I'VE
RECOVERED FROM the frantic and painful preparation for last week's
surprise apartment inspection – one of the punishments inflicted on
seniors and disabled people impoverished enough to qualify for publicly
funded housing. Nor was I amongst the unfortunate 20 percent whose
dwellings were chosen at random for de facto warrantless
searches by state bureaucrats. But the aftermath of the mandatory
house-cleaning left me abed for a couple of days while the grade-6-to-7
arthritis pain in my back, shoulders and right knee dwindled to its
omnipresent norm, typically a grade 2 on the 1-to-10 medical-discomfort
scale.
Because
my gender exempts me from the agony of childbirth, I have two grade-10
pain significators. One is the legacy of a tooth that in 1969 became
simultaneously impacted and abscessed at the beginning of what turned
into the longest four-day holiday-weekend in human history. The other is
the (literally) bite-a-hole-in-my-pillow-to-keep-from-screaming
interlude that followed a radical meniscectomy in 1978 – the removal of
all the cartilage from my right knee. The anesthesia wore off quite
suddenly, and all at once I hurt so badly, it took me several eternities
to focus enough to invoke the Nurse-Angel of Narcotic Salvation, though
once I found the magic buzzer, she immediately blessed me with a
syringe full of morphine.
But
all that is something of an aside. The point here is my two
post-inspection-recovery days of what-do-I-wanna-be-when-I-grow-up
contemplation was mostly spent pondering whether to take OAN
daily or continue it as as a weekly. Given my age, in either case it
will undoubtedly remain my final expression of a truth I have known
since The Grand Rapids Herald hired me as a copyboy and sports
stringer shortly before my 16th Christmas – that real journalism is a
24/7 way of life rather than a 35-hour-per-week job.
If I were to take OAN
daily, it would mean posting material as events warrant and as
frequently as my schedule permits. The idea was (and remains) powerfully
attractive. But finally – with a bit of help from the I Ching
(Wilhelm/Baynes translation, Princeton University Press: 1967) – I
realized, somewhat bitterly I admit, I lack sufficient time, which is
the prime requirement for daily blogging. Too many hours of my life are
stolen by geriatric medical appointments and household-errands turned to
day-long bus-odysseys because I can no longer afford an automobile but
live in the most anti-mass-transit seaport in the entire
anti-mass-transit United States.
Thus OAN will continue as before, its contents posted both here (thanks again to my benefactors at Typepad) and on my secondary website at Blogger.
Save for the fact I am going to spend more time covering local events –
albeit always in a global context – its contents will be mostly
unchanged. “In Case You Missed It: Outside Agitation Elsewhere” will present its anthologies of recommended reading, including my often-sarcastic comments of course. And OAN's
weekly single-topic columns, written by myself or by an occasional
guest author, will focus as always on personal perspectives about major
issues:
- USian warmongering and the One Percent's escalating efforts at global conquest;
- The intensifying class war and the increasing savagery of capitalism;
- The stealthy but relentless imposition of Christian theocracy on the USian homeland;
- The bipartisan Big Lies that protect the Obamacare profiteers and victimize the rest of us;
- The unprecedented surveillance that sustains Ayn Rand plutocracy – the newest form of fascism – by clamping high-tech slave-collars around all our necks;
- The shock-doctrine schemes of the One Percenters, who are leveraging terminal climate change into a neo-Nazi restructuring of human society, ensuring their survival by enslaving or exterminating everyone else;
- Other such topics as they arise.
As
before, these columns will include examples of how, in an economy and
political system based on exploitation and oppression, the personal is
always political, just as, for the same reasons, the political is always
personal. Here though I hope to make a subtle change in approach,
focusing less on the reality of our abject powerlessness – which I think
we are at last beginning to acknowledge – and more on overcoming the
challenges we face merely to survive.
Such
is life and death amongst the 99 Percent in the United States of
America, the former “sweet land of liberty” that capitalist governance –
absolute power and unlimited profit for the One Percent; total
subjugation for all the rest of us – has transformed into the most
unapologetically vicious nation in the industrial world.
