i’m at the mercy of my brain. it looks at A, looks at B, sees logical C.
i look about at the wondrous differences here between the u.s. and england, and i see slightly more mannered ways of doing the same old shit to keep the rich richer and the poor underfoot. they pay a higher minimum wage. they let the food store checkout clerks sit down while working. they make sure the peasants have footpaths thru the rich folks’ greens. they’re more well mannered about it, perhaps gentler in their greed, but their arrogance shouts “heed!” … or is that “heel!” we need to heal – there’s more than enough to go around. i’ve always shared, and i’ve less than a lot of folk. sharing has made my life richer, and it soothes the soul. we need but one law – DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE. they should heed that law, because if they can do what they want to me, i can do what i want to them – and believe me, i am not one you’d want for your enemy.
i always said i’d sell out for the right price – all i need is an offer with some real foundation, a game i can believe in. i’d make a dynamite lawyer because words love my tongue – but i look at the lawyer game and it is founded on slimy slippery lies. how could i look in the mirror when i lie for a living? i know there are good fine honest lawyers helping those in need (like jean brandt) – but the system they work is a moral septic tank with no toilet paper. i’d make a great politician too – but their game is indistinguishable from organized crime – (i don’t know of any good, honest folk in politics – anywhere). seems all these games are essentially “i got mine, now i want yours too.” or even worse, “i’m in the catbird seat, so think like me, believe like me, or i’m going to hurt you.” how can anyone who professes to believe in god hurt another who believes in another god, or no god at all? stephen king sez fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity. he’s one of the few rich folk i respect… he’s said of this world, “same shit, different day.”
in the beginning the strong took what they wanted and became the gots. the gots have. the gots make the rules. the gots hire their official enforcer thugs called police, army, navy. the gots steal from the ungots and build prisons and buy weapons and more police thugs to make sure the gots keep their gots and get your gots too.
the weakness in their plan lies in us – we outnumber them… as jim morrison sang, “they’ve got the guns but we got the numbers.” their power rests on our acquiescence. they get away with what they get away with because we let them. they can’t arrest all of us cuz there would be no one left to make and buy their trinkets… they can’t kill all of us cuz we’d stink too much – there’d be no one left to bury the dead, and we all know the rich don’t like getting their hands dirty with honest work.
camus sez the first question of philosophy is “do i kill myself, or not?” if not, then we’re all responsible for everything going on. if you’re not dead, you’re complicit.
whatcha gonna do about it?
i agree.
i read recently that the private pirate companies in iraq are employing 50,000 personnel (“military guest workers”*)(additional to the 130,000 troops supplied by the pentagon), some of them earning more than $150,000 a year for “driving trucks, flying helicopters, pitching tents”*. although these are private corporation employees, we the people are paying for them. “no-bid contracts”* — $12.3 billion to Halliburton, $5.3 billion for parsons corp, $3.7 billion to fluor corp, $3.1 billion to washington group int’l, $2.8 billion to bechtel corp. Check out Blackwater USA.
*”Lionhearts” by Lewis Lapham, Harper’s, September 2006
about your supposition that they can’t arrest all of us, i’d like to remind you that they’re turning over much of the prison system in the u.s. of a. to for-profit private companies, which, in my opinion, is a 21st century translation of slavery.
interesting point about us being complicit if we’re not dead. so sadly true. (i would prefer not to be quilty)
peace brother. good post.