Are You Ready To Be Strong?

"Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity
and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current
system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties
who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system."Arthur Silber

The veteran diplomat [Henry Kissinger], 85, said he was impressed by the heavyweight national security triumvirate created by Obama. It includes Robert Gates, who is staying on as defence secretary, and General James Jones, the 6ft 5in former Nato commander, as national security adviser, as well as Clinton. “It took
courage for the president-elect to choose this constellation and no little inner
assurance,” Kissinger wrote.

The war machine and the security apparatus are not shrinking; they are
growing by leaps and bounds, and Obama has promised to make them even larger.
The economic disaster doesn't threaten the position of the imperial elites at
all. On the contrary, as we have seen in the last few weeks, the Obama-backed
"bailout" plan has enriched the already rich and powerful to a staggering
degree. As CNBC reports, the government has spent more on saving the rich from the consequences of their greed than it spent in winning World War II: more than $4
trillion so far, with much more to come. This astonishing theft – the largest
gobbling of public loot by a rapacious elite in the history of the world – will
only further cement the powerful in their entrenchments on the commanding
heights of society. The nation may rot beneath them, may be roiled by storms of
blowback; but that is not their concern, it is no defeat for them. You can lose;
they do not.

This is not to say that our elites don't tell themselves any number of
flattering, self-justifying fairy tales about the boundless nobility and
righteousness of their intentions. They can do this because they identify the
interests of the system of elite rule (and the comfort, power and privilege they
personally receive from the system) with the common good of the nation, or the
world, as a whole. This allows them to pursue truly monstrous policies without
regarding themselves as monsters. This allows them to order actions, such as the
escalation of the destructive, destablizing conflict in Afghanistan, which they
know, with absolute certainty, will needlessly murder innocent women, children
and men -- and still talk earnestly and sincerely about their hopes for peace,
their concern for humanity, their deep, abiding faith in a loving God.

But again, as we have said over and over here, what matters are not the
rhetorical justifications of power or the stated intentions of power -- or the
charisma, likeability or compelling story of the wielders of power; what matters
are the operations of power, its actual effects on the human beings on the
receiving end of its machinations. Like love, power is what it does, not what it
says. Any discourse that omits this perspective seems to me to be lacking in
rigor and realism, and leaves one highly vulnerable to delusion and manipulation
-- and complicity in evil. Chris Floyd

I suppose my recent malaise stems from the general liberal refusal to
engage me over the Dem war machine, people who I know have read "Savage Mules,"
but want nothing to do with it or me. I'd hoped to engage as many prominent libs
as possible, clearing the ground, in a sense, for the next phase of Dem
governance. The excuses I received from those few who replied to my queries were
naturally Obama-centric, the great mission of making him president more
important than my little tome or petty arguments about business-as-usual. I
accepted this for a time; but now that Obama's going the way a handful of us
predicted, you'd think that this would be a perfect moment to begin debating the
approaching era.

Ha. According to "pragmatic" liberals, most noxiously Tim Wise, it's much
too soon to pick at the Anointed One. Sure, he's loading his cabinet with
well-known commodities like Hillary Clinton, while retaining the services of
Robert Gates; but who knows what behind-the-scenes magic Obama is fomenting. It
could all be a clever ruse, a necessary cover for whatever progressive moves the
Savior-elect has in mind.

Yes, there are actual adults who seem to believe this scenario, or at least
want those who remain skeptical to buy it, so debating these fantasymongers
would be a waste of time -- assuming they were keen to debate. Most that I know
of don't want to hear anything negative about Obama, and I seriously doubt this
will CHANGE three months, eight months, two years into his administration, much
less when his re-election campaign cranks up. Based on available evidence, the
most critical these people will get will be some resigned sighs, shrugged
shoulders, and bleats about working within the system, taking what you can get,
etc.

In other words, either get with the winning team or shut the fuck up. Dennis Perrin

I do not know what the future will bring but I do know there will be war, poverty and suffering ahead. We will be crushed if we don't do something to protect ourselves and each other. The government works for us, but we have weakly sat and accepted whatever we were told. It's time to get off our knees.

It's time to take a stand.