Afghanistan Bananastand Redux

It's really happening.

Like a scenario from a high-tech political thriller with Orwellian overtones, the fleecing of America is occurring right in front of our disbelieving eyes. Through years of induced passivity and using the people's innate pride and loyalty against them, the infrastructure was put in place and the sting was executed.

Hell, it's going on now.

The fraudulent grounds for what will be an even larger haul than what was bagged by The Shakedown in Iraq have been laid out by the latest Bush henchman Machine Gun Henry Paulson and his sidekick Binky Bernanke: almost a trillion buckeroos pulled from the remaining orifices of the now officially comatose American public to bail out the very wankers who have picked them clean. Wow. Even Winston Smith is dumbfounded.

It's like watching a rape from a few feet away only nobody's screaming and nobody cares. So desensitized and dehumanized is the American public that the thieves are sure to get away clean. This will surely become a fascinating chapter in the history of the late, great United States for future students to study. They will see the deleterious effects of constant exposure to television, an educational and entertainment tool that was used for nefarious purposes by Those Greedy Bastards. They will build dioramas of the massive shopping boxes which perched like roach motels in cities and towns, drawing people in to consume beyond their means to digest, beyond their means to afford. They will study the steady reduction of standards of education and information, the virtual obliteration of history and they will note the side effects: progressive brain softening and deterioration of free will and the diminution of once proud swaths of the American public to atrophied, docile clods, roused only when their sugar is withheld or one of their pagan gods is criticized.

It's bold, it's brazen and it's bound to work. It is working.

What to do, what to do?

Voting? Well, yeah, sorta, maybe. Another institution that's been reduced to white trash thrill ride: "Hey, Vern! Move the ferris wheel axle off the flatbed so we can git to the Diebold underneath! It's almost November!" It's kinda like that other fusty amusement: religion. Pull the lever and pray.

Blog? Well, it is a definite alternative to the mainstream media, the modern equivalent of a communal bathing pond filled with criers and decriers, a place where the proles with book learnin' can encounter those without, sans rules and regs and hope that logic surfaces alongside the scum. (And a place where metaphors can reproduce with the alacrity of yeast).

Revolution? Well, yeah, except that the sense in which it would actually be effective requires real sacrifice and mass organization. Everyone's got to be on the same page and know that the corrupt legions who stand between you and Democracy will fight tooth and nail to keep their oligarchical status intact. Clip the right wing by turning off its propaganda machines, laugh at their comedian-spokespersons, call them on their lies, STOP CONSUMING LIKE ZOMBIES!!!!!

How about only for a week. Or two weeks. It's all about money (duh!); that's what they care about. They don't really care about moment of conception, they don't really care about lifestyle choices, they don't really care about establishing democracies or freedom or health or education or anything else that is actually essential to life on this planet, the one we are on for only a short goddamn while.

I don't advocate bloody dissent. I do advocate people waking up and getting active for the coming push: the one in which the crooks make one final play to stamp out the last vestiges of American liberty, the inalienable rights of Americans to pursue lives free from tyranny and corruption.

Afghanistan Bananastand: snap out of it.

Comments

[horus07]

right on steven!

[jhink465]

I think we let it burn down. Out of the ashes we can rebuild wiser and better American society. Make all things new.

[JacqueItch]

Lovely post, as always, SW.
"...voting = white trash thrill ride..."--­--!!!!! Excellent!

I don't see much change on the horizon until we dismantle the militaryco­rporategov­ernment alliance, get rid of the the CIA, eliminate lobbying, institute gender parity and term limits for legislators with instant accountability for wrongdoing in office, make mercenary corporations like Blackwater illegal, recall our stationed troops from around the world, focus on building and selling things people can use in daily life instead of WMDs, focus on restructuring energy creation and use, get rid of compulsory education until the child has played to its heart's content, concentrate on global issues like malnutrition, disease, desertification, warming, and chemical and radiological toxification of the planet.

Maybe then.

[elbzee]

Please contact the Obama campaign! I like how you think Jacqueitch!

[elbzee]

My first reaction to the horror that’s all grown up and full blown now was like that of a sociologist watching an experiment. That was about 7 years ago. The more I studied the experiment and its affects the more I became alarmed. And, the more alarmed I got the more involved I got. And the more I really, really watched, the angrier I became. I agree wholeheartedly (as usual) with what you've said Steven. And I really do believe that the American Idol phenomenon has had a hypnotic influence. (I never could understand or stomach the program and certainly not the hysteria over it.)

[gevan]

When the going gets tough, the tough go . . . SHOPPING!

