A year ago, when Obama was inaugurated, when the new Congress began with huge Democratic majorities, I thought the Bush/Cheney years were finally over.  But they’re not over.  Nothing has changed.  

I’ve supported Democrats for 40 years. Despite all their betrayals, I felt I had no choice.  I told myself they were the lesser of two evils.  I told myself incremental change is better than no change at all.  But nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change if progressives keep supporting the Democratic branch of the Corporate Fascist Party.

During the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie traveled across America and saw the injustice, poverty, and despair of a nation suffering the consequences of economic and social injustice. In the city square, in the shadow of the steeple, by the relief office he saw his people.  They were hungry, they were out of work, they were out of hope.  As he was walking that ribbon of highway, he saw what America is, but he also saw what America can be.   He never stopped hoping that someday, America would become a land of economic and social justice. So he wrote This Land Is Your Land, as an anthem of what America can be.

His story is our story, his anthem is our anthem, his land is our land, his cause is our cause. Woody Guthrie told the truth about America because someone had to.  He told it across this country, as he walked through the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, with a guitar on his back and the truth in his soul . . .

In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, Obama walked out of a National Security Council meeting and observed, “for a country and a people who are no strangers to hardship and suffering, this tragedy seems especially cruel and incomprehensible.”

Those words from the man at the top of America’s cruel and incomprehensible political system, from the guardian of America’s cruel and incomprehensible economic system, from the protector of America’s cruel and incomprehensible banking system must seem especially meaningless to the hundreds of millions of victims of America’s corporate wars, corporate exploitation, and corporate repression.  The devastation in Haiti, as tragic and terrible as it is, is minor compared to the devastation inflicted on a global scale, inflicted every minute of every day, inflicted on the poor and the powerless of every nation by the corporate masters of this country.  

No Richter Scale can measure their destructive impact, no words can convey the enormity of the hardship and suffering they inflict.  The death toll is in the millions, but there’s no media coverage of that catastrophe.  No one provides assistance to the victims, there are no relief efforts, there’s no help on the way for the survivors trapped in that rubble, they’re on their own . . .

We can see the corruption, we can hear the lies, we can feel the consequences closing in, we can taste the bitterness, we can smell the smoke as America burns, as the world burns, as the future itself burns.  Obama and the Democrats aren’t putting out the fire, they’re fanning the flames.  Whether that’s due to stupidity or complicity doesn’t really matter anymore.  Putting out the fire is all that matters now.  

Get ready to do that alone, because we won’t be getting any help from the Obama addicts. They overdosed on unreality long ago.  They took the poison from the poison stream, then floated out of here, floated out of reality into Obama Land, where the inhabitants see only what they want to see, where they hear only what they want to hear.  They run through the streets, with eyes cold and dead, under a black belly of cloud in the rain, in through a doorway, they give each other white golden pearls, stolen from the sea, they’re raging at “purity trolls”, they’re raging, and a storm blows up in their eyes whenever they’re confronted with the truth.    

They’re addicts.  Denial is their drug.  They’re stoned on it, they’re hooked on it, they smoke it, they inject it, they mainline it, they freebase it, whatever it takes to get baked.  They’re all dealers of denial, they’re all pushers of denial, they hook each other up, they’re wired on it, they’re all wired on it, scoring the next fix is all they care about.  Whatever the Big Man does or doesn’t do is just fine with them.

 

When Obama needed the votes of progressives to get elected, his message was Change We Can Believe In.  But now that he no longer needs us, now that he has power, he has a very different message for progressives . . .

That blunt message is echoing from one end of the Beltway to the other, from the White House to Capitol Hill, it’s echoing from K Street to Wall Street and across the corporate media airwaves. Corporate power must not be challenged.  Don’t even think about it.  Byron Dorgan got the message.  Chris Dodd got the message.  Robert Wexler got the message.  We all got the message.  

2 AM and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake,

Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?

