Our Constitution really looks like crap, doesn't it? I can only hope our descendants will laugh their asses off reading it someday. We start with the statement "all men are created equal" and spend the next four hundred years having to write in, "that means black people too," "that means women, too," "that means native Americans, too..." And here we stand in the far off year of 2010 - where flying cars dot the sky - arguing over whether it should mean homosexuals too. Not to mention whether torture counts as cruel and unusual; whether water-boarding counts as torture; whether a citizen has a right to their citizenship; whether it's illegal to spy on people sans cause or warrant; whether an individual gets a say in their own proliferation; whether the opinion of the department of justice should be held as incontrovertible fiat; whether war-crimes are war-crimes; and what the definition of the word 'is' is.
The mutual lunacies of American politics, law, and the media organizations claiming to cover it in a "fair and balanced" way drove me to NPR at first. NPR provided the only news media I could entertain without being driven to fits of fury by the "common sense" stupidity being bandied about as wisdom. Eventually, NPR couldn't keep me sane either. I found that even -they- were guilty of filtering and censoring content and contributors based upon popular consensus, regardless of that body's irrationality. In fairness, I suppose no one can present the daily news in a tolerable way when the day's news itself is become utterly intolerable.
The Bush era of lies, ignorance, bigotry, lawlessness, murder, and conspiracy nearly drove me to what some have politely called 'direct action.' Thankfully I managed to pull myself away for a view from a longer perspective and concluded that the world, taken en masse, is really just some sort of sickness. That there's a reason all the great spiritual figures of the various religions teach abandonment of it and its concerns, and that I could only do myself and others harm by taking personal responsibility for the behavior and policies of nations.
As I say I started by switching to NPR, then even that had to go. As of today I don't watch television; I don't listen to the radio; I don't read the paper. To quote Joseph Heller, "I don't spend much time keeping track of the world and can't see that it would change much if I did. I mind my own business. What's important I hear about."
Despite my media blackout I still hear more than I want to about politics. How people can be angry about Obama's health plan, which is so paltry an act of legislation, such a band-aid on a hemorrhage... That some should deride it as being "socialist" when it's the most capital-centric, corporate-friendly thing that could have happened to the private insurers... That no one, for all the months of commentary and conjecture and idiots shouting into the wind, ever saw fit to propose the concept of simply collecting and allocating enough federal tax dollars to cover everyone's health needs, all the time; and especially in a country that claims to be eighty percent Christian, and is thereby obliged to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and care for the sick and imprisoned, lest their God should forsake them...
Well, it's all just as ridiculous and meaningless as ever and I'm happier to turn a blind eye and deaf ear and let the devil put on his little stage show. I figure, if you do what's right on an individual level, person to person, then all the lofty declarations of all the over-educated, under-literate, morons wearing suits, feigning global-ownership, don't amount to any effect anyway.
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Judge the Tree by its Fruits
In response to A Prayer for Ronald.
---
So just because Enron and Tyco and Worldcom and Haliburton and Blackwater are evil, doesn't mean I should assume they all are. And just because Ameritech, AT&T, Avon, B.F. Goodrich, Bank of America, Bank One, Bearsterns, Bellsouth, Citibank, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Diebold, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Eaton, First Bank, GNC, Hershey Foods, J.P. Morgan, Marriott, National City, Nestle, PacifiCorp, Panera Bread, Proctor & Gamble, Sallie Mae, Sherwin-Williams, Southwest Bank, Southwestern Bell, Union Bank, Wachovia, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Winn Dixie, and Zale Corp...
...secretly took out life insurance policies on their employees for the express purpose of turning a profit on their deaths, subsequently bleeding insurance providers and their legitimate purchasers dry with these statistically guaranteed "dead peasant" policies...
...Just because a couple thousand of the apples are rotten to the core doesn't mean I should assume the last half-dozen in the barrel are? Okay, well, I disagree.
My government has, throughout the years, imprisoned it's own citizens in concentration camps, murdered church goers who sought only to escape the 'ways of the world,' poisoned its own soldiers on the battle field, illegally stripped citizens of their birthrights to citizenship, physically tortured captured soldiers and civilians alike in an effort to gather information known to be unreliable, secretly surveilled their own electorate's communications and then pardoned themselves of the crime, corrupted election results, redistricted voters for political gains, erected road blocks and denied people of certain colors and persuasions access to ballots, invented fictional international incidents to facilitate fiscally desirable wars, armed and sponsored terrorist forces to overthrow sovereign governments, entrapped and arrested civic leaders... COINTELPRO... Bay of Pigs... The Cuban Five... Yearning for Zion... Jose Padilla...
And these are just the documented, proven acts of my government. No conspiracy or conjecture in the list above. But I should withhold my cynicism?
The Summer of the Shark, Super Sunday, Shock and Awe, Howard Dean's red face, "Torture and the Ticking Time-Bomb" the lack of single-payer options in the healthcare "discussion," no footage of Bradley Tanks in the US, '60 Minutes' withholding video of ATF forces firing on the exits of a burning building, G.W. Bush pelted with eggs on inauguration day never shown on TV, Fox News refuses to show building 7's collapse, no images of death from Iraq and Afghanistan, "terrorists have weddings too," the term "religious extremists," Obama's peace prize...
Listen, you can deride the individual who shouts "there's poison in the well" without a reason to suspect it - go ahead - but we've all seen more than enough evidence of corporate evil and inhumane greed. We've all seen more than enough evidence of government plots to subjugate and/or outmaneuver the will of a populace. We've all seen more than enough evidence of media propagandizing, tabloidism, and self-censoring journalism. And the incidents have become steadier and more egregious than ever before in the passed ten years.
