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A MOVEABLE VIETNAM:
A Continental Misunderstanding
by K. B. Robertson, Copyright 1983 & *2005
(*Updated)
Introduction
This is a fiction story, based on fact; otherwise known as 'faction'.
It is inspired by and dedicated to William T. Motto, posthumous sobriquet and name-sake of the VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS - Bill Motto/Wage Peace - POST 5888, of Santa Cruz, California. Mr. Motto, a former 'cross trained' 173rd Airborne Medic, did two consecutive tours of a year each in Vietnam, between 1966 and 1968, was the recepient of two Bronze Stars and Two Purple Hearts.
From the time of his return from the war he was a devoted, non-violent anti-war protestor; routinely and solemnly quoting that part of the Constitution, which calls upon its constituents to consider not only as a right, but as a duty, the American oath "..to protect the Constitution of the United States, from all of her enemies, be they foreign or domestic, whomsoever".
His outspoken posture against the Vietnam war, and all wars like it, and his opinionated monologue on current events and ancient history was well known to all who variously enjoyed or disdained even a casual acquaintance with him. He was a vociferous reader, and corroborating orator, when he wasn't chasing - and not infrequently overtaking - women.
Due to his reading education and his inherent celerity, which he was sometimes criticized for flaunting, he was a reservoir of outspoken anti-war statements, sometimes contradicted by such historical quotes as 'If there must be a war, then let it start here'. He would invariably face in the direction of the nation's capital when espousing that particular - off-beat - quote or any resembling it. In all such cases.
Bill was an avid critic of awry TV programming. Harped against the misusage of the 'potentially most liberating - or most destructive - medium on earth', as he put it. 'TV, or not TV? That is only a question of how it's used or abused' . He often paraphrased or quoted other obscure or all-time recognized authorities - Jefferson's statement that one sort of revolution or other about every two decades was important to the health of any growing culture; emphasized the importance of a popular revolution by the American people, and it need be qualified here that Bill underscored the importance that any such revolution remain stringently non-violent, 'since, as he would emphasize, 'any violent revolution would only further reinforce the already incumbently over extended, corporate-interest installed police state'. 'Supported', Bill would summarize, 'by the best congress, senate and Supreme Court, that corporate state money can buy.'
He had no truck - more of a love and dedication toward and - with Capitalism and free enterprise, while he vigilantly abhorred the manner in which it projected itself on the public, especially in the form of what he called 'recreational violence in advertising'. He also noted the evolution of what he called the 'role reversal' of the Corporate State with it's formerly dubbed 'Clientele', and 'Customers' - how that public element was now routinely referred to, individually and collectively as 'the consumers'.
Even his more outspoken critics invariably lost whatever argument they brought against this noteworthy point about that ominous change of terminology and its portentions, as well as the familiar daily saw concerning 'violence on public access television; as entertainment; often in the forsaken name of education', sometimes quoting contemporary historian, Bronowski's commentary regarding TV as 'the most used and abused, powerful and addictive drug on the planet' - which has only grown much worse and more bold since Bill's perishment at age 32, on 9 August 1981.
William Theodore - Bill - Motto - born and raised in East Los Angeles - died of a massive coronary heart failure, while fishing from a cluster of large boulders on the shores of Santa Cruz, CA., behind a relatively new and modern building which at that time was known as the 'DREAM INN' - a large hotel, about 200 yards west of the Santa Cruz Municipal Pier, extending a full mile out from the beach and consequently the longest pier on the west coast Pacific. Bill was found in the early hours, by a pair of joggers - a fish in his bucket, and a paperback copy of Doris Lessing's Four Gated City in his back pocket.
This story was written in 1983, during the Reagan-Bush administration's reign, just prior to the Lt. Col., Oliver North Iran-Contragate 'controversy', in the midst of what had become a heated debate about U.S. military personnel and equipment, deployed in Central America.... At a time when the death toll of non combatant civilians had already exceeded a conservativeley estimated 50,000 persons.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter One
April, 1995
A formerly subjected, growing conversation about writing a rousing fiction story is unfolding amongst a loose gathering of vets in the Post Lodge of the Vets Memorial Bldg., at 841 Front Street, Santa Cruz, California...
"Where would these guys get the required implementation? Where is their source of hardware logistics? Equipping a light platoon with what would be required for the assault would call for expensive provisioning." / "And all of it would have to happen very fast, a half dozen squads, roughly a platoon sized phalynx of about eighty well equipped, well trained, well coordinated men. They would have to somehow penetrate the highly secured parameter, or somehow appear out of nowhere from the inside. That would require extremely detailed inside intelligence..."
"We already know there's at least a half dozen publicly unknown ways in and out of the White House. All Subterranean. Another world of underground arrivals and departures in more ways than one."
Pause
"Who do about sixty or more people in full field gear effect this, uh, tactical operation?"
"In a place like 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C." / "Special Delivery?" / "Si"./ "There'll be sixty to eighty grunts on the surface in front of everybody and God. There's gotta be at least a coupla hundred support elements on the outside as well as inside."
"Spook those mortar forking spooks. Show the choirboy's 'n girls what America is worth." / "This isn't really a civil war we're talking about - not an actual 'inside fight'. These aren't 'We the People's' people anymore. 'Government has become 'they', and 'they' are most commonly known as the 'corporate state' - the 'Put your throat on ice!', 'Hit me with a club!' 'Make 7! UP Yours!' people. They're Fascists. Invoking and encouraging the ever more popular 'Who cares', and 'There is no justice' - prevails as a by-word ever-more, to close down by repetition via major media, especially TV, whatever constructive and germane, vital criticism of import. Recognized examples are waning with inspiring role models - like the disallowance of ('There can be no') 'heroes' in George Orwell's Big Brother, double-think dominated Oceania.
"How do you stitch back a ripped cultural fabric like this Uncle Sam suit parading as the government, since the early sixties. Since - there really is a - ' they ' : shot the president in '63, and the president to be, in '68."
"Yeah. That second assassination, Robert, in L.A's Ambassador Hotel, just in case anyone didn't get the national coup d'etat the first time."
Pause
"We were talking about isolating the presidential address from the surrounding neighborhood..." / "I think you're talking about how we were talking about isolating 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from what lately is referred to as the 'global community'"
Pause
"Oh. Is that what it is, now?"