******
In Case You Missed It: Outside Agitation Elsewhere
I
seldom write about 9/11 simply because in my view there is nothing
worthwhile to be said about this great atrocity unless one starts by
acknowledging how it marks the end, forever, of constitutional
governance in the United States. But I was intrigued by William Boardman's Reader Supported News piece, “Museum World Trade Center Evidence: No Plane Hit Pentagon?” And eventually I added my own remarks to its predictably contentious comment-thread:
What matters most about 9/11 is the use to which it has been put.
Just
as the Reichstag Fire enabled Hitler to nullify the Weimar constitution
and turn Germany into a Nazi dictatorship, so did 9/11 enable the One
Percent and their political servants to nullify the U.S. Constitution
and turn the United States into a plutocratic dictatorship.
In other words, just as the Reichstag Fire was the birth of the Third Reich, so was 9/11 the birth of the de facto Fourth Reich, the zero-tolerance global empire of the USian plutocracy.
Moreover,
just as the truth of the Reichstag Fire is lost due to Nazi secrecy, so
is the truth of 9/11 lost by USian secrecy. In either case, public
knowledge of what truly happened will never be allowed.
But
the debate is allowed because it serves two purposes. It distracts us
from the use of 9/11 – the permanent nullification of our constitution
(and our reduction to powerlessness thereby) – and it helps preserve the
Big Lie of USian democracy.
Indeed,
the fact the debate is tolerated tells us it can never unearth the
truth. Were it otherwise, it would be suppressed as quickly and
violently as the Occupy Movement was suppressed.
Given
the influence of Nazi war criminals on the U.S. government after World
War II, the Reichstag-Fire pattern is itself suggestive. So is the fact
the Department of Homeland Security structurally duplicates the dread SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt.
***
My
next comment on the thread was a response to a poster who seems to
regard the quest for “9/11 truth” as the most important endeavor in
human history:
While
I surely agree “a great deal...has already come out,” the same can be
said of the assassinations – JFK, Malcolm X, MLK, RFK – that were the
gateway to the road that ended at 9/11.
Again
taking the Reichstag Fire example, Soviet intelligence (and the
worldwide Communist Party) knew the truth within hours – that the Nazis
set the fire and framed the halfwitted Marinus van der Lubbe and the
Communists for the crime – but the official German version was never
refuted, even after the war.
Much
the same is true of 9/11: no matter how much contrary evidence is
ferreted out, the official version will remain unchanged until the USian
Empire is no more – which, given the givens – will probably not occur
until our species itself is extinct.
To
believe otherwise is to be in denial about not only about our own
powerlessness but about the absolute determination of those who oppress
us.
***
Later I elaborated:
To
paraphrase Thomas Paine, these are indeed times that try our souls,
infinitely more so than in 1776, when we had a seemingly endless future,
while today the core truth of our lives is that we live on a dying
planet.
In
this context I see my own duty as mandated by the genocidal malevolence
of the One Percent, which is transforming the survival of the 99
Percent into revolutionary defiance. My obligation is to aid that
survival as best I can -- never mind I'm a crippled, impoverished old
man.
That's
why I give several hours each week to 15 Now Tacoma, the purpose of
which is to make workers' lives a bit less wretched. It's why I edit and
produce two journals, a local tenants' newsletter and (this)
internationally read blog.
For the record, since early 2005 I have assumed 9/11 was either a Reichstag-Fire re-run or was deliberately allowed to happen.
After
all, Nazi war criminals were the primary tactical and strategic
influence in the postwar USian Empire, and false-flag aggression –
Google “Operation Himmler” (no quotes) – was a standard Nazi tactic.
Given
the morally imbecilic nature of capitalism, such atrocities are
inevitable – and the tyranny of capitalist governance leaves us
powerless to avenge them.
Hence
I do not waste my time on causes – like the hunt for 9/11 truth – that
offer no hope of easing the fear and misery in which we 99 Percenters
increasingly live.
