Tag Archives: The Decline of the American Empire

Political commentary

About last night…

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Another great photograph from Getty Images

So. It looks like I worried for nothing.

I’m rather happy about that…

Is it me or did the Yankees take a big step to the left?

Despite the Republican-sponsored defrauding of the American vote (done, in an Orwellian fashion, largely in the name of eliminating non-existant voter fraud) and viral videos of ‘malfunctioning’ electronic voting machines, absurdly long lines and the spasmodic eruptions of verbal diarrhoea coming from Donald Trump, the United States pulled through and did a lot to restore my faith in their country. Barack Hussein Obama is the 44th President of the United States, but that’s not the half of it.

The whack-jobs didn’t get in.

Several states recognized gay marriage, a couple more legalized recreational cannabis consumption. There’s a record number of women elected to Congress and the Senate, high participation rates among key minority groups and record low turnout by Republicans.

It may not be a landslide as the term was once described, but given the intense barrage of deceit, amplified ignorance and seemingly endless supply of the bottom-feeding opportunists contemporary American society manages to produce all coming to the fore over the last few months, I can only say that this is a post-modern political landslide – the good held their ground while bullshit mountain crumbled all around them.

Obama’s no saint, but I’m saying that with a Canadian perspective – we like our liberals off in left field, not to the immediate left of the far right. In American terms he’s either a progressive liberal or a veritable socialist in sheep’s clothing – depending on whom you ask. The branding doesn’t matter, Obama has pursued a generally progressive platform (by neo-liberal-centrist standards) and has instituted modest Keynesian fiscal reforms designed to stimulate the economic underpinnings of the country. He’s governed steadily but not spectacularly, and his inaction vis-a-vis the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison complex and intervention in Syria concern me a great deal. As does the continued torture of PFC Bradley Manning, in which the President is implicated. Going after Wall Street Robber-Barons would impress me much more than the idiotic pursuit of Julian Assange.

That said, he’s head and shoulders above Mitt Romney in every conceivable respect. The GOP should be ashamed of itself, not only for how it conducted this year’s campaign, but for putting such a couple of ignorant schmucks as Romney and Ryan on the same ticket. You would’ve figured they’d learned their lesson in `08 with Palin and McCain.

But no, they had to go full-retard this time around.

Such is their loss. This is a humiliating blow for the Tea Party faction of American politics – the whack-jobs lost.

And that’s fundamentally good for Canada. A stable USA is A-OK for you and I. Now that Obama has four more years I hope he changes and decides to push the pendulum back from towards the left and pursue a grand project for social benefit of the United States. If Obama’s first term was spent cleaning up W’s mess then maybe he can start realizing his own dreams now, and if we’re lucky we’ll catch a glimpse of a real leader, and demand better of those who lead us.

I am cautiously optimistic and far less concerned the Americans are our neighbours now that Obama has comfortably won a second mandate. I’m surprised and delighted with the number of progressive measures and sensible policies that came into existence yesterday. I’m glad Capitol Hill will be a little more diverse, a little more representative of what the States actually is.

And if Obama is the great leader and nation builder I think we all secretly hope he will be, then it is my sincere hope he use his next term in office in the pursuit of world peace, because it seems to me that he has been dealt a winning hand, one which may allow him to go quite far.

There must be American dreams to inspire the world.

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Enigmatic Zeitgeist: A Reflection on the Occupy Movement

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This is not law enforcement. This is swine hiding behind a badge, and an abuse of basic human dignity.

Originally published by the Forget the Box

I feel we’re not that different you and I, at least I hope not.

We’re both here, so there must be something that unites us.

And even if it is difficult to pinpoint what precisely brought us here, perhaps that’s only an indication of just how grave the situation truly is. A uniting force we can’t yet properly define is braiding together diverse yet inter-related interests into a solid bond. And yet, all I can see for the moment are individual fibres, weak, limp, useless by themselves.

I’ve been reflecting. Haven’t come up with much – nothing but an endless series of questions whose answers elude me.

I’m writing this having spent several days in mock isolation watching countless videos of police brutality. We’ve all seen the videos I’m referring to. The incident at UC Davis, crackdowns in Syria, Tahrir Square – it’s all starting to look alike.

