EXPERIENCING BELGIUM
Monday, July 31, 2006
 

Kitchen Condition

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 15:55

Meanwhile Lebanon is on my mind… I kicked out our resident quarrelsome Jew (American) on an impulse after watching on Al Jazeera covering the barrage against Christians and Muslims in Southern Lebanon. Not so many weeks ago our “live in” squatter needed temporary accommodation like Anne Frank from a relationship/domestic situation that went sour. When this fellow moved in with so much baggage (literally and figuratively) that I felt like I could identify with a Palestinian in 1948... Now the Anne Frank guy isn’t talking to me even though that other housemate here is probably more fed up with him than me: So much for helping my fellow Americans in need here in Villette. Yesterday was Brussels march to support the atrocity in Lebanon – it was funny seeing how all the young Muslim guys and girls were killing two birds with one stone – showing their support for what is happening to Lebanon mercilessly by the Israeli Corporate machinations and, two, using the public gathering as a boy/girl meeting place – this provided a happier lighter edge to a harrowing reality not so far from European privileges. Technically we here in Europe can drive to the carnage in Lebanon because our roads connected up with theirs before the Israeli’s bombed them to pieces. For this reason alone Europeans should be a bit more decisive about what Israel is doing to Lebanon.

I’ve been having terrible asthma and hay fever and am a mess from that. My guess it’s from a strange mixture of summer pollen blowing across Flanders and urban diesel auto exhaust from all the Dutchlings driving through Belgium in their caravans/(RV’s) to Southern Europe. Add to that mixture industrial and agricultural pollution plus all the greasy exhaust from summer fritkots – (fry stands): One such fritkot of which is temporarily parked like an unwanted recreational vehicle (RV/caravan) and doing daily and nightly business on the square at the end of the street - its arrival there coincidentally or not arrived with my asthma and allergy problems du jour.

Just to get me out of the house sometimes I have serious thoughts about going to Lebanon to fight the Israelis (and die there)… My Google news alerts sent me a link to a South East Asian organization actively soliciting online recruits to go help in Lebanon. I don’t think I would actually go though because I don’t even like to eat meat and therefore I don’t want to hurt anyone including even an Israeli from their unjustified inhumane warmongering. It would though be nice having a purpose in life for a change. I do though seriously want to go to Damascus and see the old city soon – before it gets bombed to hell and back from the Americans in Iraq in the East and from the Israelis in the South after they have taken the whole of Lebanon. And all of this before the myth of the next cease-fire is put on Israel by the UN. If this isn’t another false start at the Mother of all Battles then Syria will be invaded by Israeli missiles next. My guess is Israel has always wanted to extend their unholy land from Cypress in the Mediterranean Sea in the West, to Saudi Arabia (and the Sinai Peninsula) in the South – Across Iran to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in the East, to the city of Baku in the North… I believe this is Israel’s collective dream of an Israeli run neo-Orientalist Empire. Why they aren’t content with Southern California and Jew York City I don’t know (oh yeah and Miami)… Given that they have all those places in North America I don’t get why they even need that tiny little bit of land in Palestine and Lebanon. The funny thing is I am wondering where Bin Laden is now that the world really needs him. My God who is the more criminal terrorist? Bush junior and his warmongering administration in Iraq – or the current vegetative Sharon and his henchmen with their incarceration and controls of Palestinians and Lebanese? Compared to these guys who are the bigger criminals? Like I said where is Bin Laden now that the world needs him?

Funny though what the Talmud actually says about the New State of Israel. But even religious Israelis have selective ideas about their sacred religious texts. I do admire anyone whose has a religious lifestyle in pursuit of the divine that goes against the consumerist human resource lifestyle standards imposed on the world’s human population. And I especially have a fondness for men who wear their beards au natural, including anachronistic Hasidim like the ones who recently at a New York City gathering for Lebanon were carrying placards reminding the world about what the Talmud actually says regarding a modern Israeli state: Let alone one who perpetuates terrorism on Lebanon and the always forgotten Palestinians. Qana and Gaza are the evidence that Israel is after all like the US is now, first and foremost a terrorist state organization, unlike Hamas or Hezbollah.