[graffen48]

You know this goes all the way back to Nixon, when the ugliness and uncoolness of being a Republican, was first exposed. By the time we got over our collective shock at him actually being elected, it was too late. Yes, good ole Richard Milhous, the man responsible for for escalating the multibillion dollar "war on drugs" failure, the man responsible for that paranoid hatred of anyone different from his "middle american" conservative, point of view. The originator of all the dirty tricks Repub's play on us today. The cops beat it out of us in Chicago way back then, and they still have a stranglehold on any meaningful protest The new code word is terrorist now, instead of hippie radical. The question is, how do we stop these monsters?

[NicasioKid]

You are so right - and yes, what to do? I listened to a young girl talk the other day about what is needed to stop global warming, save endangered species, and get more people involved in politics and community. She use the word "revolutio­n." That startled me, because I still associate revolution with violence. But something as radical as revolution will be needed for us to survive, not only as individuals and community, but as a country. We are under seige not so much from external enemies who disagree with us ideologically, but from those within our own society who know how to game the system. Shame on us for not paying closer attention, but shame on "them" for bringing us down.

[OurKoan]

So right!! Have we reached the point of revolution? That idea is very scary.

From David Edwards book The Compassionate Revolution:

"In truth there is no such thing as a political revolution. Ultimately, the struggle is always between self-cherishing and compassion, between the idea that happiness can best be sought through selfishness, and through kindness. There is no revolution in taking from one to give to the other, in expropriating from the elite to give to the working class; there is no revolution in catering for selfish needs more equitably. The real revolution lies in understanding that the extent of our happiness and well-being, as individuals and as a society, is determined by the extent of our compassion for others."

[Ohioan4truth]

Trying to find the words to express the feelings I have for this fiasco....­..chicken little fear.....a­lll eggs in one basket....­.painting oneself in a corner, then lifting a foot to keep painting..­.a new broom sweeps clean.....­..all these old sayings apply to this moment in time.

Since when has this administration gotten anything correct about anything? Why would anyone believe that they could help the working stiff with what little time they have left in office?

Call their bluffs about the end of the world...I do not believe a word that comes out of their mouths! The free market is what it is...you'r­e free to make or lose money. You bet wrong, so now it's time to pay the piper.

I'm truly fed up. To HE*LL with the Fed, SEC and etc., etc., etc.!

This "bail-out" will only help the rich. Not one iota will be seen by the working class.

[PDXKevin]

I love it!

Boycott everything! General strike!

[MrsRosencranz]

Way to go Steven. Always love your blogs.

Afghanistan Bananastand, wow that took me back. I'll be running off to the video store now.

I could use a good laugh. We all could.

[sweetgreensnowpea]

in the last 25 years, average americans have seen their investments/savings "trickled downed" out of their lives, their pensions "trickle downed" out of their lives, and the equity in their homes "trickle downed" out of their lives, while wages have stagnated, oil, food prices, health costs, and unemployment have gone up. is it post traumatic stress disorder that has now dazed them? or is it "LIBERALS WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES"?
in any case, steven, don't panic. there's still a rigged election and world war III to go before this crew is done.

[OutsideLookingIn]

A sad, confused man stands on a high ledge. A small crowd gathers beneath. Some, a very few, wait for him to jump in the hope the excitement will brighten their lives for a day, or at least give it meaning. Some don't care. But most watch in silent horror, begging him with their hearts and souls to see sense and go back inside, and to take another chance to work out and through what was wrong with his life that brought him to that ledge.

The US stands on a high ledge. The rest of the world looks on. Some, a very few, want it to jump and will exult in the destruction as they will see it as a vindication of their extremism. Some, a few, won't care as it won't touch their lives one way or another, but most of the rest of the world is hoping with bated breath that the people -"We the People" - will wake up, step back from the brink and take another chance to work out and through what was wrong with its culture and society that brought it to this ledge.

[OurKoan]

Thank you for that comment. I do feel that most people are thinking "don't jump!" If we don't have that hope--for us and everyone else and everyone else on this planet--really, what do we have left?

[Calinative]

Wasn't it clear watching the RNC what we're dealing with here? A bunch of lemmings screaming "Drill, baby, drill". If the Model-T was about to hit the market, they'd be tha a**holes screaming "Buggywhips!! Buggywhips!!" Now they're frothing over Sarah the Moose-shooter.

I hate to be the cynic, but asking the American people to "wake up" from collective stupidity just won't happen. They're already wide awake and dumb as dirt.

[drec1500Madrid]

It is absolutely Orwellian. Did you catch the 911 tribute during the RNC? It was so much like the 2 minutes of hate in 1984 with Bin Laden filling in for Goldstein it gave me pause.

[HWBII]

Bravo, Steven. Same pigs, new trough. Just say "thanks, but no thanks" to this bridge to nowhere.