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2011-02-19 04:05 PM

CARLITOS BAM-BAM
Dallas, TX
Posts: 897

Kaboom here....I have managed to find my way out of the mental suck zone that has paralyzed me for the last two weeks, but I am reporting to you from a still ravagedly mind-f%&*ed state....
The Big Darkness is overwhelming....and it's only going to get worse.

Budget mega-crises across the land have brought out the worst in people and our politics. All over, nationwide, and across the political spectrum there is Fear and Loathing. Gonzo craziness is at an all time. Tea Party controlled legislatures are reaking havoc on basic fundamental values. Decency is giving way to nihilistic social Darwinism and crazed regressive orthodoxy. Conservatism has been supplanted by nationalistic Revanchism, and the center cannot hold with the pull ever more rightward. In Wisconsin, bloodshed may be imminent; as Ray McGovern found out recently, even at a speech by the Democratic Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, where the topic for discussion is freedom of expression, silent protest alone can still earn you a beating.

In the Muslim and Arab world, overeducated and underemployed youth are taking down autocratic regimes allied with the U.S....a new reality is emergent and American foreign policy is now in tumult. The implications for our domestic politics are quite ominious.
Having championed war to spread democracy, the rightwing of American politics is now consumed by voices calling for Coldwar realpolitik in the face of strident student-led campaigns to tear down the walls of imperialism that divide and exploit their respective countries. The fear laid out to the American people is that the students are merely marks or dark-horse runners for Islamic fascism, but the real reason that these revolutions are feared is because of what succesful democratic movements are likely to make of the exploitative relationship that the U.S. currently enjoys via the corruption of present governments in the Arab and Muslim world.

Regressive, repressive, and aggressive, a diffused radical conservatism has overtaken mainstream conservatism....and a nationalistic Revaunchism has now come to serve as the guiding ideological precepts of the conservative movement....
The GOP's "Southern Strategy" has taken hold over the entire party....Appealing to the lowest common denominator is now the status quo of rightwing politics....The Party of Lincoln model has been replaced by the Rebel yell of Dixie. And we are still stuck in 1860.

I'm in the gloaming.....We have all become far too weak to take on the necessary sacrifices to rebuild an America that is a monument to the human race. And our politics has come to represent cycles of a blame game that has jaded us all. Lost in a sea of doubt, we search for understanding and meaning where we can find it; and when individuals can only find a sense of self-worth by participating in mobs, gun play is just around the corner, especially in a society that is loaded down with enough weapons and ammunition to sufficiently arm every man, woman, and child in this country for several weeks of continous all out warfare.

Beneath it all, under the surface of our civilized norms, there is a powerfully tense struggle going on to suppress deranged sociopaths from ruining decent society with selfish desires for retribution over the imagined grievances of various petrified orthodoxies.
And in a nation where the 3 Stooges are better known than the branches of our government, it's no wonder there are so many crackpots with power and legitimacy who threaten the strength of our union.

Besieged on all sides, the Obama administration staggers forth having been mugged right out of the gate, shell-shocked from the begining by controversy after controversy, real and imagined, exploited by the rightwing for political gain. The propoganda has been compelling. And the internet has come to diffuse anti-Obama radical politics over a wider and wider audience. Rightwing orthodoxy has gone high-tech, and it's arrival on the digital stage could not be more hypocritical. All of their efforts to paint socialism as evil would not be possible on the digital stage without socialism, as it was massive US government intervention in defense and space programs that led to the development of personal computing and the internet.

Representing less than a quarter of the electorate in most polls, progressives and liberals remain a minority ideological group. And nothing put forward in the media as liberal opinions compares to the reach and duration of the 24 hour/7 days a week rightwing sound machine. Propoganda has literally brought this nation to its knees. Our national mental breakdown following 9/11 is not finished.
The freak show has only just begun. 2012 here we come.

2011-02-20 09:11 AM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

Thanks Kaboom and welcome back. Your descriptive choice of words to describe the current political climate in America ring true. They provoke thought and critical thinking, but any attempts to bring that critical thinking to the forefront of the national debate are drowned out by the 24/7 right wing propaganda machine...and as you state, it has "literally brought our nation to its knees." But we must keep trying. I agree with most everything you said, and I am not ready to concede. I will continue to do my small part to try educate those that don't want to be educated.

