House of Paine

hack o lanterns

     fierce 
crumbly warnings 
of
"never again"
from 
a dried up old  flower of war


============================ 



“ the man’s all horn
                     and   no balls” 
                        the ghost of nam hack 
                                       on hack now  

april 23 

this is 
hack part 3 

 another   message to 
retired col hackworth

SENT E-ISHLY 
 to his hacksite
 
SFTT

SOLDIERS FOR THE TRUTH 
--------------------------------------

 READER PROMPT :

 DESPITE NO ANSWER TO PRIOR
E’Ss 
I’M STILL 
 READING HIM 
          SITEWISE 

AND FOUND HIM
BOLDLY 
 WAVING OFF
 A LONG OCC IN IRAQ 

“ NO NAMS PLEASE ”

  NO NAMS 

GOD I LOVE THIS FELLA

WHERES HIS hairy doooed 
                    HEAD AT 
 
HE’S 
 KINDA
 GOT THIS 
 DANNY KAYE QUALITY 
GOING FOR HIM 

LIKE AN 
 UNINVITED
  talented but oh so 
               LOW ENTERTAINER
 
 BOOED BUT 
   NOT ASHAMED

UNREACHABLE BY HOOKS

SEEMINGLY  
 ONLY SPED UP BY
           REJECTION

AT ANY RATE 

IN AN EFFORT 
TO STEER HIM CLEAR
OF THE SHARP ROCKS 
         THAT ARE  HIMSELF
 
I SENT 
THRU THE BUTLER KAMPF 

THE FOLLOWING 
   PIECE 
  OF CHERRY  PIE 
      FOR HIM-SITE 
-----------------------------------------
hack, honey 

this trips  for you 
-----------------------------
take a ride with uz

WILL YA PLEEEZ

take a ride 
with uz thru 
the  cold war 
bullrushes 

------------------------
call it a revisit  
if you prefer
since you were
 part of it all 

 it’ll be 
      a fast  trip
 a flashback in time 

  come on 
dear hack 
please uz fanz 
and ride back  along
  the road 
  you once traveled by 
  
while we race 
 down the question marks 
 with ya 

all
 the cold war hows ?
 and 
 win war whys?   
   and 
stop  war  whens?

a race 
  all the way to

  why win wars 
        like these at all  ?
    and 
   who wins wars
        like these anyway ?

ya its eggheaded 
ya its 
mostly  why? stuff
no fit for light brigaders 
 
but hack

putting
pure old soldierly hows
 aside

you know 
despite all the best answers to how

ultimately  
history craves whys 

nows a good  time
 for kold soldiers
like u

 to why it  up for once

  review their  actions
  not to replay them
  but to ask 
after fucking all
why the fuck 
were we there 
in the fucking first place ?


don’t ya think hack?

why ?

why two wars
and 
 100,000 dead american boys  ?

and 

why 
the 40 year
3 trillion dollar
 tax payers tab  ?

why’d we go so far 
beyond 
our traditions ?

so far beyond 
 170 years 
of peace time practices 

beyond 
securing 
our  major sea lanes
 and our 
    beautiful green
  homeland ?

 
how come we added 
for the first time
 in our history 
the rest of creation
to our liberty list ?

why was 
 the defense 
  of american freedom 
 not enough

why the overseas  missions ?

and we’re not talkin about 
 no shores of tripoli stuff
 here

no we’re talkin 
4 decade long
trillion dollar missions 

and for what?

to  stop the red tide

to save
 not  our freedom
but 
 the third worlds freedom

tell uz hack 
 
how much of that 
would you still
buy  
on a second 
go round ?

if not  much

then  
where would you
 chop off the rest? 

how many deaths 
how many dollars 
was too much ?


if we catch you 
 saying

“ well looked
at from 
a homeland perspective 
and 
with twenty twenty  hind sight

you’re right 

 i see clearly now 
the red menace wasn’t
 so menacing
and all that sacrifice 
the 3 trill price tag
and 100,000 
cut off lives 
was excessive ”

 say that and 
we’ll wish
 you god speed 
and adieus amigo

right here 

go no farther

you are healed 

go forth 
and spread the word 
as best you can 
------------------------------------

but
if you don’t see it
             that way
                  our way 

then 
 maybe we need to help 
you retool
 your cogitation plant 
                    some 

