The Boston Marathon Bombing and The Propaganda Machine

 

The coverage of the bombing at the Boston Marathon we saw yesterday was a bizarre mixture of news and propaganda, little of it useful to understanding, but almost all of it intended to shape and control opinions about what happened and who might have been responsible.

This was the American major news media on full display for what it really is: a propaganda machine first and foremost, not much different than the propaganda ministries and their "news" outlets in former totalitarian countries.

Their function is not news by any stretch of the imagination.

Of course, we've known this for many a long year, but most of the time -- except for FOX -- the news media manages to curb its enthusiasm for propagandizing and opinion molding sufficiently to maintain the fiction of the Fourth Estate, dispassionately reporting the happenings of the day.

The idea that the press and media actually exist to make us believe something, and furthermore to make us buy something (including our beliefs), and what they want us to believe is what their corporate owners -- and to some extent sponsors -- want us to believe (and buy) , solely for the benefit of those owners and sponsors, seems so contrary to everything we've been taught about the Free Press and Media in This Land of Liberty that it practically defies belief itself.

The touching naiveté of so many on the Interwebs -- if naiveté is what it really is -- about the nature and purpose of the news media in modern society is one of the hoariest traditions of the Internet. There always seems to be a cohort of media critics online who all say the same thing, no matter what their ideological persuasion might be: the press and media are supposed to be an independent watchdog on the operations of government. It is their job to investigate and report on mal- and misfeasance. They are supposed to stand up for the public interest -- and Liberty! -- in the face of government lies and oppression. It's their job! Why don't they do their job!?

 But of course we know that the news media really exists to serve the political and financial interests of its owners and sponsors -- and it has always been this way. There has never been a time when the press and media has not been actively promoting the pecuniary interests of those who hold the purse strings and pay the bills -- and for the most part, that's never been you and me. There have always been marginal media outlets that are more closely aligned with the People, but they can never become 'major mainstream' media for the simple fact that they don't have -- and are often actively denied -- the resources necessary. This is about as straightforward as it gets.

So yesterday, the coverage was bizarrely discordant as reporters on the scene attempted to simultaneously gather information and convey the company line about what happened.

 Interestingly, this caused an almost automatic response among some of the audience: what happened was clear enough as it seems to have been a near carbon copy of the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing of 1996, which was eventually found to be the work of a well-known right-wing domestic terrorist, Randall Terry Eric Rudolph [total brain fart, sorry], who -- apparently -- wanted the attention. Of course, like almost all domestic terrorist actions over the last several decades, the Olympic Park bombing was initially blamed on nefarious and unnamed "Arabs."

Thus, it is always a shock! to discover that the real terrorist is some white man with a grudge who wants attention.

In this case, it was pretty obvious, from the moment of the first explosion, that that's what this was likely to be. Yet I heard endless speculation about "al Qeda" and the supposed instructions in "al Qeda" sites on the internet about making and planting bombs at public events in the United States to cause the maximum disruption and destruction. Much later on came the reports of the Saudi man (in some reports injured) who had been tackled by a valiant citizen as he was running away from the scene who was turned over to the police.

Bit by bit -- without any evidence at all, and in spite of clear indications that the bombs were set by domestic rightists -- the media was building a case against "Arabs" even going so far as to broadcast pictures of the Boston skyline from across the Charles River to evoke the view of Lower Manhattan as the towers fell on September 11, 2001. There was much -- much -- chatter about how, "in this Post-9/11 World," security was of paramount importance, and how important it is to enhance security at public events such as the Boston Marathon.

Yet despite the fact that there were all these police and military personnel on scene as security for the event, someone, somehow, was able to plant at least two and possibly more bombs without detection. How is it that security was so lax? How could it be in this "Post-9/11 World?"

It's easy. White men are never subject to suspicion, are they? While surveillance is everywhere and is nearly 24/7, certain categories of individuals seem to be exempt from suspicion: they are the rich of any gender, ethnicity or persuasion, and white people in general, specifically relatively young white men.

And this goes directly to the nature of the current campaigns to arm "everybody" (except certain categories of people to be determined later) as "security" against "criminals."

It struck me as obvious yesterday that the bombings were part of the hostage taking process for the purpose of having the greatest public impact for very little expenditure, with the goal of terrifying the People in general into accepting without question yet another ratcheting of the security gears. This ratcheting has been going on pretty consistently since the OKC bombing, and the Arm "Everybody" (except...) crew has long been part of it. Any sort of rational gun control is held hostage to this "security" meme, and somehow it is always these scary brown people that White Americans need all this "security" to protect against.

The occasional bombing and mass slaughter are "the price we pay" not for Freedom, but for security against the Brown Hordes. Sometimes certain white guys get overenthusiastic. That's all. And also, too, there's the issue of Tyranny Which Must Be Fought.

As I think I've pointed out before, it's not really about fighting tyranny, it's about determining who shall impose tyranny.

There is no Liberty in this conception -- except the liberty to impose authority on others.

Of course it may turn out that yesterday's bombings had nothing to do with any of that, and I'm just spinning out a web of speculation and disbelief. It will never be entirely clear, in any case, because of the purpose and power of the Propaganda Machine to shape and control what people believe.

Even if it was what I think it was, an act by white men to get attention and to ultimately protect their privilege in the face of the Brown Horde by killing, maiming and scaring the crap out of random marathoners, the Propaganda Machine will ensure that the only version we are allowed to believe is one that protects the interests of the Highest of the Mighty against all comers, and that ensures that We, the People, accept an even greater level of surveillance and security.

Get ready for more and still more Security Theatre, more and more invasive surveillance, and no real progress at all on gun control.

OT: Carboy

When I was very little, I was obsessed with cars and I became notorious for being able to identify the makes and models of practically every car on the road on sight -- and letting everybody know, too. It was considered something of a trick. Much later on, I wondered if my parents were worried about my youthful talent since my older brother had the ability to remember and recall baseball statistics in detail for decades in the past but could learn practically nothing else; his condition is called autism now, but in those days he was described as an "idiot savant". Perhaps I would turn out the same way? Hard to say...

We've been looking for an old car to supplement The Red Van to cruise Old Route 66  -- which we live quite near. There are plenty of geezers in this area who get themselves an old car to go cruising in on balmy weekends or to show off at the plaza in town. As I pore through the listings online, a whole lot of vehicles catch my eye and many are cars I remember intimately from when I was a child.

Perhaps my mother's closest friend when I was little was the widow of the local Buick dealer, and her car was one of my favorites. Of course it was a Buick, a 1941 black Roadmaster, quite an impressive automobile, and surprisingly not showing any age to speak of by the early 1950's when I was driven around in it from time to time.

It was much like this one:

1941 Buick Roadmaster (via Wikimedia Commons)

Our own car at the time was a 1942 Packard Clipper that had seen better days. It was green... well, it had been at one time, but the paint had faded to a wretched gray with greenish highlights. There was a significant dent in the right rear fender -- whether someone ran into the car or something else happened, I don't remember. The stuffing was coming out  of the driver's side armrest and the upholstery was torn in places. I don't think the radio worked. The manual transmission was balky -- it sometimes wouldn't go in reverse, and going forward it would often get stuck in low. My mother hated to drive it.

This was the model, however:

1942 Packard Clipper

 And here's a picture of Little Me standing in the yard with the Packard in the background.



Finally, in 1951, we got a new car, actually a slightly used one, a 1950 Plymouth De Luxe like this one:

1950 Plymouth

I was very fond of that car and to this day every time I see one, I get a little thrill. There is one available fairly nearby, and the price is decent, so it's on my list of potentials...

