Friday, July 01, 2022

Guns and Abortion or You're STILL Wrong

 

 

Why You Can't Think Right
or You're STILL Wrong,
Mykel's July 2022 Blog

by Mykel Board

It’s okay to dislike worms because they’re ugly and slimy animals. It’s not okay to dislike worms because they might be snakes. --Brad Crandall


No, I'm the human here. I'm the life at stake. I'm the one with fingernails, who feels pain. Me. — Alicen Grey

Women and our right to choose were going to be challenged. I went out and got me four abortions. I stocked up. The doctor was like, 'Listen, you're not pregnant.' I said, 'Hey, just shut up and do your job. I'm exercising my right while I can, dammit.”
- Wanda Sykes

No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. --James Burgh

I walk down Houston Street in Mykel Board drag… fedora, trench-coat… you know. There is construction. Fuckin’ NY fuckin’ U, tearing down supermarkets, parks, housing. Putting up ugly glass monsters to rent at outrageous prices to the few who can (or whose parents can) afford the blackmail called tuition.

As I pass the boarded up section I see a young woman on the far corner. Just my type: butch demeanor, flannel shirt, blue hair, bright red Chuck Taylors... dressed like a skinny young lad, oh boy! Somehow she seems oblivious... just standing there statue still, looking straight across the street.

Suddenly she raises her arms above her head, touching the finger tips together in a ballet pose. Then she jumps… up and down like a rope jumper without a rope. Then she starts kicking… a cancan dance… a Rockette at Radio city. Then comes the twirl.. hands still over her head, she twirls... jumping on one foot then the other. Jump… kick… twirl… jump… kick… twirl.

Foot traffic stops. People on the sidewalk freeze, watching the young woman. At the light, on the other side of West Broadway, an older woman... gray hair... neck bent down in a perpetual bow... holds tightly to a leash. On the other end of the leash is a little poodle, pulling valiantly... wanting to cross the street.

I see the older woman’s mouth move as she shouts at the dog. I can’t hear what she says, but it doesn’t matter. The dog wins and pulls the woman across the street.

The older woman tries to pull the dog away from the whirling dervette… Little Fifi is having none of it. Pulling closer he wants to see what’s going on with the spinning figure. He soon finds out.

One of the spinning kicks catches the dog… lifting it up… the dog like a limp dishcloth over the red sneaker. Then the kick out. The dog flies… onto Houston Street… smashes onto the pavement right in front of a large black SUV. I can’t hear the squishing noise as the dog turns into white fluff on a bed of viscous red liquid, but I’m sure there is one.

There is a scream. A girl scream… that, I can hear despite the traffic and my punk rock deafness. I spot a young woman, loose jeans, bright red blouse. She’s on the other corner… where the old lady and the dog were. First she screams as the dog is turned into mush… Then she races across the street… to do what? Attack the dancing woman? Recruit help? Sweep up the doggie pieces?

The young butch girl still dances in circles, kicking out her feet. If anything, she whirls faster and harder than before.

The woman in the red blouse keeps screaming while crossing the street.

Stop it! Stop it!” she screams.

The dancing woman is oblivious, but as the younger woman approaches… you guessed it… a flying foot in a red sneaker catches her in the stomach. Instead of lifting her up like a little poodle, the foot slams into the young woman’s belly and pushes her into street traffic. She falls on her back on the street. A taxi screeches to a halt just in time to save a second puddle of blood.

There is a tough-looking black guy, with a fresh growth of beard… right next to me… frozen like I am... looking at the mess. Then, he looks at me.

Come on!” he says. “Let’s go!”

Under his leadership, we run toward the spinning woman. The other guy tackles her, grabbing her around the knees. When she falls, I lay across her body, pinning her as best I can to the sidewalk.

Men! Men!” shouts the butch woman on the ground. “All you want to do is control women’s bodies! That’s all you want.” She tries to twist away and escape us.

You have no right to stop us. Men should not control us! Women should be free to do what they want with their bodies!”

NO THEY SHOULDN’T!

Okay Mykel” comes the voice. I recognize it immediately. It’s Literary Device... come to the aid of women everywhere.

Women should be free to do what they want with their bodies along as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” she says. “You know what they say: my right to swing my fist ends at your chin.

