Howls From the Wasteland: Prophetic Analysis from 1998

What follows is the introduction that I wrote to my creative writing student's magazine, Howls From the Wasteland, in 1998. It now seems more prescient than it did then, 18 years ago, pre-9/11. We only published the hard copy one more year before the magazine was published exclusively online; this was also six years before Facebook and its progeny changed social media forever..................

In 1920, T.S. Eliot published his poem,"The Wasteland," chronicling the nihilism, despair, and confusion of his "Lost Generation." In 1950, Allen Ginsberg published his poem, "Howl," chronicling a similar malaise of the "Beat Generation." 

Now, with the millennium fast approaching, we are experiencing a new cacophony of fear and loathing—dark and disturbing evidence of disintegration—disgruntled employees, anguished children, disenfranchised loners—a generation whose hopelessness soars in the face of scientific advance, whose loneliness grows in the face of a burgeoning "communication" technology, whose spiritual emptiness deepens in direct correlation to its economic success. 

This is the generation whose perceptions of the world have been shaped by an ever-spiraling cynicism. Every administration of the last two decades has been accused of involvement in high level malfeasance. Political discourse has been replaced by unmitigated vitriol in the hands of masters like Rush Limbaugh, James Carville, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Clinton. Mischievous Dennis, “The Menace,” became impertinent and ill-mannered Bart Simpson, who, in turn, became the nihilistic, antisocial, cruelly malevolent Bevis and Butthead.

And what of the two Jerry's, perhaps the two most influential TV shows of the decade: Jerry Seinfeld and Jerry Springer? The former show's ensemble spent nearly ten years introducing ever more graphic discussions of bodily functions while competing as to who could be more cruel and disdainful to each other, to their loved ones, and to total strangers. Jerry Springer upped the ante. He brings us the absolute dregs of society and allows us to wallow in and relish their aberrant behavior and mindless violence while, with a few show-ending homilies, he encourages us to pretend that our slack-jawed awe and our taunting guffaw is simply spirited, audience participation and not the self-degrading, culturally-damaging, mind-numbing voyeurism that it actually is. 

Pop stars have become paparazzi fodder, creating a feeding-frenzy mentality that has killed public icons and altered our perceptions of ourselves. The ever-present video camera has made its contribution. It has captured racist cops beating a black man and going free; a black star found guilty in the press of killing his wife, then acquitted in a media circus trial; religious fanatics challenging the government to a game of chicken and getting blown up in Waco and gunned down in Ruby Ridge; other fanatics blowing up clinics and killing doctors and nurses to “save lives” in God's name; the government and the United States being retaliated against in the New York Trade Center, the Atlanta Olympics, and the Oklahoma City Bombings; and the now almost daily litany of lonely, loony losers who grab a gun (Thank you, NRA) and kill their parents, children, spouses, bosses, co-workers, teachers, classmates, fellow commuters, and absolute strangers. 

This is the milieu from which the following pieces arose. Many of them are dark; some are violent; most are harsh. Some smack of self-indulgence and self-absorption, but isn't that the source of a great deal of timeless art? Ultimately, they are honest. They offer the artist's struggle to understand and communicate. Some even offer a glimmer of hope and a ray of sunshine. Still, they are all, in one way or another, “Howls From the Wasteland.” 

Tim McMullen, Creative Writing Advisor 

©1998 Tim McMullen

All Rights Reserved

The Game Needs to Change—We Need to Put the Civil Back into Civil Society

I am deeply tired of the "who can be uglier" race that we currently have going on in both parties. On the Republican side, it is the candidates themselves that have tried to prove that they are MORE racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and greedy than the next guy. On the Democratic side, we have the spectacle of the candidates being relatively cordial and actually talking about (to be honest, rather minor) differences of opinion while their partisans on social media bend over backwards to be the most offensive, outrageous, hate mongers and conspiracy theorists, outdoing the Republican machine in their trashing of the other's candidate. It's like the idiotic anger and elation at a mindless and meaningless sporting event except, in this game, the opponent is, obviously, the Devil incarnate.

