This is worth a watch (viewer discretion advised), even if I don't agree with all of it.
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This is worth a watch (viewer discretion advised), even if I don't agree with all of it.
I'd say I'm at least as p.o.'d and frustrated as F. Monk, except that he missed an opportunity to say what's really at stake -- I can relate, because how do you communicate with those who live in accordance with a paradigm so woefully detached from reality? Surely, in the short term, people are rightfully concerned about the "economy," lack of jobs, investment losses, and of social benefits in which many of us have already made considerable financial investments. The failure of the government and politicians to govern in the best interests of the citizens of this country is, at least, a demonstration of unfathomable incompetence, but more likely, a demonstration of criminal and immoral behavior that only a complete re-design of that government and our society will rectify. When corporations run the government (fascism), and politicians clearly make decisions that are not in the best interests of the people (and corporations are not people despite what a corrupt Supreme Court and blithering idiots like Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachman might contend), then the time has arrived to let the government fail, or take it down with all regard to a complete shift in priorities -- priorities based upon life and not upon some contrived "economy."Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
If you keep contributing to this corrupt and broken system by paying taxes, voting for corporate-owned politicians (meaning just about every Democrat or Republican), supporting "our" troops in imperialistic and illegal occupations of sovereign countries, cooperating with law enforcement thugs in the FBI and local agencies who all work on behalf of the oligarchy and its corporate ministers, or investing in companies that rape and pillage for further profit, then you're just contributing to a harder fall for a broken system that no longer works for most people -- and even for those for whom it "works," it's an illusion. If you're comfortable living in a society that kills other people for profit, destroys local environments all over the world for profit, pays for military occupation and installations in over 100 countries, and pays for developing lethal weapons while neglecting the social, physical, and mental health and well-being of its own citizens, let alone the environment upon which we all depend, then you, too, are a sociopath, much more worthy of prison than any petty thief or drug addict. You are a murderer.
This is just what infuriates me -- I have never agreed to be a murderer, yet we, almost all, collaborate and conspire to murder people and the planet every day. Capitalism has been hung over our heads as the only choice of economy (all other choices demonized then destroyed, as any indigenous culture can attest), and with it, all the immoral and counterproductive actions that collectively comprise a loss of humanity, of happiness and freedom, and of our intrinsic right to live as organisms. And if your religious belief incorporate or support any portion of the blight that is capitalism and its destruction of the miracles of life in all its diversity and awesome complexity, then I would assert your "god" is a fraud and your beliefs delusional and corrupt, insane and murderous.
But I want to put all the hysteria about "economy" into perspective. Monk didn't get to the core issue until right near the end of his tirade -- his "heat" of the moment a perfect metaphor for what the planet is communicating to us. There is no "economy" without "ecology," and capitalism is a dead-end street for all that humans and most other organisms depend upon for life. Like Monk, at some point, planetary ecology is just going to get up and walk away. All this noise about the federal budget, the national debt, debt ceiling, etc., is just more hype and distraction - albeit with lots of illegal, immoral, and sociopathic behavior that warrant punishment beyond what the American "judicial" system will every deliver. Plundering the planet for every last marketable "product" that brings in every last penny of profit is not only immoral and unjust, it's insane. Those who continue to support an economic system that requires limitless expansion of extraction and consumption are murderously delusional, and yet we all believe the lies and deceptions about the global economy and its "markets." The reality is that limitless expansion is a physical impossibility, and attempts to continue that expansion, as we are in the midst of witnessing, results in death -- of people, of land bases, of ecosystems, and again, of humanity.
The processes and complexity upon which life depends are shifting beneath our feet, a great quake moving the ground with increasing intensity with each passing day. Many organisms are likely equipped evolutionarily to survive the magnitude of changes now occurring, but notably, not humans, as we've become dependent upon the false and suicidal economy of capitalism. Most of us wouldn't survive a month without reliance on fossil fuel and other materials gained at the expense of other cultures and ecosystems that are out of sight and mind. But the American practices of willful ignorance and consumptive distraction won't change the physical realities with which we live, indeed the failure of diligence and attention to priorities will likely accelerate our demise.
I understand and share the exasperation with Obama. I detest Obama, and not most because he's just an incompetent administrator and immoral leader: he is a liar, a coward, a gangster and a corporate mobster, a murdering imperialist and traitorous totalitarian fascist, a shill for just about all that is wrong with America. I think he deserves life in the hole (he can trade places with Leonard Peltier, which would somehow fit allegorically), and he would have lots and lots of company as social outcasts were true justice served. Yet he is also a pawn, a living demonstration that politicians are a just a reflection of those who vote for them, and America is indeed a nation that has lost its way (of course, its "way" was corrupt and immoral from day 1), its courage, its capability for honesty, and its vision for creating a sustainable future. We continue to bet on the horse that broke its leg in the backstretch, instead of acknowledging that we should have stayed home and tended the garden instead of going to the track in the first place. We continue to fall back upon a failed economic system, continue to flail at discrepancies of trillions of dollars in "budgets," nitpick and obsess over trivial daily details, and all the while, the priceless economy of the living planet is moving humanity closer to extinction.
I don't have many answers (although I'll trust my intuition that capitalism is not among them), and as noted, I am as much a part of this decrepit nation as anyone else. But among us are many people who continue to articulate alternative visions and who understand the fundamentals of living sustainably in a limited physical system. In my opinion, we need to scale way back on consumption, reduce the human population a lot, and all actively participate in repairing the damage done to ecosystems. We need to deconstruct the false and contrived economy of capitalism, based as it is on destruction and death. In transition to a non-monetary economy (or economies), we need to stop spending money on useless weapons and materialistic trinkets, and re-focus on basic human needs like clean water, healthy food, appropriate shelter and other resources, and physical, mental, and emotional health.
I share Monk's exasperation, not merely with Obama, but with everyone who fails to see that the way we live is not the way we need to live. While most of us are, arguably, "trapped" in the massive failure of capitalism, we need to extract ourselves, en masse, immediately. At least, we need to bear responsibility for our failure to refute ecological destruction, in order to be accountable to whomever or whatever might survive our collective folly. We can choose to live on as a species, resuming our place as members of planetary ecosystems, or we can continue to resist by destroying all that we need to live. My exasperation originates from my heart, where I feel the pain of knowing that such a clear choice eludes so many. We all need to pay the bills, but we all just keep passing the buck.
And here's the remix:Quote:
Posted in reply to the post by Barry:
Munk addressed the core issue just fine. We elect these people and delegate a duty to them - manage the budget in a sustainable manner, balance the checkbook, don't squander our nation's future away. Yet, all they seem interested in doing is coming up with one creative idea after another to bankrupt this nation sooner and sooner.
In the private sector (Capitalism) such people would be fired on the spot and replaced by someone who could DO THE JOB THEY ARE HIRED TO DO.
But this is Government. The consequences of their waste, squandering and wrongdoing are shifted to the taxpayer while the folks messing things up continue to collect their fat paychecks.
The real problem with this bastardized government is that the incompetent and willfully malicious cannot be fired for it. Instead, they promote each other.
The American People elected some TEA Party folks to try to stop the nation from bleeding to death - so the willfully malicious created a "super-Congress" to do an end-run around the Representatives of The People. Taxation without representation anyone?
Do we have any reason to believe that deviation from the American form of government is intended to take drastic action to cut spending to balance the checkbook?
I believe in another year Felonius Munk will have reason to be even more infuriated.