Progressive Calendar 12.08.11 /2
From: David Shove (shove001umn.edu)
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2011 04:18:34 -0800 (PST)
 PROGRESSIVE CALENDAR  12.08.11

1. Nader KFAI         12.08 9:30am
2. Free curry dinner 12.08 5:30pm
3. Health care         12.08 7pm

4. Palestine vigil      12.09 4:15pm
5. How the 1% lives 12.09 7pm

6. Jules Lobel      - The future of the Occupy movement
7. Phil Rockstroh - Imbeciles who really mean it
8. ed                   - Bumperstickers

--------1 of 8--------

From:Danene
Nader KFAI 12.08 9:30am

Don Olson will  interview Ralph Nader live on KFAI radio tomorrow at 9:30am
about his newest book,"Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism."


--------2 of 8-----

From:<kimdefranco [at] yahoo.com>
Free curry dinner 12.08 5:30pm

Free Dinner:  Grand Curry NOT Grand Juries!  Stop the FBI Witch Hunt!
Thursday, December 8th from 5:30 to 7pm  @ Walker Church, 3104 16th Ave.
S., Minneapolis

Come enjoy a free dinner in solidarity with local activists targeted by the
feds for their anti-war and international solidarity work! Get an update on
the case and hear what they've been doing to fight political repression!

FFI: stopfbi.net and https://www.facebook.com/events/298395770182216/
If you would like to help with the dinner, start showing up after 4 pm!


--------3 of 8--------

From:John Kolstad <jkolstad [at] millcitymusic.com>
Health care 12.08 7pm

There is an  important event  coming Thursday,  Dec 8   related to health
care.   See attached below the detailed info from Physicians  for a
National Health Plan [PNHP]  and or the Metro Inde Biz Alliance.  PNHP is
bringing in a speaker to speak on health care reform Dec 8 at  Warner
 Stellian Corp Headquarters in St Paul [550  Atwater Street].   It starts
at 7 PM.

What makes this speaker important and exciting  is that he is a life long
Republican,  a Repub Legislator in Pennsylvania for 17 years and a biz
person for 35 years.

He is currently the President of "Health Care For All PA"    an Org
dedicated to bring universal single payer to reality in PA and the USA.
For a number of us this is very exciting because having a Republican of
many years and an elected Legislator of many years supporting Single Payer
 can demonstrate this not a Left vs Right is, but is about bottom line
costs, efficiency and American Business being able to compete in the Global
Market.     Many think of Single Payer or Medicare for all as a Left or
Liberal or Progressive issue.   So having a strong speaker who is a life
long Republican show that this is not,  and should not be a partisan issue.
 Clearly to solve the health care mess,  we will need bi-partisan support.

He is a good and articulate speaker  who advocates for Single Payer for
economic and practical reasons,   exposing the wasteful, excessive cost of
the current system that does not provide health care for all,  and to take
the burden of health care off the backs of business.   He does not use
rhetoric, myth or idealogy.  He just shows how the current system puts his
business and all our businesses at a disadvantage Globally.

   We are eager for as many business owners as possible to see this, as
well as Republican  State Legislators.  These Legislators  need to hear
arguments from a Republican that make common sensel.     Moreover,  he is a
very direct speaker,  straight to the hard facts and numbers.  There is a
program on the net where he appears with Dr Dwight Michael, another life
long Republican,  who strongly supports single payer, in order to get the
insurance companies off his back and let him practice medicine.   You can
search the web for David Steil / Health care for all PA.

I would like you to  help get the word out to more business people or any
one interested.  This should include your State Senator  or Representative.
 The Metro IBA and Minnesota Small Business Org  are contacting all their
members and contacts.

I'm helping organize this with Dr Elizabeth Frost [ I think MN Director of
PNHP].     If you or any others are interested,  you can contact me.   My
daytime Phone is 612/722-6649   [best after 11 AM]   Morning between 9 AM
and 11 AM  and evenings I can be reached at 612/321-2007.     Or by email :
  jkolstad [at] millcitymusic.com.     Or I could put you in touch with Dr.
Elizabeth Frost.

