Has the “Wolf at the Door” Been Fed?

It’s been some time since my last post.  My last being a reaction to then-candidate John McCain’s newfound alliance with the Religious Right, vis vie through John Hagee, a popular megachurch pastor that sucks massive amounts of money from his TV and church audiences through his religious propaganda program of fear, superstition and self-righteousness.  It’s a disappointing phenomenon to behold to understand that millions of gullible people are even paying attention to such a charlatan, much less believing what he has to say.  So be it.  The “saving grace” (pun intended) is that McCain/Palin lost the election to a rational and compassionate Barack Obama, who ran a campaign for the people through brilliant organization and planning, using the communications technology of Internet and cell phone texting to reach out to a broad spectrum of individual contributers and voters.

History has been made.  We have the first half-Afro-American ever elected to president.  Much more than this, we have the first president-elect since Kennedy who can inspire masses of people, both here and abroad, with brilliant, compassionate and inclusive rhetoric that casts a spell of hope and optimism on so many of us.  May these good feelings continue.

Obama promises to “hit the ground running” after his inauguration.  Already, he has put together a good portion of his cabinet and staff, with a broad and pragmatic array of secretaries and staff to put forth, challenge and temper his ideological vision and plans for America’s recovery from economic recession, urgent environmental concerns, war and a Bush-stained international reputation.  He has my support and constructive criticism to help in any way I can.

What I find amusing within myself at this time is how much of my intellectual grounding was in opposing the New American Dark Age of the Bush era.  Now that light is pulling us to to the end of this dark tunnel, I can feel my “edge” becoming blunted.  When I was hungry, as the “Wolf at the Door” for any sense of hope, any sense of reason and human compassion coming from the White House or Congress, my focus was clear, my mind sharp, my intellect at the ready.  Now, I find that I have less of an edge, less worrry with Obama coming onto the scene.  I should still be poised for danger, because Pelosi is still Speaker of the House and Harry Reid is still majority leader in the senate.  There is still much damage that can be done, and much necessary work for Americans and the world that can be stifled with the wrong-way directions of these legislative bodies.   DId I mention the conservative Supreme Court?  How about a corporate-compliant, amoral news media industry?

The wolf, though slightly sated by optimistic hope, should not grow too complacent at this time, and should be poised to pounce, for the packs of lobbyists and pressures on Obama to foresake his vision will be great.  I will patiently crouch and wait.

Amen.

MH

Existentially Speaking in the New American Dark Age

FASCISM…

It’s an ugly word.  Yet, it appropriately fits the present state of the U.S. government.  I recently learned that 70% of our intelligence budget goes to private corporations.  In Iraq, private corporations received no-bid contracts from the U.S. government for the reconstruction of that country after the American incursion of 2003.  Also, there are over ten thousand private security forces receiving US government dollars for military operations without any US government oversight.  No Iraqi corporation can act upon its own to participate in the reconstruction of their own country.  All corporations and companies must sub-contract to Halliburton.  The decision to put Halliburton in charge of the Iraqi reconstrucdtion was made through Vice President Dick Cheney, its former chief executive, and others in secret, closed-door talks before the war began.  Michael Moore made reference to the corporate control of Iraq and its pre-planned exploitation of a soon-to-be-bombed and warred-upon Iraqi people in his film Fahrenheit 9/11.  Michael Moore may present the facts with humor and sarcasm, but he does present the facts.  You may check his documentation and resources for the film at www.michaelmoore.com.  When the minutes of this meeting were sought by congressional members, the White House and Cheney’s office refused to supply them.  Worse, a newly corporate-favoring and politically conservative US Supreme Court supported Cheney, a key employee of the American people, in holding back vital information about how US taxpayer dollars were spent in these secret meetings.

Fascism is the detestable marriage of corporation and federal government.  All three branches of our government are controlled by corporate interests.  Corporate lobbyists and lawyers not only push for legislation affecting their industries.  They write the legislation.  Corporate monies heavily line the campaign coffers of just about every congressional, senatorial and executive member of our government.  It is a sad fact that it is always the candidate with the most money in their campaign coffers that win federal elections.  Our communications media are controlled by a handful of global corporations whose interest and priorities are far removed from the working class people in the United States,  and also far removed from providing any relevant news concerning the health, welfare, education and enlightenment of US citizens.  Our highest courts have been stacked with pro-corporate judges and justices to ensure that corporations wield absolute control over private citizens in the United States.  This is the most powerful fascist alliance in world governmental history.  Yet, the word “fascism” is seldom used, because the popular media are part of the fascist regime and, thus, cannot stand outside of themselves with any objectivity to report the truth.

For more information about the fascist US government, please link to the following:

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

An Election is Coming, But Will Change Come With It?