Laughter
"That's what 'they' are calling it, yeah."
"Well. It sounds good, and looks good on paper."
"Yes. And we were talking about how such an isolation would have to be carried out very abruptly in order to succeed - How the proposed ousting of the present occupants and their displacement by whomever ousted them, how it would have to be done very swiftly. A complete knowledge of the touraine and the interior structure upon it, from the Rose Garden to the heli-pads, to the Blue Room as well as the Oval office and for that matter the quarters marked 'George Washington slept here'..."
Laughter
"Yes. Detailed knowledge of the building and it's occupants and their schedules and methods and means - close tolerances of every description are required of anyone or group who planned to displace the existing status quo with an alternative program..."
"Guy talks like one of those people who stand in front of the microphones and cameras on the lawn during press meetings..." Laughter.
"And we had been collaborating how it might be done."
Pause Grin
"Well. I've never engaged in this sort of thing before, but, uh, yes, I think it could be easily done?" (Laughter)
"Great fiction novel material. But there are so many unanswered questions. The technical advisors, literati and military critics will be all over this yarn for it's lack of credibility, since, though I realize Koek was just being silly with that one liner from Dylan...."
"Highway 61. It was a line from that song".
"Right. Whereas, if it could be done at all it certainly wouldn't be easy. Not even as a fiction story - no one would take it seriously; the critics will be all over this script - for reasons of inadequate research, hasty and foolish planning... Even White House table etiquette. Where is this proposed platoon sized assault force of American fanatics ‘defending the constitution from all of her enemies whomsoever, be they foreign or domestic’, going to get the required gear for this takeover. I mean, given the magnitude of this proposal, let's just start with those basic issues."
"You mean, how are these boys going to get suited up and ready to rock and roll with the required guitars, base drums, roadies and stuff like that?"
Pause
"Ask Mike."
"You mean Mike Plathe - that guy over there grinning and not saying anything?"
"Yeah. Ask him where these guys would get the required weapons and ammunition".
Plathe looks up from his divided thoughts.
"How am I supposed to handle that? I don't even have a jackknife".
Morley chimes in: "And he certainly hasn't got the necessary financial backing. None of us, none of these guys have much money. Very few hold jobs, and, uh,the Bureau of Veterans Affairs is not overpaying them, you know..."
"Well then, ask Michaud over there."
Michaud responds: "Search me. I don't even know what you're talking about".
"We're writing a book, Mitch, we need expert advise from genuine grunts to make it realistic".
"Hell. You know I can't help you. I lost my mind in Vietnam. In fact I think it's still there. The rest of me here is just a left-over technicality, in need of severe rehabilitation. "
"Hey. Now there's a line from a despondent Vietnam vet. We can use that."
"Only if I get royalties."
Pause
"We know how we differ up here. Talking, arguing and fighting among ourselves. But what do we have in common?" / "Most of us drink and smoke too much grass, since we returned to The World?" /"We're all on minimum wage when we're working at all. Up here talking about changing the world. Gonna make it better with big talk, no resources and no action?"
"We're all horney?"
"All of that and one more thing..."
Pause
The Officer of the Day - every day - is Bascom. He and several others more or less loosely steer the conversation. The one they're bouncing around right now is among only a few other recurrrent 'group' subjections.
"We're all of that and one more thing - something we all are together on..." / "Being in the V.F.W.?" Pause
Last time I told someone I was with the VFW, they asked me if that was the United Farm Workers." Laughter
"Yeah. As of 1999 we're gonna be a hundred years old, chartered by congress, and are confused for everything and body but what and who we are." / "Sure sounds familiar".
Pause
"Yeah". Pause
"Counselors call it 'alienation and estrangement'..." Pause
"Kinda makes a person wonder whether it's us that's strange and alien, or, a majority of regular folks who're too busy watching mainstream electronic everything and reading TV GUIDE to be aware of the organisation of people made up of those who gave the most to give others the privelege if not the right to take and receive most everything they receive and take..."
Pause
"Like I was sayin'. We have one thing in common besides being United Farm Workers..."
Laughter.
"And what might that be?"
"We're all newbies in the local National Guard."
Pause
"Oh. That. That was just a lark. Buncha 40 year old guys joining up. Pleased the hell out of the Gunny. I think he gets perks for everyone he recruits, I mean, we're way too old but it's the National Guard and apparently they like to see Nam vets in their ranks. If the others didn't have to be so old to be Vietnam vets, I think they kinda want to be 'like us'.
"Combat Kellys". / "Yeah. Bush soldiers. Rul soldiers, being all they can be. Going Army."
Pause
"Yeah. Veterans. Heroes. Traveling and being all scattered omidirectionally all over wherever it is they send you this time." / "Fightin' fer Democracy."
"That's right. All that and more." / "Yeah. We're all in the Loose Division of the California National Guard."
Pause
"It's all a spoof. Gunny met a few of us across the way at the Teacup restaurant and bar and we got schnockered enough to take him up on recruiting us. I don't think anyone was really taking it seriously at the time.". Pause
"I don't think anyone's taken it seriously since, not even after we were issued uniforms and went out in the field on that two week training seminar. That was a year ago, and it seems like last week. Surprised nobody dropped out during or after that two week bivouac."
"The bright side of all that morning soreness was gettin' to rootin', tootin' and shootin' with all of Uncle Sam's state of the art gear and weapons. Heavy armor. Commissary. Infantry. Engineers. Bridge building...." / "Working with plastic explosives and demolishing the same bridges we built"./ "Just like old times - har har.".
Laughter.
"That's exactly what else we have in common besides being in the Veterans of Foreign Wars. We're also all sworn in to the National Guard."
"I think we just covered that, hahmph."
Laughter.
"And so, the Officer of the Day (O.D. VFW Chief Warrant Security Officer) continues, "these guys in the National Guard smuggle all this stuff outside, from the inside..."
Long pause.
"Now youre talking!"
Pause
"And so, there are enough of them in armor and ammunition..."
"And supply..."
"And security..."
"That they can be, uhh, very generous with themselves, without the Army knowing any different."
"Using the available resources and touraine - orientation and improvisation". / "Yoh!"
Pause
"Ted. You're in communications. You know what adjustments would be required in your department."
"Tom is in supply. He can tell us exactly how and when and where it could be pulled off. Mitch is in the field with armor and munitions. Rosco is non-com security and we can just write him in as the gate gaurd when this stuff goes off base and into these guy's safe houses..."
