Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Facebook Action!

I read what I wrote, my son sleeping a few feet away from me, and I don't know what to think. I am buoyed and then I sink with the waves. I am trying very hard to float. I will be cast along by the tsunami, but I will not be crushed. Right?

Anyway, what I want to say today is that, while I abhor the missionary impulse, I hate the "let's get together with likeminded people and bitch" mentality even more.

I want to articulate this, even if it's just in my own little echo chamber here.

I do not want to hear you talk about Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum and how sexist they are, how cruel they are, how they don't like darkies or A-rabs or whomever, while you practice polite with your friends who talk of welfare queens and queers and knuckle under when Granddad booms at the table.

On one hand, yes, the Mitt and the Rick and the scary men, be they Repub or Dem or Paulite or whatever, are so much stronger than your Demjanjuk of a father. They can do a lot of great harm. So yeah, act against them, but don't rail against them. Don't make it psychological. Don't make them the scapegoat of your unease in this unjust world. Because the thing is that this shit is imposed from above and below. This stuff grows up through the family, through the neighborhood, through the Bible study daycare as sure as from some priesthood from on high.

So yeah, if it's just about evil men in high places, I can dig that. But the amount of energy you invest in between stints of Farmville appears odd. What about the one teaching your kids that blacks are uppity? What about the one who treats you like shit and devalues you because of what's between your legs? No, no, let's talk about Washington. Tell me about what the Christianists say. Because nobody wants to talk about their old sick bastard mother or their lout of a husband on Facebook. I mean, your friends might. Who knows?

We always like to other what we tolerate in our lives. Let evil thugocracies and despotisms be dressed up like Arabs or blacks or Republicans or Catholics or whomever. And meanwhile, what have you done to make your household or your street better? If you are so arrogant as me that you believe in imposing your will upon the universe, if you are that vain that you say "I say this is wrong and I will make it different and hope it turns out better," then what exactly have you done? And as unlikely as it is that you will change the mind of that bitter, entitled old fool, do you really think that one more Facebook re-post idealizing Obama or denigrating some little clerical fascist shit candidate is going to do one goddamn thing? Fuck, you could fly a black flag on your car antenna and do more.

4 comments:

  1. i still come in and read a little .. ,of here in your echo chamber .. hello hello .. , i'm one of those that isn't familiar with.. book,face .. ,i know of space my .. from a few years back , in having friends with smaller bands plying and other artist .. but not this other .. ,/ and being of water mostly ..i will help you float ..

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  2. Complicity is a constant foe. But yet, I feel like if I manage to teach/show just a sense of compassion and a decent bullshit radar to my kids, then I consider my life a victory.

    Sphere of influence has always been a double-edged sword for me. I sometimes feel a similar reaction to the constant railing against the "oppressors". However, I find it cathartic because, for me, its incredibly difficult to speak to the "oppressed" especially when they are my own family.

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  3. Anarchism, to me, means that we are our own solution--even if we end up deciding there is no problem. We have to deal with each other. That's also a reason I don't like the idea of heaven; an external reward is a cop-out. If we don't learn how to be heavenly here, then I expect that a heaven with free-willed individuals will look just like this place. Life is lived in present action; goodness and justice and all those words we make up--if those words mean anything, they must be realized in the present tense, rather than in some future goal, objective, or victory.

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  4. I don't want to sound preachy, but I feel you might do well to find ways to get beyond where you're at. Spring is here, birds are returning and you're getting to see your son again.

    Take good care of yourself.

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