Categories
Rant

Fuck You Donald Trump

Thanks Donald.  You have been revealed.

Not only are you despicable for decrying gay marriage but now you have forced a black man in the highest office in the land to show his birth certificate like an undocumented worker.  What now?

Now you have the evidence that Obama with his weird name is really American you have decided to challenge the authenticity of his education.

Working in tandem with Fox News, in the back pocket of Rupert Murdoch…you are as credible as anyone can possibly be who works on a fake reality TV show.

A bi-product of your unrestrained Obama hatred?  The US press is finally talking about the vile racism that motivates you as well as these terrible Tea Party Republicans, these ghastly birther people.  They are finally acknowledging what I have been writing for months:  that these hateful people simply cannot come to terms with the fact that Obama is a black man in the White House.

Why has it taken them so long to articulate this?

Why?

Donald Trump.  What a terrible man.

His crude attacks on Obama may very well have finally focused the minds of this dumbed down, frenzied American media.  Even the so-called intelligent press jumped on the Birther conspiracy band wagon.  Now, like guilty children they stand back from the story embarrassed that they had anything to do with it in the first place.

Let us not forget that rotting at the very heart of this ‘news’ story are the mutilated bodies of countless black men, women and children whose enslavement, torture and death white supremacists like Trump, Limbaugh et al still gloat over.

Hung drawn and quartered, their bodies swing in trees for all to see.  This is exactly what is happening now.  An intellectual lynching.  I say again, these white, resentful fools are determined to undermine this President, not because he is a bad President but because he is black.

Fuck you Donald Trump.  Fuck you.

Robby and I walked on the beach yesterday.  The Little Dog was bitten (not badly) by a three-legged terrier.  He was terrified and screamed like a baby.  He is a bit traumatized today.  Keeping close to me.  The wound is healing.

I cooked a huge pasta dish for dinner and we sat on the terrace in the warm night air talking about the origins of Christianity.  The origins of the myth of Jesus and the pagan stories that fed into that myth.  After a while Robby went quietly to his room.  I asked if he was ok.

He said, “It’s like finding out that Father Christmas is a lie.”

He was really perplexed, his faith in the literal teaching of the Bible has been shaken.

This morning Juan came for breakfast to discuss his food truck idea.  We drank coffee and looked over the ocean.  The sea is calm.  Elsewhere tornadoes are raging through communities in Alabama.

I am thinking about the idea of mid-life crisis.  Will expand on this when I know what I want to say.

Fuck you Donald Trump.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs]

Categories
Rant

Sarah Palin Murderer

Just one of many murders allowed to walk American streets freely whilst innocents languish in prison.

Add her name to a growing list of treasonous Americans who regularly incite hatred and violence against their fellow country men and specifically their President.   Sarah Palin, Rush Limburg and Glenn Beck: this grim triumvirate has become an impressive killing machine.

Bloated, ignorant commentators using freedom of speech as an ideological shield from behind which they scream their uninformed, toxic rhetoric.

In turn the dumb American proletariat, unable to fight for their own, turn on those who want to help them the most.

The ‘Christian’ hate speak of Sarah Palin and her legion of devoted followers has claimed the first of many of it’s intended victims..because, make no mistake, in the Palin home today they are praying that Congress Woman Gifford dies.

The meaningless sop, theses ‘thoughts and prayers’ offered to Gifford’s family and the American people from Sarah Palin this past twenty-four hours disguises a plain truth:  the only prayer to Palin’s God is that Gifford becomes just the first of many elected officials who will either be killed or too scared to stick to their ‘progressive’ principals.

This highly motivated fascist machine with its unpaid hit men will not, cannot be stopped with or for any reason.  They are deaf to anything other than their own message.

Still furious that a black man can be President these pink, treasonous men and women have done everything possible to stop Obama from achieving anything he promised the American people during his campaign.   Small minded folk, red necks, laughing amongst themselves as they take turns insulting the black man, tripping him up and laughing as he falls, spitting in his face…dragging him behind the car…hanging him from the nearest tree.

If only Obama didn’t look so damned scared, when Joe Wilson screamed ‘you lie’ (boy) “I called that nigger a liar to his face.”  Obama looked appropriately  sheepish at the good old boys.  Scared of the white man.  Michelle, on the other hand, shot them back that look..she isn’t scared because she knows exactly who these men are and who they represent.  But we all knew about her, we had been warned that she could be…uppity.

Their pink skinned agenda, as if you weren’t already aware:  No abortion.  More War.  More Guns.  More Prisons.  No Respect for the Environment.  Free to be Racist/Homophobic.  Free to ‘take down’ anyone with opposing ideas.  Free to make money by lying, cheating and stealing.  Free to treat the rest of the world as America pleases.  But most of all they want you to see things their way and no other way will do.

Today Sarah Palin’s followers are rejoicing that a health care supporting ‘blue dog’ democrat has been gunned down in the name of ‘freedom’.

I am neither surprised or disgusted because this is the American way, this is how Americans do things and will always do things.  Frankly, if they wanted it any other way..the rules would change.  Remember Martin Luther-King, JFK, Harvey Milk..etc. etc.  This is the most violent culture in the world.

