I’m reading my first Stephen King novel. It’s kind of odd, in that I feel as though I’ve read so many of them already – horror staples of my life, like Carrie, Cujo, Christine, Children of the Corn, and that’s just the “C”s – and yet, this is actually the first time I’ve ever read the prose of the man. This book is also a “C” story. It’s called “Cell”, and without giving anything away, it takes a look at a complete meltdown of our modern social structure as seen through the eyes of (surprise, surprise) a graphics novelist from Maine, who finds himself stuck in the middle of Boston, when the whole damn place comes unhinged around him.
I’m only at page 53, so who knows where this thing is headed, but so far, I’ve gotten a taste of Boylston Street at Arlington in front of the Four Seasons Hotel in full conflagration – not the worst visual I’ve ever entertained – with people basically tearing each other’s throats out in random mayhem. And no, the WTO isn’t a part of any of this. This is a Stephen King novel. It’s not an Ann Coulter wet dream of tree hugging leftists finally unleashing the true evil insanity that lurks within. It is, however, a pretty chilling reminder that our world of stop lights, crosswalks, and right-of-way, is dependent on the premise that signs, lights and painted lines on asphalt have the power to keep disaster from becoming a part of our daily lives.
Interestingly, things weren’t always as predictable and stable as we’ve come to assume them to be. Even in this land of unrestrained opportunity, there have been times when the balance between freedom and responsibility tipped perilously to a point where one or the other threatened to bring it all down around the heads of those whose only duty was to ensure that it remained intact for us, the future of their America. One such time was the Great Depression of the 1930’s.
Now, we’ve all heard both sides of the story on FDR and the New Deal, and how he either saved us in our darkest hour, or he destroyed us with the creation of the Welfare State in America. There are points to be made from each side of the divide, but what I want to take a look at, is what may have inspired the creation of the US version of the benevolent malignancy of state mandated altruism.
Can you imagine being in charge of a nation where 25 – 35 percent of the workforce was idle? Now imagine that all these workers, and their families, had no mechanism available to prevent further suffering, like homelessness, starvation, rampant disease, and the kinds of horrors that parade themselves through the lives of the destitute on this planet. That’s pretty bad, but now imagine that the other 65 – 75 percent of the population is in desperate fear of joining the cursed in their hell of extreme poverty at every turn of their daily lives. Can you imagine an entire 100% of the people under your rule being in that kind of daily existential terror?
If you can’t imagine that, or more likely, if you refuse to accept the premise, then try to imagine this:
35 percent of the population suddenly deciding to simply take what the other 65 percent have, after being presented with no alternative but to do so out of sheer survival.
It’d never happen – right? American citizens would choose to go to their graves before they’d cross against the light, or drive the wrong direction down a one-way street, or tear your throat out to have what they need to feed themselves and their families?
So, what planet do you live on when you’re not visiting planet Earth?
That Stephen King novel’s opening scene might be a little over the top, and its carnage isn’t triggered by anything as mundane as wholesale poverty’s legions coming to terms with the fact that no one gives a damn about them and their inability to succeed in a sparkling world of pure competition, but it does give one a glimpse into how fragile civilization actually is. Even this civilization that we embrace as the last, best hope for mankind.
The last 7 years have been a study in what can be achieved if you’re smart, aggressive, and personally connected to the folks who were able to bully their way to the head of the class. It’s been quite the revelation, and we’re in the middle of an unprecedented political primary season as a result of what we’ve learn about how well true capitalism serves the needs of the people who actually make up the bulk of the society that feeds that capitalism and allows it to survive.
Back in the 30’s, capitalism came really close to being grabbed by its fat-marbled neck, and wrung out by some extremely potent ideologies that appeared to at least care about serving the needs of the people who gathered at their feet as they made their cases for ascendency. FDR had no choice but to put a safety net under the poorest of the poor, when it came right down to it. He was a rich man, and he was as far removed from the suffering of those wretches as anyone could ever be, but he was also a man who could recognize a heads-up when he saw one. Such as the heads-up coming from Russia, as the revolution that had transformed hundreds of years of stable Czarist domination overnight, began its spread across Europe and into the western hemisphere. Give them a safety net or suffer the consequences. It was a deal he couldn’t refuse, and thank God he was smart enough to realize it.
So, here we are today, with more billionaires that ever before – as well as more widespread poverty and economic failure than we’ve seen since those dark days of the Great Depression’s heavy hand on the shoulder of Franklin Roosevelt. I heard a jovial ad this morning about a 1-800 number you could call to take advantage of a glut of foreclosed houses, and get them for pennies on the dollar. As if this was a good thing for the average home buyer in search of their own personal American dream. Yeah, maybe getting a house in recession-ravaged Ohio for only 20 to 30 thousand bucks is a dream come true, but that dream comes at the price of someone else’s nightmare, and I, for one, believe in the ghosts of tragedy lingering at the scene of the crime after the corpses have all been carted away and the floors washed down. That 20 thousand dollar steal of a house belongs to someone else’s hell, and painting over what went down there won’t turn it into my dream home regardless of what nuggets of enlightened pragmatism tumble from the mouth of the high priest of plutocratic supremacy as he blesses the dump on my behalf.
