On the Irrelevance of the Democratic Party and Liberal Identification

The Democratic Party, particularly under the direction of Barack Obama, has become a withering and sickly shadow of what it once was, and it wasn't much to begin with.  Furthermore, the "liberal" identification that comes with calling oneself a Democrat - though that is even less common now, thanks to the entrance of "blue dogs" on the scene - is totally devoid of definitional soundness.

The clearest example of the irrelevance of the Democratic Party is found in its apparent inability to address the real concerns of the least among us.  Even if you don't take it that far, and only focus upon the most surface level intentions of the party one is still left wondering what the point of the party is.  In a recent speech by radical journalist and activist Chris Hedges he referred to the Democratic Party under Obama this way: 

Obama has done nothing to alter the rape of America by corporations. He’s done nothing to alter the permanent war economy, 1 trillion dollars in defense-related spending, expansion of the imperial war in Afghanistan, 700 civilians dead in Pakistan from drone attacks since Obama took office. He hasn’t restored habeas corpus, revoked Bush's secrecy laws, ended extraordinary rendition or the torture of detainees in our offshore penal colonies nor, most egregiously perhaps, the looting of the US treasury by speculative interests on Wall Street.

All of the issues listed in that quote are precisely those which we, those who swallowed our pride and voted for a Democrat once again, thought were unflinchingly going to be reversed under Obama.  What seems obvious now is that he must have had a swift, closed door meeting where he was told exactly what he was going to have to do in order to save the country from absolute economic mayhem.  Either that, or he is a wolf in sheep's clothing.  No matter which is true, he and his cognitively dissonant Administration has rendered the Democratic Party completely impotent to implement the kind of "change" he campaigned upon.  And it doesn't appear that Obama, especially in light of the uprisings in Egypt, is at all prepared to challenge the powers that be in the American government.  That is, Wall Street, Corporate America, and the investment banks that make it possible for them to loot the American people year after year.  

Liberalism, the group of tenets that the Democrats are supposedly bound to, has also undergone a kind of cultural lobotomy, so much so, that the original meaning of the term has gotten completely lost in the new chemical makeup of the collective brain of liberalism today.  It's almost as though liberalism has been on an antidepressant drug as of late.  Here's a crash course.  Liberalism, as a sociocultural and political idealogical theory, was developed during the Age of Enlightenment.  It was an ideology bound by the basic belief that the human species would evolve if it was now bound by such things as absolute monarchy, feudalism, the "divine right of kings", heredity status, and so on.  This is what we could call "classical liberalism," a concept championed by John Locke.  Locke believed in a then revolutionary concept that governments should rule only by the consent of the governed, hence the development of democratic voting and of public comment.  This is also the basis for such concepts as the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  By today's American right-of-center Zeitgeist classical liberalism might as well be called "libertarian socialism".  In fact, it was liberation philosophy that was used to justify the armed overthrow of tyrannical rule in France and the early United States.  Liberalism today does not embody what Locke had in mind when he opined about the natural right of man to pursue happiness.  The pursuit of happiness does not naturally flourish, for the many at least, under capitalism.  And while capitalism is indeed the economic system developed by early liberals, it can only make people rich if it also makes a substantial portion of the population exceedingly poor.  This is where Barack Obama has completely failed in his liberalism, as did Bill Clinton, who in my mind is the worst President in the history of the United States.  

Today's liberalism has essentially been co-opted by the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, which has itself been co-opted by the socially conservative wing of the general public, fueled by religious cultural self-importance.  The Democratic Party has now been challenged, effectively, by the conservative movement in America, because of its successful co-opting of liberalism.  This is why liberalism has become one of the looser terms to use in today's political lexicon.  And progressivism is no longer a useful term either, as there is little to no labor movement present in this country, thanks to Presidents Reagan and Clinton.  

What needs to happen in America is a profound shift of the current American Zeitgeist, which means in the original German, "the spirit of the times".  Thomas Khun identified it as "The general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era."  And we need hope.  Not the kind of useless hope garnered from Barack Obama's flowery speeches, but the kind of hope that comes from the citizens of this country, and indeed the world, engaging in physical actions against the morally, ethically, politically, economically, and spiritually bankrupt Democratic and Republican Parties of the United States. 

