After seven years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, their infantile and ruinous response to 9/11, disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law, shameless pandering to corporate America and the wealthy, official disdain for science and reason, signing statements, Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath – which is still an ongoing humanitarian tragedy even if the mainstream media chooses to ignore it – after all this misery, shame and outright stupidity, it’s hard to muster much hope for the future, regardless of who captures the White House this November.
Barack Obama tells people it’s all about Change, this political season’s magic word, but Mr. Obama is thin on the specifics of what that means. Obama reminds me of an old-fashioned snake oil salesman, selling bottles of hair restorer from the back of a wagon. “I know you’ve dreamed of having a lustrous head of hair, a flowing mane, and here at last is the product that can make your dreams a reality…”
Hillary Clinton touts her “Day One” experience, though it seems to me that this experience is predominantly grounded in failed policies, particularly those of her hubby, William Jefferson Clinton, a master political manipulator, accomplished liar, and renowned skirt chaser. People seem to have forgotten that Democrats got creamed in the ’94 mid-term elections and lost the U.S. House, Senate and a number of governorships. That shellacking gave rise to Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay and a host of corrupt hard right GOP nitwits. Although Bill Clinton won re-election in ’96, he spent the rest of his Administration fighting a holding action, including nearly two years of White Water and Monica Lewinsky accusations, denials, admissions and apologies. Some legacy.
John McCain, war hero and aging war horse, bases his candidacy in Safety & Security. McCain has an undeserved reputation as a maverick, and is now furiously trying to distance himself from past statements and policy decisions in order to court the GOP’s wing-nut religious right faction. “I never said that ethics in government were more important than God. I promise you that I will consult the Almighty before making even the smallest decision. I believe that God is Great, and that He is on our side.”
It wouldn’t bother McCain at all if American military forces maintained a presence in Iraq for the next hundred years. Never mind the cost, never mind the wishes of ordinary Iraqi citizens for hegemony over their own country, in McCain’s mind Americans have a right to plant military installations on foreign soil, and to buttress this argument, McCain cites Germany, Japan and Korea, where the United States has maintained military bases for nearly half a century. McCain doesn’t spend much mental energy wondering why, with the Cold War a speck in our rearview mirror, we “need” military bases in Japan or Germany; he’s obviously comfortable with American Imperialism as it’s currently constituted.
The thought of Cindy McCain as First Lady scares me. Cindy looks a tad uptight to me, a woman prone to hysterical fits; I can easily imagine her chewing out the gardener or her personal assistant or any other lackey who helps her get through the day. I heard her say that she’s proud of her country, but the statement only makes me wonder if she knows what’s really going down in America – anyone who claims to be proud of the United States today hasn’t been paying attention during the past seven years.
In case you’re wondering, I don’t hate America and hope for its demise; I served in the armed forces, vote in every election, write letters to elected officials and participate actively in our Democracy. My issue with America is that instead of coming closer to realizing its historic promise, it has drifted further away. Once we believed – and acted upon that belief – in equality of opportunity, basic fairness, and the welfare of common people and communities. Although far from perfect, we at least lurched in the right direction, albeit often fitfully and painfully.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in August of 1963, he said that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had made a promissory note with the citizens of our new country – a note the country defaulted on where citizens of color were concerned. Today I think an argument can be made that America has defaulted on its promise in many other ways.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Titans of Cowardice
I get a kick out of the Wall Street Journal, Bible of the Capitalist class. Here’s a Page Two headline that ran a couple of days ago: “Worried Bankers Seek to Shift Risk to Uncle Sam.”
I’ve been waiting for the Titans of Finance to run to the government for help. Let’s review: banks either made unsound loans to under-qualified borrowers or invested in Collateralized Debt Obligations that included sub-prime mortgages. The loans and CDO’s were pure crap to begin with, but the banks, sniffing easy profit, put aside sound lending practices and jumped in with both feet.
Now that the sub-prime mortgage scandal has infected the wider credit market, the banks are lining up at Washington’s door with their hands out, like Skid Row panhandlers. Understand that these are the very same folks who once criticized so-called “welfare queens” for lack of personal responsibility; the same folks who criticize government programs of any kind (except, of course, those that benefit corporate interests), and the same folks who at every turn extol the virtues and integrity of the American CEO. The Capitalists have thrived during the Bush regime, an age highlighted by weak or non-existent regulation, cronyism, ethical myopia, low corporate and personal tax rates, and a cowboy mentality in the Finance industry.
Bankers despise all things “publicly financed” until their banks fuck up so spectacularly that they have no place to turn except to the public treasury. That’s when they run to Washington babbling about the need to shore up the banking system, the credit system and the monetary system – for the benefit of ordinary Americans on Main Street, of course. How quickly capitalists recover their civic consciousness when the shit hits the fan and puts their stock price at risk. It’s a hypocritical spectacle that puts the lie to the myth that the American economy is fair and equitable and open to anyone with the drive and gumption to succeed.
If it smells like horseshit, and sticks to your boots like horseshit, it most likely is horseshit.
Isn’t it ironic that American bankers and their ilk are opposed to a social safety net for average citizens, but are only too willing to leap into a safety net themselves; ironic that they resist paying a fair share in taxes, but love taking advantage of taxpayer assistance!
And you can bet, when the dust settles and the banks have shifted their risk to the taxpayers, that the Titans of Finance will earn huge bonuses for their “bold” leadership.
Only in America.
I’ve been waiting for the Titans of Finance to run to the government for help. Let’s review: banks either made unsound loans to under-qualified borrowers or invested in Collateralized Debt Obligations that included sub-prime mortgages. The loans and CDO’s were pure crap to begin with, but the banks, sniffing easy profit, put aside sound lending practices and jumped in with both feet.
Now that the sub-prime mortgage scandal has infected the wider credit market, the banks are lining up at Washington’s door with their hands out, like Skid Row panhandlers. Understand that these are the very same folks who once criticized so-called “welfare queens” for lack of personal responsibility; the same folks who criticize government programs of any kind (except, of course, those that benefit corporate interests), and the same folks who at every turn extol the virtues and integrity of the American CEO. The Capitalists have thrived during the Bush regime, an age highlighted by weak or non-existent regulation, cronyism, ethical myopia, low corporate and personal tax rates, and a cowboy mentality in the Finance industry.
Bankers despise all things “publicly financed” until their banks fuck up so spectacularly that they have no place to turn except to the public treasury. That’s when they run to Washington babbling about the need to shore up the banking system, the credit system and the monetary system – for the benefit of ordinary Americans on Main Street, of course. How quickly capitalists recover their civic consciousness when the shit hits the fan and puts their stock price at risk. It’s a hypocritical spectacle that puts the lie to the myth that the American economy is fair and equitable and open to anyone with the drive and gumption to succeed.
If it smells like horseshit, and sticks to your boots like horseshit, it most likely is horseshit.
Isn’t it ironic that American bankers and their ilk are opposed to a social safety net for average citizens, but are only too willing to leap into a safety net themselves; ironic that they resist paying a fair share in taxes, but love taking advantage of taxpayer assistance!
And you can bet, when the dust settles and the banks have shifted their risk to the taxpayers, that the Titans of Finance will earn huge bonuses for their “bold” leadership.
Only in America.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Visions of George
There’s a vision stuck in my cranium: George W. Bush is standing on the White House lawn, alone, speaking into a wireless microphone that doesn’t work. Behind him, the White House is engulfed in flames and thick smoke is pouring from the windows; sirens wail and frantic staff members carry portraits, china, chairs, busts and documents out of the building; police, fire and Blackwater helicopters hover overhead. It’s a scene of chaos and panic, like Saigon in 1975.
But Bush is serene, as always, with his trademark monkey smirk in place. As if addressing the nation he says, “My fellow Americans, ignore the mayhem going on behind me. I can assure you that everything is under control. In fact, we’re doing a heckuva job. I’ve just presented my budget proposal to Congress, and I want to tell you that it’s a sound, fiscally responsible document. Now, a lot of so-called experts say that our economy is heading south. I call such people cowards. I’m the President and I say the economy is fundamentally sound, which is why my proposal calls for more of the same. We’re going to stay the course and make my tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans permanent. Why? Because American millionaires and billionaires deserve tax relief so that they can buy more homes, cars, private jets and jewelry. Our millionaires and billionaires may not need tax relief, but I think we should give it to them anyway. We’re going to increase funding for the wars we started in Afghanistan and Iraq because to do anything less would be a disservice to our patriotic defense contractors. We’ll pump more money into useless homeland security projects in Montana and Idaho. We’re going to continue corporate welfare programs because it’s a competitive world out there and American companies need all the help we can give them. The American people may not deserve taxpayer-supported assistance, but American corporations do. We’ll continue privatization of essential public services, maintain blind faith in the free market, and strip away even more of the regulatory framework that protects ordinary Americans but gets in the way of big business.
