WATCH OBAMA'S OTHER HAND

• I was in bed sick most of the day yesterday.  I watched Part 1 of a film called The Lenin Train and read.  Had little to no energy but it was so cold outside I didn't want to go anywhere anyway.  Today as been a different story as I took a cab to Topsham and hitchhiked back home after an appointment.  A man who owns a local antique shop picked me up and took me to Bath.  I asked him how business is going and he said "It's been bad for the past four years."  He told me that working people routinely bring him little items and say, "Can you give me $20 for this, it was my mom's....I need the money to buy some food."
• Tomorrow is the big New England Regional No Tar Sands Pipeline march and rally in Portland.  Will be eager to see how strong folks turn out as we get a test of the impact climate change issue will have in helping to wake the public out of their numbed out sleep walk.  It will be awful cold (about 21 degrees) but Mainers are notoriously hardy folks.
• There has been a spike in the love people are showing for Obama on Facebook since the inauguration.  That big event gave folks something "good" to crow about and the liberals on FB are cranking away.  Obama mentioned climate change in his speech.....so hopes are up.  People still want to believe that Obama will pull a rabbit out of the hat at just the right moment.  But so far the rabbits all look like corporate welfare checks.  Obama dances nice, has a great smile, knows just when to say the right thing, keeps connected to the "little" people via popular mass media - he is indeed the magician.  Watch his other hand - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Tar Sands Pipeline, his support for "clean coal" (dirty), natural gas (fracking) and endless war on 'terrorists' in places where declining supplies of natural resources are found. Watch the acceleration of the militarization of local police departments in cooperation with the Pentagon. Watch the drone strikes....it's an endless list of bad shit. But Obama keeps dancing - he's optimistic!  He knows who he really works for.