This election is serious, perhaps the most serious in my experience with politics, and I remember the Eisenhower/Stevenson contest in 1956. The first time that I was eligible to vote for Governor was 1970, and I voted against Ronald Reagan. I have voted in every election since then. I have also watched the intentional dumbing down and incivility of the electoral process since the Republicans lost so badly with Goldwater in 1964. The rhetoric of Nixon but especially Agnew took the discussion to a new level of vitriol. Reagan continued the all out assault on "liberals," but it was the election of Bill Clinton that ushered in the new era of Conservative talk radio and, with the deregulation and consolidation of media, the advent of NEWSCorp, FOX News, Clear Channel, and and the no-holds barred, partisan, mischaracterization, distortion, and outright lying that has simply come to be accepted as spin. The media, including social media, has been not merely complicit but instrumental in this negative transformation. Just like Scalia's court decision about innocence, the actual truth is completely irrelevant. The news no longer presents actual perspective or context. They don't even try to find and present the truth. They merely offer a "he said/he said" paraphrased report or 3-seconds of edited footage with whichever slant their corporate masters have demanded.

Unfortunately, most people have not demanded better; instead, we have bought into their game. We do not find ourselves talking about what really matters and our vison of what this country should be or how we might get there. We simply post ridiculous graphics with false quotes and sarcastic gibes to make the other side look foolish or corrupt and then gleefully attack the other side for their obvious ignorance, stupidity or evil.

I posit the following. I don't care if you are for Sanders, Clinton, Warren or Obama, Trump, Cruz, Kasich or Paul. The only way that we will ever crawl out of the miasmic mire in which we have sunk ourselves is to begin to actually think deeply, discuss civilly, and listen carefully—repeating the process indefinitely—until the fog of corrupt corporate control has lifted, and we can return to the business of creating a civil civil society (This is not a mistaken repetition—"civil" needs to be at the heart of a progressive civilization).

"Technical Difficulties"—A Short Story

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

I'm scribbling this hastily in the linen closet; it's dark in here, with only the light which creeps in under the door, and I know that if they find me, it's all over. But, I may be the only one who knows, and there's nobody in here that I can talk to—nobody I can trust. They're not about to get me that way. So, my only hope—our only hope—is to get this to someone on the outside. Someone who can do something.

My name is ---------no, that doesn't matter—why make it easy for them? For the last six years I've worked security for a local corporation. But don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those law and order types. My job was to sit in front of a battery of monitors and check the corridors and the labs for unauthorized personnel. Only once in my six years did anything untoward occur, and that turned out to be a maintenance man who got off on the wrong floor.

The truth is, I took the job because I love the tube. I guess you could say I'm a video nut. As a kid I spent all my summers glued to the TV while the other kids were out playing. I watched everything: cartoons, game shows, soaps, talk shows, sit-com reruns. But most of all, I loved the old movies, and I watched them whenever they were on. It's a tragedy that they don't show those old black and whites anymore. Too old, I guess; too “phony” for today's kids.

Anyway, that's why I got the job, because it seemed the perfect way to get paid for doing what I like to do best. On the night shift, after all the offices and labs have been closed and everyone's gone home, we hook the front hall monitor up to a TV tuner. The higher-ups know about it, and nobody cares. Anyway, about a year ago, I began to notice something peculiar.

Have you ever been sitting in a theatre watching a movie when words come out, but the person who is supposed to be speaking didn't open their lips? That's called “voicing over.” They didn't used to do it much, but they do it on everything nowadays.

It's very subtle. Most of the time you never even notice, but once in a while a careless cut might throw out the sync and the voice won't fit the lips. Sometimes the levels are wrong, creating a disparity between the different voices. Other times the actors on the screen aren't talking at all, but they're far away, and they figured you wouldn't notice a few extra words.

