By Vi Ransel

5/13/08

Hope
is the phosphorescent light
seen moving over the grave
of America at night

caused by
the combustion of gasses
arising from the corpse,
the rotting organic matter

that once upon a time
was called the American Dream,

in fact,
a stench-covering smokescreen
to occlude the imperious motives
of a self-anointed Manifest Destiny

paraded
as freedom and democracy
(as long as you do it our way)
to enrich a predatory “aristocracy”

which plunders and rapes the planet
since true democracy is actually anathema
to the craven, crony capitalists
using the foul light of the macabre corpse candle
to enable them in their damnable, gluttonous feed.

Poet and part-time actor Viola Ransel is a Senior Contributing Editor with CJO.

Bill Wilson (more commonly known as Bill W.) was co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, the group that originated the Twelve Steps….

By Carolyn Baker

5/11/08

Simulposted with Speaking Truth to Power

“The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.”

–H.G. Wells, 1946

I recently received an email from a reader, frustrated with my insistence on holding a vision of what is possible alongside the dismal, inevitable current realities of civilization’s collapse. Admonishing me to bear in mind America’s Oprah and NASCAR world view and therefore abdicate any sense of optimism I might have, this reader accused me of suggesting that we should 12 Step our way through Armageddon. Rather than being offended, however, I was overcome with gratitude for this reader’s image, frustrated with me as he may be, because in spite of the regular “wordsmithing” that I do as a writer, I always feel a sense of relief and validation when someone else gives words that I may not yet have for what I’ve been thinking, feeling, or doing.

Continue Reading »

By Pablo Ouziel

5/11/08

In the chaotic “west” it is often difficult to gain the attention of the public, but one must be committed to trying due to the severity of our current existential crisis. We are psychotic as a society; we have become so dumb and manipulable that we are truly being led towards digging our own grave and smiling while working. We cannot go on like this. We cannot pretend that we are a decent society with good intentions any longer. We are not! The “west” as a civilization is corrupt and decrepit. “We” are not the bearers of morality in the eyes of the “other” peoples. We are not an exemplary civilization which people admire and adulate. We are too arrogant and ignorant to realize that we are seen by the “others” like the enemy, because “we” are.

As a collective of people, the “west” believes itself to be the holder of the truth, the one which understands what is good for the world. This “west” doesn’t exist, however; it is a figment of our imagination, a division which has been indoctrinated to make us feel we are superior. Through “our” education systems, “our” media, “our” governments, “our” corporations, “our” art. We are so indoctrinated in industrialized information societies, that we regurgitate to each other the propaganda which is fed to us on a daily basis. This situation must change, because we are collapsing and it can only be reversed by the collective strength of the whole population. Otherwise we will be bombed out of our homes by those we so love to call terrorists. They are terrorists, but terror is what “we” are bringing to their lands and their homes, and that is why they are terrorizing “us”.

Continue Reading »

By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

MAY 8, 2008

So the Republican Right managed to go through over 30,000 recorded minutes of the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. They came up with a few minutes of supposedly outrageous statements by him that they draped around a few disembodied remarks by Sen. Barack Obama. They then proceeded to string together one of the most watched non-pornographic cinema loops of all time. (My, some Republican operatives do have a lot of time on their hands, don’t they?) How so “most-watched?” Because first, the Fox “News” Channel, as one might expect, has been playing and will play it endlessly, at all hours of the day and night. More recently, and less expectedly, MSNBC, with even Keith Olbermann falling into the carefully set total-distraction trap, has piled on in the piling on. During the week of April 28, for example, although I must confess I certainly didn’t watch every minute, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski seemed hardly to be able to find time for anything else other than the weather in their daily three hour “Morning Joe” romp.

Sen. Obama, for once a Democrat who does not spend all, or even most, of his time on defense, originally used the occasion to make a speech on race-relations and their history in this country. It was so magnificent, right up there with the FDR “nothing to fear but fear itself” (how relevant is that one now?) and “Four Freedoms” speeches, and JFK’s religious freedom speech, that even such personages as Reagan hagiographer and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and education hard-rightist Abigail Thernstrom acknowledged its greatness.

Continue Reading »

“What this means is that corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have… .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

–Derrick Jensen

By Jason Miller

5/9/08

(Perhaps my profane words will offend, but in light of the fact that we are in a race to eradicate capitalism before it renders the Earth uninhabitable, I don’t give a fuck).

Yes. It’s another anti-capitalist rant by Jason Miller. Big surprise! I’m the associate editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online, the anti-capitalist tool. We’re not big fans of free market ideology and its tacit socioeconomic license to rape, pillage and plunder.

Here’s a novel idea—if you don’t like my diatribes against the predominatingly rotten-to the-core system that ensures the most despicable human beings wield the most power, don’t read them! And you relentless “keepers of the faith,” dazzle us with more of your intellectually dishonest arguments supporting capitalism. I’m quite familiar with the mental gymnastics you do to buttress a heinous system that rationalizes and “legitimizes” your greed, ruthlessness, selfishness, speciesism, hyper-individualism, exploitative and abusive tendencies, and the wholesale commodification of the Earth and its sentient inhabitants. It is obvious to all but the most self-deluded that capitalism is destroying the planet and us. So go ahead and jerk us off with your inane apologetics “validating” capitalism. And then go fuck yourselves.

Continue Reading »

“It’s why I fear McCain will probably win the election next year. His snarky rictus of a smile, his near pyschotic glare and his rigid and robotic body movements all reflect the collective malaise of the nation.”

