Our jumping point will be a loss for all humanity (observed by me here): former Czech President, playwright, poet, author and “dissident” leader Vaclav Havel has passed away at age 75. Havel, of course, wrote extensively of the lies associated with communist propaganda, and ultimately proceeded to lead the so-called “Velvet Revolution,” which is credited with non-violently ending communist rule in Czechoslovakia and ushering in (as it were) democratic rule in both Czechoslovakia and its successor countries (Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the latter of which he served as its first president).
In some sense, as a professional story-teller, particularly in the sphere of “the dramatic,” Havel had the perfect metaphor to be the perfect politician. Of course, he also had the help of a couple of broader trends… by the late 1980’s, the Soviet Union and its influence were imploding under the weight of an ill-fated military adventure in Afghanistan and an economic malaise/collapse, culminating in an inability to feed its own people. And Czechoslovakia had a history (of which Havel was a part, of course) of challenging its harsh Soviet overlords and their legacy of totalitarian rule. Still… while “the story” wasn’t so hard to pitch in one sense– Soviet propaganda was, although everywhere in its sphere, not accepted by its target audience as anything but a load of crap– the message that resistance was not futile… that was powerful, and when it finally took hold, [seemingly] changed to world.
I juxtapose (or intermix) the post-title to reflect Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic’s other most famous citizen, also from the literary realm, Franz Kafka, to make my seemingly interesting point. Kafka, as you know, wrote such works as “Metamorphosis” (about a man who wakes up as a giant cockroach), “The Castle” (the ultimate bureaucracy), and also relevant to our current state, “The Trial” (endless opaque proceedings ultimately ending in the ultimate punishment). Let me quickly remind the handful of you still reading this that the left/right kabuki game should be dumped into the same “dustbin of history” as the Soviet Union itself…
At least in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and its legacy of central planning and brutality is largely gone now.
But alas, bad ideas never seem to die. Some of the worst aspects (but not the best ones!) of the Soviet system have migrated westward.
Where was I going? Oh yes… Russia itself is now a semi-autocracy, with some components of a free country like “elections” (albeit highly flawed and generally believed to be corrupt), a kleptocratic “free market” system… but a somewhat independent press, and, because of its vast energy resources, if nothing else, a future. The United States, it seems, is hellbent on following the Soviet Union straight to hell, complete with the same playbook of late-Soviet/early post-Soviet military overextension (with good old Imperial Graveyard Afghanistan as primary focal point), economic kleptocratic oligarchy, and a moribund political system garnering less and less confidence among the citizenry… except… we seem to be holding on.
It’s not about willingness to use violence against our own people– God knows, the Soviet Union was far less squeamish than even our over-militarized domestic police services… No, the difference is mostly about the propaganda. Starting with the fact, that Americans don’t even believe the propaganda IS propaganda. Now, that’s good. After decades of lower living standards resulting from lowering the top marginal tax rates, people still believe in the propaganda that tax cuts will benefit them, instead of just the oligarchs, evidence be damned; not even proof that one in two Americans now live in poverty will get most people off of this one. Or this one: that something called “the American dream” still exists in any meaningful sense. Or that smoking cigarettes is “rebellious” or drinking cola is “cool” or eating factory grown and processed food is “safe and healthy” and small scale farm-raised food is dangerous (keep propping up those corporate bottom lines, peasants!) Or even that we have a functional constitutional democracy, and that the state can’t just lock you up without due process of law (unless of course, you’re a damned terrorist and deserve it).
Let me give you an example of the power of American propaganda: a meme making its way around left blogistan suggests that the DOD authorization bill, intended, of course, to authorize indefinite detention of citizen and furriner alike… somehow doesn’t do this. But the bill explicitly states that it doesn’t disturb “existing law.” As I’ve reminded you for years, existing law includes Padilla v. Hanft, a federal appellate decision which explicitly permits indefinite detention of American citizens arrested in the United States. Alrightie then.
