Fiction: Beggar's Kaleidoscope

In April I saw a man standing on the steps of city hall, dressed in grimy Army surplus fatigues, waving half a soiled American flag and chanting, “Dee-troit is the future of America. Dee-troit is coming to this city.” He kept on chanting until two police cruisers arrived and removed him.

In June four banks were held up in the space of three days. The perpetrators were white, Mexican and African-American. The white guy hit two different banks on the same day. The police determined that the holdups and perpetrators were in no way related. The Mexican crook made off with more loot than the African-American.

I felt like I was living inside a kaleidoscope of images and sound, information, voices and pulsing neon signs -- or that I was permanently high on powerful hallucinogens. Everything was chaotic and haphazard, unsure and uneasy – the streets were alive, and dangerous. I couldn’t get over the thought that my life and all the lives being lived around me had been reduced to its price in dollars, its perceived value on the great market, no different from rice, corn, oil, soybeans, prescription drugs, condoms -- everything had been turned into a commodity.

For the rich it was the best of times, a heyday, a non-stop XXL extravaganza, even while the number of poor swelled to a degree that was becoming difficult to ignore. I saw this with my own eyes and from inside the poor’s ranks. It became commonplace to see senior citizens carrying bags and boxes into the food bank. As more homeless people appeared downtown, local merchants bombarded City Hall with complaints. “They’re killing my business,” one storeowner told the local newspaper. “I wish they’d go someplace else.” But there was no place else any better, and most places were worse. To quell the complaints of the merchant class, the police chased the homeless from public benches and public parks, and made life untenable for people who had resorted to living in their cars or RV’s.

On the 4th of July, as I watched fireworks arc over the waterfront, I remembered the protests against the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, how along with 5,000 others I marched up the main street of town, while millions worldwide did the same, to the sound of chants, drums, horns and whistles. Overwhelming public sentiment against the invasion was brushed aside by Bush and Blair like lint brushed from the sleeve of a suit; the Coalition of the Willing, which, I now remember, included the nation of Togo, was unstoppable. Calling it a “war” even though Iraq had never attacked or threatened American soil, fear mongers and liars at the highest levels of the government had decided on a preemptive strike and no amount of public protest could dissuade them. During the days of Shock and Awe I learned that language is one of the first casualties of war, that civilian deaths become collateral damage and that the meaning of the word “enemy” changes as needed to fit circumstances. Iraq was destroyed, thousands were killed and no WMD were ever found.

Time spins forward to the fall of 2008. The world financial system is on its knees, reeling after years of unregulated high stakes gambles on derivatives, CDO’s and other exotic financial instruments nobody really can explain. Without so much as ten minutes of public debate, billions of taxpayer dollars are handed to the Secretary of the Treasury – a Wall Street alum and a man of stupendous personal wealth – who demands and receives a blank check to operate as he deems fit, meaning few rules and limited oversight. Scared witless, Congress accedes to this demand. Banks and investment houses that should – by every holy law of the great, infallible market – have lost their shirts and been allowed to die are made whole by the taxpayers. Once again language is a casualty, as the transfers are called a “bailout” rather than more pejorative terms like welfare, assistance, the public dole. Had someone proposed that a billion dollars be devoted to end poverty or homelessness or provide jobs for the unemployed, there would have been a revolt among the ruling class.

For more than a month the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico dominates the news, but once the well is capped, the story disappears. Worst oil disaster in US history, unknown long-term ecological damage, and it’s right back to business as usual as if nothing happened. Where did all that spilled oil go? Is Gulf seafood safe to eat?

Free market myths permeate every facet of life, from the corridors of government to the classrooms of public schools. Standardized test scores become the benchmark of learning and schools make no excuses for teaching to the tests. Educators stop talking about critical thinking skills, the curriculum narrows, focuses obsessively on math and language arts; schools that fail to meet mandated targets are singled out for sanctions. Teachers and their labor unions are excoriated. Aspirants for high political office are compelled to promise to run government like a business.

I sense that the center is collapsing, pulling apart. I sit in the small park across the street from the building where I once worked, on a low wall at noon, watching people I once bid “Good morning” to come and go, thinking about the job that kept me on the lower end of the middle class for seventeen years. Until the economy tanked I was a low-level public servant with a salary, health insurance and a pension. First came forced furloughs, then pay rollbacks, and then a dozen of us were released, separated, terminated on a Friday afternoon just before close of business, escorted to the front door by the personnel director. Fiscal austerity.

American-style capitalism has run amok, turned on itself as it does periodically, and now gnaws its own bone and marrow. Marx rolls over in his tomb and smiles. Sensing a potential tipping point, the wealthy class goes on the offensive, using all the machinery of power at its command. While average citizens lose homes and jobs in droves, every major American newscast includes a stock market report, as if the stock market and citizens hold a common stake, as if the stock market and the economy are one and the same. The Supreme Court reinforces whom it really works for when it rules against the Federal Election Commission in the Citizens United case. Predictably, anonymous millions pour into the campaign coffers of candidates pledged to defend and advance the Big Business agenda. The wealthy and well-connected manage the terms of public discourse, keep the focus tight on budget deficits and tax rates at a time when state and local governments are slashing services for the poor and unfortunate, slashing public education, slashing health programs for the young and elderly. I think the country has lost its soul, its heart, and its compassion. As I dumpster dive for bottles and aluminum cans I decide that I don’t give a fuck about budget deficits. Nobody I know does either. I want a roof over my head, heat, and a refrigerator, but what I want most of all, more than anything in fact, is my old bed, my blankets and pillows. I could sleep for twelve days straight.

Madness passes for sanity. The cost of the country’s foreign wars go largely unmentioned, and the budgets for the wars are sacrosanct. Iraq takes its place alongside Germany and Japan and Guam and Spain and Iceland and Italy and South Korea as hosts to permanent American bases. I hear a cost estimate related to the Afghan debacle: a million dollars per soldier per year. Only a hedge fund manager can wrap his head around such numbers.

All across the country people are furious, raging, but their temper is misplaced, directed at the government when it is corporations that are culpable. Why can’t people see this? Don’t rant about tax rates, I want to scream, rant about the horrible waste in Afghanistan and Iraq, the sprawling, costly, out-sourced Security-Intelligence apparatus that grew out of 9/11. Rant about tax subsidies to Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Agriculture. Follow the money from your wallet, through the laundering operation that is the United States Congress to the clients of powerful lobbyists. That is the root cause of your economic pain, the death of your American Dream, the reason your children face a future of diminished expectations.

Ask why the income gap between rich and poor is so wide.

But nobody listens to street people. We are glanced at but not seen; some of us are assaulted, even murdered, our bodies left by the railroad tracks for days. No one mourns for us.

