( – promoted by buhdydharma )
In our much-heralded two-party system which has been hyped as the engine of the Greatest Democracy in the History of the World (never mind we don’t have a democracy but a republic, because the common man can’t be trusted to self-govern without the checks and balances of an Aristocratic Elite,) both parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of a kleptomaniacal Corporatacracy. The People are but a society of suckers for hoodwinking at election time in a fool-me-again space-time continuum which makes déjà vu look like suspended animation.
Many of us on the left, as we watched the Democrats suck-face after the stolen election of 2000 with not only the worst, but the most evil regime in American History, knew the score. The hyperbolic, unreflecting, over-reaction to 911, the crazy lying war drum rhetoric against Iraq and Iran, the illegal wars, the systemic torture approved at the top, the blame game against Islamo-fascists fighting a defensive jihad against Western crusaders – all these things which the Democrats supported was the “those with eyes to see” years for many of us.
Then as America’s misadventure in Iraq went to predictable shit through mismanagement, bigotry and cruelty and the anti-war sentiment grew, we engaged in 2006 to win back Congress from the nut-job haters and grifters called Republicans. Then we saw the immediate Democratic capitulation to the Surge, which was nothing but a multi-billion dollar campaign of Sunni bribery to stop the internecine insurgency we created through invasion and occupation against a despotic government we used to call friend. The over-the-top terrorism subsided as money was shuffled to tribal leaders’ Swiss Bank Accounts which gave an appearance of success to the Surge. The anti-war movement died and the Democrats were free to do what they do best – collect bribes from lobbyists and plot their return to the Presidency – where the real money is to be made.
Then in the 2008 election progressives and liberals eventually threw their weight behind Obama’s Promise of Change. He was elected resoundingly with a mandate to reform the system which systemically screws the common man in favor of the Corporate Borg. But before the election we had an economic melt-down which the Banksters used to threaten martial law and social chaos if the People didn’t pony up and pay trillions in Ransom to billionaires in a reverse-Robin Hood kidnapping scheme which made the Regan/Bush tax cuts for the rich look like chump-change. Obama unveiled his economic team to save the day and from the get-go we saw change was an illusion used to hoodwink us yet again. Obama staffed his staff with corporate hacks, establishmentarians, dynastic elites and egomaniacal douche-bags like Rahm Emmanuel.
Obama was revealed an imposter. Just another poster boy for the way things are.
He staked his Presidency on Health Care Reform and refused to lead the fight. He played the Shell Game in Iraq, moving troops around but not out. He said he’d close Gitmo and lied. He embraced his own private Vietnam in Afghanistan – with the same inevitable result on the way brought about by the hubris of the American Military fighting the next in a long line of low-browed, camel-jockeying cave-dwellers. Can you say Sand Gook? I knew that you could. Now he’s renditioning con-men contractors without the rule of law. He refuses to recuse himself of the Unitary Executive Presidency – a dictatorship by any other name. He plays patty-cake with the insane nutjobs of the GOP whose stated goal is his political obliteration. Some people claim he’s ten-steps-ahead-of-us savvy. But just because you go to an Ivy League school doesn’t mean you ain’t stupid. Lawyers are a dime a dozen. Politicians a dime a gross.
Bush had a failed Presidency in his first eight months too. Until God provided him with the saving grace of 911. What will God provide Obama? What evil prayers rise from the robot zombie army of birthers, deathers, ignorant patriots and religious zealots who a generation or two ago were lynching an ex-slave population and blaming Eve for man’s fall from grace?
When is enough enough? When do we pick ourselves up from the dust of disillusion for the last time? When do we refuse to be fooled again? When can we admit America is a failed state and reboot to America 2:0?
Is it because our pride, our exceptionalism can’t let us admit defeat? Is our American Heritage so strong we are unable to remove our rose-colored glasses which hide the truth of our heritage as a vain and mean Empire which uses its bludgeoning big stick more often than not while prattling on about freedom and democracy? Are more than 700 foreign military bases worldwide spitting at George Washington’s warning against foreign entanglements?
Isn’t it time America stopped looking into Snow White’s wicked Stepmother’s magic mirror which lied to her every day? Our country is a sham of its pretentions.
Ben Franklin said we had a Republic if we could keep it. And we couldn’t. We let it slip away. If the price of liberty is eternal vigilance then we have been asleep at the wheel. We gave the power of our National Purse, the control of our money-supply, to private banking interests which have brought the country to ruin. The People are not allowed to audit its masters in the Federal Reserve. We let Corporations decide national security policy. Honduras is just the latest example. United Fruit, now Chiquita, is still bribing despots to murder their own people for profit. The litany of our intervention, interference and greed is legion. We can’t stop our eternal evil wars because war is our only export and the country’s economic health depends upon the success of the military-industrial-complex. We can’t have quality affordable health care because bureaucrats have taken over for doctors and the Hippocratic Oath tossed away in favor of ROI. In education, Critical Thinking has given way to Conformity and career promotion is based upon going along to get along – sucking up.
The People are crying their way to poor houses and debtors’ prison while the fat-cats laugh their way to the bank. Same as it ever was.
