They Own Us
Posted by: duckandgather on: October 7, 2009
I was listening to an NPR piece on the health care debates. The program mentioned the oft-repeated notion that any health care bill that reaches Obama’s desk must not increase the nation’s deficit. Then it hit me.
Remember the bank bailouts last year? Bush started them. Obama continued them. What was that about?
It was about the “health” of our bank Corporations. The idea was to make these Corporations healthy again. You know, stave off Corporate death (i.e. bankruptcy).
Sure seems like it worked for Citibank and Goldman Sachs. But, of course, those bailouts drove up the nation’s deficit into the trillions.
Now fast forward to this summer. This summer we are not talking about the health of the bank Corporations. Instead, we are talking about the health of We the People.
Improving the health of the bank Corporations, Our Government was only happy to take Our deficit beyond imagination. But when it comes to Our health, Our Government offers not even a single, bloody farthing.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present your 2009 Government. Who do they serve?
Res ipsa loquitur.
Contagion
Posted by: duckandgather on: September 19, 2009
“WTF?”, you’re saying. Here is the explanation for this picture. I’m re-posting here since I have a number of friends who visit this blog from time to time.
It’s Time for the Angry Black Man
Posted by: duckandgather on: September 6, 2009
In my last two blog posts, I note my belief that Obama’s speech this coming Wednesday is a major cross roads not only of his presidency, but of the nation. Racially speaking, Obama is a coconut who is mistakenly seen as a “Black Guy” by people over 65. Obama has spent his life trying his hardest not to be seen as the Angry Black Man.
It’s such a practiced stance that it seems very difficult for him to get all righteous and angry. The only time we saw it on the campaign trail was when the Clinton campaign started with their desperate attacks on him, as their own campaign began to falter. Obama’s ire was roused, and he got sarcastic and combative.
Come Wednesday, he’s got to bring out the wood. Shut down the crazy right wing and send them back to the caves from which they come. Then turn his gun sights on the Heath Corporations. And fire away.
He has to make it clear that we are in a war for the survival of this nation. And the enemies of this nation are the massive Corporations that value money over humanity, and their follow travelers. There is no more facile example of this dynamic than that concerning the Health Corporations.
The vile Health Corporations touch the lives of each and every American citizen. This is in contrast with the investment banks and the military industrial complex, the dark workings of which are hidden, and unseen by the masses. But Health Corporations commit their crimes against the People each and every day. We People know that.
Obama is either going to stand up for the People on Wednesday, or he will be remembered as the worst — and who knows? maybe even the last — President of the United States.
Obama’s Lincoln Moment
Posted by: duckandgather on: September 6, 2009
I have blogged and told friends that Obama is the next in line of Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. What all of these people had/have in common is that their presidency involved a struggle for the survival of the nation. Another thing all four had/had in common is that each man came relatively “late” to the struggle of his time.
Washington came relatively late to the revolution against the British. But he is remembered as the ultimate revolutionary.
Lincoln was not an abolitionist until quite late. But he is remembered as the man who freed the slaves.
Roosevelt did not build his career as a labor organizer. But he is remembered as a true man of the People.
Obama is very, very late in engaging the Corporations who control Government and Media. This current health care debate, stretching across the summer of 2009, is the most obvious example yet of the Corporations wielding their control of American society.
If Obama is going to be remembered as “next in line” to Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, then he will be remembered by history as the man who brought the Corporations to heel.
Yet as I write this blog post on September 6, 2009, it feels to me like Obama is going to shrink from this battle once again.
You know, if he stands up to the nation on Wednesday, and backpedals again, he will have lost me as a supporter. And I suspect that if he loses me, his approval ratings will drop far south of 50% (due to the demographic I represent), therefore his impact on the 2010 elections will be neutered, and thus this nation will be all but hopeless.
In that case, the horrors of “1984″ will visit us. We will become USA, Inc.
All of that riding on a speech coming up in 3 days. History says Obama will answer the call. But the past 9 months of behavior says something different.
I’ll be watching.
Obama, Enneagram, Fail
Posted by: duckandgather on: September 6, 2009
Back in 2006, when I predicted that Obama would become the next U.S. president, I explained that the basis for my prediction rested in part on the apparent Ennegram personality type of Obama. In my view, Obama is an Enneagram “Seven”.
Now, what a great many people seem to misunderstand about the Enneagram is that, at its core, it’s a theory of what we don’t like about people, not what we like. It’s about how we fail, not necessarily about how we win.
For example, I am an Eight. What that means is that, when I’m being an asshole, I’m a bully who pushes others, spins the truth for my own interests, and just can’t seem to shut up. Like I said, an asshole.
But when a Seven is being an asshole, that looks very different. For example, a Seven might be an asshole when a he is pursuing his pleasure addictions (e.g. smoking), acting like he thinks he’s God, and avoiding confrontation of any kind to the point of debilitation.
That last point brings me to the health care debates, and Obama’s upcoming speech to the nation this Wednesday. When the pundits who are your most ardent fans start mocking you for your annoying habit of avoiding all confrontation, you know that your Enneagram type has become obvious to all.
Thanks, Matt, I Needed That
Posted by: duckandgather on: August 22, 2009
A couple of posts ago, commenter Matt upbraided me as follows:
Here is your biggest problem Peter – you are so totally enamored now that your ‘team’ has taken the ‘lead’(and you are a ‘team’ type person) that you have submerged your critical thinking abilities so far down that they practically no longer exist.
