just walking along quietly with their torches on. The rounded a fence and walked down the short slope of the ground, surprising the scoundrel in mid bash/slam/bop to the fence.
COP 1: Okay pal, just hold it there and keep your hands where we can see em…
CULPRIT: OH…I know what you’re thinking. And I totally understand what you think is happening but I have an explanation…
COP 2: Buddy, have you had much to drink tonight?
CULPRIT: Uh…well…not much…I mean…uh…um… I might have had something to drink…I think…A couple of beers, maybe…
COP 2: You got any ID on you, pal?

   It was at this point that the criminal walked away from the fence, and hence out from under his protective cover, that I could finally see who the local Johnny Laws were talking to. It was a thoroughly intoxicated frat boy wearing an ankle length red dress and a diamond tiara in his air, like some kind of “Princess Di meets Godzilla” fantasy he was finally able to fulfill, fueled by distilled spirits, hormones and incredible stupidity.
    Apparently, the jolly young lad had been out drinking excessively during the course of the evening, attending several frat parties at the local university, many of which were costume in nature, and hence the assumed rationale for this particularly boy’s  raiment. During the course of the conference between the cops and the frat boy, they ascertained his name (Jordan S) and the name of his friend whose house he was breaking into (Charlie H), his major (Horticulture), his age (20), and various and other assorted facts regarding this fools life. Fortunately for Jordan, Charlie showed up out of nowhere a few minutes later, not quite as intoxicated, but also not wearing a dress. After vouching for his friend, the cops let Jordan go. However, Jordan, being an essentially brainless, and thus typical frat boy managed to annoy the cops to some degree at this point, rating a stinging tirade from one the cops, telling him that he could still throw him jail for being an underage drunk and stop acting like the spoiled, entitled little dick that you are and you better drag your sorry ass inside and go to bed and God help you if I ever catch drunk in public again, you schmuck!
   This got Jordan’s attention. So he did just that, retreating into the house with Charlie, dress and tiara intact.
    That’s the latest from the Bunker. More later as it happens.

              Your most humble servant,
                 Subkommander Dred

Forward into the breach, dear friends...

2005-10-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

An unidentified medical team comrade outside the medical tent
(Photo Credit: Heather Blackburn)

September 27, 2005
New Waveland Café
Waveland, Mississippi

Dear Folks;
I am very sorry that I have not kept in touch, but as you can imagine, things here have been pretty crazy. As I suspected, the weather cleared after the first couple of days, and it has been brutally hot and humid, making the working conditions here that much more difficult. While I have not been completely alone in the medical tent (7Song, an herbalist from Ithaca, New York was able to lend some assistance in the medical aid station using his skills in botanical medicine), it has still been a very busy and stressful time here. Stone went on a short R & R period, and returned a little awhile ago. So, for a period of time there I was the only clinician running the med tent, and it was a responsibility I took very seriously. I did move from my deluxe accommodations at Camp Dred, and took up residence on one of the cots in the medical tent. To be honest, I felt that the Camp Dred location was in some ways superior. It was relatively dark and it was much better ventilated than the tent. But still, the army cot served rather well as a bunk, and I was able to set up my camp stove on the table outside to do my laundry and make a pot of coffee. In separate containers, of course.
Though we did not take the brunt of Rita, there was still very bad flooding locally, so much so that the mobile hospital down the street evacuated its staff on Friday night, the day after I arrived here. I had not known this at the time, and it seems a little frightening that I would not have been able to rely on them for assistance for critical patients. Fortunately, no such patient presented themselves for treatment in The New Waveland General Hospital, as Stone has recently named it.
As I said before, the choice to stay or leave was totally up to each of us to make that decision on our own. However, I do wish it to be noted that my comrades and I remained in the parking lot of Fred’s through that dark time, and for their friendship and help, I am greatly thankful to all who remained. I am reminded of King Harry’s St. Crispen’s Day speech (and one of my favorite bits of Shakespeare) from Henry V; “We few, we happy few, this band of bothers. For he who fights with me this day is my brother. And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhood’s cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day!” Indeed friends, I do feel a part of something very important and vital, and am very aware that I am at this place in time at this spot on the planet Earth, and for all the hardship and misery I see around me, there is no place else I would rather be.
In my Clark Kent like alter ego, I have managed to hide my secret identity as a highly trained health care professional. Specifically, I have been engaged as both an EMT-Paramedic and an ER Nurse for over a quarter of century now. And for the first time in a long while I felt like I was someplace where I was making a difference. All these years of experience, all that training, and it all comes down to this moment in history. I feel like this is what I was born to be doing, that all those sleepless nights working EMS in the big city or spent dealing with any and all manner of trauma and illness day and day out in a busy hospital ER has prepared me for this specific place in time.
Many folks who had spent the past 2 weeks cleaning up from Katrina found whatever possessions they had left completely destroyed, and this 1-2 punch from Mother Nature has caused considerable havoc here. Nevertheless, we had our kitchen and medical aid station up and operating around the clock, and things have been accelerating since. This parking lot that has been my world for the past week is a main distribution depot for the Gulf coast, and we have been feeding and supplying many, many folks from the surrounding area. For the past several days, I have been the only medical person on site, and have had to deal with organizing our medical station while seeing patients at the same time. I am pretty much functioning as I would while back in the ED, with the exception of no doctors, no lab, no x-ray or CAT scans…, in short, nothing more than my clinical experience and judgment to guide me. I am fortunate enough to have some supplies, and would truly fear having to sit on a major case for anything more than a ½ hour. Most of the things I have seen here have primarily soft tissue injuries, such as lacerations of various sizes and depth, abrasions, sprains and headaches. But this also includes a fair share of sick patients. I have several folks here with chronic lung ailments, and I see them fairly frequently for their daily neb treatments. Fortunately, anything more serious than immunizations and IV hydration can be sent over to Carolina Med Center 1, the mobile field hospital sent here last week, and the folks I did a little bartering with a few days ago. This does not mean that we don’t get serious patients. We do. In the days before I arrived, Stone, the 2nd year med student who has been here since the beginning, had to treat a patient in congestive heart failure by himself.
This would not have been such a big deal with the mobile hospital close by, but it took the ambulance almost a half hour to get here. That is representative of the level of infrastructure that was destroyed here. When Katrina hit, a wall of water 20 to 25 feet high crashed over this town, destroying almost every building in its way. This includes both the police and fire departments. The Waveland Police Department headquarters, or should I say what’s left of it, is directly across the street. The fire department now consists of 2 tents and 2 working trucks. Both the cops and firefighters are living out of tents. Whatever EMS crews are left have been brought in from outside, usually private ambulance services on contract with FEMA, and as a result, either they are not available or not familiar with the area, so getting lost is a bit of a problem. Fortunately, we have a supply of cardiac drugs, so between what Stone and I have in place here, we can pretty much take care of the initial stages of a cardiac arrest or trauma patient. But that doesn’t mean we want to.
Everyone here is focused on doing the job, taking care of the citizens of southern Mississippi and Louisiana in whatever way we can. Toward that end, when I am not rendering care in the med tent, I’m either hauling around 20 pound bags of ice, carting away debris and trash or unloading supplies. The ice I particularly like, as it is so bloody hot and humid here that the water running out of the bagged ice feels so good soaking the back of my shirt. Man, that feels so good!
As I mentioned earlier, the medical tent was closed up tight when I arrived here on Thursday evening. Stone had basically been keeping things going for the past 2 weeks, and when I arrived, he had to leave to take a long deserved break. He came back yesterday, after hanging out at his cousin’s house in Tampa, doing little more than sleeping and taking showers for the past 3 days. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he dropped out of Harvard Med School for the semester to come down here and help out. This is really a big deal, as it adds another year to his medical training, and I think this kid has real guts to do that. I am honored to be working with him, as I am with all the folks from the Rainbow family, kids who could be anywhere else but here, working hard in the hot sun and in less than stellar conditions. They are all taking care of business, and I am proud of being a part of this effort with them.
Many of the local folk are leery of going to the big mobile hospital down the road. Although it is a very impressive outfit, it is usually very crowded and busy, just like any other Emergency Room you are liable to walk into, and as a result, a lot of folks much prefer to come to us. There are no forms to fill out, no papers to sign, no money to be charged or insurance to be asked for. This is health care as it should be, given to all in need without worrying about the patient's ability to pay. There are no administrators, no bosses, no insurance company executives to worry and fret about the bottom line. I know that this is not something that is sustainable over the long term, given the way our society currently provides health care for our citizens, but it should be. Health care unfortunately has become a racket in this country, with all the hospitals and insurance companies colluding with their political operatives to keep it a money making venture, as opposed to a needed public service to protect the health and well being of our citizens. I have heard a lot of talk over the years about how the invisible hand of the marketplace will make the delivery of health care affordable and efficient. I think that the invisible hand of the market has instead delivered a slap upside the head to the poor, working and increasingly, the middle class of this country. Well, the market has decided that over 40 million of our fellow citizens are not going to have health insurance. And as long as we allow the politicians from both major parties to dance away from their responsibilities to provide the common defense (by this I mean to include access to basic health care), we will always be at the mercy of accountants and bureacrats who could care less if your mother gets the chemotherapy drugs she needs to stay alive.
In further news, I have been visited at least several times a day by engineers from the company that designed this damned tent. It would seem that every geek in the area is coming to take a look at das ubertent from USAID. They seem quite happy to jabber excitedly among themselves as they run tape measures to and fro, take a few notes and a few pictures, then leave. For the most part that is fine since I don’t have to talk to them. And of course, the number of folks I’ve been treating has increased markedly in the past few days as well. I had a team of migrant workers from Mexico, brought here clear out all the downed trees with chain saws, come in for their immunizations. There were 6 of them that needed their shots, and in short order I had six chairs set up in a row, and telling them through their interpreter to come on in, sit down and roll up your sleeves. I nodded and smile enthusiastically as I mimmicked rolling up the sleeves of my own shirt, with them following my own example, nodding and smiling and talking amongst themselves while I ran to and fro amongst them with a boat of 4x4’s drenched in Betadine, swabbing off their respective deltoids. This was followed with a heavy drenching of isopropyl alcohol. It was like an assembly line, and I believe I had those lads out of there within 8 minutes, a shot of Hep A and TD vaccines in each of their respective arms. And they all said I didn’t hurt a bit. Really.
The relief operation is set up in the parking lot of a strip mall (named “Fred’s”) and has become the focal point for the community. Waveland is representative of so many other small towns along the coast, and seeing the amount of devastation here, it is obvious that this community, and the many others like, are not ever going to be the same. These people are proud and hard working, and they don’t want charity or pity. They only want some help to put their lives back to together. These people have lost so much, and are so grateful to all of us who have come down to help out. There are many groups here, some of them church based, others community organizations, all of them originating far from here, all responding to the call of fellow citizens in need of aid. Some of the local FEMA guys have really helped us a lot, in terms of supplies and equipment, but overall, the amount of waste I see from the both the federal government and The Red Cross is enough to make my stomach turn. Case in point was the huge amount of donated clothes I saw strewn about the parking lot my first night here. Piles and piles of clothes all over the place, soaked and not very useful. I saw those same piles of clothes scooped up with bobcat’s and loaded into large dumpsters.
This is one of most incredibly draining, heartbreaking and beautiful experiences of my life, and it is truly unfortunate that a certain institution with which I am affiliated was unable to mount an effective response to this tragedy. It would not take much to make a really effective aid station out of this place. A couple of residents, an attending physician and few hardy RN’s and ER Tech’s, and I believe we could really do a lot for many of these folks. Unfortunately, I don’t think that hospital administration shares my feeling about this, so it will be forever an opportunity not taken. Or, another way to look at this is; how could a crazy ER Nurse manage to come down here and do this on his own, but a major academic teaching hospital and medical center could not? I am also well aware that this is a question that will not be a welcome one to those accountable in hospital administration. But that is a pay grade and level of bureaucracy far above my own.
Yesterday, I was passing out band aids and giving tetanus shots when a young lady from Massachusetts, down here to help in the relief effort, shows up at the door of the med tent. She looked awful, in the dehydrated, heat exhaustion kind of way that most folks do, but in her case it was particularly bad. She had just enough time to say “I’m not feeling very well” well she dropped like a sack of potatoes onto the asphalt. Naturally, I stopped handing out band aids at that point and rushed
to her aid, tossing her in a fireman’s carry over my shoulder (Oy, my back!) and tossing her rather unceremoniously onto a green army cot. To make a long story short, she came to as I was putting an IV in her arm, followed with a couple of liters of saline intravenously. After a couple of hours, her color got much better, she cooled down and was able to hold the down the Gatorade I have been passing her, so I discharged her to custody of her sister, after a stern lecture about staying hydrated in this Godawful heat.
Earlier today, we had a few more heat casualties, both given IV fluids and feeling much better for our efforts. And unfortunately one of the volunteers from Texas had a heart attack, and we were able to treat him as well. I had been hanging out with him for the past several days, and came to think of him as a friend, so it was a little difficult to treat him as a patient. It turns out he had been having chest pains for 30 minutes, and with every question I asked him (How long have you had the pain, what does it feel like, where does it travel to…) the answers were all the wrong ones. Suffice it to say, Stone and I dropped what we were doing and started treating him right there. Monitor, IV, O2, Nitro and aspirin, and by the time ambulance arrived 20 minutes later, all they had to do was transport him. He said his pain was getting better by the time he left, and he got essentially the same kind of treatment he would have gotten in any good hospital ED. We later found out that he was transferred to a hospital in Slidell, and lost track of him after that. I do hope he is OK.
I know that I have been pushing myself to the limit physically, but right now, my health and well being doesn’t seem to be all that important. I want to try to wring as much as possible out of the time I have left here, and I also feel a moral obligation to all the folks who trusted me with money to get down here to do the job. The conditions are very difficult (I’ve had one shower since I arrived, and my trousers literally ripped apart while I was giving a TD immunization, with a subsequent visit to the cops across the street who hooked me up with a pair of BDU’s. That in particular was an extremely embarrassing event. I mean, how is a man supposed to save lives and alleviate suffering with a big rip in the front of his trousers, in an area that is all too easily exposed, if you know what I mean).
That being the case, I hope I am able to make some kind of a difference here. Despite the hardships and primitive working conditions, it will be very hard to leave here tomorrow morning. I have met so many people from so many places, and from so many backgrounds, all wanting to help out as best they can. Unfortunately, the need here will continue well past the point when I arrive back in the safety and comfort of my home in Virginia. I have been here only a week, yet feel like I’ve spent a year, and this experience has affected me greatly. My time here in Waveland with my freinds and comrades from Rainbow Family, the Bastrop Church of Christ, The 7th Day Adventists and all of the rest, affilliated with a some kind of diety or not is full of memories I shall never forget, and it has been an honor to serve with them. I think about the kind of society I want to live in, and the kind of man I want to be, and I think this experience shows that those dreams are possible.

