From The Salt Mine

Sitting in an air-conditioned office in Hollywood all day, packaging "entertainment" for mass-consumption over the RF cable ubiquitious in American homes, I listen to NPR most of the day while following "independent" media sites, in an attempt to garner the truth for myself.

Listening to NPR's report tonight on the Rules of Engagement, I have a few thoughts to share with the community of readers of la.indymedia.org.

The Rules of Engagements dictate what and how American soldiers attack targets during wartime. A school will normally be offlimits, however, if troops are fired upon from said school, they may engage it with the weapons on their fighting vehicles but will probably not be permited use of a two-thousand pound bomb from the air.

Although I did not live through Vietnam, reminds me of the problems our superior forces faced there. An organized force with supply chains and command lines trying to invade a location where the locals have no such restrictions and are interested only in survival.

Harking back to my time in high-school, most schoolboys know passion can and often will beat superior might.

For another example, in the American revolution, the British Redcoats (in their bright red coats) and their "superior" forces fell to American forces who had a passion for their recent homeland.

Tangentally, the American revolution was about an unelected leader imposing taxes, levies, and issuing war demands from three thousand miles away. Today, as I sit in Hollywood, I feel much the same as those revolutionaries may have.

George W. Bush sits unelected in the highest office in the land, a component of a modern political dynasty, imposing and regulating taxes and levies and issuing war demands from three thousand miles away.

Further along the tangent, the a major tenent of the American revolution was taxation without representation. The election of 2000 was a farce and George W. Bush was installed as president. I was not represented as I am not on the Supreme Court. Each day, I go to work, as I have rent to pay, food to buy, student loans to repay, and, someday, a family to support. 28% of my daily wage is immediately stripped of me and held, interest-free, on capitol hill by a conglomerate of wealthy people who make decisions based on what corporations also attempting to extort me would like them to do.

I have raised a number of issues here and there are many more, but I shall return from my tangent to the task at hand.

We are being manipulated and there is no outrage. There are many questions remaining to be answered about the World Trade Center. We are a pacified people, content to watch psuedoreality television in the illusionary comfort of our society which has all but destroyed social interaction, the true spice of life.

We are bound by domestic Rules of Engagement. As we are watching our forces in Iraq struggle with sandstorms and a people broken in bone, but in spirit, we are seeing a war we cannot win. In the 1930s, the expense of maintaining their empire almost bankrupt the British, for they were always bound by the rules of engagment as opposed to the rules of survival the people of their conquer were bound by.

This campaign will consume our already shaky resources and has the real possibility of bankrupting the country.

George Bush has no worry about this; his tenure as president lasts another year and then he has the option of living off the offshore bank accounts his corrupt geneology most likely set up when Prescott Bush traffiked finances for the Nazis.

George Bush is bound by the rules of engagement. There are a thousand eyes watching his every move and he dances very carefully, fully aware of what his handlers may do if he mis-steps.

We are the people of the United States. Our brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters and being send to slaughter by the Bush Regime. We feel now bound by the Rules of Engagement. Dissent has been vilified.

This is not the reality. The reality is we are NOT bound by the Rules of Engagement but the Rules of Survival. The survival of our ethics, our morals, and our lives. Our greatest enemy lies not in a dictator thousands of miles away, nor in our neighbor who has a nice house, nor in our bosses whom, the same as we, are doing the best they can.

Our enemy lies in the White House. Our enemy is the new King George, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and all the rest of the leaders who have grown out of touch with the people they purportedly represent.

The enemy lies within.

We are not weak. You and I make this country run; we are what makes it great; equitable. We work; we pay the taxes; we pay the bills of these men sending our brothers and sisters to kill our Iraqi brothers and sisters for thier own selfish means.

We have been distracted by a live of luxury and numbness, but now we must unite before the Religious Extremist John Ashcroft makes it more difficult for us to do so.

Boycott. Stop paying taxes. Turn off the television.

We fund this war. We fund these people. The blood is on our hands.

I want my fucking country back.