I’m not just any old dumb-ass. I’m a dumb-ass with a lot of hats, cats and a few chickens. But I’m also a dumb-ass who’s lived long enough to recognize tripwires and the sound of impending silence tromping around in the nether regions.
I’m a dumb-ass with a pair of ears I can hear with and eyes I can see with.
What I see and hear are the forces of ‘the other side’ are dragging out the heavy artillery and the Magnificent Seven. The propagandist litany of dirty sexual organs, dirty clothes, dirty underwear and dirty Communism is already coming through the loudspeakers of surround-sound.
You’re being demonized, but they’re also planting pamphlets they claim are circulating among you about what circumstances it’s okay to kill cops. Claiming your promiscuity’s worse than that of a politician or vice cop. Claiming you’re getting your funding from any organization they think anyone hates.
These tactics have always worked for them in the past. They’re not too different from those used by the USSR against Polish Solidarity to keep it down almost a decade. They’re not, for that matter, too different from those used once in Germany to acclimatize the population to some reason behind a segment of the population vanishing.
Meanwhile it’s going to get cold nights and those who have somewhere warm to go are going to find all manner of important reasons to go there.
Generally it makes better PR to go voluntarily than to be driven out by having been discredited so badly as to seem a justifiable target for physical abuse. And it’s better to go voluntarily than just to fade from something that can be labelled ‘lack of support’, or ‘lack of interest’.
I’ve never quite been dumb-ass enough to think this OWS business is likely to bring about any positive change, but I have been dumb-ass enough to hope it doesn’t get steamrollered. Enough to allow a microscopic hope that what’s being done could get the attention of some piece of the power structure enough to get them thinking.
But now the clock is running. There’s more than a hint that both political parties have realized allowing all these folks to quietly sink back into the population when a national election’s looming on the horizon might be worse then having them out where they can be discredited and infiltrated by provocateurs, inflamed and accused.
I’m a dumb-ass who thinks the smart ones are filling up the address books with email addresses and phone numbers, packing their dirty sex, dirty underwear, and dirty Communism as carry-on luggage for a trip below the horizon, off the radar.
But I’m not dumb-ass enough to think anyone’s going to do it.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
well, I for one would rather be a dumb-ass with honor rather than a political icon, famous or ceo with not a drop of honor on them (~_~) bows humble…
adding…where’s the Duke when you need ’em, I would love for some joe-blow with honor and integrity to run for president, of course my wife says they’ll be corrupt with-in a year. So the best we can do is vote for the one that is corrupt and will look you in the eye and say so. (~_~)
Hi zen. I expect your wife’s not a dumbass. Might be if voting can do anything at all the only thing it might is to turn over the pot occasionally and throw out all the incumbents. Rattle things up. Gracias, Jules
Zendictive – US Grant had integrity when he was president. No accusations ever stuck to him, but he had one of the most corrupt administrations ever.
Old Jules – I’m hoping that by the time they are disbanded form their Occupy locations, their message will have gained positive traction in the minds of the electorate (well, all citizens really)and be an impetus for change.
El Guapo: A worthy piece of hoping. Gracias, Jules
“There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
Two of the best lines ever written in a song.
Teresa Evangeline: Definitely a good song and pair of lines. Gracias, Jules
Excellent post, as usual, Jules. Here’s to the vigor of youth and the wisdom of age. May we all live with fair measure of both.
Peace
Hi destrudowoman: May we all. Thanks, Jules
Jules, we have our traction. Viva la revolucion!
Love the insight again, thanks!
Hey Jules,
I see your point. I understand your concern I am sure you are correct. I am not so sure that curling up for the winter is the right response though. Even if you could convince all the thousands of protesters to try it. Don’t take offence if I say anything insensitive.
I began life as a registered Republican. I voted for Reagan in 1980. I believed in the economic policies as so many do. I was never very excited about their position on social issues but I followed the old “trickle down” theory of economics just like they said.
As time passed I began to detect a change in the GOP. Wages got lower. Everything cost more. We were going to war. First in 1990 -91. Poor Kuwait. Poor oppressed Kuwait. We just had to go there George H. W. Bush said to free the poor helpless people of Kuwait.
Then came Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the list is likely to go on. I asked myself. Why is it every time we decide to help someone; the situation always requires war not aid. Killing people not feeding them. Teaching them to kill rather than farm. Then I began to listen and I was always hearing how we should cut or end Social Security etc. And it hit me.
I am not a Republican.
So I tried the Democrats. Not much better I fear. No real change. Just more Rhetoric. Now to tell the truth; when the banking scandals started back in 08, I wasn’t paying much attention. I had, by that time, become so jaded that I figured I had nothing to contribute to a system that was so written in stone and I was having health problems that required my attention.