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

2005-10-10T22:05:00.000-07:00

Photo's from the Med Tent...

(Photo Credit: Corey)
The Stars and Stripes flying alongside the Earth and Rainbow flags.
A friend getting immunized with a Tetanus-Diptheria vaccine after being treated for a significant laceration to his leg. (Photo Credit: Corey)
Irrigating the wound with 2 liters of sterile saline and some Shurclens. The injury was then treated with a liberal amount of bacitracin and dry sterile dressings. No complications were noted with wound closure. (Photo Credit: Corey)

Stone, the man from Harvard. A true comrade and one of the hardest working medical students I've ever seen. (Photo Credit: Subkommander Dred)

Open For Business

2005-10-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

Open For Business
(Top) Weasel's Motorrad. Photo Credit; Subkommander Dred

(Below) A medical team member lends a hand to raise the main kitchen tent. Photo Credit; Special Agent Rick

Waveland, Mississippi
September 24, 2005

Dear Folks;
Even though it's 3 weeks after Katrina hit, this town is still in very bad shape. The people here are great, and are very appreciative of everything the volunteers have done. We are sharing a parking lot with a Baptist church group from Bastrup, Texas, who have just started returning to the area now that Rita has hit far west of us. Additionally, the 7th Day Adventists and civic groups from around the country are returning with a number of volunteers, such a college students from Maine and Massachusetts as well as Rotarians from Michigan and Shriners from Muncie. They have yet to arrive in any significant numbers, but already many more of the locals have come in today for hot food being served at one of the few bistros around, the New Waveland Café.
I slept fairly well last night in my hammock and tarp shelter. Though it was quite windy and raining buckets at times, fortunately my pitiful quarters lasted through the night and kept me dry and relatively comfortable. I find however that the constant noise of diesel powered generators set up on the parking lot a hundred meters away or so is enough to keep me wide awake despite the significant exhaustion I felt upon going to bed. Fortunately, I had prepared for such an eventuality, and thought to bring along a supply of earplugs, which I put to good use. I also managed to put to good use the needle driver I packed along with my medical equipment, as it proved equal to pulling the damn things out of my ears when I got up in the morning.
Breakfast was hot coffee and 100% organic milk, eggs, bacon and pancakes courtesy of the Organic Valley folks (“Don’t panic! Keep it Organic!” is their watch phrase) and indeed, except for the significant freakout that one comrade experienced yesterday, the panic did not spread and we remained, sitting through the bad weather and waiting to see if we got whacked by a tornado. Fortunately, we weren’t.
Today I was able to open up the medical tent and finally get things organized, up to and including putting up a large sign out front marked
"First Aid" complete with an American flag flying from the top. As it was, the tent, a half cylinder in structure, made of pvc tubing and Tyvek, was crammed to the roof with all manner of supplies. While a few cots were available, there was very little in the way of room in which to take care of patients. Therefore, I spent a good deal of the morning and afternoon clearing out the tent. Stone split earlier this morning, as I am now the capable professional on hand to staff the clinic and he needed to get the hell out of here for a few days for a little rest. One of the folks I’ve met down here, a comrade named Rick, volunteered to help out sort out the medical aid station, and we spent several hours moving boxes and inventorying supplies. Some of it was useful (bandages and dressing supplies, OTC drugs, vaccines) but a lot of it was completely useless. Like the 2 cases of Pap test kits, or the 5 abdominal surgery packs I found lumped with all the rest of not terribly useful items. Rick and I dumped what we thought we could trade into the back of my truck, and headed over to Med Center 1. Fortunately, the SWAT police officer at the gate recognized me from when I stopped by yesterday and called the equipment manager regarding my proposed deal. I was able to barter all of my useless stuff for a significant amount of supplies (splinting material, topical medicines, sterile saline) and returned to the clinic with more suitable provender.
More on Rick. Rick is originally from Florida, and I get the impression that life has been very difficult for him some years now. He showed up here in Waveland a few days ago to see if he could get a job cleaning out houses. In fact, he was on one job a few days ago, hired out to clean out what was left of a mechanic’s garage. Well, to hear Rick tell it, he goes through what was left of this building clearing out debris and pulling out tools when he came upon a large collection of women’s lingerie. You know, garter belts, nylons, that sort of thing. Suddenly, Rick was struck with the vision of a some large, overweight, hairy garage mechanic stripping off his coveralls and wearing only a whalebone leather corset and thigh high stockings. It was enough to make him run out of the building in need of a cigarette to calm his shattered nerves. At least, that is what he told me, anyway.
I have been running on lots of coffee, adrenaline and very little sleep, and no matter how much I do here, I feel like I need to do more. If i'm not working the medical tent, I'm hauling ice or moving supplies or mopping the kitchen floor with gallons of bleach. Everyone here is really helping out, and it makes me proud to be an American and restores by hope that as human beings, perhaps we have some promise after all, seeing how just average people from everywhere have come to this place in time and history to help their stricken countrymen. I sense that this is a moment in a nation’s consciousness where what we do today shapes the future of our society. All too often I have feared that when hard times should come to our land, we would be left to our own devices to survive. We have all learned the hard way that politicians and government officials are not going to make things happen, that it is up to us, as citizens, to make sacrifices and do our part, just as members of the human family have always come together to help one another. It is heartening to my soul to see the actions of my brothers and sisters here today. A lot of them are kids, in their late teens and early 20’s. They could be anywhere else on this planet, hanging out at home playing video games or some other equally worthless pursuit. Instead, they are enduring significant hardship and sacrifice to be here and help out in any way they can. And It’s not just kids, either.
I met a older comrade today by the name of Weasel. He’s a brother of a certain age with white hair and a long white beard, sporting all manner of tattoos on his arms and riding a Kawasaki dual sport that he piloted all the way from the mountains of North Carolina. He’s been down here for the past couple of weeks now, hanging out over at the senior center and helping to clean out elderly folks homes. He is a righteous dude, and I secretly envy his bike.
This afternoon, after I was able to get a small work area in the tent set up, I saw a few minor injuries and administered a dozen or so immunizations. I was also visited by the Mississippi Department of Health in the form of a Paramedic Examiner drafted into service as a facility inspector of sorts. The way he explained it, they were trying to get an idea who has set up shop in their backyard, and I was more than happy to oblige, showing him my credentials and giving a brief tour, such as it was, of the clinic. I was also visited by several engineer/ geek types, all curious to find out just how I was able to keep the medical tent from blowing away. It turns out that this tent was one of several which had been erected in the area, and it was the only one to withstand the winds we had experienced the day before. The structure is one of the few things of a concrete nature we have recieved from FEMA, as it was originally designed and purchased by USAID for use in disaster zones in other countries. Fortunately, the tent was anchored and reinforced along its sides with several thousand pounds of bottled water, stacked up 3 feet high along the outside and effectively pinning the skirt of the tent to the pavement, so as not to allow any significant wind gusts inside to blow it apart. The stacked water also served as a windbreak, and between that and keeping the tent buttoned up tight was what kept it together despite the high winds and rain we had experienced the nigh before.
I was quickly set upon by several very well meaning, studious types, all employee of the tent maker, who were busy taking notes and jotting down diagrams on a clipboard. One of them even had a tape measure and took a number of photos, mumbling to himself obscure load coefficients. They were all very excited and seemed to be in a slightly agitated state, in the way that engineer geek types are known to. I tried to answer their questions as best I could, but I usually find that in situations like that, it's best just to make an excuse and duck out for a cup of coffee at The Tornado Lounge (an army tent previously used as the reserve kitchen tent and now being used as a venue for music, coffee and cold smoothies) which I promptly did. Fortunately, after a few more minutes, they has satisfied their curiosity (for now) and I was able to return to my duties uninterupted.
I should really get to bed soon as tomorrow will probably be a bit busier and hotter than today, so I shall close here. A few weeks ago I would never have thought I would be in a place like this, and now it is hard for me to imagine being anyplace else. Funny how that is.

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

2005-10-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome to The New Waveland Cafe, where people come from miles around for the best food on the Gulf Coast.

Arjay and comrades serving breakfast.

Amber taking a break in the kitchen.
The bus that wouldn't start.

Thaleda and Griffin preparing breakfast at the New Waveland Cafe.

7Song and Lauren with a K standing on whats left of US 90, facing east across Bay St Louis.