We have every reason, at this point in time, to approach any and every corporation, government, and media outlet warily and with suspicion of mal-intent, remitting trust only once these have overcome their own much deserved, and well-earned reputations of corruption, collusion, and outright evil.
Ronald McDonald may want you to like him and trust in his products, but no more than the crack dealer on the corner desires the same. Both will be your best friend right up until their mutually addictive and poisonous products eat your insides out and leave you for dead. Then it'll be your fault for buying it from them.
---
So just because Enron and Tyco and Worldcom and Haliburton and Blackwater are evil, doesn't mean I should assume they all are. And just because Ameritech, AT&T, Avon, B.F. Goodrich, Bank of America, Bank One, Bearsterns, Bellsouth, Citibank, Clorox, Coca-Cola, Cox Enterprises, Diebold, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Eaton, First Bank, GNC, Hershey Foods, J.P. Morgan, Marriott, National City, Nestle, PacifiCorp, Panera Bread, Proctor & Gamble, Sallie Mae, Sherwin-Williams, Southwest Bank, Southwestern Bell, Union Bank, Wachovia, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney, Wells Fargo, Winn Dixie, and Zale Corp...
...secretly took out life insurance policies on their employees for the express purpose of turning a profit on their deaths, subsequently bleeding insurance providers and their legitimate purchasers dry with these statistically guaranteed "dead peasant" policies...
...Just because a couple thousand of the apples are rotten to the core doesn't mean I should assume the last half-dozen in the barrel are? Okay, well, I disagree.
My government has, throughout the years, imprisoned it's own citizens in concentration camps, murdered church goers who sought only to escape the 'ways of the world,' poisoned its own soldiers on the battle field, illegally stripped citizens of their birthrights to citizenship, physically tortured captured soldiers and civilians alike in an effort to gather information known to be unreliable, secretly surveilled their own electorate's communications and then pardoned themselves of the crime, corrupted election results, redistricted voters for political gains, erected road blocks and denied people of certain colors and persuasions access to ballots, invented fictional international incidents to facilitate fiscally desirable wars, armed and sponsored terrorist forces to overthrow sovereign governments, entrapped and arrested civic leaders... COINTELPRO... Bay of Pigs... The Cuban Five... Yearning for Zion... Jose Padilla...
And these are just the documented, proven acts of my government. No conspiracy or conjecture in the list above. But I should withhold my cynicism?
The Summer of the Shark, Super Sunday, Shock and Awe, Howard Dean's red face, "Torture and the Ticking Time-Bomb" the lack of single-payer options in the healthcare "discussion," no footage of Bradley Tanks in the US, '60 Minutes' withholding video of ATF forces firing on the exits of a burning building, G.W. Bush pelted with eggs on inauguration day never shown on TV, Fox News refuses to show building 7's collapse, no images of death from Iraq and Afghanistan, "terrorists have weddings too," the term "religious extremists," Obama's peace prize...
Listen, you can deride the individual who shouts "there's poison in the well" without a reason to suspect it - go ahead - but we've all seen more than enough evidence of corporate evil and inhumane greed. We've all seen more than enough evidence of government plots to subjugate and/or outmaneuver the will of a populace. We've all seen more than enough evidence of media propagandizing, tabloidism, and self-censoring journalism. And the incidents have become steadier and more egregious than ever before in the passed ten years.
We have every reason, at this point in time, to approach any and every corporation, government, and media outlet warily and with suspicion of mal-intent, remitting trust only once these have overcome their own much deserved, and well-earned reputations of corruption, collusion, and outright evil.
Ronald McDonald may want you to like him and trust in his products, but no more than the crack dealer on the corner desires the same. Both will be your best friend right up until their mutually addictive and poisonous products eat your insides out and leave you for dead. Then it'll be your fault for buying it from them.
An Irreverent Hypocrisy
Continuing comments at You Are Your Television - Kill Everything.
"
It sounds like you are trying to excuse the people [...] for playing along; for voting against their own interests; for tuning in to a consolidated media that lowers their standards and keeps them stupid; for allowing atrocities to be committed in their names and under their flags.
But whether they made the problems themselves, whether they built the world in their image or someone else rammed it down their throats, they still live there. It's still their world and nothing can exempt them from the responsibility they bear for failing to respond to the real problems of their age; much less for playing along and paying homage to them. Example: Governor G.W. Bush didn't magically conjure a hurricane or personally poke holes in the levies, but when Louisiana flooded he damn well should've sent help. That's civic responsibility.
"We didn't want great big SUVs poisoning the atmosphere, unnecessarily depleting unreplenishable natural resources, increasing the demand for oil and thereby encouraging principalities of war and unrest to fits of murder in the middle east... But hey, now that they're here, fuck it. Look, honey, there's a TV in the headrest!"
If you're saying the people are too stupid to be responsible for their own actions... Okay. I can feel you. But if that's your point you should probably hang onto the stones of cynicism and defeatism, as panes of glass are rather expensive a material to build a house out of.
And if the people are too stupid, or ill-informed, or uneducated (oh the many diplomatic ways of calling people 'stupid') due the machinations of wealthy industrialists and capitalist oppressors... Good, great. We agree. So where's the beef?
Better yet, let's try something constructive here (since "troll" seems to be everyone's new favorite word to bandy about with irreverent hypocrisy) what do you think could be done to remedy the unaddressed evils in a world full of people too indoctrinated to recognize them? Let's talk solutions here. Let's pretend to hold ourselves to the same standards we claim to hold the rest and pause to look inward and ask of ourselves, "What are you going to do about it?"
