What it is is what it is

ne·o·lib·er·al

ˌnēōˈlibərəl/

adjective

1. 1.

   relating to a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism.

When I first encountered the term "neoliberal" it confused me.

Clarification is always relevant.

The Democratic party leadership as it now exists is neoliberal in my opinion. They are corporate; and this is their allegiance. Even Obama, whose presidency was historic and would normally be celebrated as a feather in the cap of this nation for electing its first president of African ancestry; he, Hillary, Mr. Clinton, and most main stream establishment Democrats are this brand of conservative/corporatist at the moment.

And this confuses those who like to consider themselves "liberal" I think.

"Neo" liberal at first sounded to me like something new and better.

I was wrong.

The term is at face value misleading.

There is nothing "new" about neoliberalism: it is an ideology that endorses corporate policies and big money policies in politics. It is Bill Clinton’s 1997 Welfare Reform (PRWORA) which continues to penalize the poor and disproportionately people of color, especially in the realms of child support.  It is “super predators” and brutal policing.  It is Wall Street money that buys policies that perpetuate what Bernie Sanders called a business model based on fraud.  It is savings accounts that by law only earn 1/10 of 1% interest, and credit companies that can charge up to 35% interest by law while financial companies continue their fraudulent practices and pay out millions in bonuses to high up personnel.  It is predatory lending, tax cuts that lead to cuts in social services.  It is celebrating the stock market going up while wages remain stagnant.   It is celebrating corporate profit; and promoting policies that make wage stagnation and high prices seem healthy for the economy.

And if the term “neoliberal” was at first confusing to me, it is confusing to others who would like to consider themselves “liberal” or even “progressive” I'm sure.

And this is why the Democratic party could not beat a game show host:  neoliberal party leadership, the Wasserman’s, the Clinton’s, the Obama’s, the Bookers, the super delegates, and others sold the party out to corporations and this caused a cognitive dissonance on the left where many people still believed in liberal values and progressive ideals.   Those who wanted an end to the corporatists abandoned the establishment…some even were seduced by the lies of the abomination in office in 2018. 

Many "liberals" are rightly very confused by Democrats that push neoliberal/corporatist policies. And the party is splintered because of this.

Because of this the left will continue to lose in my opinion.

If nothing else, the right is unified in their conservativism.  The right is rooted in hatred and oppression, disguised as fairness and balance. The right is the old “southern democrats”, which is the echo of racism that pervades it.  This is simply historic fact.  The right  will unify behind anyone who adopts those views and promotes corporate policies and war to further corporate policies around the globe, and oppression of the poor and vulnerable domestically.   But that is merely my analysis.

There are still enough idealists and dreamers on the left that defy corporatist policies that keep the Democratic party weak. And the neoliberal refused to take the opportunity to embrace 13 Million of us in 2013, though Bernie bent over backwards and still does to try and unify the and reconcile them.

When I think of the Democratic party I'd like to support I think of Robert Kennedy, FDR, even Jimmy Carter.

When I think of progressives I think of Eugene V. Debs,  Bernie of course, Tulsi Gabbard, the Greens,  and some aspects of Teddy Roosevelt. 

But despite my high ideals, there is no denying that, splintered on the left, we must lose until we can unite somehow under the progressive banner of ideals and values.

Not against the flag

Not “against the flag;”

Against injustice against our equally created fellow man.  Against injustice to citizens: of this country and the world.

Not disrespect;

Disappointment and grief

over generations of oppression, 

educational, economic, and social, 

of the vulnerable, the huddled masses, the vanquished, the ex slaves,

through the empowerment of the lighter skinned and fairer haired; made the vanguard of the established power for a crumb.

Sadness

And unresolved grief over a young woman killed in a jail over a traffic ticket,

Or a twelve-year-old kid killed by a scared man with a badge and gun over a toy weapon.  A boy killed over candy.

Unresolved grief and loss over choke holds; unresolved bodies riddled with bullets from cowardly franchise enforcement taught that they must put others down like the animals they have been made into by oppressive policy and law. 

 Inter-generational despair from churches bombed, men lynched, hate crimes unresolved, hate groups, and animal factory slums where the manufactured animals are vilified even further as frauds and cheats and mentally inferior after their education is denied them; their inalienable right to pursue happiness equally, symbolized by a flag, as elusive as the wind that makes it wave.

Not against the flag.

