Gossip Column Politics

It's fascinating--and rather dreadful--that in our huge nation, so seemingly powerful and prosperous, the main focus of this election year has been more on gossip and juicy personal tidbits rather than on the fact that, among the industrialized, commodity-stuffed countries, the United States has the most income inequity, some of the worst schools, and examples of eye-bulging poverty and cultural isolation that it's a wonder that Europe, Japan, China et al haven't decided to to band together and "take" this tottering behemoth...and, in many ways, they are beginning to do so. But our candidates aren't talking about this. It doesn't sell, doesn't sound good. Selling America and letting the poor rot in the slums, the blighted Appalachian disasters, the dusty New Mexico rural poverty, the sinking industrial Midwest doesn't grab attention. Actually, we shouldn't "compete" with the rest of the world like pumped-up high school jocks, nor show them what democracy means (perhaps the pre -2000 and 2004 voting stealing version)...the old saw about getting our house in order is exactly right. September, 2005, New Orleans. What a horror, what tragedy, what embarrassment. What will Potato Head (McCain) and The Hope Whisperer (Obama) do about all this? Meanwhile, we hear how Mrs. Palin has a pregnant daughter, and that Michelle Obama said something or other about finally feeling proud of her country. With so many indications that we are heading for an even more rigidly divided economic house, really, should we give a shit about things like that?

Who's Afraid of Virginia Obama?

Welll...apparently Mr. Barack Obama is, according to the Grand Old Party (whatever), a terrorist, a womanizer, a secret (or open) Muslim, an appeaser, a radical, a peacenik, and a tax-and-spend demon (Well, BOTH parties are that--gotta feed the Pentagon, you know). Yup. He's not really any of these--just don't tell that to the not-very-literate mossback crowd. Remember, NOTHING is conservative enough for them. They won't be content until we have a theocracy `a la Khomeini circa 1980 or, for the more secular, a completely unregulated jungle capitalism where only the Richy-Rich can play, and to Hell (real or figurative) with the rest of us shlubs. Okay, okay, Barack doesn't explain too much about what he really wants for Amerkins (to quote W.), but at least he doesn't sing bizarre, unoriginal ditties about bombing faraway lands, as John "MC" McCain did some months ago.
Let's keep our fingers crossed, and pray to your deity at hand as we either go deeper into, or come out of, a new barbarism...

B.T.W.

B.T.W. stands for "By the Way," of course, and also a phrase I coined today to describe the two orbits of "Good Americans": Barely Tangential Worlds, meaning, two worlds which hardly touch. There are two orbits of what are called "conservatives" in the United States. One group, those outside of power, see the Shining City on the Hill, consider their nation the best ever, aspire to tradition, look toward the John Wayne ideal of mopping up bad guys on the beach. Enemies are to be fought, and conquered; righteousness is on their side. Liberals are considered traitors; patriotism and owning guns are very important. This worldview isn't all that horrific; it's suspicious, traditional, and to be expected from many people who value "going along to get along." The heartland conservatives aren't dangerous (yet), but the people they cheer for are--and they inhabit a different world. In the other world, the goal is not Mom, Apple Pie, Individual Rights, and preaching the Gospel. The goal is more, more--More money, more power, more control over everyone and everything. The tragedy is that the Limbaugh-lovin' crowd doesn't realize that they are irrelevant; the neocon aim is now to rule Planet Earth in the name of profits and control of resources. God doesn't enter the picture; the NRA has no point here; John Wayne is a faded memory ; being for or against the President's policies are equally of no importance to the planners and "thinkers" in their think tanks. People like Bill O'Reilly (who probably knows that his statements on the tube in no way help the "little guy" that he supposedly represents) can rail about culture wars and Michael Moore all they want; it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. The Money and War Machine now have a life of their own. A group that wants to be imperialist in space as well as on Earth doesn't pay any attention to the likes of us mere mortals.

Indeed.

"For a second time in a generation, we are at war, and a political leadership has practiced deception to trick the country a war in Iraq, which we should not have fought and will not ultimately win. The campaign in Afghanistan might have been successful at some minimal level had it not been horribly mismanaged; at the moment, we are distinctly not winning the Afghan conflict and may actually be in danger of losing. The current administration is flirting with a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and has contemplated sending troops to Pakistan whilst fighting a proxy war in Somalia. When it comes to military leadership, the current government of the United States is feckless, indifferent to the welfare of our service personnel, and incompetent, relentlessly convinced that there are military solutions to problems that can either only be solved politically, or cannot be solved at all. "
Richard O. Collin, February 1st, 2008

There's No There There

Torture. Poverty. Governmental debt in the trillions of dollars. Thousands of dead American soldiers, and an Iraq that is moribund and full of horror. The rich get richer, and the poor pay taxes for both. Not one of these stark realities is treated with any seriousness by the news media in this country; ninety percent of our elected officials seem to pretend that nothing awful is happening here. The reason is, I believe, that we no longer live in a serious democracy. We live in a hard-hearted, soft-headed simulacrum of one. The presidential primaries are analyzed (in every sense of the term) and discussed endlessly; faces smile and glad-hand, while the bullshit continues: Nothing grave or presssing, or even informative, is touched on. When are we going to unite and tell those bastards who own our lives that enough is enough, and kick this rotten system to the curb?

The Minutemen: Sturmabteilung of the Falwell Set

The Minutemen are coming! Last night, at the Conway, South Carolina High School* the Minutemen, or as I prefer to call them, the Minute [my-noot] Men held a rally to decry illegal immigration and nail Senator Lindsey Graham's ass to a wall (verbally, at least). I guess his winking at torture is still okay, but his "pro-illegal alien" stance is not, although the crowd seems to forget that politcians are often actors and double dealers (Say it ain't so!) Be that as it may, some bright bulb bemoaned the danger Mexicans pose to "our culture and our way of life," and for the life of me I couldn't discern what culture he was alluding to, since the Euroamericans in the crowd, in my experience, know breathtaking little about the culture of their forebears, and when presented with the liberal, and for the most part tolerant Europe of today seem to react with disgust. As for "our way of life," that's been eroding for decades thanks to the very people the Minutemen idolize: Reagan, the Bush family, white CEOs in general, and tax dollars which pay for huge military boondoggles that only serve to line the pockets of, well, the very people who throw the likes of the Minutemen out of work. But this whole sordid tale is really part of a bigger history, one of divide-and-control that is even more tragic because this one seems voluntary, i.e., the formerly quiescent Heartland has decided to allow the Rich White Gated Community Crowd (TM) that loathes them to once again get richer and more corrupt with nary a complaint from the true Amerkins.

Senate Bill 1959

S. 1959: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007

Hola, Guerra Sucia*...goodbye Liberty!


* The Dirty War, waged in Argentina for several years after a military coup in March 1976: Some 30,000 people were "disappeared" due to their opposition to fascist control of the country.