The 2008 election is coming.  A number of “debates” have already taken place among the plethora of candidates for each of the two parties, but no one who cannot buy their way into the White House is allowed much of a voice.  Dennis Kucinich has been a consistent voice for democracy, peace, universal health care and a mutual respect among all peoples regardless of race, creed, color, faith, gender or sexual preference.  John Edwards has been a similar voice of compassion, reason and a desire for peace, as well as a strong pro-labor voice.  But, a substantive address of important human issues is not what the campaign for the presidency is about.  The Electoral College doesn’t allow a multiplicity of political parties to exist, representing the diversity of three hundred million Americans.  Instead, we have a meager and ineffective two-party system that distills issues into either/or propositions, and disenfranchises voters who do not have a bundle of money or property at stake, only survival against a receding economy and a healthcare system that is non-inclusive to the working poor. 

Let’s face facts.  An American presidential election is about who can coalesce a massive campaign chest of corporate donations, and in this respect, Hillary Rhodam Clinton is the frontrunner.  We actually have only a one-party system.  It is the corporate lobbyist party, and whomever rises to represent corporatism the best will win the election.  The candidate with the most money has won the presidency every American presidential election since Kennedy.  Therefore, the interests of banks, insurance companies, weapons-makers, pharmaeceutical manufacturers, energy producers and corporate media are put ahead of issues of public health, labor, the environment, reason, compassion and common sense. 

The short answer is this.  The status quo that supports the major corporate campaign contributors will remain intact.  Imperative issues, such as “global warming”, ending the Iraq war, creating a universal healthcare system, ending torture as an American policy, repealing the damage to Constitutional rights resulting from the US Patriot Act,and restoring our dessimated international reputation with reasonable diplomacy among the world’s nations will take a back seat to the needs of corporate giants, their welfare and protection.  Changes will be few, progressive campaigns to the contrary, because the terrrible precedents of unreasonable, and illegal, presidential power have already been allowed to pass into policy, without a challenge by Democrats, without a call for impeachment, without the legal checks and balances.

An Election is coming, but don’t look for any change reflecting reason, compassion and a desire for peace.  The American Dark Age will continue.  The singular hope on which the fate of this nation rests is that Hillary Rhodam Clinton can rise above the means that will get her elected, creating a revolutionary presidency for humanistic and rational progress,  and use the new ”unitary exective” precedents set by Bush that are now so acceptible to Congress and the Senate to establish a benign dictatorship that reflect the needs of the American people.  If she can do so, my hope is that she can effectively lead and communicate her directions in a manner that is much more direct and decisive than her husband’s presidency.  Don’t get me wrong, I think that Bill Clinton has a rare gift for communication and speech-making, but he didn’t have the confidence in his own policies and his gift for communicating to courageously defend his agenda.  Thus, the Bill Clinton presidency was marked by watered-down promises, over-compromising on ideals that he could have persuaded the nation to put into action.  My hope is that Hillary will have the courage of her convictions, and use the revolutionary ocassion of being the first woman president in U.S. history to create a much-needed renaissance to the American Dark Age.

It’s a long, long shot of hope, with odds very much against it.  But, it is a hope.

Amen.

MH   

An American Existentialist in the Modern Dark Age

Remember Gregor Samsa? If you’ve never read Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, the name would mean nothing. In Kafka’s story, Gregor awakens one morning feeling unable to get out of bed, to speak, to even roll over. His body feels odd. He is unable to make any normal human sounds. He discovers that he has become a giant cockroach. When he does manage a great effort to turn himself over and off of his bed, his entire sense of being and his former way of interacting with his environment have all changed. Nothing he does helps him to communicate his sense of being, nor even to be recognized by his family–his mother, father and sister. This was a great European existential fantasy of our early twentieth century, reflecting the alienation, hopelessness and numbness of many with their unresponsive governments and social structures to the human needs of their citizens, who were even becoming alienated from each other.

Enter the modern Gregor Samsa.  Me, Michael Hovey, present alienated and angst-ridden cockroach, living on the Left Coast of the American Empire in a comfortable southern California suburb, replete with thousands of gas-guzzling SUVs and sprawling suburban mallscapes of corporate entities, such as Walmarts, Target Stores, Starbucks, McDonalds, and the like, anchored by corner filling stations of global corporate energy companies. All the while, hundreds of thousands of people are being slaughtered as global corporations and government dictatorships jockey for control of the finite fossil fuels of the Middle East.  Somehow, the minions of gas-guzzling commuters and transporters don’t get it, that a finite fossil fuel that took TWO HUNDRED MILLION (!) years to evolve into its present form is being used up within a couple of centuries.  Two hundred million minus two hundred equals one-hundred-and-ninety-nine million, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-thousand, eight hundred years to produce MORE oil.  I don’t think we have enough time!!! 

