Invitation 2 Artivism

THE OBAMA ERA — A WIN-WIN FOR THE RIGHT

Before I continue with this, the penultimate installation of this long slog of a series, I would like to commend the President for his recent endorsement of marriage rights for all Americans: THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA, FOR TAKING THIS BARRIER-BREAKING STAND IN DEFENSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS. After your recent decision to permit federal contractors (those extravagant wastrels) to discriminate against LGBT employees, this genuine step forward is most welcome.

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Now, regrettably — having previously acknowledged the President’s many admirable qualities and the myriad ways that he does represent an improvement over his dreadful predecessor — the time has come to broach THE DIFFICULT (paradoxical and painful) TRUTH ABOUT THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY: PRESIDENT OBAMA IS ON COURSE TO BECOME ONE OF THE GREATEST HEROES THAT MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM HAS EVER HAD, The One capable of FINALLY putting ENTITLEMENTS ON THE CHOPPING BLOCK (even though his justifications for doing so are grounded only in ideology, not necessity) and applying THE “SHOCK DOCTRINE” to the United States of America: massive privatization and the dismantling of the social safety net and public sector; extreme wealth inequality; the permanent contraction of the middle class; and the rise of an entrenched police/surveillance-state oligarchy where once stood a democratic, constitutional republic.

Were many of these trends well-established when Barack Obama first came to the White House? Certainly.  They follow an arc that goes back to the early 1980s, at least — but President Obama came into office at THE critical moment for the conservative project of which these trends are part and parcel, with the neocons’ wars reviled and adrift and the oligarchs’ financialized economy imploding.  This make-or-break moment for Milton Friedman’s bleak, authoritarian economics afforded President Obama enormous power and discretion to either scuttle the establishment’s loathsome agenda or rescue it, papering over its glaring defects, preserving its power structure, and consummating its fruition.

Obama clearly chose the latter course.

Why, you ask?  Because his basic disposition is pro-corporate and conservative (the furthest thing from socialist, as he keeps telling us)… because he has been far too inclined to defer and cater to the corrupt old establishment (staffing his administration with Wall Street insiders and the worst of the Clinton and Bush old guard before he was even inaugurated: Summers, Geithner, Gens. Petraeus and McChrystal, John Brennan, etc.)…

And, most importantly, because President Obama basically believes what the right believes: that entitlements and the public sector positively must face serious cuts and regressive restructuring; that the “Too Big To Fail” financial institutions must survive at all costs, even if their unreformed practices threaten a second global meltdown; that a boundless, neoconservative approach to counterterrorism, based on Donald Rumsfeld’s privatized, unaccountable model, is somehow ideal; and that, even though the richest Americans and corporations are taxed at historically low rates — and even though simply allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would add $4 TRILLION to the Treasury over the next decade — the public sector and entitlements should bear the brunt of this economic contraction…

Let me emphasize that last point: ALL PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS TO DO TO PUT FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS BACK IN THE U.S. TREASURY — AND ELIMINATE THE CASE FOR DRASTIC CUTS TO ENTITLEMENTS – IS TO SIMPLY LET THE BUSH TAX CUTS EXPIRE.

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But the President is light years from making the perfectly reasonable case for letting the Bush tax cuts expire and preserving vitally needed government programs.  He’s clearly taken to his role as the politician who is going to convince Americans that we (needlessly) need to CUT TRILLIONS to essential programs and services that we built, programs like the deliberately sabotaged U.S. Postal Service, Medicare and Social Security — neither failing nor insolvent, despite the many attempts to portray them as such — while we continue to underwrite the largely fraudulent global finance system (again, to the tune of TRILLIONS) and perpetuating the TRILLION-DOLLAR wars that fuel terrorism globally… all the while, neglecting our crumbling infrastructure, privatizing our school system, and curtailing civil liberties.

Folks, this is pure SHOCK DOCTRINE economics; Neoliberal plunder (jackbooted capitalism).

