Now I’m Really Angry, I

by David Lee Beowulf

David Lee Beowulf Sounds Off!

I’ve been doing a lot of head-shaking lately.

Would someone please tell me why Yugoslavia is being bombed into

oblivion?

No, I mean the “real” answer.

I’m genuinely pissed. I don’t think I’ve been this pissed ever.

I want to beat people up. I want to beat up people who are in favor of

dropping bombs on Serbia. I want to see if they can defend themselves

against someone like me. I want to see if they can take a punch without

crying. I want to beat up all the 40+ ex-hippies who support what NATO,

at the behest of President Clinton, is doing in Yugoslavia.

Why?

Because I want to avenge Ronald Reagan, that’s why. I want to avenge

George Bush, too, but only as an afterthought.

President Ronald Reagan went to Berlin and shouted “Mr. Gorbachev,

TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!!!” I know, because I saw it on national

television. Can you imagine, the American president antagonizing the

USSR in such a way? Hell, Nixon didn’t even go that far with Kruschev;

Kennedy only threatened unbridled retaliation if the Russians didn’t pull

their missiles out of Cuba. Carter yanked us out of the Olympics.

Reagan publicly demanded that the USSR take down their wall.

And they did.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait, President Bush, along with the entire Arab

world (Iranians are not arabs, ask them!), commanded the most popular

war fought by US troops since WWII. And he won it in record time.

It’s tough for me to write essays about current events. Mainly because the

“current” runs out so fast these days -if you believe the up-to-the-moment

news reports, but also because they fall on deaf ears. I’ve held to my

opinions for years and years and I’ve taken shit for them just as long.

But I’m right nearly all the time. The last time I made a wrong prediction

was when I thought the Gulf War would last a year. I’d thought that Iraq

was a really sophisticated armed power. After talking to soldiers who’d

been over there I quickly learned that, as Killdozer sings in “Turkey

Shoot,” it was like “…shooting fish in a barrel.”

But all I can do now is shake may head in wonderment as the “doves”

turn into bizarre “hawks.” I mean, when wealthy ex-hippie pukes get

behind a cause, look out, they will strip your bones. Talk about a

dangerous group.

I’m frustrated because I have so much nervous energy about what’s going

on in Yugoslavia and how the ex-hippies and anyone else who voted for

Clinton are so gung-ho on bombing another country. I don’t like to walk

around mad all the time, angry, yes, but I only want to be angry at the

little things, like slow pedestrians or retarded waiters. Now I’m mad at so

many people I don’t know which direction to aim a punch at. I’m mad at

the ex-hippies because they’re all of a sudden behind bombing a third

world nation into the stone age because of a slight, albeit gruesome,

bunch of “human rights” violations. Compared to what North Korea is

doing to its people, Serbia is Eden. I’m mad at the ex-hippies and others

who look down at me for openly expressing my “love” of violence and

battle, who now have turned around and far surpass me in blood lust.

Bombing cities is not battle, going head-to head nude and with battle axe

in hand is. I’ll take running naked against my enemy any day compared to

carpet bombing city buildings any day, thank you very much.

I’m not going to write another “Angry Ink” about the Yugoslavia shit other

than this one, I’d much rather write about the “little things” I see in this

life and how they bug me. I hope this huge tirade releases enough angst

in me. (I should note, too, that I’ve not written much, even in Ink Nineteen,

about the Clinton Impeachment, another bizarre chapter in our recent

history. I said what I had to say in the April 1999 Ink Nineteen, and I hope

it can be read objectively by both Clintonophobes and -philes alike, you

both are idiots and need some talking to.)

