"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) (William Shakespeare)
Andy Worthingtonquotes some of Senator Obama's high-flying pre-election rhetoric in 2007, “In the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantánamo, we have compromised our most precious values. What could have been a call to a generation has become an excuse for unchecked presidential power.”
Obama dared to champion the cause of human rights then. Where is evidence of those values within him now? He is willing to minimize, spin, deny, or say anything -- in fact, often to say two contradictory things at the same time. How many games of Lucy and the football have to be played before the majority of the citizenry recognize that not only is Barack Obama sustaining travesties against our constitution, as well as international and moral law, launched during the Bush regime, but he is committing profound new ones of his very own?
Watching Obama’s choices in his first year of office has been cruelly heart-breaking. There has been such little evidence of a moral compass. No evidence of serious empathy, other than rhetorical, for the common citizen. At first watching him govern was like wondering while playing the slots if one will be a loser or a winner when the (his) spinning stopped. Side by side coexisted dread and an addictive hope. Sadly, just as with a slot machine, more often than not the result came up with “ordinary citizen” as loser. Obama proved robust corporatist and militarist. He proved anti-humanist. He offered no acknowledgements of, took no responsibility for, his breathtaking, 180 degree reversals to golden promises of anti-Bush reform pre-election.
These reversals are no small issues added to his colossally arrogant and illegal new ones such as excessive use of drone warfare in spite of horrifying numbers of civilian casualties (and within countries we are not even at war with), assuming the right of assassination of US citizens without those citizens being granted due process of law, limitless detention of prisoners without granting them due process. Obama feels entitled to play judge, jury, and executioner all by himself. Like a Roman emperor enjoying thumb’s up or down power over life and death! Obama, who once guaranteed transparency on his watch, now exploits even more than Bush state secrecy and executive privilege to cover up or perpetrate war crimes.
This is bigger than hypocrisy. This is heart-of-darkness territory.
Obama does not rule from his rhetorical talking point, “pragmatic center" stance at all. Where is the center on a slippery slope of amorality? He can talk geometry all he wants to reframe a dangerous, anti-constitutional reality. There is decency. There is the law. There is illegality. There is depravity. He has chosen to become an enabler of violators of human rights and a violator of them himself. The horror of it all is, he is being enabled by the media, the vast majority of Congress, and the vast majority of citizens.
We learn more and more of the corruption of a lobbied Congress, especially watching a Democratic majority in Congress squeezing, also, into Obama’s faux-centrist amoral bubble. But as for the citizenry? Are we so malleable by the corporate media to defy a basic moral sensibility? Is the cult of celebrity, the amiable and intelligent-seeming persona of Obama, so strong it eclipses true character or the lack thereof? Is it Dem-team or progressive- (using the word loosely) team loyalty? Moral relativism? “Things could be worse” with the OTHER team or “ends justifies the means” rationalizations?
Are Americans so narcissistic and closed off from empathy for foreign peoples? For the plight of our own stressed out and burned out soldiers? Are some, especially on the left, just too cynically “cool for school” to bother any more with humanitarian advocacy? Or is it that a leader only needs to repeat the word "terror" a bunch of times in a row and most of America falls into a "do with us, our money, or anyone else whatever you want" kind of swoon?
There is a provocative full page ad created by The World Can't Waitmaking its way into more and more national magazines. Its message has been endorsed by over 2000 citizen-signers. So far it has been viewed, endorsed and donated to within The New York Review of Books, The Nation and The Humanist. Currently it is appearing in Rolling Stone as an online ad to reach readers of the famous “Runaway General” article.
The title across the top of the ad: Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them.
Next to the headline are two seeming mug shots. One of George W. Bush. One of Barack H. Obama. A portion of the text in the ad:
In the past few weeks, it has become common knowledge that Barack Obama has openly ordered the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, because he is suspected of participating in plots by Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki denies these charges. No matter. Without trial or other judicial proceeding, the administration has simply put him on the to-be-killed list.
During this same period, a video leaked by whistleblowers in the military showing U.S. troops firing on an unarmed party of Iraqis in 2007, including two journalists, and then firing on those who attempted to rescue them – including two children – became public. As ugly as this video of the killing of 12 Iraqis was, the chatter recorded from the helicopter cockpit was even more chilling and monstrous. Yet the Pentagon said that there would be no charges against these soldiers; and the media focused on absolving them of blame ...
[snip]
Also during this period, the Pentagon acknowledged, after denials, a massacre near the city of Gardez, Afghanistan, on February 12, 2010, in which 5 people were killed, including two pregnant women, leaving 16 children motherless....
[snip]
Just weeks earlier, a story broken in Harper’s by Scott Horton carried news that three supposed suicides of detainees in Guantánamo in 2006 were not actual suicides, but homicides carried out by American personnel. This passed almost without comment.
As I said earlier, this is truly heart of darkness territory. Admittedly it is hard to wrap one's mind and heart around the above issues as well as countless others, to be willing to hear what evil human beings are capable of. Particularly human beings that belong to our own nation, that we want to assume behave with honor and integrity.
Confronting massive evil is daunting, sickening, spiritually exhausting and even enervates something called the thymus gland (under the breast bone). But if this country wants to save its collective soul we must wake up morally. We must acknowledge the war criminality of Obama and the rest of our leadership and then all the way down the chains of their command. We must detach from our own seduced “cronyism” with the amiable persona of this leader and face down reality. We must listen, hear and explore the details of what is going on in our name and with our tax dollars.
The devil is definitely in the details. The corporate media will never deliver the details of the truth about such evil. We must nevertheless seek them out and respond to them.
Over a year ago I put on a black arm band. It was an emotional tipping point for me, when I realized Obama had no capacity for moral outrage even over the torture program of the Bush administration. He had little respect for the Geneva Convention as well as our own constitution. I vowed I would wear the arm band until Obama and the majority of citizens saw sense. It was a symbol of protest and mourning and offered some consolation for a tremendous sense of helplessness. My shock and awe.
