hope? change? where?

eight points of light to the right in the second photo...a utility pole...another point of light and then a dark spot that used to be a working coke plant...it is shuttered now ( third photo ) and another 300 northwest indiana union jobs are flushed into the lake...more economic worries for working families...more debt ( which the elite who own the debt love...it creates money..debt is the norm here...but when it becomes the only form of exchange can debtors' prison be far behind? ) more belt tightening...well...this country has been living too high off the planetary hog anyway but i had imagined a more leveling sort of belt tightening...and how is our esteemed president reacting to this? well you can tell he's a damned lame duck because he has aligned against his won party to foster fast-track approval of some ponzi scheme called the trans pacific partnership...a partnership of wealth no doubt..meant to impoverish the many at the benefit of the few...standard capitalist stuff...but what did you expect form this bozo? change? if you did you were fooled weren't you? for the umpteenth time..where did this shyster get his advance degree? harvard law ( what he got it in is self explanatory )...what was he...no matter how briefly..before h was elected president? a senator ( from illinois no less )...he is of the hegemonic culture...he wasn't going to change a fucking thing...he was going to aggrandize himself and his handlers...like virtually every president before him and every one that will follow...who's next in line? clinton? old bubba clinton did so well at it they have decided to try to double dip at winning the presidential lottery ( wealth can stop river traffic on the hudson for their daughters wedding...could you? )...there is a large group of sods eager to have the ability to print money after they retire...wealth is the birthright of presidents...and you foot the bill..fuck these people...comparisons to rome are passe and probably grossly inaccurate ( despite the evangelical bullshit the snake handlers howl at the moon on hot summer nights )but you have to wonder how the guys who were detailed to clean up after one of caligula's orgies or the guys that cleaned the scum off the back scrapers at the baths really felt about the empire...what did they do during the collapse?

the intervention of money

“As everywhere, the elections, from being nominations of class representatives, have become the battle-ground of party candidates, an arena ready for the intervention of money, and…of even bigger and bigger money. The greater became the wealth which was capable of concentration in the hands of individuals, the more the fight for political power developed into a question of money.” Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West.______________________________________________________________________it took ozzie to explain german romanticism to me in a way that fostered an understanding of how both nietzsche and hitler could both be the same brand of romantics...they are...even though they were in profound disagreement about militarism and the place of the jews in europe, they were both german romatics in their sense of the flow of history and the part individuals, cultures, and nations play in it...i have once again been perusing ozzie on a rainy april afternoon and he has seemingly hit the fucking nail on the head again...don't believe me...then you are living under a rock or a complete dimwit...money so permeates the electoral process in this country that it almost goes unnoticed...especially at the local level...we all know the koch brothers buy elections and propagate their political viewpoint because being elected to congress or to the presidency requires cash beyond most people's means so candidates have to suck donors' asses to be put in office and then the real toadying can begin...but the mechanism ( here's one for all you reagan fans out there...i will refrain from editorializing...you all know my views on the miserable dotard ) trickles down to the local level as well...there is an off-year mayoral election this year in my town and the primary is may fifth ( cinco de mayo!!! )...this small burg is literally plastered with political advertizing...on street corners...in people's yards..in my mailbox...in my door...every damn place you look there's a sign for somebody that wants my vote on the fifth and again in november..admittedly it is a hotly contested election in view of the sitting mayor's federal indictments ...but still...every election a cottage industry in signs and flyers crops up and it isn't free...someone has to pony up and it serves two purposes...it vets candidates and eliminates those that might actually consider acting on the needs and desires of the political mass and it insures a crop of indebted politicians...an effective disenfranchisement of the "will of the people" in favor of the "will of money" on whatever level of american politics you care to look at...you can call me cynical if you like...but you cannot prove me wrong.

past too late

the new york times wants me to get cultured...and they want me to do it in a fashionable and elegant way...there should be no stinting on consumption ...we're talking culture here in a way only the times can present it...amidst the glossy pages committed to articles about haute couture and the simply marvelously creative works of interior designers and an artist creating an installation by printing out all the images uploaded to Flickr in a twenty-four hour period and dumping them on the floor for people to rummage through...ostensibly a work about "outsourced" memory but really about human voyeurism...and a longish article on kanye west because he would seem to have far more important things to say than the rest of us ( because he has more money? it why people read about fucking sports stars...more goddamned voyeurism...life is thick with it ) are the things the magazine is really about...fifty four full page color ads and five black and white for a total of $5,847,000 in advertising revenue for that section alone...they have surely confused culture with fine arts...but the message is clear anyway...if you can't make culture you can buy culture and it is the moneyed that have the important things to say...it's too late for the times not to be an elitist newspaper but when it comes to putting things in perspective it is unbeatable.

somewhat fallacious reasoning II

it just may be that the fallacious reasoning was on my part ( although i did make my statements conditional on an "if" and the "if" was if the union was trying to seduce the opt outs back into the fold...rad on ) since today's event made it clear that the list of non-eligible tee shirt applicants was just the opening salvo of a puerile "fuck you we never liked you anyway" from the local...the image of the signs they left for the taking was the second volley and it's intent is fairly unmistakeable...there is a serious lack of critical thinking on both sides of this impasse...no dialog...no exchange of viewpoints..no education to the underlying distortions and manipulations of hegemonic culture...just recriminations...the half-dumb nazi governor gets his ass ripped when he fuck with the gay community...why...because they and their straight supporters understand that their interests are mutually supporting in the face of an oppressive minority..unions and workers could take something of a lesson..he will fuck with them all he likes until they can see the situation for what it is...divisive.