We do want to have an idea of who may be coming so we can seat everyone.
  RSVP is not required,  but it will help us be prepared.    Look forward
to hearing from you.

John R Kolstad/President, Mill City Music,    Bd Metro Independent Business
Alliance
aka Papa John
----
David Steil  On How to Solve the Health Care Mess

Join the growing movement of business owners (democrats, republicans and
independents) who support a Medicare-like solution for our healthcare
system.
Thurs, Dec 8, 7:00PM MetroIBA and Physicians for a National Health Plan
will be co-sponsoring a forum which will make a case for why businesses and
politicians from both major parties should embrace a Medicare like system.

Speaker David Steil is a business leader and former state representative
(PA-Rep) who now runs Healthcare For All in Pennsylvania.
This will be a great opportunity to meet other small business owners who
share your concerns about the state of healthcare in our country.

Location:
Warners' Stellian Corporate Headquarters
550 Atwater Circle St. Paul, MN 55103
(one mile north of I94 at corner of Dale and Topping)

For those who already support Universal Healthcare,
visit http://www.pnhpminnesota.org/business-initiative.php
and let your voice be heard!


--------4 of 8--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Palestine vigil 12.09 4:15pm

The weekly vigil for the liberation of Palestine continues at the
intersection of Snelling and Summit Aves in St. Paul. The Friday demo
starts at 4:15 and ends around 5:30. There are usually extra signs
available.


--------5 of 8--------

From: Lisa Luinenburg
How the 1% lives  12.09 7pm

Socialist Action Twin Cities

With the Occupy movement filling local and national headlines and bringing
attention to the demands of the 99%, have you ever wondered how the 1%
really lives? Join us to hear local labor historian Dave Riehle discuss the
hidden lifestyles of three of America's elite in a historical context.

How the 1% Lives: Three Studies from Life
Speaker: Dave Riehle
Friday, December 9th at 7:00 pm

Mayday Bookstore 301 Cedar Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55454
612-333-4719 for more information
This event is free and open to the public. Bring your friends!


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Published on Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by Jurist
The Future of the Occupy Movement
by Jules Lobel

The Occupy Movement, which has already been hugely successful in thrusting
issues of inequality and corporate power into the public discourse, faces a
critical juncture. As many of the larger encampments in New York, Oakland,
Philadelphia and Los Angeles are shut down by the police, activists have
been searching for the tactics to move beyond Occupation to Phase 2 of the
movement. Some say that the movement now should evolve into the political
arena, supporting policy ideas, running candidates for office, and putting
pressure on politicians and corporations. Similarly, others argue that the
next step is to develop a specific list of demands, which presumably could
further policy initiatives and protests.

A different tactical response is to create what essentially would be a
non-violent guerrilla movement in American cities. For example, Kalle Lasn,
the Adbuster magazine publisher and originator of the Wall Street
encampment idea, reportedly urged a new "swarming strategy of surprise
attacks against business as usual." The Chicago occupiers have resolved to
have an event a day throughout the winter, such as defending foreclosed
homes, sit-ins, banner drops, building parks, providing supplies to the
homeless, or guerrilla theater and art. In the same vein, longtime social
movement scholar and activist Francis Fox Piven foresaw some time ago that
the movement would develop new phases, utilizing "other forms of disruptive
protests that are punchier than occupying a square," or "rolling
occupations of public space."

This article suggests another alternative, one that focuses on creating
sustainable alternative decentralized institutions that reflect in
microcosm the egalitarian, democratic vision of society that the Occupy
Movement has put forth. Such a strategy would be combined with a continual
presence in the streets and parks around issues of injustice such as
foreclosures.
While determining the tactics of the next phase is critical to keeping the
movement alive over the next weeks and months, the broader strategic goal
is that of developing a truly long-term movement to transform society —
measured not in seasons, but years or even decades. That task is one of
sustainability. How can the Occupy Movement (OWS) develop the
organizational, cultural and institutional forms to sustain a long term
movement, yet also maintain its dynamism, horizontalism, direct democracy,
creativity, activism and transformative vision? No American social or
political movement of the twentieth century has been able to do so.

