On August 2nd, 2011, the United States of America's form of government changed. On August 1st we had a somewhat creaky and cranky republic. But, Ben was right, we couldn't keep it, so... the very next day America crossed its own - exceptionally American, mind - Rubicon. This lone superduperpower is now a totally non-representational oligarchy. They don't give a fig what you or I want, so get over it. They will tell us what road the nation will go down. Input? They don't need no stinkin' input either.
No more messy House floor fights. Forget, Jimmy Stewart Going to Washington. Think of Senate filibusters and simple majorities as fond memories, never to return. And please, never speak again of the Presidential veto - no such thing any more, after Tuesday. You see, we've now got a much more streamlined way to run things, after Tuesday.
Good cop, bad cop. Duopoly Party. Demicans, Republicrats. Same difference. Least bad choice. Any one who bothers to vote in the 2012 election will now know one thing for sure, it doesn't matter. It became crystal clear to anyone paying attention, on August 2nd that, the people are now reduced to window dressing, nothing more. When they want our opinion, they'll give it to us.
The American people never had a chance (this was all decided, by a few, in secret) to figure out the pain and grief this measure would inflict on them, else they would have filled the nation's streets to bursting to stop it. Thanks to the non-stop U.S. carny of media, Hollywood, massive misframing of issues (epic lying), an endless stream of faux crises (including the national debt ceiling), disasters and "terrorisms," rabid nativism, racism and the never-ending demonization of "the other," the citizenry has had no way to step back and take a breath (let alone reflect) in order to see the terrible - and I mean god-awful - forces arrayed against them. But, they will soon enough.
With the passage of this Reverse-Fascist-Oligarchy-By-Stealth, criminal - and patently unconstitutional - betrayal of a bill, America is now firmly on a path (or did I just "miss" a source of power strong enough to push back against this naked power grab?) to become a vast gulag of Looting Fields. But, instead of Pol Pot's mounds of dead flesh and walls of skulls, we will see our lives destroyed by an equally devastating economic carnage prosecuted by The Nexi's legions of toadies and thugs. Eventually, we will see dead bodies in our streets as the people wake up to the sheer magnitude of this betrayal as it hoves into view. But, long before we ape the likes of a Hama or Bahrain, we will have to deal with the daily degradation and decline of our quality of life.
The relentless drip, drip, dripping away of our heretofore comfortable lives is about to begun in earnest.
Each school closure will upset you; each library's hours curtailed; each neighborhood's street lamps hours reduced;
Revolution will come slowly, at first, then with gathering speed as folks who know folks who know folks who are affected by the passage of this travesty which serves only the ends of the scoundrels and scalawags bent on enslaving us all in their Neo-Feudal Capitalist Wet Dream.
Many of us will simply drop out in various ways. We may join one of the many branches of the Permaculture movement, move to a cabin in the wilds of a Montana, leave the country altogether (you can run, but you can't hide).
Few of us can say what our own flashpoint might be; the spark that ignites a burning desire to pull down the powerful from their perches of privilege and ill-gotten gain.
It might be seeing you father being denied life-saving dialysis treatment due to his insurer's finding the thinnest of reeds to claim a pre-existing condition.
It might be the death or disfigurement of a child because the pharmaceutical company who made the vaccine performed their own test, then covered up a 2% death rate due to its having already spent $10 billion to bring the drug to market.
It might be a close friend who, one day, simply vanishes from the face of the Earth. One year later, you learn that s/he is in a FEMA camp and has been subjected to a variety of 'persuasive techniques' by Secret Ops commandos.
Or, your previously bright and engaged son has been rendered a vegetable by extensive use of sound cannons and invisible heat rays at a large protest.
You may be picking out your share of fruits and veggies from your local farm co-op. Suddenly, heavily armed men batter down the door, tell everyone they are from the FDA, and to drop what you were planning to buy because none of it has been FDA-approved for use by the public. Then, as you stand in fear, you bear witness to perfectly fine food being thrown willy-nilly into trucks and spirited off to who-the-hell-knows-where, leaving all shell-shocked in the wake of such a traumatic event.
