We Have Too Many Political Parties

 

Just thinking out loud here, but I believe there’s a certain sense in what I have to say:

Perhaps it would be best if we dropped the second party and just went with one-party rule. Let's get rid of the Democrats and let Trump and McConnell have the whole ball of wax.

Hear me out.

For one thing, it would stop all the partisan bickering. Think of how pleasant social media would once again be when half of us are no longer engaged in tearing down the party of the other half. And instead of talking about candidates, which is the subject of small minds, we could be discussing issues, which is the subject of great minds.

Plus, think about what Trump is doing and why he’s doing it: he’s appealing to his base. If we were all his base, he would want to appeal to us all. He wants to be loved, he wants approval, he wants people to admire him. If he did not have a second party that opposed him, he could work to appeal to the wishes of everyone. We'd probably have medicare for all and our troops out of the Middle East by now.

What value do the Democrats add to the process, anyhow? Whenever they have attacked him, really attacked him and not merely fake clapped at him, they have attacked him from the right. Other than that, they're just there so that Trump supporters have someone to blame for the failures of their candidate.

 Democrats have attacked Trump any time he wasn’t sufficiently militarily aggressive towards a nation that wasn’t subservient to the American Empire. They have attacked him for colluding with Russia although a years-long investigation turned up no proof of that assertion. FOUR YEARS we wasted on that canard when we could have been discussing other issues.

And besides, once Trump is elected, we can force him to the left. That's a thing, isn't it? People have  been telling me for years that we just have to elect a bad candidate and then work to force that bad candidate left. Well, if it works for Democratic presidents, it should work for Republicans, too. Right?

 I think the worst thing about having a SECOND party is the illusion it creates that we actually have an OPPOSITION party. The human psyche, when given two options, starts trying to differentiate between them even though no appreciable differences exist. 

Anyone who’s found themselves unable to choose between the various options of French fries at a supermarket has felt this. Anybody who’s gone to a Blockbuster (old person reference here) looking for a funny movie and found themselves presented with a choice of two Adam Sandler movies knows what I’m talking about. There are certain weaknesses in humans that can be used to manipulate us, and the illusion of choice is a biggy.

 Give us two options and we will always feel smarter and more in charge when we choose one. And in politics, give us two options and we will inevitably blame whatever negative outcomes we experience on those who choose differently. Give us two options and we will defend the one we’ve chosen, because we want to be right.

 But give us just one option and all of the sudden we will begin to clearly see the imperfections that exist. Give us one option and we won’t feel responsible for it and so we will feel free to criticize it. We will no longer smugly sit back and think "If they had done it my way, everything would be great right now. Well, I'll just sit back and watch while the country is ruined because of THEIR stupid idea."

 Give us one option and we can once again feel united. Our ruler will no longer be able to divide us but must answer to all of us. We will feel a certain amount of power in that we can have a collective sense of expectation. The balance of power will no longer be about conservatives against liberals but rulers against those who are ruled.

 But here’s the most important part, and tell me if you believe otherwise: it doesn’t matter who is in charge. It ultimately doesn’t matter who has control of the army or the police or the media or the wealth of a country. No group of people can be controlled by a ruler or a government unless they give their consent. If a ruler or a ruling class does not receive the consent of the governed, they have no authority. If they have to use violence, they can rule for a time, but their end will not be pleasant. If their claim to authority can be strengthened by manufacturing consent, they can rule until such a time that even the absolute control of narrative cannot help it maintain its grip on the populace. Narrative can only stray so far from reality before a break occurs.

 If the people are discontented, the rulers will never know peace. The less confusion the people have over who has power, the more the people will be able to concentrate their discontent towards those who claim to be helping them. But divide the blame into two parties and you can endlessly distract the people by having half the population blame the other half.

The single best thing that can happen to the American populace is for them to realize that the ruling class is not divided but in fact united AGAINST them. So let's get rid of one of these two corporate parties--I don't care, take your pick-- so that we can unite against the remaining one. When we are united then, and only then, we will be able to bring about the change we need. Because there is no government or group of people able to rule against the will of the people.

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Paradigms Do Not Die Easily, But Neither Do Dreams

 Near the end of All You Need Is Love, The Beatles added a refrain from an early hit, She Loves You. It sounds like an echo from another decade, another era, but in fact it was only four years between the two songs.

 Although the two songs came from the same band in the same decade, they were coming from different worlds. And though both songs have the word love in their title, the difference in meaning could not be greater. In 1963 they were singing about teenage romance, as was everyone. By 1967, love held a psychedelic mixture of meanings. Love was a force powerful enough to change the world. It would end wars, heal wounds, bridge gaps. Learning to love ourselves would help us achieve self-actualization. You can hear in the lyrics and John Lennon’s voice that he is learning to work through childhood trauma in order to release the grip of anger and cynicism that guided his earlier self. There is an undeniable spiritual aspect to the song, as there was to so many of their songs around that time. In The Beatles, and in England, and around the world, something was being born.

 “Love Is All You Need.” It was an innocent, naïve proclamation, but it was bold as hell. And surely if you had spoken to any of The Beatles, they would have told you that it was not so much all you need but the most important thing you need, the prime mover. The force that can change the world. In unimaginable ways.

