Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament XXXII

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

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.

    I took the Pentagon exit off the George Washington Parkway, wondering what getting arrested is going to feel like.  All of my options are gone, they’ve been taken away.  The criminals in Bush’s White House took them away, the generals in his Praetorian Guard Pentagon took them away, the enforcers in his Justice Department and terrorist watch list hacks in his Department of Homeland Security took them away.  Those people never give, they just take.  And keep taking.  No one in this depraved capital stops them, no one confronts them, no one even dares whisper the word Impeachment.

    Impeachment would suck all the air out of Washington, they say . . .

    What air?  There’s no air here.   The politicians and staffers, the generals and spymasters, the corporate pimps and whores of K Street inhale and exhale lies all day long.  They don’t breathe air, they breathe deceit.  They fear Impeachment, they fear it like cockroaches fear the light, Impeachment would suck all the lies out of that imaginary air that isn’t here and expose what is here–fascism and complicit enabling of fascism.  

    Shannon and I have talked many times about civil disobedience, and we’ve made our decision.  It’s the road we must travel now, it’s the only road left to us.  We’ve seen the white crosses on Prairie Chapel Road, we’ve seen dead Americans floating in the toxic floodwaters of New Orleans, we’ve seen the futility of pleading with Democrats to take a stand and put an end to this criminal presidency, so civil disobedience is all that’s left.  

   Confronting injustice in the name of justice, confronting the masters of war in the name of peace, confronting the Capitol Police those lie breathers in the White House and Congress hide behind as they violate the law with impunity is what we’re going to have to do.  We agreed to alternate participating in civil disobedience actions so both of us won’t be detained at the same time.  As long as one of us is free and has direct access to legal assistance, the other is less likely to be detained for weeks on some bogus pretext.

    I parked and gave Shannon a quick call, she’s in New York meeting with a literary agent about getting Rachael’s journals published.  She told me to be careful, to keep my temper in check, and I promised her I would.  I asked her how the meeting went, she told me the agent wasn’t optimistic about finding a publisher and told me again to be careful.

    When I got out of the car, I carefully noticed that the Pentagon parking lot looks like any other parking lot, and that the people gathering here to protest look like any other people.  But they aren’t like most people.  They have a conscience and listen to it.  They’re here because they know America became a national security state in the aftermath of the Second World War, they know democracy has become an illusion.  They know that in the name of national security, pervasive secrecy has been institutionalized throughout the federal government, they know that for decades, massive black budgets have funded hidden agendas and covert operations by the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and Orwell only knows what else.  

    As Americans watched Howdy Doody and the Mickey Mouse Club, the arsenal of democracy of the Second World War expanded into the military industrial complex of the Cold War.  As they watched Wheel of Fortune and Dancing with the Stars, the military-industrial complex of the Cold War expanded  into a global war machine of unparalleled power, and as the 21st century began, that war machine was primed and ready, all that was needed was a triggering incident, another Pearl Harbor, a day of death and treachery that would traumatize Americans into frightened submission to the political and corporate masters of that war machine.  

    There are only a few hundred protesters here today.  So be it.  There were only 300 Spartans at Thermopylae.  They defended Greek democracy against the armies of a tyrant, they stood alone against the war machine of Xerxes, at a moment in history when humanity’s future hung in the balance, at an isolated pass through the mountains the ancient Greeks called the Gates of Fire.  

    Humanity’s future is hanging in the balance once again, but the threat we face, the threat of corporate fascism, is far more insidious, far more dangerous than any tyrant and his armies ever were.  Defending democracy against corporate fascism is a far more daunting task than Leonidas and his Spartans faced, it is not controlled by one tyrant, as the forces of tyranny have been throughout humanity’s long and bloody history, it is a system of tyranny, so infused into modern society, so conditioned into the minds of the billions it enslaves that they don’t even realize they’re slaves.    

    In the morning stillness before the protest began, I watched the traffic on the Parkway and thought of the tens of thousands of Americans who drive right past the Pentagon every day but never even glance at it.  It never occurs to them to ponder what’s being planned in that labyrinth of corridors, they never wonder which country is being targeted next for “liberation”, they never think about who is being tortured or whose children just became collateral damage.  

    I turned away in disgust and looked at the Pentagon.  The military establishment’s monument to past, present, and future wars is casting a menacing shadow over the lives of those sheep bleating their way up and down the Parkway, but they’re too busy being sheep to notice that shadow.   It will get longer and darker as the resource wars of the 21st century ignite and the masters of corporate America’s war machine spread the flames of conflict from Iraq to Iran, and then eastward to their next targets, the resource rich lands of the Caspian Basin.