Day 1

2005-10-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

Day 1

The New Waveland General Hospital
Photo credit: Subkommander Dred

Waveland, Mississippi
September 23, 2005

Folks;
After hastily pitching my tent earlier this morning, I was able to get a few hours sleep. Although it was hardly restful, it was enough to recharge my batteries to some degree. I woke up about 5 am, and spent the hour making coffee on my camp stove and reorienting and securing my tent with additional tarps and stakes. I had thought of using the truck as a windbreak so as to prevent the tent from being blown away by the gale force winds we are expecting soon. The relief operation here has been scaled back for the next few days until Rita fully declares herself, but I think our friends further to the west of us will get the worst of it.
As a matter of fact, there have been a number of tornado warnings in this area over the course of the day. And this has caused a bit of a freakout amongst one of the comrades, particularly in light of the fact that his bus wouldn’t start and he was effectively stuck with the rest of us. We spent a very tense morning listening to reports of tornado warnings all over the immediate area. I thought we may have seen the start of a funnel cloud pass over, but even if this were not the case, the clouds did have a very ugly and business like feel to them. Fortunately, no calamities came to pass, but this did not prevent me from putting several large holes in my tent in the mad scramble to get ready to move. That being the case, I managed to scrounge some large tarps which I’ve strung from a couple of trees, and slung a hammock underneath. It’s not near as waterproof as my tent, but it has the advantage of being cooler (as in temperature, as well as overall hipness). Although the tent was watertight, it was also hot and stuffy, sort of like being housed in Saran Wrap. I’ve taken the liberty placing several wooden pallets (they are all over the place here, scattered about the parking lot to and fro, from which all manner of cargo had been delivered upon) on the ground underneath to work as a rudimentary floor. Of course, I did all this in the middle of several driving rain storms, and have been walking about soaked to the bone all day long. After a certain point, I don’t even try to stay dry anymore. I mean, what’s the point. Fortunately, a colleague of mine had contributed not only funds to this effort, but several bags of freshly laundered and more importantly DRY bathroom towels. At first I had been dubious about taking them, but it turns out that when going into an environment with heavy wind, rain and flooding, the prudent comrade takes along dry towels.
I had my first meal with the folks from the Rainbow Family while here in Waveland. There are a couple of buses (old school buses) from Wisconsin and North Carolina respectively. The folks from Wisconsin are a bunch of organic farmers, and they are also VERY good cooks. The chow was hot and welcome, and I fear that I shall dine on many a meal before I come upon one so well prepared as that which I have dined at the New Waveland Café. The kitchen is inside a large green army tent, complete with large burners, propane stoves and griddles. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the meals were free, as we were all paying a price to be there for that effort. But I never had to worry about being fed while I was there. The intelligence on the food has proven to be correct. Our operatives have done well.
On the bus from Wisconsin was painted a couple of cows and the saying “Don’t Panic, it’s Organic” painted in the side. There was another, smaller bus from Wisconsin painted green and with “Family Farm Defenders” posted along the side. The last vehicle belonged to a cat named Arjay. His was a large former school bus, the one that had neglected to start. A number of the folks were sleeping in them, along with a few campsites, such as my own, spread around the perimeter of the parking lot. Mind you, this is a strip mall in the middle of suburbia, a style of life and architecture that is of the sort that has destroyed so much of our country. Mini Marts, Diners, Porno shops…all of it completely trashed and abandoned. Almost like “The Road Warrior” only with a lot more water and no gas.
So far, I have met Jerome, a happening brother who knows how the play the drums, and Clovis, who comes off a northern good ol’ boy but has a good head on his shoulders, and who can also really cook! I have had the distinct pleasure of meeting Amber, a beautiful young comrade who’s been working hard at the New Waveland Café for several weeks now. She’s tough, she’s strong, she’s smart and she’s a babe! She is one hip sister.
Today I also met several of the local folks, and to hear them tell you what’s happened to them over the past several weeks is incredibly sad. One older man named Reynaldo had a house on the local bayou, and was flooded out when Katrina hit. He managed to move back in a few days ago, only to have to leave again this morning when the bayou flooded again, leaving a foot of water in his house. Another guy had his house and business destroyed, and his wife almost drowned when she refused to leave their house. So many people have lost so much here, and it’s obvious from the amount of damage this area has received that their lives will never be the same. A wall of water about 25 feet high rolled through this town (Waveland is right on the coast, and the beach is less than a mile from where I am) destroying everything that got in its way.
The fire department (what’s left of it) is located directly behind me. The fire station was destroyed early on, with only two engines and a couple of large dome tents for quarters. I ran into a couple of cops from Virginia shortly after I arrived last night, and their accommodations aren’t much better. One was a state trooper named Jason and the other a game Warden, whose name escapes me at present. As it happens, they were running low on batteries for there torches, and since I had thought to bring a large assortment of various batteries, I was able to help them out to some degree.
It is hard to look out around me and not cry at the incredible disaster that these people have lived through. I came here to do a job, and I hope I am able to contribute in some way to make their lives a little bit more bearable. A lot of the volunteers have been here for over 2 weeks now, and a large number of them will be heading home soon, including a contingent from Texas that is now eager to get back home and take care of things after Rita makes landfall.
I was able to travel around the city today. During daylight hours the curfew is lifted and there are no travel restrictions. Arjay, 7Song and Lauren with a K (yes, that is what I think she said) hopped into my truck we toured what was left of the town. Our first stop was the mobile hospital set up by Carolina Medical Center. It was quite an operation, indeed, the finest in mobile acute and emergency care facilities. But alas, it was also very crowded and very busy, just like any other large emergency department. That part never changes. It was then I decided that I would best be able to accomplish the most good by staffing the med tent at the New Wavelend Café as a triage/battalion aid station. Hopefully, if I could tend to some of the more minor stuff, it would help take the heat off Med Center 1. After that, we headed over to the senior center to inquire as to their needs. Fortunately, things seemed to be under control there, in the capable hands of a matronly woman whose name escapes me at present.
We spent the rest of that day trying to stay dry with little success and trying to put up a large tent. If you are interested in a good laugh, try imagining a bunch of folks standing around in the wind and rain, struggling and failing against the elements in the task of erecting a tent. Later in the evening, I had my first patient, a young woman who had fallen face first into a wooden platform, sustaining a nasty laceration the bridge of her nose. This woman was a truly hardy and tough sort, and that paired with her natural beauty and good hearted nature was enough to make me follow her to the gates of hell itself. Fortunately, no such duty was required, as thorough wound irrigation with saline and a dressing with dermabond was enough to repair the injury. I am anticipating a very good cosmetic result from this treatment.

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

On the road in the Southland

2005-10-03T21:36:00.000-07:00

On the road in the Southland

What's left of US 90 across Bay Saint Louis
Photo Credit; Subkommander Dred

September 22, 2005
1400 Hours

Dear Folks;
I am currently sitting in the back seat of a rented pickup tapping out this latest missive whilst a capable comrade occupies the command chair of the
Vehicle. Heather, a woman from Ashboro, North Carolina contacted me yesterday via email, hoping to catch a ride down to Waveland. I picked her up around 1000 Hours in Lexington, NC, and now we are both heading westbound on I-85. Indeed, we have been making good time on the road, and are about cross over into Georgia (Sonny Perdue, Governor). We are hoping to make it to the relief site by about 2100 this evening. Though there is a 2000 to 0600 curfew in effect, I am counting on the fact that we are carrying medical supplies for the camp that we may be able to prevail on the local law enforcement agencies to allow us through.
Heather describes herself as a member of the Rainbow family, in much the same way as I am, and knows a few of the folks down there already. As for myself, I talked with Stone last night before I went to bed, and he sounded quite pleased that we were coming down. He assured me that our expertise and equipment will be quite welcome. Apparently, we have reliable intel that they have just opened a dining facility that can accommodate 500 folks at a sitting, and has became one of the relief ‘pods’ working on the Gulf coast. Indeed, I have heard it claimed from reliable sources that all of the local authorities say the Rainbow Family is providing the best eats to be had, far superior to the steady diet of MRE’s that all of the Army, National Guard and cops have been subsisting on prior to the kitchen’s arrival.
More later as it happens.

1850 Hours
Now in Alabama, about 30 miles west of Birmingham. We ran into some heavy rain just past Atlanta, and the sky is threatening more of same, but at present we are looking at some very impressive cloud formations with little rain to speak of. We keep passing a number of flatbed trailers with all manner of heavy trucks and humvees on the back, all heading in the same direction as us. I understand that Rita is now slated to make landfall a bit to the northeast of Galveston, but I don’t think that is going to impact the area where we are going with the exception of some heavy rain, but hopefully no hurricane force wind. As we travel further, the cloud cover is taking on an exceptionally vicious cast. And we are now starting to see signs of Katrina’s aftermath, even this far from the coast. Mostly downed trees along the side of the road.
Heather and I are currently looking for a place to get some good eats. I have tried to satisfy my appetite with a classic Alabama meal (pork rinds and a Dr Pepper) but alas it has only roused my appetite without retiring it. Oh great, we have just pulled up outside of Bates House of Turkey. I wonder if Norman is around.

September 23, 2005
0200 Hours
Heather and I arrived here about 2200 hours, well after curfew, as the very polite but firm young men with machine guns advised us at the roadblock just outside of town. A squad of Florida National Guardsmen backed up by the Florida Highway Patrol are manning a checkpoint several miles outside of town. I pulled the machine over to the side of the road while Heather put in a phone call to Stone. It was here that I first stepped out of the truck, only to step into some of the gooiest, most foul looking and probably toxic mud I have ever seen in my life. The place was covered with it, and the only way they could get this road back open was to send a couple of bulldozers through and push all that foul smelling nastiness to the side of the road, along with whatever car, boat or house was also caught up in this mess, floated to the middle of the road and in the way during the tidal surge. Neither of us was looking at the prospect of spending the night in the truck, and fortunately, the cell phone service was working well enough that we could communicate with our fellows. Apparently, this fellow Stone has some significant juice, as shortly after we called him, a Florida State Patrol cruiser was escorting us down the road. Even in pitch black darkness, the devastation that I could make out was pretty intense.
It looks like they are expecting winds and heavy rain here over the next few days, tropical strength, from the outer bands of Rita, so as a result a lot of the activity here has been suspended, with only a few cops, National Guard and a skeleton crew of volunteers remaining to reconstitute the kitchen and medical aid station when the storm has passed, probably around Monday or so. It was at this point that I made contact with the mysterious “Stone,” a nice Jewish boy with plenty of guts, and his colleagues, Sevensong (7song?) and Lauren with a K. (Yes, that is what she said). The medical tent itself is buttoned up tight, with all manner of medical and surgical supplies stocked in boxes and so completely taking up all of the space available as to make the practice of actually taking care of a patient in the medical tent impractical. Apparently, this is the only place they have to store supplies, and with all the wind and rain we are anticipating, it was thought to be prudent to try to protect what we have. Hopefully, if we don’t get whacked too badly, we may be able to set up and organize the med tent in a fashion more conducive to an effective clinical setting.
Stone, despite his youthful handsomeness, looks like 5 miles of bad road, as he has been rending care as best he could with limited resources, having to rely on his intuition and clinical judgment, sometimes 24 hours a day for the past week. I know of more than a few seasoned EM attendings who would have wilted under that kind of pressure. I am thoroughly impressed by his chutzpah and smarts, and think he would make a good Surgeon General. I shall reserve that post for him when I am finally able to gather the huge army of common citizens, working people, students, farmers, of Proud Negroes and White Trash, of young, old, gay, straight, long hairs, Angry Young Punks, crew cut rednecks…an army of the citizenry, enraged about the loss of individual freedoms and personal liberty, shocked out of stupor to and finally calling for accountability from their elected officials, who all to often do the bidding of their campaign contributors and highly placed friends, as the expense of the commonwealth and our republican form of government. An army that will march upon those who… blah, blah, blah…

But that is another rap entirely.

I have set up my tent, making sure it’s well staked to the ground, and put up a large blue rain tarp over top, which in turn is tied to the truck. If worse comes to worse, I can always hang out in the truck if need be, or one of the many buses that are scattered in the parking lot. It is truly a bizarre and eerily surreal site, as we have made camp in what’s left of a Waveland strip mall. I am too tired to write much more, so I shall sign off for now, and crawl into my sleeping bag.
One last note. It is my understanding that this area is under voluntary evacuation orders, and indeed is the reason why this place is so quiet and dark. There is a distinct possibility of significant flooding, perhaps to rival the tidal surge of 25 feet that swept over this city just a little over 2 weeks ago. This has given me great pause and concern, and while this news is indeed troubling, I refuse to abort this mission. To have driven all this way, only to turn back and run would seem such a cowardly thing to do now. I can not speak for how others may feel about this, and we each have to come to our own decision. I hold no ill will to anyone who feels the need to withdraw from this area, particularly if they are making the decision for a larger group for whom they are directly responsible to. However, as for myself, I feel that to run now would be abandon these folks down here. They have already been abandoned once, by their government, by my government, and I refuse to abandon them now. I am not looking to be a hero about this, but at present my life doesn’t seem all that important. Honor and duty are what this trip is about. Sacrifice. Hardship. Compassion and maybe even Love. If I wasn’t prepared to put myself into at least a little danger, then I shouldn’t have come at all.