I’m also mad because I’ve found that I know a hell of a lot more about

world history than most people. At first I didn’t think so, I always thought I

was behind on things, so I read and continue to read as much as possible

about geography, history, war and anything else. I may only be a

generalist, but I’ve made damn sure I know why the world works like it

does. I also, for at least the last year, have read about twenty daily

newspapers from around the world, isn’t the web a real wonder? You can

learn a lot from the Times of India, let me tell you… I’ve run into people

who do not know the difference between the 30 years war and the 100

years war, but they sure do think “we” should bomb Yugoslavia. People

like the New York Times’ Anthony Lewis, a staunch anti-Viet Nam dove,

who, in a 3 April 1999 editorial said,

“…the United States and its allies must…Commit ourselves to

the total destruction of Milosevic’s armed forces, no matter

how long it takes. NATO bombers in the first week carried out

daily only a fraction of the sorties undertaken in the Persian

Gulf War. The intensity should be at least as high as in the

gulf, and this time the equivalent of Saddam Hussein’s

Republican Guard must not escape. The airstrikes in

Belgrade must mean the targeting of command and control

centers. We should also quickly hit Yugoslav broadcasting

facilities, a key factor in Milosevic’s power. “

Fuckin’ A, Tony, why don’t we fly a few thousand tanker planes full of hot

asphalt over the Balkans and pave the entire area while we’re at it?

It’s frustrating because I, in a serious/sarcastic moment, made a remark

that the only good reason for a war is to take the others guy’s land,

women and other prizes. A response from an ex-hippie was “that’s

precisely why people like you shouldn’t be running anything.” What an

asshole. I’m so glad we have people like Bill Clinton, who’d never start a

war, in power. Good thing we let morons who know zilch about war run

things, yepper, they do a swell job.

John Cleese, in an interview I saw on PBS in October 1998, made an

interesting observation about “liberal members of parliament (MP’s).” He

was of the mind that the liberal MPs, that is the younger ones, couldn’t

bring themselves to side with an authority figure, meaning someone who

spoke with a forceful voice, because they’d grown up in an atmosphere of

permissiveness. Primarily with the absence of a strong father. Building on

that, I can understand why idiot “liberals” in my presence who hear me

spout on about being pro-gun or pro-national defense or anything I feel

strongly about because I must sound like I’m an authoritarian. Maybe

they’re afraid if I “get into power” I won’t let them do things. I guess I can

understand their fear since they’re always gotten what they’ve wanted,

but can you make them understand that, for example, allowing the

“government” to take my guns away is exactly the kind of authoritarian

action they should be against?

Angry Heroes

I, a real man, seek out strong authority figures. I like having a leader to

follow.

All my adult life, and most of my teens I have favored powerful, forceful

leaders. My first recollection of an American president is Lyndon Johnson,

I remember little other than my mom’s Humphrey/Muskie (1968

Democratic candidates for president) bumper sticker regularly being

scraped off her car by some snot-nosed rich WASP’s kid down the street.

The Viet Nam war was something on TV, but, frankly, not discussed very

much until the neighbor’s kid (six years my senior) was babysitting one

night and let us watch Green Berets on channel 9. Wow!

Nixon didn’t inspire me one bit, in fact, he was kind of a laughing stock

since my mom and dad reviled him, even though most of the

neighborhood (suburban Washington, D.C.) voted for him. Not only that,

but the media really hated him. There was nothing nice said about him

one bit. The Watergate trials were something you came home from

school and watched along with mom.

Ford? Who was this guy? A decent man, sure, but Carter made him look

like a genuine clown in their first debate when Ford remarked that

“…eastern Europe [e.g., Poland] doesn’t feel oppressed by the Soviet

Union.” I remember that because Carter actually cracked a smile.

So Carter wins and turns out to be a nothing more than a wishy-washy

leader on the outside but-stern parent on the inside (“…life is unfair…”),

another uninspiring (for me) president.

I was the kind of kid (and am still the kind of person) who wants an

authority figure to lead me. Read that again: LEAD ME. The key point is

leadership. An authority figure who was very strong in the face of battle.

My “heroes” have always been powerful men. Strong of constitution and

not afraid to face anything. Naturally, Clint Eastwood was the first, who all

through the seventies provided me with a mythical ideal: tall, strong both

physically and of wit, and he always survived (except in “The Beguiled”).

As I got older and was allowed to see his films like “Play Misty For Me”

(on TV) and “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (at the theater) -both great movies,

mind you, I saw a “weaker” Eastwood. His characters weren’t the

powerful, nearly supernatural anti-heroes of the Spaghetti Westerns or

Dirty Harry flicks, or the supernatural hero of “High Plains Drifter” (my

favorite CE film of all). Instead, they showed a frailer, weaker side. A man

who cried or, worse, a man who was “ordinary.” OK, men cry, fine; even

heroes cry when emotion drives them to it. But “ordinary” was something

I simply could not handle. Clint’s last great movie was “Escape From

Alcatraz.” From there on, it was all downhill, even though his popularity

soared. Back when “Dirty Harry” came out Rex Reed called him a fascist.

