"The newspaper that wouldn't die"


 Poetry by Juventino Manzano


Poem about the War#2

These are the days alright, and all sorts of goodies are going on--- 1 out of every 143 Americans are in prison under the bush regimeóthe US surpassed the two million mark, got to be some sort of record of incarceration, two million not bad, this is the land of plenty, right?
And who's worried about the economy anyway? Invest in the police where the power plays in the hands of the lackeys of the state--got the war for oil, a war on drugs, terror, sex, thinking, women's rights, the poor and disenfranchised meaning the privatized prison industry is boomingótoo bad the layoffs are booming too, but have no fear for the savior of all will be the draconian laws the baby Bush junta has passed and hey there sure are a lot of familiar faces from the days of Iran-Contra and the good ol' days of the evil empire floating around like ghosts and these new laws will create all sorts of new criminals and new crimes to be committed by all those anxious unemployed feeding the prisons thus raising stocks prices in Wackenhut et al. and so Leviathan is alive and well, living by the end justifying the means

Poem about the War #1

And those old right wing Christians cry about abortion and the murdering of the little bitsy babies while they send children to bomb maternity wards and shoot children in Baghdad and blame the murdered for their deaths ìwell, they look funny and wear funny clothes and have weird namesî and he really wants to kill one, I mean, it is a rite of passage and he really does want to kill one, I mean, of course he does want to kill oneóit is the ultimate hunt, and he was a hunting guide just 18 months ago and he is 21 so killing well, it'll be like a video game and they can loot the toppled dictator's stuff and ìgee, won't this 24k gold ashtray look great on the coffee table in my living room, I mean, really add class to my trailerî and I mean, so what if your first kill was a ten-year old? I mean you feel more matureóyou murdered, and it's only murder anyway, when they aren't wearing all that funny clothes and don't cry out in that alien tongue---

 

Plastic Rant

Why do we need to wage war over petroleum products? well, let me tell youwhy: you'll buy something like say, a simple fucking bulk of cassette tapesand the bundle of tapes are wrapped in one incredibly hard to open layer ofclear plastic which encloses each of the individually wrapped in hard ashell to open plastic which surrounds the plastic case-- easy to open sortof, unless it is one of those new funky slide ones, but either way the tapeitself is petroleum product-plastic and you leave the store carrying your plastic inside aplastic bag which ends up on the side of the highway where it was hopefullynot thrown' but was sucked out the window of your petroleum productconsuming car by the wind, to end up for eternity next to the other plasticbags decorating choking stunted trees along side the petroleum productasphaltand that is the real reason for the war on "terror"---Afghanistan needs a pipeline running through it from theCaspian basin, I mean there is oil in them thar hills and our governmentkilled all those people in the world trade towers, started a war in the nameof the murdered, cause you know the appointedJunta Chief Bush and his cronies work for the corporations now, and theyissue decrees to enslave us, and no matter what happens it always seems tomake the rich richer and the poor infinitely poorer-- and the corporationsare free to pillage the world-- fuck 2004 as the time ofhigh automobile fuel economy requirements, cause buddy we got us more ofthat good ol' oil and our profit is worth more than anyone's life and itgives them a monopoly of power every where 'cause of that shit and ya knowwe showed them; every kid on the block the size of ouranacondaówe call it a daisy cutter cause it blows a load that killsflowers and people, and people ain't nothin but daises anyway trying toreach up and get some fucking light and grow'
But, here we are, us here daises, we want us lots of fucking plasticso -we can carry our plastic home in plastic, ya'dig? and so we buy our slaveIabor plastic goods and we smile cause we-recycle... It might now bedangerous to even say a word-- too many folks with flags for blinders fooledby popular rnisconception, that ol' not knowing the true nature of things,denial of the facts- lets hide under our plastic crap in disposable diaperland fill tombs of our creation and if we were to ask why want to enslave usas they drown us in plastic;and polluted air and toxic chemical coated foodand polluted water so you end up, if you care at all about your health,buying your water ìtheyî say is clean cause they treated it and ozoned it orsome such thing, and when you buy your water it comes in more plastic--these people would say it's all for you so you can have this lifestyle your S.U.V. and all your computers CDs and TVs all plastic sweet and sour sugartittie that some even buy with that proverbial plastic, and what we wouldsay, what could we say? it is-the ol' fucking inevitable question you answerand ask wondering if it matters at all; Paper or Plastic???