scarecrow poetics/essays

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

 

What I am really angry about?...

1. There is no national health care. Why does India have national health care and we don't. America has more money than india and less people. I am confused, I have a childlike confusion about this. I feel like a child who hit his sister, then his daddy tells him not to. Then daddy hits mommy. I am confused. I am so fucking confused by that. Also what confuses me is the fact that one bad action movie, just one can cost up to 100 million dollars to make and there is even one person in this world who doesn't have full health care.

2. Why don't we have a parliament like England or New Zealand, or every other industrialized nation where more parties can enter the political system. We have two, that is stupid. And there is no way to another get one in. That is stupid and backward. We have a dictatorship within a democracy. Iraq will probably have a better democracy than ours before all this is finished.

3. That the Republican party exists at all. It needs to be wiped off the face of the earth. And its leaders in office and in the media should be brought to court on crimes against humanity. Dig up Nixon.

The democrats should be the far right party. Throw in the Green Party and a Labor Party and some other kind of party, maybe an Information workers party. It would be great. The Republican party is all shit all the fucking time, and it has been for forty years. It does nothing but harm humanity. You can't even argue with them. We don't need to agree all the time, but fuck, those assholes aren't even in the ballpark.

4. We need to Recognize that computers and high-tech machines have changed the economic field. That it takes less people to produce more shit. Therefore less people are needed to create the products humanity needs. How many fucking cups do humans need. One example: In 1970 the chevy plant in youngstown needed 14,000 workers to produce its cars. Now it needs only 7,000. The number has been cut in half. Computers, technology, has and forever will be making the workforce needed smaller, not bigger.

5. America's extreme form of capitalism. First, there is no real justification for capitalism. Here is one example of the absurdism of what capitalism does. Magic Johnson, a famous basketball player bought 30 Starbucks. He just bought them. He gets the profits from coffee shops. Now Ayn Rand's version of capitalism is that they deserve the money because of their genius. Well, in reality capitalism has nothing to do with genius. He bought those, and he makes the money because he owns the instruments of production. He worked to become a famous basketball player. But he didn't do shit concerning coffee. and that's the reality of capitalism, a rich person buys the instruments of production and reaps the profits. and they get white collar people to design the products, and advertisements. They get normal people to make their products, design, and sell them.

A moment in my life: My friend's dad who worked at Kmart distribution when I was in high school came up to me and said, "You know who the highest paid person at Kmart is?" I said, "No." He said, "Kathy Ireland." The model appeared on the posters. Capitalism allows some random famous person to get paid more for one days worth of work, then the employees do all year.

Now, don't call me a commie. I don't have problems with local businesses, or even some person owning like five pizza shops etc. But fuck, some of this shit just don't make any fucking sense.

6. America needs to be weaned off of religion. This religious shit needs to die. There is no afterlife, God does not matter. I don't think taking away religion cold turkey would be very prudent , probably some violence would take place. But there needs to be a process where schools and the media show that thinking about religion is harmful to one's life. I would support and pay extra taxes to having people who were religious get counseling to help them with their low-self-esteems.

7. Racism needs to be stopped. The government actually needs to be pro-active about that. Being racist is not freedom of speech, it is fucking bullshit. People are born equal, that is a fact. You can't have an opinion on a fact.

"The fact that the citizens of our country are pretty complacent and do nothing to uproot the status quo?"

In history the bulk of humans of a certain country only disrupt the status quo during time of economic change. When a new instrument is placed into the economic field, the computer will eventually cause the uprooting.

But calling Americans complacent would be wrong. I know many uncomplacent, very angry people. Not punk rockers either. But regular, hard working americans, who are pissed. Look at the signs people are holding at Chevy rallies. Chevy is going bankrupt, the protesters are screaming for a political party that represents labor.

One the things about America's media, is they never show news like that.

Another example would be: In Youngstown last, there was a shoot out between gangs and the police. The gangs fired on the police. You don't fire a gun at the police if you are complacent. To explain the total event. In two days a gang war broke out, five people got shot. Two people just sitting in their house watching television. A woman was taken hostage. All kinds of crazy shit. A total third world scene right here in the America.

That was just in Youngstown, there are a good amount of areas in America worse than Youngstown. So I wouldn't be surprised more incidents like that have occured. (But I suppose that rich guy who killed his wife and went to england is more important and crucial to the survival of the american people.)

If the bulk of America was complacent why wouldn't they vote at all?

People don't vote because they see the options as shit. Or "disgusting" as a heard one woman say.

The problem isn't that they aren't complacent, its that no one bothers to learn what they want, to learn what they are like, what would make them leave their house and do something about it.

In my opinion: The working class and the poor are angry. And the only way to make things different in this country is to tap into that anger. To direct their anger. Instead of them being violent and mean to other people of their class. Show them why they are angry. Show them they are intelligent, that they can think and reason. That they are people too. That they are humans and need to be treated with respect.

One of the biggest problems, is the masochism of the poor and working class. They have been taught that they are dumb and that thinking is useless. For example Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed. Her disguising herself and going down into the lower classes teaches that poor people are stupid. What she should have done is just did interviews with poor people. There is too strong of an emphasis on what college you went to, was it state or private, was it Harvard or Bowling Green, did you go at all.

I can easily imagine someone from Bowling Green discrediting what someone from a state university said, then I can imagine someone from Harvard discrediting what someone from Bowling Green said. Based solely on the fact where they went to school.

The academia must recognize that normal working people are intelligent. That if you show the facts, %90 of them will understand.

Example: I was work and talking to a 19 year old kid who didn't graduate high school. For some reason I told him about Chomsky's Critical Hypothesis Theory. How there are muscles in the brain that need to be used by the time a kid is seven, or they will never be able to use grammar. I said, "it is like a muscle, it needs to be used. etc." The kid understood.

Normal people understand facts.

I went to college for awhile. Political ideas aren't biology or physics. A political or a psychological idea, if it is any good and based in reality. Can be understood by anyone.

To finish this: I don't think communism will lead to there being no state, or that there will be a utopia, or that an utopia would even be very fun. But fuck, things could be better than this.W

Noah Cicero © 2006




Noah Cicero (born 1980) is an American novelist, essayist, playwright, short-story writer, and poet. He lives in Youngstown, Ohio, and is the author of two books of fiction:

The Human War [2003, Fugue State Press, New York]

The Condemned [2006, Six Gallery Press, Pennsylvania]

His stories, poetry, and essays have also been published extensively on the Internet. His prose is spare, extreme in its directness and force, and addresses with brutal Absurdist humor the day-to-day lives of urban-wasteland characters who are painfully aware of the futility of their existence. He notably depicts crumbling urban America, in particular the bars and strip clubs of Youngstown, with a bleak black humor. The work, while highly accessible, is imbued with political critique and an existential examination of reality. He has cited Sartre, Hemingway and Beckett as central influences.

His essays are both political and philosophical in nature, sometimes using the tools of psychology and philosophy to crucify those political leaders or followers he sees as acting in bad faith. Some of these essays have been written in collaboration with Ohio journalist Bernice Mullins.

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