Ok back to my life here - I listen to the radio in my kitchen condition. My kitchen condition is my euphemism for my persistent battle with the dark dog of depression. Often times to alleviate my tormented brain fevers I make a hot cup of cheap Assam tea or spicy Pakistani chai and talk of conspiracy theories with my friends to explain the inexplicable lies in the news today. I know I take my paranoid conspiracy game humor too far or too seriously but very little these days makes me laugh. Perhaps that’s why I like Arab drag – it makes me happy to wear Islamist (men’s) clothing. Baggy crotch trousers and thobes or modest summer fashions like at Shukr online offer – precisely made in tailoring standards not seen in Europe in ages – now being made in Syria with exacting quality of fine tailoring. Some people wear women’s lingerie to get their kicks (men or women) I prefer Kalashnikovs as a fashion accessory. I know the paranoid conspiracies are a silly game but really when I observe the disparities in the news from CNN, BBC and EuroNews when compared to what I watch on Al Jazeera, Al Arabia. Al Maghrebia or the Arab News Network – then one does see what lies the media is capable of manufacturing. I really believe there is a Zionist conspiracy or at least overt sympathies in the Western media news and the Arab news network alternatives are exposing that better than Noam Chomsky can in any book of his which let’s face it don’t much get read anymore by the masses (if they ever did). Not that the Arab news networks don’t have their own agenda but it is nice to observe news freed from Zionist sympathies. Thank you Al Jazeera!

I still believe in Byzantium before 1453 of the Common Era – despite my thrills for the Modern Arabia of the future and the inter-galactic new Las Vegas of Dubai and the Arabesque of the past as still can be experienced in Sana’a, Yemen of today at least in the old city there. Certainly the rest of the world could learn from places like what remains of Byzantium of today in Bulgaria where multi-religious communities live in harmony and peace and have done so for centuries. Certainly Lebanon and Syria are ethnically and religiously more multi-cultural than Israel and its pure Jewish state will ever allow itself to be. We in the rest of the world have to live with other religions and cultures heaped by modern immigration needs into our respective worlds. Why should Israel even think it is a Democracy when it is a racially and religiously hierarchical pure state that Hitler looking down on us from the Star Vega would be jealous of? Funny even to realize or consider that in this day and age Saudi Arabia is better at being a multi-ethnic/religious culture than Israel. Meanwhile the UN and everyone else in the so called West – quietly gives Israel all the permission they need to behave like state sanctioned international terrorists.

And then there is Congo-leeza Rice talking to the world in media bits… Looking like she can’t be bothered by all these leviathan Levant problems when there is much more important oil to grab in Iraq and Iran. For someone reported as a foremost mind in the politics of the current Bush II administration/regime she sure does sound like an idiotic high school principal when addressing the needs of the Lebanese for a mandatory ceasefire to be levied against the terrorists of Israel. Congo-leeza Rice and her desperate housewife formal wear wardrobe and meanwhile the Congo is carrying out Democratic elections in the former Belgian colony. It’s scary to consider that the Congo of all places might actually be carrying out Democracy more legitimately (and efficiently) than the US elections in 2000 and 2004 - for which Congo-leeza Rice owes her current employment to. Does anyone really think those elections in Florida and Ohio weren’t rigged to put the Bushlings in office so that Israel could wage its wars on its neighbors in Gaza and Lebanon with the US shamelessly backing it. The very wars that Bush and co. condones which Clinton would not. It wouldn’t surprise me if like that high-colonic Powell, Congo-leeza Rice doesn’t wash off brown skin dye after work after removing her 1950’s Afro-American church lady’s wig. Under those brown tinted contact lenses I suspect blue eyes of an Aryan Master Race greedily peer out. My guess is Congo-leeza Rice is George Walker Bush’s illegitimate sister whom he has incestuous White House Oval Office relations with. My lawd the Bush II ratings are so low that Georgie-boy might just benefit from a blue dress and cigar styled White House sex scandal a la Kenneth Star. White house sex scandals aside what the world needs right now is Bill Clinton to go and tell Israel to back off (in his trade mark polite and articulate style) if it doesn’t want to be air-lifted like a 21st century version of the 1950’s Yemeni style Magic Carpet Ride to present day Southern Californian freeway culture to prevent another world war.

Meanwhile my home life is terrible. No fighting – but I now understand Janis Joplin when she sings about “take a little piece of my heart why don’t you – you know you’ve got it if it makes you feel good”. I imagine my estranged partner sitting around like Hannibal Lexter - whatever spelling – cannibalistically chewing on pieces of the muscle tissue of my heart like it were bubble gum while mindlessly watching outdated American TV programming on Flemish-Belgian TV networks.

