Tell me something: Why did Kerry fold so fast? Why, after collecting millions for legal ammo, after promising to make sure every vote was counted, after the shit that went down in Ohio and Florida, did Kerry concede so damned fast?
Right after the Democrats got control of Congress, why did Nancy Pelosi re-assure the media that impeaching the worst president ever was not a primary goal for the new leadership? Why after angry voters had spoken were they told that there were more important issues to be dealt with first? Raising the minimum wage is good but is it really more important than getting out of Iraq? Re-writing ethics rules is good but is that more important than stopping the neo-cons from bombing Iran? What basement has John Conyers been hidden in now and why has he gone quietly?
Why are they eating up time debating about debating over a toothless resolution to slap the president’s wrist instead of censure, instead of Articles of Impeachment? Why are they waffling and posing while the clock on the preparations to bomb Iran tick, tick, ticks?
And why was Dennis Kucinach – supposedly one of the most “liberal” members of Congress – grinning and clapping after Bush’s State of the Union? Why did he lean over, shake hands, back slap and keep on grinning into the face of the worst president ever?
My answer: Because they are all members of the same club. They’re all minions, puppets, courtiers to Those Who Rule, to the greedy, planet-destroying, uber-rich, fucking Legions of Satan who control this planet! It’s fucking theater! A dumb show to distract those who might, just might get so agitated that they would riot in the streets and overturn some bulletproof limousines! They lead us on with HOPE! The next election will turn the tide, the next candidate will give us back our country, the next, the next, the next…
It’s an orchestrated two-year cycle. Win or lose, we keep looking ahead, keep believing that if we work within The System we can change it. If “our” guys win, we get a rush, a honeymoon of expecting change and when it doesn’t happen tension builds, the in-fighting starts. If “our” guy loses, we sulk and rage in defeat and the in-fighting starts immediately. The same answer always rises to the top, like shit in a septic tank, that if we all just bond together and work real hard next time change will happen, next time. So people donate money and time and energy to believing, to hoping, contrary voices are told to STFU. And everyone is occupied for another cycle.
The biggest fracture line in the “lefty” blogosphere is between those who still believe in The System and the few remaining voices who have to courage to say The System is fucked. You can’t beat The System by crashing into it because once you’re inside, you’re IT! You can’t sit around “Drinking Liberally,” imagining that you’re part of some “progressive movement” because that’s intellectual masturbation; you’re just diddled with your dick, throwing words and postures at a System that is laughing at you! Laughing at your impotence!
You can’t look at that. You have to hold onto your hope, your beliefs. You want “your country back” when it never belonged to you in the first place… or to your father… or his father’s father. The very idea that it ever belonged to you is a delusion, an ideal like a carrot used to lead your dumb ass along on the road of life. And if that doesn’t work, there’s always the stick – fire hoses and billy clubs and snarling German Shepherds and bullets fired by frightened young National Guardsmen. If your voice did make a difference, if your words and romantic aspirations for being part of a “movement” did start to have an effect, they’d just snuff you. A lone gunman, some nut would step out of the shadows and blast you away. And the next guy and the next guy until the discontented got the message to put their heads down and fall back into the futile cycle of hope.
It’s not simply clinging to hope that keeps you in line. It’s FEAR! And not just fear of being beaten or jailed or killed. The first fear is that you’ll have to actually DO SOMETHING other than hope in the comfort of your own home. Get away from your keyboard and physically DO SOMETHING! You might have to put yourself on the front line of political protest like DammitJanet does. You might have to go out there and risk getting beaten, jailed, and/or killed. God bless her, Janet is throwing herself like a moth against a flame. She won’t win anything but possible martyrdom but she has integrity! She is living her principles!
Fuck! I don’t have The Answers. I don’t think revolution solves the problem. The old elite gets beheaded and the new elite takes their place. New boss same as the old boss, same as it ever was. The transition is bloody anarchy and mostly innocent people suffer and die. Those Who Rule lose some members; let in new members. The System is bigger than our government, bigger than putting on a new philosophical costume and going on with the play. It’s the hierarchy, the pyramid of human social interaction that seems to be hard-wired into every collective endeavor. Some people take charge, get on top and lord it over the rest. And the vast majority — the very foundation of the pyramid — wants it that way! They want someone to tell them what to do. They actually like having a tough guy boss them around.