Maybe it will be the tasing you get because you ask for an officer's badge number and name. Your reaction to such outrageous and gratuitous brutality will be presented as proof that you were "resisting an officer." But, no worries, The prison in which you do your trumped-up 90 days will be handsomely rewarded by the state to give you "3 hots and a cot."
Perhaps it will be the slip of paper that arrives in your mailbox/Inbox letting you know that the dietary supplements you ordered have been interdicted and will be held in your name until the manufacturer can come up with the $10 million (and 5+ years) for FDA testing and thereby comply with those rigorous FDA standards. Can't have you getting sick, you know.
You might be at a party and, unbeknownst to you, some folks in a back bedroom are toking up. The cops are called because a neighbor says "too loud." Sniffing deeply, the cops decide that where there's an odor, there's pot and search the premises. All attending are taken to the pokey as accessories, due to the raft of new entrapment-type laws custom-made by ALEC for the prison-industrial gang. You get 18 months and a $5,000 fine. Ignorance of the law (or the pot) is, it turns out, just plain ignorant law. And, oh yeah, you lose your job because having felons around is bad for biz. Now how mad are you?
With the "creation" of the Super Congress (ever wonder who gave our Congress and our President the authority to do this?) - a star chamber of 12 good men and true - I believe we can all now (hurriedly) pack our bags and bid adieu to this former republic; the skids are well greased.
Add to that insult the drop-dead, ultimatum-style of negotiation required to resolve any differences regarding the bilge set to emanate from our brand-new, extra-legal, Tea Party-tilted (no compromises. ever) superdupercongress (a fitting match for our brand-new superduperpower, you-know).
Given the competing areas of real power in this country, I had thought up to now that America might be able to stave off the worst repercussions of its own excess for a few more decades. I am no longer that sanguine.
My optimism is now tempered by the realization - brought into full view by the passage of this clear slap in the face of the expressed will of the people (80+% of us think it sucks) - of how little real moral power still resides on the left side of our political spectrum. We appear to have die-hard, Christianist ideologues on the Right, ready to sink the country if they don't get their way, opposed by alleged Lefties who don't even appear to be too happy taking their own side in the argument. Can't we all just be reasonable, they whimper. This in the teeth of the rude, disrespectful, racist (referring to the Prez as a "tar baby" - imagine how infantile that is – then imagine these 'kids' in charge) din coming from the very tall (it's the only way I can tell they're not children) Manchurian Tea Party zealots (aka, KKK and white-nationalist retreads).
In fact, the marked shift rightward in the debating points among those in power - counter to the clear, 2/3 Indy/Liberal/Progressive majority in America - speaks volumes for the persuasive power of the Right's cynically superior framing techniques (The Big Lie), the antiquated Electoral College system - the main reason the parties are anywhere near parity - and piles of money put to evil purpose.
This bill essentially removes us from the deliberative process. There is no other way to see it. I've tried. Can anyone tell me what will be the use of calling your Senator or Rep and asking her/him to do the right thing. Unless they're among the Star Chamber's Baker's Dozen (Mr. O is #13), Congress won't have much to say until the tablets are handed down to them. And, like Moses, don't even think about messing with those Mothers!
Among other bad things, The Nexi are now in a much better position to steal our remaining $40 trillion that would have taken them far longer within the Constitution.
But, as always in human affairs, there is a price to be paid for all this. It will be paid in full, first by us, then, by our oppressors.
Meanwhile, Mother tends to her slightly disarranged garden, resigned to allowing our picayune folly to run its course.
NjW 08-20-11
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Nigel Watson
freethinker 727.
493.1990 skype orbizen2
Blog: ORBizen Memo http://orbizenmemo.blogspot.com/
"There is no greater disaster than greed." – Lao-tzu
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Krishnamurti