Personally, I've got a 12 step plan which I'd love to outline for you now. Oh, but "Lost" is coming on, and it's sweeps month! Fuck it, I'm sure someone else will straighten it all out eventually.
"
"
It sounds like you are trying to excuse the people [...] for playing along; for voting against their own interests; for tuning in to a consolidated media that lowers their standards and keeps them stupid; for allowing atrocities to be committed in their names and under their flags.
But whether they made the problems themselves, whether they built the world in their image or someone else rammed it down their throats, they still live there. It's still their world and nothing can exempt them from the responsibility they bear for failing to respond to the real problems of their age; much less for playing along and paying homage to them. Example: Governor G.W. Bush didn't magically conjure a hurricane or personally poke holes in the levies, but when Louisiana flooded he damn well should've sent help. That's civic responsibility.
"We didn't want great big SUVs poisoning the atmosphere, unnecessarily depleting unreplenishable natural resources, increasing the demand for oil and thereby encouraging principalities of war and unrest to fits of murder in the middle east... But hey, now that they're here, fuck it. Look, honey, there's a TV in the headrest!"
If you're saying the people are too stupid to be responsible for their own actions... Okay. I can feel you. But if that's your point you should probably hang onto the stones of cynicism and defeatism, as panes of glass are rather expensive a material to build a house out of.
And if the people are too stupid, or ill-informed, or uneducated (oh the many diplomatic ways of calling people 'stupid') due the machinations of wealthy industrialists and capitalist oppressors... Good, great. We agree. So where's the beef?
Better yet, let's try something constructive here (since "troll" seems to be everyone's new favorite word to bandy about with irreverent hypocrisy) what do you think could be done to remedy the unaddressed evils in a world full of people too indoctrinated to recognize them? Let's talk solutions here. Let's pretend to hold ourselves to the same standards we claim to hold the rest and pause to look inward and ask of ourselves, "What are you going to do about it?"
Personally, I've got a 12 step plan which I'd love to outline for you now. Oh, but "Lost" is coming on, and it's sweeps month! Fuck it, I'm sure someone else will straighten it all out eventually.
"
The TV Majority
Part of my comments, excerpted from the article You Are Your Television at Nik Maack's blog.
"
[...B]ecause I never seem to tire of saying it, I don't watch television. I don't listen to the radio or read the papers for that matter. And the reason I made the choice to turn it all off and leave it off, after a life much spent - I shamefully admit - mentally cataloging episodes of Roseanne, Tool Time, and Animaniacs, (all great shows!) was because of how damned stupid and vitriolic I came to see the beast, television to be.
I now find myself fortunate enough to be television intolerant. I just can't take it. Everything is a push; Everything is for sale; Every word has been focus group tested for maximum affect and majority agreement; and I, for one, am insulted and infuriated it by the whole fucking show. So I don't tune in. I can't. It just makes me angry and hopeless. It disgusts me: what passes for communication; what stands in midst the majority of my neighbors homes claiming itself to be reality.
And the argument you make that this hell-spawn thing, TV, is what the people want... I have to agree. It's hard to believe it's come to this, but this is as the majority desires. Hell, a good percentage point's worth of the population are part of the fucking revenue stream! They're content contributors. They're coming up with this horrible, mediocre, self-censoring tripe, writing it down like it's all worth repeating, and then filming it for Christ's sake... going so far as to put that extra bit of effort in, to spruce it up with special effects and shit! It's them! It's absolutely them. They want this TV. They crave it!
Doubtless, this -is- the product of addiction, lifelong conditioning, the lack of meaningful education, corporate-aristocratic influence, and so on as you suggest...
But what I'm starting to understand now is just how useless democracy really is in this situation. That these people cannot be brought together to see their shared interests; they cannot be motivated to accomplish those things they talk about; they are utterly dominated and, when considered en masse, will continue to be so in perpetuity.
They are a TV people. And I guess I'm coming to realize that you just can't leave it up to them. The same way you can't ask a child what they want for dinner every day, or whether they'd like to go to school. They are incapable of making these choices for themselves. I'll say it again: They are incapable. They won't change anything. They won't fix anything. They won't demand justice. They won't demand their due.
And if change is a goal - which at this point is probably futile - then it must be pursued without employing the majority. The will of the majority must be ignored, for it is the majority's will to destroy themselves and everyone around them. The majority's will is to miss the house payment but pay the Comcast bill. The majority's will is to kill 2,000,000,000 people in the middle east without an explanation why.
If change is a goal it cannot confer upon the majority. A minority must simply seize what it is able, as it unilaterally sees fit, and as I suppose has always been the way. And when all is done, that minority must write the history books as though the transpiring events were all due the will, strength, and fortitude of the people united.
I guess what I'm getting at is: This is a pretty fucked up world we got right here. [...]
"
"
[...B]ecause I never seem to tire of saying it, I don't watch television. I don't listen to the radio or read the papers for that matter. And the reason I made the choice to turn it all off and leave it off, after a life much spent - I shamefully admit - mentally cataloging episodes of Roseanne, Tool Time, and Animaniacs, (all great shows!) was because of how damned stupid and vitriolic I came to see the beast, television to be.
I now find myself fortunate enough to be television intolerant. I just can't take it. Everything is a push; Everything is for sale; Every word has been focus group tested for maximum affect and majority agreement; and I, for one, am insulted and infuriated it by the whole fucking show. So I don't tune in. I can't. It just makes me angry and hopeless. It disgusts me: what passes for communication; what stands in midst the majority of my neighbors homes claiming itself to be reality.
