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

What McCain Missed About John Hagee

John Hagee, popular fundamentalist Christian minister, known for professing outrageous things in the public arena, was finally chastised by a political candidate, but not for the many odd things he announces in modern day, but comments he made over a decade ago. I’ve tuned Hagee in on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBS) for the shear entertainmnet value. It is laughable to me that anyone could profess the prophetic writings of an ancient religious book after living in a society that makes available so many scholarly works on the myths, legends, history and theologies of these sixty-six books (sans the Apocrychas), politically decided upon by the hashing out of various Christian factions nearly two millennia past at the canonical councils. And we can thank the imperial march of Roman troops into so many lands, upsetting so many cultures and various other religions, for the spread of Christendom, not to mention the centuries of bloody Christian Crusades and torturous inquisitions throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and on into the desecration of the native peoples of the “New World.”

Nonetheless, a majority of American profess their beliefs in this book–the Jewish books of the Old Testament with a New Testament addendum–augmentations, distortions, manipulations and additions by authors professing a faith in a resurrected Messiah.  Paul, of which much of the New Testament is comprised of his letters to various congregations, makes no mention of the earthly man, Jesus, only to a netherworld demigod called Jesus Christ.  Paul visited Jerusalem on several occasions, but never makes mention of it being the place where his son-god spent his last earthly days.  In fact, Paul makes no mention of a Jesus in Jerusalem at all, nor of his many works and teachings.  Curious, but very, very true.  Yet, I would be surprised if many professed believers in the New Testament writings would even acknowledge this fact.

According to research by Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason— sixty-two percent of these “ believers” do not know the names of the four gospels of the New Testament nor that Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament, much less the mysterious omissions of any reference to an earthly man named Jesus by the Apostle Paul. As a biblical researcher and reader of scholarly critical analyses of these ancient texts, I am always struck with wonder how people could so readily profess a belief in that about which they know so little. But, Fox News also also attracts a wide number of believing news viewers even after more than a decade of selling lies, deceits and misinterpretations of fact, so I shouldn’t be too awe-struck by the prevalence of ignorance in people who rely upon unreliable resources for their information.

The books of Ezekiel and Daniel of the Old Testament and the Revelation of John which closes out the New Testament make so many obvious references to the astrological zodiacal wheel of symbols and meanings that it is laughable that anyone would include these books as part of their “ infallible Word of God.” But, then Genesis’s two creation stories are confused and confounded in the minds of many, the plurality of gods of Genesis 5, whose “sons of the gods intermarried with the daughters of men” is dismissed by many “believers” as a mystery not to be understood. Their offspring, the Nephilum, were the “giants and heroes of old.” The similarities of Samson to other heroic figures such as Hercules brings to mind Joseph Campbell’s great works on religious mythologies, especially the book, The Hero of a Thousand Faces.” The Noahic flood myth is so nearly the same story from Babylonia written twelve hundred years before it that it is unconscionable that biblical readers who learn this haven’t seen the lack of historical validity to their books of faith. Not to mention the myth of King Sargon I of Babylonia who, as an infant, was placed in a basket of reeds and pitch and set afloat down the river to save him from slaughter, and he was rescued by a handmaiden and rose to be the leader of a great nation. Moses anyone?

Yet, John Hagee, and many like him, can stand up before a massive throng of thousands of people and profess to know the meanings of what he interprets to be predictions for the world drawn from this collection of arcane, disjointed, historically confused concoctions of infused mythologies, theologies and meanings. A majority of American believe that the end of the world is near. Forty percent, or more, believe in a notion called the “Rapture,” in which it is believed that Jesus will return and many people will simply disappear from the earth to be “taken up into the sky” (to another planet? Another dimension? The “believers” are vague on just where their heaven is, because—I guess—their professed god is not a very clear provider of meanings and directions). Hagee aligns himself with the Zionists of Israel, believing that Jerusalem will be the centerpiece of a great war, led by Jesus, against the evildoers of the earth, in the final battles of Armageddon. And he will point, in great geographical detail , to places on a map of the Middle East and reference them to obscure and ahistorical phrases of biblical passages.

