Obama is a traitor and a liar, no hyperbole necessary.

I am in no way affiliated, aligned, or sympathetic to the Republicans on the hill who are all clearly in the pocket of industry. But the health care bill that just passed in the Senate is a slap in the face to all those who voted Obama into office last year. If we thought that he was intelligent enough to achieve a comprehensive health care system overhaul, we were all sadly mistaken. Bush may have been all nerve and no neuron, but Obama is smart enough to know that his deed does not match his word. So it's painfully clear to me that he thinks we are all very, very dumb.

I voted for a man who stated "I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care plan." I suppose the word he could use to undermine that statement is "happen", he could say it just hasn't happened yet. His campaign website stated that under his health care plan "Any American will have the opportunity to enroll in [a] new public plan", and later after his inauguration he said in his weekly address "any plan I sign must include a public option." But in his recent comments on the current bill he directly denies that he ever campaigned on the public option, when anyone can see his speeches on YouTube or Google any of the information from his campaign. It may be taboo to use the word "Lie" or "Liar" in politics, but anyones' criteria for those words have just been met.

His deeds in Copenhagen also fell far short of his words, and what he had to say to other nations was pure hypocrisy. He had the most cards in his hand to play and could easily tilt the outcome in any direction, but his delegates were demonstrably uncompromising and worked directly with other wealthy nations to subvert the campaigns of the poorer nations, whose fates are most affected and least deserved. And it was the U.S. alone who insisted on using a different standard by which to measure our emissions directly allowing for more pollution in the air if not on the records. In recent comments Obama admits that "people are justified in being disappointed about the outcome in Copenhagen" and went on to suggest that the U.S prevented the talks from taking us backwards in climate negotiations. I for one am not falling for his presidential double speak no matter how eloquently he delivers it.

I believe that most people who voted for Obama did not do it because they wanted to see a smarter man carry out business as usual in the executive branch. There may be a demographic out there who likes to be lied to and wants it to be a command performance, but I was kinda hoping for real change, change I can believe in. I don't know where I got that idea from, that "yes I can" "Hope" for "Change I can believe in", for a "Universal health care plan" with a "Public option" and to "Close Guantanamo" and that we could "act now and act boldly" and save the planet for future generations. Obama has already acknowledged that we are in the most pivotal time for action on the environment, the future now rests in his hands and his betrayal will not go unnoticed by future generations.

President Obama, we are not that dumb, and you are not that smart. I hope you are much better at justifying your actions and inaction to yourself than you are to the rest of the world. You are wrong to assume that your charm and wit are enough to make the world forget that you are the reason the water rises around them. You are the reason the storms are getting bigger and killing more people. You are the reason hundreds of millions of people will be forced into a migration they may never rest from or survive. Obama, you are the greatest traitor the world will have ever known, and no one will dispute this fact when the hard rain falls. You will find little comfort among the allies you have made and secured in the oil, gas, and coal industries when the world is the smoldering pile of ashes they are determined to make it.

So you say you want a Mass Global Uprising...

As I write this there is a global climate conference taking place in Copenhagen to reach a deal on the curbing greenhouse gases. Ultimately the ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius has been set as the maximum global temperature increase that can be tolerated by our fragile ecosystem, but 1 degree Celsius is more likely the number for climates that are already hot and arid like most of Africa. The Obama administration is running on American auto-pilot by employing the usual tactics of stalling and watering down any deal proposals to the point of redundancy, and most likely will instead use the opportunity to back out on the Kyoto protocol altogether. The current tactic is a typical shell game in which they want to reduce emissions by the right percent using the wrong point of reference.

Any deal that does come out of the talks will rely on a few stubborn congressmen who are marinated in corporate campaign contributions and inundated by endless armies of lobbyists from the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries. This is a perfect example of democracy American style, where a handful of people can thwart the will of the world for the sake of the wealthiest percentile. The American government has nothing but contempt for a true global democracy where all share equal rights and political power, this was displayed bluntly when George W. Bush appointed John Bolton as the top diplomat to the U.N. Obama is showing the same contempt with more eloquence by ignoring the voices coming from the people, and we can expect his speech tomorrow will be dismissive in his usual uplifting manner.