What the rest of the world must come to grips with, and face the consequence of implication, that merits our global understanding is that the United States Military Industrial Complex and the Israelis are two Terrorist states. No matter how much finger pointing the US or Israel does in calling Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, or Al Qaeda – terrorist organizations – The United States and Israel are Terrorist Organizations unlike anything the world has ever seen. Clinton was a nicer face – a more articulate spokesman for - but never-the-less part of a corporate capitalistic based self legitimizing terrorist network. And anyone around the world caught in the beast of Capitalism’s grip by being a consumer/human resource – is very much a link in the chain and an integral part of State Sanctioned terrorism. Just ask Lebanon for every human being in Lebanon understands this more than anyone else except the Palestinians in Gaza or any decade’s old forgotten refugee camp in the burnt out remains of a land called Palestine.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
 

Disproportional Doesn't Even Begin to Describe the Carnage in Lebanon

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 00:19

To the American's who want to genuinely offer help and relief to the people of Lebanon: It's quite simple really, if Condoleeza Rice wants to do anything for Lebanon in representing the Americans on her visit to Beirut today then she should assure Lebanon that she will not permit the US to supply the Israeli military with any forms of special weaponry of war that the Israel government might have purchased from the US in the past (or received gratis).

The United States need send no other relief supplies to Lebanon except this promise - No more weapons of war for the Israelis supplied from the Americans.

Let other friendlier more admirable nations of the world send blood and medicine supplies as well as food, water and sanitation relief to Lebanon.

Do I need to add as well - no half hearted Haliburton contracts for the friends of Bush to rebuild Lebanon for whenever Israel stops trying to expand into Lebanon.

Last I heard the levies of New Orleans still needed rebuilding along with some of the basic infrastructure for that old forgotten American city/dirty little domestic secret of the Bush II era.

Until the US stops giving military financial aid and the machines of war to the Israeli government then the rest of the world cannot expect Iran to do likewise (for what it's worth I am not convinced Iran is even doing the things the Anglophone media - CNN or BBC - are accusing them of anyway).

Lebanon was a European class country. Beirut was a European class city. Certainly the European Union and in particular France of all places should be rushing to the rescue and relief for the people of Lebanon.

Is anyone rushing to rescue let alone help defend Lebanon?

There hasn't been a decade since the founding of the Israeli government that Israel didn't want to claim Lebanese terrorities and homes in their history of aggression with their neighbors.

It just doesn't work anymore to call ones neighbors and enemies terrorists. Most people of the world aren't buying the fear and terrorism game - for we all see it as state sanctioned scapegoat for acts of war without justifiable reason.

If we in the states could persuade Condoleezza Rice and the Bush II regime that their job is to represent the US properly and thus to behave ethically and in humanitarian ways - if we could just promise that American made hardware of war will not be used against the people and state of Lebanon then I think we American's could at least not be ashamed of ourselves regarding the humiliation, suffering and fall of Lebanon. ...To say nothing of the war on Lebanon by Israeli state sanctioned terrorism.

How many Lebanese equal one Israeli? The racial statistics today seem to be 100 Lebanese human beings equal one Israeli consumer.

The death and destruction by an offshore earthquake near Indonesia - perhaps an act of God is one thing - unavoidable.

The death and destruction of Lebanon by a neighboring government and people was absolutely unneccessary.

If the Israelis are so afraid of Iran and neighboring militant organizations (no more or less guilty than the Israeli or American government/military) then perhaps the Israelis should stop perpetuating crimes against Palestinians trapped in zones of control and cultural and racial extermination.

Perhaps if the Israelis had a better conscience regarding their own brothers and cousins and people of a different faith then they wouldn't have to wage paranoid wars and desperately feel so acutely the need for more land.

Lebanon is the land under a beautiful red and white flag with a green cypress tree on a planet suffering from decades of devastating deforestation - a nation like Lebanon revering a symbol of ecological health like a growing tree deserves better from the rest of us around the world standing by quietly watching Lebanon fall to her knees.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
 

Story from Villette's Klein Kasteeltje/Petit Chateau

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 14:09

Today we here at the Experiencing Belgium desk have a different kind of blogette posting. Nearby on the canal down the street is an asylum center known as the Klein Kasteeltje/Petit Chateau a nice local name for a "camp" housed in a building that resembles a small castle. It is common modern day poor house for people caught in Belgium without papers and especially without that paper in the form of euro notes/dollar bills. Though not held under lock and key it is a dubious sort of arrangement for those whose lives end up there seeking shelter for a painful life transition. If only the Belgian newspapers would print the many stories such as this life story then perhaps the Belgians of Belgian origin would understand who the unfamiliar strangers they now share these old streets with. The following is one such story of a fellow from Nigeria staying at the klein Kasteeltje center here in Villette who asked me to type out his life story on why he came to stay in Belgium.