I’ve spent parts of the last few days engaged in an endless argument with an individual purporting to be a representative of the interests of the Occupy Movement. I’m perturbed not only by the images of police brutality, but also the lackadaisical and highly individualistic responses of people caught in the melee.

The individual with whom I’ve been arguing was advocating that the Occupy Movement must remain a peaceful one (which of course cannot be debated) and was cautioning readers against pursuing anything but complete non-violent protest. But does this mean we can’t take measures to defend ourselves against brutality? And what do the many egregious cases of police brutality say about the Occupy Movement in the first place?

Time and time again (and this has subsequently been reinforced through leaked NYPD internal memos and the fact that the Department of Homeland Security orchestrated a nation-wide simultaneous crackdown in the US) I see so-called law enforcement working together, presenting a solid and united front, acting as a team. They are trained to do so. Perhaps you may feel they do so blindly, and certainly, for all those speaking out against those lambasting all police for the actions of a few, I can understand the desire not to paint the aggressor with a wide brush. But on the flip-side, it is also clear the police are not using the same restraint exhibited by the demonstrators. They are the source of aggression, they are clearly to blame for all instances of violence.

Despite this, the police are getting away with it. Why? Because, as far as their portrayal in the Mainstream Media is concerned, the police look like they’re working together. The same cannot be said about demonstrators, who more often than not appear either to be willing to submit to brutality or, when confronted with brutality, work independently and achieve nothing. How do you think this translates through the media’s biased lens?

I’m not advocating to use of violence to achieve political goals. However, we can defend each other non-violently. Every time I see an abusive cop grab a helpless protestor, I wonder why all the other protestors don’t pull that person back, don’t put themselves between the victim and the cop. We have the mass, we have the advantage in numbers, we have all the reason in the world to demonstrate and protest – we are in the right, our world has been fucked by the elites who rule over us.

The very tenets of our democracy are threatened, perhaps more now than ever in the history of Canada or the United States, and similarly, like no time in our past, the foundation of our progressive society is being hacked-away at by the apparently representative governments of our nations. Yet despite the motivation behind the movement, in no way is the movement coming across as a united front that will not rest until change has been affected.

As long as we operate like individuals our cause is hopeless. True solidarity can only be created when individual men and women decide to shed their individualism for the sake of society. Solidarity occurs when you are willing to put yourself in between naked aggression and your fellow man, to defend a stranger as though they were your brother or sister.

When this happens, the media will show something very different to the viewing public – they will show the progressive microcosm, standing together to prevent the destruction of our society. Then, and only then, when we conduct ourselves as brothers and sisters united in a struggle, will we be able to effectively communicate our wants and desires. Until then, the protestors will be subject to abuse and near-total misrepresentation by media.

Perhaps it is time to back off and re-group. The problems we’re dealing with are not going to disappear between now and the spring, but we need to face an unfortunate climatic and geographic reality. For whatever reason, political and economic power in the US and Canada is concentrated in areas subject to the adverse temperatures of winter, and we can’t sustain large-scale occupations without building proper shelters, not to mention using stoves, which are in turn considered a fire hazard.

Moreover, there is additional problem that the Occupy sites have attracted drug addicts and homeless in nearly every major city. The Occupy Movement is in no position to deal with this reality, and the homeless and drug-addled have more a right to protest their condition and the failures of society than someone sporting the latest in high-tech camping gear.

Communications has been spotty and, again, lacks unity (both internally and between cities). The media can prey on stoned protestors for sound bytes inasmuch as the police can prey on unsuspecting victims to serve as a release valve for pent-up First World frustrations. Our lack of organization is no benefit to our cause, though I can understand the appeal of wanting to completely stand against the grain. The point is, if we wish to demonstrate effectively, we need organization, because societies are voluntarily organized out of solidarity.

Final point. Consider this; in the States, next year is a federal election year. If the Occupy Movement were to stand-down (disappear from the media’s radar completely) and spend the next few months organizing, we could return in the spring with larger numbers, more effective protest, and perhaps even play a role in determining not only the outcome in said election, but perhaps even steer the conversation and shape the dialogue from the outset.