Political Theater and Double Speak: Obama's State of the Union Address

President Obama's State of the Union Address was chalk-full of theatrical political double speak.  It is important to note that whether or not the President's whimsical flurries of optimistic tones resonated with you, it was all said by a man who recently extended the deplorable policy of tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America, while actually increasing the tax rate on the poorest among us.  Just that simple fact alone ought to make virtually everything this President says be classified as one-hundred percent pure bull crap.

I'm not going to go through his speech line by line, because frankly, I have better things to do with my time, as do you, the reader.  I will simply say that all his rhetoric about education, our "Sputnik moment", our "free enterprise system" being what "drives innovation", and our need to outshine the rest of the world in every conceivable way, is all vacuous rhetoric meant to satiate an under-educated and over-entertained population.  Apparently nobody in the media has the cahones to point out to the President that he's dead wrong about that "free enterprise" statement.  We don't, nor have we ever had, actual freedom of enterprise, and that's by design.  One would have to be a completely sycophantic nincompoop to think that the development of the Internet, the arrival on the Moon, and all other other truly important inventions in the last two hundred years would have been developed if we had a so-called "free enterprise" system.  The fact remains, no matter how hard this President and all others try to hide it, that those things all came about during a time when the government was infinitely more invested in the economy than it is today.  Further, the top tax rate during most of these great accomplishments was well over 75%.  By today's standards, we were basically a socialist country when we went to the moon.

Now, I'm not saying that everything President Obama said last night was bull pucky.  (Why am I using so many Southern colloquialisms today?)  There were plenty of things he said that are not only true, but need to be said.  I am the first person to say that the bully pulpit should often be used to frame the debate in the country.  In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the strongest influence President Obama could have is to raise the rhetoric to a level that is intelligent, relevant, and centered on building up the least among us.  What I am saying though, is that much of what he said is virtually meaningless because none of the things he is proposing or philosophizing about can be accomplished if we are basically beholden to borrowing money from China for the tax relief we give to the wealthiest people on the planet; the yacht sailors and private plane flyers.

It's all political double speak.  It sounds just like what you want to hear from the President (minus a lot of other things we all wish he would address) but has no chance of really affecting those of us who just want to work, pay our bills, go to school, and live our lives free of the constant threat of poverty.  It's political theater on the grandest scale.  I mean, damn!  They even went as far as to wear those ridiculous ribbons "in honor of Gabbie Giffords."  And if that was not enough theater for you, Republicans and Democrats mixed it up and sat next to one another in a "show national solidarity," like they were kinder-gardeners who were sitting boy girl boy girl.  That act took away the ability for the public to see which legislators present were the ones who worship the dollar above all else; usually evident by never clapping for anything that has to do with funding things like education and infrastructure.  I think we can call that theatrical double speak.

I don't know, I guess my point is this:  There is nothing the President can do at this point to convince me that he is truly attempting to rebuild this country, or reform it for the better, until he speaks to the issues of poverty, unfair taxation, ending all wars of occupation, disclosing the budgets for the 16 secretive government agencies, making elections publicly funded, and taking the health care system out of the for-profit market.  A good place to start would be reversing the tax cuts to the wealthy, and increasing the highest tax rate to what it was in the late 1960s, the most prosperous time in American history, if we are judging by household debt, education access, and health care costs.  Is that too much to ask for in the richest country in the world?  I think not.  Not when every single other industrialized country in the world has all those things I mentioned.

The People Versus the Government?

What is more important, personal rights and freedoms, or how the least fortunate among us are treated? I am of course asking this question in the context of government. That is, since it has become blatantly clear as of late that there is a very large portion of the American population that simply do not trust government, one cannot escape the question: If you don't trust government, who do you trust? Yourself? Are you, in your lonesomeness, the only person who can responsibly handle life on this planet? By responsibly, I do mean that all so unpopular concept in America that individuals - even in America - do have some kind of responsibility to attend to the betterment of human kind, to justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and so on. So here's my question couched differently: If you are one of those people, perhaps even a Tea Party Patriot, who claims that government is basically nothing more than a noose around the neck of an otherwise productive, smart, responsible, caring people, do you feel that real self-reliance is what you want? If so, what does it look like? Does government have a role at all?

