Fat Cats, Skinny Dogs

I heard the economic lie again this morning on ABC News, how Wall Street was not impressed by the latest jobs report. The talking head doing the report made the remark matter-of-factly, as if the only thing that matters when it comes to economic news is whether or not Wall Street approves.

To all but the dullest or most ideologically deranged Americans (politicians from both corporate parties fall into this latter category, though I exempt Senator Bernie Sanders), it’s clear that Wall Street and the interests of citizens have nothing in common. Wall Street is about stocks, bonds, investors, obscene executive salaries, insider trading and outright fraud, while Main Street is about jobs and wages, the price of gasoline, milk, meat, health care and college tuition.

But almost all mainstream media reporting about the economy focuses on Wall Street investors, the wealth created by trading shares or commodities, credit default swaps and the like; this is sold to citizens by the corporate megaphone as the equivalent of the real economy where the majority of us live and work, but we know better -- workers don’t receive zero-strings attached taxpayer bailouts, and in fact only receive federal unemployment benefits grudgingly, after brutal political mud wrestling in which one party is forced into absurd concessions for the sake of the other’s ideological hard-on.

Corporations own the media, and media do the corporate chieftains’ bidding, parroting the boardroom line and narrowing the news focus so that Americans can have no idea of what is going on in their own country, let alone around the world. We know plenty about the Royal couple, Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy, Beyonce’s philosophical proclamations, any number of salacious murder trials, and what shows are on the prime time TV schedule, but far too little about climate change, our burgeoning prison population and racist justice system, the cost of college tuition and health care, food and other necessities.  

To top things off, by his latest budget proposal, President Obama appears very willing to roll the dice on Social Security in the hope that by doing so he can extract GOP agreement to raise taxes on the wealthy who have been enjoying a decades long tax holiday. Obama’s head appears to be buried in Bill Clinton’s behind, for remember it was Slick Willie who triangulated his way to NAFTA, the crime bill, and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act; Clinton never hesitated to sell Democrats down the river, and neither does Obama.

It’s absolutely maddening, a daily assault on one’s intelligence. When a hack like Jim Cramer is afforded more airtime and credibility than real economists like Joseph Stiglitz or Richard Wolff, you know you are living in a nation fearful of confronting itself; better slick hype and fantasy than the unsettling truth that the economy is not recovering for average working folks, only for the fat cats in the penthouse suite. 

Bon Voyage - My Son Goes to Paris

My son is leaving for Paris in twelve hours and we can’t find his passport. His bedroom looks like it was raided by the DEA; the content of every drawer, shelf and ledge lies in a heap in the middle of the floor.

When I ask him when he last had the passport, my son looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“How do you expect me to remember? This is mother’s fault. Mother, what did you do with my passport? This isn’t funny.”

“It has to be here,” I say. “Don’t panic, we’ll find it.”

His sister is downstairs, searching our Honda CRV, while my wife looks through the file drawer where we keep our important papers: old tax returns, paid bills, invoices, receipts, warranties, report cards, birth certificates, Social Security cards, and credit cards we never bothered to activate. Everything is there, except the kid’s passport.
 

“Great,” my son says, “I’m not going to Paris after all. Six months of waiting, six months of anticipation, six months of planning, down the drain. My life is ruined! I’m texting Winter.” Winter is his classmate and on-again, off-again friend. They’re in an “on” phase now, and spend hours texting or Skyping one another. Winter has a younger sister named Spring.

“Don’t say anything yet,” I say, checking the pockets of one of his coats. “It will turn up. Did you look in your book bag?”

Of course he looked in his book bag. What a stupid question.

My daughter returns from downstairs and reports that the passport isn’t hiding in the CRV. “Does this mean Gabriel isn’t going to Paris?”

“I found my passport,” my wife calls from the other room, “and a pair of earrings I’ve been looking for. Gabriel, you didn’t give me your passport, you have it and it’s somewhere in that disaster you call a room.”

“No, it’s not,” Gabriel sing-songs from his room. “I gave it to you and you lost it. Thanks, mother, for ruining my life!”

“Look under his futon,” my wife advises.

“Done,” I say. “No luck, although I did find two bowls, a cup, and a box of stale crackers.”

A minute later my mother-in-law calls, wanting to know if the passport has turned up. “Gaby texted me,” she says. “Where could the damn thing be? Did you look under his futon?”

While I’m talking to her mother my wife’s cell phone rings; her sister wants to know if we’ve located the passport. Why, she asks, did we wait until the night before to locate the passport?

My daughter announces that she is tired of looking and is retiring to her room to watch the Disney channel. “Too bad Gabriel isn’t going to Paris. He’s so lame.”

After another twenty fruitless minutes of searching, my son, beside himself, throws in the towel and calls his teacher to tell her the news; she urges him to stay calm and continue the search. His iPhone buzzes repeatedly with text messages from his classmates. His grandmother calls again. His aunt calls again, and then his cousin Mia. We’ve looked everywhere and are running out of ideas.

