The Shift Has Hit the Fan
The Shift Has Hit the Fan…And All Heaven Has Broken Loose
By Swami Beyondananda, aka Steve Bhaerman
The shift has hit the fan. And all heaven has broken loose.
You say, “Heaven?? Where the hell do you see heaven?”
And yes. If you look at the news headlines from the past year, you’d have a hell of a time finding any heaven. It’s a dogma-eat-dogma world out there, and everyone seems caught up in the bipolar insanity. Even Poland is polarized – the North Poles and the South Poles. We talk about peace in the Middle East and we can’t even make peace in the Middle West. Here in America, we have a deeply divided body politic. Half the population believes our election system is broken. The other half believes it is fixed.
In 2010, political anger became all the rage, as town hall meetings turned into “I scream anti-socials,” and political discourse into loud detestimonials. The Tea Party Movement, a coalition of civil libertarians and uncivil libertarians, provided an ideal cover for mining interests (as in, “that’s mine … that’s mine … that’s mine”) to throw barrels of anonymous money into Congressional races to defeat Democratic candidates.
Of course we all know that when it comes to defeating Democratic candidates, no one does it better than the Democrats themselves. In the area of self-defeat, the Democrats are simply unbeatable. Somehow, in just two years they turned a mandate into a man-who-can’t-get-a-date.
A Wolfowitz in Sheepowitz’s Clothing?
There is one prime cause of disillusionment, and that is illusionment. And in these challenging times, it’s understandable how a population can get strung out on hopium. America has been going through a dark night, and who wouldn’t want a white knight on a dark night – albeit a slightly darker white knight?
But a lad and a lack. So far, our lad seems to lack the will or the power to stand up to the forces of endarkened self-interest. Barack Obama’s neo-liberal foreign policy looks pretty much like George Bush’s neoconservative one, and disheartened progressives who believed in Obama’s election rhetoric are beginning to think they fell for the old “debate and switch,” and we ended up with a Wolfowitz in sheepowitz’s clothing.
On the other hand, how can we expect a President to stand tall, when the body politic is so sickly and out of shape? After all, we’re still suffering from the lingering effects of Mad Cowboy Disease and chronic electile dysfunction, not to mention irony deficiency and truth decay brought on by weapons of mass distraction. And let’s not forget the Deficit Inattention Disorder that led to our near-debt experience.
