Proverbial Jerks

An old proverb says, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” It’s fascinating to listen to other people publicly express their own political views, opinions and ramblings. For an essence of such a public conversation almost purposely overheard by passersby in a hopelessly indulgent manner, it’s purpose is seemingly to feed their rampant egomania. In specific the far leftist community of Cambridge, MA think of themselves to be particularly educated and astute being of the opinion that they are not only the shapers of their own future and the catalyst to which past indiscretions were smothered but the endless masses of past policy-changers and world-molders whose own action seemingly single-handedly quashed the conservative right until its resurface and rise. To this end they then place the blame on subsequent generations of young adults for not exacting their own brand of vengeance upon policy makers and corporate indulgence. It is with my own responsibility and action that I seek to deconstruct the casual conversations of burned out politicos, long since soured on their own soda of change and malleable governmental input. It seems strange to have so many of a single, bygone generation running the country with so few of them who have interest in public discourse and upheaval.

It is a fairly simple task to criticize, to lay blame and question the methods and motivation of those re-experiencing a resurgence of republican conservatism. It’s an even simpler task to do nothing, to stand idly by while the evil specters of corporate control creep over the proverbial ridge, to wipe out whatever social structures and reform that may be in place bathing itself in the plentifully available bounties and swimming in the valley of fiscal embezzlement. It exists in the current socio-political climate a questioning of motives, direction and intent with the express aid of proven flux with the annunciation and commencement of a new dawn in American politics. The election of an idealist, one of incorruptible diligence has given purchase and voice to a fallen generation of motivated activists who have taken a resurgence of interest in change and deformed an accomplishment of prolific proportions and in its most malleable form shaped something ugly, cutting directly to the source material, the very foundation upon which the ideals and ethos of this country were formed.

That said, it is with an open mind that I myself question the past political decisions and their last-minute spicing of the early boiling cauldron. A meeting of minds yet to evolve and understand the country that they created, corpses rehashing the creation of their own policies around a fallen castle of idealism. The inherent nature of born Americans is to fight back, to rise in dissent and cast off all manner of oppression. Based on the oppressive qualities on which our current political system sits, it is our nature to desire change in all forms and from all directions. However, to change every facet of our political and cultural traditions simultaneously would only achieve a level of uncertainty and turmoil that we as a country would not, could not recover from and in such a weakened state would give rise to all manner of extremist tendencies and subscription. We would line up to whole-heartedly sign up for a variety of trivial causes with assaulting aims and tumultuous ends.

Rather, we as a country must exact our changes piece-meal, in incremental ammendements of subtle, effective twists of our national fate and the future of our collective consciousness. We must address each issue as they collapse, economic system first as we have seen it’s considerable demise recently and the exposure of it’s endlessly corrupt infrastructure of capitalist ladling and double-dipping in the face of the poverty-stricken masses. The age of pulling ourselves up from our bootstraps is over, no longer do hard-working means justify the hard-living means. Ours is a life left up in the air, consumed by our own uncertainty. The system itself is designed to elevate those already in power born of privilege and opportunity so that they may take their own liberties, be they liberating the funds of our economic system or allowing their mouths to criticize events, states and elements of our shaped environment that they have no interest in changing, only to deconstruct and create an intricate web of complacency.

Voices like those of Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader, though appropriate and important for specific instances and discourse, are unwanted and unwelcome in a moment of obvious change, simply because the statements that they make are positioned specifically to criticize rather than exact any sort of correction or iterations. It motivates, though negatively seeking specifically to rile the rabble-rousers and create a mob mentality of a different demographic. Though useful if applied positively, it is seldom the initiative and aim of the commentators and becomes self-indulgent soliloquy of entertainment of network televised proportion.

Once a year hundreds of able bodies cram into an auditorium at MIT to hear Noam Chomsky deliver his own state of the union address in which he discounts any efforts of anyone in action and creates a dystopian deliverance of detrimental dissidence. Once every four years environmental advocates, nay-saying, negligible ne’erdowells haplessly cast their votes for Ralph Nader, in favor of the liberal Democratic incumbent serving only to empower the conservative hold on the American psyche. Even the past election, in which our current president was elected, Nader himself refused to remove his candidacy from the general election and had it been more of a landslide, I’m sure his stubborn, self-righteous subjugations would have come into question. However, this is not the case and record store owners and Harvard professors alike continue to soak themselves in the ocean of their own meanderings.

I suppose I should be thankful that intellectuals and academics have kept the traditions of discursive thought alive by reading endlessly dry political theory and criticism, that I haven’t the palate for. I suppose I should be thankful, for without the constant drone of nit-picking critical thought, my own inspiration of discourse could not be assuaged or pondered. I suppose I should be thankful that my own positivity and hopeful nature leads me away from similarly embittered assertions and into other stations of alternate futures and renewal. I suppose I should be thankful that I was able to overcome my own negativity and bitterness and witness a justification of upheaval and unraveling the tightly wound ball of twine in which we have trapped ourselves momentarily. Mostly I’m thankful that I can’t bring myself to feign an interest and subsequent conversation based on the shared ideals of a gaggle of old codgers with nothing nice to say, and in fact nothing to say at all.