They Will Rise Again From the Tundra

Perhaps I’ll have more later on the potential implications of the Obama Administration once I can wrap my head around all the potential boons and pitfalls suffice it to say that a recent issue of the Chicago Reader said it best:  don’t screw this up.

In the meantime, Newsweek has released a series of articles entitled Secrets of the 2008 Campaign, which is a kitschy title.  Nonetheless, the behind-the-scenes reportage is some of the best campaign journalism since Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72.

Newsweek is a largely mediocre source of news, but every now and then they put out a smashmouth piece of honest journalism.  This is one of those.

Tags: 2008 campaign, 2008 election, Barack Obama, Chicago, Chicago Reader, fear and loathing, Hunter S. Thompson, john mccain, Newsweek

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power. Benito Mussolini

The week begins tomorrow. Back to the office and the choked highways. In spite of the suffocating monotony of the Chicago suburbs and my tortuous daily commute, it’s too minuscule to care in light of recent events, personal and political alike. I’ll steer clear of the personal aspects to spare you the boredom suffice it to say I am wracked with a plethora of insecurities. It might be time to sell my genitals for scrap if I can find a good price.

But let’s take one bright spot to heart since there are few in which to bask. Sarah Palin was booed today (mostly) while dropping the ceremonial puck at a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game, and it’s a wonder she managed to keep that disingenuous, pasted-on smirk of hers in tact. What else would you expect from someone who suffers from rabid ambition? Someone who will win at any price? All else be damned. Her candidacy itself is a malignancy upon American politics that rivals only George W. Bush’s own cancerous contribution to the political landscape in this country. It is a contribution marked by an anti-intellectual fervor designed to elevate the role of folksy ignorance in national policy since it is, after all, folksy ignorance from constituents of both major parties that has largely allowed for the current state of affairs.

It allowed the federal government to sell us a war, an economic crisis, and the psychotic notion that re-instituting the good ol’ American concept of Manifest Destiny was a good idea. And make no mistake, we are in a power grab. America, China, and Russia are competing for control of the 21st century, and whichever nation comes out on top will likely inherit a worldwide catastrophe that will tax the global power structures in place. If climate change doesn’t do the trick then overpopulation will. If not overpopulation, a temporary dimming of the Sun. We are pushing the boundaries of sustainability at this point, ecologically, economically, and hell, probably even spiritually if the current trend toward unblinking individualism is any indication.

Ideas such as those outlined above have traditionally been passed off as irresponsible fringe insanity, and I won’t sit here and deny my own propensity toward excitability, but we are missing something big. That much should be obvious. The warning signs are everywhere that continuing at our current exponentially increasing levels of consumption and apathy will mean a dirt nap for the human race. Perhaps in the next one hundred years or perhaps in the next five hundred. We simply don’t have the necessary statistics to predict something of this magnitude, so it should come as no surprise if the End of Things comes as…well…a surprise. That is, if you haven’t been paying attention.

I suppose that’s just me on my high horse, and the point of this post, in all honesty, doesn’t stray too far from the point of my last one. If you want Change, the real kind, you have to vote for it. Just keep that Mussolini quote in mind the next time you cast a ballot for one of the two major parties because what we’ve been living under is the corporate system of fascism. This fascism has a different face than the one we’re probably used to in that it has been instilled under the auspices and knee-jerk invocation of democracy, but it is fascism nonetheless albeit with a few tweaks.

Gosh darn it.

Tags: 2008 campaign, 21st century, America, Benito Mussolini, Change, China, corporate system, corporations, End of the Fifth Sun, fascism, global catastrophe, hockey, overpopulation, personal insecurty, Philadelphia Flyers, politics, president, Russia, sarah palin, sun, vice president

Making John McCain the President is like giving Grandpa the remote control to the VCR. Brian Milsap

I think that’s a damn good quote.  It’s catchy and true, and I’m friends with the man who said it.  All good reasons that it’s been stuck in my head for a week or two.

There is a sad lining to these words, though, because the truth is that neither Obama nor McCain have the slightest idea how to fix this economy.  They can debate about foreign policy all they want.  Those decisions will be made by nameless white men behind a massive smokescreen that, as far as I can tell, has been hiding this country’s policy rats since the establishment of the FBI.  And it will work the same way with the economy.

