Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament XXXIII

Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11.  Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption.  It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts.  But most of all, it is a search for identity and meaning in an empty world.

Naked and alone we came into exile.  In her dark womb, we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother?  Which of us has looked into his father’s heart?  Which of us has not remained prison-pent?  Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?      ~Thomas Wolfe

All installments are available for reading here on Docudharma’s Series page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.

    “Hi David, I’m glad you got in touch with me.”

    “Hello Shannon, it’s good to see you again.  I hope you’re OK.”

    “Well . . . I’ve had better summers.”

    “So have I . . .”  David gave Shannon his cell phone number.  “You can reach me at that number anytime, day or night.  I want to stay in touch with you and Jericho more often from now on, I’ll be damned if I’m going to tolerate the FBI threatening friends of mine.”

    “But what are we going to do about it, what can we do about it?”

    “I talked to Mueller.”

    “Director Mueller?  You called him?”

    “No.  I drove to his house and knocked on his door.”  David smiled.  “God only knows where I got an idea like that . . .”

    “Concerned citizenship.  What a concept.  What did you tell him?”

    “I told him to tell Wight to back off.”

    “What did he say?”

    “He said what Beltway hacks like him always say when there’s no way to justify their hackery.  He gave me the standard spiel, the one-size-fits-all pretext for violating civil liberties and expanding the power of the state, a pretext we both know can always be summed up in just two words–national security.”

    “Do you think he’ll tell Wight to leave us alone?”

    “Mueller knows who I am, he knows taking me on hasn’t turned out well for more than a few people in this town, so Wight won’t be threatening you with prosecution for awhile.  He’ll get the word from on high to back off.”

     “Thank you, David.”

    “Well . . . this isn’t over by any means, I just bought us some time.  We’ll still be watched, Gonzo’s thugs here at the DOJ might still come after us at some point, but I have at least one good fight left in me.  If those bastards want one, they’ll get one.”

    “I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

    “So do I.  I’ve got enough scars, I don’t need any new ones.”

    “I’ve always wondered how you got the one on your arm.”

    David glanced for a moment at the jagged scar on his right forearm.  “I got that one at Ole Miss.  On the last day of September, 1962.”

    “James Meredith . . . the University of Mississippi . . . I didn’t know you were there, David.”

    “Yeah, I was there.  Bobby asked me to go, Nick Katzenbach and a few other DOJ people were already down there.  They were expecting trouble, we all were.  I left Bobby’s office, walked past where we’re standing right now, drove across the river to National, caught a flight and headed south.  I’ll never forget that trip.  We took off from D.C. and landed in Hell.”

    “Oxford, Mississippi . . .”

    “Oxford, Mississippi.  Just another name for Hell, as far as I’m concerned.”

    “I’ve heard Trent Lott was there.”  

    “Yeah, he was there.  Lily white, Bible-thumping Trent Lott was one of the ringleaders of that riot.  It didn’t matter to that damn racist, or to any of the other racists down there that James Meredith served his country for nine years in the Air Force, it didn’t matter that he got an honorable discharge, it didn’t matter that he just wanted to get an education.  He was just a nigger to them, an uppity nigger.”

    “They tried to kill him . . .”  

    “They tried to kill all of us.  Bobby knew people were going to die at Ole Miss, we all did, but America had an actual Justice Department back then, it had an Attorney General who knew segregation had to end and was determined to end it.”

    “He sent federal marshals there too, didn’t he?”

    “123 of them.  28 of them were shot, all of them got hurt in that endless storm of bricks and firebombs.  It got ugly very quickly, Shannon.  That mob screamed curses at us, they yelled that every nigger-loving one of us was going to die, then the rocks and firebombs and bullets started flying.  By nightfall we were under siege in the Ole Miss administration building, surrounded by several thousand rioters doing their damndest to kill us.  I can still see those fires burning, I can still smell the tear gas, I can still hear the gunfire, I can still feel the hate, hate so visceral, so vicious words can’t even begin to describe it.”  

    “I didn’t realize how bad it got that night until I watched a CNN special a couple years ago, one of the men being interviewed said, ‘I spent time in Vietnam.  I’ll take that any time over Ole Miss.'”

    “I watched it too, that was Ted Cowsert, he was in a military police unit that got there just before sunrise.  When morning finally came, the 82nd Airborne rolled into Oxford and shut that riot down, but that night of right wing hate has never really ended, Shannon, only the tactics and weapons have changed.  The hate, the manic intolerance and irrational righteousness of hardcore conservatives have been forged into weapons far more lethal than bricks and firebombs.  They never change, they’re no different now than they were on that night of blood and brutality, they’re still driven by the same primal hatred of liberal idealism, the same paranoid obsessions, the same irrational conviction that they’re victims, the same batshit insane belief that the powerless people they oppress are plotting to oppress them.”

    “They’re sick . . .”