If you have the guts and the motivation to assassinate then go right ahead.  Pay the price but go right ahead.  Survival of the fittest.  Manifest destiny.

The murderer is still alive to talk freely about his motivation.  I, and the rest of the world, will be fascinated by his story.  He didn’t bother to kill himself but let’s see if he survives to tell his tale.  He has served his purpose.

He has already been cast as a rogue liberal by the Tea Party…a Marx reading,  Hitler devotee..a loner and an iconoclast…he will be called a great deal more but none of it will be accurate.

(Surprise surprise…when he appeared in court the CNN reporter reported with some amazement that the mass murderer looked ‘normal’ ‘calm’ and ‘cooperative’.  He was not behaving like Charles Manson..he could be any one of our sons.)

Sarah Palin may very well be the next President of the United States, not just because she appeals to the lowest common denominator but because after years of pathetic ‘honorable’ Obama leadership this crazy, intensity addicted, short termist American public craves more drama…like a TV show..or an action movie…

The President of the United States is no longer elected, he is re-cast.

This childish, self-serving society gets the leaders it deserves.  Don’t tell me that it isn’t possible for someone like Sarah Palin to be president…that’s what they said about Hitler..the giggling German intellectuals…that what they said about Adolf Hitler.

If American liberals can’t stand up to these thugs then the rest of the world must.

Categories
Gay

Crazy Christian/Muslim/Jewish Monsters

Just a quick note about the repeal of DADT:

This gay male ain’t impressed. Like everything Obama does the goodwill gets lost in the detail.

I am not holding my breath for better treatment for gays in the military.

Of course DADT was absurd but repealing it does nothing when you get to thinking about the real and immediate problem for gay men and women in the USA:   The Christian Right hates us (along with the devout Muslim and the Orthodox Jew)  and would like us to self destruct in a cloud of holy vapor.

With the advent of fascist Palin and her ilk…who intellectuals love to laugh at as the German intellectuals did at Hitler…laws like this can be very easily repealed.  For Goodness sake, they are already discussing separate dorms for gays!

Now, let’s start talking about the real issue: legal parity, matrimonial parity and stop gawping over the death of a ridiculous law that affected a tiny number of men and women compared to DOMA which affects us all.

There’s something else, something I always forget to write:

The gays and the lesbians ain’t going anywhere.

We ain’t asking and you ain’t telling.

You murderous, repellent christian/muslim/jewish folks can kill every black man, every white man, every asian, every jew, every muslim, every christian, every aboriginal…but as long as there are humans on the earth we will be there too.

Get used to it!  Get fucking used to it!

We are your children and your grand children.  You can hunt us down and kill every one of us but tomorrow another gay will be born.

It is God’s Will you crazy Christian/Muslim/Jewish Cunts..it’s God’s fucking will.

As for the gays…

Parity, unity and now.

Get off your fat, lazy, complacent asses gay America and start breaking windows until you achieve equality.   Stop relying on bloated lawyers to fight unwinnable cases.  Do SOMETHING!!!  Do it NOW!!!

I know you won’t.  There’s a boy you’ve seen on Manhunt..a martini waiting for you at the bar…weights to lift at the gym.

I live in the USA. I am appalled by the lack of political initiative that gay people take or are engaged in.

Frankly this DADT repeal is small cheese.   American gay and lesbian equality is leagues behind the rest of the developed world because they refuse to engage in direct action.   They refuse to seen to have an opinion…refuse to fight in any meaningful way and, just as Obama attempted to engage with the Christian right with his ill fated consensus politics..reaching out to his adversary, the gays have their agenda prescribed by their homophobic enemies rather than doing what government hates most: insurrection.

Governments hate their own people on the street demanding to be heard.

Gay men especially still live in a great deal of  fear.

Look at the way radical British gay human rights activist Peter Tatchell fought hard and visibly for all to see, worked in tandem with Stonewall lobby type groups and allowed the oppressed a voice in the streets.

In America we are regularly stoned, beaten, insulted and killed.  It is time to fight back, it is time to be heard and a smidgeon of compassion is simply not good enough.

Categories
Christmas

Fuck You John McCain

Fuck You John McCain for telling the world that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a ‘sad day’. This is a small step toward equality for gay people in the USA. One Small Step.

The Senate vote is a vindication of Obama‘s decision to push for congressional repeal as opposed to unilateral executive action, though activists note he could have done both.

I am in Whitstable at my friend Carol’s house. She is having a huge party. It is thumping loudly in the cellar as I write. I know everyone in the house..everyone. This is small town living and I love it. Carol’s handsome son is a chef and has made delicious food.

They are downstairs drinking vodka and gin. They are listening to Senegalese music. They are eating the food and clapping and we are all wearing false moustaches.

I fell asleep.

At 5am I woke up and wandered downstairs to see what was going on and ended up with some good-looking 33-year-old. Really sexy man..blue eyes, hairy tummy.

