The End is Near

United States Representative Michele Bachmann (R - Minnesota - 6th District Elk River, Saint Cloud, Woodbury) said earlier this month that now is the time for rejoicing as the signs point the end times are upon us.

And listen to Ron Paul, who was recently on king kook Alex Jones' popular radio program. Paul, whose son Rand is an influential Senator and serious 2016 contender for the Republican nomination, gave his best estimate for when the United States will collapse.  Two years was Paul the Elder's prediction.

Senator Ted Cruz (R - Texas) having his fun partially shutting down the federal government, I would say is of the mindset that an economic calamity needs to be sped along to advance an even further right-wing drift for the country - and to increase his mailing list.

Now, color me pat is crazy, but these silly people are right to say there are some signs things are breaking down.  If you really chose to look, the signs of entropy are everywhere.  Of course, ObamaCare, which is a plan to the right of that Trotskyite Bob Dole's 1996 health care proposal, has nothing to do with our impeding doom as a nation.

It was just a few years ago that our whole economy, you know, almost collapsed.  No serious reforms have been made to prevent something like that from again occurring.   And the darn people who caused the financial meltdown are not now spending the reminder of their lives in prison, they are still in power.

Our democratic system of government has turned into a bad joke.  Virtually no piece of legislation can get passed in Congress unless it gets approval from corporate America.  The two political parties are backed by the same Wall Street interests.  We all know this, right?

The one percent, while they themselves are making record profits, continue to push policies of "austerity," and those policies continue to have violent consequences upon working people. 

And forget the economy, remember that whole global warming crisis?  What again are we doing to address that?  Eh, I'm sure somebody will figure it out.

Truth is, policies which are designed for the betterment of all human-beings will not come from the existing political order, by political and corporate elites, be they Ted Cruz or Barack Obama, Google or WellsFargo.

The Pope seems to get that.  Or at least is smart enough to start to position the Catholic Church's image on the side of the 99% and justice - with all his recent remarks about capitalism being a sin, atheists getting into heaven, and the idolatry of money and material things being destructive.

I sense, in my continuing optimism, more and more folks in the queer movement are recognizing that while marriage equality is great and all, it mostly benefits rich white people.  Trickle down social justice will not bring about liberation for the whole.  Focus is returning and even expanding upon more broader concerns, getting back to Stonewall roots as opposed to supporting TARGET ® sponsored QTBLG pride parades.

Meanwhile, the most significant environmental activism the world has ever seen is currently taking place.  Forget the Carbon Tax, activists recognize the self-destructive path of capitalism is not going to take the environment, at least for humanity's sake (jellyfish might be okay), in a very pleasant direction. In Canada and the United States the Keystone XL pipeline has been chosen as the symbolic line in the sand.  Thousands of mostly young individuals will by almost any means do whatever is necessary to stop the pipeline from being completed - and they have a reasonable shot at being successful.  The KXL is gravitating people to build stronger networks to resist, not only that pipeline, but other fossil fuel infrastructure plans as well.

Anywho, the point is things aren't all bad.  The Revolution will come at some point and people will build a culture that's foundation is based on love and peace and all that good jazz (or we'll continue on in our meaningless existence, until we've killed everything, I don't know).  I do know in my last post I mentioned this next character.  Now before you get the wrong idea, I haven't been completely taken in by his swarmy charm, it's just there hasn't been a more eloquent person conveying the message in a long time.  Russell Brand recently was the guest editor at the New Statesmen.  Read his editorial if you get a chance.  And check out this interview from the BBC's Newsnight if you haven't already: