Throw Away the Bleach

Is it just me, or does it seem like the fabric of life around us - the basic beliefs and general assumptions we hold while living our lives here in America - is simply falling away like the fibers on an old pair of jeans that have been whitewashed or bleached too many times?

Bleaching is perhaps a good analogy to the things that have waken me out of my non-writing stupor as of late. That is, when we bleach something, it is usually a last resort right? A person hates the color of their hair so much, they decide to burn the shit out of it to make it go blond; when we just can't get a stain out of that shirt we love so much, but has been ruined a million times over, we resort to bleaching it. In other words, we cover over the mistakes we have made, but permanently recoloring the material of our lives, so as not to have to actually deal with the philosophical, moral, political, economic, and social implications of the decisions we are making.

Yesterday, a friend of mine passed along the leaked video from Wiki Leaks http://www.wikileaks.org that grossly shows American soldiers unapologetically, and in fact excitedly, shooting two unarmed cameramen from Reuters along with 10 other innocent civilians in Afghanistan in 2007, two children among the wounded. This is 2010, in case you forgot. That video was leaked a few days ago by military personnel, and it is at least getting SOME media attention, thanks to the the folks at Wiki Leaks, a site that is now in threat of being shut down by the American government. So now, we are again being shown in broad daylight simple fact that the American government is fearless in its need to shut down the free flow of information, and it has always been.

But this video is not it. Barack Obama, in an effort to corner Republicans to vote for an eventual cap and trade bill, otherwise known as "the global warming bill", has decided to open up some sensitive areas of the Alaska shelf for drilling. Of course, everyone knows this is utter bull. This is nothing more than Barack Obama playing politics with the well being of the Earth and the world at large. This is the same bellyaching and manufactured offering of the proverbial olive branch that he engaged in with the health care debate. What did we get? Well, I'm not gonna waste my time here with that one.

Then this morning I woke up to the news about the 25 coal miners who have died underground in the Upper Big Branch Mine, a Massey Energy Company mine. Believe it or not, 25 is not the number you should be the most alarmed by. No, you should be alarmed by the fact that this one mine has been in breach of 57 safety requirements just in the past month alone! Now 25 people are dead, leaving behind family members and friends with nothing more than the same story so many other folks have who live in West Virginia.

I'm not going to waste my time writing about how irresponsible the owners of the mine are, or the fact that they haven't even come out to the press with a statement yet. I'm not even going to spend time writing about how horrible these taconite mines are for the environment they operate in. Nor am I going to write about how Barack Obama is not heeding the will of the people, and the silent majority, and all that. And I am surely not going to waste my time writing about how bad the mainstream media is in covering issues of grand importance, like the killing of innocents in Afghanistan. Hell, that's like complaining about MacDonald's not doing a good enough job of promoting health at its fast food restaurants.

Here's what I will spend my time writing. WE HAVE REACHED THAT POINT AT WHICH A COUNTRY, A PEOPLE, MUST SIMPLY PUT ASIDE THE POLITICAL GAMES AND THE FEAR, AND ADMIT THAT THE ENTIRE PARADIGM WE HAVE BEEN OPERATING UNDER FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF OUR HISTORY IS FALSE!

The American dream is a nightmare that involves nothing more than job+debt=death. The myth of the "free press" is far beyond a myth, and has simply become an absolute lie. The so-called democratic system that we operate under is no more democratic than any fascistic regime anywhere in the world; the difference here simply being that we don't show the public any of the inner workings of that system, so everyone thinks they are making a difference when they go vote for one of the wings of the same political dragon. We stand little to no chance in America of ever actually doing anything of real significance to change the environmental pattern we have created with our previous behavior, because the companies that our market based system has deemed "too big to fail" are the primary adversaries to this progress. Obviously, there are a million other examples of these kinds of basic truths, and they are not the focus of this rant.

We have reached a point at which our country is an exhibition in contradiction. Where we announce freedom, there is nothing but struggle, lack of access, and imprisonment. Where we announce success, there is nothing but further deprivation for those not at the top. Where we announce economic upward trends, we see nothing more than increased budget cuts to all the things that actually do bring economic growth poor and middle class people. In fact, all we do well in this country is make wealthy people wealthier, and poor people poorer, with that occasional success story; you know, the sports icons and the like that forever serve as the rule to capitalism's success, even though we all know they are the extreme exceptions.

We live in a world where people care more about making calls while driving than making a difference with their lives; where "social networking" is done more on the virtual level than the terrestrial one; where efficiency of time is measured by what you are able to bring to others, at the expense of yourself; where a BA is no longer enough, because even somebody's academic worth is measured by its performance on the open market; where skinny women who look like little boys are the way we sell the latest fashions for women; where the top selling singers in the country lip sync their own concerts; where the only reason legalization of marijuana and other drugs are being considered is because of the potential for revenue, not the health benefits and the prison reform that would come as a result; where the first Black President of the most racist country in the world cannot see past his own security enough to proclaim to the American people that the game is over.

The question that must be asked now is this: When does it become necessary for a government to impose its will, as in the concept of the "philosopher king", for the betterment of all human kind? I mean, let's face it people, the most educated, humanistic, creative, and knowledgeable about history among us are not the right wing majority. Nor are they the so-called "centrists" - who we all know are fooling themselves. As has been historically the case, the so-called "leftists" are the "ones we have been waiting for."

Just think for a minute, of all the major accomplishments of history that have brought further freedoms, access, equality, education, industrial working conditions improvements, public health, civil rights and human rights. Who brought us those advancements? I'm not going to tell you. Just do the research yourself. Unless you are doing all your research on MSNBC, CNN, FOX, or any other mainstream news source, or the Internet for that matter, I am quite sure that you will come to the same conclusions as I have, love it or hate it.

I, like most every American I know, and for that matter like almost every human I know, am a walking contradiction. The question now is how are we going to change that? I would argue the first step is changing ourselves, and that begins with being honest about the situation we are in. Our government no longer works. It needs to be taken down! Not in the violent militaristic sense that our government so loves to do in other countries. No, I mean taken down like the big top tent when the circus heads out of town. We need to just pull that sucker down, mount our belongings to our wagons, and move on. There is no longer any reason to participate in this system beyond the most basic of levels.

I don't propose to have the answers, nor have I ever said I do, but what I can say I am truly sure of is that we need to throw our bodies upon the cogs of this odious machine on which we have so slavishly, desperately worked so hard to maintain. It can't happen all at once, but piece by piece, we the people, can dismantle it. We can collect the parts, organize them, retool them, and ultimately recycle them to make a new machine, one that is not merely efficient, but sufficient. And that machine, like our founders believed, should be rebuilt periodically as to avoid the contradiction of today's America.

So, throw away the bleach. No more covering up of what we all know is wrong. Let's wear our stains with pride, like the scars of a time we never want to visit again. Let the fibers of this fabric come apart because of the reality of its limitations, not because we eat away at it in an effort to cover up its obvious flaws. The machine, like the fabric that covers it, can only come apart one way if we are going to enjoy the process of tearing it down, and that's piece by piece. I have already begun.