And the argument you make that this hell-spawn thing, TV, is what the people want... I have to agree. It's hard to believe it's come to this, but this is as the majority desires. Hell, a good percentage point's worth of the population are part of the fucking revenue stream! They're content contributors. They're coming up with this horrible, mediocre, self-censoring tripe, writing it down like it's all worth repeating, and then filming it for Christ's sake... going so far as to put that extra bit of effort in, to spruce it up with special effects and shit! It's them! It's absolutely them. They want this TV. They crave it!
Doubtless, this -is- the product of addiction, lifelong conditioning, the lack of meaningful education, corporate-aristocratic influence, and so on as you suggest...
But what I'm starting to understand now is just how useless democracy really is in this situation. That these people cannot be brought together to see their shared interests; they cannot be motivated to accomplish those things they talk about; they are utterly dominated and, when considered en masse, will continue to be so in perpetuity.
They are a TV people. And I guess I'm coming to realize that you just can't leave it up to them. The same way you can't ask a child what they want for dinner every day, or whether they'd like to go to school. They are incapable of making these choices for themselves. I'll say it again: They are incapable. They won't change anything. They won't fix anything. They won't demand justice. They won't demand their due.
And if change is a goal - which at this point is probably futile - then it must be pursued without employing the majority. The will of the majority must be ignored, for it is the majority's will to destroy themselves and everyone around them. The majority's will is to miss the house payment but pay the Comcast bill. The majority's will is to kill 2,000,000,000 people in the middle east without an explanation why.
If change is a goal it cannot confer upon the majority. A minority must simply seize what it is able, as it unilaterally sees fit, and as I suppose has always been the way. And when all is done, that minority must write the history books as though the transpiring events were all due the will, strength, and fortitude of the people united.
I guess what I'm getting at is: This is a pretty fucked up world we got right here. [...]
"
Obama's a Bitch: Live on Stage
This space used to host the YouTube video-recital of my article "Obama's a Bitch." I've chosen to delete the video from YouTube and direct all inquirers to the original written form; at last concluding the video fails, where the written form exceeds, the test of time.
Obama's a Bitch
Let me tell you why Obama's a bitch.
Obama's a bitch because he didn't withdraw the troops; because he's still trying to make hay out of an indefensible act of unprovoked aggression. Because he thinks he and his staff can do, in eighteen months, what a thousand military and sociopolitical strategists haven't been able to figure in half a decade spent eating, sleeping, and breathing Iraq. That is, to somehow split the nation's oil properties among the three dissident factions in such a way as every one of them can hold the majority alone. And thereby prevent the surely inevitable civil war what came foaming up with the cork when we loosed Iraq from Saddam's, albeit dictatorial, politically steadying influence.
And Obama's a bitch because he won't let that civil war come; because he'd rather silence the will of the Iraqi people under a stifling, American-made government that bids to hold the peace by an unpopulist, overwhelming force, than allow the people of Iraq, for whom those institutions are supposed to be, the self determination of a civil war. No, we've too much invested in Iraq's exports to let the people rise up and have it out. Why, that would lead to burning oil fields and broken pipelines, and we'll be damned if we traveled half way around the world, killed, tortured, and imprisoned all those innocent people, only to walk out the door without a steady flow of natural resources to show for it! Obama's a bitch because he's still trying to make G.W.'s bloodshed pay.
And he's a bitch because he didn't put that bloodthirsty sociopath, his generals, and all the rest of the Bush staff up for war crimes charges. He's left all the evils committed thereby to stand as evidence of their lack of fault. Thousands tortured; tens of thousands imprisoned without cause or means of redress; hundreds of thousands slaughtered by excessive use of force; American citizens stripped of citizenship and imprisoned without charges; warrantless, indiscriminate, nationwide surveillance programs... And all abominations go unrebuked! All are justified in a deafening silence; in the absence of a trial.
A trial is not a conviction, by the way -- it does not mean guilt. It means that there is sufficient evidence for inquiry. Is there not that?! Is there no question in the people or their leaders - in Obama - as to the legality and righteousness of all that has been done in these dark days? Yet here is placidity. Here is tranquility. There is no inquiry, nor outrage for this trial's absence. So it shall be remembered that none were injured. None called for justice, so all must be right and justly done.
Obama's a bitch because he won't apologize to Iraq and the world for a war no man alive can defend or justify. We are all stained black and red with the blood of millions - every one of us - and he bids us all to walk about pretending cleanliness, as though we did a good thing; as liberators rather than the harbingers of murder, unrest, and destruction.
Obama's a bitch because his health care plan is a fucking coupon, and nothing else. Because if he passes his discount 'crap care' plan we're all doomed to another fifty years as the world's only peoples so heartless - so shamelessly greedy - as to have the means but not the interest in establishing a Universal Health package that would cover everybody, all the time. This so-called Christian man, Obama, means to leave this so-called Christian nation, America, an affront to the very God he claims to worship, by keeping health and reasonable care a commodity on the exchange. This one never read the story of the Good Samaritan, it seems.
And if he gets his way we will be saddled with this for-profit, rack'em and stack'em, system of medicine for another half century without the political capital of the people's unrest to move us an inch toward real progress. In other words, I will not, in my lifetime, see a fair and equitable system of health care in America. I will have died before it comes. And presumably of some Cancer, the fighting of which produced costs so great that my wife and children will be left not only widowed and fatherless, but homeless and penniless as well. These I will credit to Obama.
