Love Me, I'm a Liberal

By John Cory, Reader Supported News

11 April 11

Reader Supported News | Perspective

 

"If God did not want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep."
- Calvero from The Magnificent Seven

o, Mr. Obama saved us from a government shutdown. That's good, right?

I don't think so, but then, I'm not part of the hoi polloi that runs this joint.

Listen to the spin coming from the Democrats and Mr. Obama using their upside down language of "... reducing spending while still investing in the future is just common sense ..."

We are not investing in America by these spending cuts, but rather breaking the great Republic into more pieces for sale to the lowest corporate bidder. This is the privatization of America and the turning of citizens into sharecroppers.

Gore Vidal said it best:

"America has only one political party - the property party. It's the party of big corporations, the party of money. And it has two right wings, one is Democrat and the other is Republican."

Let's be honest here - Obama and Democrats may have dodged a shutdown but they joined the shakedown. And it is going to keep coming: the debt ceiling vote, 2012 budget vote, the GOP Medicare fraud of Paul Ryan and the selling off of our educational system to privateers who will and are turning colleges and public schools into corporate vocational-training centers. Training tomorrow's corporate citizens in conformity and consumerism. Digby posted this scene from Network a while back and it is worth watching again. Satire turned into reality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3vbCxj2ifs

Glenn Beck warned that we had elected Malcolm X, but it turns out we elected Malcolm-In-The-Middle. Wherever the "middle" is. And while Mr. Obama and the Democrats pat themselves on the back for "historic cuts" and keeping the corporation government open for business and tell us how compromise is necessary and how both sides came out a winner - I'd like to take this moment to say: Bullshit! This ain't T-Ball where everyone gets a trophy just for playing, Mr. President!

And the Democratic Party is flooding my inbox with pleas for money and support to fight the craven GOP and re-elect Mr. Obama for the sake of the country. Oh Please!

In the intro to his song, Love Me, I'm a Liberal, Phil Ochs said: "In every American community you have varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals ... Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

The last verse of Love Me, I'm a Liberal is particularly apropos:

"Once I was young and impulsive,
I wore every conceivable pin,
Even went to the socialist meetings,
Learned all the old union hymns.
But now I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in,
So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal."

I miss Phil Ochs, and voices like his. We don't need more liberals in this country - we need more radicals.

The millionaires in Congress do not represent We, The People and the government is nothing more than a subsidiary of the corporate state. That is a fact we need to recognize and acknowledge and fight.

We voted for Obama to stop the wars, close Guantanamo, re-instate civil liberties, hold the wealthy accountable for their destructive greed, and to protect the everyday workers and the poor. The Democrats shouted how bad it would be if the Republicans and their Tea Party gained more power. Remember? How's that working out for you, America?

The Wall Street Wizards of Oz are making more money than ever while Democrats join Republicans in preaching sermons of restraint and sacrifice to those who are losing everything. Banks (Wachovia/Wells Fargo) profit from laundering Mexican drug money, foreclosing on homes, and charging fees to access your own money and still, they promote the gospel of greed and gluttony. The corporate personhood is indeed special because when they commit crimes, they simply use their ill-gotten gains to lobby for deregulation so that their crimes become un-crimes, more like "free market" faux pas. Pay the fine without admitting guilt and let's move on. I wonder if that would work for me if I robbed a bank?

And don't look to our modern media for elucidation or honesty. Those are commodities with no built-in profit margin. Sensationalism, snark and circus acts bring viewership to the business of covering politics. That's where the money is. There is only time for ads, egos and entertainment, not ethics or education.

In his 1958 speech on media and news in Chicago, Edward R. Murrow warned of the future:

"I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us ... This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box ..."

We stand on the edge of a cliff and Mr. Obama and the Democrats keep telling us to step right up, and we say, but it's a cliff, and they say, but it's the only way forward. They call it: Winning the future. I call it: Bullshit. Suicidal bullshit.

I'm a radical - a poor radical - but if I had fifty bucks you can bet the Democrats wouldn't get a nickel. I'd donate ten bucks to Planned Parenthood so someone's sister or daughter could have health services, ten bucks to the neighborhood free health clinic so the poor and unemployed could get treatment for their family's illnesses, ten bucks for independent media like Link TV and NPR, ten bucks to self-help veteran organizations because the corporate government that profits so handsomely from war fails to care for soldiers and veterans, and finally, ten bucks for whatever organization distributes the works of Howard Zinn, Emma Goldman, Dr. King, and Molly Ivins and Naomi Klein and Thom Hartmann and Jim Hightower and Andrew Bacevich and Bill Moyers and scores of others.

Sound radical? It is. But that is exactly what the neo-conservative right wing has been doing for over twenty years. Where have the liberal Democrats been?

I read that Mr. Obama and the Democrats will raise $1 Billion Dollars for the 2012 re-election campaign. Wow. Just wow. In a struggling economy I wonder where they will find all that money?

Oh well, sing along with me everyone: "Love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal!"

-PEACE­-

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