But against pretend virtue

That turn law enforcement officials into law oppressionists;

Statesmen into demagogues;

and turn innocent children into orphans of mothers and father jobs for a dollar with

No day care money, all becoming beasts unrecognizable in slums of noise, violence, temp agencies, corner stores with “forties”, prostitutes, pay day loans, and cops who would just as soon shoot them as stand for the law which created them.  It is the same thing.

Not against the flag;

But against the evolution from self-evident truths, the spirit of the foundation, to national self-hatred, the neurosis of guilt.   Evidenced

by hyper sensitivity to dialogue on this taboo subject and shames the masses to self-censorship in a toxic co-dependent ritual.

 Not against the flag, 

but against divisive manipulation by powerful forces in media and legislature and their corporate benefactors;

and their brutal death squads armed to the teeth,  cynically called peace officers that the powers say we need because its not safe out there.

And it isn’t.  

For the animal factory of oppressive social, economic, and racial culture is efficient; and passed on casually with almost each word and deed, generation upon generation.

Not against the flag

But a bent knee asking humbly for redress of decades of humiliation and second-class citizenry.

A prayer.

A bent knee

For the flag. 

For the dream.

A service for a dream still believed in; a dream worth fighting for.

An tribute to the dream the stars and stripes represents, eloquent in the Declaration.

And a resolve to not settle for any sham or pretense that our people want or believe in anything less.

Incremental Change

Progress is a milestone in a process, not the beginning.

Only when measuring results is slow progress an acceptable outcome; and even then, not acceptable when swifter change is indicated and necessary.

"Action" is required, if and when we want change that we can measure in progress.  We measure whether progress slow or swift only after acting.

And even before action and measuring, “desire” and “belief” must be present.   

Desire and Belief. What variable variables.

Belief is a riddle so simple, so personal, so complicated, and so empowering that it is both feared and coveted.  We all have belief systems; yet many like to say they believe in nothing. 

Belief is more valuable than precious metals because without belief, or "faith" if you will, change is impossible.

Belief is alive and changeable.

 Powerful forces and those that aspire to power can do nothing without inspiring belief in others. Belief endures many ages, many struggles, many things...to me, belief is the catalyst of change, good or bad.

And Desire is the sometimes guilty muse of belief.  And the sometimes spark of imagination...

When our desires come from a good place we are proud to discuss them.  When  our desires come from a place of fear manifest as selfishness, self centeredness, narcissism, superiority, etc.,  we fiercely defend them I think, having  been persuaded by others or having talked ourselves into “believing” we have the right to have all that we desire despite what that desire does to others.

Desire from a dark place resists scrutiny.  Desire from the light is eternal imagination made real.

Desire, belief, action: these are the predeterminants of progress. Human beings hold desires and beliefs about themselves and others deep within their hearts.  And what is in the heart is protected and defended.   Thus action to change and progress is often slow and ineffective.  Like action on healthcare reform.

That's when we settle for the "incremental". 

But if we review what we really want as people, we may be able to come from a better place of desire.  Thus our beliefs about ourselves and others could change for the positive, which would change our actions and outcomes, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  Here even incremental change is acceptable so long as we thoroughly understand what we want and can proudly express it.

But progress and change are not inevitable things that just happen because we’re so nice and good.  These things require the work of self-reflection and even national reflection if you are talking about national issues, to determine where we’re coming from and where we want to get to.  

Amazing, heartbreaking humans

People generally are a wonderful phenomenon.  Our ability to “consider” stuff is amazing!

What's tough is that oft times we choose to not consider our vulnerabilities:  We're extremely vulnerable to fear and its many incarnations.  We're vulnerable to greed; and to what some might call the “deadly sins”.  But when we hear talk like "sins" we stop our considerations because of our learned prejudice to anything that reminds us of “religion.”  Generally. 

In my estimation we are “good enough” to be here; we are not an accident, and even if we are some accident of evolution the matrix of life has seen fit to allow us to have a space here for a while.  And, importantly we have plenty of room and potential for growth:  do we want to grow in sustainability for posterity; or do we want to burn bright and burn out?

If it's sustainability and long term survival in this place that we want, I think we need to live among ourselves and in our bio-psycho-social environments better.  Again if that is our desire. 

Our  landscape is far more than just nature!    