I have no faith in this conference, this president, this global system to do what is necessary to achieve a real cut in greenhouse gases in the time we have to do it. Even if Obama wanted to make these changes he would be in for a monumental task with unprecedented resistance from entrenched industries and the people who profit from them. But it can be done, and must be done, so what steps can be taken that could make a significant reduction and save the planet for future generations? Nothing that will make any real change will be simple, the problem is epic in proportion and so are the solutions. Those people who believe that they are owed a "standard of living" or "way of life" will not like the measures that must be taken, and all of us will be called on to make sacrifices.

The first thing president Obama should do is redirect 100% of NASAs' missions and capabilities to saving the planet and appoint James Hansen as it's head. Cut the Defense budget by 70-80% and redirect those funds to rebuilding infrastructure in a leaner, greener way. End all wars and military actions around the world and close all military bases on foreign soil devoting the newly scaled down military to basic defense purposes only. Revoke the rights of corporations and restore the rights of humans, animals, and the earth itself. And revoke the charters of corporations who have already done too much damage and of those who consistently fail to meet set standards for emissions.

We must defeat the oil, gas, coal, and nuclear industries before it's too late, the consequences of failure are unspeakable. Obama and other so-called leaders lack the political will, vision, and sense of scale necessary to achieve significant change, and the change we can expect will be compromised by the industries that are holding the Earth hostage. I truly believe that nothing short of a mass global uprising can break the bondage of this suicidal system. We know that heads of nations and industries will not do the right thing and we cannot settle for their usual "too little, too late" patchwork for our planet. The people of the world have never had such a common platform on which to unite. The parasitic ownership class that has stolen the wealth of the world are now content to fiddle while Rome burns. It's time the suppressed masses impress themselves on their oppressors.

Ready?... wait for it... GO!

Whudya gonna do about it?

Todays news featured Israels' announcement that it had approved 900 new houses for a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. Shortly after the news focused on the white houses' response, which was reportedly "dismayed." White house spokesman Robert Gibbs complained the move makes peace talks with Palestinian leadership "more difficult." He did not discuss any action the US could leverage to persuade the Israeli government to comply with it's promise to halt all building in (and of) new settlements. In fact this has been going on for a while and it doesn't seem to be changing under Obama. The US could if it wanted, effectively negotiate it's terms by withholding or threatening to withhold financial and military aid.

The United States tax payers are the sugar daddy of the Israeli government and specifically their military. Within the first month of 2009 the US had already given Israel over 2.5 Billion in military aid alone, apparently to reward them for their human rights abuses in Gaza that were still continuing unabated. From the time of Israels' 1973 October war, over my entire life, the US has given Israel over 200 Billion dollars in financial and military aid. It's the only nation for which the US grants an exception to the requirement that it spend its' military budget with US weapons manufactures. So it now has a booming war industry of it's own, which has bloomed with the rich fertilizer of our tax dollars.

The US and UK have played the role of father, big brother, and teacher to the fledgling nation and the UK even gave them nuclear weapons to play with. Israel was the UKs' burden after WWII because they were the occupier of Palestine in their waning days of empire. Jews from all over Europe flocked back to Palestine as a refuge from war stricken areas, and as a symbolic pilgrimage to their peoples homeland. The UK was notorious however for it's treatment of these Jewish settlers and refugees and one high level British official was assassinated in a terrorist attack carried out by a group of Zionist Jews who were inspired by the I.R.A. They were called Lehi, but the British called them the Stern group after their leader at the time. Their ultimate goal was to drive out the British and they're political violence (terrorism) seemed to pay off.

Shortly after the US stepped in to what it saw as a strategic relationship it could not afford to pass up. Our democratic nation, that shrills at the notion of nation building, and prides itself on religeous freedom, decided to turn this dusty hillside into Americas holy war fortress. Americas favor of Jews over Muslims would be displayed to the people of the region on a central stage in terms the Muslim world would comprehend with crystal clarity. Meanwhile back home in the bubble of the states, Americans would be inundated with maligned Arab stereotypes and biased news coverage from plain white Christian news anchors. Over years of tit for tenfold tat the Palestinians always seem to be reported for their failing attempts at defending their territories, while Israel gets a pass on the whole sale destruction of a people.