The 1960s civil rights and 1930s CIO trade union movements initially had
much of the activism, creativity and direct democracy now exhibited by OWS.
They utilized street protests, sit-ins, factory occupations and boycotts.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and some of the
radical CIO unions practiced direct, participatory democracy. Their
movements changed American society and resulted in lasting, meaningful
reforms — which if OWS succeeds in emulating would be a remarkable
achievement.

Those movements failed to achieve many activists' goal of an egalitarian
society, however. Perhaps more importantly, they were unsuccessful in
sustaining their creativity, dynamism, activism and vision in some
non-bureaucratic forms or institutions that could continue the long-term
fight to transform an unjust society into a just one. They seized the
radical moment and achieved important reforms, but failed to sustain their
transformative vision. Can OWS avoid that fate over the long haul?

There is no road map or magic formula for success in that project. Indeed,
OWS's spirit of creative experimentation and of an openness to new ideas
must be at the heart of any effort to move beyond what has been
accomplished in the past. As Naomi Klein put it in her speech to OWS, being
horizontal and deeply democratic "are compatible with the hard work of
building structures and institutions that are sturdy enough to weather the
storms ahead." But what lessons have we learned to help us in the long term
task?
Lessons of OWS

Five main attributes of OWS have contributed to its massive success and
provide the basis for its continuation as a radical alternative in the
future.

1. Presenting a Narrative, World View or Declaration — Not Specific Demands

Until OWS, the left had not set forth an alternative narrative to that of
the right or democratic party liberals. Such a narrative explains to people
why we are in our present mess, who and what is responsible for our
predicament, and offers a broad solution. The right has such a narrative:
the evil is big government and the solution is to cut taxes and government
spending. The liberal narrative tends to be that the lack of government
oversight and a rigid adherence to free market capitalism is the problem
and that more government regulation is the answer. The left has all too
often simply presented a mélange of programmatic demands and a defense of
government programs.

OWS presented a competing narrative that resonated with millions of people:
corporate power and greed got us into this mess, the only way out is for
the 99% to stand together to demand equality, justice and fairness. It is
that broad perspective, narrative or worldview — as opposed to a laundry
list of demands — that helped change the political debate. People see the
world through a broad lens or framework — to convince or move them is not
primarily a logical or factual process, but one of providing a lens or
framework with which to view reality. OWS did just that.

OWS was able to connect equality to liberty in a manner that allowed people
to see gross inequality as morally unjust. As others have observed, since
the 1970s, both conservatives and liberals have focused on individual
liberty, privacy and autonomy (albeit in different areas, guns versus
reproductive freedom), while paying little or no attention to equality.
Indeed, the original 1787 Constitution omitted any mention of equality,
focusing solely on liberty, and requiring a bloody Civil War and the
post-war Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to include equal
rights in our basic governing document. OWS focused the nation's attention
on the fact that for most folks (the 99%), individual liberty is incomplete
or even a hollow shell without social and economic equality and justice, as
international human rights principles now recognize. Thus, OWS's narrative
refocused the national debate on equality.

Finally, that OWS's basic document was a declaration which seemingly
tracked the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence — substituting
corporate power for King George, issuing a list of grievances against
corporate power instead of the King, and announcing occupation of the
illegitimate power and not independence from it — emphasized that the goal
was to set forth a narrative which would shift and galvanize the public
debate and not simply present demands to the government. Neither the OWS
nor the 1776 Declaration demanded a list of reforms; rather they both
highlighted the illegitimacy of the ruling regime, as did OWS's not seeking
a permit to occupy the square.

