Sometimes it takes a Shutdown to shake out all the Corruption and Start Fresh

SGHolland 2017

METAPHORS: People get tired of my metaphors, mixed or not.
I cannot help thinking in metaphors, alas, and so my writing is full of them.
Editing a block of writing, large or small, is, for me not only a matter of finding grammar glitches and typos, but also weeding metaphors out of my text. But for the time being I’ll leave the metaphors in. Let me know what you think.

1. KNITTING:I could use a bunch of metaphors for this essay, and probably will. Like the necessity of ripping out knitting to correct a missed stitch even if the mistake was made on a row way back at the beginning of the piece. Heartbreaking to do that. Tempting to put an applique over the mistake and hope no one will notice.

2. CAR TROUBLE:When my car has a problem something usually stops working. It just makes an odd noise and refuses to go.

Strange that an inanimate object like that stack of metal and rubber out there on the driveway can be more stubborn than the proverbial mule!

So I have to go to someone who understands that car’s inner workings to go over it with a fine tooth comb and I have to wait at home or hitch a ride until it’s all figured out. When the faulty parts are returned to running condition, I pay a chunk of money to the expert and cheerfully ride away in my clean and trusty car.

I am gasping at the workings of many world governments, ours (US) included, and find it has been acting strange for quite some time and it seems to be getting seriously dangerous. It’s a Stop the World I Wanna Get Off moment right now, in my opinion. Something is seriously malfunctioning and all systems are affected.

I cannot pretend to know how to fix it. I was so flabbergasted on the 2016 Election Day, I wrote in the name of someone who was not a candidate rather than choose between two candidates I did not trust. I mean I seriously did not trust either of them.

3. SPOILED MILK: The more adamant and rude the opponents became in the race the more “off” they looked — like that stinky odor that jumps out when you take the cap off the milk in the fridge — that sickening stench that makes you sure you will not even try it. You discard it and hope the dog doesn’t get into the trash.

I have watched the denouement of the 2016 Election story with a deep sadness ever since. I had no idea how many contaminants were in that “milk” that I rejected, and now I wish everyone had chosen to dump both candidates and start fresh with at least someone who was not obsessed with some narcissistic concept of godlike grandeur and epic plans to own the world.

(For those who believed in HRC and those who believed in DT, I am sorry. I mean I pity them. And they should stop reading if they are enough infuriated. It seems clear that infuriated people lose their minds a bit, and there’s no point in talking with them until they come to their senses. But they are, in any case, preparing barbarous commentary anyway, for sure.)

What can help us in this situation?

4. MOMS ON STRIKE: I have read several homespun stories about household leaders (like Moms) whose household is not functioning any better than a broken car. And it is not the way the household machines are running that is the problem. It is the way the people in the house are functioning — the ways they are functioning that suits them and to hell with everyone else. In the stories the Mom (she used to be the hub of the household cosmos) decided to stop dead and quit. She chose to lay down her tools and sit on the front lawn with a sign saying On Strike.

After the hubbub of being mad at her and trying to explain her to the neighbors and the people at school and at work, and the puzzled trash man, and the people at the club, the people who were recently cheerfully blazing their own paths without regard to anyone else are stopped in their tracks.

It’s not as if the mother wants them to die. Or lose their jobs. Or be ridiculed for the embarrassing struggle that is out for all to see on the front yard. She doesn’t have that in mind. What she wants is for people to make personal decisions about how they might effect a change in the status quo.

If they all run away, it is clear that they really don’t care. But they don’t of course, because they do care. Everything they depend on is based on the smooth functioning of the household. They realize they need each other. That Mom is missing and irreplaceable. They they cannot make things work without considering the value of a functioning Mom.

I’ve seen some ugly strikes. I know personally that one’s tires can be slashed if one crosses a picket line to get a badly needed paycheck for stooping to scab labor. It is certainly not a fun or cheerful thing for any organization to be jammed up with such stubborn refusals and costly losses and the reality of losing jobs and lifestyles. I know how long-lasting the wounds of strikes can last. Sometimes forever.

I hate the idea, in fact.

5. THE SALT MINES :But I think of injustices, like the matter of the Salt Mines in India, where the imbalance of power and the obsession of winning, for instance, that were finally resolved with the shedding of some really courageous blood. In that case it took a mass of people who decided not to accept the status quo, and the strike was a pacifistic one that cost a lot of lives. It was not until the abusive power saw that they were simply annihilating the trophy they wanted control of. The whole prize was being mowed down.

6. POISON IN THE WATER: Those who would scrimp on issues of lead in the water-supply would find themselves with a condemned waterworks and no one paying in because they are dying like flies!

Metaphors aside, the scuttling of honor in this political climate is not a new thing. We are so used to it we sigh and say “that’s just how it is.” And we enact some laws or enforce some laws that hold some token people responsible and somehow come to a working agreement and go on. But the damage has been done. Trust has eroded. The stench comes even from our “favorites” — those we never dreamed would use graft and fraud and intimidation to make our government conform to their own intentions and trample those who would interfere with them. And there is blackmail, and underworld tactics to shut up those who speak out and discredit them as fiends.