It’s just us fringe mavericks out on the edge of the herd who see the open spaces and think it should be different. We’re friggin’ mutants! Something is missing in our genetic code that messes with our docility! I’m sure Big Pharma is working on that…
So fight doesn’t work. That leaves flight. Flight means giving up the Hope Cycle, the participation in that cycle, the illusion of making a difference. It means walking away from the drama on stage and going outside of The System. It’s the old hippie message: Tune In, Drop Out, go back to the land and prepare to survive the larger Historical Cycle, the one where governments fall and new ones arise after a period of chaos. I think we’re there. The whole edifice of The American Empire is crumbling under our feet. The “unwashed others” are already invading. Those Who Rule are learning how to speak Chinese. Within 20 years… or maybe even tomorrow… the Hope Cycle is going to crash against the Historical Cycle and the once proud and “exceptional” people of North American will find themselves in a newly re-arranged Third World.
So I live out in the middle of nowhere and grow my own food. If I could just stop watching the Drama and restraining myself from heckling the actors on stage I’d be happier, I think…
Now I’m going to walk AWAY FROM MY KEYBOARD and go feed my chickens, corral some dust bunnies, DO SOMETHING — ANYTHING except watch The Drama.
Democrats today are the liberal wing of the Republican Party.
More like the centrist wing.
<<It’s just us fringe mavericks out on the edge of the herd who see the open spaces and think it should be different. We’re friggin’ mutants!<p>
A standing ovation, from one friggin mutant to another.
‘Bout time you showed yourself.
This diary is so beautiful I am jealous.
I’m finally out in the sticks too, hoping to get less citified. It’s Hard Work, how do you do it?
I don’t think you’d be happier if you escaped everything. I just read that lonely and isolated people are more likely to get Alzheimer’s – is that some level of happiness?
You’ve got my number. It just gets so fucking lonely out here on the fringe. And it is damn hard work. I get up at dawn and put on four layers of clothing and go out and chip the ice in the waterer so the chickens can get a drink. I lug around 50lb bags of feed. I haul in firewood and stoke the firebox to stay warm. I make stuff from scratch so I don’t support The System more than I have to… and it tastes better.
Soon, next week or so, I’ll be out digging dirt, planting seeds. Later, it will be weeding in the hot sun and standing all day in the kitchen putting stuff in mason jars. I’m proud of myself. I’m Martha Stewart without the wealth and fame.
But, I get tired and need to sit down for a while. So I sit in front of my computer and watch The Drama and try to keep my mouth shut. And sometimes, for a while, I get a little flicker of hope around my heart but that doesn’t last long. I sustain myself with the illusion that I’m not alone, not virtually anyway. There are other people out-there who are just as frustrated and pissed off as I am. Too bad we can’t form a commune…
broken up? I didn’t put no stinkin’ space between the “a” and the “ts.” Will someone with power fix it? heh. It’s just so fucking typical! “democrats” can’t even stay together on a line; us ts’s keep dropping off… Total Shitheads, True Skeptics, Trouble-makin’ Shit-stirrers…
We CAN form a commune – but we can’t live together. You know that – somebody says “I don’t care if she scrubbed the floors, I sweated in the hot sun, and she doesn’t deserve to eat my food.” Just being married is hard enough, more people than two is a circus.
You’re working way harder than me, I’m just working on being able to cope with whatever’s coming, and trying to help other people cope too.
Try reposting it with a new title. There’s always a way around a problem.
Tip: use the word ‘naked’
This not only pertains no non-democrats. It also pertains to frustated Democrats like myself. To continue to vote for them will only encourage them to do what they please.
Last mid-term election I did not vote. I will no longer vote for anyone who does not deserve my vote. It is getting to the point when I will start voting aginst them. And then they wonder why people leave and vote for third parties (I know cause I was one of them)
I think you are right. It’s a general trait of empires, I guess, that once they get to a certain stage, they become behemoths that can’t be reformed or fixed. They have to collapse under their own weight.
I guess the place of Bush in history is to accelerate the collapse, so that America doesn’t take the rest of the world down with it.
I think that what we are seeing now is that individuals, even having such a powerful tool as the Internet at their disposal, can’t change the destiny of nations. At bottom, the culture—with its idea of American exceptionalism, the idea that America has perfected the way that society should be organized—is the problem. And individuals are stuck with the culture they’ve got. Significantly changing a culture takes generations, but America doesn’t have that long to get its act together.
Thank you for such an eloquent, if bleak, diary.
