crawl space
A dream allegory of our times
Daniel Borgström
last updated August 10, 2007
As much as I detest Bush&Co, I don't consider them "fascists". That's because in my estimation they don't measure up to some of the finer points in the criteria which would qualify them as fascists. That, of course, is the logic of my waking hours. In my dreams, I see them differently.
A few weeks ago I awoke during the wee hours of the morning from a horrible nightmare. I was moving about in the crawlspace under a building which served as the HQ of some pretty awful people. And, this being a dream, I was able, in the weird way that dreams allow, to look into the room above me and see a gathering of officials dressed in Nazi uniforms. It was like a scene from a WW II movie--"The Dirty Dozen" comes to mind--except that somehow I knew that those men were not Germans at all, but rather officials of the Bush regime. Bushies in black, SS uniforms.
And there I was, under the floor directly below them, in a space such as you'll find under almost any house that lacks a basement. The floor and the beams supporting it were only a couple of feet above the uneven dirt ground. Here and there were vertical props to hold the building up. So visibility was physically limited, even if there had been sufficient light. Despite the darkness, however, I could make out much of what was around me.
But I wasn't alone in this crawlspace. The others were the black-uniformed guards of the officials in the room above. Apparently they'd been sent down to get me, and they had their pistols out, sporadically firing as they crawled around in search of me.
Nevertheless, this game of hide-and-go-seek was not at all one-sided. I too had a pistol, a 9 mm Luger. I was shooting it out with them, somehow holding my own, because, in the limited visibility of this situation, my adversaries couldn't see where I was. Nor could they distinguish friend from foe in the murk. It was very confusing to them. So, as the shooting progressed, I was winning.
Meanwhile, the officials in the hall above me seemed even more confused than the guards they had sent to hunt me down. Even less than those in the crawlspace with me, they couldn't tell which shots were fired by their own men and which were fired by me. I could clearly see their confusion, and I was enheartened by it. After I knocked off the guards, I’d somehow be able to take them on as well. That seemed to be my plan.
Suddenly, there was a blast just above me as the black-uniformed people in the hall above blew a large hole in the floor. In a kind of out-of-body experience I found myself actually looking down from above as they grabbed for me, and I saw myself pinned down by part of the collapsed floor.
It was an awful moment. Then, before anything could actually happen, I awoke. I peered at the clock. It was about 4 a.m.
It's been some weeks now since I experienced that dream, but it was one that didn't fade, and I remember it vividly. I can still see myself trapped by the fallen floor.
Interpreting that dream seems rather straightforward to me. Clearly, the crawlspace represents my economic standing in this society--at the bottom, but not totally disarmed. The black-uniformed people on the floor above me are neocons and Bushies, perhaps also their Democrat collaborators. The floor itself represents the US Constitution, which up till now protected us from being harmed by the people above. Congress has knocked holes in that protective floor. There was the Patriot Act, then the weakening of habeas corpus, and now the FISA bill.
It also seems significant that the black-uniformed ones were willing to blow up a part of their own edifice in an effort to arrest or destroy me. The Bushies are after all, willfully destroying our country, physically as well as spiritually. They don't seem to care how much damage they do.
This floor consists of more than constitutional guarantees. It includes traditional safeguards as well, such as separation of powers, free and independent media, control of corporations by government agencies, and trade tariffs which protect the American worker, all of which have been under attack by the neocons and the Bush regime.
Although my dream clothed the neocons in Nazi uniforms, there are some major differences, such as the fact that the Nazis actually fought in the wars they promoted. Differences notwithstanding, they’re both a bunch of thugs.
Last updated August 10, 2007
