Obama’s PNAC: B.A.R.F.F.

“When you wake, you will remember nothing of this...”


      Sparrow, in the December issue of the Sun Magazine, suggests changing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to the Federal Bureau of Introspection. He writes, “Imagine if, instead of collaring suspects, lingering in pizza parlors, and muttering into walkie-talkies, our agents simply sat in dark rooms with eyes closed, searching within?”
      I sense a kindred spirit there. But how lovely such a change would be. Not only would Americans be safer from the violations of their constitutional rights by government agents, those made all the more egregious during the Bush Administration —the Patriot Act, etc.— American citizens would be in a position reminiscent of Mother: “Go to your room right now and think about what you’ve done!”
      Instead of FBI agents —the not-so civil-libertarian kind— projecting their dastardly tendencies toward tyranny onto hapless, innocent citizens, they’d have to sit there and look inward. What a radical, new idea for them!

      As one of those lonely, still-disappointed-in-Obama progressives, I would like to suggest a foundation which will do for the Obama Administratin (BOA) what the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) did for the Bush Administration, that is, expose the philosophy and spirit behind the madness. This would be the “Barack Amnesiac Reflexive Forgetting Foundation, or, BARFF. After all, it is going to be important for all Obamniacs to pretend everything is changing for the better, that President Obama is fulfilling his promises, that there’s reason for hope, that they can maintain their perky positivity, without fear of being disturbed by us party-pooper, reality mongers who keep jumping up and down, waving our hands in their faces and trying to ruin their moods with facts and reminders about what Barack promised.
      With BARFF, the whole idea will be to forget and forgive all, no matter how difficult it becomes, no matter how the stomach churns.
      But it won’t be all that difficult, to wit: I noticed recently, in an NPR news report, how the “reporter” allowed Bush to get away with saying they’d had “bad intelligence” on Saddam’s supposed WMD’s, and that the war in Iraq, therefore, wasn’t his fault. No correction was made, no mention of the Downing Street Memo, which reported that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy,” or how contradictory intelligence from the CIA was suppressed and ignored, or about the outing of Valerie Plame, that whole scandal. This cooperation by the media, with reflexive forgetting and willful amnesia will make the job all the easier.
      It will be up to Obamniacs to continue to forget in this way, as they learned to do back when Barack appeared (“appeared,” because this reality is quickly dimming from consciousness) to betray his promise to filibuster any attempts to give the telecoms immunity from prosecution, when he flip-flopped, voted Yes on the FISA bill anyway, without even the mere peep of a filibuster, granting the telecoms immunity, in service to the notion of hopeful forgetting, I suppose—and change. After all, Obama promised change, so.... he changed! What’s the problem?
      BARFF will give excellent cover for Obama’s failures to fix Bush-era legislative atrocities. It will further the cause of ignoring the death of civil liberty in the United States.
      Take, for example, AETA, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2006 in a staggering moment of collective, ethical forgetting and feeble-mindedness. The Center for Constitutional Rights has this to say about the law: “The Act is part of a trend known as the ‘Green Scare,’ which refers to the recent crackdown on environmental and animal rights activists under the guise of the current administration’s so-called ‘war on terror.’ Passed at the behest of corporate interests [including the American Psychological Association] that profit from animal torture during the research process, but encompassing any business that uses animals or is related to such a business, the AETA penalizes and drastically criminalizes any activity that affects the physical or economic operation of an animal enterprise, even without any loss to the business.”
      This means that if you discover your kitten ended up at a research lab and is being...whatever horrible torture!....and you decide to hold up a sign outside the lab, you can be prosecuted as a “terrorist.” Disregard that “there have been no documented incidences of injury or death caused by and environmental or animal action in the U.S.” (CCR)
      See, in case you didn’t know it, humans —that is, humans making a profit— come before animals and their little feelings. End of story. Of course, WE FORGET that animal feelings are not less than, nor unlike, our own, and may be felt all the more intensely, given animal confusion, helplessness, and vulnerability (added suffering)— and it is basically immoral and unethical to cause the suffering of an other in order to further one’s own life, for whatever reason; but forgetting and unknowing is our business, and we do it well.
      What does this have to do with the Obama Administration? Well, surely the “change” we were hoping for was the end of such injustice, those Bush-era injustices where profits always come before people, animals, and the environment, where the real criminals, corporate and otherwise, triumph at the expense of decent people and decent values. The hope of such a restoration of justice, in support of ethical values, was implicit in the Obama victory. It was part of what we longed for. But, we have yet to see if Obama truly shares our values and will eliminate the excesses of the Bush Administration, excesses such as AETA. The impression we’re beginning to get from Obama track record so far is that he is big on PR, but small on delivery. We suspect two faces there, one that looks good to us, the other that looks good to the right-wing and corporate America, and it’s the latter that is the real Obama.
      I can see it now...
      BOA will, in the face of pressure by environmental activists and animal rights activists to overthrow AETA, suggest hearings, invite letters, and Obama himself will speak movingly about the need to protect animals from needless suffering. However, behind the scenes, BARFF will effectively render the protests impotent, through propaganda —ads, for example, showing clever cartoons of happy cats and dogs on their way to the research lab, a soft landscape of gentle brooks and meadows peopled by scientists dressed in cozy, PJ-like outfits— and by stigmatizing any and all stirrings of conscience with regard to animal suffering, by the infusion into the media of negative stereotyping and labeling: “Violent Old Ladies with Cats (VOLC);” “Animal Coddler-Terrorists;” “Anti-science Cult Killers,” etc., which would be the stick, aside from the prosecutions. The carrot would be the blessed sleep of forgetting and unknowing— “President Obama’s in charge...everything’s going to be okay....”

