Soapbox

“No disrespect intended” he said.

   No disrespect to the hundreds of women who are assaulted every day, but… y’all are liars.
And these loopholes, these cheats and gimmicks that you impetuous, moody females use to get abortions any time you claim to have been raped… they’ve got to be closed, for the good of society.
     Because everyone knows you gals lie about being raped- you feminazis, ball-busters and oopsie-daisy morning-after regret girls. And if even one of you might make up a story of being forced and degraded just to gain permission to control your own body again- imagine that!– well then, we can’t trust any of you to ever tell the truth.
   No disrespect, but we’ve got to close these loopholes.

   A Loophole is defined as small hole in a wall that one can look through… like the ones many women use to look out at the freedom and self-determination we once thought we had.

Oh women know how to lie, alright.
    “No, it’s ok, you take the last one- I didn’t really want it”
    “Yes, that tie looks great”
     “Sorry, I have a headache and really need to get up early”
     “I had a wonderful time tonight!”

Sure, women know how to lie  and  women can lie about sex just like men can-
     “I’ll call you tomorrow”   – “No, I’m not married”
     “If you loved me— you’d say yes”.

 

“Falsely accused” is a terrible thing indeed but- and no disrespect to the asshole from Indiana- it’s just not relevant here ‘cause we’re not talking about criminal accusations,  just basic human dignity.

    Rape is probably the most under-reported crime in America. When women lie about rape— it’s usually to say it didn’t happen, it never happened, what makes you think something happened? I’m fine, everything is fine, please, don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don't ask me- don’t hurt me again.
    For every She just felt guilty in the morning and called it rape case  that’s out there- and they exist-  there are a thousand cases of She went home and washed for an hour  but couldn't wash off the shame, couldn't bear to let anyone else see that shame, couldn’t let anyone see her for fear they’d smell it on her like a disease.
So she puts up walls, peers out through a little hole in the door  at the free and confident person she used to be.

         Q: What do you call a female who is not permitted to control her own reproductive organs?
         A: livestock.

    Rape wears a thousand different faces: date rape, acquaintance rape,
No one will believe a slut like you said no  rape
When you dress like that you’re just asking for it  rape
I know you want to keep your job  rape
A girl who looks like you should be grateful for the attention  rape
You didn’t really think I hired you for your brains, did you?  rape
I like it when they’re too young to have the courage to say no  rape
Have another drink- really, it’s OK  rape
You can’t say no to me bitch- I’m your husband  rape
You just need someone to f**­k the gay out of you   rape
You invited me to come inside,  what did you think was gonna happen?  rape
It’s not rape if she’s passed out and can’t say no!  rape
She said no, but she really means yes  rape.

    And then we have to prove it, by photographing our bruises, cataloging our debasement, telling our shame over and over to strangers, only to have men in suits and comb-overs clucking their tongues wondering if our violation was 'forcible' enough, violent enough to Qualify us for the “You get to decide for Yourself” club that they belong to. That they have always belonged to.
     And now every rape victim has just been assaulted again, had the most intimate choices she will ever make, about sex and  child-bearing, torn away by men who probably resent the fact that women are even allowed to say no at all, because women…. they lie about rape all the time, you know,
...like that bitch in college I know  she wanted it- I could see it in her eyes…

If she was drunk- it wasn’t rape.
If she was drugged, it wasn’t rape
If the only cutting that was done was the shredding of her dignity and privacy, then it wasn’t really rape- so she shouldn’t get to choose her own future.
    Some of them have even started to claim that if a woman is truly raped, if she really didn't want it and really, in her heart of hearts didn't ask for it, she can’t get pregnant.  No, really. The emotional trauma will prevent it from happening, they say.
    So really, there’s no such thing as a pregnant rape victim, just a lying whore.

    How very handy for the rapist.

   Judge and jury and executioner of the free will of every woman in America, this self-satisfied man, who has never had control of his own body taken away from him means no disrespect to those poor gals who may have actually been attacked but  ladies…. I’m sure you understand, this loophole has got to be closed.

   It’s the principle of the thing, and principle, after all,  is more important than people.

 

"It's the story of America" the president said.
"We do big things."
So send us your money, so we can do more big things.
I’m a little confused: is this politics, or advertizing?
Is he reaching out or re-branding?
Is this just New Coke, only Big Coke?
GE: We bring big things to light. 
Mountain Dew – Puttin' the BIG on that thing you do!

Chevrolet- like a really big rock.
 

You know, that could work for the United States. 
Perhaps we should make it our new corporate- er, national slogan:
We do big things.

Let's get busy then- we've got some re-branding to do.
New Deal. New Frontier. Great Society…

Big Deal. Big Frontier. Great Big Society, cause we do big things, damnit.
God Bless America and our big things.
Oh say, can you see the big things we do?

After all, what is America but a big country full of big people
with big mouths and big dreams, waving our big guns, doing big things.
From fomenting revolution to denying evolution, from consumption to pollution,
it’s all big big big here!
We don’t just build churches, we build mega-churches!
We don’t just have malls-
we build malls so big you need a shuttle bus to get you from the parking lot to the front door.
Get a bigger storage unit to hold the bigger pile of stuff you bought
cause there's only 342 more shopping days until the big day!
We've got all the really big name stars
up there on the big screen, the ultra-screen, the extreme screen!
America is the land of bigger breasts and bigger hearts,
We seek the biggest thrills and take the biggest pills,
serve the biggest burgers and sport  the biggest waistlines in the world-
because you deserve big things today. 

