There is no narrative for what the United States is or will become.
The United States is a failed nation because it is based on a stupid narrative. No one wants this narrative anymore, no one wants the United States anymore. No one cares, absolutely no one, about old men in wigs signing pieces of parchment, about Europeans and Native Americans carving a stupid turkey. No one cares about flag-waving idiots and plastic businessmen. This is ridiculous. US Indians and other minorities have known this for a long time, but it is time for everyone to dump General Washington into the sea. It is a failed experiment. Those who perpetuate it are thieves and killers.
How about a nation that gets rid of the stupid flag-waving, the military-glorification, the idiotic religious points of view, and instead admits, "We're no better. Here is our tract of land. Let's just get on with in the best way possible for everyone."
There is no coin in that bland and basic politics. No small-time hustler with a seat in the House of Representatives can scam off of that - and they are all scammers, down to the last man and woman, Bernie included.
What I cannot stand about the US - born there, raised there - is the ridiculous narrative. My dog, how bored or dumb do you have to be to swallow the lies? There are court decisions, and some winners and some losers, but there is no justice. There are ballots and voting machines, and election campaigns, but there are not elections. We have tolerance, but somehow we cannot seem to accept the other. We have due process, but little progress.
The United States is not a nice country. It is not even country of smart people. It is a ruthless country, and for this reason, it prospers. It isn't the only one, though. Perhaps the United States represents what human nature looks like on a grand stage - venial, ugly, pathetic, all the more so for the occasional flashes of insight that are quickly drowned out in a sea of darkness.
The only solution for any sane person is to change one's mind. Walk away from the myth. It's not healthy to believe so much nonsense, it's murderous to try and live by it. I say walk away from the myth, but do not walk away from the other. In fact, the only thing that will save a person from becoming a total prick is having to deal with someone else, someone whom you can't choose, someone who does not go away, someone whom you do not like, but has as much right to be a human being in this shared space as you do. That is the neighbor, the other. The guy who has been to jail, the woman on welfare with ten kids, the sickly pale banker who participates in a system he knows is wrong.
I am uninterested in "voting season." I gave money to the Sanders campaign. This was a mistake. With a click of the button I could shift the responsibility to someone else. Sending money was like going to confession, believing I was pardoned of my sins, and without the imposition of penance.
Lest you think I wish to belittle those who worked very hard for the Sanders campaign or any campaign for that matter, let me ask this: what is the goal? Not the tactical goal, not "winning the election," certainly not keeping Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton out of office - the stupidest thing I have yet heard. What is the goal? What is your goal? Strip away the narrative of Uncle Sam and apple pie, strip away the narrative of equality, of wages, of all the issues. Is it to alleviate suffering? If so, why only in the US? Why stop at the borders of the United States? The United States, for all of its inward-looking dwarfism, kills individuals around the world every day. Organizations and even the US government feed individuals around the world every day. We do both in the guise of "solving problems, making the US stronger." Donald Trump wants to solve problems in the United States - at least his mouth says so. However, in so doing, whom are we going to kill?
No narrative, no party, no system. And no revolution. Please. The United States is in lockdown. Russia 1917 was a revolution. France after 1789. Germany 1848 (failed). Those are revolutions. Unless you can get a sizable chunck of the US military on your side, there won't be a revolution. Political revolution is a stupid phrase, you are already trying to sell me something you cannot deliver. Politics is a corpse. Revolutions are acts of violence requiring explosive energy. Sorry, presidents and senators are the antithesis of energy. Not going to happen.
What interests me is people getting off their emotional couches, looking each other in the eye and saying with a smile, "We are all such horrible, ugly, jerks." That is something I can work with. At least it is honest.
From one jerk to another,
Peace and love be with you, reader.
edited.
Comments
Perhaps we are all equally deluded
and busy ourselves with finding the company of others who happen to share our particular flavor of delusion. Honesty can be a brutal and destructive mistress when applied indiscriminately. Tell a person the truth about themselves and they will hate you for it.
Life is not to be made sense of. I really don't know what to make of it all.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
I think this statement is nonsense.
So I shall unpack what you have written, briefly, because you deserve this attention to detail.
First, you seem to equate delusion with the need for company. If that is true, then there can be no communication, which is by necessity an exchange between two persons who, during that period of time, are in each other's company, even if not physically present. I reject this, because it is not true: I am here communicating with you because you deserve to be communicated with, even if what you write saddens the intellect.
Second point, let us grant that desire is a delusion for a moment. No two such desires can be equal, because it resides in the fantasy of each human being, who, even if he or she has desires similar to others, is acting them out in his or her own space and time. This is the great trick of marketing, to make us believe that our desires are the same, even if we are reaching for the same shiny object. It is a debilitation of the will to fall into such a trap.
Thirdly, I think you confuse telling the truth with the act of communication itself. The latter is something which by necessity requires the acceptance of the other. The former is an imperative, perhaps with some qualifications, but exists independent of any personal framework. The latter is entirely personal, in that I cannot formulate any rules about how we interact except through reference to the other person. If the truth hurts me, I hope that the truthteller will comfort me and help me get over the shock. Even so, the truth is nothing but power.
Fourth point, about being hated. We are all hated. Tolerance is hatred in this sense: we are tolerated insofar as we are useful. That is not love. It is objectification, and to objectify someone is a form of hatred in action.
I could go on a long time. The bottom line is, I am not deluded. I know this because I can think through any problem placed in front of me. I may not always reason correctly, or have all the evidence, or not realize that some data is false, or I may lack the will to do so, but those conditions are not the same.
I am not deluded into thinking that you do not matter, that my reason does not matter. No. This is brainwashing. Whether or not I ever change anything does not matter so long as I never give in to this pseudo-wisdom.
Neither should you, dear friend.
Peace and love be with you, reader.
Nihilism
Never a big fan of that.
donate to Stein. Do for her what we did for Bernie. We CAN change the world.
No suggestion of an alternative
Are we supposed to crawl in our holes and let the World explode because of the futility of trying? Jill Stein has some suggestions for alternatives.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Interesting read and comments
Reminding me yet again that neither our languages nor our conceptual models that we try to convey with them are adequate for expressing our reality. Each person and event we add to this earth increases this complexity and obfuscates the statistical oversimplifications our brains attempt to apply. This isn't nihilism so much as bewilderment.