Obama assured AIPAC (A.K.A. the Israel lobby) that Israeli security is sacrosanct, and Hilary Clinton echoed the political call of the day that "Israel has a right to defend herself." First off, every nation has a right to defend itself, isn't that an obvious bias? And sacrosanct? How can we claim to be a fair arbiter when we're telling Israel that our support is unconditional, and simultaneously telling the Palestinians who are dying and losing their lands that they're permanently in the wrong in any future issue that might arise. After members of AIPAC were arrested for giving National Security secrets to the Israeli government, the charges were mysteriously dropped, even after the man charged with giving them the information pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Why does a Nation with an embassy in Washington DC even need a lobby group? Why should another country have the right to persuade our legislative branch, they don't get to vote in our elections?

This issue has never seen the light of reason and even Obama is under the spell of AIPAC, mindlessly chanting the slogans and talking points in ways that make them sound like his ideas. The Goldstone report was that light of reason that slipped into the congress through a crack in it's crusty shell and they chased Goldstone out of town like a bloodthirsty mob. The house called the report "Irredeemably biased" which is a phrase that ironically describes Americas treatment of Israel over the decades. Of course Obamas' white house has to concede that building in and on settlements in the occupied territories violated international law and should cease, even Bush conceded that much. Here's the single issue the US has it's blinders off to see and they're all talk and it's clearly just empty words. Israel can do what ever it wants, with no limit to the size and scope of it's crimes against humanity and international law with absolute impunity. Whudya gonna do about it, huh?

Criminals, Imperialists, and Assassins

I have a reader! I can hardly believe that someone is actually reading my blog, I'm speaking out and finally my voice is being heard. But there's just one problem, my reader is a software firm called Visible Technologies contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency to monitor blogs, social networking sites, and book reviews. Why would the C.I.A. want to read my silly opinions? Aren't they out there protecting us from terrorists who hate our freedom? Like our freedom of speech for example, I may be terrified by the notion that the C.I.A. is monitoring everything I say but I'm still free to say it. In fact I'm already worried that I've said too much, so just forget I said anything, never mind.

I mean really, how could my little opinions and far left rants be a threat to a super power of epic proportions? Is it because the truth can outweigh a mountain of lies and propaganda? Because people who join together and discuss the issues of the day can at any moment turn the power of our technology against the state to unite and resist? Maybe it's the fact that I don't believe in the validity of nation states at all, and that I think they should be boycotted and ignored. And that US currency is the legal contract we embrace everyday that makes us all slaves of the state? Or is it that I believe there is no true democracy, and that Barak Obama is working just as much for the banks as was George W. Bush was when he "bailed them out" last year?

The Central Intelligence Agency is Americas' dark side, quite literally shameless and blameless. Their preferred image is the rather low profile "bean counter" persona, we're often assured they're harmless pencil pushers organizing files all day, everyday. But we know they carry out crimes against humanity all over the world through contractors, operatives, and "assets", making it rain cash for thugs, murderers, drug dealers, and corrupt politicians who do their bidding. And what is their agenda? We're told they are simply acting out the will of the president and watching out for the general security of the nation, but with zero transparency why should we believe anything they tell us? The basic design of the US constitution guaranteed to we the people our privacy (or opacity) and the governments transparency, we have been duped into a world in which we the people are totally transparent and the government is totally opaque.

Sure you can watch the pageant of elections and inaugurations but that's just an act, as long as our government has an inner sanctum cloaked in darkness it is not truly transparent. The Central Intelligence Agency has never been fully justified to my generation, exactly why did we adopt the Russian and Nazi model for secrecy? Perhaps it's because there is so much to hide from the people, and in that darkness anything goes for the most powerful people in the world. There is no great achievement, no past glory, and no red, white, and blue patriotic jingoism that would not be completely undone by a light cast into that darkness. It is not the C.I.A. that should be monitoring us, but we who should audit them once and for all, and clean up the mess they have made of this world. My grandmother taught me never to write anything I wouldn't put my name on, and by this standard the United States government should be ashamed of it's sociopathic hidden hand. I'm lookin' at you too D.I.A. and N.S.A!

Mr. Obama: Tear down this Wall Street!