“Now my fellow Americans, some of you are mildly concerned about the wild swings in the stock market or the minor downturn in the housing market. Let me assure you that if we stay the course and continue doing what we’ve done the past seven years, we will achieve spectacular results. Skeptics, cynics and Liberals think this is crazy talk, but my belief in voodoo economics is as strong today as it was the day the Supreme Court put me in the White House. Coincidentally, I also believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the lost city of Atlantis. And like my father before me, I believe fervently in staying the course, in a thousand points of light, and in the joy of wielding a well-oiled chain saw. So, my fellow Americans, I bid you good day, God speed, and may the force be with you.”
Thankfully, this is only a twisted vision brought on by an overdose of Presidential primaries and reading the Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, in service of a corrupt ideology Bush and his cronies have so thoroughly pig-fucked the United States of America that we are sure to suffer for many years to come.
But Bush is serene, as always, with his trademark monkey smirk in place. As if addressing the nation he says, “My fellow Americans, ignore the mayhem going on behind me. I can assure you that everything is under control. In fact, we’re doing a heckuva job. I’ve just presented my budget proposal to Congress, and I want to tell you that it’s a sound, fiscally responsible document. Now, a lot of so-called experts say that our economy is heading south. I call such people cowards. I’m the President and I say the economy is fundamentally sound, which is why my proposal calls for more of the same. We’re going to stay the course and make my tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans permanent. Why? Because American millionaires and billionaires deserve tax relief so that they can buy more homes, cars, private jets and jewelry. Our millionaires and billionaires may not need tax relief, but I think we should give it to them anyway. We’re going to increase funding for the wars we started in Afghanistan and Iraq because to do anything less would be a disservice to our patriotic defense contractors. We’ll pump more money into useless homeland security projects in Montana and Idaho. We’re going to continue corporate welfare programs because it’s a competitive world out there and American companies need all the help we can give them. The American people may not deserve taxpayer-supported assistance, but American corporations do. We’ll continue privatization of essential public services, maintain blind faith in the free market, and strip away even more of the regulatory framework that protects ordinary Americans but gets in the way of big business.
“Now my fellow Americans, some of you are mildly concerned about the wild swings in the stock market or the minor downturn in the housing market. Let me assure you that if we stay the course and continue doing what we’ve done the past seven years, we will achieve spectacular results. Skeptics, cynics and Liberals think this is crazy talk, but my belief in voodoo economics is as strong today as it was the day the Supreme Court put me in the White House. Coincidentally, I also believe in Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and the lost city of Atlantis. And like my father before me, I believe fervently in staying the course, in a thousand points of light, and in the joy of wielding a well-oiled chain saw. So, my fellow Americans, I bid you good day, God speed, and may the force be with you.”
Thankfully, this is only a twisted vision brought on by an overdose of Presidential primaries and reading the Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, in service of a corrupt ideology Bush and his cronies have so thoroughly pig-fucked the United States of America that we are sure to suffer for many years to come.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The Last Scream of the Spider Monkey
Even though it was hopefully the last State of the Union speech George W. Bush will deliver, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. The only way I can watch Bush speak is to clear the living room of heavy objects, pad the walls, and place a protective metal grill over the TV screen. The instant words begin tumbling out of Bush’s mouth I feel a primal rage rising in my chest.
So, I didn’t catch the speech but from reports in the LA and NY Times I gather that Bush was his usual unapologetic and myopic self, confident that the tide has turned in Iraq, that the American economy is fundamentally sound, and that his tax cuts for the wealthy must be made permanent. This man, who with his sidekick Dick Cheney and a host of appointed sycophants, boot-lickers, cronies, and flacks, has done more to undermine the trust of the American public than U.S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon combined, had the balls to talk about Trust.
But that’s Bush. The man’s narrative is fixed in what remains of his brain, and nothing on earth can change it. Bush is known to believe in the justice and judgment of History, that time will prove that he was not an incompetent fool, but a president of strength and character. Sure, why not? Ronald Reagan believed that trees cause air pollution and that ketchup qualified as a vegetable. Though time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, it does tend to dim memories and push context out of shape. I can imagine a gathering, fifteen years or so from now, when W has built his Presidential library with millions in right-wing evangelical money, of Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Fred Barnes and Dick Cheney – the latter wheelchair bound, with drool dripping from a mouth fixed in a permanent snarl – all jabbering about the “good old days” and what a great leader Bush was. If Richard Nixon can be re-made into an “elder” statesman, it’s not unfathomable that George W. Bush can be made to appear like the American version of Winston Churchill.
The pre-9/11 Bush was easier to tolerate. Back then he was like a dumb frat boy with a new car, only mildly hazardous to himself and others. After 9/11, when Bush donned his Christian crusader armor and gleefully sent other people’s children off to fight and die, the horror of George Senior and Barbara’s reproductive mistake became clear. W’s hands are stained with the blood and suffering of thousands, and even Father Time can’t change that brutal fact.
The Spider Monkey has screamed for the last time. Americans can sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that the sands of time are finally running out on the worst president in U.S. history.
So, I didn’t catch the speech but from reports in the LA and NY Times I gather that Bush was his usual unapologetic and myopic self, confident that the tide has turned in Iraq, that the American economy is fundamentally sound, and that his tax cuts for the wealthy must be made permanent. This man, who with his sidekick Dick Cheney and a host of appointed sycophants, boot-lickers, cronies, and flacks, has done more to undermine the trust of the American public than U.S. Grant, Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon combined, had the balls to talk about Trust.
But that’s Bush. The man’s narrative is fixed in what remains of his brain, and nothing on earth can change it. Bush is known to believe in the justice and judgment of History, that time will prove that he was not an incompetent fool, but a president of strength and character. Sure, why not? Ronald Reagan believed that trees cause air pollution and that ketchup qualified as a vegetable. Though time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, it does tend to dim memories and push context out of shape. I can imagine a gathering, fifteen years or so from now, when W has built his Presidential library with millions in right-wing evangelical money, of Alberto Gonzalez, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Fred Barnes and Dick Cheney – the latter wheelchair bound, with drool dripping from a mouth fixed in a permanent snarl – all jabbering about the “good old days” and what a great leader Bush was. If Richard Nixon can be re-made into an “elder” statesman, it’s not unfathomable that George W. Bush can be made to appear like the American version of Winston Churchill.
The pre-9/11 Bush was easier to tolerate. Back then he was like a dumb frat boy with a new car, only mildly hazardous to himself and others. After 9/11, when Bush donned his Christian crusader armor and gleefully sent other people’s children off to fight and die, the horror of George Senior and Barbara’s reproductive mistake became clear. W’s hands are stained with the blood and suffering of thousands, and even Father Time can’t change that brutal fact.
The Spider Monkey has screamed for the last time. Americans can sleep tonight secure in the knowledge that the sands of time are finally running out on the worst president in U.S. history.
Monday, January 28, 2008
WHAT PASSES FOR DEBATE
Covered with slime
They boast of their purity
Lay waste to the Truth
Slime puddles at their feet
Eddies and runs off
Contaminates everything and everyone it touches
Truth is easier found in a traveling circus
Among the lion tamers and fire-eaters
The toothless ex-con who minds the elephants
The bearded lady and the midget with two heads
They want us to believe that a savior can rise
From the swamp
But though pots of gold are spent to create and sustain the illusion
The guise falls away on close inspection
And every four years the people must choose
Between the lesser of two evils
They boast of their purity
Lay waste to the Truth
Slime puddles at their feet
Eddies and runs off
Contaminates everything and everyone it touches
Truth is easier found in a traveling circus
Among the lion tamers and fire-eaters
The toothless ex-con who minds the elephants
The bearded lady and the midget with two heads
They want us to believe that a savior can rise
From the swamp
But though pots of gold are spent to create and sustain the illusion
The guise falls away on close inspection
And every four years the people must choose
Between the lesser of two evils
Sunday, January 20, 2008
BORROWED MONEY, BLEEDING FINGERS
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
-Bob Dylan
When the clouds won’t rain and the sun won’t shine, Bob Dylan is as good a source of truth and light as a man can find.
Indeed. It’s a dim, cold day in America when the only way to get an accurate sense of your own country is by reading the foreign press. The Brits, French, Aussies and Japanese are a helluva lot more insightful and accurate about the shithole that America is wallowing in than any of our homegrown “journalists.” Sweet Jesus, three minutes of Diane Sawyer on any given morning is enough to make me wish I was the registered owner of a .357.