    So we’re here this morning, 300 of us are here speaking truth to power at the gates of the Pentagon, condemning war crimes and the war criminals who commit them.  We’re here even though we all know that power doesn’t give a damn about the truth, power is only interested in power.  But we know the truth must be proclaimed if it is to have any chance of being heard, we know democracy must be defended if it is to have any chance of surviving.  So we’re here, 300 of us, taking a defiant stand against tyranny.

    Xerxes isn’t here today, but the dark ambition of that ancient master of war is here, his relentless urge to conquer and control is here.  Those impulses pervade the Pentagon, the modern masters of war behind its walls are driven by them, they will tolerate no challenge to their mastery, they will hear no appeal from those they claim to be defending.  

   An amplified voice echoed across the parking lot.  “Stay behind the barrier.  If you cross the barrier you will be arrested.”  

   24 of us crossed the barrier.  24 of us were arrested.  Capitol Police surrounded us, handcuffed us, loaded us onto a bus, and hauled us downtown to be arraigned.  I wasn’t kept in the holding tank with the other arrested protesters for very long though, within 20 minutes I was taken to an office upstairs, where Special Agent Richard Wight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was waiting for me.  With the polished graciousness of an accomplished hypocrite, he politely provided me with the opportunity to explain why I had such disregard for the law.

    I explained the principles of civil disobedience to him and clarified that because Donald Rumsfeld is a war criminal, 300 Americans considered it necessary to say so.  “The corporate media won’t talk about his war crimes, Democrats won’t either, so we did, and we’re going to keep on talking about his war crimes.”

   He had no interest in the war crimes of Donald Rumsfeld, it became clear very quickly that he was far more interested in Shannon.  “Your friend Miss Walker has been in contact with numerous people we’ve been keeping surveillance on.  Some of them have been detained for questioning, their seditious activities are not going to be tolerated.  I want information from you regarding these people.”

    “Have you ever heard of freedom of speech, Dick?”  

    “You can call me Special Agent Wight.”

    “I consider it far more appropriate to call you Dick.”

    “You value your freedom of speech quite highly, I see.”

    “Much more highly than I value you and your Patriot Act.”

    Exasperated, he pulled out his cell phone.  “If you’ll excuse me for a moment . . .”

    “You’re excused.”

    Scowling, Dick punched a number and walked out into the hall.  When he returned his gracious demeanor was gone.  “I want straight answers from you.”  He handed me a photograph.  “Do you recognize this man?”

    “Yes, that’s David Marshall.”

    “He’s met with your friend Miss Walker.  Several times.  He’s a suspected subversive, which makes Miss Walker a suspected subversive.”

    “I’m meeting with you, does that make me an FBI agent?”

    “Look–”

    “No.  You look.  You and the Republican hacks you work for say you’re protecting America, but the only thing you’re protecting is your own power.”

    “Spare me your accusations, I’ve heard it all before.”  

    “You haven’t heard it all before, you haven’t heard any of it.  You tune it out.”

    “I’ve heard all the anti-establishment rhetoric you liberals spout, I’ve heard it for years.”

    “It’s not rhetoric, Dick.  It’s the truth.  You work for criminals.  The people who sign your paychecks subvert elections.  They glorify militarism.  They wage illegal wars.  They criminalize dissent.  They spy on Americans. They politicize religion.  They’ve unleashed corporate power on the middle class and the poor.  They destroy labor unions. They infest government bureaucracies with cronies and hacks.  They don’t govern as elected representatives of the people, they abuse the people, they’re destroying this country with their deceit, corruption, and reckless disregard for the Constitution and our laws.”  

    “I don’t have time–”

    “To pull your head out of your ass?   Well find the time.  You need to pull that FBI head out of that FBI ass of yours and start investigating Bush and Cheney instead of harassing people like David and Shannon.”

    “I’ve had my fill of your disrespect.”

    “Well neither you nor the lunatics you work for deserve any respect, so disrespect will have to do.”

    Dick glared at me.  “We’ll be keeping an eye on you and your shack up girlfriend.  We know about those seditious journals she has, so does the Department of Justice.  We know she’s been trying to get them published. That will never happen, she will not be allowed to undermine the national security of the United States.  She will be arrested and prosecuted by the DOJ if she continues to pursue publication.”