Fragmented and Off

It is hard to even know where to begin. So forgive me if this is a little fragmented and off. Looking into the future all I see is black.  

Here we are in the early days of Trumplandia. It has not taken long to see that running a business and running the US government are not the same thing. One cannot do it by tweets and decree. For the moment he (who's name shall not be mentioned here) is enjoying a creepy honeymoon phase with the party of Grumpy Old People in power. But they too will soon tire of tweets, made up facts and casting blame everywhere except where it belongs. Sure, any new administration needs time to get it's bearings but it is bad when the only accomplishment so far is better ratings for SNL. It will get worse.

One thing that is perhaps the most worrying of all are the true believers, those who think the cartoon president can do no wrong and is above all criticism. You've encountered them already, name calling bully types haunting social media. How far down the rabbit hole of decent killing fascism will they be willing to go? They can see no wrong and this is scary. They are a minority but this aspect of Trumplandia I find especially worrisome. It is like an army of brownshirts just waiting to be called fourth.

If those in power find they can ignore the courts, the only check left, we are in deep trouble. Travel bans will only be the beginning. Decent will soon be criminalized and crushed. Everything we though we knew about the USA will be gone. We have the technology today to make old-school 1930's-40's fascism seem a day at the beach. Think about it; drones, unlimited monitoring via phones / on line total control of media and movies. You get the idea.

Some questions.          

How is this delusional bunch now running Washington going to handle their first national emergency / crisis? 

What's going to happen as more and more dirt spews fourth as we all know it will? 


Will the Republicans figure it out in time or do they feel so insulated as not to even care?

Ho can, we the people, gain control over our own government (corporations own it now)?

More soon. Better write and protest while you still can. It's our only chance. 
     

Enough Handwringing Already!

Safety Pin

The first part of solving a problem is realizing you have one. No, the electoral college is not going to make Hillary president. Obama is not going to magically stay in office. We are going to have to come to grips with the outcome of the election and if his picks for key positions are any indication, we are in a shit-ton of trouble. It's easy to Monday morning quarterback and cast blame, oh it was the Berniecrats, a bunch of racists and other undesirables got out the vote, or my personal favorite- The Russians did it! None of it matters. Over. Done. We are here now with a cartoon billionaire super- villain holding the most powerful office IN THE WORLD appointing nut jobs for important positions. My hope is this will stir a new movement.

I'm not real fond of the "fight" narrative. We gotta FIGHT back. FIGHT for a better future, Fight for this or that. FIGHTING is the government's job. What's needed is a whole new game. This one is rigged for the powerful or as my Marxists friends would say, the ruling class. I have no perfect answer but here are a few ideas.

---Something akin to Occupy could disrupt business as usual and offer a counter narrative to "government sources," the mainstream media and so called think tanks. What can you think of?        

---A safe space for like minded groups to meet organize and plan. Something that serves as a gathering point for BLM, LGBT, Standing Rock, Union / Labor types, Earth savers and so on. All face the common threat of Neoliberalism. This is a powerful but largely unknown force that developed over the last several decades. Wishful thinking is not going to make it "go away." This needs to start local but grow to global. And we need to be in it for the long haul. This struggle will go well beyond the current Buffoon's time in Washington.

---Educate yourself, find like-minded folks to work with and have FUN! Keep your head up, a good sense of humor and a positive attitude. Yes there are some very dark days coming, stunning setbacks and cruelty, a lot of cruelty. But don't let any of it fuck you up- just keep moving forward. In the words of MLK, "If you cannot run, walk. If you cannot walk, crawl just keep moving forward." Not exactly what he said but you get the idea.            


 Okay, run with it!
  

The problem

"The problem is not the problem, the problem is your attitude about the problem." - Captain Jack Sparrow

 How can a subsystem dependent on the larger system for its existence, change the larger system?