I’m trying not to panic, but the thought of the $3000 plus this trip cost us has my stomach churning. Adding to my anxiety is the fact that the $3000 is non-refundable. I can’t count the times we have lectured our son about taking care of his important things, like his retainer, his glasses, his student ID card, his iPod and iPhone. The boy is careless and nonchalant about his possessions. I remember how tickled he was the day his passport came in the mail, how he danced around his room talking about all the foreign lands he would visit.

We’ve looked everywhere. It’s growing late. My son’s bags are packed and standing by the front door. He’s in his room, curled in the fetal position atop the mound of clothes. “It’s over,” he wails, “I can’t go. Why is this happening to me?”

“What happened to the blue folder that had every scrap of paper related to Paris?” I ask my wife. “Where is that folder? I bet his passport is in it.”

My wife goes to the computer hutch in the living room and shuffles through a stack of papers, finds the blue folder and, sure enough, the passport is inside.

When we tell him he is going to Paris after all, Gabriel says, with all his teenage smugness intact: “See, I told you it wasn’t in my room.”

Fool’s Anniversary

Ten years ago this month my country invaded Iraq with imperial hubris and the finest military hardware our tax dollars could buy. Armed to the teeth against a hapless enemy, sold a pack of lies by Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Powell and Wolf Blitzer, and a phalanx of retired generals and admirals, and all the superstar talking heads on the major networks. Less than a month before, millions of people worldwide took to the streets to protest the Bush-Cheney invasion plan, not that it made a difference; Bush flipped the entire world the middle finger and let the dogs of war off the leash.

I remember Bush’s speech to a joint session of Congress. I was sitting with a friend in the Santa Barbara Brewing Company and I stared at the TV screen with my mouth open and my ears ringing. Invading Iraq made no fucking sense -- it was a bizarre pivot from the occupation of Afghanistan and the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. I never for a second believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, never believed Saddam posed a threat to any but his own citizens who were already staggering under draconian international sanctions.

The stupidity was staggering, and remains so to this day. What a colossal fuck-up this neocon fantasy turned out to be.

We never bothered to get an accurate census of the Iraqi’s we killed, maimed, or displaced because we didn’t care; we were high on our military invincibility, enthralled by footage of our munitions exploding over Baghdad. CNN reported the invasion the same way ESPN reports NFL games.

USA! USA! USA!

Cruise missiles, “smart” bombs, bunker busters; we were told that our munitions were so technologically superior that they distinguished innocent non-combatants from bad guys, homes from infrastructure, hospitals from military barracks. We bought this BS wholesale. I was ashamed of my country, embarrassed by our arrogance and blindness. Any fool knows that war is messy, a cluster-fuck at best, and in war innocent people die. Women die, children die, elderly people die, no matter what the mouthpieces for the Pentagon say.

Reporters were embedded and co-opted; they wore helmets and flak vests, combat boots, and looked ridiculous. Fuck off, Diane Sawyer, useless twit.

When Shock & Awe became quagmire and death for American soldiers, our cowardly leaders moved the goalposts; we didn’t invade to find Saddam’s WMD, we invaded to give the long-suffering Iraqi people democracy and freedom; and when that didn’t materialize, we decided that we invaded to fight Al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia.  

It’s unlikely that Bush and Cheney will ever be prosecuted for war crimes; David Petraeus became a hero and media darling for a troop surge that was little more than a funhouse mirror; Rumsfeld went skipping into a comfortable retirement. True to the contemporary American ethos, no one is accountable for destroying Iraq and unleashing a civil war. Our  intelligence operatives tortured Iraqi’s the same way the worst regimes in human history tortured, but we didn’t give a fuck because we felt justified by 9/11.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq required no sacrifice on the part of Americans. Our job was to shop, go to the movies, watch TV, and support our valiant warriors, no matter what, because Boy George and Uncle Dick said so.

History is already in the process of being rewritten, and our depravity in Iraq will be forgotten or forgiven, at least here. Average Iraqi citizens will never forget what we did to them, how we fucked their country over and made their existence more difficult and precarious. We forget, they suffer; we walk away from the destruction we caused, they live with it, every day; we insist on calling it a war, they call it what it was – an armed invasion and occupation.

Happy Anniversary.

PULP

I come home from work and my wife says, “Your children are driving me crazy. You will never believe the day I’ve had.”

“I suppose it’s too late to put them up for adoption,” I say.

“We’re well past the return policy.”

“Any chance the circus is in town?”

“I need a G & T,” she says. “More gin than tonic, please.”

I mix her cocktail, pour myself a goblet of red wine, and we take our drinks out on the deck. We’ve moved on to daylight savings time and the sun is still high in the sky; birds are twittering in the eucalyptus trees, and there’s a definite spring feel in the air.

“Talk to me,” I say.

She talks, I listen.

