Pamela's Blog 2

Published on Monday, May 4, 2009 by Nas2EndWork.org

“Where the Hell is Vasquez When We Really Need Her?”

by Pamela Satterwhite

It’s getting harder and harder to hang on to optimism, Obama or no.

We’re here to help keep each other’s spirits up, and I’d like to do that for you, but I need a little some-of-that back too. I need the moral support of a few more folks willing to look the podrunks (pitiful-power-drunk-few) full in the face and call them what they are – vampires, corpses, wendigos and nesucom – without worrying so much about being “measured” and “objective.” The podrunks are steering us off a cliff – and for our grief they offer a winning grin and the words, “too bad, so sad, sucks to be you!”

I need a few more folks sick of trying to exist on this stinkin’ sinkin’ ship called “you’re-on-your-own.”

The stench of it all is starting to make me woozy.

At times like these, when “hope” is sagging and I’m on a roll into a really good whine, I need Vasquez to say, “Pamela, give us a break!”

At times like these, when I’m sinking into a big pot of “glum” and I can’t seem to pull myself out, I need to see her pumping up her biceps, ignoring the smirking face behind her:

Hudson: “Hey, Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?”
Vasquez: “No, have you?”
Vasquez, you’re just too bad.

But I need her most of all for her utter fearlessness about “facing reality.” When there were grim facts to face, she faced them. When there were monsters to annihilate, she got busy.

Well, the pitiful-power-drunk-few are destroying not just people, but the planet, and it’s time to get busy.

The tenderhearted among us argue against any division at all. “We are all one,” you may say, “it’s wrong to demonize.”

[But, as my friend pointed out, they call themselves demons, and take pride in the fact, so it’s accurate to call them that.]

OK, so let’s not demonize. Let’s face facts.

Think of your own behavioral patterns.

Pounded into your psyche at an early age, they are extremely hard to change. Most of us have to devote a lifetime of effort trying to heal from the damage this sick system does to each of us. Only enormous commitment and motivation gives us the strength to move these boulders out of the way of our growth as human beings.

Podrunks possess neither the commitment nor the motivation to embark on this journey of self-reflection and blossoming communion with our fellow creatures.

So, while I agree that any solution we devise together must embrace everyone, absolutely, nonetheless we cannot expect the psychically unwell to join us in this project. We can expect such to fight us tooth and nail.

So, the facts:

Fact: Patterns formed when we’re babies are extremely hard to undo.
Fact: Podrunks are patterned to care not a whit about you.
Fact: If we wait on their waking we’re foolish indeed.
Fact: Let our actions provide the motivation they need.

And we mustn’t forget: their awakening is irrelevant. We wish for it, fer sure, fer sure, fo sho, fo sho – but compared to the changes we must make in our own lives, their evolution don’t even nudge the needle on the significance meter.

They organize. They do. So must we. We have to gently, responsibly…stake the vampire. We have to control the economy, not the other way around. We have to control the polity, not the other way around.

“Self-esteem begins with a workable plan.”

The good-hearted among us who are not yet seeing reality are caring folks, almost fit for our future freedom without bosses. They’re like the crew in the movie Aliens – before they grapple with the monster itself.

Aliens is a good metaphor for our present situation. Each of us starts out on our journey in this death-worshipping system full of life and full of ourselves. And then gradually more and more of our essential soul gets worn away until finally we’re forced to face fundamentals: how to survive intact, how to fight back?

(Soul murder is murder, soul death is death.)

What’s exhilarating about Aliens compared to our actual conundrum is that they all know that there’s a monster to face, and they all work together. (Now there’s a great fantasy.) Everyone knows there’s a monster, and everyone knows what it looks like. And when it comes down to it, minor squabbles dissolve and they have each other’s back. And they’re fucking serious as a heart attack, because they know the stakes.

But this is a different pile of worms you and I have to deal with. And we’re too busy trying to maneuver in the muddle, and keep our head above the jumble, to take on the slimy mess. Too stuck in our “personal dramas called ‘survival,’” as Stanley Tookie Williams said. Too busy being individual bits of flotsam on the sea to notice that if we held hands we could help each other.

But the time has come to reconceive the problem of “survival” as a larger one, beyond our individual selves. The time has come to direct our psyches and all our energies to the communal solution instead of to the red herring individual ones.

The time has come to turn to each other instead of “the system,” for help. It’s “the system” that made this mess and “the system” can only exacerbate it.

Only we can create the world we want.

And the earth is waiting.

If we want our future freedom without bosses we’d best get busy. If you need a kick in the butt to wake up, ask Vasquez what she’d do.

No more excuses. It’s time.

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Nas2EndWork "Pamela's Blogs":

Pamela's Blog 2

Published on Monday, May 4, 2009 by Nas2EndWork.org

“Where the Hell is Vasquez When We Really Need Her?”