The truth is that what we have, we have by the beneficence of the worst among us. The poorest, and the most reviled of our numbers have the God-given right to do what they see fit to do, to have what it is that they decide that they want to have. The stop signs can’t stop them, and the laws that we look to for assurance can only assign the blame in the event of a full frontal assault on what we’ve come to assume is the natural order of things. In truth, the natural order involves taking what one wants, and whatever one wants, to the extent that one can successful take it. There is no other natural order, and if the 80 percent of those who lack, decide to one day reach out and take what the other 20 percent have, there’s not much that anyone will be able to do about it.
I mean, think about it. The main strength of our military can’t even keep a lid on Baghdad. And if you think that the police could bring it all back under control, then take a moment to scroll through some of the news items that came out of New Orleans during the 5 days of hell that those poor souls endured. It doesn’t take long for a wholesale collapse of order to get way beyond the Thin Blue Line. You see, they call it the Thin Blue Line because it’s only a line, and it’s really, really thin. Without the agreement of the governed – and at all levels of economic existence – this entire society stands at the brink with all its toes stretching out into the void and its head swimming with a vertigo that threatens to pitch it forward out of a sheer lack of gyroscopic stability.
Here’s to hoping that our next batch of leaders have the pragmatic sense of responsibility that Franklin Roosevelt had, back when he led us all down that slippery slope to the Nanny State that so many of us rail against. In the 1980’s movie “Wall Street”, Gordon Gecko quipped “Greed is good.” to a generation of salivating young professional predators, and maybe he was right. However, blind greed – the kind that traps the monkey to the jar as the foolish creature refuses to release the apple holding its hand within its confines – isn’t good. In fact, it’s a lot like that little monkey who surrenders his freedom for the fruit that he can’t bear to let go of, and can’t pull through the opening of the jar.
There are many, many millions of us who have lost our ability to believe that this society cares about our futures, and the futures of our families. We’ve lost our ability to explain away the brittle reality of those with so much regarding us with such overt contempt due to the simple fact that they won and we lost in that one small arena involving acquisition. We’ve tried, and failed, to take the blame for our lot, as time after time, we’ve seen how bluntly the surface has been altered to favor the privileged few at the expense of the many. Basically, we’ve lost our capacity to allow our beneficence to cause any more injury to ourselves and to those that we love and have pledged our lives to.
To the rich and powerful, let me say this one thing, and say it only once. The last 7 years are yours, and we’ll let you have them at no charge. You’ve done well with those years, and we’ll let you keep what you’ve been able to gather together. We’ll even clean up the mess that you and yours have left behind in your hurry to get as much as possible before losing it to some other among your ranks. In essence, you’re free to go away now, and live out your lives in freedom and peace.
However, if you choose to remain here, and choose to continue the feeding frenzy of the last 7 years, be advised that our offer of amnesty will be immediately revoked, and all that you’ve taken from us will be taken back by us. And that only pertains to the wealth and spoils. Your very existence will become ours to determine as well. As will that of those who have been beneficiary to your wholesale greed.
You think I’m kidding? Look around you as walk from your cars to your restaurants and office buildings. We’re right there as you make your hurried way toward yet another important meeting. We’re always there, and we’ll always be there. We’re one million times your number, and the only reason you still exist is because we allow you to exist. That could change at any moment, and no poll or market research team will ever give you the straight up on this like I’m doing for you right now.
The natural order is savage, and it’s brilliantly decisive.
Never forget that.
A Moment of Transcendence
February 22, 2008 · 1 Comment
© Tracy Lee Carroll
I think it’s going to be okay.
When all is said and done, and the opposing campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reach that moment where one campaign is presented with the need to transition into supporting the general election campaign of the other, I think it’s going to be okay.
I think I saw the moment tonight where, in spite of the hair likely being yanked out of a few professional skulls backstage, Hillary Clinton lifted herself above those who surround her, and showed that she has every right to be in the running for the presidency – even if that goal has ultimately slipped beyond her reach.
And I know I wasn’t the only one to witness that ascendance. In fact, she received the evening’s only standing ovation as that moment of naked humanity and genuine perspective announced itself on that stage in Austin, Texas, to the exhilaration of every grown-up in the room. In fact, the only ones seemingly oblivious to the power of that instance have been the professional media flacks getting paid the big bucks to translate it all for those of us – in our dulled eight-second sound bite mentality – who salivate in a Pavlovian swoon, longing desperately for their learned take of what we all were perfectly capable of seeing for ourselves.
