THINGS GONNA CHANGE

line of thinking

This morning I heard a song by John Lee Hooker accompanied by Carlos Santana that Lynn Worth put up on facebook. I don't know the title. It must have something to do with the words "things gonna change." That was about the only lyric in the song, things gonna change, over and over, one of those songs of just a few words repeated like Lou Reed's We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together. That's the words. Louie Louie. There are several songs of just a few words repeated over and over. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. When John Lee Hooker does it, it works.

What struck me about this particular song, was while he was singing it, of course, it rang an optimistic note of things gonna change for the better. I'm sitting here thinking, not necessarily. That there is and will be change goes without saying. He's speaking the hope of the black people, a kind of hope against hope. Hope that blues songs are sung about. I look at the change over the last 30 years and it's been a downhill change, a change from opening up to black people, giving them the hope of a chance in life during the 70s, then shut it down in the 80s and throw away the key. I'm hearing John Lee say there's gonna be a change some day, and sure enough there will be, but not necessarily one to look to with hope. Yet there is that underlying hope for a time of a change toward lifting centuries of racist oppression and giving the black folks a chance to make it some way other than tv sports and entertainment. The foot is in the door. Change is coming. Change is happening.

Social change is always slow. Recalling the "Sixties" where political naivete ran wild among college students who were politically active. I was there pulling for change for the better, annoyed by the slow process of social change, then realizing we can't get out of the war just because a protest group says Get Out Now. I learned then that protesting, which amounts to getting television news mention, was as fraudulent as the government side that tells us only lies. Recalling 1968 the March on Washington opposing Vietnam War, one side operating from naivete, the other from anti-democratic cynicism. That was when I learned the press is not even remotely independent. Top dog in government at lunch with top dog in news corporation tells news man what he wants told. News man gets on cell phone to the next one down the hierarchical ladder to tell him what the news will be. He spreads it down to the reporters who go to an event and report something that did not happen.

When I hear "things gonna change," I don't get too excited any more. Now that we have a black president who talks like he wants to make changes for the better for black people, he has an entire wing of our government absolutely opposed to anything that might benefit someone black. Dealing with Social Services after age 65 brings back what black folks were chanting in the 60s, "Givin me the run-around." I think it every time I have a dealing. I've had in my mind a painting for several years that I need to do for my own therapy. It's a flag, full frame, lots of dripping paint, and written on the flag in black spray can, Kill the poor. It's what we do in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Africa, and when the troops come home, the poor better look out at home. When there are no wars out there, there is always potential for war at home. Gingrich and Rove are busy stoking the flames of political division by propaganda thru Limbaugh, Palin, Fox News, Glen Beck, Cheney, Alice's Tea Party, Congress, Senate and the corporate press, which includes tv and radio, not just the papers.

There's gonna be change all right. The Supremes made it clear to us a decade ago that democracy is not in our future. They also made it clear to us less than a year ago that the Fortune 100 rules absolutely, we the people have no recourse, the Constitution is an antiquated document irrelevant to a police state. This isn't conjecture about the future. It's how things went in the recent past that determine the nature of our future. What I see makes me glad I don't have a lot of years left. If I become subject to a hit for saying this, that's ok, too. A major change I've seen in my lifetime is that life has become cheap. From the time before television, when the people around me believed life had value, to now is a major alteration. Life is so cheap now that when a missile takes out 20 people to get one, the 19 are dismissed as collateral damage. No big deal. Suckers in the wrong place, wrong time.

Then, after some years as police state, fascism dependably always implodes on itself, carried away by power over the edge into self-destruction. Change will come again. Maybe this time for the better. When will that be? A quarter century? Half century? Century? Maybe in American history of the future, this time will be seen as the time the American people willfully disposed of democracy as too inconvenient a system. Corporations are not democratic institutions. They are hierarchical; the CEO rules, the execs quake. The ones at the top take everything for themselves in their tenure. America has always been more about money than democracy, such that when we're faced with a choice, money or democracy, it doesn't even require thought. Mammon rules. I and others who see what I see have chosen to stay at home, move inward, concern self less with big social changes I can't do anything about, and wouldn't know what to do given the opportunity. I'd rather pay closer attention to my friends, leaving out the influence of paying attention to propaganda, the bogus News.

WHIPPING DEAD HORSES AGAIN

           found image

TarBaby woke me up early this morning. I meant to get up early, but not that early, so I went back to sleep after feeding him and woke about when I wanted to. I turned the radio on and it was Car Talk. Though one part of my mind knew it was Saturday, the part that turned the radio on expected to hear the news, like M-F. I like Car Talk, it's just that it threw me to hear them talking. Expectation again. Unconscious expectation. I've been tired of expectation for several years, but it lingers. It runs deep.

