A Journalist’s journal on reporting in Washington DC on behalf of Montana… Daniel Paul Beckmann, Moderator of Letters 3/31/02-”The Guilty Bi-stander” Flight 1662, Somewhere between Bozeman and Detroit

Sitting in front of me was P.J. who later was to become known as Joe and Katz, who later would become known as simply bald(apparently they too figured out the extra acquomadations provided from exit row seating, although they snagged the diminished recline row)….Back in the day, Katz had been a staunch fan of "Zest Fully Clean" back at Ottawa Hills Elementary in 1986….I claimed to like Ivory<-I didn't know very much better at the time Katz was right,, now I see.

Joe always had this nack for knowing ‘when the getting was good' in terms of those illegal under-age drinking affairs that plagued my village in high school. As legend would have it, those who were smart would watch Joe to see if he when he would leave and then they would shortly follow before the po-po went down. A few years back, Joe apparently stayed a little too long as he was a passenger in a drunk-driving incident while riding in the back seat of a ‘Toledo-built Jeep’-he was thrown from the car…they had to rebuild most of his face and this was the first time I had seen him since-they didn’t do that bad of a job.

So now, after coming back from my summit with the Montana Station’s that I would reporting to, where basically all I got out of it was that they were actually asking me to get a haircut, I was now considering the place where I would finally be resting tonight, that place would be none other than, Washington, DC…our nation’s capital, our home on the hill…and they would go on and on I’m sure..

With the present state of the world, it would seem that Washington, D.C. would be a fine testing grounds for the newest form of political lobby-the "suicide bomber" I mean sure, Tom Ridge can shit nails, but can he look inside the minds of every single person in town and then prevent what they are going to do before they do it?…well, maybe, but lets just consider for a moment that he can’t.

President Bush and I hate to say it, his surrounding cast, of names like Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condo Rice, Donald H. Rumsfeld have a terrible track record of fucking things up around the world…especially when it comes to the places where oil can be found. This is not the first act for this cast, no no we seen them plenty of times before, just playing different roles in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush I and now Bush II rackets, but somehow they have fooled the entire country by running on a man with the same name?.. things are gonna be different this time. The last time we had these people and many tend to forget, we had a war in the gulf in which we still have a presence, the era before that we arm trades for peace?…foreign invasions/coups and American hostages-and who can forget Paula Abdul!?

And with the situation as it stands now, …Repulicans are not actually conservative anymore, they Must now be considered what they really are-> REGRESIONIST and the Democrats…are now actually CONSERVATIVE and Liberals are presently "TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION"… The Republicans are so REGRESIONIST now, that it appears as though they have been shopping around for another Cold War-apparently they don’t understand how system can work without two sides-one of ‘evil’ and one of ‘good’.

But maybe in my reporting here I may actually find that Bush is doing everything he can to prevent World War III, but in actuality, it I will probably find out nothing and of that nothing I will be able to report even less. Regardless of who’s in charge and who’s to blame, a lot of people are pissed off right now at America regardless of the reason. And since we have given such respect and acknowledgement to acts of terrorism it will be used again by somebody.

So when they come, and they will-why not to our capital once again to directly lobby their opinions on those in who are in power? And of course when these terrorizing forces do their harm, then shortly after words the news reports will speak of "all of the innocent people" that will have died. Since I may be among one of those people, I thought right now it may be a good time to assess whether or not I may indeed be one of those innocent or possibly instead one of those less mentioned guilty people-who is blown up randomly some day by who knows quite who?

PREMISE 1: "Those who are guilty of dying of terrorism were those who were most adamantly trying to prevent it, thus they knew it was going to happen and thus are no longer completely innocent as those who know not it was coming"

In all my pursuits of self-preservation, trying to subvert terrorism, used to come into play a whole heck of a lot more way back when than it does now. I mean right now I am on an airplane right now…a real big one, and while I am flying from Montana, and it may seem unlikely that someone will hijack this plane, the security at Bozeman’s Gallatin field is probably easier to subvert than at lets say Washington’s Reagan National or something-I mean there one might assume that they check the bags. Back in the day I actually say the "Behind the Scenes" at Gallatin Field and never used to check anything…

So, no, I don’t presently actively avoid doing anything to preserve myself from acts of terrorism, thus on this premise I might proclaim myself quite guiltless although, I should mention that from time to time when I am in crowded squares I think about garbage cans blowing up next to me and thus my mind is not always completely innocent to such acts. I guess we may have to revert to DNA evidence or maybe dental records to try to truly determine just what I was thinking at the time of the explosion, although such evidence could probably be easily refuted in a court of law.