Thus, the United States, populated by a majority of people who believe in these nonsensical things, deserves a George W. Bush as their president, the least mentally capable and most intellectually challenged president in the history of the United States. Susan Jacoby got it right. This IS the age of American Unreason. I call it the New American Dark Age, and if there is light at the end of the tunnel, it is very, very dim at this writing. Superstitious religious theology mingled and mired with nationalistic jingoism prevails over science and reason. Unchallenged public political statements become the social dogma of the masses while the money trails and corporate capitalist lusts for power point to a whole different set of facts behind the geopolitics of the world than what the masses believe. The Constitution of the United States is readily shredded through the passage of right-stripping legislation, unread by the congressional representatives who pass them into law. Torture is now a policy of the American government, as well as abducting people into renditions and prisons, without the right of habeas corpus, dure process of law, right to an attorney, or even being charged with a crime.

John McCain denounces Hagee for his discriminatory and bigoted remarks, but doesn’t question any of the thousands of ridiculous statements about history, morality and world events made by Hagee over the past several years. The American Dark Age continues.

Amen. MH Pathfinder

Wright is Wronged, but his Sermons Get History and Race Relations in America Right:Smearing Sound Bytes Poor Substitutes for the Substance of his Sermons, But Suitable for the American Attention Deficit Disorder and Smearing an Inspirational Presidential Candidate

Today, I took an hour to listen to the two sermons by the distinguished Reverend Jeremiah Wright of the Trinity United Church of Christ, from which severely edited snippets were extracted with the sole intent of maligning the good pastor from Chicago, and then to smear Barack Obama, with the negative knee-jerk responses echoed with fervor and frequency by right-winged radio talk show hosts, Fox News and members of the Clinton campaign. I wish that everyone in America could listen to both sermons, in their entirety, and understand the messages of peace, reason and human compassion that are so very present in the meanings put forth by the good Reverend Wright. This Friday evening, at 8pm, Bill Moyers will be airing an interview with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the first since this disgraceful and shameful media frenzy over uncontexted sound bytes from his sermons sent him out of the public arena.

A major gossipy flap around the Obama campaign has inundated the news with these short biting snippets over the past couple of months. The flurry of emotion and reactive slurs have been mostly delivered by people who never heard a single sermon by the good Reverend Wright. Most certainly none of them listened to the two sermons—one in the wake of the horrific 9/11 attacks and a second on the confounding and confusing enmeshment of religion and politics, or “confusing God with government” as the good Reverend Wright aptly states it. From the latter sermon, the line “…God Damn America…” was extracted from the sentence and context of Reverend Wright’s speech, making it appear as if he was publicly and personally condemning the American people, which was most certainly NOT the case. After listing a litany of government-condoned terror upon people of color since the inception of the US Constitution, and before—including the decimation of Native American populations, the brutal enslavement the African people, the internment of Japanese Americans, the many wars upon wars inflicted upon nations of black, brown and Asian peoples for the exploitation of their natural resources and fossil fuels, Wright then said, “…and they want us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no no! God damn America!” The reference to modern day imperial exploitations was made in the wake of a reading of scripure concerning the imperial actions of the Roman government, followed by references to the Egyptian imperialists before them who conquered peoples and of other races and their nations (Imperialist history is not a white-only enterprise, as Wright would say).

Obama, in light of the heavily negative knee-jerk responses from the ignorant masses, recklessly inundated with the snippets, spun with frequency and slime by exploitive, profiteering corporate news agencies, distanced himself from the severely edited bits of sentences from Wright’s speeches, canceled a public event with the Reverend Wright, but valiantly tried to support his relationship with his long-time pastor and friend, with a speech that invited the nation to openly speak about race relations and to reach out to gain a better understanding of racial perspectives.

Obama rightly appealed to the better judgments of the American people in his speech, knowing that we can be much better than the lowest common denominators of gossipy slime that comprise much of our so-called “news” shows. My guess is that he may have been given the opportunity to hear both of Wright’s sermons-in-question in their entirety, but probably too late to retract his distancing words about his minister. If he had, I’m sure he would have been reassured that his distinguished pastor and friend has the best of America and humanity in mind, through his abiding reverence and love for his God. I revere humanity and the cosmos with love, awe and an insatiable curiosity, but I have no reason to believe that any one or spirit put it here. Having said this, I was moved by the human truths inherent in both of these sermons by Reverend Wright. I know, for it is quite obvious to me, that most of the people seeking to smear both Reverend Wright and Barack Obama, have not heard either sermon.

