by Davis Fleetwood  ( See this post as video commentary )

While there were so very many things about last nights state of the Union address that inspired within me the urge to end the suspense already and just take a flying leap off of a cliff, let’s start with something positive shall we?

Obama said:

“With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.”

Yes! As I have said previously, the recent Supreme Court decision will make it more likely that people will chose to piss into a gale force wind rather than vote.

Then he hedged:

“I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”

Some of the problems?

In the vast wasteland of problems embedded in our current system, a mountain of corruption only topped off with the cherry that is the recent Supreme Court ruling, you have thrown down the gauntlet and suggested a bill be created to address some of the these problems? This is just the type of mealy-mouthed mediocrity that assumes, correctly I believe (although we can argue about which is the chicken and which the egg) our society’s collective masochism, our existential dilemma, our manically depressed desperation that screams- this is the best our humanity has to offer?

It just this kind of rhetoric that inspired Howard Zinn (who, faced with the prospect of watching Obama’s State of the Union last night dropped dead of a heart attack) to quip: “If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates”

But, as any President faced with rapidly deteriorating approval ratings and the accompanying diminished influence over the silver spoon yahoos parading around the marble halls of the House will tell you, it’s the economy stupid.

Obama acknowledged this by saying:

“Families across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions. The federal government should do the same. We are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. “

Of course, there are exemptions to this. The Pentagon, fierce adherents to the philosophy that the best defense is a good offense, will continue to see its budget increase. While Obama promised not to turn his back on the uninsured in America. What then do you call spending more than 50% of the overall Federal budget on the military, whose primary function it seems, is to uphold, through the application of unilaterally applied lethal force, the American Dream, as articulated by the President last night, “I will not accept second place for the United States of America!”
Afterwards Chris Matthews said that watching the state of the Union he forgot Barack Obama was black. And that this was a major accomplishment of his presidency- the ushering in of a post racial society.

You’ll excuse me if I withhold my applause until we elect a president who can usher in a post Imperialist society, one with the Charlie Browns or a va jay jay (this is a post women’s movement society) to usher in single payer, slash military and defense spending and do something, anything, to steer us out of the path of our Christian Nations self fulfilling prophetic date with Armageddon.

For the video “Chris Matthews up past bedtime – forgot Obama ‘was Black tonight for an hour’, + full text of State of the Union + video commentary on this article, go HERE

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(see video)
It is the American dream: get married, have children and own a home. Indirectly, one can make the argument that that dream, and the corporately sponsored accoutrements that come with it, are killing us all. But for nearly 1 in 4 homeowners who are “underwater”, owing more on their mortgages then their homes are worth, the dream turned nightmare is quite literally strangling them.

Let me help you with the solution: Stop paying your mortgage. Stop right now.

Default. Take the money that you would have been giving the big bank and deposit it in a locally owned bank or credit union. Wait as long as you can – you will have about one year- before you are evicted, then go rent somewhere.

Moral qualms? Get over it. Under Obama administration directives, counselors at the US department of Housing and Urban Development urge homeowners to follow the “responsible course” and pay their mortgage. This same administration is eager to give bailout money to companies like Morgan Stanley, who recently stopped making payments on five San Francisco office buildings. Morgan Stanley is able to pay back the TARP funds precisely because it makes cold business calculations and walks away from “obligations” when they are no longer financially profitable.

Real Estate developers do this all the time. Just this week, the owner of New York City’s Stuyvesant Town complex made a sound business decision: he stopped paying the $3 billion mortgage on his little square on the monopoly board.

Big Banking, the status quo, your government all have a great deal invested in you hanging on to your mortgage, honoring your commitment, and living the dream. The machine serves them. The wheels of the bus go round and round, round and round, making regular deposits for the wealthiest of the wealthy who constantly adjust the vise on your neck. It is not just underwater homeowners, but all of our relationship to this dream that is akin to the ten dollar whore to her pimp, or a battered wife to her abusive husband.

I’m here to tell you honey: you don’t have to take it anymore. You can dream bigger. You can dream different. You are better than that.

If you are an underwater homeowner. Stop paying your mortgage now. If you know someone who is underwater, share this with them and support them in their decision to walk away from their mortgages.

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Corporations have been running the country for decades, now. The recent Supreme Court ruling just makes it easier, more transparent. Now that voting is- temporarily anyway – obsolete, we can focus on more constructive activities.

“Starting today,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the dissenting opinion of the already infamous Citizens United v. the FEC, – an opinion, by the by that sometimes read like a suicide note, that “corporations with large war chests to deploy on electioneering may find democratically elected bodies becoming much more attuned to their interests.”

Understatement, thy name is John Paul Stevens!

Corporations will find democratically elected bodies much more attuned to their interests? That is like saying to the residents of Hiroshima: this is just going to hurt a little bit.

Pledge Allegiance to the Flag

Consider that, in the year of hope and change, 2008, when more people where personally and financially invested in the electoral process in some way, the top 100 American corporations had 600 billion dollars in profits. If those companies divert only 1% of their profits in the next election any future election cycle, that equals 6 billion dollars, which equates to double the electoral spending of Obama. McCain and every candidate for house and senate combined.

Given this reality, will people still vote in 2012? 2016? Contribute a hundred bucks to a campaign? It seems more likely that voters will chose to take a piss into a gale force wind.

One must dig to the conclusion of the dissenting opinion of Justice Stevens to absorb the impact of that the Supreme Court just did:

“The Court’s approach to the First Amendment… will undoubtedly cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress, and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process.”

If you are An American Citizen without access to a fortune 100 companies treasury, you are currently being raped.

So what to do?

First of all, when talking to friends and family or writing letters to the editor on this issue, do not mix metaphor’s or employ hyperbolic statements such as “If you are An American Citizen without access to a fortune 100 companies treasury, you are currently being raped.”

I am a trained stunt driver on a closed course and you should not attempt this in public. While it is a happy accident in art that lies often tell a greater truth, hyperbole around the Sunday dinner table will only get you taken off the guest list for next years Secret Santa.

So, you should put down the brick you were about to throw through a Starbucks window (but save it, one never knows when one will need it) and visit FreeSpeechForpeople.org Educate yourself. Then sign the petition.

Share it with everyone you know.

Just do it.
VIDEO/ Supreme Court Renders Voting Obsolete

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