maybe we need to 
let’s  say 

remove 
some of the more onerous 
  unacknowledged 
  
cold war gospel
 subroutines 

we figure 
like the manchurian candidate
maybe unbeknownst to yourself
 some sinister subroutines 
may  still be operational 
inside your squash
 
stuck up there 
in your upper story 
and 
still 
 able when triggered 
 to intoxicate
     your strategic thoughts
-------------------------------------------
  jizmoo guys its freezin in here 
sshhhhhhh nit wit 

we’re back in 
the kold kold war 
yes
   Baffington T Hacka
this is your life 

you Doodle Do 

so pay attention 

CAUSE SOLDIER 

 you ain’t goin
 to get
 ANOTHER ONE
of these 
ANYTIME SOON
-----------------------
  notice 
 the  way back machine
 has taken us back to the days
of the beer barrel polka 
  and real st nick
 Xmases 
BACK to fall 1947 

and theres YOU
a  young hack 

and 
you’re 
  already in  uniform
 
you’re
 already stepping out 
 into the post Big War  world

and you’re 
wearing proudly 
a fightin’
mans garb

as you know hack 

here in 1947 

its been 2 years
 since the democracy
 threatening 
  right totalitarians
  land grabs
kraut and nip
white and yellow 
were squelched

you missed that tussle 
by a year or two 
didn’t you Hack 

too bad 

you would have loved 
 the big one 
most folks did



but the worlds
 still dangerous

 always dangerous

for free  men 
 out there

 somewhere
out there 
 24/7 
arms must get fired
 if 
freedom and justice
 is to be preserved 

right hack ?

little fascists a plenty 
 still swim among the fish 

but thankfully 
 they’re
our stooges now 
mostly 

and whatever they be 
they're 
 not up to serious challenges

we and the other
freedom   powers
 have a clear channel globally
 
since we  polished off the big right 


so as you join the army 
  hack 
 americas 
got no right side fears 

but deep in the third world 
the underbrush is surging 

so 
 lets tour the planet
 
lets start here 
in 
southeast asia

here already by 47 
 we got a full scale 
  decolonization wrangle 
    under way 
all the antique euro empires
all the eurowhite elites 
after fleeing the japs in 42 
are back in the saddle 
but they’re 
  headed down and out again
and this time 
its locals doin the pushing 

the  French 
the Dutch
and 
even the  British empires
 are all 
  well into
their various
  weary endgames 
there 


now if we swish over to 
 Black Africa thinks seem most 
 unlike southeast asia 

around here 
no empire got war jostled 
 so things still breath
  uninterupted   colonial airs 

but folks here
 native folks are 
 seething too

seething for liberation 

and bigger   still
is south asia ‘s seething 

here 
   the brits have already 
run up the white flag 
already 
they’re scrambling out 
 like they never 
wanted to be there 
in the first place

  not bad after
  300 years 
 of having at it all
   from
dope to money 

likewise 
in the  long tortured 
middle east
  the zest of struggle everywhere

 from palestine to algeria 
  iran to sudan 

---------------------------
but 
now we come to the nubs 
the left totaltarians 
the red ones 
for a few years 
strange bedfellows
and  quondam 
allies against the right totallers 
they are now 
 on the move themselves
on two fronts

the lesser evil first 

 east asia
  has a burden of redness showing 
 korea is split  
manchuria aflame 
 han china
itself 
 is  in civil war
to the southeast 
 vietnam is not just decolonizing 
 but  reds are running 
the fairwell party
 and in malaya  too
  more or less

 
 the far  east is redifying  
hack its 1947 and already
 FDR’s and Stalin’s 
east asia pattern 

centered on 
our joint  protege 
 his highness 
the  Peanutissimo 
is headed towards gonzo 
AND THE
COLONIAL  EUROS 

ARE UNDER COMMIE FLACK TOO
--------------------------------

now for 
the greater evil
 europe 
 in  greece
civil war 
 maybe reds 
have a shot too 
red army occupied 
 east Europe
 is getting the curtain dropped 
and in the west 
the french and italian 
populii
may not know 
the full value of freedom

 a lot of action everywhere 
 but actually 
if you 
sort of look at it  closely 
it really means opportunity 
 from a super power perspective
 from a super US power perspective  
opportunity world wide 
no  militarily  strong independent Germany 
in central  Europe 
and no similarly  strong independent Japan
 in east Asia 
the usual prostrate latin america 
and 
crumbling colonial empires
 everywhere else 
this side of the soviet encampments 
makes an ambitious fella twitchy 
to get started 
-----------------------------------------------
first things first
 
