David Kendall

This is supposedly what everybody shouts at a "surprise birthday party" when the guest of honor enters a room filled with his best friends and family who have gathered to celebrate the fact of his/her existence:

"Surprise!!" -- and then everybody sings "Happy Birthday" or "Auld Lang Sine" or some crap.

Has anybody ever actually attended one of these parties, or do they only happen in the movies or on television? If you've ever had one -- were you "surprised"? Or did you somehow find out about it in advance -- like they always do on TV?

In this digitized, computerized, sensationalized, homogenized, and hegemonized age of "Homeland Security", is there really any such thing as a "surprise"?

No.

So why is anyone even slightly "surprised" about the recent cabinet appointments by Barack Obama? And I'm not talking about regular people -- the 50-percent of all American households that can't afford Internet access, who therefore also don't have access to "alternative news sources". [1]

No. These people already know they're screwed. Nothing "surprises" them.

I'm talking about the extremely educated and intelligent "Harvard" and "Berkeley" people who write those alternative sources of "news" information, who now feel shocked, appalled, abandoned, betrayed, horse-whipped, cheated, swindled and -- "SURPRISED" -- by President-elect Barack Obama's recent cabinet selections. [2]

Why are these people -- "SURPRISED"?

Let's back up the train a little. It's not hard to do that. Nowadays they usually have a locomotive on both ends of the train, so it can go either way. Back and forth -- back and forth. It can be lots of fun -- and the rocking motion tends to put babies to sleep -- while they're nursing their mother's breast. But a similar combination can also bring a grown man to sexual climax. So ya have to be very careful about technique, when you're rockin' the boat.

Point is, these are the people who KNEW this "crisis" was coming. They've been predicting the demise of our economic system since the turn of the century or longer, and we've heard predictions of ecological collapse since long before that. We've all read the literature.

These are the same people who write articles and make videos daily about the "takeover of the United States" and "conspiracy theory" and the "SPP" and the "NAU" and "abolish the Fed" and "Freedom to Fascism" and the "income tax is unconstitutional" and the "ecological tipping point" and "overpopulation" and whatever else -- panic, panic, PANIC!!

Are they WRONG?

No.

Not at all. These folks are my heroes, though some of them don't like me very much. Most of them don't suggest much in the way of "solutions" or "alternatives", and I'm not shy about criticizing them for that. But they do all seem to have a fairly common grasp of the "problem" -- overall.

As I understand it, these people insist that the bankers and the corporations took control of this country and our world a long damn time ago -- that the government is little more than an military instrument to maintain corporate power and control -- that the rest of us are nothing more than stooges, serfs and wage-slaves whose lives exist purely for the sake of corporate profit in a capitalist economy -- and that our planet is little more than an economic playground for the wealthy. These people are obviously smart enough to understand that Capitalism IS a "conspiracy" -- against most of the human population and the planet itself.

My only question is why are these people "SURPRISED"?

Why is anyone surprised that Barack Obama would renege on his campaign promises about "change"? Why are people surprised that Obama has decided NOT to repeal George Bush's tax cuts for the rich after promising this would be his first order of business upon being elected? [3] Why is anyone surprised that Obama has retracted his promise to remove our troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office? [4] The guy hasn't even been inaugurated yet, and he already looks at least as "presidential" as any other crook who ever held the office. The people in this country have heard more than 200-years of these lies.

So why is anyone still "SURPRISED"?

Every single election -- every four years (or however frequently people participate in this fiasco) -- everybody seems "SURPRISED" by the inevitable outcome. Candidate promises "change" -- candidate gets elected -- campaign promises are discarded -- nothing changes for the better -- so the electorate writes nasty editorials in his general direction for the next four to eight years.

What KIND of "change" are hungry "Americans" looking for?

"Gee, I'm tired of getting screwed-over. Seems like it's time for a CHANGE"?

This is about as far as most "Americans" get in the thought process with regard to "change". It comes somewhere between "Damn, the baby's screaming again", "Sorry I burnt the turkey, honey", and "Get that thing away from me! I told you I have a head-ache!"