Carpe Diem

Later as when I am able.

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

On The Road

2005-10-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

On The Road

Charlottesville, Virginia
September 21, 2005

Dear Folks;
I plan on heading out no later than 0600 tomorrow. I had given some consideration to borrowing a reserve ambulance the hospital owns (they have several just
sitting around, waiting to be deployed for odd emergency or two), fully stocked with
"donated" medical supplies and drive it down the disaster area in order to better aid this mission that I have tasked myself with. But the fact remains that however noble my cause, I think both my employer and the local, state and federal law enforcement authorities would take a dim view of such an act on my part.

They do have such a plebian view of these things.

Right then. My ultimate destination is Waveland, Mississippi where the Rainbow Family is running a kitchen in cooperation with the Bastrop (Texas) Church of Christ and the 7th Day Adventist Disaster Response team (ACTS). Additionally, they are also operating a small medical aid station. I was talking with a cat named "Stone" who was working CALM (the Rainbow Family version of a battalion aid station) and he was quite happy indeed that I was coming down to lend a hand.
I hope I will be of some help to those folks, and that this relief mission has at least some modicum of success. I have been extremely priviledged in that many of my friends and colleagues have donated supplies, and more importantly, CASH, to make this trip possible. To all who have contributed to help with this rescue mission to our beloved Southland, I shall be forever in your debt. Therefore, I feel a significant responsibility to provide the best care as I can, and to assist my countrymen in Mississippi in whatever way I may be of service.
Apparently, there is very reliable intelligence that the climate along the Gulf Coast is extremely hot with high humidity, so I have resigned myself to sleeping in a hammock and roasting in my own sweat. I should be ok, though, for I am packing in excess of 15 gallons of water and a big can of Gatorade mix. In case you are curious, I also have;
Kerosene, 5 gallons
Gasoline, 12 gallons
Propane, 20 lb tank
Assorted medical gear
Medical oxygen
Chainsaw
Survival knife
MRE's
Flashlight's
Batteries, multiple, assorted types
Hand tools
Camping supplies
Lanterns
Laptop computer
Digital camera
Glow in the dark Buddha

This last I already had, and will be bringing it along
as a talisman to ward off any bad mojo that may come
my way. For added protection, I plan on placing a Jewish Mazuza along the doorframe of the truck. I've been looking for a plastic Jesus as well, but unfortunately none have been easily available. Hopefully God (or some reasonable facsimile thereof) will be my co-pilot. Not that Subkommander Dred is a religous man. Indeed, he is not. But, it never hurts to cover your bases, just in case. Why take a chance? After all, the prudent man is the prepared one.

Your most humble servant,

Subkommander Dred

The strong brave and

2005-10-01T21:38:00.000-07:00

This strong, brave and beautiful sister heeded the call, and has come to the aid of her country. Like the minutemen of 1775, she rallied to protect the country and save the promise of America, by helping her brothers and sisters in time of need.
The New Waveland Cafe
Waveland, Mississippi
Photo Credit; Subkommander Dred

September 15, 2005

Dear Folks…

The following is a letter that I sent to the Governor
recently;

Governor Mark R. Warner
Patrick Henry Building, 3rd Floor
1111 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219

Sir;
As a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia and
the United States of America, it is with great
astonishment and anger that I view the current
response by the federal authorities to this most
horrific disaster still unfolding along the Gulf
coast. Despite reports of daring helicopter rescues
and numerous individual acts of bravery and courage,
for whatever reasons, the dire need of our fellow
countrymen is nowhere near being adequately served
more than 4 days after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. For
reasons I cannot ascertain, the federal government in
particular has been either unwilling or unable to
mount the level of response needed to deal with a
catastrophe of such magnitude.
While I know that you have taken steps to ascertain
how best the Commonwealth could be of service in such
a disaster, I felt compelled to relay to you the sense
of urgency that I and many of my colleagues feel
regarding the serious public health threat that is
unfolding in New Orleans and elsewhere. A very serious
and dire emergency has presented itself to us, and we
are eager to play our part, not only as clinicians,
but as patriots. A prompt and robust response must be
Virginia’s course!
With the horror of the September 11, 2001 attacks
still only hours old, one of the greatest frustrations
that I and many of my countrymen endured was the
feeling of helplessness as the size of that disaster
unfolded, of being unable to do anything to help
mitigate the damage and destruction of that black day.
Have we learned nothing in the intervening 4
years? Have we forgotten how to rally around a nation
in crisis? Have we forgotten that we are citizens of a
grand democratic republic, with a duty to act when the
country is in danger?
Let history remember that when our countrymen
needed help, it was the Commonwealth of Virginia that
came to their aid. Let the world know what when
America was in danger, Virginians have time and again
rallied to her side. From the founding of our Republic
to the present day, from the time of Washington,
Jefferson and Madison, the sons and daughters of the
Commonwealth has never shied from the call of duty.
We ask only for leadership and support.

Your most humble servant...

Well, as you may have expected, I have yet to hear
from the Governor. As for my appeal to hospital
administration, it was met with a fairly lukewarm
response, largely consisting of a pat on the head for
being such a concerned person, along with an
unofficial reprimand from my supervisor, who got a
phone call from some nabob in the hospital CEO’s
office who was rather irritated that a low level grunt
in the Emergency Room had the temerity to bother
senior management with such a request for action. I
had specifically stated, in a respectful manner, that
surely an institution as venerated as ours
would be able to mount a robust and effective response
to this disaster, and that many of my colleagues as
well as myself were eager to do our part. The bungling
of this disaster response has caught many of our
public and private institutions with their pants down.
Almost 3 weeks into this mess, it appears that little
is actually happening on the ground to address the
basic needs of a large number of our countrymen.
It has become apparent by now that the institutions
that our society has depended on traditionally are not
capable, for whatever reason, to adequately meet the
needs of such an unprecedented disaster. I am not
casting blame or looking for a whipping boy in making
such a statement, but merely telling the truth. I am
ashamed of our government, and at our society for
allowing this easily foreseeable disaster to occur without adequate preparation.

In short, is has become a true Clusterfuck.

However, given the poor level of state, federal and NGO
response to this catastrophe, it has fallen to the
average citizen, either working alone or in concert
with their sisters and brothers, to provide some kind
of assistance to those who have lost so much from this
natural and manmade disaster. While I am ashamed of
my government, I am very proud of my fellow Americans
that have gone to New Orleans, or Gulfport or
elsewhere in the disaster area to aid in the relief
efforts.
Now, you all have known me for a long time. And over
the years I have come up with some crazy ideas, some
of them to my detriment. However, the most recent
crazy idea I think has some merit, and I wanted to
talk with you about something that has been brewing in
my mind ever since the extent of the damage from
Katrina became known. I strongly feel that it is now
up to the common citizen of our republic to respond in
a concrete way, to help our fellow countrymen in their
time of need. I am certain that many of you have
already donated to one of the many charities that have
been organized to respond to the Katrina disaster, and
while fundraising and asking for money is something
that I feel pretty uncomfortable with, given the
context of the situation at present, my comfort level
is pretty unimportant. Hence, the purpose of this
Communiqué.
As it happens, I have taken a week off from work
in late September, initially to attend the American
College of Emergency Physicians conference in DC.
Given the level of distress still in the Gulf states,
I think going to a convention at this point is not
only a waste of my time, but makes a mockery of the
things I believe in both as an American and a member
of the human family. I cannot criticize my government
if I am not willing to do something more than say
‘ain’t that a shame’ and put a few bucks in the
collection plate. Thus, I am going to bag going to
ACEP and head down to Mississippi to work at a soup
kitchen/medical aid station recently set up in
Gulfport. This particular operation is put together by
a group of folks called the Rainbow Family, who I have
had the occasion to hang out with most recently during
the annual Gathering in West Virginia this past
summer. To give a complete rundown of who and what
they are would be beyond the scope of this posting. If
you are inclined to do so, you may check them out on
your own (Wikipedia has a good article with links on
what the Rainbow Family is all about). The short
version is that they are bunch of like minded folks
who are bound together only by their reverence for the
earth and their desire to be a force for positive
change in the world. Or at least, that’s my interpretation. There are no dues, no hierarchy,
no religion or dogma of any kind to follow. And the
fact that they have extensive experience in setting up
kitchens and providing the services needed for a large
group of people, often in wilderness settings, makes
them particularly able to respond in a way of great
significance to such a disaster that has befallen our
country. Thus, in some way, shape or form I am going
down there at the end of the month to do whatever I
can to help out. Of course, if any of you are so
inclined, I would be more than delighted to have you
come along and contribute in what ever way you could.
Right now, I am thinking about renting a van and
loading it up with tools, material and whatever other
relief supplies I can beg, buy or steal (all for the
common good, of course) and drive down. I am looking
to leave Town on 9/22 and return here on
9/29.
However, and this is the weird part that I am
having a hard time with, if you could see your way to
sending along a few dollars to help out with this
endeavor, it would go a long way to making this trip
worthwhile. I figure that between the cost of renting
the van, the fuel to get there and back and procuring
enough supplies to have an impact will cost in the
range of $2000 to $3000 dollars, which for a man of
modest means such as myself is a considerable sum. For
that, you get a week of me (and whoever else I can get
to come along) working in the disaster zone, doing
whatever I can to help out. If I have to, I’ll charge
the whole deal on a credit card and deal with
consequences later. It’s not the optimum solution, but
I am quite willing to do so if need be.
Friends, I realize that this is not the usual rant
you would have expected from your humble working boy.
But we are living in unusual times, and since it has
become obvious that our elected officials, at all
levels, are not up to the task of providing for the
common defense and protecting our citizens from all
enemies, foreign or domestic (this includes hurricanes
and inept disaster planning), I have come to the
conclusion that until our government can get their act
together and start looking out for the interests of
the common citizen, it is up to us for make the
promise of America ring true again.
Call me crazy. Call me angry. Call me frustrated.
But most of all, call me an American.

Your most humble servant,

SubKommander Dred

Dr Dreds Medicine Sh

2005-09-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

Dr Dred’s Medicine Show

Comrades;
  I can no longer sit by and watch as millions of my countrymen are forced to fend for themselves in the aftermath of Katrina, and now Rita. While our government has failed our republic, it is the common citizen that is stepping forward and coming to the aid of our brothers and sisters. I would be a fraud to exhort others to do so and yet stay safe and comfortable at home. If I am to keep my rank as Subkommander, the time has now come that I put up or shut up. Therefore, I have undertaken a rescue mission of sorts, and plan to arrive in Waveland, Mississippi sometime Friday, September 23. The Rainbow Family has a kitchen there, and they seem to be providing for many with limited resources. If you are interested, you can Google them to check out what they are all about. Wikipedia also has a good article as well.
   In either case, I will be departing in just a few short hours now for the Southland. The vehicle I am driving is a huge V8 pickup truck with lots of bells and whistles. The cargo bed is packed to the gunwales with medical equipment; tools, water and camping gear, and hopefully I will be able to render some minor assistance in my capacity as a highly trained health care professional. Yes, it is an alter ego that I sometimes assume, when not leading a huge army of the vast lumpenprolariat, fellow citizens and members of the human family, proud negroes and white trash, hopheads, squares, beatniks, burned out rock n rollers with one foot in their graves…you know the rap.
   I shall attempt to keep the communiqués coming, however the situation is relatively primitive, hence communications are of necessity problematic. However, I shall stoically attempt to remain in communication.

                                        Your most humble servant,

                                                Subkommander Dred

President Chavezs Sp

2005-09-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

"Hugo Chavez is more important than God!"

Comrades;
The following is the speech that Brother Hugo gave the United Nations last week. For those of you not familiar with El Jefe Chavez, you might want to give his remarks a careful read. The above quote was from a sister in Venezuela, singing the praises of Mr Chavez at a street demonstration some years back. While Subkommander Dred has a hard time getting his arms around this "God" thing, there is no doubt that my man Hugo is doing well by the majority of the poor and working class in his country. Access to education, increasing literacy, free health care for those who can't afford otherwise...sounds like a good deal to me. Love him or hate him, there is no middle ground with Brother Hugo.