When was the last time the country was in a funk this deep? In the late 1970’s maybe, particularly after angry Iranians took fifty-odd Americans hostage in the US Embassy in Teheran, and refused to release them despite saber-rattling from Jimmy Carter and threats from the international community. The Japanese were whipping our asses in the economic arena; we couldn’t deter the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan.
The world pushed back against American power and dominance, and America buckled, like a boxer caught with a straight right to the solar plexus.
That was then. Plenty of raw sewage has flowed over the dam since. Ronald Reagan rode in on his white stallion and declared that it was still morning in America, and that we had nothing to fear but faint-hearted liberals, feminists, queers, pot-smokers, atheists and Communists. For Ronald Reagan, America’s official uncle, the sun was always shining and glory lay just over the horizon.
It’s all different now. At the start of the Reagan era it was the world pushing back, this time we bleed from self-inflicted wounds, seven years of Bush-Cheney and the collective attention span of a three-year-old. Some examples:
Coinciding curiously with the Presidential election season, the failed Occupation of Iraq appears to have fallen off the media radar, as if life in Iraq has returned to normal along with millions of refugees, as if Sunnis and Shiites are holding hands and singing the Iraqi equivalent of Kumbaya, as if American soldiers are patrolling the streets and avenues without weapons and body armor.
As our economy heads south, the major Presidential candidates have begun to take notice, though when they talk about what can be done to steer the economy away from the cliff edge, they don’t talk about Iraq and the effect the massive cost of the Occupation has on the US economy. Dear Guys and Gals, in case you didn’t know, we’re paying for our wars with money borrowed from foreigners. That debt must be serviced year after year after year, meaning there will be fewer dollars available to do important things here at home.
Dennis Kucinich gets the linkage between guns and butter and the difficulty Empires have always had providing both. Kucinich is the only candidate who unequivocally calls for an immediate end to the Occupation, for scrapping the Patriot Act and impeaching Bush & Cheney for crimes against the Constitution. These ideas are too radical for NBC, which unilaterally decided recently that Kucinich didn’t meet its “criteria” to be invited to a Democratic debate. Excuse me, but is this a democracy or not, and who the fuck is NBC to decide which candidates should or should not be allowed to debate? Whether NBC approves or not, Kucinich is in the race; he may be a “fringe” candidate without a prayer of winning the Democratic nomination, but he has a point of view that voters should be allowed to hear. Frankly, I’d rather listen to Kucinich than status quo candidates like Clinton or Obama who think change will happen if they just keep repeating the word.
Americans are finally coming to grasp what the rest of the world has known for years: human behavior is altering the global climate in ways that carry frightening implications for the future of life on this planet. Of course, in our typical infantile way, we think we can “consume” our way out of trouble by buying “green” products and recycling more beer cans. We’re all for saving the environment – as long as we don’t have to give up our SUV’s or McMansions – and heaven forbid that American corporations forfeit a dime in profit.
More media attention is given to Brittney Spears’s mental confusion and child custody battles than to serious, thoughtful, logical and informed discussion of the Iraq Occupation, the plight of American workers, energy policy, and the role the Federal government must play in slowing down the real dangers of climate change.
Dylan was right, as usual: “It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
-Bob Dylan
When the clouds won’t rain and the sun won’t shine, Bob Dylan is as good a source of truth and light as a man can find.
Indeed. It’s a dim, cold day in America when the only way to get an accurate sense of your own country is by reading the foreign press. The Brits, French, Aussies and Japanese are a helluva lot more insightful and accurate about the shithole that America is wallowing in than any of our homegrown “journalists.” Sweet Jesus, three minutes of Diane Sawyer on any given morning is enough to make me wish I was the registered owner of a .357.
When was the last time the country was in a funk this deep? In the late 1970’s maybe, particularly after angry Iranians took fifty-odd Americans hostage in the US Embassy in Teheran, and refused to release them despite saber-rattling from Jimmy Carter and threats from the international community. The Japanese were whipping our asses in the economic arena; we couldn’t deter the Soviet Union from invading Afghanistan.
The world pushed back against American power and dominance, and America buckled, like a boxer caught with a straight right to the solar plexus.
That was then. Plenty of raw sewage has flowed over the dam since. Ronald Reagan rode in on his white stallion and declared that it was still morning in America, and that we had nothing to fear but faint-hearted liberals, feminists, queers, pot-smokers, atheists and Communists. For Ronald Reagan, America’s official uncle, the sun was always shining and glory lay just over the horizon.
It’s all different now. At the start of the Reagan era it was the world pushing back, this time we bleed from self-inflicted wounds, seven years of Bush-Cheney and the collective attention span of a three-year-old. Some examples:
Coinciding curiously with the Presidential election season, the failed Occupation of Iraq appears to have fallen off the media radar, as if life in Iraq has returned to normal along with millions of refugees, as if Sunnis and Shiites are holding hands and singing the Iraqi equivalent of Kumbaya, as if American soldiers are patrolling the streets and avenues without weapons and body armor.
As our economy heads south, the major Presidential candidates have begun to take notice, though when they talk about what can be done to steer the economy away from the cliff edge, they don’t talk about Iraq and the effect the massive cost of the Occupation has on the US economy. Dear Guys and Gals, in case you didn’t know, we’re paying for our wars with money borrowed from foreigners. That debt must be serviced year after year after year, meaning there will be fewer dollars available to do important things here at home.
Dennis Kucinich gets the linkage between guns and butter and the difficulty Empires have always had providing both. Kucinich is the only candidate who unequivocally calls for an immediate end to the Occupation, for scrapping the Patriot Act and impeaching Bush & Cheney for crimes against the Constitution. These ideas are too radical for NBC, which unilaterally decided recently that Kucinich didn’t meet its “criteria” to be invited to a Democratic debate. Excuse me, but is this a democracy or not, and who the fuck is NBC to decide which candidates should or should not be allowed to debate? Whether NBC approves or not, Kucinich is in the race; he may be a “fringe” candidate without a prayer of winning the Democratic nomination, but he has a point of view that voters should be allowed to hear. Frankly, I’d rather listen to Kucinich than status quo candidates like Clinton or Obama who think change will happen if they just keep repeating the word.
Americans are finally coming to grasp what the rest of the world has known for years: human behavior is altering the global climate in ways that carry frightening implications for the future of life on this planet. Of course, in our typical infantile way, we think we can “consume” our way out of trouble by buying “green” products and recycling more beer cans. We’re all for saving the environment – as long as we don’t have to give up our SUV’s or McMansions – and heaven forbid that American corporations forfeit a dime in profit.
More media attention is given to Brittney Spears’s mental confusion and child custody battles than to serious, thoughtful, logical and informed discussion of the Iraq Occupation, the plight of American workers, energy policy, and the role the Federal government must play in slowing down the real dangers of climate change.
Dylan was right, as usual: “It’s alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)”
Monday, January 14, 2008
HANG IT ON DUTCH
Governor Schwarzenegger made it official earlier this week: the Golden State is going bust, with a gaping budget hole in the lofty neighborhood of $14 billion. That’s not chump change. About the only place you can find that kind of dough is in the casino safe of your local Indian reservation. There’s historical justice to that, but it’s a story for another day.
The sub-prime mortgage scandal is partly to blame for dragging the Golden State down like a 20-ton anchor. The mainstream press doesn’t describe it in those terms, but in my mind, the real estate bubble that was stimulated by Federal monetary policy, and exploited by creative, greedy and under-regulated lenders, along with buyers eager to get in on the boom, even if they couldn’t afford it, amounts to a first-rate scandal and as the effects sweep across the state, bleed into practically every economic sector, scandal seems the only appropriate word to describe it.
When the pain becomes widespread enough, maybe drags down some of the New Rich who up to now have tapped their sudden paper wealth to spend lavishly on luxury vehicles, jewelry, designer clothing, $100 hamburgers, and first-class hotel suites in Fiji, Las Vegas, Athens and Monte Carlo, people will look for someone or something to blame.
I’ve already found my target: the seed of the mortgage meltdown was planted when Dutch Reagan occupied the White House.
Remember your history? It was Reagan who declared that “Big Government” was our problem, the root of all evil -- an impediment to entrepreneurial zeal, an obstacle to innovation, freedom, clear skin and lustrous hair. Shove Big Government out of the way, Reagan crooned, and the genius of America would be released for the benefit of every man, woman and child, black, brown or white, urban or rural.
