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Corporate power must not be challenged.
That’s the blunt message Barack Orwell’s “healthcare reform bill“ is sending, that blunt message is echoing as loud as ever from one end of the Beltway to the other, it’s echoing from the White House to Capitol Hill as it always has, it’s echoing from K Street to Wall Street and across the corporate media airwaves as it always has. Don’t even think about challenging corporate power. The Progressive Caucus got the message. Bernie Sanders got the message. Dennis Kucinich got the message. We all got the message.
2 AM and she calls me ’cause I’m still awake,
Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?
I don’t have to tell you what her latest mistake was, I don’t have to tell you when she made that mistake, I don’t have to tell you because she wasn’t the only one who made that mistake. 100 million other Americans made the same mistake on November 4, 2008, they believed the lies, they voted for liars and frauds and corporate hacks up and down the ballot.
So here we are. The clock is stuck at 2 AM and the sunrise of change is as far away as ever . . .
"Pragmatic" progressives tell us we can’t jump the track, they don’t want to admit that we’re just cars on the Beltway Cable, they don’t want to see that change is an hourglass with no sand in it, glued to the table. Well we’ve seen this movie before, the Beltway actors and actresses read their lines, the plot unfolds, and the Corporate Cowboys ride off into the sunset with all of our money in their saddlebags. We know how that movie ends, we know how it always ends, but no one can find the rewind button, no one can ever find the rewind button.
Sing it if you understand . . .
An Uneasy Feeling . . .
This is a society in deep, deep trouble and the fixes currently in the works are in no way adequate to the enormous challenges we’re facing. The fault lies everywhere. The president, the Congress, the news media and the public are all to blame. Shared sacrifice is not part of anyone’s program. Politicians can’t seem to tell the difference between wasteful spending and investments in a more sustainable future.
Real healthcare reform isn’t part of anyone’s program, Rahm and Reid and Pelosi and Obama have proven that. Corporate power must not be challenged. Democrats will not challenge it, the ones who tried have seen the writing on the wall, the ones who aren’t "retiring" will say what their corporate masters tell them to say and do what their corporate masters tell them to do.
There’s a light at each end of the two-party tunnel, they shout, but they’re just as far in as they’ll ever be out. We’re trapped in that two-party tunnel with them, we’re just as far in as we’ll ever be out. We’ve always been just as far in as we’ll ever be out, we always will be just as far in as we’ll ever be out. There’s no light at either end of that tunnel. There’s no light at the Corporate Democratic end of that tunnel and there sure as hell isn’t any light at the Corporate Republican end of that tunnel.
Sing it if you understand.
May he turned 21 on the base at Fort Bliss. "Just a day," he sat down to the flask in his fist. Just a day. Just another day in that two-party tunnel, just another demoralizing day like the one before it and the one after it, just another demeaning day for the powerless, for the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who have no choice but to obey their commanders, for the working people of this country who have no choice but to obey their bosses. Just another day, just another demeaning day in a demeaning existence in the back of that Beltway Bus heading down the Orwell Expressway to oblivion with the hammer down.
Mike Prysner understands . . .
I threw families onto the street in Iraq only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic, tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis; only to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. But not people whose names we don’t know, and cultures we don’t understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable; it’s the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; it’s the banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer. Our enemies are not 5000 miles away, they are right here at home" . . .
Sing it if you understand.
Firedoglake could use some help. From you. From every American who still cares about social and economic justice, from every American fed up with corrupt politicians, from every American who is ready to be the change they seek, from every American who’s seen enough, from every American who knows all too well that neither major party will ever challenge corporate power. Join us. Post here. Speak out here. We’re here to find the words, to use them as they were meant to be used, to tell the truth, to make Americans understand, to find a way out of that two-party tunnel, to unify and empower We the People.
If We the People don’t challenge corporate power, no one will.
Sing it if you understand.
14 Comments
If We the People don’t challenge corporate power, no one will.
Sing it if you understand.
Sing it if you understand.
I needed to hear some Pete Seeger today. Thank you for the video link, ubetchaiam.
Will this mean that FDL will stop supporting Democrats as a result of HCR?
I guess we’ll find out.
But either way, if enough people here say they will no longer support the Democratic Party, that message will be heard and will resonate, no matter what FDL’s official position is.
Primary challenges for Dems of Blanche Lincoln’s calibre is a good start.
I’m all for that. She’s one of the worst corporate hack Democrats in a very long list of them.
keep beating that drum, Rusty, the room is starting to vibrate.
I will, Karen. And if that drum breaks I’ll get a bigger drum.
I just spoke to my son, and my heart is breaking. He is 42, until 2 years ago he was self employed, then the bottom dropped out, he had to short sell the two houses he had built. He kept saying that he worked two years for nothing. He and his family have lost everything, he doesn’t have a job, they denied unemployment because he was going through an unpaid internship trying to qualify for a job which never materialized. He sounds crazy today, he believes that Obama is not an American, that he’s a Muslim, that he’s been planted to turn us all inside out, and tear our country apart. I try to return him to sanity, speak to him reasonably – only there really is no sanity, no reason.
The uneasiness in me started about 30 years ago, and now it just grows and grows. I feel something coming, but I don’t know what it is, and I can’t protect my children or grandchildren. I don’t want to feel like I’m a
conspiracy nut or a crazy teabagger, but something is just not right!!
There has to be something we can do.
You have my sympathy, Gabriele. So many people are hurting, economic conditions and unemployment are far worse than the government admits.
Everything started going downhill when Reagan got in, Wall Street was deregulated, rightwing talk radio was unleashed when the Fairness Doctrine ended and has been spewing arch-conservative propaganda ever since, scapegoating liberals for every problem in America, while the real cause of most of the problems–corporate power–kept expanding with the help of both parties.
If I knew your son I’d ask him to think for himself and quit listening to politicians and the media, especially talk radio. The political and corporate media establishments know how to manipulate people’s emotions, and when times are tough many people are especially vulnerable to manipulation, they’re frustrated and angry and want explanations they can understand, they want to know who to blame.
Corporate power is to blame, but your son won’t hear that on talk radio, or from most politicians, so Obama’s the target of his anger. As bad as Obama’s been, he’s not the one who ran this country into the ground, powerful business interests and the big bankers did that.
There is something we can do, we can tell the truth about the powerful business interests and big bankers who are destroying this country. We have to tell the truth here and everywhere, to everyone, whether they want to hear it or not. If we don’t, more and more people like your son will be deceived and there’ll be no way out of this mess.
I am singing! New to here. I am one of those still trying to unravel my latest big mistake. What you are saying is so true. Let’s get started to do something. A lot of us are feeling those vibrations. Round us up! I will help in way way I can.
Welcome!
Try your own diary on for size. It’s a great way to get your feet wet.
Begin here!
Welcome to FDL, bluecanary3!
As TheLurkingMod suggests, write a diary or comment in diary threads, tell us what you’re thinking, talk about the issues with others here, hear about the new approaches to activism and citizen empowerment being discussed. Read the front page posts, but pay extra attention to the Seminal diaries, that’s where new insights and perspectives can be found. And tell others about FDL, the more people who get involved in our efforts to restore democracy to this country, the more impact we’ll have.