I’m going to use the next few essays to take opportunity to talk about something that has been slowly percolating in my mind for about a month or so. That said it would hardly do to give it a title and the outer edges of the topic as, as we say “Fuzzy” so I must ask you to bear with me until we get to the heart of things.
Plus I am going to do something I have resisted for many years. I am going to play the “white card.” In private of course people have suggested this is the way to go for a long time. Unfortunately it is well known that the white middle class male, correctly or not, feels threatened - the question is because this is the case is it a good idea to immediately discount everything one says.
The white audience has it's pleasure dome, the so called conservative movement – but those guys are losers. The evidence is in that the only winners there are the rabble rouses – the radio shock jocks etc who like evangelical preachers live in mansions whilst the flock lives in trailer parks.
I don't see things in political terms anyway. I try to adopt a more anthropological perspective. White people talk slow. Rappers reflect the native african tongues – I know this because I'm closely acquainted with a drummer from the Ivory Coast and when he speaks in his native tongue the words flow fast.
The speed of words, the trochees and feet are something I am professionally well aware of in my other life as a songwriter and it is something that in the architecture of song has to be borne in mind. To with there are verbal cultures and non verbal cultures.
Elizabeth Barret Browning refers to somethings poets know in Sonnets from the Portuguese which is that is perhaps the most exceptionally song friendly language in common usage. It does not mean the thoughts expressed are somehow of a more noble nature.
The characteristic role model for the german personality is Thor. Slow to anger, inarticulate, like to drink, simple in his loves unsophisticated but good hearted. That is how Germans like to think of themselves – others may think differently. They may come across as stupid but they make fairly good cars.
One wishes they sometimes could express themselves more clearly however.
The non whites in the audience, (whom I hope are in the majority since that's where the money is) can take comfort in the fact that demographic trends are by far in their favor, even blondes may be a think of the past in a hundred years or so.
I mention the Germans because it's a very large population in the US and you wouldn't know it because they have been taught to only speak when spoken to. They then perceive themselves as being pushed around and at a certain point retaliate - this is not always a good thing for the krauts or the rest of us.
But that's not my problem.
Let's begin
You can take this as axiomatic - when all else fails pay heed to the immediate present. This evening I received an invitation in the “snail mail” to join their survey group - something for which I would be rewarded financially. They only want people from 21 to 27 however and especially were interested in Hispanics. I didn’t qualify - my lifetimes efforts don’t amount to much.
I received the same sort of thing back in the UK from Mr Murdocks Times. There I was filling out a questionnaire when it asked my age. Finding out I was over thirty it calmly bid me adieu.
You must have figured out by now that my sense of self worth parted from the norm a long time ago. I just give you these small examples to remind you that you are reading the words of a no - body.
While it’s true I probably have several times the education level of many a person who would consider themselves my better the world scenario as it has evolved has decreed my relative uselessness.
Hence, I mean , don’t expect me to be happy about this. In some regards I am extraordinarily lucky because I set put, like Mssrs Franklyn and Jefferson, to create my own educational experience. A large part of the reason why was because of health issues which kept me going in and out of hospitals and recuperating for long periods of time.
Also, more then many of my class mates , I retained a strong connection to the European nations of my fore bearers. In Brooklyn the neighborhood was Italian, in Queens it was Russian. These were second and third generation immigrants who retained many cultural attachments to the old world, which I in turn incorporated.
The nineteen thirties depression as well was something that remained a large chapter in parents lives. They experienced it as children and my siblings and I grew up with daily stories of the hard old days.
For present purposes then it was never in my mind or psyche the belief that I’d marry at twenty five, have two kids , work in the same job and then die. Life as I understood it was a struggle, and even without the depression to inspire one to fight on, my personal life was a struggle against the birth defects brought on by a hormone mistakenly given my mother.
As an aside, to sum up this section a man maybe thought somewhat fortunate if he finds himself at the center of a dramatic story that is his own life.
My first significant understandings of the east is that it was the land of enlightenment, of Prince Siddhartha . Now a days I can’t help but wonder if it was not a reaction to the German side of my family.
If you read Schopenhauer you’ll find a curious faux oriental-ism there as well. The German mindset, for the sake of those unfamiliar with it requires strict discipline, attention to the task at hand and a refusal to accept anymore happiness in one’s life then is absolutely needed.