Obama's a bitch because everything he has done and said, with the exception, perhaps, of closing Guantanamo, is a middle of the road, fence-sitting, fiscally conservative, politically viable, corporate-centric, safe and agreeable, popular consensus seeking, "p'weese evew'ybody wuv me awl at wunce," stop-gap half-measure of ambiguity. Because after eight years of unabashed evil, the likes known only under rule of Hitler, Kahn, and the Catholic church, Obama's great answer to these dark ages - his plan to put these moral miseries behind us - is nothing more than a return to slow and steady moderation. Back to the status quo everyone! For Christ's sake, yesterday the ruler of this nation was on TV saying human torture is a-okay, now's the changing of the guard and here's the backlash come in the image of a skinny, straightened man, hands folded neatly over his finely pressed linen suit, saying quietly, "I disagree." You should be fucking shouting! You should be livid! Hell, even if you don't care, for the general morale of the public a leader at least feigns outrage!
Obama's a bitch because, for popularity's sake, for his continued political viability, he has toed the line. He has let every significant injustice of the previous administration go unredressed. We needed a hero for sanity. We needed someone to pull America in a new direction, and to pull as hard, harder still, than Bush had pulled us all toward unfeeling capitalistic imperialism. We needed a hero to lead us into an age of compassion, peace, and charity. What we got was a colorless, odorless centrist. A man so deeply absorbed into the middle ground that he could no more tow us away than he could resist being floated along with the wayward nation himself.
And this man, this is the answer to Bush-brand conservatism? This is the rebuttal? This is the people's response to insanity, oppression, fear, and hatred? You know what? Forget Obama. Obama's not the bitch. You're the bitch... Bitch.
Obama's a bitch because he didn't withdraw the troops; because he's still trying to make hay out of an indefensible act of unprovoked aggression. Because he thinks he and his staff can do, in eighteen months, what a thousand military and sociopolitical strategists haven't been able to figure in half a decade spent eating, sleeping, and breathing Iraq. That is, to somehow split the nation's oil properties among the three dissident factions in such a way as every one of them can hold the majority alone. And thereby prevent the surely inevitable civil war what came foaming up with the cork when we loosed Iraq from Saddam's, albeit dictatorial, politically steadying influence.
And Obama's a bitch because he won't let that civil war come; because he'd rather silence the will of the Iraqi people under a stifling, American-made government that bids to hold the peace by an unpopulist, overwhelming force, than allow the people of Iraq, for whom those institutions are supposed to be, the self determination of a civil war. No, we've too much invested in Iraq's exports to let the people rise up and have it out. Why, that would lead to burning oil fields and broken pipelines, and we'll be damned if we traveled half way around the world, killed, tortured, and imprisoned all those innocent people, only to walk out the door without a steady flow of natural resources to show for it! Obama's a bitch because he's still trying to make G.W.'s bloodshed pay.
And he's a bitch because he didn't put that bloodthirsty sociopath, his generals, and all the rest of the Bush staff up for war crimes charges. He's left all the evils committed thereby to stand as evidence of their lack of fault. Thousands tortured; tens of thousands imprisoned without cause or means of redress; hundreds of thousands slaughtered by excessive use of force; American citizens stripped of citizenship and imprisoned without charges; warrantless, indiscriminate, nationwide surveillance programs... And all abominations go unrebuked! All are justified in a deafening silence; in the absence of a trial.
A trial is not a conviction, by the way -- it does not mean guilt. It means that there is sufficient evidence for inquiry. Is there not that?! Is there no question in the people or their leaders - in Obama - as to the legality and righteousness of all that has been done in these dark days? Yet here is placidity. Here is tranquility. There is no inquiry, nor outrage for this trial's absence. So it shall be remembered that none were injured. None called for justice, so all must be right and justly done.
Obama's a bitch because he won't apologize to Iraq and the world for a war no man alive can defend or justify. We are all stained black and red with the blood of millions - every one of us - and he bids us all to walk about pretending cleanliness, as though we did a good thing; as liberators rather than the harbingers of murder, unrest, and destruction.
Obama's a bitch because his health care plan is a fucking coupon, and nothing else. Because if he passes his discount 'crap care' plan we're all doomed to another fifty years as the world's only peoples so heartless - so shamelessly greedy - as to have the means but not the interest in establishing a Universal Health package that would cover everybody, all the time. This so-called Christian man, Obama, means to leave this so-called Christian nation, America, an affront to the very God he claims to worship, by keeping health and reasonable care a commodity on the exchange. This one never read the story of the Good Samaritan, it seems.
And if he gets his way we will be saddled with this for-profit, rack'em and stack'em, system of medicine for another half century without the political capital of the people's unrest to move us an inch toward real progress. In other words, I will not, in my lifetime, see a fair and equitable system of health care in America. I will have died before it comes. And presumably of some Cancer, the fighting of which produced costs so great that my wife and children will be left not only widowed and fatherless, but homeless and penniless as well. These I will credit to Obama.
Obama's a bitch because everything he has done and said, with the exception, perhaps, of closing Guantanamo, is a middle of the road, fence-sitting, fiscally conservative, politically viable, corporate-centric, safe and agreeable, popular consensus seeking, "p'weese evew'ybody wuv me awl at wunce," stop-gap half-measure of ambiguity. Because after eight years of unabashed evil, the likes known only under rule of Hitler, Kahn, and the Catholic church, Obama's great answer to these dark ages - his plan to put these moral miseries behind us - is nothing more than a return to slow and steady moderation. Back to the status quo everyone! For Christ's sake, yesterday the ruler of this nation was on TV saying human torture is a-okay, now's the changing of the guard and here's the backlash come in the image of a skinny, straightened man, hands folded neatly over his finely pressed linen suit, saying quietly, "I disagree." You should be fucking shouting! You should be livid! Hell, even if you don't care, for the general morale of the public a leader at least feigns outrage!