And who else is as big as America? 
Canada is pretty big, but most of that is ice, so it doesn’t count.
And China- their country is big, but a lot of the people are pretty short,
and don’t even speak English.
In America we call our cities the Big Apple, the Big Easy
and the city of the Big Shoulders.
We are the land of the big sky country,
and we carve our heroes out of freakin mountains, baby!
We reached out and touched the moon…
Blown apart mountains and built new ones out of garbage
and fought wars, and started wars,
built dams and dug canals that have changed the earth forever.
 

Oh yeah,  I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I"m big…

our land, our appetite,
and our leaders don't just lead America,

they lead "the free world" and it doesn't get much bigger than that1
Ask not what your country can do for you- it can do big things!

Speak softly and do big things.
Are you now, or have you ever been a small thing?
And when the president does a big thing, it’s not illegal.
I did not do a big thing with that woman. 
A house divided cannot do big things.
We are the big thing we have been waiting for.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the big things that we do.

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, we do big things.
You want big? You can't handle big!
When the going gets big, the big do things.
Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and big things

'cause it’s a big fucking deal, America!

Four score and several small things ago, America did a really big thing!
We the People of the United States formed a more perfect union
in order to do really big things,
And if you're gonna crash and burn, do it big!
So when in the course of human events it becomes necessary to do big things… we have nothing to fear but small stuff.

 

It's a new year at last, 2011,

ushered in with both a bang and a whimper

as black birds fell dead from the sky

first by the hundreds, then the thousands.

People said the birds were simply frightened by the New Year’s fireworks
and  flew into buildings… out in the middle of nowhere…

well, flew into each other then, got sucked up into a freak thunderstorm

pelted by hail, blown off course, confused,
perfectly understandable, happens all the time,

blackbirds no longer sing in the dead of night,

because birds can’t see in the dark,

broken wings can never fly, starlings and jackdaws
they probably flew into traffic

collided with something… something besides the ground

with which they certainly collided very hard.

Then fish began washing ashore, surrendering the will to live,

crabs succumbing also to a fear of fireworks…

no, it’s the shift in magnetic north, throwing everything off kilter,

that damn extra zodiac sign has us all going in circles, running into things

it’s Facebook's stupid new profile page-

I mean who could have thought that would work out well?

 

In a coal mine, when the canary ceases to sing,

is found motionless at the bottom of her cage

they do not argue about whether she is just tired

or going on strike for better wages

or even if she has died of a broken heart from missing the sky.

They just run.

Here we are in 2011 and we just run into each other

as children and old ladies fall to the ground at our feet,
frightened by the fireworks from a Glock 9 millimeter
colliding in the dark with bullets,
because people cannot see with their eyes closed,
and the only kind of speech that encourages violence

is saying that there is too much violence in our speech,

and Martin Luther King Jr. would have approved of this war- no really

we know he would, because America is the good guys
no matter how bad we are
it says so here in our contract,
right below where it used to say that all men are created equal,

and in exchange for getting some of us the day off Dr. King agreed, after all,

 to surrender everything he actually said or stood for

and to sponsor a really good electronics sale at Crazy Eddie’s.

 

And it’s a new year now, surely so much better than the old one…

so why are we are so frightened of our children seeing a simple word in a story,

one they probably hear around them every day

that we not only ban books, we decide to ban the history,

make a law that says those uncomfortable truths

which our founding fathers gave us the right to speak

must not be spoken in classrooms, lest they besmirch the good name

of people we would prefer remained
just cardboard cutouts on the classroom wall.

The most important lesson from history

is to rip the tags off the small pox blankets next time before you pass them out

to maintain plausible deniability-
see, if you deny you ever made a mistake, you never have to learn from it.

Slavery still exists, but ignorance has replaced chains

and freedom just dies by degrees

but soon enough it too is lying motionless at our feet,

while government is nothing more than an amusement park ride
where Noah plays with dinosaurs and unicorns on the ark

While the dove searches and searches for a sign of dry land

But the turtledoves are falling from the sky too
and It wasn’t from lack of a decent GPS, or swamp gas or sun spots-
 

I  think  they died of shame.

I always feel a little sad when I’ve stripped the once-proud Christmas tree bare
and it stands, naked again in my living room
shedding its life-blood all over my carpet,
shorn of it’s glitter and memories.
I feel that I’ve cheated it somehow, that I owe it more
for what it gave us.
But after all, it's a new year now, and the tree is of the past,
once adored and now discarded,
bravely raising now empty arms to the sky.

We chose it with such anticipation,
deemed it more beautiful than all the others,
lauded and admired it, photographed ourselves beside it 
proclaimed it queen for a day.
It bore, uncomplaining, the weight of the honors we bestowed upon it,
shone softly through the lengthening winter nights
sheltered our wishes and dreams,
and now, its fragrant breath exhausted,
I imagine it stands, heartbroken,
trying to recall the peace of the autumn hillside it once knew.
The ornaments and lights it wore are our treasures.
They are packed away with care 
to be brought out and exclaimed over next year
though they are only bits of glass and ceramic and tin.
Yet the tree, once a vibrant, living thing
that cleansed the air and offered shelter to small creatures
is hauled out with the cardboard boxes and empty Coke cans,
it's broken body exposed to the careless regard of passers-by.

But sometimes after Christmas there  is a nice pile of snow at the curb.
Then I  take the tree out and drive it upright into the snow
and let it stand proud once again.
I step back and admire it,  festoon it with a few pine cones and dead leaves
and let it sleep there till the truck comes
to dream of a winter mountain
under the rising moon.