Capitalism and heroin junkies can never sate their need. The rules of the game demand more, more, more, no matter the cost to people, communities, or the environment. More, more, more -- drill deeper, grow bigger, cut corners, whatever it takes to get more, more, more. Satisfy the beast.

A bearded man in a black suit two sizes too small, wearing a crown of thorns fashioned from aluminum foil, stands on the corner by the museum, screaming at the top of his voice: “It’s the end of the world.” The man seems to be the only person within a hundred miles not in total denial; he has walked in the valley, studied the dust, read the signs and portents. “They own your soul,” he screams at passersby. He will not be the least surprised when the sky darkens and the sun goes out for good.

Poem - The Winner and Still Champion

I’m not afraid to die
I’m not afraid to die
I’m not afraid to die

That’s not true
Nobody wants to die
But death is what every one of us has in common
Death is coming and unlike
Life
Death plays no favorites

The end is known at the beginning
But very few people posses the courage
To give the end much thought
We think we will live forever
Outwit
Dementia
Cancer
Shingles
Toe fungus
Kidney stones
Arthritis
Impotence
Depression
Osteoporosis
Outwit every calamity and spend eternity
In heaven
With our loved ones
Old friends
Pets
Happily ever after
Forever and ever
Amen

Death laughs at our conceit
And bides its time
We are stone and death is water
And we know who wins that fight
Don’t we?

Broken Promises, Bitter Tea

Is it November 2nd yet? I can’t take much more of the lies and misinformation that clog the radio, the TV and the Internet, the silly assertions that candidate X will, like a superhero, single-handedly reform Sacramento or Washington D.C.

One small blessing this season is that there hasn’t been a deluge of direct mail pieces.

There are many things about American politics that I don’t understand. Sarah Palin’s popularity has baffled me since John McCain jettisoned reason and tapped her as his running mate. Palin struck me as a stone idiot in 2008 and my opinion hasn’t budged one centimeter since. Palin’s pronouncements are as absurd as her grasp of American history is weak, though I grant that she is clever and opportunistic and has imbibed the code words of the far right: “government” run health care, socialism, freedom, liberty, free markets and so on. Getting back to good old American values and Christian faith makes for pithy sound bites, but poor public policy.

In Palin’s world, as in Orwell’s 1984, ignorance is strength and lies are truth.

The Tea Party is another. Where was the Tea Party during the reign of George W. Bush and Uncle Dick Cheney? Bush and Cheney didn’t exactly shrink the role of the federal government, but as far as I can recall, angry white people didn’t flood the streets demanding the abolishment of Social Security, Medicare and the Department of Education during Bush’s eight years of misrule.

It was only when a moderate, inherently cautious black man moved into the White House that the Tea Party flared to life, powered by secret financial donors and far right front groups. The mainstream media can’t get enough of the Tea Party, covering its rallies and whacky, incoherent proclamations, all of which make the Tea Party seem stronger and more ubiquitous than it actually is. Tea Party candidates who should be muzzled and locked away in padded rooms are treated like prophets, fawned over by the talking heads on the major network news programs.

The government that the Tea Party and far right conservatives excoriate and blame for our ills is the only force capable of reining in runaway corporate power.

How did we get into this mess?

The attacks of September 11, 2001 shattered America’s psyche, and the reactive military response launched by Bush – first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq – contributed to the breaking of our national treasury, not to mention vividly demonstrating the limits of brute force. We can bomb the hell out of a country with our high-tech weapons, murder thousands of non-combatants, and -- when the smoke clears and the dust settles -- find ourselves in a quagmire from which there is no easy escape.

Add the financial meltdown of 2008 into the mix and it’s no wonder that the United States has become the Kingdom of Fear. Americans are fearful that our best days are past and that the economic, political and environmental problems facing us are insurmountable; Americans sense that the way our economy is organized is deeply flawed and that money has corrupted our politics and rendered the wants and needs of average citizens irrelevant.

Whenever fear takes hold, the need for scapegoats increases and reactionary forces rise up and attack anyone who seems different or dangerous: gays, immigrants, Muslims, atheists, liberals, dissidents. Fear breeds polarization between those who want to break from convention and those who want to hold onto it at any cost. Every moderate and sensible idea that surfaces is drowned out by the caterwauling of extremists and ideologues.

November 2nd will come and go but these dark and dangerous times will remain.

Poem: Age of Snooki

American life is riddled with
Contradictions;
We claim to want peace
While arming ourselves to the teeth;
We claim to be ruled by law
But break the law whenever it suits
Our purpose;
We obsess about education
How our kids score on standardized tests
Compare to the Germans and Japanese
In Math & Science
Wring our hands over the decline
Of basic literacy;
We demand better teachers
More accountability
Less bureaucracy;
But ask us to pay a dime more
In taxes
And we’ll spit in your eye

Night after night on TV
We celebrate people who strut their stupidity
Boast of having read one or two
Books in their entire lifetimes
Happy know-nothings
Like Sarah Palin
Who
In a normal country
Would be laughed all the way back
To
Alaska

Stupid can make you famous
And famous can make you rich
At least until someone more outrageously
Stupid
Comes along

Right Snooki?
Right Kim?
Right Heidi?

Poem: AARP Has My Number

For $16 a year I can become
A card-carrying member
Of their club
(even though I’m not retired)
They promise discounts on rental cars and Rx drugs
A monthly magazine featuring folks like me
Sort of

They entice me with the possibility of joining a local chapter
Mingling over watery instant coffee and stale pastries
With other old farts
Sharing photographs of grandchildren (I have none)
Gripes about Social Security
Complaints about our ailments

You make me feel old, AARP
Like a fossil
Where did the years go?

How did you get my number?
And now that you have it
Will you ever leave me alone?

I’m not one of you
Not yet
Anyway

I don’t give a damn what the calendar
Says

The Real Obama

I didn’t recognize the fiery guy speaking to college students in Wisconsin. He looked like President Obama but spoke like candidate Obama – the man I cast my vote for in 2008 -- and watched take the oath of office on a cold January day a few months later.

Hope was in the air. Bush and Cheney were no more. A fresh wind was blowing across the country. But then a strange thing happened – or perhaps it wasn’t strange at all. When Obama moved into the White House he lost his mojo and began behaving like a typical corporate Democrat.

Now Obama chastises the very people who worked their tails off to get him elected.

That’s what I call audacity. It takes large balls to hector your political base, particularly when your party stands an excellent chance of being shellacked in the mid-term elections.

It’s one thing to ignore the concerns of your base for a year and a half while surrounding yourself with Clinton-era apparatchiks, Goldman Sachs alumni, the likes of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, and quite another to accuse your base of apathy.