This is probably as far as anybody gets in this thought process, because most of us are forced to spend all of our waking hours either working or handling family problems (usually both) within the pressure-cooker of the current system. In between "Monday Night Football", "Debbie Does Dallas" and the latest episode of "CSI", these real life challenges demand our attention and keep us distracted from thinking about political and socioeconomic issues that most deeply affect our lives.

While many Americans still seem afraid to admit it, I think the kind of change we really need in this country would legally prohibit passive "ownership" from siphoning unearned income from the active participation of hard-working people in terms of both production and consumption. Unfortunately, we're probably still a couple light-years away from that kind of "change".

But a wise man told me a long time ago: "There's no such thing as a free lunch". You take a risk, there's a chance you might fail. That's how the system works, right? With great risk comes potential for great reward and for dismal failure -- unless -- you're "too big to fail". How can anyone or anything be "too big to fail"? What's the measuring stick for this? What is the criteria for being "too big to fail"? Being born into the right family? If you're big enough to screw-over most of the homeowners in the United States, and throw them out in the street, does that suddenly make you "too big to fail"?

Where I come from there's another saying: "The bigger they are, the harder they fall". Repeatedly kick the bastards in the nuts as hard as you can -- until they "fail" to bully you any longer.

With his "Uncle Tom" theory, Ralph Nader is probably one of the few living "Americans" in this panty-waist country who is NOT "surprised" by Barack Obama's criminal cabinet appointments. [5] Noam Chomsky says it's no "surprise" that the nature of an election when it's run by the business world is to undermine democracy, just as commercial advertising seeks to undermine the market. The goal of both is to create an uninformed public that makes irrational choices. [6] Susan Rosenthal provides some additional insight:

"No matter who is elected, the war will continue to take American and Iraqi lives. The economy will be continue to be floated at the expense of working people. The environment will continue to be destroyed for profit. And more Americans will lose access to health care. That's because most of the people who run this world are not elected: executives and bureaucrats, bosses and landlords, bankers and generals.

"Our hopes and dreams for a better life do not fit in their ballot boxes. McCain and Obama have (slightly) different views on how to run a capitalist system that can function only by running our lives into the ground. I want a completely different system, one that meets people's needs. That won't happen until we stop accepting what we don't want and organize and fight for what we do want." [7]

So what's the point?

The 2008 election did not usher in a new President of the United States. The recent election did not usher in any new policies. The same people are in power now as have been in power for the past 150-years or more, regardless of whose face we see on the TV screen or on the front page of the newspaper. We've still got the same "leadership" and the same dysfunctional "policies" we've always had -- and it's utterly ridiculous for anyone to be "SURPRISED" about the fact. The problem at hand and the solution at bay is to usher in a new system that prohibits the possibility of any form of centralized power and control.

Notes:

[1] Kuik, Ted (10/27/2005). "Census Bureau Report on Computer and Internet Use". United States Census Bureau. http://www.coolnotions.com/Articles/Article_05.htm

[2] Kysia, Ramzi (11/24/2008). "The Team Obama Should Have Picked". Counterpunch. http://www.counterpunch.com/kysia11242008.html

[3] Simpson, Cam (11/23/2008). "Obama Aides Suggest Rollback of Bush Tax Cuts Could Be Delayed". Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/11/23/obama-aides-suggest-rollback-of-bush-tax-cuts-could-be-delayed/

[4] Williams, Joseph (11/27/2008). "Obama defends experienced, centrist team: Denies he's recycling Clinton picks". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/27/obama_defends_experienced_centrist_team/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed7

[5] Kendall, David (11/10/2008). "The Truth About Ralph Nader and 'Uncle Tom'". OpEd News. http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Truth-About-Ralph-Nade-by-David-Kendall-081110-496.html

[6] Chomsky, Noam (11/24/2008). "Noam Chomsky: What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World". Democracy NOW!. Massachusetts Institute of Tecnology. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/24/noam_chomsky_what_next_the_elections

[7] Rosenthal, Susan (10/09/2008). "Why I'm NOT Voting for Obama". World Prout Assembly. http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2008/10/why_im_not_voti.html

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By David Kendall