The government here in the USA, a democracy in name only, has come to depend on neo-liberalism for its existence. Money drives the train. These multinational conglomerations who's only purpose is to make money buy governments around the world to do their bidding. I'll focus here in the USA. I'm sure similar things go on the world over. Governments don't regulate business, business regulates business via legislatures they buy. This may not be the end of the world but there's a problem. For the most part, business / corporations main focus is on the short term. That's why they are not the best alternative for long term projects, like building the interstate highway system or the space program. Who wants to start something that may not turn a profit within a lifetime or ever? This short term thinking is what drives the climate change denier crowd. They could care less about what will happen a generation or two down the road. I think this is why we can get so few long term solutions to any of our problems. If it has no impact on today's bottom line, don't worry about it. Let's look at this in action.

Another mass shooting... and nothing changes. Anyone with any thinking skills at all can see we have a gun problem there in the USA. People want action but get "prayers." Gun manufacturers have an unbreakable death grip on the national legislature. With each new mass shooting we go through the same ole circle jerk, second amendment gibberish, the right to protect oneself, better mental health care and gun control. We rarely, if ever, asks who benefits from the problem. Nor do we consider long-term solutions like meeting people's basic needs or addressing our sick relationship  with violence.  Healthcare?    

Same with healthcare. Problems abound but no one asks who benefits from the status quo. They now want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act but offer no concrete alternatives. Why don''t we follow other civilized nations and have a nationalized healthcare system in which healthcare is a basic human right? Easy! Follow the money. Think about who benefits from the status quo.  Climate change?

What climate change? My wallet says not to believe in it, therefore I don't. This seems to be the mantra our government lives by. Except it is not my or your wallet they go by. Anything short of seven plus digits, forget it! Millions spent to muddy the waters and put doubt in peoples' minds to keep making billions. Simple math. Until the whole things blows up.

The endgame is coming soon. Electing a New York based billionaire real estate mogul will only accelerate the process. But that's for a future post...
 

Protest

Why Anti-Trump Protests Matter

Start here.

And I'd like to add.

So this dude loses the popular vote but still wins a smashing victory in the electoral college. Are we all just to shrug it off and go home? Here are a few things not mentioned in the above article.

300+ million people live here yet Trump only got 60 million or so votes.  I don't think it takes a degree in rocket science, or anything else for that matter, to see what's wrong here. So any claim of a popular mandate is... wrong.

Less than half of eligible voters voted. I get it. Non-voters feel unrepresented. Who did our two mainstream parties represent? Why who pays for them of course! Too many people feel like unpeople- invisible, voiceless, disposable and forgotten. But let's just keep calling them lazy! That will totally make them want to participate in the finest democracy in the world.

Power concedes nothing. We cannot expect to tear down the master's house with his tools. We are never going to be able to vote our way out of our problems. The game is rigged. The game is fixed. The game only benefits the powerful. Hopefully, protest can change the game.           

Trumplandia!!

So the "unthinkable" has come to pass. Many thought it would be business as usual. Well, guess again. The clueless Dems sealed their fate when they went for someone more "electable." America is tired of... business as usual. Very tired. So they elected an outsider with 0.0 political experience, a billionaire reality TV star with plans to fix all of our problems. I cared little for the last president and I'm not going to like the new one either. And if you think the billionaire cares for you, please contact me about some YUGE re-seller opportunities! So to get this party started, here's some reading for ya. 

Henry A. Giroux | The Authoritarian Politics of Resentment in Trump's America

 Reflections on a Democracy in Crisis

More soon. 

 

Show up stand up. 

 

 

 

     

Note to a friend....

 Hi All, wrote to a friend. Thought I'd share. 

People will be doing a postmortem on this election for YEARS to come. We all share in the blame... We want Democracy but are unwilling to work for it. We would rather be entertained via the NFL, Hollywood and yes, the media. Few want to do the actual work of being a citizen. We let ourselves be divided into tribes by Fox News and CNBC (or whoever else agrees with my point of view). We've lost out collective ability to question (if we ever had it?). Now we we find ourselves in a hyper-security state where asking questions is more dangerous business, you are either marginalized, smeared or have to find safety in Russia for God's sake! And if you are a real challenge you go out a la MLK. Keep them down and keep 'em dumb / divided seems to be the mode of operation. How do we break out?