******
Cynic though I am, I was nevertheless taken aback when Reuters reported the notoriously brutal Seattle Police were filing a federal lawsuit to uphold their alleged right to maximum brutality. Thus my contribution to the comment thread of “Seattle Police File Federal Lawsuit Over 'Use of Force' Policy”:
The
fact the Seattle cops would file such a lawsuit – in essence demanding
the right to inflict unlimited police brutality and generally behave as
an army of occupation in a conquered land – tends to confirm what I
have long suspected:
That the national epidemic of police brutality is the product of of very explicit post-9/11 federal policy and directives.
The
(obviously intentional) result is a homeland in which the sole function
of the police is to serve and protect the One Percent by savaging all
the rest of us, just as the (imperial) military serves and protects the
One Percent in exactly the same murderous manner abroad.
More
specifically, because all local police units have been federalized and
federally militarized, the Seattle lawsuit is essentially an appeal up
the chain of command for judicial support – rather like the president
obtaining judicial support for his alleged right to issue imperial death
warrants.
Indeed,
to understand this lawsuit any other way is to be in denial about what
the United States has become, no longer the "sweet land of liberty" but
rather the de facto Fourth Reich.
******
Another of Robert Parry's superb reports on the Ukraine blaming “neocons” for President Obama's warmongering
provoked me to reluctantly criticize a journalist whose bravery is
beyond reproach and whose reporting is flawless save for his apparent
inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the unprecedented magnitude of
the chief executive's self-protective deceptiveness.
Hence on the comment-thread of “How Neocons Constrain Obama's Message,” I penned the following rejoinder:
The only flaw in Mr. Parry's courageous reporting is his assumption President Obama is himself a victim of neocon conspiracies.
The
truth, made obvious by the president's shape-shift from Obama the
Orator to Barack the Betrayer, is that Barack Obama is ideologically a
white Republican. His African/American heritage was never more than a
prop by which the One Percent sought to bolster the Big Lie of U.S. “democracy.”
Indeed,
apart from the color of his skin, Obama's implicitly fascist politics
are indistinguishable from those of any other U.S. president, Republican
or Democrat, for whom the One Percent has purchased the office since
the coup of 22 November 1963.
But
like President Johnson, whose clandestine purpose was obviously to
provoke the Vietnam-related class-war that destroyed the New Deal
Coalition and thereby thrust the nation permanently to the right, Obama
too is obviously a dual-purpose president. That purpose is revealed by
how domestic racists are parlaying his betrayals into re-segregationist
bigotry that says minorities are untrustworthy.
Because
minorities were the nation's only source of genuine radicalism, the
suppression of their voices is another rightward thrust – this time all
the way to a Fourth Reich of unabashed Ayn Rand fascism.
Thus
do the One Percenters achieve the goal their fathers and grandfathers
sought via the Bankers' Plot, which would have made the U.S. the leading
partner in the Rome/Berlin/Tokyo axis.
***
As
to (Mr. Parry's) often subtle but nevertheless implicitly apologetic
portrayal of Barack the Betrayer as a victim of neocon manipulation,
that unfortunate meme – probably the result of an understandable
reluctance to admit the unprecedented magnitude of the president's
deceptions – is evident throughout Mr. Parry's otherwise superb
reporting.
Because
I voted for Obama twice – the first time because I believed his Big Lie
of “change we can believe in,” the second time because I was (just as
the One Percent intended), terrified by the Romney-Ryan assault gun – I
can surely understand the reluctance to acknowledge we are now ruled by a
president who is truly more ill-intentioned, and infinitely more
authoritarian, than Richard Milhous Nixon.
Indeed,
Obama is undoubtedly the most brazenly dishonest and effectively
tyrannical politician ever to inhabit the White House. Think “change we
can believe in,” total surveillance, the war against undocumented
immigrants and the relentless persecution of whistle-blowers.
And
until we acknowledge Obama is indeed an obedient servant of the One
Percent (and therefore a white Republican in disguise) – until we admit
how he conned us and how it facilitates the permanent end of USian
democracy – we will remain imprisoned in the very darkness Mr. Parry is
otherwise working so diligently and courageously to overcome.