My wife left our kids at home together so she could take her mother to a doctor’s appointment. Her instructions to the kids were explicit: eat something and then get on with your homework. Don’t talk to one another. Don’t watch TV, stay off Netflix and the Wii. She’s hardly out of the driveway when her phone rings the first time.

“Listen to these messages,” she says, setting her iPhone on the table.

Voice mail from Gabriel:

Mother, why did you buy orange juice with pulp? You know I despise pulp. Is that why you bought it, so I won’t drink the entire carton in one day? Well, I’m here to tell you that your little plan is going to fail, because I am going to strain the pulp from the orange juice. I will strain it and save the pulp, and when you’re not paying attention I will add pulp to your wine, or better yet, one of your gin and tonics. Then you will understand how thoroughly I detest pulp. Never buy this pulp-laden juice again, OK? Let’s make a family rule: no pulp. From this moment on we boycott pulp. I love you. Nonetheless, I am very disappointed about this unacceptable OJ. See you later.

Voice mail from Miranda:

Mom? Mom? It’s Miranda. My brother is acting like a giant A-hole. He says he didn’t steal my jellybeans, but I know he did. His fingerprints are all over this one. He’s such a pig. I know you love him, I just don’t understand why. He’s so annoying and stupid. Tell him he can’t come in my room, ever. I really need you to lay down the law for me on this. By the way, why did you buy orange juice with pulp? It’s awful.

Voice mail from Gabriel:

Mother, if I kill Miranda will I go to juvenile hall or prison? I didn’t take her stupid jellybeans. Any time she can’t find something it’s my fault. Last week is was her favorite pencil, this week it’s jellybeans, next week it will be something else. Can you tell her to leave me alone? OK, love you.

Voice mail from Miranda:

Mom, Gabriel is such a liar! You should take his phone away. Better yet, take his laptop away! I hate my brother! But I love you, mom, you’re the best.

Voice mail from Gabriel:

Hi mother, it’s me again. Mother, we don’t have any food. Can you stop and pick something up? I’m feeling like Chinese. I’d like vegetable soup, orange chicken, shrimp fried rice, curry beef, and one order of egg rolls. And ask for extra fortune cookies, at least six. By the way, I have some rather unpleasant news about the algebra test I took today; I may have failed. Miserably.

Voice mail from Miranda:

Mom, Gabriel peed on the toilet seat and didn’t clean it up! I sat on his pee! He’s so disgusting.

Voice mail from Gabriel:

Mother, Miranda’s lying, it wasn’t my pee. I don’t know whose pee it was, but it wasn’t mine. I know you won’t believe me because you always take Miranda’s side, but I’m telling the truth.

Voice mail from Miranda:

Mom, he’s such a liar. It’s HIS pee. It’s not mine, it’s not yours, and dad isn’t here, so who else’s pee can it be?

My wife says, “Now do you understand why I’m stressed out? I had to turn my phone off so I could focus on what the doctor was saying about my mother. Atypical pneumonia, by the way. The doctor prescribed a new round of antibiotics. Mom has to go back for a follow-up in three days.”

“You sure the circus isn’t in town?” I ask. “We could sell ‘em cheap and take a long vacation. Whadaya say?”

“How about you mix me another G&T.”

“You got it, baby.”

Still Life North Milpas

D, our neighbor, is a mid-thirties white guy with an unhealthy pallor, greasy hair, and a big-boned frame carrying thirty pounds more weight than it should. We have lived next door to D for three and a half years, and in all that time I doubt we have exchanged more than a dozen words. It’s not that D is unfriendly -- it’s more that he’s reclusive and works irregular hours at a software company. He rides a bicycle to and from his job, and never wears a helmet.

No family ever calls on D. Every now and then a couple of his co-workers show up. D has no girlfriend.

Our recycling can is full so I go behind the building to toss some flattened cartons in D’s blue can, only there isn’t room in his can either because it’s stuffed with pizza boxes. I stop counting at twelve. There are beer cans and bottles, too, lots of them.

When he first moved in we figured D for a guy who planned to host many raucous and drunken frat-boy style parties, because he hauled more beer and booze into his apartment than furniture and clothes. Gallon jugs of vodka, gin, whisky, and tequila, cases of Tecate, Budweiser, Coors and Corona. We braced ourselves for a rave that never happened. D moved in and drank all that booze and beer by himself.

D keeps the blinds drawn and the windows closed, even on the warmest days of August and September. Dead insects line his windowsill. A Mexican cleaning lady came to clean the apartment a year or so ago but she left the insects on the sill.

It’s 1:30 a.m. We hear heavy footsteps on the landing, a thud, and then D’s voice: “Fucking lying slut. I’m going to put my fist through your head, fucking lying slut. Go fuck yourself, fucking slut.” He’s on his cell, my wife says, peeking through the blinds. “He’s wasted! He can’t find his key.” I ask if he’s carrying a pizza box.