It’s also about the most outrageous case of bait and switch imaginable: “Heavens to Betsy, if Wall Street doesn’t get trillions of dollars, immediately and with no strings attached, the sky will fall!” Then, after we’ve transferred some $16 TRILLION to the miscreants (without actually restoring them to solvency), they go right back to business as usual and turn the conversation to AUSTERITY.  They propagate an irrational brand of deficit hysteria that’s as oblivious to recent history (austerity’s dismal track record in Europe) as it is to everything America did to emerge from our last Depression, when we spent our way out of a deeper hole than the one we’re in today and built the foundation for an extraordinarily prosperous half-century (with infrastructure investment, shared benefits, a social safety net, expanded civil rights, and an intelligently regulated banking system — all anathema to today’s political leadership).

Another way of illustrating the nasty little trick that the 1%’s pulled off here (successfully, thanks to the active agency of this White House), has been expressed in the following JOKE: A banker, a union worker, and a right-winger sit down at a table with a plate full of a dozen cookies.  Before the other two can react, the banker snatches ELEVEN of the twelve cookies and stuffs them into the pockets of his suit.  He then turns to the right-winger and gestures to the plate, saying “Careful, I think that union guy wants your cookie.”

That’s the moment we’re in.  That’s the real conversation America is having, right now (with the President standing right behind the “savvy” banker, echoing his prudent-sounding concerns about the need to privatize our cookie dough and chocolate chips…).

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I KNOW THIS ARGUMENT IS COUNTERINTUITIVE… but I don’t think it’s wrong.  Many center-left Americans will be understandably confused at the suggestion that President Obama has (personally, assiduously, and with obvious intentionality) delivered such momentous victories for the right, but the conclusion is inescapable, especially when I remind myself that a) actions speak louder than words; and b) “following the money” usually tells me everything I need to know about a politician.

Unfortunately, President Obama is no exception to this rule.

NEXT: Part V – Identity Politics is for Suckers!

OBAMA’S PUTRID PREDECESSOR

While regular readers of this blog understand that I am highly critical of the current administration, I don’t mind conceding that, in many ways, President Obama has provided a vitally needed breath of fresh air from his putrid predecessor.

George W. Bush in the Oval Office was the embodiment of elitist indifference, an unprincipled, boorish, and petty man (arrested adolescent, really) whose catastrophic eight-year tenure resolved in massive, firmament-collapsing debacles at home and abroad, with the nation’s economy and markets in free fall, two calamitous wars stagnating and adrift, and global respect for America in the trash bin… alongside the Constitution, right where Bush, Cheney, and the bipartisan consensus had placed it.

Not only was this election-snatching legacy president, “Dubya,” an incompetent goof-off with respect to everything except politics (his one forte), he was a relentless demagogue who blithely allowed his proxies to lower standards of civility in America. It became standard practice during his time at the helm of our national politics for Republicans to question the patriotism of journalists, critics, and political opponents, alike (obviously, this brand of negative attack remains in vogue, with “secret Muslim” whispers about the President yet lingering in conservative forums; and with Democrats happy to join Republicans in demonizing journalists and whistleblowers as “terrorists” and “spies” — ah, demagoguery, your allure is undeniable!).

In this regard, President Obama represents some actual improvement over his predecessor. By and large, he has not used the presidential podium for demagoguery as Bush did. It’s not his style (and hallelujah for that). Yes, Obama has continued to use secrecy and leaks in as brazenly political and outrageous a fashion as his predecessor, but at least he’s not constantly insinuating that his political opponents are “giving ammunition to America’s enemies” …and for that we can all be grateful.

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In short, despite the breathtaking continuity of policy from one administration to the next, I realize that Barack Obama is not identical to George W. Bush. I understand that the personality and style differences between the two men are, in fact, enormous — and that those differences, while seemingly superficial, actually amount to something quite appreciable and valuable: after eight long years of extravagant greed, ineptitude, and savagery, Americans can once again trust that there are at least semi-responsible, somewhat capable human beings in the nation’s capital, individuals with at least a little regard for the common welfare (and that’s an improvement for which President Obama deserves some credit).

Most Americans now realize that our last president, the wretched Mr. Bush, was an unmitigated disaster. Like his role model, President Reagan, Bush was also recklessly profligate, growing the national debt by $5 trillion, in fact nearly doubling it. When Bush and the Republicans controlled all three branches of government, there was truly the sense that Phaeton was in his father’s chariot, the reins flapping about in the wind as the craft careened out of control. The idea that someone responsible was in charge was unthinkable in those heady, terrifying times.

