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Mental Health Moment: A weekly column by Helen & Harry Highwater

THE WEEK BEFORE

www.unknownnews.org/hh.html

THE WEEK AFTER

The old guy in a sweatshirt

by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News

Oct. 25, 2005

Walking through the grocery store, I saw the backside of a man, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, with an American flag on the back of his shirt. And some words. Before I could stop myself, I read the words.

Above the flag: "God bless America." So far so good, I thought. I wish God would bless America, please, bless us with leaders who aren't criminals, killers, or kooks ...

And under the flag, his shirt sad, "Support the troops, fighting to defend America's freedom."

Even before I spoke, I knew I would regret speaking. But I'd regret it more if I kept quiet. With a friendly chuckle that accidentally sounded more like a snort, my first words were "You've got to be kidding me."

I was talking more to myself than to this stranger, who slowly turned around to face me. He looked like a nice enough guy, like Wilford Brimley complete with the bushy mustache but without the oatmeal.

He raised his eyebrows just a little to signal, 'Were you talking to me?'

"No disrespect intended, but ..." He was old enough to be a grandfather, so my natural inclination was to be polite. "... did you borrow that sweatshirt, or do you really believe it?"

It had been such a nice jaunt to the store, until that point. We had been having a fairly pleasant time, my wife and I, until she sent me several aisles away to fetch margarine and eggs. So now she wasn't here to shush me up.

"You got a problem with an eagle?" he asked, pulling at the fabric on the front of his shirt. There were no words on the front of his shirt, just a fierce-looking American eagle.

"I'm asking about the back of your shirt, not the front." I took a deep breath to slow myself down, and the old guy tilted his head like he was looking at a crazy guy. "The back of your shirt, sir, says 'Support the troops, fighting to defend America's freedoms.' Which, uh, which troops are those? I mean, sir, you don't really think U.S. troops are defending your freedom, do ya?"

My dad always told me that ample use of sir and ma'am could help in sticky situations. That, and keeping your voice down, which I was, mostly.

"Hell yes!" the old guy semi-shouted. "My grandson is in Iraq, risking his life ... " And he rambled for a bit, and shoppers stopped to watch, and we both knew the old fart had played his trump card. It would be over the line, socially unacceptable to tell someone with family in Iraq that the war is all for lies. It's impolite to say so, or so we've been told. It's just unforgivable, so I said it.

"Well, sir," I said, "I do hope your grandson comes home OK, but he's not defending our freedom. Nobody in Iraq is trying to take your freedom away. Your grandson is being used, that's all. He's being used by criminals in the White House who don't give half a damn about him and don't give a damn about your freedom ..."

And with that, the old man walked away, shaking his head "no" and muttering under his breath. I'm sure I hadn't changed his mind, and fairly sure that changing his mind wasn't even my intent. My intent, near as I can dissect, was just to make sure his lying sweatshirt didn't go unchallenged.

You ask me, anyone who wears a lie like that out in public deserves to be challenged. I'd feel the same if his shirt had a swastika embroidered on it, and I think I'd react the same if a younger and tougher-looking man was wearing a sweatshirt like that. I'm not much for stopping and thinking before speaking, so one day I'll probably be a headline: "Man beaten in grocery store," or "on sidewalk."

Maybe I was wrong to say anything, or wrong not to say more. Probably I should've said it better. I don't know. I just can't keep quiet in the face of that much empty-headed ignorance.

Always on the tube and in things I read, fools who don't know what patriotism is are telling me I can't love my country unless I love all its wars. Nincompoops tell me freedom is obedience. Christianity is killing. Reducing Iraq to rubble is fighting for freedom. Trying to understand the conquered people's perspective is aiding and abetting the enemy. And some simpletons think American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are more endangered by facing facts, than by facing bullets.

I don't know that old geezer's story, or his grandson's story, but I know America's story: The nation has been stolen by lowlife scum with high-power connections and no scruples at all. They've taken good people who volunteered to defend America, and used them to conquer people who never threatened America and never could. Sons of bitches have stolen America's government, and taken it on a murderous crime spree for several years, perhaps not with that old guy's help, but clearly with his acquiescence.

For his acquiescence, for aiding and abetting America's enemies in the White House, you're damn right that old man deserves to be confronted in the grocery store. Tell me I'm wrong and I'll tell you to stuff it.

A few minutes later, my wife and I were in frozen foods, and the guy came down the aisle, pushing his squeakywheel cart toward us, alone. He glared at me as he approached, and he chomped his lips or gums a few times, but our carts passed in peace. I'd spoken my mind already, so the old man pursued frozen vegetables, while Helen and I went pushed our carts onward toward french fries and frozen pizza.

^{* * *}
I used to be a sweet guy, or so my wife tells me. These days, though, beneath the surface I'm never too far from furious. I don't like what these rat bastards have done to my country, and my planet. Savages in suits, like George Bush and his ilk, sour my mood ... and so do idiots wearing sweatshirts supporting Bush or his wars.

But there's a whiff of good news is in the air. People in the know tell us the White House will soon receive an indictment, or perhaps several indictments, for their pre-war smears of a former ambassador, whose wife was a CIA agent.

It's a small crime, really. The White House gang is guilty of many, many far worse crimes. An honest and thorough accounting of this administration's crimes would need to be book-length, but I wish I'd had a few more minutes with that old man in the market ...

