Wrong Questions or You're STILL Wrong, Mykel's December 2021 Blog

 

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's 

December 2021 Blog/Column 

Wrong Question

by Mykel Board

“Change the questions you ask and the way you view the issue will be transformed.” - Isaac Yu, 

Being in possession of all the answers holds no appeal at all, but owning a good pocketful of unanswered questions is, to me, like bread to the starving. --Cathy Johnson

Clamps… big metal clamps… shaped like upside down U’s… hold my shoulders to the floor. And my wrists… and my ankles. Another metal clamp… like you might see in a dentist’s office or a porn movie… holds my mouth open. 

A big man in a soldier’s uniform stands over me with a bucket. I’m guessing it’s filthy water. I’m guessing right. He pours it into my open mouth. I’m drowning… coughing… spitting up… water down my throat… into my lungs… dripping down the sides of my face. As I cough… some of the water goes up through my nose… forcing booger-laced snot out onto my face… into my eyes. 

“Now,” says the man, “let’s try this again. Where is the next terrorist strike against US forces?”

“How... should... I... know?” I sputter between coughs, tears and frantic efforts to breathe through the water in my lungs.

“You are Milad Borazjan,” he says. “You are from Teheran and work to plan terrorist activities.” 

I cough… spit up some more water… “I’m Mykel Board,” I say. “I’m from New York and I teach English to Japanese businessmen.”

My interrogator frowns. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” He asks.

“You didn’t ask.” I answer. 

FLASH TO NEW YORK… November. I sit barefoot… in my underwear… a formerly plush green robe hangs loosely over my naked body. I  try to think of a way to introduce this blog about asking the wrong questions. Maybe I’ll put myself in the US torture center in Guantanamo… an inquisitor asks me about terrorist activities, rather than asking who I am. 

I get this mail from Common Cause, asking for money to help support a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United. That’s the Supreme Court decision that allows corporations to contribute unlimited funds to political candidates. 

“Wouldn’t we be better off,” they ask, “if we could get the huge amounts of corporate funds out of politics. Wouldn’t that help make elections fairer?”

WRONG QUESTION!

Here are the top 15 richest people in America:

Any one of them is richer than 90% of US corporations… unless they run those corporations. The right question isn’t whether or not we should permit corporate money in politics… but whether or not we should permit ANY money… especially private money… in politics. 

Should we again have Fairness Doctrine TV laws? Should we ban all paid political advertising? Those are the right questions. 

Hold on! There was a snap… PiKoop! Klip! A shake... then silence. I recognize the sound, though my punkrock damaged hearing won’t tell me if it’s from under the dresser to my right or from the kitchen behind me. I check the dresser… First try! Yeah!

There, fresh as a freshly slaughtered lamb, lies a mouse in a snappy trap. A vague smell of death rises from the little gray body. The small metal bar crushed Mickey’s little skull, his mouth still around the Wasa bread wired to the bait lever. He bleeds softly from the ears.

Got what was coming to him.

“Hey Mykel, you’re blaming the victim!”

“Mice eat my food! Their shit spreads disease. Their pawing and scattering keep me awake at night,” I answer. “Sometimes the victims are at fault… they SHOULD be blamed.”

FLASH TO  KENOSHA WISCONSIN: a jury of 11 whitefolks and one colored guy, find Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot… with an semi-automatic rifle… three protesters at a Black Lives Matter demonstration. Two of those shot were killed. 

So far, there have been only a few demonstrations, one riot (in Portland, where they riot at a loud fart), at the not-guilty verdict. In any case, there is nothing to compare with the riots after the police killing of George Floyd. Why?

Rittenhouse was found innocent because he was attacked and had to fight off his attackers with his rifle. He was a victim, don’t you know? No choice but to pull the trigger. 

Of course, the guy did ride into town carrying a semi-automatic rifle. But no one asks “Is the victim responsible for the crime?” If you’re a victim, you must be innocent. You can’t go around blaming the victim. Isn’t that right? 

But what if we say no? What if we say sometimes the victim IS to blame? What if we ask, “Why did the victim go to a demonstration he hated… with a loaded semi-automatic rifle?” “Why go anywhere at all with an semi-automatic rifle, unless you intend to use it?”

Maybe we’d get different answers.

But wait, there’s more. Spikes in crime… in gun violence… in random attacks. Every day, someone’s cellphone or some security camera captures pictures of a masked man in a hoodie attacking innocent bystanders… and mugging, mauling or murdering them.

Conservatives ask, “Doesn’t this prove we need stronger laws to get these criminals off the street? Won’t locking them up keep the rest of us safe? Where are the cops when we need them?”

And they answer that it’s the anti-police demonstrations, the defunding, the disrespect for law and order that makes the crime shoot up like a penis in a whorehouse. 

Liberals ask, “What about homelessness, COVID-caused poverty, the emptying of prisons with nowhere for the prisoners to go?”