******
Carl Gibson, reporting for Reader Supported News, wrote a scathing denunciation of how capitalism has perverted the USian justice system
– zero-tolerance prosecution of minorities, lifetime imprisonment for
nonviolent offenders, perpetual above-the-law immunity and
billion-dollar bonuses for the most malevolently greedy robber barons in
human history. But in the end, “Our Fraudulent Two-Tiered Justice System” was just another call for reforms we now know will never be allowed, and I responded accordingly:
I
was applauding Mr. Gibson's reportage, especially his description of
the USian criminal injustice system as "two-tiered," which is absolutely
correct.
But then I read his concluding paragraph and realized he is just another reformer – that
his outrage is rendered meaningless by his deluded belief in the
integrity of the USian electoral process and in the Big Lie of USian
"democracy" in general.
Which, when you analyze his rhetoric, means he's blaming us – we the people –
for oppression that was maliciously imposed on us by the One Percent
and that under present conditions is hopelessly beyond our capability to
abolish or even ameliorate.
That's because the oppression Mr. Gibson so rightfully deplores –
absolute power and unlimited profit for the Ruling Class, total
subjugation for all the rest of us – is endemic to capitalism. Indeed it
is the quintessence of capitalism's inevitable transition to fascism.
And
until we recognize the true extent of our powerlessness – until we
acknowledge that capitalism by its predatory nature deliberately and
methodically renders the 99 Percent as powerless as the masses of
Tsarist Russia were before the revolutions of 1917 – we will remain
enslaved.
******
Another of Robert Parry's superb reports on the Ukraine Crisis describes how its outcome is seemingly a huge loss for U.S. interests. But on second thought, it seems to me “The State Department's Ukraine Fiasco”
was written from the (clearly obsolete) perspective the U.S. wants
world peace and socioeconomic stability – this opposed to the chaos that
furthers the USian Empire's goals of maximum profiteering,
shock-doctrine global conquest and endless war to kill off the 99
Percent and justify ever-more-tyrannical oppression in the homeland.
Therefore:
Mr.
Parry's closing statement is indisputably true – there is no way the
Ukraine Crisis has served U.S. national interests – but only if
"national interests" are defined as what we the people need for our
wellbeing.
More
to the point, the interests of the neocons are always antithetical to
our own. That's because the neocons' interests are those of their One
Percent masters, whose goals are maximum short-term profits rather than
long-term political stability.
From
this perspective it is apparent the Ukraine Crisis is serving the One
Percent's interests exactly as intended. The increasing military
tensions are already boosting profits for military industries, while the
socioeconomic chaos in Ukraine itself provides yet another opportunity
for the imposition of shock-doctrine capitalism, which – as under
Pinochet in Chile – means absolute power and unlimited profit for the
rulers, total subjugation for everyone else.
Moreover,
the manufactured need for vastly increased U.S. military expenditures
provides the One Percent and their servants in both parties with a
perfect rationale for further slashing social services including
Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Psychological preparation for
these genocidal cutbacks is undoubtedly the purpose behind the otherwise
inexplicable hate-Russia media campaign.
Such is the realpolitik of plutocracy – actually sociopathocracy (rule by moral imbeciles) – that defines today's United States.
***
In response to another poster's question, I wrote:
The
“problem with Obama” is he is a white Republican in disguise, and now
that he does not have to scam us into voting for him again, he is
ever-more-defiantly revealing his true self.
(Yeah,
I'm one of those useful idiots who voted for him twice. First time
because I stupidly let myself be conned by his Big Lie of "change we can
believe in," second time because the One Percent's Romney-Ryan
assault-gun did just what it was intended to do and terrified me into
voting for him again.)
***
And as I said to an anti-Parry poster on the same thread:
(For
you to) liken the National Endowment for Democracy to Amnesty
International is rather akin to likening Reinhard Heydrich to Albert
Schweitzer. And that calls into question (your) entire analysis,
particularly since the only Ukrianian "human rights" NED cares about are
those of the One Percenters and their anointed oligarchs.
