All Along the Watch Tower: Obama: Real or Fake?

Obama, Wha's Wrong With You?
I was sittin' this morning just reading where here in my hometown, New York City, they're naming a park after Donald Trump. Wow. I also heard last night something interesting: the City of New York once owned the land on which Coney Island's Astroland now sits. Many years ago there was a rumor that the man who'd gotten rich off Kansas Fried Chicken (KFCs, too, Colonel) was buying Astroland and turning it into a Disneyland-like world. That must have fallen through; I heard no more about it over the years. Then, a few months ago it was announced that a playboy developer had bought Astroland from the city for an undisclosed amount of money and was going to demolish it. This swellheaded developer said in Astroland's place, he was going to build a max-tacky Vegas-like hooplah development clogged with hi-rise luxury hotels ("5-star" is their favorite PR adjective when they're blowharding about their intentions) and hi-rise luxury condos with 35-million-dollar penthouses and I suppose eventually casino gambling--I mean, come on, I'm quite sure that was the ultimate intent of this developer. So yesterday how surprised was I to hear one of those talking-head dopes on local teevee sprightly announcing that, "It looks like Astroland and the Cyclone are going to be saved afterall." What the hell?, I asked the air. What's this: the developer is backing out of the deal? What's this?, I am again asking the air. The developer is backing out and...WHAT'S THIS? The city is buying back what they already owned--and they're paying this developer (what'a ya bet he's in financial trouble?) 200 million bucks to buy it back from him.

Remember what C. Wright Mills said, we're under the bootheel of the privileged class, the Power Elite as Mills called it--Thorstein Veblen, a truly unique American thinker, Sociologist, Economist, a cheesehead from Wisconsin, of Norwegian immigrant parents, called this class "The Leisure Class." The Power Elite rules us viciously--ignoring anyone who can't pay the dues to get into their private clubs, their board rooms, their country clubs--anyone who doesn't have the right papers--like proving you have a position on the Fortune 500. Mills further states that the Power Elite is not about to allow a "redistribution of wealth." Don't even talk about taxes around them. That really pisses them off. They are a tightly knit family remember!--in fact, as Mills said in his introduction to Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class, "Prestige buttresses power, turning it into authority, and protecting it from social challenge."

Remember when the Obama campaign was talking about the "challenge" and then turned that into "change"--Obama won with such force because of the workingclass, blacks, Latinos, and young whites (first-time voters included) who fell for his rhetoric--his moving his slogan from "challenge" to "change." And, oh boy, are the people who put Prince Charming Obama into the presidency going to be disappointed. You know why? The Power Elite already own this poor sucker. How do I know? It's easy. Look at his transition team members.

First of all, his right-hand man is Rahm Emanuel, a true scumbag Chicago goombah-connected politician who was a dirty deeds promoter in the Clintonistas's "getting-your-dick-sucked-is-not-sex" administration. Then Obama says he's thinking of picking Larry "Snob" Summers as his Sec'y of Treasury--holy shit, what a scumbag choice; a man who was fired as president of Harvard, Obama's alma mater, he was such a backwards thinking asshole. [Sorry, Daily Howler Bob, I gotta tell it like it is--I can't pussyfoot around about these characters. I'm not a comedian, those who depend on these backwards-thinking clowns as fodder for their high-pep routines; like this Stephen Colbert, who I just plain don't find funny. I'm amused by Daily Howler Bob's dedicated allegiance to Hillary "Big Hips" Clinton. Plus, he's constantly defending Al "the Bore" Gore and John "VietNam Nutjob" Kerry. So I just had to enter this tidbit here since I read The Daily Howler (and so does thedailygrowlerhousepianist and franny&zoeourtwoheadedreporter--yes, there really is a two-headed woman on our staff) and I highly respect Bob's way of thinking and writing and his rather close-up criticism of the Washington Beltway press and the US's candy-ass Liberals (the only Liberals I see around today are the people who live in Liberal, Kansas, an ironic name for so neo-con-loving a state and citizens). I added this little bit of personal comment because I know bright-ass people like Bob or intellectuals who come across this blog by accident or direction feel I'm the lowest common denominator in the social criticism realm--such language! such grammar! such syntax! such vulgarities!; yet, my shit-detectors (a word I first saw used by Ernest Hemingway when he was a War Correspondent attached to General Omar Bradley (one of Papa's heroes)) keep sniffing out the foul odors that surround these people (whether the good, the bad, or the ugly) when you get close to them--or the fact that they are wearing tons of make up and have been groomed and dressed by professional character builders--they are all PHONIES, dammit. And I just sit here freaked out daily reading the news and finding all sorts of great Googled information and seeing these numbskull bastards who dictate to high hell how I should spend my earnings and my life's work--and I see them for what they really are: 2nd-story members of the Power Elite that rules this country. Their snide intentions are to cover their own asses first and foremost. We the People are to them simply sources of income and wealth and investment bucks and healthcare provisions, and Secret Service protection, and free-mail privileges. We the People are who they depend on for their "nesteggs" since most of Congress started off dirt-country-hick poor in a lot of cases, or urban Power-Elite wannabes as in the case of Emanuel or Robert Ruben. Notice, you don't see any member of Congress or the Executive branch going under in terms of losing their shirts. They certainly know their pensions are safe! They're covered no matter how far We the People fall. None of these birds are having any of their many mansions foreclosed on (including their Washington residences and their homes back in the states that elected them and their new homes in the new states they invaded to get elected to higher offices--like the Clintons moving to New York State--and, yes, they all have summer homes and their island retreats wherever they are--like John "Nutjob, now Loser" McCain having so many mansions he lost track of them; or Charlie "Big Daddy" Rangel having a "vacation" home in the Domincan Republic he knew nothing about! Wow, how cool is a Congressperson's life?).