And they answer, “Crime increases because it’s the only thing criminals know. Non-violent criminals are released onto the street without homes, without money, without ways to live. There are no mental health services for the homeless. All they know is the crime they learn in prison. Jailing makes criminals. It doesn’t cure them, right?”  

WRONG QUESTIONS!

The right question is taboo in 2021. That is: What are the effects of mask mandates, and a society used to people wearing masks in public?” 

Look at an old Western. The bank robbers have kerchiefs over their noses when they hold-up banks. Stage coach bandits ride, faces kerchief-covered as they race after the Wells Fargo stage coach. We know they’re criminals because they cover their faces.

The question should not be, “Why is there so much crime?” But, “Why are there so many criminals?”

In 2021, criminals commit all sorts of misdeeds for the same reason dogs lick their balls… BECAUSE THEY CAN. 

Wear a hoodie and a mask and you’re invisible. Cellphones, security cameras… what do they capture? People in masks and hoodies. Much (most?) of the increase in street crime comes because people wear masks… and that it’s not strange… not a sign of criminality… nothing to worry about with the stranger behind you in a hoodie wearing a mask. EVERYONE is wearing a hoodie and a mask. It makes crime soooo much easier. 

FLASH TO MY LOFT BED: I take her left nipple into my mouth… suck on it… play my tongue over it. Then the right nipple. I feel a hardening between my legs. I gently take her wrist to move her hand down there… wrapping her fingers around the stiffness.

“Don’t worry, honey,” she says, “just put it on the night-table. I’ll smoke it in the morning.”

When I Google “Size Matters” I get 6,080,000 links. When I look for “Size Doesn’t Matter.” I get 13,000. It shows you what counts. 

Take vegetarians… (I know. I know.) 

There are three main reasons people are vegetarians: 

1. They think it’s healthy.

2. They think it’s better for the global environment.

3. They feel sorry for the animals. 

Let’s talk about the last one. When you see pictures of the poor animals being murdered by farmer Joe or Kenji Sakamoto, you see BIG animals. You see cows, whales, porpoises. If they’re talking about China or the Philippines, you might see a dog or two. I’ve never seen a PETA billboard with a picture of a cockroach or a mosquito… or even a mouse.

I’ve heard sorry-for-animalists trying to explain that the big animals feel pain, and insects don’t. The ability to feel pain is also used by anti-abortionists when they talk about the fetus. “How can we kill it? It feels pain.” 

Now that scientists suspect that plants feel pain, that argument goes out the window like a wounded housefly. All that’s left is the emotional tinge of a sad-looking cow-- or a fetus picture blown-up human size.

“Does X feel pain?” 

WRONG QUESTION!

Not that it’s the wrong question to ask, but it isn’t the REAL question they ask. 

The real question vegetarians ask is: 

“Does the animal scream or otherwise show pain like humans show pain?” 

For vegetarians, like for most others, size matters. They’ll tell you it’s about reverence for life, but they take the lives of flies and roaches with a casual swat. If they can’t see the pain of what they murder, it doesn’t count. 

Their real question is:

“Is the animalBIG enough that we can see the pain and feel guilty about inflicting it?”

That question tells us more about the asker than the answer. Size matters, you see. 

If you want to talk about killing animals… or fetuses… the question SHOULD be: 

How can we act morally in the world and find a principle to make life-death decisions?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to that one.

Yeah, sometimes I don’t have all the answers. I don’t even have all the questions. But finding those questions is more important than finding the answers.

See you in hell,

Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.  Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

–> Anyone can show it off on YouTube dept: The internet was supposed to democratize music, but as it turns out, it turned into an oligarchy. The American Prospect reports: 

For the main streaming companies—YouTube and Spotify—music is really a loss leader, incidental to data collection, the advertising that can be sold off that data, and the promise of audience growth to investors. “Spotify is benefiting from every single artist on the platform driving fans to them,” said Chris Castle, an entertainment attorney who used to work at A&M Records. “The labels say they give you exposure. The answer is that you can die of exposure.”

Remember when the labels were worried about home taping? How much money that lost? Naw, you don’t remember, you’re too young. 

–> Speaking of exposure dept: In a repeat of the notorious piss-in-mouth show at Gilman Street in the 90s. The lead singer of Brass Against pissed in the mouth of a fan at their show in  November. The loudwire website did a story on this, but unfortunately it was not accompanied by a video. Oh wait, I found the link! The band itself is weird enough, doing brass versions of Rage Against The Machine  and Tool.  Glad to see this kind of stuff is still going on in the ever-stuffier twenty-first century. 

–> Right again dept: I’ve written about the evils of recycling and how it does more harm than good. You’ve probably heard about the hundreds of neighborhood recycling programs stopped because of my writing. (Yeah right.) Now, The Tampa Bay Times reports on lead-poisoned workers, and a spread of the poison to surrounding communities… from where? From a lead recycling plant, of course. 

See you in hell, redux,

Mykel Board

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com