Riding Chariots of Fire

(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The tens of millions of Americans planning to vote for Romney and Republican candidates or Obama and Democratic candidates still don’t seem to understand how broken the political system is, they still can’t seem to grasp that there isn’t much point in voting when Wall Street owns 90 percent of the politicians.  They don’t like to think about politics, they can’t see the relentless corporate agenda behind all of the two-party system posturing, but they’ve seen plenty of movies, so maybe it can all be explained to them this way . . .  

The two-party system has torched you like The English Patient, your civil liberties are Gone With the Wind, open your newspaper and all you see is Pulp Fiction.  Nixon said he’d bring us together again, but we got Haldeman and Ehrlichman and their Little Shop of Horrors, Reagan promised morning in America, but we got Dog Day Afternoon, Bush promised compassionate conservatism, but we got the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the bankers and corporations promised jobs and prosperity, but we got Apocalypse Now.  

Put your popcorn down and tell me, do you understand what’s been happening here YET?

No?

Well here’s a red-white-and-blue clue for you . . .

capitalism  

Obama promised change, he and his heroic administration were going to ride into Washington on Chariots of Fire and win the future for us, but all we got was Peewee’s Big Adventure.  You saw their convention, you heard all the Terms of Endearment as they courted the middle class again, but if Peewee is reelected, he’ll think he’s Frodo again, he’ll put the Ring of Power right back on and we’ll all be stuck in Mordor.  With all the orcs.  From Here To Eternity.

How many times do you have to see Groundhog Day before you figure this out?  It doesn’t matter which corporate party is in power, it doesn’t matter how many times Wall Street robs us blind, there won’t be any indictments, there won’t be any prosecutions, it’s always Ferris Bueller’s Day Off at the Justice Department, it’s always Dances With Wolves at the SEC, it’s always Yankee Doodle Dandy day at the Pentagon, where Iran is the next trillion-dollar-target and everyone and their Uncle Buck will be proud of the troops because They Died With Their Boots On.  

fallen soldiers

Do you still believe in corporate capitalism?  Is it still The Sound of Music to you?  Is it still A Wonderful Life?   I have news for you, you’re in The Matrix, surrounded by greed machines, stop trying to vote your way out of this, stop trying to bend the spoon. There is no spoon.  

No matter who wins in November, we’re going to get “entitlement reform” and austerity, but it’s not the answer to our fiscal problems.  It’s Rosemary’s Baby, it’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, it’s Halloween and all the sequels, it’s The Big Sleep, it’s The Big Chill, it’s The Last Picture Show for the middle class.  

Don’t expect the corporate media to warn you about what’s going on, they dragged the truth out into The Killing Fields long ago and executed it with media consolidation bullets while you were watching Desperate Housewives and Dancing With the Stars.  So here we are.  It’s Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil and you have some choices to make.  Maybe you’ll finally make the right ones, but I have to tell you, it’s probably too late to even matter anymore.  

Flag @ half-staff

I used to hear protests, I used to hear dissent, the voices of Occupy Wall Street rang out across New York City last fall, but only a handful of people spoke out in Tampa and Charlotte, forlorn shadows on a street corner, surrounded by police.  The image of their solitary defiance is already fading, like a whisper of what might have been, like a Requiem For a Dream.  

Fascism is being mainstreamed, Americans are being conditioned to it, and as it spreads through our institutions and our political culture, there’s nothing in its way.  Nothing. There’s no meaningful resistance from the Left, no concern in the vacant eyes of the tens of millions who keep voting for illusions.  I hear no stirring of awareness as that beast closes in, not a sound as the last gates are closed and the last way out is taken away, all I hear is The Silence of the Lambs.  

17 comments

Skip to comment form

    • Rusty1776 on September 10, 2012 at 12:18
      Author
    • Rusty1776 on September 10, 2012 at 22:24
      Author
    • banger on September 11, 2012 at 14:12

    The authorities don’t like protest and I think most people have gotten the idea that, for better or worse, the USA we know and the one I grew up in is no more. People aren’t yet saying it the way you’re saying it but I think at some level most of us believe it.