I don’t have to tell you what her latest mistake was, I don’t have to tell you when she made that mistake, I don’t have to tell you because she wasn’t the only one who made that mistake.  100 million other Americans made the same mistake on November 4, 2008, they believed the lies, they voted for liars and frauds and career criminals up and down the ballot.  

So here we are.      

“Pragmatic” progressives tell us we can’t jump the track, the corporate media tells us we’re just cars on a cable, the “Christians” tell us life’s like an hourglass, glued to the table, so go to church unless you want to be damned to Hell for eternity like the Muslims and the Jews and the heathens in Africa and Asia. Well we’ve seen this movie before, we know who the killers are, we know who the victims are, we know who the warmongers are, we know who the hypocrites are, we know how it ends, we know how it always ends, but no one can find the rewind button, no one can ever find the rewind button.

Sing it if you understand . . .

It’s official.  The USA Patriot Act is no longer the greatest social achievement of our time.  The Baucus/Lieberman Perpetual Serfdom Act has just been awarded that distinction.  Obama is immensely proud of it.  “Pragmatic” progressives are saluting it.  They’re telling us we should be grateful for the crumbs Democrats toss us, they’re ridiculing us for taking a stand on principle, they’re calling it “wanting our ponies”, they never shut up, their condescending lips are always flapping, their lips never stop flapping until police state decrees like this are issued from on high . . .

After hearing passionate arguments from the Obama Administration, the Supreme Court acquiesced to the president’s fervent request and, in a one-line ruling, let stand a lower court decision that declared torture an ordinary, expected consequence of military detention, while introducing a shocking new precedent for all future courts to follow: anyone who is arbitrarily declared a “suspected enemy combatant” by the president or his designated minions is no longer a “person.” They will simply cease to exist as a legal entity. They will have no inherent rights, no human rights, no legal standing whatsoever.

Every time Obama channels Cheney and goes all medieval on us, his Obamabots fall silent. All we hear is crickets.  Until the next greatest social achievement of our time is announced. Then the festivities begin anew and anyone who doesn’t join in gets burned as a witch.  

For corporate fascists keeping score at home, that’s two great social achievements in one week!  For “pragmatic” progressives, it’s one great social achievement and a minor disappointment.  Nothing to dwell on.  Clap louder and it’ll go away.  For actual progressives, it’s the final evidence that we no longer have any choices left.  There is only one way to fight back now.  We have to boycott the major parties in the 2010 Midterms. Vote 3rd party. Vote for a write-in candidate.  Take electoral action in whatever way you think is most effective.

Iranians can die for democracy . . .

But we can’t even boycott an election?  

Don’t argue about it.  Do it.  Call it what you want.  Get to work organizing it.  Get to work publicizing it.  Help in any way and every way you can or get the hell out of the way.    

Democrats told us they couldn’t Impeach because “we don’t have the votes”.  They told us they couldn’t pass single payer because “we don’t have the votes.”   They told us they couldn’t give us a strong public option because “we don’t have the votes.”  They told us they couldn’t even give us a watered down public option because “we don’t have the votes.”  

When progressives boycott the Midterms, Democrats will discover the true meaning of “we don’t have the votes.”  They’ve been using it as a bullshit excuse, we’re going to use it as a warning, as a nationwide declaration that we will no longer tolerate betrayal.    

“Pragmatic” progressives will freak out, we’ll be lectured about “reality” by people who think that gutter they’re crawling in is the Yellow Brick Road to Incremental Change.  They’ve been crawling in that gutter of “political reality” ever since their anti-Impeachment days.  They weren’t worth listening to then and they never will be.    

We’ve supported Democrats over and over again, election after election, but nothing ever changes. Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is insanity.   It’s insane to keep reelecting corrupt politicians who keep betraying us.  

“I don’t think the White House recognizes how much trouble they’re in,” said one former Democratic official. “I think they’re miscalculating what’s happening with progressives and the left.”