Actually, I mentioned and addressed this criticism in the previous post. But even after posting that last one, Matt’s comment was still bugging me. Kind of sticking in my craw. My spider sense was telling me that there was more to the story.
Yesterday, while working on some projects out on our land, it hit me. Matt was more than just a little right in his criticism. I looked back over my blog posts since Obama was elected last November and I’d have to agree that there is more than just a little “gloating” from me about “my team” having “taking the lead”.
Politically, I am at the mid-point of Green and Libertarian. …
People Are Choosing Sides
Posted by: duckandgather on: August 21, 2009
A comment that Matt submitted to my last post got me thinking. Matt wrote:
Here is your biggest problem Peter – you are so totally enamored now that your ‘team’ has taken the ‘lead’(and you are a ‘team’ type person) that you have submerged your critical thinking abilities so far down that they practically no longer exist.
Matt’s idea that I’m “on a team” and spouting team ideology piqued my interest. Because I think there’s a grain of truth in there. Not the precise truth that Matt thought he noticed. But rather something that I’ve been writing about since 2003.
That is, the “team” I’m “writing for” is not political Left as against political Right. Rather, it’s People, as against Corporations.
As I’m watching the health care debates unfold this summer, it seems obvious to me that this is the first unambiguous People vs. Corporations struggle being waged on a public stage.That is, the struggle matters to and is understood by individual people (as contrasted with the bank bailouts), and the struggle is being led by a strong leader (Obama, as compared to Bush who didn’t say a word when the Corporations stole America under his “watch”).
The health Corporations would love nothing better than to defeat Obama here, and at least neuter Obama’s attempts at reform.
IMHO, this dynamic is an obvious one, if one cares to look.
Now, in addition to the health Corporations, there is the Right wing in America which is lining up with the health Corporations, trying desperately to rip the halo off the head of Obama.
Is the Right wing in America married to the Corporations? Yes and no, I believe. That is, I think a great deal of the Right wing opposition to Obama on health care is political opportunism, plain and simple.
But still, together with the Democratic “Blue Dogs”, the Republican Party receives the greatest amount of lobbying money from the health Corporations. Google it if you don’t believe me.
So with health care, we have People vs. Corporations, fighting it out, via the proxy combatants of Left vs. Right.
Whole Foods: The Politics of Betrayal
Posted by: duckandgather on: August 20, 2009
I love reading the reactions of the reactionaries to the emerging Whole Foods boycott. They’re like children experiencing a new phenomenon. They don’t know what to make of it, so they fill the vacuum in their comprehension with the simple things that they “know”. Here are some such confused reactions:
- “Why be mad at Whole Foods? Why not Safeway? Or Home Depot?”
- “You leftists are trying to deny Mackey his First Amendment rights.”
- “He didn’t say anything really offensive in his WSJ piece, and the WSJ editors, not Mackey, chose that unfortunate title.”
Well, my little reactionary pupils, I’m here to clear up your confusion for you. Let’s start with the last one. Here is a Huffington post piece explaining that what Mackey wrote in that article is what Sarah Barracuda would have written if she only had a brain. But since she doesn’t, she’s left with “death panels” and other such ideas suitable for our 3-year-old.
On the “First Amendment” argument, I’m pretty sure the Framers didn’t intend that amendment to require people like us to keep giving Mackey our money.
Finally, we come to the first argument. Why do I now prefer shopping for organic foods from Safeway over Whole Foods? One reason, of course, is price. But until I learned about “Whole Foods-gate”, I still shopped at Whole Foods regularly. Why?
The reason is that, until Whole Foods-gate, Whole Foods was one of those businesses consistent with the ethos of the Sixties. You know, environmentalism, community, “small is beautiful”, “Mother Earth”, nature-trumps-made-made crap, etc.
If you had asked me before Whole Foods-gate who I suspect founded the company and runs it, I would have guessed that the person had been a hippy in the 1960s, but wasn’t among those who cut their hair and joined the Reagan Revolution in the 1980s.
But, alas, it turns out to be John Mackey.
Whole Foods on the Front Lines
Posted by: duckandgather on: August 19, 2009
UPDATE: Mackey didn’t create the title for his opinion piece. Instead, the WSJ editors did. But that doesn’t change my position on this one. Lie down with dogs, and you get fleas.
—————————————————————
I was wasting another evening, surfing for sports news, when I stumbled upon a story in the SF Chronicle about the Whole Foods boycott. This story began last week when the CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare.
What an unfortunate title! Had the guy simply titled the piece something like “John Mackey’s personal views on health care reform”, then I doubt that any attempted boycott would have gotten traction. I mean, while Mackey’s views on the subject line him up with the ring-wing nut-jobs, the way he expresses these views in this piece does not seem terribly offensive.
But Mackey did choose that unfortunate title. And in doing so, he inextricably linked Whole Foods with Sarah Palin and her ilk.
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- duckandgather: Thanks Kathy. I just listened on NPR to a recent speech given by Cornell West. Very moving and passionate. Subject was squarely in the topic of this p
- Kathy Graham: Exactly. It's sad that most people in this world place money as a much higher priority than health. I realize this is a patriarchal analogy, but c
- duckandgather: If Obama didn't clearly stand up against the Right wing and the Health Corporations, as he did in his speech a couple of weeks ago, his staunch suppor
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