Long, warily squint eyed pause.
"Enough to suit up for full close combat rock and roll - like back in the bushes in the Nam."
"The Over The Hill Gang rides again?"
Laughter
"Do you s'pose we might make all of this fly - as a story I mean. I think we can make it credible and entertaining..."
"And definitely educational, at the same time."
Pause
"It's a flocking bomb! Do you know - the most competitive and challenging work in the United States is writing for profit? No matter how good it may be, the big publishers don't have time to read it. They get tens of thousands of unsolicited manuscripts from unknown authors, per month. I ship you not!" /"That is true. You have to know somebody. It's not a quality issue when they don't even have time to find out what's in about 95% of the manuscripts they receive - and that's in one month. Writing for a living is notorious for this cul de sac."
"Cu de what?" / "Never mind. It simply won't get published no matter how good it is. Mitch is right. You have to know somebody in the publishing business, just to get started."
Pause.
"In this case, even if it is well written, and even if you do 'know somebody', they'll never publish something like this. Attacking the White House? They'll never print it. The White House has already been shot at, a coupla times now, I think it is.
"Yeah. And it's been flown into by a suicide piloted airplane also - one of those little experimental planes piloted by some nut. The president and First Lady were home, but didn't happen to be sleeping in that part of the building at that time. That was in the early 90's. I don't think it's a good idea. Even as a fiction story - have you ever heard of a story that scripts around taking the White House by force?" / "Can't say as I have."/ "Well. There you go. It's not a good plot is why. It might even be illegal."
"It's not illegal to write a fiction story about anything you like." / "Not exactly politically prudent though, is it? It wouldn't be published, and if it was, only the whackos would read it - buy it I mean..."
"Isn't that censorship? What about free speech and free press?" / "You can only trump that card when it favors the bad guys. When it favors the good guys, it's censored - they don't call it that, they simply don't talk about it at all."
Laughter.
"Taking over the government by force is an act of treason. You know that?"
Pause
"Yeah. Well. If it's really the U. S. Government - but if it's not, then it's a false government in disguise, and, when that can be proven, publicly proved... Well then, taking it, taking it back, showing the patriotic example, it's not only an American right, it's an American duty. Mark that well. It's in the Constitution. It's called, the people saving the awry, floundering, dysfunctional and avaricious government from itself."
Pause
"Yeah. Before it kills again...Right here in the United States, Fascism's already got a damned good, well proved if not well recognised start..."
"The sunny side of this plan is, once the objective of securing the White House from the government is achieved, the opposition has to restrain itself from damaging the National Home too much, in the process of taking it back - which they are bound to do, of course.
"Oh. Of course. It's a friggin' suicide mission even if it succeeds, which isn't very likely."
"Sure would draw some attetntion for a while though, eh?" / "Sure. And when the press asks why we did it, we can tell them we're celebrating the FBI projections - as reported from the presidential podium - of the plummeting national crime rate."
Laughter.
"Isn't that place a federal landmark or something like that? Wouldn't we be in trouble with the Secretary of the Interior, or maybe the Parks Department, or the Historical Society or somebody? I mean, to hell with the SS or the FBI, they would be perishing in our lines of duty to protect the United States from them."
Laughter
"We could have a written agenda all printed up and ready for distribution to the captively audienced inquiring press, who'd be in the calloused palms of our freedom fighting hands - explaining all of the upbeat, patriotically dutiful reasons why we knocked over all the S.S. Security Guards and Agents that are going to respond to this unscheduled White House tour, on our ways to raid the presidential refrigerator, or whatever. We could wait til the president and the 1st Family were away from their house, so we could momentarily drop by on a sort of informal basis, on accounta' us having heard that Hillary has an superlative oatmeal cookie recipe".
"Hey. Keep it clean."
Laughter.
"There are also several human resources among us who are also electronics and communications technology experts; trained in the finest schools the U.S. military black budget can afford - above Top Secret clearances and all that. Reliable sources in our ranks have already told me we might even be able to take over and hold one or more channels of network TV and radio, without them being able to jam or cut us off. There's no telling what sort of otherwise blacked out - media monopoly excluded - information might be massively spilled to the public in this operation."
Chapter Two
"There's word that some of those White House security guys are 'rehabilitated' Vietnam vets - especially their small arms, tactics and explosives experts"?
1. "What use are they to the White House?"
"Apparently, it has to do with anticipating what a terrorist, extortionist or a group of them might do, and how."
"So. They hire us terrorists to do that..." (Chuckle) "Precisemente".
"I see how that works. Guess we might have to waste a few vets then also."
Well, as Motto use to say 'Frag'em if they recklessly endanger their own people'.
"I wish you wouldn't say that - talking about an unwritten fiction novel in the first person. If someone overheard it without understanding the context, you know, I think we could be arrested for even talking this way?"
"As we all know, we have several resources of legal representatives - including Morley, however many times he's bailed however many of us out is it now? Anyway, Morley says talking about it in the first person is perfectly legal, and it is more stimulating to the creative imagination - brings us closer by way of personal identification with the story and its development. Repeat: we are not conspiring to invade the White House, we are coordinating to write a novel about invading the White House."
"May I quote you on that?"
"I'm not sure I could say it the same way again." Laughter.
"Would they dare burn us out like they did with Patricia Hearst's abductor's in Los Angeles - back in, uhh, '74 was it? Or, like they bombed and incinerated that black neighborhood occupying an entire block or so in Philadelphia was it? Or, like they did in Waco - improvising the wind to help them fire the place up, after the ATF and FBI teams picked off or pinned down anyone trying to leave 'the compound'; while the locally arrived and gathered fire engines and crews were held back."
"They held back the fire department in Philadelphia too. Let the entire block burn down. It was a Black people's neigborhood."
"The more prolonged and hotter the fire, the more obliteration of forensic evidence, the less survivors, the less witnesses..." / "Ain't that the truth?" (Laughter)
"Yeah. What salvageably intact cadavers there were from Waco, and there were scores of them, were placed in refrigerated storage, awaiting forensic autopsy. Such procedure was made untenable, due to the coincidental fact that the electricity to the refrigerated storage spaces failed, 'inexplicably'. The already burned bodies then 'went bad'. Any pathologist will tell you how severely that handicaps any already difficult autopsy..."
