A few things worth remembering
in a time of chaos and cruelty...
As we head into this turbulent time, here are a few things worth remembering…
Remember
that what we are seeing now is nothing new.
It was ever thus. Mobsters, criminals, grifters, con men, megalomaniacs, narcissistic sociopaths, rapacious robber barons, have always been with us, always been trying to take more than they need, always trying to game systems for personal benefit. It’s an unattractive aspect of human nature. Why these particular criminals have so much power at the moment is a question worth asking. Hamilton Nolan’s essay, at the end of this post, gives one cogent answer.
Our government, institutions, and organizations have never been immune to corruption and greed. We love to think that there is a baseline of sanity, or at least ‘agreed upon’ law and order (The Constitution!), that protects us. But that baseline is a human-created concept/system, and therefore vulnerable to harm from those who are not willing to agree to abide by its laws and orders.
To the extent that this is working out for the wannabe masters of the universe it’s because the pump has been primed. Money rules. The ‘democratic system’ is Democratic in Name Only. DINO. Is it extinct, or about to be?
Can voting save the system? The power grabbers have been doing whatever they can to make voting irrelevant. Corporations are people, gerrymandering, all kinds of tricks to disenfranchise voters, obscene wealth buying politicians, and straight up bribery of voters (“Hey little kid, c’mere, want some candy? I’ll give you $100, or maybe a million, if you do what I want,” says a very rich busybody).
Who knows how these shenanigans affected the last election or will affect elections in the future. I hope and pray that voting still has the power to push back against the effort to nullify it. Without a fairly legitimate voting system, government of the people, by the people, for the people, may already have perished, if not from the earth, then from the USA.
Remember
that the values expressed in the founding of our government, our nation—that all white men are created equal, that everyone who is a Christian White Male has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, may have been cutting edge at the time, but that time is long gone.
Materialistic individualism has validated a cultural and economic system based on the idea that having money is the highest good, and that it’s a zero sum game. I win; you lose. It is a perversion of the basic survival instinct.
Everybody needs/wants their basic needs for food/clothing/shelter to be met. Everybody would like to have enough money to feel comfortable and secure. But this other thing, this having way more than you need thing, has been far too accepted for far too long in our culture. It’s a form of insanity. The consequences are dire. Great power without responsibility, without caring, is a curse upon the land.
Remember
that what needs to happen needs to happen.
Total domination doesn’t work at the scale we are operating on now. The more interconnected and interdependent we become, the more our systems have to be based on sustainability, not mutually-assured destruction. That a few incredibly rich and ruthless people think they are going to be the boss of the world, is not only a hopeless dream, it is evidence of an extreme lack of understanding.
By attempting to hijack the ship of state, which, for all its flaws, and plenty of rough seas, has kept us on a fairly even keel for the last 250 years, these elected and non-elected pirates are fast-forwarding the necessity and conditions for a reassessment of our checks and balances. The old ones are no longer working as intended.
Like George III, King of England, who thought he could keep the colonists in line through intimidation and violence… nice try, buddy, but no tea. Sooner or later, intimidation and violence obey Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Even the oft-tried final solution (kill everyone who bothers you), doesn’t work when a system is too complex.
What the Reaction/Resistance/Revolution/Reimagination will look like is not yet visible. The new balance, the new systems, will not just be reactive, they will be creative, responsive—an integration of visionary understanding and practical doing.
Checks and balances are not enough. As a species, we have to evolve, mature, grow up—if possible. Will a critical mass of us gain enough awareness in time to address and correct the mistakes we have made that are leading to unsustainable consequences?
BTW, a ‘critical mass’ is not mashed potatoes; it is an accumulation of individuals who are taking responsibility for their own evolving consciousness.
What I’m planning to do
I’m planning to keep writing and drawing. I want to accept the challenge of giving form to the patterns I see, to the feelings, to the questions, to the ideas.
I’m planning to make cartoons. I want to devote as much time as possible to making stuff up, to using certain art forms and characters and stories to transmit something ineffable from the depths of my creative imagination, for a couple reasons.
One, it’s more fun than anything else, and two, stories have more effect on people than the most eloquent analysis. Stories do not compell, they tell.
We live for stories. Our dreams are stories. Everything is a story. Where we get into trouble is when we believe that our stories are true.
I’m also planning to keep talking about process, the creative process. Paying attention to process means paying attention to how we function in the glorious present. Process is not ideology. It’s self-observation without judgement.
I’m planning to do what I set out to do here. I’ve never been quite sure what that is, and I’m still not sure. I am not sure in the same way that we can be sure of nothing. Life is to be lived.
Stay tooned.
What I hope you are planning to do
I hope you are planning to not let the bastards get you down. This is a hard one. But please, don’t let them get you down… I mean sure, they are getting us down, how can it be otherwise, but let’s not let them break our spirits. Our spirits are precious, and so far beyond what they can see or comprehend.
I hope you are planning to use whatever you have going for you—money, position, energy, creativity, to push back on what is heartless and cruel in whatever ways you can, and more importantly, to promote, encourage, and model a vision of life that goes beyond need and greed, anger and fear, vengeance and aggression.
I hope you are planning to engage in as much quiet introspection as you can stand. This is where the rubber meets the road. It’s not easy. It’s also not hard, because there ain’t nobody here but us chickens.
‘So quiet yourself, and stop that fuss, there ain’t nobody here but us…”
As long as there is democracy, there will be people wanting to play jazz because nothing else will ever so perfectly capture the democratic process in sound. Jazz means working things out musically with other people. You have to listen to other musicians and play with them even if you don't agree with what they're playing. It teaches you the very opposite of racism and anti-Semitism. It teaches you that the world is big enough to accommodate us all. Wynton Marsalis
Hamilton Nolan tells it like it is:
The underlying cause of our situation is inequality. We have allowed too few people to accumulate too much wealth. The imbalance has grown so severe that a tiny number of individuals with twelve-figure net worths have the means to purchase so much political power that they can effectively make the federal government’s decisions.
"Almost" always read your posts. Appreciate your sentiments in this one. Sometimes I have a hard time thinking about all the suffering that some will go through...this thing...knowing yes that we have been through it before. The inclusion of Hamilton's piece is exactly where to go with this. I recently posted the question, "Are democracy and capitalism compatible?" The responses I think actually showed how confused we are still. I see Hamilton's book focuses on labor as a movement. I think he is dead on about that. I am waiting to hear the words "general strike" being used more. Just the threat may scare these little twerps off.
I've missed your wisdom and heart -- good to have you visit today! Stories, above all. Thank you for reinforcing what I believe in also, so deeply. I'll be out from my cocoon soon as well.