Hey, Obama, who betrayed whom here?

But OK, let’s be fair. Barack Obama began his presidency in a hole filled with stagnant, foul-smelling water. Generally speaking, Americans have the collective memory of a goldfish and most people have forgotten the mess George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left the country in; those cretins handed Obama the keys to a ruined country and beat it out of Washington D.C.

On the other hand, Obama didn’t do himself any favors by stocking his team with the very people who planted and nurtured the seeds of our financial meltdown. Let’s not forget, amnesiac America, that it was Bill Clinton who passed NAFTA and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, Bill Clinton who made happy with Robert Rubin and the moguls of Corporate America, and Bill Clinton who triangulated the Democratic Party so far toward the center that at times it’s indistinguishable from the GOP.

For a year and a half all we’ve seen is the passionless version of Obama, a cerebral, cool-headed, fair-minded fellow who allows himself to be maligned by right-wing radio hacks, Tea Party nut jobs, racists, and limp dicks like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. Obama has spent more time defending himself against charges that he is a closet Muslim than he has pushing an agenda that might help working Americans.

Obama squandered his political advantage (deep public support and Democratic control of the House and Senate) on tepid financial system reforms, a gutless health care overhaul, a failed program to assist homeowners facing foreclosure, and a sucker bet on Afghanistan. He bought in to deficit hysteria and the trumped up Social Security crisis. He hasn’t done squat on the environmental front except spew misinformation about “clean” coal.

On a progressive report card, Obama gets a D-minus.

But more egregious still is the way Obama and his team completely misread the economic hardship that has hammered average Americans since 2009. The Wall Street-centric advisors surrounding Obama bailed out the banks and made sure the financial sector was protected, while leaving the working class to fend for itself at a time when only government can provide jobs in sufficient numbers to start a real recovery.

When bold proposals were needed, Obama offered half measures. When the situation demanded a coherent narrative of what Democrats stand for and whose interests they represent, Obama remained aloof, speaking in nuanced terms and reaching his hand across the aisle only to have the GOP spit in his palm.

When it was time to come out of his corner swinging, Obama came out holding a wilted olive branch.

Now, with his poll numbers sliding toward oblivion and John Boehner measuring Nancy Pelosi’s office for new drapes and carpet, Obama hits the campaign trail to fire up the base and the last of the believers. The man still makes a stirring speech, but hope and change are hard sells now, with the gap between rich and poor Americans wider than at any time since the Roaring 20’s, unemployment high and holding, and more Americans living in poverty than there have been in 50 years.

The audacity of hope has morphed into cowardice, the promise of change into protection of the status quo.

Will the real Obama stand up and remain standing before it’s too late?

Sweet & Sour Poets

The handbill plastered on the lamppost
Advertised a reading by a local poet
The poet had full lips
Sensitive eyes
Thick hair
Gentle features
A warm smile

His new book of poems was just out
And for $5 I could listen to him
Read
In a coffee house
All proceeds destined for the Food Bank

I’m sure the poet loves his mother
And gets along with his siblings
I’m sure he drives a hybrid car
Casts his ballot in every election
Takes in stray cats
I’m sure he pays his taxes
And recycles aluminum cans

I’m sure he’s never slapped a woman
Cursed a cab driver
Stiffed a waiter
Embezzled money
Or puked in the gutter after a long night
Of bar crawling

His poems are probably sweet and uplifting
Lyrical
Celebrations of beauty and truth
The glory of sunsets and the magic
Of a harvest moon

In other words he’s full of
Crap
A pretender
A liar
A charlatan

He’s blind to the grimness of human existence
The cruelty and suffering inflicted on the powerless
By the powerful
On the poor by the rich
On the weak by the strong

I slipped a buck to a panhandler
And walked on;
I despise poets
Except
Of course
Old
Chuck Bukowski

So Long, Labor Dog

All victories for working people – no matter how small – are hard won.
Anonymous

My friend, colleague and mentor Bill Millard passed away a few days ago. If anyone knew how difficult it is to win gains for workers it was Bill because he was an old “labor dog” who had been in the thick of many tough fights on behalf of working people.

In Bill’s case those people were carpenters and accounting clerks and bus drivers and instructional assistants and plumbers and bakers and cooks and groundskeepers and purchasing agents and custodians – all of them employed by public school districts in California – unseen and unheard for the most part, those that work behind the scenes; Bill gave these people presence and voice.

Bill once drove a school bus for a living, and I’d wager that he was good at his trade and took pride in doing the job well because that’s the way he was wired. He got started in the labor movement as an active member in a local and became a professional labor relations representative. He negotiated and wrote contracts, filed and settled grievances, counseled employees, and agitated for legislation to protect workers.

Most of all, Bill taught working men and women to seize responsibility for their own fates by banding together and looking out for their common benefit – a concept that seems utterly foreign in this era of “me-first” greed.

The labor movement was more than a vocation for Bill – it was an intense passion more demanding than any woman, requiring the stamina and grit of a marathon runner, the patience of a Buddhist monk, and the mental toughness of a prizefighter. The battle for decent wages and safe working conditions, for respect and dignity, for basic fairness, has always been uphill against formidable odds.

Bill was a Liberal’s Liberal and proud of it and we immediately hit it off. Even though he was a decade and a half my senior, we shared an intense dislike for Ronald Reagan and William Jefferson Clinton as well as a belief that unchecked corporate power and influence was antithetical to democracy and detrimental for working people. Injustice ticked us off.

I shared The Nation magazine with Bill and he shared Mother Jones with me.

Love of language was another thing Bill and I had in common. When it came to writing Bill was a craftsman – careful, exacting and meticulous. He’d work a sentence the same way a sculptor works a slab of granite, chipping and shaping until it was flawless.

Whenever Bill and I went into a disciplinary meeting or contract negotiations the only thing I’d want to know is whether or not he had eaten beforehand. On an empty stomach Bill was ferocious. The hungrier Bill was the shorter his temper became – and I could tell with one glance when his cork would pop. I made it a practice to have a granola bar handy, just in case.

Like all people who work in close contact with one another over a long period of time and in tense situations, we developed a shorthand method of communicating. Bill knew the word or thought I was searching for just as I knew what question he wanted to ask next. This kind of connection is rare and wonderful.

One case we worked on together revealed Bill’s character more than any other. We were representing an employee who was clearly on the wrong side of the contract, of common sense, and of every policy on the school district’s books. The man had cooked his own turkey and deserved what was coming to him – or at least that was my take. Bill didn’t disagree with my assessment but the humanist in him saw deeper, saw that this man was a damaged soul, no danger to anyone but himself, seriously flawed, no doubt about it, but still deserving of empathy.