At this moment, I am reminded of Susan Jacoby’s recent book, The Age of American Unreason.  Jacoby points out the fact that nearly two-thirds of Christian Americans purporting to believe in the Bible do not even know the names of the four gospels (for instant enlightenment, they are the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; the first three are also referred to as the “Synoptic Gospels”), nor that Genesis is the first book of the Old Testament. So, how is it that people can profess to “know” something, or “believe in” something, without even knowing the title of the main books from which the object of their faith is derived? Most people don’t read, and many more don’t even sustain a long enough focus of attention to even try to understand what they are listening to, viewing or reading. I suppose this is why media “bytes” are so effective. They suit the American attention deficit disorder so well. Ask Rupert Murdoch who has made a massive fortune from this process.

Rather than rant on about the obvious need for reason, compassion, patience and understanding in America, let me recommend the following links to a better understanding of one Reverend Jeremiah Wright, his life and his words:

• First, a link to the Wikipedia biography and notes on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
• Second a link to his post 9/11 sermon
• http://odeo.com/audio/17890793/view
• Lastly, a link to Bill Moyers Journal, where his interview with Wright will be aired on Friday evening on PBS; available thereafter at this web site for viewing.

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 President…of Reason, Compassion and Peace: Jimmy Carter

This existentialist in a New American Dark Age recalls a time when America was weary of war, of aggression, of global cold wars and other paranoias, and longed for peace–a peaceful planet, a clean planet–and we had an American president that was leading us down the path toward these ends, Jimmy Carter.  He was then, and is now, a man of deep spiritual and humanitarian convictions, and he was radically changing American policies toward peace and cleaning up the environment.  He provided incentives for developing solar and other renewable forms of power, and was pressuring the automobile industry to develop and manufacture more fuel-efficient cars.   He worked toward a lasting peace among nations in the  Middle East.  As a former president, his services as diplomat and statesman have been elicited by successive presidents, and governments of other nations, as well.  His ongoing Habitat for Humanity projects have provided low-cost housing for many, many poor families.

His presidency occured just after the fall of Richard M. Nixon in the wake of the Watergate scandal.  It was a time when confidence in government and authority figures was shattered, and he developed a national reparte with Americans that was unpretentious and informal.  He tried to melt away the authoritarian facades of presidential power and truly sought to provide what was best for Americans.  One of my favorite presidential speeches was made by Mr. Carter after he fired most of his cabinet, secluded himself at Camp David and called in the social leaders–teachers, professors, priests and ministers, civil rights figures, and economic leaders, to determine a new direction for America.  The speech was entitled, “A Crisis of Confidence” and for the first time in my memory, a president stood and spoke not to spew hollow and empty promises, but to invite the people of our American democracy to take responsibility themselves to restore confidence in government by actively being involved in the democratic processes, and to truly be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.   You can hear the speech online at AMERICAN RHETORIC:TOP 100 SPEECHES at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisofconfidence.htm

 Alas, many Americans want a demi-god, someone to lead them by the hand, rather than a true statesman and a dedicated administrator of the will of the people.  People didn’t want to exercise their will.  They didn’t want to take responsibility for the rising inflation, the rising cost of oil, and to do for themselves.  So, the American people didn’t elect Jimmy Carter to a second term for his forthrightness and honesty.  Instead, they elected a not-so-successful grade B movie actor named Ronald Reagan, who had charm, a great smile, and promised tax breaks and wealth trickling down to everyone, even the poorest among us,, like magic.  Reagan’s empty presidential promises were just that, and he took the federal budget surplus under Carter and left the Americans with the deepest federal budget deficit in U.S. history, along with a much larger pool of impovershed people.  However, illusions of wealth, provided by an explosion in the credit card and loan industries, convinced people who were deep in credit debt, that life was better, because they were consuming so much more…albeit on borrowed money.  Such is the short-sidedness of American thinking, and why the long-range intelligence and planning of a Jimmy Carter could be so easily foresaken for the immediate “feel-good” (translation: short term enjoyment for long-term payments) economics of a Ronald Reagan.

Jimmy Carter has been much more successful in meeting his personal humanitarian goals as an ex-president, without being amid the forest of political trappings and influences.  Mr. Carter’s statemanship, his dedication to peace and to true democratic participation of all people in the quest for happiness and realizing one’s dreams has kept him and his wife, Rosalyn, busy into his mid-eighties.  His participation in international diplomacy earned him a Nobel Peace prize, and he continues to work dilligently to help the poor and oppressed in the world.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman conducted an in-depth personal interview with President Jimmy Carter last Monday.  Here is a link to a conversation with my favorite of modern American presidents:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/10/1518224

Listen, Learn, Enjoy

Amen

Reason, Compassion, Peace

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.