******
As if in follow-up to my own ongoing coverage of the war against mass transit in Pugetopolis,
the Olympia-Tacoma-Seattle-Bellingham metropolis on the eastern shore
of Washington state's Puget Sound, Seattle's on-line daily Crosscut published a disheartening update of the worsening transit crisis.
For me, the usefulness of Bill Lucia's report, “No silver bullets among last ditch efforts to stave off bus service cuts,”
extended beyond its factual content, which gave me a rare opportunity
to contrast the (seemingly) humanitarian concerns of Seattle politicians
with the Ayn-Rand/Marie-Antoinette attitudes of the politicians who
rule Tacoma and Pierce County:
From
the perspective of Tacoma – specifically its local politicians' chilly
indifference to the ruinous impact of Pierce Transit's wrenching
cutbacks on the transit-dependent urban population – the role of Seattle
and King County politicians in the fight to preserve Metro Transit bus
service is laudable and exemplary.
Indeed,
until now, and with the notable exception of Kshama Sawant and her
election to office, I never imagined I would find myself admiring
anything about Seattle or any of its residents. That's because, to me,
Seattlites will always be the most relentlessly vicious xenophobes I
have ever encountered anywhere at any time. That includes my years in
the South as an involuntary court-decreed school-year dependent of my
father and stepmother, 1950-1956 and 1957-1958, then later, after three
years of military service, as an outspokenly pro-civil-rights
journalist, 1962-1965, including the summer of 1963 as a civil-rights
activist.
Yes,
the Ku Klux Klan tried to kill me – three times in fact – but other
Southerners were faithful friends, and two Southerners were long-term
lovers. By contrast, my four years in Seattle were the loneliest of my
life; Seattleites were without exception relentlessly hostile,
constantly damning me as “a fucking New York intellectual,” repeatedly
telling me I should “go back where (I) belong,” and their vindictive
Seattle-Freeze tactics, which included nasty notes, slashed tires,
physical assault, the kidnapping of a dog and even defiant thefts of
published and unpublished works, eventually ran me out of town.
I
left Seattle in 1976, and I will never return. But I remained in the
Pacific Northwest – the back-country trout fishing was too good to
abandon – and now I must confess I have at last encountered one thing
(apart from the election of Ms. Sawant) that is compellingly positive
about Seattle. At least some of its politicians actually represent – or
at least pretend to represent – the people like myself who can no longer
afford automobiles and who are therefore utterly dependent on mass
transit.
The
irony, of course, is that fully half the population of Tacoma – where
the politicians have never lifted so much as the proverbial finger to
preserve Pierce Transit service – is officially lower income, and a
substantial percentage, as I remember about 25 percent of the city's
approximately 100,000 lower-income residents, have no other means of
transportation. (The no-option-save-buses figure is deftly concealed by
the local bureaucracy, but it is available via a bit of research, and I
apologize for the fact I do not have time to ferret it out today.)
More
to the point, the refusal of the local politicians to protect the bus
service vital to our survival proves that, in Tacoma and Pierce County,
we lower-income people have no political representation at all. Not only
is there the politicians' total indifference to the consequences of PT
downsizing. Now – as if to clear up any misunderstanding about whose
side the politicians are on – these same politicos, Democrats and
Republicans alike, have approved PT's shift to a new policy of
penalizing pro-transit Tacomans by withholding intra-city service even
as service to the (notably wealthier) anti-transit suburbs is radically
expanded. The contempt and hatefulness in the message this new policy
sends the urban poor is unmistakable.
Hence
– much as it grieves me to admit it – for purposes of transit, and more
generally for politicians who will at least publicly acknowledge the
existence of lower-income people and the pressing reality of our needs,
anyone who like myself is now a member of the urban underclass is
probably better off living in Seattle.
Such
was the output of a week in which – theoretically speaking – I had no
time to write. I guess it's true: journalism is like organized crime –
you never get to retire. And never want to, either...
LB/1 June 2014
-30-
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