Some have argued that while the broad critique was appropriate at the
outset, now the movement needs more specific programmatic demands. While
OWS has and should continue to involve itself in particular struggles
around particular issues — for example stopping foreclosures — its
uniqueness and vitality is contained in its ability to present an
indictment of current reality and a broad, amorphous perspective on what
should be done. The Occupy Movement can be thus viewed as a prophetic
movement, reminding people of basic values. As OWS activist Katie Davison
pointed out in The Nation, "We need a movement of solidarity that is about
values first." These values are not foreign to the left, or for that matter
to most Americans. OWS has recalled them to us, and any adequate movement
forward will have to keep them before people's minds.

2. Political Independence

OWS, unlike many unions and progressive coalitions, chose not to focus on
elections, the legislative process or lobbying. While engaging in the
electoral arena or having an impact on legislation are important, OWS's
contribution and vitality would be undermined by running candidates or
engaging in lobbying. Rather OWS started in the streets (or parks) and
ought to remain there as a beacon of hope for the future and a means of
putting pressure on corporations and politicians from outside the political
system.

As a constitutional and human rights lawyer, I recognize the value of
specific reforms that can sometimes be won in the electoral arena, in
legislative forums or in courts. But I also have seen that often the most
important reforms are achieved by pressure from outside of the system, by
people acting independently of political parties or lobbying efforts and
that entering such established arenas can often hamstring social and
political movements. OWS has already had an effect on specific issues such
as the Keystone XL pipeline issue, as Naomi Klein recently pointed out. But
even more importantly, OWS has stirred for many the desire to move beyond
specific reforms, to act on our aspirations for a fundamentally different
type of society that is democratic and egalitarian. Only by maintaining its
independence from parties and traditional institutions can OWS continue to
inspire those hopes and dreams.

3. Non-Violence, Creativity, Experimentation and Inclusiveness

I include these attributes as one because they are all related. The
occupation encampments encompassed a diverse group of very creative
activists who debated various issues and a range of solutions without
dogmatic, fixed preconceptions. Many of us were captivated by the energy,
creativity and ability to reach consensus exhibited at the numerous
occupations around the country.

4. Visible, Not Transitory Presence

The occupations, unlike a one-shot demonstration, had continual visible
staying power. As Naomi Klein and Francis Fox Piven have pointed out, the
occupiers put no end date to their presence, and said they were staying
put. That made them an ongoing real presence which could not be ignored,
neither by the media nor by public opinion. This is in contrast to recent
demonstrations that have been easily forgotten, when they reached public
consciousness at all. Moreover, OWS has been able to bridge the gap that
often separates virtual from actual politics. It utilized media technology,
but because it was a constant presence, there was a continual feedback loop
between the images that were transmitted across various media and the
ongoing presence of the occupation itself.

The first definition of the term "occupy" in Webster's dictionary is "to
engage the attention or energies of," and the occupy movement succeeded by
its continual visual presence in engaging the public's attention. Even
without the space in those cities in which the encampments have been shut
down, the occupy movement must find ways to continue to visually occupy the
attention of millions of Americans, the media, and the elite.

5. Creating Alternative Models of What a Democratic Egalitarian Society
Might Look Like

Perhaps the most critical component of OWS is its creation of alternative
communities which reflect the egalitarian, democratic world that its
activists seek for the future. Sometimes referred to as "pre-figurative
politics," this perspective seeks to create in microcosm the alternative
models that reflect the future world that the activists support, while at
the same time using those institutions to engage in direct action to change
the current reality. By creating a community dedicated to solidarity,
consensus decision-making, everyone's participation, respect for everyone's
opinion, and equality, OWS attempted to demonstrate that another world is
possible, not in theory but in practice. That effort creates hope for a
radically different future, which in many respects is more or equally
important than winning particular demands. As Matthias Schwartz pointed out
in a recent New Yorker article, "In the end, the point of Occupy Wall
Street is not its platform so much as its form, people sit down and hash
things out instead of passing their complaints on to Washington." As the
slogan around the encampment went, "We are our demands."

