The Uncomfortable Dead (14 page)

—“Bush and God,”
La Jornada,
January 25, 2005

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO LA CHAPIS.

La Chapis is a nun, a sister, a woman consecrated to God, or whatever you choose to call her. We cannot say that she “took the habit,” because she dresses in normal street clothes, although there is a certain austerity and simplicity in her dress that gives her away.

The religious congregation to which La Chapis belongs is, as the Zapatistas would say, very different. Instead of locking themselves away to pray or to flatter the powerful with promises of indulgences, the members are devoted to the very Christian calling known as “option for the poor.” So, as some say, they work for the little people who are screwed. Aside from being a nun, La Chapis is small. So small, in fact, that the nickname
Chaparrita
was too big for her and people called her La Chapis. So that actually, even her nickname is small. La Chapis chose
Lucrecia
as her fighting name, because the enemy would never think that a Lucrecia could be a nun, but it was to no avail because everyone kept on calling her Chapis.

At this point, Chapis Lucrecia is chatting with Elías Contreras in a takeout food joint somewhere around San Pedro de los Pinos, in Mexico City. Elías holds her in the highest esteem, because although she knows that he is dead, she’s not afraid of him and talks to him, so Elías is quite happy eating, for twenty-five Mexican pesos, a cup of chicken broth, rice, liver with onions, rice pudding, and
horchata
water
ad libitum.
La Chapis is talking and Elías is listening.

“The problem with the Bad and the Evil is geographical. The geography of evil was turned around, set upside down. So when they tell the story of creation, the rich turn everything around. According to them, heaven, or God, goodness, is up in the heights, while the Bad and the Evil, the Devil, are down below. But it really isn’t like that. God is not up in the heights. To correct that mistake, God sent his Son, Christ, to earth—to prove that goodness, heaven, is not up in the heights, far away from what happens on earth. The powerful of those times convinced everyone that the earth was organized like heaven, that the Good were up high, the rulers, the ones in charge, and down under were the ones who obeyed, the Bad. So heaven was equivalent to the government, and God was equivalent to the ruler. And that’s the way they used to justify, and continue to justify, the dictate that you have to obey the rulers. So you get Bush, who drags God up whenever he feels like it—he uses God to justify his every wrongdoing.

Christ was crucified because he came to question all this. And him being the Son of God, instead of meeting with the rulers, dining in their palaces, organizing a political party, and becoming their advisor, what did he do? Well, he went and got born in a manger, surrounded by animals; he grew up in a carpenter’s shop and created an organization with the poorest of the poor. Now then, would God go where the Evil is? Of course not. He stayed with those at the bottom, and this tells us that goodness is not up in the heights—he would have been born in the home of that bastard Salinas de Gortari or that damned Bill Gates, but he wasn’t. So heaven is not up there and neither is goodness. Evil is up there, on the right, with the rich, with those who govern badly, with the opressors of the people. So where is goodness? We don’t know. We’ll have to find it.

I don’t know, maybe goodness is down on the left, it might be the best place to start looking. That’s why I look down when I pray; I’m praying to God, who is with the underdog. That’s why I don’t agree with the damn bishops and priests who are always siding with the rich and then become just like them, even in the way they dress. So my advice to you, if you’re looking for the Bad and the Evil: Start searching upward and to the right. That’s probably where they live.

Hey, listen, Elías, don’t go telling El Sup that I use swear words. And if you’re not going to eat your rice pudding, I’ll take it.”

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO LEONARD PELTIER, NATIVE AMERICAN, ARTIST, WRITER, HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST, ILLEGALLY AND UNFAIRLY IMPRISONED.

The government, under the pretext of security and progress, liberated us from our land, resources, culture, dignity, and future. They violated every treaty they ever made with us. I use the word “liberated” loosely and sarcastically, in the same vein that I view their use of the words “collateral damage” when they kill innocent men, women, and children. They describe people defending their homeland as terrorists, savages, and hostiles, and accuse us of being aggressors …
My
words reach out to the non-Indian: Look now before it’s far too late
—
see what is being done to others in your name and see what destruction you sanction when you say nothing. Your own treaty, the one between yourselves and the government, is being violated daily; this treaty is commonly known as the Constitution.