Next, we got a 1957 Ford Fairlane, purchased new in Los Angeles (the name of the dealer escapes me now, but I recalled it not so very long ago, could even visualize the salesman...)  It was something like this (it was tan, but it was a fordor):

1957 Ford Fairlane models from brochure

 It was followed by a 1959 Hillman Minx, very much like this:



It was the first car I actually drove myself, not very well to be sure. It was foreign and small, and difficult to service, so we got rid of it pretty quickly.

The Hillman was followed by a 1961 Ford Galaxie. It was huge. Domestic. Black with a red interior. And it was considered very sharp in those days:

1961 Ford Galaxie from brochure

Next, can you guess? A Mustang. Yes, it was a 1965, green, and extraordinarily fun for me to drive. By then I had a driver's license. And I could drive the Mustang quite well, thank you very much. Of course, it was smaller than the Hillman, but who cared!

1965 Green Mustang

After that, I got my own car, a 1950 Packard Victoria Convertible... A very rare model, and today worth a good deal of money. I think I paid $250 for it -- I had only $100 and borrowed the rest from my mother or sister. This car was on its last legs when I got it, barely running at the time. I did some minor repairs and started replacing the top, but I don't think I drove it for more than a few months before it died the death -- and I couldn't afford to put more money into it. So it sat in the garage for a couple of years, and then I gave it to a friend who said he wanted to restore it and thought he could do so for a decent price. I don't know what he paid for the restoration, but this is pretty much what the car looked like when it was done:



Except he painted it gold, which I never liked. The car was a really nice turquoise with a red leather interior when I bought it. The top was cream color. As I recall, the power equipment (seat, top, windows, windshield wipers) was all pretty wheezy, but the radio worked!

Though I didn't approve of the color he had it painted, he loved the car and eventually sold it for a pretty penny.

The next car I bought was a 1951 Buick Roadmaster, a car I enjoyed enormously, drove everywhere, and I would love to find another one like it. I think I paid $150 for it and I sold it for the same price several years later.

1951 Buick Roadmaster

I followed that with a 1958 Cadillac, which I didn't like quite as much as the Buick, but was happy enough with. Again, I bought it for very little and sold it several years later for about what I paid for it.

1958 Cadillac 60 Special

After that one, there seemed to be a swirl of new and used cars, mostly Chevrolets and Fords, but then after the Escort lost a wheel on the freeway (it just snapped right off), the switch was on to Toyota and then to Subaru.

The last car we had (donated it to charity before The Big Move) was a Pontiac; we brought The Red Van out to New Mexico where it has been many times before, and it has been reliable transportation through the fall and winter, but now that spring is coming on, the hunt for a cruising car is underway.

Frivolous, I know!

What's Missing...

This is a video about a different commune, but the principles, ideas and practices are very similar to that of New Buffalo and many others.

I'm still plowing through Arthur ('Arty') Kopecky's New Buffalo Commune journals. I approach them with a kind of fascinated awe because this is the kind of primary historical documentation I am enthralled with. You should have seen me with the historical journals (and letters and all sorts of other stuff) of the California Gold Rush and subsequent Railroad Era!

The material provides a picture of the reality of what was going on -- as it was happening -- that isn't much like the mythical overview that's called History. LIFE magazine and the other media of the time couldn't capture the reality of this or much of any other historical moment in part because they weren't set up to do that. They're set up to create the overview and the myth. They don't have space or time to tell the story, and they are incapable of documentation as it happens.

Television and radio couldn't do it, either, in part because of their requirement for "distance." There are certain establishing shots that have to be done, certain camera angles that have to be preserved, certain interactions to undertake. One says and does things in highly specific ways for radio and television that don't reflect what is done and said when the cameras and microphones aren't there. Movies have the same problem.

Journals are sketches. They aren't the whole story. But they outline the various things that are important to the journal writer at the time, and from the sketch, readers can often build a much more complete picture in their minds' eyes.

Blogging has some of the same characteristics, though some of us bloggers are far more prolix than most journal and letter writers. Livestreaming of events such as the demonstrations of the Occupy Movement is much closer to the reality of what's going on in real time, but the streamer's and the camera's point of view is always so narrow that it misses most of what's happening and who is involved. Ultimately, it's barely even a sketch.

I have yet to visit any of New Mexico's remaining communes and intentional communities (there are at least 70, perhaps more, though the link lists only 35), but I know some unreconstructed hippies as well as others who have been part of these movements and their consciousness raising from time to time over the years. People like to think that the Back to the Land Movement was a failure, and in some ways it most certainly was. Living off the land is not easy for one thing. In some ways, it's probably not possible to do it the way it was once imagined it could be done, "independently" of the larger society and economy. Even a bare subsistence off the land is probably not possible, partly because of the very existence of the larger society and economy.

I think about this in the context of asking why so many Native peoples succumb to the presence of another material culture or society. And asking why -- and how -- so many survive. Why aren't they strong enough to resist?

But then I realized that was the wrong question. They do what they can to resist, but as the more powerful material culture spreads and takes hold, it becomes less and less possible for the Natives to maintain their own way of life in its midst. Ultimately they can't hold on; it's too costly and there are no longer enough resources available and accessible for the Native culture and way of life to be sustained.

Back to the Land was intended to reverse the process. It works up to the point that it doesn't. And when it doesn't, things fall apart, often disastrously.

New Buffalo was founded -- if you want to call it that -- by an absentee rich fellow who purchased some land in Northern New Mexico between Arroyo Hondo and Taos (around 9,000 ft elevation, which isn't exactly ideal for farming!) and opened it up to would be communards to come, do and prosper. This happened quite a bit back in the day. Land was relatively cheap (if you were rich enough) and relatively widely available. There were abandoned farms everywhere (it was a period of agricultural consolidation), and there were millions of restless young people "looking for to find" alternatives to their dreary programmed existence. Bingo!

It's not unlike the situation today when you think about it. The real estate market collapse has made millions of homes and a lot of land very, very cheap to buy -- if you are rich enough, if you have enough pelf to begin with. If you're not, it's not that easy at all.

Back in the day, those who had wealth -- especially young people with inherited wealth -- were much more willing to buy land and experiment with alternative approaches to matters social and spiritual than seems to be the case today. It was even possible back then for people of much more marginal means to pool their resources and set out to build a new-model community without the instigation or backing of wealthy patrons.

The rules are somewhat different now. Or so it seems.

New Buffalo had a rocky start, but it grew and it prospered as those who could handle the requirements of communal living and near pioneer conditions found it and stuck around. One of the things I've noticed about Kopecky's journals is that they are filled with physical, psychological and spiritual evaluations of practically everybody already on site and those who come by. Are they strong, are they young enough, do they have any weaknesses, will they fit, do they have anything to offer, can they handle it and get along, how close are they to the Divine? Can they cook or fix a truck or build things? Do they have any material goods they can share-- how about books? Are they creative? Are they lonely? Are they social? Do they know anything -- at all -- about farming? Can they operate a tractor, wrangle livestock, deal with the neighbors? What is their background? Are they crazy, drunk, whacked out on drugs? Are they just tourists?

Kopecky evaluates everyone -- even himself -- on an ongoing basis. Sometimes he strikes me as remarkably judgmental when something else is called for, but I realize he's trying to ensure that the community and the farm work as well as they can under what are truly difficult, borderline impossible, circumstances. He uses the tools he's brought with him -- from New York and California as it happens -- and one of them is his need to evaluate others -- and himself.

During the Occupy heyday, I was involved with quite a few people who were active in the field of alternative and intentional community building some of them with a great deal of experience doing it, others with an intense longing to be part of it. When The Farm became the center of the community formation process, a lot of people stepped back. It was in some ways just too difficult and scary. (It's a long, complicated, and ultimately very sad story that I won't go into here, but it mirrored some of what happens as intentional communities are founded -- and fall apart or are taken apart as was the case in this instance.)

