Monday, June 8, 2015

Exit Interview...









Gog L. Mitey
Vicinity 1124
Ethereal, Kanvas
Orion 7.46



                                                                                                              Whatever, Whenever

Dear Humans;

After many centuries and much consternation, I am writing to inform all of you that I am resigning as your benevolent...well, actually I'm not sure what anymore.  I was simply a passing stranger at a difficult time in your history, and somehow I managed to instill in your primitive culture an assumption of some grandiose position I held in your feeble existence.  Was hardly warranted.  Yes, I am plagued by eternal life, I gather wisdom like some collect bad habits, but when you are vaporous and ethereal;  unable to perish like some aging cow, boredom becomes a daily, tortuous condition.  And perhaps sadly, I surrendered to your continued accolades over my vast stores of wisdom and knowledge.  The short version:  I  kind of liked the attention.

However, it has led to so many misunderstandings, strange interpretations and fierce competition over whose voice the real Gog L. Mitey speaks for; further, whose side I might be on?  And unfortunately, once you humans invented  politicians and television, it all became too much to endure.  Nothing but endless squabbling and all these hysterical messages about failing body parts, barristers who bear false sincerity, and all this penis gratification nonsense for old men with fat bellies and imagined ferocity -- so tedious for an entity like myself, who has no body, much less falling parts...Or was it failing parts?  Kind of thought that issue went away after I provided you with a cure for that leprosy thing, but then, you humans seem to like problems, for every time I solved one sticky issue, strange affliction, or mindless conflict...you wandered off to find another one. Quite baffling behaviour considering that you have a tendency to just expire and leave me to clean up another mess.  Should be Gog the Janitor.  Except you'd probably get that name wrong too! 

Well, I've had enough.  But before I go, I want to clarify a few matters. First off, all of us Etherals are named Gog.  Some earlier Gogs who stumbled in here tried a few subtle messages from the heavens, mostly because you humans were always looking skyward for some explanation for your misery.  Somehow you always assumed that some monstrous external entity was responsible for your sorry state.  A Devil?  An Angry Gog fighting with some other Gog for your soul?  Ha!  Who would want to possess such a pathetic item.  I would rather collect a jarful of farts. 

But, I digress.  You see, being ethereal, up/down, left/right, good/evil, man/woman -- all have no meaning.  There is no absolute nor opposite in a vapor.  I cannot take sides, because I have none, cannot hate because that would require joy...can never judge because I know no comparisons.  I listen, I whisper, I have the patience of death itself, yet even after centuries of quiet counsel here, I am unable to decipher your incredible sense of pointless resolve.  You struggle, you suffer to die, and some other human takes your place on a path that leads...well, to the somewhere and nowhere that defines your existence.  You believe that some means will justify an end that you celebrate as the end to all ends...a final cleansing for your dirty little world perhaps.  And what?  You're coming to live with me?  Sit glowing at the feet of one who has no feet?  Bask in the shadow of one who claims no image?  A fascinating strategy indeed! However, you are not welcome here, for there is no here, here.  Or over there. There is only the Ether.  Which is everywhere and nowhere, but never here.    

From the very beginning you worshipped such things as the Sun, the Moon...thunder and lightning -- made them into gogs...like Ra and Osiris.  Later, some less savage types; who called themselves the Hellenic's; well, they took it a step further and declared that the new gogs wandered about the clouds and stars or lived in the depths of the vast oceans: Jupiter, Zeus, Mars & Neptune. And  Aphrodite -- a she-gog that was kinda cute in a fleshy sort of way.  The male gogs made war, fooled about with humans and lesser gogs, while the she-gogs cleaned up the mess.  It was a trend that would last for centuries.  However, even though you folks worshiped these insincere things, fought for their pleasure, then slaved away to build gaudy temples to honor these awful surrogates, in the end they laughed loudly at your mortal flaws.  And you seemed to enjoy this bashing immensely!  I was baffled and tried for many days to chuckle at this contradiction, but I simply could not master this skill.