So although I am bitterly disappointed in the policies of the Obama administration, let it be said for the record that I remember how I felt when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were at the nation’s helm…  and it wasn’t a good feeling. Back then, it required considerable effort and empathy to not see Bush and Cheney as outright monsters, for it seemed that there were truly no depths to which they wouldn’t sink. In addition to all the spying and torturing he was up to, Dubya was an unscrupulous Chief Executive who turned law enforcement into a partisan farce, itself criminal. The story of Karl Rove’s takeover of the Department of Justice was dramatically underreported by the corporate media, despite the seriousness of the threat to our democracy (bear in mind, however, that this is the same media that barely blinked when Bush intentionally targeted journalists with deadly force in Afghanistan and Iraq, murdering three men outright).

NEXT: Part 4 – A Win-Win for the Right

[Please forgive this brief interruption in my multi-installment blog, "Black Face/Identity Politics Is for Suckers" -- the next installment of which, Part 3: Obama's Putrid Predecessor, will be posted shortly.]

Last Friday, Afghans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, World Can’t Wait, CODE PINK, and Occupy Wall Street (Oakland and Fremont branches, at least) participated in a rare event: a rally and march in sleepy, suburban Fremont, CA. Well done, everybody! We stood in solidarity with one another in the heart of the nation’s largest Afghan-American community and demanded an end to the longest war in U.S. history (also one of the most futile wars in our history… and expensive, too, costing taxpayers well over a billion dollars per week).

In many ways the event was a real success, but from the perspective of Occupy Fremont, I regret to say that I think we may have taken a small step backward… at least with regard to achieving our goal of promoting and modeling a particularly peaceful, gentle, and civil approach to political activism (Occupy Fremont’s members have officially adopted a stance of doctrinal nonviolence, of course, and it’s clear that many of our members are committed to applying that peaceful spirit as radically, liberally, and inventively as we can… even if that means refraining from shouting “fuck the pigs!” in the faces of our neighborhood police officers …even if it means marching in a way that doesn’t disrupt traffic or inconvenience our community… even if it means offering policy solutions in addition to policy criticisms… even if it means challenging the corporate media’s unflattering caricature of us).

Undoubtedly, we accomplished some positive things on Friday, but I think it bears saying that we also failed to live up to some of our highest aspirations for what Fremont activism can look like — hopefully what Fremont activism will look like: inviting, inspiring, and principled…

RECAPPING THE MARCH 30th EVENT:

Diverse members of the Bay Area peace community came together to peacefully protest the Afghanistan war outside of a Fremont military recruiting office. Speeches were given condemning the war and the politicians who have prolonged it. Signs were held, boldly condemning atrocities committed with our tax dollars. The names of sixteen recently murdered Afghan civilians were read aloud, and we marked their passing with silence, reflecting on the fact that these innocents, human beings with names, are forever lost to the world.

There was a bit of a commotion early in the speechmaking when a 67-year old military veteran (a supporter of the Occupy movement, by the way) became angry and disruptive, convinced that our protest would somehow end up vilifying military men and women. To my dismay, a few of my fellow protesters were immediately up in his face, shouting back at him and apparently inviting violence. Fortunately, I and a couple others, including a young woman from IVAW, were able to intercede, walking with this upset older man past the shouters, putting ourselves between the would-be antagonists, and stopping with the disturbed gentleman at a quiet spot just outside of the rally.

We spoke calmly to the man and allowed him to speak. We also politely asserted that he should, in turn, listen to what we had to say. I pointed him to the language in our flier for this event that stated explicitly: “Help America’s military members understand… we recognize their sacrifices and we will work to see that America honors its commitment to their future health and security.” Before long, the old veteran was speaking civilly and even laughing with us. The matter was resolved entirely peacefully, and the gentleman walked away clearly more receptive to our message than when he had arrived (and isn’t that what it’s all about?).

So far, so good. Here’s where we began flirting with trouble…

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS

I first became concerned for the event when it was spontaneously suggested that we take our numbers into the streets for an unplanned, traffic-obstructing march: no permit, no organization, and higher potential for risk.

