XPost: alt.society.anarchy, alt.politics.radical-left, alt.society.liberalism   
   XPost: alt.politics.socialism   
   From: etacx18@etaoin.com   
      
   By Michael Ventura. Originally published at the Austin Chronicle   
      
   The Left: does not exist in the United States –   
   not as a meaningful force. To state the stunningly   
   obvious: Without a serious critique of capitalism,   
   you’re not to the left of anything. If what’s   
   left of your leftness is an earnest wish for reform,   
   you are that most maligned of political entities:   
   a liberal. Liberals of today are nice. They do   
   some good. But liberals of old had lefty visions   
   that changed society’s structure – FDR’s New   
   Deal, Harry Truman’s GI Bill, and LBJ’s War on   
   Poverty. Liberals today believe in social access   
   for all, and beyond that, what? The status quo. No   
   structural political vision. As Proverbs teaches:   
   “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”   
      
   Political Commentators: Conservative and liberal,   
   highbrow and lowdown, political commentators huff   
   and puff on cue. Excited by each new issue, crisis,   
   and outrage, they parrot the spectrum of views they   
   (or their employers) have staked out. How often do   
   they surprise you? Almost never? Shrill with opinions   
   but bereft of ideas, they mistake political theatre   
   for a political process. Not one in a hundred has   
   seriously asked: What is power?   
      
   Congress: Oligarchy has defeated the very idea   
   of a legislative process. The Republican Party is   
   the blunt tool of Oligarchy in the United States,   
   Oligarchy’s hammer, but not for the purpose of   
   achieving Republican goals. Oligarchy’s goal is   
   to deadlock federal lawmaking bodies into permanent   
   dysfunction and create a power vacuum that only   
   Oligarchy can fill. Its method has proved foolproof:   
   Bankroll the GOP’s extremists and ignoramuses;   
   count on them to freeze the political process. Also,   
   count on Democrats and the media to obsess about   
   the so-called issues and ignore the fundamental   
   shift in the power structure that Oligarchy has,   
   in large part, achieved. Absent a surge of public   
   participation (not likely, but not impossible),   
   the collapse of our national legislative process has   
   probably reached the point of no return: the point at   
   which our national problems can no longer be redressed   
   through traditional politics.   
      
   Gerrymandering: Election coverage concentrates   
   on personalities, hot-button issues, and   
   polls, but the basic electoral fact today is   
   gerrymandering. Gerrymandered extremists now hogtie   
   the House.  Ruthless gerrymandering in Republican   
   states makes fair, county-level elections nearly   
   impossible, decimating health care, education,   
   women’s rights, and the right to vote. In return for   
   funding extremists on issues that Oligarchy couldn’t   
   care less about, Oligarchy buys state legislatures,   
   and its lobbyists write their commerce laws. A   
   gerrymandered election is a rigged election. News   
   outlets have failed to put gerrymandering front and   
   center and keep it there.   
      
   Education: In states controlled through   
   gerrymandering, Oligarchy’s Republicans defund   
   schools and dumb down education for one reason:   
   People who cannot communicate beyond their class   
   and ethnicity cannot fight back. (And a fight it is:   
   Here in Lubbock, Texas, a highly successful charter   
   school had its budget slashed 20% this year. No reason   
   given. Its success seems to have displeased those who   
   fail to grasp a central human fact: All the children   
   are our children.)   
      
   Obamacare: Health care should be free for all;   
   Obamacare goes a distance toward that. But there’s   
   a price liberals ignore, and it may prove exorbitant:   
   Obamacare makes the insurance industry indispensable   
   to the federal government, vastly increasing Wall   
   Street’s leverage. That was the goal all along, when   
   Oligarchy’s Heritage Foundation first proposed this   
   health care system. Also, the Affordable Care Act is   
   an insurance bill, not a health bill. For instance,   
   it does not address the 440,000 yearly deaths caused   
   by preventable hospital error (Forbes.com, Sept. 23,   
   2013). That’s right: 440,000 a year. (And you’re   
   more worried about terrorists?)   
      
   Guns: In the eyes of the world, senseless slaughters   
   have become a signature of America (as they are   
   a signature of Central Africa). The argument for   
   guns is that they protect us from an overbearing   
   government. Proponents of that argument apply 18th   
   century tactics to 21st century reality. Wear your   
   camouflage, speechify, amass arsenals – if you’re   
   ever seen as a genuine threat, drones the size of   
   hummingbirds will watch your every move until a drone   
   that you won’t see or hear launches the missile that   
   kills you in midsentence. No messy publicity. Just   
   – boom. They can call it a gas explosion or a faulty   
   something. But they don’t have to call it anything.   
      
   Because now a president can legally condemn you   
   without trial and order your execution without   
   oversight, even if you are a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil   
   – and the lawyer who wrote that legal brief is now   
   a federal judge appointed by a Democratic president   
   and anointed by a Democratic Senate.   
      
   Meanwhile, ranting on all sides of the gun issue   
   serves Oligarchy because it distracts the mouthy and   
   furthers legislative dysfunction.   
      
   Police: However, gun adherents do have   
   a point. “During the Obama administration,   
   according to Pentagon data, police departments have   
   received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly   
   200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of   
   camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds   
   of silencers, armored cars, and aircraft” (The New   
   York Times, June 8). It isn’t paranoia to wonder,   
   “What the fuck?”   
      
   Nonviolent “terrorists”?: “Pentagon preparing   
   for mass civil breakdown,” headlined The Guardian on   
   June 12. “The project explicitly sets out to study   
   non-violent activists.” As the Southern Christian   
   Leadership Conference proved a half-century ago,   
   nonviolent activism gets radical results. So now the   
   Pentagon calls nonviolence “political violence,”   
   a verbal trick that puts nonviolence squarely in the   
   sights of the Patriot Act.   
      
   The 1%: “Since 2009, 95 percent of U.S. economic   
   gains have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of the   
   population” (The Week, Feb. 7).   
      
   Defense: Defense of what? America’s massive   
   military outlay bosses trade routes, bosses far-off   
   resources, and bosses the dollar’s rule. (Think the   
   dollar could be the world’s currency otherwise?)   
   This arrangement pleased Americans immensely while it   
   benefited them personally. But now the 1% gobbles 95%   
   of the benefits of our “defense,” while the rest   
   of us pay taxes to support it. That, fellow citizens,   
   is the essence of Oligarchy.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)