Failing to understand the intensity of progressive anger, dismissing it with condescending arrogance is bad enough, but that’s not all they’re miscalculating.  Obama and Democrats seem to think they’re securing the long-term support of the corporate establishment, they think they’re consolidating their power, but they’re walking right into a trap.  They’re being set up to fail, they’re being set up to take the blame when everything implodes.  The corporate masters of America and their GOP enforcers expect that this trap, this setup will result in a Presidency so disastrous and unpopular, in a Congress so despised, in a political system so divisive and dysfunctional that when General Petraeus arrives on his white horse to save America in 2012, he will win every state, Republicans will take Congress back, and the Permanent Republican Majority will be here to stay after a rather unsuccessful first attempt.

If that doesn’t happen, it won’t be because the designated scapegoats with the (D) after their names in the White House and Congress didn’t play their assigned roles.  They are.  To clueless, halfwit, suicidal perfection.  Democrats are jubilant that they’ve managed to clusterfuck their way to 60 votes in the Senate, but they won’t be quite as jubilant when the healthcare crisis keeps intensifying and unemployment keeps getting worse and banks keep failing and the dollar tanks and the war in Afghanistan keeps getting bloodier and the commercial real estate market implodes and takes what’s left of the economy down with it.        

Obama isn’t playing 12 dimensional chess, he’s playing Russian Roulette with a bullet in every chamber.  

He loaded the Wall Street Bailout bullet, he loaded the not enough stimulus bullet, he loaded the Bernanke back to the Fed bullet, he loaded the deficits are bad bullet, he loaded the Afghanistan escalation bullet, he’s loaded every bullet the corporate masters of this country handed him and keeps pulling the trigger.      

I’m not advocating revolution, but a revolution is coming.  I couldn’t stop it if I wanted to, I wouldn’t stop it if I could.  The same conditions that triggered revolution in France in 1789, in Russia in 1917, in every land where governments were overthrown by the people are evident here.  The systems of oppression are different, but the consequences are the same. The faces of the political and economic elites are different, but their abusive agenda is the same.  The names of the oppressed are different, but their contempt for the government and intensifying anger are the same.      

The fuse of revolution is burning more slowly here, but it’s burning and it’s going to keep burning because the outrages never end, the lies never stop, the corruption keeps spreading and the patience of the people keeps wearing thinner and thinner, as jobs keep disappearing and the cost of living keeps rising and families keep suffering and anger keeps intensifying.          

In Empire of Illusion, Chris Hedges examines the pervasive ways in which Americans are separated from the complexities of reality and become trapped in a mind-killing, reality-destroying, one-dimensional existence.  For most of them, there is no way out of this corporate capitalist prison; for most of them, there is no escape; they can’t even try to escape because they don’t even know they’ve been locked up. They don’t see the guard towers, they don’t see the walls, they don’t even saw the bars of their own cells.  

Chris Hedges . . .    

We consume countless lies daily, false promises that if we spend more money, if we buy this brand or that product, if we vote for this candidate, we will be respected, envied, powerful, loved, and protected.  Reality is dismissed and shunned as an impediment to success, a form of negativity, it is condemned as defeatist.  Those who question, those who doubt, those who are critical, those who are able to confront reality and who grasp the hollowness of this culture, are shunned and condemned for their pessimism.

Human beings have become a commodity. They are objects, like consumer products.  They have no intrinsic value.  Life is a brutal world of unadulterated competition. Life is about the personal humiliation of those who oppose us.  Those who win are the best. Those who lose deserve to be erased.  Compassion, competence, intelligence, and solidarity with others are forms of weakness.

In accordance with these lethal illusions, progressives are weak and deserve to be erased. Conservatives are strong and deserve to rule.  Capitalism is sacred.  Conformity is sanctified. Dissent is condemned.  The corporate media pounds this narrative into the public consciousness every hour of every day, in every conceivable way, through every visual, aural, emotional, and psychological form of communication ever devised.  The consequences have been devastating.      

