Crossroads

The news has been depressing in the last week, a little more than the usual mere depressing. Still, as a nation, we must muster up some spirit and go forward. We have no other good choices besides learning from our history and trying to do the right thing from here on out.

Where to begin? Well, let's start with Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., a person whom most of the nation has never heard of, although he was the mayor of Detroit until this week. By all accounts, Cockrel is an honest, sober man who took over the daunting task of being mayor of one of America's most beleaguered cities after a scandal ousted the previous mayor. To be honest, the Party of Commons hasn't followed Detroit politics hardly any, seeing that we have all we can handle keeping up with Washington state politics, but from what tidbits we know, Cockrel did a good job in the short time that he was mayor, restoring confidence and integrity to the mayor's office.

Then the former National Basketball Association star, Dave Bing, decided to uproot himself from a suburban gated community to move to Detroit for the purpose of running for mayor. All the ingredients for winning in American-style politics were there: money, fame, celebrity and ambition. Unfortunately, Mayor Cockrel couldn't outdo the N.B.A. Although, we doubt that the carpetbagger, Bing, who had innoculated himself from the problems of the city through his former gated community, will turn out to be anything except another dime-a-dozen politician. Kenneth Cockrel, Jr. has decided to return to the Detroit City Council; the best of luck to him.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, we found out that the Gates Foundation is continually trying to make inroads into the continent of Africa through starting hundreds of think tanks or something like that. It must be intoxicating being kind of imperial grand dukes of the world by waving billions of dollars around with the strings that your conditions must be met, such as promoting and planting controversial genetically modified seeds in that part of the world.

In the national political world, the Republican faithful, and more than a few Democrats and others, can't seem to decide whether Cheney-esque barbarity or the "Sermon on the Mount" is more fitting.

Finally, things keep leaking out from sources other than the Corporate Mainstream News Media that otherwise would be covered up entirely. Yesterday, we listened to a non-corporate media radio report about something so outrageous about the conduct of contractors at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad some time ago, in which the U.S. military brass was in charge of at the time, that we almost didn't believe it. However, we believed every word of it, and our nation has more serious problems than we ever imagined. Especially, very serious problems of the soul, the sort that wilted and broke the Roman Empire.

[Originally published in our "Commoner" blog, same day, with the title, "Notes From the Nation."]

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