Under Dutch Reagan, the regulatory framework that was designed to balance the interests of business and the public began to tilt decidedly in favor of the former. Trust the wisdom of the free market, the Reagan line went, and government oversight is unnecessary. If we just believed, markets would regulate themselves with wisdom as true as Solomon’s.
And moss would grow in the Sahara, armadillos would sprout wings and soar over the Texas Panhandle, the Chicago Cubs would capture five World Series titles in a row, and, of course, social ills such as racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, child abuse, and illiteracy would vanish from the American landscape forever. The Market Myth as related by Dutch Reagan in his dulcet voice elevated business tycoons and Wall Street gamblers to sainthood. Greed bowled over fairness and became our prevailing ethos. All we had to do was make it rain for the rich, the daring, and the strong, and the water would flow for everyone.
Right. In fact, the good, clear water flowed overwhelmingly to those who were not thirsty, creating a huge disparity of wealth in a country that once prided itself on the width and depth of its middle-class. Dutch and Co. let the mad dogs of Capital and Finance off the leash and the rest is history: unions neutered, wages for working folks flat or regressing, jobs shipped to China, employee benefits slashed or eliminated altogether, simultaneous foreign wars and tax cuts, and mortgage lending practices that abandoned every sound business principle known to the civilized world.
Ideology did us in. Reagan’s cheery patter and easy platitudes became religion, and any politician who spoke against the Reagan line was branded a heretic. Big Corporate money flowed to the Republicans who used it to buy the media, fund think tanks, keep the Democrats cowed and, more importantly, out of power. The political class learned to toe that Reagan line, even when it became clear that “trickle-down” economics really was nothing more than voodoo.
Don’t believe it? It’s the reason you hear the Republican GOP candidates trying to ignore reality and wrap themselves in Reagan’s cloak; it’s the reason Democrats cut deals with health insurance companies instead of proposing true universal health care for all Americans.
And it’s the reason Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swears he can balance the California budget without a tax increase. If that sounds like something you might hear Hillary Clinton say, well, there you have it.
The sub-prime mortgage scandal is partly to blame for dragging the Golden State down like a 20-ton anchor. The mainstream press doesn’t describe it in those terms, but in my mind, the real estate bubble that was stimulated by Federal monetary policy, and exploited by creative, greedy and under-regulated lenders, along with buyers eager to get in on the boom, even if they couldn’t afford it, amounts to a first-rate scandal and as the effects sweep across the state, bleed into practically every economic sector, scandal seems the only appropriate word to describe it.
When the pain becomes widespread enough, maybe drags down some of the New Rich who up to now have tapped their sudden paper wealth to spend lavishly on luxury vehicles, jewelry, designer clothing, $100 hamburgers, and first-class hotel suites in Fiji, Las Vegas, Athens and Monte Carlo, people will look for someone or something to blame.
I’ve already found my target: the seed of the mortgage meltdown was planted when Dutch Reagan occupied the White House.
Remember your history? It was Reagan who declared that “Big Government” was our problem, the root of all evil -- an impediment to entrepreneurial zeal, an obstacle to innovation, freedom, clear skin and lustrous hair. Shove Big Government out of the way, Reagan crooned, and the genius of America would be released for the benefit of every man, woman and child, black, brown or white, urban or rural.
Under Dutch Reagan, the regulatory framework that was designed to balance the interests of business and the public began to tilt decidedly in favor of the former. Trust the wisdom of the free market, the Reagan line went, and government oversight is unnecessary. If we just believed, markets would regulate themselves with wisdom as true as Solomon’s.
And moss would grow in the Sahara, armadillos would sprout wings and soar over the Texas Panhandle, the Chicago Cubs would capture five World Series titles in a row, and, of course, social ills such as racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, child abuse, and illiteracy would vanish from the American landscape forever. The Market Myth as related by Dutch Reagan in his dulcet voice elevated business tycoons and Wall Street gamblers to sainthood. Greed bowled over fairness and became our prevailing ethos. All we had to do was make it rain for the rich, the daring, and the strong, and the water would flow for everyone.
Right. In fact, the good, clear water flowed overwhelmingly to those who were not thirsty, creating a huge disparity of wealth in a country that once prided itself on the width and depth of its middle-class. Dutch and Co. let the mad dogs of Capital and Finance off the leash and the rest is history: unions neutered, wages for working folks flat or regressing, jobs shipped to China, employee benefits slashed or eliminated altogether, simultaneous foreign wars and tax cuts, and mortgage lending practices that abandoned every sound business principle known to the civilized world.
Ideology did us in. Reagan’s cheery patter and easy platitudes became religion, and any politician who spoke against the Reagan line was branded a heretic. Big Corporate money flowed to the Republicans who used it to buy the media, fund think tanks, keep the Democrats cowed and, more importantly, out of power. The political class learned to toe that Reagan line, even when it became clear that “trickle-down” economics really was nothing more than voodoo.
Don’t believe it? It’s the reason you hear the Republican GOP candidates trying to ignore reality and wrap themselves in Reagan’s cloak; it’s the reason Democrats cut deals with health insurance companies instead of proposing true universal health care for all Americans.
And it’s the reason Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger swears he can balance the California budget without a tax increase. If that sounds like something you might hear Hillary Clinton say, well, there you have it.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Sound of Glass Shattering
School board member Robert Noel was up to his old tricks in last Sunday’s Santa Barbara News-Press, cataloging the many failures of the Santa Barbara School District – from faulty budgeting to lagging test scores, and practically everything in between.
Who is Dr. Bob referring to when he maligns the “District?” Is he talking about Superintendent Sarvis, one of the Assistant Superintendents, the Director of Special Education, the receptionist or the night custodian?
Dr. Bob made one or two references to moral leadership, but if Noel is so big on the concept, why doesn’t he exercise one of the most conspicuous traits of exceptional leaders – honesty – and come right out and name names?
Because here’s the thing, I work at the District office and have a vested interest in knowing who’s responsible for our woes and shortcomings. (I have a few notions of my own, but if Dr. Noel has the definitive answer I wish he’d share, because I for one do not enjoy working my tail off for a losing team.) Like many of my colleagues, I take my role as a public school employee seriously, and remind myself every day that taxpayers pay my salary and that fact confers on me a special responsibility. I may not always succeed, but giving the taxpayers value for their money is my lodestar.
But according to Dr. Bob, the “District,” and I guess that includes me, is a seething hive of incompetents, liars, spin-meisters and failures. To put it more colloquially, we suck.
Ironically, I happen to like Dr. Bob and think his contrarian views serve an important purpose on the school board. Dissent is as American as the Federalist papers Dr. Bob frequently quotes and -- more often than not -- Dr. Bob’s is the lone dissenting voice in an otherwise unanimous chorus. I enjoy informed debate and believe that the sound of ideas bouncing and ricocheting off one another stirs the blood, energizes the mind and makes progress possible.
Much of Dr. Bob’s editorial is, unfortunately, true: last year’s budget process was a joke and an embarrassment. For months we were dirt poor, scraping for pennies; then we were inexplicably awash in money; then the money started bleeding away; now it appears that the District is again headed for lean days, with a rising tide of crimson ink. Dr. Bob is right to be contemptuous – the public deserves better from us, but let’s not forget that it was Dr. Bob and his fellow board members who signed off on hiring decisions that put a couple of fiscal knuckleheads in key positions. It was also Dr. Bob and his board colleagues who extended Superintendent Sarvis’s contract before it was due to expire, giving the man lifetime medical benefits and a pay hike at a time when the District was imploding and the aforementioned test scores were plummeting.
Which begs the question: if the District is so fouled up, why isn’t the Superintendent’s job on the line?
What say ye about that, Dr. Bob? You can’t sit on the dais and cast votes for policies and programs and personnel, and then act like you had nothing to do with it when the decisions you green-lighted go south. That’s hypocrisy, and moral leaders don’t become moral leaders by acting hypocritically.
One problem with Institutions in general -- and the school District in particular -- is a lack of accountability and a perverse tolerance for mediocrity. When flies get in the ointment and gum up the works, nobody is called to task; nobody gets their asshole reamed in a way that sends a distinct message that allowing flies to get in the ointment again will not be tolerated. Instead of dragging the culprit out to the courtyard for a very public flogging, excuses are made, fingers are pointed, shoulders are shrugged. Consequently, the idea that mediocrity is acceptable gets reinforced.
And that’s no way to run a railroad -- or a school district.
On the other hand, when Dr. Bob gets an urge to load up his slingshot and fire stones at our glass house, I wish he’d take aim at specific windows rather than scattershot the entire building.
