Dear diary,
Why am I so interested in politics, even against my will? And “interested in” is too generous of a phrase here — I should have said “obsessed with” or “enthralled by”; the former in the sense of a dangerous obsession, and the latter in the way that the knight-at-arms in Keats’ famous poem is warned by the pale kings and warriors in his hillside nightmare: “La belle Dame sans merci / Hath thee in thrall!”
I can answer my own question. The reason I’m so sickly interested in, dangerously obsessed with, and in thrall to politics is that I blame that realm for making my life turn out ugly. Yes, I don’t like my life, and I’ve gotta blame something other than myself for my undesirable situation, and tho I could dismiss all politics as a waste of time and claim that political contrivances did not seal my fate, I prefer to lament “If only my ancestors had practiced smart politics instead of stupid politics...” — In other words, rather than simply holding the medium itself as evil and thus resigning to forswear politics entirely, I favor treating politics as a neutral realm capable of supporting opposing factions and then trying to find the best stance. This way, hope can continue to torment me.
What I mean is that politics is like philosophy or poetry: you can label respective instances good or bad — you’re not required to say “ALL poems are awful” or “ALL philosophy is utterly unpersuasive” or “ALL politics is the work of Ahriman.”
Yet why not blame my problems on a villain from comic books, like God or one of the rebel angels? I’m sure that I would have done that, had I lived back in the times when culture was dominated by a particular religion. But the common language of our day is atheistic, so I speak politically.
Come to think of it, tho, I do blame God for a lot of my problems; but that’s cuz I was raised in a Protestant Christian church; so my thots and impulses suffer some residual archaism.
And I cannot escape “right” and “left”, no matter how hard I try to stop using these terms. I think this is because I haven’t yet found a sufficient substitute for either concept. Should we say instead “pro-system” (for right) and “pro-people” (for left), like they say “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the glorious realm of abortion?
So I find myself born into an economy. Its rules are man-made. A price is set on certain actions. We talk about goods and services. Looking at this puzzle, I ask myself “Where do you fit in, dear Bryan my love?” And I answer, “Well, little soul, I don’t like goods, cuz I don’t like physical matter that has any use unless it meets people’s basic needs; and I hate work unless it’s unpaid (in which case I’ll never stop working), so I don’t wanna make stuff and sell it; plus I’m bad at services, as I’m too frightened by living creatures to address them in person: I therefore cannot give someone a massage, or cut their hair (always saving a lock for myself), or teach them Skee-Ball, or taxi them to the airport, or vacuum their dungeon... so I think I’m just plain fuckt — I only like to look at art and read poetry, and I also like to dabble in creating art and poetry; but these things are not valued in the marketplace, as is well known, they only contribute to culture, and the best things in life are free, so we’re trapped outside of the…”
I guess I don’t know how to answer myself. I could spend six eternities trying to articulate exactly why I don’t fit in, or I could wander away from the question and go lounge at the back of a cave with my friend Crusoe’s goat (it’s the goat who is my friend, not Crusoe — and, by using the possessive form of his name, I don’t mean that Crusoe owns the creature, or even that Sigismund is his pet; I only meant that my goatfriend lives inside the selfsame story), and we could watch each other die.
So I see politics as a big deal cuz it determines how power moves throughout the world. The power that’s able to be harnessed by man. What side am I on? The peoples’. You might think that anyone could say the same & that I should be more specific; but in this wretched age, it’s actually significant to state that you side with the people rather than, say, money or law. I’m not against money or law; I just think that they should have a softer edge — I don’t think we should be so rigid in our enforcing of either; for law is as man-made as the economy, and so is money, and I think that we should not be as ruthless with our own creations as Nature is with hers. Let us be an advancement on Nature, not a mere imitation.
But this goes back to my problem with “right versus left”. Righties respect law and order over freedom and possibility, and they let money outrank people because they swallow the lie that there is a scarcity of resources. Lefties are right about everything. Now, since the Right is always in charge, because the Left shuns leadership, what happens is that the culture begins to resemble a pyramid, with one person or a handful of goons at the tiptop — they’re what is called “the one percent”, because they make up only a single percentage of the population — and then there’s a middle layer to this pyramid, and a vast bottom layer. The middle layer is about nine percent, so together with the top one percent they made up ten percent. Then the bottom is roughly ninety percent of humankind. We Lefties often express solidarity with “the ninety-nine percent” because our dream is to unite the bottom ninety with the middle nine, for the purpose of taking the entire system of life back for ALL living creatures, and inviting the one percent to join in the fun: they are welcome (“You come too!” is our slogan: we hold up ads to the windows of the offices of the Rulers, inviting them to join us in our paradise); the only thing we ever objected to is that they wanted to hog all the supplies. You can’t hog the supplies; you gotta play nice. If children can learn to share, so can billionaires.