I will close this blog by referring to only four of many revelations involving torture and detention under Bush and Obama. Where is the morality, humanity and law in our country to have allowed the following examples of grotesque American amorality:
1. According to Andy Worthington, a citizen of Yemen, a student named Odaini, had been seized at the age of 18 by mistake after staying the night with friends in a university guest house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. The house was raided by Pakistani and US operatives. Shortly after Odaini’s arrival at Guantánamo in June 2002, an interrogator recommended his repatriation. Five “interviews” proved he had no links with Al Qaeda or mid or high level Taliban. He was not released. In June 2005 it was conceded officially his capture was a mistake. He is still incarcerated, 8 years and counting. He also won on May 26, 2010 his habeas corpus case by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In his 36-page opinion Judge Henry H. Kennedy concluded:
Respondents have kept a young man from Yemen in detention in Cuba from age eighteen to age twenty-six. They have prevented him from seeing his family and denied him the opportunity to complete his studies and embark on a career. The evidence before the Court shows that holding Odaini in custody at such great cost to him has done nothing to make the United States more secure. There is no evidence that Odaini has any connection to al Qaeda. Consequently, his detention is not authorized by the AUMF [Authorization of the Use of Military Force]. The Court therefore emphatically concludes that Odaini's motion must be granted.
So, maybe Obama doesn’t officially authorize enhanced physical torture. 8+ years of an innocent young man’s incarceration at Gitmo, isolation from his family and his homeland? What degree of psychological torture would a remotely sensitive human being attribute to that? Especially when the U.S. legal system and lower levels of intelligence officials have declared the detainee a non-threat, mistakenly arrested, and still he has to wait for or maybe never be granted release? How would any of us hold up?
2. Again, Andy Worthingtonwho reveals that in January 2010 a final report of a four year internal investigation into the Justice Department lawyers who wrote the “torture memos” in 2002 and 2003 to redefine torture so that it could be practiced by the CIA and US military. A senior Justice Department official over-rode the report’s damning conclusions, declaring that there be no disciplinary measures for “professional misconduct” but that John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee had only “exercised poor judgment.” Cronyism of, from and for criminals clearly. Yoo enjoys his professorship at Berkeley and Bybee his judgeship on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
3. The report Worthington cites levels heavy accusations against two psychologists who devised the horrifying experimental torture program first used on Abu Zubaydah in 2002. Worthington discloses that Zubaydah is still in Gitmo and writes: “the Obama administration has no idea what to do with Abu Zubaydah, the 'guinea pig' for the torture program, who, after his horrendous treatment, was revealed not as a significant al-Qaeda leader, but as a mentally-damaged training camp facilitator, whose relationship with al-Qaeda was, at most, minimal.”
[Mitchell] ordered that Zubaydah be chained to a chair for weeks on end; that he be whipped by the neck into concrete walls; that he be stuffed into a small, black box and left for hours; that he be hung naked from the ceiling; that he be kept awake for 11 consecutive days, and sprayed with cold water if he dozed. But the torture designed by Dr. Mitchell was about to pass to another level. It was time to implement the final stage of Dr. Mitchell’s program.
Abu Zubaydah lay strapped to a gurney specially designed to maximize his suffering. His feet were above his head, just as Dr. Mitchell had ordered. His hands, arms, legs, chest, and head were restrained by heavy leather straps. As Zubaydah lay helpless, Mitchell and his subordinates placed a black cloth over his face and began to pour water onto the cloth. Rivers of water ran up Zubaydah’s nose and down his throat. He could not breathe. Panic gripped him as he began to drown. And when Mitchell sensed that Zubaydah dangled on the precipice between life and death, he ordered that the board be raised. Zubaydah expelled the water in a violent, racking spasm of coughing, gurgling and gasping. But before Zubaydah could catch his breath, Dr. Mitchell repeated the experiment. Then he did it again. And again. According to the United States Government, Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002 alone.
3) Again, Andy Worthingtonreports on the deaths of three prisoners at Guantanamo on June 9, 2006. According to the military Salah Ahmed al-Salami (also identified as Ali Abdullah Ahmed), a 37-year old Yemeni, Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, a 30-year old Saudi, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, a Saudi who was just 17 when he was seized in Afghanistan, died by hanging themselves, in what Guantánamo’s then-Commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, described as an act of “asymmetric warfare.” Another military officer referred to it as a kind of p.r. stunt. It clearly was homicide or depraved indifference at the very least not suicide but using this as their cover-up was as depraved and disgusting as the special forces unit digging military bullets out of the bodies of two pregnant women in Afghanistan whom they had murdered and trying to pass the murders off as honor killings by their own people (as referenced in the World Can’t Wait ad text).
The three Gitmo prisoners had purportedly endured “painful months of force-feeding as three of the prison’s most persistent hunger strikers, and by raising their fellow prisoners’ spirits as accomplished singers of nasheeds (Islamic songs).” There is incredible evidence that these men could not possibly have committed suicide due to ridiculously obvious circumstances (like how did they bind their own hands and feet?) as well as one brave whistleblower’s (Sgt. Hickman's) eventual testimony (who came forward when Obama was elected, ironically trusting that the Obama administration would seek out justice more than the Bush administration) proving that these prisoners were either deliberately killed or excessively tortured that night, having had rags stuffed down their throats from which they most likely suffocated.
