Okay, I’m experimenting with multiple cuts, to satisfy my need to seperate the representation of separate thoughts, and to accomodate those who are irritated when I put multiple immediately consecutive entries.
This is a bad time to be an American
The hypothetical future of the cyberpunk universe is seeming increasingly likely to me.
Our “leadership” is letting our passenger rail network, one of the most resource efficient modes of transportation available, fall apart, while bickering over its inability to succeed independently in the market. All the while blithely ignoring, and refusing to mention the hundreds of billions of dollars automatically approved from our pockets to subsidize automobile ownership and usage, an incredibly resource inefficient transportation scheme.
Meanwhile, our corporations are falling apart under the weight of their own unmonitored corruption while our civil liberties are being whittled away with the excuse of a “war on terror” which seems to have done little more than replace a stable, morally despicable totalitarian state with a despotic puppetocracy that won’t last 2 months after the withdrawal of American troups. Well, that, and kill thousands of civilians while destroying the infrastructure of a third world nation that already hates the U.S.
But wait, there’s more. The supreme court has recently upheld that our children, citizens though they may be, are not entitled to a freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by agents of the government in the form of drug testing to be in a language club or on the debate team. Add onto that their decision that united states taxes can fund education at religious institutions, and you may start to see why I’m uncomfortable.
And to point out yet another example, we have a United States citizen, who has been detained for months, who will not be tried before a jury of his peers, but rather a military tribunal.
The 9th circuit court of appeals has attempted to reassure individuals of less common religious persuasions that they too are valued members of our society, pointing to the protections displayed in the first amendment to our Constitution. The senate seems beyond eager to dismantle the first amendment to cowtow to an artifact of McCarthy-ism. It was one of pettiest, yet most purely nauseating displays of group-think I’ve ever seen.
Given the current ambience of emphatic unity, displayed through homogeneity, it’s hardly surprising that independent thought among our leadership is rare but it is heartbreakingly disappointing.
Oh yeah, and all this under the watch (reign might be more accurate) of a man who couldn’t even get a plurality from the American people. The post I started this journal off with, which I myself had laughed at as hopelessly paranoid not so very long ago now seems almost prophetic in its beginning and hopelessly idealistic in its closing.
In reading this year’s pride issue of the stranger, seattle’s alternanews weekly, where savage love got its start (I believe), I ran across someone pondering the consequences of definining oneself in terms of what one is not, something that goes hand in hand with identifying oneself as an outsider.
My thoughts are that eventually you end up in a full out retreat from everything. You find fault with everything, and accept nothing. You fall victim to the endless subdivision of every grouping. You connect to no one and nothing because they are not you, and not something you identify with. You are unique, like a snowflake, dammit, and no, not that snowflake. Which, ironically enough, leads to a flat sameness. Just like bald heads tend to look more alike than the many variations of hair. (Not that bald heads are bad, kelrick, I happen to be fond of them 😉
In many ways, I identify with the outsider definition by selective rejection. Veganism is a clear rejection. Identifying as queer involves rejecting so much, rejecting the way of life that your parents led. And unfortunately, it offers only tenuous connections in return, to a nebulous community with which you are not necessarily likely to have all that much in common, and which alot of us subsequently reject anyway (leading to <shock> divisive subgroups).
Anyway, my real point is that I feel like of late I’ve been rejecting more than I’ve been connecting.
So, I’d like to identify some of the guiding positives in my life.
I believe in the paramount importance of the following:
respect for the value of life.
personal freedom.
group harmony and organization to coordinate such.
an individual sense of identity.
respect for reason, logic, and the scientific method.
plus some other stuff
I love chicago. Not just the people there. I love the lakeside park. I love the El. I love the stores, the sears tower, the restaurants, the neighborhoods, and the views. I feel a the loss every time I leave town, a desire to stay, and experience more of it. The pull of the enjoyable familiar in an area too large to ever be fully explored.
The polyamorous reflex in me applies to far more than my human interactions. I want to reach out and drink deep of many cups. I want to live in the bay area, toronto, chicago, pittsburgh, ithaca, athens, and burlington. And the more explore, the more I find to love. And this is one case where the inexorable laws of time and space limit just what is possible.
Still, I feel the urge for stability, and as I’m maturing, it is getting stronger, or my drive for exploration is calming. The annealing process for my life is continuing to cool, and I don’t think it’ll be long before I find a place to more or less settle. Maybe a couple more years of my footloose life, we shall see. Still, I wonder where it will be.
Right on! I agree with your summary of American politics and national mentality completely. I will be celebrating this 4th of July in England. HAHAHA! Don’t forget that we’re still fighting the “war of drugs” which is essentially a war against the citezens of this country.
PS I used to read the Stranger every week while I was living in Seattle!