The reason why I wrote my story is because the endless empty time I am spending in the “Petit Chateau” doing nothing, helplessly bored for hours that stretch the day into endless proportions. My mind keeps spinning around in my brain. So as not to sink into madness I decided to concentrate on what had been life before… The time I was happy… unaware of what was happing in the country, unaware of evil in some peoples mind.

My name is Dovenn Ekeanyanwu I am from Nigeria. We were a family of three brothers and one sister. Awaking from our happiness was quite a shock. The eldest brother of my father, my uncle, Sylvanus, works as a government official and is therefore rather powerful. My uncle Obet, also brother of my father died leaving everything he had to his son my cousin Thomson. Uncle Sylvanus took advantage of his position and power in the government to steal the land documents of uncle Obet leaving my cousin Thomson without anything. My cousin requested the documents in vain as uncle Sylvanus refused. So one day Thomson forced his way into my uncle Sylvanus’ house and… God knows how and why… killed my aunt. At that time I was in Oweri, in my state, when the police popped up and arrested me and my mother accusing us of being accomplices of Thomson’s murder. We were tortured with knives and beatings. I myself had wounds all over my body. But the worse is that I could hear mother crying over in the other jail cell – oh! We Suffered! …mother died. My cousin Thomson was caught. Fortunately with the help of friends I had the opportunity to escape. My uncle insisted that I should be executed like my cousin without trial of course. He hired and bribed the police again to get me. Also my brothers had to go on the run. I still don’t know where they are.

The police got me, they tortured and beat me. But, God be the glory! Some other prisoners and I were driven through the bush were we would be executed secretly. They told us to run and so we did. Most of us were shot. Fortunately I managed to escape running helplessly through the bush. I turned to the nearby town of ABA were I fell down completely exhausted. A man, who I will call “the good Samaritan” so as not to reveal his real name, found me and hid me in his house. When he learned my story he decided that in order to escape from my powerful uncle, the best for me was to leave the country. He managed to take me on a flight to Belgium. There at the airport in Zaventem, he gave me 10 euros to go to an asylum center and he left me.

In those cold and gray October days I felt completely lost, having no clothes and nothing to eat. I strolled for about three days sleeping in the streets. Then somebody directed me to the “Petit Chateau”. There they provided me with a room, a bed, some medications and clothes. They actually saved me from the streets. Later I was asked for an interview with the “Commissariat General” and went there with a lawyer to whom I had been introduced. They asked me about how I arrived in Belgium and why I decided to leave my country. To me that interview seemed like hell. I felt like the interrogation started all over again. I was but nerves and panic. Besides I had not recovered yet from the shock. Like for an exam at school I would have loved to do well… But I was just able to utter a very nervous and disordered story of my past four months. I am afraid they did not get a good image of me. In such an interview one is always afraid that this first and so important declaration is not clear enough and sounds unbelievable. But it is the truth! Roughly said and with clumsiness of a frightened and nervous mind.

Things like what happened to me might sound exaggerated when one lives in Europe but they are happening so very often in Nigeria. Later I went to the Palais de Justice and was introduced to another lawyer. In fact a young lady who took over my case - I am thankful for her for her care and courage - Having many other souls like me to defend you can imagine the world and implications she must face. Actually my life and also that of the other poor souls she defends are depending on her.

It has been two months now and in the meantime I try my best to integrate into the Belgian society. It’s hard without a family but I made a lot of friends. Belgians are rather warm open and warm hearted. Some I know were even nice enough to write a letter of recommendation.

I do sincerely hope with all my heart that Belgium will give me another opportunity to start life. That I will never have to go back and face death in my native country. I unfortunately did not get a positive answer the first time. But I am doing my best. Some friends are helping me with French and Dutch and I might have the opportunity to follow classes in this language center of the “Petit Chateau” in September and any other craft-work classes I would gladly follow.

