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Porky's Goes to Washington
by Michael Arvey
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 8,
2003
The
1981 film, Porky's, might stand as a forward-looking reflection, as
well as a metaphorical consequence that even Aristotle would favor. In this
coming-of-age howler of a teen flick (who could forget Ms. Balbricker, Coach
Goodenough and Peewee?), a fraternity of randy boys from Angel Beach High,
Florida, sojourn to Porky's--a den of iniquity hidden in the
Everglades. After paying the proprietor, Porky, for a tryst with
prostitutes, the boys, anxiously waiting on what turns out to be a trapdoor
over a swamp, are dumped into the baptismal waters of dupedom. In the end,
the boys return to Porky's to prosecute retribution by collapsing the
establishment.
Nothing to howl about today. Isn't it odd, the symmetry between our government and a puerile society, and the scene in the movie? Masters of deception and diversion, and of governance by euphemism, the Bush administration (Porky's) assures the nation (a vast high school) all is well, trust big bro, government is business at its best. Let us take and spend your tax dollars for corporate security--in the deal we'll protect you from thugs who want to take away your freedoms, and we'll get you home. Such a deal. The law of diversion works like this: A thief who's just robbed a jewelry store will point to a guy down the street, and cry, "Thief!"
Back to metaphorical consequence: The Bush administration, for all practical purposes, is nothing more than a den full of crass and cunning swindlers. They use taxpayer monies to subsidize their friends in the military-corporate complex, and other bribers get to divvy up privatization contracts in Iraq. In the U.S., they furiously try to rush through pork barrel legislation (e.g., the Energy bill). How long before we pay as much for privatized water as for fuel?
All this is conducted under the sacrosanct rubric, democracy, or rather, Good Times at Porky's. Boys and girls forfeit their earnings from the drive-in, while corporate welfare is the sole topic of conversation among the men cozied up at the bar. Porky bankrupted the boys' wallets; BushCo is bankrupting the government's ability to maintain social programs and national infrastructure (death by slow starvation)—an end run for con-men and privatizers.
Our cooperation is what they call "patriotism" even though we've been stripped of time-honored rights and due process, which pauperizes us legally as well as financially. The perps are the D.C. Patriot Actors.
And isn't it odd that while the British are lassoing down an effigy of Bush in Trafalgar Square(they clearly know who Porky is) and thousands protest in Miami against the FTAA (and got the snot beat out of them for loving free speech), the U.S. media is consumed by Michael Jackson's arrest? It's a Porky's fake-out--shepherding perception from anticipation for informed news to slick distraction. And who, the following week, should receive copious protest coverage? The outing of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. So it goes--always promote the struggles of citizens against headlocks elsewhere (in this case, even engineered by the U.S.), but condemn or ignore outcries against governmental transgressions at home.
In the event of another attack on U.S. soil—perhaps one with an even greater magnitude--whether by alleged terrorists with desperate grievances or by an ill-intentioned shadow government, martial law will jackboot over what's left of the Constitution, rumpled and stiff as road kill. U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks recently admitted as much (Newsmax). If weapons of mass destruction were to be used against the U.S., that would signal the final exhalation of our constitutional freedoms. Welcome to the third world. How ironic--he and other generals, in addition to the president and to the entire Congress, have sworn to uphold the Constitution, not tear it down. The long facade is cracking apart before our very eyes.
At the end of our filmic-like illusion, if we are lucky, the public might slip back into consciousness and be able to distinguish dogberry tally-whackers from honest Joe's. Its stilts sawed in half and crumpling, BushCo could discover itself flailing against, and swallowing in gulps, the brackish swamp and muck of its own ghastly creation. We the baaa baaas will hitch these porkers to our vote and wrench them down. It's a dutiful enterprise, especially when a war secretary is on record with unabashed, pre-war porkspeak at a briefing: "As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."
Michael Arvey is a freelance writer and teaches creative writing through the Univ. of Colorado. He can be reached at: spiritmed@rocketmail.com.