So I tried a different tack.   I 'empowered' a few individuals with a few new  and enlightening thoughts.  At least I thought I had.  Was very careful choosing the thoughts I would project.  Then I'd take some human, like a simple carpenter's son, and whisper a few good ideas in his sleep.  Seemed to be taking hold as some humans actually stopped fighting long enough to listen. But others enjoyed fighting so much that they simply expired my messenger.  I kept trying, but when other messengers expired, you humans went to staring at the sky again and mumbling that it was all gog's will.  They even made books and said I spoke these words.  Later, you made awful statues of me with a beard and then worshipped these images.  Well, I don't have a beard, or a sex, or even fingers to grasp a pen.  I only have thoughts that endlessly annoy me.  So, no, I did not write the Bible, or the Quran , or The Vidas and I never met that Moses fellow.  I did see his fictitious Commandments and mused,  "Well good luck on that plan Mr. Moses!"   And yes, it helped me finally learn how to laugh.  A grand achievement for a vaporous figment with no lips.  

I did have better luck with this little fat fellow that was very talkative...uh, Bood Ha was his name.  He never answered the questions of his followers,  instead merely passing along a few of my thoughts and leaving his students to figure out the answers.  Same with a curious fellow named Confusion.  Only offered his listeners little parodies of my logic...never really answered any questions, for all such answers were personal and private -- not universal. There were no tests and no one could pass or fail.  Much better than the other messengers, who were always telling people that I was going to send them to somewhere unpleasant.  Place called Hell as I remember it.  But to me, the other place you invented seemed just about as bad.  For me anyway. 

So, as people seemed to be getting a little brighter, I introduced Sciences. Thought maybe humans would stop killing each other if I invented Curiosity.  Ha!  While I was dreaming up some fun topics for you to explore...kind of wean you off this heavens-staring thing,  you invented something called religion.  Worse yet, you claimed that all of your silly actions were part of Gog's Plan!  And then, you came up with 148 different versions of Gog's Plan -- even though I don't have any plans -- only thoughts.  So, more fighting, with each of all your various sides either blaming me or claiming some idiocy about me leading you to victory!  And all these broken voices lying in the mud and blood of battle, weakly sending their voices skyward..."Save me Gog, save me !   I am dying...."  As if a vapor has the arms to lift these broken bones skyward, or the capacity to heal such an atrocity.  I could not even close my eyes or turn my back, as I don't visualize with light, hear with ears, nor have a back to turn.  For you see, I am merely a whisper that is only heard when all else is still.    

Alas.  My science became heresy, my ideas just built grand citadels for the armies to devour with newer and ever more lethal devices.  Death became common and endless;  all sides claiming me as the patron saint of a some cause I never knew, never embraced, could never condone.  And my Ether became crowded with the frantic cries of fading voices...so many that the vapor itself became clouded, like a window trying to hold back the moisture from a warm, summer rain. 
    
In the end, my only success was seen if I practiced a benign neglect... in places where some humans celebrated the animals around them, the earth they slept upon.  Sure, they created gogs to worship and pray to, yet their gogs perished in the hard winters and could be reborn with a forgiving spring.  They were malleable, they bled, they suffered as all life does to move forward to renewal, or that inevitable end.  But they too were swept away, for in the final game, this planet was merely a platform for the creation and worship of the self.  As if it was supposed be just that:  a convenience of the moment.  My presence,  just an illusion --  rarely heard and never seen until desperation was knocking at the door.  A purpose of no purpose...foot prints never really meant to be found. 

But before I go, I will share one last truth.  Yes, there are many, many intelligent forms of life in this vast common space you call the universe.  They have wandered by this dirty little outpost from time to time and concluded that they do not want to meet you.  They view you as little more than angry insects devouring each other as fast as you have consumed your own small  planet. They have considered destroying this eyesore, but they respect all life forms -- even those they deem toxic.  Given that you exist on the ragged outskirts of your galaxy, they see little likelihood of your disease spreading.  Besides, your planet is dying.          