And "Life" is not so concerned with how cleverly we justify our philosophies of nihilism, competition, winner take all, laissez faire economic systems, corruptions, war, etc.  Nor about how we justify being altruistic and benevolent with one another.  But concerned with what we do.   With that which is sustainable in the life system, or what must give way in the life system to other sustainable forms of life.  Humans have the unique ability to consider this and make changes to their modus operandi as they/we invent new ways to live with or against each other and the life system on this planet.  In this respect, living up to our full potential as humans can become akin to "human actualization" on the hierarchy of needs pyramid:  Self actualization could be considered human actualization when we tune in to collective sustainability in the system.

If this is true and the life system is fair in only considering what is sustainable and what is not in the system;  And if humans have the ability to consider their sustainability in the systems they inhabit both natural and human made (ecological, social, biological, psychological, economic, political and what have you systems) as a species; then as a species we are short sighted when we don’t consider that our vulnerabilities to greed, corruption, and even fear will always be purged inevitably by their natural instability.

Humans/we have the unique ability to consider these things and choose our path; That’s all. 

And we are saddened collectively when in our heart of hearts we maintain systems and philosophies that we know are not sustainable, such as greed infused capitalistic competition, imperialism, consumptionism, ethnocentrism. 

People are not “stupid.” 
We are amazing in our perceptions and ability to consider these things!

And it breaks many hearts when we use our amazingness to manipulate each other:   some people who are good at navigating the man-made systems we put in place manipulate the fears and vulnerabilities inherent in all of us.  This is just an historical fact.   These masters of the human systems manipulate emotions and fears to which we are vulnerable for the short-sighted gain of a few, is opposed to helping the many master our vulnerabilities, and therefore striving to build real sustainability on this planet with each other in nature.

These masters of the human systems are often courageous and bold; and at the same time victims of the same unchecked vulnerabilities that like a sickness poison ourselves and our man-made systems, causing the larger life system to inevitably seek to purge itself of the sickness.

And we all so easily manifest symptoms of the sickness called fear:  manipulation; corruption; greed.   Not from the life system itself.  But by that part of human nature that, ruled by fear and its incarnations of greed and corruption, compels many to satisfy their basic and human needs for food, safety, belonging, esteem, and validation at the expense of others as opposed considering that only when the needs of all are met sustainably in one area can we move through them in sustainable ways to the next.

We watch this pageant play itself out over and over again.  We learn about it in history books.  We witness it in our generations.  And in our sadness as we watch each other suffer from these human vulnerabilities to fear and its symptoms of emotional manipulation, greed, corruption, etc., we call each other “stupid” for getting sick or being vulnerable to the sickness, forgetting that we all have the same vulnerability to fear and manifest the symptoms of the sickness at any given time, whither rich or poor, and from whichever region of the planet we are from.   

Only when we strive to meet the needs of the many, in the environment, are we working toward the sustainability of all.

Out of many, one...

   One definition for "Racism" is prejudice + power.

Many can be prejudiced, which we must guard against.

But not everyone in society has the power to make their collective prejudice institutionalized oppression.

Racism.

Anglo superiority.

Prejudice.

All ugly things.

    Yet, worse is the kind of ignorance that disregards the issue of racism by flipping the script with claims of reverse racism or accusing the oppressed of the oppression.

Not that being oppressed cleanses any soul or makes the person somehow sainted and perfect.  It does not.

Find the courage to deal with the issue at hand. Or, guilty of perpetuating the ugliness by denial of it.

I believe we can celebrate the accomplishments of many ethnicities and cultures in the US without making Anglo culture and tradition superior to others.

And we can help raise the bar to a new US cultural identity never seen in history that celebrates the empowering of the many people living up to their fullest potentials; learning and taking the best from each ethnicity and culture we encounter without conformity to an Anglo ideal

(Anglo conformity is a well-researched phenomenon of "melting pot" theory that promoted conformity and helped other cultures and ethnicity be seen as deficient. An easy case in point is English rock bands became millionaires remaking music indigenous to the USA (blues)... no offense to the Beatles, Led Zep and the Stones, et al; I grew up listening to them as well as The Spinners, Kool and the Gang, and some great jazz)...

To me, the US has historically suffered with Anglo envy which does not live up to the spirit of the many cultures that make up our society. Anglo's have brought excellent things to the table to be sure; but we can be generous and inclusive to become an even greater civilization and culture, instead of envying and attempting to recreate European hierarchies in America. We have yet to step into our true American identity....

WE yet have that potential in the US, even to this day.

