Delete your account. Go into the woods
and find a stream. Become a rainbow trout
flashing in the shallows. Become a deer. Get out
of your body. Give away your purchased goods.
Be present, mood-less, beyond woulds and shoulds.
Muck in the rotting leaves with your whiskered snout.
Eat shit. Piss anywhere. Forget all doubt
and reason. Forget your streets and neighborhoods.
Let us do it together; let us be
as the first men and women were, wild
and naked, animals only, full of the sweet
fruits that the earth, a garden, gives for free
to all beasts, the bright sun mild,
the green, the cricket’s trill, the bird’s tweet.
Jacob Bacharach 
i’m w/you. i tell people this: if you want to change the world, JUST QUIT. or rather, let’s all quit. does anyone listen to me? hell no.
trying to get americans to understand, e.g., that the environmental crisis, among a lot of other awful shit, is due to too much work, the overworked earth…they just can’t wrap their minds around not working. it’s kind of astounding. protestants esp. i quoted some earnest hard-working true believer a line about jeebus from somewhere in soren k that “jesus was not like other men. for example, he didn’t work,” a la socrates, buddha, etc. omg. the rabid fangs & hysterical frothing at such a heretical notion. so much ego investment in DOING something. I’ll do and I’ll do and I’ll do.
I think this sonnet is a parody, dude.
maybe you need to reread it.
Agreed, Robert. But today of all days, good and decent progressives must hasten to clarify that Western nations still need to be about the business of understanding and mollifying violently homophobic, misogynistic and perpetually-aggrieved fundamentalist Muslims—NOT that fundamentalist Muslims need to understand and adapt to the West.
Foundational critiques of pathologically patriarchal hegemons, of sexually and intellectually repressive monotheisms, cannot be permitted to trump calling out cultural bigotry; cannot be permitted to morph into an exercise of perspectivist macro-shaming, at the expense of credentialed, all-purpose geopolitical victims of the rapacious, judgmental West.
I imagine inkberrow as the kind of guy who, when you ask “how ya doing?” he replies “damn liberals”
I will accept the low literacy in your imagination so long as the barbarism of unreformed Islam continues to get a pass from those who courageously pathologize Western civilization.
i think killing people at parties is an excellent adaption to “western values.” what’s the difference b/n shooting up a nightclub & (multiple) bombing(s of) a wedding party?
Sad to have provide a primer for you as well, Robert, but the difference lies in express motivation. It was good and decent progressives, after all, who brought us formal culpability and sorrow rankings based on identity group, “hate”, and oppression theory. Now you folks are obliged to tap-dance When Victim Constituencies Collide. The transactional liberal moralizing is difficult, indeed, when a conflicted LGBTQer “atones” for his fleshpot sins with the hate-soaked mass murder of those his sexually-repressed, institutionally homophobic and misogynistic creed considers the epitome of Western decadence.
Wait, I hope I haven’t offended anyone with what might be taken as Islamophobia. I’ve been working on my cultural competency, but jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki was arrested in the States for soliciting prostitution; Nidal Hasan of Fort Hood infamy agonized he’d contracted HIV from the Dallas strip clubs he’d frequented; OBL himself reportedly had a cache of Western porn; the elder Tsarnaev upbraided his brother for promiscuity and killed his pot dealer; the young would-be bombers “Underwear” Abdulmutallab and “Pioneer Square” Mohamud expressed guilt for sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll jags on campus.
Not exactly Gautama’s way, eh? But by all means do maintain that touching enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend protective alliance with Muslims and with orthodox Islamic social mores. Delegitimizing America, Europe and Israel is just more important right now. And heck, as to the creed itself? As to shariah rigor? Smart Western progressives know it’s just a stage anyway, a retrograde coping mechanism obsolete once there’s a chicken in every pot, an IPad in every hand, and a Green Jobs Council on every corner. Cuz that’s how smart Western progressives conceive of it! So they will too in the end. So far, so good…
the motives are different? is this a legal defense you are offering? to look on murderers, whatever their stated motivations (usually bullshit anyway), nationality, gender-preference, party affiliation, religious identification, with equally-jaundiced eyes is an insurmountable hurdle for an ass bearing the white man’s burden. an afghani shooting an ISAF soldier is perfectly justified in doing so. the reverse could never, ever be true in any possible circumstance b/c the ISAF soldier could never plead self-defense. the amount of $$ the US spends & makes on guns, the weapons racket of which uncle sam is capo de tutti capi by a long, long ways, shows the chief western value is flooding the world w/the means to kill itself. muslims are doing this? yesterday it was the rooskies, tomorrow it will be the chinaman. you need to check on that tertiary syphilis.
As I noted, above it’s not a factual and legal standard I’M proffering—conservatives were not responsible for or in support of creating a separate set of crimes and aggravating circumstances based on perceive “hate” motivations. To no one’s surprise, such standards in practice tend to codify the comparative identity politics valuation of villain and victim, of motivation as aggravating or mitigating factor, along shopworn social “justice” lines. This case bespeaks progressive cognitive dissonance writ large. The anti-imperialist conditioning compels “Leave Muslims A-LONE!!”, but a pesky, almost archetypal objection to self-righteously puritanical and violently homophobic monotheisms just seems to intrude, as if on objective principle or something. You remember principle, eh? Before applied political perspectivism made truth and fact matters of transactional exigency?
if we leave muslims alone, their monotheisms are going to come & kill our fags? and liberals w/their comparitive identity politics muddying villain, victor, & victim, do what again? (where are these people? not in the White House, Congress, or the Newz) there is no statistical analysis , no factual basis, supporting the nonsense that westerners are victims of islamic whatever. that’s like saying Ft. Zion is besieged by Gaza. what’s the ratio of xians killing muslims to the reverse since ww1? 100,000 to 1? you wanna throw some facts out, do so. otherwise, it’s just the GMO superfood of word salad. you should sell that shit to Monsanto & have them patent it.
you forgot to mention qaddafi’s viagra-infused rape brigades & sodom hussein dumping christian babies from the hospital incubators in kuwait. wait. were those guys muzzies or seculars? wow. you think people who engage in or attempt mass murder might have a range of personal identity issues? hush yo mouf grrrfrend. shall we revisit photos of good, sunday-school going, corn-fed, all american boys & gals & what they got up to in, say, abu ghraib? the human wang is a hilarous thing, right Lynndie England?
You seem overwrought, Robert. No one’s stopping you, Obama and other ingrate liberals from rooting perversely for revengeful Third World philistines and their allies out of mutual loathing for the nonpareil success of Western civilization. Just own it openly and proudly.
how many more muslim countries do you want obama to invade? next up: Eritrea. but that’s 50/50 christtards & muzzies so i hope the christ potatos appreciate the civilization raining down on them from the skies.
I think you mean to say “damn liberals.”
I don’t speak halfwit, but I’ll defer to your translation.
Coulda fooled me
Yes, that’s the point.
Jesus, Jake, your commenters are THE WORST. I just dropped in to say that this was another fantastic sonnet. Slaying on the last line as you do.
Self-effacement becomes you. Soon you’ll be ready for content!
i am the worst no doubt. i am fortunate enough to have stumbled across IOZ many moons ago based upon who knows waht guiding providence. but thank you for your appreciation of JB and the assholes he’s most unfortunate to have glom onto his littlle blurglet.
10/10 trolled folks. Bang on.