I'm Just Sitting Here Watching the Wheels Go Round and Round...

[David Zephyr]

What a wheel I'm watching:

I am an eyewitness of the jaw-droping manipulation of the entire global stock markets by a handful of invisible uber-richies who swing trillions up and down with a nod from their priviledged heads.

I am stunned beyond words at the murder of the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico by a transnational oil company that mockingly dismisses the U.S. Government and its people

I am dazed as I see the rising hysteria of xenophobia in Arizona and the demonizing of an entire class of oppressed, poor people.

I have a sinking feeling as I grow old watching the continued rise of religious fanaticism all over the world, and seeing its ugly tenacles choke the culture and government of the United States.

And as I wrote this, rain forests are dying, the oceans are sick and the earth is over heating.

Woe is we.

[Forkboy]

1. Yeah, pretty much.

[Subdivisions]

2. You forgot about Peak Oil. n/t

[David Zephyr]

10. Yes, and people just think you're nuts even to mention it.

But it's real.

[Subdivisions]

13. Well, I don't see how the majority of posters I've seen here the past few days

acknowledging the credibility of Matthew Simmons, billionaire CEO of oil & gas investment bank Simmons & Company International which finances things like oil rigs, regarding his commentary on the Deepwater Horizon disaster and then dismiss his opinion on Peak Oil. Why? Because he just so happens to be one of the foremost experts on Peak Oil.

In an urgent race against his own bleak oil forecast, he is taking matters into his own hands and has begunhttp://www.oceanenergy.org/">developing a process that may allow us to move away from fossil fuel based fuels.

Peak Oil awareness and acceptance is growing, as seen in http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/05/31/100531taco_talk_kolbert">this New Yorker article and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703460404575244011234110680.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">the Wall Street Journal. Peak Oil was also mentioned just today http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37324576#37344764">on The Ed Show by Robert Kennedy's partner and BP antagonizer MIke Papantonio, which Ed immediately blew off.

[David Zephyr]

14. Peak Oil is reality.

And it's only one of so many arrows coming our collective way on our little blue planet.

I do feel powerless these days. I think, at times, even President Obama, feels the tides hitting him, as well.

[Bluebear]

3. Tell me about it.

We won't have twilight years, we'll have a Twilight Zone.

[David Zephyr]

7. "We won't have twilight years, we'll have a Twilight Zone."

I'm convinced of it. Woe is we.

[Individualist]

4. Woe is we, indeed. K&R

[flamingdem]

5. Hang in there, it has to be up from here! nt

[grantcart]

6. Well if you read the textbooks from Texas times have never been better and

we are approaching the Rapture in a timely fashion.


Now if that didn't get you down this is what depresses me.


Where are the fucking students?

If this was 1968 or 1972 we would have mobilized a million in the streets about BP.

Us old grey hairs are more upset than the college students.

At our age they should be angry and we should be preaching restraint.

It looks like we are going to have to skip the next generation and start radicalizing the grandkids!!

[caledesi]

11. They did come, but BP said they had THEIR OWN

contractors. LIARS! BP did not want ANYONE to see the mess. BASTARDS! google for it.

[Beam Me Up]

25. 1: No Draft. 2: Completely different cultural milieu (rebellion isn't

fashionable)
3: M$M wouldn't report it even if they were mobilized (as shown by the absence of reportage on the anti-Iraq war protests prior to the invasion -- protests that were larger than most anti-Vietnam war protests, even before the Iraq war began!)
4: There is less of a sociological "generation gap"
5: Everyone is distracted by their immediate economic necessities (less willing to take perceived risks with their costly education)
6: There is no strong, competing economic ideology to capitalism
7: Radical individualism, no community spirit (thank the "me" generation)

to name a few.

[defendandprotect]

49. Largely agree, however . . . IMO, the point where they were forced to STOP

the protests with the shootings at Kent State was the point where they understood

the huge impact the students were having and that parents were going to start

joining them in large numbers. Rather, the violence sent everyone home --

I wasn't there -- that's simply my view of it -- and I bow to anyone else who was

there and sees it differently!

[David Zephyr]

35. I think Beam Me Up puts his finger on the component of not having a Draft.

The "volunteer" draft is now completely an economic draft. So many youngsters who can't afford to even go to a trade school or to a community college, never mind a full 4 year university find themselves without employment opportunities and the lure of predatory recruiters draws them into military service. Hence, no real college students uprising because they are not threatened.

The "volunteer" draft is perhaps the cruelest method of all. Those young ones with no hope, no future in sight, needing a place to live, needing a roof over their heads, needing a hot meal in their tummies sign up for imperialist wars.

[FailureToCommunicate]

42. Agreed. Students seem more interested in saving for a Prius than saving the Planet!

[defendandprotect]

50. ..... but how many of their parents do they see demonstrating???

