Dallas

Dallas

Bang! Bang!

he shot me down

B A N G !     B A N G !

I hit the ground

B A N G !       B A N G !

that awful sound

B  A  N  G  !      B  A  N  G  !

my baby shot me down

                                                   

                                                   a demented blowback for white cops killing black men

he said he “wanted to kill white people especially white officers*(but we dont know that – Dallas cops say thats what the dying shooter said – but we dont know that)"

smacks of a divisive narrative

then ex-Congressman Joe Walsh (IL) tweets: “3 Dallas Cops killed, 7 wounded. This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.(punctuates nicely for an asshole)”

an noboby bitchslapped or dumped a pail of cold water over his head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ8WrKnLUs 

as if he were part or voice of the Real America(?)

a hyperbolic shockjock touting the likes of White supremacists who are shitting themselves as the inexorable change in American racial identity spins deftly on its imperturbable axis

youd think  wouldnt you  youd need an atom bomb to tilt the shooters equation 

if he wanted by his horrific misguided attempt to make new tallies to counterweight the impossibly weighted scale of unknown dead slaves niggers Negroes Afro-Americans blacks  cruel dismissive monikers  that should have lost their relevance long ago and may have if it werent for the violent Hate passed down in the blood and from out of their mouths from one White generation to the next and the next

like religion    

ignorant long dead sorry losers of the Civil War  One hundred and fifty years ago old

Hate embraced as Family tradition

he understood what the remedy could be

                                   changing the police culture from inside out                                                          

hed eviscerate the term police and call them by the name they are supposed to be  peacekeepers

hed eliminate those bad lieutenant wholl never be police chiefs and resentful waited like wolves at the edge of the fire and darkness for the new chiefs tenure to pass(on average a tenuous three years)

hed put in place structures or strictures that survived those inevitable regime changes and keep a heel on the throat of the wolves if their unions barred their evictions

regarding cops who are shooters

as soon as they pulled the trigger their compensation halts

they are immediately remanded into peacekeeper custody stripped of their weapons handcuffed

they run the in-take gauntlet as citizens do booked held in confinement and arraigned

utter transparency

peacekeepers should be held to the highest standards

and even if they are not found guilty of their victims death or disability 

their willfulness to shoot and not exercise and exhaust their humane options

when they return to the fold it will be under the auspice of a single year pay-grade reduction

riding a desk


this then is when unions go apeshit(although not that other partnerships would) the shooters partner unable to deescalate the situation shares the following

                                    they will attend a mandated 52-weeks domestic violence class and assume its commiserate fees and at its culmination they will withstand an interview by an learned independent council to determine if the peacekeepers verily appreciate and can express and negotiate the precepts they have learned

then

and only then

can they return to the field as a fully-formed confident peacekeeper

afternoon,  Friday,  8  7. 16

0927,  Saturday,  9  7. 16

 *  quote:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/police-in-dallas-he-wanted-to-kill-white-people-especially-white-officers/2016/07/08/fe66fe52-4553-11e6-88d0-6adee48be8bc_story.html

Sonny and Cher  Bang Bang  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-wk7-pRqCo

Graham Weatherspoon  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLpNrM--3t4

Abbey Lincoln  For All We Know  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BYs03JQEQY

sacred memory

there was something granular today that hadnt crossed his mind since first he heard Elie Wiesels name(but then death is a stickpin to the senses) or first recognising as a boy the horrific subject of the Holocaust which Elie committed his life

he was provoked then to read Night

and it seemed to him an encyclopaedic reminder of Mankind Gone Strange  

which curiously did not surprise him or make him fearful

hed been visited by minor debasements

and if a boy could incur them

why wouldnt they occur

on an Industrial level     

Elies coming hide your heart then(Three Dog Night chirped in his ear*)

and now his Passing

where -- in between – had they been that Elie Wiesel passed out of his consciousness but not the unorthodox gift of Horror and the Humanity abiding in its Face he wrote of

he was thrown had always been thrown by groups who denied the Holocaust

he knew from his Polish grandmother who arrived in America at the beginning of the century vouched for by an elder cousin and who lived many years on a farm in Indiana before moving to Chicago that many family members and friends she knew disappeared during the war

they were never heard of again

his grandmothers twelve children sent her to Poland fifty years after she left and returning saddened she told them that the village she grew up in didnt exist any longer not the church where family records were stored not the city hall or the elaborate square with the fountain in it where she fed ducks and walked holding her parents hands

it was an affirmation of the Holocaust

concurrent  listening to Rock n Roll music he started a record collection

not wanting to spend more than necessary he determined his paper route and grass-cutting money would go furthur if he bought his vinyl in Skokie two hours north of where he lived by bicycle