We go to the grocery store, Vons on Turnpike, to pick up a few things for my wife’s parents. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon and we notice immediately that by a wide margin we are the youngest shoppers in the store. Everyone else appears to be Medicare eligible and a recipient of Social Security; it’s as if Vons has declared this afternoon a Senior Special. Liver spots, rheumy eyes and osteoporosis are the order of the day. Arthritic fingers clutch lists and coupons; the oldsters wheel their carts slowly as if each step causes pain, and they spend several minutes comparing labels for sugar and sodium, fat and carbohydrate. They avoid the lower shelves. Watching them I feel like I’m staring at my future, the stark, inevitable cruelty of old age that I see in my in-laws; in the doctor’s appointments written on the white board in their kitchen, the pill bottles arrayed on their kitchen table, the illnesses that linger longer than they once did. We care for them as we hope our children will care for us when our turn comes.

My wife thinks D fits the profile of a serial killer, and that one day the police will knock on our door and ask if we ever noticed anything unusual about D. Did we smell strange odors emanating from his apartment? What about noises, did we hear any strange sounds? Did we ever notice D carrying rope, nylon or wire? What about medical equipment like syringes or scalpels, IV tubes?

I think D drinks too much to be a serial killer. Though the famous ones who evade capture are bat-shit nuts I assume it takes a certain clarity of mind, steady nerves, and the wherewithal to cover one’s tracks, not something a drunk can do with any consistency.

Tip the Bottle (Some nights that's all you can do)

Tip the bottle, fill the glass. Clean shirts hanging in the closet, fat oranges in the fruit bowl, a stack of bills on the kitchen table, ground beef from New Zealand in the fridge. Woman on the radio says soybean oil isn’t natural, not good for us, and commonly used in all sorts of processed foods. The water beneath our feet is contaminated and the air isn’t fit to breathe. I don’t know if everything that dies one day comes back. Is the city of Detroit coming back? Are the jobs of industrial America coming back, and dragging a new middle class with them? Or is all that buried under rubble? Sequester your dreams. Those smooth-talking fucktards in DC bent us over and shoved it in; the little people will suffer most, they always do. Meanwhile, Senator William P. Dickwad collects his government paycheck and hops on a Gulfstream bound for sunny Miami. Some wealthy donor will hand him a check, line up a couple of quality hookers or a young Cuban lad, ply him with top-shelf liquor and tell him what a patriotic American he is, a credit to the republic. This must be vertigo -- everything is upside down and inside out, spinning, out of balance; failure is rewarded and virtue is punished. God is summoned when needed and ignored when not. In the big houses on the hill the lights are burning bright. Life is good up there; the gates are sturdy, the walls thick, and the roof tiles fireproof. Tip the bottle, fill the glass, more cheap wine from Trader Joe’s. Sangiovese. Sounds like the name of a Mafioso from Sicily. You got a toast for me? Here’s to the revolution, may it arrive before it’s too late. I should read some Henry Miller, lose myself in his mystical mind. Henry called America the air-conditioned nightmare. Way back in the early 1940’s, Henry saw what was coming – saw the wars and the greed, the concentration of power and wealth, the abject cowardice of the ruling class and the surrender of the numbed masses. Henry didn’t give a shit about politics; he only wanted to paint and write, create and dream. He wanted to live his finite moments, breathe the air, feel the sunshine on his back. “To paint is to love again,” said Henry. His Paris days were far behind, the whores grown old and ugly; copies of Tropic of Cancer were smuggled across the prudish American border. The sky is clear and the stars are mocking our planet. Can you feel the love tonight? Yeah, I’m losing it now, my hand slips from the tiller. Maybe we’re all crazy and the world is a giant asylum. The bottle’s almost empty. My advice: find the magic wherever you can -- in the bottom of a glass, in a deck of cards, in a pair of dice, in the pew, in the next wave, in the garden, in a ’66 VW bug, in the woods, in the Mojave desert, in your lover’s eyes, in guitar strings, in the sound of silence. 

Murder One

“Behind the veil of Oz, there is nothing but bluff.” Christopher Hitchens

My wife is watching the Oscars. Of the nominated films, we only saw Django Unchained and Silver Linings Playbook; I enjoyed the former and thought the latter was so-so; Jennifer Lawrence, sorry, I don’t see the reason for all the hype about your performance. Queen of Young Hollywood say the industry parasites and celebrity gawkers.

Whatever.

Chelsea Football Club lost to Manchester City today, 2-nil. My boys played poorly, conceded too much space, and lost the battle for midfield. I can’t stand interim manager Rafa Benitez – he’s an arrogant poser, a walking travesty who should never have been given the reins of Chelsea Football Club.

But the trials of Chelsea FC is not what preoccupies me tonight; I’m thinking about technology, all the fabulous gizmos and gadgets at our disposal: tablets, smart phones, super thin laptops, flat screen TV’s, wireless access points, social media, instant this, real time that.