[defendandprotect]

48. Look, I'm all for honoring and celebrating the activists/students of the 1960's ... but

at the same time I don't think it pays to try to scapegoat another generation.

In fact, to be honest, generations before them dropped the ball . . . right?

After the 1960's, right wing succeeded in financing a backlash to it -- they were

able to overcome the "VN syndrome" as they called it --

Problems with authority? They recreated authority by financing a right wing religous

movement -- it's all faked.

Trust of one another -- no good. They had to create a Drug War to frighten us all --

look the other way as guns were spread around -- and those who questioned these

practices and questioned CIA and assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy and other

notable 1960's leaders were targeted with right wing money.

And it targeted African Americans, mainly. We have a huge population of AA's in our

prisons -- people who generally know quite well what it's all about!

We were becoming a more thoughtful and knowledgeable and compassionate population in

overturning the death penalty, passing civil rights amendment, and ensuring that women's

lives were no longer sacrificed in illegal abortions --

Even the Pope moved on Vatican II giving the RCC a humane and compassionate face --

acknowledging the right of Catholics to their own personal conscience, even re birth control

and abortion --

And right wing elites declared war on all of that --

including with a right wing coup within the Vatican.

Right wing often tries to delegitimize the 1960's youth revolution as a "sexual revolution"

-- it was in part -- but it was an overall challenge to authority and much more!

[dgibby]

8. Eloquent.

Sad, but eloquent.

K&R.

[cliffordu]

9. Sometimes I believe the planet will be better off when we finally

annihilate ourselves....

maybe we're just a failed experiment...Like the Dodo.

[David Zephyr]

16. My companion and I agree.

The human race is turning in critical page in our collective history and it's not pretty.

[annabanana]

38. not so benign as the Dodo

some kind of virulent strain. .

[laughingliberal]

12. K & R nt

[Cowpunk]

15. I don't know about you...

But I woudn't want to tell my grandchildren that I sat and watched as the world went to hell.

[David Zephyr]

18. I have a grand daughter who knows her gay grand dad is a socialist.

And who has been an activist since 1967.

I'm watching today, after a lifetime of activism, and all I see some roses and millions of thorns.

[Cowpunk]

19. The continuing progress toward gay equality must give you hope NT

[tavalon]

22. Okay, yeah, we've probably lost,

but maybe, just maybe the timeline is really long and we won't be here to see it but the tide will turn and things will be better.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While. It's a book by Paul Loeb. If you haven't read it, it might help ease some of your pain.

[Swamp Rat]

17. k&r

[G_j]

20. it's just your imagination

take two FuckItAlls & call us in the morning


on edit: I agree w/ you, my remark just reflects my own cynicism.

[tavalon]

21. One the bright side, you have a ringside seat to the endgame

No, that's not a bright side at all. Sorry. Think global but act local. Love your family, your friends, build community. I don't think the human species is salvageable but we have some time left. If you can, put as much love out into the world as it ends. I don't know why that seems important, but it does.

[David Zephyr]

31. That's what Voltaire wrote: Tend your own garden.

I'm just about there now.

[tavalon]

57. I don't think I'll quit watching and waiting to see if there is a place for me to be useful

but, yeah, I think we need to gather in small communities.

[Kablooie]

23. Hey, in your lifetime you might have experienced the pinnacle of human civilization.

[defendandprotect]

51. "Pinnacle" . . . . ???

There's been pretty much nothing but bloodshed everywhere!!

[conscious evolution]

24. And the wheels were made by Firestone

Woe is we is right.
We are fucked.

[bvar22]

26. !...K&R

"The vast inequality of this new Gilded Age didn't just happen.
Nature didn't ordain it, the market didn't require it,
and Adam Smith's invisible hand doesn't sustain it.
What happened is the rich declared class war and spent what it took to win."

"All that's left is for politicians to divide up the spoils."
---Bill Moyers

Its over.
"They" WON.
The last HOPE was a Democratic President & Congress,
but Brand Obama/Hope&Change turned out to be nothing more than a very successful Corporate Marketing Scam.
.
.
Things will have to get a lot worse before we see ANY "CHANGE", and "CHANGE" will have to come from The People.
It won't be pretty.



So, if you're OLD like me and my wife, what can you do? :shrug:

We are learning to Live Well on Less,
and focusing on very local Community/Humanitarian Issues.



"Blow up your TV.
Throw away your paper.
Go to the country.
Build you a home.
Plant a little garden.
Eat a lot of peaches.
Try an find Jesus,
on your own."---John Prine

[bvar22]

28. Addendum to above post.

There IS a blueprint for CHANGE.
The Populist Reforms sweeping across Latin America are nothing less than near bloodless revolutions.
They give me some "HOPE" for The World.
They are simply organizing, and voting out the corrupt Oligarchs.

