El Estado de Union
Typically, this is where I make a long winded bash-fest about the “Presidents” State of the Union address: but I don’t feel like it tonight. No, there’s nothing wrong—or maybe it’s that everything is wrong. Or at least more than can be fixed by, or blamed on, one inept and probably crooked politico and his cronies/handlers/puppeteers.
I like to think that this country is great, and the people therein are the reason for said greatness; I like to think that people are inherently good, and given the proper circumstances every person would like most to be happy; I also say, often, that people are by their very nature flawed and ethically crooked. I like to say that the reason Communism didn’t work is because the most important ingredient in that recipe is human nature. If we all could be truly satisfied with just enough to get by then there would be enough for everyone to get by. We all want health care, a job, a home, some type of formal education—I sure as hell don’t want to pay for yours. And historically, you don’t want to pay for mine either.
I’ve taken my share of guff from a select few people who I take guff from about my quiet appreciation of the communist view point: mostly because there has been little support for communism to be found in the cases of its practice. There is a fear inherent since the birth of the USA which dictates the mistrust of any over zealous government involvement in our lives. We don’t like the “man” holding us down; we do like the “man” to show up and rebuild New Orleans when it gets knocked down by a storm. And we sure as hell like to string the “man” up by his huveos if he doesn’t put every person without the means to do so, on a bus and ship them somewhere safer before said storm knocks down said city.
The point…where did it go? But there is something to that. The point of all this grandstanding, soapbox discourse we call the State of the Union address was once to put the chairman of the government corporation (perhaps more so today than ever) in front of the share holders and consumers to give us, in his own words, his definition of how well he’s done his job thus far. [the use of “his job,” “his def.” and such will be used until a female president is elected and shows us that a woman can be just as corrupt and greedy as a man] Immediately after…shit before, during and for days after we will be inundated by spin from both sides of the fence and from the fence builders, the fence jumpers, the fence painters, the anti-fence defamation league, and of course the Peoples Republic of the Fence who are simultaneously trying to expose every hole in the president’s speech and dam up any leak already exposed by others. Using political jargon and biased data to suggest that broken policies are not broken and that the policies were not broken until our enemies broke them even though they are sound policies still…when will this madness end? Probably never.
Our political system has become Junior High: complete with a school principal who is only held accountable for his decisions if he is found with either a dead girl or live boy, and a host of guidance counselors who are banned from giving any realistic advice to those who need it most. For example, our political system is now akin to the guidance counselor who was unable to grab me by my smart assed face and tell me that I might be smart enough to make something of myself by following my own rules, but all that fighting I was doing would damage much of my potential unless I took some time to figure out how to fight. You will never hear a president stand up and deliver a speech which chastises the citizenry for being as greedy as we are and demanding that we evolve socially and start paying higher taxes so that our neighbors can have heat this winter.
“My fellow Americans. It’s time to face facts: you are all a bunch of greedy bastards and every time you receive a refund of tax revenue you doom your nation to a long, foodless, heatless, and healthcaredless and educationedless life…”
Even in fantasy land our Commander in Chief likes to make up words. And why not, any one who said something like this to the people of this country would surely bring about the first military coup on this soil since the guerilla insurgency of the late 1700’s frustrated the crown.
“…in a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve.” Adlai Stevenson said that. And I think it is proven by the hash bash in Ann Arbor.
Every year, copious potheads and politicos get together to protest for the reform of marijuana laws. And many times I was there. It was a big deal for many years as thousands of people got together and burned joint after joint on the University of Michigan’s main campus without being arrested. A few years hence, the city fathers have managed to snuff out an event that was ongoing for decades. Now I think I get it. I read in the paper, maybe a year before the city began to deny vendors licenses to be in the streets during the bash that the original cause of the bash was in town. John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years for being in possession of two joints back in ’69. He was back visiting and surprised to find that none of the kids attending the bash knew who he was. People like John Lennon and Alan Ginsberg showed up to the first protest in 1970; middle school kids show up now. But as much as the city fathers would like to take credit for dismantling the bash, it’s pretty clear to anyone who ever attended that the life of the Hash Bash has long since been extinguished by a culture that has lost its focus.
