The Left Column

Politics for Poets

Here is a rewrite

of the last column from a few days ago

I'm not afraid of yesterday. It's gone away. He is not here today. He came but he couldn't stay.

When you think about politics think that wouldn't it be nice that if the people who think that they 'win' would understand that they are suppose to also govern and be good for the well being of even people who didn't vote for them. Could politics be better if one put one's backing into a person who's job is 'politician', and then they get to proxy one's vote on the bills in the legislature. That way we wouldn't have to have these stupid expensive elections where all of the hypno-minions go whoring off to their bed-bug motels. Wow, maybe they aren't. Maybe I'm being too harsh.

So here is a plan: people would register as politicians. They'd agree to take the income of a cloistered cleric. They'd agree that all of their public conversations will now be on the permanent record (with little listen wasps that hover around them and take video from multitudes of angles). Wait a minute, the engineering to do all of that is probably too expensive. . . listen wasps are secret and may not, in fact, exist anywhere outside of my novels (please look for my novels some day because they are real but not yet available to the public). In any case obviously we can't have over-bearing surveillance harming the public. However when bad people do their nastiness, everyone appreciates a good face shot of the (alleged) perpetrator (I say alleged out of habit, it is a form of Newspeak required of us by the lawyer-drones who rule the office of fine-print that no one reads or pays attention-to).

If your job is politics what will you do if there are no more elections? The artificial cycle of elections is a blight on the seasons of holidays and life; a four year atrocity that could, under a different scheme, be designated as past tense. But how would we implement such new and rational systems of better public decision making? Well we could start by just doing it. We could start some kind of club or alliance, or maybe even a new party, that allows us to have representatives that we select ourselves and status them on a common page with protocols that are similar to what social media allows. So, for example, say I like someone like Cindy Fine, an outstanding booster for goodness and grand character. I could 'like' her and assign her as my proxy for matters concerning, say International Relations. And perhaps have a different person for issues of Farm Policy. And maybe someone else for my stand on social issues of great concern for the people at the congregation which I regularly attend. It starts to sound complicated. Basic idea of such a new system would be that if I find a person has a lot of integrity then I can say that this person has my vote in the legislature.

Of course such new schemes of collective decision making have probably been thought out before by pay-hit-men think-tank power-elite secret room societies nestled within the bowels of what might seem benign to the outside world but are a tempest of indecision within the realm of the head-strong active minds that dare to concoct such methodologies and then force feed them to the body politic. People are loath to change what is working, even if it is only seeming to be working for the few, and not really a system that works for everyone else. Or it works in one way for some, and not in another way for others.

To many people it's just a fact that when your candidate looses you do not have a voice in the legislature anymore. A spoils system where people are looking over your shoulder and can guess correctly (for the most part) how you will vote is not conducive to honest elections. Punishment politics is the way that some people play the game.

I suppose back in the day when these ideas were meshed out by the Founders who wrote the Constitution of United States, they didn't expect that the elections could be so totally polarizing and earth shaking. The amount of power that comes to one person who wins the big prize of President of the United States of America is too large for just one man, just one mind. Clearly the people who are there now have no concept of continuity of process. they are out for themselves and do not abide the public's concern with good governance. Am I being unfair? Did I say 'all'? I guess it seems to imply that in one sense. A common fallacy of many people is to read in (add in) the 'all' to the phrase to apply it to a group or class of people who may not have been the object of the discussion in the first place. For example if someone where talking about bears and said 'Bears are corrupt. And when they get into government they always set up systems of graft to channel away monies to themselves. They always hire their relatives, and treat the public treasury like their own personal piggy bank." that would be very piggy indeed. Writing like that is unclear in a certain sense because the person who is thinking these things that are then typed-in or written down is not thinking through the ideas. It might not be lazy so much as untrained.

In the case of people who prattle on about 'new media' and 'better government', what do they do if such things get ugly? Do we want flash mob governance of meth-thed-up 'click-yes-now' clickers? Do we want people high on XTC deciding the next president? Do we want to be able flash change our vote so that,suddenly, and with great drama, and like your are watching a movie about the next election . . . and the colors and lines on the screen are all showing an outcome; the future teeters on the outcome of the twittering crowd. But suddenly the map goes all paisley. It's a Scotsman come in with a red and blue tartan. He walks in and his elaborate and amazing stiching and patterns become the map and no one knows any more who is going to be the presiduck.

"What can we do? What can we do?" he sounds out. He has a high concern for good governance.

Suddenly the movie reel stops in the projector. The image of the colorfully clad Celt hangs there briefly in as single scewed frame until the film starts to burn because of the extreme heat of the projector lamp. The celluloid ignites and the map, in the frame, burns. But this all must be just CG. Or you got slipped something in your drink just before you voted. And now you have weird zombie government and imagine the scene where the curly haired azure-eyed lad (ten generations removied) with his truculent political sex-mongering, and his proletarian leanings only you know that he's never carried a bag for anyone but himself for real, got it all coming to him like the water flows into his own life for free for ever because he's got the right connections, knows the right people, seriously seriously connected, he's on his High Sierra mountain climb, out on a spire of pure gold (that is there for ceremonial purposes with the group of rich-folk that he saunters around with).