Future

When I went to the Occupy Pittsburgh encampment — which is still ongoing —
I asked several people there what they saw as its future. A young English
graduate student's answer lay in the community, in developing a concrete
alternative rooted in equality, solidarity and democracy. For her, the OWS
was a way of her expressing her vision of the future. To me, the long term
viability of the OWS movement as a transformative movement lies in the
creation of these communities, which not only directly practice what they
believe, but seek to reach out and effect the public consciousness through
direct action. Perhaps Noam Chomsky said it best in his speech to Occupy
Boston:

"The Occupy outposts are trying to create cooperative communities that just
might be the basis for the kinds of lasting organizations necessary to
overcome the barriers ahead and the backlash that's already coming."

There are many groups which are trying to create alternative models in
microcosm: food co-ops, farmer markets, cooperative renewable energy
projects. Indeed many of these groups have united in an umbrella formation
known as the solidarity economy. But none of these groups have captivated
the public as has OWS, and very few combine direct action with community
building.

Other movements in the past have attempted to create such democratic,
egalitarian institutions. As William Greider has pointed out, the Populist
movement of the late nineteenth century created a series of ingenious
agricultural and credit cooperatives, which were eventually destroyed by
the money classes and bankers. He asks, "what is it we can build that is
parallel to that cooperative movement?" But we must also seek to learn why
that cooperative movement was unable to survive, and what can be done
differently. So too, SNCC and its supporters created community-controlled
day care centers, and at least in one prominent case, an agricultural
cooperative, but these efforts were also destroyed and we need to
understand why the civil rights movement was unable to sustain these
radical, democratic structures.

Yet an important accomplishment of the Occupy Movement is to rekindle the
hope that these alternative communities of solidarity can grow. There are
reasons to be hopeful. The bankruptcy of an economic order which threatens
our very existence has led to the growth of co-operative, environmentally
friendly, alternative institutions. Moreover, there currently exist
organizations such as the National Lawyers Guild, Center for Constitutional
Rights, or City Life/Urbana Vida, a Boston anti-foreclosure group, that
have for decades sustained a radical vision and practice, as well as an
anti-elitist, democratic internal structure, which OWS and other groups can
learn from in building the creative cooperative structures they envision.
Lessons can also be gleaned from movements around the world which have
created such autonomous communities, whether it be the Zapatistas in
Mexico, the Brazilian landless movement, or the Mondragon cooperatives in
Spain.

Hopefully OWS can create organizational forms that combine its democratic,
egalitarian origins with audacious, ongoing direct action, an overall
narrative that continues to express values of solidarity, equality and
democracy, and political independence and survive as a model of how a just
society would operate. If OWS can do so over the long term, it will have
made a major contribution, not simply to transforming the public dialogue,
but to birthing a new society.

© JURIST Legal News and Research Services, Inc., 2011
Jules Lobel is a Professor of Law and the Bessie McKee Wathour Endowed
Chair at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is also the
President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Lobel is currently
working on a book about Transformative Movements.


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 Published on Wednesday, December 7, 2011 by CommonDreams.org
"By Imbeciles Who Really Mean It": Lost Verities and Dirty Hippies
by Phil Rockstroh

Regardless of the dissembling of corporate state propagandists, free market
capitalism has always been a government subsidized, bubble-inflating,
swindlers' game, in which, psychopathic personalities (not “job creators”
but con job perpetrators) thrive. By the exploitation of the many, a
ruthless few have amassed large amounts of capital by which they dominate
mainstream narratives and compromise elected and governmental officials,
thereby gaming the system for their benefit.

Historically, the system has proven so demeaning to the majority of the
population that the elite, from time to time, have, as a last resort, due
to fear of a popular uprising, introduced a bit of socialism into the
system, allowing a modicum of swag to funnel downward, and, as a result,
the ranks of the middle class have been expanded. For a time, the
bourgeoisie are bamboozled by the sales pitch that one day they will be
affluent enough to be freed from the taxing obligations of a dismal,
debt-beholden existence, when, in fact, they sowed their fate (like those
swindled by opening their bank accounts after receiving email from parties
claiming to be momentarily cash-strapped Nigerian royalty) by their own
greed i.e. by their self-imprisonment within their own narrow, self-serving
view of existence.