But, I did! Then, it got worse. Even programs that were supposed to be live began to look dubbed. They're very good. It takes a practiced eye to catch them. Usually, they're only a fraction of a millisecond off. But they're off! Even the news reporters aren't really live anymore.

It all fell into place about three months ago, though, when I was home watching the President on TV.

“We all know that the best defense is a good offense,” he said, “And so I am instituting a new program that will show the world, both our enemies and our allies, that we will not stand still and watch our world be imperiled by evil, Godless monsters.” He frowned, to show that he meant business, then he smiled and continued. “Therefore, in order to fight these VICIOUS, GOD-FORSAKEN HOOLIGANS, the following steps will be taken....”

Well, you know all about the steps. The whole world does. But, you see, I was watching the President. They tried to pull back from him and show the the flag and the Oval Office, but I saw it! The President was over-dubbed! The words that we were hearing were not the words that he was speaking.

I couldn't even begin to fathom the implications of that truth. I still don't have it all worked out, but at the time, I about flipped. I burst out of my place and took the stairs to Leo and Melanie's apartment three at a time. Melanie came to the door; Leo was still sitting in front of the set.

“Well,?” I said, “Did you see it?”

“Sure,” he said, “but it wasn't all that exciting to come running up here about! Besides, I've seen it before a million times. It is a kick, though, when Lucy starts stuffin' those candies down her blouse.” Melanie started giggling and Leo laughed hard.

“NO!” I shouted, “I mean the President's speech. Didn't you see the President just now? His 'Cleansing the World' speech?”

“Oh, no,” said Melanie. “We always catch him on the Eleven O'clock News.”

“But they don't show the whole speech on the news!” I said.

“No, but they show you the important parts, and they tell you what he said,” Leo answered and then frowned. “What the hell is all this about, anyway?”

“That wasn't the President speaking!” I said, raising my voice. Suddenly, I thought of all the speeches that I'd seen on the news: The anchor smiling sincerely and summarizing what some person said, while a picture of the speaker is superimposed on the background. Maybe they let you hear a few words by the speaker—rarely more than a sentence—before switching to a new story. You don't really get ANY of the speech!

“What the Hell are you talking about?” Leo said.

Old Leo can get pretty testy, but I was surprised at such an antagonistic tone.

“Yes, Scott, Darling,” Melanie chimed in cheerfully. “Whatever are you talking about?”

But this time I was watching. She was over by the wet bar fixing a vodka water. She had her back partially turned from me; nevertheless, when she spoke, her voice level sounded slightly off, and I could've sworn that the voice started before her lips began to move. Oh, they're very good, as I've said, but I saw.

“Oh...I...uh...was just joking,” I stammered. “I mean, it was a great speech ... Better than usual, I mean.”

“They're always great,” Melanie said, but she was looking at me queerly, almost suspiciously. Leo wore the same puzzled but accusing look.

“Hey, you okay, Buddy?” he asked. His eyes showed concern, but his lips were off. Nearly imperceptible, I'll grant you, but off!

Needless to say, I got out of there post haste. I've tried not to raise their suspicions, but now I realize they must be everywhere. The desk sergeant, the doctor, most of the nurses: they're all a part of it. The terrible thing is, I don't know how they can tell us from them. Some of them are so good that you'd never notice if you weren't really watching, and, of course, watching is a dead giveaway.

So I don't watch their lips, except on the sly. And I don't talk to anybody. I figure that's the most likely way for them to recognize us, and like I said, they're not going get me if I can help it.

I'm going to try to hide this letter in the outgoing laundry and hope that it gets to someone on the outside. I can't give my name or where the asylum is because they could find me. If you're not one of them, though, you've got to warn people. And remember, WATCH THEIR LIPS!