Obama's a bitch because, for popularity's sake, for his continued political viability, he has toed the line. He has let every significant injustice of the previous administration go unredressed. We needed a hero for sanity. We needed someone to pull America in a new direction, and to pull as hard, harder still, than Bush had pulled us all toward unfeeling capitalistic imperialism. We needed a hero to lead us into an age of compassion, peace, and charity. What we got was a colorless, odorless centrist. A man so deeply absorbed into the middle ground that he could no more tow us away than he could resist being floated along with the wayward nation himself.
And this man, this is the answer to Bush-brand conservatism? This is the rebuttal? This is the people's response to insanity, oppression, fear, and hatred? You know what? Forget Obama. Obama's not the bitch. You're the bitch... Bitch.
Memorial Day?
It's sad to say that fallen soldiers are to Memorial Day as the resurrection of Christ is to Easter. The two just don't synch up anymore.
Societally, Memorial Day is about camping and cookouts. It doesn't really have anything to do with military service or fallen troops. Of course it does to those directly impacted by those things -- just as surely some modest handful of Christians out there still refuse to white wash Christmas with the image of a jolly, gift-giving, fat man. But, demographically speaking, veterans and their survivors can't rival the volume of those of us untouched who 'honor their memory' by getting half-naked, building a bonfire, and tapping a keg.
And who's to blame this generation - my generation - for our lack of reverence? The last noble war was fought long before we graced the glimmer of our parent's eyes. Every 'conflict' since has been an exercise in Rich White Colonials v. Poor People Defending their Homes. At least in Vietnam we could honor the men who had no choice; who were drafted and forced into service. We could at least imagine that these young boys didn't really want to go to the other side of the planet and needlessly kill people on Uncle Sam's dime.
But in this post-Vietnam, draft-less era we find it hard to see any reason to hand military servicemen any special honors. "They put their lives on the line..." sure, but for what?
We're all big boys here. We know that the greatest lot of our troops wouldn't have signed up if their Uncle Sam wasn't handing out scholarships like sucking candy. Uncle Sam sure knows it! Otherwise he wouldn't focus his recruiting efforts so heavily in the projects and the ghettos. He'd be sending his recruiters door to door in gated suburban communities, instead of trailer to trailer in mobile home parks. So let's not pretend that the modern American soldier is a noble-hearted patriot, selflessly protecting the nation they hold so dear. Most joined up as way out of the poverty stricken lives their nation placed them into, and most had their fingers crossed that they'd never need to defend anything in actual combat.
But I have some sympathy for - perhaps I can even respect - the man who knowingly sells himself at auction to escape the cycle of debt, poverty, and slavery holding him in a generational vice. Still, I wouldn't give him a day to celebrate it. I wouldn't fain his to be an act of virtuous nobility. I wouldn't want to confuse him; nor let him forget at any time that his service was meant as a means to an end; That becoming a murderer for hire - even out of necessity - is something to be looked back upon with regret, not championed, nor made into a career.
After all, that's what this generation's military is: an army of mercenaries. They don't prevent genocides or overthrow oppressive regimes anymore. They aren't safe-guarding American soil or protecting any uniquely American 'way of life.' It's about the resources. It's about the oil. It's about the money. That's where and why they kill. So we can't really count them as American soldiers. They're NASDAQ soldiers. And that makes them mercenaries.
You can understand, having watched the passed three decades of this American military's operations why my generation might say, "Memorial Day? Crack me open a brew and bring out the Johnsonville Brats!" We just can't find it in ourselves to truly honor this Army; this Goliath we've so often seen wiping the blood of another hundred thousand humble, little Davids, who simply tried - though all too fruitlessly - to protect and preserve their own ways of life, from his giant red-stained hands and forearms.
This modern army comes to the field of battle with laser guided, bunker busting, nuclear armaments; They come with satellite imaged, unmanned aerial reconnaissance; they come in F-16's, Apache Helicopters, and Abrams tanks; with four-thousand round per minute miniguns, M-16s, P-92s, depleted-uranium rounds, and bullet proof body armor. With these things they come to make war upon whom? but the most meager forces; Foes armed with thirty year old weapons and improvised explosives - made from gasoline and cleaning products.
And then they belittle their enemy and dismiss him. They say he is not a soldier because he does not wear a uniform, when surely any uniformed combatant would be killed of the most incredulous means available. He would be simply blown up using missiles or bombs, and by men stationed miles away in air-conditioned RV's, guiding these weapons to their target using XBOX controllers. Or, if forced to meet face to face, perhaps an American would fire 40mm rounds from a turret atop a Hummer, while his enemy fled, only able to return handgun fire before his limbs and body were separated in a bloody cloud of sinew by the disgustingly dishonorable use of such overwhelming force.
Yet all the while the Pentagon's propagandists continue to wage media campaigns that speak to us of honor, discipline, service, and duty. Perhaps it is the blatant contradiction - this unrepentant lie - that has brought my generation to such disregard of Memorial Day and all it's celebratory cousins.
The man who commits a horror, but for what he thinks a good cause, can sometimes be respected still -- that is unless he tries to sell his sins as deeds of heroism. He who will not bear his shame leaves all around him to brunt the weight. And so, perhaps, we cannot lift him up in celebration of the ill-got gains, while still his shameful doings rest upon us.