"Evaluation" of participants is a fundamental necessity -- and it is one of the most difficult things to handle and get right. That's one of the reasons why it can take years to develop a well-functioning intentional community or commune. They don't happen spontaneously, though they may be initiated spontaneously.

I think about these things in the context of St. Francis and what he was trying to do almost a thousand years ago -- and the hostilities and hazards he faced every step of the way. I think about it in terms of the pioneers who went out West, whether to California or New Mexico or wherever, to make a new life (including my mother's parents and my father's grandparents). I think about it in terms of my own life and the quest I've been on all these years.

The motto we formulated as part of a visioning process for something to come:

DIGNITY, JUSTICE, COMMUNITY, PEACE

has yet to catch on, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of, but which clearly involve decades of conditioning toward indignity, injustice, individualism, and struggle with one another -- or war, as the case may be.

This is the legacy of Thatcherism and Reaganism, a legacy heavily propagandized for decades, with disastrous results everywhere, and yet with few or no alternatives anywhere. When New Buffalo and the other communes and intentional communities were being set up in the 1960's and '70's, the legacy -- and the propaganda -- that had conditioned their originators was quite different. The communes and intentional communities were generally honest attempts to realize the ideals we were brought up to believe in, ideals that could not be realized by submission to the material demands of consumerism and formal institutionalism and all that went with it.

But maybe there was something about those ideals that was out of whack.

Or maybe it's something else.

Back in the day, the ideals many of us were raised with and conditioned to believe in drove the demand and necessity for alternatives to the war and empire, the consumer, conformist culture we were immersed in. Back to the Land was one of those alternatives. But now, though people have the notion they need to do something like that again, it's proving more and more difficult to imagine it, to visualize it coming to pass, even though, perhaps, the opportunity to do it is greater now than it was in the 1960's or '70's.

Or maybe it is something else. I've said many times that the demonstrations of the Occupy Movement were the key elements of what was going on. They were demonstrations of alternatives to the cruelties and destructive tendencies of the Overclass, and they had a very, very powerful impact on people's imaginations of what could be.

Some of the demonstrations, however, particularly the governing and political elements that grew directly out of the anarchist roots of the movement, were deeply troubling to those who witnessed them -- as I and many others did. It was stuff we were not prepared for, and it showed how vulnerable these latter day spontaneous communities were to the vagaries of human nature and the predation of a certain class of individuals. I documented quite a lot of what I witnessed as things developed -- and devolved.

There was something missing.

New Buffalo is still there, but it's now a proprietorship, not a commune, called The New Buffalo Center.

There are archeological digs under way.

Historical documentation and speculation takes place. Kopecky is not the only one with recollections, after all.

We can't go back to what used to be, we can only go forward. But forward to what? And how?

 Still being worked out...

Glenda Jackson Eviscerates The Thatcher "Legacy"

The outpouring of bile toward the Baroness Thatcher is quite something to see, given the hagiography of her great and bosom friend of Ronald Reagan. Not that it will make much of a difference in the end, but still.

Jackson doesn't hold back, despite the whining of the Conservatives...

The Freakout Continues, cont'd....

His Serenity Back In The Day

Now that His Serenity's Budget has been released, shrunk wrapped and all, and yes, indeed, it contains cuts to Social Security (scheduled benefit increases are to be based on the Infamous Chained-CPI instead of current COLA formulae and expected inflation rates; it's complex) and Medicare (scheduled payments to providers are slated for cuts and beneficiaries contributions are scheduled to increase), all heck has broken loose, at least among "progressives."

Who insist that there be "NO CUTS!!!"

Well. Fine. That's not going to help much, though, when All The Serious People insist that these aren't "really" cuts, at least not from current benefits, they merely slow the rate of increase "to more closely reflect the actual impact of inflation." Yeah, right. Lies and damned lies, but whatever.

The issue, as I've said before, is that maintaining the status quo -- which is all that "NO CUTS!!!" does -- is actually a step backwards because current COLA formulae don't reflect actual cost of living increases for anyone, let alone elders. Consequently the only serious progressive position should be to increase SS benefits by substantially more than current COLA formulae do.

Duh.

But of course, that's not the "progressive" position.

Not even Bernie Sanders'.

If "NO CUTS!!!" is the opposition position and only "progressives" are expressing this position, then the game is already lost no matter what the outcome.

Young Ezra may have actually written a column with charts and graphs and stuff that show -- or suggest -- that increasing benefits is better for the economy than reducing them or their rate of growth, but so what? Who is claiming that the economy will be better for these cuts? Who is claiming that the intent of these cuts is to improve the economy? Ha ha ha.

The intent is obvious: ensure that the High and the Mighty will never be required to pay one dime in taxes to support other people's old folk or to pay back any of the trillions of dollars in tax reductions they've received due to the trillions in surplus SS taxes already paid for their own and their parents' retirements.

It's been obvious for years.

Cutting scheduled Social Security benefits has been on the political agenda of the Highest of the Mighty ever since the failure to privatize the system under the Busheviks. This doesn't mean they are giving up on their ultimate goal of stealing the entire SS money pot. In fact, the payroll tax "holiday" and the White House's open advocacy for Chained CPI are almost as obviously means toward that end. Privatization of the program can then be hailed as the means to increase benefits, and I'll bet you even Bernie Sanders supports it.

Sometimes it's so easy to read these entrails.

Russell Brand Demolishes the Thatcher "Legacy"

Russell Brand

Perhaps my early apathy and indifference are a result of what Thatcher deliberately engendered, the idea that "there is no such thing as society," that we are alone on our journey through life, solitary atoms of consciousness.

This was a point of view I always attributed to The Iron Bitch's great friend, the Sainted Ronald Reagan, only rephrased to say "There's no such thing as the public interest." The sentiment obviously came from the shopkeeper's daughter, though, not from the addled reactionary in the White House.

Brand has much more to say. It's at HuffPo which I usually don't read or link to, but in this case, an exception is warranted.

"Ding, dong, the Bitch is dead!"

The question is, why do such wretched people live to a ripe old age while so many of the good die so very young? Is this some kind of cruel divine joke? Hm.

This Might Be Useful -- Then Again... Gar Alperovitz Yaks With Laura Flanders About "The Next Revolution"

Gar Alperovitz and Laura Flanders 

It's almost as if the United States has gone into a state of suspended animation as the People digest the New Normalities of gross inequality, injustice, and permanent recession for the many, unprecedented and indecent wealth, power and privilege for the few.

Yes, well. We've been circling this pivot point for quite a while now. Efforts at reversing the course of events or even slowing down momentarily have proved futile. The Government of the United States of America has completely divorced itself from the interests of the American People. It serves only the right sort of international rich folk and that's it.

The People simply don't matter any more -- not that they ever much did in the vast eternal scheme.

What then must we (the People) do?

This is Alperovitz's central question. And, unlike so many in the field of intellectualized revolution, he provides some answers, some of which are similar to ones I've mentioned in posts here and in other fora.

As a side note, though, I would take his solutions with several barrels of salt. The clearest indication that his solutions may be no solution at all is his reliance on the decrepit institutions of the failed system, including labor unions. I can understand why he does it, but many Americans are on a different path altogether. There is much ferment and experimentation going on throughout the land, many Americans are consciously withdrawing from The System and setting up their own alternatives, intentional communities are flourishing, permaculture is more and more widely practiced, cooperatives and even communes have experienced new life. It's an acknowledgement that our institutions have failed. Something else again is required.

People are figuring out ways to survive and even prosper under the cruelties and rigidities of today's ruling class and its handmaidens, just as they always have. The more conditions worsen for the many, the more creative solutions are -- sometimes -- found.

