Along Came Joe

 

I used to be enamored with Joe Biden.

But what a tool he has turned into.

What a dancing puppet for the oligarchy.

Is it something in the water? Or is it like Stephen Marks says in his 
eye-opening book Confessions of a Political Hitman,when you get 
to that position of power, they take you in the back room and give you 
"the talk". They explain how things actually work, how things are done, 
and who is actually running the show. 

They give you the choice: gold or lead.

Kennedy made the wrong choice.

Clinton went for the gold and has been richly rewarded.

I'll admit, this sounds like a bad movie to me, so I can't say I entirely buy it.

At the same time, I don't entirely dismiss it.

Something gets to these guys. Something burrows into their brains like those
amoeba that make a pinhole in your skull, climb inside and eat your brains.

Some criticize Vice-President Biden for his gaffs. Frankly, his gaffs are
trivial compared to the actual stands he has taken the past several
years on a wide variety of issues.

Just a few revealing examples: He is implicated in the ongoing attempts 
by the U.S. to overthrow the democratically-elected leaders of Venezuela,
the late Hugo Chavez and the current president, Nicholas Marduro. Similarly, 
he has been an outspoken supporter of the chocolate king Petro Poroshenko, 
current president of Ukraine, installed by violent coupein a U.S.-sponsored 
subversion of democracy in that fragile and volatile part of the world. Mr. Biden 
has been a huge advocate for the unnecessary and provocative sanctions against 
Russia, just a few days ago ridiculing the EU countries who won't go along with 
America's imperial madness. We also find out that Biden's support for the takeover 
of Ukraine goes beyond America's alleged geopolitical agenda there. In fact, his son 
Hunter Biden, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of Burisma Holdings,
a private oil and gas company in Ukraine, which stands to profit handsomely from 
the privatization and plunder of the country's natural resources.

That Vice-President Biden has been a prominent voice for America's propaganda 
and saber-rattling against Russia goes without saying.

I admit that my first impressions of Mr. Biden were just that __ impressions __
so all of my positive feelings were very superficial.  I saw him speak
at campaign rallies and other public events, as well as appear in
several debates. I loved the guy's punchy directness, his ability to
dissemble convoluted arguments and spurious propositions with a just few
well chosen, often funny phrases. I found his wide, confident grin
engaging. Overall, he created in me the impression he was his own man,
an independent thinker, more concerned with the truth and cutting
through the bullshit than worried about winning popularity contests.
I've so had it with oratorical grandstanding and highly crafted,
high-sounding but usually empty political bombast, a little in-your-face
straight-talk went a long way.

Biden always said the right things. More jobs. Better life for the average 
American.

Obviously, by now I should know better than to take any of these politicos at
their word. How many times does a dog have to get beaten to realize his
owner is an irredeemably cruel son-of-a-bitch? And Biden is partnered
with the man who, despite his wonderful rhetoric about practically
everything decent human beings would like to see happening in our
troubled country and world, has proven fixated on doing the opposite.

But I'm such a soft touch, even now after decades of being bludgeoned with the 
hypocrisy stick. I had heard about Biden's loss of his first wife and their new
18-month old daughter, how he courageously bore his grief, bounced back, 
continued his selfless service to public life __ all the usual milk toast mythology
that's surrounds public officials.

So I am just as vulnerable to the effects of finely-wrought PR spin as the next guy.

I have learned __ as I hope you have __ from gagging on too much bullshit for
too many years, at least to try to be more discerning, less willing to buy the popular 
song-and-dance about these guys, less inclined take at face value what is spewed 
by the main stream media and, of course, the constant stream of self-serving blather 
by the politicos themselves.

But it's difficult. It is just plain hard work to have to analyze and take literally everything
apart, look at things from every possible angle, view with incredulity and suspicion the 
vast bulk of what we are told to believe, by what are reputed to be sound and objective 
sources.

It's getting easier, though.

Eventually it will be a snap.

Because when everything becomes a lie?

No problem.

We'll know not to believe anything they tell us.

