Introducing Shockfront

Greetings, and welcome to Shockfront.  As the banner says, this outlet will be devoted to "examining the interfaces between people, politics and the armatures of power."  On the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the launch of this website is apposite, for war is the most murderous and devastating interaction that can occur between people and centers of power.  But there is a vast spectrum of other interfaces that govern human interactions, not only between people and seats of power, but internecine conflicts within these various groups.  Of course, our living environment is often a source of conflict, whereby people demand and require clean water, air and food, all of which are under near constant and often destructive assault.

The interfaces between groups like "the public" and centers of power, such as corporate interests, have nominally been vehicles by which conflicts are mediated.  Elections, political parties and politics in general, the media, the judiciary and, indeed, government itself have traditionally acted, or at least have been perceived to have acted, as mediators when conflicts between such groups arise.  Historically, this has not really been true, as these various vehicles have often been co-opted or hijacked completely in favour of one group at the expense of another, which is always a one-way street.  Because it remains unseen that the public -- any public -- has ever attacked or subverted the interests of corporate powers, at least not without first coming under assault by those same said powers.

Elections have been and will be rigged at the behest of special interests.  Politics and politicians have been and will continue to be beholden to corporate backers eager to circumvent popular public sentiment for their own ends.  And there is certainly no doubt that the corporate media expresses an agenda closely tied to others in the brotherhood of corporatism.  As witnessed lately, the United States Department of Justice and the extant federal judiciary have been, to one degree or another, politicized and in some cases completely turned into political tools in efforts to advance one or more agendas.

But this is true regardless of the country in question, though most Americans would be loathe to actually admit that their cherished government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," is not really that representative of the American public will.  They truly do not want to believe that electoral malfeasance is a staple of American elections, nor do they want to believe that "American justice" is not quite as blind as the American myth would inform.  Ironically, it has been the Bush administration and the current edition of the Republican party, through their secretive efforts to politicize the Justice department, their overt bias in Supreme Court appointments and the gross efforts in election rigging, that have brought to bear the greatest degree of public scrutiny likely ever to shine upon these previously staid institutions, which have been generally considered beyond politics.  This has not really been true during many political epochs (appointments to the Supreme Court represent almost nothing but partisan considerations) but the notion itself is one that "conventional thinking" still holds dear.  Naturally, the US corporate media willfully chose to ignore or downplay these and other behaviours, since it is the American media that remain mostly in charge of guarding the national myth of the country.

Which brings us back to the nominal interfaces that govern such groups' interactions.  Those interfaces simply do not allow for unbiased arbitration of disputes and conflicts that arise, especially between people and groups of people who comprise "the public," and the corporate interests and actions that often lead to the disputes and conflicts.  Elections, politics, the government, the courts and the media have become seats of power unto themselves and, without fail, all have either been co-opted by corporate interests or are actual corporations themselves.  Traditionally, politics have been seen as the interface through which the citizenry can directly express their wishes.  In reality, politics exists as a power center unto itself, increasingly beyond the reach and ken of average citizens.  Today, politics at the national level requires, first and foremost, political connections and lots of money.  It is no surprise then that almost every single senator in the US Congress is a millionaire.  The US Senate is the equivalent, and always has been, of Britain's House of Lords, and can often been seen openly advancing the interests of their corporate backers, though Americans do not calmly abide such talk and observation in polite company.

But this salient fact is everywhere true, in almost all countries and in all political arrangements.  Political popularity is bought and paid for and usually the interests doing the buying and paying do not hold citizens' general welfare in great esteem.  It is only natural then that the traditional methods of remediation, whether it be elections or courts or media, have been under assault by seats of power that recognize "free and fair" elections as the threat they would be were the public actually allowed a high degree of freedom in choosing political representatives.  The American public, being no different in general sentiment than any other public, openly and repeatedly favour many policies that corporate interests simply do not want implemented.  Whether it is ending the war in Iraq, reigning in warrantless surveillance, instituting universal, single-payer health care, or developing alternative energy systems, the American public constantly expresses approval of an agenda that vested corporate interests simply refuse to recognize, which is why the US corporate media is constantly downplaying -- preferably ignoring -- general public sentiment on these and many other issues.

One feature of our current political dynamic that you will not find covered in these pages will be the campaign trail, which now exists, thanks largely to that same corporate media, on an intellectual plane only slightly elevated from that of monkeys flinging poo.  For example, we might recognize today this sort of exchange on television "news" channels.

WOLF BLITZER: Good evening and welcome to the Situation Room.  Well, it was certainly a day that saw some nasty poo-flinging on the part of Hillary Clinton's campaign.  The poo delivered a blow to the Obama camp, but the question is, will it stick?  For analysis, let's go to our senior political correspondent in Washington.  John, what is the feeling about the latest round of poo to hit Obama?

JOHN:  Wolf, the general feeling here is that the poo was particularly unpleasant and may require Obama to scrub vigorously.  The question is whether the flung poo was too smelly and whether there will be any blowback suffered by Clinton.