the red menace

comes 
in two parts

theres
the matter of how 
 us freedom boys 
handle 
this  slowly  forward oozing  
soviet sphere in east europe
 
and then theres
 the real horse opera
under way  in
civil warred  china 


 biggest story behind 
this red menace  story 
is the dead on fact 
the dashing  guys  
with bowties  from Groton
see this blob of redness 
and start 
  drawing  lines  all over  the earth

  they’re drawing  freedom lines hack
   lines they tell us peons
  are  there  to save gods way
on earth 
save the liberty tree
  from red  devourment 

once enough lines were drawn
by say the dawn of 1950
 all was klear 

         1950s high style 
   
      slogan-mission 
       kontainment konfinement 
              roll back 

             on stage for the plebs  humor
            melancholy or choleric
       sidesaddle  adlai or tail gunner joe

      crypto-real - humor 
                 phlegmatic 
            kold and kalculated
     in a word Ikish TCB
 
    budget -approach-bluff- pantomime 
       total  warlike potlatch 
 that was 
kold war kontainment 
----------------------------------------

  and 
 over the following 25 years or so 
      you helped preserve
   those lines didn’t you Hack 
    and you had noble moments
    doing so
  
     but  but but 
   those lines 
cost nearly 100,000 American dreams
   to vanish 
and about
5 trillion dollars 
of todays dollars 
  to get flushed down the toilet  

 first there was 
  the 38th parallel  1950

    bowtie boys cry

   “stop ‘em gents”
  
 whirl forward to 1965 
 and another line is activated 
 
      the DMZ  
 vietnams great divide

    same bowtie boys again cry
    “ stop ‘ em gents ...
      for a decent interval  at least”
 

 but europe never saw blood spilled
and that was what
 it all was really about 

if you were a groton anglophilic
  rentier 
 western europe never fell  
 we stopped the red tide 
at the german plain 
we held the elbe
OR 
 something  like that 

hey 
didn’t 
the  August ONE 
octavian 
 himself fail  to do that ?

 but     why ?

why all that spill
why 
all the  blood and gold

Hachster   have an answer ready ?

  is it a wrong answer ?

    history has a way of showing
    wrong answers 
        were really  
  just an idiots none  answer

      they  usually turn out to have been
     closer to well swallowed 
            lies and alibis
   then presumptive 
causitive  explanations 

 let alone real motivators

 behind any group action 

   1 ) there are always motives 

people always got motives
otherwise they’d freeze
 
its justthat in reality
 only 
   some
motives really  matter
whereas 
most don’t 

thats because 
a few motives
    really move
        themselves 
            for  themselves
whereas
   putting aside the stiff armed 
and the hand cuffed 
   most are  moved through themselves
                     but not for themselves 
   ----------------------------------
so who’s motives count 
  in state games ?

and what are their motives?
 
  I mean  real movers motives

not some  side show dance 
 
    there are always
 eyeballed  benefits 

at least ex ante

 for the movers 
after the cold war FACT

thosemovers moves
 still look like winners
like cashable tickets 


everyone elses
  ex ante benefits
 look like 
well 
they look like 
the floor of the race track 
at closing time 
------------------------------



IF you happen to be
  on the side
of   MR AND MRS 
AMERICAN PAY STUB 
then check out the torn up 
  dreams 

 for wagelingery 
beatin the reds 
turned out to be 
a deal
 that reeked to heavan 
and reamed  to hell 
-----------------------------------
  after 
the republican party
   took Gorby’s sensible
 “no mas”
    as the Right’s 
   chance to unconditionally claim 
                  victory in the cold war 
  what came next?

after the end 
what begain?


but staying back before the wall tumbled

what was all that
kold  shit all about
anyway

that  basic question
has  publicly remained 
unasked 

was it   a victory   
 worth 
  its 3 trillion dollar price tag ?
  
if so for whom ?

and if so
is  all of the  3 trillion 
on the real winners tab ?

or do the winners
 owe the rest of us a pay back 
or at least an assumption of debts  ?
-------------------
 you hear this often

“ yes sireee 
 the weapons potlatch cost us
 a pant load 
but it
     sank the red pirates     
   didn’t it ?”


