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Thanksgiving Prayer - William S Burroughs

"For John Dillenger. And I hope he's still alive. Thanksgiving Day, November 28th 1986."
Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream, To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killin' lawmen, feelin' their notches.
For decent church-goin' women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for "Kill a Queer for Christ" stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody's allowed to mind the own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories-- all right let's see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

too easy...for a no-native

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-11-26 10:16 ]</font>

hm?

http://s6.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=AE8A7 ... 4D71A09437

I don't know if Germany has an equivalent holiday, but I'm sure I could come up with an equally damning poem for them.

Burroughs was an american though, Hubird, so your point makes no sense.

Besides, those "americans" he speaks of all came from europe(except the poor black ones), so who's to blame?

It must be nice to be european and not have done anything wrong...

R

Lighten up! I thought it was funny.

I don't think most Europeans would deny that their countries have had fucked up empirical/colonial tendencies over the years - UK, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium and the most recent being Germany obviously. The roots of present-day America are European even. On the other hand I wouldn't live in the UK had it not been for the fact that the country of my birth is a part of the Commonwealth. That also means that it was pissed on and ransacked for many years by the country I live in now. It's also a fact that they were aided in their wholescale looting by the people who ruled my country in those days. They were fine with it as long as they got a cut.

What is important is to learn from past mistakes. The Burroughs poem/prayer is very insightful (and funny!), but it's nothing that intelligent people in America haven't been saying for years - Hunter S. Thompson, Bill Hicks, most intelligent musicians, even the Simpsons FFS. What is dangerous is to get instinctively defensive about it, because there will never be any progression that way.

Always remember what intelligent, free-thinking Americans were fighting against before all this terrorism stuff happened.

On 2004-11-26 13:07, nprime wrote:
Burroughs was an american though, Hubird, so your point makes no sense.

I know that, however I was speaking about the poster himself...

dp

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-11-27 20:11 ]</font>

On 2004-11-26 19:37, dArKr3zIn wrote:
I wouldn't live in the UK had it not been for the fact that the country of my birth is a part of the Commonwealth. That also means that it was pissed on and ransacked for many years by the country I live in now. It's also a fact that they were aided in their wholescale looting by the people who ruled my country in those days. They were fine with it as long as they got a cut.

Which country ?

On 2004-11-27 08:24, hubird wrote:
I know that, however I was speaking about the poster himself...

Huub, if you mean that only Americans have right to criticise America, and for the rest of us it is not our problem, then i strongly disagree...
besides that, Blazesboylan's got excelent point

Exactly, michu. When someone disregards international agreements and starts messing with other countries, it does become an international problem.

Upon re reading my reply I do sound a bit curmugdeonly.

And me defending the americans, that's not normal at all. I must have been possesed that evening, how strange...

I guess I might have been offended at just how easy it to say that they have done so many horrible things when none of us is without sins, so casting stones...it just seemed a little too easy to hear everything summed up like that. Lots of what the poem says could apply to any country, especially in terms of screwing up the environment.

...but funny? I don't get funny out of it...

R

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: nprime on 2004-11-28 16:24 ]</font>

Environment? Putin signed Kyoto, so now the treaty will be finally activated

He did sign cos Kyoto allows for countries to sell 'points' for other countries like mine who don't make it otherwise, like Belgium with it's too high population density - but hey EU is still using only one fifth of fuel compared to the US, per capita. I guess that's cos we're using like 80% nuclear electricity here :/

Canada signed Kyoto, and we are way behind in our implementation.

Besides, China is gonna burn so much dirty coal in the next decade that it won't matter what the rest of us do!

R

Yea, Afghanistan is securing China's future supplies. Afaik, their new democracy's head of state used to be CEO of Unocal . And reading through the topics of their news items, they got quite some interest in that area...

hm, let me try to explain my too easy remark.
It's just that I took the view point of the addressed nation, and her representants here on planetz
I thought, how should it be for Americans always to be the (rather negative) talk of the world, any time any place.
My conclusion was that I wouldn't post that poem just like that.
Nothing personal, seriously, sorry if someone might feel blamed
You probably know that I'm as radical as some of you , and I'm not afraid to give my opinion.
In other words, my words didn't affect the content of the poem, they were about (internet) communication.
D*mn, you see, if you try to explain things they got blown up
I just didn't want to let it hang, that's all
cheerz

On 2004-11-28 16:55, nprime wrote:
Canada signed Kyoto, and we are way behind in our implementation.

My local MP, David Anderson, was the environment minister and also the strongest proponent of Kyoto in the government for the past 10 years, until Paul Martin took over the party and booted him out of the cabinet.

Paul Martin sucks.

(Oh wait. Sorry Paul, not you! The *other* P.M. from Canada. )