he and his best friend rode on Saturdays every other week to purchase three albums for ten dollars and since it was a long way to Skokie and a long way back they ate lunch there and usually hung around in the various shops not far off Dempster Road

they talked with the elderly proprietors who always stood to greet them when they entered

amicable boys people-persons they would introduced themselves and shake their hands

they became familiar curious fixtures to the business community by the odd chance they traveled as far as they did  

it was during that first summertime fans wheeling overhead no airconditioning front and back doors held open by knickknacks that they recognised wearing shortsleeves many shopowners were tattooed

concentration camp numbers ran down their left arms

he may have only been aware or they stood out to him because he was lefthanded

they were few lefties in the Midwest

he was one of sixtysix cousins and the only lefty

likely his obsession of lefthanded people left arms provoked him to inform his friend that their new acquaintances were heinously tattooed

riding home he asked him about their tattoos

Whaat tattoos

Are you blind

I didnt see

when they returned on the alternating Saturday he couldnt believe his eyes

My God Skokies filled with camp survivors  I can hardly imagine

I dont want to imagine he said

as they rode home he shared bits and pieces of what he read from Night

Thats horrible

No  Its inhumane

And it was going on for a long time before the United States even got into the war  Yea  and parse that out with our righteous braying and chest-thumping Americas the Best

Were. . . whats the wordAh  Exceptional

If were so damn exceptional  

Where were we  Where were we

You cant expect wed be everywhere at once

No 

Then why wear the mantle 

Why exceptional when it doesnt exist When we see wrongdoing but assess it according to  and this is bad    How we stand to benefit from it

Saving Jews and Poles and homosexuals and gypsies and all the others wasnt cost effective

The Holocaust was inconvenient

Can you imagine until we the Allies got there that hundreds of thousands and thousands and thousands of people were left to their own devises  and means

Perhaps its something to be keenly remembered when time comes and were left to our own means

What are you talking about

Im talking about staying fit my friend staying in shape  When the cookie crumbles if you cant run away or fight  youll die

JesusChrist Youre grim

No  Not me  Grim are those tattoos

Youve heard Elies quote havent you

No I havent   But Ill bet you have

I have 

You might remember it its on my notebooks among . . .

. . . Among lotsa other quotes  You have a thing with quotes Words Scribbling all the time . . .

. . . Theyre my graffitied walls . . .

. . . Like Moses coming down from the mountain top . . .

. . . Sure  I suppose     Commandments . . .

. . . Dont suppose  They are

Elies quote is

I havent forgotten  I wanted to be sure you said what you wanted to say before I said

Thank you  Say

Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill.**

Sacred     Mighty tall order

Today   memory is a mighty big order  Seems the Powers That Be would prefer we hadnt memory prefer that our media onslaught its day-to-day will erode sand away those things that history that ought to be the basis of what and who we are

So we dont lose our way

Bread crumbs to escape the black forest  A compass maintaining our True North

You have doubts about us dont you

I dont know that doubts is correct   Rather Im a born skeptic and I dont take anyones word at face value  If you say something to me you better have five independent sources to corroborate its validity

AhThats why you always reel off names or papers magazines or books after you tell me something   Ive always thought it was a  . .whaat is that . . ah Tourette . .  I always thought that was a kind of Tourette you manifested

Tourette 

Yeah  FUCK! SHIT! MUTHAFUCKER! suddenly screamed out loud

Thanks for the vote of confidence

Hey    Im the best friend youll ever have

You are

Damn straight

he put his best friend through the wringer  his virtue always remained   was steadfast

while he  on the other hand  wasnt a best friend   certainly not by the ethic his best friend exhibited

though he did have a lions share of memory and from it remembered every indiscretion he made against him and still had the unbroken honesty to admit them to him when he seemed forget  

You always have to reminded me

You didnt remember

No  I forgot   Forgetting aint necessarily a bad thing 

Its a terrible thing   Dont forget   Forgetting sets you up for the next indiscretion because not seeing the set-up yet again or not recognising the abstract the other applications you possess  as on a resume  how a prior job has practical applications for a wildly different job    Common threads attach all your jobs if you can see their similarity

Okay  The quote What was the quote

Memory has become a sacred duty of all people of goodwill

But thats really no matter

What you should recall  day-to-day                                                                                            

Memory is Sacred 

It offsets any attempts to manipulate you

Were constantly being manipulated

You believe that

I know that

I have no doubt                                  

Hence my faith

 

1135,  Sunday,  3  7. 16

* Three Dog Night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8SRD0FK2EE

** https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/03/elie-wiesel-tributes-obama-clinton-netanyahu