I have been thinking a great deal about the life I left behind in LA. I wrote to a man I see around town called Dan Halstead..a manager. At his behest I wrote a little note explaining what has been going on with my health…sooner or later I will write in-depth here about the tumor..anyway, I wrote explaining everything and I received a two-word reply. I wondered why I even bother?

Before, before the show, before Jake, before returning to my home town..I would have been disappointed. Now, I just think it’s funny. His constipated reply made me laugh.

LA, NYC, LONDON…Sydney. The list goes on. I wish I could start again. Just like I did when I got sober. I started again and everything was new. Born Again.

The truth is: I am so disconbobulated that I don’t know where I should be.

Earning so much money these past months from selling art that I presently have no financial worries…but you know as well as I do…the drama, the interminable drama continues.

I could really do without what has been happening this past year.

Left a message for Phil to call me. When she returned my call I couldn’t bring myself to speak with her. It’s fucked up. Yet, I have held onto her for many years (for all the wrong reasons) so that she too becomes just part of the narrative.  The unfolding drama of my life.

On a good note I have been speaking to writers informally about our project. I think the majority understand what the film is about. Most of them get it but can any of them write it?

I am really enjoying watching British TV. Good political debate, fresh ideas and very little tabloid sensationalism. The news, when not competing for ratings, does as it is meant to: inform impartially.

Thinking a great deal about AA and my other 12 Step programmes and how much time I have wasted adhering to a programme that looks to all the world like some kind of white country club. There’s more to mine there, these thoughts about my cultish AA.

Really want to get back to a time where I was free of resentment. It is a gruelling, miserable state of affairs. Every fucking day my loathing is renewed.

Have a great deal to sort out and the only way I think I can sort any of it, overcome the profound sense of loss is to create..make something useful.

Categories
Rant

Glenn Beck/Barack Obama

My irritation with Glenn Beck is balanced almost perfectly with my frustration for Barack Obama.  It is easier to listen to Glenn’s simplistic message (as it has always been when the right open their stinking mouths) than Obama the intellectual buffoon.

The problem, yet again, when the left of center are swept into power by the cheering crowds (when the pendulum swings) is that they are woefully unprepared to deliver what the people want.  When the right get into power they let off bombs and create armies and the fearful are made safe, the patriotic are assuaged, the rich rub their hands in glee.

When the left of center are elected they ‘negotiate’ with their enemies, they want to be ‘bipartisan’ and have absurd ’round table get togethers’ with their opponents to ‘sort everything out’.

Of course I am disillusioned by Obama just like you are.  I cried when he was elected.  I was so happy.  He promised so much and has delivered so little.  He and his administration cow tows to the likes of Glenn Beck.  Obama moans and whines, he says pathetically that “change is hard”.

Was the only ‘change we could believe in’ the black faces of the first family?  Was that it?

For those faces to then be called liars out loud by pasty white-faced congress men?  For those same black faces to doff their caps to people like Glen Beck?   To be called racists? Obama has not adequately taken the reigns because deep down he fears the consequences, he may be president but he does not behave like a president.  His rhetoric is merely that..rhetoric.  Hollow promises, empty gestures.  He looks haunted, like those negro men and women in the black and white photographs taken in the deep south, covering their heads as the police hit them with batons.

He looks beaten.  He sounds washed up.

Yet, all it would take is just one moment of clarity, one moment to take back his power, a moment of shock and awe.  It is unlikely to happen.  He is just too busy having his photo taken like JFK in the oval office with his little daughters.

Last week a friend of mine confided in me she had heard from reliable sources that Obama would not run a second term and that Hillary would be elected and everything would be just the way we want it.  Bullshit. Of course a second term for Obama is unlikely but not because Hilary is waiting in the wings to take the crown that was promised her. The people will choose a simpler message, a familiar message.  One that they can understand.  Change maybe what they want but they have washed their hands of change.  It’s too complicated.

The nation is crippled, the people are meek and fat and stupid and unable to change anything.  The nation is crippled by inactivity, inertia, fear.

The banks and their paid friends in government have deliberately crippled the USA.  They will do nothing to heal this country until they have an elected government who sees things exactly their way.

When the dependable right get back into power..everything will change.  Lending practices, house prices, small business..all will suddenly change and the people will breathe a sigh of relief.  The banking reforms will vanish, the Obama health care system will too.

My friends tell me that President Obama has achieved much but they forget that I come from a country where real socialists have changed the fabric of society for the good and the bad.  Where the pendulum really swung, where the people were represented and the legacy of that extreme governance is health care, education, infra structure.  That’s all I want for you.  So I do not have to endlessly put my hand in my pocket for the steady stream of homeless beggars now on every street in America.  Millions of desperate unemployed.

Obama has achieved nothing of any consequence, no real and immediate healthcare, no real financial reform.  How could he?  He surrounded himself with banking insiders.  Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner are complicit in the devaluation of your house, the loss of your job and as one government melded seamlessly into another oversaw a massive banking Ponzi scheme: the banks took your TARP money tripled the value of it and with huge grins on their bloated faces returned chump change to you the people.