I wonder 

Hack 
lets look at the books 
shall we 
------------------------------
 

we’re back only part way

 back in the reagan  80’s
americas  morning at midnite 

 a raving 
bright blue as the prarie sky 
free nation
of veteran kold war  sports fans 
watch 
as the  soviet system 
finally shutters 
and starts 
its too long hoped for
 often lost faith in 
         death rattle 
  
   at the time 
 did you hear any one say

“ it was  that easy ?
     the menace was that feeble ?”

 yes maybe 
    you did if you were listening enough

  but few drew the inference 

“    why the fuck
then did  we go through 
 at least 2 extra decades
   of unnecssary sacrifice
  mostly by hapless  wagelings
    to end up here ?
  where we coulda ended up 
here anyway
without the big weapons tab  ”

from here hangs a tale 

u need to comprehend

all that 
shining dreadful shit
u wanted?

a waste 


---------------------

the red russian menace 
 was a paper tiger all along 

at the end 
we were all wondering 
what had they built 
with all that
 forced labor after all

shit man  
 is this it !!!

  yes 
   their economy was so
 over ridden by its own
    towering bureau perks
  dark markets and value outed 
production systems 

not even the A1 priority 
  war machine’s demands 
   were worth much

and 
as for the average bear 
he/she was below Argentina in 
         lifes little compensations

at the end like most banditos 
 all it had was its weapons
 
 and secret hordes


and again like all banditos
the value of both
were  wildly over stated 
by thehomlin Hoovereens 
and screamin  lemaymays
of FREE EARTH  

--------------------------------------------
 ITS    simple really 

in the last analysis 

  when you give up 
  the struggle ...

     having only the worlds
      second biggest
 military - industrial complex
  to show for it 
well
 thats 
  really ending up
             having
           nothing at all 
---------------------------------

 heres the bone obvious hard point
                     behind this shit 
    
some  day 
they were  bound 
to wake up and say 
“ no mas  gringos no mas ”

“ we can’t take
   or give  the beatings
                    anymore ”

  so when they couldn’t 
 come out of  their
corner
in the mid 80’s 
 for another round
  of potlatch security follys 
against numero uno
uncle big bucks 
 
natch folks 
  everything came a tumblin down

and listen
 to what happened next 

next 
     the carny
 folks from the corner of
   wall street and penn ave 
 put on their second great 
 performance of a life time

  afterwards they fed us 
  glory soaked lies
 lies about
       ourselves 
lies  we needed to hear
 so we could avoid
 the sucker/monster label 
                    we deserved 

 “ we americans
  we little tax poops 
 we’re the real winners 
and heros of the kold war 
in fact 
   we’re a hero nation
we’re 
 the worlds GALAHAD
  our  readiness
 to sacrifice our "blod" and treasure 
 scotched 
all that redness 
and saved freedom for ever ”
    
------------------------------------

comes down to this hack 

  15 years after the cold  war 
 I got a  dumb question
for ya 
 
what if we’d sat this out ?
  
I  respectfully  ask my fellow 
wage slaves and their friends 
  what if  

 what if  
 we yanks weren’t required 

what if

 the globe would have got here anyway 

 what if
 the real difference 
 is  

 this way  
 we  paid the price 
  we paid for the ride 
          but do  we own the victory ? 


 
 god knows 
looking where 
wagelings  are today 
and where 
their  dads were 
 say in 46 

I CAN TELL YOU 

americas wage riders  
 DIDN’T WIN MUCH

 only 
 the profit guys
can claim a big  win

  the guys
that since 9/11
 
have
re- enlisted you all 

yup re upped ya

in their crusade 
  to make the world
             safer
for their corporate
          profit extraction  rigs 

--------------
  my challenge to you
    hackster 
    
prove me wrong

show me some other big winners?

    I say  to you 
if you ain’t got no 
 contrary answers 
to the
BIG WHY of the kold war  

 if you ain't got
a why that 
covers all america's 
  wagelings 
bets over the years 

then yield soldier yield

admit 
 as I claim
the wagery of this beloved country 
 paid
 for some one elses 
 trip to the moon 
-----------------------

p.s.

  really 
 hack 

 ain't it time ?


 don’t we need to 
    spit out the lie
now
before we swallow 
 this new  one 
   
 ain't it time 
we 
admit we got  taken 
for a big bad ride


that its not about

a zillion shoulda woulda couldas

but one big

no way anyway 


if you want no more nams 
to mean anything

then its got to mean

no more corporate scams 

no more profit jams

no more stealin
the fruits of  foreign lands

 
soz
 we don’t 
allow nambo two three four five ...

lets finger the culprits
behind nam one 
and string em up 

-----------------------------------