Howard Zinn died today

Yesterday was a very trying day for me. I didn't sleep really well the night before... I have been reading Howard Zinn's "The peoples history of America" to put myself back to sleep. I finally slept after reading his section about the '70's and anti war specifics. I was horrified to read about Jimmy Carter, I had always though that guy was decent, Zinn's take on him was a bit unsettling, Starting with Carter the farmer... sounds innocent enough, the guy was a Millionaire farmer, most likely sold those peanuts to Skippy. Then on to the realities of presidential posturing ... Carter came in after a just awful period of Federal government horrors, Vietnam, Cambodia and the covert Ma Lia massacre,LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Kissinger and every despicable distorted lie known to man. Carter sure looked good to the Humanist of the time after that awful line-up. As Zinn put it " Carter's job as president, from a point of view of the Establishment , was to halt the rushing disappointment of the American people with the government, with the economic system, and disastrous military adventures abroad." But he really didn't get that much done, he came across as a humanist in other countries ... but again to quote Zinn "Carter was continuing the old hypocrisy. The U.S. was supporting, all over the world, regimes that engaged in imprisonment of deserters, torture, and mass murder: Chile, in Iran, in Nicaragua, and in Indonesia, where the inhabitants of Timur were being annihilated in a campaign bordering on Genocide.


I woke up with a grey sky and rolled over, I didnt want to get up. Its been hard to get up lately. The state of my unemployedness coupled with the state of the Union, has made me depressed. The latest in corporate sponsored control of the government ruled again as legal by the Supreme court coupled with my increased awareness brought on by Zinn's book has made me stressed and worried. I had several cups of coffee,sometimes this wakes me and my mood becomes more moderate.... it didn't this day. I have such a feeling of dispare lately, part of it because of not having the ability to help others in my profession. Why? I moved again, I couldn't live in Maine it just wasn't working.

When you move you uproot yourself, those roots in community, friends, family, work, and habits. When you move the transplant is hit or miss, your pot containing soil, roots, and all have to sustain you until new roots can be grown into where ever you move. Some of the success in a transplant is timing, what season the move is made. The start of winter is a hard time to make a move. Its a hard time to meet people, everyone is holed up. Especially pre holiday season, not a time to let newcomers into the household. Some of the transplant has to do with the amount of soil in the pot sustaining life until planted into the new country soil. This is an simile of the cash in hand making it until you get a job. With the economy at a standstill, I can assure you you better have a big pot with lots of soil in it.

Depression is a cycle, often a downward one. Often it could be turned around with some luck, something reaffirming happening like meeting people that have similarities to you, finding a job that you like, or having simple pay back of your hard work to occur without having to track those who owe you down. Sometimes having others that you know just giving you a simple call to see how you are doing in your move is reassuring and eases stress. Any one of these occurrences can change what could be a downward spiral into the dark abyss back to the light of the upper sea. What happens when nothing reaffirming happens, and everyday you wake to live off the pot of soil with no new nourishment? You suffer, you start to doubt your rooting capability, and the more doubt you have the more others are likely to avoid you... who wants to hang out with a depressive?

Yesterday I though some horrible thoughts early in the day, like how I would have loved to have caught the evil scumbag that stole all of my tools. To elaborate , just before my move all of my tools, all hard 25 years worth were stolen from my folks camp. I try to forget it but sometimes find myself daydreaming about catching that guy/s and shooting them with a 12 gauge shotgun in the back of the legs.... not to kill, but to wound, to make them hurt and to suffer like I have because of my lose of my livelihood making possibilities. I know this is sick, but it's what happens to a man when he is kick in the nuts, he hurts bent over for awhile, then he wants to get even.

The day the stuff was stolen was a crappy day too, I was sick with a shitty cold. I was trying to help my dad finish a desk for his home. This was to help him for him helping me by giving me a place to stay for the month before 'we' moved. My dad calls me, sets me down and tells me, "your tools were stolen from the camp" he waits, " did my flyrods get taken too?' I ask... He is not sure, but he thinks so... I had four flyrods next to my tools, sounds kind of mundane to the average person.... unless they are a flyfisherman... Those rods had a lot of memories, the places, the people I fished with, the year, the stream, the river, the dog that was with me, the dog that broke the tip of one of the rods while chasing the fish I had on, that faithful yet dumb ass dog is tied to the memory of the rod.... all these connections to a material object... sounds materialistic right? Its more than that, when all of these thoughts flash in your mind, and then the mundane, all the hours you worked to pay for that god damned air compressor, nail guns. Of that welder I couldn't afford that I put on a credit card and didn't even know how to work it yet... knowing that someday I would then it would pay for itself... all of these thoughts came in about 10 minutes... and then I started sobbing, my dad pats me on the back, there is nothing he can do but sympathise.

My Dad wanted to help me to recover from this all, and after hell he had done me/us a favor after giving me/us a place to stay at the camp. He says to me, "the insurance will pay for the theft" and I instantly think "I'll believe that when I see it". I just have never had any luck with that sort of thing... last time I had some insurance settlement for a car that slammed into me after they ran a red light, I didn't get one red cent. I said to myself..."don't get your hopes up, Greeno, the rods, the tools are gone... and there is not insurance company that's going to undo it"... I just didn't want to get my hopes up, I wanted the whole disappointment and unsavory feelings gone.

Well after all this my dad meets with the sheriff, fills out forms about the theft, has me fill out and print out summaries of the stuff stolen which made me relive the items individually all over again. And I kept saying "Greeno don't get your hopes up!" To make a long story shorter, I did get myself hoping that I would get something back... I found myself after a month actually believing that some money was coming which would be a good thing, I have no work. Two months pass, I call my Dad , he says that the insurance company is saying that they are not obligated to pay the $2600, I think wow, six grand of tools, and rods boiled down to $2600 man that's depreciation for you... but "hold on" my dad says our neighbor can attest to the fact you were living there. We I find myself hoping again, the four letter word, how Obama wielded that word..."hope" and how that's all its been. So a month later, I am still a hoping.... so I call Dad... and he breaks the news...."they say that you are not a family member" so they don't have to pay. I guess in the insurance contract, on page 239 there it is, insurance only covers family members defined by one whole lives full time in the household.... has nothing to do with blood relationship or anything that a family actually considers to be "family".

Well I lived the theft again, now through the insurance company's devilry.... Arrrghh! And I find myself, mad, frustrated, angry, and thinking once again how I wish I could have shot those bastard in the legs.... all over again.

This is why depression spirals down, and down, getting kicked in the nuts again and again, and after a while you cant stand. You keep looking up 'hoping' you keep getting kicked... then you find yourself not wanting to get up, you pull the covers over your head.

Back to yesterday, I finally had the coffee and went to doing what an unemployed man who is down does, picked up my book to finish it, last chapter... I couldn't get through it .... I started to sob. Later in the day I find out Howard Zinn died today.... January 27, 2010.