Attraction rather than promotion

Attraction rather than promotion.

So what do you do?

Respect the choices people make?

Even when you don't understand them?

Difficult: and sometimes funny, and sometimes tragic.

Women and men make weird choices (i.e, choices we don't universally understand) in the good ol' USA too!

I believe we'll get to a good place as a species as far as making decisions consistently that don't diminish our communal spirit or shorten our lives.

Choice is extremely difficult because at any given time there are so many of them!

I don't believe the road to that place of consistently constructive choices is through shaming others or judging them based on cultural superiority beliefs, or bombing them in the name of "freedom" while we exploit their resources and offer no solutions or better way of living in freedom.

The best solutions for living are based on attraction rather than promotion, advertisement, manipulation, or influence.

The best solutions for living transcend ethnicity or culture.

And attractive solutions don't die.

But they are sometimes made unpopular by the manipulation of those with their own agendas.

Attraction is also corrupted when it is obsession...

Does that mean I condone violence against women or anyone, or shackling people with dogma? Does that mean i approve of the rituals of the Etoro, or binding women's feet or mutilating them:

No.

Yet I am aware that we the human race are vulnerable to manipulation; and there are many human beings of many cultures who enjoy bending others to their will with malevolent intent.

Many humans throughout history and today influence and have influenced the choices and decisions of others for their own benefit; or the benefit of a few.

We are the only species on earth that can transcend instinct consistently and choose...and we are still not good at it. Still prone to choosing to do things that destroy instead of further our longevity as a species.

Manipulation is force; hidden agendas involve coercion, which is force; black and white dogma is force; unenlightened law is force; law to benefit the few as opposed to the many is force.

Force is not attraction, therefore not a lasting means of change.

When we treat each other as fragile beings with great potential and make it a priority to cultivate that potential in ourselves and each other, gently weeding out the non productive choices by the root, then we are getting there.

When we treat each other as worthy of our cultivation; and treat ourselves as worthy of being pruned into our best blossoming potential, we allow ourselves the best opportunity for growth as a human race. And this gives us the maximum potential to get to a place of universal sustainability.

And who knows how far in the universe we could really go?

But manipulation, force, shaming, and coercion are like greed; related to it. : they are a sickness humans are vulnerable to. Weeds that grow in our garden life.

They stunt our growth.

We can't act as if we don't make the same short sighted mistakes in this geographic region as are made in others because of our technological achievements; or that we are somehow better than the ones we don't understand because we have better weapons, written language, and build on our technological prowess: choice defies the most elaborate algorithm.

And nature/life defies all odds.

We are the universal and constant gardeners of this life charged to pull the weeds of manipulation, greed, force, ignorance, and fear:out by the root.

Or left unchecked, choking on them.

We need each other

Only a Pawn in Their Game

Bob Dylan

A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood

A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game.

A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool
He's taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
'Bout the shape that he's in
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

From the powerty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoof beats pound in his brain
And he's taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide 'neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain't got no name
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.

Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He'll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game.

Songwriters: Bob Dylan

Only a Pawn in Their Game lyrics © Bob Dylan Music Co.

Giving the dog a bone

Even the well-publicized obstructionism in Congress is contrived and calculated in my opinion:  it keeps the side show of divisiveness and polarization going. 

It prevents people from studying the issues because of their disgust.

It causes people to look at their differences and fight for those differences instead of policies and practices that might edify us.

It’s like trying to take a bone from a dog and the dog clamps its teeth down harder…this is what obstructionism does.  Obstructionism causes people to have the reaction of biting down harder on the differences they believe they have with others.

In the end it is more an instinct than a desire.  It’s a reaction to manipulated conflict.  The person trying to take the bone has absolutely no use for it.  The obstructionists have no real use for being divisive.  Just following orders I’d imagine.

Giving the dog a bone.

Our system is thoroughly riddled with corruption; on both sides.

The kind of corruption that thrives in divisiveness.

The kind of corruption that is powerful enough to spend hundreds of millions on lobbying and financing political campaigns;

the kind that can play democrats against republicans while financing both as its own selfish agenda moves ever forward: war; deregulation; financial bailout at the expense of taxpayers; tax cuts for the rich; squeezing the poor; wage disparity; trade deals that further bleed us white; wage disparity; economic slavery and despair; bank accounts that earn less than 1/2 of one percent interest.