This is the movie your watching? He can't reach his hand-held to text in his choice for presiduck because the wind of helicopter blades sent by his enemies just for this purpose to prevent him from voting in the presituckial election. "How will we ever now save the world from global-harming alarmism and adherence to policies that go against socialist-greenist policies?" Oh if only, if only, how do we redeem this fellow in this bad movie of governance fable, that seems almost too real if it were able to be that way. To be that way. The last line to be sung as if a song. As if a song.

But it won't be that way because we are right to not trust modification of governmental constitutions with a light hand. Those who call for the radical modification of the election process have good reason to do it. But the reasons are completely biased for the outcome that they wish to have happen. The regions of the world are connected, of course, because the world is a continuity of dense matter that spreads out around us in all directions. Democratic institutions of government are set up to allow for the creation of societal order where order is needed. We have group decision making processes. If we allow a popular vote for president it would only, and always be, the most popular in the regions of the world where there is higher population. Thus New York and LA would always get their way in the presidential selection. Is this really what the country would want?

Don't take me wrong, I used to be a government guy, working in the bureaucracy. Most people who work for uncle Fed are benign and do a good job. They are nine-to-fivers who put in a good days work and expect a modest pension at the end of it all. (previous line should be read in a middle-america accent of someone who would read John Steinbeck and think it is true social history, Democratic Party talking point voice over voice of the smarmy home-spun socialist know-it-all). They are not out for great wealth through graft and corruption.

Are there people who are out for graft and corruption? Are there? the writer pauses for a moment to think if it could be that . . . people really are takers who don't share. But I didn't say all people. Some. Some politicians are like that. Not all. Or if it is all we wouldn't be able to find out except that governmetn would be so disfunctional and horrible that people would do whatever thye could to avoid having to interact wiht it. Is government like that where you are? Are you sure that it is like that everywhere? How do you know that it isn't just the way that you, yourself, approach the buerocracy?

Back to my previous question: are there (some) politicians who are out to live high off of graft through corrupt practices? Are there? yet another pause just to remind us of the continuity of this essay about good governance. In case I am asking you, dear reader, what do you think? Well what do you think? Take a week to write a thirty page memoir describing in great detail the way that you felt when you heard the details of the economic collapse as it unfolded. Or were you off golfing? If you were good for you. You got to eat those strawberries when they are juicy and sweet. Nothing new under the sun. What better place to go chasing after wind than at a golf course.

Didn't you know when trillions of dollars were allocated to 'save the world' a few years back that it would be a grand cleptocratic act? The manner of how the theft occurs is very subtle. Even people who work high in the financial industry don't necessary know how the thieving goes on. You see it when commodity prices soar. People suddenly have money to speculate on various critical and necessary staples. And prices get high really fast. People make a lot of money. Inflation kicks into high gear. Suddenly tax revenues increase and the corruptocrats are thinking that they can raise taxes and take a bigger piece for themselves. They go on and on and on about wanting to raise taxes but it makes no difference if they do or if they don't because the increase in the money supply that is occurring through 'easement' is so much vaster than any money that would be collected through increased taxes. And then, ask the question, because I've never been able to really figure out the answer to this one myself: Who exactly, pray-tell, are we paying the money back to? Ourselves? So if it is ourselves (and I am not convinced that it is) then why do we need to raise taxes? If we needed to have less money out there then how does it make sense to take the money from people who are suddenly starting to put things back into the world? Remember every dollar that is made from the artificial booms that happen when printing presses go crazy is worth less than the ones printed before. But the corruptocrats don't change the tax rate based upon some rate of inflation. As a matter of fact they don't even admit to inflation and a lot of the ways to measure it just produced numbers that seem as random as the patterns of clouds in the sky or pebbles on a beach. Everyone knows that it has no meaning and yet the necessary ritual of these funny numbers comes out periodically, usually by the month. Then revised again. It's all meaningless. It used to speak to people when it actually meant something. But the took food and housing out of the equation, so what is meaningful that people need to live on that is or is not inflationary that doesn't include that? The use of these numbers constitutes a great . . . stretch of the imagination. Those who use these numbers for real purposes ought to reaccess if these numbers have validity anymore, or if their use just further serves the purposes of people who are out their a-thieving what they can thieve.

Have I made people angry with my rant here? Calling people corruptocrats can't make them like me. Maybe they don't even think that I am real. I am a bot process on a paid-for server out in the cloud. These rant-tastic writings serve to make your synapses fire. Hopefully you will see the holes in my rants and come up with some better banter that better explains what the real deal is with inflation and printing copious currency. Inflation hits like a brick. Some people are special and will be isolated from it. Others will have a very hard time making things happen.