Back in the day we thought technology would liberate us from drudgery and tedium, increase our leisure time, but it’s obvious we missed an off-ramp on the way to the Promised Land. Americans have technology galore, but what we don’t have is the leisure time to enjoy it. 

Americans are work beasts. We put in more hours on the job than any people on the planet, take fewer vacation days and, when we do get away, we remain tethered to the office by cell phone, e-mail, text message or social media. We listen to voice mail messages while standing in line for the Jungle Cruise at Disneyland; tap out e-mail responses on the beach at Cancun; become apoplectic if the Wifi service at the Red Roof Inn doesn’t work.

Ironically, all this frenzied labor isn’t making us richer, at least not those of us stuck in the lower middle class where more often than not we walk a paycheck-to-paycheck tightrope.

Woe to the family that makes a misstep.

We’re still clawing our way back from the financial meltdown of 2008 and the millions of jobs that vanished like morning fog; unemployment remains persistently high, wages stubbornly flat. Not surprisingly, fewer people doing more work pushes productivity off the chart, but the spoils of our bounty flow to the owners and investors, the financiers behind the velvet curtain, who win when we lose and profit by our misery.

The wages of American workers have remained stagnant for decades and the employer sponsored benefit plans we once counted on have either disappeared altogether or become so paltry as to be meaningless; we’re on our own in ways our parents never were. 

How did it come to this? When did working people lose the war of ideas, and by that I mean the idea of shared prosperity in the workplace. The Fat Cats and their media mouthpieces and lobbyists flipped our world on its head, seized the national narrative and made it their own; capital, they declared, is more important than labor; wealth is more valued than work; the rich are more deserving than the poor. They bought the politicians and judges and rigged the system so perversely that the more workers produced, the less reward workers received.

It seems to me that the revolution started with Reagan, but it was a revolution of the velvet variety because there was little sustained protest from the working class; while the Fat Cats and money-changers picked our pockets, we argued about gun control and abortion, evolution and creationism, Monica Lewinsky and Bubba Clinton, and we swallowed enormous quantities of 100-proof Kool-Aid that made many of us believe that the answer to a better tomorrow was to look out only for ourselves and our own interests.

In this diminished and heartless era working people – when mentioned in the national debate at all – are considered disposable, bought at the lowest possible price and dumped when cheaper versions are found. Money is mobile and corporations have no loyalty to anything but profit.

It’s a class war pure and simple, rich and super rich against the middle class and working poor, and the numbers on the big scoreboard don’t lie. To use a football analogy, the rich are like Manchester United and the poor are like Queens Park Rangers – in other words, no contest. Police, firefighters, nurses, teachers, postal clerks and food inspectors are treated as parasitic drains on state and local governments, grossly overpaid, underworked dolts who contribute nothing to the common good.

That’s the lie repeated over and over by lazy reporters and corporate shills.

Our great nation can afford to spend more on its military than all other developed countries combined, but it can’t afford to pay workers a living wage or provide them humane benefits. We can afford to cut taxes for the wealthy again and again and again, but when it comes to the huddled masses, we bow before the Austerity gods. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Scott Walker and the Koch Brothers demand the destruction of public employee unions; we must slash their pensions, suppress their wages – or face Armageddon.

As the Oscars drone on in the background, I’m thinking, with a mixture of wonder and disgust, that the greatest transfer of wealth in human history and the premeditated murder of the American Dream happened during my lifetime.

Rusted Knight

“History is full of the shipwrecks of nations and empires.” Victor Hugo

Why do I care if the government of the United States uses unmanned drones to murder human beings it suspects of being terrorists? What does it matter to a middle-aged guy living on the coast of California, on the margins of the American Riviera no less, where the sun shines most days of the year and the real estate is more valuable than gold, and where famous people come to escape the rigors of their success? What does it have to do with the price of bread or a decent bottle of single malt scotch?

I don’t know, but it bothers me, the same way a sliver of glass in my shoe would bother me. I think it’s the hypocrisy more than anything else. Cut the crap already, tell the truth; our country passes itself off to the world as the good guy, the knight in shining armor, protector of the weak and poor, a force for justice and liberty, but a few people in the White House, and the president himself, working in secret, decide who lives and who dies and they don’t seem to care if innocents are killed or maimed in the process.

What would happen if Turkey or Iran decided to build a fleet of attack drones and use them to take out any man or men – anywhere in the world -- they deemed a threat to their security? Would the US stand idly by and let them? Hell, no. We would scream “violation of international law!” and “convene the UN Security Council,” and, “this is a grave threat to world peace!”

The only country in the world the United States allows to kill with impunity is our ward, Israel. Like its more powerful mentor, Israel only murders people as a last resort, and only based on irrefutable evidence that it alone can verify.

Are we as barbaric as the terrorists with whom we’re locked in endless war?  Have we adopted their tactics? Have we become them, willing to shed the blood of innocents if it moves us nearer our political or economic objectives? Willing to torture, detain, disappear? Willing to abandon our principles, the rule of law, due process?

