I've been working on balance in my life by spending more time in the garden, watching hummingbirds and big huge fat bees and listening to this new group of robin babies that are endlessly crying for food that are nesting on my front porch in a gorgeous thick climbing Hydrangea, that is full of big huge white flowers.
The baby robins, started (LOL) getting on my nerves, (they never shut up) and I felt like Chevy Chase in the movie Funny Farm the other day when I was working on a script whereby in that movie Chevy (who is also trying to write) gets sick of the singing birds and he decides to go out his window and poor hot coffee on them. I laughed at myself for my own impatience and realized what was really bothering me.
My frustration level on life has become somewhat out of whack, and when that happens I need a time out, and more balance, no matter what. But as John Lennon sings in 'Imagine,' the great great lyrics: 'But I'm not the only one.' And I know that.
The problem of course is I believe that most Americans are feeling this way. And boy, do I get that. The national morality in our nation has been destroyed by both parties, and knowingly so. The national hypocrisy is at an all time high, and the fundamentals of our Constitution, the laws of this land, and the class wars are eating at hearts of our Republic. I get that. I talk to my community and neighbors and they all feel the same way: hopeless, rejected, afraid, and without leadership. They are angry, they are worried, they are wondering about how to pay their bills, if they can stay in their homes, how to feed their children, what to expect next. Walking on egg shells everyday, and wondering if their parents who are now living in nursing homes, will be living with them, and what is to become of their own benefits and health insurance, and their jobs. Who can blame them? Not me. I'm afraid too.
Regardless of the fact that I've been a dyed in the wool loyal Democrat for the past 46 years, I keep asking why neither party has one single answer as to how we are going to bring jobs back into our nation, to rebuild this country. They have willingly destroyed the Middle Class (which btw, no longer exists) so let's just call it the working poor, shall we? And indeed, they are on their way to destroying the most basic tenants of the New Deal, Medicare and Social Security. Yes, I'm sure most of you will say wait and see, but I disagree with that notion.
Day in and day out, I feel as if I'm passing by this huge train wreck, whereby I cannot look at it, but I cannot look away, because and I am very thankful for the great truth tellers on the internet that will not let me.
I don't want to look at the carnage of what America has become, a worthless banana republic whereby thousands of people can only apply for jobs at McDonald's, and Walmart and Target, with little hope of even being able to Unionize or pay for health care benefits, working 60 hours a week or more, just to pay the rent, who have already been thrown out of their own homes and credit has been destroyed.
I don't want to look at the reality of how Gates and our own government is refusing to treat the enormous amount of brain injuries that are going on in our military:
Official Pentagon figures show that 188,000 service members have suffered brain injuries since 2000. Of those, 44,000 suffered moderate or severe head injuries. Another 144,000 had mild traumatic brain injuries. However, previous ProPublica and NPR reports showed that number likely understates the true toll by tens of thousands of troops. Some estimates put the number of brain injuries at 400,000 service members.
Mild traumatic brain injuries are the most common head trauma in Iraq and Afghanistan. Commonly caused by blast waves from roadside bombs, such injuries are defined as a blow to the head resulting in an alteration or loss of consciousness of less than 30 minutes. Studies suggest that while most troops with concussions heal quickly, some 5 percent to 15 percent go on to suffer lasting difficulties in memory, concentration and multitasking.
The costs could swell the Pentagon's annual $50 billion health budget -- at a time when Gates has said the military is being "eaten alive" by skyrocketing medical bills. Tricare "is basically an insurance company. They'll take no action to provide more service," said the person familiar with the conversation, who would only discuss it in general terms. "If they do it, it's an enormous cost." At the meeting following the consensus conference, the person said, Tricare staked out its own position: "They had already decided not to do it," the person said.
http://www.propublica.org/...
This kind of flippant inhumanity by Gates, saying that the 'Military is being eaten alive, by sky rocketing medical bills,' simply disgusts me. It is exactly what is happening to the former Middle Class and poor, but hey, let's not go there, it way to ugly and real for most Americans and besides it so unpragmatic and not exactly bipartisan and all that magical shit talk of the inner beltway crowd. It's the same old bullshit day after day: keep your powder dry, Obama has it covered, and 'you just don't understand how government works' crowd 'you blasphemous heretic progressive,' and shame on you.