4) Another man, Shaker Aamer, was brutally tortured that same evening but survived. He is still being held despite being cleared for release by a military review board in 2007. (According to Worthington, since the “Christmas bomber" tried to strike Obama has become even more reluctant out of political considerations to release detainees who have been cleared for release. Executive arbitrary and callous perogative? Worthington suggests in this case, though, it is that Aamer knows too much about military travesties against himself and others.) Shaker was also a leader among the prisoners. A statement by his lawyer about Shaker's torture that night:
On June 9th, 2006, [Shaker Aamer] was beaten for two and a half hours straight. Seven naval military police participated in his beating. Mr. Aamer stated he had refused to provide a retina scan and fingerprints. He reported to me that he was strapped to a chair, fully restrained at the head, arms and legs. The MPs inflicted so much pain, Mr. Aamer said he thought he was going to die. The MPs pressed on pressure points all over his body: his temples, just under his jawline, in the hollow beneath his ears. They choked him. They bent his nose repeatedly so hard to the side he thought it would break. They pinched his thighs and feet constantly. They gouged his eyes. They held his eyes open and shined a mag-lite in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat. They bent his fingers until he screamed. When he screamed, they cut off his airway, then put a mask on him so he could not cry out.
This isn’t national self defense. It is sadism. It is anti-humanism. It is patriarchal psychopathology. It is against moral law. It is against international law. It is against or, rather, should be against U.S. law! And if such crimes are not accounted for, they will continue and escalate in number and nature.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told a story on his former radio show on Air America about Ralph Waldo Emerson visiting Henry David Thoreau in jail. Emerson called out to Thoreau, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" Whereupon, the civil disobedient Thoreau called back, "Ralph, WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT THERE?" Point taken, Mr. Thoreau!
[posted 7/5/10 on correntewire]
---------
If every adult citizen of the US read this blog tonight, how many of them would remember one name and three consecutive words of it by tomorrow morning?
There is what’s left of morality and honour today.
With no way for citizens to vote “against” this sort of thing - only for them to be continued by another administration, what do you suggest?
.
There is what’s left of morality and honour today.
With no way for citizens to vote “against” this sort of thing - only for them to be continued by another administration, what do you suggest?
.
You pre-empted a post I had in mind. If the title would fit it would have been: Sloganeers and faux radicals united in support of genocide and torture.
I mean give me a break! Does dr. potatohead keep a straight face,when he claims to be radical. Perhaps he meant the radical right.
As I read the screed, I noticed a lot of talk about healthcare, economics, and me, me, me; what obama has done for me and my friends.
Nowhere do words like "drones," "extradition," "torture," "sovereign rights of other countries," targeted assassinations," nor escalating two wars into six appear.
And then in typical apisa fashion he excoriates the left for expectations. I considered leaving the site, once and for all, as his piece made it clear that the ship of fools was at full sail with him and apisa at the helm, plus a lot of midshipmen I would have expected more from.
Then I realized it was simply a Faustian bargain he had made. obama has helped him, him,him(and his friends) in a number of ways, so he conveniently borrows apisa's myopic eyeglasses and ignores reality.
He should send his piece to the white house. It merits him being considered for a cabinet position.
Sorry, hate to break the news to ya', but radicals do NOT support torture, genocide and violations of the Geneva Convention, not to mention our own constitution.
The apisamaniacs are worse than obama, himself.
A "radical" who, like frank, thinks principles run schools,and morals are a genus of mushrooms.
-R-
Oh, and I DO have the credentials to blow away his, and real progressive luminaries to vouch for the fact that I don't just talk the talk without walking the walk.
-R-
I mean give me a break! Does dr. potatohead keep a straight face,when he claims to be radical. Perhaps he meant the radical right.
As I read the screed, I noticed a lot of talk about healthcare, economics, and me, me, me; what obama has done for me and my friends.
Nowhere do words like "drones," "extradition," "torture," "sovereign rights of other countries," targeted assassinations," nor escalating two wars into six appear.
And then in typical apisa fashion he excoriates the left for expectations. I considered leaving the site, once and for all, as his piece made it clear that the ship of fools was at full sail with him and apisa at the helm, plus a lot of midshipmen I would have expected more from.
Then I realized it was simply a Faustian bargain he had made. obama has helped him, him,him(and his friends) in a number of ways, so he conveniently borrows apisa's myopic eyeglasses and ignores reality.
He should send his piece to the white house. It merits him being considered for a cabinet position.
Sorry, hate to break the news to ya', but radicals do NOT support torture, genocide and violations of the Geneva Convention, not to mention our own constitution.
The apisamaniacs are worse than obama, himself.
A "radical" who, like frank, thinks principles run schools,and morals are a genus of mushrooms.
-R-
Oh, and I DO have the credentials to blow away his, and real progressive luminaries to vouch for the fact that I don't just talk the talk without walking the walk.
-R-
skypixieo and mark. thanks so much for risking being one of my ranting "ilk."
sigh. I gotta learn to calm down in my communications. I vow I will and then I pop off again in comments.
we are confronting here the sustained and even worsening "normalization" of genocide, assassinations, state of the art incinerating weaponry, gameboy warfare -- bloodless on the side of the imperialists with its media painted white hats (HAH!), unjust incarceration, persecution of people of conscience, torture, massive theft, environmental devastation, massive propaganda 24/7, etc. you are so right, mark, about the willful myopia and rationalizing. sky, what is left of morality and honour today? of leadership of conscience and basic human dignity? What do we do? I know we do at least step one, admit that things are unmanageable and amoral! exit the fog of denial. Face down the hypocrisy of American exceptionalism and Democratic Party exceptionalism. There are no longer Democrats and Republicans in Congress. They are all kleptocrats. Also in most governors' mansions as well. And mayors, too, considering the likes of Rahm and super sellouts like him.
there are a lot of people of conscience out there and a lot of people who are lost in the fog of cronyism who have potential but have put their hearts in the deep freeze and they comfort each other that it is better to be morally numb than awake. Socially comfortable than conflicted over moral issues. to settle for the illusion of the lesser of evils. social loyalty and group-think seems to have replaced critical thinking, honesty and empathy in our society. massive authoritarian following and denial and rationalization and minimization. and the seduction of the media is massively part of this.