"Those people - was it 87 of them? - dozens of them known to be children, were all witnesses to what really happened there - witnesses to what and who and how it started, and all those people, all those witnesses, or most of them, were mass murdered and that fact was massively covered up - the self declared executioners weren't even all that slick about it; got away with it as usual. With timely and enthusiastic assistance from the Attorney General - Janet Reno, who did not fail to promptly lead all her cronies to point the blame on the victims."
"Much talk of 'arms caches' and 'militias' and that the 'cult leader', David Koresh was demonized as a 'pedophile' began to spill over the entire circus stigmatized event. It is not the objective of this missive to defend David Koresh, but he wasn't even the initial reason for the intrusion (become a seige) on the 'Davidian compound' (residence) in the first place. The ATF was investigating two men for alleged firearms violations. Speaking of 'child abuse' - after 51 days of siege (electricity and water cut off, helicopters hovering overhead broadcasting loud rock music and beaming klieg lights down upon the Davidian residence all night long), the federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms - ATF - with the world watching via satellite TV originating from telescopic views of press cameras and reporters for the most part required to stand off over a mile away ('for their safety') while the Davidian 'cult's' 'compound' was fired up and burned to the ground, with later 'explanatory' reports that 'the Davidians committed suicide and murdered their own children'.
"That was the best the ATF and FBI could do, after nearly two months, while holding back fire trucks and crews while a steady 20+ mph Texas wind prevailed on the conflagration. For the most part, most of the official reporters and spokespersons on that incident should be obliged to eat a bar of IVORY soap, each; on network television. The ATF crew oughtta do a life sentence oscillating in a commercial washing machine."
"No. Make the first half on regular wash, the second half of their incarceration should be on 'spin dry'. Put things in perspective."
"What I don't understand is why there was no intervention from somebody like, Janet Reno, the Attorney General. There's precedents for that kind of action. Like, president Nixon declared Charles Manson 'Guilty', before he was put on trial."
"That's right. And about the Mai Lai Massacre court martial of Lt. Rusty Calley - Nixon confined him to his quarters and then issued a 'pardon'. But there was no intervention regarding the Waco debacle, after fifty one friggin days of 24/7 live, national TV coverage."
Leland recites somberly:
"If the President does it, then it isn't illegal".
(- R.M. Nixon, in the midst of Watergate, 1973.)
"The winds of change are blowing. Giving New Age meaning to the lately controversied 'wiener dude attitude'. Hey. If the President or the Attorney General don't do anything to stop it, it isn't illegal'." Laughter
"Stonewall them. Don't tell them anything."
(- R.M. Nixon, in the midst of Watergate, 1973.)
Then there's the Iran Contra dealing of arms for drugs - Olliegate - where he takes the fall lfor everyone in the command chain above him - all the way to the Commander In Chief, who sees to it that Lt. Col Oliver Twist escapes any punishment for a bevy of felony convictictions, all of which are later expunged. Meanwhile everyone involved including Vice Pres Bush and Ronald Reagan are guilty of treason, which is a shooting offense. Same thing applies to the 52 hostages in Iran in 1980 - all pre-arranged by Bush (former Director of the CIA) and Reagan, to insure stealing the election from Jimmy Carter.
"That's it. Down with the establishment that murders, incarcerates, frames and selectively favors and lies to its people. Heh heh. Off the pigs!" Laughter
Tessitore remains rebellious to the quasi seditionist talk:
"This is a mudder-flocking fiasco. This story will never be pulled together and written, and if it is, if you do manage that, nobody will like it even if it's published. Who started this anyway? It's an incredibly outrageous plot, it's a predetermined fizzle - a mouse that roars, a foredoomed freakish object of literacal derision and political suspicion."
"Careful now, yer talkin' about the Loose Division's fraternity icon, here. His remarkable likeness is the painting over there on the wall; listening to every word we say..." / "What?"
Morley resolves: "The guy who originated this fiction project is on the wall above the fireplace over there, at the south end of the lodge."
"No. He's not. He' probly in purgatory."
"There ain't no flocking purgatory or heaven, laddie, just hell, and we're in it."
"You mean, this was Bill Motto's idea?"
"Yup. Only he really wanted to do it and not just write it. The rest of us consistently discouraged that of course."
"Of course. Heh heh...."
"Whatever you may think of me, I'm telling you, Bill Motto's idea as a profitable book, is a dud!"
"He was thinking about having it done as a play, also, an on-stage live play with about three angles of videotape recording the action."
"The only possible interest it may draw might be from the F.B.I., or the Secret Service, and you can be sure it won't be written about or picked up by the press. There'd be a tight lid on that also."
"Hey! If properly done, this could be a venerably revolutionary, constructively riveting, all American story - the great American novel and all that."
"Rivet. Rivet." Laughter
"Laugh if you like, but Morley's got some high rolling Hollywood people interested in this script already - and it's only in rough draft." Pause "Maybe I should have waited for him to tell you..."
"Well. There is a couple of seasoned script and screen play writers looking at it."
Pause
"Looking at what? We haven't written it yet."
"No. But Morley's got a kind of rough draft of it."
"You wrote this story already?"
"I edited what there is of Bill's rough drafts."
"I've seen that material. It reads more like a notebook than a novel."
"Yes. It does that. Sort of like the psychological warfare spoken of in the closing chapter's of our Chief Security Officer's latest book as it's posted on the net. It's a documentary titled NOMADS, CIVILIZATION & WAR. Notebook formats can carry a charm of their own. Bill's is entitled, A MOVEABLE VIETNAM: A Continental Misunderstanding"
"A dash of panasche?"
"A dash of...what?"
Pause. "It's something that rhymes with flamboyance, Evans."
"Flamboyance?"
"Yes. Smaller than a bread box."
Pause. Eyes rolling around various portions of the 12 foot plaster 1934 vintage, freshly painted, ivory hued ceiling. Evans is predicatably bewildered, surrounded by wry smiles."
"Hey. I don't wanna wander off topic here, but what the hell do nomads have to do with civilization and war?"
"Oh yeah. That book title. Good, fair question, with a good and fair answer. For lack of the obligation of reciting several key paragraphs and pages of the book to you, I refer you to the book, which does provide the answers - what the barbarian nomads of Genghis Khan and his predecessors are doing, mixed with civilization and war, and a lot of good questions - many of which haven't been addressed - likewise never having previously been answered before."
