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Friday, August 1, 2008

7/30- 8/1/08: Denver V-Ideological Puppets

Wednesday thru Friday was all pretty much the same. Up and to work at 8:00, chatting between jobs with Eric about society etc., then going home to sleep, then chatting with Chris, or just playing Risk until 2am. We each noted that it was rare these days that people would rather prefer human contact and conversation to sitting in front of a television, computer, or video game. We wondered aloud if this was similar to the time before the mass media invasion when people would sit on their porches and chat with neighbors, or something akin to the old folks you used to see just chatting in the café.


Chris and I came to the conclusion that we would rather hang out at The Friary and chat rather than sit at the bar, burn through money…and chat. We can do that at home, spend nothing, and avoid the inevitable hangovers. Over the years, these conversations were what I was ultimately looking for when I drank; intellectual exercise and a need to exchange ideas rather than mental masturbation! (yes, I like that term)


There were a couple notable events, especially on Thursday. A familiar event and one I am not proud of because, by then, it was not unexpected. It was a replay of the incident at King Soopers, but this time on the 16th Street Mall downtown. We had walked down to Barnes & Noble so I could get a re-fill for my written journal, and guess who was ‘activisting’ at the door. Yep. Greenpeace. Same hippie uniform. Same billboard posing as her T- shirt.


I saw her a mile away, sizing us up to see if we were promising targets, and when she took her first step toward us, I said “Don’t even bother!”, in a rather threatening tone. She stopped dead in her tracks, and gave me the same line Hippie McDouche had given: “Wellll, you have a nice dayyyy.” I rather loudly told her to ‘Fuck off’, much to Chris’s dismay!


I got my refill and began feeling bad about this one. It was not her I was yelling at; it was the invisible hand pulling the marionette strings. I still needed to figure out how to deal with this, but remorse was a good start.
Chris and I chatted about this stuff on the way home and it became apparent to me that he was indeed correct a few days earlier. I indeed am much more focused. I now have a much clearer sense of what I thought was wrong with society: the illusion of choice in politics, and these little doe-eyed liberal pawns thinking that they are really making a difference. When I see them, I now have neither tolerance nor interest in accommodating the social tumors.


The problem for me is that these ‘pawns’ are not the problem at all and can be forgiven in that at least they think they are doing the right thing. The real source of my rage is sits higher: the Agenda Architects on BOTH sides, who hitch their wagons to an ideological horse, then use these naïve, idealist- mules to haul whatever ‘intellectual’ garbage their selling…for profit. The young deserve patience for not knowing any better, thus my newfound remorse. The puppet masters, however, deserve every ounce of venom that can be mustered, especially if they were once the young, naïve mule! These Stealth Capitalists (see Santa Fe post) are in no way authentically ‘progressive’, and no more noble than Pat Robertson or Focus on the (or for me, your own damn) Family. If they advertise themselves as ‘activists’, yet have highly paid CEO’s and lawyers on the payroll, they’re simple hypocrites only different from the extreme right Social Fascist in packaging: Pepsi or Coke. It is still agenda pedaling, and exploiting/profiting on the idealistic; selling an intensely marketed product: ideas. I’ve worked for a couple of these organizations, only for a couple hours each after answering the ads reading “Work for social change!” That was a significant step in me leaving Camp Liberal; these ‘activists’ reminded me of the sales- cults I’d been exposed to in radio.

This is particularly personal to me because of my exposure to a few of the left elites. I’ve been briefly invited inside their little circle; at least long enough to sniff around, gather some firsthand information and experience, and learn some of the tactics used to disguise this new capitalism. It never set well with me that these elites preached Nuevo Liberalism while living in opulent homes, driving the same SUVs, and consuming the same products, with the same voracity, as I imagine William Randolph Hearst had. The Left love to build monuments to themselves, their ‘Hearst Castles’ too. Are you listening Al Gore?


What you have just experienced was, for all intents and purposes, my entire week! I was concerned while on the road about my perceived lack of the socially/politically-based anger you have just witnessed, and to which I have grown so accustomed. This week, I reintroduced myself to it. With a new ferocity and specificity. It would seem that the lack of the frustration on the road stems from the fact that I wasn’t plugged into The Matrix; existing outside on the fringes as a simple spectator. 

When I returned, that disconnection and discomfort I have written about was my mind telling me “NO!” I'd had a 5- week furlough and now I was back in the mental and spiritual prison.


Friday I wrapped up the week working with Eric, got paid, and decided to work a couple days next week to raise more money, and to continue to process some things. Chris had a date Friday night, and I had a rather enjoyable evening writing all night.


Quite an interesting week, and Saturday would be almost as interesting AND enlightening. A true test for the new epistemology was coming out of nowhere!