Leonard Cohen: NAJ screen shot

The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Everybody knows the dice are loaded. Gamblers may roll with their fingers crossed. But the war is not over. It never ends, even though the good guys already lost. The fight was fixed. And the poor stay poor, while the rich just get richer.

Canadian singer-songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen knew a thing or two about life. He died in November, 2016, just in time to skip out on the world before it went totally bonkers with Trump as president, running the White House into the historical ground with late night tweets on Twitter. In retrospect, it seemed like a good time to get out.

Cohen got famous in 1990, when his song “Everybody Knows” was used as the sound track for the movie “Pump Up the Volume,” an American coming-of-age teen comedy-drama written and directed by Allan Moyle and starring Christian Slater along with Scott Paulin, Ellen Greene and Samantha Mathis.

Due to the internet miracle of streaming services, you can go back and live in those times again, when the world was so boring to teenagers living in the suburbs that a pirate radio show nearly caused a revolution.

A few years later the computer revolution and the internet changed everything. Some for good, some for ill.

Cable television was just coming into its own then too, when Ted Turner’s CNN and 24-hour news became a force during the first Gulf War in 1990-91.

But after Time, Inc. bought it out in the late 1990s and put Turner out to the Bison Burger pastures out West, it has just become a redundant place to run horrible picture and video loops from the latest war zones, now Israel and the Gaza Strip. Mostly they get the breaking news stories wrong, while they “talk” about speculations of what might be happening.

In retrospect, and even now, it pays to take a few minutes at least to figure out what the story is before putting it on the air. For that you still need on-the-ground reporters, or at least associate producers and the wires.

Nothing good will come out of this latest war, and there’s nothing to be gained by watching it play out on cable TeeVee, unless you just thrive on living in the end times all the time, 24-hours a day.

There are no good guys here to win or lose a big video game battle.

The dice are loaded, the fight is fixed. The poor will just get more poor, and the rich will just get even more rich.

The only lesson for politicians in Washington is that some Republicans in the House may now regret their petty fight over who their Speaker will be, since they could have capitalized politically by standing by the U.S. ally Israel against the terrorists in charge of Hamas.

But with the corrupt, right-wing Trump-like dictator Benjamin Netanyahu back in charge of the Israeli government, and with an Arab peace deal on the line, what are the Democrats to do?

Certainly the poor Palestinian people will not emerge as winners in this fight. They will bear the brunt of Israeli anger and military might, funded of course by the United States.

It’s sad that this moment comes just as former President Jimmy Carter is on his death bed under Hospice care in Georgia. He did more than anyone in his lifetime to try to bring about peace in the Middle East.

Former President Jimmy Carter with a homemade guitar made from wood out of his yard in Georgia: NAJ screen shot

Unfortunately, this religious war is as old as written language itself.

“And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast…”

“Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes.”

Video

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah, give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes

And everybody knows that it’s now or never
Everybody knows that it’s me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah, when you’ve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe’s still pickin’ cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it’s moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there’s gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you’re in trouble
Everybody knows what you’ve been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows it’s coming apart
Take one last look at this Sacred Heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That’s how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

___

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