Political Rants

Money wins.

So Scott Walker held on to his job in Wisconsin. Not a huge surprise. The polling has been in his favor for weeks. Plus the recall effort has kind of had the stench of failure about it as we approached the actual vote; people hedging and putting on the brave face. Sorry to see so many working people disappointed in that way. I’ve never been a big fan of the recall concept, personally, but I understand how they came to that point. If nothing else, the effort did give them motivation to do what actually needs to be done in Wisconsin and elsewhere – organize. It’s not just about voting. It’s more about standing up for your rights and fighting back against the torrent of corporate money swamping our politics.

John Dewey had it about right when he said that politics is the shadow cast on society by big business. I suppose in his day it wasn’t very different – the wealthy have always pressed their advantage. Perhaps the period from World War II through the 1970s will be seen as unique in American history in the sense that workers had some influence on the economic life of the nation. There was a social contract between the rich and the not-rich that provided the latter with a modest share of the wealth they themselves were creating through their labor. That model has been under attack for decades now, and it is crumbling.

Now we are in a small-d depression, limping along in a globalized economy in which the American worker/consumer is no longer the primary focus of business. (India’s middle class is now larger than the entire population of the U.S.) The rampant financial speculation spawned by deregulatory legislation over the past two decades (most notably Graham-Leech-Bliley in 1999, which overturned Glass-Steagall) drove us into the 2008 financial crisis, prompting a massive bailout of the enormous financial institutions that were themselves the product of deregulation. So naturally, now, when it comes time to pay the bills, it’s workers who are being told to eat it, to sacrifice their pensions, to do without health benefits, etc. Similar deal in Europe. The people who benefited massively from wild derivative trading and mortgage-backed securities are not the same people being asked to sacrifice.

Money may have won in Wisconsin this week. But that’s no reason to stop fighting. Elections aren’t the only means of effecting change. Passive resistance is another – let’s exercise it.

luv u,

jp

Usual Rubbish

What next.

Sweepin’ up after that big storm. Man, the weather these days. Good goddamn thing that global warming story turned out to be a hoax. If it’d been true, we’d be worried about all this extreme weather. But no, no…. everything’s fine. Experts agree.

No, today’s not contrary Wednesday. It’s contrary every freaking day here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home. I’m spouting that stuff about global warming in hopes of ingratiating ourselves to a potential corporate sponsor. Who, you may ask? Well, it’s someone Big Green worked with before – Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm, Inc., king of the extractive industries. Tearing Earth a new Asshole since 1953™. From the tar sands of Alberta to the gold mines of Irian Jaya to the fracking fields of Pennsylvania, the name Hegemonic has been synonymous with … well, with making big piles of money out of big piles of slag. Who better to shake down for some cash, right?

Oh, yes… I know what you’re going to say: This will lead to evil and sadness. Stop the hurting, you’ll say, and start the helping.  But fear not, my friend. Hegemonic Records and Worm Farm (also known as “Hegephonic”) is an enlightened actor in the extractive industries. It says right here in this May 2007 press release when they began work in Mindanao. Back when there was a Mindanao. Okay, bad example. Nonetheless, our “friends” at Hegemonic can be of great assistance to us, and as luck would have it, we have something of value to them as well. Something they want very, very badly.

Wait for it!

It’s mineral rights to the Cheney Hammer Mill. You see, by happy geological accident, the Utica Shale and the Marcellus Shale converge right below the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. That means there’s an Auntie Maude’s Fortune of natural gas right below our feet. And no, this isn’t another one of those mad schemes cooked up by Mitch Macaphee. Unlike the mercantile tunnel to China (now plugged), this is a sure thing. All we have to do is let them rip down the mill and gouge their way into the Earth’s crust like a titanic bloodsucker, drawing the lifeblood from our dying planet and selling it by the cubic foot to heat the McMansions of exurban neo-yuppies. Nothing to it.

One other thing that interests them: Freakenstein. I think they see him as some kind of secret weapon against union organizers. We tried to interest them in Marvin (my personal robot assistant), but he’s simply not intimidating enough.

Political Rants

Memento mori.

Another Memorial Day come and gone. PBS played the annual extravaganza in Washington D.C., replete with stars of stage, screen, and studio, in some respects bizarre beyond description. It always strikes me as odd that a day reserved to commemorate the dead from this nation’s wars should carry such hyper-patriotic overtones. As I watch, I keep wanting to say, “Take it down a notch – that’s the kind of talk that got them all killed.” It’s long been my contention that the very ostentatious hero-ization of our active military and veterans is, at its heart, an effort to make our pointless wars seem somehow noble and just. The laptop bombardiers crowing “hero!” most loudly are the ones who gladly see their heroes shipped off for a fifth tour of duty. Doesn’t bear close inspection.

Perhaps even stranger is the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the American war in Vietnam – like that was something to celebrate. Obama spoke to this point during his Memorial Day address at the Vietnam memorial wall, and I have to say that his central point was one that Reagan might have made twenty years ago.

And one of the most painful chapters in our history was Vietnam — most particularly, how we treated our troops who served there. You were often blamed for a war you didn’t start, when you should have been commended for serving your country with valor. You were sometimes blamed for misdeeds of a few, when the honorable service of the many should have been praised. You came home and sometimes were denigrated, when you should have been celebrated. It was a national shame, a disgrace that should have never happened.

Um… really, Mr. President? We’ve heard this trope before – the insinuation that people opposed to the war blamed the people fighting it, spat on them when they returned, etc. Bullshit. They were our friends, our brothers, our uncles, our fathers. A lie like this assumes that people don’t remember how close every 18-24 year old male was to being press-ganged into that war via the draft. It was not us and them; it was us and us. What’s more, many of them were at the forefront of resistance to the war. I have a local vet to thank for much of what I know about that awful conflict.

And… the “actions of a few”? What few? The people running the administration at the time? This makes it sound as though Vietnam was some noble enterprise sullied by isolated incidents of nastiness. What could be further from the truth? Vietnam was a dirty war of malevolent intent from the very beginning, not a mistake or a tragic chapter – a crime. It is a crime that should not be blamed on those forced to participate in it; but rather on those who formulated that policy that resulted in the destruction of three countries.

That’s where that “hero” jiu-jitsu comes in. Criticize the war and the pro-war pirates claim you’re criticizing the troops, as if the troops are responsible for the conflict. They were not then, and they are not today. That’s down to us … and to the scoundrels heaping praise on our military as they plan yet another pointless war.

luv u,

jp

Weird ass music since 1986