At West Point last week, Obama said, “We’ll support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people.  We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable.”  

David Broder must be freaking out.  It sounds like Obama is advising Afghans to exact retribution, engage in partisan witch hunts, have show trials, and turn their country into a banana republic.    

Why Is Obama Worried By Corruption in Afghanistan? . . .

Obama’s weakest position, in our view, has been his determination to “look forward, not backward” regarding the apparent crimes of the Bush administration. That stance has never made sense, and it makes even less sense now that Obama has announced plans to send 30,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan.

At the heart of the Obama plan is a push to root out corruption in Afghanistan. And that’s ironic because Obama has shown no interest in rooting out corruption here at home.   Why the surge in Afghanistan?  Obama hopes to stabilize the country and turn it over to the government of President Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately, the Karzai government is flagrantly corrupt, marked by cronyism and electoral fraud.

Sounds a lot like the Bush administration, doesn’t it?  But Obama wants Americans to forget all the pain that was inflicted upon our democracy over the past eight years.

If Obama actually gave a flying fuck about accountability, he’d bring the Predator drones home and fly them over Wall Street.  As soon as a corrupt CEO, banker, hedge fund manager or credit default swapper showed up in the street he’d get his ass blown to Hell.  Obama could call it winning the hearts and minds of the American people.  He could call it liberation. Francis Scott Key VII would see it from that Brooklyn homeless shelter he lives in and could write a song about it.  Here in the twilight’s last gleaming, we could finally get some useful results from our $900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 defense budget.

Maybe I’m missing something here . . .  Did the Taliban destroy our economy?  Is the Taliban looting our Treasury?  Did the Taliban take control of Congress?  Is the Taliban using it as a weapon against us? Who’s doing all that?  

We all know who’s doing that.  So does Obama.  But there won’t be any Predator drones over Wall Street.  He won’t have a Predator or two following Dick Cheney around either. He’d rather let Dick strut around like the greatest warrior of all time and call him a traitor every day of the week and twice on Fox News Sunday.    

I don’t remember Mr. Five Deferments being red, white, and blue to the bone when the Vietnam War was raging.  I don’t remember him joining the Army because he had no place to go, I don’t remember him landing in Kandahar with an eagle and a flag tattooed on his arm. But he sure likes to give those warmongering speeches.   A fat man in a blue Mercedes drives him to the door, he pumps himself up like he’s Patton crossing the Rhine, scowls his message of endless war, and basks in the applause of every other psychopath in the room.    

Something about being a lying asshole all your life makes you hard that way.

If there’s still enough time, if it’s not too late, if you haven’t given up, if you can find the words, if you haven’t run out of words, if you haven’t been silenced, banned, exiled because too many Obamabots profusely supportive admirers of Barack at GOS and other bizarre locations don’t want to hear the truth, don’t want to deal with it, can’t bear to look at it, won’t acknowledge it because he is their last refuge, their final sanctuary, the only source of hope they have left in this betrayed wreck of a country.            

How many times do they have to see Obama stumble down the side of that Misty Moderate Mountain before these people realize he’s not the Moses of the Democratic Party, before they finally understand he’s not leading us to the Promised Land, he’s just plunging us deeper into the Valley of Centrism Death, where lies and self-delusion reign and the truth is never heard.  It shouldn’t be so hard for them to figure out how this is all going to end if progressives back down again, if we take one for the team again, if we let K Street’s bought and paid for hacks pass this healthcare “reform” atrocity.  

You don’t have to walk and crawl on six crooked highways for the rest of your life to know where we’ve been and where we’re going next, an IQ of 50 and two functioning eyes are all that’s necessary to confirm that those crooked highways are just an endless corporate tollway to nowhere and that it’s our job to keep paying for the trip.  

