A Few Questions...

Now that the legistlative branches have shook some leaves and sprouted new ones, now that a collective sigh from the herd on one side of the fence and a grunt from the other side has been strategically announced, now that all the photo ops showing bipartisan hugs and kisses have circulated, I have some questions:

Who now has bought and paid for the new Democratic Majority? Same guys that paid for the Republican one?

Once we somehow save face and exit this war, who's going to pay for it?

Should we not start thinking of war crimes trials?

How can we suggest overthrowing corporate capitalism without getting the Republicans reelected?

I have taken a long hiatus from embracing socialist concepts, beyond the minimums of reasonable healthcare and educational spending. Much of it has to do with my problem with authority, the leveraging and bullying. On the wrong side of fifty years old and I still don’t play well with others. Outside of my own economic condition, which is significantly affected due to age and injury and some traveling outside the realms of the corporate culture we project in most “first world” countries, I’ve accumulated a more than reasonable curiosity to observe and write about the overall human condition, wondering about a coagulate of questions all seemingly emanating from one premise… what could we as a society, culture, species accomplish if some living basics were covered and we as individuals within the greater collective, did not have to stress ourselves over minimal existence?

The implications for defining the boundaries of what constitutes minimal existence are mind-boggling. The reaction of market manipulators to anything that remotely even suggests such a radical change in social direction is even more mind-boggling. The pissing and sniffing matches where democratic principles are still held sacred would be off the scale; the violence in countries more totalitarian than not would be merciless. I’m starting to ask the questions, is it time to consider such a struggle worth it? Is this the new freedom flag to fly?

I’m not sure what constitutes minimal, reasonable accepted existence: a warm safe place to sleep, one healthy meal a day, free education and the ability to get to it, meaningful work and the health mechanisms in place to maintain the job? How does a socio-economic cohesion balance the need to sustain at least a minimal existence for all at the levels they expect or perceive as a right, and still allow those with the drive and abilities to thrive with applicable perks at the levels they expect or perceive as a right? The right to pursue happiness and what just does defines happiness. In that respect, no system is perfect, and thus my problem with political ideology.

I know our planet is in for a far worse time before it gets better. I saw it in Beijing, Peru, and South Africa. I heard Al Sharpton speaking last night on Democracy Now! He made an interesting statement that poor, racially segregated people will “shut up” when they receive and feel the dignity of justice. Until then, there will be unrest. That was the premise, not the exact quote.

lost in the middle

I remember growing up in the valley of endless cornfields and factories perched on snaking river bends, the humidity, stifling and the air thick and gelatinous; the atmospheric weight sometimes draining every ounce of motivation, only leaving pursuits of the cerebral kind to occupy the evening. Some things just stuck to me back then, things besides vinyl car seats and melted Kool Pop droppings.

Most of my friends’ dads worked the factories. They were exhausted when they climbed from their cars and trucks in driveways usually cracked by the afore-mentioned environmental extremes. They were exhausted by combinations of hard work and extreme boredom, racing to meet line quotas via a repetitive monotony, not leaving much left in the way of tolerance and patience for what was on the agenda for the evening. Television and sometimes alcohol helped with the numbing.

The winter was also an exercise in extremes from the heat of summer, yet somewhat the same. Some mornings it was so cold, nostril hairs would crystallize before one could get to the car. My body would start to shudder, convulse in rhythms attempting to generate a minimal amount of internal heat while waiting for the mechanical heat to kick in. Though the weather was in a cyclical state of flux, peoples' lives were relatively fixed. They did the same things, just adaptively navigating around climate. Paychecks were cashed and life happened.

Family was the center of life, work the provider, religion the pacifier, and everything else was all about keeping it that way. Something changed.