I wondered how I'd do about getting up in the morning after the time spent with Jr. My natural inclination seems to be awake all night, get a lot done and sleep during the day. Night shift. But there is too much going on during the day I need to attend to, bank, post office, drugstore, Dr appointment, Farmers Hardware, Dollar General, lunch with a friend, this and that. Every morning at Jr's I woke early by my standard. No reason to stay up late, so I evolved going to sleep early and getting up early. The earlier I get up, the more daylight hours I have in the day. I like daylight for whatever project I'm working on. Rising early with coffee and a book in the first hour isn't bad.

The news came on when Car Talk was over, 2 really intelligent brothers with quick, retentive minds, good educations, brilliant guys who came up with a comedy routine that's informative as well. Suddenly, from good humor guys with brilliant minds to the news, reminders of the Jane's Addiction song of around 1990, Idiots Rule. I remembered talking with my friend Jim Winfield three days ago after he returned from a 3month trip to SE Asia. He asked if I think this country can come to terms with its overwhelming issues and remain whole, a Democracy, or at least as much a Democracy as can be. My answer without hesitation was, "No. Not without divine intervention."

Evidently half of the population thought having an intelligent man in the White House might be a good breather after Bozo the Clown in the tradition of Ronald McDonald. I ask myself if we've had any intelligent presidents in my lifetime. The names that came to mind were Carter, a degree in nuclear physics, Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, Obama, Harvard Law School. These are brilliant minds. They are people with ethical standards too, at least a degree of altruism, at least some concern for the multitude instead of disdain. Every one was a good mind with a good ethical foundation, and every one of them was rendered powerless and defeated by ignorance. The great defeat delivered into Obama's lap by the Supremes 5 of unlimited corporate spending on elections came out of intelligence missing ethics, civility, concern for the multitude. I see it a venal attitude toward the multitude, which I and you are digits in.

I wondered on and off for years how it is that somebody with a good education, who did well in school, has a quick mind, high IQ, can be found out a moron ethically. I don't mean like having mistresses, I mean like being on the take from lobbyists who represent corporations that pay to have legislation work for them, against us. By now, the corporate take over of our government is secure. All the laws are in place. Good bye American people. Get a job. If you can find one. Hey, sweatshop pay is better than no pay, right? The American government is not here for its people anymore, if it ever was, but for their money.

When I look as far into it as I can see, I come back seeing its roots in the American disdain for education that is American tradition from beginning to present. It's not just American. It's Russian, French, Welch, anyplace inhabited by humans. Though Obama may be held powerless politically by the forces of ignorance, the John Wayne brigade, or John Birch, same difference, he has already inspired a generation of black school kids to value education. It can't help all, but it will be an assist to many. A light of hope where there was none. One step at a time.

A pattern I've seen in the last half century of awareness of the news, ignorance trumps intelligence over and over. Yesterday I saw the movie, Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift. The young American guy's dad told him a Japanese saying, The nail that sticks up gets hammered. That is a perfect description of American politics. Somebody rises above the rest in intelligence gets slapped down. Like the old American saying of don't get above your raisin. It's a good philosophy for humility, but not necessarily for education or career.

Sarah Palin's appeal is the bimbo Barbie dumb blond. She's not blond yet, but I'll bet she'd bleach it for Rupert Murdoch. After the Jokers Reagan, BushI, BushII, McCain, I wonder what happened with Dan Quayle. He was rejected for being an incurable air head. But I don't believe that's why. I believe it's because he was a Ken doll. Barbie's real mate is GI Joe. There was no effort by the American public to help Al Gore when it was so obvious a coup by anti-Democracy forces was taking place; W's billing was a GI Joe doll. Even little girls don't like the Ken doll very much.

This is a brief of what I've learned in the course of my adult life from paying cursory attention to politics, more the observer than the participant. I always vote, because I see it a vote for Democracy every time. In the act of voting I say, I want Democracy. No one can have confidence in voting after the Supreme 5 gave power to the loser. They don't care. It's a sham any way you look at it. It's called playing the game. The American people are now known and have been known for some several years to have short attention spans, which gets used against us continually in law making. By this time in my life I've come to the place where it means no more to me than a serial soap opera for men where they advertise soap for shaving with a new episode every day. I lost any hope where politics was concerned when I was 26. Since then, all I've seen, in a nutshell, is idiots rule. Thank you, Perry Farrell. You said it loud, you said it proud.