Dear diary,
Anyone who drives faster than me is going dangerously fast. Anyone who drives slower than me is going stupidly slow. If you don’t enjoy all of my favorite books and movies, then you have bad taste. If you married someone other than me, you chose the wrong spouse. You should consider having an extramarital affair.
The problem with modern politics is that everyone talks about it in terms of systems that don’t quite fit the world anymore. Maybe these systems never did quite fit the world, even in their own day; but they’re less and less fitting, the more time passes. So it would be better if we stopped thinking about such systems in all-or-nothing fashion, and instead used aspects of each system like ingredients for a savory new dish: add a pinch of capitalism, a dollop of socialism, etc. The backward sin of our current system is that multinational corporations are socializing their losses while privatizing their gains.
The two major parties in these States are the Republicans and the Democrats. Someday soon those names will sound as distant to U.S. citizens as Whigs and Tories sound to the 21st century.
People talk about right and left, about conservatives and liberals, but I think the true divide is between the following two groups: (A) corporations so large that they span over multiple countries; and (B) the people who own no part of those corporations (in other words, everyone else). What I’m saying is this: a far-right conservative from group B will have more in common with even a far-left liberal from group B than he would with a so-called conservative from group A; likewise, the true opponent of a group-B liberal is any group-A member, conservative or liberal, and the group-B conservatives are more allies than enemies of the liberals who belong to group B. Or if you insist that there still is a major difference between right and left, then what I’m trying to point out is the rise of a third direction: group C: beyond right and left; and although I hear people speak of “the establishment,” I don’t think that this C group is exactly that—for the C group does not cherish the status quo: rather it wants the type of change that will bring more, more, more power unto itself… it’s like a country of its own, which is borderless and omnipotent, in the sense that it’s always manipulating the governments of others, via money, war, clout, influence, etc. No country is exempt from the impact of transnational corporations (which I’m calling group C) for the same reason that you cannot win a game against a cheater. The plutocrats are already victorious; they’ve been winning since even before the World Wars; and, as they exist “beyond right and left,” they also remain outside of the reach of all war: the World Wars helped them, to a certain extent, and almost all wars work to their advantage; indeed, everything possible to occur will end up in their favor eventually, because they own X (name it, they own it). One might as well worship them as GOD. They’re good people, though. Let’s hope and pray that someone wealthy loves us, because that’s our only chance for blank in this epoch.
But why am I talking like this? Have I become a conspiracy theorist? I hate this type of talk. No more. Let’s get beyond politics. Have a barbecue, invite family and friends… listen to live jazz played by competent addicts.
Here’s a quote from Gilda (1946), our favorite film (yours and mine) aside from Wrong Cops (2013)—the odd lines are spoken by Ballin Mundson; and the evens, which I’ve italicized, are Johnny Farrell:
You’re the only one who knows [the safe’s] combination, Johnny. If anything should ever happen to me, there are papers in there: signatures and instructions how to carry on.
Thanks for not letting me down. You’re not just the owner of a gambling joint, eh?
You know what a cartel is, Johnny?
I think so. A trust… a monopoly of some kind, isn’t it?
An international monopoly.
Big business, huh… a monopoly in what?
Tungsten. That doesn’t impress you…?
I don’t know much about it. I mean, I don’t know if it’s worth getting shot at for the pleasure of monopolizing it.
A man who controls a strategic material can control the world, Johnny.
Whoa, now—the world’s a pretty big place.
Made up of stupid little people.
Well, if anybody can do it, I’d lay eight to five you’re the baby who can.
And you’d win. Now let’s go downstairs and have a drink.
P.S.
Remember to vote for MY candidate. (I say this because, in the hour that I write, eight o’clock Tuesday morning the seventh of June 2016 Anno Domini Dada, your home state is having its primary election; and it would mean a lot to me if you’d let my favorite win.) (If you fail to echo my choice, you have ruined the world.)
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