Excellencies, friends, good afternoon: The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life. Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals- which were very modest indeed- will not be met. We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment. We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it. Friends of the world, this takes us to a sad conclusion: The United Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth. These transformations – the ones Venezuela is referring to- have, according to us, two phases: The immediate phase and the aspiration phase, a utopia. The first is framed by the agreements that were signed in the old system. We do not run away from them. We even bring concrete proposals in that model for the short term. But the dream of an ever-lasting world peace, the dream of a world not ashamed by hunger, disease, illiteracy, extreme necessity, needs-apart from roots- to spread its wings to fly. We need to spread our wings and fly. We are aware of a frightening neoliberal globalization, but there is also the reality of an interconnected world that we have to face not as a problem but as a challenge. We could, on the basis of national realities, exchange knowledge, integrate markets, interconnect, but at the same time we must understand that there are problems that do not have a national solution: radioactive clouds, world oil prices, diseases, warming of the planet or the hole in the ozone layer. These are not domestic problems. As we stride toward a new United Nations model that includes all of us when they talk about the people, we are bringing four indispensable and urgent reform proposals to this Assembly: the first; the expansion of the Security Council in its permanent categories as well as the non permanent categories, thus allowing new developed and developing countries as new permanent and non permanent categories. The second; we need to assure the necessary improvement of the work methodology in order to increase transparency, not to diminish it. The third; we need to immediately suppress- we have said this repeatedly in Venezuela for the past six years- the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council, that elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the principles of equality and democracy. And the fourth; we need to strengthen the role of the Secretary General; his/her political functions regarding preventive diplomacy, that role must be consolidated. The seriousness of all problems calls for deep transformations. Mere reforms are not enough to recover that “we” all the peoples of the world are waiting for. More than just reforms we in Venezuela call for the foundation of a new United Nations, or as the teacher of Simón Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez said: “Either we invent or we err.” At the Porto Alegre World Social Forum last January different personalities asked for the United Nations to move outside the United States if the repeated violations to international rule of law continue. Today we know that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The people of the United States have always been very rigorous in demanding the truth to their leaders; the people of the world demand the same thing. There were never any weapons of mass destruction; however, Iraq was bombed, occupied and it is still occupied. All this happened over the United Nations. That is why we propose this Assembly that the United Nations should leave a country that does not respect the resolutions taken by this same Assembly. Some proposals have pointed out to Jerusalem as an international city as an alternative. The proposal is generous enough to propose an answer to the current conflict affecting Palestine. Nonetheless, it may have some characteristics that could make it very difficult to become a reality. That is why we are bringing a proposal made by Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of the South, in 1815. Bolívar proposed then the creation of an international city that would host the idea of unity. We believe it is time to think about the creation of an international city with its own sovereignty, with its own strength and morality to represent all nations of the world. Such international city has to balance five centuries of unbalance. The headquarters of the United Nations must be in the South. Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis in which an unstoppable increase of energy is perilously reaching record highs, as well as the incapacity of increase oil supply and the perspective of a decline in the proven reserves of fuel worldwide. Oil is starting to become exhausted. For the year 2020 the daily demand for oil will be 120 million barrels. Such demand, even without counting future increments- would consume in 20 years what humanity has used up to now. This means that more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming our planet even more. Hurricane Katrina has been a painful example of the cost of ignoring such realities. The warming of the oceans is the fundamental factor behind the demolishing increase in the strength of the hurricanes we have witnessed in the last years. Let this occasion be an outlet to send our deepest condolences to the people of the United States. Their people are brothers and sisters of all of us in the Americas and the rest of the world. It is unpractical and unethical to sacrifice the human race by appealing in an insane manner the validity of a socioeconomic model that has a galloping destructive capacity. It would be suicidal to spread it and impose it as an infallible remedy for the evils which are caused precisely by them. Not too long ago the President of the United States went to an Organization of American States’ meeting to propose Latin America and the Caribbean to increase market-oriented policies, open market policies-that is neoliberalism- when it is precisely the fundamental cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered by our people. : The neoliberal capitalism, the Washington Consensus. All this has generated is a high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on his continent. What we need now more than ever Mr. President is a new international order. Let us recall the United Nations General assembly in its sixth extraordinary session period in 1974, 31 years ago, where a new International Economic Order action plan was adopted, as well as the States Economic Rights and Duties Charter by an overwhelming majority, 120 votes for the motion, 6 against and 10 abstentions. This was the period when voting was possible at the United Nations. Now it is impossible to vote. Now they approve documents such as this one which I denounce on behalf of Venezuela as null, void and illegitimate. This document was approved violating the current laws of the United Nations. This document is invalid! This document should be discussed; the Venezuelan government will make it public. We cannot accept an open and shameless dictatorship in the United Nations. These matters should be discussed and that is why I petition my colleagues, heads of states and heads of governments, to discuss it. I just came from a meeting with President Néstor Kirchner and well, I was pulling this document out; this document was handed out five minutes before- and only in English- to our delegation. This document was approved by a dictatorial hammer which I am here denouncing as illegal, null, void and illegitimate. Hear this, Mr. President: if we accept this, we are indeed lost. Let us turn off the lights, close all doors and windows! That would be unbelievable: us accepting a dictatorship here in this hall. Now more than ever- we were saying- we need to retake ideas that were left on the road such as the proposal approved at this Assembly in 1974 regarding a New Economic International Order. Article 2 of that text confirms the right of states to nationalizing the property and natural resources that belonged to foreign investors. It also proposed to create cartels of raw material producers. In the Resolution 3021, May, 1974, the Assembly expressed its will to work with utmost urgency in the creation of a New Economic International Order based on- listen carefully, please- “the equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all states regardless of their economic and social systems, correcting the inequalities and repairing the injustices among developed and developing countries, thus assuring present and future generations, peace, justice and a social and economic development that grows at a sustainable rate.” The main goal of the New Economic International Order was to modify the old economic order conceived at Breton Woods. We the people now claim- this is the case of Venezuela- a new international economic order. But it is also urgent a new international political order. Let us not permit that a few countries try to reinterpret the principles of International Law in order to impose new doctrines such as “pre-emptive warfare.” Oh do they threaten us with that pre-emptive war! And what about the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine? We need to ask ourselves. Who is going to protect us? How are they going to protect us? I believe one of the countries that require protection is precisely the United States. That was shown painfully with the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina; they do not have a government that protects them from the announced nature disasters, if we are going to talk about protecting each other; these are very dangerous concepts that shape imperialism, interventionism as they try to legalize the violation of the national sovereignty. The full respect towards the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter must be, Mr. President, the keystone for international relations in today’s world and the base for the new order we are currently proposing. It is urgent to fight, in an efficient manner, international terrorism. Nonetheless, we must not use it as an excuse to launch unjustified military aggressions which violate international law. Such has been the doctrine following September 11. Only a true and close cooperation and the end of the double discourse that some countries of the North apply regarding terrorism, could end this terrible calamity. In just seven years of Bolivarian Revolution, the people of Venezuela can claim important social and economic advances. One million four hundred and six thousand Venezuelans learned to read and write. We are 25 million total. And the country will-in a few days- be declared illiteracy-free territory. And three million Venezuelans, who had always been excluded because of poverty, are now part of primary, secondary and higher studies. Seventeen million Venezuelans-almost 70% of the population- are receiving, and for the first time, universal healthcare, including the medicine, and in a few years, all Venezuelans will have free access to an excellent healthcare service. More thatn a million seven hundred tons of food are channeled to over 12 million people at subsidized prices, almost half the population. One million gets them completely free, as they are in a transition period. More than 700 thousand new jobs have been created, thus reducing unemployment by 9 points. All of this amid internal and external aggressions, including a coup d’etat and an oil industry shutdown organized by Washington. Regardless of the conspiracies, the lies spread by powerful media outlets, and the permanent threat of the empire and its allies, they even call for the assassination of a president. The only country where a person is able to call for the assassination of a head of state is the United States. Such was the case of a Reverend called Pat Robertson, very close to the White House: He called for my assassination and he is a free person. That is international terrorism! We will fight for Venezuela, for Latin American integration and the world. We reaffirm our infinite faith in humankind. We are thirsty for peace and justice in order to survive as species. Simón Bolívar, founding father of our country and guide of our revolution swore to never allow his hands to be idle or his soul to rest until he had broken the shackles which bound us to the empire. Now is the time to not allow our hands to be idle or our souls to rest until we save humanity.
Translated by Néstor Sánchez

FDR was not a used car salesman

2005-09-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

FDR was not a used car salesman

Michael Brown, in so many ways, was the perfect FEMA director for a man like George W. Bush. Indeed, in retrospect, it seems that Mr. Brown’s lack of experience and serious shortcomings regarding his actual ability to lead a previously well thought of government organization in the serious business of disaster management and emergency response would have seemed to be a serious hindrance to his ability to command that post effectively. However, largely because he was the college buddy of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign manager, he was chosen to head this important post. It is frightening indeed that now the grounds for appointment to a very important, high level government position, which is responsible for the life and safety of the nation’s citizens, the closest equivalent we have to a national fire and emergency services department, was given over to some guy who had never been on the nozzle of a charged line or extricated a trauma patient from a wrecked vehicle , or did something, anything, a little bit more involved with a public safety agency than just have good connections. Did Brownie even have a valid CPR card? Did he at least get a merit badge for first aid in the Boy Scouts?
It’s truly amazing that today in America, this sort of thing can happen. This is exactly what occurs in so many of those third world nations where corruption is rampant; the government is run by a bunch of hired stooges, almost always in a one party state, with a dominant if not complete control of the news media. It also brings back a time in America’s past when we were run by a monarchy, not citizens at all but subjects to the crown. Part of what the American Revolution was about most certainly liberty and justice, but it was also about the accountability of the nation’s leaders to the citizens that elected them.
A brother could say many things about Bill Clinton. Mean things. Vicious things. Very uncharitable things. And for the most part, you would be right about a lot of them. But one thing Bill Clinton was not; stupid. At least when it came to matters where he had to keep his pants on. James Lee Witt, the FEMA director under President Clinton and now hired by the governor of Louisiana to oversee the Katrina crisis, was widely lauded for his leadership by Republicans and Democrats alike when he oversaw the federal response to the Oklahoma City bombing and the North Ridge earthquake. Mr. Witt had previously overseen emergency preparedness for the state of Arkansas while Mr. Clinton was governor. This is not a defense of Bill Clinton or the Democratic Party. Senator Joseph Lieberman, (D) Conn. was the committee leader in the Senate at the time of Brown’s confirmation hearing. To read a transcript of that event is to read of a truly sickening episode of the Democrats rolling over to the Bush White House. Whether this is due to spinelessness of the Democrats or just incompetence in their own right, the fact of the matter is the opposition party failed to…well, oppose, on good grounds, a man like Michael Brown. How could a reasonable and thinking person consider Brown for even a moment for such a position? Well, George W. Bush did.
That’s how George Bush looks at the world. It’s not “Who is the best person for the job?” but “What political ideologue can I give this department to?” That is all George W. Bush knows. That is how he has gotten ahead in life, and thus that’s how he thinks he should run things, by doing favors for political bag men.

