Noche Buena Heist

Hola mi gente,
“Happy Holidays!” for those who don’t. J

The following is fiction. It is based on actual events and is the foundation for one of the stories in my forthcoming book of short stories I'll never finish tentatively titled Ataques de Nervios (Nervous Attacks) or 704 E. 5th St. (or some shit like that). However, I have taken huge liberties with parts of the story, the characters, and time line.

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.
-- H.G. Wells, The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman

It’s so cold she can’t feel her feet. She’s wearing slippers in the midst of a raging Nor’easter. She’s afraid and her threadbare coat can’t protect her from the 40-50 mile per hour winds. It’s the night before Noche Buena and she’s alone, keeping vigil outside a home in a white section of lower Manhattan, but she’s here because her kids are in need... there’s no one around and she despairs. Her hands are numb from the cold and her feet ache.

It seemed as if it were hours ago when ‘Galo left with Gangster with instructions that if she saw anyone, she should whistle. In actuality, only minutes have passed. Now she wonders if she can whistle, her face is frozen, and they’ve been gone so long. What if the police come?

Finally, they come rushing out the building with stuffed pillowcases and as she starts to run with them she falls, she can’t feel her toes. Gangster and ‘Galo pick her up and they make their way hurriedly back to the Puerto Rican section of the Lower East Side, which takes too long and she’s crying, she’s in agony. ‘Galo stops to look at her feet and mutters, “Shit!” under his breath.

They hurry home.

They finally get home and by then, she’s crying in agony. ‘Galo takes off the slippers and thinks she has frostbite. She weeps, but tries to stifle her cries, fearful she’ll awaken the children. Unbeknownst to them, her oldest son, all of five-years-old, watches through a crack in the bedroom doorway. He’s afraid.

They call ‘Galo’s sister, who takes one look at the stuffed pillowcases and looks down at the young mother, as if noting her lack of moral standing. What kind of mother are you? Her looks seems to say. ‘Galo asks her to look at her feet and the sister says it’s not frostbite, but that she should go to the emergency room anyway. The young mother refuses, afraid. Afraid of the consequences of the act she just helped commit and afraid of what they may say about her toes that throb with a dull pain now.

They give ‘Galo’s sister a gold watch from the stolen loot, and she’s delighted. It’s an expensive watch, very pretty. She gives the young mother another look condemnation and admonishes her for behaving in such an un-Christian manner. The young mother says nothing and thanks her for looking after the children.

That Christmas was a good Christmas, or at least the children thought so. There was food, there were gifts under the tree, and the young mother seemed so happy though her children asked when they noticed that she limped a little when she walked. She had a brand new pair of boots, the only concession she made for the oldest will always remember the James Bond attaché case, complete with gadgets and it even shot rubber bullets if you pressed a hidden button. He also got a chemistry set that he used for hours upon hours... She made sure her children got our gifts before ‘Galo and Gangster would leave with the bulk of the loot, returning only when the money was spent on drugs. She didn’t even get herself a decent coat. However, her children got warm coats, gloves, scarves, and long underwear.

Her son never knew why she was crying that wintry night all those years ago. He thought they were fighting. But he was not surprised at her sacrifice -- the choices she made so that she could make sure her children were and had what they needed. Somehow she always made it right, even if it meant compromising her values or her reputation. She didn’t care, only her children mattered. Still, she was ashamed and part of the reason why her children had perfect posture is because she taught them to walk tall, with their heads held high. It was the last bastion against the shame -- that she made certain her children would walk proudly.

Most importantly, she taught them what really matters.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

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Reflections on the Passing of Fidel Castro

Hola mi Gente,
I woke up late this morning (I’m struggling to get up) to discover that Fidel Castro passed away at the ripe old age of 90. My newsfeeds and social media platforms are rife with anti-Castro propaganda. Let’s be clear here, the only reason the corporate media demonizes Castro is not because of his alleged human rights violations, but because he stood up to US imperialism and lived to talk about it. If the US was so concerned with human rights, it would not be enslaving and murdering innocent people here and across the globe.

I have two things to say. One: Are the Cuban people better off today than they were before the revolution? I think the facts (i.e., healthcare, literacy, life expectancy, autonomy, etc.) clearly show they are. Secondly, yeah, Fidel Castro was so evil he offered to send doctors and medical supplies to help victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, while George W. Bush, who declined his offer, watched poor black people die from the safety of an airplane.