NOTE: This is part of a dialog between our VOXPOP editors John Steppling and Guy Zimmerman. For the complete discussion please visit VOXPOP, which, while focusing on the arts, theater, cinema and politics, is also part of Cyrano’s Journal. 

By John Steppling

5/7/08

I think [Guy] that your points about Iron Man are right, and it’s worth taking note, again, of the Orientalism implicit in these projects. Simply by virtue of having a colonial occupation in Afghanistan presented in a completely de-contextualized way, one creates the knee-jerk reactions about Islam and terrorism that the FOX news channel likes to peddle. The mysterious east has always been presented in the west as timeless and mysterious –and the motives of its people indecipherable and shrouded in veils of ancient tribal rights the progressive west can’t (and doesn’t want to) fathom.

The terrorists in this film are ALL dirty and bearded and ruthless — and somehow made to seem sadistic even while being blowtorched by Bob Downey. The western soldiers are smiling and clean and friendly — and the deaths of the US soldiers is awash in genuine suffering and pain, while the death of the *terrorists* (sic) is simply there to demonstrate how cool Downey’s newest weapons are.

Continue Reading »

MEXICO CITY — This prostitute, her identity unknown, was killed in a hotel, 1999.

By Suki Falconberg

5/6/08

Over the last few months, I have seen a number of articles in the Las Vegas press that fill me with sadness. The first by local journalist Kristen Peterson is called “Glamour Girls of the Streets” (Las Vegas Sun, 4 Dec. 2007) and recounts how photojournalist Jonnie Andersen heads out to take pictures of Las Vegas street prostitutes. According to Peterson, “The girls in Jonnie Andersen’s recent photos emit joy, dignity, sensuality and strength.”

Among other things, Andersen dressed the girls up in wedding dresses for the photos.
Peterson writes: “At first, Andersen says, the pimps (or ‘boyfriends’) wouldn’t let her near the women, fearing she’d talk them out of the lifestyle or that the photos would boost their confidence.”

Andersen says she “saw universal similarities between these women and everyone else.” The basis for this claim, writes Peterson, is that “the models are presented as humans and not as stereotyped or glamorized drug addicts working the street.”

Continue Reading »

“Both political parties are good-to-go with waging the current radioactive wars - using Depleted and non-Depleted Uranium both - upon dying nations while outraged Americans in an ever-sinking economy devoted to wars everlasting lose, first, their vacations, then eventually their jobs, their homes, their medical coverage, and their ability to put wholesome, non-genetically modified, non-irradiated food on their dinner tables.”

Dateline: May 3, 2008

Interview with “Building A New World Conference” Organizer, Garda Ghista By Cathy Garger

To anyone who reads anything more than whatever phony “news” the Associated Press puts out, it will certainly come as no surprise that the US political system has failed its own citizens and perpetrated irreparable harm and destruction throughout the world. US national elections have been rigged, the Constitution, civil rights, and human rights laws have, for all intents and purposes, been trashed and burned, while an increasingly brutal, militant Police State watches our every move while committing unthinkable crimes of injustice…primarily targeting those of darker skin, indigenous peoples, the poor, and Muslims. Continue Reading »

How Barack Obama fronted the most vicious predators on Wall St.

By Pam Martens

5/5/08

Simulposted with Speaking Truth to Power

Wall Street, known variously as a barren wasteland for diversity or the last plantation in America, has defied courts and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for decades in its failure to hire blacks as stockbrokers. Now it’s marshalling its money machine to elect a black man to the highest office in the land. Why isn’t the press curious about this?

Walk into any of the largest Wall Street brokerage firms today and you’ll see a self-portrait of upper management racism and sexism: women sitting at secretarial desks outside fancy offices occupied by predominantly white males. According to the EEOC as well as the recent racial discrimination class actions filed against UBS and Merrill Lynch, blacks make up between 1 per cent to 3.5 per cent of stockbrokers — this after 30 years of litigation, settlements and empty promises to do better by the largest Wall Street firms.

The first clue to an entrenched white male bastion seeking a black male occupant in the oval office (having placed only five blacks in the U.S. Senate in the last two centuries) appeared in February on a chart at the Center for Responsive Politics website. It was a list of the 20 top contributors to the Barack Obama campaign, and it looked like one of those comprehension tests where you match up things that go together and eliminate those that don’t. Of the 20 top contributors, I eliminated six that didn’t compute. I was now looking at a sight only slightly less frightening to democracy than a Diebold voting machine. It was a Wall Street cartel of financial firms, their registered lobbyists, and go-to law firms that have a death grip on our federal government.

Continue Reading »

by Jeffrey Kaplan

Published in the May/June 2008 issue of Orion magazine

PRIVATE CARS WERE RELATIVELY SCARCE in 1919 and horse-drawn conveyances were still common. In residential districts, electric streetlights had not yet replaced many of the old gaslights. And within the home, electricity remained largely a luxury item for the wealthy.

Just ten years later things looked very different. Cars dominated the streets and most urban homes had electric lights, electric flat irons, and vacuum cleaners. In upper-middle-class houses, washing machines, refrigerators, toasters, curling irons, percolators, heating pads, and popcorn poppers were becoming commonplace. And although the first commercial radio station didn’t begin broadcasting until 1920, the American public, with an adult population of about 122 million people, bought 4,438,000 radios in the year 1929 alone.

But despite the apparent tidal wave of new consumer goods and what appeared to be a healthy appetite for their consumption among the well-to-do, industrialists were worried. They feared that the frugal habits maintained by most American families would be difficult to break. Perhaps even more threatening was the fact that the industrial capacity for turning out goods seemed to be increasing at a pace greater than people’s sense that they needed them.

Continue Reading »