These stultifying circumstances will level an atmosphere of restiveness and
nebulous rage. In general, the middle class can be counted on to detest the
poor…blaming those born devoid of societal advantage and political
influence for the impoverished circumstances that were in place long before
the happenstance of their birth. Moreover, in a bit of noxious casuistry,
as despicable as it is delusional, all too many members of the middle class
have been induced by grift artists, employed by the ruling elite, to blame
their own declining social status and attendant beleaguered existence on
the poor.
photo: Gary Denham

"Be thine own palace, or the world's thy jail." --John Donne

This has proven to be an effective, time-tested grift: Because as long as
the animus of the middle class remains fixated on the poor, the criminal
cartels known as the economic elite can continue to ply their trade. Of
course, in reality, by their greed and complicity, what the middle class
has gained is this: trustee status in the capitalist workhouse.

Although, there is no need to fret: The run of neoliberal capitalism is
about over. Don't mourn: This late stage, rapacious, mutant economic strain
has leveled destruction on community and the planet itself as well as the
hearts and souls of too many of those imprisoned within its paradigm.

At this point, the situation comes down to this: paradigm shift or perish.

The hour is amenable to reevaluate, reorganize and re-occupy. Doing so will
prove helpful in withstanding false narratives.

Apropos: As of late, in my hours spent at Liberty Park, I've been witness
to increasing numbers of tourists wandering in and repeating derisive,
rightwing distortions regarding the OWS movement and its participants. For
example, they are a collection of whiny college students who want taxpayers
to be responsible for picking up the tab for their student loans because
they are too lazy and spoiled to work off their debt. These tales are
variations of the old canards involving welfare queens, mouths gleaming
with taxpayer financed gold teeth, arriving at grocery stores lounging
behind the steering wheels of late model Cadillacs, and proceeding to
purchase steaks and fifths of gin with food stamps.

Ronald Reagan spoke of this mythical figure often, affording her near
supernatural powers: She, through indolence, guile and a welfare
state-bestowed sense of limitless entitlement, was the near singular cause
of the nation's economic woes; her very existence, not only depleted the
U.S. Treasury of dollars, but drained the U.S. free enterprise system of
vitality and the very will to compete. She was a succubus who arrived in
the socialist haunted night to feed on and zap the very virility of
capitalism.

Because of the wealth inequities inherent to capitalism, in order to
prevent social unrest, the system is reliant on creating false narratives
that foster misplaced and displaced class resentment. These tales are very
potent, because they serve as palliatives for the enervating states of
shame inflicted on the population at large by their enslavement to the free
market. Accordingly, because the vast majority of the populace are deemed
"losers", due to how the system is rigged, techniques must be created and
maintained to displace the rage, borne of a sense of powerlessness, that
grips the system's exploited underlings.

OWS is beginning to change the narrative…align it with reality--and that is
an alarming development for the 1%; hence, the retooled, amped up
propaganda campaign we're seeing signs of at present.

This is the reality the 1% endeavor to obscure: Capitalism is a pyramid
scheme; by its very structure, only a few will ever receive its bounty…that
is wrung out of the exhausted hides of the vast majority. Fact is,
capitalism, the neoliberal variety or otherwise, has never worked as
promised; its innate structure ensures exploitation and inequity.
Therefore, time and time again, adding aspects of socialism (e.g., New Deal
era programs and reforms) have saved capitalism from itself. But, after a
time, the plutocrats regroup and begin anew to launch a big money-financed,
slow motion coup d’état of government (e.g., the Reagan Revolution).

A vast disparity of wealth within a nation will all but ensure this
societal trajectory. But that isn't going to happen, this time. The planet
cannot endure the assaults wrought by a system that requires exponential
growth to be maintained. The run of capitalism is nearly over. A more
sustainable economic system, based on horizontal rule, is being developed,
globally (e.g., the Icelandic model).