From the short story collection, So, It's All Done With Mirrors; That's No Reflection on You

©1985 Tim McMullen

All rights reserved

Don't Let the Cons Con You into Decimating Social Security

We need to stand strong and united. The assaults on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are real, and they come from both sides of the aisle. The excuse for attacking these essential, social safety net programs is the "dreadful deficit," which, of course, was created from a budget SURPLUS and was the direct result of many errant policies.

Though some Democratic Representatives have endorsed a few of these policies, most are the direct result of Republican ideology and policy: unjustified military actions and unnecessary military spending (often on programs and equipment that the military has explicitly said that it does not want or need); huge tax decreases for the wealthiest corporations and individuals; unnecessary and unwarranted subsidies for some of the wealthiest industries; egregiously unfair tax loopholes—available only to the wealthy—that allow many of the wealthiest corporations and individuals to avoid warranted taxes; totally misguided and faulty deregulation of the financial sector that lead to several drastic economic downturns, especially the most recent "great recession"; the "no-strings-attached" economic bailout of those most directly responsible for the economic collapse which has left the worst actors in better shape than before their fraud-induced collapse while leaving most of the country still devastated by economic loss; a completely unrealistic cap on Social Security contributions; six years of political sabotage and stalemate from the minority party outspokenly intent on destroying any chance of significant job recovery or health care reform merely to gain political advantage; and very significantly, a cynical media assault on Social Security, Medicare, and government in general, designed to mislead several generations into believing that there will be nothing for them in the future, that they should abandon all interest in wider society, that privatizing everything gives them a better chance, and that they should care about nothing but their own interests, and, of course, by example, that lying, cheating, and stealing are simply necessary methods for success and that the rules limiting these methods should be loosened or eliminated.

The chained CPI, a method of conscientiously miscalculating downward the needs of retirees so as to significantly reduce their benefits in the future, is actually a drastic, negative change. Before Social Security is touched, before Medicare and Medicaid and a hundred other programs that have already been diminished by political blackmail, extortion, brinkmanship, and disingenuous compromise, we need to rebuild the middle class and our social safety programs by reversing all of the failed policies mentioned above. Only after we have raised the income threshold on Social Security; only after we have reduced our outrageous and unnecessary military spending, including bringing the "Big Brother" surveillance regime under control; only after re-regulating and better regulating the financial sector; only after significantly reducing tax loopholes and subsidies for the wealthiest should we even begin to consider cuts to social programs.

Should we attempt to eliminate fraud in social programs and tax policies? Absolutely. That naturally requires more regulation and regulators, not less as the Republican congress and media echo chamber have advocated and accomplished for many years. Furthermore, we need to bring real criminal charges against those who actually committed or condoned fraud and worse, offering jail time, not just pittance penalties—people have been out of work for years now as a result of this malfeasance, and these criminal corporations are asked to pay only a few days income in fines? There is real injustice here, but many of those in Congress have fought tooth and claw to prevent their financial backers from being held accountable, choosing instead to wreak havoc on women, children, the elderly, workers, immigrants, and the poor. If we all demand that they make other more fair and equitable changes before tampering with the few programs actually designed to benefit the common man, maybe they will listen.

I encourage you to sign the petition from Bernie Sanders whether it comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Alliance for Retired Americans, Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community Change, DailyKos, Democracy For America, The Other 98%, Progressives United, Social Security Works, USAction or any other organization or politician endorsing the protection of Social Security and Medicare.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!"
Tim McMullen

A Nod to Walt Kelly & I Go Pogo—"We have met the enemy, and he is US!"

My last post on Facebook included a video about the media distortions and mob think to which we are so easily lead; when posted elsewhere, it got the response, "Well, I guess that's why the govt. sees us all as sheep."

My response— I think that you are right: many in the government do see the people as sheep. This story is the very opposite of government manipulation, but it may expose, as you suggest, why so many politicians and those who pull their strings think of us as such.