1. Stop with the insults. Trump supporters are not a bunch of illiterate racists. Get away from things like Libtards. Neither is helpful. 

2. Build bridges, not walls. Look for common ground. Seek agreement. There is more of these two things than pundits admit. They thrive on ratings. So turn off your TV.

3. Social media is not a place for political dialogue. Get together- talk!

4. Organize / resist. Government will not take care of us. We must take care of each other.

5. ALWAYS remember, government is of the powerful by the powerful FOR the powerful. But it does run in cycles. Sometimes, those on or near the bottom get better treatment. Especially when they remind those at the top who really has the power, extreme civil unrest / disobedience. 

6. Resist.

The election is in the past. Buyers remorse will sent in soon. Let's build on that.

Liberal & Conservative-- Choices of Illusion

 I have to consider myself a radical leftist. Radical because I no longer believe we can solve our myriad of complex problems at the ballot box. Don't get me wrong, I love Bernie Sanders and all but could care less for his party, the Democrats. It was not all that long ago an "outsider" named Barack Obama was the anointed savior from the left. He more or less followed the policies of George W. who had more or less followed the policies of Bill Clinton (minus the ill timed oval office BJ). These guys are just the face of something so large it is invisible to most, the neo-liberal world order. I'm not talking about a James Bond style cabal of super villains. No, I think the reality is even worse. A tiny fraction of nameless, faceless people are hell bent on controlling the world's wealth at any cost basically run things for their own narrow benefit. When a British employee of Goldman-Sachs Bank said they run the world, he was not that far off. Basically everything is to be commodified and I mean everything- the gravel around your parking lot, each blade of grass, every tree and even the air and water. Everything of value is being sucked bone dry by those at the very top. Check out this this and this. So what does any of this have to do with Liberals, leftists and conservatives?        

Liberal and Conservative are different labels for the same product, neo-liberalism. Here is a list of one-hundred ways the Democrats and Republicans are the same. Now both try to throw bones to their bases, God in schools, anti-immigrant with a dash of homophobia on the Conservative side and protect the environment, nanny state with a bit of the government can fix everything on the liberal side. I get it, this is an over simplification but hopefully, you get the point. Think of it this way; while the USA is protecting rotten regimes in the middle east and elsewhere via drones, death squads and only God knows what else, some in an unknown skyscraper is raking in billions. The national dialogue focuses on things like gay rights, abortion, immigrants and nonsensical religious stuff. Sure, some of these things are important but they serve to limit our national dialogue. There are some things that are simply not talked about at all, like nationalizing healthcare, questioning our capitalist model or the ever growing militarization of our society. Neither major political party has a coherent energy policy and are completely incapable of solving the huge problem of catastrophic climate change. Our fossil fuel driven society lacks imagination and the ability to change. It looks like we are in for a crash landing sooner than we care to think.

Our only hope lies in resistance. It is not too late for non-violence to work. We need to do what we can to disengage from and delegitimize  the current neo-liberal world order and rebuild democracy from the ground up. Occupy was a start and it has not gone away. It has morphed into new movements like Black Lives Matter, etc etc. I think the best way to change the game is to stop playing. There is too much at stake not to listen to the lessons of history. If this thing goes violent, the world as we know it will cease to exist. It is scary as hell to think of the French and Russian revolutions with today's technology and weapons. In the coming years, we are going to be walking a fine line between just change and violence like the world has never seen before. All the paranoia and guns here in the USA, combined with growing inequality mixed with unprecedented powers of surveillance do not bode well for a peaceful future. Both major political parties are bought and paid for by financial interests who, blinded by greed, are incapable of seeing the tsunamis of climate change, energy depletion and overpopulation about to over take us all. This blindness is the reason why we must think radically about our collective future. So what will that look like? Will it be a disastrous crash landing or a controlled decent? Radical change is coming one way or another and sooner than you might think.