“He doesn’t have a leg to stand on,” Bill said. “But if we don’t help him walk away with at least some dignity we’ll both regret it.”

Quintessential Bill Millard. Die-hard, hard-boiled, realistic, pragmatic and idealistic, but most of all a man who never let his professional role rob him of his humanity.

You gave me courage, old dog, courage and hope, and I know how unlikely it is that I’ll ever have the good fortune to cross paths with your kind again. Long may your spirit run.

Can't Fix This

Another political season, another flood of misinformation on the TV and the radio.

Back in 2003, Californians were urged to “Join Arnold” and reform our dysfunctional state. The wealthy, charismatic and perpetually optimistic actor promised to “blow up” the boxes of state government and rub the tarnish from the California Dream.

Seven years later we know how that worked out. No need to run through Arnold’s many missteps and the mess the state is mired in.

Now voters are urged to “Join Meg” in refurbishing the dream. Meg being Meg Whitman, multi-millionaire former EBay CEO, who promises to bring corporate know-how to Sacramento and make California hum like a Fortune 500 business.

Sounds familiar, right? Republicans are fervent believers in corporate efficiency and the magic of “free” markets. Business can do no wrong, government can do no right; business is sleek and lean, government is bloated and clumsy.

I find this comparison amusing, given the recent record of Corporate America. Think of the renowned corporate names that would have destroyed the global economy or gone belly up without an infusion of taxpayer money or loan guarantees: General Motors, AIG, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs.

I don’t have any particular love for Jerry Brown but at least Brown understands that government is as different from business as an albatross is from a manatee. Governors are not autocrats and elected legislators cannot be bossed around like corporate underlings. Whitman may think she can snap her fingers and demand that assembly members bend to her will, but if she is successful in buying the governor’s office – and it appears that she has a real shot in November -- she will learn on Day One how limited her powers are.

Remember Schwarzenegger’s big tent on the grounds of the state capitol, the cigar fests he threw for legislators and key members of state government? The tent was a cornerstone of the new governor’s charm campaign but the bloom dropped off that rose in no time. Once Schwarzenegger had a taste for the way the lawmaking game really works, once the written and unwritten rules asserted themselves, the big tent came down, never to be raised again.

California doesn’t have a business problem, California has a political problem, which is why Meg Whitman -- should she fool enough voters on Election Day -- is destined for the same ignominious ride experienced by Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Like New York State, California is virtually ungovernable, paralyzed by gridlock and partisan posturing. The two-thirds super majority required to enact a budget or pass even modest tax increases, term limits that drain the assembly and senate of experienced legislators, gerrymandering that guarantees election of extremists on both ends of the political spectrum, and the perverted initiative process all contribute to making the state the subway wreck it has become.

Meg can’t fix that.

Poem: Standing in Line

The unemployment line snakes around the corner
Curves
Back upon itself;
Hope is in short supply here,
Nerves fray
Tempers flare;
One guy lost his job
Then he lost his house
His boat
And his wife
His Harley goes next
Friends got tired of hearing him complain
About his troubles – they have their own.

People are running scared
Holding on
Waiting for the economy to turn
Housing to bounce back
Or the politicians to finally do something
Most know that the odds are long
Stacked against them
Bailouts are for big banks and political insiders -
Truck drivers
Carpenters
Plumbers
House painters
Teachers
Nurses
Stand alone.

Welcome to the new Dust Bowl
People here avoid each other’s eyes
Ashamed for crimes they did not commit
Believing in magic was their only mistake
Now they pay the cost and bear the burden
Suffer the indignity of foreclosure,
Bankruptcy
And this slow-moving unemployment
Line
That curves back upon itself.

For the Laborers

Labor Day is one of my favorite holidays, neck and neck with the 4th of July and Martin Luther King’s birthday. On Labor Day we remember the men and women whose toil and sweat built this country, and we celebrate the very idea of work.

Names from the past roll across my mind like movie credits: Walter Reuther, George Meany, Joe Hill, John L. Lewis, Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Studs Terkel, A. Phillip Randolph -- people who dedicated their lives to improving the condition of workers, to building a strong middle class, and to insuring that labor was valued and had a place in the national conversation, a seat at the table.

Today the “Labor Movement” is like a terminal patient on life support. Union membership in the private sector is almost non-existent; meanwhile, as state and local governments continue to reel and stagger from the sluggish economy, union members in the public realm are forced to take pay cuts, furlough days, and watch as a backlash develops against pension plans that are always described in the media as “generous,” “lucrative,” or “Cadillac.”

Rough times for wage earners today, not much hope for improvement tomorrow. The mainstream media obsesses about stock prices and quarterly earnings forecasts, as if these are the only economic barometers that matter; CEO’s that boost earnings by dumping workers into the deep end of the pool of the unemployed are rewarded with bonuses.

There is a stark disconnect between the economy described by CNBC and the reality on the street that can no longer be glossed over or ignored. The nexus between worker productivity and reward is long gone – compared to their counterparts in other industrialized nations, Americans work longer hours per day and more days per year than anyone. We’re a nation of workaholics, driven by need and the fear that we are falling behind. Our productivity rises year after year but our reward – our wages – remain the same or fall.

The American economy is ass-backwards, upside down, off kilter and out of whack. We need John L. Lewis and Cesar Chavez and A. Phillip Randolph. We need their spirit, their sense of moral outrage and their determination for justice, equity and dignity. We need to pay more than lip service to people who wake up every single day and go to jobs and put in an honest day’s work building, maintaining, restoring or repairing; we need to honor those who serve, teach, or care for others; we need to honor those who clean, scrub and polish; we need to resuscitate the tacit agreement between capital and labor, bosses and workers, that once rewarded hard and honest work, reliability and fidelity, with pay scales that are not insulting or disgraceful.

On this Labor Day I think of John Steinbeck and the Grapes of Wrath because it seems to me that it is those grapes we are destined to harvest unless we wake up and face our delusions. Steinbeck wrote, “The great owners…know the great fact: when property (or wealth or political power) accumulates in too few hands it is taken away.”

The Somber Smorgasbord

ABC News described Obama’s Iraq speech as “somber,” and that’s certainly a fitting tone for a Commander in Chief calling an end to combat operations after seven years and more than 4,000 American soldiers killed and thousands wounded.