Unfortunately, I fear we are further down that road than we realize.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

United?

"The United States of America!" 

Doesn't saying it just make your heart leap for joy?

I start hearing the national anthem play in my head, see the rockets red glare
bursting in air, the American flag waving majestically over the capital
skyline.

But I started wondering the other day:  What exactly does the 'united' stand
for?  What exactly during these contentious, deeply divisive, tragically
troubled times does it mean?

'United' would seem to imply Unity. Agreement. Fellowship. Consensus. Harmony.

Does that sound like contemporary America to you?

Here are some big questions . . .

Are we united by a sense of national purpose?

Are we united by a belief in our destiny and place in history? 

Are we united by confidence in our superiority?

Are we united in our belief in American exceptionalism?

Are we united in our desire for empire?

Are we united by a love for our fellow Americans?

Are we united by our patriotism and sense of duty?

Or . . . are we united by our indifference?

Are we united by our faith in the American Dream?

Or . . . are we united by our pessimism?

Our cynicism?

How about some systemic issues . . .

Are we united in our faith in capitalism?

Are we united in the trust of our government?

Are we united in our belief in American democracy?

Are we united by a trust in God?

A system of shared values?

An ethos?

Are we united by our sense of self-determination?

Or . . . are we united by our sense of helplessness?

Our vulnerability and fatalism?

Our surrender?

How about some very specific issues . . .

Are we united in our love of guns?

Are we united by our freedom of speech?

Are we united by our disdain for socialism?

Are we united by the War on Terror?

Are we united by our hatred of Muslims?

Then there's the psychological component . . .

Are we united by love?

Or . . . are we united by hate?

Are we united by courage?

Bravado?

Self-respect?

Or . . . are we united by fear?

Are we united by our optimism?

Or . . . are we united by our despair?

Our desperation?

Our doubt?

Here I believe is a really important question: Where does the rugged
individualism which we see as the hallmark of a true American fit in?

How can we be united if we each have our own priorities and agenda?

Maybe we're not united at all.

Maybe it's all an illusion.

Maybe the United States of America is more like United Airlines, or United 
Van Lines. Catchy name but it doesn't really allude to any real or even
imagined unity.

And speaking of huge corporations, maybe we are united as customers,
shareholders and employees of the vast corporations which seem to run
everything these days. We are the biologic modules of a sprawling
corporate Gaia, united in our service to interlocking clusters of
entrepreneurial entities.

Less abstract and more the stuff of day-to-day living . . .

Are we united by the automobile?

Are we united by television?

Are we united by smart phones?

Are we united by the internet?

Holiday sales?

Shopping?

Football?

Which makes me wonder . . .

Maybe we're just a bunch of lonely people who need to feel like we belong to something.

Or maybe not.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Camp Grenada

 

Hello muddah 
Hello faddah 
Here I am at  
Camp Grenada 

I frequently find myself making a completely wrong assertion about
America's shameful, unbroken record of military defeats over the past
seven decades. I keep saying America hasn't won a war since World War II.

What I keep forgetting was our glorious and decisive victory over the fierce, 
determined bastion of leftist, socialist, communist rancor and filth __ the island 
nation of Grenada.

Using a lethal combination of the U.S. Army's Rapid Deployment Force, U.S.
Marines, our Army Delta Force, and the Navy SEALS, we kicked their commie asses! 
The campaign was called Operation Urgent Fury.It took only a few short weeks to bring 
this defiant hooligan nation to its knees. We hit them hard and hit them where it hurts by 
bombing a mental hospital and killing eighteen patients. That's what they get for being 
crazy commies!

Grenada __ sneaky Bolshevists that they were __ tried to marginalize the magnitude
and grandeur of our victory with an audacious, not to say bizarre, and
in-the-end ineffective strategy. This unorthodox "curve ball" was that
they had virtually no army, no navy, no air force, practically no
military at all, to resist the conquering heroics of our fighting boys
in uniform.

That's right . . . they had only a handful of citizens in their military __ no Department 
of Defense, no military-industrial complex, no CIA, NSA, KGB. They didn't even have 
a KFC!

