Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes
Solidarity
     I guess I wasn’t paying attention three years ago when W allegedly gave up golf to show solidarity with the grieving families of American military
personnel (as in sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends) who were killed in Iraq. Or
maybe it was a case of my selectively blocking out that particular strain of stupidity because the disconnect between W, and his ilk, and real people
(like the people who bleed real blood in wars that are waged and fought for reasons other than those fed to the American public; real people with
real families who left limbs and brains and other body parts on fields in and outside villages with unpronounceable names in a part of the world they
could not have found on a globe in their high school history classes a few short years or months before they enlisted) is even wider than I had feared.
Wider than I had imagined possible. A gulf so vast that the late Evel Knevel would not have considered trying to jump it on his motorcycle – while he
was alive of course. My body hurts all over as if just pummeled by Ruben Hurricane Carter in his prime (or today for that matter) when I even begin to
try and fathom the distance between the world that our unlawfully elected two-time president must see and the world most of us live in – even those
who believe that W is one of them. And please keep in mind that W is merely a symbol of a particular kind of arrogance. Sure. It’s the kind of
arrogance that causes discomfort even among those who parrot his policies and practices, but it is also the kind of arrogance that kills under the
banner of saving lives. It’s the kind of arrogance that apparently appeals to some masses – the kind that is presumptuous enough to remind God to
bless America and forget the rest of the world. W’s face is the face of drunken power with only a smattering of compassion. Compassion for what I am
not sure. But assuming he has a heart, he must feel something since hearts pump warm blood and not antifreeze. At least this is what I have been
told. The words that follow are fiction except for those that are true:
     W said he was saddened at learning that so many American servicemen and servicewomen had been killed in Iraq and felt compelled to share
the pain that the loved ones of the deceased must have felt. He ordered the destruction of all copies of all tapes of him landing a fighter jet on an
aircraft carrier in May 2003. He proclaimed the end of major combat operations in Iraq in that now infamous footage. He didn’t want to take the
chance of being asked if the March 2008 tally of 4,000-plus U.S. war dead with widely varying estimates regarding Iraqi people who died violent
deaths estimated to be between 104,000 and 223,000 from March 2003 through June 2006 was to be considered minor in light of his 2003
comment that major combat operations had ended. He wasn’t worried about any questions that could relate to Afghanistan because he was
confident that the link between terrorism and Afghanistan had been sufficiently blurred and the contrived link between the unimaginably horrible
events of September 11, 2001 and Iraq were even more out of focus. He thought about sending his daughters to war as a gesture of his good will and
willingness to sacrifice, but that thought lasted less than one second and it wasn’t a serious second at that.
     He tried to think of friends or other associates who had lost children in wars that were fueled by sophisticated propaganda months and sometimes
decades before the first shots were fired or missiles launched. But he couldn’t think of anyone. He kept a personal Rolodex –he was old-fashioned in
this way- but it only contained names of people who profited from war – several of whom were his golf buddies. The Rolodex did not have the names
of those whose children provided the fodder for war. He didn’t play golf with those people. His life only touched theirs when it was expedient for him
and all he had to do was issue a presidential order to have whatever images deleted if they ever resurfaced in problematic ways - the way he
successfully erased images of his landing on a U.S. aircraft carrier from the news archives and collective memory of the American people. His
Rolodex was very small.
     It was all too depressing to think about all this war stuff. He decided that he had to sacrifice something –not somebody- he loved. He would
announce to the world that he was giving up golf because it just wasn’t right to have footage of the commander in chief teeing off on some luxurious
golf course somewhere followed by shots of United States servicemen and servicewomen in full battle regalia in the very next frame during the
nightly news broadcast.
     He did give up golf. At least he did give up playing golf during the day and film crews stopped being invited to film his better shots. Little did the
American public know that W began playing golf at night. That’s right. At night. He had a friend – a guy whose name and phone number were in W’s
Rolodex- who just happened to own 7,000 acres of land in Wyoming. The friend’s name was JP. W and his ilk loved initials. They added to the
clandestine feeling of things. W gave his friend a call:
     W:        Hello. JP?
     JP:       Yep. How ya doin’, W? I ain’t psychic or nuthin, but my caller ID is.
     W:        I’m doin’ superlatively, JP.
     JP:       Superlatively? I ain’t ever heard a word like that. You’re talking like one of them brothers in prison.
     W:        Well, I don’t know about that. I guess I had a little something to do with sending a passel of them to the big house when I was governor,
but I never studied vocabulary with any of them. Anyway, I got a little something I want to talk with you about.
     JP:        Well, W. If you’re going to ask me a favor let me save a little time by saying “yes” before we even get started.
     And that’s how it all began. A 200-acre golf course was constructed on JP’s land. Two-thousand pole lamps were installed. They were energy
efficient though. The main energy source was electricity but the auxiliary systems used clean coal (whatever that is), solar (this part of the system
captured moonlight and used stored energy from the sun that was generated during the day) and nuclear power – or nuculear as W would say. The
lights only cost about $2.5 million each to construct so this part of the construction project only cost $5 billion. Good use of taxpayer dollars.
Landscaping and course design cost a mere $2 billion. Good use of taxpayer dollars. Custom-made presidential clubs made of titanium alloys,
tungsten, moon rocks and South African diamonds that were mined before the end of apartheid cost a scant $7 million. And, of course, there were
back-up bags of clubs – three of them -- so I guess if you want to be technical you could say that there was $28 million invested in golf clubs. I’m sure
you’d agree that this is a good use of taxpayer money. But the coup de grace was the creation and manufacture of the heat-seeking golf balls that
required the installation of heated holes throughout the course. And what a bargain. The balls cost just $7,000 each (good thing so many night lights
were installed to cut down the number of balls lost) and it only cost $17 million to heat the holes. A tremendous value for American taxpayers.
And let’s not quibble over the insignificant costs of actually playing the game a few times a year – money that’s not associated with course
construction. Money that relates to little details like course maintenance; secret service agents to protect W from moose, elk and other things that go
bump in the night; operators for the heat-seeking golf ball console (since it just wouldn’t be credible to get a whole-in-one on every shot – but since
W had given up golf then these night games weren’t really happening so maybe all these costs are imaginary anyway, plus its easier to blame the
national deficit on some conveniently malignable group); fuel for Air force I; and fuel for the entourage of armored vehicles to transport W to the
secret location to play the game that he gave up playing to show solidarity with people whose faces he could not look at in the light of day. Maybe
those who whine about one of the president’s favorite sports are going through some kind of mental recession.