messin’ around
Things ARE changing. There’s no sense in lethargy, or hopelessness, fatalism, hedonism, selfishness.
People who say that our country (which I refer to as our “kunch” these days) has no culture aren’t giving it a fair chance. America is a baby, still, compared to centuries-established cultures, due entirely to our conquering ancestors who utterly erased the progress that was here before. We can all agree that the fair thing to do would be to just go back to Europe; staying here, we just ruin the landscape with corporate architecture…
You can see how things changed since the two Great Wars. You can see how we’ve grown technologically and culturally. In many ways, there are relapses. Well, not relapses, what’s the word Spider Jerusalem uses… there’s a “new scum,” new kinds of a lowest common denominator. Addiction permeates every medium, etc.
like chemical reactions from a supernova (atomic warfare anyone?), these new scums, byproducts of our growth, folks, ultimately, who produce nothing, do nothing substantial. This is a country of cash cows, yes, there are more homeless, there are more mentally ill, the numbers of the LCD are higher than ever… Exponential with population growth, and maybe something more…
But back to the main point (and your lethargy). You can see our slave economy, sustained (and kept up with inflation) since mainstream american slavery (duh), got two good boosts from those two wars (by the second we really knew how to cash in (up production at the cost of the people)) and as a result, some Americans are perhaps the most powerful people in the world.
It takes a long time for a ruling class to be established.
Their dominion is at the same time more massive and more weak than every other ruling class before it. Comcast (just an example), rent, utilities, insurance, the price of a graphing calculator (I’m reaching here) serve only to keep the rulers’ money flowing.
What do they spend it on? Maintaining the need for that flow. It is just like taxes, the tool of the rulers of the past.
It was easier to see back then that taxes were going to the illusion. Versailles, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Versailles, for example.
Versailles is for the public, now. Versailles is your shopping mall, where there are fountains and arcades (both the architectural kind and the video game kind), things that you are intended fully to enjoy. Meanwhile, of course, the world is as fucked up today as it was when good king Louis XIV was around, and outside the walls of the malls crawls the hungry, the criminal, the pariah, the peasant.
To mangle a quote, every time you spend money, you’re casting a proportionate vote for the kind of world you want to see.
And as a result, there are legions of lowest common denominators establishing knockoff Versailles’ all over the kunch.
Here’s where the hope comes in: what happened to Louis the XIVth?
Our discreet royalty haven’t had a good boost since World War 2 (the dot com boost was imaginary, the red scare too desperate to make money), and as they lose power, their shrouds lift.
Remember what you know of the 40s: WW2, America kicks ass. The 50s: America is the richest place on Earth. The 60s: whole sects of folks were getting royally miffed at corporate conformity. The 70s: the sects mingle, everyone slightly more miffed, and corporate product is very obviously of lower quality. The 80s: lower quality becomes mainstream fashion. The 90s: the 80s were horrifying. The 00s: a new millenium, and having recovered from the audacity of the 80s, we can begin again. And this decade, the 10s… well, what do the newspapers say? The ruling class is being questioned.
Revolution is no place for lethargy or hedonism. Revolution is just the wheel of our Earth turning, the Earth upon which we are all living. I insinuate that it is better late than never to prepare, to act; the hero/es of the North American people could be heralded tomorrow.
![More character designs!
From left to right: the main character, the girl! She was on suicide watch when she was younger, but has since grown and learnt that purpose and meaning is what you make of it. Her brother: standing at 7’6”, this minor character is generally expressionless, lost in some virtual reality. He could be just as jaded as his sister, preferring to escape rather than shape, but we’ll never know. At least not yet. And the last one for today, her dad! Growing up in the 60s in Northern California, he doesn’t understand why today’s youth would be so iconoclastic, nor does he seem to notice. How could he when his children are so withdrawn?
As always, feedback is appreciated.[?]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m36aphcJQG1rskh78o1_1280.jpg)
