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America’s Political Cannibalism
It is no longer our economy but our democracy that is in peril. It was the economic meltdown of Yugoslavia that gave us Slobodan Milosevic. It was the collapse of the Weimar Republic that vomited up Adolf Hitler. And it was the breakdown in czarist Russia that opened the door for Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Financial collapses lead to political extremism. The rage bubbling up from our impoverished and disenfranchised working class, glimpsed at John McCain rallies, presages a looming and dangerous right-wing backlash.
As the public begins to grasp the depth of the betrayal and abuse by our ruling class, as the Democratic and Republican parties are exposed as craven tools of our corporate state, as savings accounts, college funds and retirement plans become worthless, as unemployment skyrockets and as home values go up in smoke we must prepare for the political resurgence of a reinvigorated radical Christian right. The engine of this mass movement-as is true for all radical movements-is personal and economic despair. And despair, in an age of increasing shortages, poverty and hopelessness, will be one of our few surplus commodities.
Karl Polanyi in his book "The Great Transformation," written in 1944, laid out the devastating consequences-the depressions, wars and totalitarianism-that grow out of a so-called self-regulated free market. He grasped that "fascism, like socialism, was rooted in a market society that refused to function." He warned that a financial system always devolved, without heavy government control, into a Mafia capitalism-and a Mafia political system-which is a good description of the American government under George W. Bush. Polanyi wrote that a self-regulating market, the kind bequeathed to us since Ronald Reagan, turned human beings and the natural environment into commodities, a situation that ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. He decried the free market's belief that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the market. He reminded us that a society that no longer recognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic worth beyond monetary value, ultimately commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves until they die. Speculative excesses and growing inequality, he wrote, always destroy the foundation for a continued prosperity.
We face an environmental meltdown as well as an economic meltdown. This would not have surprised Polanyi, who fled fascist Europe in 1933 and eventually taught at Columbia University. Russia's northern coastline has begun producing huge qualities of toxic methane gas. Scientists with the International Siberian Shelf Study 2008 describe what they saw along the coastline recently as "methane chimneys" reaching from the sea floor to the ocean's surface. Methane, locked in the permafrost of Arctic landmasses, is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperatures rise. Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The release of millions of tons of it will dramatically accelerate the rate of global warming.
Those who run our corporate state have fought environmental regulation as tenaciously as they have fought financial regulation. They are responsible, as Polanyi predicted, for our personal impoverishment and the impoverishment of our ecosystem. We remain addicted, courtesy of the oil, gas and automobile industries and a corporate- controlled government, to fossil fuels. Species are vanishing. Fish stocks are depleted. The great human migration from coastlines and deserts has begun. And as temperatures continue to rise, huge parts of the globe will become uninhabitable. The continued release of large quantities of methane, some scientists have warned, could actually asphyxiate the human species.
The corporate con artists and criminals who have hijacked our state and rigged our financial system still speak to us in the obscure and incomprehensible language coined by specialists at elite business schools. They use terms like securitization, deleveraging, structured investment vehicles and credit default swaps. The reality, once you throw out their obnoxious jargon, is not hard to grasp. Banks lent too much money to people and financial institutions that could not pay it back. These banks are now going broke. The government is frantically giving taxpayer dollars to banks so they can be solvent and again lend money. It is not working. Bank lending remains frozen. There are ominous signs that the government may not be able to hand over enough of our money because the losses incurred by these speculators are too massive. If credit markets remain in a deep freeze, corporations such as AT&T, Ford and General Motors might go bankrupt. The downward spiral could spread like a tidal wave across the country, especially since our corporate elite, including Barack Obama, seem to have no real intention of bailing out families who can no longer pay their mortgages or credit card debts.
Lenin said that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch its currency. If our financial disaster continues there will be a widespread loss of faith in the mechanisms that regulate society. If our money becomes worthless, so does our government. All traditional standards and beliefs are shattered in a severe economic crisis. The moral order is turned upside down. The honest and industrious are wiped out while the gangsters, profiteers and speculators amass millions. Look at Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld. He walks away from his bankrupt investment house after pocketing $485 million. His investors are wiped out. An economic collapse does not only mean the degradation of trade and commerce, food shortages, bankruptcies and unemployment; it means the systematic dynamiting of the foundations of a society. I watched this happen in Yugoslavia. I fear I am watching it happen here in the United States.
