The National Debt

22 the minnesota review Brian Swann The National Debt I blow on the shelf. Flies like bombed-out Dresdens & moths like obsolete crucifixes lift off & drop. Up goes the morning like the national debt to a place in bondage where your children & mine are mortgaged to the rich man & those who from behind clouds run our lives clad as khaki angels or camouflaged as trees bushes waterfalls the whole of nature wrapped round them as protective blanket & screens from the sun's rays. The morning is surrounded by hands that tie & untie, loose & unloose, hands kissing fingertips in perpetual farewells of welcome to the national debt that can never be paid, about to be raised again so we can all fit underneath & think we see the circus free, or all in bed together & the blanket drawn tight over our heads while the poor motion to the walls, keep it up for us, push it with their feet, bite 23 swann their own tails & not the hands that feel them, smoothing their rags for belief, relief, mortgaged to our futures. And out tumbles night's televised desires. And every night the national debt goes up again, & the rich man whispers freedoms to the willing world. Telos a quarterly journal of radical thought Issue No. 54SPECIAL ISSUEWinter 1982-83 ON TERRORISM AND STATE TERRORISM JAY: Introduction to HorkheimerCHARWAT: Poland: Aug. 19SO - Dec. ¡982 HORKHEIMER: Egoism and the Freedom (19)6)WARECKI: The Landscape After the Battle CORRADI: Terror in ArgentinaMICHNIK: An Open Letter LOVAS, ANDERSON: State Terrorism in HungaryBERMAN: Hirsch, Der Sicherheitsstaat STANISZKIS: Martial Law in PolandJACOBY: Cohen, Ideology and Consciousness REI MAN: Political Trials ofthe Stalinist EraCALVERT: Brcincs, The New Left JOHNSTONE: State Terror in South AfricaMATTICK: Hilfcrding, Finance Capital BOBBIO: Italy's Permanent CrisisCOMISSO: Haras/.ti, A Worker in a Workers' State, ELIAS: Civilization and Violenceand Moldova, A Sient Tehén KOVEL: Theses on TechnoaacyULMEN: Lasswcll, Lcrncr, and Spcicr, cds., SECBERS: The European Peace MovementsPropaganda and Communication in World History Subscriptions cost $20 per year for individuals; $40 for institutions. Foreign orders add 10 percent . Checks inust bein U.S. funds. No Canadian checks can beaccepted. Back issues prior to No. 50 cost $5.00 each; No. 50 and subsequent issues are $5.50 each. Institutions pay $ 1 0.00 each for all back issues. For a full list ol available back issues and to subscribe, write: Telos, Box 31 1 1, St. Louis, MO 63130 USA. ...