I warmly thank the Belgian Government for helping me this far.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
 

Praying for the Night Thief

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 19:31

It’s hot in Villette. Officially even it’s a heat wave. Around the house here it must be 35 to 38 degrees. Honestly, I like this weather and only wish the idea of Global Warming would hurry up and make this kind of weather normal and longer lasting just to get the damp out of the old bricks of Bru-town. Meanwhile, Werchter, that strange Belgian version of Woodstock that is phenomenally popular here has ended for this year. Kind of like an Anglophone pop version of the Nuremberg Rallies with 21st century pagan overtones for the Euro masses – minus the racial issues and the national socialists (for the most part) but certainly it’s all totally capitalistic. I find it weird to be honest. I’d rather watch excerpts of it on the news just to remind myself why I don’t like such crowds.

You wouldn’t believe how much fun I had last evening watching Al Jazeera in Arabic. Al Jazeera - with that incredible logo that CNN is secretly jealous of - was featuring a documentary on Hamas and the military part of that organization which was really compelling and kinda like the end scenes of Bruce la Bruce’s film Raspberry Reich. Although I know some Arabic I didn’t know enough to follow the storyline of the program. But watching Al Jazeera without knowing Arabic is way more interesting than that boring CNN – after all Al Jazeera - like Mecca Cola is to Coca-cola, is perhaps a ghost subsidiary with the same economic aims. Because I am such a fan of Al Jazeera I secretly want to learn fluent Arabic so I can get a job as a Western Anglophone Journalist who can proudly say I work for Al Jazeera – this would be useful at parties and I think the pay would be pretty good too. Plus for the first time in my life I would be gainfully employed and the irony of that would be personally delightful. The thing is when you watch Al Jazeera without knowing much Arabic the effect is like watching that inane EuroNews (broadcast in seven languages while remaining overtly Franco-centric) program called No Comment. No Comment is the only thing worthwhile EuroNews does. A few minutes without a propagandistic voice over of something playing out in real time caught on video for a few minutes. Like, why isn’t there a No Comment channel? So this evening I watched my version of the No Comment channel – Watching Al Jazeera without knowing much Arabic. The thing is the documentary of the military part of Hamas (and not the admirable Democratic social services part of Hamas which no one in the West is interested in which was the real reason the Palestinians voted them into office) has little more than self made weaponry and alot of stones to throw like David hurled toward almighty Goliath. Incidently all those Palestinian boys you see in the media throwing stones at Israeli soldiers carrying all those machine guns, well, those Palestinian boys are the new Davids and heroes of the story over there in the unholy land of today. No matter how distressing the news of the day tries to be nothing cheers me up more when watching CNN than to see Palestinian youngsters hurling stones at Israels incorporated military might. They are really good at throwing - too bad they don't have any baseball fields to play on like their Israeli brothers have. But I digress. The Hamas documentary was unintentionally hot plus the documentary talking head was kinda swishy – it was sooo like Fight Club in Arabia. The forces were all very homemade compared to the slick American or Israelis (is there a difference?). Actually I was thinking it would be interesting to document these impoverished Palestinian forces compared to well funded Israeli forces – and then why not do like the shocker of that unforgettable Apartheid era documentary that simply showed a black South African family home spliced up in scenes of a white family home. Like do the same with the Israeli and Palestinian various home lives including the decades old refugee (concentration) camps. But the Hamas military was so DIY (do it yourself) like - In French they have a good word for it but I don’t know how to spell it - cheapo-tage. Which means something like makeshift – Jerry rigged. Etc. At the same time I find it really distressing when there is a guy with a Qur’an in the right hand and a machine gun in the left but I do like those turbans covering the face. I am just not so certain that a machine gun and Qur’an go hand in hand. Maybe those Jihadi warrior boys should spend a little less time oiling their big machine guns and instead spend more time reading up on the Majestic Qur'an that they like so much to brandish about. The thing is I would though love to go train like in that documentary (because I could use the exercise and the camaraderie of it) or perhaps just so I could enjoy the ambiance of Arab masculinity and humor in the communal showers afterwards. The documentary I think was, if you know the Arabic language, a real shocker but when you don’t know the language it is all rather funny because honestly I don’t know what the Israeli’s are so worried about. I just find it curious when Democratic movements elect leaders that other more powerful nations don’t approve of: Then you see what a lie Democracy in the West is today.