However, in Latin America the foundation for these "CHANGES" is transparent & verifiable elections,
and the existence of an Opposition Party.
We don't have those in the USA....yet.

[glitch]

30. K & R both your posts especially

for quoting from my favorite John Prine song. Well, Spanish Pipedream, All the Best, and Bruised Orange.

It's good to be reminded to see what's still beautiful, and possible, in times like these.

[David Zephyr]

32. Your comments tell me I'm no longer alone feeling this way.

Thanks, bvar22. Your comments are rooted in wisdom. I am a survivor, but where we now put our priorities -- at least in my case -- needs adjusting.

You write "We are learning to live well on less, and focusing on very local Community/Humanitarian Issues." And you write to "Plant a little garden"

That's what Voltaire wrote in Candide after the protagonist went round the world in exploit after exploit only to finally learn this: "tend your garden".

Or as Paul said, "And in the end, the love we take is equal to the love we make."

[Javaman]

27. And the beat goes on. nt

[paparush]

29. "..I just had to let it go..."

[David Zephyr]

33. Priorities.

[Catherina]

34. I'm selfishly glad not to be alone (thank you for sharing). You are not alone.

Stunned. Outraged. Pained.

Ashamed of what we're leaving.

[David Zephyr]

43. This whole thing in the Gulf really puts everything into context.

We've got two stupid wars going on that will accomplish nothing but death and heartache and debt.

We've got 1/3 of this country that apparently hates the President and his family because of the pigment of their skin.

I'm also ashamed of what we are leaving, Catherina.

[Liberal_in_LA]

36. K&R

[freddie mertz]

37. K & R and thanks for expressing this. Sometimes I feel very alone in my despair.

I go to work and keep working on my book and articles but it all seems like a dream, while all this hate rises around us and the earth and its oceans are being murdered by human stupidity and greed.

I just took a break from writing and found this, and while it didn't exactly "cheer me up," I felt like a member of a community again, for a moment.

Thanks for that, and to all of you here in the thread.

[inna]

39. I feel the same way...

Thank you for verbalizing it so well.

Virtual :hug:

[Greyhound]

40. I wish there was some bright spot to point to. Maybe South America?

History is. We are coming back into the chaos again with two major players, neither of which is good.

So what do we want, fascism or theocracy?
:kick: & R

[tranche]

41. There's a younger generation that coming up which seems to recognize what's going on.

Things may be fixed just yet.

[happygoluckytoyou]

44. when GOD gives me lemons...i find a new GOD... when titans fight some of them will die too

and that is fine with me

there will always be wolves and sheep

it does not matter what type of gov't you have or finanacial base.....

WOLVES..... SHEEP
LIONS...... LAMBS

the fight is a long distance run... not a sprint... and where i agree that i am weary, it is all that we have, and i have little else to do with my life

[democrat2000]

45. I totally agree... these are times when thongs could change a whole lot

the younger generation needs to take things into their own hands and guide our planet to safety and prosperity!

... and I love the son BTW.:thumbsup:

[defendandprotect]

46. Capitalism is a license to destroy nature and steal --

And on top of that we've still got a MIC destroying everything in its path since

the end of WWII --

Who has any idea why . . . ???

[defendandprotect]

47. How have we all escaped noticing the violence and insanity of patriarchy?

We've known for 50 years or more -- probably scientists knew even earlier -- that

we could no longer burn fossil fuels.

That information was hidden from the public --

We had electric cars -- trolleys, public transportation -- all destroyed by the

oil industry and GM.

We had cars 40 years ago that got more than 40-45 mpg -- and were headed to 60 and 80.

How many people even know that?

We had information on the population explosion -- 7+ billion of us now exploding like

grains of rice! -- and yet the right wing religious fanatics were able to create a

backlash to family planning and educating youth about normal human sexuality.

20 years ago -- Saudis acknowledged Global Warming by commenting that "when the time comes

that they have to curtail or stop the flow of oil, that they would like to be subsidized for

their loss." !!


Patriarchy/Organized patriarchal religion/Capitalism are the unholy Trinity of exploitation --

of nature and even of other human beings according to various myths of inferiority!


Elites lie -- and they will continue doing it --

[KansDem]

52. "Elites lie -- and they will continue doing it --"

I can't stop thinking about growing up during the 1950s to the 1970s. I think about all the lies we were subjected to--the "commies" were out to get us; if you don't believe in God, you'll go to Hell; capitalism was the best system on Earth; we are a democracy that enjoys freedom, etc.etc.etc.

Then I realize the "Elites" were already scheming to undermine our way of life.

"Commies?" We were so afraid they would be marching down MainStreet, USA. Now we buy their products and services on MainStreet, USA

"God?" If you don't believe in God, how can you go to Hell?

"Capitalism?" Sure, for the Elites. So good, they "took it on the road" and exported our jobs overseas. And when Capitalists fucked up--it was bailout time. Capitalism--succeed and you're rich, but fail and you're rich...