The trauma post Obama's election was a triple one. The first that he had no moral compass. The second one that apparently both sides of the aisle of Congress proved not to either. The third that he and they had so many apologists and ignorers for his and their not having one. The government had been captured by the oligarchs. The best government money could buy exclusively for the money class. We can all eat shit and die.
The ridiculousness of blaming only one segment of a very sick, corrupt, horrifyingly evil system, taking our money and killing innocent people. Good little shorn sheeple that we are!
Not to be outraged would be abnormal considering the reality.
Still, I have hope. There are more voices calling out Obama and the government and even the media!!!! We have to break the lock of cronyism and not be so precious about not emotionally inconveniencing those who are throwing whatever power they have for real change away. Scott Peck said evil is laziness to the nth degree.
When I protested outside the 92nd St. Y at Kissinger's being given a speaking engagement and the red carpet treatment a few brave and intelligent activists bought tickets and confronted him during the speech with questions. He was responsible for extending the Vietnam War and the Cambodian slaughter for extra years, 7 million people under his powerful counsel either died or were displaced. As the activists, soft spoken but firm people, asserted their questions Kissinger didn't have to defend himself, was prevented from answering some pretty appropriate questions - people speaking up for all those dead people who couldn't, from the US and Asia. The activists were hissed at by the audience, yelled at for their disrespect of Mr. Kissinger and told they should stay in the roped area in front where they belonged and hastily escorted out by the police and guards. The hostility was profound.
No dialoguing in America. No serious dissent. Dissenters are thwarted by the myopic apologists and media lemmings, after all, Kissinger has celebrity status and Charlie Rose likes him. How dare he be given a hard time? Kissinger's war crimes eclipsed by the "inappropriateness" of those questioners. Tch tch. Not being PERFECTLY POLITE! Geeeeeeeeez.
sigh. I gotta learn to calm down in my communications. I vow I will and then I pop off again in comments.
we are confronting here the sustained and even worsening "normalization" of genocide, assassinations, state of the art incinerating weaponry, gameboy warfare -- bloodless on the side of the imperialists with its media painted white hats (HAH!), unjust incarceration, persecution of people of conscience, torture, massive theft, environmental devastation, massive propaganda 24/7, etc. you are so right, mark, about the willful myopia and rationalizing. sky, what is left of morality and honour today? of leadership of conscience and basic human dignity? What do we do? I know we do at least step one, admit that things are unmanageable and amoral! exit the fog of denial. Face down the hypocrisy of American exceptionalism and Democratic Party exceptionalism. There are no longer Democrats and Republicans in Congress. They are all kleptocrats. Also in most governors' mansions as well. And mayors, too, considering the likes of Rahm and super sellouts like him.
there are a lot of people of conscience out there and a lot of people who are lost in the fog of cronyism who have potential but have put their hearts in the deep freeze and they comfort each other that it is better to be morally numb than awake. Socially comfortable than conflicted over moral issues. to settle for the illusion of the lesser of evils. social loyalty and group-think seems to have replaced critical thinking, honesty and empathy in our society. massive authoritarian following and denial and rationalization and minimization. and the seduction of the media is massively part of this.
The trauma post Obama's election was a triple one. The first that he had no moral compass. The second one that apparently both sides of the aisle of Congress proved not to either. The third that he and they had so many apologists and ignorers for his and their not having one. The government had been captured by the oligarchs. The best government money could buy exclusively for the money class. We can all eat shit and die.
The ridiculousness of blaming only one segment of a very sick, corrupt, horrifyingly evil system, taking our money and killing innocent people. Good little shorn sheeple that we are!
Not to be outraged would be abnormal considering the reality.
Still, I have hope. There are more voices calling out Obama and the government and even the media!!!! We have to break the lock of cronyism and not be so precious about not emotionally inconveniencing those who are throwing whatever power they have for real change away. Scott Peck said evil is laziness to the nth degree.
When I protested outside the 92nd St. Y at Kissinger's being given a speaking engagement and the red carpet treatment a few brave and intelligent activists bought tickets and confronted him during the speech with questions. He was responsible for extending the Vietnam War and the Cambodian slaughter for extra years, 7 million people under his powerful counsel either died or were displaced. As the activists, soft spoken but firm people, asserted their questions Kissinger didn't have to defend himself, was prevented from answering some pretty appropriate questions - people speaking up for all those dead people who couldn't, from the US and Asia. The activists were hissed at by the audience, yelled at for their disrespect of Mr. Kissinger and told they should stay in the roped area in front where they belonged and hastily escorted out by the police and guards. The hostility was profound.
No dialoguing in America. No serious dissent. Dissenters are thwarted by the myopic apologists and media lemmings, after all, Kissinger has celebrity status and Charlie Rose likes him. How dare he be given a hard time? Kissinger's war crimes eclipsed by the "inappropriateness" of those questioners. Tch tch. Not being PERFECTLY POLITE! Geeeeeeeeez.
I gotta learn to calm down in my communications.
Yeah, you do, Libby. You really do!
And you should also work on seeing that the myopia is probably more in you than in your critics.
Good luck with all that.
Yeah, you do, Libby. You really do!
And you should also work on seeing that the myopia is probably more in you than in your critics.
Good luck with all that.
Hey frank -- GFY, which doesn't mean Good For You, you stupid old fart.
"I gotta learn to calm down in my communications."
perhaps but not scale back; you make a lot of good points that need much more attention. ;-)
Don't let those who believe in the false choice between corporate candidate A or B bother you.
When the script calls for it Obama does a better job pretending to care about people than Bush does but that doesn't mean he actually does; it just makes him more insidious. The issues of torture are just the beginning there is also the torture that results from sweatshop labor and famine and many other issues most of which are affected by corporate corruption.
