XXXVII. A New Beginning

Tomorrow signifies the start of a new era in my life, as I will no longer be in exile.

Tomorrow, I return to my hometown--to all that has been familiar to me my whole life, and away from the place I've been temporarily anchored for the past three years.

Feelings of excitement--as well as uncertainty--ensconce me. But the most important feeling by far is the determination to create a better future.

And so, as one chapter closes, another begins.

See you soon--back from exile!

XXXVI. Just because I can...

In the interest of simply filling up some space before the month ends...
Here's one of the greatest disco songs ever, by George McCrae.

Rock Your Baby

XXXV. No Prob, Bob!

XXXIV. Oh, F___ Me!

Reflecting on my professional life, I realize that it thus far has been a complete disaster.

I have gone from working in a government office, to a library circulation department, to making sandwiches, to washing dishes, to applying for a job scrubbing toilets.

At this rate, in five years I'll be making my living scooping up dog crap.

As it stands right now, I have no job and can't pay my rent.

Earlier on in my life, I simply couldn't fathom what a person could have going on in their life that would drive them to take their own life.

With my increasing desperation, I fear I'm beginning to understand.

XXXIII. Thoughts on the American Election

Barring some spectacular last-minute calamity, Barack Obama will be elected the 44th President of the United States tonight. This event will be the capstone of the near two-year-long wave of excitement that has swept through much of the country.

But that is almost beside the point.

The simple fact is, in the United States of America, voting simply means going through the motions of expressing a personal or cultural preference. The voters aren't truly exercising a choice. The choice was made long before 4th November, 2008.

You see, the way the "democratic" process works in this country is as follows:

• major party organizations receive "requests" from powerful corporations and lobbying groups;
  
• the major party organizations then select the best-groomed conformist that it believes can stir up a strong reaction in the public, either through a "unity" image or by polarizing the public in its favor (note that major-party candidates that have actual grassroots support are always excluded -- see Paul, Ron or Kucinich, Dennis);
  
• they then unleash a torrent of propaganda, through the media outlets with which they share an unhealthily close relationship.
  Characteristic of such messages are the use of empty slogans and drawing distinctions that don't exist. Some examples are, "we will withdraw from Iraq eventually" versus "we need to stay in Iraq until the job is done," and "change we can believe in." The former examples is a logically identical statements, amounting to "we will be in Iraq indefinitely." The latter phrase is entirely meaningless -- what does it mean to believe in change?
  These messages are used to "manufacture" support -- it is quite unlike true popular support, which of course originates within the populace.
  
• The major parties then present the public with a ballot (featuring their candidates in the most visible spots). With the public fully in the throes of its "manufactured" enthusiasm, they can count on garnering 95 to one hundred percent of the vote between them.

Other candidates--the ones who object to this fixed system--have no recourse. Any complaints by these individuals to state election boards (controlled by the two major parties) are swiftly buried.
If the Democrats and Republicans were corporations their actions would violate anti-trust laws.

But anyway, back to Obama. The campaign that has been presented to us has had at its center the idea of "change." I am admittedly skeptical of this tactic--doesn't every politician claim to be different? How is Obama unique in a political sense?

In the early stages of the campaign, the focus was on Obama being a fresh, young face in the Senate; policy questions were largely avoided. Then, as the nomination process was winding down he was attacked for his association with a South Side, Chicago pastor known for preaching black liberaton theology. Without hesitation, he vehemently denounced black liberation theology, and ultimately abandoned the man whose church he had used for twenty years to build his own political organization. Nearly a month later--after the nomination was all but clinched--the first place he went was the yearly conference of AIPAC, a neoconservative lobbying group which favors attacking Iran. Speaking before the group, he all but grovelled before its agenda. Since being the presumptive nominee he has come out in favor of expanding capital punishment, threatened Pakistan, and voted to give immunity to the telecommunications corporations that violated the rights of Americans by cooperating with illegal wiretapping programs by the federal government.

We've learned, then, since the policy part of Obama's campaign was revealed, that "change" amounts to the demonization of progressive politics, a promise for the expansion of America's violent foreign agenda, reactionary lip service to the "tough-on-crime" movement, and deference to the interests of corporations over those of ordinary people, as well as a healthy dose of backstabbing.

And this is the change that Obama claims we need?
That seems like typical politician behavior to me. It certainly could be descriptive of every U.S. president since at least John F. Kennedy.
America moving further in the direction of dictatorial rule by the corporate-military-industrial complex is certainly nothing I need or want.

The other major party, the Republicans have feebly attempted to pipe their own propaganda through to the public. This year they have had little success generating the "manufactured" support they needed to push John McCain over the top. While their message differed in tone and temperament (not to mention Sarah Palin, but she will soon fade back into obscurity), it was selling the same thing--a corporatist who is beholden to neoliberal and neoconservative interests.

But only Barack Obama or John McCain will win enough votes in enough states to clinch the election.

They are, except in the most outwardly superficial respects, the same candidate.

So I will go to the polls yet again, knowing that I have no choice.

But I do have the ability to state my preference.

So this year, it's between Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and independent Ralph Nader.

I like McKinney for the simple fact that she is unafraid to go up against tall odds, such as being among the early voices decrying election fraud and illegal disenfranchisement and demanding an impartial investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
Ralph Nader's pro-democracy, anti-corporate abuse principles are well-known and unswerving.

Both are a credit to the ideal of freedom that America should aspire to, unlike McCain and Obama--embarrassing statist hacks.

I knew that when the night is done neither one will be president-elect, but that doesn't mean anything to me.

I may not have a real choice, but I most certainly do have a voice.