So let the revolution begin. I don’t believe that just getting a few ‘good dems’ elected is answer any more-they can Rage against the Machine all they want but a few lone voices are pretty much just pissing in the wind now. And we all know that all that that gets you is wet and smelly so no one will come near you.
The Machine has become like a stinking rotted mackerel left out in the sun for a week-no amount of resuscitation, deodorant or makeup is ever going to make it look, smell or taste good.
We need a new movement like the Civil Rights Movement…something new and astounding say like a government for the people by the people(corporations are not people)…… where gay people aren’t told to well just wait awhile this isn’t the season to be pushing for equal rights or that only Black people who are acceptable to white people can be considered the first Black to run for president or that disabled people seem to be hidden away because they have no access ramps, Roe v Wade is not optional, faith or no faith is a personal thing and not a political talking point or…..well you get my meaning I guess..I’m tired of listening to triangulating mealy mouthed dems who sold out long ago.
And first on my agenda would be to get rid of the media as it is now known..the root of half the evil of a dumbed down, misinformed society.
It is hard to stay enthused for change after being a loyal dem for 40 some years. At least the Republicans get radical right wing behavior for their commitment. We in the left seldom get any radical left encouragement from the MSP (main stream politicians). The wingers, on the other hand, send nut after nut to Congress who pushes for any radical idea they wish. Soon the radical idea becomes more mainstream and eventually the norm. Torture anyone? Pre-emptive War? Spying on Americans? Habeaus Corpus? Restrict women’s rights? Restrict gay rights? repeal Roe v Wade? Become a theocracy? Disband the U.N?
Nothing is off the table or too extreme in the right’s agenda. EVERYTHHING is off the table to the radical left. We are to keep holding our nose and vote for the Dem that has arisen from the festering pile of corporate politics. We can’t have mass transit. We can’t quit putting ANWAR on the chopping block. We can’t question defense spending. We can’t reduce consumption. We can’t have human rights for women and gays. We can’t have universal health care.
It has become difficult to stay engaged. I too do the garden, small footprint life in rural America. I realize it is not enough. A small as my contribution is I still fund the empire that is strangling the planet.
I too am extremely isolated-I like it that way.
It would be nice to have a third party, but it will never happen if people keep looking for the perfect candidate.
That’s why I will vote for Hillary. A sex change in the white house is, in my opinion, the only chance to ever having a third party.
If the American masses can and are willing to make that switch over, eventually a third party will get a chance.
I know lots of people don’t like Hillary because she’s playing the as-is political game, but what other choice does she have or any other female politician at this point in time. To not see her as a step to real change is just more mind blindness.
Now those of us who isolate themselves from the mainstream may look like we have our head in the sand, but I think we know that it is because we see the answers that others refuse to see or listen too.
The Road Less Traveled is a lonely one, but it sure builds character. And I’ll take a ‘new’ character any day over the status quo.
While I want to applaud every sentiment while I’m reading this diary, the concrete sequential part of me takes hold as soon as I step back from the computer. When I try to do everything at once, I get absolutely nothing done!
A third party is a very positive step toward breaking the corporate hold on candidates. But you don’t start by trying to elect a third party president. (See where that got us?) You begin by establishing a third party block in the House–one with which we MUST deal when we try to get legislation passed. If all the money donated to Nader in 2000 had been donated to getting half a dozen Greens in congress, the entire planet would be different.
We need uniform recall policies across the nation, so that when someone like Lieberman lies his way into office, the electorate has an option.
We need a candidate who is not a white European male–Yes, I like Edwards and Dodd. It’s just that the world is watching. Break the mold, and you start people thinking.
And more than anything else, we need verifiable voting. At AAAS last Friday (and again Saturday in Oakland) a group of renowned computer scientists resurrected the evidence to show that we don’t have any way to know who won the last few elections. Forget doing anything until that gets fixed.
Sorry, going out to feed the chickens or (in my case) trying to get the labrador to smell a little better won’t do it. We have to identify concrete steps, not throw the dog out with the bath water.
What changes systems, even big nasty empires is competition from a viable alternative. All this talk of living in isolation, off the grid etc, is part of the solution as I see it. The more people that are outside the system the more opportunity for this competition I see. So take what you are learning about non-participation and share it, coordinate with others; provide the alternative through leading by example..
Fighting the Commies gave us the Great Society because we had to compete with free bread and vodka for all. The worst part about a unipolar world is the stagnation and corruption of what got the US to this pinnacle in the first place.
oh, and don’t pay taxes.