The night before last night I watched Paradise Now on a DVD region one disc on my computer which I can do by not switching the computers region player more than three times (which is a tedious task as the prompts in my computer for this are in Dutch and I am never certain what choice I am clicking on). Could technology facilitate greed any more tediously? Anyway it was too hot to do anything else than to watch TV. But I couldn’t get the subtitles to play – who knows why – probably Hollywood Zionist Conspiracies at work on a technological level in my computer… But watching Paradise Now in Arabic without subtitles gave me the opportunity to enjoy the cinematography and actually watch the movie and see how much Arabic I actually know. So I am even more annoyed with the Oscars months later after their big night: It wasn’t just Brokeback Mountain but now Paradise Now not getting the attention it deserved that is pissing me off. Why can’t some bright shining star worth following like Susan Sarandon start an intelligent and humorous alternative to the Oscars? But what I find curious is that it’s July and I am still pissed off at the Oscars.

Meanwhile my right foot is rotting off. I have this massive plantar wart. I am actually beginning to wonder if one can die from a plantar wart. Leprosy and gangrene perhaps already are setting in. I mean Rimbaud died of something like foot cancer didn’t he? I should photograph it for an almanac of strange medical conditions because it’s so scary looking. I think I am a cash cow for my doctor. I go in two or three times a month for this and pay money (23 euros) even though I am mostly reimbursed by the insurance (God bless Belgium and their belief and commitment to social security because lack of health care for a nation is the real definition of terrorism). So every time I go to get my foot treated my doctor gets paid by me and the insurance. I think there are more sophisticated treatments that don’t drag on over years. I am actually ashamed of what my foot looks like. There are cracks and crevices around the warts so that it looks like a dual mini moon crater on the ball of my right foot. They are compound warts in a mosaic pattern of different little fuckers otherwise known as plantar warts forming two big separate life form entities. I haven’t named them yet but they seem to answer to “you little fuckers”. I pulled the dead skin off to expose the growths so that hopefully the air will help them heal – so now it looks like an old push button light switch. Remember those? Kinda brassy – one button white Bakelite the other black. Speaking of Bakelite how many people out there know that Bakelite was the original high quality durable plastic invented by a Belgian by the surname Baekeland? I used to think Bakelite was like literally plastic baked lightly that gave Bakelite plastic its antique charm and value… Those nice old, now antique, push button lights, in case you have forgotten, when you pushed one the other one popped out… Well my foot is just like that except the lights don’t go on or off when I push it – but the sensation of pain does go off like you wouldn’t believe – it can best be described as broken glass stuck in my foot sole. For this - Sometimes I despise my doctor. I suppose I will miss this critter (the wart not the doctor) when it’s gone. I spend too much time obsessed by it because it hurts like hell half the time. At the moment I bike everywhere because I can hardly walk. I could use a walker or a cane or perhaps soon a wheel chair but I am too vain so I bicycle. Bicycling in Brussels is life threatening just like the condition of my foot. Why risk your life climbing Pakistan's K-2 - our planet's second highest mountain and much less touristy alternative for an adventure and the rush of defying certain death when you can instead bicycle in Brussels? Brussels whose urban fabric evolved prior to the great American Auto Age was inflicted on the rest of the world and consequently many streets were not built to accommodate the automotive beast of the Apocalypse. Or how about the curse of all the space hogging parked cars that go with it - to say nothing of the noises or the smells and stress of perpetual life threatening forms of transportation. Then idiot drivers who refuse to share the roads with the bicyclists and it’s only a matter of time until something nasty happens. Then when you add oversized SUVeez (suburban assault vehicles) that were designed to transverse parts of Africa without proper roads to these little streets and the suburban bourgeoisie driving them and you begin to think having unprotected sex with as many partners as is humanly possible is considerably safer in this day and age than riding your bicycle in Bru-town.