There was a day when the Democratic Party had a spine. When a man in a wheelchair provided all the courage and chutzpah to see a nation through a terrible economic collapse and a world war, all while keeping the country from being taken over by the communist party. Yes, this may come as a shock to you, but in the 1930’s the CP was something a lot of out of work and angry working class people were looking to for answers. If you think about the world in the context of that time, with Stalin consolidating power and covertly funding the American Communist Party, one alternative scenario of world history is our country being taken over by some socialist totalitarian state, not that different from Russia or even Germany of the time. Franklin Roosevelt saved America from the communists. And that is a fact.
I make the comparison to Roosevelt for a reason. George W. Bush, like FDR, is a man who was born into a wealthy family. They both come from the power elite in this country. Both overcame hardships (Roosevelt’s polio, Bush’s alcohol and drug addiction). But whereas FDR rallied a nation by appealing to its loftiest principles, Bush and his media savvy goons play to our fears and prejudice. It’s been my experience that people tend to make really bad decisions when they’re afraid and not getting the truth. Roosevelt knew, for reasons quite aside that it was the decent thing to do, that by providing huge government work and development programs he could at least get some people back to work, maybe enough to be able to ride out the great depression. He understood that government, at its root, exists to serve the interests of the nation and her citizens. And to ignore the fact that there was no work, no heat and no food for millions of Americans was to court the destruction of the United States of America. He understood that American society had changed significantly, and was no longer a country of yeoman farmers and blacksmiths. We had become a modern industrial power, with all the attendant class and social conflicts that came with it. In the high spending days of the 1920’s, the noise of that economic boom time covered up some of the more gross inequalities in our society, perhaps in much the same way that the spending and excesses of the 1990’s heralds a darker time for those of us living today. I hope not. I really do. But these days lately, I’ve been having a hard time being optimistic.
I could argue about compassion for our brothers and sisters, reverence for human rights and a desire for basic justice all day long, and while those things are worth fighting for in their own right, I could also make the assertion that money spent for the improvement of the commonwealth and it’s citizens is an investment in the kind of a society we want to create. Good schools, decent health care and affordable housing cost so much less in the long run than prisons, police departments and courts. George W. Bush talks about an ‘Ownership society.’ FDR talked about service and sacrifice, so that all may share in the promise of America. Franklin Roosevelt wanted to save a country. George W. Bush wants to sell you a used car.

Angry Punks

2005-09-12T21:34:00.000-07:00

Angry Young Punks

Angry Young Punks recently recruited into the massive army of Proud Negroes, White Trash, Geeks, Freaks, etc, etc…
These young brothers are an example of the Angry Young Punks to be found spread far and wide in our land, ready to respond and answer the call of “Long Live The Republic!” Though they may be burned out rock and rollers with one foot in their graves, they are still patriots and are to rushing the aid of their country.

Photo credit: Special Agent Boersma

Some Friendly Advice

2005-09-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

Some Friendly Advice for the Young MBA
Guido ‘The Hammer’ Corleone,
CEO Fortuna Olive Oil Imports, Inc.

Normally, I wouldn’t be the kind of guy who sticks his neck out very far. In the kind of business I deal in, I have found that it’s best for all parties involved to stay out of the limelight. So you could well imagine my reluctance to talk with you about some of my business experiences, and how these could be used to illustrate modern business practices currently employed in a free market economy such as ours. However, since I am after all an honest business man, just doing his best to take care of his family and put food on the table, I began to think that maybe, I could share a thought or two to help the young and ambitious entrepreneur, just out of Harvard Business School with an MBA diploma on the wall and eager to get a piece of the action for himself. That is what we’re talkin’ bout here. Getting a piece of the action.
For starters, it’s always a good idea to have friends. My old man used to tell me that a man could never have too many friends. Particularly, friends in high places. You see, my father, may he rest in peace, used to say “American politicians are the most honest politicians in the world. Once they get bought, they stay bought!” My old man knew that a politician in the pocket was worth more than 10 hardcore button men. Why, you could have all the sharp pencil boys in the IRS and the Pezzo Novanto Justice Department on your back, backed up by a DA out to indict with a sitting grand jury. But if you got a senator and a few congressmen in your pocket, you got a ‘get out of jail free’ card. Why do you think all those executives at big companies like Enron, WorldCom, Halliburton and Exxon Mobil, just to name a few, make out like bandits and are still mostly free as a bird? Campaign contributions can be a great investment.
Now, like I was saying, me, I’m just a legitimate business man trying to make an honest living. But, I always followed my father’s advice, and I’ve profited immensely from it. The olive oil importing business can sometimes be a rough game, but over the years my associates and I have come to an understanding in the running of our affairs. I guess you could call it a ‘trade’ organization, where we have a chance to sit down and discuss new ideas or perhaps even mediate some of our more ‘controversial’ issues. Like the time Joey Mopes had a beef with some of the ‘executives' from the Franchesi Trucking Company. Joey, god bless his soul, was a good guy, but he had a temper like you wouldn’t believe. And when he started goin’ on and on about how he was gonna whack Tony Franchesi for some minor slight, it was only a matter of time till he showed up with a bullet to the back of the brain. Now, that, as my old man would say, is “Business As Usual.”
Yeah, Business As Usual. As in, this is strictly business. Nothing personal. Me, I liked Joey Mopes. I thought he was a great guy. Played cards with him all the time. Even sent flowers to his widow after the funeral. But, he was crazy. He was a madman. He had to be stopped. He was talking about whacking the head of a serious enterprise, and in the process he could have screwed up a very lucrative trade for a number of honest businessmen, just trying to provide for their families.
Which brings me to another important lesson; Muscle. Politicians are good in most instances, but sometimes, you just have to do what you have to do to take care of your business. That’s where a good button man comes in.
Times were, you just looked for a tough kid from the old country, like from out of the hills around Messina. Kid just got off the boat, you gave him a couple of jobs to do, and if he did them OK and kept his mouth shut and followed orders, we’d make him a soldier, you know, a made man. Make him a part of ‘this thing of ours.’
But now, they got this company out there called Blackwater Security. And even though I hate to admit it, these guys have taken the concept of a button man to a completely new level. I mean, I really have to admire these guys. They go out and get a bunch of ex-government secret agent types to run a corporation that hires out button men as needed, all for profit and all completely legit! Now, that is some serious juice! And imagine the cost savings!
Now, when it comes to the type of politician to buy, it always pays to back the one with the least brains. Otherwise, they might get ideas of their own, like actually representing the citizens that elected them or some other kind of ridiculousness. I’ve had the chance to deal with a fair number of cheap political crooks from both sides of the aisle. While I have had the occasion to make the odd campaign contribution to a few Democratic ward healers, the return on investment ratio has not been very good.
Which leads into the last thing I would like to mention. As an honest business man, the last thing I need is onerous government oversight of my business affairs. I want tax relief. I don’t understand why some spotted owl gets to decide if I cut down a forest just because it’s on the endangered species list. I think prayer should be allowed in classrooms (Catholic prayers, that is). We need to clean up our neighborhoods from all this rap music and longhairs and whatnot, and make our towns and our cities safe for decent folk again. And definitely not allow soddomites to get married! Holy Madonna! What sacrilege!
And that’s why I always, always vote Republican. I mean, I might as well. I own a few already.