But it was also a carefully crafted speech that offered a little something for everyone. For military folks there were the standard platitudes about bravery, sacrifice and honor; for those who see the Iraq invasion and occupation as a colossal blunder based on fabricated evidence and false justifications, the President made the nexus between the cost of the war and the dearth of domestic investment in jobs, infrastructure and education that has millions of Americans facing a uncertain future. For the hawks and imperialists Obama promised to destroy al Qaeda in Afghanistan and transform that ravaged land into a bulwark against the terrorists. For the benefit of Republicans, Obama even mentioned George W. Bush, the man who enthusiastically pushed the button that unleashed the horror of war on Iraq.

Call it a somber smorgasbord.

Missing from the speech was any mention of Abu Ghraib or the thousands of Iraqis who were killed during the shock and awe invasion and the long, bloody occupation. The New York Times reported that number as 100,000 dead – independent observers have pegged the number as high as 600,000. Americans should not forget the thousands of Iraqis displaced from their homes – either by the invasion or the sectarian strife that followed. I wonder if we have any idea of the number of Iraqis maimed, deformed or crippled as the result of our effort to free them from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, find Weapons of Mass Destruction or give Iraq the gift of democracy.

Obama referred to the Iraqis as our “partners” and noted our common interests though he didn’t elaborate on what those interests might be. Obviously, the United States has an abiding interest in Iraq’s oil reserves, though American multinationals didn’t fare well in the oil contract sweepstakes. The United States would love for Iraq to check Iran’s power and influence in the region, but that’s unlikely to happen given that Iraq cannot even form a government six months after holding elections.

50,000 American troops and thousands of private contractors remain in Iraq, housed in gargantuan bases that resemble small American cities. If the tables were turned, the world upended, if Iraq had occupied America, how would Americans feel if the end of combat operations meant that 50,000 Iraqi soldiers would remain on our soil?

Truth is a casualty of war, and in the years ahead America’s imperial adventure in Iraq will be spun and revised and retold as a heroic, altruistic campaign, undertaken with pure motives and the noblest of intentions. This won’t be a difficult undertaking since many Americans already believe – despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary – that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Myth will become history and history will become truth. In a few short years it will be as if none of the horrible things ever happened, as if the Iraqi people greeted our soldiers with flowers and cheering, just as Donald Rumsfeld promised they would.

Victory was one thing Obama could not claim the other night because there was never anything to win by invading Iraq.

Looking for Mr. Jones

You don’t know what’s happening here, do you, Mr. Jones?

So sang Bob Dylan way back when, in a different American era, one that almost seems like an age of innocence now, even though it was anything but innocent. Still, I get the feeling that nobody knows what’s happening in America anymore – or more accurately – nobody in power knows. People on the street know well enough, even if they can’t put what they know into words. Not that they need to describe what they are living through, day after day.

The Fear that Hunter S. Thompson wrote about so often is upon us and we can’t shake it. The good Doctor saw it coming. What is the Fear you ask? Fear that the American era is over, that our global hegemony is untenable, and that the American Dream is finally and forever DOA. Fear that undesirables with dark skin, speaking in unfamiliar tongues or praying to an unfamiliar god are poised to overrun the country. Fear that our own government is a threat to freedom and liberty.

It’s a strange time, no doubt about it. The will of the people doesn’t seem to hold much sway in the scheme of things, but how can the will of the people compete with the buying and lobbying power of Corporate America? Plutocrats own the machinery of power, the airwaves, the courts, and the Congress; they write the rules and rig the game for their advantage and, judging by the obscene gap between the super rich and everybody else, their success can only be described as spectacular.

Take away the military power and the United States is a model banana republic.

Irony is everywhere. It takes a legislative slugfest to appropriate a relatively modest amount of money to extend unemployment benefits to idled workers, but billions of tax dollars are funneled into corporate bailouts, undeclared foreign wars and tax cuts for the wealthy with little or no debate and no cries for “fiscal austerity.” The Deepwater Horizon explodes and sinks, killing eleven workers and spewing millions of gallons of oil into the ocean. We hear next to nothing about those eleven workers or their survivors while BP spokespeople assure us that BP is doing everything in its power to make the Gulf right again. If this is true, why is so much of BP’s work shrouded in secrecy? Why won’t BP share its data with independent scientists? Our president tells us that Gulf beaches are open and that Gulf seafood is safe. If that’s true, why do locals refuse to eat the stuff?

Welcome to Oz. The Yellow Brick Road is due south. Keep walking.

Former senator Alan Simpson, co-chair of President Obama’s deficit reduction commission, is a crusty old fart who derides Social Security recipients as loafers, while he collects a generous taxpayer funded pension.

Glenn Beck, an unhinged right-wing demagogue, co-opts Martin Luther King Jr. and insists that he, Beck, is the man to restore America’s honor. Only a man with no honor could make such a bizarre claim.

A proposal to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan that drew little attention when it was first announced suddenly becomes a lightning rod of controversy and vitriol that exposes a dark side of the American psyche. The deeds of a small group of fanatics from Saudi Arabia condemn an entire religion and its adherents as terrorists. Fear trumps common sense. Religious tolerance is jettisoned in favor of demagoguery. Hysteria tramples reason. All Muslims are guilty by association. All Muslims hate America. All Muslims are hiding explosives and looking for something or someone to blow up.

Where are you, Mr. Jones?

The United States invaded Iraq, destroyed Iraq, occupied Iraq, and is leaving (well, not really, not now, not ever) Iraq in a terrible political, economic, social and environmental mess. We call this victory.

Has everyone gone mad? Is there an antidote for this KoolAid?

Afghanistan is a military, monetary and moral sinkhole. Many of our allies have seen enough and are unwilling to ante up more coin or blood for a cause that is certainly doomed. The war in Afghanistan belongs to the United States, lock, stock and killing field. The war cannot be won under any circumstances, and the United States cannot exit without looking weak and emboldening the terrorists. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. The Afghanistan sinkhole will ruin us, despite General Petraeus’ promises to the contrary. Polling shows that a majority of Americans oppose the war but does this fact sway the politicians and generals?

Come back here, Mr. Jones. I want to talk to you, man.

The Democratic Party cannot tell a coherent narrative about what and who it stands for, and the Republicans do nothing but sing a chorus of No, No, No. Rigid ideology triumphs over pragmatic flexibility to the detriment of citizens from Maine to Oregon. How long can we continue this way?

Mr. Jones isn’t talking. Mr. Jones has nothing to say.

Dog Days Potpourri

We’re in what they call the dog days now, that part of summer when lassitude replaces energy and the baseball pennant races take definite shape. My Yankees are still in first place but I have an uneasy feeling that the defending champs had better watch out for an ambush from the Red Sox.

Flooding in Pakistan and China, record setting heat and raging wildfires in Russia. I heard a meteorologist on Democracy Now say that seventeen different nations have recorded all-time high temperatures this summer. Is this evidence of a planet simmering in greenhouse gas? What other explanation is there? Europeans get it; Latin American nations do too.