The Patriot Act, the FISA Reform Act, the suspension of habeas corpus, the open use of torture in our offshore penal colonies, the stationing of a combat brigade on American soil, the seas of surveillance cameras, the brutal assaults against activists in Denver and St. Paul are converging to determine our future. Those dark forces arrayed against American democracy are waiting for a moment to strike, a national crisis that will allow them in the name of national security and moral renewal to shred the Constitution. They have the tools. They will use fear, chaos, the hatred for the ruling elites and the specter of left-wing dissent and terrorism to impose draconian controls to extinguish our democracy. And while they do it they will be waving the American flag, singing patriotic slogans and clutching the Christian cross. Fuld, I expect, will be one of many corporatists happy to contribute to the cause.
This is a defining moment in American history. The next few weeks and months will see us stabilize and weather this crisis or descend into a terrifying dystopia. I place no hope in Obama or the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is a pathetic example of liberal, bourgeois impotence, hypocrisy and complacency. It has been bought off. I will vote, if only as a form of protest against our corporate state and an homage to Polanyi's brilliance, for Ralph Nader. I would like to offer hope, but it is more important to be a realist. No ethic or act of resistance is worth anything if it is not based on the real. And the real, I am afraid, does not look good.
- Posted in
203 Comments so far
Show AllIf this economic disater get ugly enough, if there is enough public unrest, Bush will bring Presidential Directive 51 into play.
This is EXACTLY the kind of thing it was designed for.
Walk in peace.
I love the constant comments out here that try to scare and intimidate people into inaction. They always say we are all doomed. And they always overstate the sort of threat the government is to anyone who is trying to be active.
One would almost think they are designed to try to damp down any response from CD readers and cow us into submission.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
"I would like to offer hope, but it is more important to be a realist. No ethic or act of resistance is worth anything if it is not based on the real. And the real, I am afraid, does not look good."
__________________________________________
Music to my ears; cool, clear water for my parched and dusty throat; balm to my heart.
Hedges seems to be radicalizing in past months, and that's a GOOD thing.
I particularly relish the closing quote because Hedges neatly and succinctly rescues the term "realist" from the pragmatists who've hijacked it to stand for buying into a corrupt and decadent political process by accepting it on its own reduced terms: an abstract, amoral high-stakes game of chance requiring controlled mendacity and ruthless suborning of principle to gain momentary advantage and ultimately victory, i.e. acquisition of naked political power. (Only for the altruistic purpose of Doing Good, of course.)
I presume that the orthodox CD commenters will recoil from Hedges' unabashed "negativity" and "pessimism", and resent his rejection of the duopoly's "liberal, bourgeois impotence, hypocrisy and complacency". Besides, he doesn't have a "plan"!
Perhaps Hedges should find a venue more attuned to his writings-- unless he's actually a Closet Republican TROLLING here! He's certainly no "progressive", given his bad attitude towards achieving incremental change through relentless pressure on the superficially less barbaric major party candidates!
Here, Here! or is it Hear, Hear!
It's actually "Hear! Hear!" And Little Brother once again deftly makes the point. I have nothing to add, except I admit to being somewhat torn between Hedges' view and that of Eric J-D, way up in this thread. He makes good points too. Sometimes Hedges, of late, can seem a bit over the edge. We aren't necessarily facing a total breakdown of capitalism or the imposition of full-bore fascism. Capitalism can be more resilient than we'd like to think, and fascism will come creeping in on little cat's feet, slowly gaining ground in one institution after another like a boat with a slow leak, until it's too late to bail the water out and we're sinking. Or something. But Hedges MAY be right. It seems impossible to know for certain. Vote your conscience. What else is there? If ctrl-z doesn't like it, tough shit.
This may be the overture preceding Act One of America's own Dirty War. The United States has plenty of sports stadia where the enemies of the state can be warehoused before they "disappear". What the yankee caudillos don't understand is that if the economy of this country is transformed into second world status and the lives of millions of ordinary citizens are permanently and drastically reduced, there are as many guns out there as there are people and tens or hundreds of thousands will engage in armed insurrection. Once that happens, the United States as we have known it (or thought we knew it) is gone. It will be replaced by a state that will be cross between The Confederacy and The Soviet Union - a political gulag and an economic mass grave.
