So What's New?

So What’s New?


We begin 2010 with a national debt of over twelve trillion dollars and rising. That’s roughly 40 thousand dollars per taxpayer. Should we continue paying for the phony war on terror which started in Afghanistan, moved to Iraq, returned to Afghanistan, is spreading to Pakistan and has lasted longer than World War Two? Or should we put an end to the terror war on tax payers in the USA? Guess which costs us more : our military budget to murder thousands of innocent people and maintain puppet regimes in foreign countries, or our national budget to help citizens find jobs, housing, health care and education? Political lies and moronic bigotry can make it seem that immigrants, the poor and hypochondriacs are sinking us into deeper debt, but morons can also show that the moon is made of green cheese, flying saucers regularly visit earth and the Democratic and Republican parties truly represent the interests of all americans. Yeah, right.

It’s time we face the reality of a crumbling empire that still seems to provide freedom and opportunity, but only for a shrinking minority. And the burden of supporting that minority falls on a majority which picks up the deadly tab in a world growing more politically treacherous, economically desperate and ecologically dangerous. Each day we expect change to result from rhetorical reform offered by the ruling minority’s hired help makes it more difficult to create the radical transformation we must bring about to help save our nation and our world .

Anyone who still thinks the new model hybrid presidential brand represents a difference in anything more than style suffers from wishful thinking disorder. Some are finally shaking the cobwebs out of their heads and organizing to force him to do what they voted for, rather than expect him to voluntarily disobey his financial and political owners. He did not miraculously come to us from the heavens but was selected, shaped and packaged to be sold as an all new product at a time when the system could no longer continue under the old brand name. But his job description is the same as the previous national CEO : represent corporate capital, Wall street and Israel first, and the rest of us, if at all, second .

Those still in denial need to face the global death, destruction and debt that have not only continued but are getting worse under this new regime. What our consciousness controllers tell us are great speeches are merely rhetorical stunts to dull our senses to the substantial continuity with the last regime’s most murderous policies. Denial is difficult to shake given our near total control by corporate media in its job as stenographer for power and mass sleeping pill for its subjects . But there are more alternative outlets for news , analysis and political organizing than ever before that need to be used and strengthened and they are not only on the internet.

Countless small struggling print journals - like The Coastal Post and The Independent Monitor - need the support of citizens interested in change for the better in the lives of previously silenced and manipulated minorities. But whatever the ethnic, religious or other special identity observed, we need to ultimately become the great majority who face lethal problems that need common solutions. The increased warfare in the middle east, rhetorical and military hostilities in latin america and general disrespect by the developed world leaders for the rest of humanity are a call for supporters of real peace and social justice to confront the root causes of war and ecological destruction before it is too late.

Long before he took office this president made it clear that he would protect corporate capital’s global domination and maintain its major branch office in Israel. His induced perception as unique - being only half white instead of all white - played a major role in making him seem truly different. But people with sincere hopes and ideals have had them crushed so often in the past that this latest farce will hopefully be the last lesson needed. No matter what rhetorical pomp and political circumstance are offered , no matter what ethnicity, race , sex or sexuality is claimed by the candidate, financial backing and ownership are far more important. The party of individual wealth , corporate capital and Israel remains in charge, with only minor cosmetic and stylistic adjustments that make no difference at all to foreigners being threatened, embargoed or invaded, or americans left homeless, jobless , uneducated, in debt and denied health care .

Anti-social techniques of mind management remain persuasive among a public trained to worship individual responsibility and show near contempt for governmental action in the name of all the people. This will continue as long as we accept our dysfunctional union as something called a democracy and ourselves as subdivisions of humanity . Global society’s class divisions become obvious when we see which countries invade and which are invaded. And where the consumption frenzy leads directly to the increased debt of the middle class and further suffering of the poor. But whether they are colonized natives, oppressed peasants or exploited workers, the previously submissive are demanding change in their status by organizing as one people with common interests.

When lacking clean water, sickened by chemical foods and polluted air or suffering drought, warfare or hurricanes , it is humanity which is in torment, not simply nationalities. 2010 will hopefully bring us closer to acting as a people with common racial origins , universal bonds and a desperate need to create social solutions to problems that will get worse the longer we allow them to be trivialized as combat between mythological good and evil, simple individual concerns or special identity group dilemmas. All of us or none of us? Indeed. Happy New Year? Make it so.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.

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frank scott
email: frankscott@comcast.net