Who is Dr. Bob referring to when he maligns the “District?” Is he talking about Superintendent Sarvis, one of the Assistant Superintendents, the Director of Special Education, the receptionist or the night custodian?
Dr. Bob made one or two references to moral leadership, but if Noel is so big on the concept, why doesn’t he exercise one of the most conspicuous traits of exceptional leaders – honesty – and come right out and name names?
Because here’s the thing, I work at the District office and have a vested interest in knowing who’s responsible for our woes and shortcomings. (I have a few notions of my own, but if Dr. Noel has the definitive answer I wish he’d share, because I for one do not enjoy working my tail off for a losing team.) Like many of my colleagues, I take my role as a public school employee seriously, and remind myself every day that taxpayers pay my salary and that fact confers on me a special responsibility. I may not always succeed, but giving the taxpayers value for their money is my lodestar.
But according to Dr. Bob, the “District,” and I guess that includes me, is a seething hive of incompetents, liars, spin-meisters and failures. To put it more colloquially, we suck.
Ironically, I happen to like Dr. Bob and think his contrarian views serve an important purpose on the school board. Dissent is as American as the Federalist papers Dr. Bob frequently quotes and -- more often than not -- Dr. Bob’s is the lone dissenting voice in an otherwise unanimous chorus. I enjoy informed debate and believe that the sound of ideas bouncing and ricocheting off one another stirs the blood, energizes the mind and makes progress possible.
Much of Dr. Bob’s editorial is, unfortunately, true: last year’s budget process was a joke and an embarrassment. For months we were dirt poor, scraping for pennies; then we were inexplicably awash in money; then the money started bleeding away; now it appears that the District is again headed for lean days, with a rising tide of crimson ink. Dr. Bob is right to be contemptuous – the public deserves better from us, but let’s not forget that it was Dr. Bob and his fellow board members who signed off on hiring decisions that put a couple of fiscal knuckleheads in key positions. It was also Dr. Bob and his board colleagues who extended Superintendent Sarvis’s contract before it was due to expire, giving the man lifetime medical benefits and a pay hike at a time when the District was imploding and the aforementioned test scores were plummeting.
Which begs the question: if the District is so fouled up, why isn’t the Superintendent’s job on the line?
What say ye about that, Dr. Bob? You can’t sit on the dais and cast votes for policies and programs and personnel, and then act like you had nothing to do with it when the decisions you green-lighted go south. That’s hypocrisy, and moral leaders don’t become moral leaders by acting hypocritically.
One problem with Institutions in general -- and the school District in particular -- is a lack of accountability and a perverse tolerance for mediocrity. When flies get in the ointment and gum up the works, nobody is called to task; nobody gets their asshole reamed in a way that sends a distinct message that allowing flies to get in the ointment again will not be tolerated. Instead of dragging the culprit out to the courtyard for a very public flogging, excuses are made, fingers are pointed, shoulders are shrugged. Consequently, the idea that mediocrity is acceptable gets reinforced.
And that’s no way to run a railroad -- or a school district.
On the other hand, when Dr. Bob gets an urge to load up his slingshot and fire stones at our glass house, I wish he’d take aim at specific windows rather than scattershot the entire building.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
SUNDAY MORNING BLUES
Sunday morning and the Tube is all magic weight loss programs, slick Bible thumpers, and presidential aspirants. I don’t know which is more sickening.
The weight loss programs all promise miracles without a drop of sweat.
The new breed of TV preachers are multimedia-savvy and boast frosted hair, tanning bed tans, and startling white teeth. They’ve got the words of the Bible on their lips and naked greed in their hearts, and when they look out on their congregations, they don’t see a flock in need of spiritual ministering, they see customers for books and DVD’s, they see donors, and they see fools.
And maybe it’s the same with the ho-hum crop of women and men with the arrogance to think that they have the answers to America’s many woes. Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, et al. They argue among themselves, split hairs and mince words, hold moistened fingers to the political breeze, boast of their intimate relationship with the Almighty, their steely nerve, their willingness to drop heavy ordnance in remote places. They talk about “change,” as if the word alone means anything at all. Change from what, change to what? From bad to worse, from terrible to tolerable, from water-boarding to pulling out fingernails with needle-nose pliers?
They dash from the snow and ice of Iowa to the snow and ice of New Hampshire, knock on doors, walk sidewalks, make speeches. It’s all scripted and rehearsed and devoid of soul, designed only for fifteen seconds on CNN; it’s the status quo on parade, a circus freak show, fodder for the great corporate media machine, that ravenous, salivating 24-hour beast. Obama inspires hope the talking heads say, but hope in what? In an America that never was? Huckabee plays his bass guitar and says he alone stands for Change, but even a dead ling cod wrapped in newspaper and deposited on the steps of the White House would represent a change from the twisted Bush years.
We set the bar so low that any fool can leap over it. Hillary tries to convince us that she’s not a controlling, ball-busting shrew, but all her furious fund-raising and corporate pandering can’t win her Iowa. Huckabee’s got the Big Mo, Obama might be unstoppable, but what has that got to do with the price of gasoline in San Francisco? Or the price of bread in Mobile? Or whether or not a grandmother in Grand Rapids will be able to afford her heart medication?
Sunday morning with fat-busting miracles, the word of God from sugary lips, and the brain-dead patter of would be rulers. It’s enough to make a man hang his head over the toilet and puke.
The weight loss programs all promise miracles without a drop of sweat.
The new breed of TV preachers are multimedia-savvy and boast frosted hair, tanning bed tans, and startling white teeth. They’ve got the words of the Bible on their lips and naked greed in their hearts, and when they look out on their congregations, they don’t see a flock in need of spiritual ministering, they see customers for books and DVD’s, they see donors, and they see fools.
And maybe it’s the same with the ho-hum crop of women and men with the arrogance to think that they have the answers to America’s many woes. Clinton, Obama, McCain, Huckabee, et al. They argue among themselves, split hairs and mince words, hold moistened fingers to the political breeze, boast of their intimate relationship with the Almighty, their steely nerve, their willingness to drop heavy ordnance in remote places. They talk about “change,” as if the word alone means anything at all. Change from what, change to what? From bad to worse, from terrible to tolerable, from water-boarding to pulling out fingernails with needle-nose pliers?
They dash from the snow and ice of Iowa to the snow and ice of New Hampshire, knock on doors, walk sidewalks, make speeches. It’s all scripted and rehearsed and devoid of soul, designed only for fifteen seconds on CNN; it’s the status quo on parade, a circus freak show, fodder for the great corporate media machine, that ravenous, salivating 24-hour beast. Obama inspires hope the talking heads say, but hope in what? In an America that never was? Huckabee plays his bass guitar and says he alone stands for Change, but even a dead ling cod wrapped in newspaper and deposited on the steps of the White House would represent a change from the twisted Bush years.
We set the bar so low that any fool can leap over it. Hillary tries to convince us that she’s not a controlling, ball-busting shrew, but all her furious fund-raising and corporate pandering can’t win her Iowa. Huckabee’s got the Big Mo, Obama might be unstoppable, but what has that got to do with the price of gasoline in San Francisco? Or the price of bread in Mobile? Or whether or not a grandmother in Grand Rapids will be able to afford her heart medication?
Sunday morning with fat-busting miracles, the word of God from sugary lips, and the brain-dead patter of would be rulers. It’s enough to make a man hang his head over the toilet and puke.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Poem - The Worst Scandal Ever
Remember the most famous BJ in U.S. history?
Monica working on Bill in the Oval Office
That simpler time, way back when
Before Bush, before 9/11
The press fulminated
Blathered
Salivated like a famished dog over a slab of raw liver
Hillary called it a “vast right-wing conspiracy”
Kenneth Starr snooped in the Arkansas woods
And White House trash cans
Monica, 24-7
Monica, where are you tonight?
Monica, where is that dress?
Isn’t it nice that we’ve grown up
Moved on
Evolved
Turned the page on a new day:
Water-boarding
Guantanamo
Abu Ghraib
Extraordinary rendition
Invasion and Occupation
Domestic spying
Rumsfeld
Cheney
Scooter
Rove
Alberto G
Members of the Bush syndicate
The gang
The junta of disregard
McGwire
Sosa
Lewinsky!
Remember?
Remember the BJ and the vanishing cigar?
It was the worst scandal ever
Monica working on Bill in the Oval Office
That simpler time, way back when
Before Bush, before 9/11
The press fulminated
Blathered
Salivated like a famished dog over a slab of raw liver
Hillary called it a “vast right-wing conspiracy”
Kenneth Starr snooped in the Arkansas woods
And White House trash cans
Monica, 24-7
Monica, where are you tonight?