Kos has prohibited discussions of fundamentally important issues like 9/11 and the impact of Diebold voting machines on elections.  He slandered Impeachment diaries as Impeachment porn.  So in his view, the Constitution must be democracy porn.

Progressives disgusted by that still post there because other progressives disgusted by that still post there.

That’s brilliant thinking.  Very inspiring.

Progressives who still post on Daily Kos make me sick.  Don’t fucking talk to me about the high traffic there, it’s the high traffic of hypocrites who talk about principle but never take a stand on principle.    

This isn’t complicated.

Daily Kos deserves no progressive traffic.

As our cities start to crumble,

And the towers fall around us,

The sun is slowly fading,

And it’s colder than the sea . . .

45,000 Americans died last year because they couldn’t get the medical care they needed, 45,000 more Americans will die this year, 45,000 Americans are going to die next year and the year after that and the year after that because corporate profit is more important than human lives, because money determines who receives medical care and who doesn’t, because the depravity of Republicans, the moral cowardice of Democrats, the craven propaganda peddling of the corporate media, and the back room deals of Barack Obama have turned an electoral mandate for health care reform into a Category Five Clusterfuck of co-ops that can’t compete, mandates that punish the powerless, and a public option trigger that will never be pulled.

Brace yourselves for three more years of change we can’t believe in, brace yourselves for more “bipartisan solutions”, brace yourselves for escalating establishment attacks on progressives, brace yourselves for more Republican outrages, more Republican threats, more Republican attacks.  The truth is burning, crosses are burning, trillions of dollars are burning, Baucus and Conrad and Snowe have lit the funeral pyre of real change and we have Obama to thank for that, he’s the one who gave them the torches.

45,000 Americans are dying every year because they cannot get the medical care they need. America is suffering a Hurricane Katrina death toll every month. A 9/11 death toll every 30 days.  More than 3,000 Americans died in January because they couldn’t get the medical care they needed, 3,000 more died in February, 3,000 more in March and April and May and June and July and August.  A hurricane didn’t kill them. Muslim hijackers didn’t kill them.  The corporate hijackers of America’s government killed them, the Muhammed Attas of K Street, the Bin Ladins of the Beltway, the Jihadists of Corporate Greed killed them.  They were American citizens, they needed health care, they asked to be given medical treatment, but the profit driven health insurance industry gave them a death sentence instead.    

We’re a long, long way from home,

Home’s a long, long way from us . . .

Millions More Foreclosures Coming . . .

Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said last Wednesday.

Impending Commercial Real Estate Crisis . . .

Federal Reserve and Treasury officials are scrambling to prevent the commercial-real-estate sector from delivering a roundhouse punch to the U.S. economy just as it struggles to get up off the mat.  Their efforts could be undermined by a surge in foreclosures of commercial property carrying mortgages that were packaged and sold by Wall Street as bonds.  Similar mortgage-backed securities created out of home loans played a big role in undoing that sector and triggering the global economic recession.

Banking System Bound for Hell With the Hammer Down . . .

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, said the U.S. has failed to fix the underlying problems of its banking system after the credit crunch and the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.  “In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

The Afghanistan Quagmire . . .

The Taliban are back. The Afghans are tired of American troops in their midst  . . . virtually every military expert agrees that Afghanistan is the last place on Earth for a modern army to wage war and that includes every NATO general.

Long ago, the British learned that Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die. The notion that democracy as practiced in the West can be transplanted there is farcical . . . since the 1700’s the primary export from Afghanistan has been heroin and it remains so today.   Other than growing poppies, there’s not much that passes for an economy there.   It doesn’t matter who’s elected because the business of Afghanistan is opium.  American troops will not alter that.

And the business of America is corporate greed, corporate profit, corporate expansion. Obama won’t alter that.  It doesn’t matter who’s elected, because other than speeches and smoke and mirrors policies, there’s not much that passes for reform here.

I don’t see any real change,

I don’t feel much hope,

I feel a dirty wind blowing,

I see Devils and Dust.