PREMISE 2: "Those who are the targets of terrorism, may or may not have, but at least it is possible in the minds of some of the terrorists that certain people more so than others deserved their fate and thus held a higher level of guilt."

Economics-
While I take my position as a consumer in this capitalist economy quite seriously, I do not feel my absence from the world’s economy would lead to an economic depression. However, I do currently reside, for the time being, in Washington’s lavish Georgetown neighborhood and thus my standard of living is quite higher than those living in such comparable areas of lets say Kabul or Jenin. While the person that I am subletting from may indeed be a more prudent target for such acts, since I used to live in a pantry and will be returning to a more conveniently located room with ample shelving in the coming weeks, I could easily be tragically mistaken for someone who lives their life in great excess, thus being a larger and more selfish strain on the world’s resources.

Influence-
No I am not the son of a Senator, nor, as I mentioned economically, am I the son Who Want’s to be a Millionaire’s Regis Philbin…I come from a medium sized city in the Mid West where my family affectionately clung to the Upper-Middle class designation, just like every other American that’s neither really really poor nor rich. I AM a journalist here in our nation’s capital. And even though one might think the people that I serve in Montana are not that important when it comes to the world, if you talked to some education, and some not so educated, but instead really paranoid people back in the Big Sky State, they may inform you that Montana has enough nukes to kill us all many times over. In fact, if Montana broke off from the rest of the country, and I in fact suggested this course of action, they could definitely have enough power and not as many people to be at least as powerful as Switzerland, if not more if they too dabbled in the money-hiding industry. I really hope that they do this because it would not only be great for my career, but hey, think about all of those children?..(maybe they would even have enough clout to clean up Butte’s overflowing pit of doom!?), but until the Montanan’s do what they should, I at least think that as a journalist, I could have a great deal of influence over those nukeclear enriched mountain folk.

Religious Background-
While I am indeed a Semitic person, and these days it sure does seem like it may even be BONUS POINTS! to bag one of us…I think being basically Semitic alone does nothing to add to your guilt nor innocence…unless you are a what I like to call a "pro-semite". Of course you have heard of those horid "anti-semites", but there are actually now three categories of people, according to the newly endowed tomarken center for categorical research and ambivlen with it World HQ in Plano, TX, with consideration to the forces in, around and between the Jewish people…those categories are "Pro-Semetics", "Semetics" and Anti-Semetics.

Semitics are just that, Semitic, but Pro and Anti Semtics are equally as worse. Pros obviously think Semetics are better, and Antis probably think Semetics are worse. Of course, Yasir Arafat has been elected as Anti-Semitic, and some might argue that Sharon was elected to do the same. But Sharon is actually one of the Pros who is using Bush’s unfortunately fangled War on Terrorism to live out his dream of declaring war on the Palestinians and to drive them out of his country-with the announcement coming just late last week. But I will add, that in a possibly parallel situation last Thursday which will go down in the books as the Passover Massacre of Haifa, those celebrating Passover, while some could have been Pro Semetic, simply celebrating your Semetic holiday is not an act of Pro Semtism. Arafat not only condoned this act his various henchmen directly caused it. This must be kept in mind, regardless of the death tolls on either side, and the Pros and Anti Semtics alike, that those people who moderately live their lives in between these two groups, are truly the ones that must always be accounted for in these situations and protected by intermediaries….both Antis and Pros on the Israeli/Palestinian issue are terribly wrong and should be treated more heavily as such by an impartial world community, but until they can give the world Prozac, we will need some Martians to maybe forcefully explain to these extremists on both sides why religion is best used in moderation.

////So now we have reached our Gate in Detroit and no, I didn’t write this thing the whole 3 hours, but I did contemplate this moment this moment when I would finally be able to great Joe and Katz after all these years.

I introduced myself and they were quite surprised…they said "oh Beckmann, you must have been up at Big Sky…right?"

I was like, "No, I used to live in Bozeman and now I am on my way to DC to report for them."

They were surprised…Joe said he "was studying graduate school at the University of Toledo"

Katz said… "He was studying law at Syracuse…oh and can you tell your sister Katie I said hi?"

"Sure will (baldy)…sure will."

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Musical Context
Dire Wolf-Garcia, J.