The other day to cheer my father up with some humor I thought to send my dad this funny rewrite of the 23rd Psalm which was a witty commentary on the Bush II regime in a nutshell, well die hard patriot WWII Vet Pa Kettle in old Ohio did not like the 23 Qualms about Bush II which if you write us and ask at the Experiencing Belgium desk we will try to send it on to you. In fact my dad is such a CNN/Bush II sucker who sees an Arab Islamist under every rock in Ohio that I refuse to go home and visit him (my dad not the guys under the Ohio rocks) because even his e-mails piss me off. Better that we have our weekly edgy and disagreeable phone conversations and skip trying to spend a fortnight or two* together in his little plastic ticky tack house. We really are polar opposites and I am sorry, he is my dad, and he loves his country and his President more than his family, so fuck him he can rot in Ohio with everyone else contentedly stuck there. He can hang out with his like minded friends and family members. And don’t give me grief about this. My lawd during the American Civil War – The War of Northern Aggression – families were divided like this so why should now be any different? I don’t want to hang out with my Bush II loving swing voter sucker for the Bin Laden trap fear of terror though adorable Dad – who at his age has nothing to fear but the imminent arrival of the Grim Reaper of old age – the original terrorist. I can’t bite my tongue when I am around my dad and be polite and respectful because I would have to bite my tongue completely off. Honestly it is better that I face up to not seeing dear old dad in this life again. Given what we know about each others points of views it’s sad and I blame the Reagan/Bush/I/II Regime Administrations for terrorizing my family with their stupid greedy fear tactics. Just tell me why the states gets off pretending to be like Israel and afraid of everything… as if on some subconscious level the Americans know there is actually something like Karma/God's Judgment for what we all enable the US to do by way of our votes and taxed dollars (to say nothing of our petrol addiction). Fear is a consequence of America’s wretched Foreign Policy – And the Bush Regime plays that fear and spins and baits it even more for their own profit. Just listen to junior Bush every time he gets played in the media the first ten words out of that slack lipless mouth will be about the threat to Ahmerka and that never ending war on terror... Would someone please teach that Bush guy how to pronounce accurately the name of the nation he leads. Otherwise we might have to start changing the future spelling of the United States of America to something more in line with the history of the Castilian lisp in Espanole – you know like having to pronounce Ibiza as ebeetha because of some sweet pea leader who wore tights and had a bit of hair on the tip of his tongue for some reason which we won't go into here. And how is it that Bush guy has all the Republican politicians under him trained to be parrots of threat and terror too. That and that American foreign policy subconscious neurosis of a forgetful stupor is because I think deep down Americans know something is wrong and they are unwilling to consider the fact they might all be wrong. First of all they can’t walk anywhere because despite all the sidewalks and wheelchair ramps the sidewalks around their neighborhoods don’t go anywhere for you have to drive everywhere.

Those Americans just don’t grasp foreign policy because they have so many debts to pay and so little vacation time to think about anything their country is doing abroad. Although how anyone can stomach the likes of the heinous Guantanamo Bay being perpetrated by a land which embraces the paramount idea of Lady Liberty (as if she were a trademark logo stolen for Hollywood cinematic entertainments) is beyond me. Guantanamo today being ignored by the Americans - its all too much like Auschwitz being tolerated by ordinary Germans way back when. And then all Bush II can do is blame the “liberal” NEW YORK TIMES for chrissakes (see ** point below) Bush you can do better than that even without a telepromter can’t you? If you think the NYTimes is liberal try reading some blogettes on line like this one would you. The Bush II guy fails at everything he does for the nation and all he can do is blame the New York Times (for doing their job which is a lot more than one can say about Bush holiday maker junior and his administrations regime which props up his lazy idiotic illiterate ass) – If Bush would have some balls and just say my Daddy made me do it (which would be the first honest thing he said in office) or probably more accurately my mommie Babs with that pearl necklace made daddy make me do it then maybe we can forgive the W for being an imbecile result of a the first dysfunctional family in office and chuck him and his WASPy family out of office. Would someone please organize the Million Machine Gun March on Washington DC to take back the country? Compared to Bush junior, President Castro looks down right likeable and dignified – a nice bearded father figure and as durable as father time too. Why do I care about the states? Remind me. I like the weather in North America and the south west landscape and sky are unbelievable but more and more I just see a land of spoiled adult children and over weight people frothing like a bitch dog in heat from the relentless sexual male sexless advertising – fat lost souls in SUVs who do not know the first thing about the rest of the world. With a citizenry duped into being a consumer human resource by a ministry of propaganda, lies and misinformation that uses sex to sell everything unimaginable and unnecessary – while at the same time representing men as without external sexual organs. Consumers addicted to compulsive forms of sex for release from this capitalistic matrix at a time when sex still comes with life and death consequences… I don’t know it’s just so fucked up. Hyper sexualized children and pre-teens running around with over sexualized consumed middle aged mid and large sized Americans shopping the ailes of Wal-mart shed buildings – living their lives out of big cars and big parking lots and big houses with Big TVs and big sofas… and small minds…

