Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Freedom to be Massacred?

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It’s true, you know – freedom isn’t free. This little axiom has been used in the past to bolster support for armed conflict, as in “we have to be prepared to fight wars to ensure our freedom is not taken from us.” That has been true, though only once in the last century to my reckoning, in 1941.

But now, today, it’s different. We have to fight domestic lovers of conflict and haters of peace like the bizarre orange man-baby, the demagogues and indiscriminate saber-rattlers, the gun fetishists, the amoral greed of the military-industrial-technological complex, the soulless NRA and its meek toadies in Congress – we have to fight all of them. We have to oppose them in order to guarantee our freedom to NOT be party to the indiscriminate murder of innocents by way of legislative inaction or by allowing an insane megolomaniac to gain the awesome power of the presidency. It’s OUR government that’s doing nothing to protect the innocents, it’s VOTERS who put these people in office. Unless we act with courage against them, WE are culpable.

Thoughts and prayers? Faith without works is hollow boasting, vanity and evasion. Far too easy to cross oneself and then look away. Look back – the danger is still here, it’s not over because this week’s dead are buried. Your loved ones are at risk every day, all year long, as we know too well.

To hell with Congress’s moment of silence and Republican lawmakers’ fear of the demagogue. To hell with the transparent lies of the NRA. We need loud, angry voices decrying the inaction of cowards and the dangerous nonsense spouted by ignorant fools every moment, until we are heard.

Socialism Part 4: Time to Choose

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In spite of where we are now, we still retain one great power: the power of the vote. Yes, this power is being attacked and undermined as we speak, with Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United and a plethora of anti-democratic voting restrictions being instituted by the oligarchy’s Tea Party foot soldiers in state legislatures across the country. But for now we still retain that power, which, at least in theory, can change our destinies.

Enter Bernie Sanders. The self-described Social Democrat (or “Democratic Socialist”) has ‘berned’ through the 2016 presidential primaries with a highly focused message to the country: Wall Street is running the show. Government will continue working for the 1% — and will continue ignoring the rest of us — until we fundamentally change the system.

It’s the right message, and though I would not have believed it six months ago, I now feel it may be the right time, or close to it. The idea of a 74-year-old socialist, a secular Jew, a political outsider, an atheist whose only child was born out of wedlock, who honeymooned in Russia, who has praised Castro’s Cuba – the idea that this man could beat an establishment Republican in a general election heavily financed by the Koch machine? That’s a crazy idea.

But look over there! All of a sudden the GOP is imploding, rocked by a slow-motion civil war with its Tea Party wing and devolving at this moment into a chaotic brawl between the racist supporters of runaway front runner Donald Trump, who is channeling proto-fascist populism a la Vladimir Putin, and the party establishment. It appears very likely that the GOP will not have a “safe” candidate to run. They will have instead a racist, xenophobic, amoral blowhard fascist at the top of the ticket.

So the question now becomes a legitimate one: Can we actually transform this hijacked society into a social democracy? Can we quit shooting ourselves in the foot – quit starting oil wars for Wall Street, quit propping up oil-and-blood-soaked dictatorships, quit disparaging our own government as if it were our  enemy, quit scaring everyone with exaggerated threats of “Islamist Terror” by Syrian war refugees, quit denigrating these same refugees for fleeing from real terror, quit the “unlimited guns and ammo for everyone” 2nd amendment fetishism, quit meddling in women’s private health care issues, quit bashing and hobbling the unions that built the middle class the oligarchy is trying to destroy, quit pretending taxation is evil and that opposing taxation is a legitimate reason to stick it to the poor and the elderly, quit gunning down unarmed African-American citizens in the streets with impunity – can we really quit all that nonsense and start to move forward?

Can we really be more like the smart countries?

