http://doc40.blogspot.com/2009/06/flip-to-reality.html
DOC 40
MICK FARREN HAS PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE HORROR, THE HORROR.
MONDAY, JUNE 22, 2009
FLIP TO REALITY
One might think this is nothing more than a 1930s girlie book with an anatomically implausible cover, but, if you look very carefully, it’s just possible to see a small NRA logo on the right-hand side of the page. Part of the First New Deal, the NRA was a Federal Agency that gave the Roosevelt Administration the power to develop voluntary agreements on work hours, pay rates, and price fixing. The NRA, symbolized by the Blue Eagle (a stylized thunderbird) was popular with workers. Businesses that supported the NRA put the symbol in their shop windows and on their packages. That the Blue Eagle should be featured on the back-then equivalent of soft porn is an odd but telling confirmation of the trust and loyalty that FDR enjoyed among the American workers during the New Deal. Oh that Barak Obama could manage the same.
On November 6th, 2008, two days after the American people directed Barack to the White House, the tabloid LA CityBeat published my cover-story love-letter to the new President Elect, in which I likened him jokingly to Superman, but unequivocally demanded that he counter the corrupt collapse of free-market capitalism with massive, FDR-style public works and job creation. It was maybe an arrogant demand for a writer of gothic novels and one-time rock & roller, but I did have Nobel Laureate economist Paul Krugman at my back.
As I write this now, moving into the end of the first six months of the Obama administration, I see very little of either what I hoped for, or was tacitly promised during the campaign. LA CityBeat is history. Some 6000 writers are out of work and most without prospects.
My TV is a clogged artery of bickering politicians, with Obama under fire from both a dangerously insane GOP and turncoat, bought-and-paid-for Dems. We are being shown no awe-inspiring public works, no valiant and visible job creation, or any clear and present hope being offered to the unemployed and evicted. Layoffs continue, unions are sacrificed for the survival of corporations, and zombie banks dare to declare profits while putting the screws to their customers. Peace is nowhere near the horizon. Healthcare likewise. Obama is amused by the idea of legal, revenue-bearing marijuana, and any minor moves in the direction of a new socialism are tentative and apologetic.
Last Friday Bill Maher brought progressive dissatisfaction with the current state of Barack-Knows-Best into the open with a comedy bit that instructed those who accuse Obama of being a Marxist to realize that he’s “not even a liberal”, and explained how the Democrats were the new Republicans. “Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health care, legalizing pot, and steep direct taxing of polluters?”
I’m still not saying that Barack Obama isn’t astute and talented, but he may not be The One for whom we all worked so hard. Maybe we believed too hard just to get rid of McCain-Palin. Barack may still turn out to be a creditable head of state, but he is looking less and less like the Superman who could ease us through what may ultimately be the collapse of capitalism. I fear many of us will have to face reality and start making our own demands. As loudly as is needed.
The secret word is Tarnished
POSTED BY MICK AT 6/22/2009 01:00:00 AM
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