I have heard many people, and some very eloquently, argue that government has never done the people any real good. One could probably make a good argument outlining how exactly the government, particularly in America, has really never done anything but make things worse over the long haul. After all, is has never been the American people who started offensive wars in the Middle East, put people in prison for stupid reasons, went against the Constitution in order to take rights away from people who otherwise had them, or lowered the tax on the rich to the lowest it has ever been. All those things, as examples, have been done by the elected - and sometimes appointed - government of the United States of America. The people, by and large, didn't really have a role in those decisions. Or did they?

Sure, government passed those often crazy laws that clearly benefit the rich over the poor, the White over the brown or black, the man over the woman, and the hard lined capitalist over the democratic socialist. But, it is the people who favor the skinny over the fat, the college educated over the poor high school graduates, the money makers over the laborers, the fashionable over the unique, and so on as it goes down the line. The point I am making here is that most of the social decisions that marginalize people who are otherwise equals, have been made as a society. Racism, sexism, elitism, ageism, and all the other "isms" have never really been mandated by the government, yet it is the government that seems to be getting blamed here.

Now, I come back to my question: What is more important to you, your personal freedoms and rights, or making sure the personal freedoms and rights of everyone around you are also had? What if they are brown? What if they are Muslim? What if they are fat? What if they are women instead of men? What if they are really smart but didn't get a college degree? What if they did get a college degree but you didn't? What if they are not as mentally or physically able as you to live a life free of the help of government or some such entity to help?

I'm not going to say I have the answer. To the contrary, there is a piece of me that agrees with both the anarchist and the socialist. I believe there is a role for the government, and it is to do one thing: Work toward the equality of life opportunities for the citizens who elected it, and to not ruin the environment, ecosystems, or foreign people's ways of life in the process. But therein lies the rub, as Shakespeare would say.

I, like so many left wingers and right wingers, have real doubts about the American government every getting it right. Obama is clearly a stooge of the Federal Reserve and the corporations that really run the country, just like every President in history, with the possible exception of John F. Kennedy, who I would argue was assassinated simply because he decided to really govern, to lead the country, as opposed to do the work of his corporate bosses. Our silly voting system makes it all but impossible to have a real debate in this country about truly important issues, and with all the private money involved in elections it's really a miracle that we don't actually get self-admitted Fascists in the White House. And in general, the people of this country feel entirely powerless against the seemingly endless power of the political and corporate elites.

With all that in mind, it is hard for me, as just one radical revolutionary guy, to be optimistic enough to think that Obama or anyone else is ever really going to do what is necessary to take our country back from the corporate oligarchs, unless the people give the leadership a deal it can't refuse. Follow me? Here's the problem though: Most of the people who are out there now, fully ready to engage in revolutionary rebellion; to actually take on the government and make a true statement against how it is run; to break down the machine as we know it, are all right wing extremists who think that we should go back to some kind of law of nature, where everyone just fends for him or herself. I'm not into that. But, I'm not into the status quo either.

In conclusion, let me say that I, like so many, am thoroughly confused, angry, and in need of direction. Who should I be talking to? Are there revolutionaries out there who are NOT right wing corporate sycophants? Are there revolutionaries out there who are willing to die not for their country but for their dignity as human beings? Where is the revolutionary push toward a society that honors freedom and individuality, but ALSO love for one another, acceptance of our differences, and that is as concerned for the least among us as for those who have made it to the proverbial top?

I don't think I'm advocating anything here, but let me just say that a civil war of epic proportions would make more sense, historically and idealistically speaking, than yet another voting cycle of choosing between two really weak, corporately controlled Presidential candidates next time around. Maybe the United States needs to be broken up, I don't know. Maybe we need to usher in the biggest societal breakdown in the history of man, so that we can rebuild ourselves.