"The Democratic Party is a pathetic example of liberal, bourgeois impotence, hypocrisy and complacency."
Thank you for that description of the Democrats. It's the most accurate I've read in a long long time.
You are right !!!! soooooo right However I think you should be working from within the system in order to institute the changes we seek for bettering the lives of our working class and the marginalized
It is impossible to change the system from without , unless you are proposing a a bloody insurrection and that is not going to happen any time soon and should not happen
So that is why I am voting Obama
So, you are voting for the candidate that supported the bailout and all the police state actions mentioned in this article. And you think that this might change things how?
You can work within the system and still vote for 'change' instead of voting for someone who's been a part of the problem. That's why Ralph Nader is running. And Cynthia McKinney.
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
You are right. Unless the people lead, the politicians will only follow the money instead of us. It is up to US to change their direction. We stopped paying attention when Reagan came along and turned things on their butts, and now we are here as a result.
In Colorado, we had this little thing called "the Ludlow Massacre", where the Governor sent in the national guard to break up the miner's strike, and over a dozen people, including women and children, were killed as a result. But ultimately, it helped to propel unionism into the mainstream. If the people hadn't led the way, the gov't would never have changed it's mind and supported the rights of the real people to demand better conditions and wages.
Now we here have an amendment to vote on called the "right to work" amendment. All it is is a union busting attempt by some of the largest employers in the state, the right to work for less and less money and representation. It has nothing to do with "rights" other than the right of the employer to ruin you even further than they already have for their own benefit. We have lower wages and less representation than most of the country already, but they aren't satisfied yet. We HAVE to stop this shameless farce.
The politicians are the least forthright, the least empathic, the least responsible people in our society (why do you think we elect them to office, it's so they will go away and leave the rest of us alone!). Until WE tell them where WE want to go, they won't lead us anywhere. In fact, they will sell us out to the highest bidder the first chance they get, as has been shown by their actions in the last 28 years. It's time for US to take the reigns and tell them where to go. Otherwise, we will just keep being run by big money and it's desires, rather than our rights and demands.
Texas has always been a "right to work" state. It doesn't seem to hurt wages, but the benefits and protections aren't there. You're right its a union busting law, pass it and they'll be powerless before you know it.
I don't admire unions anymore since they started betraying the American worker by colluding with business. But thats my opinion, if you favor them, you need to fight that law tooth and nail.
That's weird, I'm from Texas and wages suck there. They float on the bottom with the national minimum. Don't let the engineers in Houston and the pencil-pushers in Dallas fool you. For the average Worker Texas if pretty crudly.
Taft-Hartley shot the unions in the belly, but the Union Movement only really fell when industrial manufacture fell. This was the problem with the Union Movement in the U.S., the unions stayed Industrial. When expansion of Unionism into the emerging Service sector was blocked at the same time Globalization of manufacture weaken the position of the AFL-CIO, unions ceased to be a relevant part of the discussion.
For this alone union workers should be against the Democratic party. Though they had been the dems popular base since the New Deal, the Dems did nothing to help them. Bosses became businessmen and politicians, the pigs became Men. Yet many good workers are still True Blue -this is the benefit of a "big tent" party.
I don't see the AFL-CIO as very applicable to our future. Industrial Unionism has had its chance and failed. Ideas for future organization of production should come from Collectivism and Syndicalism. Bleach the red to pink by finding a place for private property and the free market. Wrap the whole thing up in a Civic or village package. Plug it into a Globalist Cultural Outlook. And poof, I think you got a winner.
Just an opinion.
RichM October 13th, 2008 2:01 pm
"You're also wrong to assert that a "bloody insurrection" is the only way to change the system from without."
Thanks for the sanity.
As you pointed out, without the demonstrations againstant the Viet Nam war in conjunction with TV pictures of it every night, without the information brought forth by anti war types the American people might not have changed their minds. We might still be fighting that war! All those examples are correct.
Violence and anarchy simply hold back progress to end something.
Were you there, RichM?