Although some jury awards have seemed overboard, and although frivolous or nuisance lawsuits can be used unfairly, the "Tort Reform" movement is cynically motivated by the same treacherous greed and perpetrated by the same corporate criminal interests that oppose all regulation of business. In a society ruled by true laissez faire (let business do whatever it wants with no government interference) and caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), the scoundrels and the sociopaths always have the upper hand.

Tort reform; deregulation; term limits; the "religious" right to refuse insurance protections to employees; union busting; the corporate right to intrude on employee's personal lives; gag orders in legal settlements; the absurd but shrewd idea that corporations are people and money is speech; the gutting of the Voting Rights Act; the unscrupulous purging of voter roles; the enactment of new registration and voting requirements that intentionally suppress voting; "No new taxes...ever!"; the cutting or eliminating programs for those in need while heaping incredible subsidies or bailouts on those who illegally foreclose on peoples' property or pollute and destroy the environment; unjustified and illegal wars pursued on false pretenses: All of these are part of the same movement, aided by the corporate controlled media, designed to decimate the middle class. A peasantry set at one another's throats for the few remaining crumbs really is a sensible goal for a ruthless, anti-social, plutocratic oligarchy.

The fact that so many of those elected to positions of power actually subscribe to a conflation of Ayn Rand's hypocritical social Darwinism and a misinterpretation of MIlton Friedman's "business has no moral responsibility except to make money" is due, for the most part, to the carefully cultivated cynicism, apathy, and cowardice of the American people who have come to care more about the new "American Idol," the latest "Survivor," or the latest irrelevant sexual scandal or lewd celebrity pictures on the net than they care about the running of our government or the welfare of our society and our world.

As a result of willful ignorance, intellectual ennui, and a nagging but indefinable sense of aggrievement, the populous is easily manipulated and roused to incomprehensible and often uncontrollable anger over calculated and intentionally distorted or spurious claims by demagogues (Ted Cruz being the latest puppet of the Right, though the left have theirs as well). After a few hours or occasionally even days of engagement, of course, the angry mob subsides to its disinterested apathy once again.

 WE ARE the GOVERNMENT, but in so many ways we have allowed our selfishness, cowardice, ignorance, and apathy to turn over our responsibilities and our interests to those who care little for the actual needs of the country but for whom ruthless self-interest and self-righteous hypocrisy are most useful tools.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

Celebrate Columbus Day by Taking Back America!

Below are two comments that I wrote. One is to the CEO of Bank of America about their decision to gouge even more profits at the expense of their customers, and the second is a response to a very clever picture from "How to Raise Your Vibration," which has contorted a dollar bill(s) to read, "We need a revolution." They fit nicely together, I think.

Mr. Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America,

You have made the outrageous decision to squeeze even more money from a citizenry and clientele that is beleaguered by an economic downturn and innumerable accomplished and impending foreclosures, a downturn that was caused specifically by the fraud, deception, and malfeasance of banks, accounting firms, ratings companies, brokerage firms, and many corrupt corporations, yours included.

Charging your customers a $5 monthly fee to access money in their own account (money that you already make money on by holding it and loaning it) is beneath contempt.

I was a loyal B of A customer for many years, but I will have nothing more to do with your firm until your egregious gouging of customers ceases.

This latest outrage is the last straw. I am urging everyone on my social network and everyone on my blogs to find a local savings and loan for their banking needs and turn their back on vultures who prey on the vulnerable while stuffing themselves with ever more unconscionable profits and bonuses while stiffing customers and society at large. Furthermore, I am encouraging my contacts to encourage the same from all their contacts!

Without a radical change of course for your bank, we will prove that you are not too big to fail!

(I ended with my usual, but newly amended aphorism to be found at the end of this post).

The following was posted on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-Raise-Your-Vibration/204840666199710

We do need a revolution, but a revolution brought about by thinking, not guns; a revolution brought about by wisdom, not clichés and obfuscating talking points; a revolution through moral behavior, not mindless violence; a revolution in values, not the false values designed to disenfranchise or subdue others, but a true valuing of the individual AND the society that allows the many to prosper and not just the few.

