Memes baby, we got memes. Memes, Paradigms, Conventional Wisdoms, Tropes, Dopes and Hope.
But mainly memes, we are soaking in them. We are waist deep in the big paradigm and the water is still rising, apparently. HELP! I have fallen into Conventional Wisdom, and I can’t get up! If only there was a fast and easy way to get rid of these tropes that make laundry day such a chore! Will no one rid me of these troublesome dopes?
At this point hope is all we have, as we try to turn the Fundy Tide left over from the decade of disinformation. I come to this sentence not to bury the Bushshit, but to praise it. It was some damn effective Bullshit.
We are still soaking in that too.
We are still reacting to Bush. To the reality that Bush and Cheney and Rove concocted, perpetrated, and imposed upon us and the world. Even after it has nearly destroyed it. The greed of the rich is still good and necessary for the economy, the greed of the poor is still tacky and unseemly. Brown people are still the enemy and encased in ICE and held in torturous circumstances in Bagram.
We are still hacking our way through the thickets of illogic and fear towards the hilltop of reason and the rising sun of a new day. Still wandering in the desert of republican power, even as they fully reveal themselves for the noxious stinking pool of quicksand that they have always been. And yet we keep wandering in circles back to the same pool. The muscles of our Right legs have been more developed than the muscles of our Left legs, you see, and so without a reference point to head towards, we walk in a circle, with the muscle of the Right propelling us round and round.
LOOK! we shout. Over there! Freedom, Justice, Salvation!!! There it is! That is our reference point! There is our way out! All we have to do is shed this baggage and make for it post haste!!!
Oh no, we can’t do that!!! What would the VERY SERIOUS PEOPLE think if we just told them to STFU and get out of the way??? The Villagers might burn us if we yell too loudly and wake them from their slumbers! Or…or…maybe even….gasp….The Very Serious People who have been proven wrong over and over and over might not respect us!
Or even worse….if we tell them we are angry, we might become a mob……somehow.
The whole frikking world knows that things are bad. The whole frikking world knows that it is bad because of Bush. The whole frikking world except the Very Serious Villagers and their lackeys in the Merde Stream Media knows that the remaining Republicans are pushing the same damn ideas, memes, tropes and conventional (but WRONG) wisdom that fucked every goddam thing you can possibly think of up. And thanks to the law of Unintended Consequences, they have fucked up things we CAN’T even think of!
Yet here we are. Still huddled in our caves of color coded fear….as one man, one brave, smart, VERY patient man fights our battles for us. As he fights, we huddle in our caves and hopes he saves us. He has called us to the battle lines, summoned us to the barricades, and yet we huddle still. He has given us our assignments as clearly as he can while using the politicode that HE is forced to use. Yet we do not heed his call.
He has told us to challenge the conventional wisdoms that he in the position of power cannot safely challenge openly. He has told us that we can and must challenge HIM to do so. He has told us to Make Him Do It. He has told us to raise our voice and use our power, people power, the power of the Citizen, the power that got him elected, the power of millions yelling for change.
But instead, we huddle behind his skirts and WAIT.
WAIT for him to fight the battles, Wait for him to slay the monsters, Wait for him to lift the non-existent rock blocking the exit to this cave of fear that we evidently need. Since we evidently are comfortable only when we are seeing the Shadow of the True Forms of the world in which we live.
This man, this hero that history has sent us to lead us out of the Bush Swamp and to the mountaintop, is OUT THERE doing all one man, doing MORE than what one man can do.
And he is virtually alone.
Because now that he is the government, any attack on the government is seen as an attack on him.
Barack Obama does not want your defense, he does not want your sympathy, he does not want you to follow him. He wants you to fight BESIDE him, not follow him.
He wants you to get off your ass and fight and yell and scream the things that he cannot scream.
Republicans are stupid and have nothing to offer.
The Press is stupid and dumbed down from the bush years and has nothing to offer.
EVERYTHING NEEDS TO CHANGE
NOW!
He can’t change it, Congress can’t change it, the press can’t change it.
ONLY YOU can change it.
War, torture, corruption, financial collapse, a broken press, destructive republicans, destructive democrats. It is all broken, They are all broken….and theirs is only the illusion of power. THEY are at the end of their rope and hanging on to the past, the Memes, Paradigms, Conventional Wisdoms, Tropes and Dopes of the past by their fingernails. And the future is staring us in the face and challenging us to DO SOMETHING DAMMIT!!!
A HUGE power vacuum exists. All the old power is ready to topple and crumble at the slightest push. There is only one Power left.
People Power.
And Obama is waiting and hoping and praying for us to pick it up.
Yet we still huddle in our caves, waiting for HIM to do something about it.
But, but but……WHAT should we do, buhdy???
Well I guess that is the first thing we need to do isn’t it, figure out what the fuck to do! I am just a schmo like all of you, I don’t have all the answers, neither does anybody else.
Even Obama, so waiting for him to fix it ain’t gonna work.
And neither will respectful silence or patience or trying to be acceptable in the sight of Very Serious Villagers.
I will tell you the first thing we have to do, BREAK OUT OF THE FUCKING CAVE…..and make some goddam NOISE goddam it. You are pissed off and frustrated, we all are. So YELL!!!
And let the sound of your voice, raised in responsible anger be your guide. Once we break out of the cave, once we break out of the fears of the past, once we break out of the fear of our own power (are you a mob? No, and neither am I, so stop fearing yourself too) and find our voice, the Way will become clear, I promise.
The bad bad Bush boogiemen are gone. It is safe to come out now. Really, I promise. All you have to do is be you. A citizen in a democracy, with all of the power and responsibility that entails. Which means that only YOU can save you.