My, times changed in the 1980s and on… (This is a highly relevant point,

and I’ll return to it soon enough.)

Anyway, I abandoned good old Clint Eastwood after the “Every Which

Way…” (yuck!) movies and “The Gauntlet” (double yuck!); dude, if you’re

going to do comedy or “character” pieces, oh, what’s the use?

Alongside Clint Eastwood, I really dug Charlton Heston’s films. Unlike Clint

Eastwood’s, Chuck’s always had something extra. I didn’t know what it

was at the time (I guess I was about 14), but now, when I watch the “old”

movies I see the “larger than life” quality to his characters. As a principle,

he can be the heaviest heavy. But his real acting prowess is when he’s

cast in a supporting role. Chuck as Moses and Chuck as Judah Ben-Hur

are two completely different characters -two different Charlton Hestons, if

you will. With the lunatic Cecil B. DeMille behind the camera, you get a

deliberately over-acted Moses. With the genius William Wyler directing,

you see the greatest American actor of all time brought to the fullest.

Chuck received the Best Actor award for his role in “Ben-Hur” because his

performance was an order of magnitude above everyone else’s. Consider:

most of the old time “stars” like Kirk Douglas and Paul Neuman didn’t

receive Oscars until they were old men and it seemed like a bit of an

injustice to not honor them so. Chuck Heston got his Oscar when he was

in the prime of his acting career.

But, getting back to his supporting roles, he assumes the supporting

character with just as much gusto as he did for Judah Ben-Hur. In “The

Big Country” and, even more so, “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” he

doesn’t hog the screen at all; indeed, he’s supporting the main characters.

He looks like and acts like a working-man. Oh, sure, there’s elements of

George Taylor or The Cid in his parts, but to watch him as, say, the

foreman of a cattle ranch is to watch your favorite teacher in action.

Check out “The Wreck of the Mary Deare” and see for yourself (Gary

Cooper is the lead and the film also stars a young Richard Harris).

The next obvious hero for me is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ha-ha, yeah,

you’re laughing now. Arnold inspired me in my twenties because I

wanted to look like him (I still would, too!). His books about his life are

very inspiring because he refused to look back. He was constantly

advancing himself and working hard…

Etc.

Reagan Tribute Section (if you HATE Ronald Reagan, this is for you)

Which brings us up to my favorite president, Ronald Reagan.

What?? Reagan?

Wasn’t he stupid? Wasn’t he acting like “Rambo” and a “loose cannon”?

Didn’t he lie?

And all the other shit.

No. And fuck you! I don’t care what any of you fucking assholes (see

further commentary about Clinton and Yugoslavia) say about Reagan, the

man was inspirational. He took the helm and was serious about making

America Number One. What the hell is wrong with that? When he spoke, I

heard a real leader, a real President. Not some politician, but a leader.

When I looked at the people, the “mobs and mobs” of Reagan-haters, I

saw nothing but hippies, communists and other pukes who didn’t believe

in rewards for hard work, didn’t believe in peace through strength and,

most of all, didn’t believe in genuine Authority (except, of course, Karl

Marx and Lenin).

I saw hippie after hippie, smoking their cigarettes and whining from their

Amherst Ivory Towers about “conservatives” and how their “agenda”

would “ruin” the country. I’ll address that issue later on, but, in 1980,

America was being made a fool of. Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the

commies, supported by the “Ivory Tower Hippies,” were thumbing their

nose at Jimmy Carter’s America. Never mind the fact that my dad was

paying about 55% in income taxes (and he was grossing about forty grand

“back then” -the equivalent of maybe seventy thousand right now). And

never mind that I could feel this “malaise” every day about America.

Then came Ronald Reagan who put a stop to it all. Hey, if you’re going to

credit Clinton with the 1990s, you’d better credit Reagan with the 1980s.

Now the world looked at America for real leadership to dig out of the

gloomy days. Everyone wanted to work, and, unlike today, work meant

“work.” It didn’t mean starting your own internet “business” and issuing

stock. It mean working for a company, big or small, and being able to

keep what you earned, and having serious pride in working for a living.

Do not believe the ex-hippies who call the 1980s the “Decade of Greed.”