As the great Gil Scott-Heron said, "The revolution will not be televised." Why? Because we have allowed the corrupt few to steal our media and our political system for a "free marketing, deregulating" lie.

It is time to take our institutions back.

Government is not our enemy. But a government controlled by corrupt corporations and the politicians who do their bidding is by far our biggest danger. No group of terrorists world wide could wreak such havoc on our society or the world as the destruction we have allowed these corporate vultures to rain down on us with absolute impunity.  And everyday, their political lackeys and media mouthpieces propose ever greater outrages.

The revolution may not be televised, but it can be organized and energized, and it is time that we do our part to help bring down this false prophet, PROFIT! Prosperity? Absolutely! But profiteering, like the pirates of old, must be stopped cold. We must rid our society of banksters and profiteers. Fair wages; equal protection under the law; health, safety, and a clean environment: these are the things that a fair and functional society can provide. However, these are the very things that are anathema to a system based on the perpetual degradation and exploitation of the many for the protection and profits of the few. This oligarchy needs to fall and be replaced by a new vision and model of governance practicing real American values of rewarding hard work, seeking to ensure fair treatment, and balancing the rights of the individual and the society to the mutual benefit of both.

Truth...Justice...these really have been taken away from us, or rather, we willingly gave them up for the dangling carrot of personal profit over honesty, integrity, and conscience. We have created several generations who believe only in the first half of the Golden Rule, "Do Unto Others!", and we have been sold the idea that "As you would have them do unto you," is bad for business. Well, if that is true, then it's a bad business that we are in!

We don't need a Superman, we just need to be real Americans again. Our kryptonite has been selfishness, greed, and a disregard for our fellow man (Yes, on this Columbus Day, I know that our history is rife with the antithesis of my "real American society," filled with the repeated intrusion of this Kryptonite, but history has also shown a slow, but steady progress and evolution toward the ideals of Truth and Justice, and despite this latest, thirty-year set back, we can help to restore that progress by joining the fight.

Whether you are of the 99% or the 1%, I encourage you to join the fight to restore integrity to our system.

"The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! The Greatest Threat to Hypocrisy is Democracy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!" Tim McMullen

Through the Looking Glass—The Irrational Assault on America

You know, sometimes it really does feel like we are living in a Looking-Glass world. The frantic deregulation and merger frenzy of the last thirty years, stoked by the unfettered greed of banks, insurance companies, giant accounting firms, pharmaceuticals, media organizations, energy companies, and the Chamber of Commerce (to name but a few) nearly bankrupted this nation; the anti-tax policies and upward redistribution of wealth of the Bush years unquestionably brought on the greatest economic meltdown since the depression; colossal, criminal, corporate fraud and malfeasance have been exposed repeatedly, yet no real political or legal response has been forthcoming.

Instead, the "know-nothing" Tea Party swept politicians into power with the craziest campaign imaginable. Take all the things that nearly destroyed us—unfettered corporate greed, no public accountability for private or public corruption, an orchestrated attack against the regulation of criminal corporations, unlimited secret political spending by corporations wedded to an all-out assault on public and private unions and their political power—and reenergize each of these assaults on the middle-class ten-fold.

This illogical, delusional, self-destructive, Mad-Hatter Tea Party craze has now consumed the entire Republican’t party (as well as a few putative Democrazies) who are now clamoring and clambering over each other in a race to dismantle the last remaining shreds of the social, economic, and political safety nets of the diminishing pool of middle-income workers and the ever-increasing ocean of lower-income and unemployed workers.

