To use this forum as a means of political expression was never my intention. Mostly I wanted to speak about the personal, the inner burgeoning consciousness, to express myself publicly in order to reach an understanding with the outside world. With the whole world seemingly involved in an extreme political discourse, I thought it would be futile and pointless to add yet another voice to the cacaphony already engaged in what has degraded into a shouting match. However, I realize now that my own political viewpoint is intertwined with my awakening, and to disregard it is to ignore a large portion of my feelings and my time. Most of my day is spent in my car or by myself, listening to news and current events, podcasts, public radio... I check my phone for updates on the presidential race and world news... and I read links my friends post on facebook. There was a time when myself and many of my friends were completely apolitical. The great bureaucracies of the world succeeded in developing in me a sort of malaise. I felt isolated, cynical, and (if ever there was a word to describe the 20th century) alienated. The regression of the human race seemed almost preordained, and I felt like a leaf floating in a vast and powerful sea, subject to the whims of forces unseen, indeterminate, and powerful beyond measure. Like many in my generation, I was subjected to a mass culture of nihilism, materialism, anti-intellectualism, and self indulgence, so that the most important thing was to discover oneself... by oneself. To be strong was to be strong alone, without reference to anyone else. But I see now that this way of thinking was taught to me by the instruments of shysters, salesmen, and power brokers. I can see a new world breaking free of this by the simple realization that we are all connected, that our actions have consequence, and that the world as it is now was built upon a foundation cast in stone throughout the aeons of history.
It seems to me that the worst aspect of the modern age is the way we receive information. With the modern news cycle being on a 24 hour basis it seems as if we are bombarded with stories of tyranny, oppression, degradation of values, and passionate discourse. We are fed constant updates until we fear going to sleep at night because the world might change in the course of the six to eight hours we are disconnected! The modern age comes at us so fast that the news has become a headline, a picture with a caption, and two paragraphs written by a "news service". This is followed by a litany of opinions on the various social networks, spewed forth by an ignorant, uninformed audience, who are reacting to an initial soundbite they didn't experience for themselves. If this initial news item is about something which is connected to the tax base or has to do with research grants or is about a certain person allegedly doing something illegal or amoral, suddenly the whole world has become judge, jury, and executioner, and lives are ruined, studies are lost, programs are de-funded, and the world loses insight into itself. When the whole story is revealed, either nobody hears it, or they hear only what they want to hear and stick to their initial knee jerk reactions. It isn't just a wheel spinning in mud, it is seven billion wheels spinning in small interconnected circles, bumping into each other and sending each other screaming off in a tangent to slam into another wheel, while the ground underneath becomes a sea of quicksand.
There was a moment when the vast machinery of political power and modern presidential campaigns became clarified for me. Rick Perry was asked a question pertaining to his economic policies; I can't recall exactly how the line of questioning went; As he was answering, citing his tax reform ideas, how he would promote job growth, etc., he suddenly held out his hands as if he were holding a flagpole and exclaimed passionately, "We need to stick a flag in the ground that says, 'America is Open for Business Again!'" The camera angle switched, a small number of the audience members applauded, and the moderator continued on to a different candidate. Two things occurred to me at once... (1) Rick Perry can't distinguish between an intellectual debate and a political rally, and (2) these candidates have to speak in bold idealistic terms in order to incite the constituency to vote for them. A campaign isn't about solving problems, about pragmatic approaches to governing... it's about highlighting ideals and promoting a kind of philosophical vision of the future. These men must separate themselves from the pack and hold themselves upright in the bright spotlight of media attention, in order to convince others to place them at the head of all tables, in THE seat of power. So they speak to us about America. They speak of how they see this country, how they relate to the vast masses of people from the populous East, through the Heartland, out to the vast West. They speak of their vision of Justice, Peace, and Freedom, as if they are commodities to be sold to us at the nearest pharmacy. They tell us how they are the chosen, the deliverers, and their opponents will lead America down a dark and storm ravaged path... and not only will there be the loss of everything we now hold dear, but it will be a slow and tortuous loss. This is what politics in America has become... maybe it's always been this way. When they talk about America, I really wonder where this grand country is located. Can we really look across this vast country and say that we all share a common set of core values? Can I relate to a person who belongs to the Ku Klux Klan? Does a corporate executive look at art the same way I do? We are all scattered about in tribes. We tread common ground with each other, but our communities are small, and our lives rarely venture outside the confines of our domestic circles. To speak of a United America is to sell us something, to ask us to buy something, or buy into something.
It's all too much for me sometimes. I don't have any answers. Sometimes I swing from anarchist unpredictability to traditional values. I've always had a leftist bent, like most of my generation, and for the past three elections I've voted Democrat. But I can see value in ideas from both sides of the aisle. Most intelligent people I know are intelligent because they carry many different values, and can see understanding and compromise as the only possible future. Winston Churchill once said, if you aren't a liberal when you're young you have no heart... and if you aren't a conservative when you're old you have no head. When I hear someone talk about their business, and they say liberals are wrong for creating a welfare state, that there have always been rich and poor people and the rich have always taken care of the poor, and that he shouldn't be penalized for working hard and becoming a productive member of society, I can't argue. And when a social worker tries to argue for the rights of the homeless, and tries to battle for the voiceless, reminding us that equality in America is a myth, I see that as truth, too. Can these two truths coexist? Will there always be a disparity between those who have and those who do not? If a major change in the structure of our society occurs, will the new society be any different than the previous? Or will the sides just switch ends of the playing field? For the cynics out there, the answer is no. They say we are all doomed and men will always kill each other for power. They say that they don't care about the future, that people who are uneducated and lazy don't deserve our sympathy, and that this world is a winner take all melee and you have to get yours while you can. Fools. If they don't care about their brothers, why should their opinion count at all? Maybe they should be told what to do, since they don't really want to hear our side of the story. It's not that hard to be optimistic. Television is not American Culture. The internet is not the answer to democratic power. Revolution is not spawned by looting neighborhood stores. We have to go out and find culture. We have to unlearn everything we think we know about how the world is and how it should be. Most of our belief systems were taught to us through authority figures and peer groups, and true perspective takes time and work. Revolution is a state of being, a paradigm shift.
Mostly I want people to realize how much power is really in our hands. Every dollar we spend is surveyed. Every movie we watch, every TV show we see, every second we lose listening to some fool spouting off at us is calculated and used for advertising. So what if we all decided to become activists? Instead of complaining about the world what if we acted to change it? Don't like how the garbage is piling up? Recycle and organize community clean up programs. Don't like how much food prices are going up? Start a garden and go to farmers markets. Don't like looking at bums every time you go to a baseball game downtown? Volunteer at soup kitchens and food banks. I was a little disappointed at Christmas. For all the grand talk about Money and Power and Corruption, people still went out in droves and spent the night outside Best Buys over Thanksgiving to get the newest toys and gadgets. What if for once nobody bought anything at Christmas? What if we decided to exchange gifts we made ourselves? What if we painted a picture for someone, or took a pottery class, or bought from a local antique shop? What if for that week around Christmas, we read to our children... turned off the TV and learned something about the history of Christmas? What if we communicated and contemplated the world around us... slowed down our lives for one week? All the billions of dollars spent on advertising would be lost. Companies who were struggling would crash, and the politicians and pundits would scream at us for weeks that we are ruining everything. We are slaves to this system that we created. We are locked into this consumptive lifestyle that separates us from each other and leaves us alienated. Does it have to be this way? It's a long conversation isn't it.
Until we meet again...
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