Our Goldman Sachs liberal president has done his ObamaCare victory one better. After handing over a captive market of unruly customers to the private insurance companies and calling it reform, he has handed the gay bashing baseball bat up the military's chain of the command to higher ranking generals to beat openly LGBT service members out of the armed forces.
Some of my leftist comrades opposed ObamaCare for what it is: a boon for corporate health and Wall Street and the promise of a future invoice to Main Street, a bill we do not know they can afford where "access" and "cannot be denied" means I must sell you this bridge: please, pay promptly!
Other of my leftist comrades drank the Kool-Aid and supported it, urging that it was not perfect, that it's just a start. After tens of thousands drop dead for want of care and unable to afford it even when insurance companies can't deny them I wonder what we will start.
I am a Black gay man, and know about the Go-Slow smoke of Southern liberals when the civil rights/slave insurrection movement got too hot.
Famous friends of the "Negro" urged a steady pace, incrementalism, which allowed the Black population to be depicted as either a dark threat to "our way of life" or the clownish wide-eyed buffoon to be scoffed - two figments of the same captive population.
I am a Black gay man who has not gotten yet with this Go Slow nonsense his 40 acres and a Mule but, it seems instead, a SuperFund site and a jackass.
Go Slowers are elitists who have disengaged themselves from the terrors of real working-class people, LGBT's, and racial minorities.
Obama has topped his victory of health care reform with his Defense Secretary Robert Gates tackling his promised opposition to Don't Ask Don't Tell. But like his maiming of old concept universal health care as a public option - the US ultimately makes everything into pornography - Obama is further maiming LGBT service members, the LGBT community, even those like me who find the military and marriage peculiar institutions that only a moth should fly in to.
Instead of some lower-ranked flunky outing a same gender-loving warrior, this outing will have to be certified (whatever that means), will have to come from something like a 4-star general.
Star Chamber, anyone? I guess the bashed, ousted LGBT service members will get a certificate with their dishonorable discharge.
The news so far is making much on the newly implemented restrictions, like, if you come out to your doctor that can't be used to bash you like a second-class citizen: well, how many doctors in the armed forces were opening their patient-doctor confidentiality agreements by outing their patients? I want to know because I suspect this is more ObamaSpeak: change-is-coming flourishes spliced into his TelePrompter.
This reform is reported as ending third-party outings: like, I know you're queer so I'm going to report you. This is benign twin of the I know you're a Terrorist so get thee to Guantanamo without a lawyer or trial.
This new reform reportedly limits being dismissed to being openly LGBT.
What?
This means, unlike our industrialized allies who have open lesbians and gays in their armed forces, LGBT's here still can't serve openly in the military. Hide your partners, letters, and get that sashay out of your march, girls.
In a country where Go Slow during the civil rights/slave insurrection meant unleash the fire hoses on women and children while Washington fiddled, where the public's overwhelming demand for the public option means enrich the insurance companies (where at the same time this week the US president defended the democratic aspirations of the Cuban people), while people die, reform of a bigoted policy means to tell LGBT service members to shut up, and shoot.
More Obama reform. Three years to go!
25 March 2010
04 March 2010
Worse than failed states and corrupt political class is our empty anti-war left
The protests that mobilized before the 1991 and recent 2003 US invasions in the Middle East were indeed historic events rarely paralleled in history. Even if we compare the mass marches to the iconic 1960's, those of the recent era are distinguished in enormity and the fact they came before the imperial assaults.
Whereas there were no such marches in the mid 50's or early 60's as the US escalated military presence in Indochina, only long after.
But the power structure responds in kind. I remember in the 1991 march in San Francisco coming home and finding the network news shrinking the thousands that filled Market Street from the Castro District to City Hall to a few measly hundred and describing us banally as "expressing our concern" about imminent US invasion of Iraq.
Of course, the political class, its corporate elites, and its media elite conspire to manufacture the illusion that all is well, and when thousands take to the streets these agents will lie to the many more who are not in the streets.
Hundreds expressing concern is an outlier, something to be dismissed like a tea party activist (who should not be dismissed) ... thousands may suggest a paradigm shift, and a threat to the world order.
But what of those marchers themselves, who were large in 1991 and even larger in the drum-roll up to the current invasion and occupation?
