Jim Throws Down Life Lessons As Though He Were A Blind Donkey, Playing Pin The Tail On The Thought Process

 *****EXPLICIT LYRICS BE FOUND WITHIN*****

BLOG Formerly Known as “Fuck Conformity”

So here’s a question.  Why is it that we (collectively) have decided that choices in our life seem to be most often in black-and-white.  Even if we concede that there isn’t a particular side that is inherently good or bad, we tend to think in terms of the extreme, or at least a diminishment of any gradient along the line.  Republican or Democrat.  Fat or thin.  Blonde or Brunette.  Etc., etc., etc.  Sure, people on either side of the polarity there are apt to view the “others” with some level of either disdain, or at the very least distinction.  But where does this drive to conformity to polar norms really lead us to?  We shooting for a Morlock-Eloi relationship as our societal target?  A scary thought for me is to think of Orwell (1984) and think that these arbitrary societal “norms” really are nothing more than a political tactic whereby one side gains support of the grays in the middle by forcing the issue not into a what you want, but what you don’t want.  It’s not enough to be a libertarian, dangling between the fiscal and social issues, hopelessly stranded betwixt the parties.  No, no, no.  You have to choose.  You have to BE a liberal or a conservative, otherwise that (socialist/anarchist) will do X, Y, and Z.  So we’ve degraded the greatest government concept EVER within 250 years to a populous that is 25% “white”, 25% “black” and 50% “who couldn’t fucking care less”.  Eventually isn’t it at least conceivable that our society fractures to the point where people 99% the same, who want the same things, but have different ideas about how to get there start pointing guns at each other and declaring them the enemy?  And god forbid if we get just complacent enough to let the government start telling us who the enemy is.  Yeah, Orwell was right. 

So again I ask.  What the fuck is so special about conformity?  Isn’t it just a way to ball as many people into one of two groups, strip their individual (dissenting) identities until at last you have an army of loyal citizens who all toe the line?  And isn’t that really just militancy.  <<<ALL MY MARINE BROTHERS, ALL DUE RESPECT FOR THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE(S)>>>  We don’t train Marines from day one to fundamentally question things.  A Marine in the line of fire that spends time pondering the justness of their cause, or the morality of killing, or anything else is not an effective weapon.  They are broken down from the start and built into soldiers that are committed to their mission and loyal to it, some might say to a fault.  But they “toe the line”.  In the heat of battle, they’ll level their weapons and kill “the enemy” because their duty to loyalty is central to their being.  And that view is critical in time of war.  And it’s especially true for brothers in arms bonded by God and Country.  But society isn’t war…or at least it can and should operate on a different field than guys with guns.  A democracy even more so.  Twenty marines on a firing line with incoming fire are NOT A DEMOCRACY.  Twenty random citizens on the street in America right this instant ARE.  Or at least they are in concept of our “free” nation.  The reality is more like five of them are shoved into this circle, another five are shoved into another circle, and the final ten are either told to fuck off (no, you can’t register to vote today…sorry) or tell the system to fuck off (Obama and Romney?  Those are my choices…Where’s my beer?).  But yeah, that’s democracy circa 2012.  The good news is that if we have a war.  Like I don’t know, whip the public into a frenzy over weapons of mass destruction (that aren’t actually there) you can at least grab those other ten and get them close to the line in the name of patriotism.  God I love shotgun democracy.  And fuck the person who already coined that phrase, my children just lost $5 million in T-Shirt slogan money. 

Toe the line folks.  Stand up and be counted.  Well, unless you’re poor, brown, have tits, are against the war, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam.  And yeah, all those are social liberal stances that I picked.  Sue me.  But in a country that has always been dominated by rich, white, men.  I can’t really help to see the residual angst on behalf of the oppressed when there are still ignorant oppressors out there.  The KKK, people against DOMA, you know…people who will never see this country and its citizens as fundamentally the same regardless of any characteristics.  Son-of-a-bitch I can’t stay on topic.  I was going to call this thread F*!% Conformity.  Now I’m thinking something like aimless babble. 

But yeah, fuck conformity.  “Keep Austin Weird”.  “Keep Portland Weird”. 

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

                                                                                                                -Jack Kerouac

God damn right.  The mindless drones, the soldiers of politics, the black, the white, and the consenters.  You are not America.  You are slaves to an ideal that in all reality doesn’t give two shits about your ACTUAL ideals.  If you’re absolutely certain about anything in this world, you’re absolutely wrong.  Certainty is complacency. 

“The true value of man is not determined by his possession, supposed or real, of Truth, but rather by his sincere exertion to get to the Truth.  It is not possession of Truth by which he extends his powers and in which his ever-growing perfectability is to be found.  Possession makes one passive, indolent and proud.  If God were to hold all Truth concealed in his right hand, and in his left only the steady and diligent drive for Truth, albeit with the proviso that I would always and forever err in the process, and to offer me the choice, I would with all humility take the left hand. ”
                                                                                                                                - Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

                What is it about truth and certainty that we crave so greatly?  And how in hell, in this time of discovery and enlightenment, do we dare to stand before the universe and smugly think we KNOW anything.  Well, anything of certainty anyway.  Isn’t insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?  “The world is flat”.  There was a time when everyone believed that statement.  It made sense, because we didn’t have the perception to see that it was false.  It is only through analysis and discovery that starts with a boundless assumption that we could ever get to the truth.  If every single explorer had just accepted that the earth was flat and never bothered to try and find the edge…we’d still believe it.  And we’d still believe that Zeus causes the lightning.  Or that the sun is drug across the sky by Horace.  Or that….damn!!!!!!  Off topic again.  Well, at least the mystery of the title is cleared up.  Jim Throws Down Life Lessons As Though He Were A Blind Donkey, Playing Pin The Tail On The Thought Process.  And that shit my friends is an original, and is going on a shirt today.  Q&A, I just saved your futures. 