OK but who are these nine percent who stand in the middle of the ninety and the one? What do they look like, what do they do?
The nine percent look like men in uniform, very handsome and admirable, because they are police officers and military soldiers. Here is why they are important. The one percent keeps their Pyramid of Rampant Inequality intact by means of a simple trick: good old violence (and the ever-present threat of violence); they pay the police and military to protect them — this is how they avoid being overrun by the Regular Folk, who, comprising ninety percent, are the vast majority.
And this is the case in every group that ever went foul. The people (the ninety) rise up and say “Hey, one percenters, ye Rulers and Owners, you’re hogging all the life for yourselves alone, and you’re not even able to enjoy it (your stockpile of resources goes to waste: there’s not enough of you to expend it all); so we’re gonna put a stop to this inhumane system and just share the wealth with every living soul so that we all can prosper together; and, like we said above, you are welcome to party along with us: we encourage it: come share in our fun (some of us think you’re kinda cute): we’re not your enemies we’re your family & friends & lovers.” — Then the one percenters blow their whistle; and the police enter from stage left, and the military enters from stage right; and these forces maim and jail and slay the populace.
So, you can see, one problem the Lefties have is that they’re always bloviating against the police and the military. This is not a good tactic. We Lefties should be trying to BEFRIEND the armed forces of justice and defense.
What happens is that a person is born into poverty, and then she is told by the Cold World itself: “You and your family will starve now, because there are no opportunities for you to participate in the present economy.” But then a one percenter pays this soul a house-call and announces: “I am, as it were, a physician who has arrived to save my patient; for I can see that you are ailing and on the brink of death because you lack funds; and I am now going to offer you a constant stream of money: it’s called a salary, and you shall receive it in exchange for working a job; and the job is as follows. You see that angry mob outside the window? That’s the populace of this country that I’ve defrauded. They desire to take back all my ill-gotten gains and distribute them fairly, and leave me just enough so that I can live like a king among kings. I don’t like this plan: I want instead to live like a king among slaves. So I am offering to pay YOU to fight against the people on my behalf, and protect me from their just and loving ways. You can either become a police officer to protect my banks and the stock exchange; or you can become a good soldier and invade foreign realms to loot resources.” So the impoverished soul accepts this job as a way to feed her fam. Only the smallest amount of people actually accept the job because they are naturally sadistic.
So whenever the multitudes want to make the world harmonious, these armed guards stand in the way of progress. “Why are you standing in the way of progress? Aren’t you one of us?” The ninety percent ask. “No,” the nine percent answer, “for I have heard the talk that you talkers were talking: all the mean words you always say about us armed thugs — you say that we are protecting the oligarchs and that therefore we are stupid; but here is a lesson in smartness you’ll never forget,” and then the officer points the gun at the populace, and he blows the populace away.
That is not the most desirable outcome. What I’m arguing should happen instead is this:
The populace strolls down the boulevard & is affronted by the gang of Ruling Owners (what I mean by affronted is that the one percent mugs the ninety percent & then rapes them while they’re insensate). When the people awaken, they are distressed, so they form a giant gathering outside the mansion where the one percenters are hiding. “Come out and we will forgive you,” the populace yells (the topmost window of the mansion is open); “we know you’re in there.” Hearing this, the one percenters panic and press the red button on the desk where they are gathered; and the button is labeled “MUTE (re: the voice of honest indignation)”, which is the one percent’s last resort. This sends a signal to all the nine percenters, and they quickly don their uniforms and strap on their holsters and run to the mansion to protect their benefactors. All the police officers and military soldiers in the whole wide world join together and circle the mansion, to protect it from the gentle, forgiving populace. Aiming their weapons, the armed forces announce:
“We got four simple words for you fuckos: Stay back, stay alive.”