So when is enough enough? Some say to foment a populist third party is a fool’s errand because it can’t win. But what benefit do the people derive from the Party which does win – it’s the same party. The only difference is one prefers band-aids and one prefers amputation. But the policies are the same. Protect the Corporation. Face down the competition with fear. Kill them if they resist. What good does the two-party system do for the common man? Wages stagnant for a generation. The rich get richer while the rest of us fight for crumbs. And we call this freedom. The person with the most money has the loudest voice in the debate and we call this democracy.
What change for the GOOD has happened in our lifetime? African Americans don’t have to ride in the back of the bus, but they still live in ghettos. GLBTers face the threat of violent persecution daily and are told to just shut-up and don’t tell – and whatever you do don’t kiss in public. A vast underclass seethes in despair and face egregious Tasering by police if they complain. The middle class is in freefall. The ranks of the impoverished grow. Kids are disillusioned because they see no future. We’ve gone from citizen to consumer to commoditized chattel born into debt and encouraged to ‘claw our way to the top’ over the backs of our fellow human beings.
And we call ourselves blessed to live in the freest nation in the history of the world. Which just shows you how bad the rest of the world has it under the thumb of corporate colonialism.
So, enough is enough. We know that now, once and for all.
So what do we do?
…to be continued.
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I am amazed that you still can amaze me after reading you so long… not only with the clarity of your vision, but the way you can turn a phrase and make me hang on every word.
“magic mirror, which lied to her every day..”
Not just poetry.. fucking accuracy in a sound byte.
My lifetime has seen nothing but regression.
But it is exactly the problem, the “love it or leave it’s” the “best dang country ever” knuckle draggers that vote against themselves that we are up against, as much as the Kleptocracy.
Man, I so hope part two has enough vision to overcome that.
Fucking Brilliance.
besos,
d
the American electorate is so fucking stupid that the chances of a popular uprising are very slim indeed. I don’t know of another republic in history where the ruling class has so succeeded in making the citizens elect and re-elect people who continually work against them. The American power structure is so masterfully rigged to benefit the rich and powerful that real power will never change hands as a result of the ballot box.
You have until October. If the flu don’t kill ya living in dystopialand will suck even worse. Either way I officially resign from participation in this Stanford Prison experiment that is today’s sociopathic world.
Have you been reading my mind? IMHO You’ve captured a snapshot fo just where we are in this time and place.
The question is as far as I’m concerned is what do we do about it? Trying to convince the rabbid right that we have some commonality in aposing the status quo of the corporatocrasy and military industrial congressional complex is like trying to teach a blind man about color and many cant see an alternative succeeding against the democratic republican machine.
but I’d say a lot changed for the good. First, so many of the uptight conventions have dissapeared so we can live a more relaxed life in terms of clothing, appearance and so on. Multi-culturalism in this country is a reality–while not yet in the same ballpark as Brazil, it’s getting there gradually. On the individual level I find people are less violent and angry than they were when I was growing up. Because people have been exposed to so many different kinds of people gays and tg people are far more accepted than they were years ago. While there are pockets of the country that are more violent and discriminate against other cultures and sexual forms of expression it seems less than it used to be.
Technology has created amazing changes particularly in productivity (not share with workers unfortunately) and makes all kinds of solutions to the many problems we face possible. Unfortunately the political establishment has become more rigid than the old establishment was. Politically, there has been a massive regression and culturally we seem to be descending into a world of denial and fantasy that is extraordinary. We have the means to make a very much better world, we have more positive attitudes towards diversity but we lack the will and interest to change anything.
The most dramatic example of this general tendency is not in the ruling class but in the left itself. We, in opposition, seem unable to mobalize into a political force to be reckoned with despite the technological advantages of the internet and other technologies that would enable us to create largely self-sufficient communities that could be an excellent counter to the mass-culture that is used by the oligarchs to drug the masses. It turns out that the left itself has allowed itself to be drugged as well. Perhaps this is because they lack both theoretical and community foundation for their (our views).
I look forward to Part 2.
…the GOP, plus the two separate wings of the Democratic Party, IMHO. (Not to mention the Greens, etc.)
I’ve come to believe that the Democratic Party isn’t one basically united party any more. There’s just too much divisiveness and too many Dems consistently siding with the GOP for the Democratic Party to get a dependable consensus on any controversial issue.
The agenda and policies put forth by the Blue Dogs/ New Democrats more resemble the pre-Limbaugh Republicans. Their policies sound more like Eisenhower, and maybe even Nixon than they do FDR.
Maybe the third party we need is the Progressive Party, with the Progressive Democrats leaving the Democratic party now dominated by Blue Dogs/New Democrats.
For the first time in a long time the labor movement and most democrats and the progressive dfh “far left” fringe are all philosophically united over health care.
A general strike if done right and done long enough can bring down at least some of the plutocrats and maybe scare most of the rest back to being rational?
It’s a bit of a French idea, but it works.
Simply fantastic writing, coupled with a very concise precis of the truth.
a puppet and an imposter who has been used by the oligarchy to co-opt the real movement for change that was in the air on January 20, 2009. The sooner we liberals and progressives stop arguing about whether he has a clever tactical strategy to get our agenda implemented or whether half-a-loaf is better than none and start planning a third-party candidate like perhaps Bernie Sanders (hopeless or not) to oppose him in 2012, the better off we’ll be. We’ve been had, and continuing to play this game is frankly demeaning.