Thursday, April 24, 2008

Is This Thing Rigged?

Is it depression creeping up on me, or is it real?

My friend N, who is a retired history professor, and I went to see Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden? Not a movie I’d recommend on many levels, but I’m no movie reviewer. It did succeed on this level—it made me scared. Scared on a cellular level. There were only three places in all of the greater Middle East that were closed, and unwilling to allow conversation to this crazy New Yorker and his small camera crew—Israel, in the more Hassidic areas, Saudi Arabia everywhere, and the mountainous area of Pakistan where Bin Laden might be living.

Only questions remain. They were posed at the beginning of the film, and it is these unanswered questions that now really scare me. They are all about why we back military dictatorships and/or governments we impose over popularly elected socialists wherever in the world we can. All this has been in the interest of the military industrial complex. Eisenhower warned us of this. And instead, we, since the mid-fifties, in the interest of privatizing everything and consolidating that economic power in the hands of as few as possible, have now turned our backs on our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and are about to give power completely to a couple of families and their cronies. They have their own mercenary army, their NSA. All Hail Skull and Bones.

N thinks McCain will probably win. It is in the interest of power and riches that he win. It is in the interest of ego and ambition that he win. I said, “What if Hillary wins?” He said, “Same foreign policy, same consolidation of power, better economic outcome for the middle class. Maybe.”
“What about Barack?” “I’m worried that both democrats health care plans are run by the insurance companies.”

Reality sucks.

14 comments:

Ghost Dansing said...

i don't think it is rigged as much as the rightists have had an effective propaganda program going back maybe as far as Goldwater, and certainly as far as Reagan......

if you believe, for example, that the "government is the enemy" or "the government is the problem", for example, you've bought into the basic rhetoric involved with getting people who don't believe in government elected.......

so people who don't believe in government has a function (Republicans) get elected, deregulate, undermine oversight and recoil government from any type of work involved with the "common good" resulting in a general default to Corporatism.

the truth is if you do not put in place and exercise a government-for-and-by the people, as our Liberal framers of the Constitution suggested, you will be ruled by something...... and you might not like it so much.

people who have been voting Republican, have been voting for Corporate Plutocracy with Theocratic overtones........ and this latest Republican administration has just about got us there.
goldwater

Utah Savage said...

Thank you once again for saying it so well. I am afraid. I did have hope and optimism. Maybe this is just depression. But these past eight years I have not liked it so very much.

Randal Graves said...

He who has the gold makes the rules, indeed. And the gold standard these days is fear and when they've had the better mouthpieces, as ghost dansing said, well, there's the heaping bowl of depression, bitter.

Faded said...

Israel and the neocons- Again and again it comes back to this. Israel can even spy on American nuclear secrets with no repercussions.

Why is Israel allowed to bomb its neighbors for building a nuclear facility when they have their own secret nuclear facility built with stolen American technology? Because they know the scumbags in Washington (hillary included) won't do a damn thing. Want to end Terror? Israel needs to be dismantled and every Neocon held accountable for their many crimes against our country. It won't happen until a majority of us constantly vote out the AIPAC interests and vote in those who will not treat Israel as our 51st state.

Utah Savage said...

Fade. You just put words to what I've thought for a long damn time. I said today to N that Israel is the third rail of our foreign policy. He said "Yup."

Anonymous said...

It all seems pretty hopeless. My mother, a dyed in the wool Dem, mentioned to me that she wonders if McCain is the Manchurian candidate.

She always did have a creepy sense of humor.

Commander Zaius said...

I still look to the general fat, lazy, and spoiled American public as the biggest problem facing this country. As long the 401k's were increasing, you had cheap gas for the SUV, the mortgage was manageable, and didn't pay too much for all that food from Wal-Mart most everyone is content and not concerned with the poor kids being sent off to fight for imperial America. Now with the stock market in flux, gas more than likely making 4.00$ a gallon, housing prices falling, and now throw in the possibility basic food items might be for whatever reason rationed things ain't looking good. Like Obama's pastor said once, "our chickens may be coming home to roost". Is this thing rigged? In my opinion only as long as we let it. But you have to have an active public taking charge.

Vigilante said...

What Beach Says.....

Life As I Know It Now said...

It sounds like it will be a documentary I will be watching on dvd when it comes out. Somebody a long time ago was supposed to have said that money is the root of all evil. Were they wrong?

Naj said...

Sorry, but between the war mongering agenda of Hillary and the senility of McCain, whatever Obama's insurance-company agenda allegedly is, pales!

Does America prefer being enslaved to war or to health care providers.

Boris said...

"Does America prefer being enslaved to war or to health care providers."

How 'bout neither?

Blank said...

Too many people with power benefit from the status quo, and too many fools believe that they, too, may one day benefit from the status quo.

I think we'd better get used to say President McCain. The Dems will destroy each other before long.

TomCat said...

As long as politicians stay in power through corporate pandering, we shall have the best government money can (and does) buy.

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