"Democracy?" Bush v. Gore put that to rest.

All the while the Elites were conspiring against us, we were sedated by watching "F Troop," "Petticoat Junction," "The Munsters," and "Hogan's Heroes..."

[defendandprotect]

58. Exactly . . . . and they hire quite some thugs to destroy for them ... to pave the way...

JFK and all the political violence we've suffered -- 1960's -- and onward --

only way the right wing can rise is via violence.

Yes -- we were all taught democracy and capitalism were synonymous!

And, when JFK began to inject some sanity into the Cold War -- when Russians could be

seen as just like us -- then MIC went even crazier!!

Yes -- what an outrage Bush vs Gore was --

And, "I Love Lucy!" . . . still playing on TV!!

Right wing/elites present one bit of fakery after another --

including their most prized tool RELIGION! They've used that all over the planet to

co-opt other governments/nations.

The 1960's revolution really jarred them in its overall attack on authority --

immediately after GOP gave start up funding for the Christian Coalition.

Richard Scaife financed Dobson's group and other wealthy right wingers financed Bauer's org.

Coincidentally, the large and individual computers began to come in during the mid-1ate-1960's --

just as American was passing The Voting Rights Act! Large computers gave MSM added power of

PREDICTING and CALLING elections . . . a power that was reversed in 2000 when Jon Ellis/Fox

recalled Florida from Gore!




Here's some other stuff on our inventing the Taliban/Al Qaeda and luring Russians into

Afghanistan "in hopes of giving them a VN type experience."


and how US created the very violent Islamic text books we've heard so much about shipping them

into the ME to create a violent Islam --


If you're interested, US created Taliban/Al Qaeda . . .


The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_i ... ...


AND RE THE TEXT BOOKS . . .


The US spent $100's of millions shooting down Soviet helicopters yet didn't spend a penny helping Afghanis rebuild their infrastructure and institutions.

They also spent millions producing jihad preaching, fundamentalist textbooks and shipping them off to Afghanistan. These were the same text books the Western media discussed in shocked tones and told their audiences were used by fundamentalist teachers to brainwash their charges and to inculcate in young Afghanis a jihad mindset, hatred of foreigners and non-Muslims etc.


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd.

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without high officials in the US government approving those primers.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/jihad.h ...

[Lone_Star_Dem]

53. No longer riding on the merry-go-round

I hear you.

I read today a Madagascar bird, the Alaotra Grebe was just declared extinct. I had the oddest feeling of finality. Not just for the Alaotra Grebe, but for all of us. What we were, what we could have been vs. what we've become and are becoming. meanwhile I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round while people say I'm dreaming my life away.

[David Zephyr]

65. Species extinction.

Lone_Star_Dem, we don't require a hit from space like the one 65 million years ago in the Yucatan, the human race is creating mass extinction all on our own. I did not know about the Madagascar bird. Sigh. Yeah, "no longer riding on the merry-go-round"...I just had to let it go.

[Swede]

54. 50 to 70 million died in WWII,preceded by the Great Depression.

Relax.

[thelordofhell]

56. "People say I'm crazy"

When I say we have been through much worse in our history. The big difference between then and now is our ability to communicate it.

[defendandprotect]

59. No . . . Capitalism's exploitation of Nature is unsurpassed.... Global Warming ....

in fact, Global Warming has been kept a big secret by oil industry/ExxonMobil and

others in billions of dollars of propaganda which has still not ceased.

Difference is, Global Warming has the power to totally destroy our ability to survive

on this planet -- perhaps even destroying the planet, itself.

No one can really say it's not possible --

[thelordofhell]

64. And it's up to you, me, a blind midget, and an albino piano player to fix it all

Together we will expose the cabal of government/industry/oil/bankers/Cthulhu that have hijacked the world with their over-development scheme of destruction.


:eyes: :tinfoilhat: :crazy:

[Enthusiast]

55. I can relate.

I'm feeling much the same. Woe is we.

[Stardust]

60. Excellent thread. K&R. "Where have all the flowers gone?...When will

they ever learn?"

:cry:

[HudsonValley]

61. woes

Well said and, I think, similarly felt by many people out there. Sometimes makes me want to "disappear" and go off-the-grid out in the middle of nowhere. It's getting harder and harder to fight the insanity. Ahh well.

[EFerrari]

62. One of my kids is a ways into rehab again.

I have to give me a pep talk before I talk to him, just so I get my evasions straight because he has an excellent bullshit detector -- that's probably why he used in the first place.

The only thing that works for me lately is to keep telling myself that what I think just isn't that important.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3S_k1dRbXY

:grouphug:

[moondust]

63. Greed.

Certainly not new but greatly intensified with the rise of laissez-faire corporate capitalism over the past 30 years.