"What?"
"Who's on first. What is on second, and I don't know is on third."
"Now you're putting me on".
"No. He's warming the bench in the dugout."
"Can we have a conversation here or not?"
"Let's get back to Motto's unfinished rough draft, okay?"
"Okay. It's a rough draft short story with a charm of it's own."
"Hey. I've read most of that fairly extensive material also, it's mostly inn-tense, is what it is."
"Well. I concede your point, but that don't keep it from being charming either."
"Charming?"
'Sure. I looked it up - it's prepossessing, inviting and captivating as well as entrancing, you know. I didn't wanna go through all of those definitions of what it means, ya know.
Simpler often being better. So I call it charming, by your scrutinizing if belabored leave, of course."
Pause.
"Yes. Of course. But killing White House employees and duty bound military personnel isn't all that charming, no matter what you say about it."
"I didn't say it - Bill did. I'm merely doing my best to defend his work as I think he might, were he actually here."
"Well. As far as that goes, he is, because quite a lot of his cremated and powdered remains were mixed with the paint in the portrait of him on the wall. Combat Action Company Marine, Kenny Walker painted it and included some remains, with Bill's mother's and sister's permission to do exactly that. That's why Kenny titled it, 'PAINTING WITH BILL'. It's already sold for about a grand, but the buyer is letting it be shown here in the lodge Bill occupied and helped to establish."
Long pause.
"In effect it's a short story first - holds promise as a potentially extensive and interesting novel - a handful of Grunts take over the Whitehouse and publicly air their grievances. A good platform from which to saw a lot of socio-political wood and other important and unprocessed issues. For the time being at least, myself and several other volunteers are trying to keep it within the confines of a short story - a lesser novella, as it were."
"Charming".
"Touche".
"An extensive novel is over our heads for many reasons.For one thing, I don't think we could maintain the short story quality if we tried to extend it. We don't got the talent."
"Bill Motto, as VFW POST 5888's namesake is already famous, though an already long forgotten flash in the world panorama of history. We could name him as the author and not be stretching it much".
"Posthumously published". / "Exactamente."
"It's a tenable publicity angle". / "Si."
*************************************
There is a well known oath taken by every member of the Armed Forces of the United States (and some say, every practicing lawyer or Judge, Officers of the Court and Guardians of the Law, respectively), 'to defend the Constitution of the United States, from all of her (Columbia's) enemies, be they foreign or domestic, whomsoever'.
The constitution also guarantees a free press, and free speech. On the other hand, short of small press publications, the constitution cannot be a prophylactic for preventing what has since its advent, become well known as 'the media monopoly'.
The Chief Warrant Security Officer of Post 5888 continues his narration from Motto's introductory notes...
"It is well known that Washington, D.C. is a city ravaged by corrupt politics which has even lately been rightly labeled a 'BLOOD SPORT'. It is understood that K Street, adjascent to the Capital buildings in Washington is a haven for politically residential corporate state representing lobbyists. Comparatively speaking, for all of its legendary malapropism, vulgarism, impropriety and abuse of power, the notoriously ferocious police department of New Orleans Louisiana has a less compromised history.
"K Street residing 'lobbyists' living and operating out of what amounts to a government subsidised housing project, waltzing congress and the senate through the corporate state choreographed dance steps, getting together in the House on Capital Hill, to make, unmake and break the law... To cheat and lie and misrepresent and cover up and conceal and deny the cover ups, for money; in the name of 'governing under the constitution'. Many of them are lawyers and judges, as Court Officers and Magistrates - Guardians of the law - to be or not to be sworn, as public servants, to defend the constitution of the United States, from all of her enemies, foreign or domestic, whomsoever...
"With the guarantee of free speech and free press, a decision evolved to counterattack the corporate state lobbyists and their political minions by force of arms, employing not only the constitutional right, but the duty to take the defiled, sullied presiding psuedo-government down.
"Force alone could not do it, but a well placed application of surgically focused force, accompanied by a dump of select, formerly 'marginal' or 'classifed' information on at least one inviolably locked open channel of network television, just might do it. Would certainly be an exemplary step in the right direction."
"Offer a perspective the public just ain't got no more."
"Spoken like a true Native-American Arapaho-Minneconjou half-breed Indian, Preston".
"Thank you, Kimo Sabe."
****************************
Chapter Three
21 November 2004
The mainstream wire services disgorged it with the introductory consternation marked exclusively for urgent messages, on all frequencies - one moment it was a potpourri of rock and roll, oldies but goodies, commercials, talk shows, top forty and classical, the next moment it was a portentous male voice, eclipsing all broadcasts on all AM and FM radio frequencies; the only difference between radio and TV was that in the case of the latter, the same image of a middle aged man in a dark suit seated at a desk was broadcast with the audio message:
"We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin."
It was one of those broadcasting interruptions that universally evokes a big, breathless, collectively unspoken distraction to whoever may hear it and from whatever they're doing:
"Uh oh. What is it this time?"
This time, it was an assault by 67 coordinated men in rag-tag U.S. military uniforms who had planned and trained for over two years to take and occupy the White House; being careful to effect this insurrection while the president and his familay were elsewhere; as they often are. The mutinous revolt and its mutineers knew their hours to be numbered, having long ago resolved to sacrifice their lives in a low budget, high yield reclamation of the awry, constitution busting government of the United States - by of and for the people - including the socio-political and psychologically valuable restraint from threatening the incumbent President, personally.
The objective was achieved in a matter of less than half an hour, the White House was overrun and control of it was in the hands of a relatlive handful of determined revolutionarys who at least symbolically and until further notice, had succeeded in displacing - in symbolism if not in practice - the most powerful office, if not also the most well known contemporary land mark, in the world.
Such a dubious achievement was not without an entirely predictable, distressing price, of course...
The assault occurred on a weekend, costing the lives of nearly a score of security personnel and three were lost from the combat seasoned, rebellious attack team - 'since labeled as terrorists' - which did have the advantage of surprise. All of that was the initial cost of establishing interior control. Within a half hour of taking their objective the assault team suffered 13 more casualties - seven wounded and five mortalities in a harrowing series of close combat, in-house fire fights, taking a toll of over a score of fatalities taken by the Secret Service.