TIM RUSSERT: Gentlemen, if I may interject.  My own feeling is that this latest poo-fling has been a serious miscalculation on Clinton's part.  The poo was quite sloppy and much of it slipped through the fingers of her staffers, only to fly back and land on Clinton.  I only hope she wasn't wearing Armani!  Ha, ha, ha, ha!

BLITZER:  Ahh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!

ANDERSON COOPER: Tee he he he he.

Well, you get the idea.

So, no, you won't be reading much about political campaigning and much of what passes for political theatre here, although I do reserve the right to offer comment in the event a particularly egregious bit of stupidity rears its malformed head, as it surely will.  Of course, politicking will be discussed by way of the context and framing that such narrow and narrow-minded smear and fear campaigning implies for the larger efforts in trying to effect change in modern political discourse.  In fact, if you watched or read Obama's speech on race in America, he fairly well lambasted the ghastly media and his political opponents on exactly this point.  It was a great moment in what otherwise has been a dreadful and pathetic exercise in childish mud-slinging and one we would all do well to appreciate and heed.

Given that the many official interfaces of rapprochement have been commercially adulterated, other means are adopted by a disenfranchised public when their sentiments are not acted upon or acknowledged by governments or the political classes.  Grass-roots movements, direct action, mass demonstrations and, in the most extreme cases, terrorism, necessarily manifest themselves when those other avenues fail to offer viable remediation. So be forewarned: you will not find here nonsensical bromides that terrorists are terrorists because they "hate our freedom."  You will be offered no comforting pap to assuage latent guilt over largely ignored foreign policy debacles and their attendant, usually unspoken agenda.  And, contrary to what George Bush continues to insist, you will be confronted with the reality that freedom and democracy most assuredly are not "on the march." 

Still other interfaces are seen in the very physical environment in which people live or, in the worst cases, eek out a meager existence.  Environmental degradation is usually the direct result of corporate activity that constantly externalizes the costs of "doing business" onto a public that may initially encourage vigorous industrialization, but which ultimately will be faced with an existential crisis when, for example, pollution begins to degrade the very life that was promised by that industrialization.  Perhaps the best example of this today is occurring in China, Beijing in particular, where industrial pollution has rendered the environment nearly unlivable.  When you view the following video of pollution in China, it is likely that you have never seen "air" that looks like this.  It is, in fact, killing people.

The water, too, is deadly.

Currently, there are "Great Games" playing out in Central Asia, the Balkans and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as competing national interests vie for the dwindling energy resources of the world.  China, Russia and the United States are engaging a number of proxies in a little acknowledged fight surrounding oil fields and attendant pipeline routes and networks.  The routes of various pipeline networks involve much of Southwest Asia, China, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, India, Sudan, Chad, Cameroon, the Balkans, Turkey and, of course, Iraq.  You will encounter a great deal of discussion here about these pipeline schemes because they all present interfaces by which these competing national powers are interacting, often with disastrous results for an unwitting public.  Though you will never hear this in the mainstream corporate media, which constantly expresses puzzlement over Darfur, what we are witnessing in southern Sudan and Darfur is essentially a proxy war between the United States and China.  In describing the "situation on the ground" in Darfur, Western corporate media fails to mention that the US is supporting rebels there, always acknowledging the role oil plays in China's support for the al-Bashir regime in Khartoum and always ignores the fact that that the current edition of violence in southern Sudan ramped up six months prior to the public announcement of the discovery of oil in Darfur.

Other fronts and seats of power will obviously come under examination here.  The oil industry, the military-industrial complex, the financial industry and the coddling Fed -- currently under the microscope almost everywhere -- the health care and insurance industries, the media industry, the industry that now manifests itself within government and the political class, the dwindling value of the US dollar, all are powerful interests or are proxies for powerful interests exacting some toll or another upon one or more groups of what we might call an unsuspecting public.  Of especial interest here, too, will be the interconnections of many or all of these powerful special interest groups, such as the fact that many corporate media outlets -- if not outright owned by defense contractors as is NBC -- have executives of major defense contractors sitting on the various boards of directors, such as The New York Times (William Kennard, Carlyle Group), Disney-ABC (John Bryson, Boeing, and Alwyn Lewis, Halliburton) and Gannett (McCorkindale, Lockheed-Martin).  Of course, there is more.  Much more.  So stay tuned.

Like any addict, the first step in any twelve-step program of rehab is first admitting that you actually have a problem, and recognizing the problem for what it is.  And right now, the foreign policy of the United States is addicted to conflict.  Imperial prerogative has always pilfered resources and strategic position through war, but it is only recently that the conflict itself is now viewed as an engine of industry.  This is an extremely dangerous development, for the rise of "disaster capitalism" (as Naomi Klein calls it) has embedded those industries devoted to  it with a vulture mentality, thrilling at the prospect of each new and wildly profitable catastrophe.  And when war itself is seen as a profit center, the conflict addiction will be very hard to break.

And with that introduction to the kinds of subjects one can expect to find here, I hope you will consider stopping in on occasion and dropping a comment.  I appreciate your indulgence and thanks for stopping in.

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