Wall Streets history begins, not surprisingly with a wall. This wasn't like the walls in your house holding the ceiling safely above your head, it was one of thousands of colonial fortress structures separating people from people, resources, and territory. Like the great wall of China, the Berlin wall, and even the separation wall in occupied Palestine, this fortress wall was designed for domination and acquisition of territory. And like other walls it violated basic human rights and enabled enormous crimes of displacement and genocidal violence. In most cases the justification is security, as protection from savages. But the well documented treatment of "friendly" natives and the obvious motive of land theft more than justifies those indigenous people who would give their lives to resist invasion and occupation of their homelands.

When the wall was no more and the street became significant to the newly established nation, wealthy property owners gathered there to trade amongst themselves. Formalizing under a document called the Buttonwoon Agreement, they created an exclusive club designed to keep out unwanted traders and retain the wealth within their domains. What is now the New York Stock Exchange is a colonial era device for extracting wealth from those who actually work lands, mine resources, or produce commodities. It's sole purpose is to preserve the power structure of old money families and power elites, and it can never operate as anything but an obstacle to a democracy. Wall Street is the great wall of America, and the rest of the world is divided up and traded by its' power brokers.

The current financial crisis is not about bailing out Wall Street instead of Main Street, it's about the effects of Wall Street on those small businesses that used to thrive on Main Street. Wall Streets' corporate model has made it possible to eliminate thousands of jobs with the stroke of a pen, and shuffle them around the world shopping for the cheapest labor and worst human rights record. And they do this to squeeze more from the poor working class and turn it into their (anything but hard earned) profit. Capitalism can still exist without Wall Street sucking the capital from the have nots to the have everythings. In fact, it may not be able to continue with these bail out bank heists and government subsidy give aways for much longer as is. What's the point of giving all of our tax money to the ownership class and then not charging them their due taxes, could it be anymore obvious that we the people are being robbed through the clearing house of the IRS?

I know the current dominant view is that wealthy people trading property is the measure of a truly free society, but I would suggest that every billionaire represents a million people who can't afford their next meal. The success of the wealthy is the bleak and dismal failure of the poor, and of the people charged with providing an even playing field to each and every person. The rights of inhuman corporations have far too long trumped the rights of living breathing humans and animals everywhere. No one has demonstrated to the common man the true value of corporations, nor have they (or can they) justify the far reaching "rights" of corporations. What we affectionately refer to as "Wall Street" is a system of parasitic institutions that must be eliminated for true progress to occur in the field of democracy.

But the ownership class and the ruling class are always one in the same, and our current president is harboring many of the financial elites who continue to profit from their holdings. That well-to-do crowd that George Bush ironically referred to as his "base", has also paid in full for our current commander in chief, and it's sadly improbable that he will do anything that could upset his next round of fundraising in 2012. And of course it's not likely he'll do anything after that if he wins a second term. With any luck, and a lot of that year old hope, Obama can be a mildly effective ex-president like Jimmy Carter, someday, when he's very old. Or perhaps he has what it takes as president to stand up to Americas' owners, many of whom still hold land and wealth accumulated through the legacy of slavery. I might suggest it's his only "hope" to win a second term, but he should do it for the right reasons, because it's "right" and well within "reason."

Money-opoly

Monopoly is arguably the most popular board game in history, it's likely we've all played it one or more times in our lives. So let's walk through a typical game scenario and learn what we can. Let's say you're playing with two of your friends or family. One takes the race car, the other takes the battleship, and you take the shoe. Everyone starts with the same amount of money and the board is full of unowned properties (presumably owned by the bank) desperate for buyers. In the first four or five times around the square board most properties have been purchased. One of you may have both utilities, another could be the railroad baron with three or four railroads, and you bought both of the purple properties for a sweet deal. Now your building hotels in the ghetto, it's not much but the money starts to roll in.

The game can go on for a while where it seems as though everyone has a fighting chance, but it always seems to end the same way. No one has landed on your properties in the last four times around and you keep landing on those damn railroads and utilities. Someone pulls way ahead and everyone is mortgaging their properties to stay afloat. Then you land on Boardwalk for a short but expensive stay in the fancy new hotel and you're broke, busted, your out of the game. Tough luck. And tough love from the town you used to be a big player in, let's call it Monopolis.