BINGO!

Therein lies the entire abortion argument. Is abortion hurting/killing another person or not. Of course, I’d include pets in that, as in no one has the right to hurt an innocent animal friend.

Let me make this clear. I’m pro-abortion… in fact, I don’t think there are enough of them. One look at the offices of government, Judge Judy, facebook debates, or the upper levels of any bank, pharmaceutical company or insurance bureau will show you how much better the world would be had there been a lot more abortions.

But I want to call a worm a worm. The ONLY valid discussion in the abortion debate, is the question if a fetus is a human being or not. The anti-abortionists are not trying to control women’s bodies. They’re trying to control what they see as murder. They’re wrong, of course.

Human beings are born. There isn’t a human alive who wasn’t born, whether by natural birth, surrogate birth, artificial insemination, who knows what. A fetus, by definition, hasn’t been born and is therefore not a human. A fetus is still attached and blood-nourished in its matriarchal cage. Destroying one is more like removing a cancerous tumor than murdering a child. Abortion should be free, safe, on request, with no more regret than the removal of a burst appendix. Get on with it!

But, don’t make a mountain out of a wombhill. It’s a medical procedure... no more a plot to control women’s bodies than the snipping out of a breast lump.

I walk back from the kicking woman adventure. On the way. I have to pass the very ugly New York University owned buildings in Washington Square Village.


Washington Square Village NYC

If you look carefully, you’ll see a row of windows just at the ground level. The unfortunates who live in these apartments expose their daily lives to every passing stranger. Most have curtains drawn to cover their nakedness, or to keep prying eyes from watching the hot wax and ball gags. But on bright sunny days, the curtains are open, and it’s one of my life’s many joys to stare in the windows and see how other people live.

Today, I see something a bit disturbing. In one apartment, about 2/3 down towards Mercer Street, a young man stands at a long metal table. On the table are two boxes. They’re the same size and shape as the fruit and vegetable boxes you might see at the local farmer’s market. But each of them has an orange and black symbol on it. I recognize the symbol from the x-ray machine at the dentist’s office. It means RADIATION!


The guy in the apartment wears khaki shorts and a red t-shirt that says A&F on it. Somehow I don’t think that means Agnostic Front.

He is leaning over an oblong object that looks like a huge anal plug, with the tip cut off. His hands are plunged into the thing and seem to be tinkering with a pliers and screw driver. I climb through the narrow garden up to his window and tap on it. He looks up, first frowning, then changing that to a big smile.

He pulls his hand out of the butt plug to write something on a piece of paper and hold it to the window.

COME ON IN! APT 1G, JUST ASK THE DOORMAN!

I go to the entrance, enter, and tell the very doorman-looking doorman, a black guy in a crimson uniform… I’m going to apartment 1G. He calls the occupant… then motions me down the hall to the apartment.

I ring the doorbell. The door opens and there’s this guy… slightly taller than I am… in the same clothes I saw through the window.

You’re Mykel Board, right?” He asks.

I nod.

Wow, just the man I want to see… one who’ll understand all this. I’m a big fan.”

I follow him from the doorway to the room I saw from the window. In the corner of the room, hidden from window-view, is a stack of the crates... all with those black and yellow stickers on them.

Are you some sort of x-ray technician?” I ask pointing to the boxes.

He laughs.

More than that, Mykel,” he says. “I’m building an atomic bomb… a real one! I got the specs from an anarchist site… darkweb, ya’ know?”

I feel my already too-white skin pale further.

You’re serious?” I stammer.

You bet,” he says. “How else am I going to protect myself? They have a pistol. I need a pistol. They have a rifle. I need a rifle. They have an A-bomb. I need an A-bomb. The only thing that stops a bad guy with an thermonuclear device, is a good guy with an thermonuclear device.”

I swallow… hard.

Look,” he says, “A-bombs don’t kill people. People kill people! It’s in the constitution. Right there in the second amendment. I have a right to the same weapons the government has.”

NO YOU DON’T!

You certainly should be able to buy a musket… just like any citizen of 1776. I guess a six-shooter is okay, too. You don’t need a background check… rights shouldn’t be denied because of past mistakes. But... you’re not entitled to an atomic bomb, or a semi-automatic machine gun.

