Tom Over Thanks Jeff Mclean, assuming I understand this correctly. The NDAA provisions are an example of how the usual libertard-vs-repubtard rhetoric is a distraction. We have in the US a combo of what the Left and the Right have warned against: big government with high-tech surveillance power, combined with big corporate power that pours lots of money into campaigns and lobbying in exchange for public policy that increases the huge profits for a relative few while pushing the rest of society closer toward the status of a Third World Country. ——Meanwhile they sell an uninformed, distracted populace on phony austerity and pit people against each other (blame the gays, blame the undocumented immigrants, blame the Muslims, blame the conservatives, blame the liberals…)—–That economic repression is combined with political repression such as stricter penalties for protesters and whistle blowers, and the militarization of some police forces, and of course, provisions in the NDAA
Thanks for your comments, Jeff Mclean. Regarding people’s obsession with celebrities and other junk food for the mind, I more or less agree with you. Probably we’d have a more politically free and economically vibrant society if we watched less TV and were more literate, as well as more involved in our communities face to face. ——I think TV is brainwashing for the most part. Liberal or conservative, . pick your flavor. I don’t watch Rachel Maddow, if I can help it. It’s the Obama/Dem channel. Fox is the Repub channel. I’m not sure about CNN. —–But mainstream media, TV and much of talk radio, seems aimed at generating more heat than light, and getting people riled up about those (depending on the network) idiot evil liberals/Dems or idiot evil/conservatives/Repugs. —–I’m not sure if it’s an actual planned out conspiracy, but the end result seems to be a general population divided with the rank-and-file of each side ridiculing the leadership of the other side. ——Conservatives focus their criticism on Obama and ‘big government’ and liberals on Republican lawmakers and ‘big business’. But each side doesn’t go far enough in their criticism. They stop short so as to stay within the left-vs-right paradigm. ——-Collusion between big corporations and big government is so entrenched that the only social movement that stands a chance of changing things for the better is one that mobilizes millions of people thru alliances that defy traditional left-vs-right divisions. —–As far as I can help it, I’d like to be a part of alliance-building based on a positive vision of the future, not one based on fear-mongering, hatred, and creating scapegoats.—–When we hate, we are quick to magnify the faults of others while overlooking our own or those we identify as part of the ‘us’ versus ‘them.’
I can relate to how Obama’s presidency has inspired Black folk. Also, in and of itself, it’s says something good about the US that a non-White person who wasn’t born rich and who spent some of his formative years in a Muslim country actually got elected president. It shows that the US is a pluralistic society.—— In some other nations, bloody ethnic and religious strife would have bedeviled an election and a presidency of this sort, if such a presidency would be possible at all. ——My own opinion is that though Obama is the first non-White president (and that’s good, all else being equal), greatness has alluded him. Some progressives lament that “he missed his FDR moment” while some other progressives quip with gallows humor, “Obama’s been our best Republican president yet.”——-Jokes aside, what’s sobering is that the ideological baseline of the US has shifted so far to the right that current Republicans and conservative pundits can depict a centrist corporatist such as Obama as a ‘radical liberal’ or as even a socialist. ——But let’s get back to the idea of dividing and conquering rank-and-file progressives and conservatives who might otherwise form coalitions that threaten the status quo. Sometimes I wonder how serious conservative pundits are when they criticize Obama, given that he seems to have done little to address the collusion between government and Wall Street that is subverting the will of the people.
Also, yeah, Jeff Mclean, I’ve noticed that progressive or liberal media outlets don’t exactly say much about the human rights wrong doing and the environmental wrong-doing that the governments of other countries, such as China, engage in. Yet these left-leaning outlets spend time finding fault with the US government and US corporations. ——One possible explanation is that we focus on faulting our own government and businesses because we have more of a say in their affairs than we do in the affairs of governments and corporations in China, Brazil, or India. ——As for the Duck Dynasty guy expressing his opinions about queer folk, I haven’t read the actual quotes in GQ. But my first reaction was that we ought to have freedom of speech in the US. He wasn’t advocating killing gays was he ? —–Another thing that crossed my mind about the Duck Dynasty guy was that it’s a mistake for defenders of queer folks’ rights to disparage others by calling them ‘rednecks’ or ‘white trash’ or otherwise entertaining the notion that homophobia is the preserve of ‘backwards, uneducated’ people. Identity politics can bog someone down in that kind of stuff. That’s why, yet again, I say love is the answer.
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