All Clear after Security Alert at White House… that was the headline from a Reuters article this morning. It talked about the fact that the White House was temporarily shut down for the third time in one day due to somebody leaving behind a mysterious package. Same thing happened about two weeks ago, and last week they arrested that guy, Brian Lee Patterson for jumping the fence for the third time. Granted, Patterson seemed to be a half-bubble off plumb and reportedly was trying to warn the president about something. But, I think that Brian and all the packages seem to be sending a message.
I find it very interesting and almost soothing that the White House in all of its bluster is brought to its knees with empty boxes. Brian’s quote as he dodged Secret Service officers I also found to be dripping with irony: “I have intelligence information for the President. I’m not afraid of you.” He was of course referring to the Secret Service men, but taking the liberty of taking ihis statement out of context, I think it can apply to over half of Americans now in reference to the President. Could this not also be the same message that three or four careless tourists have intentionally conveyed with empty boxes in the last few weeks.
An association with Kos’ book, Crashing the Gates comes to my mind. I haven’t read it yet, and from what I understand it really has nothing to do with this train of thought. But, as I am want to do, a snarky little fantasy springs to my mind (and mind you, I’m not advocating anyone actually do this and risk imprisonment). Just suppose that everyone who had a thought or idea that they felt the president ought to know about would simply place it in a box and leave it at the White House. It seems to me that this is really about the only way that one person might be heard by this administration. If enough people left their packages of ideals out front of the White House, BushCo would come to a grinding halt in short order. Or… they would install “cardboard detectors” along the length of Pennsylvania Avenue, and Bush would simply grind everything up and use it as mulch for the rose garden…
What would be the contents of your box? Would you enclose a condolence card for America? Perhaps the name of a loved one whose blood was needlessly spilled in the sands of Iraq, or maybe the name of an innocent Iraqi whose blood was also needlessly spilled. Or, perhaps you would send a small piece of moldy sheetrock from the ninth Ward in New Orleans. I think mine would just be an empty box… symbolic of six years worth of empty rhetoric, empty promises, and empty threats. The empty ones, I think are the ones that they fear the most…
I feel very tired tonight, but as Dave Letterman used to say “it’s a good kind of tired…” I really am beginning to think that we have turned the corner on this domestic terrorism war leveled at the hearts and minds of the citizens of America by its own government.
My other question tonight is, what are you going to do when the war is over? For the first time in a long time I think I can see an end to this insanity and the Bush administration appears to be crumbling before my very eyes more and more every day. I always jokingly said that when it was over I would hang up my mouse, and Photoshop no more… and just go back to playing video games. But, the more that I think about it, I think I have been changed by this particular war and my life will never be the same. I find myself more alive and yearning for other options. How about you?
I suppose I would get arrested for suggesting that someone blivet the President’s doorstep. (For the uninitiated, a blivet is ten pounds of dog waste stuffed into a five pound bag, lit on fire and left on the doorstep after ringing the doorbell.) So I won’t.
I have no idea what I would put in the box, to be honest.
As for what I am going to do after the war, I will probably keep fighting. The Bushistas and their ilk are not going to go away just because they are out of power. I’m thinking that those of us who survive this particular catastrophe should do our best to keep the memory of it alive so it never happens again.
That, and I’ll play the banjo and tell stories.
After this is all over I’ll move on and oppose the next Neocon travesty.
As to the box, umm, is kryptonite still available?
If I get out of this one alive, I’m hangin’ it up…first the 60’s, Vietnam, Civil Rights; segued into the 70’s; then Ronald RayGun, Bush41 and now this…Jezeus!…whatta I gotta pay to get out of going thru this again?
Peace
My box contains a small piece of paper reading:
Jesus said “Don’t be afraid.”
In my box, the size of which would have contained a fridge, would be a one way ticket to Bagdad with a note that read, And take the box for shelter so you can feel at home with what you have left the Iraqis.
Alohaeezy: append to that thought:
“and if you come back IED free and alive, be sure to take it to your next New Orleans photop, they still need housing there too.”
My box would contain the address of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany so he can fork over the family fortune amassed by his Nazi collaborator grandfather for disbursement to Holocaust survivors and to families of victims.
After the war… well, the war is just one of a whole series of train wrecks that will need to be cleared up.
“Dear President Bush,
Just so you know, all of those people who work with you and who you think are your most strong and loyal supporters are making fun of you behind your back and causing you to be seen as a bumbling and incompetent fool by the rest of the world!”
I think any insecure person with a fragile ego would be moved by such info.
My box would have… some sand:
Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand…
– Jorge Luis Borges
…in every grain of sand there is a story of the earth.
– Rachel Carson
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
– Princess Leia, “Star Wars”
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
– P.B. Shelley
Like Sands Through the Hourglass… So Are the Days of Our Lives.
– Spoken at the opening of the soap opera “Days of Our Lives”
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
– Niccolo Machiavelli
Remember man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return.
– Roman Catholic Ash Wednesday service
Excellent KP!
For anyone who missed it, there was an incredibly powerful photo essay yesterday in orange using the above Shelley poem.
I would send him a box full of 2300 minature U.S. flags and include a book about Responsiblity. A small note your responsible for 2300 American families receiving an American flag.
Personalized tampons, that’s all I can think of.
I would never recommend or subscribe to such a thing as a war of ideas in boxes, little boxes, and they’re all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.
Bob