This is a kind of internal revolution that the Occupy Movement attempted to prefigure, and I think they got it right. It amounts to a paradigm shift, in this case away from the standard model of institutional finance and economics and ultimately toward something else again, something simpler, more direct, closer to the land, more democratic, community enhancing, and sustainable.

Disengagement is a form of revolution.

But disengagement ultimately is not a solution, it's an alternative. Alternatives tend to be supplements rather than replacements for deteriorated institutions and the theft of the commons.

I'm reading some journals from the New Buffalo Commune up by Arroyo Hondo, arguably one of the most successful Hippie communes from back in the day. It's still there, though not what it once was as it now has a proprietor, an owner in fact not simply theory (for tax and other purposes, the original commune had to have some sort of declared ownership -- hilarity ensued.)  Many of its aspects were learning experiences for the communards -- most of whom had no background in back to the land efforts or farming or intentional community building or even independence beyond the typical adolescent need for revolt.

That's not enough for a sustainable community, as the New Buffalo communards found out.

The problem is not that there is something intrinsically wrong with the alternative being sought -- whether it's a cooperative, a commune, a diverse intentional community or what have you -- it is that the participants are almost always conditioned throughout their lives not to engage in such alternative behavior. Americans were and are conditioned to obey, to submit to authority, and to gravitate toward powerful personalities. And there always seem to be a surprising few intentional or unintentional predators who gravitate toward alternative communities who almost inevitably bring them to grief and/or ruin.

The openness of so many of alternative communities and the inability of their participants to protect themselves and their communities from those who would do them harm has meant the end of all too many communities and movements.

Yet many communes and intentional communities persist and more are forming all the time.  As the United States continues its rapid de-industrialization, the cooperatives and worker-owned factories that Alperovitz highlights and favors become both more and less relevant. The United States is becoming a nation that makes nothing; nothing but foodstuffs and financial figments for the world. In a sense and highly ironically, the overclass is driving the return to the American agrarian past -- for those who can do it.

Many can't and won't.

The Freakout Continues...

This might be interesting. I don't know how to read these beads, though, so it might turn into a big, fat nothing burger, too. We'll see.

On Wednesday, the White House will present its budget, one widely presumed to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits "going forward" and to do who knows what all damage to remaining social programs -- which have already been severely impacted by state and local budget cuts since the advent of the Permanent Recession, and have not in any way kept pace with the social needs of the American People as they are forced further and further into poverty and destitution.

Many people have pointed out that even Granny Starver Paul Ryan's budget doesn't (directly) harm the old, the halt, the blind and the lame. Obama's does. Or at least it's reported to in advance of its anxiously awaited release.

"Nixon goes to China" and all that.

There's not a lot that We the People can do about these machinations of the High and the Mighty. We can do almost nothing about them through elections. The political/electoral process in this country -- a process which was never amenable to the public interest or the public good -- has reached what looks like a terminal phase. It has become fundamentally useless as a means for accomplishing public interest ends. Only special interests can be accommodated. There are plenty of signs there is no chance for recovery from this condition. Both the major political parties are beholden to the richest players at the table, both do their bidding; neither is more than marginally conscious of the People and the public interest.

When the People become restless, the state cracks down with ever greater cruelty and violence. We live in what is effectively a police state set up and operated on behalf of a relative handful of vastly wealthy individuals and institutions.

The so-called "progressive" position under the current circumstances is to preserve what can be preserved of what remains of the New Deal social programs and to advance "cultural values" issues, such as same-sex marriage and so on.

In other words, preserve the status quo on vital issues -- to the extent that's possible -- and make incremental advances on the cultural margins, apparently so that generations to come will be culturally capable of and conditioned to doing the right thing on those vital matters.

In my view, there's nothing truly progressive about these positions at all. There's nothing progressive because there is nothing new in holding on to the tattered remnants of a more and more irrelevant social program status quo, nor is there anything new in extending rights to smaller and smaller segments of previously marginalized population segments. They may be desirable on their own account, but they are not "progress." One is quite self-consciously standing still.

So we now have a media frenzy and internet freakout over the White House's proposed "reforms" -- ie: cuts -- to Social Security and Medicare and doG-knows what other abominations the new federal budget contains.

But is it a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing?

Wouldn't surprise me.

The Freakout Over "Chained CPI"

For years now, I've advocated increasing Social Security benefits -- by doubling or even tripling low-end benefits, 50% increase at the mid-range, maybe even a 25% increase at the top. This is not rocket science, it's basic consumer economics.

Social Security benefits are cripplingly low for many retirees as well as for many of those who would retire, except they can't afford to.

It's a ridiculous situation that any rational society would not have allowed to occur, especially not during the worst economic depression since the 1930's. A rational society would have pumped up retirement benefits promptly and would have made retirement possible for many more people at an earlier age. I've advocated 55 or 60 as the proper retirement age for full benefits, rather than 66 or 67 as is now the case, and of course, I advocated something like "Medicare for All" as opposed to the titanic insurance company and medical-industrial subsidy that is Obamacare.

Doing those things: substantially increasing SS benefit amounts, reducing the retirement age, and instituting single payer health care/Medicare for All would have made a huge difference in the course of the now-Permanent Recession and would have alleviated a lot of suffering.

Instead we get cuts and talk of more cuts to come.

This is insane.

Apparently the White House is really, really pushing to institute "Chained CPI" for calculating COLAs for all kinds of benefits, especially Social Security. The beauty part, according to those who have looked into it, is that Chained CPI also functions as a mid- and lower-class tax increase because it adjusts tax brackets ever so subtly, gradually forcing lower income people into higher tax brackets while leaving those already in the highest brackets where they are. Brilliant!

With the specter of raising Medicare eligibility age to 67, the impoverishment of ordinary working Americans is set to continue until Doomsday.

This is absurd.

There is now a full-blown freakout on the so-called 'left' over the Chained CPI proposal out of the White House, and all leftish internet effort is being marshaled to put a stop to it. Yes, well. Good luck with that. It's not that it is impossible to do; it's that it's the wrong crusade.

The effort should be focused on increasing benefits, lowering the retirement age and instituting single payer/Medicare for All.

All the Freakout does is try to maintain the status quo. It doesn't advance anything. It simply tries to keep things as they are for as long as possible.

I've made this criticism of Digby more than anyone, but the tendency on the so-called 'left' is almost universally to preserve the civilized status quo against the assaults by the barbarian 'right.' Typically, it fails. And the 'left' falls back to the next barricade until it, too, fails, and so, backwards we slide, constantly. The nation becomes more and more rightist because the rightists are the ones who keep pushing against the status quo, while the defenders of the status quo are the supposed 'left.'

Didn't anybody learn anything from the failure and fall of the Soviet Union? The tragedy of the Supreme Soviet making its last stand against Yeltsin's tanks was not that they were wrong. They weren't -- at least they wouldn't have been if things weren't so out of whack. The tragedy wasn't even that they failed. The tragedy was that they had nothing to offer beyond preserving the status quo, and they were incapable of recognizing that the status quo... sucked. (Well, it could have been worse, and it got worse, but that's another issue.)

So now the American 'left' uses all its energy to preserve what it can of the status quo and calls it "Victory!" -- and that's just crazy, especially as the status quo keeps moving rightwards. Preventing Chained CPI doesn't stop the impoverishment. It's not at all certain that Chained CPI can be stopped at this juncture. So if it is instituted, the impoverishment of the American People will be accelerated somewhat, but that impoverishment will take place anyway if the current COLA formula is maintained.