But not on the fruited plain. America is the land of make believe, where people like Rush Limbaugh froth and fulminate for hours every week about liberal plots to weaken this great nation, turn it away from the hallowed ground of capitalism and individual freedom. If you believe Rush Limbaugh, global warming is nothing more than a liberal ruse designed to rob decent Americans of their birthright. I can hear Limbaugh’s voice in my head: Don’t worry about the extreme weather you see around the world – get in your car and burn all the gas you can afford. Car-pooling is for liberal sissies! Bicycles are for Europeans! Mass transit is for socialists! You’re an American and it’s your divine right to buy toilet paper, dog food and laundry soap in bulk and drive all day and night if you damn well feel like it.

American denial. It’s going to nail us in the ass. Reality is a terrible thing to ignore.

As the dog days drag on, here are some things I find annoying:

Baseball players who cross themselves or point skyward after knocking a base hit or a home run, as if God is paying a whit of attention to them. I don’t think God is watching. Frankly, I don’t think God give’s a shit about baseball or any other sport for that matter. OK, maybe God follows the World Cup every four years, but that’s it. I’m certain God doesn’t root for any one team or any particular player; if God did, the Chicago Cubs would have won a World Series at least once during the past century.

Baseball announcers who talk about pitchers as if they are a weak sub-species of professional athlete. “Oh, I wonder if having to run the bases is going to take something out of Roy Halladay’s fastball. He was out on the base paths a long time last inning and we’ll see if that affects his velocity.”

Give me a break.

Sports fans who slap high fives in the stands. That’s almost as lame as the wave.

Any television commercial hawking fast food, though I reserve particular malice for Carl’s Junior: “Don’t bother me, I’m sucking down enough fat, sodium and cholesterol to stop an elephant’s heart.”

Gag.

I just remembered another annoying thing about baseball players: jewelry. What’s the deal with baseball players and the junk they wear around their necks? St. Christopher medals, Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception medallions, barricuda teeth, wolverine testicles, strings of garlic, strands of twisted leather, and gold chains that look hefty enough to pull an Abrams tank from a ditch.

Oh, sweet Jesus, ESPN’s camera just stopped on the face of George W. Bush, worst president in American history. W and Laura are sitting with Nolan Ryan at the Yankees-Rangers game in Arlington. Ryan appears to be doing all the talking, no doubt trying to explain the mechanics of throwing a split-finger fastball in a 0-2 count. “What you want to do is bounce that pitch about six inches in front of the dish, make the hitter go down and get it.” Laura is smiling as if genuinely interested (I’d bet heavily that she’s bored out of her skull) while her husband shoves peanuts into his mouth. I wonder if Bush, now that he’s retired, ever thinks of all the human beings who died violent deaths while he resided in the White House. Probably not. Bush was never one for introspection. Shit happens. War is messy. Hell, most of them were Muslims anyway. Our God is better than their God.

These dogs are too tired to bark, and even the approach of an intrepid Jehovah’s Witness can’t coax them off the shade porch. I guess the dogs will eat when they get hungry enough.

Duke Meets the Flatfoots

I hadn’t seen or heard much of Dr. Duke since his botched suicide attempt. Aside from a postcard from Maui, a cryptic e-mail that alluded to a baby shower, and another postcard from Portland, Maine, I hadn’t had a word, and the one time I went by his house he wasn’t home.

For once the call came at a reasonable hour – 6:15 a.m. – and that alone should have put me on alert.

“Two FBI agents just left my house,” Duke said.

“I’m about to read the New York Times,” I said.

“The hell with that lying rag,” Duke said. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Talk,” I said.

The agents rapped on Duke’s front door at 3:30 a.m., perhaps hoping to catch him off-guard, clearly unaware that Duke is a nocturnal creature – more alert at 3:30 a.m. than he is at high noon. One agent was named Connors and the other was named Stevens -- both from the National Security Branch of the Los Angeles field office. Badges and credentials were scrutinized carefully and found to be in order. Connors, the older of the two, wore wingtips and a Brooks Brothers suit and reminded Duke of a CPA; Stevens was new to the trade and wore a Hugo Boss suit and shiny new loafers; Duke disliked him from the jump. It was the fresh out of college gung-ho attitude and the Oklahoma accent.

“Good thing I wasn’t smoking a joint,” Duke said. “That would have been awkward.”

More curious than alarmed, Duke showed the agents into his living room, offered them coffee, and got himself a Corona. He didn’t have anything better to do as he was between romantic entanglements, and sparring verbally with a couple of Federal agents broke the monotony and promised mental stimulation.

The agents made it clear that Duke wasn’t being charged with any crime, nor was he a suspect. Specifically, he was a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.

‘That’s mildly reassuring,’ Duke said. ‘On the other hand, the FBI is sitting in my living room at 3:30 in the morning. What are you investigating and how does it relate to me?’

‘It’s purely routine,’ Connors said.

‘Routine,’ Duke repeated. ‘But ongoing you say. What should I make of that?’

‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ Stevens said. ‘This is a dangerous time for the United States. The War on Terror is real – more real than most Americans understand. We want to know why you support radical groups like the NAACP and the ACLU?’

‘Since when is the NAACP and the ACLU considered radical? You have something against the Bill of Rights?’

‘I love my country,’ Stevens said, ‘which is more – ‘

‘What Agent Stevens means,’ Connors said with a smile, ‘is that the security terrain changed drastically after 9/11. Large amounts of information come into the field office and the Bureau is duty bound to investigate some of that information. I’m sure you understand, Professor Duke. Political Science, wasn’t it?’

‘You got a file on me? Should I be insulted or honored? This is becoming more interesting by the minute. OK, so you guys are just here doing your sworn duty by asking a retired poly sci prof about the non-profit groups he’s a member of. Of course you must know that I’m also a member of the AARP and a supporter of the March of Dimes. I assume you also know that I subscribe to the Nation, Mother Jones and Penthouse.’

‘You travel quite a bit, don’t you Professor?’ Connors asked.

‘I’m retired. I get bored easily and need stimulation. Travel is rejuvenating, not to mention an excellent way to meet women.’

‘Do you have any Muslim friends or acquaintances?’ Stevens asked.

‘Is your partner serious?’ Duke said to Connors. ‘Doesn’t the FBI put recruits through a rigorous training program? Obviously, a reject slips through every now and then. Where’d you go to school, Stevens?’

‘Texas Tech,’ Stevens replied with pride.

‘College Republican?’

‘All four years. How’d you know?’

‘Just a wild guess. You admire Newt Gingrich, don’t you?’