Excuse the hype but; you go girl!!
perhaps but not scale back; you make a lot of good points that need much more attention. ;-)
Don't let those who believe in the false choice between corporate candidate A or B bother you.
When the script calls for it Obama does a better job pretending to care about people than Bush does but that doesn't mean he actually does; it just makes him more insidious. The issues of torture are just the beginning there is also the torture that results from sweatshop labor and famine and many other issues most of which are affected by corporate corruption.
Excuse the hype but; you go girl!!
Zachd, appreciate! :)
libby,
I am 70 yrs old. I was involved in all the old activist and progressive movements of the 60s and 70s. These were WORLD WIDE movements, not just ‘Merikan.
And then we died.
One day we were a connected host of millions spread around the world. We had a list of “You’re doing it wrongs” that we were confronting “the establishment” with that would have stretched from Washington to Moscow.
We all, no matter what our particular “beef”, came together to support the anti-Viet Nam war protesters. And one day Viet Nam was over.
Then everyone went home.
We weren’t stupid. We knew perfectly well that if we didn’t quickly gain a new focal point - a new “main” cause around which to maintain cohesion, that we would soon be scattered, irrelevant and unable to initiate the kind of change needed to prevent the elite from total and complete mastery of the world.
We fought and scrapped and quarrelled among ourselves. Each striving to put his particular cause forward as the most “important and needed”. In the end none of us succeeded at this and we all became ashamed of ourselves for letting silly differences split us into a thousand splinters.
The world continued to turn without us. We have, to this day, never again come together in such massive world-wide numbers over anything.
The enemy today is world-wide. It is pervasive. It has corrupted so much of the world that it cannot be escaped. It has strength of numbers; it has strength of wealth; it has developed brain-washing techniques so sophisticated that anyone can be made to believe anything. Not those crude tortures used in GitMo and the dark prisons. Those are just for effect; to frighten the kids with. REAL brainwashing - the kind you don’t even know you have.
How many of our fellows KNOW all that you - and a few others - point out here. Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Probably all that. Why don’t they add it all up and look at the “Amerika of Today”?
They can’t, that’s why.
They have the bits. They have the pieces. They know things are wrong. They know who is behind it all. And why.
But they cannot put it all together and look at it as a whole. In their minds has been inserted a psychological “off” switch. They are literally unable to assemble the pieces - pieces they already have - and look at what is in front of them.
Do you wonder why you cannot get them to “do” anything about our problems? Do you wonder at how deaf they all seem?
Well, they’re not deaf.
They’re bored.
You’re telling them the same things they already know. That they’ve known for a long time; that they have NO ABILITY to assemble into a coherent picture.
It doesn’t help that almost every doggone “progressive” seems to have his/her own half-baked ides of what we might put in place of the corrupt crap we now have. It is time for the “progressives” to start getting a bit progressive. It’s time for those who CAN think to begin to do so. Time to draw up a plan of the world as it ought to be - a goal.
Until that plan is designed, developed, and being put forward in an organized and methodical manner, the “progressives” aren’t.
.
I am 70 yrs old. I was involved in all the old activist and progressive movements of the 60s and 70s. These were WORLD WIDE movements, not just ‘Merikan.
And then we died.
One day we were a connected host of millions spread around the world. We had a list of “You’re doing it wrongs” that we were confronting “the establishment” with that would have stretched from Washington to Moscow.
We all, no matter what our particular “beef”, came together to support the anti-Viet Nam war protesters. And one day Viet Nam was over.
Then everyone went home.
We weren’t stupid. We knew perfectly well that if we didn’t quickly gain a new focal point - a new “main” cause around which to maintain cohesion, that we would soon be scattered, irrelevant and unable to initiate the kind of change needed to prevent the elite from total and complete mastery of the world.
We fought and scrapped and quarrelled among ourselves. Each striving to put his particular cause forward as the most “important and needed”. In the end none of us succeeded at this and we all became ashamed of ourselves for letting silly differences split us into a thousand splinters.
The world continued to turn without us. We have, to this day, never again come together in such massive world-wide numbers over anything.
The enemy today is world-wide. It is pervasive. It has corrupted so much of the world that it cannot be escaped. It has strength of numbers; it has strength of wealth; it has developed brain-washing techniques so sophisticated that anyone can be made to believe anything. Not those crude tortures used in GitMo and the dark prisons. Those are just for effect; to frighten the kids with. REAL brainwashing - the kind you don’t even know you have.
How many of our fellows KNOW all that you - and a few others - point out here. Millions? Tens of millions? Hundreds of millions? Probably all that. Why don’t they add it all up and look at the “Amerika of Today”?
They can’t, that’s why.
They have the bits. They have the pieces. They know things are wrong. They know who is behind it all. And why.
But they cannot put it all together and look at it as a whole. In their minds has been inserted a psychological “off” switch. They are literally unable to assemble the pieces - pieces they already have - and look at what is in front of them.
Do you wonder why you cannot get them to “do” anything about our problems? Do you wonder at how deaf they all seem?
Well, they’re not deaf.
They’re bored.
You’re telling them the same things they already know. That they’ve known for a long time; that they have NO ABILITY to assemble into a coherent picture.
It doesn’t help that almost every doggone “progressive” seems to have his/her own half-baked ides of what we might put in place of the corrupt crap we now have. It is time for the “progressives” to start getting a bit progressive. It’s time for those who CAN think to begin to do so. Time to draw up a plan of the world as it ought to be - a goal.
Until that plan is designed, developed, and being put forward in an organized and methodical manner, the “progressives” aren’t.
.
Excellent post, my heart has been broken many times by this man, who at one time gave me sooooo much hope.
rated with love
rated with love
Thank you, RomanticPoetess. :) You know, your tao poem said it all, all that is missing in our society. So basic. All that skypix above is searching to promote in this world (along with mark, zachd and me and you!).
sky, I felt humbled reading your heartfelt comment and I want to sit tonight and brainstorm a bit before getting back to you tomorrow. You deserve some thoughtfulness on this.
