Who Are the True Enemies of Democracy?

The U.S. military opposes democracy. It is not itself a democracy and its contempt for democratic processes is amply illustrated by its consistent obstruction of the free-flow of information about its activities to the American people--to whom it is, in theory, responsible. Consequently, we must depend upon the consciences of insider whistle-blowers--true American patriots and heroes--to inform us about the wars being prosecuted in our names. Thank God for those whose consciences remain awake amid the conscience-numbing experience of military service.

The Social Construction of Reality

The only verifiable content to the phrase "al-Qaeda" is this: that it is the name given to the official conspiracy theory endorsed by the United States government to justify its imperialistic wars in the first decade (and counting) of the 21st century.

Through its repetition by government officials and by what passes for journalism in the present crisis of democracy, this phrase has become ubiquitous and its meaning, i.e., the official conspiracy theory, has achieved the status of "common knowledge."

But to be perfectly candid, talk about "al-Qaeda" is the semantic equivalent of talk about the devil: what is said has the form of an explanation, but the only real content is that bad things happen.

"Al-Qaeda" is just another hot-house tomato on display in the consumerist wasteland of the American political imagination. Yes, there's some color and sheen and a pulpy substance when dissected, but nothing really worth ingesting.

And yet, like the monolithic presence of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, we cannot seem to live without it. Americans cannot seem to discover themselves without reference to some villainous "other" (first it was the native peoples, then it was the British, then the Barbary pirates, and then the Africans we had enslaved and then...and then...and then...).

I have lately become much interested in Rabbi Michael Lerner's argument that Americans must (finally) learn to fashion a positive, hopeful image of themselves and of the world. He expresses this argument in theological language. It is time, he says, for Americans to give the image of the Right Hand of God (God as warrior and avenger of wrong) a rest, and to take the Divine (however conceived) by the "left hand." The God of peace and compassion and love for one's fellow human being.

Quixotic you say? Well, yes, perhaps...But no more Quixotic than prosecuting wars against the devil. And far less destructive.

Top Secret America, part 3

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Top Secret America

The 2nd installment from the Washington Post.

From Today's Washington Post Article on the Militarized Corporatocracy

Here's my favorite part: "Contract analysts are often straight out of college and trained at corporate headquarters. When hired, a typical analyst knows very little about the priority countries — Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan — and is not fluent in their languages. Still, the number of intelligence reports they produce on these key countries is overwhelming, say current and former intelligence officials who try to cull them everyday."

These are the bricks that compose our socially constructed "knowledge" of al-Qaeda etc. Volumes are written by people who have no real understanding of the worlds they are writing about. But when you are composing fiction, liberties may be taken. At least novelists have to put their stuff out for public scrutiny--but not these authors; they are anonymous and the public is prohibited from scrutinizing their work (national security, my friends). We can't "protect" our democracy if the people really know what's going on...

"Top Secret America" _Washington Post_ Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System

"Top Secret America" _Washington Post_ Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System The Orwellian States of Amnesia/militarized corporatocracy...It's all here...

Top-secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control - The Denver Post

Top-secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control - The Denver Post Manufacturing consent 24/7 on the tax-payer's tab...

Freedom Without Socialism...

is a recipe for gross and rampant inequities. Socialism without freedom is terror and tyranny. There is only one alternative...

Workers Solidarity Alliance

Read about it here.

Michael Moore on His Life, His Films and His Activism

Michael Moore on His Life, His Films and His Activism God bless Michael Moore!

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone on the Story that Brought Down Gen. McChrystal and Exposed Widening Disputes Behind the U.S. Debacle in Afghanistan

Michael Hastings of Rolling Stone on the Story that Brought Down Gen. McChrystal and Exposed Widening Disputes Behind the U.S. Debacle in Afghanistan

The fraud, the corruption, the violence of the American militarized corporatocracy is not the fault of a rogue few languishing on the bottom rungs. It is systemic and begins at the top. Gen. David Betrayus is just Gen. McChrystal with a more bureaucratic demeanor...

The Task Ahead

The debacle of the failed American republic presents us with a formidable task: nothing less than the redemption of the American spirit.

That spirit has been corrupted by the turn it has taken through the cancerous side of what Harold Bloom has termed the American Religion.

For Bloom, the American Religion is Janus-faced; and he traces both faces back to Emerson's vision.

For we find in Emerson both the prophet who admonished us that "things are in the saddle and ride mankind" as well as the build-a-better-mousetrap-and-hitch-your-wagon-to-a-star promoter of American can-doism and exceptionalism.

The ideology of American exceptionalism is, without question, the most lethal and pernicious ideology abroad on the planet today. "Just because other Empires proved toxic for the peoples they conquered, doesn't mean ours will..."

The cock-eyed optimism of the Emersonian vein has permitted well-meaning individuals caught up in the sway of the militarized corporatocracy that runs this country to commit violence and fraud on a scale never before witnessed in the history of the world.

The task before us, then, is this: to revivify the atrophied portion of the Emersonian vision--the Emerson who admonished us all for our acquisitiveness, our compulsive reduction of all things to commodity.

The question we must ask ourselves before attempting to undertake such a task, however, is this: how late is the present hour? Is there sufficient time allotted us for so Herculean a task, or ought we to abandon this ship of fools and seek shelter and solace in a world apart?

And if we answer the latter, where is that world?