There is no need for an omnipresent government to smash individual rights and force complacency on us: we do it to ourselves just fine. I like to make fun of stoners as much as the next guy, but the hash bash was an event that was recognized nationally as a hold over from the revolutionary political activism that swept the nation back in the day. But as its relevance waned, the irrelevant took center stage. Thirty years of people organizing an event to protest the undue and unnecessary actions of an obsolete law matters. At least there could be some glimmer of interest visible to the naked eye. Now all we can do is complain that Lost is not on tonight because the president is making some speech about something…
“…the course of human events, even the greatest historical events, are not determined by the leaders of a nation or a state, like presidents or governors or senators. They are controlled by the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment and unselfishness and compassion and love and idealism of the common ordinary people.” -Jimmy Carter, 1974
We decided that the actions of homosexuals were more important than those of our elected officials. And now we are reaping the produce. Corn mostly…virtually no nutritional value and only there for the destructive production of ethanol because of subsidies.
And those people who are inconvenienced by the presence of a preemptive speech are most likely the same people who rank on my list of “people who suck the most.” The assholes and morons who only know two things: “god hates fags and if you don’t love America, leave!” These are the people whose sons and daughters joined the military because they suddenly felt a kinship with NYC despite living in Montana, or Arkansas, or Idaho for their entire nineteen years because some brown people crashed planes into some buildings. These people don’t even think about the Pentagon; they do now because they are getting their legs and arms and faces blown off due to the decisions made in a five sided building in DC that they’d never really learned about before boot. I’m not sensitive…deal with it. The last election showed me, and you, to the world as a part of a hateful culture which continues to espouse hateful beliefs but only finds new ways of convincing themselves that they are not hateful. See also: law students fighting against affirmative action down the street from one of the longest running political activist events.
Every day we make decisions which shape the culture which supports us. By doing things like donating blood, time, money, food, blankets, clothes, books, musical instruments…we actually create an environment that sounds like the place our elected officials wax philosophically about on television. Tomorrow, I’m going to class. And I will spend one hour trying to learn Spanish. And in that, I am doing more to ease the immigration problem with Mexico. Sound silly? Do you think that if every Texan, Zonie, Nuevo Mexican y Californian spoke fluent Spanish there would be an issue? We can wait for the elected body to save us from whatever it is we need to be saved from, or we can just say “fuck you, I’m doing this because it makes my life better.”
I like to think that this country is great, and the people therein are the reason for said greatness; I like to think that people are inherently good, and given the proper circumstances every person would like most to be happy; I also say, often, that people are by their very nature flawed and ethically crooked. I like to say that the reason Communism didn’t work is because the most important ingredient in that recipe is human nature. If we all could be truly satisfied with just enough to get by then there would be enough for everyone to get by. We all want health care, a job, a home, some type of formal education—I sure as hell don’t want to pay for yours. And historically, you don’t want to pay for mine either.
I’ve taken my share of guff from a select few people who I take guff from about my quiet appreciation of the communist view point: mostly because there has been little support for communism to be found in the cases of its practice. There is a fear inherent since the birth of the USA which dictates the mistrust of any over zealous government involvement in our lives. We don’t like the “man” holding us down; we do like the “man” to show up and rebuild New Orleans when it gets knocked down by a storm. And we sure as hell like to string the “man” up by his huveos if he doesn’t put every person without the means to do so, on a bus and ship them somewhere safer before said storm knocks down said city.
The point…where did it go? But there is something to that. The point of all this grandstanding, soapbox discourse we call the State of the Union address was once to put the chairman of the government corporation (perhaps more so today than ever) in front of the share holders and consumers to give us, in his own words, his definition of how well he’s done his job thus far. [the use of “his job,” “his def.” and such will be used until a female president is elected and shows us that a woman can be just as corrupt and greedy as a man] Immediately after…shit before, during and for days after we will be inundated by spin from both sides of the fence and from the fence builders, the fence jumpers, the fence painters, the anti-fence defamation league, and of course the Peoples Republic of the Fence who are simultaneously trying to expose every hole in the president’s speech and dam up any leak already exposed by others. Using political jargon and biased data to suggest that broken policies are not broken and that the policies were not broken until our enemies broke them even though they are sound policies still…when will this madness end? Probably never.