It seems too good to be true. But because of this moment — the sheer unlikely madness of this moment — Bernie has crashed the national conversation and Social Democracy has entered the exciting realm of the possible. One is tempted to think that perhaps this moment is pre-ordained, as if the GOP’s distracting crisis were some kind of divine “opening” of the system’s seemingly monolithic barriers to fairness and equality, an opening that would allow us to infuse humanity and dignity into the political process and, like grown-ups, put an end to the endless era of so-called “partisan gridlock” (AKA planned government malfeasance engineered by the plutocrats who want it that way).

People are excited about this! – And especially about the Messenger, Bernie Sanders.

But we don’t need a “revolution” — whatever that means — we just need to get out, and vote, and win, for the principles that already bind us, for the values we obviously share and have for decades. This has nothing to do with the Democratic Party, and everything to do with government of the people, by the people, for the people – which truly is in peril of perishing from the earth.

Bernie alone cannot do it — as he says over and over, it’s not about him. It’s about us. Hopefully, a sizeable number of the young ‘Berners’ transform into political activists, willing to not only post memes on Facebook but to vote, then to stand up and fight for a government that truly works for the people, and to keep fighting when the oligarchs hit back with the usual scare tactics, patriarchal bluster, and anti-citizen legal maneuvers.

And by that I mean if Bernie does not win this primary — and it appears that he will not due to the vestiges of party influence and cold delegate math — giving up is not the way to go. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld: our entrenched, co-opted political establishment is like a Coke machine — you don’t just walk up and tip it over, you’ve gotta rock that thing back and forth a few times.

If it’s Hillary, vote for Hillary. I don’t care how you feel about her, there is no way you will convince me that Trump is the preferable choice. No way in Hell. Do not even try. And definitely don’t tell me that if it can’t be Bernie, we need to elect Trump in order to create the “crisis” that will usher in the “revolution” – that’s Leninist bullshit. It didn’t work for social democrats in post-Weimar Germany, and it won’t work here. A sour grapes “none of the above” in November is also as good as a vote for President Trump. You know this. Let the Republicans stay home and nurse their embarrassment. Liberals need to get out there. A President Hillary can have coattails – a friendly Senate — with your help. She will choose at least one (and probably several) Supreme Court Justices. So if it goes that way hold your ego in check and help her out — help her help us continue down a progressive path rather than the path of cynical fascism and national ruin. We can get there eventually, but not if the president destroys the nation first.

Stick with your principles. Don’t give in to despair or jaded indifference or, worst of all, defeat. Use your vote, and your voice to tell your story, and keep telling it – why you object to the dismantling of your democratic government, the co-opting of politicians by the corporate oligarchy, why you deserve a voice and a share in the great promise of the American economy, why you will no longer stand for a government in the service of corporations rather than its own citizens.

You will be able to say it under Hillary, by the way, to hold her feet to the fire. You will be ignored, and will very likely land on an enemies list, or perhaps leave with a few bruises, or perhaps worse, saying that to a president Trump.

All of it needs to happen, and to be sustained by your millions of advertising-immune votes competing with billions of dollars in advertisements. We must wrest this nation away from those who seek only, as the GOP’s dictatorial “tax activist” Grover Norquist puts it, to shrink the federal government until it’s small enough and weak enough to “drown in the bathtub.”

You Say You Want a Revolution? Well…You know…

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The fact-challenged narratives that are informing this election cycle, not to mention the caricature candidates, make it more clear than ever that the oligarchy has nearly completed its work. The Parties, in other words, are weakened almost unto death. If you think about it, the outcome that is most desired among the “400” (forget percentages – about 400 people run everything you care to name, the .000001% if you like) is a dysfunctional, factional, barely legitimate government that is constantly at odds with itself, distracting the voters from the actual daily business of government (which is protecting the interests of the 400) through personality cults, amusing theatrics, and of course the constant threat posed by “them” (terrorists, Mexicans, liberals, CEOs, the Clintons, whatever). The 2016 hate-filled presidential bread and circus express, complete with soulless money-grubbing media supplying big microphones to the loudest, most obnoxious voices steeped in ignorant fear and lies —  this serves as our new crass substitute for what once resembled a self-confident political process, at least most of the time.

