XLIII. They Just Don't Get It...

Mr. Jindal's Neighborhood


To think, the clones are actually going crazy over this guy--he's probably already a frontrunner for 2012.

This illustrates perfectly how clueless the Republicans are. They throw a pile of poop in a brown bag and call it diversity.

XLII. Diverging Priorities

Isn't it curious that on a day that thousands of people are losing their jobs, the Dow Jones was actually up for a while?

What kind of message is that supposed to send about what's important in our economy?

XXXVIII. Sanity on ICE

I was just watching a feature story on ABC World News about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Flight Operations Unit, which is charged with the removal of illegal aliens to their countries of origin. According to the story, deportees are flown home aboard commercial-style jetliners, where they get complimentary food and are under the watchful eye of armed guards doubling as flight attendants. And this is done at a cost of approximately $680 each.

So, let me get this straight. The government is frittering away public money on jet flights--half of which are empty--carrying away people who will probably be back within the year? And, this is going on while this same government promotes conservation and wise spending?

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.

XVI. Ceaseless Parade of Pointless Rubbish

You don't need to worry about the ludicrously high price of oil, which looks to sap more money you don't even have from your bank account.

Don't fret that food is also getting more and more expensive. Hell, eating in a heated house with electricity all at once is overrated anyway.

Trouble not yourself with the enormous national debt, nor the individual debt which is seeing people thrown from their homes by the dozen, the middle class becoming the new poor, and the current poor becoming outcastes.

Never mind that trillions of dollars are circling the drain of an overseas military policy with dubious premises based on scant evidence, which is killing people by the thousand.

Forget all about those piddling little details...they're all hogwash!

You know what the real issues affecting America at this very moment are, though. Don't you?

That's right...MILEY FUCKING CYRUS! This girl's faux-nude photos are what we really need to be talking about! This is what's got American society hanging in the balance!

But that's not the only thing. Let's not forget Barack Obama, who is secretly fronting the presidential campaign of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Of course they share the exact same views. And this Wright fellow is clearly a dangerous radical.

The prophetic theology of the black church during the days of segregation, Jim Crow, lynching, and the separate-but-equal fantasy was a theology of liberation.

It was preached to set African-Americans free from the notion of second-class citizenship, which was the law of the land. And it was practiced to set free misguided and miseducated Americans from the notion that they were actually superior to other Americans based on the color of their skin.

The prophetic theology of the black church in our day is preached to set African-Americans and all other Americans free from the misconceived notion that different means deficient.
[...]
Black preaching is different from European and European-American preaching. It is not deficient; it is just different. It is not bombastic; it is not controversial; it’s different.

The unmitigated nerve of this black separatist! Can't he see that his toxic reverse-racist views are the reason this country is headed for its ruination?

UPDATE: It seems that Barack Obama has come to his senses. He has decided to run for the presidency himself, and has renounced the racist demagogue.



How poised and presidential of Mr. Obama! That's the kind of honor and loyalty we true Americans need in our President!

XI. "President McCain"

Get used to saying it. The results of last night's state primaries pretty much assures this will happen. The Republicans will have eons to prepare for whichever of the Democratic candidates finally emerges--battered and bloodied--probably sometime rather close to the August convention. The supporters of the loser on the Democratic side won't be able to shake the inevitable bad feelings by November, or will lose interest entirely. Alienated non-Republicans will sit the election out, adding up to a McCain victory in a lackluster general election, with paltry turnout in a laughably warped system.

We are screwed.

X. Not Trying to Come Off as an Alarmist, But...

Obama


Putin


Just sayin'...

VIII. Super Soundoff

First, although it is a bit late, I just want to mention that I am elated by the result of Sunday's championship game. I'm not a fan of the New York Giants, but I was rooting for them all the way to beat the lousy, no good Pats*. The crushed expressions on the faces of that self-satisfied, entitled bunch said it all. It is interesting to observe the media coverage in the aftermath, considering that before late Sunday night it had basically amounted to incessant, season-long fellatio performed upon "destiny's team" and it's vaunted master, Bill Belichump. America surely caught a glimpse of reality as that sorry, smug, pompous, stinking, cheating motherfucker slithered off the field before the game had even ended. (Oh, did I mention that there's swearing in this journal? Well, now I have.) So, a toast to the Gints--you've saved America from seven more months of Pats* ass-kissing hell.

Speaking of hell, another "super" event has passed this week--the so-called Super Tuesday primary election extravaganza in the United States. This was arranged ostensibly to give more states a say over who will ultimately be nominated for President by each wing of our Big Money Party. So far nothing has been decided on the "D" side, but on the "R" side John McCain is well ahead and is most likely to become the nominee. Meanwhile, I couldn't care less. "Super Tuesday" revealed nothing that wasn't already known before polls opened that morning. It has been obvious for weeks that McCain is the strongest Republican candidate, and that the Democratic race between Clinton and Obama was exceptionally tight.

In the end, though, it will hardly matter who wins the nomination or even the general election. Both the Democratic and Republican "parties" essentially amount to mere cosmetic appellations. Both groups contain individuals who carry a wide range of views. There is, however, one thing that unites them--they're wedded to big, powerful, moneyed interests. They only represent the general public in the sense that they are selected from a ballot submitted by a particular geographical grouping of people. When it comes to sticking up for the little guy versus sucking up to "the man," "the man" will win nearly every time. By the time this process is over, the candidates will not even resemble their supposed demographic bases. President Barack Obama will not represent black issues, any more than President Hillary Clinton will represent women's concerns or President John McCain those of people serving in the military. By Inauguration Day, they will have been fully converted to the gospel of big bucks and unspeakable power.

So, I am officially disenchanted with all of this--all I can do is to try as best I can to ignore the nine months of bullshit that are about to follow, and to actually muster up the enthusiasm to vote in the general election. Admittedly, it will be an uphill battle in the midst of this pointless system. George Carlin's take on American elections is quite right--you'll probably get more utility out of staying home and beating off.