October 12, 2011 at 2:08 P.M. I was invited yesterday to a premier at Lincoln Center cinemas which, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was unable to attend. I regret this because the film seemed promising: "The Wettest County." It appears that freedom for the "Cuban Five" may finally be possible. Compare Alice Walker, ed., Letters of Love & Hope: The Story of the Cuban Five (New York: Ocean Press, 2005), pp. 185-189 ("The Trial of the Cuban Five" by Leonard I. Weinglass, Esq.) with Damien Cave, "One of the 'Cuban Five' Spies Is Released On Probation," in The New York Times, October 5, 2011, at p. A6. (Rene Gonzalers, 54, will be released -- I hope -- to return to his family in Cuba. Incidentally, militant Right-wing terroristic organizations in the Cuban-American community -- including any persons threatening to assassinate me -- are not "dormant," but they receive protection from American government officials. This may explain the continuing cybercrime at these sites. )
I will try to repair the harm done by hackers to my texts during the 45 minutes per day that I am able to access the Internet from a public computer. I will also continue to post essays focusing on New Jersey corruption and my opposition to the Cuban Embargo. If no new essays appear at these blogs after several days, it means that I am prevented from writing on-line or may have suffered a "misshap." ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")
"Greed is good!' -- Ivan Boesky.
In what turned out to be a gorgeous and unseasonably warm weekend decorated with holiday strollers in Washington Square Park and browsers at the Strand bookstore, feelings of anger and dissatisfaction were overheard on city streets as passions and protests spread from Manhattan to Boston and D.C. as well as to other cities in America. Passiveness and feelings of helplessness are being replaced with a new militancy on the Left.
It is about time that Americans took some action. People are furious at greed among the richest Americans, decline in national power, an insipid presidency and even more insipid and mediocre Republican opposition as our children's future is squandered. Immediate and drastic action is called for if we are to relieve the suffering of innocent persons when the "400 richest Americans control more wealth than the 180 million Americans at the bottom of the social scale." http://www.theindypendent.org/
Much of the optimism and hope surrounding Mr. Obama's presidency seems to have vanished in yet another disappointing decline by a gifted American leader from passion and ideals to platitudes and sell outs. The problem seems to be systemic, not any one official's fault. Perhaps the outcome of the presidential election will not make much difference to any of our greatest problems. A fear for many of us is that disappointment surrounding Mr. Obama's efforts in office will translate into voter apathy or non-voting in the minority community. ("'The Adjustment Bureau': A Movie Review.")
The empty blather of Republican challengers offering narcotizing myths to the electorate of a Reaganesque, fifties-style America where government was efficient, everybody had a job, "father knew best," and women and "negros" knew their place, while the enemy was an identifiable "Evil Empire" that played the Great Game by the rules of war among gentlemen -- all of this ludicrous and nostalgic fantasy ("Mad Men" and its progeny) seems laughable as a substitute for a real agenda to deal with structural economic failures, collapsing infrastructure, and an inadequate educational system as wars on multiple fronts are being lost to a guerilla force that "won't fight fair."
"Our system is broken at every level. More than 25 million Americans are unemployed, more than 50 million live without health insurance, and perhaps 100 million Americans are mired in poverty, using realistic measures. Yet the fat cats continue to get tax breaks and reap BILLIONS while politicians continue to turn the austerity screws on all of us."
Arun Gupta, "The Revolution Begins at Home: An Open Letter to Join the Wall Street Occupation," in The Indypendent, October 5-25, 2011, at pp. 10-11.
The American corporate media's decline into irrelevance and/or complicity with government and big business is a sad abdication of what was once a proud tradition of journalistic independence. The NY "glitterati" press missed this story. Now they will try to take over the event by claiming to have inspired it. The coopted media includes -- The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Nation. (It has been suggested that these publications are a single entity.)
Politicians also missed the rise of dangerous anger among the so-called "little people." Academia is irrelevant, as usual, in America. In short, the corporate-political-media elite are incestuous and narcissistic as never before as well as hateful to most people in the world. To paraphrase a great writer: "Stylized despair -- at this moment of crisis -- is luxurious and dangerous." ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!" and "Incoherence in 'The New York Times.'")
It is even more dangerous when well-fed journalists display contempt for "ordinary people" and/or "the Average Joe" (Iliana Ros-Leghtinen in Congress and Miguel Perez in the blue collar press, David Remnick and "Carlotta Gall" in the elite media) from their comfortable homes in the Hamptons while sipping bottles of Perrier. We have heard enough from Mr. Murdoch's minions and many evil imps. Time for some truth. (David Cameron? George Stephanopoulos?)
This necessary protest movement will dissipate without leadership and a coherent agenda that provides a focus for vague hopes of "reform." The politicians will show up with their nonsense and sloganeering to coopt people's anger. Distractions from the media cotton-candy machine will cover people's rage with sticky-sugary coffections. Anything to prevent people from thinking radically about what is wrong with their lives that is attributable to inept or corrupt government, as in New Jersey. ("Glee" and "American Family.")
Censorship and reprisals aimed against people, like me, will continue to go unpunished. The national security state will build higher and thicker walls -- thicker like the intellects of our Pentagon/CIA masters. National decline will continue. Soothing distractions, surveillance and torture, more control with a friendly smile is all that awaits us for the foreseeable future. ("Dehumanization" and "The Protests on Wall Street.")
The most powerful slogan carried by a protester said: "America, Wake Up!" I do not know whether this awakening is still possible. I begin to fear that it is too late to do much to stem this collapse into second-rate status for a nation (I love) which may be the most blessed with talent and resources of any on the planet. We seem to have abandoned or forgotten the core values of American law and politics, especially as concerns the rights of the poorest and most powerless persons in society.
Let us hope (remember that phrase, Mr. Obama?) that things can be made better and that America will find inspired leadership, once again, because it is desperately needed by my child's generation, by old and sick people, and the growing numbers of poor persons, along with the 44 million hungry Americans asking for your help. ("Hunger in America" and "The Great Wall of China.")
Sources:
Charlie Savage, "Iranians Accused of a Plot to Kill Saudi's US Envoy," in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A1. (No reaction to our sudden concern with international law from a skeptical global audience.)
Monica Davey, "U.S. Says Man Admitted Plot to Blow Up Passenger Jet," in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A11. (First of many such plots I am afraid.)
Benedict Carey, "Treatment of Trauma to Brain Is Studied," in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A13. (Mental consequences of brain damage suggests a distinction between brain/mind.)
Corey Kilganon, "That Old Panhandler? Wait, Is That ...," in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A17. (Irwin Corey, 97, solicits change ever day in Manhattan to send to Cuban children's hospitals.)
"Justifying the Killing of an American: The Government's Legal Memo on Anwar Al-Awlaki's Death is a Step, but Not Enough," (Editorial) in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A22. (A recent administration secret memo, allegedly, makes it O.K. to "set aside" the Constitution in order to murder an American citizen without due process of law. Murder is any intentional or deliberate extra-judicial killing whether committed by the government or any individual criminal.)
Richard Perez-Pena, "Koch and NYU Clash Over Terrorism Report," in The New York Times, October 12, 2011, at p. A20. (Does the U.S. "lure" young Muslims into criminal actions?)
Charles McGrath, "A Voice, Still Vibrant, Reflects On Mortality," in The New York Times, October 10, 2011, at p. C1. (Love and abrazos for the "Hitch." "Hermano: An Evening With Christopher Hitchens" and "Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon.")