      Sweet dreams...enjoy your Obasms.


L.M.

Don't Worry, Progressives: Obama Will Lead the Way (wink, wink...)

By Joel Mittlemann
San Diego, California

      Responding to criticism that he has failed so far to appoint even one progressive from the “Democratic wing” of the Democratic Party to his team, President-elect Obama insisted during his press conference yesterday that the change he envisions will come from his leadership, not from his staff or cabinet.
      “Don’t look at the people I surround myself with. Look to me. Ultimately, policy decisions will emanate from me, by the spirit of change I have promised and intend to honor.”
      He then repeated much of what he had said in ads and campaign speeches, with some important differences: “Instead of prosperity trickling down, pain has trickled up. Working family incomes have fallen by two thousand dollars a year. We're losing jobs. Deficits are exploding. Our economy's in turmoil. Simply put, laissez-faire capitalism is a failure. Let’s face it—it isn’t working. We cannot possibly drive down the very same path. Instead of giving hundreds of billions in new tax breaks to big corporations, the wealthy elite and oil companies, I plan on restoring a mixed economy, with serious regulations on big business. Then we need a repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act, to restore workers’ right to form unions. Instead of more tax breaks for corporations that outsource American jobs, I'll give them to companies who create jobs here. Instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest -- I'll focus on the middle class and the poor. We’re going to end NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the IMF, HMO’s, as well as create a single-payer health care system.
      It doesn’t matter that the people I’ve got on my team have been hard-core, right-wingers and central players in the economic and moral crisis that faces America—they’ve seen the light, and it is held by me. I will lead the way, don’t you worry about that.”
      Asked why, if he intended on ending Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans immediately upon his inauguration, he appeared to be abandoning that idea to say he might simply allow them to expire in 2011, President-elect Obama said that given the economic crisis, he needed to focus on “more pressing issues.”

UPDATE:

      President-elect Obama has reportedly charged his economic team to develop a plan for the future implementation of the Greater Regional Advantage Free Trade Agreement, or, GRAFTA. He assured reporters the plan would include safeguards for American jobs, the environment, and the human rights of the poor all over the world. This reporter thought President-elect Obama winked when he said that, but others thought it was just a twitch.

Eric “Chiquita Banana” Holder as Attorney General?

Excuse me—it’s been lovely, but I have to scream now...

      This morning I woke with a headache felt mostly in my left eye—a symbolic gesture, I suppose, referring to the pain of disillusionment I’m feeling, after my surrender to Obamaphoria in the moments just before and after the election. But don’t get me wrong—I’m not blaming Obama. I knew perfectly well his promise wasn’t real, and I chose to ignore my instincts.

      Let me exaggerate —after all, it’s so much more fun than tempering my reactions— to wit: the experience of waking to the realization that I’d compromised my integrity with my vote for Obama is the hyperbolic equivalent to the cultural joke where a guy wakes beside an ugly girl and realizes he was too drunk the night before to discern her true qualities; but in this case the characters have to be reversed, where it would be the girl who had too many margaritas and, seeing the guy though a tequila-induced blur, swooned, fell into his arms, then awoke to see the mistake she’d made—a snoring beast beside her in his beer-soaked, wife-beater T and reeking like a camel in rut. (“To court females and intimidate rivals, rutting males [camels] drool and spit and urinate like leaky fountains. They reek of an oily secretion that flows copiously from scent glands on their napes.”)

