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Elections – I’m tired of waiting
by Uncle $cam
lifted from a comment
Excellent. Thanks for that post JJ, @56 …
When Zinn says,
This seizes the country every four years because
we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in
determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
he is speaking to me. Bellgong wrote something in the ot to the effect of it taking, "7 of the next 9 election cycles or so .."
or some such, I’m not sure we have that long, nay, I’m damn sure we
don’t, and even if we did, who the hell has the time to wait?
Like Neil Young sang, "… I’m getting old …"
I’m tired of waiting, I’m sick of being Charlie Brown ever trying to
kick that football, I’m ready to smash Lucy in the face for once,
metaphorically speaking of course, I’d never attack a female cartoon.
How many years do you guys have?
I’ve been waiting, and working and hoping, voting for "change" for
decades, as I imagine most of you have, and every year it gets a little
bit worse, slowly, mind you, ever so slowly, so we aren’t aware of it,
but the water keeps rising and we keep adjusting to it.
We collectively are like the Katrina victims left alone to drown,
only slowly, ever so slowly and our social intelligence tells us
something is wrong. But we dare not look. Better to not see the social
and moral and material decay around us.
We best not look to hard, because the water is up to the back porch by now.
But it’s getting to the point, that we can not not look anymore, in other words, it’s damn near in our face, inside and out, now.
Inside within even our own immediate families, outside within our
communities, and civil infrastructure. I’m reminded of a post by Loose
Shanks, or tante amie or someone talking of …
… ahhh, here it is, about being lost in the wilderness, indeed:
Wilderness is tryin’ to make it to Social Security age, when the
cost of living is up and going through the roof, with your paycheck
worth less and less in phoney US dollar play money. That’s what I’m
talking about … Wilderness.
Wilderness is having poor relatives calling you for a handout, and
everyone staying away from Uncle Ernie’s funeral, because nobody can
afford the bill …
Tenebrous, and witty but oh so true, oh so serious. At least from
where I sit. Anyway, it’s been two years and that post still sits with
me, I’d encourage you guys and gals to go and read it.
/rant
I’ll go rant somewhere else now, thank you…
Uncle $cam, you are a pillar of this place — “Moon of Alabama, hosted by Uncle $cam!”
And here, it seems, you are stealing yourself for yet more, unbroken disappointment; resigned to Empire’s victory; almost “giving up the ghost.” It’s not Zinn’s urging us on — to take “direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — you run with from this piece, but his pointing out our political weakness — our apathy and cyncism, and our unwillingness to remain passionately, both personally and collectively, engaged, well beyond merely casting a vote.
I don’t know. I’ve dared to greet this political season, and especially Barack Obama’s candidacy, as a great opportunity to marshal and unleash all our pent-up progressive passions. Maybe more Aeschylus, rather than Aesop — Prometheus Unbound!
Perhaps your finger is better-placed on the political pulse, and what looks like a mounting grass-roots fire to me, you see for the “flash in the pan” that it is. Wet blanket or unassailable realist?
Have I read you wrong, here?
Not to bend this note completely out of shape, but I know disappointment, political and otherwise, pretty intimately. Indeed, I’ve struggled with down-and-out “depression” for years (resorting, among a jillion other therapies, even to ECT). No doubt, some of this struggle is the consequence of being born with a progressive’s heart. And I’m no spring chicken, either.
Still, I’m gettin’ “Fired up!” and “Ready to go!” A whole new generation seems to be signing on. Some, who’ve abandoned the the political fight, going back, say, to the crushing defeats of ’68, are pricking up their ears; harnessing old energies long left out to pasture.
Am I on a “fool’s errand?” I don’t think so.
And I don’t think Zinn, still tireless, still agitating, still engaged, would think so, either.
I don’t think Sara Robinson, whose senses portend revolution even, thinks so:
America may be far more ready for far more change than anyone really believes is possible at this moment.
I don’t think the students who shut down 7 miles of a Texas highway, marching to vote, think so.
This seems like precisely a time not to abandon the ramparts and the barricades to the rising, fetid waters of Empire’s cold and menacing creep. But, here you are, more or less confiding that you are relaxing into the swell and the suffocation that, near abouts, awaits us all.
Brother! You’re our “canary in the coal mine!” If you are choking, are we doomed? No “passing on the torch,” just rolling over? Can we throw you a line? Send you a raft? Is there really no hope?
Posted by: manonfyre | Feb 25 2008 22:34 utc | 12
confided earlier a personal note — years of struggle, years adrift and drowning in the deep blue. this isn’t altogether relevant to most of the conversations we have here. nonetheless, there are a couple more points of personal reference i wish to share.
through my worst, a note to myself often served me well: don’t make philosophy out of this. in other words, don’t turn personal and passing despair, constant and unresolvable though it may seem, into some dictum of sharable truth. ‘my life is all the ______, right now. hence, life is ______.’
something else about me at my worst: i tend to keep it to myself. ever known someone who had a cold or flu, and was assiduous about limiting their contact with other people? like, they wouldn’t shake someone else’s hand, so as not to spread the germ?
this forum, moon of alabama, has been a fixture, a touch-point in my life going back to the billmon days. my participation has ebbed and flowed over this time — the ebbs, periods in which this, sort of, self-quarantine was in force. didn’t want to spread the germ of the affliction that ailed me. so, it could be said, the level of my participation here is some measure of my mood.
writing here, now, i am at least on the beach, not floundering or in over my head — out of that deep, dark water. and it’s a kind of sobriety for me, and all that infinite sadness, a kind of abated addiction.
that being said, i’m finding a lot of what i read here of late, particularly some of the notes in this thread, challenges to my sobriety. it feels like i’m mingling with other addicts, current users of all that sick dope — seductive sirens on rocky islands off the shore, singing me back into the deep — tempting me to use that crippling smack once again.
thanks, dear friends, but no thanks. gonna stay outta that water and do the beach for awhile. i see several paths nearby, over different hills, and a bigger life just beyond each one.
didn’t do me any good, when i was in over my head, to hear it. but i’ll say it anyway. some of y’all are in too deep. c’mon back! come back!
not to go all metaphysical (or even post-metaphysical), but feel inclined to say . . . there is more to Life, more to Who and Where we really are, right here, right now — if we’d but notice.
all my love
Posted by: manonfyre | Feb 26 2008 11:23 utc | 21
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