From what I saw -- and I WAS there, was that, only when people started raising hell, breaking windows, firebombing buildings, infiltrating broadcast studios (as at CBS News) and converging in the streets and on Washington, did anything start to change.
Now, I'm not suggesting we do THAT of course, but, hey, I think you've got your facts wrong.
The people in power don't care if you vote or not, the end result is the same for them despite who wins the office of the presidency or the seats of congress. No difference.
The only thing they do understand is people at their front door with pitch forks.
"The people in power don't care if you vote or not, the end result is the same for them despite who wins the office of the presidency or the seats of congress. No difference."
I submit that that is true to the extent that we have used our vote only to choose between Reps and Dems. It's time to use it in a more constructive manner.
RichM
You know what's worse than "bourgeois impotence"? Deliberate impotence, like choosing to vote for a third party candidate who cannot win, instead of trying to elect the better of the two viable candidates.
Obama '08
Ah, ctrl-z
Wielding the biggest WMD for any democracy - "Can't win"- mind killer, idea killer. progress killer.
Why can't he win? Did they change the Constitution? Is he not over 35 and native born? Is he not on the ballot? Who decided he can't win? You? If so, shame on you! Who gets to decide who can and cannot win? I thought WE did!
I will say the same thing I said to Greg R - Its a good thing you weren't around in the 1770's, Washington would have had no luck with you, either.
Ah yes, the "viable" candidates. Which one, arsenic or strychnine, is better for OUR viability?
Aquifer,
Reading your post is like watching a kid who doesn't want to hear something running around with his hands over his ears while he repeatedly screams, "I'M NOT LISTENING!"
Nader doesn't have the votes. Just like he didn't have them in the last three Presidential elections.
Either McCain or Obama will be the next President.
You can vote for one of them or leave the decision to others.
If you're looking for a 'perfect' candidate, why not just write-in Christ (or Buddah or ...)?
They've got as much of a chance of winning as Nader has.
Oh dear, it seems we will be following each other around here, won't we?
Just out of curiosity, why do you think that Nader doesn't get the votes? Do you agree with his positions? Seriously, I'd like to know. If not, fine, but at least have the honesty to debate those positions instead of the mind numbing, progress killing "can't win" sledge hammer.
If you do agree with his positions, then why not vote for him? Seriously, I'd like to know that, too. Shall I assume that it's because he "can't win"?
I will assume that you are an intelligent person and must surely see the absurdity of refusing to vote for someone because he "can't win" which argument is based on the "fact" that he doesn't have the votes! Well, he's got mine, and if you agree with his positions, he could have yours.
See, ctrl-z, there are a whole lot of people out there who agree with his positions, such that if they all voted for him, he'd actually have a crack at it. A lot of those folks didn't in the last 2 contests for the single reason they bought into your absurd argument that he "can't win". This label is a WMD thrown at any candidate who doesn't have a "D" or an "R" on his sweatshirt and is only thrown in desperation by those Ds and Rs who know their candidate doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to policy or position or record when it comes to real issues.
Get yourself a better candidate. If (s)he's a Dem who sounds like Nader, I'll take him/her seriously.
I fear, ctr[-z, that you are the one who is not hearing, which is understandable, because, living in that vast echo chamber, with the perpetual reverberation of "can't win", ringing in your ears, it must be impossible to even entertain, let alone consider, any other idea.
As for your argument that I'm waiting for the perfect candidate to vote, shuck's no. I am simply going to vote for the best one, in my estimation, that's actually on the ballot. The last time I looked, Christ wasn't on there, although I suspect, from the tenor of your posts, that even if he were, unless he were a Dem or Rep., you would tell me it was dumb to vote for him because he "couldn't win".
Ctrl-Z would vote for Joe LIEberNAZI or even Zell Miller just because they had a D next to their names. It is so sickening that the electorate has a mental disease of shooting their own heads off and letting the uneducated corporate media fuck and rape their already corn-fed shitbrains into believing that there are only 2 choices and that voting for any other is a vote for the other or shit like that. No wonder this country's DYING faster than Rome these days ! The only good news is that both parties make no bones about the fact that they really are LOSERS who won't standing up for Main Street except to fake an election stunt right near election day. The bad news is there won't be a country to rebuild once they've finished it off.
