tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6790965797863101214..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Red Room with SpooksUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-49938967139999205902013-06-18T04:51:27.586-07:002013-06-18T04:51:27.586-07:00Elmo,
"I believe we needed
surveillance to p...Elmo,<br /><br />"I believe we needed<br />surveillance to protect us from<br />those who would do us harm."<br /><br />Well, whether or not we needed it, we've got it. They're here with us, in this moment, the contractors from the DC tech corridor. monitoring every keystroke. And I consider that form of invasive attention a violation of my privacy, my constitutional right to free speech, my dignity (what little may be left of it) as a human being. That is harm. Those who would do us harm are those who have taken over the government of the former land of the free, and assumed unto themselves godlike powers. Me, I'd rather have chosen my own gods, if I were to have had any. <br /><br />"O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it. Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there." (Psalm 139 vv. 1-8)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58115858408693295922013-06-16T16:57:09.430-07:002013-06-16T16:57:09.430-07:00right now it's the singer not the
song...can&#...right now it's the singer not the<br />song...can't trust the government<br />one stupid thing after another...<br />recently has caused me to resurrect<br />a word from the past...a more <br />polite word actually...in the area<br />I grew up in where sentences were<br />punctuated with 4 letter words...<br />crass I thought for a long time<br />the word dufus but recently awkwardly searched for its pleural<br />which I originally thought was<br />dufusai but that was wrong, the<br />pleural of dufus is dufuses...and<br />why did I search for the pleural<br />because some of the things that are<br />coming down from the government<br />in many fields are so awry, no one<br />person could be stupid enough to<br />think these things up. Now here is<br />my chance to enter the language...<br />My friend Charlie Vermont says that<br />people who study how to be stupid<br />are "dufusorial" as in professorial.<br />Orwell had many things right. He<br />should be studied. Being more <br />conservative than most of visitors<br />to this blog, I believe we needed<br />surveillance to protect us from<br />those who would do us harm. Political correctness in government<br />is causing everyone to be blanketed<br />and the wrong people could use this<br />power to obliterate freedom at some<br />point in time.Elmo St. Rosehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01588245143022651357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-29656336549596309752013-06-15T07:42:47.767-07:002013-06-15T07:42:47.767-07:00Perhaps the Middle Ages were just like this, witho...Perhaps the Middle Ages were just like this, without the wireless connection.<br /><br />These mottoes emblazoned: <br /><br />"the average man" <br /><br />"we never really leave it anyway"<br /><br />“let work be work”<br /><br />And our heraldry:<br /><br />across the middle a blaze-orange fesse<br />showing in an endless loop these devices:<br />the greased palm of corruption<br />the loaded dice of a speculating class<br />the double-cross of deceit and treachery<br />the torturer’s toolkit<br />and the stenciled maxim:<br />No Mercy<br />No Questions<br /><br />around it all<br />a crenellated border of<br />self-righteous cruelty<br /><br />the whole thing over-large<br />unwieldy<br />and brokenTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51757735291255871952013-06-15T06:36:42.518-07:002013-06-15T06:36:42.518-07:00Tom,
back into the world of the fog this morning ...Tom,<br /><br />back into the world of the fog this morning --<br />"and there'll be no need for it where I'm going"<br /><br /><br />6.15<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />ridge, song sparrow calling from branch<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> “where the background lines,”<br /> “far below what to do”<br /><br /> supposed, “let work be work,”<br /> perspective something<br /><br />cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,<br />shadowed green slope of ridge across it<br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72373250135772920342013-06-15T06:22:24.321-07:002013-06-15T06:22:24.321-07:00Sorry to be late to this party, but . . .