You provided a clip of Ray McGovern being ejected from a Hillary Clinton speech. Ray McGovern, an outspoken retired 27 year CIA analyst, has been my hero ever since he grilled Donald Rumsfeld on the lies he used to get us into the Iraq War. I was therefore surprised by the heavy handed techniques used by the Clinton security guards, but I suspect his reputation preceded him, and he was probably a "marked man" before he even sat down.

Nevertheless, what I really appreciate McGovern for are his candid challenges to the real reasons for that war. He uses the acronym OIL...Oil, Israel and Logistics. While many in the media have no trouble with the "O" and the "L" they somehow cannot get themselves to mention the "I" word...Israel. In a subsequent interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC he elaborated:

MCGOVERN: Well, the people running our policy toward that part of the world have great difficulty distinguishing between what they perceive to be the strategic interests of Israel, on one hand, and the strategic interests of the United States on the other.

These are the so-called neocons. They used to work, some of them, in think-tanks for the Israeli government. And they‘ve imposed this policy, which is designed to do the same things that U.S. policy for the last four decades have done. The only difference is: We started a war this time.

CARLSON: But why wouldn‘t attack Syria or Iran? I mean, the Israeli would tell you—they told me right before the war—those were the more imminent threats to them, they thought.

MCGOVERN: Well, no, Iraq was the ultimate target, second-largest oil deposits, a ruthless dictator that could be removed. The Israelis were pulling very, very strong for our attack on Iraq.

And, more important, they are doing exactly the same thing now for us to attack Iran. Iran is no threat to us, but it could be construed as a threat to Israel‘s nuclear...

As you know, any mention of the word Israel in the media or attempts to have an intellectual discussion of Israel's role in Middle East unrest brings out the avid defenders and accusations of anti-Semitism. For that reason, I won't get into much of that history, but I will say it again and again...the road to peace in the Middle East begins in Gaza, and until the US government, whether Democratic or Republican, is willing to take on the Israel Lobby and have an honest public discussion about not only the horrible living conditions of Palestinians living in Gaza, but also the West Bank illegal settlements, the situation will continue to fester.

Ha...the United States just vetoed another another UN resolution condemning Israel for their illegal settlements. It wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last time. But this much I am certain of...every time the United States acts alone in defending Israel's actions, that news is magnified all over the Arab world...it does not serve US interests, and it only prolongs the day that Israel will have to come to some kind of accomodation with the millions of displaced Palestinians living in the squalor of refugee camps. And every day Israel's position becomes weaker...time is not on their side. And if several Arab dictatorships do indeed convert to "democracy" that day will come sooner than later. Their leaders are gambling with their country's future.

We need more "Ray McGoverns" to keep our government honest...Israel needs to listen also.

Getting back to the protest movements going on right now thoughout the Middle East Arab countries, each country indeed is a delicate situation for the United States. Bahrain, in particular, is very very difficult. Quoting the Times of India,

"As political unrest shakes its tiny Gulf ally Bahrain, much more is at stake for the United States than just the fate of the US Fifth Fleet's base...Also in play are Washington's extensive strategic ties with Bahrain's influential oil-rich neighbor Saudi Arabia and efforts by US arch-foe Iran to spread its influence from across the Gulf..."

"The course of events could put a strain on the US-Saudi strategic relationship, which involves US military bases and billions of dollars in US weapons sales, as well as close cooperation on regional diplomacy and counter-terrorism."

Here in the United States the protests in Wisconsin have amplified the divisiveness of US politics. Wisconsin is really is a fight between the unions right to collective bargaining and the Koch brothers astro-turf campaign to turn the American public against unions...to ultimately crush the unions so that their brand of corporate fascism supported by a compliant right wing media and an ignorant populace can take over the land...unchallenged. This is indeed the "Gonzo craziness" that you have addressed many times in this website. We should fear it...and keep the discussion going.

Thanks for speaking out again. We need more critical thinking like yours and less hyperbole. I truly believe that if Americans knew all the facts we would be in a far better position to make rational decisions. But the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of this world have captivated a large part of the populace with their "fear and loathing." They rely on ignorance to sell their brand of fear mongering...a "selling of lies and hate" that has been very profitable to both of them and to Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

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