Aquifer sez: "Just out of curiosity, why do you think that Nader doesn't get the votes?"
I think a lot of it is the fact that MSM doesn't cover candidates who would cause MSM to lose money. Beyond that there is a mainstream ethos in America that makes a lot of citizens uncomfortable with something that is outside the 'normal' bounds. Like someone saying that Israel has created a Palestinian ghetto and frequently kills Palestinian children.
Not a mainstream view. Something must be wrong with it.
Maybe discrimination against Jews.
Nader is like that. Not mainstream. Something to be avoided.
So people never get a chance to hear what Nader has to say. If they do suffer a brief exposure, they reject it.
So Nader is not going to win.
No matter how much you hope for it, Nader is not going to win.
Even if it would be the right thing for America, Nader is not going to win.
And here you are with this vote.
You can use it to vote for Nader, another 'lost cause'.
There will be some satisfaction in that. It feels good to vote for someone you'd like to win.
But your vote won't change the outcome of the election.
You will have decided to opt out of the selection of a President.
Other people will be voting to get someone in the White House.
Republicans, evangelicals, bigots, gay bashers, end-timers, neo-cons, pseudo-conservatives, ditto-heads - They will all be trying to get their man into the White House.
Are you going to let them?
Because you can make your vote count.
You can vote for the more progressive of the two candidates.
You can have an impact.
Or you can vote for Nader.
Your choice.
Obama '08
Okay, try me on for size.
I will either be voting a "third party" or not at all.
Will I have "...decided to opt out of the selection of a President" then, in either case?
You do realize you are telling us a possible outcome is a definite one, that it is the one you support, so therefore we may either support your possibility or we will have effectively done nothing, right?
You do realize that is a form of Repression right?
Please adopt the "Nader is not on the Ballot everywhere, and no one has won that way in forever", or "Obama has a lot -millions- of actual SUPPORTERS not just lesser-evilists behind him, he is the favorite no matter what" arguments and give up the "fear, or Vote-Against" argument ASAP.
You would sound less like a Stalinist.
And would likely be more effective.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
Is reality repression?
If I tell you I'm going to be elected President this year and you say "No way" are you repressing me?
Or are you being realistic?
(Hint: I'm not a major party candidate)
You're only going to vote 3rd party? Yes, you're opting out.
You're tilting at windmills with your vote.
You could be helping to select a President, but you've decided your viewpoint is more important than who will be in the White House.
Your viewpoint is more important than a woman's right to choose.
Your viewpoint is more important than who is on the Supreme Court.
Your viewpoint is more important than having an advocate of diplomacy in the White House.
Your viewpoint is more important than a continuation of the policies of Bush.
So Matti, I think your choice is selfish. You care more about your viewpoint than what happens to people in the world.
There is still time to change your mind.
Obama '08
You'd better have NO paid or "voluteer intern" type involvement with the Dem Party or the Obama Campaign.
If you do you're really starting to piss me off.
If you don't you're just kind of starting to piss me off.
You call my choice SELFISH?
The choice to uphold my right to a Secret vote of my conscience? The choice to refuse to let YOU repress and control my action through fear.
Your candidate will continue the worst policies of Bush.
Your candidate is for diplomacy by way of Aggressive War in Afghanistan.
Your candidate is in the Senate, the body which decides who is on the Supreme Court.
Your candidate will continue the bombing of women in Iraq.
Don't call me selfish, man. And give up on the Fear -you don't do it well.
Instead try Reason.
Matti sez:
"You'd better have NO paid or "voluteer intern" type involvement with the Dem Party or the Obama Campaign."
I would hope that someone working in that capacity would do a better job of it. :-)
Less confrontational and more inclusive.
But that's not me.
I do think that people who are not in 'safe' states are being selfish when they elevate their views over the potential consequences resulting from them.
But for people in safe 'states', no harm, no foul.
You wrote: "Your candidate will continue the worst policies of Bush."
Sure, Obama's gonna lie us into a war and support the torture of prisoners. He's going to imprison people and claim they have no rights under the Geneva Convention or U.S./International law.
That's nonsense.
"Your candidate is for diplomacy by way of Aggressive War in Afghanistan."