It was bountifully beatific in the Blue Room - generously trimmed with a fresh motif of crimson, with the gaining of control of the White House interior. The theme of the Yellow Room now clashed with splashes of red. Each of many White House enclosures testiifed to an ensemble of costly renovations, including the appropos of the War Room which was now cavalierlly decorated with more than a sprinkle of extant forensics.
Some of these ad hoc interior decorators had appeared, quite literally, out of several woodworks and walls in as many parts of the acclaimed address. Apparently having without detection, accessed what was previously considered the inaccessible subterranean avenues of entrance and exit, one of which was a seamless trapdoor directly beneath a portrait of Nathan Hale in a plushly carpeted anteroom. Several others being double thick walls which allowed passage to a sub surface level where a number of railed electric vehicles traveled in 5 directions as deep as fifty feet underground, two of which crossed under the Potomoc.
No one who'd studied the floor plan or alternative exit and entrance routes rang any door bells or signed any guest lists. Stain removing commercial writers were bound to make a killing on the grist they could soon glean from all the excitement in and around the carpeted hallways, historical rooms and the Great Seal in and around the ChiCom AK-47 pock marks and punctures, along with the fragmentation grenade scars and burns hither and skelter around and in the geometrical ellipse of the politically shaped Oval Office.
The famously addressed grounds were punctually cordoned off from the public and Whitehouse security soon thereafter threw up an inward facing perimeter around the outside of the Presidential bungalow. Non-combatant employees and various V.I.P's are released, unharmed and unharassed.
All news service satellites were soon dishing it out via thousands of large and small radio stations encompassed by a handful of national syndications and volunteer, locally independent radio and TV broadcasting stations who had simply locked their keys open to U.P.I., A.P., CNN and (FILL IN HERE). National and international workers and vacationers were now uniformly riveted on radio and TV receivers - at 10:04 AM, EST the entire civilized world halted in consternaton at this astonishing news bulletin.
Occasionally some of the more senior stations would identify, such as ABC, CBS and NBC, whereas the hundreds of cable channels were not identifying themselves at all and there was a remarkable absence of commercials - all of electronic media was covering the same, incredibly breaking story, live, Occasionally the listeners and viewers were referenced to 'the CBS network'. With the exception of a narrating voice it was soon clear that the singularly thematic broadcast originated from within the compromised White House - from, of, by and for the 'terrorists' themselves. 'Who have apparently improvised a way to boradcast over the standard CBS signal without anyone being able to cut them off the air'. The world was captive to an unkillably displaced, 'impossibly omniscient' CBS signal. The transmitting industry was being over-ridden and out-maneuvered by unidentified elelemts in their own ranks. No authority or board of directors was prepared for this. This was supposed to be 'impossible'.
It spooked 'em in the Pentagon. Spooked 'em bad in Langley. Spooked 'em real bad in N.A.T.O, and S.E.A.T.O., all the way to the remnants of the N.K.V.D. in the so called 'disbanded' USSR; American and HMSS and an eeirie cluster of covertly creepy verisimilitudes the public and few politicians have never heard of...
At start the world captive audience knows nothing of these men - their individual identities become more familiar as the breaking, live telecast event unfolds. From the start it is clear that they are well trained soldiers who clearly planned this action in fine detail. Those who would be protagonists of the assault team - if it's target were a recognized enemy fortification - are predictably misrepresented and demonized by the 'straight' media coverage surrounding the remarkably impenetrable and interminable 'CBS' signal - their mysteriously accomplished and resiliently maintained conquest and dominantion of one open network channel is out competing and popularly eclipsing all other open networks and news.
'The All American Team' introduces themselves one by one, each making a short, autobiographical statements. They make no effort to conceal their identity and in fact take readable pride in revealing not only their names, but their birthplaces, former occupations or places of employment, what they did before, during and after their Vietnam service and why they are presently a part of what is clearly a mission foreordained to eventually be overcome. Full acknowledgement is made in various ways that they have momentarily gained control of ultimately unholdable ground. Some of them compare their present achievement as comparable to the temporary vanquishment of the American Embassy in Saigon, during the Tet offensive of 1968. They are open in conceding that theirs is but a symbolic gesture of 'disagreement' with the manner in which the country is being governed and that it is only a matter of time before they are imminently and inevitably predestined to be stepped on and evicted, as it were, though Morley does not fail to levititiously remind his audience that possession is nine tenths of the law...
Although - at first - there are limitations on the initial counterattacks to re-take the National Household.
The prevalent powers are inhibited about intercine damages; must not extensively mutilate or ruin the capital domicile for a handful of men who happen to have maniacally stormed and taken it by force.
In house stationed Secret Service (SS) men already heavily burdened with casualties insist on attempting to maintain their posts, only to be further scattered at cost of about five of them to one 'rebel'. The incumbent security forces were not short on incentive, or courage; on the other hand, the adversarial rebels were there to take and hold an objective as long as possible, until they all perished - to the last man, their expendability was a given. The same fateful determination was not true of the curtly ousted 'home team', none of whom had made decisions to fight to their own perishments. Once the internal security forces are dispatched (euphemistically killed), disabled, driven out and otherwise neutralised, the subsequently established outside perimeter is temperate about marring the hallowed structure proper.
The dubbed 'terrorist rebels' weapons inventory includes .50's, various armor piercing and incendiary small arms missiles, side arms, 60mm mortars, M-86 RPG's ('Thumpers'), M-14 & 15's, fragmentation grenades, L.A.W.'s and other recoiless rocket launch rifles with fletch cannisters, up to the present, the small arms having been most employed during the interior 'skirmishes' which have resulted in the incapacitation or cessation of inside resistance and defenders. Radio contact between the opposing forces allows the government personnel to recover their wounded and dead at designated 'cease fire' locations just outside the White House's East wing, on the lawn, not far from the Oval Office. The rebels make no effort to take, keep or hold hostages. Crisis resolution negotiators are completely balked via radio signals responded to only by 'dead air'... The self declared 'patriots' are fully aware of their impotence from changing foreign or domestic policy, resigned only to making a token gesture of defiance, including a planned public conveyance of otherwise obscure or previously unreleased information that can only end in their eradication.
Chapter Four
The Capital's security forces, now joined by several specialized SWAT and elite, military, close combat units are gathering around the ‘parameter of engagement’, in ever enlarging numbers with as many and more types of weapons.