    It’s over–we live in an authoritarian and international Empire that is robust with fairly strong security services overt and covert. People are beginning to grasp, but still won’t admit, that dissent has consequences. Those vary from losing your career and/or not being allowed to travel by air or losing your life, liberty and family. No official charges need to be made because we now have a whole division of law that exists outside the Constitution. We are, in essence living under virtual military rule. Day-to-day, we go on as before–no ruling system wants to create too many disturbances the changes come slowly, small inconveniences gradually extend themselves. Lowered expectations and incomes become something we get used to. Managed media provides us with a mythological framework. The genius of this system is that it was a kind of hidden handshake between an oligarchy, or a faction thereof, who wanted to institute an authoritarian imperial system and “the people” who largely wanted to avoid the duties of citizenship in a world grown too complex to understand. We have, in short, no one to blame but ourselves, in the collective sense.

  1. that’s pretty grim stuff, but we shouldn’t be unrealistic either, so it’s probably best to just stare it all in the face.  An excellent job at “grim.”

    Occupy has NOT gone away.  They’re simply not getting the coverage much these days.  The Occupy presence was strong in Charlotte (contrary to that of Tampa — I had read that some 16 busloads of Occupy people were cancelled because of the impending storms).  

    Here’s a little blurb:

    Examples of the new definition of America’s remaining First Amendment were featured at the 2012 Democratic National Convention,as soon as the first protester marchers stepped-off, Sunday, Sept 2, from Marshall Park. A huge crowd of approximately 8,000 would normally have been a strong indication of America’s growing discontent and demand for change. Sadly, the huge crowd was divided into about 500 journalists, 3000, or so, apathetic gawkers from the Charlotte area,1000 passionate, very vocal, protesters, and…….. 3,500 cops.

    Democratic change, despite the best, nine month efforts of the organizers at the Coalition to March on Wall. Street South, CMOWSS,was firmly under martial control.

    The activists, protesters and, concerned area citizens did a great job making their presence seen and heard. Spirts were high as this four mile march wound through downtown Charlotte,N.C., passing the local bulwarks of corporate control; Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Duke Energy.

    Carrying one of the finest arrays of colorful protest signage seen at recent National protests this dedicated legion for American democratic change kept the volume up, passions high, and signs, and fists, in the air.Flanked on both sides while they marched, in a clear counter message of the authoritarian democracy the protests were fighting , were cops, thousands of cops. . . . . .

    Read more!

    Somewhere, I had read that the police would be very active, arresting people here and there who had done nothing to warrant arrest.  Seems those “threats” bore out!

    In reaction to the massive police presence at the Democratic National Convention, DNC, and in protest of the many unwarranted arrests of non-violent protesters, Occupy The DNC, issued a formal statement on Friday, Sept 7, 2012.

    Protesters were indeed arrested for no violation other than exercising their rights as Americans under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. Police presence, and oppression, raised the level of America’s current Authoritarian Democracy to, never before seen, levels. (see link: Op-Ed News 9/5/12)   The observations and events of this deterioration enforce the need for all American’s to join in with opposition groups nationally.

    The following is the text of the Occupy The DNC statement on National police brutality:

    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

    CONTACT:

    Andrew Speirs

    Occupy the DNC

    505-944-5104

    [email protected]

    Protesters Arrested In The War On Truth

    Charlotte, NC, September 6th, 2012 – Two Occupy the DNC protesters were arrested today while peacefully marching in downtown Charlotte.

    The Protesters were marching legally through downtown Charlotte, NC, at around 3pm when they were surrounded by law enforcement officers from numerous agencies. A female protester was confronted and was told her flag was not allowed, although the flag was within legal parameters. When the female protester questioned officers on the

    legality of counter-protesters signs, she was ignored and followed. . . . .

    Read more!

    It is pretty sad when innocent people are arrested for doing nothing more than marching in the streets for what they believe in!  Pathetic, actually, that a government could behave this way toward its citizens.

    Of course, as I told you not long ago — the whole Police effort was to emulate that of the NATO Summit in Chicago.  Police summoned in from other States, Homeland Security, all the regalia of the “goon” outfits and even military equipment . . . . . ALL at OUR expense!  It is WE who are paying for what I deem as the MIC’s infiltration into the American life and the efforts to militarize anything and everything!!!!  

Comments have been disabled.