In fact, you may want to post exactly what you wrote in the above comment as a blog unto itself and I could comment there. Since I would like to know where all the "DFHs" (term of endearment) have gone, too, like the old song refrain, from fellow DFHs. In fact why don't you call the blog "Where Have All The DFHs Gone?" (sorry, being controlling :) )
That amazing and connected worldwide counterculture of youth calling out the shallow status quo. Peace Corps people. Nader's Raiders. Vietnam War protesters. Pushing for Civil Rights. Women's rights. Animal rights. Environmental Rights. The pressure that made LBJ resign, that made Walter Cronkite declare we weren't gonna win in Vietnam. It was cool to want to take care of humanity. It was soul-fulfilling. The music, those folk songs went right into one's heart and opened it up. Your comment is poignant and troubling and deserves an answer. "What happened?" (Wasn't that a followup book from Catch 22 by Heller? or no, it was "Something Happened". Not as good as Catch-22, which maybe is a good parallel metaphor for what happened to all of us.) There are still activists out there seriously walking the walk and willing to be jailed and whatever risks and they are stunning and inspiring. But you are right, it is tragically not a wide movement.
Thanks for posing this. To be continued tomorrow after some pondering and considering what you are saying re the boredom vs. the NOT knowing. It gives me chills, you spelling it out like that. And then I think of the slogan, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." And that is what you are saying. There is all this progressive flailing but no cohesion. Obama flirted with many on that score, revved it up, especially among the youth of the ex-DFHs and then was just a big tease. Worse. A Judas. An front man for our oligarchical enemies pretending to be champion when we desperately could have used a spiritual champion, like MLK or RFK.
But whenever there seems to be time and God knows motivation, there is not the necessary cohesion.
My Greens group decided to skip the August meeting since it is hot and summer and people are on vacation and I was startled. Since I see now as recruitment for Greens time and that doesn't seem to be in the imagination of the long time Greens so much who have a certain cynicism themselves, maybe, not the visualization of a massive influx of people though I flirt with it individually but I am a newbie there. When I was passing out leaflets the last election I felt so frustrated and angry with the pedestrians. I felt so remote from them. There was no energy. Boredom? Cynicism, maybe? The main comment I got was a disdainful, "You are not gonna win!" Framed as a "game" ... not a humanitarian goal.
later, libby
sky, I felt humbled reading your heartfelt comment and I want to sit tonight and brainstorm a bit before getting back to you tomorrow. You deserve some thoughtfulness on this.
In fact, you may want to post exactly what you wrote in the above comment as a blog unto itself and I could comment there. Since I would like to know where all the "DFHs" (term of endearment) have gone, too, like the old song refrain, from fellow DFHs. In fact why don't you call the blog "Where Have All The DFHs Gone?" (sorry, being controlling :) )
That amazing and connected worldwide counterculture of youth calling out the shallow status quo. Peace Corps people. Nader's Raiders. Vietnam War protesters. Pushing for Civil Rights. Women's rights. Animal rights. Environmental Rights. The pressure that made LBJ resign, that made Walter Cronkite declare we weren't gonna win in Vietnam. It was cool to want to take care of humanity. It was soul-fulfilling. The music, those folk songs went right into one's heart and opened it up. Your comment is poignant and troubling and deserves an answer. "What happened?" (Wasn't that a followup book from Catch 22 by Heller? or no, it was "Something Happened". Not as good as Catch-22, which maybe is a good parallel metaphor for what happened to all of us.) There are still activists out there seriously walking the walk and willing to be jailed and whatever risks and they are stunning and inspiring. But you are right, it is tragically not a wide movement.
Thanks for posing this. To be continued tomorrow after some pondering and considering what you are saying re the boredom vs. the NOT knowing. It gives me chills, you spelling it out like that. And then I think of the slogan, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." And that is what you are saying. There is all this progressive flailing but no cohesion. Obama flirted with many on that score, revved it up, especially among the youth of the ex-DFHs and then was just a big tease. Worse. A Judas. An front man for our oligarchical enemies pretending to be champion when we desperately could have used a spiritual champion, like MLK or RFK.
But whenever there seems to be time and God knows motivation, there is not the necessary cohesion.
My Greens group decided to skip the August meeting since it is hot and summer and people are on vacation and I was startled. Since I see now as recruitment for Greens time and that doesn't seem to be in the imagination of the long time Greens so much who have a certain cynicism themselves, maybe, not the visualization of a massive influx of people though I flirt with it individually but I am a newbie there. When I was passing out leaflets the last election I felt so frustrated and angry with the pedestrians. I felt so remote from them. There was no energy. Boredom? Cynicism, maybe? The main comment I got was a disdainful, "You are not gonna win!" Framed as a "game" ... not a humanitarian goal.
later, libby
skypixieo--I was protesting through a political website I am on against Obamacare and for single payer expanded Medicare for all in NY a while back. Only two of us showed up outside our US reps office. My friend had gotten a permit. There were only two of us though we hoped for a few more, and two white vans pulled up at the assigned time with about 6 cops at first (but they soon left only two stone-faced guys at the entrance) to I guess “protect” the Rep from us and the public from us if we were troublemakers (it did make me gulp, also that they had dropped off those bright colored wooden planks of barricades lying on the side of the street apparently the night before though they did not have to use them ... since only 2 eventually 4 of us showed in the narrow 2 hour permitted time allotment). It was the weekend and we were on the street in front of the tall building that housed her office with flyers protesting Obamacare and she was mostly likely in DC.