The situation in Afghanistan is unstable. We don't have enough troops there to stabilize it. If we simply pull out it is likely that the Taliban will retake control. They could, as they did before, offer shelter to al Qaeda. The last two polls of Afghanis showed that, unlike the Iraqis, they wanted us to stay.
"Your candidate is in the Senate, the body which decides who is on the Supreme Court."
Yes, but the President decides who to submit.
"Your candidate will continue the bombing of women in Iraq."
"Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months..."
For more see: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/
"...give up on the Fear -you don't do it well. Instead try Reason."
Saying your decisions have consequences, and examining them, is using reason.
If examination of the potential consequences of your decision makes you think someone is trying to make you afraid, maybe you should re-evaluate your decision.
Nice try, ctrl-z, but I thinK there are a few problems with your argument.
First, when people do have chance to hear what Nader has to say, they don't reject it. If that were so, why have the Dems and the MSM gone to the enormous lengths they have to make sure that folks don't get to hear him? If he would be as unpopular as you say, why not put him on TV, or in the debates, as he'd be no threat to their cause and they could say they are being "democratic"? Why won't Obama defend the right of a guy who's on the ballot in 45 states to join the debate unless he's concerned that folks might really like the guy? Why not share your wisdom about Nader with Obama and allay his fears so our guy can get some air time? If you are right, he'll make a fool of himself and then we can all go home.
Second, if my vote "won't change the outcome of the election", then what does it matter for whom I vote or if I vote at all? I appreciate your kind concern that I not opt out of the selection of the Pres., but are you suggesting that I should NOT vote for what I think would be the right thing for America and instead vote for what YOU think would be the Right thing? Let me get this straight, my vote for Nader won't have an impact but a vote for Obama would? And interestingly enough, the gist of your argument isn't that I should vote for him to get a good candidate in, but only to keep a worse candidate out. Wow, what a great endorsement! Suggesting that Obama is the "more progressive of the two candidates" is like saying dirt is cleaner than mud. LOL, as they say here in bits and bytes land.
Sorry, but the idea that I should use my vote against a candidate instead of for one sounds like a sellout to me, and so I am sorry that you have done so. Seriously though, if I can keep a straight face here and it's getting harder and harder to do so, are you voting FOR Obama, or AGAINST McCain? If FOR Obama, please explain why without resorting to "he's better than McCain" or he's the "more progressive".
I realize that you think I have very little brain, and you can hardly contain your condescension in your post. But I, in turn. think your "arguments", or what you are attempting to pawn off as same, are rather pitiful. I suspect you may be able to do better, but hardly think it worth the trouble. Why you spend the time defending the election of a fellow that I suspect you don't even like, at this ungodly hour, with someone you clearly have no respect for, is beyond me, and frankly right now, I'm a bit too tired to care.
Aquifer sez: "I realize that you think I have very little brain, and you can hardly contain your condescension in your post."
Actually that isn't the case. Both you and Matti have, for the most part, presented reasonable, well stated arguments.
I did not mean to seem condescending. I was trying to write simply and with clarity.
Sometimes I succeed.
I have arrived at a different conclusion than you. I don't think that means I'm smarter than you (and vice-versa).
The important thing to keep in mind is that in times of crisis, change can come from and tilt towards the left or the right.
We must be active. We must be vocal. We must be pushing our own views right now.
That means ignoring the constant messages of fear that you'll see posted even here on CD. It means standing up for what you beleive in. It means talking about and pushing for a politics that works for all of us and that helps protect and fight for all of us.
Sure, a right-wing reaction is possible. But its not the only possible future. Get up and fight. Such a crisis has also led to more leftist and popular governments. See Latin and South America in recent years for examples.
The one thing the left does not know how to do in America these days is to fight. Its high time it started learning. And fast.
And one important step is to stop tying ourselves up in fear and crying and worrying about anything that can go wrong. You have to get up and fight. Fear is the mind-killer. So ignore all the negative posters who are cringing in fear of a police state.
The Clash wrote some wise words once ...."Anger can be power. Know that you can use it."
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"To know, and not to do, is not to know"
www.samsonsworld.blogspot.com
Optimists of the world are learning English; pessimists are learning Chinese; realists are buying Kalashnikovs.
v.purto
cunivers
"It is impossible to change the system from without.."