The Decade of Greed is the 1990s! The 1980s were the Decade of Victory

Through Hard Work. I went from age 16 to age 26 through the eighties,

during which I graduated high school, college and attended graduate

school. I worked, admittedly part-time jobs, but I experienced the 1980s as

a student. And from my student’s point of view then I was overwhelmingly

optimistic. Everyone around me, even the “liberal” pukes who hated

Reagan, were studying with one goal in mind: getting a good job and

working hard. The key was working hard, and that’s what President

Reagan made clear: the hard-working American is to be honored.

Like I said, do not listen to the ex-hippies, especially now, since they’re all

stinking rich from stock investments they made during the 1980s (odd, isn’t

it?). The ex-hippies were, and still are, Marxists to the core who have

nothing but contempt for optimistic, hard working people. To them,

people are mindless masses who need to be “managed” just like any

other resource. Naturally, the ex-hippies are the managers…

But all that shit aside, consider the really “hateful” things Reagan

represented.

• He was a warmonger. He wanted a nuclear war with the

USSR. He oppressed all of Latin America by supporting

dictators.

• He supported the Christian Right Wing. We wanted to make

the United States a Christian theocracy.

• He made the rich richer and the poor poorer. His campaign

of de-regulation of various American industries bankrupted

the nation.

• He was a stupid man. No intellect at all.

What horseshit! Anyone who believed it then and believes it now is a fool!

It is amazing to me that people actually laughed and still laugh at

Reagan’s calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.” What else was it?

You could take all the “atrocities” the United States committed in its

225-year history and they would be a drop in the ocean compared to what

the Russians have done this century alone. Look the shit up and see for

yourself! Look up Stalin’s purges and forced starvations of millions and

millions of people. Look up the basic Marxist philosophies that seek to

squelch the individual; the “person” has no meaning, all is the headless

all-important state. People are resources to be managed rather than

individuals with priceless self-worth. Welcome to the new order…

Don’t believe me? Don’t like my “authoritative” tone? Move to fucking

Cuba where you’ll be jailed if you say one thing against Castro. Move to

Russia where you need a freakin’ passport to travel from one city to the

next and you have to wait in line to buy shoes that don’t fit. That’s all I

have to say you fucking morons.

Sure, the USA isn’t “innocent.” And yes, there certainly are pockets of

institutionalized oppression (if you believe the conspiracy folks, don’t turn

around…). And if you watch the six o’clock News, you’d think that the

United States is a nation packed with one lunatic after another. Why do

you believe the news? They don’t exist for truth! They exist to sell

advertising space! Bullshit sells, dude!

Warmonger: Reagan spent millions on “defense” and “illegally” funded

all sorts of dictators around the world. Result: the 40-year Cold War is

finally won by the United States (not Japan, according to currently dead

Democratic Presidential hopeful Paul Tsongas). No nukes (get it?) were

fired at Russia by anyone. Oh, lots of lives were lost, but the Cold War had

to be fought like a slow game of chess. Little skirmishes here and there,

with emphasis on espionage, intrigue and intense gamesmanship. The

minute a pocket of communism arises somewhere in the world, smash it

by “secretly” funding a counter-revolutionary effort. Remember: the

leaders of communist organizations received their orders from Moscow,

these were not localized revolutions, but pawns (more like knights or

bishops) in chess. The endgame was Russia allowing its king to fight

(Gorbachev) openly against the USA’s king (Reagan). The ultimate attack

being the “TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!” speech in Berlin. Wall comes down,

war is over. Gorbachev, in a “coup” (sure…) retires and “President”

Yeltsin takes the helm of the new Russia. Thank you, Mr. Reagan.

Christian Fundamentalist: I do not know if Reagan is a Christian.

Nevertheless, by giving heavy lip-service to the so-called “Christian Right”

et al., he was playing his rook against the communist front. Remember,

Marx called “religion” the “opiate of the masses.” Officially, religion was

outlawed in the USSR and all through out communism. Thusly,

“christianity,” meaning whatever it means, was a weapon against

communism. The Russians have a long-standing tradition of christianity

and did not like the fact that they could lose their jobs for attending a

church service. What happened in the United States because of this? Did

abortion become illegal? No. What about “prayer in school”? Was it

mandated? No. Etc. and etc. What, was Reagan going to repeal the First

Amendment? I don’t think so.