They did have an excellent education system, a thriving economy with no
unemployment, a decent and improving health care system, a bare minimum
of wealth inequality. Typical of misguided socialist countries all
across the globe, they believed in the laughably quaint idea that all of
the citizens of their country should be treated well and have an equal
share in the abundance created by their collective labors, love and
concern for their fellow man.

Ha!

We fixed that!

The unions were "reorganized", huge sections of the economy were privatized,
assets were gobbled up by U.S. corporations. Now, under the guiding hand
of a capitalist free market economy, and a puppet democracy which knows
who is boss and takes its orders from the good old corporate state U S of A,
unemployment hovers around 18%, poverty afflicts 32% of the population,
the small manufacturing sector continues to shrink, tourism has been hobbled 
__ partly due to the enormous destruction of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 __ and 
inflation is upwards of 5%, offsetting the modest growth of the economy.

However, a genuinely outstanding thing happened as a result of our saving this
struggling island nation from the scourge of socialism . . . and I would be remiss
to not mention it.

Grenada now has a KFC!

In fact, it has two!

Which will be great for our American troops if we ever have to invade again.

I sincerely apologize to any of you readers out there who depend on me to
be both truthful and accurate when recounting the achievements and
challenges of our great nation. I hope the corrected record I have
offered here serves to exonerate me, and I am forgiven by any who might
have been been misled or misinformed by my oversight in the matter of
America's military prowess.

Go Team America!

Fuck yeah!

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Distractions

 
Magicians are adept at distraction, as are card sharks, pickpockets and politicians.

And when you throw in the main stream media as a partner in crime, you have the perfect storm for a misinformed and malleable public.

It goes without saying that Americans are constantly bombarded with stories and images provoking fear. Just in the past couple months, we've had ISIS sleeper cells, the certainty that Ebola would be spreading like a plague across the land, a cyber attack by North Korea on our sacrosanct movie industry and our freedom of speech, last but not least, the threat of a reconstituted Soviet Union under the rule of that barbarian Vladimir Putin, raining nuclear-tipped ICBMs down on us. 

These are what I would call the "pro-active" distractions, ones which disable our ability to think rationally and turn us into trembling bowls of paralyzed Jello.

But I've decided that perhaps the most insidious distractions are the "passive" variant, the on-the-surface innocent ones that monopolize our attention with crises which are beyond trivial, drain us of energy and focus better directed to important issues that makes a real difference, make a mockery of anything resembling meaningful conversation, and upend and distort both our personal and national priorities.

I could go on for months on these distractions. We all know what they are. They include everything from celebrity gossip, to scandals involving iconic figures in sports, politics, business, and so on.
Just last week, there was a "scandal" which monopolized huge swaths of American media. Everyone had to weigh in, even allegedly serious journalists like Ed Schultz. Frankly, I was tempted to throw my hands up in the air, throw my hat in the ring, maybe throw up.

This was the whole business about the amount of air in the footballs thrown by all-star Tom Brady, quarterback for the New England Patriots. I don't have to explain this "crisis" in technical detail, because if you had your television on at any point, you already know that America demanded to know whether there was the legal minimum amount of air pressure in the footballs Mr. Brady used in his glorious ascent to football stardom.

While one third of America's school children are now officially living in poverty . . .

While despite the rosy figures spewed by our government, the truth is America's economy is in decline and a major economic crash is coming, probably sooner than later . . .

While we as ordinary citizens are being treated as the enemy, with constant surveillance and spying, and a militarized police presence which is often brutal and not adverse to killing innocent people, especially people of color . . .

While the planet is heating up at rates far beyond the most pessimistic predictions, boding unparalleled depletion of food resources, displacement of millions of people, setting the stage for massive global conflict over water and arable land . . .

While the banksters and Wall Street criminals go unprosecuted for their prior malfeasance and fraud __ e.g. the crash of 2008 __ and continue to loot the national treasury . . .