I can't say as I've ever, in all my life, seen the military do anything to protect or benefit the people of this nation. I'm aware that previous militaries have done so, but I've never seen it with my own eyes. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't honor the sacrifices historically rendered to preserve us, I'm just telling you why we don't anymore. To me; to my age; the military is merely a tool of powerful men to gain and maintain their power. That's all we've ever known it as. And we can little be expected to separate and distinguish the soldiers from the military they comprise.
Patriotism, nobility, honor... We've mostly never seen these either - not in real life anyway - so you'll excuse us as we stack the logs for tonight's bonfire. But I don't believe this military has ever shown my generation anything worth honoring, has it?
Societally, Memorial Day is about camping and cookouts. It doesn't really have anything to do with military service or fallen troops. Of course it does to those directly impacted by those things -- just as surely some modest handful of Christians out there still refuse to white wash Christmas with the image of a jolly, gift-giving, fat man. But, demographically speaking, veterans and their survivors can't rival the volume of those of us untouched who 'honor their memory' by getting half-naked, building a bonfire, and tapping a keg.
And who's to blame this generation - my generation - for our lack of reverence? The last noble war was fought long before we graced the glimmer of our parent's eyes. Every 'conflict' since has been an exercise in Rich White Colonials v. Poor People Defending their Homes. At least in Vietnam we could honor the men who had no choice; who were drafted and forced into service. We could at least imagine that these young boys didn't really want to go to the other side of the planet and needlessly kill people on Uncle Sam's dime.
But in this post-Vietnam, draft-less era we find it hard to see any reason to hand military servicemen any special honors. "They put their lives on the line..." sure, but for what?
We're all big boys here. We know that the greatest lot of our troops wouldn't have signed up if their Uncle Sam wasn't handing out scholarships like sucking candy. Uncle Sam sure knows it! Otherwise he wouldn't focus his recruiting efforts so heavily in the projects and the ghettos. He'd be sending his recruiters door to door in gated suburban communities, instead of trailer to trailer in mobile home parks. So let's not pretend that the modern American soldier is a noble-hearted patriot, selflessly protecting the nation they hold so dear. Most joined up as way out of the poverty stricken lives their nation placed them into, and most had their fingers crossed that they'd never need to defend anything in actual combat.
But I have some sympathy for - perhaps I can even respect - the man who knowingly sells himself at auction to escape the cycle of debt, poverty, and slavery holding him in a generational vice. Still, I wouldn't give him a day to celebrate it. I wouldn't fain his to be an act of virtuous nobility. I wouldn't want to confuse him; nor let him forget at any time that his service was meant as a means to an end; That becoming a murderer for hire - even out of necessity - is something to be looked back upon with regret, not championed, nor made into a career.
After all, that's what this generation's military is: an army of mercenaries. They don't prevent genocides or overthrow oppressive regimes anymore. They aren't safe-guarding American soil or protecting any uniquely American 'way of life.' It's about the resources. It's about the oil. It's about the money. That's where and why they kill. So we can't really count them as American soldiers. They're NASDAQ soldiers. And that makes them mercenaries.
You can understand, having watched the passed three decades of this American military's operations why my generation might say, "Memorial Day? Crack me open a brew and bring out the Johnsonville Brats!" We just can't find it in ourselves to truly honor this Army; this Goliath we've so often seen wiping the blood of another hundred thousand humble, little Davids, who simply tried - though all too fruitlessly - to protect and preserve their own ways of life, from his giant red-stained hands and forearms.
This modern army comes to the field of battle with laser guided, bunker busting, nuclear armaments; They come with satellite imaged, unmanned aerial reconnaissance; they come in F-16's, Apache Helicopters, and Abrams tanks; with four-thousand round per minute miniguns, M-16s, P-92s, depleted-uranium rounds, and bullet proof body armor. With these things they come to make war upon whom? but the most meager forces; Foes armed with thirty year old weapons and improvised explosives - made from gasoline and cleaning products.
And then they belittle their enemy and dismiss him. They say he is not a soldier because he does not wear a uniform, when surely any uniformed combatant would be killed of the most incredulous means available. He would be simply blown up using missiles or bombs, and by men stationed miles away in air-conditioned RV's, guiding these weapons to their target using XBOX controllers. Or, if forced to meet face to face, perhaps an American would fire 40mm rounds from a turret atop a Hummer, while his enemy fled, only able to return handgun fire before his limbs and body were separated in a bloody cloud of sinew by the disgustingly dishonorable use of such overwhelming force.
Yet all the while the Pentagon's propagandists continue to wage media campaigns that speak to us of honor, discipline, service, and duty. Perhaps it is the blatant contradiction - this unrepentant lie - that has brought my generation to such disregard of Memorial Day and all it's celebratory cousins.
The man who commits a horror, but for what he thinks a good cause, can sometimes be respected still -- that is unless he tries to sell his sins as deeds of heroism. He who will not bear his shame leaves all around him to brunt the weight. And so, perhaps, we cannot lift him up in celebration of the ill-got gains, while still his shameful doings rest upon us.
I can't say as I've ever, in all my life, seen the military do anything to protect or benefit the people of this nation. I'm aware that previous militaries have done so, but I've never seen it with my own eyes. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't honor the sacrifices historically rendered to preserve us, I'm just telling you why we don't anymore. To me; to my age; the military is merely a tool of powerful men to gain and maintain their power. That's all we've ever known it as. And we can little be expected to separate and distinguish the soldiers from the military they comprise.
Patriotism, nobility, honor... We've mostly never seen these either - not in real life anyway - so you'll excuse us as we stack the logs for tonight's bonfire. But I don't believe this military has ever shown my generation anything worth honoring, has it?
