Swans' Songs

By John Ballard

In Death of the Liberal Class Chris Hedges mentions Julien Benda, a name new to me, in a description of Noam Chomsky, so I looked it up. Plowing through various search results I came across Swans Commentary, a comfortable nest of like-minded radicals who make me feel right at home.  This year-end cartoon and summary of 2010 by Jan Baughman appears at the home page.

A brief narrative follows with numerous links, many looping back to various past posts at Swans.

The stage of the New Year was set in January 2010 when the Supreme Court silenced We the People's voices by granting free speech rights to the political purchasing power of corporations in a case brought forth by (though not made up of) Citizens United. From then on, change we once believed in morphed into more of the same, and worse. Health care reform was negotiated and whittled away into "reforms" that are still years away from being realized -- if they survive the myriad lawsuits and the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives -- and universal health care (forget a single-payer system) saw not the light of day in the shadow of the towering insurance companies poised to enlarge their already obscene profits under a mandatory insurance requirement. On the home front, first-quarter statistics revealed a 35% increase in foreclosures from Q1 2009 -- only later in the year would banks' robo-signing practices designed to speed up the pace be disclosed.

In May, the inevitable but regrettable retirement of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens led to the appointment of Elena Kagan; the jury is still out on whether she will fill his shoes. The following month General Stanley McChrystal had a lapse in judgment when he openly criticized the Obama administration in a Rolling Stone interview, after which he was swiftly disappeared as the war leader in Afghanistan and replaced by David Petraeus, commander of the oh-so-successful Iraq War.

Etcetera, to year's end.
Be sure to follow the links for buried treasures.

As with previous wars, the media is kept at bay and unable to document the victims, whether soldiers returning from Iraq in coffins or oil-soaked pelicans washing up on shore, and the volatile, untested chemicals used in battle are deemed harmless. Protective gear is inadequate -- or in this war's case, forbidden. BP controls the story with its "beyond petroleum" propaganda, white-washed photos of their efforts to mitigate the carnage, and revisionist tallies of the body counts and the number barrels flowing into the ocean every day.

Based on BP's response to the unfolding environmental disaster, they are more interested in capturing the hemorrhaging black-gold profits than protecting this war's collateral damage: the white-sand beaches, endangered wildlife and human life, and the Gulf Coast economy that is becoming a virtual dead zone, possibly for decades to come. We the people remain defenseless from the enemies that confront us so long as the politicians and captains of industry remain enmeshed in the war profits that sustain their interests, which have nothing to do with fish, pelicans, or citizens who make their livelihood from the natural resources that would otherwise coexist with the oil that rests beneath them.

Baughman on the BP Blowout

 

Take the size of houses in Washington D.C.'s suburbs like Potomac, MD. "The O'Neill Development Company, which has been building high-end houses here for three decades" used to build houses in the 80's that averaged 3,500 to 5,500 square feet. "By the early 90's, O'Neill was building houses with 4,500 to 6,500 square feet of space. Houses in the company's newest development range from 6,500 to 10,000 square feet." Bob and Wendy Banner and their two children live in an 8,500 square feet house there. "By the bigger-than-big standards of houses in the suburbs of Washington, the Banners are not living all that large, although their house does have six bedrooms, nine bathrooms, two home offices, a wine cellar, a media room and four 21-foot high 'Gone With the Wind' columns on the veranda. All for two adults and two children." The Banners have a household income of more than $500,000 a year. Says Mrs. Banner, 37, "We can afford it, so why not?" "If it doesn't make you house poor and if it gives you an oasis to come home to, why not?"

Why not, indeed? Your Life, Inc. at work...

Gilles d'Aymery, 2002

Strangely enough, one has yet to hear the Tea Partiers call for bringing the troops home, de-funding the Pentagon, and abolishing the military-industrial-congressional complex. But they certainly are in favor of abolishing quite a few institutions and social programs. From the Fed to the Internal Revenue Service and the income (and estate) tax, from unemployment benefits to Social Security and Medicare, from the Department of Education to the EPA, from public schools to OSHA, from any and all regulations to managed health care, from welfare to food stamps, and on and on till the country finds its way back to the eighteenth century or a new Age of Rand.

Gilles d'Aymery, September 2010

I ask again, What's Left For Progressives? Perhaps it will take the election of Sarah Palin as president to mobilize the progressive movement to take a strong and serious stance, learn from the effectiveness of the Tea Party, and not resort to their blind support of the Democrats in the "now is not the time" and lesser-evil rhetoric. So much is at stake in these reactionary times, and it would be nice to think that we can learn more from history and not simply repeat it. And repeat it. And repeat it. Plus �change... Jerry Brown proved that elections can still be won on principles and not simply bought by millionaires. The time is past due to start voting on those principles, and stop blindly supporting the two-party system that is working against them. A progressive movement cannot be built as long as we don't support progressive candidates.

Baughman, a few weeks ago