Thursday, November 24, 2011

The Mason Missile, November 24, 2011

Greetings, freedom fighters! I hope we have all voted in the last election. In the words of my late beloved mentor Harry Hyde Jr., "Vote as you please, but please vote."
A lot of people agree there isn't a lot to vote for, with both parities comprised of the same political class, sometimes jumping from one party to the other, as in the case of Arlen Spector, who was a Democrat before running as a Republican for Senator; then, when the religious-right element took over the party in Pennsylvania, he ran as a Democrat again. Same with Karen Brown, who was a Democrat while running for City Council in Philadelphia, then was tapped by the Republican party leaders to run on their slate for Mayor of Philadelphia.
Do political "parties" mean anything, of are they just bureaucracies trying to get their people into power? I again advocate a LABOR party, of, by, and for workers. My idea is, get Obama reelected, because none of the Republican candidates would be ANY good for working- and low-income people, but in the meantime get to work on organizing a labor-social democratic-socialist party for America, and maybe take some of the Democratic party bodies into it.
The political system can work for us, on occasion. I was delighted with the defeat of the referendum in Ohio that would have taken away collective bargaining rights from teachers; the plan is to demonize ONE class of people, like teachers, civil service employees, and welfare recipients, and make THOSE people, as opposed to everyone else, the scapegoat for the problems caused by capitalism. But the workers, through their unions and reaching out to the rest of the community, defeated the damn thing.
There is also the defeat, defying the expectations of the "left-liberal slanted" news media, of the referendum in Mississippi (!) that would have granted citizenship rights to fetuses, embryos, and zygotes, as a way of stopping abortions. Plus, the citizens of Arizona recalled Russell Pearce, the president of their state senate, advocate for that state's draconian immigration policies, in an election. The citizens of Wisconsin are starting a movement to recall their own governor, who is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Koch brothers.
Mike Check! How delighted I am with the Occupy movement, which started at Wall Street and has spread to cities throughout the world. This is not the same as the “tea party” thing, which is an Astroturf “movement” manufactured by corporations. I am especially pleased that a lot of military veterans are taking the side of the Occupy groups, protecting them from police and other negative elements-even some cops are on their side! The power elite in this country must be in hysterics over the defection of their enforcers.
Although “Occupy” is the name of the movement, it is not at all different from the demonstrations in Wisconsin and other states against anti-worker, anti-people governors and state legislators, and the plutocrats paying for them, as well as the “Arab Spring” in the Middle East. I know the Occupy movement won’t last forever, those camps have to come down some time; but the participants have gained a great political education and valuable networks to draw upon. The tents will go down, but not the movement.
I have to bring up the people who are trying to become the Republican candidate for President, so bear with me. Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, are, for a start, trying to be the ideologically pure one against Mitt Romney. All through the year, the news media got into entertainment mode, putting up candidates as a Baskin-Robbins flavor of the month; first Sarah Palin, who quit her non-campaign in the middle, just as she quit as governor of Alaska, deciding to focus on shilling her books and her Discovery channel self-infomercial.
Then we had Donald Trump and his hair-don’t; he had a bit of a boom, getting into the long-repudiated “birther” thing, stating that President Obama wasn’t born in this country. Trump also talked about invading Middle-Eastern countries explicitly for their oil.
Michelle Bachmann was up for a while, a darling of the religious-rightists, particularly the ones around the New Apostolic Reformation movement, which seeks to turn the United States into their idea of theocracy. Her husband Marcus runs this clinic, even though he has no medical background, that is supposed to convert gays into heterosexuals-a discredited practice which brings in for the Bachmanns about $150,000.00 in federal and state funds, including the evil Medicare, one of Michelle’s favorite targets.
Rick Perry has had his ups and down, depending on whether he opens his mouth, looking naturally foolish during debates, bickering with Romney, and acting goofy before the conservative group in New Hampshire. Even more dangerous than a nutcase in the White House (I’m thinking now of Richard Nixon) is the history of Texas sate government under Perry; Molly Ivins had fun mocking their state legislature, but under “Goodhair” Perry it has sunk to a new low of corruption-whole state agencies sold to the corporations charged with monitoring them, in exchange for campaign contributions. You can read Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone at www.rollingstone.com. As Taibbi points out, Perry, like Bachmann, also has hooked up with the New Apostolic Reformation movement.
Herman Cain-His campaign manager babbling slogans while smoking; the sexual harassment (verging on assault) charges; his proud allegiance to the Koch brothers; his proud ignorance about the world outside our borders-enough said.
AND Newt Gingrich, crawling out of the crypt, still passing himself off as an intellectual titan and moral arbiter, while on his third marriage, his infidelities forgiven.
What a difference a year makes. At the start of this year, it was all about Ayn Rand, the “virtue of selfishness” lady, cranker-out of crappy novels and a philosophy to match, all extolling wealthy twits as the master race of all, her works extolled by the tea parties and their plutocratic masters. But the film version of her literary crap-bag Atlas Shrugged failed in its first week of release. I have seen the clips of the rich bastards sitting on the balcony sipping their cocktails watching the proletarians of the Occupy Wall Street movement, wondering what was on their minds-Are they gonna turn on us? Is this the revolution we’ve been afraid of?
Ever since the end of the Second World War, our economic policy has centered around the corporations, making sure they’re protected from the just wrath of the public, seeing they always have a new avenue for more profits, including from social programs. The idea promulgated by both parties was that these “job creators” must be allowed to do what they want, through the miraculous “free market”, and to not tax or regulate them “too much.” But these spoiled darlings have relocate their factories AND their jobs to impoverished countries where the minimum wage is pocket change, the working hours are an eternity, the factories are purgatories, and the companies, with the help of the local government, smash all attempts for workers to organize. (Might they want the same conditions, and the same kind of government, in THIS country?)
In Ayn Rand’s illusion Atlas Shrugged, the billionaire John Galt gathers all the other billionaires to his estate and they go on strike, proclaiming themselves the creative geniuses of the world as opposed to “Moochers” and “barefoot bums,” and they demand their way. I would LOVE for these plutocrats to be placed on an island or some other isolated spot, and let them know we can do quite well without them, thank you very much! Without the workers who make their stuff, the capitalists would be nothing, and we can make them aware of that. On that note, bye!

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