The vertical structure inherent to capitalism brings about the
self-perpetuating reign of an insular elite who choose to go the route of
empire and, by doing so, overreach and bring themselves down, but only
after much unnecessary suffering, exploitation and death--the calling card
and ground level criteria of imperium.

Yet, often within a declining empire, even as the quality of life grows
increasingly degraded for the majority of the populace, questioning
sacrosanct beliefs, such as, the myth that capitalism promotes societal
progress and personal advancement, by means of the possibility of upward
class migration, proves to be a difficult endeavor for many. The reason:
Even given the degraded nature of life as lived under late capitalism, the
act of taking stock of one's situation--beginning to question how one
arrived at one's present station in life--will engender anxiety, anger and
regret.

Apropos to the shame based Calvinism of the capitalist state: If I was
duped in a rigged game, what does that say about me? The narrative of
capitalism insists that if I work hard, applying savvy and diligence, at
fulfilling my aspirations then I would, at some point, arrive in the
rarified realm of life's winners.

But if success proves elusive, then my flawed character must be the
problem--not the dishonest economic setup--and miasmic shame descends upon
me. Yet I can count on rightwing media to provide the type of provisional
solace proffered by demagogues i.e., imparting the reason that folks like
me can't get ahead is because scheming socialists have hijacked my parcel
of the American Dream and delivered it to the undeserving thereby
transforming my shame into displaced outrage.

And that must be the case; otherwise, it would behoove me to make the
painful admission that I have been conned…have co-signed the crimes
committed against me. Worse, I would be compelled to question all my
verities and beliefs--all the convictions I clutch, regarding, not only the
notions that I possess about myself and the methods I’ve adopted in
approaching life, but also, the social structure that influenced my
character.

Imagine: If you had to re-imagine your life. Imagine, how the act would
unnerve your loved ones, threaten friendships, even endanger your
livelihood.

What an unnerving task that would prove to be…an ordeal certain to deliver
heart-shaking anxiety, devastating regret and nettling dread directly into
the besieged sanctuary of what is suppose to be the inviolable precincts of
my comfort zone.

“At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the
face.” --Albert Camus

Accordingly, I might turn to Fox News and other well-rewarded, professional
dissemblers of the political right, imploring them to dissolve my doubts
and dread. To escort and ensconce my troubled form back into my comfort
zone by telling me the problem is not the iron boot of the corporate state
upon my neck; rather, my oppression stems from the barefoot hippie lefties
of OWS "who need a bath and a job"; it is their odious presence in our
lives that has subdued my happy capitalist destiny by the pernicious act of
laying down an effluvia (more demobilizing than pepper spray) of patchouli
musk and has caused capitalism itself to weaken into an enervated swoon.

Yes, this has to be the case: The cause of my oppression. Those
America-hating Occupy Wall Street hippies are actually the hidden hand that
controls the global order and who possess a craven desire to smelt down the
gleaming steel of the humming engines of U.S. capitalism into creepy,
Burning Man statuary, who want to hold 24/7 Nuremberg-style rallies in the
form of annoying drum circles.

In reality, it is those dirty hippies who are actually "The Man." Withal,
hippies crashed the global economy and pinned the blame on the selfless
souls who ply their benign trade on Wall Street.

Now, you know why conservatives harbor such animus towards hippies. Don't
claim that Fox News et al--those selfless souls--who only desire to protect
the glories of the present order, and who only have your best interest in
mind, didn't try to warn you.

"I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us
on, or by imbeciles who really mean it." --Mark Twain

Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York
City. He may be contacted at: phil [at] philrockstroh.com. Visit Phil's website
or at FaceBook.


--------8 of 8--------


*He's baaaack!*
                                         ----------------------
                                *NUCK  FEWT*
                         ----------------------


                  ----------------------
                                               Nuck Fewt
                                        and the hearse he came in on
                  ----------------------

                                PROOF THAT YOU CAN'T KEEP A BAD MAN DOWN
-------------------------------------------------
                          Shove Clove
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