Not much. Our leftist, anti-war movement is like a hollow egg. From the outside you see a proportioned oval shell, but the yolk has been sucked from it.
So where there is quite ample opposition to both wars, against dismantling public schools, against neglecting infrastructure, against enriching the banks with public bailouts while instructing the poor and underemployed in civic values, against giving a captive audience to the health-care industry, the yolk - as it were - is who this movement continues to support at the ballot box.
Barack Obama gave us every indication where his loyalties to the corporate class lay when he flip-flopped his opposition to the invasion and courted the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC is that brainchild of Bill Clinton who wanted to distance the Party from its traditional base and court corporate validation ... and Reagan Democrats.
Obama got the blessing of the DLC and became the Goldman Sachs candidate.
And those leftist, anti-war activists voted for him.
This is what always happens, and I can't figure out why except maybe we live in a country with a lot of bad marriages, so electing candidates whom you hope won't beat you again is par for the course.
I started my political life a monarchist in 7th grade, realized the US was a republic and voted as a Republican in 12th grade, was b*tch-slapped awake freshmen year of college and became a social[ist] democrat, and when crafty Bill Clinton maneuvered the Democratic nomination in 1991, I not only left forever that strange political party but also actually fled the country for Mexico and a new life (which lasted only three months until my money ran out). Ten years as a public school teacher solidified my socialism.
In other words, I may learn slow, but I learn. But these anti-warriors have swelled impressively in their ranks and numbers on the one hand, and grown equally dumb on the other.
Dumb? Oh, I meant that with kindness, as Dame Edna would say.
Because not only do they continue to turn to their abusers in local, state, and national elections, but they keep doing it. Every Tuesday. Then Saturday, they put on their marching clothes, rehearse the chants, and demand the troops be brought home; or schools be funded; LGBT rights; or the public option be put on the table.
I would no sooner expect a drunk driver to steer straight.
When the Ross Perot or Ron Paul emerged, they were treated like folk heroes. Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the tea party is feted.
Whereas many on the left continue to this day to attack Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss. Others take him as seriously as any other in our third party basement. He can't win, so why vote for him, is the all too common excuse. So he won't win, and you get what you paid for.
The left not only scorns its own rebels. It scoffs at Palin and the tea party, forgetting the "thumping" an unknown, unrehearsed George W Bush gave Gov. Anne Richards in Texas.
The left, progressives, even socialists, and communists commit the sin of their beliefs on Friday, then bow their heads like vassals to the Democratic Party church on Sundays. Our communities and our country will not change into the things we march for, picket for, and diatribe for as long as they continue to give credibility to their oppressors.
We are the masses. The worker's party is us.
Whereas there were no such marches in the mid 50's or early 60's as the US escalated military presence in Indochina, only long after.
But the power structure responds in kind. I remember in the 1991 march in San Francisco coming home and finding the network news shrinking the thousands that filled Market Street from the Castro District to City Hall to a few measly hundred and describing us banally as "expressing our concern" about imminent US invasion of Iraq.
Of course, the political class, its corporate elites, and its media elite conspire to manufacture the illusion that all is well, and when thousands take to the streets these agents will lie to the many more who are not in the streets.
Hundreds expressing concern is an outlier, something to be dismissed like a tea party activist (who should not be dismissed) ... thousands may suggest a paradigm shift, and a threat to the world order.
But what of those marchers themselves, who were large in 1991 and even larger in the drum-roll up to the current invasion and occupation?
Not much. Our leftist, anti-war movement is like a hollow egg. From the outside you see a proportioned oval shell, but the yolk has been sucked from it.
So where there is quite ample opposition to both wars, against dismantling public schools, against neglecting infrastructure, against enriching the banks with public bailouts while instructing the poor and underemployed in civic values, against giving a captive audience to the health-care industry, the yolk - as it were - is who this movement continues to support at the ballot box.
Barack Obama gave us every indication where his loyalties to the corporate class lay when he flip-flopped his opposition to the invasion and courted the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). The DLC is that brainchild of Bill Clinton who wanted to distance the Party from its traditional base and court corporate validation ... and Reagan Democrats.