      I mean, I realize a mere two weeks after the election is not enough to make an absolute judgment; but the trend in Obama’s pre-presidency is not smelling right so far —in fact, it’s smelling a whole lot like the oily secretion off the nape of some sort of hairy beast’s neck—perhaps the hairy beast of betrayal comes to mind?

      First, Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff—this stinks pretty bad; certainly it’s no change on U.S. support for Israel’s crimes of occupation and siege, for starters. Plus, he has close ties to the conservative, corporate-leaning DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), meaning no change on “free” trade and every other sort of corporate and hawkish policy, and representing no threat whatsoever to America’s right-wing powers-that-be.

      But this one really reeks: Eric Holder as Attorney General, who has represented Merck (Vioxx/Fosamax) and Chiquita Brands at the D.C. law firm, Covington & Burling.
      No exaggeration: Obama's choice of Eric Holder for attorney general is deeply disappointing, even disturbing, given that Holder was directly involved in negotiating for Chiquita Brands the slap-on-the-wrist it received for funding death squads in Columbia.
      Alberto Gonzalez was bad enough, but did he represent corporations that funded murderous terrorist organizations? (Not a rhetorical question.)

      More evidence of foul odors rising from team Obama can be found if you go to Democracy Now! online, where you can find this, first the heading, “Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team;” then, “John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq.”

      Not to mention how Obama sent Madeline Albright to the G20 summit, the same Madeline Albright who said the price —death— of half a million children in Iraq due to Clinton sanctions was worth it.
      Furthermore, when Henry Kissinger is happy about the prospect of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, no kidding, I smell a rat.
      And here comes Tom Daschle who, in 2006, endorsed the warrantless domestic surveillance program conducted by George W. Bush and the National Security Agency. Hello? You call this change?

      I am so tired of watching progressives swoon over Obama. How many times does he have to prove he is immune to pressure from the "grass roots," before progressives stop saying, "Well, we just have to organize and put pressure on him to do the right thing." It's clear: no matter his election mandate, no matter how big the marches get, and no matter how many times he responds by sweet-talking us about bringing change to America, change is not what we're going to see. Sure, he'll make a few good moves, but fundamentally, it's going to be the same ol' same ol' corporate empire, the same ol’ same ol’ military industrial complex, or, “America, the United States of Amnesia,” as Gore Vidal describes it.

      As for me, from now on, I refuse to go amnesiac for Barack, ever again. I want to see a few true progressives in his cabinet. When that happens, I might temper my disgust. Until then, I won’t be sipping the kool-aid, whether it’s laced with poison or the mere stuff of boozy dreams.


UPDATE:

The great journalist, Jeremy Scahill, has posted an excellent piece on Obama's foreign policy probables, with the title, This is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Neocons to Watch for in Obama's White House. (At Alternet )

However, Glenn Greenwald defends the notion of Eric Holder as Attorney General, saying at Salon, “Anybody who believes in core liberties should want even the most culpable parties to have zealous representation before the Government can impose punishments or other sanctions. Lawyers who defend even the worst parties are performing a vital service for our justice system.” (At Salon's blog )

I normally agree with everything Greenwald says, but in this case, no. It’s one thing to defend a client; it’s another to negotiate a sweetheart deal that basically lets corporate criminals off the hook. You cannot tell me Holder’s heart wasn’t on the side of Chiquita Brands. Also, you cannot compare the defense of a powerless or poor defendant with that of a mega-powerful defendant, as Greenwald tries to do. Eric Holder was not forced to work for a corporate law firm that would require him to defend the likes of Merck and Chiquita Brands. That was his choice, a choice that represents his values and core allegiances.

Ralph Nader would agree with Greenwald’s point that all defendants deserve a vigorous defense, but would he put himself in a position where he had to be the one to defend corporate criminals? Impossible to imagine. It would never happen. And that’s the difference: Holder’s allegiance, revealed by his choice to represent corporations against the interests of victims of corporate crime, is with private, corporate power; Nader’s allegiance is with public —ordinary citizens, workers, victims of corporate crime— power, that is, government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Judging by Obama’s choices so far, and regardless of the sweet-talk, it’s clear Obama will ignore the notion of people-power. Too bad he didn’t consider the likes of Ralph Nader (but there's nobody quite like Ralph) for Attorney General. But he didn’t. And that tells us a great deal.


