Thursday, July 23, 2009

June Beetle in July




Fuck, says I. Will the United States EVER live up to its self-vaunted moral superiority? Why do we ever use a meaningless word like "freedom"? And why does NPR inadvertently remind me that the middle-class IS the enemy class?

These are the kinds of thoughts that fill my sputtering brain as I work in 100+ degree weather. But, really, I can't blame the heat because I always think these kinds of thoughts. It's part of my charm.

You know me. I vote Democratic because I so despise Republicanism (and, may I ad, libertarianism). But just because I vote for Democrats doesn't mean I like them much better. I can never truly support any pro-capitalists.

My dear friend Lane, who calls me almost everyday from his mountain retreat in Colorado, asked me recently what I thought about Obama.

"He's young and he's black," Lane said helpfully.

"Yeah, but he's also a yuppie and a lawyer. In this country, class trumps race," I responded. "If he were Angela Davis, I would be happier."

"If he were Angela Davis he would then be, ipso facto, transgendered," Lane said.

"Still more of a woman than Sarah Palin," I retorted.

Our conversations often sound much like this. That's why we talk almost daily.

See, there has never been a time in our history when both capitalism and conservatism stand so naked and idiotic as they do now. There has never been such an opportunity for the American people to change their vile habits of over-consumption, superstition, and anti-intellectualism. This is it. Now is the time. But NOOOO! There will be no revolutionary change because:

a) most Americans seem kinda dopey.
b) most Americans forget what happened yesterday.
c) most Americans still believe that they exercise their "choices" at the ballot box.

I mean, you've gotta laugh.

Here we live in a nation that has more (and builds more) weapons than any country in the world. We create more pollution than any country in the world. We consume more natural resources than any country in the world. We have more armies occupying more countries than any country in the world. And we have more of our citizens in prison that any country in the world. And we say we are free. It cracks me up.

We're certainly free to vote for which ever corporate-bought politician we want. That's true.
And we're free to worship whichever superstition we were indoctrinated with as children. (I, however, favor Ganesh because he's got tusks.)
And we are free to buy whatever fat-laden processed crap we find in the supermarket. Thirty different kinds of potato chips is truly something to be proud of.

We, as a nation, don't think twice about giving our taxes to the rich in the form of subsidies to agribusiness, petroleum companies, and, now, the friggin' jerkoffs on Wall Street. We don't think twice that the military industrial complex gets the largest share of our taxes so we can further militarize the world. Nope, those things seem perfectly fine.

But just mention helping the poor or "socializing" medicine, and middle-class dullards complain that "too much of our hard earned money is going to help bums and illegal aliens". Last time I looked, less than 1% of the GNP went to helping the poor.

You've probably heard this before but if you haven't, please tattoo it on you forehead so you don't forget it: Capitalists only believe in capitalism when they are making profits. They become socialists whenever they are faced with losses. "Privatize profit, socialize losses". That's what this entire capitalist melt-down has been about. Are we going to learn anything by it? Not as long as those self-same capitalists still feed us the news that we read and hear. Two questions you almost never hear seriously asked and given time to: "Where is the evidence for a god?" and "Is capitalism inherently wasteful and corrupt?"

But none of this has anything to do with the June beetle that landed in my yard in July.

"Hey, man, you're out of season," I said to the beetle. He clambered up my arm and flew off my thumb. He didn't care what I thought.

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