Obama got the blessing of the DLC and became the Goldman Sachs candidate.
And those leftist, anti-war activists voted for him.
This is what always happens, and I can't figure out why except maybe we live in a country with a lot of bad marriages, so electing candidates whom you hope won't beat you again is par for the course.
I started my political life a monarchist in 7th grade, realized the US was a republic and voted as a Republican in 12th grade, was b*tch-slapped awake freshmen year of college and became a social[ist] democrat, and when crafty Bill Clinton maneuvered the Democratic nomination in 1991, I not only left forever that strange political party but also actually fled the country for Mexico and a new life (which lasted only three months until my money ran out). Ten years as a public school teacher solidified my socialism.
In other words, I may learn slow, but I learn. But these anti-warriors have swelled impressively in their ranks and numbers on the one hand, and grown equally dumb on the other.
Dumb? Oh, I meant that with kindness, as Dame Edna would say.
Because not only do they continue to turn to their abusers in local, state, and national elections, but they keep doing it. Every Tuesday. Then Saturday, they put on their marching clothes, rehearse the chants, and demand the troops be brought home; or schools be funded; LGBT rights; or the public option be put on the table.
I would no sooner expect a drunk driver to steer straight.
When the Ross Perot or Ron Paul emerged, they were treated like folk heroes. Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and the tea party is feted.
Whereas many on the left continue to this day to attack Ralph Nader for Al Gore's loss. Others take him as seriously as any other in our third party basement. He can't win, so why vote for him, is the all too common excuse. So he won't win, and you get what you paid for.
The left not only scorns its own rebels. It scoffs at Palin and the tea party, forgetting the "thumping" an unknown, unrehearsed George W Bush gave Gov. Anne Richards in Texas.
The left, progressives, even socialists, and communists commit the sin of their beliefs on Friday, then bow their heads like vassals to the Democratic Party church on Sundays. Our communities and our country will not change into the things we march for, picket for, and diatribe for as long as they continue to give credibility to their oppressors.
We are the masses. The worker's party is us.
03 March 2010
If this economy is as good as it gets, then what?
Our political class, full of optimism, themselves, and tipping the next election or poll in their favor, has been on the Mother of All Campaign Trails to assure us the economy is on the mend, has dodged the bullet, has rounded the corner, is showing signs of revitalization ... you've heard it ad nauseum. Maybe you are encouraged by it. Maybe you are knowing more and more people who just got laid off.
It's probably an article of faith that the political class speak with such optimism. It keeps us from getting anxious. It can also forestall the revolution.
But what did the Romans say as their empire withered away? What pronouncements did the Egyptians utter as they went from being a mighty, African empire to a ward of Rome? What of the Spanish, whose power and wealth pinnacled until England blew its armada into the channel. The British Empire colored a fourth of the globe in red, the sun never setting, and Churchill swore he did not become the king's first minister to dismantle the empire.
For all Winston's bluster, he lost; the empire won ... its independence, that is. India started the dominoes. Vietnam kicked the French, then the United States of America, out. And Fidel still lives.
None of them admitted that the sun was setting on their reigns and rules. None.
So why should the US in particular and the West in general be any different?
What if the promised jobs weren't coming back? What if the economy we have now is the new "normal," the new baseline?
The US economy is not, after all, like the seasons, where a brutal summer folds into a gentle fall, then a turbulent winter, but spring is around the corner. The globe is littered with the artifacts of civilizations risen and fallen and buried under the foliage.
Rather that look back soberly at these fallen, our tenured moralists in high academe whisper that sodomites brought down Rome. Egypt, Spain, France, the United Kingdom are rarely assessed at all, which may be because they are too close for comfort.
The thesis that this is as good as it gets comes not from what is plain as the nose on your face, as well as the state of our neighborhoods, cities, and public services, but also from the busy ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
According to the $ multi-billion port, its top imports include crude oil, electronics, plastic goods, furniture, and clothing.
Fine.
According to the port, its main exports include petroleum coke, refined petroleum, waste paper, foods, chemicals.
Now, this port along with Los Angeles, is one of the busiest in the world: top five. It clearly shows what is happening to our economy. We are importing billions in manufactured goods - stuff we enjoy, our toys, our comforts, our beds, desks, computers, iPhones; while we are exporting our trash and agri-business produce.