—Leavenworth Penitentiary, Kansas, January 2004

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO A CERTAIN MORALES.

I don’t want you to get the idea that I’m a cynic. I’m just a realist, and reality shows that he who fucks not gets fucked. I certainly make deals, and don’t come to me now with this foolishness about ethics and fairness, because all business is dirty; it’s always a matter of buying low and selling high. Otherwise, how do you think the high and mighty of Mexico and the world made their great fortunes? Everything is for sale and anything can be bought: your land, your body, your conscience, your country. Okay, so maybe I didn’t always buy—I took, I pillaged—but if it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. There are people who are born to be screwed. It’s like they have it tattooed on their foreheads:
Screw me.

Betrayal, you say? Well, that’s all a matter of how you look at it. As I see it, all I did was go through a change of paradigm, and everyone in the world does that, only they call it “maturity,” “realism,” “good sense.”

I killed? Well … yes! But the fact is, you can’t get up there without getting your hands a little dirty.

No, I never killed face-to-face. But it wasn’t a question of cowardice, no, it’s just that I felt sorry staring into the eyes of the future corpse. Besides, they were going to die anyway. All I did was expedite their departure. Okay, yes, sometimes I was afraid to kill face-to-face, but that was when the corpse-to-be was a real tough bastard.

Why do you say I cheated? I didn’t cheat any more than any politician or businessman. Well, yes, there are degrees. In this matter of doing evil, there are amateurs and professionals; me, I’m a pro, but I started as an amateur. I still hope to get into the big leagues, into politics, and who knows, I might even have a shot at president of the republic. Others have done it, so why not me? You have to understand, evil has its levels: There are those who screw the screwed, and there are those who screw the screwers of the screwed. You might say that I’m somewhere in the middle. Let me explain. When one of the guys with real power and money wants to get something done but doesn’t want anyone to know about it or doesn’t want to have to deal with the tiny difficulties that arise along the way, that’s where I come in. I’m a kind of intermediary, but a lot more effective because I not only inspect what has to be bought, I prepare it and clean it and deliver it pressed and folded. The client never has to get blood on his hands and never has to deal with all the red tape and formalities. Well, of course I get my commission. You might say that I am an intermediary of evil. Let me explain something. Would you like to know the secret to success in all this evil business? You have to know how to land on your feet and keep running; you have to know how to play on any court, with any racket; you have to be in good with God
and
the Devil, you have to fuck the prick who’s being fucked by the biggest prick, suck up and piss down. You see, it’s all contemporary politics. So there you have it. When you’re in the evil business, timing is of the essence.

What did you say? Look at myself in the mirror? Why should I do that? Besides, don’t you know that everyone with money and power looks beautiful? Aspirations? Hopes? Well, of course. I hope to live to a ripe old age without a care in the world, and I aspire to having a mattress stuffed with credit cards and wads of millions in foreign banks. You heard me, just like old Pinochet. You don’t understand; little old men inspire pity. It doesn’t matter how many scams they pulled or how many people they murdered.

The trick to being good at evil is to make it to old age. Name one murdering old thief who ever got punished. My political affiliations? Well, that’s a matter of convenience. Political affiliations are like underwear: You change them when you have to. Yes, any political party will accept you if you make yourself attractive enough. Money? Yes, that’s what they are after; that’s what we’re all after, and I know where the money is and what has to be done to get it. Afraid of the law? Come on, get serious. Haven’t you understood yet that we
are
the law?

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO ANGELA Y. DAVIS, ACTIVIST AGAINST RACISM AND POLITICAL REPRESSIONS, SENT TO PRISON ILLEGALLY AND UNFAIRLY.

The announced function of the police, “to protect and serve the people,” becomes the grotesque caricature of protecting and preserving the interests of our oppressors and serving us nothing but injustice … Fascism is a process, its growth and development are cancerous in nature. While today, the threat of fascism may be primarily restricted to the use of the law-enforcement-judicial-penal apparatus to arrest the overt and latent revolutionary trends among nationally oppressed people, tomorrow it may attack the working class en masse and eventually even moderate democrats.

