This has been one of those weeks when I’m not sure whether to look east or look west at any given moment. So many compelling things happening both at home and overseas at the same time – a monumental struggle in the case of the Libyan nation; certainly dramatic ones at play in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere.
Just a few thoughts about Libya. Muammar Gaddafi appears to be turning his country into the Romania of this particular wave of revolutionary movements, importing mercenaries to buttress his failing grip on the capital, using all the armaments that western money has bought him against his own countrymen and women, turning 50 caliber anti-aircraft guns against unarmed civilians. Terrifying stuff, and likely hundreds – possibly thousands – are dead. Gaddafi is now phoning in his incoherent rants from an undisclosed (probably mobile) location, blaming the uprising on Al Qaeda and drug-crazed youth, among other things. (Now I understand why Bush took a shine to this wack-job. His administration used similar rhetoric against opponents to the Iraq war.)
I’ve heard many helpful suggestions about what we can do to help the Libyan rebels – everything from cat calls to military invasion. That last one worries me a bit. Frankly, I think the best thing western countries can do is just not buy oil from the regime, freeze assets, etc. We’ve floated him in much the same way that we support and have supported other despots in the region and elsewhere in the world, from Saddam Hussein in the 1980s to Hosni Mubarak three weeks ago. As always, it’s all about the money. What else would put him two seats down from Obama at an international conference? (Expect to see THAT picture during the 2012 campaign.)
Back here at home, we’ve got a somewhat more amiable struggle between the ownership class and, well, all of the rest of us. And yes, I know – most of us are not members of unions; I am certainly not. But this is an important fight for working people in general, because it is a concerted, premeditated effort to erode some of the hardest won rights of organized labor. As those rights are taken away, those of non-union workers are further undermined. But even more fundamentally, the Wisconsin fight is a question of basic fairness. The reason why public pension funds are in trouble is not because they are too generous, but because many of them invested heavily with Wall Street and because we are in the worst economic downturn in recent memory. Public workers are being scapegoated because conservatives are taking the opportunity to pin the blame on them. Meanwhile… Wall Street is doing just fine, thank you.
Class war? Guess what… it’s being waged against us all the time, whether we admit it or not. Time to fight back.
luv u,
jp
Whoops, sorry. I didn’t know anyone was listening in. Well, this is kind of embarrassing. Actually, I was just giving a small piece of advice to Marvin (my personal robot assistant) with regard to what is acceptable and unacceptable when one is contemplating organizing a major religion. Not that I know all that much about it, but I think I know more than Marvin does, and I think that gives me “tell you something right now” rights and privileges. Especially with a bloody robot. (Don’t tell him I said that – he’ll start sulking again.)
Sheesh – now who’s the robot? (I guess that still would be Marvin.) Marvin was looking for a religious movement that would be, well, sticky enough to draw some fanatical adherents even in this forgotten backwater of Central New York. Kind of a back stoop movement, if you will. Marvin would do the organizing, with a little help from anti-Lincoln, who is himself a pretty effective fanatic. (Thing is, I don’t know if he can get the space-age guitar thing just right.) I am a bit skeptical, but even so… it could kind of work. Here you have a millennial movement whose goals – hijacking a fictitious space vessel and driving it to an equally fictitious planet – can never be realized, only hoped for – worshipped, if you will. Pretty much the stuff successful religions are made of. And hell, Marvin’s got his first converts: Lincoln, Big Zamboola, and the man-sized tuber.
Fundamental economic disenfranchisement is a large part of what lit a fire under the people of Tunisia and Egypt. Remember that Egypt has, in the past few years, undergone a neoliberal economic restructuring that has exacerbated inequality beyond the miserable point at which it was before. I am not suggesting that Americans are facing this level of privation or repression. But the same process that concentrates wealth at the top in places like Egypt is at work right here at home. It’s not hard to see. Each recession takes a larger bite out of the working class and poor. This most recent one has been the worst in that respect, putting people out of work for months, years, and in some cases the rest of their lives, at least in terms of a solid, remunerative job that can support a family. Meanwhile, the wealthiest are top of the mast, as always, their income swelling to obscene levels, and the very investment bankers that crashed our economy two years ago are raking in the bonuses like never before.
Just keeping it real here at the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, as you might expect. During these hard times, it’s the same story everywhere, right? Making the ends meet in the middle. We’ve got the ends, but frankly… no middle. And if the ends justify the means, which they almost NEVER do, well then… um…. okay, I lost my train of thought. But no matter. We are doing what we do, and being what we be. That’s what Big Green is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her. RISK… RISK IS OUR BUSINESS. (Oh, Jesus… now I’m quoting Star Trek lines. Someone call the doctor! And make sure he IS a doctor, and not a mechanic. D’oh!)
very afraid of robots.] Actually, Marvin has decided to hang up the bomb-sniffing robot gig, which is just as well. I think he’s focusing more on show business now. I saw him trying a “Renegade Robot from Mars” outfit on the other day. (Circus is in town, I hear.)
