I've never seen regular people so angry about politics or, for that matter, a forthcoming national election. Sheer rage among ordinary Americans – acting like we'd better knock the Bushling and his fascist neo-con cadre out of the White House fast, or else – before he totally confiscates our freedoms, demolishes our jobs, defunds the government, ruins the environment, destroys this country and a few others, turns our allies against us, blunders into blowing up the whole world, goes for intergalactic domination but instead obliterates outer space and all life as we know it.
This was an awfully hectic – or was that hectically awful – week for the (dis)United States, politically speaking.
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While "rehabilitation" and "pacification" of Iraq continues somersaulting into the crapper, locally, as a consequence of trickle-down meanness, Philly's mayor just announced massive municipal budget cuts.
His targets: Instead of collecting outstanding millions of dollars owed in deadbeat property taxes, he plans closing recreation centers and public swimming pools, cutting back necessary city services like police protection and trash collection, slashing cultural funding including that mainstay, the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Doubtlessly, this urban dilemma will become a commonplace spectacle played and replayed across these beleaguered United States as federal military spending skyrockets – the old "Guns or Butter" conundrum.
Can't you just see the hideous, insidious Darwinian mindset at work on a national and local level, like noxious chemtrails against a cerulean sky: Why not just let the poor wither up and die? Certainly Bush-Cheney wouldn't mind. Heck, after they gut overtime, Social Security, Medicare – you name it – the only folks left will be those too rich and selfish to worry about the economic underclass.
Meanwhile, a voter registration team – part of a multi-million-dollar program called Americans Coming Together, spearheaded by billionaire George Soros – thronged posh downtown Rittenhouse Square last Thursday, seeking to enroll the legions of apathetic, indifferent or uncommitted non-voters.
Good move. That way we can't blame Ralph Nader for "losing the election" for the Democrats. Remember, the two major parties are still the corporatocracy, almost equally corrupt. A country this politically stagnant really needs a functioning third party to keep special interests in line.
Greens, anyone?
Right before dusk, there's an Earth Day candlelight vigil, a peaceful protest in the park, billed as a "family-friendly event, bring the kids, it's their future" – against "Bush administration policies endangering our water, air, land and health; protecting corporate interests over public interest; placing our kids and our communities at risk; and leaving a legacy of pollution, neglect, and abuse."
Then, late Friday afternoon, I attend a rally for Dennis Kucinich, congressman from Ohio and co-chair of the Democrats' Progressive Caucus, who would really make a fine president. Unlike Bush-lite – I mean, Kerry – pro-peace Kucinich has always consistently opposed the Bush-wah administration's illegal war in Iraq.
Moreover, Kucinich is the only presidential candidate who voted against the civil-liberties-decimating Patriot Act. A true populist, he speaks for the 45 million Americans without health insurance. Kucinich tells the enthusiastic crowd that while he knows he won't be the Democratic presidential nominee, his candidacy serves as a force to change his party's positions on various issues, humanize its platform, give voice to urgent citizen concerns and reform and revitalize democracy itself.
That's why he chose not to be a third-party candidate.
Too bad the mainstream media doesn't bother presenting Kucinich's sensible, well-conceived platform to the public. Nevertheless, the Clevelander's supporters remain dedicated, though nothing close to the manic Deaniacs. Still, a Kucinich spokesman claims Dennis rakes in $100,000 a week in campaign contributions via the Internet.
Other than that, I swear Kucinich's warm-up team could be a lethal secret weapon, even a WMD, which, if passed on to Cheney-Bush, would guarantee their certain loss of any election regardless of voting-machine fraud, judicial hijinks, or other nefarious forms of electoral hijacking they might be contemplating.
What America needs is to repudiate that Axis of Weevils infesting the White House and Pentagon. Listen to this enraged e-mail correspondent: "If you cannot see how runaway insanely megalomaniacally fascistic this Armageddon-obsessed 'government' is, I can't help you."
Hey, wake up, gang! I fear America's medicated millions – captive to the pharmaceutical industry's powerful and essential social control through Prozac, Zoloft, and their chemical sisters – indicate Huxley's "Brave New World" dystopia has literally arrived: There, there, take your Soma like good American citizens, forget about the emptiness of your pathetic little lives, turn your teevees on, and zone real reality out.
Terror-schmerror? It's heeeeere!