Check out Bill Clinton's latest scheme for garnering enough wealth to pay on his dues in his membership in the Power Elite. Bill now is chief honcho of his very own "international disaster relief" business--a multimillion dollar enterprise. Remember when Good Ole Bill teamed up with his best pal, G.H.W. "Pappy" Bush (that old wimpy weasel--a contradiction in terms?--NO, he's a wimpy weasel--so's his creepy son, G.W., Jr.) to get their grubby hands on millions upon millions of bucks to aid the victims of the tsunami--how many years ago was that back in time now? (I've never seen any follow ups on how these victims are doing now--do we assume everything's hunky-dory over there now?). These birds don't have to account for how they spend these millions of bucks they collect in the name of charity! Rudy "Mussolini" Giuliani ripped off millions of dollars with his special 9/11 victims's families and dead cops and firemen's families aid fund. 9/11 victims and survivors complained that they never really saw a penny of that money; yet, Rude Rudy got totally away with his scam. Rudy was nothing but a poor fool Federal Justice Dept. prosecutor when he decided he was just the man to be the mayor of New York City. And as a Federal prosecutor Rudy wasn't that successful--oh, he took the glory for busting John Gotti, but we later found out that was bullshit. After he left the Justice Dept., Rudy worked for a law firm called White & Case. White & Case represented a lot of South American dictators and such, and that included a big-time coke dealer named Noriega--remember him? Remember when Pappy Bush sent the troops into Panama uninvited in order to capture his old cocaine-dealing Buddy? Opps, Pappy's wild-bombing the hell out of a Panama City neighborhood killed 400 innocent Panamanians--"Hey, them's the breaks," Pappy said as he put another notch on his Power Elite revolver--and you bet Pappy Bush knew Noriega--they had a photograph of Pappy sitting on a big couch with Noriega back before I suppose Noriega bilked Pappy on a cocaine deal. You gotta know Pappy Bush knows the cocaine business thoroughly. Shit, folks, this all goes back to the Reagan years and the Iran-Contra schemes that netted these bastards millions of dollars in side-pocket monies. Come on, folks, Pappy Bush was once head of the CIA! Bill Clinton while governor of Arkansas knew that the CIA was flying cocaine into an airbase near Mena, Arkansas, and flying weapons out of that same airbase--flying weapons down to the Contras in Nicaragua. And Pappy was there, too, right in the middle of that mess. So, you see, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Clinton, and Pappy Bush are all connected--what a worthless corral of fat-cats--parasites--and Pappy Bush really is a charter member of the Power Elite through his very crooked family, his own father a Nazi sympathizer--his family's Wall Street bank handled Hitler's US bank accounts--Prescott Bush, Pappy's pappy, was Federally investigated because of his family's bank dealings with the Nazis. Great men these guys.