A Fish Story

2005-09-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

It was early September and they were stone broke. For the past 3 months Pete Kadanski and Jimmy Hollis had been up before dawn, down to the dock, bleary eyed and swilling Dunkin’ Donuts coffee while heading out to the fishing grounds before daybreak. It had become a monotonous routine carried out by zombies. Whatever excitement and adventure they had felt at the beginning of this folly had long since vanished, their initial enthusiasm to make some serious cash as commercial fishermen having turned into the desperation and despair of two men with empty bank accounts, and maxed out credit cards. It was something neither of them ever talked about. It was a taboo subject, as if to speak of it would ensure the loss of all they had sweated for.
It was a fate that had befallen fishermen far more wiser and experienced, such as Dickey Martin and his longliner State of Grace, and Joey Texiera, captain and owner of the stick boat Hannah’s Gold. They were victims of The First National Bank of Massachusetts. That August institution had made predatory loans to several of the more respected, but struggling, commercial fishermen of Gloucester. Now that the economy had turned south, and the fish increasingly not where they were supposed to be (in the holds of the fishing boats), the bank was coming to take the collateral. Being Gloucestermen, they didn’t give up their boats without a fight. Dickey had tried to run a harpoon through the town constable when he was presented with the papers to repossess his boat. It had taken a can of pepper spray to the face and a beating from the city cops before they hauled him off in handcuffs to the Suffolk County jail. Joey had taken it a step further, mooring his boat in the middle of the harbor and threatening any “scumbag that tries to take my boat gets a load of birdshot right in the ass,” backing up his threat by brandishing a double barrel shotgun he took to carrying while on deck. He was joined by his wife, Hannah (a woman as every inch as tough as her husband), the vessel’s namesake, and they took turns standing watch, each brandishing the weapon in defiance of the Gods of the free market, international banking and a shit economy.
It had taken the Coast Guard and a contingent of both Department of Natural Resources and Massachusetts State Police in full tactical gear to storm the boat and end the “siege,” in a raid conducted in the middle of the night, complete with flashbang grenades and tear gas. Like they were both on the “FBI’s Most Wanted” list, maybe even sheltering Osama bin Laden in the engine room. That show made all the local Boston TV stations. Police raids always make good video. Yeah, Johnny Law got to use all his goodies on that one, and notwithstanding the two MSP cops who puked up their guts from getting seasick on the assault boat, and the one Coastie that had been kicked in the nuts by Hannah while they were trying to cuff her, no one had been seriously hurt. Justice? No, it’s Just Us.
Commercial fishermen were quickly becoming an endangered species. Nowhere was that fact more apparent than in Gloucester, Massachusetts. They had become almost as endangered as they fish they were hunting. The codfish stocks had collapsed. The swordfish fewer. And the giant Bluefin tuna, the fish the Whitefin was made to hunt for, was fast becoming more myth than reality. The Giant Bluefin was a victim of multiple factors, all manmade, all foreseeable, all ignored. It was a bad time to start out in the tuna fishing business. Only Pete and Jimmy were too stubborn, too proud, too desperate or too stupid to let that that stop them.
Like all ventures, it started out with a dream. An idea. Something that would free Pete and Jimmy from the paycheck to paycheck existence they had been living for the past year or so, ever since they got laid off from the MIC plant in Lynn. The top executives had figured that machining parts for Peregrine attack helicopter engines recently ordered by the Pentagon could be done a lot more cheaply in Mexico. They promptly shipped the jet turbine division down to a maquiladora in Juarez, while awarding themselves large bonuses for their business acumen. In the meantime, Pete and Jim, along with 250 of their coworkers, were out on the street, a pink slip in one hand, directions to the local unemployment office in the other.
They had known each other since High School, Lynn English, class of 2000, and like their fathers had gone on to work at the plant, the largest employer in town. They had been bright students, but known pranksters. The inflatable doll in bondage gear and strap on sexual aid suddenly appearing out of nowhere in midfield at the homecoming game between Lynn English and Lynn Classical, while never linked to them, had their sick sense of humor labeled all over it.
Despite their antics, they had been encouraged by their teachers to go to college. But college cost money, and for a couple of working class kids from Lynn, no matter how smart they were, going to college was as likely as going to the moon. Now, the two friends were at the bottom of the capitalist food chain. Yeah, the sharp pencil boys always make out like bandits; complete with a golden parachute for the CEO should he have to bail out if the stock price drops. Wall Street can be a cold hearted bastard. The prudent man should be prepared.
Jimmy and Pete didn’t get golden parachutes. Instead, they got an economic golden shower, shown the door by stern faced security guards, themselves aware that in the new global economy, they could be next. To get by they’d taken odd jobs, and being bright, hard working, jack-of-all-trades types, had managed to scrape by with the assortment of skills and tools they had at their disposal. They delivered pizza, installed cable TV and computer networks, debugged PC’s, built bookshelves and remodeled kitchens, basements and bathrooms for folks still wealthy enough to afford it. But it was still a struggle, and some months they earned just enough money to pay the rent, while subsisting on a diet of PB & J sandwiches and Progresso soup. What little they had left went for a few beers on Friday nights at Harry Hope’s Bar and Grill. The idea had been percolating in Jimmy’s brain for some time now, and before the evening was over, he had managed to talk Pete into it, with the aid of more beer than usual, with a few shots of Jose Cuervo thrown in for good measure.
“So, let me get this straight” said Pete. “You have this idea to make us financially solvent and earn a good deal of jack to last a good long while, and we’re gonna do it by tuna fishing?”
“Look man,” replied his friend, “It’s not like we’re gonna go to Mars or perform brain surgery or anything really complicated. I mean, what could be simpler than fishing. You remember all those times my Uncle Dave took us out on his boat, and he was as hardcore a Gloucesterman as they come.”
“Yeah, and I seem to recall he lost most of his left foot when he got too close to a Mako shark he thought was dead. Man, we’re not talkin’ about getting on a tourist boat with a bunch of geeks from Boston, jigging for mackerel off Stellwagon Bank. That’s a dangerous goddamn job! If you’re really serious about this, you need to have a plan. You got that? I mean financing, capital investment, charts, navigation equipment, safety equipment, a fisheries license, just for starters. And that’s not even considering the fact that you don’t even have a goddamn boat.”
“You know, dude” countered Jim, “ I was reading in the paper the other day there was a crew last summer on a stick boat, you know, a harpoon boat…”
“I know what a stick boat is…” interrupted Pete, his attention wandering to the slender figure of Melissa, the barkeep who kept the two supplied with alcohol.
“Yeah, sure, right. But listen. This boat, the Spartina out of Seabrook. It had 3 guys on board and they caught a bigass fish, a Giant Bluefin Tuna. I mean big, 850 pounds, and they sold that thing at auction at the Tokyo fish market a day later…”
“How the hell did they get it to Tokyo a day later?”
“They packed the goddamn thing in a box the size of a piano case, stuffed it with ice and sent it next day shipping via air to Tokyo. You may have heard of this invention they got nowadays called jet airliners…”
“Don’t be a dick” Pete said, taking another pull off his Rolling Rock.
“Stop looking at Melissa and shut your pie hole! Listen to me for one goddamn minute!” said Jimmy. “The fish dealer trucks it to Logan in time to catch the next flight to Tokyo. It arrives in the fish market 24 hours after it was landed on the boat. That day in particular they had very few fish come in, and the next thing you know, this fish is sold to the highest bidder for $74,000.”
“What did you say?” said Pete, his attention suddenly redirected from Melissa by the mention of such a large sum of money.
“74 grand. As in a seven followed by a four followed by a comma and three zeroes. Then a decimal point.”
“74 large, huh?” commented Pete thoughtfully. “That’s a lot of jack.”
“Split 3 ways,” added Jim, “The take for each guy was a little under 17 grand, after expenses, such as diesel fuel, bait, insurance…you know, all the usual stuff. And that was just one fish. That boat caught three additional fish last summer. Anyway you look at it, those guys had a pretty good season. Matter of fact, I heard a story of one fish being auctioned on consignment in Tokyo a couple of years back for over $172,000. One fish. Can you imagine that?”
“You’re making this shit up, aren’t you. No fish is ever gonna go for that much money.”
“Here’s the article, brother,” said Jimmy, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “I printed it off the English language website of Asahi Shimbun. There it is, man. Look at the size of that fish.”
Pete took the printout and unfolded it, and as Jim had said, it was all there. Yes, the fish story was true. It had been sold for such a large amount of money. The picture accompanying the article showed a magnificent looking animal, steel blue and shaped like a torpedo, a perfect underwater speed machine, all 940 pounds of it. 940 pounds. Now, that was a big fish. And it had been caught just 60 miles from where they were sitting right now, at a place called “The Cat’s Paw” off the coast of Newburyport.
“Well, that’s all well and good,” said Pete, after a few moments reflection. “But that still gets back to the essential problem of investment capital. Or should I say, lack of. Where you gonna get your hands on that kind of cash?”
“Look, I have a plan, OK. Just trust me on this. We can do this thing. You let me handle the finances, and you take care of the rest. I know the basics, but you know about electronics, and diesel engines, and all that other stuff. We can do this thing. But it has to be the both of us.”
So it was in Harry Hope’s Bar and Grill that Pete and Jim decided to go into the commercial fishing business. That was in late January, and they needed to act quickly. Working capital had to be raised, a suitable boat found, equipment acquired, knowledge gained. Pete started looking for used boats, evaluating their seaworthiness, all the technical wonkish stuff he could really get into. Jim was responsible for financing the operation, devising a more imaginative approach to financing this particular venture.
Using a copy of his old MIC plant ID, he was able to bluff his way past the joke of a security detail that guarded what was left of the MIC plant in Lynn. Scouting out the executive offices, he found the general manager’s office not only open, but empty. Jim had gained intelligence from a source within the plant that the general manager was having an ‘staff meeting’ with one of his more junior employees, and also knew that it was right around that time of day that he and his colleague would be in the throes of passion, mounted on the large oak table in the executive conference room.
As expected, Jim found the general manager’s expensive leather briefcase by his desk and left the plant undetected, carefully avoiding or shielding his face from the multiple security cameras arrayed about the plant to protect our nation’s secrets from theft. The plant manager had conveniently left his wallet and PDA in the briefcase, along with his cell phone and company ID. Within the hour, after altering the various picture ID’s with his own photo, Jimmy donned a nice looking suit he had purchased at the Salvation Army for 20 bucks, and managed to talk his way into office of the vice president for loans at the First National Bank of Massachusetts. Within 30 minutes, he had managed to wrangle a cashier’s check for a personal loan in the sum of $35,000 from the accommodating Vice President for Loans. The check was subsequently laundered with the help of an Italian acquaintance of Jimmy’s who had rather strong “family” connections. A certain favor was owed to Jimmy by this individual, and a favor owed is as good as money in the bank.
The way Jimmy Hollis saw it, the rat bastard of a general manager deserved it, especially after he had received more than twice that amount as a year end bonus for all the cost savings he had accomplished at the plant, namely by having Jim and Pete laid off, along with all those other folks. To Jimmy’s way of thinking, karma has a way of coming back and biting a person in the ass when they least expect it.
And so it came to pass that working capital was raised, and a suitable boat was found. It was an older boat, a 30 foot Crosby Canyon. The engines were beat, the electronics outdated. It had been put in storage on land for the better part of two years, in need of a buyer. A price was negotiated, papers were signed, money exchanged, documents filed, and the boat, renamed Whitefin, was theirs.
In addition to their day jobs, they spent every evening and weekend getting the vessel ready for the rigors of a workboat. Among other things, the stuffing boxes had rotted out and both diesel engines required complete overhauls. But over the months, the work was completed and the boat, their boat, was ready.
That was back in early June. Now it was the first week of September, and they had succeeded in catching not so much as a cold. With the end of the fishing season approaching fast and absolutely nothing to show for their labors, Pete and Jimmy were men on the verge of madness. Rough weather, engine breakdowns, foul smelling bait and just plain bad luck had pushed them to the limit. They figured they had just enough fuel to make one more day on the water. After that, no more cash. No more credit. No more fish. As if they even had a chance in the first place.
This last day they had anchored off “The Curl,” a spot on a chart 40 miles out, with a steep drop off below where the bait fish would congregate at high tide. The first tide had come and gone at 6 am, and they were waiting for the next tide to come so they could finally stop this madness once and for all, call it quits, and go home.
It was late afternoon that Jimmy, at the helm watching the depth finder, noted some large blobs on the view screen, each blob representing some sort of marine life. They had been plagued by seals earlier that day, eating the chum, the baitfish that Pete had been cutting up like an automaton and dumping overboard in an effort to bring the fish to their 300 pound test monofilament lines, hanging adrift in the water, suspended 30 feet below the surface from black plastic trash bags filled with air.
They were too poor to afford proper rods and reels, equipment that costs thousands of dollars. Instead, they were using 2 handlines, 200 feet of 1 inch manila rope spliced to monofilament, each handline carefully stored in a large milk crate and attached with a 1 foot diameter orange ball, a kind of inflatable buoy.
Pete, sitting on the stern rail said “Hey Jimmy, it’s your turn to cut up this shit. I’ll take the helm for a while.”
“I got something spotted on the depth finder,” replied Jimmy. “Dump out some more chum.”
“Man, how many times you been sayin’ that this past summer? ‘Keep cutting up the chum, I see some fish on the monitor.’ Screw you! I’m tired of cutting of this foul smelling shit we got for bait. No wonder we ain’t catching any fish. No fish would come near the foul smelling stuff we’re using. Besides, it’s probably just that same goddamn seal that’s been eatin’ our…”
Pete was about to continue in his tirade when a sudden explosion of water occurred about 20 feet astern of the Whitefin, with the sudden disappearance of the starboard black trash bag, followed instantly by noise of starboard handline zipping out of its milk crate. Only one fish hits a line like that, a Giant Bluefin Tuna. And the fish was already running away, the 2 inch hook mouse-trapped into the mackerel bait deeply set in his jaw.
“Jesus Christ!” yelled Pete. “FISH ON!”
“Shit, Shit, goddamn….SHIT! Get on that line! I’ll get the other hand line in!” yelled Jimmy. What followed was Chinese fire drill of an affair, as Pete grabbed a pair of heavy leather gloves and tried to take control of the handline running off faster than he could have imagined. Jimmy, stumbling on the step down from the helm, fell and smashed his knee on the deck, cutting open a large gash which proceeded to bleed profusely. Jimmy didn’t notice the wound. All he wanted to do was get the port handline in, drop off the anchor with the quick release, fire up the engines and chase this fish that by providence, by God’s grace, by karma, the Whitefin had somehow hooked into.
“Don’t hold onto the line!” yelled Jimmy, ripping off his T shirt to use as a makeshift bandage around his leg. “That bastard will take you over with him, Pete.” Jimmy fired up both diesel engines, and engaging both screws, started to turn for the fish, to catch up to the animal. Pete, on the handline, yelled “Man, this one is big! He’s got almost all the line out! Get this boat moving you son of a bitch!”
What followed was an exchange of language so profane and vulgar that it shall not be repeated in these pages. They were sailors, and they lived up to their reputation in that regard. Pete stayed on the handline, pulling and letting go, letting the animal run itself out. Jimmy pursued it, maneuvering the Whitefin to force the animal to exhaust itself, literally to the point of death. Time passed, minutes, then an hour, and finally, at the end of one hour and 25 minutes, Pete had managed to bring in all but the last 25 feet of line. That’s when they saw it surface, a perfect creature, a Giant Bluefin Tuna, a big one. What little life it had left in it was ebbing fast, and grabbing the monofilament line, Pete hauled in like a madman while Jimmy jammed the craft in neutral, grabbing the harpoon and jumping to the transom. The fish was brought alongside the boat, and Jimmy rammed the harpoon home, the barb striking firmly into the flesh of the animal just behind the head.

Israeli Defense Forc

2005-09-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

Israeli Defense Force soldiers at a checkpoint.
Something about a woman in uniform (heavily armed is best) is quite appealing to Subkommander Dred. Makes a brother (or even more than a few sisters, for that matter) want to convert to Judiasm. What I want to know is are all the chicks in the IDF this hot? Now if only they could just leave the Palestinians alone and work something out...
Photo credit Commandante Wolf, a righteous comrade in his own right who is also an artist and professional photographer.
Check out his other work at www.lloydwolf.com

Brownie youre a dead

2005-09-10T09:08:00.000-07:00

“Brownie, you’re a dead man.”