To its immense credit, the Occupy movement has started sandpapering the veneer of our American and Western gestalt, and found that it is a thin one indeed– virtually no provocation at all has resulted in a disproportionately violent backlash that cannot be ignored. And so, while the economic meltdown affects more and more Americans, and those few still huddling near the top (but not quite in the 1% of the 1%) still try to justify the existing system and look down upon “the dirty hippies,” the big picture is fraying, and rather quickly. The European financial meltdown may or may not be resolved, but the underlying lunacy of it all (terrible private financial decisions by oligarchs racking up crazy debt levels to finance crazy speculation have now been shifted to public and sovereign accounts to be paid by taxpayers who did not benefit from the upside lest the oligarchs lose a penny, taking public debt to unprecedented and unsustainable levels everywhere)… all remains in full force. Unsustainable… but it still goes on…
Hey, I’ve been telling you the Imperium has no clothes for a long time. I take great solace in knowing that some of you have caught on, and recognize it to be so. For the rest of you, “Boy, wouldn’t it suck if that awful Newt Gingrich/Michelle Bachmann/Rick Perry/Mitt Romney, etc. became President…?”
This has been… “Meta[mor]pho[r/s][is] (?)”
tdog
And to that exceptional intermix, where would you propose we go? I’m certain it would have to include a way to undo the Citizens United ruling, perhaps even a Constitutional amendment that denies the century-and-a-half corporate personhood status. Some means of securing accurate vote counts nationwide seems essential too, so we can regain some trust that our ballots actually matter.
But even to get to those points, it seems we need the right (federal and state) legislative personnel in office. Does this mean Dems over the GOP? What of the untrustworthy Blue Dog Dems? Does it mean better third party candidates? And what of the top spots, like the Prez and governors?
I’m not very happy with either major party at this time, and I sure would like to hear more reasoned voices adding their two cents to these urgent questions (and by ‘reasoned’, I do mean I long to hear your bark among them).
The internet and social media and bloggers do offer a means for faster access to a broader choice of alternative ways and means to get our country back on a freedom-honoring track, than we had when the corporate media had a virtual monopoly on the PR megaphone.
Please, kind doggie, would you fetch us a few more meaty bones?
Kevin:
Always a pleasure to hear from you. Happy holidays, man!
Obviously, you jumped right on it and nailed the issue: Citizens United. The legal premises are that money=speech, and sociopathic legal fictions=people. Both of which are utter crap, and happen to be remarkably new doctrines– just over 100 years ago, corporations were rightly kept in very small, limited purpose boxes… when they were let out, we got the crazy monopoly trusts of the late 19th century, and finally, it was REPUBLICANS (Teddy Roosevelt leading) that got us some actual progressive action to limit this back where they belonged. And it held for a while– until, surprise, surprise, it was a DEMOCRAT who let the genie go completely (Bill Clinton knows who he is).
The problem is that money, right now, TOTALLY equals corruption. There are no more red tories. No responsibility of any kind.
And money wants politicians it can control, i.e., that don’t have too much of their own money (why money never liked John McCain, hates Mitt Romney and DESPISES John Huntsman, notwithstanding their nominal “conservative” credentials.)
The political game right now is so totally dominated by finance, because that’s where the money is; there are a few pockets besides Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, et als… but Gates and Buffett are looking for balm for their eternal souls through their charitable works, hoping it will make up for the abuses they committed to make their money (up to God, but this DOG says “don’t bet on it”), Soros is still trying to be a rock star, and the rest of the money (Mellon Scaifes, Kochs, Waltons, etc.) is pretty much devoted to seeing to it that it never pays taxes again.
Which is why I keep saying: we need to get OUT of the money game. Our lives are happier if they are NOT devoted to money… it gets harder in a country where around 50% are now approaching the poverty line, unemployment is at Great Depression I era levels (though all the government– either party– is now good for is lying about statistics… and everything else)… the fact is, our whole industrial/finance dependent system is fraying, and fraying fast.