Think I'll wander off now.  Catch a comet's tail to perhaps a more enlightened world, a place where silence is coveted, thought allowed to freely roam, and the Ether not tainted by the stench and decay of this never-ending  meal of fear, hate and ignorance.   

Good Luck...Yer Gonna Need It;


Gog L. Mitey

PS -- You are NOT Gog's children!  Most children grow up...eventually.       

           


Friday, May 8, 2015

Revolution Road...well, Maybe.



So, When?

Been doing a little reading of late, as opposed to being further numbed by the relentless oratory and visually myopic slime vomited from the world's greatest propaganda machine: network television, in all its insidious, mindless and vulgar manifestations.  From author Chis Hedges:

"Get back into your cages, they are telling us. Return to watching the lies, absurdities, trivia, celebrity gossip and political theater we feed you in twenty-four-hour cycles on television. Invest your emotional energy in the vast system of popular entertainment. Run up your credit card debt. Pay your loans. Be thankful for the scraps we toss. Chant back to us our platitudes about democracy, greatness and freedom. Vote in our rigged corporate elections. Send your young men and women to fight and die in useless, unwinnable wars that provide huge profits for corporations. Stand by mutely as our legislators plunge us into a society without basic social services while Wall Street speculators loot and pillage."

1929?  Might be, if not for the reference to television.  And of course, this time around, the middle-class are doing a metaphorical roof jump instead of the stockbrokers.  Or, being gunned down in the streets as the newest version of some 'Final Solution.'  Too severe?   

Maybe, but then again, maybe not.  I tend to seek recall from my early post-radical days. My sister had introduced me to Frank Zappa and his Mothers of Invention.  Oh, and something new called LSD.  I did a lot of reading and far too much acid.  On one rather extended LSD and amphetamine binge, I read:  "War and Peace," Steinbeck's, "The Grapes of Wrath," "Animal Farm" and Kenneth Patchen's allegorical tale, "The Journal of Albion Moonlight" -- while drinking bottle after bottle of Coca-Cola.  After a short hospital stay to restart my kidneys, I ended up at the Selective Service's version of a send-off party to Vietnam, where I pissed a cupful of blood and something that looked like rancid egg-whites. The guy in the next urinal was wearing a nice black bra and matching panties. Never did get his name...probably for a good reason.

Next day, I decided to become a radical...and that amphetamines were probably not a good way to extend my literary awareness. The rest is a long, rambling story that could probably fill a novel -- oh wait, it did.  But eventually I became old and rather lame.  You know how it goes, uh...played with one too many horses, animals that I always appreciated far more than humans, even if they were a little hard on me at times.

The 'Farmer's Almanac...for Lunatics.'
So here we are, a half century later, and I'm having a new twinge of a very old of deja vu kind of moment.  Only difference being that LSD is probably not going to offer me much clarity this time. Instead of one nasty war, we have two or six or how ever many you like. Voting is suppressed, or more accurately, a waste of a nice afternoon. Instead of just rumors of concentration camps (big deal in the 1960's), we actually have one at Guantanamo, along with sundry-dozens of private prisons, inner city-sacrifice zones -- such as Cleveland, Detroit, Camden and Baltimore ad nauseum.  Oh...and agricultural labor camps where we casually accept slave-labor in exchange for cheap, chemically-infested tomatoes.  And instead of spraying Agent Orange on Godless communists in some distant land, we just engineer it into the food we eat.

However, the Stock Market is making record gains, which is supposed to make everybody feel good, especially while we're endlessly scouting the neighborhood for the nearest food bank.  And for the first time in our recent history, poverty has been eliminated from the ranks of the Fortune 5oo.  I could go on, but...I'd need a kind of medication that I can't afford right now.

