The Tilt-a-Whirl

Step right up. Buckle in. Pull that strap tight. This ride isn’t for the squeamish.

Sometimes I feel perfectly at peace with myself and the big, beautiful world that we live in. Sometimes the sun is shining and the birds are singing and I’m convinced that I can shoot brilliant, rainbow-colored rays of sunshine straight out of my ass.

Other times? Other times it seems like I’m lashed to the mast of a rickety, wooden sailing ship – like the hirsute Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall – while a category 5 shit-storm rages around me. Sometimes the world is all foreboding, grey skies and gale-force winds. Sometimes it just rains sideways. It’s all included in the price of admission.

Now? Right now? I feel like that soggy Brad Pitt, tied securely to that mast.

Lest anyone fret about my well-being or mental stability, this shit-storm I’m referring to is purely external. Inside my little bubble, where my personal life lives in a happy nest of purple Easter grass, everything is a-ok. This mind-numbing assault? This perfect storm of irritating, head-slapping bullshit? It’s all external and well beyond my control.

In short, the entire world is going batshit crazy.

We now seem to judge our entire worth as a nation - as a collective whole of diverse, teeming humanity – on our net-worth and financial well being. The barometer of our value is our GDP and the daily fluctuations of Wall Street. We are a commodity. Think you’re anything more? Guess again, my deluded friends. Take a good, hard look at how much money America’s corporations spend to ensure that they stay fat, rich and happy and our expense. You and me? We’re peons. Serfs. Expendable labor. Since the 1970’s, the divide between rich and poor has become a chasm. As of 2007, the top 1% of the U.S. population held 34.6% of privately held wealth. The next 19%? Try 50.5%. What does that mean? It means that 20% of the people in America own 85% of the wealth. (http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html) I’m reasonably certain those figures haven’t changed for the better over the past few years. So enjoy the crumbs we’re left to quibble over, my friends. Just be glad the landed gentry see fit to let us push their papers and empty their trash and haul away their garbage for them.

Which brings me to the tea parties. Oh, the tea parties!

I’m not going to expound on the sheer wingnuttery of the tea party movement. You’ve all heard it from me before. A bunch of conservatives that had no trouble with big government and deficits under a Republican are suddenly all kinds of butt-hurt over a Democrat’s big government and deficits. They’re trying to hijack the Libertarian movement and inject it with their culture-war craziness and rampant racism and homophobia. It has become a chorus of irrational, hysterical insanity that is damn near impossible to drown out. I guess that’s what happens when white folks with money see their spot at the helm of the bobsled in jeopardy as they gaze into a future that looks a bit too diverse for their tastes. Their anger smacks of hopped up fear with a splash of panic to push the madness to the next level.

Then there are the Democrats.

Listen, nobody loathed G.W. Bush more than me. I get it. I understand that you’re back in power and everybody is a bit punch-drunk and overflowing with piss and vinegar and you just want to get shit done. Believe me, I understand. The thing is that the arrogance some of you are displaying seems downright…Republican. Yeah, I said it. Oh, and while you’re at it, could you please stop referring to every Chad, Doug and Buford who disagrees with Obama’s direction for the country as “racist”? Let me tell you, that one is really getting tiresome. I know, I know – there are some racist jerks out there waving their misspelled signs and doing their part to work the word “nigger” back into the mainstream lexicon. All I’m asking is that you tone down the generalizations. Oh, and be gracious in victory. Dancing around, thumbing your nose and saying “I told you so” is so…Republican.

Which brings me to Obama.

Barack…Barry…Can I call you Barry? During the election, I set aside some of my patented cynicism and got behind you. I voted Democrat, even though I told myself I wasn’t voting for a member of the two-party system again. Quite frankly, Barry, I bought into your hype. I saw you speak on the Capitol steps in Harrisburg, and your passion and your energy just brought the atmosphere to life. That night, Barry – the warm, summer air just seemed to crackle with the electricity of the hope and potential that was trampled into the mud the prior eight years. Like someone in the throes of a new romance, I overlooked some of your flaws. Some major flaws, quite frankly. Namely your pro-business voting record. I should have listened to Ralph Nader, who pretty much had you pegged square from jump street. But who am I kidding? I would have voted for you anyway, so desperate was I to ensure that McCain and his happy band of war-crazy thugs didn’t slither their way into the White House. So essentially I became part of the problem. I voted the two-party safety net.

Please don’t misunderstand me, Barry. I like you. I think you’re a step in the right direction. That being said, in the end you’re just another bought and sold member of Washington, D.C. Inc. No matter what you say in your passionate speeches, in the end you’ll concede to Wall Street…just like the rest of them.

I still hold fast that this mess we’re in, both financial and cultural, will in the end be a blessing. I think a lot of people are waking up to the reality that corporations, not politicians (and certainly not the people), are the ones really running the country. I think people are fed up. Unfortunately, I still think there are too many people that are too ignorant to see that exchanging one party for the other will do nothing but ensure cosmetic changes. The mentality of “vote ‘em out” only works if you replace the person currently in power with a completely different breed of animal. Sure, a change in party will produce a slight lean in regards to priorities, but in the end nothing will really change. Like David Byrne said, “Same as it ever was.”

I like to think that through this mess we’ll come to see the error of our ways as a culture. I like to think we’ll learn not to be so wasteful. I like to think we’ll learn to do more with less. I like to think we’ll fix what’s broken, rather than chucking it and buying a new one. I like to think we’ll realize we’re all in this together, and learn to be more open, tolerant and accepting.

I like to think we’ll learn our lesson. History, however, teaches me to have my doubts.