Do people realize that there were no COLA adjustments for two years during the darkest period of the Permanent Recession, despite the fact that the basic cost of living was skyrocketing at that time? Food, housing, utilities, medical prices etc. were all going up, some at double digit rates, and people on fixed incomes were being battered by these increases, but they were ignored by those calculating COLAs, one of the excuses being that beneficiaries had received a large COLA previously due to fuel cost increases, and since the cost of fuel was (temporarily) lower, they didn't need COLA increases to cover other rising costs.

Maintaining the current COLA formula, in other words, is effectively backsliding. Shifting to Chained CPI calculations accelerates the backsliding.

Neither is an improvement, neither stops the impoverishment of the People for the benefit of Our Betters.

It's part of what drives me nuts about what passes for the 'left' in this country.

Those who actually want to and try to make like better for the masses are dismissed as crackpots and worse, while those who are singlemindedly focused on preserving things as they are are hailed or condemned as some kind of 'leftist' heroes or villains (depending on ideological perspective), and the rightists claim the "center."

There's an uncompromising level of cruelty among Our Betters and an utter lack of empathy for the victims of their policies that could be highlighted much more -- and much better -- than it is. A real Left might do that, but given the lack of enthusiasm for using terms like "cruelty" to describe the policies being inflicted on the rest of us by those in power (for fear of offending?) it's going to be an ever lengthening row to hoe to enlighten the suffering and reverse the cruelties of the High and the Mighty.

Of course the entire political culture is complicit and both major political parties are deeply involved in demonizing and impoverishing the masses. There is no better solution from either party, merely a pendulum swing from bad to somewhat less bad. Nor is there is a chance of forcing "change" by either boycotting elections or voting third party. We've already seen how -- and how effectively -- authority and "interests" will interfere with any election that doesn't produce acceptable results. If you doubt just how far Our Betters will go, look to the astonishing replacement of elected prime ministers in Europe with compliant technocrats whenever the austerity interests declare it desirable.

We mustn't allow ourselves to be fooled into believing that elections will get us anywhere. They won't. They will not be allowed to.

Chained CPI may or may not be implemented. We the People will have no effective say in the matter. But by ensuring there is a complete freakout over it among the so-called 'left', Our Betters ensure that there is little effective opposition to their overall scheme. It works beautifully. For them.

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UPDATE: Young Ezra has cogitated the matter and decided not to get too worked up about Chained CPI, it's the whole damned thing that's too mingy as it is, and behold: increasing SS benefits and instituting a public option or Medicare for All actually -- wait for it -- benefits the economy.

Who. Duh. Thunk?

Maybe. Everyone knows Young Ezra is a complete and total tool of powerful interests (particularly in the White House, doesn't matter who's occupying said House) and he doesn't take stands or advocate policies on his ownself.  What he does is push whatever line his most recent Power Contact pitched to him. In this case, it appears there is someone at the White House who's had a dawning, a come to Jesus moment. A realization: the economic policy makers are going about everything backwards, no wonder it doesn't work! Ah ha! Yes, well.

Having the realization and doing anything about it are two different things. Ezra is just a vessel, much as Brooksie is; a great deal of their work in the media is designed to palliate the masses, quiet their grumblings, by declaring that this or that position that the People may (or may not) favor is being discussed by the High and the Mighty, who are considering every possible argument before inflicting a policy on the rest of us. You see. That is why they are called Our Betters.

I would go so far as to suggest that Young Ezra has had no dawning at all. He'll cheerfully put the notion out there that, say, maybe it would be cool to increase rather than shrink benefits and put in place a rational public health care system. There. It's been said.

Now let's get on with the screwage.

I am so cynical.

Ay ¡Flamenco!

  Flamenco! Flamenco! Flamenco! : Sevillanas from Christopher Michael Roybal on Vimeo.
Yjastros at the KiMo Theatre in Albuquerque October 30, 2009, with Alma Flamenca and Niños Flamencos.

A couple of weeks ago, after we saw "West Side Story" at Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque (located on the campus of UNM), we walked to a friend's house a few blocks away to visit for a bit. We passed by a number of posters promoting something called 'Encuentros' with a dance company called 'Yjastros.' ¡Flamenco!

Indeed.

The performance was coming up in a few weeks at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, part of the festivities leading up to the celebration of Cesar Chavez Day (which is tomorrow at the NHCC, featuring Dolores Huerta as honored guest -- and we might have to go. There's another long story involved... )

At any rate.

Flamenco is easily my favorite dance form. My introduction to it dates back some decades to St. Louis, specifically the Opera Theatre of St. Louis on the campus of Webster University. Maria Benitez and her company had been invited out from Santa Fe by Richard Gaddes, then artistic director of the Santa Fe Opera and the founder of Opera Theatre of St. Louis, to choreograph and perform in the dance segments of that summer's zarzuela, "La Verbena de la Paloma."

This was not my first encounter with opera by any means, in fact, I'd worked with a number of opera companies on the West Coast prior to heading out to St. Louis by car. It would mean my first -- and second -- encounter with New Mexico, however, since the Interstate passes right through both going and coming (who'dathunk!).

Sometimes when driving through Albuquerque, I pass by the motel where I spent the night back in 1982, (well, it wasn't actually the "night" as my arrival was at dawn, and don't think I got more than two hours' sleep before the cleaners began banging around, but that's another story, too.) That motel, the Crossroads, is apparently something of a landmark these days due to a television series I've never seen; it's something out of the 1950's, looking very much now as it did then, perched there on Central hard against I-25. You can't miss it.

But that aside...

The zarzuela  was the highlight of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis season. Everyone, including me, said so. Gaddes, for his part, was gushing about it constantly, deservedly, too. He'd never tried anything like it in St. Louis, and he was very uncertain how it would go over with a hard Missouri "Show Me" crowd. But they loved it.

Maria and company also did a special flamenco performance on their own during the run of "La Verbena," and that's where I saw flamenco for the first time in its purest, live form. It was -- for me at least -- thrilling.

I've been a fan and an admirer of Maria Benitez ever since. There's a extended story that goes along with that, but I'll skip it for now to get to Yjastros and 'Encuentros' last night.

Between the time of my first encounter with Maria Benitez and flamenco in St. Louis, a number of flamenco movies were made in Spain, featuring Antonio Gades and Cristina Hoyos. Eee! The first one I saw was "Carmen" -- a flamenco Carmen, imagine -- and it was stunning. I still have visions of some of the scenes in my head.  It was amazing. I'd never seen, or even thought of, anything like it. Strangely enough, or perhaps not so, the spareness of the production, the idea that it's a rehearsal for an upcoming production, the incredible discipline and skill of the performers, and the simplicity of the whole thing -- compared to Grand Opera, for heaven's sake -- was in line with my percolating notions of "poor theater" as delineated by the Becks and Grotowski and many others.

"El Amor Brujo" and "Bodas de Sangre" were not quite as spare and relevatory, at least to my reckoning, but they were in their own way just as astonishing. They can still take my breath away.

And so to Yjastros, the local-national-international flamenco company, that I'd barely been aware of prior to last night. Well, yes, I'd heard of them and knew of Joaquin and Marisol Encinias. But I'd never seen them, never thought I would until I noticed the poster after the performance of national tour of "West Side Story," and thought, "Why not?"

Yes, well.

Why not, indeed.

The show was... brilliant.

There's no other word for it. I'm sure a flamenco purist would criticize this or that dancer, dance, or the whole concept as being "not quite" something or other, and I would be the first to admit there were flaws here and there -- both technical and artistic -- but I don't care. It doesn't matter.

I couldn't get the silly grin off my face the whole time, nor could I keep myself from shouting a not infrequent ¡Olé! at a particularly intricate paso. These people were on. This was flamenco duro.

We don't see that very often, not even in New Mexico, where flamenco is one of the many cultural art forms that suffuse the place. I adore Maria and her company, and her artistry is unmatched as far as I'm concerned, but this, this Yjastros, was something else again.