 Well, this long-range thinking that only needs to envision a couple of hundred years into the future is absent from the minds of “profit now/worry later” global corporate CEOs and technocrats.  The thinking is “earn every profit from every last drop of petroleum until it is all gone…then think about a replacement.”  Oh, you’ll see glitzy ads from the energy companies telling the public how conscientious they are and how concerned they are about the environment and humanity, but let’s face facts.  People are dying in wars for oil and other natural resources (even water!!!), while Exxon Mobil raked in the highest quarterly profits in the history of profit-making. 

Yes, I AM A COCKROACH, or something other than human, because the creatures around me are not behaving like humans.  As for myself, I don’t believe in paternalistic gods dictating who will live, who will die, who will prosper and who will suffer, with no sense, common or strange, about what the criteria is.  Maybe this god throws dice, in spite of Einstein’s assertion that god does not play dice.  Of course, this was before we undersood enough about quantum physics to learn that the rules of Einstein’s four-dimensional universe don’t work for the world of quarks and other things subatomically small.  I digress.  The point is that points are now vague.  Existential anxiety is up, because there is a real question as to whether humanity deserves to survive.  It may not be for us to decide, no matter how intelligent our self-righteous arrogance convinces us to be.  It may be that the earth will simply cure itself and get rid of us through its natural immune system which extinguishes species who are simply not adept nor adaptable enough to survive the earth’s ecosystem.  We are arrogant enough to believe that we can detrimentally affect the ecosystem of the earth to destroy all life, but I think this is an insult to a planetary ecology that has persisted without our help or harm for billions of years. 

We are late, self-reflective comers to the game of special survival.  And, we only think we are as capable as we are.  Are we?  How do we know that we know what we know when we we can’t know that we know what we know when we are knowing it?  I don’t know.

I was born just a few years beyond a half century ago,  raised in the southern California suburbs in a white, male-dominated, Protestant Christian family and culture.   Like most children brought up in the religious and social indoctrinations of church and school, I believed that our government was honorable.  I believed that a god existed as a paternal spirit, having created our first ancestors of one of six days in a place called Eden, destroyed most of us, then killed his son to die for our sins, whether we were aware of such sins or not.  I remember attending school with a very few people of color.  Even in our high school of four thousand students, only two of them were black, and a few of Asian or Hispanic heritage.  This was life in a post-World War II, suburban illusion, a bubble.  I was part of an average American white middle class world of school and church, boy scouts and YMCA, football and TV sitcoms.  We didn’t know about social evolution, the many dissenters who argued, risking life and limb, to gain rights in a nation that developed by a band of wealthy white European males who wanted to preserve their wealth and property, and be free from the taxation of a foreign monarchy.  There was nothing to free black slaves, to treat women as equals, nor to treat the Native Americans as anything more than unChristian savages.  Such was our original U.S. Constitution.  And, only landowners could vote in federal elections.  This was a new republic back then in 1776, but it was far from being a democracy.  Even to this day, there are many wealthy Republicans who fight against democracy.  Not Democrats, but democracy itself.  This is, but should not be, a shock to many Americans.

The US military has supplanted the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, under the false facade of fighting a “War on Terror” without end. Immediately, within just a few days of the first attacks on Afghanistan, major deals were signed among global corporate energy giants to build pipelines from Kyrgyzstan, across Afghanistan and down to the Caspian Sea, which has become the new central global port for transporting oil and natural gas. Kyrgyzstan is said to contain more oil in reserves than are contained in the Iraq reserves, plus to be a massive source of natural gas. In Iraq, the oil has been conveniently kept in the ground while oil prices have risen dramatically, creating the largest profits for Exxon Oil in the history of corporate profiteering. Vice President Dick Cheney met with CEOs of energy and other corporations to divide up Iraq’s resources and infrastructure among themselves, BEFORE Iraq was invaded. These “secret” sessions have led to a no-bid contract for Cheney’s pension provider, Haliburton, to control the contracts for Iraq’s reconstruction after the US military bombed it to pieces. Haliburton was also given a no-bid contract to oversee the whitening reconstruction of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the Army Corps of Engineers, a poorly equipped and unready FEMA contributed to the wasting of neighborhoods there, and in communities along the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines. To date, Cheney has not been held legally nor ethically responsible to the American public nor the US Constitution to reveal the details of his “secret” meetings…..   I can’t go on.  I’ve said enough to have the president and vice president impeached, but they are gleefully wrecking every aspect of the US system and its economy, with no one doing anything to stop them.

I do not trust the Republicans nor the Democrats to be of any help to America.  They are raking in the global corporate profits into their campaign coffers and are beholding to corporate technocrats, not to the American people.

 It’s time to start a new party–the Cockroach party, comprised of all of us who feel alienated, hopeless and disgusted with the American imperial system that has the Bandini touch.  Everything this Bush government touches turns to shit.

I’m tired of eating it.  It is time for change.  Amen.