UPDATE II

Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secy...worked for Kissinger & Associates, the IMF...need I say more? I rest my case. (For an enlightening discussion, one you'll never hear in mainstream news, of Obama's economic team, see Democracy Now! 11/25/08.)


—L.M.

Dove Tale for Veteran's Day

      
      Yesterday, I spotted a dove resting in the middle of my garden. I nearly missed her, for she was perfectly still and camouflaged against the dry soil and grayed oak planter behind her. I thought, “What a smart dove you are to choose that spot to rest in—what predator would see you there, so quietly blending with your surroundings?” But why she was there at all, I couldn’t tell.
      It was such a rare event. Doves visit my place regularly, to eat from the feeder on the balcony, or to sit in the pine tree, but never do they stay ground-level for more than a minute or two. Cats are always present; coyotes, occasionally. The orange, polydactyl feral cat, my adoptee, was there yesterday too, napping on the patio bench, then later moving to her look-out tree to groom herself—without once noticing the dove.
      I kept an eye on her for two hours, while I read my book, until about 5:30 p.m. During that time, I worried over her, using my binoculars to get an up-close view. She hardly moved, except for blinking her perfect round eye and rotating her head this way and that; I could not see if she was wounded, or stunned, or just plain frozen with fear. I was tempted to approach her to get the answer, and rescue her if need be. But something held me back— “Let’s trust in nature’s wisdom and just wait and see...” I would go out, but only if a predator approached.
      Then, as day’s end and darkness approached, she began to relax, to test herself, moving to another position, extending her wings, flapping them briefly, tentatively; and that’s when, with a long stretch of her neck toward the near-by pine, she took off, up into the branches, where she disappeared.
      I don’t know exactly why this event made me as happy as it did. Most people wouldn’t be attached to a mere bird’s success, so very happy about a dove’s flight to safety, after a long, fearful wait. It’s one thing to be relieved and glad for the bird. But such dancing for joy...I don’t know.
      Perhaps the event reminded me of something. Perhaps it just felt right, coming after last week’s political revelations. After all, wasn’t it so true— spirit long suppressed; spirit finally released?

      Eighteen American veterans per day die by suicide. Let me not, in my happiness, forget them.


—L.M.

Leaks Unplugged on Obama Appointees

Picks for poetic justice, though improbable, are Nice Dreams for progressive Obama supporters

By Mistee Laurie, C.P.I

Despite all efforts to plug leaks as to who is to do what and where in the Obama Administration, a few surprising names have trickled out, to the astonishment of all.

But, why not?

Just as Bush had set off alarm bells for progressives with his appointments —for everything from the U.N. ambassador and the top state department post for Latin American affairs, to his appointment of a convicted Reagan administration official to head a National Security Council office, to Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, “Heckuva-job Brownie” Michael Brown, Monica Goodling, Swift Boat Veterans donor Sam Fox, where competence, experience and qualifications for the job were less important than crony status, donor status, or ideological conformity— Obama is setting off alarm bells for the far right.

Progressives still remember the wacky world of life during the G.W. Bush Administration—the surreal zealotry of Justice Department prosecutions, best exemplified by the conviction of Tommy Chong for the sale of bongs, Bushite contempt for accountability, felt most acutely by Cindy Sheehan when her request to meet with Bush was denied, and her question, “What was the noble cause my son died for?,” went unanswered; remember the frenzy of kitschy outrage over Natalie Marin’s mere exercise of her First Amendment rights, and the banning by Clear Channel of the Dixie Chicks from country western stations all across the nation; remember the faith-based initiative, how tax dollars were funneled to religious —read, Christian— organizations, where proselytizing to poor folks was the norm; remember the freak-out during the election campaign over Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers?

Well, if the leaks are true, perhaps Obama has decided to embrace the precedence Bush set with his appointments, to make a few not-so qualified —but well deserved— picks of his own:

Tommy Chong, Administrator of the D.E.A.

Dixie Chick Natalie Maines to head the F.C.C.

Michael Moore, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Cindy Sheehan, Secretary of Defense


Whether the leaks prove true is yet to be revealed. We can only hope.