Anyway, at one point a man walked by who had been an activist throughout his life and he was so frustrated and so angry at the apathy of his fellow Americans and admitted he had dropped out and given up. And it was like the idea of the four of us trying to protest was even more painful for him than no one and he demanded to know from me why it was all so hopeless and went on and on telling me all he had done especially during the anti-Vietnam years and what on earth had happened to us as a people and as a movement.
As I encouraged him to get active again he got more and more exasperated and frustrated with me and it was bringing up a sadness and frustration and confusion in me, too. Triggering a lot of the questions you are now asking. What happened?
I guess I like the idea of the Green Party because it has an international coalition and a national coalition and it is fighting the “good fight” for the “good” (and has a list of values that I endorse and certainly are a blueprint of a moral counterculture, kind of reminding me of the 12 step recovery counterculture internationally) though I wish it had more traction in terms of numbers but it is a process. And there are issues that come up there that are not always agreed on. Many Greens in NY are concerned about the Palestine issue and that is a third rail in American politics, taking issue with Israel.
Speaking of this, when the first Gulf War happened I was in NYC then and I was stunned that there was so much support for it. That is when I really noticed enough to ask concerned what happened to the anti-war movement. It took me some time to get that some of those liberals in my social network where Jewish and that the Middle East was a whole different arena for a war than East Asia. It wasn’t asserted to me directly. I was slow-witted. But their tribalism, group-loyalty, etc. was ferocious. This is a big factor. The Gazan War for example just after Obama took office that was willfully ignored and was not a war but a slaughter! The pathological cronyism the US has with Israel is a real bottleneck for humanitarian enlightenment about international reality.
Also re First Gulf war when Mailer was it who challenged Bush Sr not to be a wimp, and triggered that macho forward with the military industrial complex behind it, and the tv got so caught up in the war technology, war tech porn (the scud stud, remember?) that this was about vast propaganda and omission of war reality. I remember wondering why no one ever estimated how many Iraqis were being killed during that war. Exact numbers of the troops, but hundreds of thousands it ended up. NEVER EVER UTTERED.
There is a burnout also, sky, that people may be feeling after so many thwarted hopeful attempts to get a “good” person in office and at times having their clay feet revealed or they can't make it into the money-rigged game. Trying to get Nader in. The case of Obama's betrayal. The case of John Edwards whom I worked for and believed in his platform and so much of what he was addressing and committing to fight for is oppressing us today. But then his national shaming, cheating on his dying wife, even after he was thwarted was an extra sucker punch to the gut. Would he have followed through? He spoke with such a passion and had so many more concrete ideas for change than Obama. But still.
Look at Clinton and Monica and Wiener and his behavior. I know exploding their personal lives is not right, but at the same time, that brings up a cynicism in people or low expectations of moral conduct on a personal scale. I do believe individual character is required to be a responsive and responsible leader. I do believe people are human and should be cut some slack, also, but cheating on a marriage and doing immature things admittedly troubles me. I don't think they can be divorced. I also don't want a Stepford person at the helm, so deliberately perfection and image obsessed.
We as a nation of citizens have been “coexisting” with a homeless class for so many years and so little has been done for them. When Reagan’s administration emptied out institutions that could help the mentally ill, that was a national crime! And yet from Reagan onward, a national politician or others are unwilling to address a glaring humanitarian crisis for fear of freaking the conservatives who will say their money is being taken away to give to the poor and helpless. (Yeah, better their money be taken away to be given to the uber wealthy which is how it works now?) I think these politicians are cowards and inhumane especially with this and grossly underestimating the national compassion. But we have not rallied to take care of the homeless on the streets, most of us, either. Or the vets reentering society with their devastating problems.
There is the group-think desensitization. Whatever the majority are expressing or exhibiting is the comfortable place to exist in. And 24/7 tv propaganda that washes over people and frames so much of the issues and the news or blackouts the real human priorities because of corporate sponsor advantage and profit-making. So much of the news is not news, it is political analysis in which there is so much over-identification with the leaders as “gamesmen” but so little empathy expressed for the plight of real citizens and putting it in context of what situations mean to them. Morality is not valued. Titillation is key. “Let’s you and him fight” for entertainment value in terms of political reporting. Black and white oversimplification, and also a mystification, that going very deeply into an issue is just too complicated and would be too much for the common citizen. Let's let our parental leaders do it for us. Look at the “mystification” exploited by Alan Greenspan who instead of being vilified for his greed and obtuseness with the economic crisis is still a popular and revered talking head on news programs. Bleeeeeeecccchhhh.
I think consciousness raising about the environment has been done very well in schools since I was in school, but I think there is more censorship on the encouragement of critical thinking by discouraging teachers to role model provocative intellectual challenges about our government and media though I am no longer close to that orbit. But with privitatization and the conservative Christianity holding so much sway it seems critical thinking is being even more discouraged.
There is the Stockholm Syndrome whereby instead of having to grasp the horror of being a captive, one identifies with one’s captor. Authoritarian following.
We are the Seinfeld/Sex and the City generation of TV watchers now. There was an endearing and entertaining narcissism role-modeled on these shows and others like them. The characters were intelligent and aware of social issues but uncommitted to integrating their lives with serious activism. "Uncommitted and charming." Kinda like Obama. You know I recently read somewhere that it was a shame Clinton was not old enough to know the Depression when he became Prez as a youngish man because it made him more cavalier about the economy than he would have been if that had sobered him. Also, I wished Obama had been old enough to experience the pain of Vietnam and that would maybe have made him less callow about military violence.
I haven’t had the time and energy today to address this as I wanted. I was even going to google around, sky. I know Hedges wrote a few things on the death of liberalism. I am grateful you have pressed this issue. I am interested in hearing more thoughts from you and others and maybe will do a blog about it at some point, too. Although it lives in every blog any of us does, trying to wake up the minds and hearts of our readers out there. thanks. to be continued. libby
Anyway, at one point a man walked by who had been an activist throughout his life and he was so frustrated and so angry at the apathy of his fellow Americans and admitted he had dropped out and given up. And it was like the idea of the four of us trying to protest was even more painful for him than no one and he demanded to know from me why it was all so hopeless and went on and on telling me all he had done especially during the anti-Vietnam years and what on earth had happened to us as a people and as a movement.