I Didn't Vote
On November 4th, 2008, I rode my bike to Voting Precinct 006 at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church and School in Waterford Township, Michigan. I stood in line, I presented the proper credentials, I was issued one voting ballot, and I filled it out. I did not vote.
I had come to my polling-place intending to cast my vote for Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates that had not made it onto the Michigan ballot: Gloria La Riva for President and Eugene Puryear for Vice President. These are the candidates of The Party for Socialism and Liberation. As a small, mostly-marginalized political party, the names of these candidates were not listed among the options before me. So, when I approached the voting booth - ballot in hand - I meant to write-in these candidates’ names; whom I felt best represented my interests and desires for the nation at large.
In these politically nepotistic and insular times it seems that a majority of the populace cannot understand why anyone would vote off-ticket. These unnamed, third-party candidates have no real chance of being elected, after all. So why not choose one of the mainstream candidates who, at least, represent the better of the options we are presented with?
There are two main reasons that I decided to vote for Gloria La Riva. First, I wanted to encourage the party she represents. It is supremely important - in a Democracy - that we support those groups which rise to champion our beliefs on the national stage. If I cast my vote for some other party, Gloria La Riva and The Party for Socialism and Liberation would never know that I support them. They would never know that I am grateful for their efforts and wish them to continue doing the hard work of carrying my hopes and aspirations into the public limelight.
Second, I want it on the record! I want the state to recognize, even if only by a meaningless act of bureaucracy, that the options I have been presented with by this system do not represent me; that I, and those sharing my beliefs, have been marginalized by a system that drawls on endlessly about “democracy” and “freedom,” but falls short when presenting us with meaningful options.
For these reasons I stood in that voting booth looking at my ballot, wondering how to fill it out. The Presidential and Vice Presidential seats were presented to me as a unified ticket. In other words, if I wanted to vote Obama for President, I had no choice but to vote Biden for VP. The two distinct offices were represented by a single choice: “Obama / Biden.” The problem for my write-in candidates was that I couldn’t possibly fit both of their names into the empty write-in block provided on the ballot.
Unsure how to proceed, I finished filling out the rest of my choices and I approached the man supervising the tallying machine. I began to say, “I think I need a new ballot. I’m trying to write-in my choice for presidential candidate.” He interrupted me.
“You can’t write-in a Presidential choice. You have to pick from what’s listed.”
I stared at him with what must have been a supremely dumbfounded expression. After a long silence I reeled in my hanging jaw and managed to squeeze out a sarcastic, “Democracy, huh?”
He started to fumble out an excuse: “Well, if your candidates really wanted to be on the ticket then they needed to register with the state in advance. They’ve had all this time to register…”
“And that would cost them several thousands of dollars per state they registered in, right?” I fired this comment angrily toward the lanky, unsympathetic man before me.
He shrugged his shoulders and I told him I needed a few minutes to decide what I was going to do.
I had read up on Michigan’s election procedures in the days approaching November 4th, anticipating that there would be some oddities voting off-ticket. In retrospect, I’m sure I read something, somewhere that told me I couldn’t write-in candidates who weren’t pre-registered with the state. I must have just filtered it out in disbelief. I suppose I couldn’t accept - until confronted with it face to face - that my state and my nation would deny me the right of making my own voice heard until or unless they’d collected a pound of flesh from a specific candidate.
Dumbfounded as ever I stood there leaned against the wall as other voters passed happily by turning in their ballots; gleefully participating in Democracy. What was I going to do? I could, of course, just request a new ballot and only vote for the other positions and proposals that I had intended to. Or I could take a moment and choose a President from one of those “lesser of two evils” I’ve heard so much about. But there was another option wrestling with these seemingly more sensible choices deep inside my head: Don’t vote.
Here I stood, disenfranchised by a system that only allows the people to exercise any real authority over the make up and function of their government once every two years. They hadn’t allowed me to vote for the candidate I wanted. They had removed me of the option to separate my Presidential choice from my Vice Presidential choice. And as a supporter of run-off voting, campaign finance reform, and “none of the above” ballot options, I had walked in to this voting precinct carrying a ten-pound bag full of reasons to find this whole process illegitimate from the get-go.
It took me a good couple of minutes to settle on a choice and my heart pounded fast and heavy in my chest as I did. But in the end I summoned myself against the fear and intimidation I felt from these smugly self assured state-pollsters and turned again to the lanky man who placed himself between me and democracy. And before the line of waiting voters, loudly and clearly I spoke.
“I think I’ve decided not to participate in a system that doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.”
And I tore my ballot in half.
If you can believe it, the lanky man, along with another voting official, rushed to my sides, grabbed me by each arm, and attempted to restrain me from tearing up the smaller voter-registration form that is submitted with the ballot. I managed nonetheless to destroy it; my captors being quite elderly gentlemen.
These men who had volunteered their time in order to enable the functions of a democratic state, actually tried to physically deny me even of the right to protest my own disenfranchisement. In the process of attempting to cast my vote I was technically assaulted by election officials.
I didn’t report these crimes as I have no desire to see two elderly volunteers, who were simply flustered and unsure of what to do, brought before charges for the failures of Michigan’s Oakland County election organizers, who did not properly instruct or prepare them.
Nonetheless, I truly feel violated. Before November 4th 2008 I couldn’t have imagined that this would be my voting experience. I couldn’t have dreamed that I would count myself among those who have been meaningfully removed of their rights to vote, and to vote for whom they wish. In the land of the free and the home of the brave I find that I have been denied my liberty by an institution too timid to let sound my voice.
Here’s hoping your voting experience did not mimic mine.
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