My Values Vote for...

...and why I'm so happy to have been wrong.

What could make a person, a Democrat who had been critical of Barack Obama, be so happy over his election, and so happy to be wrong about my fears the Republicans would steal the election again, and get away with it, again?

First, what happened in my polling booth... it was a rainy morning. I still hadn’t decided whether I would vote for Ralph or Barack. But, somehow, in that booth it occurred to me that I didn’t want to come to the end of my life and realize I hadn’t voted for the first Democratic African-American President of the United States. And so I found myself filling in the oval next to the name, Barack Obama. Was it racist, a kind of reverse Bradley effect, to vote for someone because of his race? Maybe. All I know is that the long-suffering of Blacks in America —and healing it— seemed more important to me in that booth than the recent suffering of the American people via Bush’s spy program, that Barack approved with his vote on FISA. (Which had been the last straw for me, where Obama was concerned, and what sent me running to Ralph.)

So, as to the fears: I am always happy when my fears turn out to be unfounded. In this case, because Republicans managed to cheat their way into the White House in the past two presidential elections, I had reason to believe they’d do it again. I wasn’t about to set myself up for another disappointment, where I believed the polls and simply went on faith.

Obama’s victory, while not restoring my faith in the Democratic Party, or in his intentions to make the right choices and policies —not quite yet— does restore my faith in election integrity. At least the thing works when so many people come out to vote that Rovian crimes fail. That’s something to cheer about— the restoration of democracy...at least in so far as a two-party system can restore it.

Best of all, though, was the beautiful, beautiful sight of tears on faces —Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and everyday African Americans— and knowing what this moment in history means for them. Imagine the children, how being Black and being proud has come to life in a whole new way. For them, I am very, very happy, indeed.

—L.M.

YAY!!! I WAS WRONG!!!

More to come...

—L.M.

Election Eve Fear and Loathing

Republican election fraud—practice makes perfect:
Will this one be stolen too?

Watching Countdown tonight, it was so frustrating to listen to Keith and What’s-his-name talking about how McCain’s campaign offices are all lonesome and bleak, lacking the bustle and enthusiasm of Obama’s campaign offices. So I’m thinking, What does McCain and his staff care? They know they're going to "win"... by CHEATING!

I hope I'm wrong, but what has changed since 2000 and 2004 to prevent the Republicans from stealing yet another election? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except that they're practice-perfect now. Get ready for a big, stinking upset. How do I know? Check this out, today’s interview with Mark Crispin Miller: DemocracyNow!

Tonight I received an email from John McCain. But when I went to unsubscribe from the mailing list, the unsubscribe feature was set up so that you couldn’t unsubscribe without checking a reason —that is, four or five choices offered. Every choice of reason began with, “I am a John McCain supporter, but...” Naturally, I wasn’t going to choose any of those, so I just hit “unsubscribe.” It wouldn’t go. I had to go back to the email and send a reply, requesting they remove my email address from their list. Bastards! A Republican prank?

—L.M.

Little Lies and Big Lies

Derrick Jensen is right:
our way of life requires a taboo against telling the truth.

      Let me tell you a little story, to start. It was during the weeks after the attacks of 9-11, when it seemed my entire city was waving the U.S. flag and wanting to bomb the hell out of somebody, anybody.
      I was skeptical about it all, from the start. I hated the flag-waving and the lack of any sort of historical self-awareness that would temper the blood-thirsty patriotism all around me. (I live near Camp Pendleton, after all.)
      A huge American flag was pinned to the wall in the lobby where I worked; tiny flags went up at our stations, and patriotic posters were put up on the walls. One poster in particular caught my eye. It was a photo of a Marine, saying good-bye to his little daughter. While I appreciated the sadness of the reality depicted there, I also recognized the poster as propaganda: left out of the picture, but present in my mind, was the horror about to be inflicted by that soldier and his army on innocent Iraqi children, mothers, and sons; left out of the picture was the uselessness of trying to fight cult criminals with an army.
      But my main problem was with the company’s response to 9-11, what I felt was the imposition of right-wing politics and jingoism on our environment, as if all the employees had to be gung-ho for the war or just shut up.
      My mistake was that I let slip my disapproval to a temporary supervisor. I didn’t say much, only that the picture was sad, but it was propaganda, and I thought such propaganda had no business being up on the walls in a work place.
      A week later, I happened to drop in to talk to our manager for a separate reason. I walked in rather meekly, as I remember, for this woman had demonstrated a capacity for ruthlessness on many occasions, and I didn’t want to rile the beast. She looked up when I spoke and gave me an amazing stern look. I remember she said, “That’s interesting...I’ve been mad at you for an entire week!” Cindy had told her what I’d said about the poster.
      So, still recovering from treatment for breast cancer and not wanting to lose my health insurance, I lied: “Oh no...not at all...” I said, and she took that to mean I was as gung-ho for the military as she, and the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
      Needless to say, Cindy got the cold shoulder from me for awhile. “But they told me I had to report everything!” she said.