It's true you can learn a few things from this game, but what exactly? It doesn't seem like my life at all. I didn't start life with an equal pile of money as the next guy. And the world was already bought and sold before I came into the game. The board came pre-monopolized and I can't afford a hotel room on Boardwalk! And why don't people have jobs in monopoly? They just drive around town all day collecting money every week, sometimes they go to jail for no apparent reason. The ones who do all the work must be those pathetic schmucks living in the cheap little green houses on Baltic Avenue.

Imagine a game of monopoly that was started over 300 years ago, and has been going on ever since. The original people who dominated the board just handed it all over to their children to continue collecting money. This has been going on for so long that it's just not fun anymore. When we were born the game was already won and maybe we're all suckers for playing at all. But who couldn't understand why the game goes on? When you are the winner and nobody wants to play anymore, that's when you feel like you're just getting started. You don't want to give up, you want to start loaning money and subsidizing other players just to keep the rush of domination flowing.

Is there another game to play? Is it "fun" to share things equally like we were taught to do as children? Can we make a game out of feeding the hungry and healing the sick? Or maybe we should forget about these silly childish games and start living in responsible, sustainable ways, in harmony with each other, and the planet. We can put down the race car and the battleship and just walk peacefully around our world, learning to walk softly again. Does this sound like a good, market-able game? No? Good! Maybe one day the market will just be a small part of our world instead of monopolizing the board. I personally don't care about money, I want to work. I just want everyone to work their fair share and I'd rather not be dominated by anyone at all. But for some, to do any work at all, to lose their wealth and live an average working life however well paid, seems a fate worse than death.


Here's George Carlin using grown up language to give his take on Money-opoly, Enjoy!

Equal Rights For Everyone!

Lets begin by looking at the word "Rights" in hopes we might understand what rights really are, and are not. Nothing is guaranteed in this world, and whether you are in the right or in the wrong the outcome is not assured. A true hero can be framed for a crime and be jailed or executed in shame, tainting his reputation and that of his family for generations. And one who breaks laws their entire life, hurting many for their own personal gain, can be written down in history as a great person. This is neither the rule nor is it the exception, instead "rights" and "wrongs" have always co-existed and will continue to do so.

The use of the word "rights" has a relatively short and recent lifespan in human history, but it hasn't changed the reality of right and wrong. It's true that the civil rights movement has made significant strides and changed the way the world works, but it hasn't squashed the scourge of racism. People are still being subjected to discrimination inside and outside of institutions and government, and they don't always see justice if they can afford to pursue it. People as a whole have their rights violated each and everyday by corporations who consistently pollute the environment. Innocent people still go to jail and the guilty still go free. So what has changed?

Not much really. "Rights" are truly abstract, an idea, nothing more. They exist on paper and change from state to state, nation to nation, and across class divides. Even on paper they are interpreted differently by different people and when made law are infrequently enforced if enforceable at all. A policy that cannot be policed is called a toothless tiger, but even a toothy tiger can refuse to eat. The inspiring story of the American civil war is not so uplifting when one hears a true telling of the after story of reconstruction. A process which reduced the impact of the hard won "rights" of the newly freed slaves from an overt oppression to a covert terror campaign. Their "rights" were acknowledged by day with a wink and a nod, only to be violated in the cold, dark night; punishment for the "uppity" behavior of enjoying ones' rights.

Even today as I write this in the context of the civil rights movements newest frontier of gay marriage, recent headlines include a story of a Louisiana Justice of the peace who refuses to marry inter-racial couples. He claims he is "not racist" (few racists admit that they are racist) he simply doesn't "believe in mixing the races that way." He has been the Justice of the peace in his town for 34 years and inter-racial marriage has been legal for over 40 years, he admits refusing to marry inter-racial couples over his entire career. So what do advocates of gay marriage have to look forward to? More struggle, more discrimination, more of the same. Todays big issue is gays in the military and president Obamas pledge to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Obama may accept an individuals sexual preferences, but he can't change anyones mind on the subject, even if he changes some policy.

Now for the big question: How equal can equal rights be when Americans demand them for themselves while denying them for non-Americans? On both the topics of terrorism and immigration you will hear politicians and talking heads squeal at the notion of giving non-citizens the same rights we enjoy as Americans. Not all politicians and pundits, but the same ones who would have been railing against the civil rights movements of the past if they were born decades earlier. We all know that equal rights have been hard fought, and hard won where applicable, but the flip side is that they have been hard fought against. The racists and racism of the past is comfortably distant in history, but it's contemporary incarnation is all too prevalent.