It was hard, gorgeous, enthralling.

Oh, and there were standout performers. Oh my, yes. Particularly, in my view, Elena Osuna, whose every fiber of being, whose tension and passion, drew you in to a mysterious and compelling world as expressed with her feet and hands and arms and body. Even when she danced with a corps, you knew she was exceptional and she kept your attention no matter who else was onstage or what else was going on.

Carlos Menchaca was nearly -- not quite -- her match. There were only two men (besides the artistic director, Joaquin Encinias)  in the dance company. Male dancers seem to be as scarce as the proverbial hen's teeth in New Mexico, so it's fairly easy for a man with reasonable talent to be a standout in dance productions, but Carlos was exceptional.

He danced "Jaleo" with Marisol Encinias, a co-director of the company (Joaquin is her brother), in a passionate duo that had the audience shouting and clapping at the audacity and spirit of the whole thing.

Marisol herself had a solo that brought the house down. It was long, intricate, emotional, and exuberant. Her stamina must be incredible. To say the least.

Joaquin performed with great vigor, not a lot of style, at the end of the show. He's got some weight on him, but that's never stopped a flamenco performer in my recollection, and he did his turn well. The crowd loved it, thought I heard one wag in the restroom afterwards saying he thought "that big dude was gonna get his heart attack right there on the stage."

Perhaps the most alluring performance was that of cantante Kina Mendez who sang through most of the show and sang and danced (in stiletto heels!) in her own solo segment.

The guitarists were nothing short of brilliant themselves.

All in all, it was a memorable evening, one of so many we've had since settling in New Mexico.

 

OT: Mem'ries

This is really something. Home movies of a trip to California by a Connecticut family (the Barstows) who won a contest sponsored by Scotch Tape in 1956. The prize was a week in Southern California, hotel accommodations in Pasadena, admission to Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, a trip to Catalina Island, and $300 in spending money.

I've written before about my experiences at theme parks in Southern California, including Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, during the mid 1950's. This home movie is as close to the experiences I had as anything I've ever seen. I panned for gold at Knott's Berry Farm, rode the donkeys at Disneyland, got sunburned at Santa Monica and Catalina, even took trips in split-level Greyhound buses just like the one in this movie. I visited Hollywood often enough, stopping at Graumann's Chinese as well as the Egyptian, and sat in the audience of several television shows. I never did go on the Universal Studios tour -- don't recall that they had one in those days, but I guess they did. Of course I remember orange groves -- there were oranges planted behind our house until about 1955.

Austerity for Thee

More and more people seem to be coming to the realization that Our Betters in Washington are selling us a bill of goods regarding the viability of various social programs, specifically Social Security ("if we don't do something right now, now, now! we're all gonna die!"), that is plenty familiar -- and wrong.

Of course it will still be a while before many of those who are opposed to -- say -- pilfering Social Security revenues for -- say -- yet more tax cuts for the rich, but even they'll come around after many more years of pounding.

Social Security is not really off-budget like Our Glorious Wars, not at all. As I understand it, until the recent payroll tax "holiday," it was paying out about as much as it brought in, so it was at least revenue neutral. Prior to The Permanent Recession (which happened simultaneously with the start of Baby Boomer retirements, isn'tthatinterestingthough) Social Security was collecting a substantial surplus, all of which was secured by (I wouldn't say "invested in...") special Treasury bonds.

Since the payroll tax "holiday," however, and even now with full payroll taxes being collected in incomes once again (which amounts to a 2% tax hike on working people) Social Security has been paying out somewhat less than (or quite a bit less than, depending on your point of view) it has been receiving in revenues.

This has meant "tapping the Trust Fund" -- except it doesn't really. The people who say the Trust Fund isn't real are right in that sense. There is no special place where the Trust Fund Trillions are stored for safekeeping. Payments from the Trust Fund come out of the government's General Fund -- which means they are either taxed or borrowed into being.

Because of the incessant jiggering that's been done to the Fund and the budgets and such, it ultimately means that all the money that's being paid out to Social Security beneficiaries comes from the General Fund, though SS continues to maintain nominal independence, what with its dedicated revenue stream and so on and so forth (the law, as it were).

Social Security is no more "going broke" than the Government itself is "going broke" or the Imperial Storm Troopers are "going broke." The Federal Government has a highly creative ability to keep itself from "going broke," as well as the ability to determine who will actually go broke in the Casino of Life.

Thus all the yakking and yabbering about Social Security being unsustainable or what have you is really little more than rhetoric for the yobs and entertainment for the Higher Ups as they decide (on Our Behalf, of course) who will and will not benefit from this or that decision or action they take and implement.

In the case of Social Security, the High and the Mighty have decided they want to cut Social Security payments to beneficiaries "going forward." And they have decided they will do it, no matter what the People think about it, though they will sell it as a "strengthening" or "improvement" or what have you, "to ensure that Social Security is there for the next generations, yadda yadda," as if they actually care one way or another about you and yours. (For the record, they don't.)

They have decided in their Wisdom to re-prioritize Government spending; they don't want to spend so much on the old, the halt, the blind, and the lame as they would otherwise be spending given the priorities set a generation or so ago. They aren't seeking to reduce the amount of Government spending in the aggregate -- no, they'll increase it into the dim mists of the Future Unknown. They just don't want to spend as much on you for the well being of you and yours.

This is still somewhat abstract for Americans, because it's not altogether obvious how this re-prioritization is supposed to work. A lot of people seem not to realize that many benefit payments have been severely cut as it is, that eligibility for benefits has been restricted, and that millions and millions of people have been cut off from benefits altogether. This has come at the cost of a stunning increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness in this country -- yet it's largely invisible or goes unrecognized.

It's happening not because of any "lack of money" -- there's plenty of money. It's happening because Our Betters see their opportunity and they are taking their opportunity to ensure their perpetual happiness while incrementally enmiserating everyone else. What could be better -- for them.

If they are not actually going to reduce aggregate government spending (don't be silly, they won't) but they are insistent on reducing the amount spent for "benefits" -- or anything else that doesn't provide an immediate bottom line enhancement to them and their cronies -- what do they want to spend the money on?

Well, wars, for one thing. Another one -- could get nasty -- brewing on the Pacific horizon involving Korea. Oh, that's the ticket. Let's blow things up Over There, and let's use some Nukes, too, eh? But see, that's how Our Betters think. If you take a moment to ponder what's going on Over There, it's hard to escape the notion that L'il Kim the Bad Boy got his ideas about How To Deal with the Rest of the World not from Mao or Stalin or his Old Man but from Gee Dubya and the ilk he surrounded himself with -- whose ideas and ideals still infest the Government. (Of course, my theory has long been that the Busheviks were the very subversives we, as little ones, were incessantly warned about in the routine Anti-Communist Propaganda lectures we were exposed to. But that's another topic for another day...)

Wars can be extremely profitable for certain connected interests, as was demonstrated in breathtaking fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, it was partly a matter of literally looting the people and the country of anything of value and destroying the rest, and partly it was a matter of looting the American Treasury, some of it in the form of billions of dollars (shrink-wrapped $100 bills) airlifted over on pallets, never accounted for. Endless defense spending for warriors and materiel, endless no-bid contracts, amounting to trillions more in money for nothin' -- not to pay for anything blown up or killed or conquered, not for repairs and maintenance, not for anything at all, except for the contractor's being. The closest parallel to what was happening might have been during the American Indian Wars in the 19th Century, an extraordinary period of handing out favors and payments -- often for nothing at all in concrete terms -- indeed ensuring that favored recipients would enjoy endless Government rewards for... being. All charged to War. What a racket.