After all, remember this is all about 'shared sacrifice.' Fuck that shit, all the way to the banks who have destroyed out entire nation, and will continue to as long as we allow them.
Our nation has now become so totally jaded by these endless wars (with no plan B) and by the endless war games of the Economic Terrorism (nothing is different between these two entities and I can assure you of that), that we as Americans accept this as simply: 'the Suck it up and new normal of you'd better get used to it, because worse is on the way meme.'
Chris Hedges, one of my favorite writers spells out the truth again today:
The game is over. We lost. The corporate state will continue its inexorable advance until two-thirds of the nation and the planet is locked into a desperate, permanent underclass. Most of us will struggle to make a living while the Blankfeins and our political elites wallow in the decadence and greed of the Forbidden City and Versailles. These elites do not have a vision. They know only one word: more. They will continue to exploit the nation, the global economy and the ecosystem. And they will use their money to hide in gated compounds when it all implodes. Do not expect them to take care of us when it starts to unravel. We will have to take care of ourselves. We will have to rapidly create small, monastic communities where we can sustain and feed ourselves. It will be up to us to keep alive the intellectual, moral and cultural values the corporate state has attempted to snuff out. It is either that or become drones and serfs in a global corporate dystopia. It is not much of a choice. But at least we still have one.
Dying civilizations often prefer hope, even absurd hope, to truth. It makes life easier to bear. It lets them turn away from the hard choices ahead to bask in a comforting certitude that God or science or the market will be their salvation. This is why these apologists for globalism continue to find a following. And their systems of propaganda have built a vast, global Potemkin village to entertain us. The tens of millions of impoverished Americans, whose lives and struggles rarely make it onto television, are invisible. So are most of the world’s billions of poor, crowded into fetid slums. We do not see those who die from drinking contaminated water or being unable to afford medical care. We do not see those being foreclosed from their homes. We do not see the children who go to bed hungry. We busy ourselves with the absurd.
It does not matter, as writers such as John Ralston Saul have pointed out, that every one of globalism’s promises has turned out to be a lie. It does not matter that economic inequality has gotten worse and that most of the world’s wealth has become concentrated in a few hands. It does not matter that the middle class – the beating heart of any democracy – is disappearing and that the rights and wages of the working class have fallen into precipitous decline as labor regulations, protection of our manufacturing base and labor unions have been demolished. It does not matter that corporations have used the destruction of trade barriers as a mechanism for massive tax evasion, a technique that allows conglomerates such as General Electric or Bank of America to avoid paying any taxes. It does not matter that corporations are exploiting and killing the ecosystem for profit. The steady barrage of illusions disseminated by corporate systems of propaganda, in which words are often replaced with music and images, are impervious to truth. Faith in the marketplace replaces for many faith in an omnipresent God. And those who dissent are banished as heretics.
http://www.adbusters.org/...
And as the great Bob Dylan sang: 'I don't need a weatherman to tell me which way the wind blows.'
I can see where the wind is blowing and this is an ill wind that I for one can see is coming up right behind us. I might be a crazy old hippie, but I'm not a fool.
President Obama just raised a huge amount of money from Wall St. at the number one eatery in NYC for the Wall St. It was huge success.
Obama will be taking in a $35,800 a plate dinner at the posh Upper East Side restaurant Daniel, according to press reports.
Which btw netted President Obama a cool 2.4 million dollars in one night as they all dined on Lobster and steak, and had a great, great savvy talk about the future of our nation.
Meanwhile, VP Biden assured Americans and Democrats yesterday, that the Middle Class would not have to 'face all the burdens' coming up around the corner for the new so called 'shared sacrifice' movement: which is of course code for: Get ready for more screwing for Medicare and Social Security.
What part of 'this picture' don't you get yet? I mean after the failed Cat Food Commission, the failed Gang of now 5, and of course the failed Paul Rand Budget which was destroyed by their own constituents at town meetings throughout our nation by both Republicans and Democrats, and Independents?