To fight for equal rights today we must understand that our opponents have a global outlook and are afraid we might adapt one ourselves. We can no longer have the attitude or strategy that we will win rights for Americans first and then we can give them to the rest of the world somehow later. And we must be diligent against the cause of rights to be a rally cry for war visited from one nation on another. The cause of rights will always be fought between peoples and governments, and this can be done most effectively if we globalize our goals. We may not be able to rush the cultures of the world through hundreds if not thousands of years of evolution, but we can unite as people and find our common values and goals. Rights are not perfect in any country and no nation can claim to be the authority for all, they are human rights and and they should be of, by, and for all the people of the world, equally.

Why I voted for Obama: Reason

I have never been a believer in democracy American style and years of participation has not changed my mind. My first opportunity to vote was Bill Clintons' first term and I skipped it due to apathy. I didn't want to vote for the lessor of two evils, I wanted to believe in someone. I pretty much dropped out of society during the Clinton years and don't even remember his second election, no TV or radio for several years. I dropped back into society in a big way by the 2000 election season and found in Ralph Nader someone I did actually believe in and I enthusiastically gave him my vote. I knew he couldn't win a presidential election, but I wanted him to get enough votes to receive federal campaign funds for the Green Party.

After four years of Bush I was hugely political and though I didn't believe in John Kerry I held my nose and voted for him. I don't like the idea of voting for the lessor of two evils but in this case the greater of two evils was the dark lord himself. Needless to say I have regretted that decision ever since and I would like to see John Kerry go to jail for giving the presidency away instead of taking a necessary stand and fighting the schoolyard bully. At least my first time was for love, oh well. I'll take this opportunity to say that a true democracy would allow for a run-off voting system in which you get a first choice (Nader) and a second choice (Kerry) and so on. With this far more fair and logical system, we wouldn't be accusing a growing third party of spoiling elections, this monopoly two party system must be stopped!

So who would have thought that just four years later, I was ready to believe in someone, and vote for someone, who would actually win? Although, after eight years of Bush/Cheney, and with the traveling side show the republicans were endorsing, it's hard to believe that any Democrat could lose. But I wasn't gaga over Obama, OK, so I was feelin' it, but I've been burned before. I knew that the truth behind his overwhelming individual campaign contributions was his overwhelming corporate contributions. Historically, presidents do not keep the campaign promises they make in public, but the ones they make in private to their biggest contributors. We all felt the epic shift of corporate dollars go from mainly Republicans to mainly Democrats, and specifically to the Obama Campaign. And we all know why they gave so much to him, they weren't supporting him like you or I, they were buying him outright.

So why did I vote for another Democrat, why did I vote for Obama? George Bush was a real wake up call for my generation, and maybe for the world. Being under his command was like having a plunger for a boss, there's just no reasoning with an inanimate object. When we say Bush was a "tool" we really mean it. He was intellectually inanimate, he was just a conduit for the will of others. When he spoke he mis-spoke and no one could understand him much less argue with him, and when he gave rehearsed speeches it was obvious that someone had to coach him and explain what he was saying and why. When he said, "Let's bomb Iraq, it will solve all our problems" the world rose up and resoundingly said "Hell no!". He responded by suggesting that the record breaking world wide peace protests represented a "special interest group". Protesting anything that came out of the Bush administration was (as congressman Barney Frank said) like arguing with a dining room table.

When I look at Obama I don't see a dining room table or a plunger, and I certainly don't see an angel or a devil. I see a reasonable, rational man who is not only capable of using logic, but also vulnerable to it. I voted for him because I believe that a superior logic can persuade him when he is on the wrong path. If he had picked a less bank and corporate friendly staff I'd be inclined to believe that he had many of the right answers and strategies. But unfortunately the jackals are deeply entrenched and bent on making sure that his every deed is a misdeed. But if we can get a superior message into those big ears and on that great mind of his, Obama may have little choice when the light of reason shines in. I've not seen much that gives me hope since his inauguration but the reason I voted for him remains: Reason. Obama is far from perfect, but he may be willing to go in that direction when the way is clearly shown.

Nobel peace prize for rhetoric?

