The New Political Ballgame, Sept 18, 2007
It's One, Two, Three Tazer Strikes and You're Out at the New Ballgame!
This afternoon I read some of those "leftist" blogs that Austin's Alex Jones refers to, the ones about the University of Florida student who was silenced, arrested and tazered while John Kerry watched on without intervening. One was even called "From Left Field". And they did say exactly the kind of garbage that Alex Jones is charging them with saying. The sycophantic worms were more concerned with defending Kerry's acceptance of police brutality on his behalf and before his very eyes than in defending the Bill of Rights and exposing police brutality and political repression caught live on camera!
However, my reaction was quite different than Alex Jones' divisive spin, and it is exactly this kind of thing that makes me wary of Alex Jones. My reaction to the blog called "From Left Field" was that this was some Democratic Party hack doing damage control for Kerry and acting ever-fearful of not seeming repressive enough to avoid being labeled an extremist. I was thinking that they must have moved "left field" to "right center field" again like they did during the Vietnam War. The spectrum has become so far right in general since the 9/11 highjackings and anthrax attacks heralding in Bush and Cheney's declaration of a "war on terror" that it really is a whole new ball game.
If it was a baseball game, you'd not be allowed to hit a ball in what was formerly called "left or left-center field". That would be out of bounds these days! But it would not just be a foul. It would be an automatic out! Why this very day it was also in the news that the Democratic Party excluded Presidential candidates Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from a major event in Iowa! If this was a baseball game, you'd have some Party idiot standing in right-center field claiming that he was defending the left field. Sorry! That impeachment ball is out of bounds! You'd have to say to yourself, "This is not the all-American game of baseball that I learned about when I grew up in this country! There's no way the best team can win in a rigged game!
Besides all of that, I agree with the notion that the left-right spectrum has become a poor handle for labeling current political realities in the Empire's new world order. Those labels are certainly no worthy substitute for the Truth. I consider whishy washy bloggers like the ones I read today to be liberals, not leftists, in precisely the way that folk singer Phil Ochs, (who described himself to me as a "democratic socialist") ridiculed the war accomodating Democratic Party hacks of his era with a certain song called Love Me, I'm A Liberal.
Another Phil Ochs song that fits today's events is the one that says, "Oh I am just a student, sir, and I only want to learn. But it's hard to read through the rising smoke from the books that you like to burn. But I'd like to make a promise, and I'd like to make a vow. When I've got something to say, sir, I'm gonna say it now!" I'm sure that a lot of people on the real left would agree with my take on Alex Jones and his willful misuse of terms. I do agree with his take on what went down as far as that student and the use of tazer guns goes. And I appreciate his brave and brazen stand for our Constitution.
We in Delaware had an even more brutal experience with the abusive use of the tazer gun. The Florida incident made me think of what happened in Delaware in the autumn of 2006 when the young Iraq Vet named Derek Hale of Virginia paid his unfortunate visit to our "fair state". He was sitting on a front porch in Wilmington on a sunny day with a woman and her children and with many witnesses around when a black van full of swat police came speeding wrong way down a street and jumped out and caught them all by surprise. Derek Hale, our war hero, was tazered. and when he could not possibly respond to their demands to stand and raise his hands due to his being incapacitated by thousands of volts of electricity in his body, they filled the young father, husband, marine, full of bullets til they were sure he was bloody well dead. They found no drugs or weapons on the unfortunate patriot. Now it looks like Beau Biden got assigned the dirty little job of whitewashing and disappearing that murderous matter away by getting himself elected Attorney General. I haven't heard much about it in the press lately, have you? So much for Justice in Delaware! Just eat your peanuts and crackerjacks cause we don't care if we ever come back…Sing along now, everyone! "So it's one, two, three tazer strikes and you're out at the new fascist ballgame!"
Brave Bikers Beware
Here is a topical folk ballad about brave, young Derek Hale from Virginia and his visit to The First State. It is set to the well-known traditional tune of Sweet Betsy from Pike. The only exception is the 5th line tag employing sad mournful minor chords in the chorus. All of this information was reported in the News Journal of Wilmington, DE on Nov. 10 & 15, 2006. Former US Marine, Derek Hale, a 2 tour Iraq War Veteran, was police murdered on Monday afternoon, Nov 6, 2006 in broad daylight with numerous witnesses while he sat on a friend's front steps with a woman and her children.
Chorus:
Brave bikers beware, if you ride Delaware!
They fear "Easy Riders" and the spirit they share!
Some of you survived corporate wars "over there"…
To keep your "Bill of Rights" freedoms, you'd better beware!
Beware! Beware! Beware! Brave Bikers, Beware!
Derek Hale was a biker, his age twenty-five
He came back from Iraq with his limbs and alive
Through war and occupation, he was combat decorated…
Came back to Elaine; Married her and celebrated!
Young Derek was a loyal United States marine
But he didn't talk of what he'd done and had seen
His joys in Virginia were his home and family
And being "Born To Be Wild" with his "motor runnin'" free
(Chorus)
Brave Derek joined the Pagans to ride and feel free
As part of a bike club full of comradery
But they became targets of cops in the "First State"
With SWAT teams trained to use force, to fear, and to hate
There was safety in numbers when Pagans rode with the gang
But when isolated, that's when the traps sprang
And so it came passing in the fall of the year…
Two thousand and six…Tales of terror came near?
One of Derek's reunions called him to Delaware
To visit old buddies who were now living there
As he sat down on the front steps with the wife of a friend
Just talking with her and two of her children
A black SUV sped wrong way up the street
Six men dressed in black jumped out onto their feet
Surrounded young Derek with guns drawn and said
"Hands out of your pockets and over your head!"
(Chorus)
With witnesses watching in the afternoon light…
Before he could move, he was tazered on sight!
Not once, but 3 times! He was shocked through and through!
One witness yelled out… The cops threatened him too…
The citizen protested, shouting, "That's overkill!"
The cops said, "Shut up, or we'll show you overkill!"
Young Derek did nothing' but shake and vomit like hell…
Three bullets were fired to his chest, and he fell.
(Chorus)
Another troop near Newark didn't bother to knock…
They launched a grenade in to stun and to shock
They stormed in the house of Jim Jollie's good friend
He raised his hands high, but not enough to make it end…
A nightstick hit the back of that Viet Vet's head!
They kicked in his ribs as on the floor the man bled!
They confiscated his Harley, his colors, his truck…
But compared to young Derek, he did have better luck…
(Chorus)
They spat on Jim Jollie and they cursed in his face!
That this citizen's a veteran adds to the disgrace!
No charges were filed. So the cops let him go…
But they still held his property… So their power would show!
These raids made the paper, page one and page six
The hospital had one broken biker to fix
One widow had one veteran-husband-father to mourn
While the cops stayed anonymous in spite of outrage and scorn!
(Chorus)
Meanwhile in Virginia, cops sacked Derek's home!
His weeping wife and children stood outside alone…
Dead Derek's Pagan T-shirts and patches were taken
His wife and his children felt terrorized and forsaken
Well, welcome home, veterans, to the Empire's police state!
They lied about "Freedom", and we found out too late!
If you dare to be "Free" or to ride with the wind,
You better be rich and corporate, or you'll be disciplined.
(Chorus)
Copyright Nov 20, 2006 Victor Rene Sadot/BMI/Orbian Love Music
Vic Sadot's Crazy Planet Band at My Space:
Cheney's in the Bunker, The Ballad of William Rodriguez,
Mad Cowboy Disease, The Ballad of Pat Tillman.