Whatever happens, consider me an ally, as long as we are fighting against corporate, capitalistic, religious, or any other form of fascism. It's not about guns. It's not about color. It's not about taxes. It's about human decency, respect for one another, and the idea that we are the only ones who can fix things. There is no President who can do this for us, nor any government. Hmm, maybe I am leaning toward an anti-government stance, at least until we can take down this one and build a better, more just one.

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers: Why is this a Problem Again?

Okay, maybe I am just too much of a "lefty" or a "social progressive" (as Bill O'Reily likes to say) to understand why I should be upset about the fact that Barack Obama associates with Bill Ayers. Unlike most of the nut-jobs who actually support the McCain/Palin ticket, I have actually looked into Bill Ayers, not just his history with the Weather Underground, but his recent work on education reform. Here's some links:
Bill Ayers Wikepedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers The Weathermen, or Weather Underground organization entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization) And finally, a link to some of the education reform organization he has been involved with: In fact, here is his blog: http://billayers.org/

Okay, so now we have that out of the way, and you too can check him out. Look, the guy has written like a dozen books on education reform, focused heavily on the idea of teaching students from an early age, to become active participants in the civic square of America and beyond. That means teaching students to be critical thinkers; to question authority before they become docile and obedient; to learn to understand and enjoy the important role that arts and music play in society, and the list of foci goes on long and wide. The point here is simple, the guy spends all of his energy trying to the make the United States of America a better country, by helping to reform the education structure, which is perhaps the worst in the industrialized world now, and once was the best.

Oh, but wait, there's that nasty "domestic terrorist" past that we have to deal with too. Let's just get it out there in the open. He rose to national notoriety as one of the leaders of SDS [Students for Democratic Society], ultimately becoming its national president or something to that effect. This was right around 1967/8, so you can imagine the role that a group like this played in the drive to revolution that was so present at the time. Then, still the defacto leader of the Jesse James Gang - a wing of SDS - he made "substantial contributions to the Weathermen toward militancy," according to the Wikepedia page. In other words, he played a very key role in the development of the Weathermen into a more focused, action-driven organization, set on creating change where there was none. Eventually, Ayers became the most important leader in the Weathermen, and in some case even the most confrontational. He was pretty much a street fighter, and continues to take that intensity into every social and political movement he is a part of.

In short, I as a proud progressive, really like this guy. Look, the right wing in this country, read McCain campaign and the radio show hosts that think he is not right wing enough, are telling folks they should not vote for Obama because he served on a board with Ayers and talks to him from time to time. Meanwhile, it is the right wing who is still bombing the shit out innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where the fuck else! It's the right wing who has consistently fought against livable wages in this country. The right wing who still pushes for health care as a "responsibility" and not a "right". The American right wing would be happy if all the progressives were rounded up and slaughtered, or at least put into prisons where they can keep a good eye on them while they "reform" America.

I love the fact that Bill Ayers is involved in the American political debate right now. I hope Obama hires Bill Ayers. He won't, because he has already let the right wing affect his judgment, but I'd be happy if he did.

So tell me again Mr. "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" why the fuck I should be afraid of Barack Obama's associations with Bill Ayers? Listen you sick, sycophantic fuck: I think that what the Weathermen did is not altogether different than what many citizens did all over the world in a struggle to wrest the government from the hands of the oligarchs. The real question is where is that kind of outrage today? I think you and your sick right wing friends bombed the towers and the Pentagon, just like hundreds of thousands of other American who actually looked at the "evidence" you presented. It's surprising to me that more weatherman style groups have not surfaced in recent years. One has to ask the real question why not?

Evidence of the Fall of the American Empire, Finally!

Yes, finally. It's about time that Americans begin to witness what has been happening right under their noses for the past 8 years or so. That is, the obvious falling apart of what was once the American empire. Arguably, it should have never existed in the first place, because if we were a country that actually learned from its historical mishaps, we would not even seek to become an empire in the first place. Alas, there are always a bunch of moneyed buffoons like Project for the New American Century and other adherents to silly philosophies like "free market" capitalism and global hegemony. In our case, those fascistic loons became the controllers of government, bolstered by the multinational corporations and mega-churches - which we might as well call propaganda machines - that benefited financially from the new economics of the American right.