The one man who can put the brakes on two wars destroying the lives of millions of people instead puts his foot on the gas. Barak Obama's campaign promises were full of hope and promise that the illegal wars of the Bush administration could be drawn to a close; if not immediately, within a reasonable time frame. Of course he couldn't say one way or the other what his true intentions were due to the childish game we call campaigning. Instead he chose language that sounded reasonable and sympathetic to the cause of peace, without sounding too soft as to become an easy target for the predictable onslaughts of the McCain campaign. If mastering rhetoric was a criterion for winning the Nobel peace prize then I suppose he has earned it.

The only actions he has done thus far in his first two seasons as president is to back peddle on rhetoric that was already lite on substance. It's hard to find instances where Obama has delivered for those who voted for him, but the examples of his favors to corporate campaign contributors abound. It would be difficult to argue with the fact that his voter base was largely due to a war weary population when there have been two simultaneous wars both of which have gone on longer than twice the duration of Americas involvement in World War II. If one could only see the actions of the white house without knowing who won the presidency, we might think McCain had won. Would things be so different if he had?

McCain may have deliberated less over sending more troops to both wars, but there's not many troops to send anyway. So the big choice we all had last year was to vote for someone who will escalate wars without much thought, and someone who will do the same after much deliberation. It's true that the war in Iraq is ever so slowly winding down, but it was already there when Obama took over. And though it has wound down from calamity beyond description, it could only hope to stabilize into a continuous state of calamity of a lessor degree. The best Obama can do for Iraq is to let it be the waste land we have created with enormous US military bases and a permanent residual occupation, Hooray! Victory?

So let's not look at Iraq, it's just too depressing. Instead lets look at that really great war in Afghanistan spilling over into Pakistan, that's where Obama is really shining. Sure he said he would escalate Afghanistan and he admitted he would bomb Pakistan to his hearts content before he was elected. Wouldn't you know that would be the one promise he could keep. Millions of Americans are not returning to the homes they were kicked out of or the jobs they were laid off from, but we get to kill more people in a far away place. With no clear goal and no way of achieving anything but more dead soldiers and civilians, Afghanistan is somehow a good war. I didn't know that there was a Nobel peace prize for rhetoric, but that is the only thing Obama has accomplished resembling peace.

Left, Right, Wrong?

Imagine a world in which cardinal directions didn't exist, and instead our sense of direction was based on our left and right hemispheres. In this world imagine people who vehemently believe that one direction is somehow superior to the other whenever a literal or metaphorical fork in the road lies before them. Now imagine that our ship of state is an actual ship on the open sea, and these two groups are constantly fighting each other over control of the steering mechanism. One group is satisfied going in clockwise circles as long as they're always steering right, and the other believes that all our problems would be solved if we were fixed in a counter clockwise spin. No landmark or guiding star can change their stubborn beliefs, and as long as the struggle continues they can only dig in their heels in the face of the opposition. This mindless struggle ensures that the ship of state will forever be a ship of fools.

What does it mean to be left or right of center and where is center anyway? The terms come from the French seating arrangements in government from before the French revolution where the supporters of the monarch sat on the right and the more radical and liberal voices on the left. After the revolution the right remained but simply held a torch for monarchy and it's old order, always pining away for the good old days. To this day we still hear moaning about the good old days, and many would gladly welcome a monarch who could deliver up the old order again. Let's face it, as long as some people are prone to abuse power they will oppose a fair distribution of power and wealth. And when any movement towards fairness is made the ownership classes cry about how unfair fairness has been to them.

So the key difference here is those who believe in hierarchal power structures with the power in the hands of the few on top, and those who believe in a lateral distribution of power and wealth with no one person over another. Or to put it in Old English: those who are promised the favor of a king are in favor of a king. And in grade school terms: those who can be in the exclusive inner circle are in favor of having an exclusive inner circle. There is also a significant portion of every population that supports the old order despite the fact that it's held up on their backs and they receive no obvious material reward. And this is where rhetoric is the thread that bundles the factions together into the duality of either left or right. In fact, left or right may feel more comfortably lateral to the greater population, but top and bottom is where the true division lies.