While TTP and TTIP, so-called "free trade agreements" which will be the nail in the coffin for an economy which serves the needs of the majority of citizens in our country, are being rammed down the throats of good, decent, hard-working people to serve the interests of the oligarchy . . .

While the neocon lunatics now in control of America's foreign policy are busy rallying the nation for an unnecessary, unjustified, lethal confrontation with Russia __ a major war, folks, as in World War III! . . .

We are wringing our hands over the amount of air in a football?


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

 

Perspective

President Obama __ bless his heart __ recently proposed making junior colleges free
for anyone who wants to attend. Of course, this won't happen. The callous, largely deranged Republican-controlled Congress we now have will never pass such a law.

But let's put Mr. Obama's magnanimous suggestion in perspective.

To make communities colleges free would cost $60 billion over the next ten years.

Contrast this with the largest boondoggle in America's history __ the F-35 Program.

Here's a defense project, folks, that can't get DE-FUNDED, no matter how many setbacks, 
cost overruns, and failures it racks up. Or how much criticism and outrage it arouses.

The projected cost of the F-35 program? 

$1.5 trillion! 

No, that was not a typo. It's $1.5 trillion!

$60 billion for free community college education. 

$1.5 trillion for an unnecessary and ineffective military program.

$60 billion for education which won't get approved by Congress. 

$1.5 trillion which will go into the bloated vaults of the military-industrial complex and 
its fat-cat executives.

The $1.5 trillion for the F-35 program could provide free community college education for 
the next 250 years! 

Does this tell you something about the twisted priorities of our country?

Does this put things in perspective?


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Long live the mob!

If my neighbor calls my wife a whore and I go over and punch him in the face,
I am not stifling his free speech. I am violently paying him back for his
crude, slanderous insult.

Free speech is curtailed by governmental action, not by individuals acting
sometimes imprudently or illegally. The right to free speech is not
absolute and is rightfully and hopefully judiciously curtailed by legal
instruments enforced by the state, hate speech being the best example of
properly restricted expression which does not deserve the protection of
constitutional imprimatur.

Individuals may not feel the state has done its job and either challenge within
the legal framework the perceived oversight, or take matters into their own
hands. The deplorable killing of the journalists of Charlie Hebdo is a
heinous example of  extralegal overreaction __ of violently taking
matters into ones own hands.

I don't condone violence. But whether I condone it or not is irrelevant. 
Ugly shit has been happening for thousands of years. A lot of people oppose
it and it keeps going on. Some of it is sponsored and promoted by the
very state that we depend on to maintain some sanity in society and the
world at large. Humans are a very violent species, the only one to
inflict pain and death on its own purely for amusement and pleasure.

But with the latest relatively minor incident in Paris __ I contrast the handful
of deaths there with the tens of thousands the enlightened West inflicts
on other countries as a matter of policy, day after day, month after
month, year after year __ we see the epic confrontation between two vast
cultures shaping up. 

Isn't that just what theywanted? __ a "good reason" for the world to erupt in 
total war. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Libya, North Korea, 
Ukraine, Russia, and China aren't quite enough kindle to get the conflagration
going. But now, yes NOW we've got some serious shit going down! NOW
we've got millions of people in the streets doing the dirty work that
our presstitute media and propaganda machines couldn't quite get right.
Finally, the people will demand total war!

The mob has spoken.

Long live the mob!


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Happy New Year!

1st Verse:
It’s a very special time of year
Family and friends holiday cheer
For those no longer with us
We shed a tear
A time to share
A time of feast
A time to care
And pray for peace
A time to give to those
Who have the least

Chorus:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

2nd Verse:
This is the time to start anew
Atheist Christian Muslim Jew
To reach within
And find the love inside of you
Discard the old seek out the new
Reject the false embrace the true
To look ahead decide
To bring out the best in you

Choruses:
Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with us
Happy New Year

Akemashite
Omedetoo
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Peace be with you
Happy New Year

© Copyright 2014 - Words and music by John Rachel
Dancing Needles Music - ASCAP (All rights reserved.)


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]