So if you have the unsettling feeling that everything is about to fall apart,  remember it is by design, and this chaos is being purchased into existence by people who want it this way. The oligarchs will win a rare prize if the voters elect a president who is himself a card-carrying hater of all things federal, a head cheerleader for the destruction of the awful, corrupt “establishment” (i.e. the government as we know it, your friends and neighbors, AFSCME union members, civil servants, cops, teachers, librarians, toll booth workers, park rangers, the DMV, my dad the soldier). The picture is one of a deluded Nero fiddling away at airy ideological ditties in the White House while the massive bureaucratic engine of Washington goes quietly about its never-changing long-term tasks, such as preserving the unbalanced power structure via the tax code and other arcane regulatory regimes, thereby supplying oligarchs with the only self-enrichment and dynastic development tool they need in steady supply: your tax dollars in the form of supply-side tax giveaways and guaranteed interest payments on government “debt” (bonds). The oligarchs are happy to underwrite public debt when the government refuses to collect enough  taxes to pay for itself. Keeping tax rates low on the wealthy means they have plenty of money to lend Uncle Sam instead of just giving it to him, thus making still more profits off of profits that were barely taxed in the first place (i.e. capital gains). But hey, you don’t get rich writing checks to the government! What’s more, the condition serves to symbolically undermine a chronically “indebted” government as a poorly run, ineffectual, wasteful enterprise.

But don’t oligarchs also want safe streets, safe schools, good health care, etc? Sorry, the American oligarchy has already constructed its “parallel” elite society within the nation’s borders on your dime (private learning/health care/financial/social/leisure institutions, private security, gated communities). And of course if things get depressing at home they have the money to globe-trot to all the Earth’s ritzy destinations. Meanwhile their minions in Congress are actively neglecting public infrastructure and public institutions (the dilapidation of which emphasizes the “uselessness” of “excessive” government taxation). Of course, some  notable  exceptions to the “let it rot” philosophy of so-called “limited government” include law enforcement, prisons, the military and its many weapons, which will always be fully funded for obvious reasons. No, the ‘waste’ to be cut from government, the waste that is “ballooning” our national debt, is of course the social safety net – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The longer this trend continues, the more we will hear bought-and-paid-for politicians muse about how we “can’t afford” to care for our most vulnerable citizens.

This is the plan: eventual de-legitimization of representative democracy through cultural/perceptual manipulations that undermine the federal government’s efficacy in the minds of voters  – some of whom may then predictably demand a “political revolution” but won’t know what that means, nor how they are going to make it happen within a political system – and under the watch of a massive law enforcement apparatus – that is now fully controlled by their economic adversaries. This oligarchic control over a thug-like political class will, if they succeed, become the norm, will be the new face of our “democracy” as more and more disaffected voters walk away from what has become, frankly, a vulgar process that is beneath a sovereign individual’s dignity.

Most Americans, of course, aren’t even paying attention.

Storm Center

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Today is my birthday, and here I notice that I’ve kept this log for about a year. My first items–from the mental backlog–sprang forth last spring, and here we are again, enjoying spring on the plains. Another year older, but not much smarter. The Iconoclastic Dog is a year older too, yet she remains the same, eschewing labels. Give me green grass and a hint of rabbit ‘neath the firs, and I’m happy, she avers.

And, as always, I agree. Say what you want about her, she is not one to over-analyze. And while I may not be able to emulate such a philosophy, I do admire it.

It was a wet May. Out here the weather patterns tend to set themselves for a while, offering calm or violence as is the gods’ wont, then abruptly shift to something new. To a Midwesterner, it’s a kind of weather roulette. Folks in San Diego wouldn’t understand, but we enjoy the challenge.

So May offered weekend storm after storm, followed by strangely calm work weeks (feeding rumors that the weather pattern is somehow tied to the Dow Jones). One Saturday was particularly spectacular, offering up 18 twisters in a single night for Nebraska, flash floods in Iowa, and massive storms in Kansas, Oklahoma  and elsewhere. The little town of Hallam, in south-central Nebraska, was destroyed. Less than 10 percent of the buildings were left standing, and the entire town has been condemned, its homes unlivable. People joke about it, but this was actually one of those Level 4 storms that had folks spotting cattle flying through the air. Not funny when you’re the cow, or the owner of the cow.

