DRONING ON & ON & ON

by Art Goodtimes

In 2013, Daniel Hale was at an antiwar conference in D.C. when a man recounted that two family members had been killed in a U.S. drone strike. The Yemeni man, through tears, said his relatives had been trying to encourage young men to leave al-Qaeda. Hale realized he had watched the fatal attack from a base in Afghanistan. At the time, he and his colleagues in Air Force intelligence viewed it as a success. Now he was horrified. It was such experiences, Hale told a federal judge in Alexandria, Va., on Tuesday, that led him to leak classified information about drone warfare to a reporter after leaving the military. “I believe that it is wrong to kill, but it is especially wrong to kill the defenseless,” he said in court. He said he shared what “was necessary to dispel the lie that drone warfare keeps us safe, that our lives are worth more than theirs.” U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady sentenced Hale, 33, of Nashville, to 45 months in prison for violating the Espionage Act, saying his disclosure of documents went beyond his “courageous and principled” stance on drones. —Washington Post, July 27, 2021

Ironically perverse, ’inn’it

that the whistleblower descendant

of our first patriot spy Nathan Hale

who blew up the U.S. drone program

 goes to jail for four years

 

Convicted & sentenced for exposing

to the light of citizen discernment

our American guide to extrajudicial killings

& their collateral

extinguishment of innocents

 

While, feted followed & showered

with speaker fees

Bush Obama Trump Biden

go on being hailed as leaders

given awards

 

But we the people know whatever the hui

as they’d say on Kauai

with a hang-loose flash of the fist

whatever the name of the game

they gotta keep to the Free World's

bipartisan new normal

 

Mass murders on a scale outweighing all recent

incidents of personal gun violence

in the ol’ U.S. of A

 

So, on we go, in spite of lies

insurrections deceptions liberal

cant & fundraising junk mail

 

On & on. Targeting terrorists

in ever-widening circles of definition

Editor’s Note: For more on Daniel Hale, go to: the sparrow project, the intercept, and Stand With Daniel Hale.

Art Goodtimes is a Western Slope poet, former Green elected official, and constituent of Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado's Third Congressional.

THE BEN NELSON

by Llyn Clague

"Former Sen. Ben Nelson . . . the holdout who eventually provided the key vote for President Barack Obama’s health care law, will head up the nonpartisan National Association of Insurance Commissioners . . . As CEO, earning nearly $1 million a year, Nelson will be a leading intermediary between the states and Washington." -- Politico, January 23, 2012

Image source: Mario Piperni dot Com

In wrestling, a full nelson is against the rules
because you could break the fucker’s neck.
When I competed, back in middle school,
the rules, applied to all, kept us in check.

In politics, we now have the “ben nelson,”
which says, there is one rule for me and mine,
and a different one for every one else:
a plum for my state, but not the other 49.

The deal that Ben Nelson struck was a bear:               
in return for his vote on the Senate floor
he demanded the Feds pay Nebraska ’s share
of Medicaid – costs all states bear for the poor.

That morsel was not as-usual earmark stew –
a military base for him, a prison for her,
a highway for me, maybe a bridge for you –
swaps, trade-offs, a bite for every cur.            

Nor was it made on principle or conscience,
like opposition to taxes or abortion,
or deeply held personal values: it shunts
all that aside:  it was naked extortion.

In curt terms, it was a raw grab,
taking me-ism to a new level,  
and part of what made it so bad –
it was to go on forever,

leaving every single other state
paying its own, plus Nebraska’s, aid
“in perpetuity.”  Oh, there is so much to hate
with yet another tranche of trust betrayed.
                                  
But it takes two to do dirty deals,
one to sell, and the other to buy.
Men from his own party concocted this sleaze,
using “historic ends” as their alibi.

Will the ben nelson itself break the neck
of the body politic?  No, probably not.
This particular piece of dreck
is only one year’s stink in the overall rot.

Yet ben nelson does deserve a special place
in the long, checkered history of public service.
It imagined a wholly new hold to debase
wrestling, making our life distinctly worse,

and his name, Ben Nelson, shall forever stand
as the utter opposite of Nathan Hale,
who gave his young life for our young land –
for a man, body and soul, up for sale.


Llyn Clague’s poems have been published widely, including in Atlanta Review, Wisconsin Review, California Quarterly, Main Street Rag, New York Quarterly, Ibbetson Street.  His sixth book, The I in India and US, was published by Main Street Rag in 2012.