Thursday, April 30, 2015

The war zones rebel against what they see as a police state

Whites see protests and violence by inner city blacks very differently than blacks see the same events.  They are seeing two totally different things.  

Blacks see unarmed black men being killed by a hostile, occupying police force in the world of the inner city which is little more than a war zone and police state.

Whites see a police force which is doing an enormously difficult and dangerous job being under attack by fools, criminals, and race agitators.  

Wow.  Different realities.

My take is similar to David Simon's - the creator of "The Wire". The inner cities are war zones, the drug war.  The inner cities are discarded places filled with people who are seen as not useful to the economy and thus are forgotten, neglected, disrespected, and held in contempt.  

Simon makes the point that America, and capitalism, cannot function if either unfettered capitalism or unfettered socialism wins totally over the other.  Unfettered socialism becomes the horror of communism, like the Soviet Union and North Korea.  Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring.  

He also makes the point that unfettered capitalism becomes the horror of plutocracy and oligarchy.  Total tyranny, and the abolition of freedom and caring. The perfect example is how unfettered capitalism deals with the inner city drug war zones - they ignore them - the inner city people don't feed the capital, don't feed the corporations, don't feed the quarterly reports. Thus, they aren't thought about until there are riots.

What is needed is balance.  Balance comes when neither side wins. The Soviets went out of balance and destroyed themselves by Communism.  America is in danger of going out of balance and destroying itself by Plutocracy.

The United States was created to overthrow aristocracy.  It wasn't England that our Founding Fathers rebelled against, it was rule by aristocracy.  When the wealthiest of the wealthy can contribute billions of dollars to control our elections, we no longer have a democracy, and we are living in the tyranny of aristocracy.  We are getting too close to that tyranny, to that loss of freedom.

The plutocracy has chosen the Republican Party and the "conservative movement" to rule the country for the sole purpose of creating unfettered capitalism and unlimited capital.  All costs are to be reduced, including of course the cost of "labor" - the cost of you and me.  They do this with the megaphone of talk radio, and ironically their attack on the middle class is done under the rubric of "freedom".  The more extreme the right wing becomes the less power the middle class becomes and the more power the plutocracy has.  

I have hopes that the American people will be able to walk back away from the blow torch of extremism, and will elect conservatives and liberals who are not crazy. The biggest danger to this is the enormous  amounts of money that the Plutocracy is putting into the election process.  I think they will lose.


Saturday, April 4, 2015

U.S. Iran framework deal

Congratulations to Obama and Kerry for coming up with a better than expected nuclear framework agreement with Iran.  I know that Netanyahu is upset, but that is probably a very good sign that it is a good agreement.  I am really tired of him, his right wing Zionists in Israel and the U.S., and the American right wing of the Republican party trying their best to get the U.S. to attack Iran.  Inspect-inspect is much better than war-war.

I know my right wing friends are convinced that Obama represents the end of American True Manhood, a manhood that stomps across the earth inflicting fear and shock and awe at our mighty forceful powers.  But, indeed, I think Obama is a glimpse of the future of American and of American manhood - one that has many more arrows in its quiver than just military force and intimidation.  John Wayne was a fictional character, and at best he was a picture of a manhood that is now in a very distant past.  

The American right wing keeps thinking that there is only one lesson to be learned in history - that of Churchill standing up to Hitler, and how much that was needed rather than Chamberlain appeasing the maniac tyrant.  But, there is so much more to history than that.  Ted Cruz and the American right wing see this deal as a capitulation to the maniac Iranians.  They see themselves as brave Churchills shouting against the weak foolishness of appeasement.  I think they are dangerously deluded about how to operate in today's world.

They forget a president named Ronald Reagan who negotiated a deal with the Soviet Union -a much more dangerous, brutal, and deadly foe of the America than Iran ever will be - and gave away half of America's nukes.  The right wing in America was apoplectic, and struck endless Churchillian poses, railing against such utter stupidity of the American president.  Well, of course, Reagan was right and they were wrong, and the Soviet threat fizzled and Reagan's nuke deal was a very good one.  

I think this Iranian deal will prove to be a very good one indeed.  Netanhayu and the hard core American right wing has been saying for twenty years that Iran is only a year or two away from a nuke.  This deal has extraordinary levels of inspection and oversight inside Iran in exchange for dropping those sanctions connected to Iran's nuclear program (the sanctions directed at Iran for reasons of Iran supporting terrorism are not affected).

So, good for the president.  Gee, do you think that this man will end up with a very good historical legacy after all - expansion of health care - which has dramatically slowed the growth of health care cost in America - the rescuing of the American economy by providing economic stimulus rather than government austerity - which is being used in Europe to disastrous effect - getting out of and staying out of, as much as humanly possible, the religious and civil wars in the Middle East, and now a defusing of potential war with Iran and containment of its nuclear program.  A pretty good record, to me.  

I know my conservative friends see him in the most demonic of terms, but I think that his choices have proven out to be pretty darned good.