It may be worth adding that one of the first things I thought was that the east was a very polite world, due to the presence of so many people and that the west could learn something from that. These were the thoughts of a child, but if you wish to expound on them the western religions, as we know are all apocalyptic, meaning time will have a stop, where as the eastern religions are cyclical, meaning one is reincarnated and the cycles if time follow each other eternally. Suffice to say the knowledge that one will be seeing their neighbor for quite a while might tend to stay the hand when one is in the mood to kill them.
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There are ideas that, out of politeness or apprehension, we feel awkward in contradicting. One reason why might be that we don’t want to argue with someone who has more power then us, especially over trivialities. And so one of the truisms left unchallenged in recent decades is the so called Zero-Sum illusion. This stated that the world was not a finite pie, and that as Jack grew wealthier so too did Joe. It is a defensible position, but every case has to be examined on its own merits.
A variant of this, much more problematic is the “One people under God” rule which says that since God rules us all it’s none of our business how rich one person is and another isn’t. I’m not here today to argue the point. I have bigger fish to fry.
Those who have spent time in bus stations know that for many years the doom and gloom forecasters have been around and used the immanent end of the world to advance their recruit programs for various religions, cults, etc. A favorite of mine was the magazine with mushroom clouds on them asking if the reader had gotten straight with God since time was short.
A psychoanalytic perspective could also suggest that our personal concerns become projected on to what we think is happening in the world. A good example of that is DaVinci who saw storms and floods and mighty cataclysms destroying the earth when in fact he was merely dying.
This said, with some good reason there’s been a pessimistic mood over the west for a few years now and in relation to the Zero-sum connection the east, meaning India and China has been looking up.
Long ago I mentioned that at the very least in a world that valued genius, given the occurrence of this as reasonably consistent then nations with the largest populations must have an advantage eventually.
So that’s two positive things about Asia. They have a lot of people to work with and they have the nice manners that preclude excessive conflict. Then again Africans don’t have the manners or the long history yet they too are growing at a healthy rate whereas the American and Europeon economies seem to be dragging their feet. What is doubly ironic about this is it is in a age of technological innovation – which the so called first world countries are supposed to excel at , that they are getting bogged down.
Now I’ll say something that will piss people off. It’s about one of the things wrong with white people. We call it the New York Times 1980’s phenomenon after an institution that raised it up to an art form. First off let me apologize and mention a little prejudice on my part. I was looking for a job as a writer. I knew a few older cats that I admired and who were employed and they seemed to think I was okay, so when I learned that it was official policy that no middle class white males would be hired – no matter how good they were – I was not a happy camper.
Secondly if I have cause for complaint I certainly am not alone. Try to remember that the entire country was in a narcoleptic stupor that mirrored the oncoming Alzheimer Disease of the tyrant Reagan.
The fight had gone out of people. Both Woody Guthrie and Joe Stalin agree that when an actuary kills you you’re as dead as from a thirty eight through the forehead at close range but it’s not news until we know who pulled the trigger.
If I seem pissed off I feel I have a right to be pissed off. I have been systematically held down for the past thirty years because of an older generation that above all didn't want to make waves.
When I hear these people refer to themselves as "the greatest generation" it disgusts me. The facts speak for themselves but the facts didn't appear yesterday or 2008 - we've been screwing the young for decades because each of us is afraid that collectively the society is going to hell - so we're all survivalists in one form or another - trying to horde away until that rainy day - and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy - which it has.
You traded your birthright as Americans for a hand full of beads and trinkets in the Marti Gras - ha! the prophesy is fulfilled.
Here's a story. Where I grew up there was this well to do community called Garden City and it was lily white and no jews and WASP’s only. I knew a chap who was starting out as a lawyer and what he specialized in was going to places like Yonkers and forcing them to integrate. I scratched my head and said “ You know, the place you live in could be thought of as a prime instance of said segregation- how come there’s not a start there?”
To be fair it wasn’t only this lawyers choice – there were multiple obstacles to integration and he was getting work where the work was. A much more blatant example of this happened with the NY Times. I may add that unfortunately newspaper work went up in status since the forties and fifties so the days of any old guy with a typewriter were gone by the eighties. That doesn’t effect the story though. The problem was that there was a tremendous amount of corruption and lying about the federal government. This was the Reagan administration which set records for numbers of people sent to jail from the administration.