A COAT ...Sorry to be late to this party, but . . .<br /><br />A COAT OF ARMS OF THE BENIGHTED STATES<br /><br />greed rampant <br />on a blood red field<br /><br />at top right,<br />Pornography and Piety,<br />two pallid and obese figures<br />joined in holy sanctimony,<br />diddling one another <br />while praying <br />for different outcomes<br /><br />at top left <br />a police badge<br />showing in clockwise fashion<br />taser <br />truncheon <br />cavity probe <br />surveillance camera<br />and handcuffs <br /><br />centered below this<br />upon a blazon of ignorance <br />a one-size-fits-all <br />gimme cap <br />in desert camo<br />surmounted by two crossed Predator drones<br />and the motto:<br />Bring It<br /><br />Liberty a corpse at the bottom;<br />Justice decapitated;<br />on one side of the scales<br />her head<br />on the other a bag of money<br />above both <br />an open Bible superimposed <br />on a stack of light automatic weapons<br /> <br /><br />across the middle a blaze-orange fesse<br />showing in an endless loop these devices:<br />the greased palm of corruption<br />the loaded dice of a speculating class<br />the double-cross of deceit and treachery<br />the torturer’s toolkit<br />and the stenciled maxim:<br />No Mercy<br />No Questions<br /><br />around it all<br />a crenellated border of<br />self-righteous cruelty<br /><br />the whole thing over-large<br />unwieldy<br />and brokenHazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13417573435195561519noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51720874112513609062013-06-14T01:18:37.647-07:002013-06-14T01:18:37.647-07:00Tom,
The average man has been precisely made to lo...Tom,<br />The average man has been precisely made to look that,average..<br />manik sharmahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18055072451804840121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-70419903165626390782013-06-14T00:01:01.259-07:002013-06-14T00:01:01.259-07:00melt with a figment
go anonymous to the end of ti...melt with a figment<br /><br />go anonymous to the end of time<br /><br />That even our disappearance could be another illusion is a fearful thought.<br /><br />The Red Room: "we never really leave it anyway".Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-75072969030322394632013-06-13T19:14:48.394-07:002013-06-13T19:14:48.394-07:00For those people who have come of age after 9/11, ...For those people who have come of age after 9/11, it may no longer be possible to remember a world in which domestic surveillance was not so pervasive a condition as to be a veritable fact of life. To be "protected" against the paranoid fantasy projections of a failing society may not be what the people would wish to buy with their tax money, but it is what they are getting. There are half a million of these "private contractors" (mostly ex CIA personnel, like the person who exposed all these secret networks last week), working for "private firms" that are in effect extensions of government "security" agencies; this in addition to the five million people employed directly by the government to do exactly the same sort of "work" (snooping, eavesdropping). All are quite well paid... to produce nothing. This at a time when the streets of the cities are a war zone, millions are going hungry, the so-called "health care system" is a cruel travesty, and every urban doorway houses a huddled rough sleeper at night. The young man at the center of this recent disclosure has said that he does not wish to be considered a hero for disclosing the truth; he has said that it simply occurred to him, after a while, that his job required him to do things that he believed to be detrimental to the integrity of the only world there was ever going to be for him to live in. Many people have suspected, even supposed, that the state of things he has exposed has become a reality; but before now, no one who is involved in these secret machinations has raised a hand and said, "Yes, it was me, I did these things, I was not alone, and here's how it works". To do this he has sacrificed relationships, family, friends. He has suggested that he fears he may not live much longer, that sooner or later (and probably sooner) somebody will "get to him". That seems a rational fear. <br /><br />Meanwhile, I think it's only reasonable, too, to expect the "security" industry, which for the past dozen years has been dangling wads of cash before the greedy eyes of every young tech nerd, to go on doing so, without control or constraint, so that soon enough the principal "product" of the society will in fact be "security" (another, perhaps more accurate word for same: "fear").<br /><br />Indeed the President has lately declared that the first priority of his job is... yes, providing "security". But he is in error. In fact the first priority of his job should always be something else: protecting this strange anachronistic thing it's rumoured we may still have here, the Constitution.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59734815034687684242013-06-13T15:23:41.132-07:002013-06-13T15:23:41.132-07:00Entering the Red Room this morning. Reading your p...Entering the Red Room this morning. Reading your poem reminds me that we never really leave it anyway. But, first of all, thank you for the features, Tom! It's always such an honour to be here on BTP, home of so many great poets and photographers and artists. Yes, a great honour to sit together at the breakfast table while the airplane of words is delivering its daily goodies. <br />They've got all the data anybody could ever want. Oh yes, what else could they ever wish for. I like the word data in there, like the pinnacle of happiness in our day and age, a snapshot of their desires, a dream unattainable. Data. They can have the knots, yes, why not. And while at it, if they could also untidy the knots in our brains that would be nice. But much harder I suppose. Time to start working on it (knot).Marie Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07787850063283960703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57045915139511375172013-06-13T06:53:04.157-07:002013-06-13T06:53:04.157-07:00Soooo... did the fun just get serious?Soooo... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbI7DmLCNI" rel="nofollow">did the fun just get serious?</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com