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Tag Archives: Trauma Literature
What They Say in the USA
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1.
They say I suffer from major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder. They say the car accident in 2006 re-ignited the symptoms I’d beaten back in my 20s. They say the shock of the accident forced out repressed memories: a sadistic father, psychological torture, attempted murders. They say the pills that their pens advertise will really help. But the pills are too expensive. Not to worry! They say these older, cheaper pills will probably work just as well.
2.
They say the car accident left me with chronic pain—muscle spasms like marbles from the base of my spine to my head, and migraine headaches: pain shooting from the back of my scalp into my palate, my gums and my teeth. They say deep tissue massage therapy could really help. BUT it’s very expensive, they say, with a polished compassion. But not to worry! They say I can take this pain medication that their pens advertise—the same drug that killed my friend Brian.
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What Everyone Ought to Know about America’s Vietnam War
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The representation of the Vietnam War still dominant in America at the beginning of the twenty-first century is based on a series of fantasies originally constructed from 1954 through the 1970’s and then elaborated and embellished during the 1980s and 1990s, especially under the Reagan (1981-1989) and Bush (1989-1993) administrations. Among these fantasies are the following falsehoods, accepted as true by most Americans—or rather by most Americans other than those who simply prefer not to know anything about the war:
- Before the United States became involved, there were two separate nations called South Vietnam and North Vietnam.
- South Vietnam was a democracy with an elected government.
- South Vietnam was being invaded by North Vietnam, a communist dictatorship.
- This invasion was supported by China and the Soviet Union as part of a communist attempt to take over the world.
- In response to this invasion, the United States provided economic and military aid to South Vietnam.
- Then in 1964 North Vietnam attacked U.S. destroyers in the international waters off the Gulf of Tonkin, and the United States responded with a brief retaliation.
- North Vietnam then attacked U.S. advisers in South Vietnam, and the United States responded in 1965 by sending in troops and bombing North Vietnam.
- The 1968 Tet offensive by the “Viet Cong” and North Vietnam was really a military victory for the United States, but it was turned into a political defeat by the news media and politicians.
- The United States lost the war because we “weren’t allowed to win” and we were fighting with “one hand tied behind our back”; that is, the military was unduly restrained by politicians, the news media, and the antiwar movement.
- The United States may have lost the war but it never lost any battles during the war.
- The United States didn’t lose the war; the bombing of Hanoi in December 1972 forced North Vietnam to accept Washington’s peace terms.
- Before the Vietnam War, the United States had never lost a war.
- When American veterans came home from the war, they were routinely spat upon and abused by antiwar activists. Read More»
- After the war, North Vietnam secretly kept hundreds or maybe even thousands of American prisoners of war, to be used as slave laborers or hostages or “bargaining chips” or sources of technological information about U.S. aircraft or simply victims to be tortured. Read More»
[So, what’s the truth about America’s Vietnam War?]
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This article is an excerpt from the book
Vietnam and Other American Fantasies»
Reprinted with permission.
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The Manufacture of Madness and the Religion of the West
This is the Passaic River. This is My Backyard. #njpoet
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This flood water is beyond toxic, the local fluff jock mused in a tone more properly used to announce a controversial new energy drink: Beyond Toxic!
She was on the phone from the front line, I presumed from the background noise, but could have easily read the official bulletin from two sound booths over.
Please remember the dead animals, pesticides, oil, garbage, raw sewage, and unspeakable other things in those flood waters.
The two radio voices exchanged some icky noises before returning to the point.
Stay away from the water! And if the water touches your skin, wash immediately with clean, hot, soapy water. Then, cover the exposed area with Bacitracin ointment to prevent infection.
The narrative abruptly transitioned to reports of people being swept away by ankle deep water.
You may think you can just walk across it, an official told me, but the water is raging at 40 mph! And these three kids were swept down the river and pulled under! Luckily, they managed to grab hold of a dirt mound [a dirt mound?] Yes! They grabbed hold of a dirt mound and crawled to safety!
My first thought: that’s a lot of Bacitracin ointment.
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The Passaic River Floods NJ After Hurricane Irene
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from Wikipedia
The sediment at the mouth of the Passaic river near Newark Bay remains contaminated by such pollutants as dioxin which largely was produced at the Diamond Shamrock Chemical Plant in Newark as a waste product resulting from the production of the agent orange defoliation chemical used during the Vietnam War. The cleanup of the dioxin contamination on the bottom of the Passaic River is the subject of a major environmental lawsuitregarding the responsibility for the cleanup, which has been ongoing for decades without resolution.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has issued notices banning commercial fishing and advising the general public that fish caught in the tidal Passaic River (from Dundee Dam to the mouth at Newark Bay) should not be eaten.[4]
The Lower Passaic river also suffers from trash and litter that is either blown into the river by wind, or comes into the river by means of combined sewer overflows. It is speculated that most of the trash is litter coming from passing motorists and nearby streets.
New Jersey Neighbors!
Please!
Just stay away from the water,
and any sludge left behind by the water.
It isn’t safe.
Even the fluff news radio says so.
Just stay away.
And stay safe.
Thank you.
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Do you know what they’ve been saying on the radio?
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They’ve been saying that the flood waters are receding—hurray—and leaving behind a toxic sludge that, according to the local fluff caster, makes a squishy sound when you step in it. Listen. You can hear it. But as she reminds me, I should not mimic her sludge fun. No! No! I should neither step in, nor touch, the squishy toxic flood sludge. And if I do, and I have an open wound—it happens—and the toxic New Jersey flood sludge gets in my open wound—ugh—I should get a tetanus shot as soon as possible! Kay?! Kay!
A tetanus shot…to spare me a toxic New Jersey flood sludge death: this planet is filthy.
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Read
Sang Lee is Dead: memoirs in fragments
by Charles Bivona
» Enter Here «
&
Poetry & Poetics w/ Charles Bivona
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#CBAnthology
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Thank you.
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The Mind of a Child is Where the Revolution Begins
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» #njpoet «
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Poetry & Poetics w/ Charles Bivona
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#CBAnthology
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Lake Hiawatha Floods My Neighborhood: Parsippany, New Jersey
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YouTube Uploaded by designandshutter on Aug 30, 2011
And my ass is currently sitting at point A on the map below—a 10 minute car ride from Lake Hiawatha. The end of my street is underwater from the separate river surge that left my small cross street—at the very bottom of the map—under four feet of water.
New Road, just behind me on the map, is underwater. That little patch of blue, just behind New Road on the map, consumed the whole area. Route 46 and North Beverwyck Rd, highlighted in purple, are underwater. The green exit markers—45, 47A, 43, 47B, and 47—are, the last I heard, all underwater. I’ve heard reports that the Parsippany Hilton—located near those exit markers—is submerged up to the second floor. Vail Road and Edwards Road—in the center of the map—are underwater, along with the shopping center in that area. The Shop Rite, where I buy most of my groceries, is underwater.
The flooding, quite literally, just missed me. My apartment complex is called Rutgers Village, but neighbors tell me the Parsippany Police have been calling us Rutger Island.
On the positive, my community has been coming together. There was a block party near one of the barriers a few days ago. Everyone was cooking food, drinking, and feeling lucky. I’ve met several neighbors, and the mood has been almost celebratory mixed with a fair share of awe in the face of nature. But I can’t help wondering: What if Irene hadn’t slowed down? And what if the next storm is just a little bit worse?