The president is and always has been an overstated role in the government.  Anyone who’s taken a high school level government class knows that much, and all the empty promises rocketing out of both candidates” mouths will fall upon barren soil.  Every.  Single.  One.  The Commander in Chief is nothing more than a glorified notary public–an executive pen wielder and patsy for those who make the real decisions.  Obama might not realize this now, still drunk on his rockstar status, though it has been significantly eroded since this crazy horseshit merry-go-round started almost two years ago, but he is going to be a shill when he takes office.  The special interests, Democratic party heavies, and a host of bitter rivals on Capitol Hill will make sure of that.  Hell. Tony Rezko might even make a few calls from his prison cell (READ: Caribbean resort) just to make sure all is going according to plan.

And it will be.

Sure.  He doesn’t know the first thing about the economy.  Neither does John McCain.  But with all the pitfalls that stand in the way of his [Obama's] success, there isn’t a whole lot to worry about, especially not since the Dow’s staggering losses just before the markets closed today.  The stock market has lost almost 40% of its value in one year, and most of us, I think, should feel that we’re closing in on the bottom.  It can’t get much worse.  The only things left to lose are our jobs.

Perhaps I’m overstating the severity of the situation, but I can’t help feeling that this is the necessary medicine for years of adherence to free market capitalism, which really means very simply that a lack of oversight and general ignorance on the part of everyday Americans will allow moneymen and executives on Wall Street to plunder the piggy bank on a national scale and bring about a dangerous, destabilizing misappropriation of wealth.  Trickle down economics has failed.  Once and for all.  Let us never consider it again.

What really and truly confuses me, though, is what people hear from Barack Obama that sounds much different from the rest of the politicians.  His policies certainly weren’t much different from Hillary Clinton’s, and anyone who watched even one of those lame, free-for-all Democratic primary debates knows that Obama edged her out solely on the basis of likability.  But seriously.  I wouldn’t be railing on Obama if he hadn’t sold himself as the New Hope, the man with spare Change in his pocket.  He could have either surprised me by following through on his word, or he could have spared me the letdown.  Then again, I was foolish to have the small modicum of hope that I did when this whole thing started out.

In the last month, I’ve heard negative campaigning, political attack ads, and numerous vagaries meant to parry inconvenient lines of questioning.  I’ve heard it from both candidates, and the election is now as mundane as any I’ve seen.  Same.  Old.  Shit.

And it makes me wonder—yes, we’re coming upon my hidden gist here–why people are so reticent to support a third-party or independent candidate.  There is the argument that you’re throwing a vote away, right into the river or Lake Michigan if you’re from Chicago.  What if, though, people voted for the candidate they truly wanted—the one that hits all the right points and tickles all those fuzzy places inside, whatever they may be and whichever way they might lean.  You’d have at least four major candidates, and truth is the only reason we don’t is that the whole “throwing your vote away” hogwash re-instills the impossibility.

It works just like our current economic crisis.  People panic, and they’re afraid.  They sell their stocks and make a bad situation worse.  Except this time, we’re not selling our stocks.  We’re selling off (cheaply) our free will and our power to make our own decisions.  We’ve let ourselves be pigeonholed into the D’s and R’s that appear next to our politicians’ names, and we are paying for it every single day.

That’s why the Iraq War happened.  It’s why the stock market crashed today.  It’s why we feel helpless and complain that our voices are not heard in our state and national capitals.  It’s because we don’t hold anyone accountable for what they do.  We just bitch and moan while they do it, and the biggest change most of us ever think to make is switching from D to R or vice versa as if it would do any good.

Tags: 2008 campaign, America, Barack Obama, Change, compaign, distribution of wealth, Dow Jones Industrial Average, economic crisis, economics, election 2008, Hillary Clinton, independent candidates, john mccain, mortgages, national and state politics, politics, Ronald Reagan, sarah palin, third-party candidates, trickle down economics, United States, Wall Sreet, Washington, White House

I was going to spout out what was likely to be some tangential, disorganized rant about the perception of the middle/lower classes among politicians, most notably our presidential candidates.  While I didn’t actually hear Sarah Palin’s “Joe Six-Pack” remark, I think the following article hits the nail on the head, for the most part:  http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/10/hey-there-joe-s.html.