                Where was I?  Fuck conformity, some stuff about truth, and wisdom…oh yeah.  Fuck conformity.  Be a gray and be proud of it.  Stir the pot a little.  If America was founded as a melting pot, a crucible of people and personalities, with this our CORE SLOGAN:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

                Why are we so damn determined to separate those metals now and divide them. 

Give me your poor?  So we can just put them into the inner city ghettos and ignore their plight until they steal some rich guys’ car.

Yearning to be free?  Free so long as you fit the mold of what we say free is.

Lift my lamp beside the golden door?  Please.  What lamp?  What door? 

                Best I can tell, the American Dream which used to mean so many things has become writing on a men’s room stall.  Or worse, a cloak of patriotism that the people in power use to jingle our allegiance bells whenever we start to rise up.  Anyone out there doubt what a war does to our country?  Anyone actually believe that the masses don’t get up to “support the troops”, and are susceptible to any exploits in the name of patriotism?  We don’t have to be truly just, as long as we can convince “the people” that this war is for them, or their children.  It isn’t until years later that we learn that <putting on my tinfoil hat so the “watchers” don’t read my thoughts> the government would lie to our faces to justify an unjust war.  Gulf of Tonkin anyone?  They WANTED to engage in that conflict, so they cooked up a story that the nation bought hook, line, and sinker.  And all to avoid the backlash of the people who would say no.  To energize enough people that they (the government) wouldn’t have to fear the discourse because…..  The protesters are all UNPATRIOTIC.  Yep, the people that say, stop sending our children to some God forsaken jungle to be killed, and to kill women and children, who will come home scarred for life and most likely kill themselves (with Jim Beam, or a Smith & Wesson) all because of a phantom event that never actually happened, they are now the “bad people”.  But go on America.  Put your little sign up in your shop window.  “Support the Troops”.  I am so sick of that fucking phrase.  WE ALL SUPPORT THE TROOPS YOU FUCKING SHITS!!!!  Wearing a cross doesn’t make you a Christian.  And putting that sign up doesn’t make you a patriot.  Those things make you an advertisement to a cause, and often it’s a cause that somebody somewhere should do a reality check on the REAL issue behind it.  The next car I see with a “Support the Troops” and a “Die fags die” type bumper sticker on the same vehicle, I’m gonna rage at.  A profanity laced tirade that ass face probably couldn’t imagine.  And so I have another t-shirt idea.  Or better yet, I should make bumper stickers and slap them on the windows of these cars I see. 

“Support the troops, as long as they’re not faggots”

                Kinda catchy, no?  And again, I’m off topic, but as that’s par for the course today, I’m not gonna bother trying to right the ship at this point.  Take your false patriotism, and your false message of love, and go stand in the corner.  We REAL Americans have work to do.  We need to get out on the street and make sure we don’t let a bill pass that requires women to be paid like men for the same work.  We need to make sure them damn gays don’t get married because if we let them, well that’s the same as letting a man marry a gerbil.  We need to make sure that Staff Sergeant’s death at the hands of a suicide bomber doesn’t filter into the media because “the people” might not like that.  It’s important that he dies over there though, because otherwise we’d have to fight them over here.  Wait a second?  No.  Back in the corner with you. 

                So I beg all of you.  Stop seeing the world through black-and-white lenses.  Stop looking at your neighbor as an opponent because he thinks welfare is a good (or bad) idea.  Stop using words like Socialist because they pack a punch.  Obama isn’t a socialist folks.  Really, he’s not.  He’s no more a socialist than anyone who uses ROADS, you know…those federally funded flat things that take your from sea to shining sea.  Socio – of society.  It’s US folks.  All of US.  We are the society.  In all its splendor and all its folly.  From the KKK, to MLK.  From Rosa Parks, to Central Park.  We are the collection of misfits and miscreants united under one banner.  The red, white, and blue colors of a nation of immigrants and dreams.  All unique.  All worthy and valuable.  What do the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Gettysburg Address have in common.  Each one has an allusion, or a statement that reflects the unity of the people.  We, us, our.  No qualifiers.  No “we Christians”, or “we whites”.  It’s we AMERICANS.  All of us.  The tired, the weak, the huddled masses.  We WANTED these people because a man(genderless pronoun please) cast from a society forgotten will never be so loyal as to the one who shelters him, and values him.  So conceptually if we were founded on diversity, and for 200 years were the lamp beside the golden door, what are we now?  What would the plaque say to the world about us?  Would a single phrase remain?  The statue of tyranny, bright neon sign that says “NO VACANCY”.