The GOP has spent thirty years pushing the centreline of American politics off into the netherworld of populist, theocratic and fundamentally dishonest conservatism – it’s time for the pendulum to swing back to reality. Now, in my humble and honest opinion, is the ideal time to plan, to organize and to ensure, moving forward, we will be listened to and abuse against the people will stop.

The Spring of 2011 belonged to our Arab brothers and sisters, the Spring of 2012 could belong to us.

Political commentary

The Enemy Within II: A Waco/End-Game Scenario

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This article was originally posted to the Forget the Box news collective on the 31st of July.

I’ve been fascinated by the Siege at Waco and the Branch Davidians since I was an eight-year old and I watched the tragic events unfold nearly-live on CNN in 1993. Admittedly, I was not entirely aware of the grave implications of the raid, stand-off and siege back then as I am today, and Waco, in my eyes, is a catastrophe so epic it deserves to stay fresh in the minds of any concerned citizen living in a modern democratic nation. I think it would be too glib to call it an isolated event, and even if the threat from doomsday cults is generally a bit of a rarity, the lessons from the Waco Siege have broad implications, especially with regards to the responsibilities of modern media and the potential for State intervention therein.

At the end of the day you need to ask yourself the following question:

Can media and information be left in the hands of profit-driven corporations? The United Nations recently decreed that full free access to the Internet is a fundamental human right. And good timing too – the Obama Administration has been using free access to the Internet as a key tool for advancing the democratic agenda in countless Middle Eastern nations yearning to break free from oppressive and tyrannical dictatorships (apparently, the American government may have played a role in ensuring that social-networking and Internet access remained somewhat open during the Egyptian Revolution, despite Egyptian efforts to prevent this). Now, we’re also quite aware that the Americans, much like our own impudent thug of a federal government, have also been using the Internet, social-networking tools etc. against its own people and have also been waging a losing battle against Anonymous, Lulzsec and other revolutionary hacker collectives. Despite these half-hearted attempts at censorship, it seems to suggest that the world of privatized and corporate information may very well be on the way out, because democratized, free and reliable information is proving to be the new source of reliability for the youth of the First World. Very simply put – there is a large and growing segment of the population here in Canada, the US and various other nations across the globe that is no longer paying attention to corporate media because they have proven themselves unreliable. This same segment seems to value information free from corporate/political spin and private ownership, and I would hope that one day, as a result of this growing change in popular opinion, government will mandate that media and information can no longer be bought and sold, that humanity has a right to free, correct information, and that profit-driven journalism is anathema to the proper functioning of a liberal State.

Profit-driven, politically motivated media can be a killer, but we’re so used to having large corporations responsible for providing us with basic though vital information that we haven’t had much of an opportunity to consider what our options are. And if we have options today, they are options that essentially didn’t exist a mere eighteen years ago.

In 1993 a newly formed US government agency, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (attached to the Treasury Department and responsible for prosecuting in-country smuggling and stockpiling of the aforementioned controlled items) attempted to execute a search of the Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas. The Davidians were a non-mainstream splinter group loosely associated with the Seventh Day Adventist movement who took the Bible as the literal word of God. Their leader was a charismatic thirty-four year old Apocalyptic named David Koresh. Using the Books of Revelation and Isaiah as his guide, he instructed his congregation on the nature and identity of the Seven Seals, the seven signs leading to Judgement Day. This is not overly unique – there have been apocalypse/judgement day cults since the early days of the messianic religions. What made the Davidians a problem was their apparently massive collection of weapons and ammunition, not to mention the degree of self-sufficiency they had attained at their large agricultural compound. And so, the ATF was called upon to execute a search of the compound and to take any illegal weapons and ammunition found there, possibly also arresting any key members of the organization (the Davidians regularly sold guns at gun shows and ran their own catalogue as a means to support themselves – it was widely believed that the Davidians had illegally modified rifles to fire on full automatic, and that these weapons may be used by anti-government militias, or that the Davidians themselves were a potential threat to government, local or federal). Much like we saw in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, Bill Clinton’s election also saw a sudden rise in Far-Right organizations and anti-government militias. A few years prior to the Siege at Waco, the ATF and FBI attempted to serve a warrant at the Ruby Ridge compound of Randy Weaver, a white supremacist. The result was a shoot-out leaving one federal agent dead as well as Weaver’s wife and son. The ATF was ‘attempting a comeback’ from the disastrous events at Ruby Ridge, and had spent a considerable amount of time and effort establishing a strong local media presence. As it happened, Koresh was identified as a possible serial sexual-abuser and pederast in an article entitled ‘Sinful Messiah’ by the local Waco newspaper about a week before the attempted search. Local media coverage was intense, and Koresh, an apocalyptic who believed in the ultimate showdown between good and evil to be the ultimate climax of his existence, was now very directly threatened by exactly the forces he and his people wanted nothing to do with – mass media and big government.

