Health and safety concerns are being cited as reasons to shut down the protest camps in Oakland and Portland and New York. So the police march in and start bashing the freezing hipsters and they cry "Police Brutality" which I guess is a lesser evil than the drug use going on at the camps...and the mortgage broker mentality that artificially jacks up prices on land for easier plundering. It's all too complicated to analyze in one essay because it's an illustration that we reap what we sow. What have we sown? Insulated and ignorant families breed slaves to feed military machines.
I try to connect the dots and I'm pretty sure the primitive tribal culture of 7000 B.C. was too egalitarian for some elite egoists so they thought about it and manufactured a need for their skills at people management. It takes a lot of work to construct a population of slaves so you don't need to work. It's like the old joke about a teenager who works hard to avoid work. I'm not sure the comparison is way off because financial advisers have no function in a primitive culture/tribe. They have to sell themselves as functional in the modern world and have done a great job so far. I think you can major in finance at school. Like that's something tangible. Yes, it's important in the realm of the modern world where Hannah Montana gives advice on abortions, but it's not
tangible. In fact, it
only exists in a pharaoh/slave economic paradigm.
Speaking of paradigms, the ownership of land in North America is only 500-600 years old. It was a concept that was imported by the Europeans and brilliantly forced onto the native populations like Catholicism was forced onto the Peruvians. Colonizers of Northeastern America were religious freaks who didn't feel a need to inflict their religious beliefs onto the natives, (I don't know of any missions in New England while California is full of them) but they did enforce the rule of land ownership, which proved to be just as devastating to the Indians. See, I'm trying to trace back the modern problems and I'm telling you it goes back a long, long way beyond Reaganomics. As soon as I hear someone try to blame modern politicians for modern problems I tune them out as infants who need to take a philosophy class. Speaking of philosophy, they say "History Repeats Itself" and "The more things change, the more they stay the same." And they also say, "Those who ignore history are bound to repeat it." My conclusion is that history repeats itself no matter what. The seeds of modern strife were planted centuries ago...and maybe are inherent in Human Nature. Democratic or Republican leanings are irrelevant.
Then there are the benefits of modern civilization. Electricity, water treatment...medical triumphs...etc. I can't forget those because I try to put them all on an ethical balance scale to see if the fading humanity I see is worth the obsolete technological garbage we can buy. And It doesn't balance out. Sorry. The economy is a manufactured "which hand am I holding the marble" game that is rigged in favor of whoever is holding the marble. It is not related to the basic human needs of shelter and food but billions of dollars are spent to erroneously tie the two together in the minds of the public. It exploits the sheep/shepherd paradigm I see dominating the cultural battlefield. One company sells us the disease and their subsidiary company sells us the cure. Here's a motto I'd like to paint on the town sign: "PORTSMOUTH: 40 HOUSES, 40 LAWNMOWERS." It sums up the success of a corporate marble game to mystify the masses into acting against their best interests. Did that start with Nixon or Bush? No, it didn't. When will it end?
Which brings me back to the city councils' decisions to end the occupy protest gatherings by claiming they are doing it to save the protestors from their own dirty habits. [begin sarcastic tone] Well, god bless their bottomless hearts. I'm so glad they have everyone's best interests in mind. What would we do without them? [end sarcastic tone]
I'm pretty sure a cultural genocide and ecological holocaust are in progress right now and even though they are taking place in broad daylight and reports are available every day the media washout is so complete that reality visibility is down to 20 feet. That's perfect for the status quo because if you question it then you can effectively be called a crackpot and everyone who loves college football will go on blindly raping small children in the shower. I'd say that whole Penn State scandal is a perfect metaphor for modern life: Heinous crimes are going on literally under the noses of 107,000 fans cheering for the next first down. We're all guilty of ignoring awful things because the chip bowl is empty and my point is that our ignorance and disempowerment is built into our culture and until that changes then nothing will change and if the Mayor of Portland thinks she is doing anyone any favors by evicting hipsters WHO ARE TRYING TO START THEIR OWN UNPOLLUTED CULTURE, then she's delusional. Or she's playing her part of the establishment rube to perfection. My feeling is that the occupy movement is not dead until there is a spoof/parody about it in The Onion. Arthur Miller said "“An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted”. I very much want to hasten the exhaustion of these illusions.
(non-sequitor comments too good to delete and too random to work into the thread of the essay)
I've said before that if modernization requires the elimination of primitive cultures then A) you aren't very modern. B) You're doomed.
If the existence and commoditization of an abomination like Los Angeles can be ignored then I guess anything is possible.
If you can't hide the elephant in the room then at least you can dress it in a bikini and call it a super model.
Well, my spa treatment/pedicure is in half an hour and I'll be getting my daily cookie fix at Ceres Street Bakery where for a mere $2.50 I can eat an oatmeal cookie the size of a quarter. Then I'll go to popovers for my $6 slice of toast and then to Philbrick's for my $9 Caesar salad. Who doesn't love Portsmouth?!
3 hours ago