I would suggest as a preliminary manner planning on some gardening as soon as the weather allows; get used to the idea of growing something for your own and your friends/family’s consumption– even if symbolic. And start doing your own cooking– don’t support the corporate food behemoths, which will also make you sick, and then dependent on big pharma and their corporate behemoths. Try to maintain your own health– mental and physical. As the MF Global fiasco just showed us– if you have any money or assets, keep them close at hand, preferably outside of the financial system where they can be stolen at a mouseclick by political insiders who need never fear accountability of any kind, let alone JAIL.
We have a long, long way to go. Our political system is beyond broken: it is dead. I do not advocate wasting ANY precious life energy to even pretending it can be fixed. It cannot. BUT… we can create new systems around it… our overlords are so greedy that they constantly forget the lessons that any tinpot dictator has learned– a decent secret police force IS A JOBS PROGRAM… we, of course, do everything– even totalitarianism– on the cheap. And hence, there is space for new orders of things, outside of the conventional industrial/financial economy and system. At a micro level– communities first. TALK TO PEOPLE– one on one… the internet is great, but it’s less revolutionary than all that– we could telephone people 100 years ago (albeit more expensively). But we NEED HUMAN CONTACT– it’s part of what our overlords don’t want us to have.
But the “good news”, if not GREAT NEWS, is that Occupy people have showed us that maybe, just maybe, resistance is NOT futile– the same message that Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel and Boris Yeltsin managed to grab onto– and liberate hundreds of millions… ironically, people who are now freer than we are. So maybe, just maybe, we can get the spirit of the revolutions not of 220 years ago (the guillotine might be well-deserved by many these days), but of 20 years ago… orderly, replacing a collapsing Imperium with genuine people-powered democracies… ther IS hope… but we CANNOT harbor the fantasy that the current system– either party– or even a third party or independents propposing to operate within it– are remotely viable or sustainable. They are not. A new order will be required, and I predict, will emerge one way or another, as the current system implodes under its very unsustainability. Don’t get me wrong: we’re probably looking at a sh*t storm, as the current powerful with an interest in the status quo refuse to let go. But there is at least the POTENTIAL for something better to emerge.
Hope that’s meaty enough for a brisk December day!!!
Gee… is that all? 😉
I’m fortunate in that I could cook and garden organically by my mid-twenties, so resuming both in force is easily done, once I finally get resettled and figure out where that will be (my major goal for 2012).
Local community and grassroots efforts I fully agree with. I agree with your assessment of OWS. After seeing the futility of much larger demonstrations against the onset of our War on Iraq that centered on Washington, I began advocating for taking it to Wall Street and the Chicago Board of Trade several years before better heard voices brought it to the current fruition. I expect such actions to be manifested in newly creative ways for years to come.
What I’d like to see from the current order of things is for state parties to break their ties with the national. I believe NY and MN have superficially done so in recent years, but I look for outright divisions, because some states do have some Congressmen and Senators pretty consistently representing the interests of our nation’s citizens.
Statements making the fresh divide clear would also make clear that the goal is not to fix, but to replace the current processes of gaining representation. I recall the Mississippi Freedom Party attempting that in Mississippi back in 1964. We should try to get 50 similar efforts going.
My greatest concern, however, is the capacity of the currently powerful to divert all from such quests by repeating one tragic path that arose from the Great Depression… rebuilding a manufacturing economy while ramping up towards another global (world) war. Anyone up for a Pakistan/China v. US/India match?
If we can ward off such worst-cases, perhaps we can (and I believe we have to) replace dysfunction with function going forward.
As to human contact, hear, hear! Do you still use TTD@TTD.com as your email? It has been too long since I’ve heard your voice via older tech mediums, or broken bread together. Sometime this new year, I hope to break that cone of silence, as the maintenance of good friendships is paramount over all these lesser matters.
Kevin:
You nailed it again; the issue is not “fixing” the current system, but replacing it in some manner. It’s going to need replacing no matter what– best have something in place not hastily constructed by the powerful, and solely for their own benefit at that.
As to e-mailing me, you can either use my first name, followed by a dot, followed by my last name @gmail.com, or my first initial, followed by my last name, followed by the letters “esq” [signifying the profession of myself and the alleged profession of my classmate the President] @aol.com. That should be cryptic enough!