Amidst all of the seemingly futile lambasting of El Presidentcito (“Our little president” as Gore Vidal refers to him in the article referenced below.), there seems to be absolutely no understanding of how he and his handlers have managed to subvert almost the entire system of checks and balances that have heretofore saved the United States from plummeting headlong into the military dictatorship that so many of its most powerful elements have wanted for going on three centuries.
All the complaints cycle around the political. And around the power of Big Money.
But you know…and this has been America’s saving grace during other crises…there ARE more of us than there are of them.
So why are we not doing something?
Electing people who WILL do something other than talk talk talk.
Hitting the streets.
Why?
Read on for more.
From the latest in a series of articles that has appeared in Counterpunch regarding a trip that Gore Vidal made to Cuba.
—snip—
In his mid fifties, with long, Beatles style hair, and wearing jeans and a sport shirt, Prieto has waged a two-decade long struggle with harder liners to give writers maximum freedom to express themselves in films, print and graphic and plastic arts – not on TV, radio or in print news.
Prieto became known throughout Cuba when he challenged Fidel who in a television forum disparaged writers’ and artists’ need to travel. Fidel publicly admitted his error and apologized. In his tenure, the poet-writer as Cabinet Minister has even muted the harsh line between exiles and island artists by accepting exile literature as part of the overall Cuban patrimony.
“Our cultural policy is not decided by the market as happens in so many places, where the people may not know of a great writer or musician of their own country and, however, know perfectly well the intimacies of Michael Jackson.”
Prieto explained that Cuba “cannot design a future for the Cuban where every family has – as seen in the Yankee films – two cars, a pool or a chalet. However, we can guarantee conditions of a decent life and at the same time a rich life in spiritual and cultural terms. It is a conception of culture as a form of growth and personal realization that is related to the quality of life. In this sense, we are convinced that culture can be an antidote against consumerism and against the oft repeated idea that only buying can create happiness in this world. I think that that is our goal.
Can I get an “Amen” here?
No?
OK.
How about a mea culpa?
Because it is the American people who are culpable here.
Not BushCo.
We have surrendered to their program.
We have eaten their denatured food. On EVERY level.
Celebrity instead of celebration.
Reality shows rather than reality.
News media that lie.
Empty cultural artifacts.
The consumer as king.
“The good life” as the ONLY thing that is worth desiring.
” …we can guarantee conditions of a decent life and at the same time a rich life in spiritual and cultural terms. It is a conception of culture as a form of growth and personal realization that is related to the quality of life. In this sense, we are convinced that culture can be an antidote against consumerism and against the oft repeated idea that only buying can create happiness in this world. I think that that is our goal.”
I truly think that it is too late here in the consumerist U.S. We are not going to break the hold of the corps, because there are not enough people who recognize the evil of consumerism to make much difference. Not on the left OR the right, and certainly not in the vast, paunchy middle of this soft, soft country.
And our so-called “enemies”?
The Islamic countries?
They are largely working on an even older and MORE out of date concept.
Unthinking surrender to dogma. To the degenerated teachings of long-dead sages.
What is really happening in Iraq and the Middle East is the clash between two outdated systems.
One replaces thought with gluttony and the inevitable sloth that follows, the other with religious fundamentalism.
Where the “new” really lives?
Cuba was the first.
A new race is rising in the south, Americans.
La Raza
Watch it well.
It is the future. It is the ONLY “new” on the planet right now.
Not here in the U.S., for SURE.
Not in suffering Africa, which is headed back to feudal times.
Not in the Islamic world, which still lives with one foot in the 1300s.
Not in Europe, although it is certainly better balanced than anyplace else on Earth at the moment.
China is trying to be Super-America. Basing its entire growth on producing consumer products for consumer clones. India too. All of Asia, really. The cultures are already gone in a blur of Bollywood, greed and repression.
Aurtralia/New Zealand?
Maybe…but they are really pretty small.
However…South/Central/Caribbean America?
Almost 600 million people speaking basically one language. (Portugese is really more a dialect of Spanish than a truly separate language.)
What holds together the new governments arising in this area? Bolivia, Venezuela, etc? With more to follow. bet on it.
The movement is multi-racial.
It is anti-consumerist.
It celebrates its cultural heritage.
It has roots, people.
Roots.
And it is standing up in opposition to the rot that can be plainly seen in the overprivileged north.
Roots rather than rot.
Fidel was a prophet, and his prophecies are coming true.
“…we are convinced that culture can be an antidote against consumerism and against the oft repeated idea that only buying can create happiness in this world. I think that that is our goal.”
Pay attention, folks.
And learn from your betters.
Do whatever YOU can to de-consumerize yourself, and await the inevitable change.
The U. S. is SO over.
VAYA!!!!
It comes.
Soon.
Bet on it.
AG