As I encouraged him to get active again he got more and more exasperated and frustrated with me and it was bringing up a sadness and frustration and confusion in me, too. Triggering a lot of the questions you are now asking. What happened?
I guess I like the idea of the Green Party because it has an international coalition and a national coalition and it is fighting the “good fight” for the “good” (and has a list of values that I endorse and certainly are a blueprint of a moral counterculture, kind of reminding me of the 12 step recovery counterculture internationally) though I wish it had more traction in terms of numbers but it is a process. And there are issues that come up there that are not always agreed on. Many Greens in NY are concerned about the Palestine issue and that is a third rail in American politics, taking issue with Israel.
Speaking of this, when the first Gulf War happened I was in NYC then and I was stunned that there was so much support for it. That is when I really noticed enough to ask concerned what happened to the anti-war movement. It took me some time to get that some of those liberals in my social network where Jewish and that the Middle East was a whole different arena for a war than East Asia. It wasn’t asserted to me directly. I was slow-witted. But their tribalism, group-loyalty, etc. was ferocious. This is a big factor. The Gazan War for example just after Obama took office that was willfully ignored and was not a war but a slaughter! The pathological cronyism the US has with Israel is a real bottleneck for humanitarian enlightenment about international reality.
Also re First Gulf war when Mailer was it who challenged Bush Sr not to be a wimp, and triggered that macho forward with the military industrial complex behind it, and the tv got so caught up in the war technology, war tech porn (the scud stud, remember?) that this was about vast propaganda and omission of war reality. I remember wondering why no one ever estimated how many Iraqis were being killed during that war. Exact numbers of the troops, but hundreds of thousands it ended up. NEVER EVER UTTERED.
There is a burnout also, sky, that people may be feeling after so many thwarted hopeful attempts to get a “good” person in office and at times having their clay feet revealed or they can't make it into the money-rigged game. Trying to get Nader in. The case of Obama's betrayal. The case of John Edwards whom I worked for and believed in his platform and so much of what he was addressing and committing to fight for is oppressing us today. But then his national shaming, cheating on his dying wife, even after he was thwarted was an extra sucker punch to the gut. Would he have followed through? He spoke with such a passion and had so many more concrete ideas for change than Obama. But still.
Look at Clinton and Monica and Wiener and his behavior. I know exploding their personal lives is not right, but at the same time, that brings up a cynicism in people or low expectations of moral conduct on a personal scale. I do believe individual character is required to be a responsive and responsible leader. I do believe people are human and should be cut some slack, also, but cheating on a marriage and doing immature things admittedly troubles me. I don't think they can be divorced. I also don't want a Stepford person at the helm, so deliberately perfection and image obsessed.
We as a nation of citizens have been “coexisting” with a homeless class for so many years and so little has been done for them. When Reagan’s administration emptied out institutions that could help the mentally ill, that was a national crime! And yet from Reagan onward, a national politician or others are unwilling to address a glaring humanitarian crisis for fear of freaking the conservatives who will say their money is being taken away to give to the poor and helpless. (Yeah, better their money be taken away to be given to the uber wealthy which is how it works now?) I think these politicians are cowards and inhumane especially with this and grossly underestimating the national compassion. But we have not rallied to take care of the homeless on the streets, most of us, either. Or the vets reentering society with their devastating problems.
There is the group-think desensitization. Whatever the majority are expressing or exhibiting is the comfortable place to exist in. And 24/7 tv propaganda that washes over people and frames so much of the issues and the news or blackouts the real human priorities because of corporate sponsor advantage and profit-making. So much of the news is not news, it is political analysis in which there is so much over-identification with the leaders as “gamesmen” but so little empathy expressed for the plight of real citizens and putting it in context of what situations mean to them. Morality is not valued. Titillation is key. “Let’s you and him fight” for entertainment value in terms of political reporting. Black and white oversimplification, and also a mystification, that going very deeply into an issue is just too complicated and would be too much for the common citizen. Let's let our parental leaders do it for us. Look at the “mystification” exploited by Alan Greenspan who instead of being vilified for his greed and obtuseness with the economic crisis is still a popular and revered talking head on news programs. Bleeeeeeecccchhhh.
I think consciousness raising about the environment has been done very well in schools since I was in school, but I think there is more censorship on the encouragement of critical thinking by discouraging teachers to role model provocative intellectual challenges about our government and media though I am no longer close to that orbit. But with privitatization and the conservative Christianity holding so much sway it seems critical thinking is being even more discouraged.
There is the Stockholm Syndrome whereby instead of having to grasp the horror of being a captive, one identifies with one’s captor. Authoritarian following.
We are the Seinfeld/Sex and the City generation of TV watchers now. There was an endearing and entertaining narcissism role-modeled on these shows and others like them. The characters were intelligent and aware of social issues but uncommitted to integrating their lives with serious activism. "Uncommitted and charming." Kinda like Obama. You know I recently read somewhere that it was a shame Clinton was not old enough to know the Depression when he became Prez as a youngish man because it made him more cavalier about the economy than he would have been if that had sobered him. Also, I wished Obama had been old enough to experience the pain of Vietnam and that would maybe have made him less callow about military violence.
I haven’t had the time and energy today to address this as I wanted. I was even going to google around, sky. I know Hedges wrote a few things on the death of liberalism. I am grateful you have pressed this issue. I am interested in hearing more thoughts from you and others and maybe will do a blog about it at some point, too. Although it lives in every blog any of us does, trying to wake up the minds and hearts of our readers out there. thanks. to be continued. libby
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