Reform, My Ass!

I'd like to think we can somehow take our democracy back via he current two party system but I fail to see how it could be possible. Average everyday citizens, the 99%, don't have the deep pockets it takes to influence most politicians. We now find ourselves with the finest democracy money can buy. Which is not a democracy at all. It is something more like this. As of this writing, we still have more or less freedom of speech (unless you talk about talking to so called terrorist groups and wind up in a cell at an undisclosed location as a guest of the US military, for example). There are other taboo topics where the punishment is not as obvious but still bad enough. Those who question the the on going War on Terror, invasions of other countries and bombing those we label rouge and or terrorist organizations often face ridicule, humiliation, job loss or marginalization.

The same can be said of anyone who questions capitalism or Neo-liberalism. "What are you, some kinda commie or socialist?" Try to get a job with this label. Hell, this may be worse than doing time in the American gulag. I think we still feed prisoners and let them have shelter which is more than I can say for our ever shrinking social safety net. But if you are a massive financial intuition who has paid BOTH political parties failure is not an option. Read 'em and weep; here here and here. How can average citizens compete?

Financial deregulation under former President Bill Clinton helped pave the way for mega-mergers and big banks gone wild. Did they really expect this industry to police itself? Those who say the market will weed out the dirty players may have been correct but some how they became "Too Big To Fail" and we the tax payers got stuck with the bill. Thus the cycle begins again. For an easy to understand explanation of what's driving the financial crisis check out the documentary, "The Greed Game". The super rich are building wealth on a massive scale while people in so called wealthy western countries are being stuck with "austerity". Those cashing in spend millions on our elections and rake in billions. That's a damn good ROI (Return on Investment)! Are the Republicans any better?

Republicans are all about pro business at the expense of the ever growing underclass. They confuse being a good business man with being a good political leader. Romney offers his business skills as a big qualification to be president but is a good businessman the right person to be president? I think business are two different things. Well duh! Business is all about making money. It is the whole point. Government should be about protecting liberty, providing defense (not an empire) and seeing to it every one's basic needs are being met. What happens when doing the work of good government clashes with making money? Now it seems money wins out every time, no matter the party in power. For a good objective article on Romney click here. Republicans play on people's fears to protect business interests. Government run health care is bad! The old lady on TV says "Big government stay out of my Medicare!" GROOOOAN. Death panels under your bed! They want to take away your guns! The Mexicans are taking our jobs! The list is almost endless but people buy in. Both parties do a hell of a job on selling us on war!

In the beginning George W. had me sold on the Iraq war but I started to listen to those opposed to it and woke up. "War made Easy" is a documentary which exposes the same script presidents use to sell us on war for more than fifty years now. "They are a grave threat to us.", "We must protect freedom." 'We must prevent genocide." Bla bla bla... Neither party questions the fact that a president can start a war and now has a private army in both the CIA and Contractors such as Dyncorp and Academi (formerly known as Xe, Formerly known as Backwater).

There are others who feel this way.

Stan Goff "Why I wont vote (and you shouldn't either)"

Ted Rall Blog

Chris Hedges "This is what revolution looks like"

Chalmers Johnson Read here!

I hope I'm full of shit and those who want to change the system / game from with in are right but how? If not, what are the possible alternatives? Let the dialogue begin! Keep it positive.

Story Time!

All the time is story time with us. The truth (that’s small t truth) is we don’t know for sure where we came from or why we are here much less where we are going. So being story tellers, we came up with gods, goddesses and all kinds of fun myths. Moma earth and papa sky got busy and here we are! We cannot stand ambiguity. There has to be a reason for everything or at least a good story. This is the whole point of religion. It gives some of us a workable story to explain life. Be good and go to heaven or be bad and go to hell, what could be more simple and easy to follow? We individually create our own versions of reality based on all the stories we learn. Christians are not taught the stories of Buddha or The Profit Mohamed. I think religion is largely dependant on geography. Where on earth are people taught about all the major religions and then choose which one they will follow? No, we learn based on where we are born. Sadly, we are also told ours is the one True (capital T) story! Anyone with a few brain cells and a reliable internet connection can plainly see the problems this has lead to. But stories (narratives) determine so much of our lives.

Here in the United States we are taught a national narrative (known as history classes). For most it is a series of events, people and dates. The details add up to we being a free people who are a shining example to all on how everyone should live. We like the story so much we share it with others (often at gun point) thinking they are really Americans just waiting to come out! Majeed would be much happier working in a factory or owning a small store than working his own land. We are sure of it! Perhaps if we blow up his house, he will see it our way. Yes, this is an absurdity but is this not the underlying narrative behind our wars in the Middle East? Be like us (and sell us your resources at rock bottom prices) and everything will be just great! Most people here are only taught the “good guy” narrative of the United States and that’s why we continue to wage wars around the world. In Iraq we had to take out an evil dictator who was a threat to the region (oil supplies) and the rest of the world. Afghanistan was crawling with terrorist types who wanted to do us harm. Call in the air strikes and send in the Army Rangers! The narrative is simplistic and easy to follow, kind of like religious stories. Anything that contradicts the narrative of the USA as the “good guy” is all too often swept under the rug or written off via the “few bad apples” story line. We use stories here at home as well.

The average narrative goes something like this, study hard in school, stay out of trouble, go to college, get a good job working for the man, get married, buy a nice house, have kids and live happily ever after. This story has a title. It is called The “American Dream”. For many, that’s all it is- a dream. Those who do not follow the plot to the letter are given labels (another entry for a later time), criminal, deviant, weirdo and so on. Those who want to live another storyline are cause for fear and dealt with accordingly. They are often excluded (poor minorities), have fewer rights (so called gay people) subject to harassment (both poor and gays) and muted (not allowed to tell stories, marginalized). To see this in action, all one needs to do is take a trip to their closest Department of Social Services or local unemployment office and simply sit in the drab lobby for an hour or two. Look at who goes in to use these services. Also, pay attention to where these services are rendered. Chances are they in out of the way places in areas far away from “The American Dream”.

DISCLAIMER!! I pretty much live the prescribed narrative. That said, I’ve come to realize there are other stories out there.

Where do we get the stories / narratives that guide us? I think the answer is simple. They come from the most powerful who want to maintain things as they are. A good example is our election process here in the United States. Three hundred plus people are allowed to “choose” between only two political parties, Democrats and Republicans. Stan Goff makes a good argument here this is not much of a choice. He argues that not voting in an alternative way of bring about real change. How could either party claim a mandate to rule if only a small percentage of us turn out to vote? I think of it as voting by other means, with our feet. Both parties do little if anything to change the dominant discourse of neo-liberalism. Free markets can solve all of our problems if allowed to run free from interference. There is overwhelming evidence to the contrary; global warming, resource wars, crushing poverty, environmental degradation, and modern slavery just to name a few. The information is out there but one has to look for it. It will not come from the powerful who control the vast majority of media outlets. Neither party questions the neo-liberal narrative. As a result, we get lip service from the Democrats on global warming and out right denial from the Republicans. Both parties use the same techniques to continue unwarranted and unjustifiable wars and have done so for decades. You can simply google the documentary “War Made Easy” for another narrative about war and judge for yourself. I’m interested in the super-rich vs. the rest of us narrative because it seems to explain much of what goes on. But there are other explanations as well and mine may NOT be right.

Look, I could patter on and on about how we use stories in almost every aspect of our lives and I think it will be a good topic for more writings later on. If you have read this far, my hope is you will start to see stories everywhere and think about whom the writer is and ask why is it written and who is it written for, figuratively speaking.

Thanks.

-Paul