Nowhere else in the world did this happen so effectively than here in the USA.  The Americans tried exercising monetary hegemony in Europe but the European Union is too disperate.  There are simply too many politicians from too many fractured political parties to bully and bribe and most of them have more integrity in one member’s little finger than the entire American congress and senate put together.

The European Union cannot be bought.  This explains the British ruling elites fear of the Euro, the European Union and everything east of the Channel.  Yet, look at what is happening in Europe.  The economies are growing, the people did not lose their homes, communities were not compromised.

We have had revolution in Europe.  Revolution is essential to destroy the status quo for the status quo is not good for the people.  It is good for the few.

The media and Obama hating pundits, as well they might, evoke the ghosts of the French Royal family but Michelle Obama is no Marie Antoinette.

It is easier for us to discuss Michelle’s vacations and high-waisted fashion faux pas than the dead and the maimed and the wounded in our fruitless wars.  Fruitless, unless you are the owner of a munitions factory or a service industry dedicated to war.  We will never be able to stop profligate war funding because we are coerced by the rich to believe it is our patriotic duty to support our troops by giving them more and more money as our schools rot and our teachers become beggars.

I am eager for revolution in whatever form it may take.  The people voted for Obama not to be meek or timid or careful of his enemies but to take back what had been stolen from us during the Bush years.  To restore what Glen Beck is now touting..some American honor.

Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have chipped away at the truth of Barack Obama so that today more and more Americans believe that Obama is a Muslim, that he bailed out the banks, initiated the war in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

They believe that Obama is not and has never been..is not and has never been a bone fide American.  They believe that he is not like them, that he has become president by suspect means.  That the good people of America could never have deliberately elected a black man and his descended from slaves wife.  How could that have happened?

Their racist outrage has never been stamped upon, outlawed, mocked.  Why?   Because we were too busy, like bullied kids in the playground, crying and running away after trying to befriend and engage those who are simply incapable of listening.

Categories
Gay Rant

Beware of False Gods

After dinner, before the last US election, I sat in a ‘circle’ with a bunch of my Jewish hippy friends who live in Northridge, California.   They were praying quietly and not so quietly for the Obama presidency.

An African healer sat silently with us wearing traditional headdress and multi colored robes.   He had been flown to their house from Africa so that he might share his wisdom.

In turn they held a gnarled wooden ‘talking stick’ and gravely shared their optimism for the creation of Obama World.  The Obama paradigm shift, the liberal equal and opposite reaction.  A world where sanity and fairness would be restored.  Where this young black man’s promises would come true and Guantanamo would be shut down and wars would be ended quickly not slowly.  Where Bush/Cheney corruption would be revealed and the culprits brought to justice.

Some of the women cried.

When I was handed the talking stick I advised them carefully not to worship false Gods, that I did not share their optimism and that they would only be disappointed.   The hippies laughed at me with desultory guffaws but the silent African suddenly spoke up, “He is right!”  They looked at him aghast!  He pointed his long bony black finger around the room.  “He is right.  It is you all who are wrong.”

Duncan: 1.  Hippies: 0.

Stunning naivety, ignorance and blindness have kept liberals in the USA an amateur political sideshow, they remain inchoate and powerless.    They do not realize that they will never be represented by any established political party.  Ever.

So Obama has not, as I suspected, provided the ‘paradigm shift’ that so many of my crystal loving film industry friends thought he would when they rushed to elect him.

Indeed, quite the opposite has happened.

After 10 years of Bush/Cheney there was no equal and opposite reaction, there was just more of the same.  This time from a sweetly smiling, articulate black guy rather than the gruff inarticulate white guy.  He has let you down and it is all the more galling.

In Britain another altogether more intriguing story is unfolding..

I am oddly optimistic about the Cameron/Clegg coalition.  With no real power Prime Minister Cameron will have to toe the line and be more representative of the British people and their desires than cow towing to the ruling elite.  Even though he is cut from aristocratic cloth he seems rather more inclusive than the scarily evolved Tebbit/Thatcher type of Tory who changed Britain over three decades ago.

Watched the England/Germany game.  Proving that the squad seem more interested in their hair than scoring goals.  They are an unruly mob of shopping addicts who have lost their passion for soccer and developed an expensive taste for power and prestige.  Arrogant bunch of wankers.

Had a long chat with Dan in NYC.  I was describing how my newly gay friend was evolving.  I noted that he seemed to own and accept his power and beauty and acted accordingly.

We both agreed that if we had been that sure of ourselves when we were younger both of us would be dead.   It was people like my newly out friend (not that I am suggesting he is sleeping around) who died first of the mysterious disease that became an epidemic and withered away the most beautiful boys.

AIDS, thankfully, never got me.  I was always too much of a prude, never realized quite how beautiful I was and mostly too much of a snob and star fucker..unable to go near the average gay.   In retrospect I think things turned out just fine for gay men like Dan and me.  We survived.  Might not have had as much sex as the others but certainly never paid the ultimate price.