And as for Mr. Obama--he has proven to be a corporate politician loyal to a corporate agenda:  the corporate agenda is fueled by the will of a few.

He has pushed the corporate agenda legally, with charm, and good speech giving.

He rode a wave of hopefulness in 2008. Yet his corporate stances on TPP, on not continuing to fight for healthcare reform; on regime change and oil war; and ignoring the devastating effects of welfare reform cannot go ignored. With TPP especially he is ignoring the will of the people and Congress by vowing to continue to fight for it. He is a constitutional scholar and smart; not unlike Clinton I...so he is a great tool for the powerful to pass their agendas.

If the next savvy politician is a republican or democrat, or a hybrid republican-neoliberal like Clinton II, he or she will be used to advance the global corporate agenda.

Certainly, not to help the many in this country prosper.

Certainly, to help people feel empowered by encouraging them to express their intolerance of one another.

If it's not a sideshow in Congress, it is a sideshow of global and domestic terror.

If not global or domestic terror, it is a sideshow of hate crimes, mass killings, or same sex rights and rights to life.

Anything to make people trust that the established hierarchy will make things right and protect them if they only trust the system.

Anything to make people feel powerful in their hatred and intolerance while they ignore the issues that affect them economically, and socially as social services are cut to fuel the endless wars.

Therefore, the establishment order is placed above the law domestically and internationally; and above the interests of the many.

And this establishment is unsustainable for the many.

We need elected representatives who advocate for and interpret our laws with a bias toward the many, not a bias toward the few.

We're not getting any of that this round.

Nor did we that in the last four years of Obama, sad to say; or maybe not in any of his years since the wars got worse during the tenure of this Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Divisiveness in the US is not so much fueled by political ideology as it is fueled by corporate think tanks:  the Heritage Foundation researches many issues such as leadership and immigration; and uses inflammatory language and negative stereotypical bias in its reports.  Project for a new American Century advocates events that will manipulate people into supporting global war.  Council on Foreign Relations researches foreign policy and international issues. And members of these and other conservative think tanks have familiar names like Rumsfeld, Negroponte, Rice, Clinton, and Bush.

They write our laws.  They advise elected officials in the Senate and Congress, and Presidents of both parties.

Somebody’s gotta do it I suppose.

In the end, it is elites doing elite things for elites while giving the masses a sideshow of divisive political dealings and oppressive domestic policies that keep people looking at people and their representatives and not the powers that drive politicians and their policies. 

And people seem to love chewing the bones of contention to their detriment.

It will be refreshing when this organized corporate dominance from big money and powerful lobbies and influential think tanks ends.

These influences will end when we break the stranglehold of the two-party system and elect more independents on the local, state, and national level who dare to be informed by more than corporate sources.  It will always be a challenge to diffuse the influence of the powerful.  But everything starts with a beginning.  And all things are sustained with vigilance.

Corporate conservative ideology

There are some progressives who advocate Trump: A Clinton II victory pretty much guarantees a revival of the Republican party in 2018 and 2020. A Trump victory could see its collapse; but we would have a Pense presidency in the end.

I strongly disagree with conservative ideology and the lawlessness of libertarian: Hillary Clinton is a republican conservative, aka, neo liberal. But you could argue that conservative and libertarian policies in our economics led to much deregulation and financial crises since the eighties when one of the Koch bros. ran on the libertarian ticket; and since the eighties when conservationism really took root under Reagan and flourished under the neoliberal banner of Clinton I.

Conservative and libertarian ideals sustain separate but equal laws but frame them as self-determination; conservative policy and ideology promote bigotry and divisiveness but call it self-reliance and rugged individualism; and conservative ideology assumes the playing field in the US is level for all, which it has never been. Some people's refusal to acknowledge these simple truths is continually disheartening; but that's why fear is such a manipulable commodity I guess: conservativism in the end is xenophobia accepted; enforced with a gun.

But I digress. Trump makes the establishment nervous because he could really damage the status quo. Yet the bigotry that he bears and brings out in people who want a specific type of change that continues to only benefit the privileged few...well, this is the most I've ever spoken about the man and I will let it go there.

Bernie was the man.

Corporate Conservative ideology condones turning a blind eye to historic oppression by the privileged against the vulnerable. Even establishment Democrats are conservative now, and have been since the early 90's. I think people can find, and do have the courage to be more inclusive in their world views. This is my hope for you all, and others.