“Okay,” I told myself, “we can go out on the street for a little bit. Drivers can be inconvenienced a little bit, if it helps raise awareness of this war’s terrible costs.” I told myself that a little civil disobedience in the face of grotesquely immoral policies isn’t the worst thing in the world (far from it). Uncomfortable as I was holding a sign toward the end of the march with car horns blaring behind me, I managed to put my trepidations aside and stay with the group from Paseo Padre to Mowry, then west on Mowry until the confusion worsened and the march did a U-turn, creating more confusion, and…

And then I saw the violence instigators in our midst (maybe ten or so people, mostly young, to be honest)…

Long after we should have called the spontaneous march over and the event a success — realizing that we had pushed boundaries and inconvenienced people enough — I noticed that some marchers were apparently instigating an ugly confrontation with the police, repeatedly halting and refusing to move from the middle of the street, leaning in toward the police vehicles and shouting, inviting escalation…

I’m sorry, folks, but these cops are my neighbors, too. The Fremont police, near as I can tell, exercised considerable restraint on Friday. A few of our fellow protesters, however, clearly did not. By the time the event was over, thanks to the conduct of a few individuals, we resembled EXACTLY the unflattering portrait of the Left that is so often painted in mainstream culture: self-indulgent, angry, rude, out of control (mind you, I witnessed no overt acts of violence by anyone, but the standoff with the police clearly threatened to degenerate into a violent clash — and it seemed to me that the protesters were the ones pushing it to the brink).

The turn of events was unfortunate — but, my friends, it was hardly unforgivable. We’re a young movement. We’re going to make mistakes. Please understand that this blog isn’t about repercussions or blame; it’s about doing better tomorrow.

DOING BETTER TOMORROW

Certainly, we accomplished some positive things with last Friday’s rally, but I am of the firm belief that we can do better in the future. The next time we support an event in Fremont we should be clear to all of our activist guests — the people we invite and with whom we interact — that we are trying to model a different kind of activism in Fremont: positive and hopeful. We need to tell our friends up front (before the next event spirals out of control) that, the way we see it, angry, self-indulgent, and ugly behavior makes it easier for the corporate media to marginalize our movement and ultimately defeat us. If we believe in this movement, we mustn’t let that happen.

Lest I seem too negative, let me point out that Friday’s event was mostly a success: the organizers did a good job of putting the event together; the Bay Area peace community came out in solidarity to end a brutal war; someone was savvy enough to notify the local press; and we undoubtedly increased awareness of our presence in this community… even awareness of our issues.

That said, I believe we need to be more disciplined and focused about our movement — who we are, what our values are, and what we hope to achieve — than to repeat the mistakes that were made a week ago. It is my belief that Occupy Fremont (and OWS) can elevate a model of protest that is thoughtful, hopeful, positive, and WINNING. I hope my fellow activists will agree.

SOME KIND WORDS FOR THE PRESIDENT

Many African-Americans are understandably proud of the accomplishments of Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States of America and the first person of African descent to hold that high office. Likewise, many liberals and longtime adherents to the principle of racial equality feel proud and vindicated by the successes of Mr. Obama and the adroit manner in which he has performed his presidential duties.

And why not?

When it comes to ability, the first African-American Chief Executive has already proved himself to be one of the most capable, hardworking, and generally competent presidents in our history. In terms of the President’s character and style, he is affable and good natured, dignified and suave, civil, sharp, and always focused. Unquestionably, Barack Obama has demonstrated superb temperament and demeanor befitting a political leader and statesman (unlike his oafish predecessor, Bush, who gave spontaneous and unwelcome shoulder rubs to world leaders, blurted profanities into open microphones, and generally made a buffoonish, frightening spectacle of himself and the United States).

In dealing with his political detractors — save for those on the left — President Obama has been a class act and model of poise. Imagine how George W. Bush might have responded to “You lie!” in the middle of a speech to Congress — would “Dubya” have subsequently held a televised Q&A with leading Democratic critics of his signature policy, the Iraq War, before it came to a vote, as Obama did with leading GOP critics of the Affordable Care Act?  It’s hard to imagine on both counts: a) a Democrat actually standing up to Bush; and b) George W. Bush responding in so measured and confident a manner to this hypothetical Democrat.