Obama has pissed me off so this is why I'm ranting and raving today--which is Tuesday, no matter the date on the blog banner. I have to go off on Obama. I'm a fictional-memoir writer and armchair Sociologist, so ranking on these beings who rule me and who to me are the dictatorial representatives of the US Gesselshaft (a Sociology term--see below the post for definition) is instinctual with me. I observe social reactions, interactions, theories, utopias, restrictions, situations, conflicts, using measurements (Sociometrics) from statistically derived formulae to find the Happy Medium! Ah, the Happy Medium! That place of perfect peace for the honest social scientist. My observations are trained observations; I was taught what to look for in terms of facts and legend; in terms of fantasy and reality. If a man lives in a discarded refrigerator box, we assume he's a bum and we ignore him--he's got nothing of value we're dreaming about. However, if the same man lives in a sprawling mansion with huge iron gates and security teams and pitbulls to guard him, we consider him near to God's righthand and assume he's so god-damn intelligent and smart he's got the keys to the kingdom we so imagine exists, that fantastic kingdom (like a DisneyWorld kingdom) we all strive to obtain the keys to--why, "He's rich; therefore, he has to have all the answers to all our problems; therefore, he is a celebrity and worthy of worship, no matter how obscene that worship!"

Why am I picking on Obama? Because. First of all, this guy has the opportunity to become a great man of peace. His election win proves the American people want what they are guaranteed under the Bill of Rights (more important than the Constitution), "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"--"Peace, perfect peace." "The peace that passeth all understanding." And my dad, old Dad Wolf, used to say, "The only thing in life I truly desire is peace, quiet, and loving words." That all does make a difference. I was alive in the brief time of world peace right after WWII--and then again for the brief ten years right after the Korean War--and then our next war started--the VietNam invasion and attempted occupation--EXCEPT, Ho Chi Min's pajama-wearing Gooks kicked our asses out of 'Nam--during the Tet Offensive--and the US bailed out of Saigon just as the Gooks were nailing up the "Ho Chi Min City" signs. But we didn't learn. And Obama wasn't around for those 10 tiny years of peace after President Hairy Ass Truman's little Police Action in Korea ended. Then came the snoozy-like Eisenhower Years--peaceful for Whites because old Ike was tired of playing soldier and turned to venting his tensions out on the golf course, where Ike spent most of his 8 years in power, and, yes, Ike Eisenhower was a member of the Power Elite through his military rank, our first 4-star General of the Army who had learned his way of fightin' from General Pompous Ass MacArthur and was a classmate of that wonderful kind man of great army maneuvering knowledge, General George Patton, who hated peace so bad, when it came, he committed suicide. The first window of peace I lived through was a WHITE peace. There was no peace in the black community in those infant days of the Civil Rights Movement. Then came the Freedom Marching, the sitins, the racist rebukes of idiots like George Wallace and Lester "Ax Handle" Maddox. Then Eisenhower sent "advisers" (including Colon's Pal) to VietNam because the flimsy French were getting their military asses smeared all over Dien Bin Pheu by Uncle Ho and his Pajama-Clad People's Republic of VietNam armed forces. And the natural-born-lover French soldiers begged and pleaded with Eisenhower to help bail them out--SAVE OUR COLONY, the French railed, and Eisenhower capitulated and sent advisers over there and soon we were involved deeper than our government admitted and soon we were in a full-fledged war--another phony war, by the way, since "Big Balls" Johnson had to trump up the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident where "Big Balls" said a Cong swift boat had attacked one of our sitting-duck destroyers and that was an act of war and by God we had us a war. And the VietNam scandalous war dragged on until the 1970s--and suddenly in 1972 things began to flow peacefully again in this country--the Civil Rights Movement ended with the assassination of Martin Luther King and the chance for a New Frontier victory by Bobby "Change of Heart" Kennedy was ruined when he was assassinated (the assassination of JFK really shook old fun-loving, screwing-around Bobby up--he was a smarter dude than JFK, but that didn't save him from a FBI-directed assassin's bullet--by the so-called Sirhan Sirhan (still alive and well in a California hoosegow I assume), a Muslim nutjob--a really wacky dude who claimed he was hypnotized or something--the movie The Manchurian Candidate had been a movie about the Chinese's ability to hypnotize a pack of American prisoners of war--using what was then shockingly referred to as "psychological warfare"--the famous Chinese water torture--where the evil Chinese put a tin bucket over your head and then a leaky faucet above the bucket and then one drop of water at a time for long stretches of time until you curled up in nervous fear like a wadded up piece of discarded toilet paper. It's said to be awesomely irritating, sometimes driving the poor victim totally loony. Of course, this torture was trumpeted as the evilest shit ever devised by an enemy--the idea of torturing prisoners of war! we moralistic Americans screamed--why, that's against the Geneva Agreement.

