I just ran into this quote this morning.
I found it at the site Stop Me Before I Vote Again, a blog “dedicated to the deconstruction of the Democratic Party.” Its masthead slogan?
The Ferguson quote so mirrors my own perception of what we are presently about here in America that I am going to go out today and buy this book.
For that matter…so does the slogan from Stop Me Before I Vote Again.
Read on for more.
Unfortunately, I have no solutions to this problem.
Only predictions, based upon a lifetime of observation.
First the observations.
I have lived as an adult through:
The Vietnam War.
The assassinations of a number of brilliant and brave men who were trying in one way or another to change the system as it has functioned since at least the Eisenhower “Beware The Military-Industrial Complex” speech.
What will have been 44 of 56 years where Republican Presidents have slowly tightened the noose of essentially fascist control upon the government. (Disregarding the complicit murderer Johnson’s term. If you have not yet noticed this perfectly evident fact because the media keeps on flogging the old “It’s a horserace!!!” idea, that’s a batting average of about .900. American politics has really been more like the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the hapless other guys, really. )
INNUMERABLE overt and covert military operations by the U.S. designed to maintain its economic dominance over the third world. Large AND small operations. 600,000 Iraqis dead? A drop in the bucket of blood that is American history over the second half of the 20th century.
The rise of the media as a truly massive hypnotic propaganda force in the lives of a good, solid 75% or 80% of the population of this country. Maybe an even larger percentage.
The descent of this culture…popular culture AND so-called “high” culture…from a meritocracy of true genius to a wasteland of meaningless, masturbatory bullshit.
The only “opposition” candidates to occupy the Presidency being a well-meaning mistake (Carter) who got cut off at the knees before he could really DO anything and a crafty political family that tried to play using the same corporate rules as have the Republicans but got taken down by the majority stockholders in Corporation America because they were about an inch and a half too far to the left of the “We own everything and you will do as we say” philosophy of the corporate ruling class here.
The absolute defeat of the black population of America as a force for possible effective resistance to what has been happening here. The carrot of “inclusion” and the stick of poverty were used to break that society’s back. It was Cracked.
And last but not least, he TOTAL defeat of EVERY DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN OR OPPOSITION POLITICIAN OF ANY KIND who appeared to oppose the hegemony of corporate big money in American affairs. A hegemony that is totally responsible for the descent of America into the Madness of King George government that we see today.
And here on the blogs I see over and over again regarding the coming elections…”WE’RE GONNA WIN!!! WE’RE GONNA WIN BIG!!!”
I am here to call bullshit.
Ferguson had it right.
Dems?
The Dems are Rahm Emmanuel and James Carville.
They sleep with the enemy.
” ‘We’re’ gonna win???!!!”
Give me a break.
As Tonto so succinctly put it to the Lone Ranger…”Who ‘we’, white man?”
The blog Stop Me Before I Vote Again has it right, too.
So in this time of transition in power from the right wing of the right wing to the left wing of the right wing…and this is going to happen, because that’s the real “October Surprise” as can be plainly seen by even a cursory look at the corporate news spin (“SURPRISE!!! We’re Democrats and we are working for the same people as the Republicans!!!”)…let those of us who are REALLY on the left remember this one truth.
The American nightmare will not truly be over until America, Americans and America’s allies join the rest of the population of the earth in the amount that we consume.
20% of the population of this good green earth consumes about 70% of its assets.
This cannot continue.
And one way or another…it WILL not.
Now for the predictions.
Only one, really.
The United States of America will be taken down.
Dismantled.
Back In The U.S.S.R, v.2.
We will continue to equivocate in terms of our position at the bogarting end of the table…”Well…OK. We’ll just take 69% of everything. What ? NO? Well…63%.” and so on until we create a worldwide al Sadr world of opposition to us (Muqtada al-Sadr: Next Strong Man Ruler of Iraq?) that is so strong that it breaks our economic back as we put more and more money into the military fray and curtail more and more domestic freedoms at home until what is left of the American engine of industry absolutely and totally collapses.
And then we will re-form as several independent states.
Maybe Northeast America, Southeast America, Middle America, Southwest America, Pacific America, etc. SOMETHING like that.
Over the next 20-30 years or so.
Maybe sooner. It depends on the scope of the oncoming economic collapse. (You can only amass SO much debt before the shylocks come a’callin’, you know…)
Or…nuclear war and the end of human civilization as we know it on earth.
We have gotten too big.
Too powerful.
Absolute power has bred absolute corruption.
Goodbye America.
Is there an out?
I don’t see it.
The only remotely possible out is if Ms. Clinton or some other so-far unforeseen political genius manages to get elected by following the old rules and then stages some sort of miraculous revolution.
FDR v.2
And I do not see this happening.
If I were a bookie (and foolish enough to set odds on a proposition the winning of which on either side of the bet would totally collapse the house in which the bet was made)…I’d lay about 1000 to 1 against this happening.
it would be a true miracle.
However, since I am also a man of faith…I stay to watch the show.
Besides…
In an age of almost sure eventual nuclear war…where ya gonna hide?
Have fun.
And…keep up the good work.
We gots to get them Lamonts ELECTED!!!
Right?
Riiiiiight.
Later…
AG
