A brief foray into a former passion:
I was a political activist-turned-operative for 18 years. I started at 13 manning phone banks as a volunteer for Ann Richard’s campaign against Clayton Williams. I worked on every gubernatorial campaign and presidential campaign since then. By the time I got my first paid gig coordinating fundraising for Kerry in 04, I had grown weary of working for the lesser of two evils. When Obama came along I, along with the rest of the sane folks in this “democracy”, saw the chance for a tectonic shift in paradigm. It felt like I was working for a viable third-party candidate. However, Obama’s subsequent cowardice left me disenchanted. His ramping up of the Bush/Cheney obliteration of our civil liberties left me heartbroken, enraged and sick to my stomach. I realized then that my hero Bill Hicks’ philosophy vis a vis American politics was right on the money:
“I’ll show you politics in America right here: ‘I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.’ ‘Well, I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.’ Hey wait a minute, the same guy is holding up both puppets! Shut up and go back to bed America, your government is in control.”
For 18 years I fought to make a difference. After being jilted at the altar by Obama, I’m done. I’ll still write about this oligarchy that masquerades as a democracy in blog posts, freelance articles and songs, but that’s it. I will not enable this cesspool any longer.
Obama makes Poppy Bush seem relatively benign. Bush 41 did a lot of horrid shit but he did not torture, assassinate American citizens, have a “kill list” etc. Even Nixon didn’t wiretap reporters or engage in the data-mining horrorshow that is currently in use. “Warrantless wiretapping” did not exist. Bushbama took the abortion of our civil liberties into the 4th trimester. After promising to eliminate the rape of the Constitution perpetrated by Dubya, Mr. Constitutional Law professor not only continued the seizure and assault on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, he ramped it up to rape and murder of the Founding Fathers’ creation. I use the word “rape” because its original definition is to take something by force and against someone’s will. That is exactly what the Obama administration has been doing and continues to do insofar as Constitutional, civil and basic human rights. Candidate Obama pledged to protect whistleblowers. President Obama has destroyed the lives of Bradley/Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden and countless others. Extrajudicial assassination of US citizens destroys due process. Mind you, I don’t have much sympathy for Anwar Al-Maliki. I could give a shit about a dead Islamofascist. It is the PRINCIPLE that matters! Maliki had ALLEGED ties to terrorists. I am ardently against capital punishment, but it exists. If they wanted to try to kill him, here’s the legal way to go about it: Send the FBI, NSA, CIA to Yemen and apprehend Maliki. Extradite him to the US and try him in a federal court. If and only if his trial proves that he is guilty of having carried out terrorist attacks against the US, convict him of said capital offense, sentence him to death and execute him. The death penalty is dead wrong but United States citizens are not executed for alleged offenses, at least they weren’t until Obama set a dangerous precedent. What’s next? The term “narco-terrorist” is in the judicial lexicon, are alleged drug dealers or users going to be blown up by Hellfire missiles fired from a drone 30,000 feet above Pittsburg? Speaking of the war on drugs, Obama, who thanked his weed dealer in his high school yearbook, has imprisoned more people convicted of cannabis-related “crimes” than any of his predecessors. Obama is Bush, more educated and on steroids. There are 2 major differences between Dubya and Obama: He has a Nobel Peace Prize, but so do sociopaths like Mother Teresa and Arafat. I think that if we launch missiles or bomb Syria, he should have to strap his Nobel Peace Prize on to the first cruise missile or bomb fired/dropped into Syria. Speaking of that enlightened state, half of the “rebels” we are funding in Syria are affiliated with Al-Qaeda…deja-muh all over again! The second and only redeeming major difference between George W. and Obama is Obama’s repealing of DADT.
My father is a talented, left-wing investigative political journalist. HE called Obama out for escalating the Bush/Cheney civil-rights massacre. However, almost NO ONE in the center or left mainstream media has done so. If Bush assassinated an American citizen, MSNBC, CNN, NPR (everyone except Faux News) would have and SHOULD have been screaming for his head. When Obama did it, the silence was deafening. Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart have taken him to task, but not as severely as they would have done with 43. The lone voice of rage is that of Bill Maher, who gets booed every time he says ANYTHING critical of Obama The Infallible.
Fuck it. I’m out. I’ll still write songs like these though!
Thanks for reading my sleep-deprived cathartic rant! Come see the band play Austin’s Metal and Lace (Headhunters) on Fri October 4 from 9:30-11. No cover and a Friday! There’s no excuse!! See you there!!
HOUSTONIANS: We are playing Walter’s Downtown on Friday, December 6. Cover charge and set time TBA. Come get rocked like you’ve never been before!!!
All my love-
Mike
Mike Dubose and The Dissidents Blog 