I find it rather disheartening to honestly believe that someone as sleazy as Eric Cantor can throw a temper tantrum and hold our entire nation hostage, while our own Nancy Pelosi was denied a seat at the table for these final budget negotiations. I also find it rather bullshittery that Elizabeth Warren is still being treated the same way. Coincidence? I don't think so...not anymore and not after the way that Brooksley Born was treated by Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Two is a chance, three is a pattern. I'm over that crap. Women know how hard it is for women in this nation, and why it is so hard. They know who keeps getting short changed and stepped on time and time again. They are shut down and told to shut up, again and again, and that's a fact, Jack. Get real people. That is the way it is.
There is a storm brewing in our nation, and I don't like the looks of the dark clouds that are looming over our heads, nor do I like the smell in the air. It smells of mendacity, rage and blind greed that has become so morally corrupt and so out of control, that I fear for not just my own fellow Democrats and all the poor and disenfranchised of this world, I fear for our entire planet.
Again, as I've said in many other diaries, when we turned our back on any accountability, we also turned our backs on any kind of moral authority in the entire world. We turned our backs on humanity and thereby we turned our backs on ourselves. Until we find that level playing field again, to hold those accountable that brought us to the precipice, we will never again be the same. I wish it were not so, but that is the truth and the light. And I'm not a religious person. I just do understand that without a moral connection to the 'factual equation of for the better good of all' that civilizations cannot and will not survive. That is never how it works, ever. It never has and it never will. Just study history.
I'm not a heretic, I'm just another human being that understands very deeply exactly where our nation has gone wrong and why it went wrong.
How we dig ourselves out of this mess is another matter all together, because without leadership, vision, and honest government again, I just do not see that happening.
Until then, expect more of the same and worse. As I've said before: The Shock Doctrine Never Sleeps, and now it's coming after all of us: from Iceland, to Ireland, to Greece, to Spain, to Portugal and now to all of us. The so called 'austerity movement,' is failing everywhere, and if you do not understand why, then you never will. The Middle East is blowing up for the same reasons. The underclass of the world, in all the nation's countries are under siege, and they have had enough.
But Blind Greed is swallowing all us, and we all know this deep in our hearts. Nobody, most of all me, wanted President Obama to succeed, but he made his choices and now we all have to live with that, come what may. The rest is up to us.
Now this week, it's all on the table: the final destruction of the New Deal, that is the basic and final decision that we as Democrats have to face, to the endless wars, the corporate takeover and our jobs being endlessly sold overseas, with no end in site.
Who will stand up for us? That is the question of this diary, because that is the premise of how our party and our nation will survive. Stop avoiding the train wreck, because it's right in front of your eyes, and stop for a moment and demand that our own party stand up for us. Is this compromise or Corporate/ MIC capitulation? Is it in the best interests of our nation's people, and where are our JOBS? How much more as a Democrat are you willing to do the 'shared sacrifice thing' on the safety nets? But before you answer that, think about what you've already paid for. Everyone got paid off on Wall St./the Banks on our dime, as has the MIC, but why in the hell are they coming after our final safety nets? These are not entitlements, and never were. That is bullshit. The truth is that they have nothing left to fleece but us. And again: THERE ARE NO JOBS.
No, I don't ever, ever fucking want a Rethug in the White House, but I sure as hell would appreciate some real leadership. I guess I should just figure out how the hell to cook this 'pony I got' and put it in the freezer for the future, because it looks like that's all I'm going to be able to eat for the next few years.
This is in fact our 'push to come to shove moment,' and I for one am not willing to sacrifice one more damn penny. As these Oligarchy vultures are buzzing around the final safety nets, until they are willing to talk about ending the endless wars, and rebuilding our our nation then I say fuck em. As Richard Trumka said to Wall St./the Bankers: You Broke it, You Fix It.
Thanks as always and a very special thank you to Betty Pinson for putting up her live blog diary for Senator Bernie Sanders. Again, these final budget talks are the 'push come to shove moment' in our nation. Make no mistake about that.
Ms. B.