Friday, March 9, 2012

WHAT'S GOING ON

          screen shot by john chamberlain 2012


I laugh at myself today and yesterday for jumping on the chance to imagine Limbaugh gone under. It was a good lesson for me in jumping to interpret by what I want to be the case, instead of by the way things are. The way things are, Limbaugh is the official voice of the republican party. He is a $59 million a year asset. The repub party is not going to shit-can him over libeling Everywoman. His loyalty to party policy makes him a model employee. His advertisers? He could get 10 in one day for every advertiser he lost. He didn't lose any listeners. He gained listeners. The party is not going to put him out. His status has risen instead of diminished. He is now more popular than before. Nazis nurtured hate too. Not too. Nazis are not a separate entity, just a different time, different place, different language. Same spirit. The only thing the nazis really did was destroy their own country. That's what the neo-nazis want to do to American democracy. They're doing a very effective, systematic railroading (ie the patriot act) to fulfill Reagan's promise to destroy our country. Then, a very popular notion. After 30+ years of Reaganism, it's all the more popular, among republicans.



I've been looking a little bit into American history and history as I've seen it in the 20th century, seeing that the entirety of humanity is divided down the middle, 50/50, into the half that wants democracy and the half that wants fascism. Fascism rules, because fascists kill people. Somebody puts a gun to your head and says, "You move I pull trigger." What do you do? Easy. Stand still. Over the last 30+ years the half of the American population that wants democracy is held hostage by the half the dark cabal represents. The other half, not democrats, but non-republicans, want rights for all, a fair living for all, the good of the American people. Wanting our national decisions made by good sense has become an ideal, like democracy, the carrot on a stick, the fake rabbit at a dog race. It's not "real," but the idea of it motivates us forward. It's the duality of this world, left wing, right wing. It takes both wings for a bird to fly. The yin-yang of up and down in a rollercoaster provides the forward momentum. The same principle applies to pistons. And both sides have their comedians. I prefer Bill Maher's humor to Limbaugh's. I can only find Limbaugh funny in irony, like a dirty joke from second grade.


Don't worry about me getting fired up over any of this. It's interpretation by observation. I started to say "detached" observation, but it's not detached. It is emotionally and mentally involved. The documentary movie in my head of "what's going on" cannot be sworn by as it is gathered from feelings, misinterpretations, misrepresentations, spin, limited point of view, limited mind, limited understanding all the way along the chain of communication; therefore, all I can do is confess to my limitations, which, ultimately, nullify everything I say. I'm in full agreement with that. I understood before I wrote the first sentence three years ago that writing these daily entries is illusion too. I'm writing about illusion from the inside, like somebody writing about prison from the inside. This isn't how it is for everybody, by any means. This is just how one individual created by a host of experiences that are particular to this consciousness interprets what he sees and hears. I'm not a missionary. Recalling a time I told my doctor something about a side effect from a medication that I did not find objectionable, was just telling him about it, figuring he'd want to know. He started talking about a prescription and I said, "I'm reporting, not complaining." That's what I feel I'm doing here, reporting not complaining. Complaints get mixed in there, to be sure, but to be taken so lightly as to not at all. An old country sayin says it well, "Aint no point me complainin. Nobody's gonna listen, nohow."


Our democrat party is not really a left wing. It seems to me that though our bird is crippled by a very weak, perhaps atrophied, left wing, we somehow continue to fly, move forward, even though it is down a lane I would not have picked, So we must have a left wing somewhere in the population. Maybe it is the half of the population that does not vote. Maybe not voting is our active left wing, since the democrats are the passive absence of a left wing. Saturday is a big democrat meeting in Sparta. I thought for a second about going, but it didn't take long to remember democrats are not the opposition party, but the intimidated party, the party of minority mind. In Uganda, it's the same thing, but reverse. There, white man is minority minded and black man is majority minded. There, white man doesn't talk so big, same as black man doesn't talk so big here. I feel an interest in joining the ranks of the majority, the non-voters, except I cannot pass up the chance to nullify a republican's vote, just for the jest of it. I visualize a republican I know and say within, tee-hee, I deleted your vote. That's the same as deleting nothing, just symbolism, something to give myself a laugh, like I got away with mischief. I know it has no meaning except inside myself, so I vote to be satisfied I participated in the great American belief system. Like pennies in a 5gallon bucket, they add up.


Funny about our democracy, this belief we have that our beliefs and opinions matter outside ourselves. Because we vote, we believe we have rights. In high school, working on both country club golf courses and public golf courses in the summers, watering and mowing greens, and other maintenance work, the attitude of the players at the country club was that each golfer was individually my boss. Naturally, they pay $10k a year to be members, they ought to have some say in how the golf course is kept, especially 2/3 drunk. One jerk jerked the watering hose out of my hand and showed me how to do what I was doing before he and his partners arrived at the green to putt the round ball into the round hole. At country clubs the players are generally arrogant toward the maintenance workers. The players at public courses are courteous and replace divots like when a chunk of dirt and grass flies through the air after the ball. At country clubs, that's what workers do. I learned quite a lot those summers.



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1 comment:

  1. At country clubs the players are generally arrogant toward the maintenance workers. The players at public courses are courteous and replace divots like when a chunk of dirt and grass flies through the air after the ball. At country clubs, that's what workers do. I learned quite a lot those summers.

    ....Never have truer words been written. Remind me to tell you of the time I was banned from a country club.

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