Granted, they were not all his ideas. He was, like many presidents, something of an empty vessel into which various policy mavens and ideologues were able to pour their nasty ideas. Reagan’s son Ron has written of how his father showed the beginning signs of Alzheimer’s while still in office. I have known two people who had occasion to observe him for fairly long periods of time during his term, both of whom told of a man so cloudy minded he needed to be briefed on the basics every fifteen minutes by an extremely protective Secret Service. In that respect, his administration was run by the people around him, just as George W. Bush’s foreign policy was shaped by Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and others. (If we get a president Palin, that job will be taken up by the likes of Randy Scheunemann. War with Russia, here we come!)
Oh, hi. Just having a word with Big Green’s mad science advisor, Mitch Macaphee, professor of interstellar astro-geology ….and explosives, apparently. (He’s got tenure at the school of hard knocks.) It’s endearing to see a proud father try to help his son. In saying so, I don’t mean to suggest that what Mitch is engaged in right now in any way resembles that wholesome impulse. No, no… that would require some modicum of sanity. I’m afraid Mitch is both attempting to help his creation, Marvin (my personal robot assistant), and blow his ass to kingdom come. Unintentionally, perhaps, but nevertheless… this is what he is attempting.
Anyway, Mitch thinks Marvin should be moving a bit faster in his training. So he’s begun to devise little problems for him to solve right here at home. One such problem – an explosive device of frightening magnitude – was planted in a broom closet just downstairs from my bedroom. Marvin defused it, fortunately… though I think it was a lucky break, frankly. (He stepped on it while sweeping out the hall and apparently pulled the ignition wire loose.) Next it was dynamite in the oven – enough to blow a massive hole in the side of our beloved abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill. This is what prompted Mitch’s reverie about the Coliseum. (He thinks we could turn the mill into a tourist destination if it looked more like ruins.)
Of course, the United States – despite our late-to-the-party expressions of sympathy for the Egyptian people – is squarely on the wrong side of this divide, as is practically every government in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, and Israel. As a key component of U.S. foreign policy in the middle east, we have been sluicing billions of dollars into the Egyptian regime since the Camp David Accords were signed more than thirty years ago, 29+ of which have been presided over by Mubarak. Much of this has been military aid, the principal purpose of which is to ensure continued non-interference and tacit complicity in Israel’s policy of occupation and assimilation of the West Bank and its denial of national rights for the Palestinians. This aid has given Mubarak the space to run his country with no hint of opposition, in a constant state of emergency. Unsurprising that he would argue for his continued rule by suggesting some dire fate may prove the only alternative.
See, here’s the problem with trying something new – you just don’t know how the hell to do it. I keep telling my colleagues this all of the time, but do they listen? No. Oh no, Joe, they tell me, I know just what I’m doing. And besides, bungee jumping off the Eiger doesn’t seem all that challenging to me, at least from the comfort of my easy chair. You try to help a brother out, and that’s what you get – a load of attitude, special delivery. I am depressed.
constabulary. Such an honor. NOT!
Sad thing is, Obama seems ready to assist them in this. His somewhat schizophrenic SOTU lurched from major investments to multi-year spending freezes. Domestic spending kept level for five years? Sounds like McCain. What would the impact of that be on all of these domestic initiatives he’s mentioning in the same breath? We shall see how that shakes out. Of course, the CBO came out with dire estimates regarding both the federal budget and Social Security practically while Obama was speaking. The primary culprit? The tax cut deal, which is blowing the predictable hole in the Federal budget and starving Social Security of its payroll tax funding. Guess how they’re going to try to fill that hole. Ask Paul Ryan.
Have to resort to non-banjo alternatives, I guess. That’s the way things go here at the Cheney Hammer Mill. You got complaints? Stand in line for the pluck string instrument. You may call it annoying mountain music. We call it aural psychotherapy. (Of course, when Marvin’s doing it, I don’t know quite what to call it. ) Be that as it may, you need some kind of relief in these troubled times, when money is as rare as …. well … rare earths. We’ve got lots of common earths. My point is… we’re freaking broke again. Join the select club of 90% of Americans, eh? Busted!
turnip truck. (Not to mention the offense that enterprise gave to our companion, the man-sized tuber.)