      In A Language Older than Words, Derrick Jensen writes, “In order for us to maintain our way of living, we must, in a broad sense, tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves.”
      There ya go, Cindy...
      While I was maintaining my way of life, that is, working, and telling my little lies to management, I noticed the lies told by management as well, and the internalization of those lies by employees, all of which then became a blueprint for conflict—gossip, cliques, power struggles, shouting matches, cold shoulders, reprimands, and various degrees of verbal and psychological abuse.
      The first big unspoken lie that seemed implicit in corporate life, among the many, is that profit-making is the highest virtue. Within that lie is another: “we are an aggressive, predatory, ruthless and competitive species.”
      Another lie is that people are motivated by “self-interest,” that such interest is without of concern for others, entirely selfish and focused on the base values of the first big lie.
      Then there’s the hierarchy lie—that we are pack animals and must, in service to our basic natures, organize according to our sacred texts: upper/middle/lower; top/bottom; winners/losers; leaders/followers; victors/the vanquished, stars/average Joes/flunkies. (It's not that I think the notion that some people are better endowed than others is a lie; it's that such "superiority" entitles those with higher rank to humiliate others and deprive them of human dignity—that's the lie.)
      The most obvious lie behind management rules is that employees are stupid, lazy and wicked, and management’s job is to manage them—control, teach, discipline, exploit.
      None of these are new insights. I realize that.
      But I think even those of us who claim to have better values, at work or at home, behave in ways that honor those lies. It is nearly impossible to be free of them. Thus a relationship that could have provided human comfort and peace in an otherwise nurturant culture not bent on “success,” or productivity, or victory over others, instead goes cold, or hostile, or violent, or hateful, or, at the very least, passive-aggressive.
      Prof. George Lakoff claims that 95% of thought and emotion is subconscious. If true, this would explain why it is impossible to confront indirect hostility, because people who do it are hardly ever aware they’re doing it; thus you might hear your friend say to you, “But they said I had to report everything!” but you don’t want to lecture her on what should have been her loyalty to her peers, rather than to management—after all, that would be patronizing.
      You felt the stab in your back, but you would not convince her it was a stab in the back; she didn’t mean it that way, not consciously. And, anyway, could you possibly expose the lie that she supported by betraying my confidential remark, the lie that tells her that thinking for herself is a no-no and will get her fired? You cannot. You must instead protect the taboo against recognizing cooperation with power as a lie, as a detriment to well-being.
      Derrick Jensen concludes the same paragraph by saying, “And so we avoid these truths, these self-evident truths, and continue the dance of world destruction.”
      This means to me that all the little lies are like cells in the body of the big lies of our monster system, all serving to support the life of denial, our way of life.
      The myth of self-responsibility serves such denial too, it seems to me, on behalf of the system at large. Take, for example, my attempt to include the competitiveness feature of our culture as blameworthy in family conflicts as well. In a conversation with a family member, this notion had to be immediately recognized as “not taking personal responsibility” for one’s choices, behavior, personality flaws and so forth. This to my mind is the lie of personal power and responsibility that we all buy into, while ignoring all the factors in life that have the power to crush personal power and personal will—the fear of getting fired, for example, or poverty, inequality of education, opportunity, encouragement; cruelty, unfairness, injustice, competition, and hierarchy itself—all creating low self-esteem, discouragement, depression, helplessness and hopelessness. In such a system, somebody always has to be the loser. This lie of self-responsibility is among the lies that block consciousness, collective or not, of the truth about a way of life that is destructive of authentic happiness.
      Thus, the system functions freely, without exposure of its lies, and at our expense. Then happiness becomes something you have to drug yourself to achieve, especially if you’re not “happy,” according to the definition of happiness in our culture: rich, successful, famous—but, it was your choice not to be “happy,” anyway. Which reminds me: that definition of happiness? Another lie. (a reminder not to take blogging too seriously as a means to happiness)
      What it comes down to is this: we simply must not think certain thoughts, among them the primacy and possibility of nurture—in families, between friends, in business and in government—as fundamental to our character and values; nurture, not as from parent to child, but between co-equals, with interest in the well-being of both ourselves and the other, with respect for each other’s human rights, and each other’s psychological, emotional, and physical needs.
      We must not have this thought: that above all else we are nurturant, altruistic, and equal by virtue of our basic humanity. To have it, to express it out loud, is to invite accusations of being “soft” on...whatever—communism, drugs, crime, and blah blah blah. Essentially, to have it is to threaten the god of masculinist capitalism, for want of better words, and all the lies that occupy that territory.
      Consider, more specifically, on the microcosm level, the wife-beater, how his definition of masculinity includes the lie that to be a man is to control and dominate —be above— a woman, or women. Nowhere listed in the sad, furious wife-beater’s definition of manhood will be the word nurture. This is why, to my mind, he is more pitiable than vile—think of the curse he has taken from his culture, a curse that condemns him to relentless evidence to the contrary of his “masculinity,” and perpetual slavery to having to disprove such evidence.
      It is no less true of our way of life, it seems to me. Corporations are not in the business of nurturing employees, or customers; policy-makers are not in the business of nurturing indigenous peoples in other countries, or sentient creatures, or the living world; war-makers are not in the business of nurturing the enemy—it’s kill, kill, kill, then drill, drill drill.
      Have you noticed McCain’s rapid and continual blinking? That’s beacuse he’s lying, constantly.
      I’m thinking it might be a good idea to start nurturing corporate CEO’s, to find a way to combat the lies embedded in our way of life. After all, they have grandchildren too. I have to believe it is not too late to raise the consciousness of even the most blind among us. It’s a bit patronizing, but can it be helped? Better to be patronized than bombed, right?