[This might be a good time to point out the blatant dishonesty of the Republican talking point that so-called “Obamacare” (the ACA) was “rammed down the throats” of the country without any bipartisan discussion or process. On the contrary, the march toward passage of this far-right, industry-friendly (Heritage Foundation-authored, GOP-tested, backroom-deal approved) law was long and sloggy, filled with disrupted/ambushed town hall meetings and a good deal of dramatic debate in D.C., including much repetition of Politi-Fact’s 2009 “Lie of the Year”: “DEATH PANELS!” Contrast that long public battle over the ACA with the way both parties have stealthily and aggressively advanced the cause of privatization over the last few years -- undermining schools, libraries, hospitals, the Post Office, etc. -- with little/no public comment or deliberation.]

Regular readers of this blog may be surprised at the kind words for President Obama appearing in this space, but I want, for clarity’s sake, to distinguish myself from those Obama detractors who are utterly hostile to the man and have been from the start.

For the record, I have never felt particularly hostile toward Barack Obama — quite the contrary. An admirer of Obama’s since his excellent DNC speech in 2004, I donated a fair amount of time, effort, and money to his campaigns in 2008 (primary through general election) convinced that his candidacy represented the likeliest hope for undoing at least some of the terrifying damage the Bush years had wrought.

To this day, although I feel that Obama’s presidency has been a huge and shocking disappointment, I don’t think my decision to support him in 2008 was naive. I definitely don’t think that I “projected my ideals onto Obama” in 2008 (as the tired line goes), seeing a progressive hero through star-struck, liberal eyes. Far from it. I was scrutinizing the hell out of candidate Obama.

All I did when I chose to support Obama in 2008 was take him at his word (no rose-tinted glasses required). As a major theme of his campaign, Senator Obama explicitly promised to restore the rule of law and scale back the kind of Executive Branch abuses that had become routine under Bush/Cheney. Candidate Obama vowed to eschew torture and the over-broad powers exerted by a U.S. president (Bush) who had reflexively — and secretly — asserted extraordinary (hitherto illegal) powers while demanding independence from not just judicial or congressional review, but from the law itself.

Barack Obama claimed he would defend the law and champion (rather than persecute) journalists and whistleblowers. He promised a new era of transparency and Constitutional governance.

ABOVE ALL ELSE, OBAMA PROMISED THESE THINGS.

Yes, I had seen the good senator throw his reverend of twenty years under the bus — a good man who’d been cruelly caricatured and taken out of context by the media and slandered on a relentless loop. And I was deeply disappointed when Senator Obama pulled his flip-flop on “retroactive immunity” for the giant telecoms. The privacy-flouting corporations knew they were committing the same felony millions of times when they began warrantless wiretapping, primarily of America’s domestic phone calls, on behalf of the most radically un-American administration since Nixon’s, beginning seven months before the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001; it would’ve been fitting that they pay some sort of penalty, if only to deter such conduct in the future.

Nonetheless, I voted for Obama in 2008 without giving it a second thought. The only other candidate calling for restoration of civil liberties and the rule of law was Ron Paul, and he’d been defeated in the Republican Primary by Senator McCain (albeit, a John McCain reinvented in the image of John Birch, with a rabid Alaskan mink draped around his ticket to excite the boys… I mean the base (okay, I mean the base boys who comprise the Republican base — quick, somebody feed Rush Limbaugh some porn; he’s getting surly and aggressive again!).

NEXT: Part 3 — Obama’s Putrid Predecessor!

My friends, this is a blog that’s been a long time coming and a blog I never hoped to write. This is the one where I deal with the fact that the left has failed to stand on principle (as I see it) and mount a primary challenge against the President… and the right, after some kerfuffle and griping from the base, is similarly preparing to abandon its principles and coalesce around Mitt Romney, the most transparently self-serving, reversible man in politics today.

This is the blog where I try to make peace with my enormous disappointment that there are fewer Americans who cherish habeas corpus and due process than I ever would’ve imagined — and reconcile myself to the fact that the oligarchs, elite criminals, and neoconservatives have, against the odds, turned their 2006-08 Waterloo moment into a stunning victory (thanks to corporatist “Democrats” who, boiler-plate rhetoric aside, refused in 2009 to mount even a timid defense of liberalism — despite the fact that 30 years of trickle-down economics and eight years of appalling GOP leadership had discredited modern conservatism entirely).