We are used to this kind of monkey-business in our government. Democracy is such a messy concept because it is based on Individual Rights and Precepts that have been hammered out and revisited and amended as we see the injustices arise. It’s not a perfect system. But the Agreements we signed up for, are what define the final decisions, and it’s not just a king or dictator nodding his or her head.

7. THE BROKEN VEHICLE AGAIN: So the vehicle is broken. Our system of checks and balances is broken. Thieves have stolen the keys and are asking a ransom to get them back. Let’s jack that “vehicle” up and take off its wheels until the insides are fixed! No vehicle like this should be allowed on the road! It’s killing people! It’s killing US! The U.S.!

How can a mere citizen refuse to operate?

Costly. Frightening! Too hard to contemplate!

But I keep thinking that if I stopped using certain New-and-Wonderful- Services (think of internet services and commercial services and entertainment services and medical services) and another person decided to also stop using them, we would diminish the terrifyingly resistant grip of the Power Mongers of all branches of our current government. We would separate ourselves from the throng of people who unwittingly or intentionally support a failing system, and take the flak. We would incite riots and inspire hatred and undoubtedly draw fire.

We would say goodbye to some things that allow me, for instance, write this essay on my computer, and look for creative news ways (or look back for the old ways) of living in a simpler world.

We might even lose our voice altogether. We might be put in jail or debtor’s prisons!! But if enough people just closed accounts, stopped playing the one-up game, stopped being herded by mob leaders, and took our losses as part of the cost of stopping the bastardized status quo, it would rather quickly come to a grinding halt. And then a desperate populace would have to invent a better way that could sustain all the people. It’s not the first time humans have had to solve problems. I believe there are leaders who can make something worthwhile out of this mess. But only if the populace sees the problem and decides to stop the slide.

8. LETTING GO OF THE ROPE: What if we quit interacting with the games that are infecting our minds; what if we stopped subscribing to only partisan sources of news? What if we simply let the unscrupulous politicians and Big AG and Big Business and Big Pharm and Big Med and Big Insurance have their end of the rope, and run with it? What if we pretended that the grid was already down and stop looking at our computers because we are too busy making simple lives for ourselves in the field and in the local trades-places? Letting go of the rope in a sustained tug of war is the death of the game. Let it die and let’s start over!!!

Would YOU close your A…zon, F…book, G…gle accounts? Would you disconnect from T…tter? What would you do without those? Would you subscribe to local newspapers rather than reading the usual rags? Or walk down to the local pub or grocery store and sit down with neighbors and hash out ideas for enriching your town? Would you go to meetings and hear and say first hand what you are thinking? How would you use your spare time?There would have to be some spare time to exercise and socialize! Imagine hiking instead of dialing up a rate of speed on a shiny metal thing and reading your email while pedaling until the timer dings. What about a real bike on a road?

I, for one, might think of planting a garden as I used to do, and becoming closer to the direct interplay between humans and the land and to watch how it can feed and clothe a person. If I could it would be great to have a couple of sheep and learn how to spin so I may knit my own sweaters (with or without appliques). It is not going to affect anyone in our government if I do this all by myself. Many people are already doing just this. But if a sizeable chunk of our population decided to do it, in the name of saving our souls, surely it would completely throw off the balance of trade and leave the potential kings and dictators with little or no clout.

9. GET A HORSE!: Without the masses dependent on the success of industrial enterprises, where would the stockbrokers be? Without faster and faster travel options, where would big business be? What if the stockbrokers went home, bought a horse, and started planting backyard gardens? What would the harmful fertilizer companies do if everyone had a handy horse or cow in the barn? Then the poison fertilizer people would have to go home and get their own horse and plant their own garden.

Humans are all going to die anyway. (are you ready?) Why not die of this sort of action rather than being put to war by someone who just cares about winning wars, never mind the spoils.

We could decide to do this. But it would be such a bother and upset everyone. So are we going to just let things slide until there is no hope for us at all?

SGH©2017

Addendum:

All of the above is full of the letter “I”. Here I am speaking up and no-one really asked me what I think. What I am hoping is that some of the questions I am asking will bring a response from others out there.*
*Thank you, Jeff Bailey and Hannah Miller for your highlights.

I’ve sat on this a while wondering whether to publish. It still reflects my view of precarious place in “time”. Also it seems by now as if I should sound off about the sexual impropriety issues that are peeling off perps starting in high government and will surely continue as long as it takes to shame a whole society! So I publish this on December 8 2017, while forming more and more questions about the rush of sexual “outings” of politicians and other people of fame.

Today I wondered what a conversation about media might be in maybe fifty years… would we say that “we remember when we considered James Bond a cool guy for all his sexual liaisons and we thought the Bond Girls were the height of sophistication. You could see porn of any kind on your own TV!!”