Our hysterical response to 9/11 has poisoned our national soul. At home by virtue of the Patriot Act and abroad with invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, we have become a nation more fearful and less free. Not that I believe the United States was a paragon of virtue prior to 9/11; we supported an all-star collection of tyrants and dictators in the name of fighting Communism, and swung our military stick in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Middle East when it suited us.

I suppose what 9/11 did was remove the restraints, the inclination to avoid the use of force; now we bomb first and establish guilt second, and every time we do, Dick Cheney smiles with pride.

Illusions, Myths and Fables

I’ve just finished reading a collection of essays by Gore Vidal covering a span of nearly six decades. I don’t think we will see a writer of Vidal’s erudition again; it seemed he had read everything from Aeschylus to Tennessee Williams, and that he was personally acquainted with every important thinker, writer and political figure of his time.

Vidal was at his best when lacerating our government for hypocrisy, or puncturing the windbags who dominate the public airwaves on Sunday morning.

My progress through the essays was slowed by frequent pauses for note taking and reflection. Vidal reminded me that issues that appear peculiar to our time are in reality not new at all. For instance, forty years ago Vidal wondered why “we allow our governors to take so much of our money and spend it in ways that not only fail to benefit us but do great damage to others?”

Great question. Why indeed.

In a number of essays Vidal pointed out that American politicians have, since the beginning of the republic, created illusions and called them facts. Illusions galore, like claiming from every rooftop that our national debt is the direct result of overly generous entitlement programs rather than a national security state run amok; and that the only path to enduring solvency is not to raise taxes on the wealthy or drastically scale back our national security apparatus, but to take a sledgehammer to “wasteful” social programs.

Another grand illusion, and a core tenet of the idiot wing of the Republican Party, is that tax cuts for the wealthy produce jobs for the middle class. The wealthy have enjoyed more than a decade of tax “relief” and the middle class is still waiting for jobs.

Or like our president at the Commander’s Ball thanking our brave warriors in Afghanistan for protecting our freedom. Really? Our freedom is imperiled from the frightful military capability of a relatively small, rag-tag, loosely knit group calling itself Al-Qaida or the Taliban? The president failed to mention that America is entering its twelfth year of waste and futility in Afghanistan; the greatest, most expensive military force in human history has failed in spectacular fashion, but, naturally, our political leaders claim that the occupation has been a brilliant success and has prevented evil terrorists from attacking our homeland.

And now, of course, the Al-Qaida threat has sprouted in Africa and the prevailing wisdom is that we fight the terrorists there or fight them in Florida, California or on the shores of Lake Michigan.

America has itched to get a foothold in Africa and now, courtesy of the endless War on Terror, we have a pretext.

Yes, we are awash in illusions and to those I would add fables and myths; the fable that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave; the myth that we are inherently better than people of other nations and that our lives are more valuable; the fable that we are a force for good in the world.

Primarily what we have that others do not is louder and more persistent PR.

Vidal was also bemused by America’s relationship with the state of Israel and the way this small nation manipulates our foreign policy. Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, was grilled the other day on Capitol Hill about the sacred topic of Israel, and of course he promised undying fealty to Tel Aviv, no matter how many innocent Palestinians the Israeli army kills or how many settlements are built on confiscated and disputed territory.

In the 1980’s Vidal wrote, “I would stop all military aid to the Middle East. This would oblige the hardliners in Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. We have supported Israel for forty years. No other minority in the history of the United States has ever extorted so much treasury money for its holy land as the Israeli lobby.”

The extortion has now been going on for 65 years and we are as far from peace in the region as ever. Israel is more militant and recalcitrant, always making threats to bomb Iran or launch another assault on Gaza.

My favorite Vidal quote has to be this one: “Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning.”

The electorate becomes apoplectic, rabid and sometimes violent over the rights of a fetus or the teaching of creationism and the Ten Commandments in public school, but when the financial syndicate mortgages our future and turns millions into paupers, the electorate falls silent.

Unfortunately that’s not an illusion.

Different Day, Same Obama

My wife is watching coverage of the Inauguration in the other room. She switches from NBC to ABC to CBS to CNN, trying to find one talking head that doesn’t piss her off. David Gergen, spinmeister to four presidents, seems to be on every channel, jabbering incessantly about presidential stature, and the challenges facing Obama in the next four years. 

Over on ABC, Tim Gunn is analyzing Michelle Obama’s attire and what her stint as First Lady has meant for fashion; apparently, this is important and newsworthy. Tributes to our brave men and women in uniform, our warriors, are repeated on every network. Praise the American empire and our grand, stunning armaments. Brian Williams says Obama appears calmer this time around, more relaxed and comfortable in his role as chief executive and commander in chief; Williams and his colleagues have a lot of airtime to fill so these kind of empty, stupid statements predominate. 