After months of Obama-bashing and Ron Paul-boosting, this is also the blog where I try to clarify myself on matters concerning the intersection of RACE and POLITICS:

1) Despite my support for Ron Paul’s candidacy, I believe he still has much to answer for with regard to his past courting of racist “paleo-conservatives.” (That said, I maintain that Rep. Paul has gotten a bum rap in the media, whose disproportionate attention to this matter would seem to suggest that Paul’s controversial 1980s-90s newsletter was some kind of outlier — and that the Southern Strategy wasn’t enjoying its heyday at the time, with Republicans from Buchanan to Reagan pandering outright to racists.); and

2) While many who criticize the President are apparently motivated by prejudice, I do not believe that racial animus has anything to do with my critique of his policies (I didn’t like them when they were Bush’s policies; I don’t like them any better now).

I hope the preceding statement will not come off as the classic white-male-American denial: “I’m not a racist!” (For one thing, I couldn’t make such a sweeping declaration without adding a caveat or two… like admitting that there are racist stereotypes — and other useless and offensive junk — in my head; stuff I picked up when I was very young, for the most part, and have been working to eradicate ever since). If anything, I’m more inclined to support President Obama on account of his race (just as I would be more apt to back the first woman president or the first openly gay president; as a liberal, I celebrate the rare moments when the marginalized and downtrodden overcome the odds and prevail).

If you want the whole truth, I count myself among the millions (billions?) of human beings who found Obama’s election genuinely inspiring, and I will always remember where I was on the day he was inaugurated.

I was awfully happy on that day.

NEXT: Part 2 — Some Kind Words for the President!

February is nearly over and I have yet to post a new blog… and I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that. Invitation2Artivism.com recently celebrated its ONE YEAR anniversary, and I’ve marked the occasion with a lot of questioning and reassessing my commitment to this site, its value, and my priorities.

I LIKE that Invitation2Artivism has enabled me to reach out to others, including fellow activists (from CODE PINK to the Occupy movement and beyond), with information and a perspective about current events that is somewhere between uncommon and eccentric, I suppose. I’ve tried — not always successfully — to be factual, clear, reasonable, and honest in this blog, without making a fool of myself (despite the fact that my honest feelings about the state of the world are mostly angry and despairing ones).

I QUESTION whether this site hasn’t been too much about blogging (and creating ridiculously elaborate political cartoons — some of which require a legend to decipher) and not enough about furthering my creative projects… which I hope will soon become OUR creative projects. (In short, I remain interested in collaborators, and I feel I have not done enough to communicate that interest — I badly need to update my “Projects” page, for one thing). I also wonder, after the past few months of participating in various OWS gatherings, how to strike the perfect balance between educating myself (and trying to share the benefits of that education) from my home, versus marching, rallying, and speaking out in person, with those in my community. Both, I feel, have value.

Whatever the future of this site, I should be clear that I have no intention of abandoning it… and I will continue to evaluate how it needs to grow (original video clips ARE in the works). I’ll also take advantage of this opportunity to THANK YOU, reader, for visiting Invitation2Artivism and helping me grow as a writer, artist, and activist. Some truly wonderful people have contacted me through this site, including some impressive artists, activists, and a marvelous poet (hi, Gianna!). I regret that I have often been slow to respond (I’m probably “too busy,” as I imagine myself to be, writing a vitally edifying and urgently needed play about “Zombie Nixon” or somesuch nonsense — forgive me, the self-amused nerd in me will never die, and these ditties keep me going).

Finally, since I’m already sharing a bit more on the personal side than I normally do here, let me encapsulate my February for you… I started the month working unhurriedly on a couple of ambitious blog entries (as yet unfinished, as I’ve been devoting more time to creative writing, placating my nagging muse… and feeding Zombie Nixon). Come mid-month, I found myself in Sacramento, sharing Valentine’s Day with my wife and visiting Occupy Sacramento. On the holiday, OS conducted an afternoon of teach-ins, culminating in discussions and presentations prescribed by Eve Ensler’s “V-Day,” to raise awareness of, and help reduce, sexual violence. The day was meaningful for me and the event powerful (kudos to the organizers, especially Kim). The trip was, overall, fantastic, especially the wonderful hours I spent with my wife. After leaving Sacramento, I came home to learn of personal troubles in my family, including serious concerns about some young people I love very much (“normal” life stuff, I suppose, however disruptive).

