When I hear some Chicken Little screeching from inside a cathode ray tube that, “The sky is falling because government is too big and is interfering in the lives of its citizens,” I wonder who they really serve and what they really stand for. If the noise is coming from some shill of the long, bent arm of the far Right, organized religious community then what I hear them saying cautiously is, “Government is too large and interfering in the lives of its citizens. We must shrink government, render it impotent, so we can interfere in the lives of its citizens and they can’t stop us.”
If the hysteric in question is an apparatchik of that festering, pus whole known as corporate America, and further insists that capitalism and the free market are represented by two stars on the flag, then I must conclude that shrinking government and rendering it impotent will make way for the corporatists to exploit the working man and woman with impunity after they step in and take over.
When big religion and big money join themselves at the hip as they are doing more and more today, then back in time we go before the labor laws and labor unions, before the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, back to the Dark Ages, feudal lords and serfdom. In this world the likes of John and Jane Doe are worked to death, their children have no other expectation, and the Church tells them to suffer in silence because it is good for their soul. This vile racket is known as bait and switch.
President Obama has reversed his stance on accepting PAC money. To those on the Left who are annoyed with him I say, wake up and smell the roses. This ain't your daddy's election season. If he doesn't raise money the way the Republicans are raising it, he'll lose. I hate Citizens United and all it brought with it, but I hate Romney and Santorium more. The Republicans who are also argumentative on the subject might remember that PACs were an attempt on their part to once again stack the deck. They can't win a fair fight, they never could. If Obama beats them at their own game, that would be the GOP's problem. Finally, the American people need to ask themselves why campaign ads determine where they cast their vote. What is this, a beer commercial? You buy the brand with the glitziest ads and the blonde with the biggest tits? If we pay attention and start thinking for ourselves, Citizens United and PACs will be moot points.
There has been a kind of creeping insanity in the Democratic Party for years. It started when they became afraid of the word Liberal. Carl Jung said, and I am paraphrasing now, "When you separate yourself from some part of your humanity that from which you are separated returns as disease." Welcome to Bedlam.
It isn’t just the Democrats; it is whole damn body politic. Some days I think that I have awakened in the movie, "Snake Pit." The sensation is reinforced by the fact that Geithner looks like Robert Stack. Jan Brewer reminds me of Lady Macbeth in her final scene - washing her hands and completely out of her mind. Rick Scott and Scott Walker are mental defectives riding the crest of madness. That helium balloon in New Jersey is a megalomaniac and, I believe, a sadist. Obama is the first man of color to prominently play Hamlet. Caught in an Existentialist crisis and driving himself nuts because he can’t make and stick to a bloody decision. In short they are all nuts, man.
Shakespeare loved madness as a color on his pallet. It makes a point. Today, the point is that the system has moved so far into the dysfunctional that only the seriously, clinically, dysfunctional can survive.
When insanity becomes the norm, the sane become a threat to the state. When our insane government has its head so far up Wall Street and corporate America’s ass that their whole world looks like a gallbladder, the sane are not suppose to notice. When we do we are undermining capitalism. When the insane put on stiletto heels, stroll up and down the Washington Mall singing “Hey Sailor” to every passing lobbyist, the sane are not suppose to know that they are whores. When we do we are undermining the free market.
It is a mark of lunacy to personify concepts. Capitalism and the free market are concepts – they don’t eat, sleep or go to the toilet. They are simply thought forms unless you are crazy enough to imagine them to exist as living entities and drag them around like a breathing teddy bear. If that is your bag, then everyone who doesn’t’ want to play with your bear is a threat to the state.
Some days I think that I have awakened in the movie, “Snake Pit,” and that Geithner really is Robert Stack and as crazy as all the other loons running the place. I can’t get out, and there is no point in screaming. My voice would be lost amid the screams of a million others.
It is time that we begin to reframe the argument around abortion. Heretofore, the dispute has been laid out as a struggle between two cultural and diametrically opposed camps. The veneer is gradually slipping away as the nation considers the rise of Karen Handle – failed gubernatorial candidate from Georgia and pro-life Christian – to the board of Susan G. Komen. This seems to have signaled an auspicious moment for the far Right to deal another vicious and dangerous body blow to Planned Parenthood and the thousands of poor women for whom they provide health care. Apparently, there is no hard proof that Handle was responsible for pulling Komen’s support. Just as there is no proof that God exists, still many believe He does.
It is my Constitutionally protected opinion that once again the long arm of the Fundamentalist Right has over-reached out of its box and into the daily lives of other people. Once again in the name of the loving, compassionate and tolerant Christ, they have seen fit to blackmail this society into accepting their “values” by holding the health care of the most vulnerable for ransom. There is a word for this – extortion.
When my Italian ancestors engaged in this behavior back in the 40’s and 50’s, iron was clamped on their wrists and ankles. J. Edgar’s boys lead them away to be convicted of racketeering under the Rico Statute. They were part of a criminal empire lead by Lucky Luciano. He ran his organization on vice and weakness.
Twenty-first Century racketeers, members of a New Age criminal empire, have built their organization on religion and fear. They don’t give a damn about fetuses, babies, children, women, the poor or even Jesus who they slander every time they open their hate filled mouths. The object of their racket is money, power and political capital – not unlike Lucky’s.
We have to see these people for what they are and fully understand the travesty of Susan G. Koman. When that lady was lying in her bed dying of metastatic breast cancer and asked her sister to create a foundation to work for the cure, I doubt seriously that she added the caveat, “Only if no one is having an abortion.” The idea that the nobility of Ms. Koman’s gesture on behave of her sisters is being crushed under the weight of political pressure brought to bear by a gang of grasping, grabbing, sociopathic infant souls is an outrage. Yet, sadly Susan G. Koman for the Cure is no more.
The organization must be marginalized, as the poor women in this country are, have been and will be marginalized if these conmen and women have their way. We should continue giving our donations directly to Planned Parenthood. Perhaps we need a new ribbon. One thing I am sure of, if we defend Planned Parenthood with our money and our votes the rats will start to run and quickly.
