When JFK was killed, the papers came to Malcolm X to hear how sorry he was. "Chickens coming home to roost", was his famous reply.

When the FBI building in Oklahoma City was blown up, I tried feeling the sympathy, but I had trouble getting past the fire at Waco, the bulldozers, the burned up children, the smug attitude of the attackers that the people inside all had this horrific end coming. For doing what, exactly? For being religious nutjobs? We were founded by religious nutjobs. For hanging out on their ranch with guns? Well, isn't that why nutjobs buy their own ranches? Hell, I remember hanging off a cab on private land, gun blazing at night, shooting up shit for no reason - no impending apocalypse in my head - lotsa fun... at least I didn't shoot anyone in the face except maybe a rabbit by sheer misfortune.

Ever since 9/11 Americans have been running scared. It wasn't Republicans who pushed the Iraq invasion on us. It was Americans - Bush had something like 85% support. Anyone who paid attention knew the evidence was hyped - that's of course why no one went back and tried to press charges - we needed a daddy, and daddy we got. Strip searches, eavesdropped communications, war escalations, an end to diplomacy.

I remember seeing that Iraqi civilians had panicked over a bomb on a bridge, 200 died, most by drowning and stampeding. The story didn't make US papers. We were too busy writing about how the surge was working or some such tripe. Even "liberals" on TV invariably follow the "well I support our troops but I..." mode. Then there was that market where the bombs went off, but John McCain showed up in Kevlar with helicopters overhead, and that showed all was safe again, business as usual.

So Democrats controlled the House and Senate by 2006, and did they investigate wiretaps, torture, the run-up to the war? Did they try to close Gitmo, de-fund Iraq, pull us out of Afghanistan, stop the indiscriminate predator strikes on civilians in Pakistan? Nothing doing. Renditions still continue, there are still black sites, we've even got a new little war in Yemen, and even had some young guy tortured in Kuwait for daring to take Arabic classes in Yemen. We pretend we're not officially involved, nudge nudge, wink wink. Just Yemenis taking care of their own business. Iraq back tip-top shape, a model for Democracy. The surge worked, the troop drawdown worked, no combat troops left in Iraq, look forwards not backwards. A house built on lies and covered-up deceit. Brits and Canucks that the UK reimbursed millions for us torturing them (oh, okay, having them tortured...)??? States secrets, can't say nothing.

Every day we allow tasering, tasering to shut people up, to make them act "civilized", so they don't disrupt people, events, order, our peace within. Well maybe like Howard Beal they're mad as hell and won't take it anymore? Doesn't matter, a few thousand volts and they'll take it. Over. and Over. and Over. Whether a homeless kid asking the police for help. Or a medical case who's having an epileptic fit but happens to be black. Or a granny who thinks she's in her right baseball seat and has the ticket to show it. Or a guy who's drunk too much and sitting still on a metro platform. All waiting to be re-educated in cooperation through mass voltage. The new American Way - "he deserved it - what did he think he was doing, exercising his right to free speech, to non-immediate subservience when confronted by the Law, which must be tackling terror at all times in this post-9/11 age."

And then that Turkish-American kid on the boat in the Mediterranean, gunned down by Israeli thugs boarding their peace boat, shot at point blank range. What was the Administration's response? "Israel has the right to defense its own borders". Which means of course Gaza as well, whatever the inhumane conditions that results in. Case closed, Americans dying are no big thing compared to international relations.

It was in 2009, someone shot an abortion doctor at church, shortly after his clinic closed. Instead of a message from on-high, "This Shall Not Stand", we accepted it meekly. One of a handful of late-term abortion clinics in the US. Legal, but a target for domestic terrorists. Amid all the hoopla, no one seemed to think that letting terrorism win was a bad idea. So it won.

I remember Hillary's comment about RFK's '68 campaign going to June, and how the liberal blogosphere went crazy - she was inviting assassination, by goshen, time to shut her down. And since I remembered a time when primaries lasted long, when they were still going on into summer vacation, and yes I remembered this one still rather vividly, I shook my head - are people so subject to suggestion that simply noting someone was killed when would bring on copycat crimes? (Benadzir Bhutto, the female head of Pakistan, was also killed during that campaign - not 40 years earlier, but just a few months before - and indeed I did have concern that someone might be inspired by gender parallels)

Of course I remember when Manson was somehow inspired by the White Album and Magical Mystery Tour - there's a fog upon LA, baby you're a rich man, helter skelter, sexy sadie - every lyric somehow fit into a coming global race war context and the need to go kill Beverly Hills types. The open carry guys of the Tea Party seemed to fit a similar kind of paranoia - not a "retreat to your cabin" mentality like the guy the FBI shot in Idaho or Koresh's group, but a walk out in public and let your neuroses hang out - revolution is coming, man, better get with it.

But to put things in perspective, 15,249 Americans were murdered in 2009. Which surprisingly is the lowest since 1969. But it's still over 4 people a day. Sure, some are the normal street mugging, home violence types, others are the going postal, Virginia Tech teachers-and-classmates portfolio. Each time it's time to grieve, no time to ask tough questions, no time to suggest remedies. (James Brady seemed to be the last acceptable time to ask for remedies - I guess it helps to be close to a President to have your case treated seriously).

And I look on the positive side - US arms exports are predicted to jump from $38 billion or so to $50 billion this year - a major bonanza for balance of trade, no? Of course all those new customers will be careful that they check their guns on the way into the saloon - it's a wild wild west out there.

And our biggest enemy right now isn't anyone with a gun - it's some American cleric in Yemen who hasn't been charged who says Americans should die for their hypocrisy. It's an uppity Aussie who leaks documents showing US and other countries' hypocrisy, behind-the-scenes meddling, atrocities. A few years ago it was MoveOn who had the audacity to call a US General "Betray-us" in a sophomoric ad, something that had Congress in such a tizzy that it did something it doesn't usually do - act quickly, firmly, solidly, to condemn that un-American expression of private free speech. Republicans, Democrats - they all lined up to show what good patriots they are, supporting the troops.

I can't figure out if I just have no feelings, but somehow I have trouble being irate. I feel for the judge, know he'd been threatened for a while, seemed like he tried to be fair in a land of outrage. But after the last 16 years of candidates getting steadily more jingoistic, less inspiring, "amendment against flag burning" and other God Save the Queen rot, with a background of heavier and heavier military deployments and spending, useless and invasive security procedures to cover up (or as a ploy behind) a rather Keystone Kops security approach, where a "pizza conspiracy" is one week's threat, some wannabe tricked into talking about making a bomb the next, some mis-detonated device in Times Square following, like a queue in front of amateur night at the comedy club. Seems like every week there's some American pulling something all loony-tunes, and yet we're only classifying foreign Muslims as terrorists, even if they just look at you sideways.

So I remember a more naïve time, when I thought things were always going to improve, get better. I'm sitting there having a drink. In waddles a duck. I said, "Hey, whatcha doing here, you stupid duck?" And he looks at me and sez, "I've come home to roost". Surprised, I told him "That's supposed to be chickens." And he looks at me all wise-ass and says, "Chickens, ducks, don't matter - don't count none of us boids before we hatch."

Maybe it'll be another duck soup, or maybe we'll actually learn something from this one.