Camera shots of generals and admirals, protectors of the ruling class’s property and wealth; long shots of the Capitol mall and the assembled crowd. I can’t help but think of the pomp and spectacle of ancient Rome, at least until the Disney-style music begins playing and I feel like I’m standing on Main Street with an ice cream cone in my hand and a bunch of children screaming all around me. Jimmy Carter is on hand, as is Bill Clinton, but where is W, and where is his sidekick, Dick Cheney? Surely, these two great Americans were invited to this celebration of Democracy and the orderly transfer of power. Portly Newt Gingrich strolls in, though why the Toad was invited is a mystery to me. Still no sign of W – where is that slimy motherfucker? John Boehner looks constipated, though his fake tan is perfect, as usual.

I know this is a solemn ceremony, far superior to a military coup or a fascist overthrow, but it’s just another brick in the wall of lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It’s like asserting that the purpose of all this pomp is the welfare of people rather than the protection of property. Bob Schiefer tells the audience that Obama’s second term will be about bipartisanship, reaching across the aisle, and maybe playing more rounds of golf with Republican members of Congress. Yes, hit the links with Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell, tee off with a smile on your face and a song in your heart, but never turn your back on those two.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change,” says Obama, knowing full well that we will do nothing of the sort because this would only upset the property owners and resource extractors – it’s another throwaway line that will soon be forgotten.

Obama’s laying out the laundry list now – help the poor, heal the sick, free the captive, punish the wicked, save the weak.

Sounds good, boss, why don’t you start right here on the fruited plain…

Keep in mind that this is the same president who determines whether or not this or that suspected terrorist is taken out by a drone strike, without benefit of legal charges and trial; this is the same president who pushed a health care reform scheme that kept insurance companies in charge of our medical care; this is the same president who refused to prosecute the criminal bankers and financiers who ruined the economic present and future for millions of people.

Different day, same guy, same rules for the ruling class. Let freedom ring, baby. Let freedom roll down from the mountaintop (and then blow the top off that mountain so we can get to the coal below), let freedom flow like the mighty Nile. Today we are one America, not divided by race (bullshit), sexual orientation (gays can’t legally marry in most places), wealth (ha, ha, ha), or the Second Amendment (another ha, ha – don’t try to take my guns, motherfucker).

And what would an American political event be without the big guy, yes, that guy, Almighty God, who pays special attention to these United States. We thank him, praise him, raise our eyes to him – or at least some of us do. God has always been useful to both wings of the Property Party.

Bring on Beyonce and the Marine Band…then cue Wolf Blitzer. 

Cycling Downhill with No Brakes

Lance Armstrong has submitted himself to America’s Mother Confessor, Oprah Winfrey. Millions of viewers tuned in to watch the disgraced cyclist try to rescue his reputation. Was he sorry, contrite, remorseful, and did he shed the requisite number of tears?

I don’t know and don’t care because the bottom line is that no mortal human can win seven consecutive Tour de France titles without pharmacological augmentation. It just ain’t possible, and all along most folks knew Armstrong was up to something, but he was a cancer survivor and his story made for good copy, and he dated Sheryl Crow, and hung around with movie stars, and headed a foundation that was supposedly doing good works, so we made him a hero, hoisted him on a pedestal and worshipped him.

In the process, we also made him very wealthy.

But what does it matter? For many years to come Lance Armstrong will be besieged by lawsuits from former friends and associates; if nothing else emerged from Oprah’s dog and pony show, Armstrong appears to understand that he is fucked, and royally so. All the people he abused and stepped on as he climbed the mountain of fame and fortune will return to haunt him.

We love to create a hero only as much as we love destroying one; this is what we do in America. The wall-to-wall Armstrong coverage will continue a few more days, and then the pathetic prick will drop off the radar, not to return until he writes a confessional book or claims to have found redemption in God. We will find someone to replace him on the pedestal; we always do because we’re suckers for an improbable story.   

I only wish Oprah would employ her vast media powers in something more useful, like interviewing all the crooked bankers and financiers and lobbyists and politicians who wrecked the economy in 2008, and left millions of Americans without houses or retirement funds. 

Dancing on the Cliff in the Dark

Well, here we are, off and galloping into the year 2013.

America peeked over the dreaded and mostly fictional Fiscal Cliff, and of course came back again with a stop-gap solution that assures the two corporate parties will battle again in a few weeks time over the national Debt Ceiling, a fairly new shibboleth since the debt ceiling has been routinely raised without a peep of protest in previous administrations. Republicans will use the debt ceiling ruse to frighten the gullible and gin up momentum for cutting “entitlement” programs like Social Security and Medicare – or any other program that doesn’t serve the wealthy.

America’s millionaire politicians insist that elderly people must work longer before receiving their benefits: make geezers toil until they’re 80 or until they keel over in the parking lot at Wal-Mart. Little thought is given to where oldsters are going to find jobs to work at for an additional five to ten years. As far as I know, employers are not clamoring for elderly workers as much as they’d like to rid themselves of them in exchange for younger, cheaper alternatives.