Who is without the system?
How I Earned $480 Million
I have earned just as much money in my "life" as the $480 million that Lehman Brothers paid their former CEO Richard Fuld, but it took me a little longer to earn it.
When I was born in 8000 BC, before the invention of agriculture, I immediately began receiving a typical salary for an assistant professor at a small southern college, $48,000 per year.
I earned this princely salary without a break for 70 years, and as soon as I died at the extraordinarily old age (for a caveman) of 70, I was immediately reincarnated in the obstetrics ward of our cave, and began earning exactly the same salary as before.
At the time of my first "death," 70 years of non-stop professoring had earned me about $3.5 million, significantly more than the average assistant professor will earn in an ordinary career of about 40 years, but some of us are just luckier than others.
After 70 more years of academic toil, I expired again and was immediately reborn and re-hired, and likewise again and again through 143 generations, until my accumulated earnings added up to $480 million!
I hope this little story will inspire the youth of today to get out and fight for the few remaining tenure-track postitions at small southern colleges.
In only 10,000 years, you can earn just as much money as former Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld, or any of the other bankers who destroyed the global economy.
Jacob Freeze
Very witty stuff. Well done.
I agree with Ephraim. :-)
Not worth it.
I'm for Ralph too. California will go for '0' anyway, so my Green Party votes, and Nader votes, will only be a statement. Nader voters will probably "steal" almost as large a percentage, as the Republicans "Voter Fraud" strategy, so it should be close. If Johnny wins, the end will come that much sooner. It's what they call a "win/win situation" on Wall Street.
Oh, come on - sure, all kinds of crazy shit's coming down the pike, but, let's face it: this is a country of loud-mouth, fat pussies. Screaming rage at a small rally of fellow loons makes for a good Big Corp Media .30 second "news" item, but the truth is, most don't have the balls to back up their talk.
There's another possibility CH doesn't suggest - the fringe is ignored while the rest realize some level of enlightenment and get busy doing the right things. Just because certain similar circumstances produced certain results in the past doesn't mean we're destined to follow the same path.
Vote your conscience. Buy weapons. Organize and wait to see if we survive the election. I am a member of Veterans for Peace. That does not mean I am a pacifist. They taught us to kill, remember? So f$#k em if they can't take a joke.
MichaelC
Your article is one of the best I have read on Common Dreams, but when push comes to shove, everyone opts out to vote for Ralph Nader. Voting for Ralph Nader will accomplish nothing. If Nader had been around in the 1930's and 1940's FDR would never have gotten us out of the Great Depression. You are right to comment about Methane gas being released as a great danger to human life on this planet. Why not give Obama a chance. Forget for a minute the Democratic party (or even the Republicans)--trust the man.
I wish I could vote for Obama. I really, honestly do.
But I don't support his party. It's continued war on humanity worldwide by its complicit actions and behaviors, only gives me one option: Ralph Nader.
No, Ralph won't win, but personally, I have to show my resistance. And I have to sleep at night.
A vote for Obama or McCain is another bullet in the chamber of the pentagons war machine.
No, actually, it was BECAUSE there were people like Nader around in the 30's drawing significant support that scared the FDR Dems into their "populist" programs. Obama had his chance, he's blown it. Why not give Nader a chance instead?
His FISA vote and his vote on the bailout did him in. I want no part of him. Concentrate on local living and surviving the coming collapse. As the dollar weakens oil will no longer be traded in dollars, and the financial system will collapse as a result. We can't stop that, Washington is oblivious to the people. I believe that it is more important to build the post-collapse culture now so that the Fascists will not take over when it occurs.
I distinctly saw a terrifying dystopia out my window this morning.
That was the prospect of a McCain Presidency.
Do you live in D.C. or on an airbase or something? Why are you so afraid of a "scary" President?
Seriously do the test, I use a similar version on folks who are freaked-out about terrorists. They get:
C'mon, who's scarrier, Terrorists that may bet one nuke, or the Soviet Empire which had thousands? And how bad did the Soviet Empire really hurt us?
For you I have:
C'mon, you're scared of McCain? You remember Reagan, right?