Monica, where is that dress?
Isn’t it nice that we’ve grown up
Moved on
Evolved
Turned the page on a new day:
Water-boarding
Guantanamo
Abu Ghraib
Extraordinary rendition
Invasion and Occupation
Domestic spying
Rumsfeld
Cheney
Scooter
Rove
Alberto G
Members of the Bush syndicate
The gang
The junta of disregard
McGwire
Sosa
Lewinsky!
Remember?
Remember the BJ and the vanishing cigar?
It was the worst scandal ever
Thursday, December 27, 2007
An Angry Man
I lined up to buy a recycled dream, stood behind an old man who out of nowhere
said he marched with Joe Hill and was there the day Joe was executed.
He was old, but not that old.
“Bastards,” he spat, edging his way forward in battered Army surplus boots, a once proud coat and a sweat-stained Yankees cap. “Bastards.”
He was unshaven and weathered, though his hazel eyes were as clear as a prophet’s. He moved with a slight limp and clutched a plastic shopping bag with fingers that had seen their share of labor.
“We’ve lost our way,” he said. “We’re in the wilderness and nobody knows a damn thing about the woods. What good’s a man if he can’t remember where he’s from?”
Shoes shuffled on the concrete, the line moved forward by inches, voices murmured in English and Spanish, Korean, Chinese. A truck backfired in the street; several men ducked instinctively.
“You know what they did? They beat the fight out of us, little by little. I always say that people with short memories don’t stand a chance.”
He was angry now, clenching and unclenching his right fist; I didn’t know what he was talking about – I just wanted one recycled dream to hold for another day.
The line moved.
Joe Hill wasn’t standing with us, neither was Tom Joad or Eugene Debs; the ghost of Lenin was nowhere to be seen, and even if Lenin appeared, how many in this crowd would recognize him?
What did these castoffs know – or care -- of dead icons, dead saints, dead revolutionaries, dead agitators? They teetered daily at the edge of the abyss.
“Dynamite and a bottle of whiskey,” the man said. “No other way to fix things now. When it’s this far gone the only way to rebuild it is to destroy it. I’m tired of hauling these chains around, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“They got genius, I give ‘em that. They took over the world without firing a single shot.”
He suddenly took hold of my wrist with a grip surprisingly strong.
“Listen like your life depends on it, son. I won’t live to see it, but you might, if you’re willing to bleed -- and remember. But you have to ask yourself, am I willing?”
With that he turned and walked away, no longer limping, across the street against a red light, gone.
Live to see what?
I reached the head of the line. A young woman in a blue business suit smiled as she informed me that the last recycled dream had just been sold. She had white teeth, lustrous hair, and she smelled good; her parents were proud of her; she was somebody’s girl; she meant no harm, but still I wanted to strangle her for her easy indifference to my need – for all the ignored needs piled against the gates of heaven; for all the greed and cruelty and stupidity and pain in the world. She wasn’t responsible but her lovely neck was within reach.
I hurried after the old man. There were plenty of broken dreams to be had, but not nearly enough angry men.
said he marched with Joe Hill and was there the day Joe was executed.
He was old, but not that old.
“Bastards,” he spat, edging his way forward in battered Army surplus boots, a once proud coat and a sweat-stained Yankees cap. “Bastards.”
He was unshaven and weathered, though his hazel eyes were as clear as a prophet’s. He moved with a slight limp and clutched a plastic shopping bag with fingers that had seen their share of labor.
“We’ve lost our way,” he said. “We’re in the wilderness and nobody knows a damn thing about the woods. What good’s a man if he can’t remember where he’s from?”
Shoes shuffled on the concrete, the line moved forward by inches, voices murmured in English and Spanish, Korean, Chinese. A truck backfired in the street; several men ducked instinctively.
“You know what they did? They beat the fight out of us, little by little. I always say that people with short memories don’t stand a chance.”
He was angry now, clenching and unclenching his right fist; I didn’t know what he was talking about – I just wanted one recycled dream to hold for another day.
The line moved.
Joe Hill wasn’t standing with us, neither was Tom Joad or Eugene Debs; the ghost of Lenin was nowhere to be seen, and even if Lenin appeared, how many in this crowd would recognize him?
What did these castoffs know – or care -- of dead icons, dead saints, dead revolutionaries, dead agitators? They teetered daily at the edge of the abyss.
“Dynamite and a bottle of whiskey,” the man said. “No other way to fix things now. When it’s this far gone the only way to rebuild it is to destroy it. I’m tired of hauling these chains around, ain’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sure.”
“They got genius, I give ‘em that. They took over the world without firing a single shot.”
He suddenly took hold of my wrist with a grip surprisingly strong.
“Listen like your life depends on it, son. I won’t live to see it, but you might, if you’re willing to bleed -- and remember. But you have to ask yourself, am I willing?”
With that he turned and walked away, no longer limping, across the street against a red light, gone.
Live to see what?
I reached the head of the line. A young woman in a blue business suit smiled as she informed me that the last recycled dream had just been sold. She had white teeth, lustrous hair, and she smelled good; her parents were proud of her; she was somebody’s girl; she meant no harm, but still I wanted to strangle her for her easy indifference to my need – for all the ignored needs piled against the gates of heaven; for all the greed and cruelty and stupidity and pain in the world. She wasn’t responsible but her lovely neck was within reach.
I hurried after the old man. There were plenty of broken dreams to be had, but not nearly enough angry men.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
POEM - THE NEXT MOMENT
Tonight I won’t think about the state of the world
or what George W. Bush has done to my country
the poor people of New Orleans
thousands of innocent Iraqis
I will listen to Coltrane and finish this beer
look into my son’s eyes, hear my daughter’s laughter
feel my wife’s hand on my shoulder
Wild flowers grow in unlikely places
weeds conquer cement
poppies defy the odds
tumbleweeds are destined to roll
To find happiness in an unhappy world
to experience peace in the midst of war
to laugh when everyone else is crying
to find calm when everyone else is hysterical
you’ve got to be a comedian, a simpleton or a sage
I can’t stop Bush from acting the fool
change human nature
all I can do is make a choice
about how the next moment
unfolds
or what George W. Bush has done to my country
the poor people of New Orleans
thousands of innocent Iraqis
I will listen to Coltrane and finish this beer
look into my son’s eyes, hear my daughter’s laughter
feel my wife’s hand on my shoulder
Wild flowers grow in unlikely places
weeds conquer cement
poppies defy the odds
tumbleweeds are destined to roll
To find happiness in an unhappy world
to experience peace in the midst of war
to laugh when everyone else is crying
to find calm when everyone else is hysterical
you’ve got to be a comedian, a simpleton or a sage
I can’t stop Bush from acting the fool
change human nature
all I can do is make a choice
about how the next moment
unfolds
Saturday, December 22, 2007
XMAS AT WAL-MART
It’s Christmas-time at Wal-Mart
bargains in the aisles, on the shelves
brought to you by global capitalism
“Save money. Live better.”
Don’t ask how the trinkets are made
don’t lose sleep over the exploitation of unseen peasants
believe it’s all for the good of women
and children, dislocated farmers
whose labor turns the golden wheel
for the money changers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
Tokyo, London
“Save money. Live better.”
Pile your cart high
with goodies
Made in China
The labels scream
Made in China
Factory of the world
Made in China
Home of the Communist capitalists
They’ve taken title to our soul, own us lock, stock,
barrels stacked higher than Washington’s
Monument
Don’t ask why it’s seven years since your last pay raise,
why you can’t afford to fix your teeth,
visit the doctor,
fill your tank with gasoline,
make the mortgage,
or send your deserving daughter to college
It was you and many like you who bought
one-way tickets to the end of the line,
slipped a comfortable noose around your own necks
You fell for the lie and the myth,
The short straw,
The hook, the line, and the sinker
Swallowed it and gagged on it
Don’t ask who stuck the dagger in the aorta
of the American Dream,
unless you’re willing to look long in the mirror
Are you living better?
bargains in the aisles, on the shelves
brought to you by global capitalism
“Save money. Live better.”
Don’t ask how the trinkets are made
don’t lose sleep over the exploitation of unseen peasants
believe it’s all for the good of women
and children, dislocated farmers
whose labor turns the golden wheel
for the money changers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
Tokyo, London
“Save money. Live better.”