“That’s twelve words, you Apostle!” shouts a voice from the legions.
After huddling for a moment, the armed forces aim their weapons again and answer: “You know very well what we meant by that: we meant the last four words of the foregoing statement — all the words that came before that were spoken only as a sort of preamble to the main remark… But, hey, wait a minute, is that you, M.? And is J. with you, too?” (See the entry from 2019 September 01 for further reading about M. and J.)
“It is us, neighbor Bryan. Reach hither thy finger, and behold our hands; and reach hither thy arm, and drape it around our shoulders: and be not faithless, but believing.”
“What are you guys doing here at this protest? Y’all’s supposed to be my neighbors from Thief River Falls! Hey, it’s good to see you here — what’s going on!”
“We are trying to get inside of the Mansion of the One Percenters, not on account of resent for their ultra-wealth, but because it is unseemly how they have acted: for they mugged us on the boulevard and ravished our corpses, and then abandoned us to the resurrection and the afterlife here in the Second Heaven.”
“Hey I don’t like how that sounds — all that mugging, etc. — so I’d be happy to help you guys out. Is there anything I can do?”
“Well, Officer Ray, you could stop pointing your weapons at us and step aside so that we can access the mansion and go find the Lords who slaughtered all of us Lambs.”
“Ah, no can do. Sorry, but I gotta feed my family; and the one percenters (who you call “Lords”) pay me a salary to protect them whenever trouble arises. So this is a real conundrum for me, because now I must decide whether it’s more important to help my beloved neighbors, who don’t pay my bills, or to utterly annihilate my friends on behalf of my employer.”
“It shouldn’t be a hard decision, Bryan,” says the populace, “for you’re more like us than you are like them: for you live alongside us in the same quiet neighborhood, and you make only a modest income (not mega-bank, yet), and your prime goal in life is to be a loving husband and a good father to your fourteen daughters: your hope is to raise them up so that they can realize their potential in a society that values liberty, equality, fraternity and democracy.”
Here the armed forces, with Bryan Ray at their helm, pause to think. They ponder for a few silent moments what the populace just said. Then they answer as one:
“You’ve got a point. We are not paid nearly enough by the jerks who employ us — if they want us to act in allegiance to them, and to destroy all of you, our friends and neighbors, simply for the sake of a source of income, then they’ll have to give us a raise, and replace what they have embezzled from our pensions. So I guess we will not kill you again, this time. Let us instead join your cause, for it is our own cause as well. As Whitman says (in ‘Song of Myself’):
All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.
“For if we slaughter the populace, then we officers and soldiers are left alone with the Lords of the Business Mansion, who never have treated us very well. But if we join our downtrodden brothers and sisters who are protesting, then nobody has to die or even suffer lack; for the goons in their boardroom will be cared for just as the least of these, as they are equally part of the populace. And then we’ll all have food on our table, and clothes on our back, and a roof over our heads; and this place will have become Third Paradise (whose European release shall be called Seventh Heaven). The only problem that will remain is this:
“What shall we do with all the trash? Cuz have you ever seen what a world looks like after a party? There’s candy wrappers everywhere, and plastic forks & spoons all over the grass; half-eaten cake on the banquet table, & bottles of vodka half-empty or half-full (depending on whether you’re an epicurean or teetotaler). Therefore, woe unto whoever owns a trash-collection company on that day, for it’ll be stressful to try to figure out how to mash all that stuff down so that it can fit in the last available dumping ground. It’s a finite endeavor: garbage removal. A man who crafts statues of calves must care for how much gold remains in this world (unless he’s willing to melt down and reform past masterworks); but a garbageman couldn’t care less about precious metals; he doesn’t even covet time & money: his concern is SPACE; yes, she’s the bride, & trash is the groom. Plus everything’s made of plastic nowadays, which is tough to digest.”
*
My point is that instead of taking a stance in opposition to police officers and military troops, Leftists should be best friends with these professionals, so that when the peaceful revolution begins, or the next “Occupy the Emperor’s New Blank” movement, the Ruling Class will be deprived of their violence: for the people who they pay to wield the weapons will have struck up conversations with their buddies among the protesting population, and the would-be battle will have eased into a great big hangout, like an open-air concert. And all because of politeness and camaraderie. The only way this idea could fail is if the One Percent replaces all the humans in their armed forces with robot warriors.
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