The middle class, the modern one, the only one some of us remember, the one our parents scraped and clawed to achieve, maintain, defend, and then currently see assaulted from two fronts, was generally created by the passage of the GI Bill after a brief but devastating jaunt in Europe and the far Pacific. Go to war, come back somewhat physically and psychologically intact, and you get an education along with some benefits to feed and house your family while being a contributing member to the common good. Add some pre WWII labor definitions from years of revolting against indentured servitude, including closed shops, blacklists and the occasional skull cracking, and then mix it all together in a and one could have a reasonably functional life with a reasonable living wage in a cul de sac of your choice. You might be able to afford to buy that house and it might appreciate substantially over time so your kids could go to college and learn to throw bricks at the establishment. Demographically speaking, the numbers and ideology was anchored. That was the nation’s political center where anyone who got elected to anything had to play to. Something has changed.

It would appear that from a political standpoint, the middleclass has become a severe annoyance, a "can't live with it, can't live without it" phenomena loathed by the corporate hierarchy and alike. I wonder what we did to piss them off?

A Collective Calamity Day...

I walked down the driveway to pluck a couple of sprigs of rosemary to poke about the turkey's skin before injecting the sizable foul into the oven. I'm not sure why we planted the herb so far away from the kitchen, but it sure does well there. The plant is massive.

As rain was pelting my ever balding pate, I stepped out even further to grab the newspaper from its designated holding. The additional weight provided by the amount of advertisement inserts caused the paper to tear through its plastic wrap and fall onto the wet ground. I briefly contemplated having to retrieve the wheelbarrow to get everything back up to the house. Somewhere amongst all the glossy inserts I think I saw a news article. I think it was about the decline and impending doom of American newspapers.

Our Turkey Day started with a numbness prevalent in the consciousness of those who own and operate in the realm of retail. It's the void that takes over our being due to feelings of overwhelming overwhelming-ness, knowing what all too soon lies before us, that calm before the storm or maybe a drifting into an eye of the hurricane known as the day before "Black Friday".

Black Friday is the official retail cash flow positive designate, the firing of the starting pistol for the feeding frenzy that hurls us brick and mortars into a 7-day a week, 4-week month, end of the year ritual. I believe that now even extends to New Years and maybe a little beyond as before tax sales and returns and the such have become profitable moments. For the small mom and pop shops such as ours, we hear a collective communal sigh of relief around 6pm Christmas Eve.

So now I'm contemplating the meaning of "Black Friday". Black, as in, not red on the balance sheet... or as in a bewitching and the bottoming out of grace, eloquence, and civility. I thought about sending out a quick blurb to everyone hoping most of you not having to work would just sit back in a nice chair all day and sip something naturally fermented while everyone else was careening and ricocheting off each other in lines and parking lots. I didn’t want to be responsible for the possible socio-economic downfall of western civilization, so I decided to wait until the aftermath before hitting send.

post election bliss hangover...

Dust settles; not your normal lint, for I am the keeper of the lint. My navel is available for inspection. Others' lint is not. But this new dust is an intoxicant, like leftovers from a nuclear blast, infective, radiant, and oozing into the pores, manifesting itself into something retardant to the wavering conventional contrary. A disinfectant foam covering the befuddled appointed CEO from Crawford who says the message is we want a bipartisan dance of harmonious bliss toward the same goals. The message was we want change. He got the message. He doesn’t like it. And somebody has to fall on a knife.

So Rummy Poops is given the hero's song and steps aside for reasons of a nice diversion from the message. War crimes yet to be addressed, and Robo-call antics yet to be addressed, and voter fraud antics yet to be addressed, and constitutional infringements yet to be addressed, and one more narrowly divided State to decipher their math before the Senate goes the way of the Congress. With so much at hand, my guess is most of that stand will be leaned on the litigate-ive knees of lawyer-eze. Such histamines up the snoot makes me want to sneeze.

The Right is hunkering down. Their entrenchments to be fortified; talking points formed and molded for those that hear easily what they want to hear. Come Hannity, come O’Reilly, come Limbaugh, come Coulter; show us the error of our ways. Tell us how patriotically void and morally deficient we are. Tell us how we will destroy the true "American Way". Tell us something please, we need your benevolent wisdom before Thursday morning, when its time for me to wheel the garbage down to the street for pick-up.

Momentary Spontaneous Links...

...for your reading/surfing/noodling leisure:

Why Mommy is a Democrat

Get Laid the Left Way

If you just like to look at the pictures