   
Do I have some point here?  Hmm.  Not sure, other than I keep wondering why it takes white people so long to get pissed off in this country?  Maybe it's because we've been told so often that we're "exceptional," and as such, we feel obliged to be on our best behavior. And of course, if we burned down the nearest Wal-Mart, where in the hell could we get cheap toilet paper? 

Mostly, I was wondering what happened to this budding weed known as the Occupy Movement?  At first, I was rather pleased to see people openly urinating in the streets again, and somewhat enthused about their non-violent approach; an idea we tried to emulate in another era of unrest, until the clubs, tear gas and occasional murder caused us to re-evaluate the idea of passive resistance.  Of course in those days we still had a free and antagonistic press -- not the corporate pimps and clowns that dominate the airwaves today. Or the hired thugs in the Blogosphere that shit lies and never seem to change their underwear. Even so, I tried to extrapolate our movement over time and consider its relevancy in this, the age of social media.  

First, I took a look at What Kevin Zeese had to say.  He was one of the founders of the Occupy Movement. "We do have a grand strategy," he said. "Non-violent movements shift power by attacking the columns that hold the power structure in place.  Those columns are the military, police, media, business, workers, youth...Every time we deal with the police, we have that in mind.  The goal is not to hit them...and weaken them. The goal is to pull people from those columns to our side.  We want the police to know that we understand they're not the 1 percent."

However, seems to me that the police work for whoever the other 99% might be; this large body that is simultaneously both inclusive and exclusive, but equally addicted to avoiding those questions that demand attention in real time. The 1% don't bother with questions, mostly because they haven't as yet noticed any problems with their private and sequestered lives or the narrative they espouse -- no, control.  So I'm going to adjust the arithmetic:  1% at the top is horn-locked with the 1% at the bottom. The rest of the country is waiting to see what Dr. Oz has to say about it. This might work in Occupy's favor, little like that old adage: "The rich get richer and the poor more numerous."  Ha...democracy in inaction!


The 'Occupy Movement' as depicted by
 American mainstream media
Zeese goes on to explain that what they wanted to create in this movement was a 'horizontal hierarchy' -- not a vertical one in the corporate sense. But of course what they got was the street dregs, dope fiends and other homeless folks that had already fallen hard from America's fleet of social dump trucks. And the press (if you can still call it that!), was more than willing to exploit that angle. You could say it was a PR disaster where for once, the truth didn't free you...just complicated things immensely, mostly because today's media uses crayons, and only colors inside the designated lines.

So I looked a little further. It seemed that the Movement was borrowing from the ideology of Czechoslovakia's Vaclav Havel, who advocated "living within the truth."  Hedges paraphrased the concept:  "This attempt to 'live within the truth brings with it ostracism and retribution.  But punishment is imposed in bankrupt systems because of the necessity for compliance, not out of any real conviction. And the real crime committed is not the crime of speaking out or defying the rules, but the crime of exposing the charade."

Hmm. Brings me back to this insatiable need for 'law and order' and the fact that the free press is having lunch in the boardroom -- while the masses eat off the $1 menu. It seems to me, having a little media experience myself, that in order to appreciate a free and open press, you just might need a free and unencumbered mind.  So, I delved back into history and fiction. First, I re-read George Orwell's "1984."


"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?  It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself."


Ah, so fear does garner votes; for all the unnatural reasons.  Seems that's how Stalin enjoyed such a long run in Moscow. Nobody voted in the conventional sense, just as nobody seems to vote here -- either conventionally or otherwise.  Too busy watching serial alligator killers or "House of Cards"  -- a fine example of the truth masquerading as satire...or is it the other way around?  Too bad Shakespeare's long dead. she might have been able to shed some light on it.  Yeah, I said, 'she.'  Another theory for another day.  


Also rattled the bones of Karl Marx and noted anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin.