It’s not a question of who can buy a gun. That right is guaranteed to everyone. It’s a question of what gun people can buy. Congress has compromised exactly the wrong way on gun control.

So called “Red-flag laws” punish people for what they say on facebook or in emails to their friends. They punish speech and set a horrible precedent of denying rights to people because they may commit a crime in the future.

How many people won’t seek help for mental problems, because the act of seeking that help may deny them a gun.

It’s like: “Hmmm, you cannot leave your apartment after 9PM. We’ve seen you drunk on the street at midnight, and if you drive then, you might hit someone.”

No! No! No! Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Not guilty and punished without there even being a crime! And the craziest of the new laws: If you’ve been guilty of wife-beating (now called spousal abuse) it’s not enough. The girlfriend/boyfriend loophole closed under the Biden-signed law prohibits gun ownership to anyone convicted of any close-friend abuse… matter who or how long ago. This this new rule places a new penalty on gun owners accused or convicted of these crimes, and applies to those who were convicted years or even decades ago.

Knowledge of this new penalty changes the plans behind any decision regarding your legal defense, such as whether to take a plea deal. For a large number of people who pled to a misdemeanor simple assault charge for no jail time, this would mean, even 30 years after it happened with no further offenses, they are a prohibited person in possession of firearms. No grace period for getting rid of them. So, those who pled guilty to get the crime behind them, no longer have that option. You’re gonna need a lawyer and a lot of bucks from now on.

Let’s get this straight. People don’t mass-kill innocents who can’t protect themselves. Semi-automatic rifles mass-kill people. Even plain old AR-15s where you have to pull the trigger 70 times to fire 70 shots… they kill people. One guy with a knife may be able to do away with half a dozen little kids, as long as there’s no burly guard to pin his arms behind his back. With a simple pull-and-reload rifle, you may be able to shoot, reload, and shoot again, drop a few more before the cops can come in and put one between the eyes.

With a semi-automatic, you can spray a crowd… a classroom… a supermarket filled with a race you don’t like. A-a-a-a-a-a-a! Pow! Yeah, the constitution guarantees you can arm yourself. But it doesn’t guarantee what those arms can be.

Laws need to focus on the shooting, not the shooter.

Who knows what will happen between this and next month? Right now. I have plans to write about other ways you don’t know how to think. About how it’s RIGHT to shout fire in a crowded theater? About how free speech is more than the first amendment, and how it includes the right to be heard as much as the right to speak? About how immigration should be free and unlimited… welcome mats instead of borders. We’ll see how far I get with that.

But before then, something stupid is bound to happen, and that could change the blog focus… or maybe there’ll be a nuclear war. Biden seems intent on provoking one. It’s tough to get decent internet in a bomb shelter. But my neighbor down the street… He’s ready for it.

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]

--> The hits keep coming dept: Highland Park IL, another shooting 7 dead, weapon "more than 70 rounds were fired from the gunman's high-powered rifle, which was similar to an AR-15." Here's the report from ABC news.

Second amendment solutions dept: The Huffington Post reports former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens released a campaign ad that shows gun-toting supporters bursting into the homes of his political enemies and “hunting” them.

“I’m Eric Greitens, Navy SEAL,” the gun-toting candidate says. “And today, we’re going RINO hunting.”

For those who don’t know RINO means Republican in Name Only, and, these days, refers to Republicans who are not Trump supporters.

Speaking of fans dept: I had drinks and snacks with Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnis. Great conversation, and though we disagreed on immigration and abortion we got along well. When I posted on facebook the details of the meeting, the reaction was horror and reprimand.

“How could you drink with such a horrible person?”

“Do you know he said to kill and strangle people?”

What the fuck? I wrote the Artless tune, “We Want Nuclear War.” The Dead Kennedys wrote “Kill The Poor.” In “53rd and 3rd” Dee Dee Ramone sings about slitting someone’s throat! Then, of course, there was GG Allin.

What do you call that?

PUNK ROCK is what you call that. 


 → How much punk rock do you hear in Russia dept: In a completely fresh view of the Ukraine situation, an interview on Al Jazeera brings a really fresh perspective to that war. So much I suspected, turns out to be right… and even stuff I didn’t suspect. You can see it here.

See you in hell, redux,

MB


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


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