We make matters worse when we use words like "liberal" and "conservative", and like all things abused they lose their intended meaning and purpose in the process. What does it mean to be liberal? or conservative? The answers are long and complicated and change with each person you ask. In the literal sense, we are all liberal and conservative but not in the same ways or on the same issues. It would make perfect sense to say that one who recycles bottles and cans is being conservative with finite resources. When we use those words politically however, we tend to mean that one is either liberal or conservative by a moral standard. So one who recycles is morally liberal by being adaptable to change and for sympathizing with the environment. But "conservative" and "Liberal" also date back to pre-revolutionary France and that same group of people who wanted to conserve the old order as it was.

A ship guided only by the basic directions of left and right is doomed to be lost at sea and one day bashed on the rocky shores while it's crew is busy infighting. Locked in this futile debate we may never find higher orders of direction making skilled navigation possible and instead we continue spinning aimlessly in circles. Our language is the battle ground and words like "liberal" and "conservative" are the targets of attacks set to malign the opposing sides. Those words are held up like martyrs whose true life and meaning have been sacrificed for a cause that redefines them until they are ultimately useless. Political rhetoric turns our language into a mine field with loaded buzz words ready to trigger the rage programmed into our circuitry.

In reality, words are neutral vehicles simply designed to transport ideas from one mind to another. The art of rhetoric is knowing that these words can be literally charged with negative or positive connotations obscuring their original semantic structure and purpose. It is up to us to take these words back for the crucial function of clear communication they are meant to serve. We must learn to recognize the connotations of a word as a temporary manipulation of an otherwise neutral tool. You can commit acts of violence with a hammer, but the hammer is not the violence or the violator. Every individual is responsible for finding the true meaning of each word in their vocabulary, and until they do they are vulnerable to the manipulations of those who dominate the debates in politics and media. Someday we will stop debating like children and have actual conversations.

Here is an excellent (recent) radio broadcast about the conservative mindset, have a listen!

Against the Grain - October 12, 2011 at 12:00pm

Click to listen (or download)

Diffusing the rhetoric

In this blog I'll explore the landscape of language in my own unique way contributing my proverbial piece of the puzzle. I've always been fascinated with words and I've come to believe that they are literally the code we run on just like the computers we're all staring into right now. And just like computer code our language is riddled with bugs, malware, spy ware, and the like. Ironically, we protect our computers more diligently than we do our own neural operating systems.

The English language is part of a family of European languages that has largely conquered the planet in an eerily silent war of words, or more accurately a war of languages. We don't speak much of this war because it's a mere biproduct of cultural domination, or colonialism. But without a clear motive to spread a language like a pandemic disease, it has been one of the most successful accomplishments of the colonial era. But sadly a language dies every other week or so, and the many thousands of languages in the world are quickly dwindling down to a handful of conquering dialects. And just like the pharmacopoeia of the Amazon jungle, these languages are rich with insight and wisdom.

The European family of languages has served well the purpose of empires throughout history because they are suited to misrepresentation and manipulation. Especially when compared to the languages of those tribal societies the empires were ferociously absorbing. Languages represent concepts and many tribal people had no concept of "ownership" or "property" as was the case in much of the Americas. From the dawn of time some people have migrated while others remained year round, while many were migrating their territories were being purchased as property. To this day the conquered people of the world wander the land that they did not know was there's until someone took it from them.

The practice of law and politics complicated language to a high degree effectively excluding commoners and foreigners from comprehension of higher levels of language. So that even within one language such as English or Spanish, other languages exist like lingual country clubs and gated communities. Even the institution of education is fallible to the extent that it is exclusive of those who cannot afford it, thereby creating and reinforcing class structure. From these elite communities come our politicians who have mastered the art of rhetoric, saying everything and nothing. To say what everyone wants to here without saying anything at all is the art form we reward with the highest seats in government.

I love words like I love the world around me, and I feel the same awe and wonder in a verbal concept as I do in a pristine landscape. So it draws me into action when I witness the destruction of this wordscape. Just as the protectors of the trees throw their bodies in front of the chainsaws, I hope to cast light into the darkest corners of discourse. It's imperative that we re-define our words and our worlds to be meaningful to us and liberate ourselves from the dictates of the dictionary. Words are more than just simple symbols, they are the code that informs our beliefs and shapes our minds. Though I take serious issue with the use of language to manipulate, I also believe that words are the only tools that can solve the greatest riddles of all. I love a good riddle.