We now have the largest separation of the rich and poor we have ever seen anywhere in the industrialized world, for sure, and possibly in the entire world. The two largest mortgage banks in the world just had to be taken over by the government. And that's a big one, because the new Republicans are absolutely allergic to any kind of regulation or public ownership of anything at all. The reality is that they have now silently admitted failure by allowing these banks to become government entities. And now, the government will still have control of them when the new government is sworn in next year. Perhaps we will make the smart decision and keep control of those banks and actually use them to put people into homes at affordable interest rates and all that communist mumbo-jumbo. I kind of doubt it, but we'll see.

Back to the list of evidences that Rome is burning.

Iraq, you know the country our military is occupying, just canceled six no-bid contracts. (1) This is the country that we have built what the American government refers to as an "embassy" that includes a shopping mall. The same country that we are spending over $200 million per day to occupy, for what we all know is oil, has just given the finger to George W. Bush and his military by saying, no thanks, we'll get someone else to do these contracts. Perhaps the Russians, or the Iranians, or the Brits, or whatever. After all, the other no-bid contracts that were supposed to be bringing Iraqis fresh water, working sewers, rebuilt pipelines, rebuilt schools (because we bombed many of them), new hospitals (because we bombed them too), new power lines, etc, have for the most part failed in providing the basic goods they were paid handsomely for. So, it should come as no surprise that the Iraqi government, and certainly the people, are not interested in making America richer by cutting them in on oil deals. In fact, I would argue it makes a lot more sense for Iraq to offer no-bid contracts to places like Venezuela, China, Japan, Cuba, Brazil, and maybe even Russia. I mean, after all, none of those countries illegally and bombastically attacked and occupied a sovereign nation in a very very long time. Well, Russia and Georgia is debatable. I'll save that one for another blog entry.

Anyway, point is, America's global influence is now dwindling, and it comes as a direct result of the same kind of careless policies that every empire in history has displayed just previous to its grand collapse, Rome being greatest example. In order for Rome to become the powerful empire it was, it had to rape and pillage its way to the top. Ring a bell America? Well, the American empire has now reached its pinnacle. There is no middle class to speak of. Education is at an all time low point. The separation of the rich and poor is a joke. Houses that were selling for $200,000 a few years ago are now selling for less than $100,000. And there are countries all over the world, even poor ones like Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Venezuela, are pointing at us and saying, "Karma is a bitch, ain't it?" You see, they all learned their lessons a long time ago: Don't waste your time trying to become an empire. Empires are the biggest targets in the world.

America is now the big target, and for good reason. We are hegemonic, exceptionalist, chauvinistic, and our foreign policy is structured in such as way as to - by its very design - leave out the humanistic concerns of the other countries we deal with. Will Obama matter? I don't know, maybe. Maybe people around the world will not equate the actions of the American government with the minds and hearts of the American people. But as an American, I am prepared to be tarred and feathered, for we all bear the responsibility for what our government has done in our name.

Let the burning begin, so that we can rebuild this nation in a way that makes the world a better place.





(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.html?_r=2&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

It's Time for a Dose of Realism Regarding Obama

For the past week I have been hearing all of my friends, most of whom are die hard leftists like myself, spewing all kinds of venom over the latest moves by Barack Obama. The mainstream media is calling it a "move to the center" and constantly reporting on how those of us on the left are ready to throw Obama from the train, because he is not in the right place on health care, FISA, the death penalty, and the right to "bear arms". While I definitely agree that he is moving closer to the proverbial "center" - something that Jim Hightower has characterized fantastically as the place at which you find nothing but "yellow lines and armadillos" - what I don't agree with is that we should throw him under the train.

Here's why: You see, a Presidential election happens in three phases, and each phase is an important step in the development of a President, in that the cumulative effects of each of the three phases will in essence decide his fate in the eyes of history.