    “And getting sicker.  They had bricks and firebombs and guns that night . . . I didn’t think it could get worse than Ole Miss, but it has, every liberal in America is under siege and it keeps on getting worse.  Right wing thugs don’t have to hide in the shadows like they did that awful night, they don’t have to stay hidden in the darkness, they control the government now.  They commit their crimes in broad daylight, they legislate their fascism, they’ve bullied Americans into submission with their Patriot Act, their Military Commissions Act, their massive NSA spying and 24/7 corporate media propaganda.  Those bricks fly across the airwaves every hour of the day and night. They fire the rulings of right wing judges at us, from district courts on up to the Supreme Court.  They’ve packed the judiciary with black-robed snipers and every shot they fire draws blood.”  

    David looked at the DOJ with loathing in his eyes.  “America doesn’t have a Department of Justice any more, Shannon, it’s the Department of Power now.  The Department of Republican Power.  Justice isn’t upheld there, it’s subverted there.  Alberto Gonzalez, a war criminal who authorizes the torture of human beings, is sitting in Bobby’s office now.  Trent Lott, a criminal guilty of assaulting U.S. marshals at Ole Miss, is Majority Leader of the United States Senate.  George W. Bush, guilty of desertion from the National Guard, guilty of insider trading as a CEO, guilty of a rap list of crimes against humanity that’s getting longer and bloodier every day, is President of the United States.”

    “Will they ever be held accountable?”

    “Not by Democrats, even if they win Congress back in November.  Pelosi and Reid are cowards.”

    “What about Conyers?”

    “Pelosi has him on a leash, Shannon.  A short leash.  He’ll bark now and then, but then he’ll lay back down by his dish.”  David glared at the upper floor of the DOJ.  “Several U.S. attorneys have been fired, Rove and Gonzo are purging that place and turning it into a black hole of fascism while the corporate media looks the other way.   One of their targets is Don Siegelman, a popular former Democratic governor of Alabama, Rove and his thugs defeated him for reelection with Diebold machine “votes” in the middle of the night, but that didn’t satisfy them, they’ve targeted him for prosecution, he’s on trial now on bogus bribery charges.  They have the judge in their pocket and an intimidated jury, they’ll convict Siegelman and send him to prison.  Because he’s a Democrat.”  

    “It’s fascism, we have to call it that.”

    “Damn right it is.  But if we call it what it is, most Americans would just tune us out.  The few who have even the slightest clue what fascism is don’t see tanks in the streets, they don’t see secret police hauling people off to concentration camps, they aren’t hearing fiery speeches from Bush or Cheney, so . . . all is well!  Except for radical leftists shouting crazy talk about fascism.”  

    “Tanks, mass arrests, camps . . . none of that’s needed.”

    “No.  The illusion of democracy is sufficient, the familiar forms of democratic government feed that illusion, Congress still passes laws, there are still election campaigns, there is still a semblance of political debate, but it’s all meaningless. The average American has no voice, no influence at all, government policy is decided upon and decreed by the corporate elite and their bought and paid for politicians.”  

    “Why can’t Americans see that?”  

    “Most of them are shitheads when it comes to politics, that’s why.  Conditions were already bad enough, but then the Twin Towers went down, the Pentagon burned just like the Reichstag did, with the same results–nationwide fear was incited and exploited, and what was once unthinkable became routine.  Bush and Cheney tossed the Constitution and the rule of law into a DOJ dumpster, they deceived the country into supporting a war of conquest in Iraq and the corporate media went along for the ride, habeas corpus got buried in an unmarked grave, our Treasury became an ATM machine for the ruling elites, the NSA has been unleashed, massive spying is propagandized as patriotic and is de facto legitimized.  We’re all told it’s for our own good, that it has to be done to keep us safe, and most Americans believe it.”

    David watched a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed fascist walk out the front door of the DOJ with a Blackberry in one hand and a briefcase full of fascism in the other.  “Democracy is gone, Shannon . . . the illusion of democracy is all that’s left.  The reality of We the People no longer exists and a new reality has replaced it–We the Corporations.”  

    “What can we do, David?  Civil disobedience has very little impact if only a few Americans engage in it.  Jericho and I have each been arrested three times now, there’s a major demonstration planned next month and we’ll be arrested again.  But it seems so futile, there just aren’t enough of us.”

    “We have to keep trying to wake America up.  We have to remind ourselves that evil can only prosper if good people remain silent . . . we have to heed Aleksandr Solzhentisyn, who wrote that we can’t prevent all evil from coming into the world, but we can make sure it doesn’t come into the world through us.”

    “Not through us.  Words to live by.  Thank you, David.”  

    “I’ll be at the next demonstration with you and Jericho.  I’ll go to every one of them.  Americans like us have to shatter the illusion that this is still a democracy.  It used to be, and it can be again, it can be restored, it can be redeemed, but that’ll never happen unless Americans like us redeem it, with our blood if that’s what it’s going to take.”