A negotiater is reluctantly admitted and allowed to speak, with the reminder that who and what he represents has always been the most fore grounded and monopolized voice, to exclude all others. He speaks of 'taking the law into their own hands', and 'chain of command' and other righteous ringing reprimands...
To which the group responds with a reminder of the cost of about a million dollars a minute for network TV access, owned by the 'wonderful sponsors', the evolution of the former 'client' and 'customer', to the title of 'consumer'. The corporate state's neo Fascist mentality, operant conditioning, behavior mod, psycho molecular restructuring, kids video games that award the highest points to he or she who enters a building, murders as many unarmed people as possible before he escapes the building, suicides, or is stopped by peacemakers. The murder and rape video games. The judge who chastized a five year old girl for tempting a molester. Censorship by omission. The network TV broadcast abuse of Brooke Shields in her childhood. Tina Payne. Jon Bene Ramsey. The abuse of females in the military and the policy of covering up such abuses, snowballing into more abuses. The empty talk from the would be high and mighty. Victimology. Educating the public to prey on, victimize and blame itself.
The crisis negotiators orbit a theme asking the terms of the invaders, Morley finally responds with a request that the government powers that be, require the Federal Communications Commission to enforce the law that declares it illegal for network television to raise the volume during commercial breaks from regular broadcasting...
There is fully 15 seconds of delay in the response to this unexpected issue (of 'volume control by network TV commercial sponsors' ). The negotiators were braced to hear something like a demand for the release of all Vietnam vets from prison - since 50% of the inmates in federal prisons are Vietnam vets. A plea for more expedient approvals for Department of Veterans Affairs - Veterans Administration - claims requested by vets, was expected. Food, clothing, shelter and financial compensation for the homeless Vietnam veterans who constitute fully half of the single male adults 'on the road' was anticipated. Perhaps even a request for amnesty for the veterans who presently were guilty of taking the seat of the Nation's Capital by force and the taking of the lives of those who had defended it. A request for a cease fire and negotiations, neither of which seemed to be of any interest to any of the insurrectionists occupying the White House... Perhaps a demand or request to speak to the President... All of these issues and many more were on the tediously prepared agenda, but Morley chose to foreground the lesser complaint, first.
Indeed, the crisis negotiators are met with the madcap request that the FCC be required to enforce the consistently broken law that prohibits TV programming sponsors from raising the volume during a commercial...
"Do you have any other terms to present - any requests or demands?"
"Of course, but we are agreed to start with that request, or demand, if you wish to call it that. We are fully aware that the location we presently occupy and the manner by which we occupied it does not leave us in any postures of meaningful demand. It's a request."
Pause
"All right. That having been established and acknowledged, we repeat, surely that isn't the only request or demand you have..."
"That' s true enough. But, we had to start somewhere".
Long pause.
"In consideration of the seriousness of this situation and communication, surely you are fully aware of immeasurably higher priorities than whether or not the FCC does or doesn't require sponsors not to raise the volume during TV commercials... Our profilers here are non-plussed that you should begin your demands or requests with such a, trite issue...
Your mental stability - as a spokesman, and those you represent - is in question by your very actions of being where you are; by the means which you arrived, and now this, uh, initial demand, uh, it raises a question of whether you are able to responsibly negotiate at all; we are deeply concerned - wish to find a common ground upon which we may parlay and perhaps find compromise and agreement, without further bloodshed..."
Long pause
"We do not wish to exacerbate the prevailing impasse, sir. On the other hand, if you will bear with us momentarily, we are agreed that a proper avenue by which to begin negotiations is the historical reminder that - since we have Native Americans in our ranks to remind us of what is indeed a parallel precedent..."
Pause
"Are you with me, sir?"
"Yes. Please go ahead..."
"After the Civil War, when the military had more time to focus on what was called 'the Indian Problem'... After countless treaties were broken by the Bureau of Indian Affairs representing the word and honor of the so called 'Great White Father' - a series of whom resided right here on this, may I say, presently contested location. There came a now well known time and eventuality that was then and remains a benchmark in the relationships between Native Americans and the storm of Europeans who had begun to call this Native American continent 'their own', since the establishment of 'New England' in the 1600's..."
"Yes..."
"In the name of brevity, let it be said that, for the most part, the last of the ‘uncivilized’ Native Americans inhabited what is called 'The Great Plains' as late as 1875 - these were mostly various tribes of the Sioux and Algonquin nations - the Brule, Blackfoot, Arapaho, Lakota, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Flatface, Sans Arc, Dakota, Ojibway, Minneconjou, Chippewa and a few others - all that was left of the free Native Americans not exterminated or confined to notoriously insecure reservations."
"Mr. Uh, please pardon me, I've forgotten your name sir, but, where are we going with this?"
"The name is Morley, sir".
"Please excuse me, Mr. Morley. I beg your pardon and that of those for whom you speak."
Pause.
"Apology accepted."
"Thank you, Mr. Morley."
"As I said, sir, please bear with us, for we are indeed 'going somewhere with this', certainly including the predictable subject of assassination and other rogue, corporate state and government atrocities - betrayals and deceptions of the American people, past and present".
"Very well, Mr. Morley. Carry on."
"The point I'm bound for here, sir, is that, 'Past is prologue'. There are contemporary counterparts for these government policies.
As with our constitution and common laws, for the most part, from the beginning of the relationships of the European immigrants who eventually took the north and south American continents by sheer force of numbers, in doing so, breaking their own treaty made - constitutionally based - laws as policy. I could have started with the natives of the Adirondak, New England Region, or the more southerly natives of Appalachia, mid east-coast continental region, or the natives of what became Florida...
"But for the sake of abbreviation I began with the Plains Natives of the Midwest, because, in each of all such considered regional cases, the natives - with few exceptions - were befriended, used, accomodated, then compromised, and finally, as the wave of Europeans began to crest - the Native Americans were overtly and unabashedly - I dare say contemptuously - betrayed. To a point of perishment, being coerced into Western Civilization's ways, or, being driven further west..."
Morley continues:
“By definition here, we see a process, a highway of good intentions, narrowing to a road of broken promises, to a trail of tears, culminating in the end of the trail.
The Highway of Good Intentions was, with some exceptions, a standard of co-existence and mutual, even symbiotically amiable relations. Relations wherein the Natives were in voluntary service to, or tolerant aloofness from, 'the white man'.