I’m just recently coming back down to Earth from all of the unusual rigmarole, reverting to my routines: newsing, reading WAR And PEACE with a group of friends, doodling, trying to be a decent husband/son/brother/uncle/friend, and endeavoring to contribute something meaningful to my community, local and global.

I look forward to continuing our conversation and CREATING SOME ART!!!

James

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I’ll close with a bit of free verse (that’s right, no charge) concocted from a comment I penned a week or two ago somewhere on the World Wide Web:

Okay, I just discovered “Garfunkel and Oates,” so here’s my new favorite song, “Save the Rich” (warning: some profanity… though not nearly as much as the subject warrants).

****** The PROFANITY-FREE version with Wierd Al is also tres bueno… ******

(Did you follow the link?  It’s funny and true.  Excellent job, G & O! — musical, comedic satirists, Kate Micucci and Riki Lindhome)

Okay, so we’re not New York City or San Francisco.  We’re not Oakland or London or Washington, D.C.  Nonetheless, our sprawling, politically and culturally diverse, not-so-little patch of Silicon Valley-feeding suburbia is participating in the OWS movement that made 2011 a year to remember… and we’re only getting started.

Thanks to the initiative of inspired local youth and civic-minded houses of worship, Fremont Occupiers have been gathering for over two months now, in numbers that have ranged from a dozen or so to more than a hundred… and now we’ve established a core group of concerned — and positively energized — citizens, meeting weekly to share our ideas about how we can contribute to our society.

So far, we’ve been having our weekly GENERAL ASSEMBLY AT NOON at Veteran’s Park on the southwest corner of Walnut Avenue and Paseo Padre (if you’re in the neighborhood, why don’t you JOIN US on SATURDAYS — sometimes people bring FOOD!).  We’ve been sharing our facts, concerns, and ideas regarding local, state, national, and even global issues — in the understanding that, as (relatively) economically privileged individuals residing in the remains of a free and open society, we bear a special responsibility to exercise our voices and at least try to benefit our community.

We’ve begun to shape a process for introducing weekly “action items” for those who are motivated to act on any given issue.  Thus far, we’ve discussed disappearing civil liberties, food safety (and availability), poverty, universal healthcare, police brutality (particularly with regard to the federally-coordinated crackdown on OWS camps), the co-option of justice by powerful elites, and national politics in a presidential election year, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s outrageous decision in Citizens United (determining, once and for all, that corporations are indeed PEOPLE — plantation owners and pirates, mostly).

Much interest has been expressed in contributing to local community gardens — and possibly establishing one of our own.  Much angst has been shared about the transformation of America, in the post-9/11 era, into a nation whose laws are virtually indistinguishable from regimes traditionally considered AUTHORITARIAN.  There have also been discussions about the classic dilemma for American liberals: How can I not vote for Bill Clinton/Barack Obama/the Far-Right Democrat, when the Republican alternative seems to be an irrational, barely disguised KKK-throwback and champion of Gilt Age inequality?

(This is the part where I offer “good advice for 2012.”  Please understand that I am NOT speaking as a representative of Occupy Fremont or OWS, but simply as an INDIVIDUAL.)

GOOD ADVICE for 2012: ABANDON THE THOROUGHLY CORRUPT ESTABLISHMENT that has sold you out 100% and views you the way a great white shark views a lone, badly hemorrhaging baby porpoise… asleep, with a broken tail.  This year the rotten-to-the-core establishment has two champions: Barack Obama (Wall Street savior) and Mitt Romney (Wall Street avatar).  All branding and empty, dissembling rhetoric aside, there has never been smaller divide between “Good Cop” and “Bad.”

