When they tried to name the place, some wanted to call it Dawn City or New America or New Phoenix (like mythical bird rising from the ashes.) But the more folks thought about it and realized our circumstances and understood the reason we were huddled here in this remote area protecting ourselves from the elements and marauding bands of sadistic skinheads, was because the world had gone to shit, well, the name might not be what some Madison Avenue type would have called it, but the naming was easy.

Shit Town.

American politicians accuse China of currency manipulation for refusing to let the Yuan rise in value. Meanwhile, The Fed is about to engage in another round of “quantitative easing” which is another way to say “currency debauchery” by adding a trillion or more dollars of new debt to our tab which can’t be repaid by Third World America and continue to devalue the already debauched dollar. But The Fed is waiting until the day after the election (not that it will make any difference politically) to make the move. If this move is necessary, why wait?

Who is manipulating whose currency?

“When I hear Democrats griping and groaning and saying … ‘the health care plan didn’t have a public option’, and … ‘the financial reform — there was a provision here that I think we should have gotten better’, or, ‘you know what, yes, you ended the war in Iraq, the combat mission there, but you haven’t completely finished the Afghan war yet’, this or that or the other, I say ‘folks, wake up’, ” Obama told wealthy donors at a Democratic National Committee dinner.

Obama told wealthy donors at a Democratic National Committee dinner.

The problem is all those things Obama is blaming liberals for ‘griping and groaning’ about: no public option, no teeth in finance reform, endless wars for profit not purpose, is because Obama has always and only been talking to wealthy donors. The corporatacracy; the financial oligarchy; the great sucking sound as the rich steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Liberals don’t need to be awakened Mr. President. You have woke us up.

My friend Diane Gee, the proprietor of The Wild Wild Left blog and producer and co-host of the weekly radio show by that name, had an inspirational idea the other day to start a “Burn the Ballot 2010” movement.

The idea was to protest against the so-called “two-party” system, which seems to only represent corporate interests and has walked away from doing right by The People. Wall Street versus Main Street. Special Interest versus the Common Good.

So the idea was on election day, instead of voting, a person was to abscond with her ballot from the polling place and go outside and in a safe and legal manner burn or otherwise destroy the ballot on camera and post the video where it can be seen by the most people.

The more people who know they are not alone in their feelings of frustration and disillusion about our completely corrupt and dysfunctional political system, the more who will be encouraged to do something about it.

But, lo and behold, there is the rub. Everyone wants to bitch and moan, but no one wants to do anything about the object of their frustration – their own disenfranchisement as a “people.”

The Oil Age is over. Running on the fumes of empty. It is a ghost empire. The Age of Ponzi-scheme fractional banking is over. The house of cards has collapsed. The emperor not only has no clothes, but he has no skin, bones or blood. He was always a mirage.

Civilization as we have known it in our lifetimes – the move toward centralization, globalization, authoritarianism – is at an end.

Believe it or not.

False Prophets are a dime a dozen. From the clergy to politicians to flim-flam banksters, charalatans are monkeys in a barrel, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The problem is while many are on the lookout for False Prophets, most do not question the Gods behind the religions of these socio-economic-religious shysters.

DOGMA spelled backwards is AM GOD. Dogma is strict adherence to the teachings of the Priest caste. When God is replaced by Religion-as-God, things turn sour.

But further, when you look at the great religions of Western Civilization – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – that, based upon the history of inhumanity practiced by these “great” religions, one must question the veracity of the God behind all these religions. And if one is fearless in the face of billions of believers, the God of the Victors who wrote the History and made the rules is a FALSE God.

On the one hand…

Bad Mood Rising. Short fuses on human time bombs. Powder kegs of combustible frustration. Palpable erosion of the social fabric. Race wars, class wars and culture wars. Rage; the new bliss. Violence; the logical extension of free speech in a tone-deaf world. Murder-suicide and fifteen minutes of fame. Write the note and blow out your brains along with the wife, kids and the management team who fired you for cause in the name of “results.” Shareholder value. No longer a human but a line-item on a ledger. No longer a person but an impediment to the profit margin.