The Times though had a desperate problem which is it already had a lot of white writers who were now in the upper middle class, and like ball players with contracts, were in no mood to move over. Add to that the fact that the region had been slaughtered by the Reaganites and there were plenty of white writers that wanted to tell the stories and plenty of stories but they were all of the Micheal Moore genre and it was the Times policy ( which has since changed) to keep the big lies about morning again in America from being challenged.
A writer from England told an amusing story of applying for a job and being told they only hired minorities and she said “Well I’m a woman and I’m a foreigner” – so she got the job, but prior to that they had told her explicitly about their policy.
And the greater issue as to why white people suck is because the people in power knew that if you let one of the honkies in – in a little while he’ll bring another along and then another. Think of how much more expeditious it is to hire a minority who will be eternally grateful for getting out of the ghetto
Plus realistically there are more then a few firms that could use a little color in the boardroom. In other words to sum up the power structure does not feel threatened by a few non Caucasians, it is the groups of men that conceivable could organize that are the real threat.
Whether I am wrong or whether I’m talking through my hat the fact is as Mohammed Ali said, “No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger” and likewise the people that have done the most to destroy the way of life I knew and hence the ones I am most apprehensive of are white. That too is a European tradition.
And events of the past few decades go along with this. Companies do not hire Asians and South Americans because they like them – they do it because they hate white people because white people cost too much and because white people are hip to their game. While the corporations won’t admit this , they will go so far as to say that it’s all a matter of the bottom line, dollars and sense.
There’s a story that every English School child knows. It’s called “Who invited the Saxons to invade England? Historical accuracy may be incorrect but the gist of the tale is this.
There once was a king named Vortigen. For the record it’s worth noting that in the celtic tradition, that is to say in the tradition of the Goddess worshippers of the pre European disapora Kings were not a part of society. As we know if one could meet the Artorius Ambrosius of legend he would likely retain his old title “Dux Bellorum” or War Leader rather then the title Artorius Rex, which not been invented in the sixth century. The role of King, like that of thrall, or slave is one that seems to go in and out of fashion historically. I find it amusing for instance to think that most people think slavery is a thing of the past but given the historical record there is little reason to be sanguine.
Vortigern was not a popular nor a very good king. Again in the northern tradition it was not unusual for the king to be expected to be “the ring giver” meaning he gave gifts of value to his supporters. This happened many times to the point where the King left the job because he simply could not afford it anymore. Vortigern was not generous however so in looking for a way to preserve his rule he did what many a king since would do. He sent letters to the Saxon, Hengst offering, good pay pay, easy work and lots of women if Hengst would come to England and keep the natives in their place.
The rest is history. Hengst came. After a year he invited his brother Horst. In a short time the coast of Albion was the scene of dozens of Saxon attacks bringing law and order through rape, murder and pillage.
Eventually Vortigern lost his kingdom, but it lasted an extra twenty years because he’d been smart enough to hire mercenaries. As I say this is a story about white people – about how their minds work.
“You see da white man ain't friad a the nigger – he figger he always got them beat – it's the other white man he fraid of the one gonna take his woman and his hard on and his gowd.”
One of the most nebulous aspects of economics is standard of living, because unlike unemployment or hourly wages it is not quantifiable. How could one measure a festival for instance that has gone on for hundreds of years and many generations? The nasty thing about it is it can be impacted and like a slow disease it can wear us down slowly. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feeling but if they are going to talk about the failures of French Socialism they ought to visit the place first. I have and there’s a decent quality of life there. Not only less hours worked, health care , less crime but for whatever reasons the long stretches of poverty we know are not there – and they have to deal with a constantly growing influx of people from North Africa.
I don’t really care to write this completely in the way a columnist would. I don’t care for it because you’ll find that sooner or later they not only don’t have the answers but they have forgotten that they don’t. I’d rather end this on something other then the zinger. The zinger is the line pro writers use that supposed to make you think. I’ve used the term human capitol in recent weeks to describe the investment in people – in their education, in their health and happiness, that is too easy to overlook. But there’s something else as well. Human capitol implies that we are training people to face the future – which is good – but still not enough. Let’s not forget the present and lets keep in mind the idea of living as full a life as we can – today – not tomorrow but today.
We’ve been lied to for so many years and we are a forgiving people.
There are no guillotines on Pennslyvania Ave lets hope we never need them
“There’ll be pie in the sky, bye and bye someday’
I love that glorious tapestry bullsh*t. Each of us contributing what we may. The problem arises in our values however. I may not value what some other person does and who gets to decide what we, as a society shall value?
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