Sure lots of bad stuff happened with Reagan, just as lots of bad stuff happened with Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. Bad stuff will happen with Obama and McCain too. Maybe it'll be worse with McCain. But it'll suck either way and its not going to stop sucking until the People politicize and organize.
When they do, I'll be able to say, honestly, that I didn't succumb to fear, that I voted for Democracy not Empire. Then they'll either love me or stone me.
Don't Panic,
-matti.
When you are standing in the middle of a street and an oncoming truck is rushing toward you do you jump out of the way or stand there to show you aren't afraid?
If you haven't learned in the past eight years how much of a difference the President can make, you don't learn from experience.
"Maybe it'll be worse with McCain."
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
Sarah Palin.
100 years in Iraq.
Two probable Supreme Court appointments.
Anti-choice.
Hot tempered.
You may not be afraid of a McCain Presidency.
You should be.
Your not afraid of the McCain Presidency.
Your afraid of McCain on the Imperial Throne.
I'm against there BEING an Imperial Throne.
It seems we should work together.
First of all, relax, your man Obama is a lock. At least he is in my State so you don't need to talk me into anything out of fear.
Second, your metaphor is flawed for two reasons:
1. Why am I in the road? If I don't know this how can I know if I should move. Maybe I am there to stop the truck at all costs.
2. Why wouldn't the truck stop? Why is the driver my enemy?
As I wrote before, there are better reasons to abandon illusions about Nader than "McCain Scary!". Why don't you use them? Once someone accepts that Nader is third place at best, they may decide that shoring up Obama is worth more than the hope of building a party around Nader. There are reasons to dislike Nader and reason to like Obama if you give him the same "working within the system" excuse people like to use for Kucinich.
Why not use these tactics instead of Fear-based Repression of Hope?
matti,
Just out of curiosity, is that what you have decided? Have you "abandoned illusions about Nader" or were you never a Nader devotee? You describe yourself as a 3rd party voter. Which "party"?
This is rather intriguing - that as a self described 3rd party voter you seem desirous of helping ctrl-z hone his anti 3rd party arguments, or is it just his anti-Nader arguments?
I'm not sure who -or if- I'm going to vote for. Just that it won't be for either of the Corporatist parties. At least not for president. They're too hungry for that Imperial Scepter at the national level but some of the State "big two" partisans in my State are okay -just dupes.
The "abandoned illusions about Nader" was in part reference to the fact that he does in fact have flaws. But mostly I was conjecturing about the kind of people Who might be swayed to turn to the Dems.
I can see the opening for confusion, but I'm not trying to "hone" his arguments anti-anything. I'm concerned because he (or she?) seems unable to use any other tactic of persuasion except fear, projection, or guilt by association to try to convince people to vote Obama.
I'm giving them arguments that have merit -and are not Repressive- as a kind of test. A test to see how badly the propaganda of fear in recent times has affected them. Are they complicit or just victims? Fearfully naive or cynically twisted?
I see no reason at this time for Citizens to be so polarized as to be worried about "honing" an opponent's arguments while trying to help free them from fear. People who are aware and have not let fear kill their Minds or twist their Hearts will not be swayed, and those who have are convinced already.
For ~ctrl-z~ things look very bleak right now.
Thank you for your response, I stand duly chastised. Perhaps it is because I feel somewhat intimidated by the level of discourse that I feel I may not be up to participating in, that I tend to be a bit gun shy, if you will. I have only been at this sort of thing for a few months and I don't really know my way around yet. And I confess to feeling a certain amount of desperation as well as I watch the world I grew up in, or at least the world I thought I grew up in, slowly but surely disintegrating. I vacillate between deciding not to go quietly into this good night, and fading away, not with a bang, but a whimper. My natural tendencies are toward the former, but I'm getting tired ....
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CSPAN VIDEO PLEASE WATCH
http://www.cspan.org/search.aspx?For=Nader
RWH: Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader (I) "INFORUM" Event
This week on Road to the White House, Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader held a campaign event in San Francisco at the Commonwealth Club of California. Mr. Nader answers questions about his presidential campaign and past runs for the White House. The independent candidate will be on the ballot in 45 states this Nov. 4th and is polling 5 to 6 percent nationally, according to the candidate's website.
VOTE NADER/GONZALEZ 2008…
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Thanx, Nannie, I needed that!