That last one was me being facetious, yeah. Along with Castro’s passing, there will be the usual “debates” on socialism and communism (most US citizens don’t know the difference). Along with those discussions will come the inevitable expression/ belief that capitalism is not only superior, but an inevitable feature of the human condition. Fidel and I disagree… 

Capitalism and Rape

Greed is good.
-- Gordon Gekko, Wall Street

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography 

[Note: A blind adherence to the virtues of “free markets” is symptomatic to neoliberal thought. Below, in an essay I adapted several years ago, I try to uncover the faulty reasoning behind the dogma.]

Consider the following:

Rape is a basic and necessary expression of human nature. Sexual assaults have been present in every society since the dawn of time. It is the natural drive of man to reproduce, to compete successfully for advantage in the marketplace of life and evolution. In fact, it is this innate compulsion to reproduce that motivates man to do anything productive and worthwhile in the first place.

It is this competitive drive that motivates man to aspire to greatness. Can you imagine men striving for greatness were they not motivated by their drive to reproduce by any means? Of course not, because the drive to reproduce is at the very core of mankind’s fundamental nature. As long as we disregard childish “God” superstitions and recognize that a man is ultimately responsible only to and for himself, we therefore recognize that any measures that attempt to suppress this natural and intrinsic drive to reproduce by any means are inherently wrong.

To suppress sexual assaults is the perverse anti-human dream of the superstitious rabble. In fact, no human society has successfully eliminated rape, despite innumerable measures designed to curb sexual assaults. If man were only truly free to pursue this integral part of his nature we would walk as the masters of the Earth that we are.

Anyone with a relatively functioning forebrain will see that this is a painfully faulty and dangerous chain of reasoning. Just because the drive to reproduce is inherent in humans, it doesn’t follow that sexual assault and rape stem from that drive and are a part of human nature. Furthermore, that every society has been beset by sexual assault and none has successfully eliminated rape, doesn’t necessarily mean that sexual assault and rape are things that should be encouraged, or that there wouldn’t be disastrous and apocalyptic consequences were people given carte blanche to rape.

Now, reread the above but this time replace every occurrence of the words “sexual assault” with the words “free markets,” and replace every occurrence of the word “rape” with “capitalism,” and every occurrence of the word “reproduce” with “acquire wealth.” It is now word-for-word the position of economic neoliberal types such as Clinton, Trump, and Obama. You will find this same line of thought in rationales against universal healthcare, for example, and free postsecondary education.

Well, boys and girls: what have we learned? First, my aim here is not merely to equate capitalism with rape (not a bad area to explore in future writings). Rather, my goal is to point out fallacious reasoning. Certain things might be inherently part of human nature or cannot be completely eliminated, but that isn’t a sufficient condition for a logically cohesive argument that should be encouraged. If you want to argue that they should be encouraged, you must give other reasons.

The other reason for this is the unthinking and reactionary response of “socialism doesn’t work,” which displays an ignorance of the enormous and diverse body of economic and ethical thought outside of the current U.S. political and moral paradigm.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

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Make it Personal

Hola Everybody,
By tomorrow this time, we will know who will hold the most powerful political office in the known universe -- may your God, Higher Power, or whatever you fuckin' pray to, protect you. Regardless of who seize power, we will be fucked if we don't wake up. I repost the following in order to rail against the dying of the light. It gets lonely out here.

Politics

It’s personal.

The personal, as some are so fuckin’ fond of saying, is political. Therefore, if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you love, take it personally.

Get Angry. 

The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here: it is slow and unfeeling, and it is theirs -- all of it. Only those without access to power suffer at the hand of Justice; the creatures of the power elite slide out from under with a wink and a grin.

If you want Justice, or even fairness, you will have to snatch it from them.

Make it personal.

Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way you stand a far better chance of being taken seriously next time -- of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous, marks the difference -- the only difference in their eyes -- between players and the little people. They don't give a damn about respect -- respect has no value for them. You have to make them fear and loathe you.

Players they will make their deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again, they justify your liquidation, your displacement, your suffering, and the brutality of it all with the ultimate insult that it’s the way of the world, it’s politics, it’s a tough life, it’s “just business,” and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck that...

Make it personal.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…