The bloated National Security State has proved immensely profitable to certain connected interests -- sometimes the same ones who profit from War, sometimes others -- and they want to see those profits continue and increase until hell freezes over if they have their way. State security is a byproduct, if it occurs at all. The point, after all, is not to secure the state, it is to secure the profits of connected interests, and Americans have only the slightest glimmer of recognition that these enormous profits are actually coming at the People's expense. But that's the point.

One of the cleverest favored interests is the Medical-Industrial Complex that profits in myriad ways and seeks to ensure the perpetuation of that profit through the tender mercies of Obamacare and the forced extractions from The People that go along with it. It's not just a matter of ensuring profits for the insurance industry forever, oh no. There is more, much more, including all the many ways the Complex can profit directly from the many extractions yet to come, such as higher (and ever-higher) Medicare co-pays, premiums, and potentially the privatization of the entire program. There is no thought -- at all -- of reducing the scandalously high medical care prices in this country (another source of looting and profit). No. All the thinking among policy makers is about how to get more money out of the pockets of the old, the halt, the blind and the lame to pay for ever-growing medical costs. Clearly, the M-I Complex is one of The Most Favored Interests.

Of course the Banking Interests seem to be the most favored of all. Whereas War, the National Security State, and the Medical-Industrial interests have managed to extract trillions from the People during the last decade and a half or so, the Banking Interests managed a heist of hundreds of trillions practically overnight. Nothing like that has happened before in human history. It's a stunning achievement. Even Enron couldn't do it.

One of the little noticed factors of both the boom and the bust that has led to the current Permanent Recession (for the rest of us, not for Our Betters) was that there was an enormous amount of theft going on (much of it out in the open) and that the bulk of this theft was by the rich from the rich. That's where the money was after all, and in some ways, it was surprisingly easy for clever dicks to get.

Once that easy money was "redistributed" (among the rich) however, many of those who lost in the game wanted -- demanded -- their losses be made good from you and me. In other words, "austerity" for the rest of us, profits without end for the High and the Mighty.

The banks were the first in line, and their banditry was and is stark and stunningly successful. Not only were they made whole for their casino losses, they were apparently granted what amounts to a permanent subsidy to not only cover any future losses but to ensure an endlessly growing profit stream.

"Austerity" is perhaps the purest form of theft from the People to enhance the revenues and profits of favored interests, but in the United States, as I mentioned earlier, "austerity" is still something of an abstraction. The connections between cuts in benefits and services that have already been enacted, together with those to come, and the concomitant rise in poverty, hunger, homelessness among all sectors of the Lower Orders, along with the decimation of the middle class, aren't yet clear enough for widespread recognition.

But overseas, in Europe and Britain, those connections couldn't be clearer, as one after another, the peripheral countries and marginal population segments are quite openly looted and impoverished for the benefit of the "core" -- but more specifically for the benefit of the rising European Bankers and the Neo-Aristocracy. Parasites, in other words.

The already too meager benefits of Social Security in this country must be further reduced in order to ensure that the favored few receive the endless profits they believe they are entitled to.

But as we've seen with the banks most clearly, nothing -- at all -- need be reduced to provide the Entitled Class with endless profits. No pallets of $100 bills need be airlifted, no extractions need be taken from the pockets of workers and the elderly. All it takes is jiggering a few numbers on a screen, and Voilà: beaucoups de bucks! It's magic!

Wars and the National Security State, all the social benefits one could want, infrastructure spending out the wahzoo, all of it and more can be funded and more, with merely a jiggering of the numbers on a screen.

This tells us that the point of all the benefit cuts and austerity measures is simple: to inflict pain and suffering sadistically, because it can be done and the victims can do nothing about it.

Power.

For the sake of it.

Monstrous.

Towards A Poor... (Life)

 

Video: Sky News 13 flies over Tome Hill

Living in New Mexico, one is confronted with the reality of poverty all the time. It is inescapable, a fundamental fact of life. This is poor country. It's a hard land for one thing. The persistence of the drought, and more federal government budget cuts, are making things harder -- among many other factors contributing to poverty in New Mexico.

Now and then, I feel a pang of guilt because we're not that bad off, all things considered, and some people around here think that because we came out from California, we must be ricos. Well, no. Far from it, but at least for now, we're not struggling financially. It's nearly the first time in our lives that that wasn't so.

Of course, one of the reasons we're not doing so badly now is that we tend to "live poor" -- because we've been poor. Oh, very poor indeed. We have known hunger and near-homelessness from time to time, sometimes with seemingly nowhere to turn for assistance. We can look back from our relative comfort today and easily think it is a damned miracle we've survived at all. It often wasn't easy.

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This time of year, pilgrims are marching toward their various destinations, be it Tomé Hill or Chimayó or wherever else they are impelled to travel as a sign of their faith during Holy Week. There was a modest but very faithful procession yesterday passing by the cemeteries and cattle pastures near our place, headed out to the spare tin-roofed adobe Catholic church that serves this area. Periodic pilgrimage is a way of life.

Most of the pilgrims are poor people or the descendants of poor people, often Indios or Hispanos -- or as sometimes happens, they are not poor people at all but simply more well-off Anglo seekers of something that's missing from their material lives. The pilgrimage experience gives them an opportunity to be in touch with the Divine for a moment, or at least to sense the Spirit That Abides.

We have not gone on pilgrimages as such, though we have attended some of the solemn processions and the more cheerful Fiestas in various parts of New Mexico, and we have been to El Santuario and chatted with Father Roca -- who kindly blessed us and insisted we take with us a scoop of Holy Dirt and a vial of Holy Water for our travels.

The hike up Tomé Hill is one of the (many) destinations we've put on our bucket list. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it this year due to health issues, but maybe next year. Of course that could turn into something like our endlessly delayed plans to attend the Burning of Zozobra.

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Despite the fact that Santa Fe is awash in ricos, there are lots of poor people, too, as there are everywhere else in New Mexico. In our area, there are a few very rich and prominent ranchers, an assortment of more or less middle class suburban pseudo-ranchers (most of them government drones), and lots of poor people getting by as best they can. It's not easy. Some may get benefits of one kind or another, but the amounts are typically so miserly, they must count every penny, and despite the existence of food pantries and a lot of generous charity through civic and religious institutions they may go hungry during the month or go without heat during at least part of the winter. I know of people who don't have electricity or running water in their self-built homes because they can't afford it, not because they are trying to live off the grid or aspire to recapture the essence of primitive living. We may live in a pioneer house, but it's on a paved street (in some areas a rarity).

There are people who have these luxuries, plus a car or maybe two and a connection to cable or satellite teevee and a cell phone, maybe even a computer, who are barely getting by just the same. One of them lives down the street from us. He was injured in an on-the-job accident years ago, hit on the head by a falling roll-up door, brain damaged, but he was not able to get disability until late last year. Once his minimal savings were gone, he had to rely on others to help him, and so they did. Neighbors and relations chipped in, took care of him, made sure he was fed and cleaned, paid the bills that had to be paid while letting other things go; they even took care of his dogs. He hated being a burden on others, but he didn't have a lot of choice. Finally, he was approved for disability after years of being denied, and he will now have enough (he thinks) to pay his own way. No one expects him to pay back what they spent and did on his behalf.

This sense of community and looking after one another is part of the reality of poor living, something that ricos are forever trying to thwart or interfere with. They hate the fact that poor folk are often far more willing to look after one another, without any expectation of reward or return, than are the ricos themselves. They don't understand it, and they are afraid of it.

We live in a community that is tightly bound to one another in many ways, and to an extent -- because we're from California -- we're still not fully a part of it. I suspect if we were from Texas, on the other hand...;-). Some of the locals are suspicious, some try to figure out an angle for profit, others think we're just so rich and uppity we wouldn't want anything to do with them. Some have become fast friends.

