the sawpit

A Halloween Poem

listen with burning hot ears
the sound of clinking metal chimes
we are at the end of an endless marble hallway
flying candle-lit bats are silent shadows
behind the black door bone man arrives
with his ring of infinite skeleton keys
the slender shadow of the spindly intruder
steps between rows of wide doric columns
he walks and creeps, closer and closer
his steps become louder and louder
until a bony hand raps on your door
this sound makes you jump
he attempts to gain entrance into your cell
patient ivory hands scrape at the door
they pull at the shiny brass knob
a long golden key slips into the lock
rusty metal bolts grind and clank
the heavy ebony door moans in agony
slowly it opens wide as bats flutter around
purple and crimson fog envelopes you
it is very quiet for a long, long time
your soul has become transparent
offer your guest some cookies
and say your prayers

Ralph S. DeMarco

Happy Halloween!

Just one of the photos taken at the recent House of Love Halloween party. You can view the rest of them at my Flickr account here.

Defending the Fourth Amendment

In Monday's New York Times, Studs Terkel defends the integrity of the Fourth Amendment. Studs understands more than most how unchecked surveillance of Americans can evolve into political investigations and blacklists. Terrorism is the new Communism for those who attempt to rationalize blanket wiretapping without probable cause. Now, instead of blacklisting and COINTELPRO, we have politicians playing the fear card at every turn, the terrorism watch list and extraordinary rendition, or kidnapping.

I was among those blacklisted for my political beliefs. My crime? I had signed petitions. Lots of them. I had signed on in opposition to Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and in favor of rent control and pacifism. Because the petitions were thought to be Communist-inspired, I lost my ability to work in television and radio after refusing to say that I had been “duped” into signing my name to these causes.

By the 1960s, the inequities in civil rights and the debate over the Vietnam war spurred social justice movements. The government’s response? More surveillance. In the name of national security, the F.B.I. conducted warrantless wiretaps of political activists, journalists, former White House staff members and even a member of Congress.

When Nixon claimed that, "when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal" he revealed his support for the unitary executive that Dick Cheney has spent the last few decades trying to restore. But public opinion was with the Church Committee hearings, not Nixon. Congress managed to restore some checks and balances to the secret government by passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.

The Bush administration, however, tore apart that carefully devised legal structure and social compact. To make matters worse, after its intrusive programs were exposed, the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed a bill that legitimized blanket wiretapping without individual warrants. The legislation directly conflicts with the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, requiring the government to obtain a warrant before reading the e-mail messages or listening to the telephone calls of its citizens, and to state with particularity where it intends to search and what it expects to find.

Compounding these wrongs, Congress is moving in a haphazard fashion to provide a “get out of jail free card” to the telephone companies that violated the rights of their subscribers. Some in Congress argue that this law-breaking is forgivable because it was done to help the government in a time of crisis. But it’s impossible for Congress to know the motivations of these companies or to know how the government will use the private information it received from them.

That is the crux of the matter. How can we trust the executive branch to never spy on people for political reasons which have nothing to do at all with safeguarding America's security? The answer is, we can't and shouldn't. Now we just need Congress to do their jobs and defend our rights from the abuse of our most partisan and incompetent unitary executive.

Sean Hannity's Favorite Black Leader

Earlier this year I received an email forwarded to me by a conservative uncle. The email contained the rantings of anti-civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Below is my belated reply.

Dear Uncle,

I usually don't reply to your emails, but I couldn't ignore this one. The appended article you forwarded to me by the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson demonizes poor black people for being hurricane victims -- since when is that a Christian value?

Say a hurricane is about to destroy the city you live in. Two questions:

1. What would you do?
2. What would you do if you were black?

Sadly, the two questions don't have the same answer.

To the first: Most of us would take our families out of that city quickly to protect them from danger. Then, able-bodied men would return to help others in need, as wives and others cared for children, elderly, infirm and the like.

For better or worse, Hurricane Katrina has told us the answer to the second question. If you're black and a hurricane is about to destroy your city, then you'll probably wait for the government to save you.

Yes, many people thought they could buckle down and survive Katrina because that's what they always have done with bad storms. They didn't think "when my home is flooded, FEMA will pick me up in a boat, and I'll get some free water." The levees had not broken in recent memory, and many people didn't think it would get that bad. Hell, even the President claimed that nobody anticipated the breach of the levees.

Of course, many people did realize that Katrina could flood the city, but how can you say that those who could not leave are to blame for the pathetic FEMA response? I can send you highly researched article about how, under the leadership of James Lee Witt, FEMA went from being scorned to being praised for its relief successes in the 90s. I remember when Bush and Gore boasted about traveling with Witt to disaster sites. But after September 11th, the previous Congress moved FEMA under the umbrella of The Department of Homeland Security. Bush appointed avery under-qualified Michael D. Brown to head FEMA. And then they underfunded it and changed its focus from natural disasters to terrorist attack response.

And you can blame the past several administrations for not making sure the U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers had the right leadership and funding to fortify the levees properly. And you can blame the Mayor and Governor for not doing enough to get people out and prepare. There is blame to go all around.

Jackson and Farrakhan laid blame on "racist" President Bush. Farrakhan actually proposed the idea that the government blew up a levee so as to kill blacks and save whites. The two demanded massive governmental spending to rebuild New Orleans, above and beyond the federal government's proposed $60 billion. Not only that, these two were positioning themselves as the gatekeepers to supervise the dispersion of funds. Perfect: Two of the most dishonest elite blacks in America, "overseeing" billions of dollars. I wonder where that money will end up.

The overblown accusations that Jesse Jackson or Louis Farrakhan may make has no bearing on the fact that FEMA and Homeland Security dropped the ball on Katrina -- and yes, that cost black people's lives. Why do all these types of letters mention Sharpton, Jackson etc? Is that to distract people from the uncomfortable facts? To get our blood boiling? Yea, it's all about personalities, perception and spin.

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

How can a black man of God make such a sweeping statement about his own people? It's outrageous! President Bush is responsible for his own rampant immorality -- as in starting a war with a country that never attacked us, and was not a real threat. Where is Rev. Peterson's outraged letter about the thousands of dead troops and civilians in Iraq thanks to the lies of George W. Bush?

And finally, I ask you -- is the black face on the letter to make whites feel good about agreeing with the racist message? I think so. Sean Hannity's face on Peterson's website sends an unmistakable message to white folk: here's a black man who will carry our water for us. And indeed he does.

Ralph