Phase I is the primary election. The folks who traditionally come out and vote or caucus with zeal during the primary season are the activists, the radicals, the academics, the elderly, the college educated, the environmentalists for the most part, and a broad mix of other folks who we could call "politically aware." In other words, the choir comes out for rehearsal. So in the case of Obama, he gave beautiful oratory concerts, talked of breaking down the racial divide, and so on and so forth. It felt good. It felt right. It didn't hurt so bad for a chance to watch a Democratic primary contender. So all of us on the left began to get really excited, because Obama - who we weren't really sure was progressive enough for us to begin with - was really looking like he will come through; that he will be the guy to finally listen to the silent majority in this country.

Phase II is the general election. This is where things get tough again, when us folks on the left begin to question our support for the Democratic Party's candidate. In the case of Barack Obama, he starts to hedge his bets a little in regard to the health care question, etc. He decides not to start a battle with the powers that be on the FISA bill. He says he's not actually against the death penalty in all cases. He says that he will work to extend George W. Bush's "faith-based initiatives". Getting the picture? Well, before moving on, I should throw in a caveat of my own here and say that I think his decision to extend the faith based initiatives is a great idea, a stroke of genius in fact. He is no doubt looking at this from the perspective of a guy - who does happen to be religious mind you - who is about to become President of the United States under one of the worst economic situations the country has ever seen, and after the worst President in our history. He surely has said to himself, "Why not let Catholic churches get a little money from the government to impliment massive anti-poverty campaigns? Right?" Damn smart people!

Anyway, back to Phase II. Simply stated, phase II is when a candidate gathers up as much support as he can get without completely loosing his base. Now we all know that Obama is walking a tightrope here, because he may have already lost a bunch of votes. I would argue none of them are gone for good though, because he will reign things back in when the time is right, as long as we the people demand it. I mean, think about it. It is pretty widely understood that Bush was only able to steal the election because of the massive numbers of religious folks who voted for him. If they had not rallied behind him, the vote would not have been close enough for the election officials to fudge, dig? If Obama can turn those folks around and point them at the Sermon on the Mount instead of the hatred and oppressive dogma that the fundamentalists have been spewing over the past twenty years, he will take away what little chance the right wing has in this country to cast doubt. If Obama can win over the folks who won't vote for him if he is completely against the death penalty, but will if he allows it for child rapists, Obama wins again. And believe it or not, even him not taking on the FISA decision was a smart move. Why? Because he knew that Russ Feingold was going to take on that fight himself, which has already begun. So, when the issue heads back into the Congress on appeal, Obama votes the correct way and re-examining the issue. I think you get the idea. The bottom line is, during phase II, the candidate does what he - and his handlers - think is necessary in order to shore up as much of the opposition's votes as he can, before a quick return to the base.

While all this is going on, Obama will have surrogates out there soothing people, telling them that the world cannot be made perfect over night. He will do this with the health care issue too, by saying something to the effect of: You can't just take a system that is capitalistic to the point of tyrannical and turn it into a non-profit system in one fell swoop. We will have to completely dismantle the corporate structure of health care in this country methodically, until it is safe to move in the other direction. Etc, etc, etc.

Phase III: The election. With an adequate amount of assurances from the Obama campaign that us folks on the left have nothing to worry about in an Obama Presidency, Obama is elected by a wide margin. The Republicans are totally obliterated. That is when WE come in. We must be strong enough to deal with the reality that is the American presidency:

We can never know, until he is elected, what any President - including Barack Obama - will do once he is elected. That's because:
Presidents do whatever they have to in order to get elected. Until we have a truly representative voting system in which multiple parties are given proportional representation, we will never have a truly democratic system of electing a President in the United States. Candidates have to operate under the basic truth that in order to get elected they have to win the votes of the opposition as well.

So, with all that in mind, I have no worries about Obama except whether or not he can get elected without being killed first, simple as that. On this issue I am a realist, not an idealist. On most every other issue I am an idealist. When Barack Obama is elected President, I will again become a full-time idealist, demanding of him the change he has campaigned on. Until then, speak on Barack. Say what you have to say in order to help us take back this country from the fascists who hijacked it from us in the 1980s.