 Such a belief led to a movement that put an end to a war and furthered the idea that regardless of race or religion or geographic location we were all connected. We were all brothers and sisters with a shared planet and a shared destiny. And there is nothing naïve or innocent about this realization. It is a fact.

 Psychedelic drugs opened up people’s minds to new ways of thinking and shattered old paradigms. Or perhaps the urge to explore new ways of thinking led people to experiment with psychedelics. Children growing up in a world that for the first time included a television in every home sensed the unreality of the narratives they were being sold. They were looking to transcend a plastic world and reconnect with nature and with each other in real and meaningful ways.

 But almost as soon as the door opened, it began to close. Powerful existing paradigms do not die easily. They may crack, giving glimpses of what lies beyond them, but they do not easily shatter.

 And so the 60’s soon ended. And somewhere, someone asked, “Was it all a dream?” Because truths briefly revealed tend to feel like that when the too solid existing paradigm reasserts it strength.

But dreams have a power of their own. One can never unsee one. A powerful enough dream will have us forever asking ourselves if reality is truly what it seems. A beautiful dream will have us desiring more and being forever discontent with the way things are. The cracks in what we call reality—but is in fact a paradigm—have been exposed and cannot be denied. In fact, they are currently being revealed once more in a far more frightening fashion.

 The 60’s were not a dream. They were in fact quite the opposite: they were the first stirrings of a giant awakening. They were like the fantasies of a child which will lay the foundations for the accomplishments of the adult. They were the initial cracks in a paradigm we were destined to outgrow. 

We are waking up. Some of us unwillingly, but the possibility of staying asleep no longer exists.

Because what has been glimpsed can never be entirely ignored. Though it may be absent from our conscious mind it nevertheless has been at work in our subconscious. Our dreams have not been soothing, but they have been telling us something.

 1967 was the year in which All You Need Is Love was released: It was The Summer Of Love. It was the date of conception for a new paradigm, created in an orgy of love in which an entire generation participated. The gestation time for something so immense is long, but it IS being born. What you are witnessing now are the labor pains.

A new paradigm of love is being born. What was glimpsed in the 60's was a mere glimmer of something far off. It is time to perceive it now with our adult eyes.

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You Are A Vital Link In The Chain

 

I was looking at a picture of an orangutan and a bulldozer yesterday, the kind of picture that makes you turn away because the feeling of helpless rage is too much to bear. A picture of man’s “progress" destroying nature. Once again. Endlessly. 

I was thinking of how many people have to be complicit to allow this event to have taken place: the operator of the bulldozer, the people in the crew that transported it to this location, the foreman who ordered it, the boss who ordered him. The accountant who figured it was a few cents cheaper to tear down a forest than farm sustainably, the people who buy products from businesses willing to extract profit from a dying earth. The politicians who did what they were told by the people who give them money to be elected, and the police and military who use force to make sure profit reigns supreme over planet. Even the guy who took the picture could have tried to stop this from happening.

 Not a one of them was a free person. Not a one of them does not bow to a system that is destroying us all. And yet how many of them believe themselves free? How many loudly proclaim their love for personal freedom when they never dare to use it?

 Because it would only have taken one of the people in the chain of command to say no to stop this picture from having been taken. But the only one with the courage and the lack of rationalizations was an orangutan.

 Just a few people with courage and morals will be enough to stop most of the evil that is taking place in the world today. Because it is obvious there are precious few real leaders. Most of the rest of us simply go along and do what we are told. All it takes is a few of us to simply refuse to obey what we know in our hearts is wrong, what hurts us to our core and lessens us as human beings. All it takes is to listen to the inner voice rather than being obedient to someone or something we despise. All it takes is for a few people to be who they want to be.

 Because this is a war. You have been conscripted into it, whether you like it or not. But you have been conscripted into the wrong side. This is a war against nature and I don’t have to tell you which side you should be on. Your heart knows. Your heart knows.

 Because a war against nature is a war against everything—absolutely everything—that matters.

 And you are oh so much more free than you have been led to believe. They have told you a story—a horribly ugly story—and you believed it. You believed it because you couldn’t believe anyone would lie like that, because you would never think to lie like that.

 You believed a story that said life is terrible and you just have to swallow the terribleness if you’re ever going to eke some small degree of pleasure from life. Accept that the human race is on a march to extinction and is taking the rest of the planet with you, and they will let you make monthly payments on an SUV. Accept the gnawing feeling in your guts and you can escape reality on the weekend by watching Star Wars episodes and thinking how cool it would be to be a Jedi. Accept the rule of the psychopaths and they will leave you alone once in a while.

They tell you there is nothing you can do because you're just one person. They tell you you're all alone and nothing you can do by yourself will ever matter.

 They tell you its just how it is. They tell you there’s no hope in resisting. They forced their beliefs onto you and you have internalized them.

 But it only takes one person to refuse. It only takes one link in the chain to decide it’s not going to be a part of it anymore. It only takes you. You can change things. I believe in you. 

And you are not alone.

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