‘I think he’s a great American. Do you believe in a Christian god, Professor?’

‘How is that relevant, Agent Stevens?’

‘What about the Bible – do you believe that the Bible is the true word of God?’

Duke looked at Connors, who shrugged, as if to say, ”Hey, he’s just my partner.”

‘As a work of fiction the bible is OK,’ Duke said, ‘but the Good Book is too riddled with contradictions to be taken seriously. The concept of God – just, loving or vengeful -- has never worked for me.’

Stevens furiously jotted notes while Connors rubbed his chin and asked Duke about some academic papers he had written about the Black Panthers ten years ago. Connors wanted to know if Duke believed that violence was a viable political tool.

‘With apologies to Dr. King and the Mahatma, the use of violence can’t be ruled out. Sometimes there is no other way to influence the prevailing order to change. It depends on the context, on the opposition, and on the capacities of the people involved. I’d like to think that non-violent tactics always work, but I know they don’t. I don’t believe that non-violence alone would have changed the apartheid government in South Africa, for instance. Mandela said much the same thing.’

‘Do you consider yourself a radical, Professor?’ Stevens asked.

‘Define radical, Agent Stevens.’

‘A person intent on the overthrow of the existing social, economic or political order.’

Duke laughed. ‘Hell, as far as I’m concerned this is a golden age in this great country of ours. I like my democracy perverted by corporate money; I love it when my country invades other countries on false pretexts; I enjoy watching the gap between rich and poor widen every year; and I think the War on Drugs and the prison-industrial complex is working beautifully. I won’t even mention our glorious police state, of which you two are upstanding representatives. Of course I’m a radical – in the true sense of the word. Look it up, junior, when you have some free time.’

“It went on like this for two hours,” Duke said. “I still don’t know what the hell they were after, but I suspect the FBI isn’t the crack agency it was when J. Edgar Hoover was at the helm by day and wearing a bra and panty hose at night. Better watch your back, my friend -- you might be next. Some of that stuff you write is inflammatory.”

“If they’re worried about me, we’re in trouble.”

“Oh, we’re in the deep shit,” Duke said, “make no mistake. Deep, waist high excrement. Even Albus Dumbledore couldn’t help us now. I should have dispatched myself when I had the chance. It’s hopeless, Tang, absolutely hopeless. We had a shot, and then Obama lost his nerve. The window opened for a brief moment but instead of acting boldly, Obama veered to the safe, predictable center and lashed himself to the status quo. I knew he’d disappoint his supporters, I just didn’t think it would happen so fast. Ah, well, we will reap as we sow, and the coming harvest will not be bountiful. Keep in touch, brother.”

Poem: Saving the Temple

The game went like this:
Lower taxes (for corporations & the wealthy)
Let Big Business regulate itself
Turn all things public
Private
Acquire, merge and consolidate
Create monopolies
Crush organized labor
Move jobs overseas
Keep wages low
Buy politicians

The fable went that the rich would invest & innovate
And the “free” market would provide
For the common good

Prosperity for all was guaranteed
Once the heavy hand of government
Was lifted from our shoulders

For the fortunate few it worked
Better than Merlin’s magic
Wealth attracted wealth
Like ants to honey

For the many it’s Dante’s Inferno
The Grapes of Wrath
A foreclosure notice & the unemployment line
The divide between haves and have-nots
Has widened
And widened
Like that of any banana republic

We are two nations living side by side
The United States of Fabulous Wealth
The United States of Shameful Poverty
No in-between
No middle ground
And it’s unstoppable now

The unaccountable money men who make the rules
And rule the world
Never explained how wage slaving masses
Could keep the consumer economy humming
Once credit cards were maxed and the ATM
In the living room
Spit out its last dollar

When the bubble burst and the men behind
The silken curtain were exposed
As Armani clad liars and thieves
Our government rushed to their rescue
Pledged our money
To save the Temple of Greed

We the many pay the cost
We the many make the sacrifice
We the many watch the common good
On which our lives depend
Vanish

Wrong Color, Wrong Place: The Murder of Oscar Grant

What was your crime, Oscar Grant
Other than being born black
In Oakland, CA?

Face down on the cement
Handcuffed
Harmless
Shot in the back by a white transit cop
While witnesses recorded on cell phones

Born black in Oakland
Born black in America
Wrong color
Wrong place

47 years after the 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing in Birmingham
18 years after Rodney King
Look at how far we have not come

Another white cop walks away
After murdering a black man

Though not scot free
Officer Merserle may serve less time
For killing Oscar Grant
Than Michael Vick served for killing a dog

That’s perversity not justice

Oscar Grant was killed twice
Once on that station platform in Oakland
And a second time in an LA
Courtroom

At the Expense of the Many

My family and I watch the fireworks arc over Stearn’s Wharf on the 4th of July. The beach and waterfront are jammed with people and the air is heavy with the smell of a hundred BBQ grills. Traditional American rah-rah music plays from a loudspeaker on West Beach. Most of the people sitting on the sand around us are speaking Spanish. Cameras flash as the sky overhead bursts into bright green, red and gold; I see faces illuminated by the light from cell phones.

Happy birthday, America.

On this holiday night I want to think about what is right with our country, but so many things are out of whack that I can’t focus on the positive – two wars dragging on, the long term implications of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the tanked economy, the largest prison population in the world, and the perils of climate change. This is what I’m thinking about as the fireworks rise up and explode.

How do citizens change a system dominated by two political parties who tap dance to the same corporate drummer? How do we restore a healthy balance of power between capital and labor, government and big business, domestic needs and geopolitical realities? How can we fight against the enormous power wielded by corporate lawyers and lobbyists?

Under the guise of taming the Federal deficit, President Obama’s blue-ribbon deficit commission is mounting a rationale to reduce Social Security benefits, raise the retirement age (again) or both. The campaign is built on fabrications since Social Security is actually a program that pays its own way and does not contribute to the deficit, but don’t bother telling that to the commission members who have concluded (in advance) that reducing Social Security will send the right message to the financial markets. In other words, it’s once again more important to place the perceived needs of the financial sector over those of millions of average citizens.

Are we going to stand for this?

There are far better ways to reduce the Federal deficit than eviscerating Social Security, which, by the way, has been the Holy Grail of GOP conservatives for decades. How about cutting the bloated defense budget, reducing the number of U.S. bases that straddle the globe? How about eliminating subsidies for Big Oil?

Our society is structured for the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. For the most part, the people we elect to do our business make a mockery of representative democracy. There are, to be sure, some bright, committed people in Congress, but they are overshadowed and out numbered by mediocre partisans. It took many years to bring this society into being, and it figures to take many years to unravel it in favor of something more just and sustainable.