Marx said, concerning proletariat revolutions are: 

"...[They] constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course, return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals -- until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out:"


"Hier ist die Rose, hier tanze."
[Here is the Rose; dance here.]


Mikhail Bukunin

Karl Marx

But...and a big but.  While Marx easily "recognized the self-destructive machine that was unfettered capitalism, he viewed the poor as a conservative force...made irrelevant by the growth of capitalistic forces and caustically referred to them as "a sack of potatoes."" [Hedges.]  Here, I somehow visualized Wal-Mart, where the amorphous masses pick up their bribes from the 'company store;'  or in the case of a decaying and corrupt Rome, where you were given "bread and games" as an exchange for supporting the corruption of the state. How else do you explain why the abused do their shopping at the abusers store?   Fear, or something else?

Mikhail Bukunin figured it differently. He saw "in the uncivilized, disinherited, and illiterate, a pool of revolutionists who would join the working class and turn on the elites who profited from their misery and enslavement."  [Hedges] 

Tend to like the anarchist's approach better, but do imagine it might take a little longer to start the fire.  Of course, these revolutionists occupied a different era -- a time when voices, eyes and body language transmitted much more than the written word could.  In this age of 14-word logic, the mass assimilation and distribution of disinformation, and passive-aggressive pandering traveling at the speed of light, any semblance of truth or fact might be difficult or impossible to find -- Ah, but you see, that's the whole idea: confusion and misdirection. In the old days, the revolutionist's first task was to take over the radio stations; to silence the self-anointed propaganda machine of the state and deliver their alternative message.  Today, we have the sanitizers and thought police at the NSA, as well as a half-dozen other agencies and  news corporations who control access to virtually all forms of communication here -- from the news, to what constitutes entertainment, those lines fuzzier than ever. This, along with virtually every electronic device on the planet.  Privacy?  Ha. Orwell had it right all along.             

Then again, there's Bob Dylan, whose mystery and lyrics painted a different landscape that perhaps many of us felt, but could never completely articulate:

"Something is happening here,
But you don't know what it is;
Do you, Mister Jones?"
                                                                                       "Ballad of the Thin Man."

Here's a primer on how revolutions get started:  

* discontent that affects nearly all social classes;
* widespread feelings of entrapment and despair;
* unfilled expectations;
* a united solidarity in opposition to a tiny power elite;
* a refusal by scholars and thinkers to continue to defend the actions of the ruling class;
*an inability of government to respond to the basic needs of citizens;
* a steady loss of will within the power elite itself together with defections from the inner circle -- a crippling isolation that leaves the power elite without any allies or outside support;
* a financial crisis.

Crane Brinton, "Anatomy of a Revolution."

Well, we have elements of 7 out of 8 as it is, but of course, there are always other issues: the propaganda machine in this country, the love of law and order...or as the addict explains: 'the bad known is always more comfortable than  the unknown.'  So we accept the little crumbs, keep staring at the horizon and assume tomorrow will be better, when yesterday was just another repeat of many other yesterdays.  

Funny. When I was back east last year in a vain attempt to get my long-overdue hip repaired, I killed a lot of time with my 12-year old protege of sorts, Vincent. A very serious Star Trek fan and future Starship commander, I do believe I watched every episode ever made.  Even learned a few words of Vulcan.

In the end, I concluded that America had become this planet's Borg -- all-consuming, infinitely powerful...insatiable really, until virtually every resource on this planet is stripped away and stored in some unseen vault. The rest, sadly cast to the cosmic winds.

As Bernie Sanders has often said, 'we need a revolution of thought in this land,' It is either that, or we're likely going to experience the other version, which just might be the closing chapter on this experiment called America.  It is the inevitable outcome when the ambitions and dreams of ordinary people are sacrificed for the gains of the few.  Same lesson, new century, a lot at stake. 



We went off to battle this monster called the Borg -- 
Only to discover that the Borg was really us.