—Marin County Jail, California, May 1971

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO THE RUSSLVN.

Betraying the memory of our honored dead. Denying what we are. Losing our memory. Selling our dignity. Feeling shame for being Indian, or black, or Chicano, or Muslim, or yellow, or white, or red, or gay, or lesbian, or transexual, or skinny, or fat, or tall, or short. Forgetting our history. Forgetting ourselves. Accepting what the powerful stuff down our throats. Giving up. Not fighting. Making believe we don’t see that the fuckin fascists are taking over everything. Assuming a permissive attitude in our lives and letting the powerful do as they please, and putting up with every fuck-job they do on us. Letting ourselves be fooled by the mass media. Fighting with our own brothers in the struggle. Fighting against people who are as screwed as we are. Letting them take our lands and poison them with their fucking transgenics.

Not protesting against the wars of conquest. Voting for Bush. Shopping at Wal-Mart. Lying to ourselves and lying to our own.

Letting them abuse, kill, pillage, hoodwink, and ultimately get away with everything. That is evil. That and a whole lot of other things that I can’t think of right now because I’m so pissed already. So take your fuckin tortilla.

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO GENERAL VICENTE ROJO, CHIEF OF STAFF OF THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLICAN ARMY, WHO FOUGHT AGAINST THE FALANGISTS IN DEFENSE OF THE SPANISH REPUBLIC.

Nonintervention weighed down like a tombstone on the Republic; and while an atmosphere of isolation developed around it, we received reliable reports about the weapons and war matériel of all sorts that were being unloaded in the ports of the Cantabrian coast and in the south; we could see how, banking on the total frustration and defeat of the Republic, expected in the month of April, treaties were already being signed with the countries that were invading our soil; we witnessed the incessant growth in the number of Italian and German technicians that swelled the Gambara Divisions, and we could see in the air above us wave after wave of new models of Italian and German aircraft, borne of the experience of our war and sent to conduct new experiments on Spanish soil and Spanish flesh. What horrible crime could have been committed by a republic that was merely defending its constitution and its laws for it to be subjected to international physical and moral suffocation, condemning it to witness the sterility of its efforts?
—From
España Heroica,
1942

THE BAD AND THE EVIL ACCORDING TO THE CHINESE MAN.

There is a kind of internationale on the right. Yes, just as there was once an internationale on the left—although later all hell broke loose and it disappeared. You can see how they killed Leon Trotsky and persecuted us for as long as the Socialist camp existed. That’s what proletarian internationalism was good for—for the left to give itself an internationalist fuck-job. There you have it. The internationale of the left was not wiped out by imperialism or by the CIA … We did it… We hit it right between the eyes, and lickety-split it was gone, the internationale was
kaput.
The internationale of the right, however, kept going, and it’s now reorganizing. That’s what neoliberal globalization is: the reorgnization of the internationale of the right. You see, the right learned what we did not—the old left, I mean, not the current left, which hardly makes it to the center. The right has an open element and a clandestine element. And it learned how to infiltrate. It infiltrated the Church, the political parties, the mass media, the universities, big business, the unions, the Army, the police, the judges, the representatives and senators, and even the soccer teams. But don’t let me give you the idea that the right is all model behavior and discipline.

Not so! They have their divisions and their internecine struggles. For example, there is the ideological right and the business right. The latter are in it for the scratch, the dough, the gelt, the mazuma … the money. The ideological right is in charge of doctrine and they don’t have a very good opinion of the business right. So the right does have its internal contradictions. The idealogues are the real fanatics, and they’re dangerous because they are capable of starting wars for no practical reason, like the Cristeros did.

The business right, they’re more practical. They assign a price to everything, including their “prudent patience.” A high position, a medium position, or a lowly position will do, for the time being. Haven’t you seen how the PAN members hop from one party to another at the drop of a hat? Okay, it’s not only the PAN. They all do it.