No Choice

This Al Jazeera interview with Jesse Ventura gets off to such a goofy start I almost didn't watch past the first minute.  It's marred by a sparkly talk-show formula reminiscent of The View or Joe Scarborough shows on tv; it's interrupted by extraneous news; and I could have done without quite so many plugs for the Governor's book even though he never fails to entertain.

All the same, it's exciting to see what became a frank discussion about the corrupt shambles that has overcome whatever pretense of democracy once governed our country.  Overall the analysis still tip-toes around the more fundamental and inherently unsustainable, self-destructive tendencies of a profit-driven capitalistic system.  But the indictment by Ventura and the audience veers close enough to make the guest - alumna of the Center for American Progress and HuffPo political director Amanda Terkel - squirm awkwardly as she tries to redeem the integrity of their thinly-veiled allegiance to exactly the phony struggle for partisan power that Ventura compares to pro-wrestling.


Some perceptive questions from viewers led me to reflect upon a couple of intriguing possibilities:  first, that more Americans, especially young people, are genuinely waking up to the wide-spread and shameless fraud that is being perpetrated upon the public by an unholy allegiance among corporations, politicians, the judiciary, and mainstream media; and second, that Occupy Wall Street had more than a little to do with initiating a widespread enlightenment.  Not that either of those those notions, if true, can overcome the shackles of the oligarchy - but still, we must take cheer where we can find it.  (Thanks to the Coming Crisis for posting...and enjoy the show!)