And that brings me back to Obama. We have a chance for another pocket of peace. The 1970s in New York City were the best. We were a getting-together city then. Blacks were coming for the first time into the middle of the workplaces--the men as mail-room guys and apprentice flunkies (apprentices with offers of maybe never-coming advancements--but advancements that did promote some blacks to high places, like Gordon Parks, Roy DeCarava, black geniuses like that--and the women showed up in the secretarial and accounting pools. Also, there were tons of liberal whites taking over offices and there were three-hour, three-martini lunches, and the bosses were soused when they came to work, and half the staff was drunk after long lunches, drunk or high on coke or crack or heroin or crystal meth. I remember sitting in William Paley's famous Ground Floor bar and restaurant (in the old Black Rock building) and hearing for the first time about Ecstasy from a chick who was a superstar in the CBS recording division and who muled cocaine in from tiny airports down south and who told me she had just returned bringing some rock into NYC from some pissant South Carolina town and "just last night," she said, she'd been introduced to Ecstasy. She said she'd screwed four guys in a row last night while high on this stuff. Prostitutes, she said, used it in order to turn more tricks. What a time in New York City. And there were clubs all over town featuring jazz, blues, reggae, ska, hip-hop, rap, heavy metal rock, folk, alternate rock--all over town, most of them with no cover charges, or if they had a cover charge they had a free area around the bar where you could sit or stand and dig the music. And the clubs were packed every afternoon after work. And a single man or a married man or a single woman or a married woman could just walk in a club check out the scene, pick out the best-looking woman or man you were attracted to and then begin the "effort" as we called it--and me and my male friends were out every night after work and then on Saturday nights for sure, leaving Sunday as the true day of rest. And this good livin' lasted in New York City until that sad day in 1982 when we all woke up to the news that a strange disease named AIDS had hit town via a Canadian gay guy. AIDS put an end to the celebration times we were having. The AIDS was scary. Oh yes, at first our visionary leaders told us the disease was limited to wild-ass-voodoo-wild-and-crazy Haitians and all Gay men. At first, we were told women couldn't get AIDS. Then we were told that a little drop of Clorox in your dish water would kill the AIDS virus. And we were told we should put a safety sheet of butcher paper around a toilet seat 'fore we sat on it. That sort of bullshit medical information.

So let's see, now back to my bitch with Obama. First off, Eric Holder as Attorney General. Hey, our first black attorney general! Wahooo! But not the first time Eric Holder's been in the Attorney General's office--nope. He was Assistant Attorney General in Slick Willie's and First Lady Hillary "Ham Hips" Clinton's first administration. Holy shit, another Clintonista!

Here's another Obama pick, perhaps, that will be a chicken bone stuck in the throat of any progress and change Obama "promised" us if we elected him and that's the rumor that he's going to keep Good Ole Warmonger and Neo-Con Military Leader Robert Gates as head of the Dept. of Defense. Good pick, Barack. We'll be at war for the next hundred years anyway--so why was John "Nutjob--now Loser" McCain ridiculed by the Dumbocrats when he said we should stay in Iraq another 100 years? Big idiot move--1 for the Neo-Cons and continued war; 0 for Obama and change.

Here's another pick--again, it is rumored: Hillary "Opponent and Racist Baiter" Clinton as his Secretary of State! Bad move, Barack. Bad, bad move. Who the hell's advising you? Oh, that's right, the weak-kneed Neo-Con asskissing wing of the Dumbocratic Party--remember Ralph Nader telling us there is no difference between the Dumbos and the Repugnicans? Tell me, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State? OK, ok, she's better than Colon's Pal getting the job, but surely there's a more diplomatic being than Hillary Clinton out there who really could perhaps bring about a diplomatic CHANGE to the world situation at least in terms of the US government making amends towards peace around the world. Bill Richardson's name was mentioned, too. BADDDD! This New Mexican Dumbocrat has been wishy-washy as hell, first yahooing up the War on Terrerism and the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, then claiming he suddenly is against all that. However, old crusty Senor Beeel is a big promoter of nuclear energy. Why? you ask. New Mexico has huge uranium deposits all over its midsection, that's why.