I daydream that eventually Bush -- and Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Tom Ridge, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Harriet Miers, and the whole slate of traitors -- will all be indicted for the violent deaths and maimings of thousands of American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in Iraq, and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

I'd like to see Bush, Cheney, and a few others in the Hague, charged with introducing torture as an American policy. Charged with crimes against humanity, against democracy, against decency.

I'd like to see the Empty Hat of Texas testify under oath, about why he named Michael Brown to head FEMA (and countless other cronies to run other important offices), knowing that the lives, health, and safety of Americans would almost undoubtedly hang in the balance. and the deaths and suffering that has been the direct result.

I'd like to see Bush cross-examined on live TV by a real reporter who asks real questions, badgered into telling the truth of why rules and regulations protecting the safety of the air, water, and ground have been rewritten, repealed, or simply ignored, to an extent that will inarguably lead to many more cancers, more sicknesses, and more dead Americans. I'd like to see him -- without a script, without a radio wire in his ear -- explain the restructuring of Medicare, the downsizing of every aid program from Welfare to Pell Grants, and the new Pre-Charles Dickins Bankruptcy Law, all of which adds up to the scissoring of huge new holes in the safety net, while paving the ground under the net with concrete. I'd wager a week's wages that in thirty minutes time it would be apparent to even the most ardent sweatshirt-wearing Republican that Bush is a blithering idiot, a Chauncey Gardiner who doesn't even comprehend these cornerstones of what's alleged to be his administration.

And of course, there's the small matter of that elephant in the basement nobody's supposed to talk about: 9/11/2001, and the subsequent Bush-Cheney effort to block, stonewall, underfund, and delay any investigation. Their tactics were so successful, and so unchallenged by America's whore media, the truth of 9/11/2001 will never come out. It will be a running joke for decades, like the Warren Commission's so-called Report on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

And all the Americans who died that day, died for less than nothing. Doesn't that piss you off, like it enrages me? Thousands of Americans had their lives snuffed out -- and then, instead of having their murders understood or even avenged, their deaths were just used as fodder for lies -- and those lies have killed more and more and more, Americans, and Brits, and Iraqis, and soon Syrians or Iranians and after that, who knows who'll be next?

All this and more, so much more, I'd like to have told that old man in the store. If he hadn't walked away, I'd probably still be yammering at him.

True justice for those lying, killing, bloodsucking demon monstrosities squatting in the White House would require more tar and feathers than exists in the world.

If there are indictments this week -- plural? Hell, if there's even one single indictment I'll be pleasantly surprised, and try to make that tiny sliver of good news last.

And we're not pretending they're innocent until proven guilty. Gimme a break. Anyone with a semi-functional conscience knows that George Bush has no conscience at all, and that nobody with a conscience is allowed into his inner circle. Whether they're indicted or not, found guilty or all awarded worthless Presidential Medals of Freedom, they're all guilty.

But we also know, guilty is irrelevant. Nobody of high rank is going from the White House to prison. Bush's criminal cohorts own enough judges, prosecutors, and opinion-makers to make sure that justice never touches them. If there's a case they can't fix they'll merely wave the magic wand of presidential pardons.

And when they walk away scot-free, exonerated by bribe or threat or pardons, millions of Americans sharing that old man's sweatshirt mentality will applaud.

No, justice for the White House gang will not be forthcoming. Only more dismantling of everything America is supposed to stand for, but actually stands against.

A cell door closing, a bolt latching and echoing into infinity, is a terrible, terrifying sound. It's a sound often heard by those who deserve it, and often heard by those who don't. But it's rarely if ever heard by those who ought to hear it most.

© by the authors.

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Always on the tube and in things I read, fools who don't know what patriotism is are telling me I can't love my country unless I love all its wars.

Nincompoops tell me freedom is obedience.

Christianity is killing.

Reducing Iraq to rubble is fighting for freedom.

Trying to understand the conquered people's perspective is aiding and abetting the enemy.

And some simpletons think American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are more endangered by facing facts, than by facing bullets.

I looked on-line for that old man's sweatshirt, and couldn't find it. But there's plenty of insanity being sold to the insane.

And all the Americans who died ton 9/11/2001, died for less than nothing.

Doesn't that piss you off, like it enrages me?

Thousands of Americans had their lives snuffed out -- and then, instead of having their murders understood or even avenged, their deaths were just used as fodder for lies -- and those lies have killed more and more and more, Americans, and Brits, and Iraqis, and soon Syrians or Iranians and after that, who knows who'll be next?

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Is President Bush bonkers?

I can't afford therapy, but boy do I need it. So as an affordable alternative, I pound my anger into a weekly column here.

Fair warning: My parents were repressed -- using any bad words would get my mouth washed out with soap, literally. I still remember the sickly flavor of Dove^TM. So as an adult, vulgarity helps with the healing. If naughty language offends you, beat the rush and get offended now.

This page is for my own good, not yours, so you may not like it, but I don't care.

About the authors

Helen and Harry Highwater have published Unknown News since 1997. We're a married couple sharing a byline à la Lennon and McCartney, and "I" can be either of us, or both of us. If you're consumed by curiosity, it's safe to assume the more boisterous and aggressive bits come from Helen, and anything ladylike or demure is probably Harry's work.