Pile your cart high
with goodies
Made in China
The labels scream
Made in China
Factory of the world
Made in China
Home of the Communist capitalists
They’ve taken title to our soul, own us lock, stock,
barrels stacked higher than Washington’s
Monument
Don’t ask why it’s seven years since your last pay raise,
why you can’t afford to fix your teeth,
visit the doctor,
fill your tank with gasoline,
make the mortgage,
or send your deserving daughter to college
It was you and many like you who bought
one-way tickets to the end of the line,
slipped a comfortable noose around your own necks
You fell for the lie and the myth,
The short straw,
The hook, the line, and the sinker
Swallowed it and gagged on it
Don’t ask who stuck the dagger in the aorta
of the American Dream,
unless you’re willing to look long in the mirror
Are you living better?
Friday, December 14, 2007
Poem - Dogma
This woman wrote me a Christmas letter
Lamenting the frenzy of modern life
Our lack of time to sit and read the Bible
Connect with our divinity
She claimed that her Lord & Savior gave her peace
And that the Bible gave her wisdom
OK, nothing wrong with that
Nothing wrong about the Bible either;
As a story it has all the elements – intrigue, murder, sex,
betrayal, heroism, hope, infidelity, cruelty –
Of a thriller one might read at the seashore on a summer’s
Afternoon
I come by my religious skepticism honestly
After many years of reading and reflection;
You believe what you want to believe –
Water into wine, the Virgin Birth, resurrection,
Loaves into fishes or the burning bush –
I won’t interfere with your right to go your way
While I go mine
But well-meaning lady, I resent anyone who tries to jam
Their religious dogma up my skeptical ass
Don’t proselytize on my doorstep or threaten me with
Damnation
Because when death calls, and we’re stripped down
Your God won’t be of any more help to you
Than my doubt will be to me
Lamenting the frenzy of modern life
Our lack of time to sit and read the Bible
Connect with our divinity
She claimed that her Lord & Savior gave her peace
And that the Bible gave her wisdom
OK, nothing wrong with that
Nothing wrong about the Bible either;
As a story it has all the elements – intrigue, murder, sex,
betrayal, heroism, hope, infidelity, cruelty –
Of a thriller one might read at the seashore on a summer’s
Afternoon
I come by my religious skepticism honestly
After many years of reading and reflection;
You believe what you want to believe –
Water into wine, the Virgin Birth, resurrection,
Loaves into fishes or the burning bush –
I won’t interfere with your right to go your way
While I go mine
But well-meaning lady, I resent anyone who tries to jam
Their religious dogma up my skeptical ass
Don’t proselytize on my doorstep or threaten me with
Damnation
Because when death calls, and we’re stripped down
Your God won’t be of any more help to you
Than my doubt will be to me
Monday, December 10, 2007
POEM - MADNESS
Electric shock therapy, blue pills in white cups, every patient talking at once, screaming to the heavens, dodging invisible bullets, running down polished corridors under yellow fluorescent lights, doctors and nurses armed with syringes in pursuit, pomegranate seeds and banana peels stuck on the ceiling from ancient food fights, names and dates and slogans and threats etched into the white walls, madness from top to bottom – in the stairwells and linen closets and bathrooms, in the attic, in the basement, in the boiler room, in the dining hall, in the dayroom, at the bottom of the elevator shaft – madness of every description and degree, madness impervious to therapy, pharmacology or prayer, madness behind every pair of eyes, madness in the cheap seats, madness courtside, madness wallowing in madness, madness copulating on a long winter’s afternoon, madness embracing, madness holding hands, madness on the billboards and piped in on the radio, madness cloaked in a bishop’s robe, madness in the pulpit, madness in the pew, madness winking behind the Presidential Seal, madness on Mount Rushmore and down Wall Street canyons, madness bottled and sold, madness in the aisles at Wal-Mart, madness balanced on a winter wave, join the madness, embrace the madness, French kiss the madness, adopt the madness – nurture the madness in your own mad soul.
Friday, November 30, 2007
NEW DAY, SAME OLD NEWS
I keep waiting for some uplifting news out of Washington, but every day it’s the same lukewarm gruel. The Democratic presidential hopefuls debate and the affair is useless and stupid; the candidates should be talking about income inequality and universal health care, but instead the “big” names spar over driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. The Republican candidates follow with an equally pitiful showing; they sputter about “moral” values when the leader of their party is the most corrupt and immoral man ever to occupy the Oval Office.
Thomas Jefferson sitting in a room silent and alone was ten times more interesting than any of these so-called political “leaders.”
Our Democracy is tattered and torn and discredited, though the spin masters in the media keep force-feeding us American myths, lies, and legends. Meanwhile, real news is happening, like the fact that President Bush is trying to strike a deal with the Iraqi government, such as it is, that will insure a permanent US presence in Iraq – with military installations and troops to protect Iraq’s oil reserves and infrastructure. Bush claims that the US needs to be in Iraq as a bulwark against Iran, but then, Bush compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler, and insisted that Iraq posed a dire, imminent threat to our shores.
What Bush wants is a guarantee that American multinational oil companies will gain access to Iraq’s oil. The best way to insure such access is a network of fortified American military installations and troops. This is the central truth underlying all the other lies – the ones about WMD, bringing “democracy” to the Iraqi people (how can one nation give another a political system?) and fighting the War on Terror.
Aside from tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and endless breaks for corporations, Iraq is the only issue that Bush has pursued with dogged determination. His tools of choice are lies, falsehoods, threats, fear-mongering and empty promises.
Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly hate this Occupation and the havoc it has wrought, though public opinion doesn’t seem to bother Bush one bit. He just keeps chugging toward a permanent military foothold in Iraq and generous concessions to the American oil industry.
Perhaps George W. Bush believes that ten or fifteen years from now, when he has his Presidential library in Crawford, Texas – paid for by generous donations from his corporate cronies – he can rehabilitate his image, in the same way that Richard Nixon morphed from lying scoundrel to “elder statesman.” For all his deviousness and paranoia, Nixon, at least, could formulate a coherent thought in proper English. I can’t imagine a future American president calling on George W for advice or insight, unless he or she wants to understand the finer points of being a buffoon and a disgrace.
Thomas Jefferson sitting in a room silent and alone was ten times more interesting than any of these so-called political “leaders.”
Our Democracy is tattered and torn and discredited, though the spin masters in the media keep force-feeding us American myths, lies, and legends. Meanwhile, real news is happening, like the fact that President Bush is trying to strike a deal with the Iraqi government, such as it is, that will insure a permanent US presence in Iraq – with military installations and troops to protect Iraq’s oil reserves and infrastructure. Bush claims that the US needs to be in Iraq as a bulwark against Iran, but then, Bush compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler, and insisted that Iraq posed a dire, imminent threat to our shores.
What Bush wants is a guarantee that American multinational oil companies will gain access to Iraq’s oil. The best way to insure such access is a network of fortified American military installations and troops. This is the central truth underlying all the other lies – the ones about WMD, bringing “democracy” to the Iraqi people (how can one nation give another a political system?) and fighting the War on Terror.
Aside from tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and endless breaks for corporations, Iraq is the only issue that Bush has pursued with dogged determination. His tools of choice are lies, falsehoods, threats, fear-mongering and empty promises.
Polls show that Americans overwhelmingly hate this Occupation and the havoc it has wrought, though public opinion doesn’t seem to bother Bush one bit. He just keeps chugging toward a permanent military foothold in Iraq and generous concessions to the American oil industry.
Perhaps George W. Bush believes that ten or fifteen years from now, when he has his Presidential library in Crawford, Texas – paid for by generous donations from his corporate cronies – he can rehabilitate his image, in the same way that Richard Nixon morphed from lying scoundrel to “elder statesman.” For all his deviousness and paranoia, Nixon, at least, could formulate a coherent thought in proper English. I can’t imagine a future American president calling on George W for advice or insight, unless he or she wants to understand the finer points of being a buffoon and a disgrace.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Schizophrenia, American-Style
I don’t know how you feel, but when I watch the mainstream media or read the Wall Street Journal for a couple of days running, I get to feeling like a crazy person.
It’s not the empty, sensational reports, or the vapid talking heads trying desperately to make news out of non-news, it’s the utter, unrelenting dissonance contained in the information itself.
For instance, on the one hand we have the sub-prime mortgage crunch, millions of folks defaulting on their home loans, and on the other we have the talking heads – and the endless droning commercials – exhorting Americans to run to the Mall, to Wal-Mart, to Target, to Macy’s, to Old Navy, and shop, shop, shop. Ignore the hard times that are surely coming, ignore your debts, and slap your plastic down, do your part to pump up the profits of corporate America.