We’ll see if I’ve got the stamina for another post today, but I’m going to try and spit something out about the election choices and third parties.  No promises, but to the two people who ever find time to amble by here, stay tuned.

Tags: 2008 campaign, election, joe six-pack, lower class, middle class, november 4, politicians, politics, prejudice, sarah palin, struggles

January 26, 1925 - September 26, 2008

I just deleted everything I wrote about Paul Newman.  It was the dumb, silly conjecture of a saddened fan and admirer of Newman’s work, and in retrospect, I’m ashamed I ever wrote it.

I can only say at this point that I admired Newman above his contemporaries, even (and especially) Marlon Brando, whose hubris and egomania clouded his abilities as an actor (SEE: Apocalypse Now).  And though Robert Redford is up there on my list of favorites, no one did it quite like Paul Newman.  He was and is irreplaceable as an actor and film star.  One needs only see four films to reaffirm this notion, and yes, they are the big ones—the films everyone knows or should if they don’t: Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hustler, and The Sting.  The lexicon is larger, but if you want to hit the cornerstones, go for these.

So Paul Newman has left us now for the Happy Hunting Grounds.  Decent until the end, he donated his entire estate ($120 million) to charity during his final ailing months and then passed on.  The final act or some other cliche, but at least we are left with Fast Eddie Felson and Butch Cassidy and all the others.  They’re still around to hold us over.

I don’t care if it rains or freezes
As long as I’ve got my plastic Jesus
Sittin’ on the dashboard of my car

Comes in colors pink and pleasant
It glows in the dark ’cause it’s iridescent
Take it with you when you travel far

So get yourself a sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestones, sittin’ on a
Pedestal of abalone shells

Drivin’ ninety, I ain’t scary
‘Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assuring me that I won’t go to Hell

Tags: actors, Butch Cassidy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, death, Fast Eddie Felson, Marlon Brando, movies, obituary, Paul Newman, Plastic Jesus, Robert Redford, The Hustler, The Sting

Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it. Hunter S. Thompson

A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans. Hopi Prophecy

Things are looking gloomy as we rocket toward the end of the first decade in our new century, a fouler and more hopeless one than the last.  An adherence to all the flawed -isms in the world has finally done us in, and if we cannot universally accept concepts like the possibility of human-accelerated global warming or the partial validity of evolutionary theory as posited by Charles Darwin, how the fuck are we going to fix ambiguous nightmares like the global economy or national hubris?  If science—flawed and worthy of healthy skepticism as it is—will not be regarded even in passing, how to remedy any of our ills?

The track goes one way.  The train can only slow down or speed up, but sooner or later, it’s going to run into a free fall.  Then come the screams.

Some nasty, little bug is telling me this is the Big Darkness Thompson was talking about or the end of the Fifth Sun, and at this point, we don’t need world leaders or politicians or great luminaries to cure this festering ulcer of a society.  What we need is a witchdoctor.

And why not?

Nothing has worked so far, and the primary reason is that most good, peace-loving people live in accordance with their beliefs that war is needless and that there are better ways to spend our time than in pursuit of material acquisition while underhanded, greedy rats plunder natural and financial resources and shit their ruin onto the meek.  Our current economic crisis is a perfect example of this dichotomy besides being a symptom of the rampant economic ignorance this country exhibits on all levels.  We are all to blame.

If the suits on Wall Street are allowed to make $10 million in severance pay after running an international conglomerate into the ground, it is our fault.  If we’ve adhered foolishly to the tenets of Pure Capitalism while complaining about our manufacturing jobs continually being shipped overseas for cheap labor, we’ve been too dumb and foolish to realize that Capitalism in its current form has been the cause.  When you play it by the book, you’ll get the end result.  When you play for the bottom line, you eventually fail.

But take it from Warren Buffet or someone who is closer in approximation to the truth than I am.  Most of my theories are based on vaguely proportioned scraps of information gleaned from the hourly literatures or concocted purely out of fantasy and seemingly hopeless idiosyncrasy.  But trust me.  From where I’m standing, it’s the rest of the world that appears insane.