I have come full circle.  He, unwittingly brought me full circle.  Being in love then not being in love.  Wanting to own to letting go and enjoying, from afar, his freedom.

I have always fallen for the impossible.  Yet, unlike before, I do not want to punish him for being who he is and instead just take a small amount of satisfaction from his evolving self.  Like a bird trapped in oil in the Gulf of Mexico he is now cleaned up and ready to fly.

As he flies into his future..what of mine?  Well, I am ok.  I really am.  A great deal could be a lot better but I am OK.

We are off to Paris next week and part of me wants never to come back.

I loved being in love.  It has happened so rarely of late.  As I draw down the shutters on a gay life that I really have no reason to be part of I instead, sit at the edge of that world.

Perhaps there will be a time in the near future when he will come to me and I will be able to hear all of his conquests and heart breaks without my own heart being quite so broken.

Yet, even writing that, I know that he cannot (any longer) break my heart.

I knew with certainty that Obama would never satisfy the lust for change some of my friends thought he might,  just as they knew that I have been naïve about falling in love with him.  He was not sent to be the great love of my life.

He was sent, actually, to be my friend and for that I am very grateful.

P.S.  So Arrianna Huffington is bemoaning Obama and how frustrated people are with him.  How dare she!  It was her daily attacks on Hillary Clinton and lauding of Obama that galvanized so much support for him.  She was short-sighted and more overly impressed by his ivy league nerdyness than his ability to lead.  She wants 5 words to accept her webby award?  How about:  I was wrong about Obama.

Categories
Hollywood Money Rant

Rub Belly, Pat Head

Taking a Shit

British class shame is nothing a regular gun-toting American would or should know anything about.   Whether or not one has an understanding of manners, social hierarchy or top hats is neither here nor there.

I have spent blog time bashing America but really, the Brits are just as bad-if not worse.  My friend Pierre in New York, upon moving here at the behest of his company, missed London terribly but after a short while, much less time than I, understood why we come here and why we want to stay.   Pierre began to notice a change in himself and those around him.  He felt valued, pumped up, fearless.  In America he could feel like a man.

Like me, when he meets Brits who stay at home he marvels at their naivety.

It takes a huge amount of self-loathing to ‘know your place’.

In the USA there is no shame about bettering and reinventing ones self.  There are rules, of course, but every one of the rules (guiding principles) is designed to be broken.

You may have to pay a disgruntled employee a ton of money for a spurious sexual harassment claim but that’s how the dispossessed get their share of the pie.

Everyone is on the make, everyone!  It’s an on the make, nickle and dime affair that I am having with the USA.  It’s better than pecan pie and nuclear waste!  It’s more thrilling than Guantanamo Bay.

As a Brit I still hanker after public art and healthcare but the rampant small mindedness of my countrymen, their embittered jokes masquerading as irony, their post imperialist arrogance and their total inability to allow anyone to grow beyond the class they were born into keeps me from going back home.

I suppose for all my anti-American sentiment I love the hurly-burly, the hegemony, the extremes, the greed, the excess, the stupidity.  I love their terror of art and history.  I applaud their dogma and their denial.  I love that they think that they are the very best at everything they do when they are patently not.  I love that they behave like willful children.  I love that they think knowing about nature or food is elitist.  I love that an engaging presidential candidate can emerge from nowhere and take the world stage-where as the British produce a bunch of familiar, threadbare politicians like so many provincial repertory actors delivering lackluster performances in what passes for political theatre.   Imagine British MP’s sitting in their shared dressing-room waiting for lurid makeup to be applied before performing their ‘great scene’ during Prime Ministers Question Time.  Smoking, sinking rummers of whiskey, discussing their expense claims, squabbling over cabinet positions and who’ll wear what at the state opening of parliament.

We don’t cast our parliament terribly well.  Here they cast the Whitehouse like a huge movie.  No wonder Rahm and Ari Emmanuelle are behind Barrack.  They recognized his star potential and like a baby starlet hanging out in the Chateau Marmont plucked him from obscurity and handed him the best role ever in their box office blockbuster political thriller-so whilst the Emmanuells steal the money they got themselves the bestest alibi ever..a black president.  They got themselves a well-dressed first lady descended from slaves.  They got tears of joy at the inauguration and a divided, blind sided America whilst the spoils of the middle class were being divided up by unscrupulous hedge fund managers and Ponzi schemers betting on the downfall of their own and other nations.

So, there’s Barrack blustering over the war and the economy in his professorial tweeds, his sweet and sexy demeanor softening the hearts of the liberal elite and providing drama and focus for the next lot-the emboldened white Christian right.  There he is dithering over healthcare and everything continues just the way it was.

Am I the only one who can’t imagine Tim Geitner having sex with anyone other than himself?   He is such a WEED.

If China wasn’t running the world-this could look dangerous!

When British politicians get caught with their hand in the till-what paltry amounts of money they steal!  Awarding their friends dodgy $150,000 construction contracts and creaming a few quid and a meat pie for themselves…subsequently getting caught and fired.   An American politician wouldn’t waste his time or his position stealing so little.  Tony Blair is the only politician to get away with stealing real money.  He got away with the money and murder.  He understood what few in the UK do-that American politicians are not elected to represent their constituents but to steal as much money as they can within their 4 years in office.