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During the Papal Festivities, Francesco, Il Papa, expressed his wish to have a "poor church for the poor." Yes, well, I have my doubts about that, but the impulse is probably genuine, at least as genuine as anything gets at his level in the Church hierarchy. His insistence that he took the name Francesco from St. Francis of Assisi is interesting (I would have thought Francis Xavier, he being Jesuit and all...)  and quite charming, but... well... it's a little hard to imagine the princes of the Church, led by the Pope, actually following the Little Poor Man's path. No, I think they wouldn't. They've (Gosh Almighty!) worked way too hard to get where they are and have what they have (sucking up to Ratzinger, come on!) to go the Poor Man's route, but you never know.

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Of course the Church is mostly theater, always has been, as is obvious in its Protestant evangelical kindred, though the Catholics are no slouches when it comes to Spectacle.

Theater can be accomplished on a fairly low budget though, and if the Church wants to, it can reflect on the Poor Theatre of Jerzy Grotowski -- as well as many others over the years -- as a means to explore what a Poor Church might be.

The pilgrimages and acts of the penitentes in New Mexico are examples of Poor Church theater, at least the way I look at it. We were at a Christmas event last year where a version of a penitente chapel (morada) was displayed. "Notice the bloodstains still on the doors?" Uh, yesss.... and the point would be...? What I was intrigued by was not the blood, it was the images, the retablos and bultos, that covered the walls of the shrine and decorated the altar. They were all native New Mexican made, some very old, though most probably dated from the 1950's or so. They were beautiful in their simplicity and naiveté, so much so I wanted to take some home -- though our own nicho does not lack for sacred images and statuettes. It's just that our nicho has so few actual New Mexican items. Most of them come from varied sources in California, though the pressed tin Our Lady of Lourdes is originally from France, and some of the santos and other images are from (Old) Mexico. 

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We have a lot of New Mexican made pottery, however, mostly from Acoma Pueblo, so there is that! Of course most of it is still in boxes... somewhere... There are unopened moving boxes stacked in the house and out in the storage building beside it. There are more in the garage and the shed and the studio. There are some still in California, too. Sometimes I ask, "Where is... X or Y or Z?" And the answer is usually, "Oh, it's probably still in a box somewhere in storage." Any idea where, exactly? "Well, no. Not exactly. It might still be in California...;-)."

I've been meaning to go back to California since February but haven't done it. I figure three or possibly four trips in the van should empty the storage unit there, or I could rent a truck and do it in one trip though I'd have to figure out the logistics of getting there and back without flying. I would rather not fly again if it can be avoided. My last couple of experiences with airports and airlines were so annoying I swore off flying for good.

Of course the fact that I can even mention these sorts of conundrums and annoyances indicate how far from actual poverty we really are.

That could change at any minute though, due to the fact that I don't have health insurance (yet) and because of any number of uncertainties. You never know.

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Jerzy Grotowski's "Towards A Poor Theatre" was a big influence on my thinking about and doing theater. And on living, too. I think it's telling that Grotowski's approach is still considered "experimental" or "radical."  But his ideas and methods came out of a long tradition of theatrical artists breaking free of convention, using what was at hand -- and particularly their own bodies and voices -- to create a living partnership with the audience. One of the keys to this approach is to dissolve the boundaries between the stage and the People, or if the boundaries must be maintained, to make them strict and obvious.

Breaking free of convention became the central idea of the kind of theater I wanted to do and eventually did do. But when you are fighting against convention and expectation in theater, you are almost by definition doing and living Poor Theatre.

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OT: Been Kinda Busy

Jerzy Grotowski's "Akropolis" c. 1968 -- a sample of the kind of theater that kept me spellbound back in the day...


What with Spring trying to spring and all... Working on several outdoor projects and some delayed household things. Plus getting one of us doctored -- which has turned into quite a project in itself. Not a bad thing, though.

I'm [also] working on a somewhat lengthy blog-post that ties up a whole bunch of loose ends pivoting on the concept of "Towards A Poor..." (Something), that weaves together New Mexico, the Church, the several pilgrimages going on for Holy Week (eg: Chimayo up north, Tomé to the south), Jerzy Grotowski's theories of "a poor theater" and the influence his ideas and practices had on my own theatrical impulses and career, Meyerhold, the Becks and The Living Theatre; veering off into the spreading enforced poverty due to economic policies, and so on and so on and so on... it all runs together, but I'm finding that writing it down in any sort of coherent fashion is elusive (to say the least!)

A pause is likely to sort these things out... spring cleaning?

Divorcing the Finance Economy From the Will of the People

"Democracy" has always been a fiction in the developed world, of course, despite what we are propagandized to believe. The idealized form of representative government, whether on the anachronistic and increasingly nonfunctional model of the United States or on the more usual (but also dysfunctional) European parliamentary model, was never meant to be particularly democratic, and in the case of the American model, it was never meant to "represent" everyone. In fact, it is purpose-designed to exclude vast swaths of the population and their interests from representation, even as it undergoes centuries of modification to expand representation.

For some time now, we've been in a situation in which a certain privileged segment of the population has quite consciously and successfully placed itself outside the confines of responsibility, accountability and law, while it has more and more successfully taken economic -- and in some aspects, political -- control of  nation after nation.

The latest being Cyprus.

If the financiers who are pulling off these deals were half as smart as they think they are, they would know full well that continuing to foul their nests as they have been doing is not going to end well. For them.

On the other hand, they really seem to relish the suffering of the People under their austerity lash, so there is that.

A moment's pleasure before the fall.

"And Service to the Poor"

Towards a Poor Church

More and more Americans are pushed into or are kept in poverty every year. The American poverty rate is a scandal -- or it would be if anybody was paying attention.

So we now have a Pope in Rome waxing lyrical about a "poor Church" and "service to the poor."

Yes, well.

It's a good thing in a way, because no world leader has given a good gott-damb about or for The Poor for many a long year, not since the expiration of the Soviet Union, and the marginal leaders like Hugo Chavez and a handful of others who actually did something to lift the poor from the depths are excoriated and denounced as some kind of evil.

Ergo.

A Pope in Rome making these noises about the Poor, after all these years of focusing on papal piousness and saintliness (well, and Prada) is a breath of fresh air.

But take it with something like a barrel of salt. What we have is a situation in which government policy throughout the west and much of the rest of the world is making more poor people every day. And let's face it, the creation and perpetuation of Teh Poors is good for the God Business. Oh, very good indeed!

Over at dKos, Betty Clermont has penned a devastating take down of the Papal Show we've been treated to the past few days. It is not, she assures us, what it appears to be. A Pope like Francis who appears to be too good to be true probably is. And we'll be in for even more duplicity, deception and despair, no doubt, as the rituals of the Church, the acts of the Pope, and the realities of living in the material-world-as-it-is gain an even tighter grip on our collective throats than ever before.

Nothing, fundamentally, will change for the better. Much may well change for the worse -- at least for the many millions whose toil and travail continues to boost the wealth of the diminishing few. We've been down this road before...

Indeed.

Ask any of our Third World neighbors; most will tell you they've never left this road, and it would seem that it is the intent of our neo-Fascist rulers to ensure that there will be many more poor and far fewer (but much wealthier) rich in perpetuity.

The Church may serve its solace on Earth and hope for reward in Heaven to the masses once again, with the benign Francis dispensing alms, serenity and beauty.

St. Francis was a young man when he was called by the Divine. He died at the age of 44 or so. His ministry on Earth had lasted less than 20 years. Pope Francis is old and most likely will not survive anything close to 20 years on the Papal throne. His work will have to be quick, therefore, and the changes he is expected to make in the Church will by necessity be superficial.

Matters of style, not dogma.