Sometimes I just can’t shake having seen the movie the Matrix (which is probably why that filmed spawned two stupid sequels because perhaps the original Matrix movie was just too dangerous a concept to turn loose) – everything about my former home life in Ohio back in the states is so synthetic and devoid of meaning and purpose. A synthetic electronic environment designed to distract an economically farmed out humanity from faceless corporation conglomerate from the reality of the obligation of other peoples suffering. At some point capitalism must surely collapse in on itself and we all know that collapse is long over due and the longer over due it is the bigger the collapse will be. And don't think the Bushies aren't poised to cash in on the great fall.

And all I can think about is some parts of the Book of Revelations (from the Bible in case you have forgotten about that piece of propaganda and history) where the return of Christ** will be like a thief in the night. I always liked this poetic analogy even as a kid – I can’t put my finger on why those few words can cause goose bumps but it does feel like it's very close - we will all see what that prophecy meant – little by little – night after night – a whole community gets ripped off by the thief in the night. If it happens it won’t happen all at once like Rapture Christians are taught to believe. Perhaps like the state of the states, little by little as if there were a thief in the night, freedom and liberty were stolen by the oil and energy corporations in charge and it won’t be anything like what they told us in church. Or who knows I could be wrong. But I wish something Biblical, Qur’anic, Revelatory, like from all the Prophets of Old Testament would happen because this world is too much to bear. Rampant materialism to numb our conscience from the terrible things man does to each other just to maintain a life of luxury and selfishness.

The Dali Lama was totally right when he said all of today’s suffering can be traced back to another person’s greed – why don’t we ever learn and start stopping our incessant wanting for material unneccessities in life? Why don’t we want the things that matter – to give those in need from our excess so as to alleviate if not stop suffering?

Well if you are still reading this then please just get up and get out of Ohio or Iowa or Oklahoma or anywhere and stop thinking you can’t have a life elsewhere outside of the US Matrix. It’s time for the Great American Diaspora to hit the rest of the world. A mass exodus of consciousness… We all die – that is a given but we all don’t have to die in a state of being like Ohio or the shopping malled of a once great and admirable land and nation. I’m not exactly happy in Belgium and I often times have doubts about living in Brussels at that but I sure am ever thankful to be here than in the states and certainly I am happy as all hell to be out of Ohio. Poor, poor Ohio – Ohio and the conservative lying election rigging Taft Republicans politicians who made the dreary brain drained mess that is present day Ohio – well I don’t feel sorry for them all anymores. You get what you deserve. At this point the only admirable thing Ohio can do is turn itself over to the descendants of the Indigenous tribes that once knew the hills and valleys and woodlands and plains and prairies and wet lands and water ways of Ohio like the back of their hands. Perhaps they can return the delicate ecology of Ohio back to what it was before the industrial agriculture and suburbanization of freeway culture took over and polluted everything with an unforgivable fascist form of shopping mall Capitalism. Who knows maybe then the forgotten swarms of the swans of Ohio will return. That way all those reintroduced Trumpeter swans, the largest of the swans and native to Ohio (like me), will return to shit on all those SUVeez just after they pull out of the automatic car washes.

“Independence Day”… the American’s might not know it but on a subconscious level they want their ideas of freedom and liberty returned to them. The rest of the world meanwhile just wants independence from the Americans and their greedy corporations of post Marshall Plan Western accomplices. It's time for a new Independence Day perhaps the Democrats could hire Bin Laden as an outside consultant if he weren't already working for the Military Industrial Complex wittingly or unwittingly. I dunno maybe its time on this fourth of July to think about a bearded turbanned Paul bin Revere proudly carrying a Kalashikov and a gilded Qur'an while driving a tank over the White House Rose Garden flower bushes... Now that image is way more American than we American's feel comfortable enough to admit.


*By the way two fortnights would make a month you stupid MTV addict – just remember what Gudrun from Raspberry Reich said about MTV's Madonna – in two words – Counter Revolutionary!

** Muslims consider Jesus Christ not the son of God but a Prophet and are obliged at this point to offer peace and blessing to his name – Funny how for most cultural Christians the name of their lord and God is a common swear word. Muslims like the Christians believe Christ will return – let’s hope so for there seems no other way out of our self made planetary mess of human “civilization”.

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