Our political system has become Junior High: complete with a school principal who is only held accountable for his decisions if he is found with either a dead girl or live boy, and a host of guidance counselors who are banned from giving any realistic advice to those who need it most. For example, our political system is now akin to the guidance counselor who was unable to grab me by my smart assed face and tell me that I might be smart enough to make something of myself by following my own rules, but all that fighting I was doing would damage much of my potential unless I took some time to figure out how to fight. You will never hear a president stand up and deliver a speech which chastises the citizenry for being as greedy as we are and demanding that we evolve socially and start paying higher taxes so that our neighbors can have heat this winter.
“My fellow Americans. It’s time to face facts: you are all a bunch of greedy bastards and every time you receive a refund of tax revenue you doom your nation to a long, foodless, heatless, and healthcaredless and educationedless life…”
Even in fantasy land our Commander in Chief likes to make up words. And why not, any one who said something like this to the people of this country would surely bring about the first military coup on this soil since the guerilla insurgency of the late 1700’s frustrated the crown.
“…in a democracy, people usually get the kind of government they deserve.” Adlai Stevenson said that. And I think it is proven by the hash bash in Ann Arbor.
Every year, copious potheads and politicos get together to protest for the reform of marijuana laws. And many times I was there. It was a big deal for many years as thousands of people got together and burned joint after joint on the University of Michigan’s main campus without being arrested. A few years hence, the city fathers have managed to snuff out an event that was ongoing for decades. Now I think I get it. I read in the paper, maybe a year before the city began to deny vendors licenses to be in the streets during the bash that the original cause of the bash was in town. John Sinclair was sentenced to 10 years for being in possession of two joints back in ’69. He was back visiting and surprised to find that none of the kids attending the bash knew who he was. People like John Lennon and Alan Ginsberg showed up to the first protest in 1970; middle school kids show up now. But as much as the city fathers would like to take credit for dismantling the bash, it’s pretty clear to anyone who ever attended that the life of the Hash Bash has long since been extinguished by a culture that has lost its focus.
There is no need for an omnipresent government to smash individual rights and force complacency on us: we do it to ourselves just fine. I like to make fun of stoners as much as the next guy, but the hash bash was an event that was recognized nationally as a hold over from the revolutionary political activism that swept the nation back in the day. But as its relevance waned, the irrelevant took center stage. Thirty years of people organizing an event to protest the undue and unnecessary actions of an obsolete law matters. At least there could be some glimmer of interest visible to the naked eye. Now all we can do is complain that Lost is not on tonight because the president is making some speech about something…
“…the course of human events, even the greatest historical events, are not determined by the leaders of a nation or a state, like presidents or governors or senators. They are controlled by the combined wisdom and courage and commitment and discernment and unselfishness and compassion and love and idealism of the common ordinary people.” -Jimmy Carter, 1974
We decided that the actions of homosexuals were more important than those of our elected officials. And now we are reaping the produce. Corn mostly…virtually no nutritional value and only there for the destructive production of ethanol because of subsidies.
And those people who are inconvenienced by the presence of a preemptive speech are most likely the same people who rank on my list of “people who suck the most.” The assholes and morons who only know two things: “god hates fags and if you don’t love America, leave!” These are the people whose sons and daughters joined the military because they suddenly felt a kinship with NYC despite living in Montana, or Arkansas, or Idaho for their entire nineteen years because some brown people crashed planes into some buildings. These people don’t even think about the Pentagon; they do now because they are getting their legs and arms and faces blown off due to the decisions made in a five sided building in DC that they’d never really learned about before boot. I’m not sensitive…deal with it. The last election showed me, and you, to the world as a part of a hateful culture which continues to espouse hateful beliefs but only finds new ways of convincing themselves that they are not hateful. See also: law students fighting against affirmative action down the street from one of the longest running political activist events.
Every day we make decisions which shape the culture which supports us. By doing things like donating blood, time, money, food, blankets, clothes, books, musical instruments…we actually create an environment that sounds like the place our elected officials wax philosophically about on television. Tomorrow, I’m going to class. And I will spend one hour trying to learn Spanish. And in that, I am doing more to ease the immigration problem with Mexico. Sound silly? Do you think that if every Texan, Zonie, Nuevo Mexican y Californian spoke fluent Spanish there would be an issue? We can wait for the elected body to save us from whatever it is we need to be saved from, or we can just say “fuck you, I’m doing this because it makes my life better.”
posted by texas_wolverine at 12:13 AM
2 comments