All during the nineties my family was having a harder and harder time making it on my salary even though it went up about 6% every year + the COLA. Things were rough. I was making about 35K for my family of four(and that is the pay for a level two Supervisor in charge of a department) when I had several heart attacks one Sunday and had to have a quadruple bypass. My Sternum failed to fuse due to my COPD and the fact that I was forced to return to work after only 1 month of recuperation; and the fact that after they threatened my job if I failed to return, they transferred me from a relatively slow paced branch to the busiest and most physically challenging department in the library system.
I worked the job for seven months from January –July of 09 and when the constant pain in my chest, back, and knees due to torn menisci in them became so severe that I was unable to stand it anymore; the Human resources Department suggested that I apply for Disability Retirement through the State Employee Retirement System of which, they are a member.
They awarded me 1219.00 per month of which 687.00 is deducted to pay my share of my Health Care Insurance. This leaves me 532.00 per month for the rest of whatever life is left to me. Me and my family of four.
When I tried to apply for Social Security Disability, about a week after I stopped working; at my local S. S. office; the friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff informed me that I could not apply until I had been out of work for one year. We found out through the grapevine that this was wrong information and so in February of 2010, I applied for Social Security. They will only pay you retroactively back to the date you apply so because of the good advice of the caring and knowledgeable Social Security Staff; I lost approximately 6.5 months of pay; assuming I am ever approved because I have been in the application and appeal process for 1 year and 9 months at the time of this writing. If it were not for the generosity of my wife’s parents, we would have been on the streets and starving; literally because there is no help for people in our particular situation. 532.00 a month.
Now I guess this has really made me angry. I am not applying for Welfare or charity. I am just asking for the insurance payments I have paid premiums for, for the last thirty-five years. This woke me up Jules. It woke me up “Real good”. Just prior to the beginning of the OWS movement, I began to investigate the reasons for the current wage/cost disparity that had so crippled us and I found out all kinds of things that both angered me and further convinced me that the answer to the problems that the 99% are experiencing does not lay with either of the two current parties. The Tea party movement elevated my anger because I discerned a true Fascist nature to their rhetoric.
This is my true fear Jules. That One or the other party will get the “right” person in at the right time and because of the depressed economy and the wage disparity and the frustration of the people which has been brought on by these Political Parties much as it was in 1933, they will transform our democratic nation into a Fascist Dictatorship much as they did in 1933, Berlin.
One of the reasons I am so confident of this happening unless we stand up to stop it is that everyone keeps saying it isn’t possible. And the politicians keep saying nothing in response to charges of that nature. Take a close look and listen.
I have no doubt that you are correct about the underhanded tactics and ruthless propaganda machine at work. as you say and I have said before; these are standard tools in their kit. I unfortunately expect but hope against increased violence as a result of this conflict of Philosophies.
But really, now is not the time to kick back and allow them to gain strength and position. Now is the right time for OWS. Now is the right time for what I like to call the “American Renaissance” A complete revisiting of all parts of our culture. Political, Educational, and all other areas.
The Capitalist System isn’t broke. It is doing exactly what it was designed to do. Move the wealth to the top 1%.
After much consideration, I believe we need a new or at least revised system. One that is fair to all the people but doesn’t interfere in the Capitalist process more than necessary. Sound wild huh? I know. It is a big scary idea; no less for me but it is I believe the only answer to the situation we have now discovered we have been lulled into.
Believe me Jules, I wish it could be done any other way. I better clarify that the expected violence will come from the “government” not the protesters. How they will react is unpredictable at this point. If the “Establishment” would agree to the needed changes, I am sure we would all love to go home and be comfortable but now that the people; the “99%” so to speak; have begun to move. Now that they have begun the demand for change; the only way is forward. Anything else is capitulation in our own destruction. That’s what I think anyway. I can’t speak for anyone else. We the People have been duped for the past 235 years. Everything we were told was a lie. Beginning with our History and running all the way to the reasons for the current problems. We are not a Democracy. We do not elect the President. We are not free. We have many more rights than are mentioned in the Constitution and many have been taken or restricted because they were not so enumerated (which would have been impossible of course). We no longer have many of the rights that are guaranteed in the Constitution since the Patriot Act was passed. We do not go to war to save oppressed people. We do not offer humanitarian aid or use our military to assure delivery of humanitarian aid. We are nothing like the nation that I was taught I was a part of and I have often been shamed by the actions of my country although my loyalty has of course never wavered; I have become convinced of the need for drastic change in the way we relate to our own people and the way we relate to other nations.
Sorry to run on so long. I hope I haven’t said anything too shocking or offensive. Talk to you soon Jules.
Hi Mark. Thanks for coming by and offering the detailed comment. You’ve obviously given a lot of thought to the matter and arrived at what you hope is a workable means of finding a solution. I personally don’t know any answers. I hope someone finds some. I’m too old to be a crusader, though I’ve been a crusader enough in my life to recognize by hindsight I didn’t know any answers then, either. Strange life. Best wishes to you. Jules