That’s all folks, for today...

—L.M.

That Was the Final Debate? Were they Joking?

Here’s Ninja Granny’s WhoopAss Report:

      John McCain, eyelids a-flutter, lurched into a spry attack from the start. “Why would you want to put tacks on anybody right now?” he asked. “We need to encourage entrepreneurship, so that people can start reproducing by machine as soon as possible.”
      McCain also bore in on Obama’s support for the right to privacy and Roe v Wade, saying, “What a joke that is... or maybe it’s a comedy...no, a tragedy...no, it’s a hysterectomy, and we know you’d be speaking in Islamic pentameter too!
      “Worse that that, nobody’s talking about how you voted for the Emasculation Proclamation,” McCain insisted, while continually slapping the tireless hamster in his cheek.
      Both Obama and McCain addressed their remarks directly to “Joe the Golfer,” who had lost his balls in gopher holes on his favorite golf course, all because of “those extremist, environmentalist gopher-lovers.”
      “It’s pretty surreal, man, losing my balls down gopher holes,” Joe had told both Obama and McCain. And each candidate commiserated with great and profound sympathy, acknowledging the horror of it all.
      But the candidate’s shared-compassion was short-lived. McCain, barely able to restrain his eye-roll reflex, responded to Obama’s reference to Nicaraguan deaths of labor organizers, by saying, “Damn, don’t you know anything? The Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility, both here and abroad!”
      Obama couldn’t resist: “Why John, you’re sounding more and more like George W. Bush every day!”
      “Hey you,” McCain retorted, “I am NOT President Bush—well, I do come from a long line of rapists and pillagers, proud servants of the Empire, but how dare you question my character—my mother died in infancy! Not too many people know that. And not too many people know I was born in a log cabin which I built with my own two hands!”

      That’s about it, Folks, except for that damn echo— “Where’s Ralph...where’s Cynthia...where’s Ralph...where’s Cynthia...?" the ghostly vibes of democracy long gone. Heck, can you imagine the difference, if Ralph Nader had been there? Can you imagine the joy of watching McCain’s face as Ralph exercised his unfailing ability to cut the crap and focus on the essential truths of the day, as he did today on Democracy Now? Can you imagine how he would shine next to Obama’s tongue-biting, pale congeniality? Can you imagine the bright moment, when he told the world who the real terrorists are —George W. Bush and Dick Cheney— and what they deserve, with a call for accountability for corporate and state terror?

—N.G.