Sunday, December 7, 2014

December 7, 1941-2014

Ferguson/Fear/Fury

“If any are anxious to ascertain who I am, know the world, that I am one of the oppressed, degraded and wretched sons of Africa, rendered so by the avaricious and unmerciful, among the whites.”

David Walker, Appeal, Article IV (1829)

40.  Verily the Day of Sorting Out is the time appointed for all of them.
41.  The Day when no protector can avail his client in anything, and no help can they receive,
42.  Except such as receive Allah’s Mercy: for He is Exalted in Might, Most Merciful.
43.  Verily the tree of Zaqqum
44.  Will be the food of the sinful,--

Qur’an, Surah 44


From the notebook of a visitor to Earth

August 16, 2014


Dreams of harmony and peace or absurd visions of the end of time are legitimate constructions of human imagination. If you are dealing with pure cinema, they are effective.  Such spectacles appear to confirm the implacable universality of violence, the murky origins of terrorism, and the marriage of reason with insanity. They are primary features of life on planet Earth. Women and men may satisfy their fantasies by speaking of amoral Nature in their own images. They are free to tamper with Nature in efforts to make a more living-friendly “world.”  They may succeed for brief periods of time. 

Ultimately, they fail. They manufacture abstract and material “worlds” that are mercurial, that speak back to them of their cosmic insignificance in visual and audible languages which negate interpretations.
Ultimately, they forfeit Cosmic Good.  They replace a greater god with a lesser one.  Ultimately, they worship Cosmic Evil. Planet Earth assumes a death-bound color.

All that happened in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 is a bitter rerun of tribally-motivated antiquities. A frantic male of one tribe, believing himself to be authorized by the Holy Bible, the United States Constitution, a badge of office, and the laws of Charles Darwin, murders a male of a different tribe. People who identify themselves with the dead male react naturally.  They are shocked.  They grieve. They make counter-violence.   Unfortunately, the grief of injustice is paradoxically understood and misunderstood in a nanosecond by the American body politic.


December 7, 2014

Today is the 73rd anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Violence obeys folklore and Holy Bible injunctions to increase and multiply.  American as well as foreign mass media take delight in spewing misinformation (or disinformation) about how violence procreates.  Mass media refuses to analyze the systemic nature of violence. Infotainment becomes impotent when it beholds what is actually systemic.


In the historical drama entitled “The United States of America, “the George Zimmermans, Darren Wilsons, Peter Liangs, and Daniel Pantaleos are proclaimed to be the stars of the show. They are the militants who keep democracy safe for those who are wealthy enough to buy it. It is most often the case that oddly instructed grand juries applaud them. The Michael Browns, Akai Gurleys, Eric Garners, Trayvon Martins and the thousands of unarmed dead who were the targets are treated as footnotes in the smallest print on the playbill. Do you dare to ask why many (but not all) African Americans are profoundly angry?  Do you dare to ask whether some (but not all) American police officers are clones of Rosemary’s Baby?


 In the sacred narratives of womankind and mankind, violence is proclaimed to be natural and universal.

 According to such logic ---

the American Nightmare that has replaced the American Dream;
the death-bound mission of Europe and international cartels;
the family squabbles between Palestinians and Israelis and diabolic plots in the Arab/Islamic winter of the Middle East;
the symbolic assassination of the President of the United States;
the neo-barbarism of ISIS and other agents of imperial terrorism;
the progress of environmental destruction in Asia and the Americas;
the rampant neo-colonialism and unique ethnic hatreds on the continent of Africa;
 a periodic outbreak of such health treats as Ebola, HIV-AIDS, and yearly variations of influenza;
the refusal to acknowledge the humanity of indigenous peoples everywhere;
 the wages of global climate change;
the open season that males of no-color have declared on males of color

-----according to such logic, all these things are normal on Earth. After all, this is the season of Advent and Christmas shall arrive despite the blessings of Cosmic Evil.

The growing number of murders of African American males should anger many Americans to the point of being totally irrational.  They should petition the United Nations to investigate whether the United States of America should be brought to the World Court for crimes against humanity, for the injustice of benign genocide. Unfortunately, the iron-clad logic of the absurd may stall such a request.  Many Americans confuse transparent criticism with treason. They want to believe that a meek savior will serve peace and harmony at a post-post-racial banquet.  They forget that the dessert at the feast will be the fruit of the tree of Zaqqum. The Day of Sorting Out has arrived.

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.