Repealing The Status Quo – A Race Against Time

Societies undoubtedly need stability to function. It is essential for a healthy society or system to be able to plan and prepare for the future on many different essential levels. But there comes a time when stability becomes stagnation. And even worse, when the stagnation is preserved and used solely to further the interest of those who have learned to become successful parasites on society.

Preserved at any cost. By any method. Even to the point of killing its host.

Which is precisely what is happening now. The forces of todays Status Quo gained power during one existential threat, the arms race of the Cold War. In attempting to preserve their power at any cost, they have perpetuated a culture of war. Their de facto partners, the oil companies, have lent their weight to the effort. Not only are their goals of creating a status quo that benefits each of them the same, they are also in a partnership to use the weapons and influence of the Military Industrial Complex to invade a sovereign but relatively weak country to steal its oil. Again the cost just do not matter to them, nor do the consequences.

Not the cost in human life and suffering.

Not the cost to the economy and well being of their puppet government.

And not the costs to the planet and all of her peoples.

To further their ends, they have essentially bought a big chunk of the government of the United States. Convincing key elements on both sides of the aisle that their interests are not only the same interests of the government, a government that was conceived of as for the People….but that they are actually MORE important, more important than the government and The People.

The parasite has convinced essential and powerful parts of the host that the host cannot live without it. Even while it is killing it. And the entire planet.

There is an old saying: There are four boxes in democracy, The Soap Box, The Ballot Box, The Jury Box, and The Ammunition Box….use them in that order.

We are coming up to an incredibly important election, and the choice is becoming increasingly clear and easy. It appears that there is only one candidate who is not patently a part of the parasite. That does not mean he isn’t….but the other two are clearly, and even more clearly after recent statements and actions, aligned with the parasitical forces we must defeat. To the point where even though I have tired to keep out of the candidate infighting, I am forced to comment on it.

Voting for Obama may not end the parasitical relationship of the MIC and the oil companies to our government. We simply cannot really know until he is in office. But in combination with what could have been seen before as mere hawkish positioning to overcome the perception of female weakness in a male dominated society, the tactics that Hillary Clinton is using to attempt to obtain power are a clear indication that she embraces the parasite on a fundamental level.

But if it is possible to use the ballot box to fight against the forces that are destroying our nation and the planet, the choice of how to use it has now become very clear.

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  1. Photobucket

  2. I’ll make no claim to great minds thinking alike because while we reached the same conclusions, you did it so much more eloquently than I did. I just went into rant mode.

    I am grateful to both you and Nezua for helping me understand why I was so pissed off yesterday.

    • OPOL on March 7, 2008 at 20:31

    OT – Any chance you’ll make Austin?

  3. ultimately, he isn’t as important as your argument. it is the real one we need to have. and if he isn’t heading there, then he’s just another one of them. lesser degree or not. doesn’t matter. imo.

    but this argument needs to be refined more and more. i keep coming back to this: who benefits and who does not. who pays the price…

    i was doing a bit of research on free markets vs. regulation. it is laughable, in my opinion. the free market forces talk about how those who want regulation do so at the peril of the poor… that all the innovation and industrialization naturally benefits the poorest among us.

    i haven’t seen that to be true? have you? i see industry driving out old cultures from their farmlands and, de facto, these native people become part of the  deforestation force, as well as pushing other species out and/or to the brink of being.

    here it is buhdy. keep working at it. because if we can hit this argument out of the ballpark, then we have the means of mobilizing citizens… and we need them in all industrialized places… with an argument that makes sense. common sense. plain sense.

    it’s like some of the conversations in Jay’s essay. legalizing drugs. decriminalizing drugs. who gives one shit??? this is not the real argument imo. it’s uncovering relationships that are operative there. whether legal or not, from drugs to the impact of vinyl chloride in car manufacturing processes making people sick. it’s how it is set up to benefit the 1% and leaving the mess of people’s lives to the rest of us. and we keep defaulting to old ways of seeing the argument.

    it is just another symptom.

    we need to understand relationships. that is key. to understand how it works.

    expose the real relationships. all we need are a few instructive, emblematic examples. we don’t need every assault. just a few major ones we share, to some degree, in common. the formula is pretty reproduceable… and people will start to see it.

    context. the facts. their POV. our POV. let people see it.

    it must be the packing that makes me a little hostile… you think?

  4. … two folks at work, one a fellow secy. and one a big lawfirm partner … both said outloud today they will absolutely not vote for Hillary.  Neither are big political junkies.

    I don’t know why she’s playing this the way she is … only thing I can see is that she and her handlers believe it isn’t important at all to get the popular vote and are rigidly attached to the whole Dem political machine process.  It’s a remarkably bad plan, imo.

    Repeal the status quo indeed … couldn’t agree more.

    I’m not a giant fan of Obama … but I am a fan of more people coming out to vote and getting into the process.  That’s why I hope he wins the nomination.

    The rest of that fight is, I think, up to “we the people.”  I just think we have a better chance of fighting it with Obama in the White House.

    • Pluto on March 7, 2008 at 21:54

    This was such a great Essay, that I read it outloud. I don’t do that generally, unless I’m editing my own work. You nailed the emergence of our governing corportocracy in an amazingly adept way. And, while I am getting sick of my recent tagline, it keeps speaking to me:

    Fascism ought to more properly be called Corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power. – Mussolini

    I understand the lead-in metaphor of stagnation <—> parasites. It’s simple and points to the emergence of the beast that must be fed through imperial expansion. So, moving on:

    The forces of todays Status Quo gained power during one existential threat, the arms race of the Cold War.

    This was key for me. Many say this began after WWII and during the Korean War — but, your use of the word “existential” was perfect. How brilliant Orwell was. The war would have to be a “forever” war — even if the enemies kept changing.

    …they are also in a partnership to use the weapons and influence of the Military Industrial Complex to invade a sovereign but relatively weak country to steal its oil.

    They.

    At this point, you began using “They” as the subject of your sentences. The essay itself becomes “existential” because we don’t know who “they” are. Only that “they” are the enemy of the “people.”

    I don’t blame you for this, instead I believe this defines the dilemma of our movement. We have no idea who the enemy is. We sure don’t know who our allies are. We thought we were electing them in 2006.

    To further their ends, they have essentially bought a big chunk of the government of the United States…. The parasite has convinced essential and powerful parts of the host that the host cannot live without it.

    Now, you slip into the past tense. They have bought…. They have convinced… I would say that this the correct tense.

    Can the bell be unrung? Is the bell even there anymore? Is this a done deal? Are the elections merely theater?

    Voting for Obama may not end the parasitical relationship of the MIC and the oil companies to our government. We simply cannot really know until he is in office.

    Finally, we arrive at faith and hope. And trust.

    However, here you seem define a new “they” — “the parasitical relationship of the MIC and the oil companies to our government.”

    Or, is there a bigger “they” behind that?

    But if it is possible to use the ballot box to fight against the forces that are destroying our nation and the planet…

    Is it possible to use a ballot box for this?

    What if you are just electing more “theys” — as usual?

    When has that not been the case since Eisenhower?

    I really don’t see any difference in the pattern.

    There is just so much “hope.” As usual. It’s enough to break your heart. Purple fingers.

    • robodd on March 8, 2008 at 00:47

    not for Clinton nor Obama either.  That’s not a choice, that’s a prayer for a slight change.

    The reality is that the political class in this country, wedded as it is to toxic economic theories, is cancerous.  It won’t be fixed until the economy how this country is run and what for is fundamentally rethought.

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