This ramble isn’t just about the economy.  How could it be?  Humans have suffered the sociopathy of the wealthy elite since ancient Sumeria with surprising resilience and apathy.  We could never hope to extract so intrinsic a characteristic from the human disposition.  It’s the willingness to pass the burden that perpetuates much of what is going on in the world today.

Optimistic believers in the end of the Fifth Sun—Mayans, Aztecs, and Hopis, among others—that will supposedly occur on December 21, 2012 purport an impending Great Transformation resulting in the transformation of our DNA into a genetic blueprint for meta-humans, a higher form of man/woman in direct contact with nature and the mysterious cosmic forces that link the ends of our universe.  It’s a nice thought, and unless proponents of renewable energy and so-called Green Solutions end up winning out over oil-mongers and warlords, I think I’ll take up the pessimistic side of the coin—the side that predicts cataclysm and an end to this crippled experiment that failed only because it wanted to.

NASA’s recent findings indicate that the Sun’s solar wind stream and density are at their lowest levels since the advent of constant observance in the 1950s.  These levels have been steadily decreasing since the mid-1990s, which gives some credence to the Fifth Sun, or at the very least makes the coincidence eerie and disconcerting.

It doesn’t help that the Sun in general has been acting strangely of late, seemingly refusing to begin Solar Cycle 24 and pump out reverse-polarity sunspots.  There have been one or two, but all in all, most scientists agree, the Sun’s taking its sweet fucking time heading into the next solar maximum.  This, too, has been a fixation of apocalypse nuts like myself since the last time the Sun went into near dormancy (magnetically), we had what is referred to as the Maunder Minimum.  Essentially, the Sun didn’t produce sunspots, and the Earth, consequently, cooled significantly into a Little Ice Age.

Mix that news in with the continued uplift at the Yellowstone caldera, rampant religious intolerance (from all sides), and a continued readiness to die in the name of flags, and the future isn’t looking too bright for humanity.  Hell.  I’m sure I’m forgetting some of the potential perils, but the whole point of this thing was to stay more or less on topic.

Having failed, I cease and desist.  Little else to do during these bouts of planetary madness.

Tags: 2012, apocalypse, astronomy, Aztecs, Big Darkness, economy, End of the Fifth Sun, geology, Hopi, Hunter S. Thompson, Maunder Minimum, Mayans, NASA, politics, sun, Wall Street, Warren Buffet, Yellowstone volcano

If you read my article “Welcome, Sarah Palin and the Agents of Change”, you all know how I feel about John McCain’s running mate, but don’t take my half-assed rambling too seriously.  Take it from someone who knows Sarah Palin.

If you haven’t stumbled upon it already, I highly recommend everyone read the following article:  http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341

Enjoy, kids.

Tags: 2008 election, campaign, john mccain, republican, sarah palin, vice president

The boy’s weird, Channon. You should trade him in. Or sell him for salvage. Spider Jerusalem

I awoke in a pissy mood today, and that sentiment has only been augmented since I rambled by WritingUp to pull down something like 250-pages worth of my blogs before the site went on a permanent fritz. Well, looks like I missed the boat and those lurid, depressive ramblings will be lost forever, or at least until I am able to recover what I can from the bowels of Google’s HTML cache, which is a task I am not overly anxious to undertake, nor am I expecting it to yield much in the way of positive returns. If I can salvage some of the more pertinent inanities I spewed forth in those tumultuous and confused times, the whole thing might be worth the effort. Barely.

I am getting what I deserved, though. Faith in the Electronic Wilderness is usually misplaced and will, more often than not, bring about serious disappointment.

But here I am, hunkered down in this tasteless office with a film of dampness clinging desperately to my skin and the constant hum of Interstate 88 just outside my window. I can smell death as I often can on days like today, and I am usually right. About twenty minutes ago, I felt compelled to take a stroll into the mud around the side of my building despite the rain and my ambivalence at tackling mortality head-on when vibrations are sinister enough. There it was. A dead bird being picked at by a lonely ant.