Comrades;
How is it that in a democratic republic such as ours, the mediocre and criminally incompetent manage to surface to the top, while hard working, bright and experienced professionals are tossed aside? This is especially true when the bright and experienced professionals break with the party line. Then, they are either shown the door, as in the case of U.S. Army General Eric Shinseki (a Vietnam veteran who had part of a foot blown off in combat), or attacked, as in the respective cases of Richard Clark or Ambassador James Wilson. General Shinseki lost favor with Donald Rumsfeld and the Neo Cons by suggesting that the battle plan for Iraq was woefully undermanned, on the order of about several hundred thousand soldiers. And both Mr. Clark and Ambassador Wilson have been viciously attacked by administration toadies in the executive and legislative branches, as well as their various media organs for spilling their guts on what they knew regarding the lies the administration had been pedaling about Al Queda, Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
So, here we are, 4 years after that bright September morning in which our country was attacked and thousands of fellow citizens were murdered in cold blood. Despite a massive governmental reorganization, the likes of which had not been seen since the establishment of the National Security Act of the Truman administration, despite assurances from our elected government officials that they were now better able to respond to any calamity, whether an act of crazed extremists or an act of God, it appears that “Business As Usual” remains the course of this most corrupt and rotten political regime. Indeed, I wound venture so far as to say that crazed extremists have taken over the federal government. It would appear that we have learned little, other than the total and complete mendacity, the utter moral bankruptcy, the political and physical cowardice of George W. Bush. George 43, with the aid of Karl Rove and a cast of thousands of Republican Party cadre have proven only to well that they can run and win a political campaign. When it comes to matters of running our country, however, they really haven’t a clue. Could someone in our current government please provide a rational explanation as to why the top 5 of 8 slots in the Federal Emergency Management Agency has been given over to slick PR skels? I fear that an answer to that question will be a long time in coming, for the obvious fact that there is no good reason. Why in the world would a president pick, not a former cop or a firefighter, a seasoned street medic or even a national guard general, but the college roommate of a political operative with no experience in disaster management, to be the head of FEMA? How could a well respected organization such as FEMA, lauded by talking heads and politicians of various political stripes for their timely and professional response to disasters during the Clinton administration (the Oklahoma City bombing, the Northridge earthquake) turn so quickly into a parking lot for cheap political hustlers and cretins, too stupid to hold down a job in the real world that they have to rely on political connections for a job?
George W. Bush has vowed to lead an investigation himself to find out who is responsible for the pathetic response to the disaster in the Gulf States. However, it has become apparent to all who have eyes with which to see and brains with which to think that George W. Bush couldn’t lead a circle jerk at a fraternity party triple kegger, much less the government of a nation as grand as the United States. Michael Brown and Michael “Ming the Merciless” Chertoff, his boss from the Department of Homeland Security (alas, we are no longer a republic but a “Homeland,” as my man Gore Vidal once said) are both prime examples of “Business As Usual” with the Bush Administration. You know…you just know…in the same way you the know the sun is up in the sky…that George W. Bush is going to have Brownie and Ming over to the White House for a photo op, pin some nice big medals on the lapels of their respective 5000 dollar suits and thank them profusely for their service to the country. He did the same thing for former DCI George Tenet, Former CPA Head Paul Bremer and US General Tommy Franks, all for the great job they did regarding Iraq. Unless the definition of the term “doing a heck of a job” has changed lately, it would be hard for anyone with an IQ above 60 to understand what he was talking about when George W. Bush told Brownie he was doing a heck of a job. Yes, while George W. Bush leads the circle jerk in the Oval office, the bodies of thousands of our countrymen lay bloated and rotting in the toxic waste dump that once was the city of New Orleans.
It has fallen to the common citizen to answer the call of their brothers and sisters. Like that kid who stole a bus in New Orleans and spirited out over 100 survivors from the city, making a 10 hour dash to safety in the Houston Astrodome. The story of another, buying a 2nd hand school bus with money out of his own pocket, and after stocking it with relief supplies, started running other evacuees out of the danger zone. The folks at Camp Casey-Covington, who set up a soup kitchen and medical aid station, are making daily forays into the wreckage of southern Louisiana to save whoever they can. There are more, many more folks, who want to help, but are being thwarted by the very administration responsible for the pathetic response to this disaster. Hundreds of airboat owners from Florida who were willing to rescue those trapped have been prevented from doing so, a completely staffed mobile hospital has been held up just a short distance from the disaster area, a contingent of sheriffs deputies and other public safety personnel from Loudon County, Virginia were turned back by the National Guard despite having been specifically requested by the civic leaders of a Louisiana parish. This is the type of response that our tax dollars are paying for?
In the meantime, it turns out that mercenaries are being brought in to secure whatever is left of New Orleans. While private citizens of the Crescent City are being told to evacuate or else, hired goons are descending upon the city like a horde of locusts, eager to do the bidding of their corporate masters. While members of the press are having their 1st amendment rights curtailed (with reports of cops and soldiers pointing weapons at journalists or beating them up and taking away their cameras), Dick Cheney gives interviews talking about ‘the great progress’ that has been made in Iraq…er, I mean the relief effort. While American citizens are having their 2nd amendment rights to bear arms abrogated (the New Orleans Police Department as well as the National Guard are under orders to take away the firearms all who have managed to survive this disaster in New Orleans), the likes of Blackwater Security are feeding heavily at the public trough. Will these corporate hired guns also be relieved of their firearms? Or are they somehow ‘more equal than others’ when it comes to basic constitutional freedoms?
This is America? This is what we have come to? Our country is being destroyed by the lies and greed of corporations and their politically connected stooges. How much longer can we endure this assault on America? We must impeach those that have sold us out. We must take back our government. Our country was borne out of a bloody revolution against a tyranny of an unaccountable, far removed and out of touch monarchy. The blood, sweat and sacrifice of so many that have come before surely deserves a better legacy that the pathetic excuse of a federal government we have today. Sisters, brothers, citizens, friends! I call upon all patriots to fight the despotic corporate machine now running our country into the ground. If we do act quickly, we shall all become slaves of the Babylonian nabobs cavorting in Wall Street boardrooms and the Oval office. We must save our country and our constitution. We must impeach the lying, sleazy bastards that got us into this mess.

2005-09-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Subkommander Dred. Photo credit Commandante Wolf.

2005-08-31T22:58:00.000-07:00

1 September, 2005
Enjoying your vacation, George?
Comrades:
Our country is now facing a disaster of unprecedented destruction. Brothers, Sisters, our very atmosphere is so full of pollutants as to form a chemical stew so toxic it destroys the ozone layer over 20 miles up. Citizens, we fry like a roadkill lizard, croaked under the tire of the speeding presidential limousine. Yes, like a roadkill lizard frying it's guts on the shoulder of a country highway while being pecked at by chickenhawks just outside of Crawford, Texas.
Workers! Students! Soldiers! Peasants! The dispatches out of the Crescent City and the gulf states get worse by the hour, and it has become clear to anyone with a ounce of working gray matter in their skulls would come to a similar conclusion, with obvious exception of George W> Bush. Unfortunately, it would seem that Dear Leader is too involved with his recreating and getting on with his life to let a minor detail such as running the country intrude upon such important pursuits. Unfortunately, as much as the Subkommander is prejudiced against our supposed sovereign King George, the disaster in the Mississippi Delta and along the Gulf coast is the result of actions that we as a society have committed. We have grown as a species, far beyond the safe carrying capacity of the planet. In our rush to engage completely in modern society, we gave little thought to what we consumed, or how much. Gas, food, medicine, jobs, modern economies...it all revolved around the unsustainable lifestyle that we have become accustomed. No, not accustomed. Guaranteed as OUR BIRTHRIGHT as Americans. Or so some of our citizens have been sadly led to believe. The Subkommander personally knows one grown man who would rather drive his pickup than walk 3 minutes to the local 7/11. This is what that individual (the Subkommanders brother) remarked when he made a scene about the then high price of $1.50/ gallon for petrol. The Subkommanders brother made the statement that "Cheap gas is my birthright as a 'merican!" The Subkommanders brother then spit some brown juice into an old Pepsi bottle full of a festering slime of saliva and tobacco ooze, and turned the Ted Nugent CD he was playing on his truck stereo up to 11. The Subkommanders brother, while basically a decent sort, is a hammerhead. The Subkommanders brother can sometimes be a real dick. However, this is also true of the Subkommander, which might cause a reasonable person to conclude that we share a congenital condition.
Sadly, the Subkommander knows that the Subkommanders brother represents a large majority of our fellow citizens worldview when it comes to fossil fuels consumption. Workers! Students! Soldiers! Peasants! We must rise up and stop this insane destruction of our planet. We must sieze control of the corporate and political organs of state power, and restore it to the hands of the people, in the spirit in which this democratic republic was formed. A love of personal liberty. Respect for the dignity and rights of others. That will be our sign and countersign during the long dark night that we must pass in order to wake to the dawn of a new day. We must rally to the aid of our fellow citizens, the vast army of proud Negroes and White trash of our beloved southland, and march forth, like the much heralded Massachusetts 54th, like Chairman Mao and the Long March. Like Santa Claus Versus the Martians. No. Not like Santa Claus Versus the Martians. That movie sucked...
Where was I?
We must rally to the aid of our countrymen. In a Commonwealth such as ours, we are responsible for the health and safety of our fellow citizens. We must not shirk our responsibility to history. Our duty, to those now in need, as well as to those who will come after us, to leave the planet a better place to live, to raise our families in the light of freedom and democracy, to protect the fragile ecology of our communities and our world. We must act NOW to save the planet, and ourselves. George W. Bush is a whacked out snake handling Baptist, speaking in toungues while holding a passel of rattlesnakes above his head as gesticulates wildely, running amok in the West Wing of the White House. And while Subkommander Dred wholeheartedly endorses the concept of religious freedom , handling venomous snakes while communing with one's maker seems a pretty crazy for the supposed leader of the free world. George W Bush is too far gone into a weird and unholy death trip of Revelations, complete with own 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Would that be Court Jester Bolton, Cardinal Cheney, Minister of War Rumsfeld and Karl Rove, "The puppeteer"? No, we must save ourselves! Workers! Soldiers! Students! Peasants! Rally to the defense of your communities, your homes, your families. Long live the Republic!

2005-08-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

Comrades;
As you may have noted, life in these United States have become increasingly weird and loathsome over the past 5 years. We are challenged as citizens of a grand democratic republic. We are challenged as members of the human family. We are facing a constant and worsening threat from those who engage in actions that are the very antithesis to our glorious and venerable rights as secured in our founding document, the Constitution of The United States. We face a foe who has immense resources, including command of the media and the political process. We confront fellow citizens of our republic committing acts, not only of a felonious nature, but treasonous as well. Our political leaders, those who are charged with a sworn duty to uphold the rule of law, have taken it upon themselves to parcel out the commonwealth of our beautiful country to the highest bidding campaign contributor. George W. Bush, 'Dick' Cheney, members of the cabinet and White House staff, with the aid of an inept, anemic and totally compliant legislative branch, have committed acts that would be considered crimes against the state in any civilized nation. And with the prosecution of the horrible and unwarranted war in Iraq, it could even be said they would be facing war crimes charges as well. The very fact that they remain free and walking the streets of Washington, D.C. instead of behind bars awaiting court martial is a perversion to the American criminal justice system. Therefore, I can no longer sit idly by and accept "business as usual." I, Subkommander Dred, have decided to recruit an army of like-minded patriots, to secure our cherished constitution and to preserve, protect and defend all of our inaliable rights. The only requirement for recruitment is a love of personal liberty and respect for the human rights and dignity of all. I plan on leading an entire army of the sons and daughters of liberty against the giant, earth-and-soul-killing machine that has become what passes for modern American society. It is not enough to be free woman and men, but to also have a planet worth living for. I will mutiny against the unsustainable and wantonly destructive vices of our current civilisation. The polluting of our air, our water and our earth is to poison are very home. The social structures of our suburbs are almost as toxic, replacing vast acreage of farmland with McMansions on cul de sacs, fed a steady diet of satellite TV and Kentucky Fried. We settle families into such soulless places, and then we wonder when kids go a little crazy and gun down a high school gym class?
I will lead an army of these lovers of liberty, be they straight, gay or unafilliated, white, brown, redneck crackers, disenfranchised black youth,Latinos, Orientals, Asians, brothers, sisters, of native Americans and immigrants from every point on the globe. I will lead an army of proud Negroes and white trash, queers, hippies, atheists, Amish, Buddhist, Christian, Jew and Muslim, pagan and wiccan, secular humanist and holy roller, freaks, geeks, Tom and Jerry, Bert and Ernie, nerds, stoners, jocks, mods, rockers, goths, angry young punks, leather boys, veterans and youth. Together, we will take back our democracy from the hands of those that would deliver it into the economic, political and spiritual bondage of indentured servitude to large, parasitic international corporations. Collectively, we are a people at war with our own planet, against our very home. Collectively, as a nation, we must right the course that America has taken. We must reassert our constitutional rights to speak out against injustice. We must hold our elected officials accountable for their actions, in the same way that we would hold ordinary citizens accountable for theirs. We must treat the earth, our home, with the reverance and care it needs so that as a species, Homo Sapiens can survive and flourish in a sustainable way, that creates opportunity for all and supports human needs, not corporate greed. Therefore, I task you, in this General Order #1, to look within yourself and rise to the challenge that lay ahead before us. Our mission is fraught with difficulty and may at times seem to be more than any one of us can bear. But together, as a nation and as a family, we will overcome.
Subkommander Dred