When it came time to execute the search, the ATF was unaware that the Davidians had a) been tipped-off to the coming ‘raid’ by none other than Koresh’s brother-in-law (who himself had been inadvertently warned by a reporter) and b) had been preparing for a direct attack on their compound as a precursor to Armageddon, in which they would be fighting Evil incarnate. Mere minutes before the ATF arrived at the Mount Carmel compound, FBI mole Richard Rodriguez was outed by Koresh in front of his congregation and told to leave so as not to be killed. Rodriguez, with his insider perspective warned the ATF against attempting to enter the compound, sensing the bloodbath that was about to ensue.

What happened next is history. About 80 Davidians and four ATF agents were killed in the raid, standoff and siege. Timothy McVeigh would bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City two years later as a revenge attack. And the anti-government, Christian Identity extremist movement was provided a further sense of justification, not to mention martyrs. Events like Waco, Oklahoma City, Utoya and the myriad of other recent Far-Right terrorist attacks have a common denominator – profit-driven corporate media acting irresponsibly. And this will continue to be the common denominator – a slick, sick machine that manipulates people to commit acts of extreme violence and then viciously attacks those who would dare call them out for their transgressions. Look at the Fox News apologists who claim innocence and over focus on the killer’s purported Christianity to buy themselves a way out of dealing with the real issues. Look at the puppets that deny the merits of gun control for kickbacks from the NRA. Consider the ad revenue generated by comparing the teenage victims of a massacre to Nazis.

This is a machine worth raging against.

A modest proposal, Political commentary

The Broken Republic – A Reflection on the Death of Reason

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I was raised on TV,
Like so many of you I see around me.
Nothing to live or die for,
No religion too…
Here…?
Now…?
Why…!?!

Gord Downie

The United States is broken.

It’s broke too.

And reason has taken a holiday.

When the most rational people a State can produce spend an inordinate amount of time arguing trivialities and tangents with reactionary fools, the political system is hopelessly broken.

And, seeing as hindsight is always 20-20, we can see the view from 2011 looks bleak. Facing backwards we see a dim light far off in the distance, bittersweet memories of simpler times in back in the mid-1990s. We’re fooling ourselves though – despite our nostalgia the view behind us is bleak past Bush the First, and the kindly old men and women we knew as ‘Leaders of the Free World’ back in our youth were criminals, war-mongers and masters of manipulation – setting the tone more than thirty years ago. Reagan may have looked good to a child watching CNN when the Soviet Union was dying, but his historical record speaks for itself – the man very nearly caused the Third World War, and his economic and social agenda triggered a major destabilization of the American middle-class, and an all-out war against the poor and labouring class in its own right. Many of the problems President Obama is trying to deal with today with have roots stretching all the way back to the heady days of the early and mid-1980s. And a good number of the crackpot lunatics running the RNC and GOP today know Reagan, through their own self-imposed myopia and outright arrogant ignorance, as perhaps the greatest modern American president. He has been idolized and made both Alpha and Omega in an ungodly union of so-called fiscal Conservatives, moralist-libertarians and corporate-evangelical Christians – all the major Conservative pundits praise his name and record as if it was unblemished. I say they’ve damn near made a false idol of this Reagan, and though I’m no Christian, I really wish they’d follow their own god-dammed commandments once in a while.

