"And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, 'you can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant'", and walk out.
You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three - can you imagine, three people walking in, singing' a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walking out? They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said FIFTY PEOPLE A DAY, walking in, singing' a bar of "Alice's Restaurant" and walking out?
Friends, they may thinks it's a movement."
- "Alice's Restaurant," Arlo Guthrie
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party," they used to say - but these days, what does "party" even mean?
Join me after the squiggle!
Whether we like it or not, the time has come to take sides in the seemingly-neverending cultural, religious, ideological wars that have plagued Anglo cultures since the First English Civil War. But again, what does it mean to "take sides" in this crazy, inhuman(e) mess of a nation we've become?
Instead of the United States of America we've become the Fractionalized Interest Groups & Industrial Syndicates of America, and I definitely don't like the change. The most amazing job of applying divide-and-conquer principles I know of. We split with each other over everything, often many things, and as perhaps the most commercially-minded, sales-oriented society on the planet, we are constantly bombarded by endless "arguments" (factoid soup, I call it) designed not to persuade us but to engage us in some form of buy-in emotionally, psychologically, ideologically, religiously.
The result is not a discourse on the direction of the country, or even of the wind's general quarter: it's an incoherent babble in which everybody's trying to wheedle, impose, entice, push, threaten, bully others into taking their side - or trying to not being bullied. Because of the results oriented, pushing nature of these exchanges, they never go very deep. The real differences are never exposed. Allegiances and points of view shift, but understanding doesn't deepen; no-one is informed.
Take single-issue voters (so we can cover all sides): by ignoring all issues other than their own pets, an arguably huge portion of the electorate ends up working at cross-purposes to their own interests and the public good, no matter how closely their actual feelings and preferences might resonate.
Take politics / political philosophy: depending on one's starting assumptions, one can end up pretty much anywhere on the spectrum from raw anarchy/autocracy through feudalism to communal self-government, through ruthless opportunism to the Star Trek socialist paradise. With stops along the way for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, a variety of popes, and Mao, to name but a few. Neo-Confederates, breathaireans, Laroucheans, Operation Rescue, you name it, some of us will hive off and do it (or try).
Take corporate citizenship: a form of citizenship that confers no obligations or responsibilities toward the Nation, the community, or to their fellow citizens. Yet corporations have been so thoroughly imbedded in the legal and economic world we live in, they are both inevitable and invidious. Capital punishment is not applied to corporate persons, no matter what: shall corporeal persons then be subject to it?
We think too much, is largely the problem: Mark Twain said that "man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to;" we might say with equal justice that humans are the only creatures who believe they can solve all their problems strictly by thinking about them. Thinking aides the fractionalization by making it easy to focus on the last string of words thrown at us, and not on what is at issue. Easily distracted means easily hidden from….
So. What's more basic than weak vs strong? Good vs evil? Winning vs losing? The State vs The Sovereign Individual? Rich vs poor? Right vs wrong? Toxic vs healthy? Life vs death? God vs Devil vs Universe vs None-of-The-Above? Authoritarian vs libertarian? Live vs Memorex?
For me it boils down to this: I've spent almost all my life learning how to get the rake outta my ass, and I will not vote for anyone or anything that involves me getting a new (or the old) rake inserted. Sorry for the graphic image, but the choice is really that simple: we can accept the rake, endure the imposition, the discomfort, the lack of normal movement.
I don't care what any of them say, if they're planning to stick a broomstick up my ass, I'm against it. Say "NO!" to the rake…and rape. I will not agree to have things done to me involuntarily. If anybody wants me on board with shoving a rake up some one else's ass, they've got a big problem. I will not agree to make life more difficult/expensive/impossible for others by putting them at odds with who they are & how they need to be. I will not agree to hate other humans. I will not agree to be afraid on command.
Democrats, Republicans, and others: put down the rake - back away from the broomhandle! We are animals, we abuse ourselves at the risk of our survivability.
Which puts us squarely in the counter-cultural zone of the hippies (remember them?): along with the hair, tie-dyed clothing was an active, visible rejection of business as usual, a finger up the nose of those who wanted to profit from the continued and ever-deteriorating condition of the populace. Non serviam - I'm not your dog.
For years, the so-called right has been trumpeting the notion that this is a center-right nation, with the center defined as just to the right of Cornelius Vanderbilt and the Astors; that all the little people agree that a rich dick is the best rake evar…despite their consistent showing of ~20% of the electorate. I think it might be time to say, "Hold! Enough!" It might be time to bring back the tie-dye. See how many of those tri-corner caps are bobbing in a sea of those who say NO to the rake.
I would love it to pieces if we started seeing tie-dyed article showing up all over between now and the election: peaceful, non-aggressive, out-loud and technicolor. Let's actually SEE where sympathies lie, let's have no more hippie-punching, no more nonsense about the bullies being "grown-ups". We need the spirit of cohesion and participation that marked the Sixties. Now more than ever. Fundamental change, for people, for live.
Tell your jerkoff uncle about the rake, and offer him a piece of tie-dye. Even HE will be able to get the point.
And thanks for attending my first DKos diary!