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.

I voted today

I voted for change today.

Voting is the cleverest way I can think of to voice my opinion on the status quo.

It’s cleverer than fancy words; it is action.

It is more courageous than resting on the safety of the established hierarchy and apologizing for it.

It is more courageous than accepting to the status quo as is, while its representatives ostracize, demean, polarize, and disfranchise vulnerable people in this system:  the poor; people of color; women; the physically and mentally challenged.

It occurred to me this morning in the shower that something as simple as the treat of a shower is denied many people because of our 21^st century US war policies.  

Policies advocated by the conservative think tank “Project for a New American Century” circa 1997. 

Policies pursued by both establishment political parties.

As I rode to work I thought how the gasoline that fuels my vehicle was purchased through the bounty of those policies:  steep military spending has made us unrivaled as a superpower in the world;  regime change at will means we rule this world by fear;  sometimes dubious acts of terror against us damages our credibility in the eyes of the world and casts doubt in some minds at home; and wars based on “faulty intelligence” have us confused between supporting our sons and daughters who can’t find jobs so they join the service, and voicing our disdain against the causes for them being put in harm’s way.  Causes seemingly far removed from Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

This is the status quo in America.

Change for the better is dangerous; but it is not cynical or ungrateful.  It simply upsets the status quo; even talk of change does.

I hope my vote influences so called representatives and senators at the state and national levels to pass laws that benefit the many as opposed to the few; or causes judges at the federal, district, state, and local levels to interpret the law more in line with the spirit of the self-evident truths described in the Declaration of Independence as opposed to corporate ideology.

I didn’t write in any candidate (except for me in one local election):  if a candidate wanted my vote his or her name would be on the ballot.

I voted for positive change to this, one of the potentially greatest civilizations in world history. 

Because we cannot rest in greatness lest we stagnate and rot.

We hold these truths to be self evident

Corporate establishment ideology is concerned only with profit for their shareholders by law:  this means then that the needs of the many are superfluous, by law.

Mr. Trump won the Republican primaries; Mrs. Clinton the Democratic.

In each case, we saw the full weight of each party support their heir apparent despite both the candidate’s flaws and unpopularity.

This is one reason why any establishment vote, to me, is a vote for the perpetuation of the status quo:  increased disparity between rich and poor; perpetual war; lack of tax revenue; corporate downsizing and offshore accounts; global trade deals, backed by large corporations and pushed by their political allies that force US workers to compete with workers in countries that pay extremely low wages compared to ours. 

Status quo politics has given us omnipresent corporate influence from elections down to the local level, to ongoing economic woes, declining quality of life in the United States, diminished manufacturing base, crumbling infrastructure, endless war, and widening gap between affluent and what used to be called the middle class.  And many other negative things such as polarization, stagnation, and distrust of government.

How can a society that reaches for the stars believe that stagnation is good enough?  Or sustainable?

By status quo I mean politicians seem to pay just enough attention to domestic issues to say the right buzz words and get people’s attention without doing much to improve the ability of average Americans to sustain decent work throughout their lifetimes without going into heavy debt for education and healthcare.  Savvy establishment politicians come out in favor of same sex marriages, or against it; pro-life or pro-choice; and marijuana legalization depending on how the wind is blowing locally.  They certainly are not providing leadership on these issues generally.  But let’s face it:  those issues, while valid, do little to influence the ability of average Americans to put food on the table, earn retirement, and not get drawn into international disputes. 

Those issues, played well in the political arena, distract many people from the disastrous economic and foreign policies this country has pursued for almost four decades now which feed econo9mic disparity, and instability with some of our foreign neighbors.

When it comes to the larger issues of putting our citizens in harm’s way, bailing out big business and banks, and trade deals that continue to diminish our already diminished manufacturing base, status quo politics means saying promising words to the many such as the importance of bailing out too big to fail banks, auto companies, and finance companies, and following the dictates of the few for profit:  Status quo establishment politics means giving corporate welfare to corporations that continue to downsize and develop foreign manufacturing centers  for goods they sell back to the very people whose jobs they took;.  Corporate status quo politics means lobbyists who are guided by think tanks and lawyers write the legislation they pay their well-financed legislators to promote and get passed such as welfare reform, Medicare reform, and the Patriot Act.

Corporate establishment status quo political ideology has us in economic and social crisis, denied. 

Corporate establishment status quo political ideology has us in a feeding frenzy for diminishing profit and jobs while we pay to watch millionaire sports figures, actors, and news media figures entertain us.

It is not enough for me nor for posterity to be distracted and manipulated by corporate establishment will into perpetual poverty.  With the resources we have in this country (or had?), status quo establishment ideology is mismanagement of our most valuable resource:  human capital. 

I want the pursuit of excellence in economics, in society, in justice, in jobs, and this is contrary to the corporate status quo.

Our US constitution does not guarantee the pursuit of happiness.   That’s in the Declaration of Independence.  Freedom, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness are in the Declaration of Independence.  These are the spirit of our constitutional laws; and theoretically inform our laws in this country since the Declaration came before the laws.  If the law demands separation of powers in spirit, then the reality of that means separation of corporate powers as well as religious.

Not cleverly spun laws to oppress the vulnerable in the name of family and what legislators, again, usurped by corporate influence, consider to be moral and right.  

But law that educates and promotes uniform justice and uniform prosperity.  

A simple case in point of how corporate establishment ideology has usurped the spirit of our laws is this:  it is not just, or equal, nor does it promote the uniform pursuit of happiness if people who earn more than $120K per year do not pay into Social Security based on all of their earned income.

Establishment political ideology perpetuates the status quo of corporate influence in all strata of US life.  

If corporations are concerned only with profit for their shareholders by law, then the needs of the many are superfluous, by law.

Corporate establishment politics, Democratic or Republican represent this ideology.

And this ideology is not sustainable.

This corporate establishment ideology makes healthcare secondary to profit.  Makes food prices and quality secondary to profit.  Makes entertainment secondary to what is formulaic and profitable.

Corporate establishment ideology permeates every strata of life in the US, and cheapens it in lieu of profit.  Life itself under this ideology is expendable, as we see with extreme poverty, war, and continued cutting of social service benefits.

Yet we still have the resources to sustain life in our country; in our society. 

hu·man cap·i·tal

noun

noun: human capital

1. the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual or population, viewed in terms of their value or cost to an organization or country.

Having our resources at the whim of corporate establishment ideology limits our good use of our resources; our human capital.

Therefore, starting with our votes on the local, state, and national level, it is necessary to send a message to the corporate establishment that says “No, I will not fall in line.”  

"No matter how seductive, how empowering, how slick the sideshow, and how insecure the corporate establishment tries to make us feel, I/we are worth more than corporate establishment ideology, profit, and war.

People come first.  Not corporate profits.  This is the spirit of the constitutional laws.  Or should be, based on the Declaration of Independence.

People first, not corporate profit.  Not corporate political shills.