~ Illusion and waste in a modern America.

I have no idea who Marsha Thole is.  She is not a friend of mine.  Evidently she wrote an Op-Ed piece for the Albuquerque Journal that someone read, others read - I didn’t.  What I did do is pick up on the story in the Letters to the Editor section a few days later (today) and since the letters meshed with the Empire of Illusion (a book that I am reading) I took interest.  In fact, I have taken enough interest as to write this post; which writing posts lately has not seem interesting enough to be worth the effort.  I guess you have noticed.

In fairness I might say that it is raining today in Albuquerque.  It is raining enough as to keep me off the roof and that the roof work (I remind you) is about rain and leaks (leeks too) so it is not good that I am off the roof, but it is good that I am posting.  Marsha Thole may disagree by the time I’m finished with this.

The general idea here is that nobody in America wants to be a sucker.  W.C. Fields was right in his summarization of popular (or media) thought in America, “Never give a sucker an even break”.  I was raised with this mantra; not by my family, but by the media.  Everywhere people (media published people) were extolling the virtues of one-up-man-ship and the fears associated with being a loser.

The concept was that America was an egalitarian place; probably the only egalitarian place on the planet.  Everywhere else (according to this myth) everyone was always being cheated; fairplay was impossible; the privileged and various elites accompanied by various crooks and corrupt officials (and they were always accompanied by these nere-do-wells) always had the upper hand and always used that upper hand to make a mockery of the equality that Americans took for granted.

We must be careful about what “equal” means.  It is a concept.  It means such things as “equal before the law” (not “after” the law).  It means an “equal opportunity”, an “equal chance”, “equal pay for equal work”.  It means of course that there is or should be an “equal playing field” at the outset and it also means of course that there never will be an “equal outcome” to anything - because equality never really means equality.  Real equality is socialism, altruism, Jesusonian idealism and just another word for “sucker”.  And every true American fears more than anything being a sucker.

The concept of equality exists in America to appease the collective guilt that would (and does) arise naturally from participating in and supporting an inherently unfair system.  Altruism is based on the reality that equality does not and cannot exist in an imperfect world - end of discussion.  But altruism holds out the hope, even the promise, that being unequal will not lead to a life or a life experience that is unfair, unjust, monotonous, unfulfilled, wasted, or even wanting.  Altruism is the opposite of capitalism and greed.  True altruism requires the individual to be sensitive to and aware of the shortcomings of others and to desire, to be virtually consumed with the desire, to alleviate the real life needs caused by these shortcomings.  Altruism is never conditioned by convoluted arguments and impractical applications or inventions - it is always simple, and in being simple is always direct.

Sounds like Congress, doesn’t it?  Sounds like George “W” doesn’t it, or Ronald Reagan or LBJ or even FDR?  I think not.  Altruism transcends partisan politics and labeling; it transcends national identities and boundaries.  Altruism is universal as a concept and flourishes mostly where there is the most need and need is not what America is all about so it is no wonder that altruism enjoys such little value as it seemingly does in America.

But the rhetoric gets ahead of me.  Marsha Thole evidently fears that she and others like her are suckers.  They fear that they are working harder and getting less than the poor, the welfare cheats, those born less lucky or less rich than she (but of course she will deny being born “rich”).  She attributes all failure to “bad choices”, as if equality died at birth or even before birth in the case of most of those born to most unwed or unwanted “moms”.  Marsha Thole cannot see the blessings and the advantages that she was born with, that she garnered from the fortunate lives of others.  She cannot see the advantages that she has daily received from the exploitation of other nations, their resources, their labor pools.  She asserts that what she has is hers alone, accomplished by what she alone has done.  She is so very, very wrong.  She has done little or nothing in the greater scheme of things; she has failed to even help her self except at the cost of the attempted ruination and the successful exploitation of others.  And these multitudes of others she does not even know; she cares not that they exist.  She just sees everything as “I” and “My” and “Mine” and fears that she is the sucker not getting an even break.  She’s sad, so sad.  And she Op-Ed’s her sadness.

In reality “bad choices” is owning too many houses, being a landlord or landlady, earning more than $100,000 per person per year (and maybe that’s too much).  Bad choices is doing nothing with ones life except for buying things, buying cars that are excessive, taking too many trips to nowhere and flying first class and eating too well and staying in hotel rooms regularly that are too nice.  A very bad choice is having ones own jet, or having one available, and actually flying in it instead of using it to deliver food to Biafra or medicine to Botswana or someplace not better.

Bad choices is being in the top 1% or wanting to be in the top 1%.  The worst choice is staying there, thinking you deserve anything that the wealth has brought, thinking that you don’t deserve what the hoarding of the unfair wealth will bring.  Being rich is never better; it’s a suckers game; these people don’t deserve an even break.  Give them all the money and be happy for it.  Money becomes worthless when people stop doing things for money.  We get closer every day.

Americans live in the only eco-system based on cash; and we think we are all so “green”.  We do not understand green at all.  Green is not about money, making more of it, being carbon neutral as we squander away our lives.  Green is about leaving berries or worms for the next bird (if you’re a bird); not paying others to build your nest; not expecting to be born owning every feathered nest in town.  America needs a government and a Constitution because most Americans do not have the intelligence of birds, at least those in America in power don’t and those in America that support the power such as it is (don‘t).

On page #127 Chris Hedges presents a twist on the nature of human nature.  He quotes Christopher Peterson who seems to forget that free will exists.  Chris seems rather confused about so many things; but it is clear that he is in it for the money, green guy, not a bird-brain at all.

Who are the real suckers here?  America.  Can you hear me now?

[2009.10.28 / Wednesday - Played for a sucker]