And, you might ask, why shouldn’t he?  The Blair’s are just doing what the Royal family and the landed gentry have done for hundreds of years. He just took what he thought he was owed for getting to the top of the pile.  It must piss our lowly politicians off to go through all the pain of getting elected to public office and then once there, look around…bleak…lonely…underpaid.  Servants of the democracy that we hold dear and never really getting what they deserve-compared with the politicians in the USA who are on the fucking gravy train!

Drill baby drill, bailouts, healthcare, there’s money in them there policies..money for every politician in Washington, TONS OF IT!  Politicians accepting donations from whomever and where ever.

Poor old Dennis Kucinich-he’s the congressman President Obama lassoed into helping change the mind of the bold progressives who were holding out for a radical public option during the last few moments before the Healthcare Bill was forced into law.

Well, dear Dennis lives in a one room apartment in Washington…never accepts a dime from anyone..but he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with his wife Elizabeth.   If he had played his cards right, abandoned his principles and cut himself free from the people he was sent to represent then he could be living in a huge house in Georgetown-which is what the people expect by the way.  To the average American there is something vaguely retarded about a man who is able to steal the money but doesn’t.

That’s why we elected you into office!  To steal the money but, mind you, not so much that you piss the other thieves off who have seniority or think you are stealing too much.  Of course, once in a while an odd politician needs to be thrown to the lions so that the public think that the other politicians have some sort of morality.

This is America and once you get a handle on it it’s not that bad.  As long as you understand that to survive here you have to learn how to steal.  You have to learn how to lose.  Learn how to pick yourself up.  Not get trampled in the stampede.

You must definitely learn to rub belly..pat head..

Categories
Love Money Rant

Elvis Pelvis

1.

Time to reconcile, to forgive and forget.  Time to see Jennie.  Time to catch up, to make up, to explain.  Time to confide and wear dark glasses again.

“Let us suppose that I have wept, on account of some incident of which the other has not even become aware (to weep is part of the normal activity of the amorous body), and that, so this cannot be seen, I put on dark glasses to mask my swollen eyes (a fine example of denial:  to darken the sight in order not to be seen).  The intention of this gesture is a calculated one:  I want to keep the oral advantage of stoicism, of “dignity” and at the same time, contradictorily, I want to provoke the tender question (“But what’s the matter with you?”); I want to be both pathetic and admirable, I want to be at the same time a child and an adult.  Thereby I gamble, I take a risk:  for it is always possible that the other will simply ask no question whatever about these unaccustomed glasses: that the other will see, in the fact, no sign.”

Living in love, in a state of grace, in acceptance.   Living outside of pornography, fantasy, catastrophic thinking-living in truth, trust and kindness.

2.

In Europe things, economic things are getting a whole heap better.  House prices climbing, job prospects improving.

It’s funny listening to British people complain about their lot.  They really have no idea how lucky they are.  They are blissfully unaware what is going on here.  Nobody really reports it-no journalist can bring themselves to say these words:  America as we knew it is over.  America where all our dreams would come true.  Where the promise of freedom would be fulfilled, where truth and equality would be respected.  Where innovation and hard work would be rewarded.

What happened?

There has been an economic catastrophe in the United States of America, brought on by endemic greed, corruption and false Gods.  The American people are angry and rightfully so-but because they are so badly educated their anger is totally misdirected.  Because they have no democratic choice their vote is meaningless.  Because their government is utterly corrupt they have no voice.   Their youth are disinterested in anything other than instant fame, fast food, sexual gratification.

The elections have become Corporate America’s great firework charade, costing millions, lights up the night then all smoke and ash leaving things just the way they were before.  Conning the dumb people into believing that they have choice and change they can believe in etc etc.

The last election was the most cynical of all.  Listening to Obama make any promise he could to get those folks to vote for him then watch him and his party of fools renege on every one of his election promises-knowing that the American people will never lift a finger to defend themselves from their worst enemy-their very own government.

Today I listened to Tim Geitner finally admit that the millions of lost jobs were not coming back anytime soon.  Just as I predicted.   When as my ‘smart’ white AA Palisades friends were looking down their suburban noses at me telling me that things would be back to normal in a year or so.  I looked back at them in utter disbelieve.  Who were they trying to convince?  I would gently remind them that nothing was going to return to ‘normal’ any time soon.  They sneered at me.  They laughed because they didn’t understand.  They are complicit you see.  Complicit in the demise-in the USA’s financial melt down.  Do you think they just totally underestimated the depth of the deception?  The greed?  Or was this a risk the rich were prepared to take?

I don’t trust Tim Geitner, I don’t trust Rahm Emmanuel, I don’t particularly trust Obama.  But in a world of distrust I would rather have these bandits than the last mob.  The characters in this administrative pantomime are more entertaining than the last.

This ‘Democratic’ administration cast by Ari Emmanuelle.   Make up by..hair..

3.