Instead of attacking the obvious causes of our economic woes (including two illegal wars costing us over three billion dollars weekly), these elected representatives (read corporate political shills) and their deregulated media mouthpieces have mounted legislative campaigns to extend tax cuts and corporate subsidies for the wealthiest 1% while denying even minimal economic protections for workers; they are attempting to entirely eliminate funding for all public media, the only entities providing real, even-handed journalism in this country; they are attempting to severely curtail or destroy workers rights and protections with an unprecedented assault on collective bargaining; they have introduced a full-fledged campaign to decimate women’s rights by radically redefining rape, criminalizing miscarriages, allowing hospitals to refuse to save a woman’s life if doing so requires an abortion, and authorizing the legal murder of abortion providers; they have continued attacks on the rights of LGBT community; they continue their attempt to demonize immigrants and undocumented workers; and they have begun to decimate or eliminate environmental protections while legislatively denying scientific evidence and disallowing that evidence to affect our environmental policies.

The unimaginable harms of these initiatives, considered separately or collectively, is truly mind-boggling. As I learned from more than twenty-five years of collective bargaining, “once you give it up, you never get it back.” Just envision the havoc that any one of these proposals will wreak on our society, and then try to imagine what it would take to fix it once it is in place.

If we don’t get involved, NOW, in private conversations, in public demonstrations, in political campaigns; if we don’t immediately inform our elected representatives, both local and national, of our positions on these vital issues; if we don’t write our local newspapers and media outlets with rational, focused responses to the vitriolic distortion and lies of wacky political demagogues and crackpot pundits, the cause of democracy here and around the world will be setback for generations, perhaps many generations, to come.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!” Tim McMullen  

To the FCC: Stop Media Giants & Corrupt Politicians from Hijacking the Internet

The FCC has recently made several important and courageous decisions that have begun to reassert the right of the American people to protect their access to information and to end the unregulated abdication of the people's authority in deference to the whims and greed of corporate control.

A blatantly hypocritical, actively reactionary, politically motivated, and newly-emboldened Supreme Court recently handed down a bizarre and logic-twisting decision taking away a fundamental right of the citizenry to control their own political process as well as their right to regulate corporations while handing corporate America the ability to completely subvert the democratic process and dominate, if not destroy, free and open elections in America.

Not being satisfied with having spent forty years purchasing this morally and intellectually corrupt Supreme Court, these ever more rapacious corporations and ruthless ideologues have taken their game plan one step further.

Having decimated our public media and turned it into patently partisan infotainment through the thoroughly discredited process of deregulation and consolidation, they now have their eyes set on the latest and last bastion of open information and communication, the internet.

Dozens of elected politicians who have been further terrified or emboldened by this crass carte blanche handed to some of America's most morally corrupt corporations, have been cajoled, as a result of the peddling of influence, into supporting the further erosion, decimation, and perhaps elimination of this last venue for honest intellectual and political discourse.

These politicians, whose campaigns and loyalty have been purchased by corporate spending, due to our perverted system of campaign finance now further distorted by the most recent judicial fiat of the Supreme Court, do not speak for the people of the United States. They clearly represent only the interests of their financial backers.

No reasonable, fair-minded person purporting to represent the interests of their constituents or the American people could pretend that the complete control of the internet by media giants and communication conglomerates serves the needs of the populace or of a democracy. Perhaps it does meet the needs of the "constitutional republic," as the Texas State School Board now insists it be called in order to overtly denigrate "democrat" in favor of "republic-an" in another example of the flagrant distortion and politicization that can be wrought through the control of information and the power of publishing.

As you well know, this tiny minority of Congressional shills does not speak for the millions of Americans who have participated in a lengthy, hard-fought, uphill battle to convince the FCC and Congress to protect an open Internet and to facilitate universal access.

Once again, the FCC must stand up to these crass and corrupting commercial interests, assert its Title II authority, and fulfill its duty by protecting the right of the American people to an open and democracy-empowering Internet.

“The Greatest Threat to Democracy is Hypocrisy! Seek Truth! Speak Truth!”

Tim McMullen

Consider adding your voice to the campaign at http://www.savetheinternet.com/