Dozens of the town’s residents broke into the bank and huddled in a vault as the tornado swallowed up their homes. They say the sound is almost unbearable, and this one took a slow saunter through town, finishing the place off with a businesslike thoroughness. The brick bank building, like most others, actually collapsed. But the people, who are at least as important as currency but not always so well-housed, were safe in the vault. One woman died in her home, struck by debris before she could reach her basement stairway, but that was the total mortality. Mostly these people lost their past and present, and the future doesn’t look so bright either. But they live.

Our experience in the city has been less dramatic, but we’ve had our share of excitement. On the Saturday following the destruction the storms were back, and this time they hit the city pretty hard. We were having a dinner party and at times had to shout over the thunder. Our guests exhibited that nervousness we sometimes feel when experiencing a cataclysm away from our familiar homes. It was a celebration of electricity and raw power, without regard for the plans of the men and women. The point was not lost on us.

We cling deftly but precariously to the exposed surface of this world, which at any time might be swept clean of us or our neighbors by indifferent nature. Yet we cling, and we hope that today’s storm will pass us by, and we try not to think of what realms it will cleanse instead.

We live in the sometimes violent plains, but no one is safe from the storms, which take so many awesome and terrible forms these days. And there is no preparing now, no safe haven really, if there ever was, from what may come. All we can do is keep our grip, and remind each other of how wonderful, how beautiful it all has been. And will be.

What’s a Blog?

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I read an article the other day on a piece of cultural ephemera – the Web Log or “blog.” The article, from the AP, reported that a lot of “bloggers,” as these diarists are called, are less than faithful to their sites, and that of X number of blog sites reviewed, only such-and-such percentage had been updated in the last week. The cynical journalistic conclusion was that Americans continue to be a people struck by techno-fads but unable to stick with their passion of the moment.

The interviews were the typical kind of lament, the “Well, I started it for our Hawaii vacation but just kind of lost interest” sort of thing. Or the blogger simply “got busy” and dropped off the Internet like a faithless pen pal.

Which brings me to note that had this secret site been reviewed by the blog police, I too would have shown up as a “slacker,” or one who has abandoned his blog, since I haven’t felt the urge to add in about seven weeks or so.

But I am no blogger. In case there’s any confusion, this is my life here. This is not a scratch pad or short-term journal of days. No, this is me all told. Or at least as much as I care to tell. My plan is enormous – to log the rest of my days here, the iconoclast unbound. Further, I don’t use this space to dash off random thoughts on the events of the day, as these bloggers do, but plan and craft these little essays to stand alone as moments in my life. These are statements of how my life is framed at a given time, how my thoughts are coalescing around the days.

I figure there are enough people commenting on what Bush said last week, or what the new Vines album portends for pop music.

Also, among the few “successful” blogs I’ve encountered, the practice of massive hyper-linking abounds, setting it apart from my purposefully hyperlink-free entries. Such a mass of links to “what’s happening now” material belies the temporary nature of the writing, since most of those hyperlinks will point to nothing within a few months or years.

The very word  – blog – smacks of cultural flightiness, of a term of the moment, and I predict it won’t be around much longer. This fad, like all the others, will drop off the radar of the major cultural engines. Those who are left will be blogging for themselves alone. Or they, like all the rest, will simply give up out of ennui, or, more likely, because some new techno-fad came along to entice their distracted minds.

So though I sometimes tell myself I need to write a bit to stay consistent and to keep the flow of my life chronicled, I will not write here simply to write something. I have no use for electronic doodling. And although my log will contain a measured amount of asides – like this one – I hope to keep the main subjects as timeless as the thoughts that invade every mind as it encounters life in passing. These have always been – and remain – topics of the heart, of the mind, and of nature.

So I’ll be seeing you soon – but how soon, I can’t say.