What happened, for anyone that didn’t see it, and won’t see it replayed on their TV or their YouTube video feed over the next news cycle or so, was that Hillary Clinton made it crystal clear that she knows that she just might lose this contest, and that it won’t be the end of the world for her if she does.
Of everything that I’ve ever heard her say, going all the way back to the early days of Bill’s run for the White House in 1992, this string of related sentences – spoken at the end of last night’s Texas debate – were her most impressive. It proved to me that there is something far greater to be gained in an honorable defeat than in a bitter victory, and it showed me that there are aspects of these competing campaign to change the direction of our national trajectory that drive them in ways that we’ve not seen before. Aspects that are far larger than anyone in either campaign, and certainly larger than anyone standing in the way of that change.
You see, it wasn’t the fact of her subtle indication that her life would go one in spite of a loss to Obama. It was that she declared that the winning of the primary was secondary to the accomplishment of this wholesale trajectory change that we so desperately need, and that we, the American public, must be the ultimate winner.
And I honestly believed her when she said it. I mean, I could literally feel that she meant it when she said it. And so could everyone, unaffected by the childish instigators of the corporate media, that heard her say it.
It may sound naive, but I can still feel it – and it feels pretty good.
There will still be a pack of media loads blathering on about horse races, and Super Delegates, and the Ohio/Texas firewall, and who won what debate as opposed to who exceeded the lowered expectations of whatever the hell was being expected during that two hour performance. And we’ll sit there and watch corporate funded political hatchets being tossed back and forth between every cluster of pup tents that have been set up to litter the professional landscape that we’ve been taught to believe is the world of public service, and we’ll get sucked back into it all as if it’s about our own ability to win against those who’ve lined up vicariously against us, and not about how best to spend the next four years of our collective future as a nation.
Her moment of grace and dignity won’t change how we do the nation’s business, and it won’t change how we approach the responsibility of selecting our political leaders. We’ll still drag our fears, hurts, hatreds, and humiliations around with us as we make our individual and collective cases for the prom kings and queens in this high school of hard knocks. We’ll still allow the worst and weakest parts of ourselves to make the loudest noise when we open our mouths to express what it is that drives us to commitment for one or the other of the presented choices.
We’ll still be who we are when all of this recedes into the miles that lay behind us.
What I hope is that Hillary Clinton will be transformed, as a human being, following that moment of personal transfiguration at the end of last night’s debate.
When John Kennedy died in Dealy Plaza, his brother Bobby, the brittle and petty pitbull of Camelot, retired to reflect on what it all meant for him and his own life going forward. The man who emerged from that quiet could have led this nation to its greatest moment ever, and inspired decades of national and international luminescence through the example that he was capable of as a man transformed by the agony he’d been blessed with. Ted Kennedy, embarrassingly denied “his turn” at the presidency, took that humiliation, put it behind him, and crafted one of the most legendary careers in modern public service as the liberal lion of the US Senate, wracking up more actual impact on our nation’s policy structure than both of his vaunted brothers combined. Love him or hate him, Ted Kennedy has made his mark in permanent ink, and in doing so, affected how this nation will see itself for the foreseeable future.
In fact, all great leaders have had that moment when, tested by very personal pain, they reached within themselves and discovered the strength to be that leader – and with it, the capacity to realize the value in service to that which is greater than themselves. Hillary’s pain at being publicly rejected in her bid for the White House may have this very same impact on her, and if it does, it will be we the people who will benefit from that transformation. She certainly has the capacity to remake the world we call home, and hopefully, she’ll find the reason to place herself far enough beneath that world to be able to help us all lift it to where it needs to rise.
Today Hillary’s hired flacks will be crowing about how she looked “presidential” and how she deserves the nod because she was able to be more magnanimous – as though any of that is relevant to the job description – but I just hope and pray that the candidate herself – the woman herself – never forgets that moment when she just may have come to terms with the possibility that she will never become the nation’s first woman president, and that, if it best serves the needs of the people of the nation itself, that she was okay with that possibility.
As I’ve written before, we need both of these candidates on our team as we prepare to do battle against the monsters that have been stuffed under our bed while we allowed the Bush team to sing us to sleep with lullabies that should have had us bolting from the room. The time is coming when we’ll need to grab these beasts and properly throttle them into the submissive role they were meant to play in our society. We’ll need all the help we can get.
Last night I caught a whiff of pure fresh air as that debate wound down to its final seconds, and it felt good as it entered my lungs. I want more of it. I can’t go back to the putrid stench that’s been passed off as oxygen for as long as I can remember. I won’t.
Categories: News Commentary · Opinion · Politics · Uncategorized
Tagged: Barack Obama, debate, Hillary Clinton, Politics