Letters


• Congratulations - Chuck Bloomquist
• Aging Beat - Bill Fleeman
• An Impromptu Response - Fast Eddie

Collectivists,

Congratulations on the February issue of The Free Venice Beachhead. It was nice to see so many contributions from my old favorites: Moe Stavenezer, John Haag, Rick Davidson, Lynne Bronstein, and Pano Douvos. The coverage of local events was excellent and even the poetry was super. But the back page alone, to me, completely justifies the resurrection of the paper.
Thanks for all of your efforts,

Chuck Bloomquist

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Hi,
 
    I'm an aging beatnik now living in NY who lived in Venice from 1959-1963. I hung out at the Venice West Cafe.

    I remember John and Anna Haag when they owned the Venice West, before the council shut it down, when Anna greeted everybody, “Ciao!” and John said his poem “...this little monkey came down from the trees and put a fence around...”
 
Bill Fleeman

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An Impromptu Response

Here’s a little impromptu response by one who was there. There is an opinion in circulation here in Venice that people who oppose the oil-fired coup-junta and its war upon Iraq have somehow been misguided and/or impolite in their treatment of one of their alleged political representatives. This Jane Harman. This opinion seems grossly illogical, without substantive merit, and visibly out-of-kilter.

These points:

Nobody in the crowd threw any rotten eggs or tomatoes at Jane. Instead, we patiently waited our turns. And then, as the First Amendment allegedly allows, stated our opinion, as direct objection, to how she had voted in support of the war.

War is, by definition, an either-or business. Here’s how that works. When I went to visit Indo-China back in my younger days, or Viet-Nam, I was there for an interesting event called the Tet offensive. Bien-Hoa was being heavily shelled as I rode around in a Jeep clinging with “frozen fingers” to an M-60 machine gun. The offensive over, my squad returned to our own base and we were informed that one other soldier we knew had been killed by a shell which fell short, went through the tin roof of his Quonset hut, and hit him dead in the lower torso.

Sounds a bit gruesome, I’m sure. But consider the irony of it as the point. Because, in reality, the typical and average death occurrence has much to do with simply being lucky, or unlucky. In other words, heroism, courage, patriotism have nothing to do with who dies. And, as soldiers used to put it, who skates.

Consequent of just these two short points, and in direct contrast to this other circulating
opinion, I think war sucks; and I don’t mind if my elected representative is made directly aware of this, and not in the least.

Moreover, of the age and experience and wisdom that I am, I have small cause and none not to believe what sends young men to die is a combination of the megalomania, and greed, and the will to power of what I call “the controller elite.”

Next point. Since the start of recorded history, the bottom line in war is rape, pillage, and plunder. Referring to this war upcoming, the plunder will be oil. Or, profits derived from same for certain businessmen and so-called investors. Which is to say numerically quite large, and therefore well worth the political gamble.

The pillage will be the the extortion of the tax-payers money so that there is not one snowball’s chance in Hell those taxes might provide something useful, or necessary; or practical for the suckers by these controller elite.

And the rape, as I see it, is both visible and audible in the person of Fox TV. The thought bend control mechanism designed purposely and deliberately to forcefully deprive the ordinary person of an opportunity to find their own reality-based opinion of this war. And, quite frankly, all war.

In short, and in closing, we do not need lethargy or a wishy-washy and comatose mind -set here in Venice about this war. Just say NO TO WAR!!!!!!!!

–Fast Eddie

Posted: Sat - March 1, 2003 at 07:06 PM          

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