And reason? Gone. Poof! It disappeared because the People of the First World weren’t paying attention to what really mattered. They voted in governments that took money out of schools, hospitals and social services, and invested heavily in building new weapons to continue fighting wars (this despite the fact that by the late-1980s, it was clear the Cold War was over). They decided to simply equate being a Conservative with knowing something about how economics work. And our disinterest in really knowing whether or not our leaders knew what the hell they were talking about was recognized by the media, who realized in turn that the only thing that drives news coverage is scandal, bickering and punditry. Information wasn’t coming in quickly enough for the cable news outlets, so they had to start making news up – inventing a story to drive up ad revenue. And before we knew it our disinterest in actively participating in the democratic process had produced a new corporate policy for the Media Giants: if it’s not infotainment, it’s not news.

Therefore, out go the boring in-depth analyses of social and economic policy, and in come the actors. Starting with Reagan, the original b-movie actor turned politician, our political reality was radically transformed for the worse. The New Right united the RNC/GOP establishment with a massive voter base of special interest groups and special-ed students; those who could use the newly sensationalistic corporate media to press their agenda and distract from government economic planning, and those too stupid to care about government economic planning, but who want you to know that Jesus wants ‘Mer-ri-ca to kill the Ayatollah because of 9-11, and Obama is a secret al-Qaeda operative.

It’s bullshit – we are living in the Golden Age of Bullshit. No Gilded Age mind you – not even an attempt to hide the rotting soul within – it’s out there for all to see. Bullshit is currency now, and an unfortunately large number of people buy it. They buy into Goldline. They fall for Nigerian Prince Schemes. They don’t care that about healthcare – those obnoxious camera-whores from New Jersey are fighting each other again! What fun!

And don’t kid yourselves, we’re all partially responsible for this mess, or at the very least have been significantly conditioned whether we like it or not – the commercialization of information, media and facts has left an indelible stain on our collective society. So many of us are the exploited, the misguided mass that votes Republican, or Conservative or doesn’t vote at all. And we have been mislead by the exploitation of our general preference to be passively entertained rather than to actively participate in our society. As a result, the once progressive but now decadent West seems to be very quickly losing one of its core societies, as the American Civilization crumbles with the weight of its own accumulated inertia. If we’re not next to fall, perhaps there is a legitimate strength to the Canadian culture after all – and wouldn’t it be wise to get to know what specifically has minimized the impact of this kind of blatant exploitation of the People’s will. To be fooled by those who can afford to do so ad infinitum for their own selfish gain is one thing, but to have a significant amount of what constitutes your initial worldview so expertly tainted you need to dig yourself out of an ignorance pit just to realize what reason means is a horrifying imposed intellectual handicap. We’re not just being mislead, we’re being actively dumbed-down.

A few nights ago, trying to deal with my own angst-fuelled insomnia, I began reading the preferred copy of Plato’s Republic used by my Alma Matter, Concordia’s Liberal Arts College. Doing as I had been so trained, I picked it up and started on page one – no skipping to the Parable of the Cave for me. I was astounded at how expertly the editor’s introduction framed the contents of the Republic as an intellectual reaction to the decline of the once-great Athenian State. Undone by a seemingly endless war and a resurgent paganism that the state used to its own advantage, Athens slipped from an enlightened state to one of barbarity, avarice, corruption and a total disinclination towards what an individual can teach himself. Socrates was murdered because he was an atheist, and refused to believe that man was incapable of thinking and doing for himself and for others. After the fall of Athens, those who led did so by venerating the once-forgotten Gods, and reminded the people that they themselves were not responsible for their actions. ‘Tis only the will of the Gods you know…
And where are we now?

Back to basics, and not much further along than back when Socrates gave his version of The Last Lecture. We exist in a fearful, crumbling collection of dying societies, expert at carving out differences and distinctions between men whilst simultaneously encouraging the notion that we are all equally helpless. A society that has turned its back on our individual free-will and ability to think for ourselves – a dangerous situation for the Elites of Plato’s day inasmuch as it is a danger to the ruling classes that keep modern man in a brand-new cave. What war will save us now? What revolution of mind, body and soul will free us from our bondage?

Haven’t we been down this road before?

You’d think we’d have learned something by now…