Ouch. The nearly 30 days since I last wrote has been filled with one humanitarian and political disaster after another. Earthquakes, wingnuts, and five heartless, malicious Supreme court justices have pretty much finished the job begun by Rham Emanuel and Max Baucus to make sure every last bit of hope was wrung out of the dying wish of a weary people and their doomed Democracy. 2010, you have already packed more than a year's worth of destruction in your first three weeks. I trust you to mellow out beginning now. Please! So to catch up to recent events...
God Don't Like the Least of Us
Of all the places in the world for an earthquake to strike, the god of tectonics chose Port-Au-Prince, Haiti home to millions of long suffering victims of the one-two punch of Global Empire and Local Despots. The resulting snuffing out of 200,000 lives predictably became fodder for pseudo-religious crackpots and bloviating, pill-popping psychopaths. Even some folks who I figured to be a little less insane, like Chris Matthews, worried out loud about a wave of dark-skinned, poverty stricken "boat-people" setting out for these shores before the dust had even settled.
I Drive an Old Truck and I want to Fuck you Real Hard
Then came the Great Bay State Debacle. Senator-elect Zoolander grabbing Ted Kennedy's Senate seat. And yes it was Teddy's seat so FUCK YOU, David Gergen you fucking shameless corporate whore. This was the greatest political travesty of our lifetime, but was perfectly predictable given Obama's disastrous DLC strategy of making backroom deals with the insurance and pharma companies, while company pawn Baucus (who deserves a special place in hell) had single payer advocates arrested in a supposedly open hearing. The fact is, this deal should have been done and signed when Teddy was STILL ALIVE! President Obama, if you lose to Sarah Palin in 2012, you will set this country back 150 years and have no one to blame but yourself.
American Sovereignty: 1776 - 2010
Obama losing to Palin, or the similarly creepy Mitt Romney, became a lot more possible thanks to the Felonious Five, who sold out American voters/democracy/sovereignty and their own mothers with their criminal decision to let loose the hounds of Hell on what's left of honest government. The airwaves will soon be saturated with corporate-funded smears, half-truths, and blatant lies paid for by ill-gotten loot in the bottomless coffers of oil companies, Wall Street banks, Saudi sheiks and a rogue's gallery of the world's most dangerous cartels. Our country is rapidly transforming itself into the Haiti of the Duvalier years. Goodbye social safety net. Goodbye middle class. Hello favelas.
Who can stop this?
As discouraging as all of this is, I still believe that people can wake up before it's too late. Perhaps someday soon we will have as much interest in Washington, DC policy debates as we do in Hollywood gossip. Perhaps voter turnout will be closer to 80 percent than 40 percent. Perhaps we won't just repeat talking points we hear from TV pundits but will dig deeper to form an educated opinion for ourselves. Perhaps we can get the money out of politics through a Constitutional Amendment, or good legislation. It's not too late! But it is getting very close to midnight.
4 comments:
Hey I am glad I found your blog, Ernesto, really good writing and lots of food for thought, and btw, you are a really great poet too!
I am feeling angry about how things are turning out too.
Thanks, Kathy. Hope you can stop by in the future. I'll try to update more often than once a month.
Good stuff. As usual, you cut through the fat and reveal the sinewy truth below the adiposity of lies, deceit, posturing, and agenda-driven blathering that we call our national politics.
Haiti is a case study in how the best of intentions can be used to bring attention to the aid's effort, as an "effort," and not have it translate as real, timely, substantive aid for the people for whom the aid was intended.
The aid's effort may have done as much harm as the natural disaster to which it responded.
The Supremes are supreme, but not in interpreting the people's Constitution, but in interpreting what is best for the party for which it has sworn allegiance.
You're right: It's not too late. I plan to add my voice to the millions that find the Supreme Court ruling a disaster for our democracy and our national sovereignty.
"The aid's effort may have done as much harm as the natural disaster to which it responded."
BD...it is pretty telling that the United States has no clue how to save a country like Haiti or Afghanistan, but when it comes to destroying a country like Iraq, we have it down to a science. We call ourselves "the most powerful country on Earth". Look at what we do with our power. What good is it?
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