The road of broken promises was a series of written and sworn, allegedly legal agreements that given - major - portions of the continent, beginning along the east coast of what is now called North America did and would always belong to the Natives of that region.
The trail of tears is actually many trails - of forced, terrorist enforced banishment from whatever land had previously been promised to continue to be recognized as Native American land, as long as the rivers shall flow, and the grasses will grow...
The bitter end of this contiguous history is fairly well recognized as having culminated in a place in northeastern Montana, near two intersecting waterways - two intersecting rivers call the Rat and Little Bighorn Rivers, not far from the North Dakota border. This is a place where three contingent armies of American Union troops converged upon a party of approximately 2,000 Native Americans, and the smallest contingent of these three armies, a group of about 250 cavalrymen, led by Colonel (former Brevet General) George A. Custer, chose to take it upon themselves to attack what amounted to about 1,500 able bodied Native Braves, who understandably cut the arrogant Custer and his army of 250, down, to the last man.
Leaving but one Union American Survivor - a cavalry horse. Native American leaders such as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse played key roles in this 'massacre'; which was actually a strategically daring strike made within miles of two different armies of much greater size, led by Generals Crooke and Reno. Custer had refused to wait for them to converge, choosing instead to lead his men into their now famous demise, 3 July, 1876. The day before the Nation's 100th Birthday anniversary.
“From that point on, the days of the free plains Native Americans were numbered. Confined to peaceful reservations which were routinely massacred, they asked only for sustenance to maintain their tribal existence, reduced to begging for their survival. They asked for beef, blankets, medicine, farm implements, coffee and other foods, tools and utensils. Only obscure history echos the atrocities of Wounded Knee, Rosebud, Net Lake, and scores of others less well known and even more forgotten. It was the ending of one nation, in the midst of a beginning of another..."
Pause
[b]"Mr. Morley. Your story is indeed profound and touching, and so far as I know, true. Today is the here and now, however, and try though we may, we cannot find a point to focus upon in your diatribe."
Pause
"Mr. Morley. You began with a request that corporate state sponsors of TV presentations be required to carry out and obey the FCC law which forbids the raising of volume for TV commercials. It is not argued that such infringements may indeed be a matter of policy, whereas, the gravity of what is at issue here today is, so far as I can see, besmirched, by your own will and waste of time, over the presently sacrificed bodies of government agents doing their duty, and your own treasonous men, doing murder, apparently with no small amount of assistance from what has to be a great deal of treacherous people, beyond the ranks of you who are presently surrounded; these numbers must include people who have sworn themselves to service to the U.S. Government, who have somehow disabled our control of at least one channel of satellite television, and clearly, compromised a series of top secret information on the subterranean security, entrance and exit routes to and from the White House. The numbers and treacheries of which sources of information do not make what you've done, and what you are doing, any more justified, but instead, all the more appalling..."
Long pause.
The government spokesman resolves, "So. Now. After refusing communications altogether, for hours, you finally let it be known that your grievance is that the volume on television commercials is turned up, which, you say, is against FCC regulations. I have just been informed that what you say is true. Was it worth it to get your point across this way, over how many dead men is it now? We've tried gas instead of bullets. You were prepared for that, clearly a well thought out atrocity. How many will it be in the remainder of the day, and tomorrow, and so on, since you have the in-house commissary to sustain yourselves through a considerably extended siege, and, since you carry the advantage of being able to mete out much more punishment in our direction, than we can in yours. What do you really want from us - it cannot be a relatively ridiculous matter of TV volume laws. What is really on your minds, if you have any?"
Long pause
"You haven't offered your name, sir. What would you have me call you?"
"My name is Wilfred C. Telefson".
"And, your duties, sir."
"I have many. Presently I am acting hostage negotiator."
Pause.
"We have no hostages. We released non combatant and surrendered personnel."
"Yes. But you are the hostages."
Pause.
"With a channel of network TV locked open, enjoying more viewers than TV history has ever before accommodated, I suppose the issue of who is hostage to whom, is simply a matter of perspective, Mr. Telefsen. Perhaps the White House has been embarrassed from an overdue shade of red, to a shroud of black...."
Pause
"And your actions may bring the sullied White House back?"
"You said it, sir. I hadn't intended to make a rhyme or poem of it."
"Nor I, Mr. Morley."
"On the other hand, perhaps we've co-authored something with more rhythm than we'd care to own up to - lest it be understood where the beat originates, for how long, and for what reasons or lack of them."
"A self appointed, would-be champion of the people. Native American's and Vietnam vets in particular..."
"If you must label, then extend it: While you're preoccupied with glibly and tersely describing what you call my self appointed role, kindly consider a circumstantially appointed defender of the oppressed - a nemesis against the abuse of power, and those who abuse it, and those who are complicit with such abuse. Kindly do not exclude all other oppressed people, certainly including Black and White and especially poor, disenfranchised people of whatever description - easy prey for you and every wealthy and influential, justice purchasing enterprise and person you represent, against everything and person you misrepresent. Minority and poor people of every race color and creed, certainly and emphatically including Native Americans and Vietnam vets - enlisted grunts more so than officers."
Native Americans. The most neglected minority.
Vietnam vets. The Lost Platoon. Patriots and forthright citizens without a country.
"Have you any further sooth to say for your one channeled audience? Perhaps you can explain to them how you intend to escape your self imposed demise..."
"In a matter of more extended definition - the people I presently represent, are, under the laws of the Constitution of the United States, patently and uncompromisingly opposed to the abuse of power; especially when it accumulatively manifests unrestrained as pejorative policy, and wherever it may occur, by whomever may practice it. You and all you represent have gone way too far, for far too long, with little or no restraint, and an appalling historical record of impunity - to the point that your tyranny and disregard for human life and rights has become part of the unwelcome, immovable furniture in the American living room... Here’s as good a place as any in the critically important byline issue of mass communications."
Morley reads aloud the following report...
The dishonesty of the media:
Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, made this candid confession (it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly):
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the
streets looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of
the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. "
Morley continues:
“We could air a lot of issues and had plans of doing so, in shifts, for days at a time. More distant and recent histories of what is now called the military industrial complex - the latter institution now known as the corporate state, and the marriage of its interests with that of top government of
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