Dig this: one of Obama's war and security intelligence advisers is--you won't believe this: John Brennan. Does the name ring any kind of bell with youse? John Brennan in any other society would be a war criminal. He was the fool who under George Tenant, when that wimp was head of G.W. Bush's CIA, who gave hooplah apologies for this rendition kidnapping shit pulled off by the CIA--where they grab a profiled Muslim-looking dude off a street, put a hood over his head, then put him on a plane blindfolded, then fly him to some secret prison in Syria, or Egypt (Egyptians love torture), or Afghanistan maybe, where this poor bastard is then waterboarded, threatened with death, confined in a tiny windowless cell for months at a time, deprived of sleep, blah, blah, blah--and for what? There is no evidence that any information ever gained from these rendition kidnappings has helped uncover an Al Queda cell anywhere in the world, much less in the USA--much less even in Iraq and Afghanistan. We hear today that Al Queda is now big time in Somalia--remember when Bill "I Love War and Getting My Speckled Dick Sucked by Buttaface Women" Clinton went into Somalia with the Marines! Somalia that is now the home of the New World pirates who come out of Somalia in Swift Boats, this week actually taking over a huge oil tanker and all its precious fucking oil--Holy shit, what G.W. Bush has started and it seems now no man can put it asunder! Brennan has said he fully backs skipping FISA and eavesdropping on every son of bitch American no matter his or her profile! He also is a big champion of "preventive detention," the obscene Neo-Con act that arrests your ass and sends you to Guantanamo (how much you bet Obama doesn't get to shut it down?) without charges or hope of a trial--not accused of anything, just arrested and sent off to Cuba! How ironic that Guantanamo is in Cuba and the reason we blockade Cuba today is because of Fidel Castro's human rights abuses--and the fact he said he was a Communist. OOOOOOh, scary, scary. Brennan is also big on deporting illegal Messkin immigrants! Obama has already said he's for continuing to build that stupid insecure wall between the US and Mexico--our loving neighbor to the south who Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton blessed with NAFTA.

But the most surprising yet member of Obama's transition team is this woman Jamie Messick (sic). That name I'm sure doesn't ring a bell with youse! This is the ding-a-ling bitch who wrote the speech Colon's Pal gave in front of the UN--how embarrassing was that speech?--where Good Ole Boy Colon's Pal lied like a dog 28 times in that speech--the speech that got us dragged drugged with fear into that stupid invasion and occupation of Iraq--the cause of all our current ills if anyone had the capacity to go back and recall what the hell happened back there in 2003 while millions upon millions of people were marching in the streets of the world yelling, "NO WAR IN IRAQ...!" And Bush and his Neo-Con goons ignored the people like good Power Elitists do and little Jamie wrote her little fictional heart out so that Colon's Pal could make a war criminal of himself before the UN and the world--and that's what Colon's Pal is, a war criminal--but, hey, old General Colon's Pal is high up in the military--therefore, he's a member of the Power Elite--and the Power Elite will continue to rule us and make laws against us and rules against us and control the police, the army, the wealth! No change coming in that department.

Like Harry Reid asskissing Uncle Joe LIEberman today--Holy Shit, how much dumber will the DumbDumbocrats be?--and Obama seems to be going right along with them--just like a good mule working the fields for Mister Charley!

I hate trashing on Obama. He's the best looking presidential possibility I've seen in a huge shitload of presidents I've lived under. But, I remember how hip we were when we young people got JFK elected and how disappointed we were when the New Frontier proved to be a cardboard sky with a paper moon floating over it--in other words, the New Frontier turned out to be make believe. Just like the Obama presidency may turn out to be Make Believe. Yet, four million hopeful Americans want to show up at this man's inauguration. That's amazing to me!

And oh how we Americans love MAKE BELIEVE!

thepissedoffgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler
Footnote: Gesellschaft (often translated as society or civil society or 'association') describes associations in which, for the individual, the larger association never takes on more importance than individual self interest, and lack the same level of shared mores. Gesellschaft is maintained through individuals acting in their own self interest. A modern business is a good example of Gesellschaft, the workers, managers, and owners may have very little in terms of shared orientations or beliefs, they may not care deeply for the product they are making, but it is in all their self interest to come to work to make money, and thus the business continues.
[from Wikipedia. Reference: Frederick Tonnies, Community and Civil Society, Cambridge Press, 2001.]
__________________________________________________________________
Sarah Palin News
Ohhh, no, Ted Stevens got his old gnarly crooked ass whipped and lost his Senate seat in hicksville Alaska. Now poor little Sweet Sarah can't appoint herself Senator to take Ted's place when he's bundled off to prison.

However, folks, don't worry about Sarah. We hear she's being offered a 7-12 million dollar book deal--which she'll take--she ain't a dummy when it comes to posing and entertaining fools. The irony here? I don't think Bill or Hillary got that much for their action-packed and truthfully revealing BULLSHIT books.
___________________________________________________________