Who is it that causes it? Why does it happen? Depends on your ideology the story that people will tell. And it will mostly be in hushed tones, "I'm not saying that I'm saying what the story is. . . what the story is. . . " And you sit there at the picnic and the old sage guy is really just a drunk uncle. He doesn't understand finance either and is as dumb as a finance major,doesn't know but he's had some thoughts and is liquored up so loose in sharing his understanding with anyone who will listen.

But no one really knows who caused the financial crisis. There can not be consensus in the realm of politics in this matter because anyone who thinks that they might get blamed will have a stake in preventing concensus within the banter of historical writings. These people will prevent concensus by agreeing to disagree. But some things become more obvious as people ponder on the facts of history. We don't really need to write out an explanation. The pieces are fairly large and clear now. And the forgettery that keeps people from comprehending is done away with due to the enormity of the calamity. What are those 'things' that become more obvious? Why does the writer of this piece not expound on his use of the heavy word 'things' without any clear subject in mind other than some vague idea of understanding about grand truths of the calamities of the last few years. There are people in history who have had larger effect than others. These large-names are well-listed and so the 'things' that poets need to know about History, the grand truths, do not need to be said out loud when they are as obvious as they are now. Do I put down names here and then get myself on some (imagined, probably not real, and just a little bit paranoid) hit-list? Of course I do not. The 'things' that are obvious are available to the world at large in copious formats. Thus the public doesn't really seem to need to have anyone calling out the names of the demons-of-action that pilfered the world, if in fact they actually did. And if they did, all of their pilferings are still here in the world and people would be able to see who the pilferers are . . . by their extremely rotten to the core nature; festering like apples that are wormy all the way through and rotting underneath a wet-metal-mesh trash barrel outside of Rockefeller Center late 1940's with a gloomy fog and the world is sunk in a deep funk. The lights along the avenues are glaring with hypnotic intensity.

You know nothing. No names. No people. No rotting apple. It is all imagined. There are no villains here. It's just a happy guy with a skip in his walk. Even if he were what you could imagine him to be, some grand international conspiracist, it's all just for the betterment of you and me is how he would see it, so why not let him be what he needs to be?

A car rushes past and spills water onto the sidewalk. The sense of uncertainty becomes even more intense as you enter the train station. These worlds are not made to be permanent, but the grand structure of sharing and caring is a blanket that is forever used to cover over those who need to be covered.

So there are smart people who have pretty good understanding of the History of the last thirty years and why we are where we are, and who it is that were the 'players' who had major effect in making all of what-it-is that has gone done (what it is). Am I such a person? Not really. But I do know that the explanations that are given on talk shows or on the news are suspect because the hosts of those shows, or the news writers of the news-wash-media, are just as in the dark as the body politic. We are all in a collective state of scratching our heads, but someone out there is writing the grand history of the last thirty years and that book will be published and the culprits will be presented and then . . . one by one probably acquitted because, despite the enormity of their cupidity, what did they do really? Steal trillions of dollars? If so then who did it and where is the money? Why don't we have a grand international audit, open up all the books of every bank and institution, and see what money is in whose names? Everyone ready to do that? I didn't think that you were.

But imagine if there were folks who could go around and say 'oh, you owe this but you are owed that over here. So we will erase both of these things. They would cancel out. The question is: who is owed how much by whom? Who has a net gain, who a net loss? Who are the slaving and who are the slavers?

And so, I guess the real question for a poet is 'are these dangerous times?' The answer is that if you are a good soul, rich or poor, it is never really dangerous in a very large sense as long as you keep your wits about you. For anyone who is an actual craven minion and a worst case corruptosouras who doesn't share what he/she pillages from the bureaucracies, then those people do need to fear and tremble. They should start by making atonement for what they have done. Throw themselves at the mercy of the IRS. Admit to their evil schemes. Give the money back.

I guess that won't work either because . . . well you know how government works if the money is 'given back' it will most likely be pilfered by someone else in the bureaucracy. So, if you really are a craven minion and you want to regain your humanity I suppose you need to become a great humanitarian. Be as Robin Hood.

Sept 6, 2012

A vote for unity is a vote for America. Vote for America.

well . . .

I think I've blogged enough today.

Life goes on.

Thank You Veterans!

~ OK Now.

 

  You know I'm
     not afraid of dieing
      And I'm not opposed
          to trying
      to be free
          to be free
        to beee freeee
  to be free
       to be free
        to be-ee fre-ee


        
When you set your mind
      to it
   do it
      do it
    When you set your mind 
         to it
  you do it
     and get through it.
 Set your mind to it.
  Do it.
    Do it.
    Set your mind to it.
      You will
   get through it.   
  
  

Wake up!

The solution to bad governance is
   good people.