Does a country tending to this really need legions of inner-city kids to go to college, let alone complete high school? Do we need so many managers and white collars except to manage and discipline wage-slaves?
No.
The sun will have reached its pinnacle and began its steady descent with this awesome trend, which flies in the face of our political optimism about the next fiscal quarter.
So we must re-organize if we are to save our civilization. The catastrophes in Haiti and Chile should demonstrate that we are loathe to dismantle any of our public services and infrastructure: Monsanto will not warm us, and Archer Daniels Midland will not feed us if some natural or supernatural disaster befalls us. They aren't now.
This re-organization can only be orchestrated and directed by government, accountable to the public and not shareholders. This re-organization points to that bogeyman of the Reagan revolutionists: central planning. And this dismisses to the trash pile of history their magic of the marketplace with its water torturing trickle-down economics.
Civilization is at stake, not just the cause of socialism, which I firmly believe is the way. I am not so full of Churchillian bluster as to think we are exceptional, we are unique in not being buried by history. And I know the examples of our economic system do not find or wage-slaves exceptional but expendable and will, at the downturn of a fiscal quarter, bury us in the present!
It's probably an article of faith that the political class speak with such optimism. It keeps us from getting anxious. It can also forestall the revolution.
But what did the Romans say as their empire withered away? What pronouncements did the Egyptians utter as they went from being a mighty, African empire to a ward of Rome? What of the Spanish, whose power and wealth pinnacled until England blew its armada into the channel. The British Empire colored a fourth of the globe in red, the sun never setting, and Churchill swore he did not become the king's first minister to dismantle the empire.
For all Winston's bluster, he lost; the empire won ... its independence, that is. India started the dominoes. Vietnam kicked the French, then the United States of America, out. And Fidel still lives.
None of them admitted that the sun was setting on their reigns and rules. None.
So why should the US in particular and the West in general be any different?
What if the promised jobs weren't coming back? What if the economy we have now is the new "normal," the new baseline?
The US economy is not, after all, like the seasons, where a brutal summer folds into a gentle fall, then a turbulent winter, but spring is around the corner. The globe is littered with the artifacts of civilizations risen and fallen and buried under the foliage.
Rather that look back soberly at these fallen, our tenured moralists in high academe whisper that sodomites brought down Rome. Egypt, Spain, France, the United Kingdom are rarely assessed at all, which may be because they are too close for comfort.
The thesis that this is as good as it gets comes not from what is plain as the nose on your face, as well as the state of our neighborhoods, cities, and public services, but also from the busy ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.
According to the $ multi-billion port, its top imports include crude oil, electronics, plastic goods, furniture, and clothing.
Fine.
According to the port, its main exports include petroleum coke, refined petroleum, waste paper, foods, chemicals.
Now, this port along with Los Angeles, is one of the busiest in the world: top five. It clearly shows what is happening to our economy. We are importing billions in manufactured goods - stuff we enjoy, our toys, our comforts, our beds, desks, computers, iPhones; while we are exporting our trash and agri-business produce.
Does a country tending to this really need legions of inner-city kids to go to college, let alone complete high school? Do we need so many managers and white collars except to manage and discipline wage-slaves?
No.
The sun will have reached its pinnacle and began its steady descent with this awesome trend, which flies in the face of our political optimism about the next fiscal quarter.
So we must re-organize if we are to save our civilization. The catastrophes in Haiti and Chile should demonstrate that we are loathe to dismantle any of our public services and infrastructure: Monsanto will not warm us, and Archer Daniels Midland will not feed us if some natural or supernatural disaster befalls us. They aren't now.
This re-organization can only be orchestrated and directed by government, accountable to the public and not shareholders. This re-organization points to that bogeyman of the Reagan revolutionists: central planning. And this dismisses to the trash pile of history their magic of the marketplace with its water torturing trickle-down economics.
Civilization is at stake, not just the cause of socialism, which I firmly believe is the way. I am not so full of Churchillian bluster as to think we are exceptional, we are unique in not being buried by history. And I know the examples of our economic system do not find or wage-slaves exceptional but expendable and will, at the downturn of a fiscal quarter, bury us in the present!
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