Neither man has any regard for the Constitution or rule of law.  Neither believes in due process, habeas corpus, Posse Comitatus, privacy rights, or Amendments I, IV, V, VI, or VIII (all of which are largely defunct, thanks to George W. Bush and, more surprisingly, Barack Obama).  Neither man has proposed any serious remedy for keeping Americans in their homes, despite the fact that many of the foreclosed (and those facing foreclosure) were lied to and defrauded by habitually criminal banks (even ALAN GREENSPAN has said as much).  Neither man has come close to offering a serious proposal for combating the looming threat of climate catastrophe (which they both ignore, almost as if it were the Constitution).  Neither man has advocated for the kind of infrastructure investment that America SORELY needs (which could modernize and GREEN our waterworks, transportation, and power plants, while putting millions of Americans to work, revitalizing our economy, and making us far less dependent on foreign oil — a commodity for which we have gone to war).

Both men believe in elite immunity for lawbreaking government officials and corporations, endless/boundless/illegal war, elections-as-opaque-auctions, and unfettered oligarchy (which is destroying both the middle class and free markets).  Both believe in trade pacts that efface national sovereignty and defile the environment while creating a global “race to the bottom” — oppressing workers, profiting our global rivals (India and China), and decimating the number of good jobs at home.  Both are vigorous champions of the unfathomably brutal, racist, and farcically-counterproductive Drug War that fills expensive, for-profit prisons (disproportionately) with African-Americans and Latinos, and puts them to work for big corporations — virtual slave laborers, subject to all manner of abuses.  Both have telegraphed an eagerness to restructure and slash Medicare and Social Security… while leaving corporations and plutocrats virtually untaxed.

WHAT CAN WE DO WHEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OFFERS US A CHOICE BETWEEN: A) DEATH BY ARSENIC and B) DEATH BY CYANIDE?

We can respond with a healthy, cleansing NONE OF THE ABOVE! (Stop falling for the “Good Cop/Bad Cop” farce and letting FEAR of “that other guy” determine your vote for the “lesser” evil — because both Good Cop and Bad Cop answer to the same ruthless mob!)

In this presidential election year, abandoning the establishment means throwing our support behind the most sensible and potentially electable anti-establishment figures running for office — and, for my money, that’s Ron Paul, on the right, who has been absolutely slandered by the media; and Rocky Anderson and the Justice Party, on the left.  Both men have spent the past several years vociferously rejecting the stupidest and most morally atrocious policies that leading Democrats and Republicans have embraced.

It also might be time for the aroused rabble in our country (whether we’re calling ourselves Tea Partiers, Occupiers, Independents, or whatever) to UNITE BEHIND A SINGLE DEMAND (yes, it’s time) — and there’s no question in my mind about what that demand should be: DEMOCRATIZE OUR ELECTIONS AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE SYSTEM! It is absolutely imperative that we counter and neutralize the insanely outsized influence of private interests (and their lobbies) over our politicians and elections. This is the ONE priority that, if achieved, could pave the way for all kinds of beneficial policies, freeing our politicians to act on their better instincts instead of their campaign donors’ orders.

As unattainable as this goal may sound, OUR DISSENT IS POWERFUL and the oligarchs know this.  Right now, they’re afraid of OWS and the intelligently obstinate conservative base that has, thus far, denied the establishment its easy coronation of Mitt Romney.  IF ENOUGH OF US MAKE THIS DEMAND — and if we resist the establishment’s Divide & Conquer tactics — WE WILL SUCCEED (however, we also have to assure the powers-that-be that we don’t want their heads on pikes or their fortunes confiscated — for if we fail to do so, they will surely annihilate us and eat our children.)

*** THE BEST PART IS, IT’S NOT AS HARD AS IT SOUNDS *** Cleaning up our elections does NOT necessarily require that we first overturn Citizens United — that we somehow get our co-opted (bought and owned) politicians to pass an amendment to the Constitution which would put the kibosh on decades of legal precedents equating money with speech (a tall order of Olympian proportions — but not one we need to fill, at least not as the first order of business).

PASS ON THE FOLLOWING LINK TO AS MANY FRIENDS AS YOU CAN (for this way, I believe, THE ANSWER doth lie): Lawrence Lessig’s strategy for democratizing our campaign finance system and ending the shadow auctions that pass for American elections today, in which the side that spends the most money wins roughly 90% of the time: www­.thedailys­how.com/wa­tch/tue-de­cember-13-­2011/exclu­sive—law­rence-less­ig-extende­d-intervie­w-pt–2 Mr. Lessig has also written a book on this subject which I highly recommend: “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It”