Or take the stock market. One day, the Dow Jones plunges 237 points; the next it jumps by 215. One day, investors are scared witless about the credit crunch, the debilitated dollar, oil prices and sluggish housing starts; the next they are sanguine about the very same factors. How can this be?
Obviously, investors don’t have a fucking clue about what’s really going on with the economy. If you ignore Wall Street gambling and simply look at the fundamentals, the US economy looks like a train wreck. When the big bust comes, the super-wealthy will be able to dodge the fallout, while the rest of us will feel the lash and pay the piper.
No wonder Americans pop more anti-depressant medications than any other people on this planet. We’re whipsawed to and fro like palm trees in a Category 5 hurricane by our government and its lapdog, the corporate media.
We’ve passively accepted the bullshit corporate line that consumption is the road to happiness and the goal of life.
Now we’re even told that we can save the planet by buying “green.”
Jesus, no wonder Charles Bukowski holed up in a cheap Hollywood apartment with a fifth of Scotch and never answered the phone or the door.
No wonder Henry Miller retreated to remote Big Sur and stayed put for nearly two decades.
Schizophrenia. Like George W. Bush insisting that America has no plans to remain in Iraq indefinitely, and then, according to the venerable Wall Street Journal, signs a deal (they don’t say with whom) to do just that.
We’re passive, stupid, and easily fooled.
Nothing to do now but deadbolt the door and uncork the Scotch.
It’s not the empty, sensational reports, or the vapid talking heads trying desperately to make news out of non-news, it’s the utter, unrelenting dissonance contained in the information itself.
For instance, on the one hand we have the sub-prime mortgage crunch, millions of folks defaulting on their home loans, and on the other we have the talking heads – and the endless droning commercials – exhorting Americans to run to the Mall, to Wal-Mart, to Target, to Macy’s, to Old Navy, and shop, shop, shop. Ignore the hard times that are surely coming, ignore your debts, and slap your plastic down, do your part to pump up the profits of corporate America.
Or take the stock market. One day, the Dow Jones plunges 237 points; the next it jumps by 215. One day, investors are scared witless about the credit crunch, the debilitated dollar, oil prices and sluggish housing starts; the next they are sanguine about the very same factors. How can this be?
Obviously, investors don’t have a fucking clue about what’s really going on with the economy. If you ignore Wall Street gambling and simply look at the fundamentals, the US economy looks like a train wreck. When the big bust comes, the super-wealthy will be able to dodge the fallout, while the rest of us will feel the lash and pay the piper.
No wonder Americans pop more anti-depressant medications than any other people on this planet. We’re whipsawed to and fro like palm trees in a Category 5 hurricane by our government and its lapdog, the corporate media.
We’ve passively accepted the bullshit corporate line that consumption is the road to happiness and the goal of life.
Now we’re even told that we can save the planet by buying “green.”
Jesus, no wonder Charles Bukowski holed up in a cheap Hollywood apartment with a fifth of Scotch and never answered the phone or the door.
No wonder Henry Miller retreated to remote Big Sur and stayed put for nearly two decades.
Schizophrenia. Like George W. Bush insisting that America has no plans to remain in Iraq indefinitely, and then, according to the venerable Wall Street Journal, signs a deal (they don’t say with whom) to do just that.
We’re passive, stupid, and easily fooled.
Nothing to do now but deadbolt the door and uncork the Scotch.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Poem - Reasons for Joy
Chilly gray afternoon
Hot chocolate
Jazz
Children playing quietly on the rug
Immersed in their childhood
No bombs are falling outside
No militias roam the streets
No Federal agents pounding on our door
No hunger
No disease
American life at the tattered end of the American Dream
Not what it should be
What it could be
Dream deferred
Dream on hold
Dream forgotten
Dream perverted
Dream subverted
Dream diminished
Still we rise and sing
Write our chapters in the big book
Hot chocolate
Jazz
Children playing quietly on the rug
Immersed in their childhood
No bombs are falling outside
No militias roam the streets
No Federal agents pounding on our door
No hunger
No disease
American life at the tattered end of the American Dream
Not what it should be
What it could be
Dream deferred
Dream on hold
Dream forgotten
Dream perverted
Dream subverted
Dream diminished
Still we rise and sing
Write our chapters in the big book
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Poem - The Trick
The Trick
Is to cut through the everyday noise & clutter
Spam & junk mail,
Empty solicitations from synthesized voices
The trick is to have the cajones to grab a sharp knife &
Slice through tendon, cartilage & muscle, open the bone
To the light of beauty & longing
The trick is working the jackhammer & the dynamite
For as long as it takes to bring down the walls of illusion & deceit
The trick is to stand naked, alone & unashamed
On the steps of the temple where nobody hides behind money or medals
Or Jesus
Can you do it?
Me neither
Is to cut through the everyday noise & clutter
Spam & junk mail,
Empty solicitations from synthesized voices
The trick is to have the cajones to grab a sharp knife &
Slice through tendon, cartilage & muscle, open the bone
To the light of beauty & longing
The trick is working the jackhammer & the dynamite
For as long as it takes to bring down the walls of illusion & deceit
The trick is to stand naked, alone & unashamed
On the steps of the temple where nobody hides behind money or medals
Or Jesus
Can you do it?
Me neither
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Think Less, Live More
If you think too much about the improbability of human life it will drive you crazy. Around the bend. Into a psychotic state and a strait-jacket. Or onto a barstool in the middle of a weekday afternoon, staring at your own image in the mirror above the bottles.
Pondering the physical elements that we try and protect ourselves against is daunting: fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, tsunamis. Add the crap human beings create like war, anarchy, genocide, pogroms; throw in the emotional storms that buffet every human life sooner or later – loss, jealousy, envy, greed, hatred, remorse, anger -- and it’s a wonder more people don’t go totally apeshit.
In fact, it’s not what happens during the course of a lifetime that’s so amazing, but what doesn’t happen.
We fear the dark and we fear the random act. For instance, you stop at 7-11 on your way home from work to buy a six-pack of beer, a bag of potato chips and a pack of gum, and as you’re checking out a meth-addicted kid with a shaved head and a Nazi swastika tattooed on his cheek bursts into the store with a fully-loaded assault rifle and starts shooting. Before you can react, a bullet slices through your skull, instantly terminating your life. Wrong place, wrong moment, you’re time here is over; you exit as a tragic crime statistic.
We want life to be predictable and safe and easy and meaningful, even though one can argue that it’s unpredictable, dangerous, difficult and meaningless. We’re born into a death sentence, and unless you’re into religious hocus-pocus and believe in everlasting life in an air-conditioned heaven, it’s a bleak deal to contemplate.
The wealthy have innumerable ways to inoculate themselves against natural calamity and random acts of mayhem. During the recent Southern California wildfires, folks in certain high-profile zip codes enjoyed concierge fire protection, courtesy of their insurance company. Gated communities, private schools, boutique medical care, organically grown food all serve to increase the odds and decrease the risks.
Rich, poor or in between, living takes bravery. Open the door, step outside, keep your eyes and ears wide open, but don’t think too much. It’s better that way.
Pondering the physical elements that we try and protect ourselves against is daunting: fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, tsunamis. Add the crap human beings create like war, anarchy, genocide, pogroms; throw in the emotional storms that buffet every human life sooner or later – loss, jealousy, envy, greed, hatred, remorse, anger -- and it’s a wonder more people don’t go totally apeshit.
In fact, it’s not what happens during the course of a lifetime that’s so amazing, but what doesn’t happen.
We fear the dark and we fear the random act. For instance, you stop at 7-11 on your way home from work to buy a six-pack of beer, a bag of potato chips and a pack of gum, and as you’re checking out a meth-addicted kid with a shaved head and a Nazi swastika tattooed on his cheek bursts into the store with a fully-loaded assault rifle and starts shooting. Before you can react, a bullet slices through your skull, instantly terminating your life. Wrong place, wrong moment, you’re time here is over; you exit as a tragic crime statistic.
We want life to be predictable and safe and easy and meaningful, even though one can argue that it’s unpredictable, dangerous, difficult and meaningless. We’re born into a death sentence, and unless you’re into religious hocus-pocus and believe in everlasting life in an air-conditioned heaven, it’s a bleak deal to contemplate.
The wealthy have innumerable ways to inoculate themselves against natural calamity and random acts of mayhem. During the recent Southern California wildfires, folks in certain high-profile zip codes enjoyed concierge fire protection, courtesy of their insurance company. Gated communities, private schools, boutique medical care, organically grown food all serve to increase the odds and decrease the risks.
Rich, poor or in between, living takes bravery. Open the door, step outside, keep your eyes and ears wide open, but don’t think too much. It’s better that way.
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