Connect the Dots
from the Free Venice Beachhead
Collective
On October 30, a group of
Locals assembled in front of the Venice Library to let Congresswoman Jane Harman
know that some of her constituents protested her pro-war stance on the war/no
war on terrorism.
Since then, some of the demonstrators have
been questioned about their priorities.
“It’s too bad you people
don’t care about the war here at home, in Venice. The shootings, the
murders, the dislocation of long-time Venice residents from their homes have
been escalating. Guess it’s easier to point the finger at something
halfway across the world than to concentrate on what’s happening down the
street.”
Well no, not really.
Some people resent that they are taken away from silly boring projects such as
homelessness, hunger, and health.
Some
of the people who were at that demonstration have been wrestling with these
problems for over three decades.
Some
of those people connected the dots between war, ignorance , and poverty, and
have been agitating for civil rights since the Scottsboro Boys, the Zoot Suit
Riots and the right to organize
labor.
Some of the people at that
folksy demonstration, in reality more of a neighborly remonstration with a
fellow Venice resident who purportedly represents Venice in the federal
government, have been agitating for civil liberties since Joe McCarthy had hair,
before the Miranda Law (now on its way to being vitiated by the overwhelmingly
reactionary Supreme Court) was enacted, before women were accepted on the police
force, and before the right to privacy was put in place by an older more liberal
Supreme Court in Roe versus Wade (also in the process of being eliminated by the
5-to-4 current Supreme Court).
In
addition, if one looks at the Homeland Security Act and the Patriot Act, and the
proposed National Security Agency, the phrase “civil liberties” will
be used with as much opprobrium and subtext as was Nancy Pelosi (D. San
Francisco) newly elected Minority Leader. She was dubbed a San Francisco
Democrat which has become a code word for liberal which has become a code work
for leftist which has become doublespeak for Burn the Commie
Bitch.
The Big News on CNN during the
week prior to Thanksgiving was Wacko Jacko dangling one of his offspring over a
four-story high hotel balcony in Berlin. The crawl on CNN news stated that a
recent study found that over 67 percent of full-time working low-income families
are finding it more difficult to find safe decent and affordable housing and
that over 51 percent of moderate income folks were paying over half of their
income on housing.
The war/no war is
going to cost billions a day.
So before
people start with the left-leaning liberals, tired old hippies, obstructionists,
comsymps, etc., remember these people are agitating for the folks to connect the
dots.
Health services will be cut and
those low-income folks who are struggling to find decent shelter will be the
first victims of the war/no war and moderate-income families will be forced to
decide between braces for their kids’ teeth and car
insurance.
So spend that six hundred
dollar tax break you got by doing the patriotic thing, Christmas shop at bargain
prices at one of the Marts, K or Wal, to keep them from crashing and burning.
The Demopubs are ready to privatize
Social Security with Arthur Andersen doing the
bookkeeping.
Some people don’t
want to connect the dots.
If the
situation is looked at from a different perspective, the war/no war
couldn’t have happened at a more fortuitous time. The party in power was
mired in dirty money special interests and corrupt stock exchange
scandals.
Lower echelon people employed
by heretofore reputable stock exchange companies were being laid off by the
thousands, while C.E.O.s were bailed out with multimillion dollar benefits and
pensions.
Thousands of loyal workers
were bamboozled into investing in companies they worked for. They believed their
employers treated them like family. They were if one remembers the House of
Atreus.
One woman spoke before a Senate
hearing about the misdeeds of several firms. She invested her money in the firm
looking forward to a comfortable retirement. Now all she has is Social Security.
Don’t get her wrong, she said, she’s grateful for Social Security,
but it’s not what she
expected.
Just imagine how much Social
Security she would have had, if her Social Security funds were invested in
ENRON, Dot.Com, etc.
But the horrors of
9/11/01 presented an opportunity for this administration to
exploit.
Like an Evil Magician, the
administration distracted the sad and shocked citizens by sleight of hand and
spurious patriotism from the sleaze and greed at home to an easier and
far-distant, vague target
abroad.
People who have been fighting
off successive administrations’ efforts to further marginalize the poor in
this country are now spreading themselves in other
directions.
But this is nothing
new.
People have fought the wars on
poverty and racism, while fighting to bring troops back home from wasting their
good lives and good money on a sordid senseless war in
Vietnam.
It’s been some time
since 1984 has been published.
Now is a
good time to reread it.
Orwell has been
more prescient than it’s believed he would have liked. Keep ‘em busy
with the phantom war(s)/no war(s), against some faceless, countryless group of
raving terrorists and no one will complain about conditions at home, because Big
Brother—oops, Homeland Security will keep an eye out for those grumpy and
disaffected members of the population and for the good of preserving the
American way of life they will be locked up for preventive measures before they
utter a rat squeak, and no one will
know.
The people who demonstrated
against the war/no war on October 30, have their priorities straight, there are
just so many of them.
And the readers
of The Free Venice Beachhead have connected the
dots.
Yours
truly,
The Free Venice Beachhead
Collective
Posted: Sun - December
1, 2002 at 04:13 PM