If you want to know what a nation values, you need only watch where it spends its resources. As the fireworks soar through the summer sky, I ask myself how this country can always find money for war but rarely for peace; I ask myself why taxpayer subsidies for profitable corporations arouse little or no ire, while help for the needy or a dignified retirement for senior citizens drives the political right into a self-righteous frenzy.

The finale has begun. Boom, boom, boom, red, green, gold, star bursts and molten streamers, and the voice of Lee Greenwood singing Proud to be an American echoing on the loudspeaker. I don’t feel that pride. Instead I feel a sense of loss, of wasted opportunities, and I wonder when the people will say, “Enough.”

The Malaise

(I began writing this piece before the flap over Stanley McChrystal hit the media.)

Something is terribly wrong with the American occupation of Afghanistan.

It’s not working. The Afghans are unwilling partners in the game we are playing with their country.

The world’s lone superpower appears lost and confused as it blindly chases shadows across one of the most backward countries on the planet.

Longest “war” in U.S. history.

Let that fact sink in.

Longer than the Civil War. Longer than WWII. Longer than Vietnam.

President Obama claims the U.S. will withdraw some of its combat forces in mid-2011, but in reality the U.S. has no intention of fully withdrawing from Afghanistan – not after pouring billions of dollars and at least a thousand American lives into the country. Bases and outposts are being built for a long stay by U.S. forces and private contractors, and it’s time – years past time – for American voters and taxpayers to ask why.

Why are we in Afghanistan almost nine years later? Who are we fighting? What is our primary strategic objective, and is that objective realistic? Are we in Afghanistan so that a long sought after oil pipeline can be built and then secured through the western part of the country? Are we simply after Afghanistan’s plentiful mineral reserves?

But perhaps the most important question is the one least asked by the American news media and American politicians: how many Afghans have been killed or wounded since we invaded in 2001? What’s the body count?

And let’s go further and ask another basic question: what is the will of the Afghan people? Do they want American and NATO soldiers in their country?

Time stands against us in Afghanistan, as does history. The language spoken today by the American military and political establishment is eerily familiar to that spoken during the Vietnam War. Our military firepower is unmatched, but the conflict in Afghanistan, like Vietnam, can’t be won by firepower alone.

Stanley “Poor Judgment” McChrystal is gone and David “The Miracle Worker” Petraeus is taking command, but something remains terribly wrong in Afghanistan, not to mention in Washington D.C., and Albany, NY and Sacramento, CA and Detroit, MI and Phoenix, AZ.

Call it the superpower malaise. The case might be terminal.

Iraq. Afghanistan. The BP oil hemorrhage. An economy that won’t recover for any except the wealthy. Stubbornly high unemployment. State budgets in disarray. People suffering. The national political system paralyzed, polarized, bought and paid for with campaign bribes.

I have the sense that the world’s lone superpower is like the proverbial Potemkin village – a façade, an elaborate charade – all polished surfaces perched on a rickety foundation very near total collapse. The confidence and élan we once carried as our American birthright has been replaced with apprehension and fear – fear of Muslims and Mexicans, fear of decline, fear of change, fear of the future, fear of taxes, fear of death, fear of life, fear of the dark, and, most of all, fear of the truth about our situation.

In the years following 9/11, Hunter S. Thompson referred to the U.S. as the Kingdom of Fear, but the sort of fear I’m talking about here penetrates even deeper.

We are now a nation living on borrowed time and paying the bills with borrowed money. Our politicians and their corporate masters hum the same hackneyed tunes while the shining city on the hill burns.

The Lost Highway

Strong-Arm – a & v, Physically powerful; (of a criminal) using violence; a thug; a bouncer. Oxford American Dictionary

The reporter for ABC’s Good Morning America program asserted that the Obama Administration has strong-armed BP into speeding up the claims process for those affected by the ongoing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

Interesting choice of words.

When it comes to oil, it’s generally not the government that engages in strong-arming – it’s the oil companies, their lobbyists and legal firms – that shake down the government and taxpayers for direct subsidies, tax breaks, sweetheart deals to drill and extract on “public” land, royalty relief, and on and on and on.

But these are the days of the Tea Party movement – if one can call it that – and the corporate media is influenced by the stirring, though nonsensical, sayings of Sarah Palin, and images of angry white folk who want to take our country back – and the language of the movement advances the notion that the government is evil, profligate, intrusive and hell bent on strangling the free enterprise system. In that context, of course the Obama Administration is strong-arming poor BP and its hapless CEO, Tony Hayward, who simply and sincerely (at least he appears sincere on those TV spots) wants to make things right for all the people who live and work along the Gulf.

Well, sure, except for one minor problem: oil company CEO’s like Tony Hayward are paid huge money to do one thing -- find oil and extract it. End of story. Hayward and members of his tribe are not paid to protect the environment or even give a rat’s ass about it; when something goes wrong, CEO’s are expected to minimize the damage in any manner possible, shift the blame to others and fend off calls for increased regulatory oversight. The eventual legal outcome of the Exxon Valdez spill is a classic case in containing, deferring and reducing the financial exposure produced by a major oil spill.

BP has an abysmal safety record and evidence has recently surfaced that the company ignores safety concerns in order to lower costs and increase profits. That’s hardly a surprise. When profit is all, safety will always be a secondary concern.

The Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, is on record as saying the Obama Administration should have had contingency plans in place for a major oil spill. Perhaps. I’m no fan of Obama when it comes to energy policy – he’s far too timid, prone to siding with Big Oil by continuing his predecessor’s industry-friendly protocols, and fond of spouting absurdities about “clean coal” and nuclear power – but I wonder if Pawlenty was in hibernation during the Bush-Cheney regime. In case there is any doubt here, two terms of Bush-Cheney were a boon to Big Oil -- an absolute run of the table, keys-to-the-kingdom, party-all-the-time, raid-the-cookie-jar, oil industry love orgy.

How was the Obama Administration supposed to unravel a decade of incestuous relationships between oil company lobbyists and regulators – not to mention all the Congress critters of both parties who are addicted to Big Oil campaign contributions -- in less than half a term? How many Republicans might have supported legislation calling for improved safety systems on deep-water oil drilling rigs or increased regulatory oversight of the drilling permit process?

Drill, baby, drill.

This isn’t to acquit the Obama Administration of blame; there’s more than enough to go around. Big Oil is guilty, our government is guilty, our campaign finance system is guilty, and so are we, the American people, for our stubborn insistence that we have the right to burn all the gasoline we can afford to buy. We love our cars, our suburbs, and the freedom offered by the open road, even as that false freedom imprisons us.