And while we’re snipping away at the tattered safety net, let’s put an end to hip or knee replacements for anyone on the public dime; canes and walkers are more cost effective.

The deal is pretty clear: austerity is the only way out of our fiscal wilderness. We must cut, slash, burn, and above all, make the poor pony up so the rich don’t have to. On the fruited and blessed plain of America, the wealthy are exalted, praised, and coddled like baby lambs. Under no circumstances must we burden the rich or upset them, because if we do, our best, brightest and most deserving will not invest their wealth, and if they don’t invest, our economy cannot grow, and if the economy doesn’t grow -- the horror, the horror, the horror.

Have you seen the recent feel-good PR blitz from AIG, the worldwide insurance giant that only four years ago was on the brink of ruin? An infusion of taxpayer bailout funds saved AIG and other financial institutions intimately connected with it from the bad bets and slippery business practices that had become standard operating procedure. American taxpayers had no say in the decision to bailout AIG; we were just told it was necessary to save capitalism from itself.

OK, the truth is, nobody in Washington D.C. had the stones to come out and criticize capitalism.

Anyway, if you believe the PR, AIG has clawed its way back to fiscal solvency and paid back, with interest, every dime dumped on its loading dock by US Government representatives. So you see, far from being an egregious display of corporate welfare, the bailout was a solid investment for the American taxpayer.

And, lo and behold, miracle of miracles, AIG is again doing what it does best – rebuilding hurricane ravaged communities – while wrapped in the American flag and with “Born in the USA” blaring in the background.

I think I’m going to heave all over my laptop. First BP restored the Gulf of Mexico and now AIG is saving Hurricane Sandy victims.

Holy shit! Three cheers for corporate America! Is there anything these marvelous people cannot do?

Our corporate masters only take a backseat to our military heroes, now on display in the film Zero Dark Thirty. I have no desire to see this film and here’s why: the so-called Greatest Manhunt in History required more than a decade, two invasions, thousands of dead, wounded or displaced, and billions of taxpayer dollars. Yes, our brave warriors with their ultra-effective weapons found and murdered Osama bin Laden, but the War on Terror continues as if bin Laden were still alive; the creeping and creepy American police state continues; bin Laden may be dead and rotting at the bottom of the sea, but his ghost is with us, and as a result, we remain less free, equally fearful and more in the dark.

Background Check

The toughest part of being a parent is not your own kids – it’s dealing with the parents of your kids’ friends.

The term “play-date” grates on my sensibility. The notion that play time must be scheduled like a dentist appointment drives me crazy and speaks to one of the ills of contemporary America.

When I was a kid, way back in the wild 1960’s, we gathered in the street or on someone’s front lawn, with our bikes and gear for whatever sport was in season at the time, and we played. None of us had an electronic nanny. No supervision or structure, and just as many pedophiles and perverts prowled then as now; we were taught to use common sense, like, don’t talk to strangers and avoid weird looking people who might offer you candy from a van with tinted windows.

Now it takes two phone calls, an e-mail, a text and a Skype conversation to confirm there will be adult supervision at the play-date. It goes like this:

Yes, yes, Mrs. So and So, your precious and precocious child will never be out of our sight. We will not feed her any wheat or dairy products, or fruit juice laced with high fructose corn syrup. We have been fingerprinted and TB tested. What’s that, our property and casualty insurance? Up to date – we can e-mail you a copy of the policy if you like.  Our family vehicle is less than ten years old and has new brakes and tires. If we leave the city limits you will receive a text message. We just checked and can assure you that our daughter does not have head lice. Clean as a whistle. We should inform you, however, that our daughter is not adept at math, though we don’t believe this deficiency is contagious; your gifted and talented child, light of the universe, diamond in your eye, future Ivy League scholar, will not be adversely affected by intimate commerce with our very ordinary child. Yes, of course we have parental controls on our cable box. Books? Yes, we have books, print and Kindle versions. What? A Bible? Well, yes we do, but mainly as a work of fiction rather than an artifact of faith. Is this a problem? If you don’t proselytize we won’t, either. Ha, ha, just kidding. What do you say? Have we got a play-date? What’s that? Pets? We have a very healthy beta fish named Zeus. No, no dogs, cats, hamsters, iguanas, guinea pigs, pythons, chinchillas or exotic birds. We’re really very boring and frightfully normal. You’re more than welcome to inspect our medicine cabinet and look beneath our beds. What other assurances can we give you, Mrs. So and So? We never try to weasel out of jury duty. We voted in the past five elections. Solid citizens – decent, honest, lower middle-class folks, that’s us. Your exceptional child will be safe and cherished, as if she were at home.

I miss the old days. The world was just as perilous, but it felt safer, more predictable, authentic, and less neurotic. Our parents pushed us out of the house, out of their hair, and told us not to come back until dinnertime. They trusted we would survive, and we did.