Kindling On The Fire

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English: A campfire Nederlands: Een kampvuur F...

English: A campfire Nederlands: Een kampvuur Français : Un feu de camp (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Oh they make it look so easy, those captains of modern finance, those wizards of contemporary media. They spin a few lines, a few lies, or a few lives, and they get you to hate those who would help you, or who need your help. They get you to enthusiastically support drug testing for welfare beneficiaries, laws that make it harder for the workers to exercise the only real power they have (each other,) and criminalizing real dissent. Continue reading →

Ahhhh… Priorities

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It is nice to see the right to free assembly finally respected. No pepper spray or beatings here. No targeting peaceful demonstrators. No bullying the free press. No wrangling groups of people like they are cattle until they have no where else to go. It is good to see some things are important enough for the authorities to give free voice to the people. Especially when they are allowed to y’know, shoot people and set cars on fire over a FUCKING BASKETBALL GAME!!!!

In the common internet parlance: America, I am disappoint. Through months of mostly peaceful protest Occupiers have been sprayed, they have been beaten, they have had their heads smashed into windows, been left for hours without food or bathroom facilities after arrest and generally bullied by the cops. During all this too much of the narrative in this country has been built around the idea that somehow these protesters have deserved this treatment. Agree or disagree with them as you want, but these protesters have been making sacrifices and putting themselves in harm’s way to make this country a better place, not just for themselves, but for you as well.

Maybe they have the wrong idea about what needs to be changed in this country though I am not inclined to believe so. Even if I did, how can we be happy living in a country where this can happen to people trying to do right but meanwhile mass destruction of property on a scale that dwarfs anything done by the handful of bad apples in the Occupy Movement and violence against other people to celebrate a game is treated with a collective yawn. Oh it made the news, where it was treated like a “boys will be boys” situation.

Through this new social and political awakening I have been, and remain, mostly optimistic about the direction our country is taking.  If we are going to keep this momentum though, we have to call our media and our authorities out on these little hypocrisies. I am glad that the cops did not cross any lines in Kentucky, I am, but really, this isn’t about them, it’s about us, and how we react to these two very different groups of people.

Article 9

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No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Well now, that didn’t last long it. Right back to America’s behavior. Not that we are alone on this. The powers that be use arrest as a tool of oppression whenever it is convenient. Sometimes it’s for little things, like randomly grabbing protesters to strike fear into others. Sometimes it’s for big things, like daring to publish documents questioning the government.

Now our own government has the power to detain, without explanation and without recourse, anyone who is suspected of being a terrorist. The one thing American’s across the political spectrum could take pride in about their country and we are tossing it aside for what? Expedience? A sense of safety? By now we all now the quote regarding liberty and security. The thing is the prediction that comes with that quote is true. Because when that happens we do lose our security, when that happens we have to live in constant fear of the state.

Which is why so many states do it. It is why our state, bought and paid for by corporate elites is keeping this “debate” on the table, rather than dismiss it as un-American as they should. They want to keep us afraid. Just as many Cubans, Chinese, Iranians and Saudis are afraid of their state. So far, thankfully, it seems to have generated the opposite result. Those Americans that have not put their heads in the sand are outraged as well they should be.

I wish they would be as outraged by the arbitrary arrests of Occupiers. It should be noted that many of these people are released without charge because there is no basis for holding them. The only reason they are arrested is to scare them into staying home. We are on the cusp America, we’ve been teetering there for some time. We only got here because not enough of us have been bold enough to stand up and be counted. Not enough of us take to the streets, not enough of us dare the government to shut us down. We can and must do this.

Despite our faults, which I as a free American will never stop shining the light on nor stop trying to remedy, we have been a beacon to oppressed people around the world. We have been an example to them that the state does not have the right to simply lock you up and throw away the key without giving you fair trial or even telling you, or your community, why. This is why, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of those people we cannot let that light go out. If we lose our way, I am not certain anyone will find their way back anytime soon.

What Makes Us American Anymore?

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“America, Land of the Free.”
Whoever told you that is your enemy!

Rage Against The Machine

I grew up at the end of the Cold War. One thing you could always count on was a summer full of movies, some memorable like Red Dawn or Top Gun and some less so, that drove home the superiority of the American Idea. We were better than the Soviets, Chinese, or Libyans because we respected the individual rights of Americans. We would never ask our people to “show their papers” or spy on our citizens. We can, of course, know that at least today, that is complete and utter bullshit.

These high ideas of ours were dropped in the waste basket at the first sign of trouble. With little outcry Americans allowed for the passage of the Patriot Act, a law that even without its terrifying provisions has a chilling effect just by its name. A law that despite opportunities the Democrats enjoyed during the President’s first two years remains on the books. We spy on peaceful protesters supposedly in the name of security, though whose, or maybe more accurately what’s, security remains in question.

You know, maybe we do need all these extra precautions. I am not inclined to believe so, but lets say, leaving aside the spying on people who are doing no one any harm, we have to give up some of our civil liberties to protect ourselves from terrorists. If you really believe that, then please stop wrapping yourself in the Constitution when in pubic debate, because you have already shown a willingness to ignore it when it is convenient for you.

I suppose this is nothing new. As Zach De La Rocha, whom I quote above, would point out, America has been considerably less free for some groups throughout its existence. Spying on our citizenry goes back at least to the Civil War, with some of the grossest displays occurring during the peace and civil rights movements of the middle of the last century. Then, as now, those not in the cross hairs of our government sat idly by, secure in their belief that their leaders would not turn this power on them.

Only they can and will do this. Give them an inch and they will take a light year until nothing remains of those high ideas that we have claimed make us Americans. When that happens, what will you be then?

What You Can Put In That Wealth Gap

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Much has been made since Occupy Wall Street began of the wealth gap. The rallying cry of “we are the 99%” is effective and in some ways long overdue. For too long our government has been the tool of only the very wealthy, reacting to human need outside of that elite club only when circumstances were dire. The fact that the top 1 percent controls more than the bottom 90 percent combined creates  a gross inequality of power that needs to be addressed.

Really though, when it comes right down to it, I don’t care how much more they make than the rest of us, and I suspect if they weren’t such brats, neither would the rest of the 99%. What I do care about is what they do with it. How they spend almost as much lobbying to pay less taxes as they would on the actual taxes if we just closed the various loopholes and raised the top marginal rate just a bit. How they don’t spend it on labor and create jobs like they say they are going to. How they gamble with the rest of our money and get the government, bought and paid for with that wealth, to cover their losses.

Make an obscene amount of money, that’s perfectly fine, but stop actively making the world a scarier and more dangerous place for the rest of us. Not only do I want to see these people stop tearing away at what safety net we do have in America (which is fairly pitiful compared to the rest of the Western World) but I want to see them improve on what it was at its peak. This is both a moral and social good. It is good for us and, more to the point I wish they’d realize it is good for them. It creates a more stable society, one less likely to turn to a bloody revolution. As bad as things are, and as far worse as they may yet get, I don’t want that. It’s just the same cycle over and over and we should have outgrown that garbage by now.

Of course we also should have outgrown the notion that he who has the most toys wins. We should have outgrown insisting that the only way we win is if someone loses. We are too old now, and our house too battered to think accruing wealth is worth more than having a sustainable living environment.  I don’t want to believe these people are evil, just misguided, but how misguided do you have to be to consistently ignore the proof around you and the lessons of history? How insulated from the rest of humanity do you have to be to not hear the cries of suffering billions?