It's Dark Now and Getting Darker

I don't know if it is the disappearance of sunlight now that it is late fall or if it is the overwhelmingly bad news that I consume every day but whatever it is there is a pervasive feeling of doom and gloom. The war in Syria continues. Recently a Kurdish militia, the Democratic Union Party, announced that it was setting up a provisional government in northern Syria along the Turkish border. More clashes can be expected with Sunni jihadis who have announced the creation of a caliphate in the same territory. Then there is the polio outbreak there. The virus is thought to have originated in Pakistan, likely brought to Syria by a jihadi bent on butchering Alawites.

What about the Fukushima nuclear disaster? Everything one reads about it says the worse is yet to come.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments against union-employer neutrality agreements. If the court accepts the position that neutrality agreements are "a thing of value" and bans them then there goes one of the most effective tools that unions have utilized in the last ten years to organize workers. Obama when he was first elected was supposed to push for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) which would have enshrined card check in federal law. He did not and there is no indication that he ever will. If the Supreme Court bans neutrality agreements one wonders what that means for the future of EFCA.

Unions, whatever their faults, are still the best hope, however slim it is, to effect change within this corrupt system. They possess resources -- money, infrastructure, intelligence -- without which our only recourse is to go the Occupy route of Hooverville-type pressure politics, and that route invariably ends in violence.

To be sure, I think we're headed in that direction. I think Chris Hedges is right: the revolution is coming. But if the Supreme Court ends up eviscerating unions when the working class is already on the ropes, then the revolution happens sooner rather than later.

With More War on the Horizon, Some Good News

Since last Friday's post on Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music I've gotten in the habit of listening to Terry Riley in the morning. A number of full-length albums are available on YouTube. A Rainbow in Curved Air (1969) and Persian Surgery Dervishes (1972) are good records to start with.

November in the Pacific Northwest is usually dark, wet and chilly. Waking up at 4 AM and looking out the window as clouds sweep by, Riley's electric organ compositions are an appropriate way to begin the day.

As Tuesday's election results are sifted it must be dawning on the plutocrats who run the show that more and more money is going to be required of them to maintain their hold on power. The population centers of this country -- the big metropolitan areas where the young, educated people flock because of gainful employment at growing companies -- are Left/Democratic Progressive. There is no doubt about that. A Socialist Alternative candidate, Kshama Sawant, still has a shot at ousting corporate liberal and longtime incumbent Richard Conlin from the Seattle City Council. Sawant built her campaign on a $15/hr. minimum wage, an idea that was successfully taken up by the Yes for SeaTac! campaign. And even though I-522 is likely headed for defeat, corporate behemoths like Monsanto and PepsiCo are being bled by the tens of millions of dollars required to defeat GMO-labeling initiatives at the polls; they're looking to pass a federal ban on mandatory labeling as a way to preempt campaigns underway in as many as 20 states.

No, the plutocrats are looking at tough sledding ahead. Chris Hedges says the revolution is coming. The only question at this point is what that revolution is going to look like. How much force will the plutocrats use to try to maintain their grip? If the Egyptian coup in July is any indication the answer to that question is "As much as necessary."

One silver lining for plutocrats, at least for those who still identify with the Republican Party, Chris Christy, based on his gubernatorial win in New Jersey on Tuesday, seems to be a viable candidate for the presidency in 2016; he won majorities among Latinos and women, two key demographics the GOP has been unable to sway. At this point, you would have to consider Christy a favorite against a celebrity corporate Democrat like Hillary.

Like plutocrats in the United States, the Israelis and the Saudis are trying to maintain a failed status quo. Syria is being turned into Afghanistan. Strenuous efforts will be made to upend the deal being formulated on Iran's nuclear program. Saudis and Israelis will look to expand hostilities in the Middle East.

But the good news in all of this is more and more people are becoming aware of who the real enemy -- of peace, of shared prosperity -- is.