I muttered words of rest and good will. Few things sadden me like the sight of a bird rendered flightless by injury or death with those large, lidless marbles that have faded into eternal blindness. It would seem to me that even the sky turns to dust.

I could list the reasons that I am in this funk, but what good would it do? My electronic ravings have gotten me in trouble before, and I have no doubt that things will turn out much the same if I am not careful. Besides, my nerves are jangled, and my thoughts are coming out stilted and in fragments. My mind is not in any condition to undergo serious soul searching at the moment, and pumping out yet another topographical analysis of my psyche would prove not only fruitless but ill-conceived in a way that might eventually necessitate a few days spent off the map somewhere, dressed in a loin cloth, sucking down booze, and filling my synapses with psilocybin.

Ah, yes.  Wrestling grizzly bears. Skinning wolverines. Getting in touch with those primal instincts we have been bred and conditioned to deny for civility’s sake. Everyone needs to hit the reset button every once in a while to stay healthy.

But what the fuck am I talking about? Really?

It is easy to chalk this thing up to petty chronic whining, and yes, perhaps in memory of those old blogs that have been devoured by the Internet, I am shooting up one last Meandering Bitchfest in the style of old. And so be it. There is little reason to avoid doing so if it helps kill a little time and get these rusted-out gears of mine to start grinding again. The fucking bastards have refused to move for a few days now, and I’m getting sick of the bad reflexes and inability to defend myself against spiritual fascists.

…and that is the signal to end this thing off. No need to spout out irresponsible accusations and be labeled an intolerant goon.

I wouldn’t be able to deny it, and I have a hard enough time pretending to be compassionate as it is.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  This originally appeared on June 6, 2007  on my TBlog page (http://evilmammoth.tblog.com/), but in light of my current annoyance with the office, I am reposting it here for your ridicule and amusement.

Tags: birds, bitching, blogging, death, disappointment, electronic wilderness, google, grizzly bears, moaning, office, rot, whining, wolverines, writing

It all happened very suddenly.  The stampede that burst through the front door would not be stopped for any reason, fueled by booze and birthday cheer, marinated in songs from an acoustic guitar commandeered against my will.

Who am I to break up a good party, though?  It is easy enough to fall back to my usual post in the corner and keep watch over the peripheral gloom while hiding from the madness on the porch.

But every now and then, the commotion spills indoors and bustles around me as I sit typing away on the couch content in my solitude, wishing audience with no one and none to request it with me.  These are distant hopes, however, and if my guts can be held to their premonitions, I can expect to be wrestled from my perch before long and whisked into the din.  Such are the hazards of being a predominantly sober person in a world carved by heavy drinkers.

This is not to say I don’t enjoy many of them or count some among my close friends (though I am only passing acquaintances with most of the current crop)—morality has long represented little more than a comedic foil to sensibility in my mind—but there are certain pitfalls when all escape routes have been blocked off and one is forced to mingle in the stench of cheap beer.  So, for now, and because I’ve aroused some contempt, the only thing to do is go on a mean drunk and chalk up a few regrets before waking up tomorrow to tender any necessary apologies.

Tags: alcohol, beer, cheer, contempt, drunk, festivities, gloom, insanity, madness, monkeys, morality, music, sociopathy

Welcome all.  Since I find myself mostly unable to crank out materials worthy of the “article” or “review” designation–something worth throwing into the official website sections, I’ve decided to return to my roots and do this damnable blogging thing again.

The intended effect is to provide more frequent content associated with the website without tainting our little corner of the Internet.

With a bit of luck, this will work out.  A few caveats first:

- I created this blog using WordPress, and since I possess only a serviceable understanding of CSS (and a dismal one of PHP), I’m not 100% confident that all elements of the blog will run without a hitch just yet.  Please report any problems you see to me at evilmammoth@slothjockey.com so I can try and fix them.

- I don’t know what happens when you folks register.  Try it, and let me know.

- Any other questions or concerns may be sent my way.
Ok.  That should cover it.

Thanks to all.  I think the site’s been looking good for what it is recently, and we are always looking for new submissions.

Best,
EM

Tags: blog, comments, hello, inauguration, libel, sloth jockey, suggestions