The flight back home from New York was 45 mins early, which made up for the 6-hour delay on the way there.   The staff were sweeter too.  One of them gave me free food.  If you could call it that-processed crap.

I had had a lovely time in NYC and even though it rained and rained I felt at home, like I always do, in the big city.   I loved it.  I really did.

For my last night in town Joan took us all to the Spotted Pig.  I sat next to Lady Rizo and opposite Joan’s husband.  He told us how he once dated a girl Elvis was dating and even though I had heard the story twice before I was still captivated.

Jake mooned over Lady Rizo’s husband.


Categories
Rant

Balls

The pictures published this morning are part of my photographic essay commissioned by The Sydney Morning Herald in 2004 celebrating the Condoblin Batchelors and Spinsters Ball held annually in the depths of New South Wales.

B & S Balls are thrown to introduce the youth of rural Australia who live many hours from each other in the arid outback.

The Ball is actually a huge drunken brawl and as a sober man I was amazed by two things:  firstly how much alcohol was consumed and secondly how little violence there was.

I publish it to remind myself just how many things I have achieved.

The darkest part of the day is ironically the morning when I seem to forget just how damned capable I am.  Need to calm down.  Still experiencing waves of depression.  Still at the mercy of my mad head.  Mad head, thankfully not bed head-my hair is now cropped once again.  However, when buzzed my head get recognized more than when I have long hair.

The dog is waiting to go to Runyon, waiting patiently at my feet whilst I type this.   I am nearly out of the doldrums.  I can feel myself emerging.  Why did I get sober?  Why did  I go into therapy?  Peace of mind.  Not piece of mind-one of my mothers favorite expressions.  ‘I’ll give him a piece of my mind.’ she would say.

The mantra for this week is BE PRESENT.

I remember getting up each day and feeling like there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do.

Added to all the other problems I am utterly home sick.  Desperate to get back to my Island Jewel.  Held here by all sorts of stuff that needs dealing with.  The house, the garden, the book, the app, the art sale, what the fuck?

All I need to do is book an Air France flight to Paris and vanish but I am trying to be a good man.  Trying to be the sort of guy who can wrestle from his life some sort of sobriety and ultimately some honor.

Where in the world could I go if I wanted to start again?  I still love Memphis.  I loved it.  Who would I be when I got there?

What demons would I bring along with me?

Instead of running away I need to remember what I am capable of and invest time and energy in my work.   Recently Obama opined that ‘change is hard.’ and I was appalled by his admission because I rarely admit that it’s the goddamned fucking truth don’t ya think?.

Categories
Money Rant

Healthcare? You gotta be kidding!

me in hospital

From Steve Dunkley, first published on the BBC news website…with a few edits by me.

I should have credited him previously but failed to do so.  Sorry about that Steve!

If I do quote other writers I usually highlight in italics.

Duncan

Forgive the pun, but I’m sick of listening to the ideological bigotry being used by both sides in the current debate over healthcare reform. Even the fallacy that the debate could possibly be encapsulated by “two sides” makes me so angry. The very idea that being able to shout louder than someone else or that a few words written on a placard contributes anything to a debate on such an important issue is simply asinine. Such behavior, including mindless chanting of simplistic slogans, effectively halts all objective discussion and obscures the real issues.
So, stop mouthing off, stop quoting anecdotal examples and stop using prefabricated, emotive labels designed to perpetuate already polarized thinking.
This maybe a revolutionary idea, but why don’t we start looking at factual evidence backed up by legitimate research. Yes I know this a new concept, but just bear with me for a while, you never know, we might then draw some reasoned and sensible conclusions.
Here are some facts:
• The United States of America does not have the best health system in the world
• The United States of America does not have the worst health system in the world
• The United States of America has some of most advanced healthcare expertise in the world
• The United States of America’s delivery of overall healthcare and its health outcomes do not compare well to most other industrialized countries
• The United States of America has the capability to offer expert treatment to patients of all ages
• The United States of America has an illogically high incidence of infant mortality and avoidable death rates

