Charlie Olvera: A Blog

umgatodeitadoaosol:

This too. Paul Virilio loves bunkers and Cold War shit! I love bunkers and Cold War shit! In my alternate universe, we are the best of friends and frequently drink coffee together and talk about the tyranny of roads and things and then watch those History Channel specials on bunkers.

…where I stand on WikiLeaks:

I support it, and I support Julian Assange.  If transparency is really supposed to be the touchstone of this administration, then let’s see it.  I cast my vote for a man who, increasingly, I have trouble believing in.  If only one of Obama’s promises gets kept, I want it to be the promise he made to his staff and to the American people that transparency and the rule of law would flourish under his administration. 

I am sick of this attitude in America where conservatives get to say whatever they want, but liberals are supposed to be beholden to some greater standard of integrity, which apparently means keeping quiet.  Now, I’m quick to clarify that I think conservative media manipulation is tantamount to criminal activity, and I don’t think that liberals should engage in that type of discourse in the public spectrum, but somewhere, it got lost in translation, and the end result is that, with the exception of HuffPo and MSNBC (two fairly sensationalist screeds), true liberals are mostly keeping quiet.

Well, fuck that. 

I’m a grown man, and I am standing up and fighting for what I believe in, and I believe in a country that has truly progressive, representative governance and not this corporatist shadow government shit that runs things right now.  What Julian Assange did is brave, and, although he’s not an American citizen, in the global politic sense of the word, his actions are patriotic.  The American public deserves to know the truth about how American political interests are represented, at home and abroad.  If those actions aren’t commensurate with the will of the American people, then the citizenry has a public responsibility to enact change and ensure that the interest of the CITIZENRY, NOT a corporate entity/entities, is served by its government. 

There has been a lot of fence-sitting and vacillation on the part of many liberals in this country over this WikiLeaks affair, principally owing to the fact that many of these leaked cables cause a public relations disaster for the Obama administration unseen since Daniel Ellsburg and the Pentagon Papers affair.  WikiLeaks isn’t an attack on liberal politics, though: this is a defense of what liberal politics are supposed to represent.  This administration is NOT practicing what it preaches, and it deserves a watchdog like WikiLeaks to hold it accountable.  WikiLeaks is what this government needs most right now: effective regulatory functions. 

Now, while it’s difficult to maintain this stance, I’m still an Obama booster: I think he was given the world’s worst job, and the world’s worst administration to succeed, and I think he had genuinely good intentions. However, do I think he’s “doing his best”, like the normal defense of the president and his administration goes? 

ABSOLUTELY, UNEQUIVOCALLY NOT. 

The president had two years of full Congressional support to get measures such as health care reform passed: that’s two years that any NUMBER of progressive measures could have been enacted, such as immigration reform (which, thankfully, is on its way regardless), the repeal of DADT (which could have been ended via simple Executive Order), or an improved version of the Food Safety act.  Instead, we got an administration more concerned with bi-partisanship and appeasing the will of its most vocal critics than with actually performing progressive governance: we got a neutered, unsubstantial health care bill that’s barely an improvement at all, a DADT repeal which threatens to die on the floor, immigration reform that, while not insubstantial, is not enough (the very fact that a measure like the DREAM act has to be passed alone should indicate that this version of immigration reform is, at best, far from powerful enough), and a Food Safety act that is, for all intents and purposes, the walking dead.  I believe in this administration, but it is time for this namby-pamby, hedged bet bullshit to STOP.

Liberals in this country have a reputation grounded in 60s peacenik culture, which unfortunately gives us, in the public estimation, the impression that we are all Prius-driving, Whole Foods-shopping, spaced-out, over-educated wimps.  If I have to, I will stand as a one-man testament to the contrary.  I’m a liberal.  I’m about as liberal as they come.  And you know what?  I’m fucking ANGRY.  And I’m going to kick and fight and yell and scream about my rights and the rights of American citizens, and about the moral and ethical responsibility American governance has to its constituency, until somebody sits up and listens and starts yelling with me. 

You know what the peaceniks had right?  It wasn’t bed-ins or peace signs or non-violent protests which basically consisted of rock concerts.  It was REALLY ANGRY LIBERALS: people like the Yippies or the Black Panthers or the Weather Underground who scared the LIVING SHIT out of conservative America, and did so because they stood up and said “SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE, AND WE ARE ANGRY ABOUT IT.”  Well, people, if there was ever a time to be angry, it’s right now.  Americans: our country is in decline, and it’s taking other countries with it.  If you want to preserve a sustainable, moral, ethical way of life, not just for Americans, but for humanity, STAND UP AND FUCKING SHOUT IT.  I’m sick of staying quiet.  I’m mad, and I’m scared, and I’m sick of being mad and scared.  If these Tea Party buffoons can have their media circus, so can I. 

EDIT: Just so we’re clear, the image is provided by the fabulous Inky, but the liberal rage is 100% unadulterated Charlie Olvera