Here are some factual statements and observations:
• The United States of America spends more (per capita) on administering the bureaucracy of its healthcare than any other country in the world. Sometimes by a factor of three or four over countries with effective universal systems.
• There is no particular reason why employers should continue to be responsible for providing healthcare. It is an invidious practice that can be extremely detrimental to both employee and employer interests. The practice has its origins in the pay freezes of World War II, yet now seems entrenched in the American working life. Why should your employer decide what health cover you get? Your family physician doesn’t tell you where you should work!
• There is no reason why a national, universal health plan should increase individual or government healthcare costs. Individual tax costs will increase but, if a scheme is implemented effectively, there will be no health insurance premiums to pay. Employers should no longer have to pay their portion to the insurers and there should be no co-pay. In case you missed that – NO CO-PAY! Your employer may even pass his or her savings on to you as a wage increase.
• Effective preventative healthcare makes an enormous contribution to the quality of life and the longevity of that life. In the current situation prevailing in the United States of America, there is little incentive for health insurers to finance preventative care. The premise is that, as people change jobs and healthcare insurers, the financial benefits of preventative medicine might be enjoyed by organizations other than those that originally funded it.
• Viewed from afar, the citizens of the United States of America are hypochondriacs obsessed by illness. This hypochondria is fueled by a constant barrage of television commercials for prescription drugs containing information that should only really be evaluated by competent medical professionals. Trendy acronyms only exacerbate the obsession – why not become obsessed by health and wellness instead?
• Market forces and human nature are generally inappropriate in healthcare. Physicians are encouraged to treat where treatment is perhaps unnecessary. Pharmaceutical companies need a steady stream of new illnesses, gullible or mercenary physicians and new drugs to keep them in business. Health insurers need to be able to promise nurturing care from cradle to grave and yet be able to deny treatment on all possible occasions.
Now that you’re thinking about shouting or painting a placard, here are some comparisons that will restore your faith in man’s inhumanity to man
Universal schemes can only provide the greatest good for the greatest number and will spend any and all amounts of money provided
Private schemes will drop you if it looks as though you might get a long-term illness
• Universal schemes will always treat acute cases first and will generally do these well. less urgent cases may well wait some time for treatment
• Private schemes will treat your acute or less urgent conditions entirely in respect of financial considerations, but will have you back in your car about the same time the anesthesia wears off, often causing you to come back again (with another co-pay) in a couple of days
• Universal schemes often provide unintentional long-term accommodation for the homeless
• Private schemes always use the latest and most expensive treatments irrespective of whether they are superior to proven treatments.
• Universal schemes are often unwilling to adopt new procedures until cost and/or patient benefits have been established

Here is a dirty word:
Single-Payer
Actually it’s two words, but you get the drift. Most universal or national health schemes operate this policy. Supporters of the status quo in United States health policies consider it blasphemy. It is a prime example of the emotive labeling so apparent in current healthcare discussions.
Single-payer simply means that payment for medicines and treatment comes from a single source. That single source is the organization that operates the health service – almost invariably the government. Pharmaceutical companies and medical practitioners abhor this policy because they are unable to play numerous payers (with differing priorities) off against each other. Instead they have to deal with a single body that has the single objective of balancing cost and patient benefit – more simply known as value for money. The VA health system bureaucracy “sorta-kinda” operates in a similar way to single-payer.
This does mean that many medical practitioners will get less for the work that they do. Pharmaceutical companies will undoubtedly claim that they will be unable to research new treatments. Personally, I can live with this because the physicians that earn substantially less will only be those who have been financially focused in their practices. Pharmaceutical companies will continue to research and develop because that is what they have to do to exist. Maybe these new pressures will force them to be more focused on effective remedies? Am I the only person who wonders whether drug companies develop new products and then look for an illness to treat with it? The objective of a healthcare system is to look after the receivers of that healthcare – not to make a few professionals obscenely wealthy.
The bottom line is that the current healthcare systems (in terms of delivery and outcomes) in the United States of America are ineffectual and probably irreparable in their current form. Federal and state politicians are scared to death of the pharmaceutical lobby and failure to be re-elected (but then I repeat myself). The AMA represents the interests solely of the medical profession and has stood four-square in the way of any proposed initiatives that benefit patients at the expense of their members. I don’t think insurance companies care one way or the other because they think they will still get a large slice of the cake whatever happens. When it dawns on them that single-payer may become a reality, they will get the rest of the politicians that the pharmaceutical companies missed.
It should not (and cannot) be beyond the wit of the US Government to take the time to investigate the healthcare schemes that are the most successfully operated in other industrialized countries. Surely, somewhere in this nation, we have officials with the ability to judge and evaluate the best of those and surely we have the expertise to implement such a scheme here.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEDC), in 2003/2004, per capita health expenditure in the United States of America was $6,120 (15.3% of GDP), life expectancy was 77.5 years and infant deaths, per thousand, were 6.9. During the same period in Japan, per capita health expenditure was $2,249 (8% of GDP), life expectancy was 81.8 years and infant deaths, per thousand, were 2.8.
Here are some final kickers. How can the country that considers itself the most advanced economy in the world, allow its citizens to be denied preventative healthcare because of corporate avarice? How can it allow around 700,000 families each year to bankrupt themselves seeking healthcare? How can it let people die for lack of healthcare?
For those that say government cannot afford universal healthcare, consider this: in 2003 (according to the World Health Organization) the United States government spent more, per capita, on healthcare than each of the governments of the United Kingdom and Sweden. Two countries that each have universal healthcare, the citizens of these countries did not have co-pays and both countries achieve generally better health results than the United States of America can boast.
Personal net expenditure on healthcare would drop significantly under a properly implemented universal scheme and a single payer scheme would have the potential to cut billions of wasted dollars out of administrative costs.
Finally, President Obama’s scheme will not work because it does not address the fundamental underlying problems. The supporters of the status quo will gladly watch the percentage of GDP spent on healthcare rise to 20% in the unreasoned belief that the marketplace will deliver effective healthcare and that we already have (of course) the best healthcare in the world. Basically we’re screwed!