| |
[6.11.06] [Stevens]
FUCK VOTING
"America's military adventures have always been and always will be the functions of our corporate plutocrats. They think of themselves as swashbuckling masters of their own and everyone else's fate. They flatter themselves into believing they've transcended the demarcations of blood, geography and culture. But they're merely the unconscious tools of Universal Balance in its tribal, racial and national manifestations."
By Tom Bradley
In the past seven years I have read enough theosophy and esoteric Buddhism to get a fair understanding of the concepts of racial, tribal and national karma, and to realize what I suspected all along: anything, such as elections and war, that influences the lives of whole shit-loads of people, is to be treated as a mere spectacle for the soul.
To attempt to influence the outcomes, especially by direct action, but even by expending enough energy to write something interesting about them, is like sneezing into a tsunami.
I am revolted by American imperialism, from the time of our original crimes in the Philippines till today, and I am equally revolted by the gang of thugs who happen to be pulling the current president's strings. I acknowledge that Kerry might have been a skosh better domestically.
But America's foreign wars have little to do with which worthless prick happens to be in the White House. Recall that one of Clinton's first acts in office was to continue Dubya's daddy's smart-bomb culling of Baghdad's civilian population. This will not change. Kerry would have leveled Fallujah with as much alacrity as the current brain-dead sociopath did.
America's military adventures have always been and always will be the functions of our corporate plutocrats. They think of themselves as swashbuckling masters of their own and everyone else's fate. They flatter themselves into believing they've transcended the demarcations of blood, geography and culture. But they're merely the unconscious tools of Universal Balance in its tribal, racial and national manifestations.
This is the message of War and Peace. You might think Napoleon was the one guy in theworld with the greatest autonomy, but Tolstoy, a greatfan of the Upanishads, insists, very convincingly, that he had the least freedom of any human of his time. He was no freer to waste this army, or to displace that population, than a novelist is free to develop artistically after he has become unduly famous and had the farming of a million imaginations shunted onto his shoulders.
Entire populations do not kill each other because of the whims or ambitions of one man or group of men. To fancy that is to make the insane mistake of assuming the soul of a peasant or a prole is less important that a prince's or a president's. Each spirit is working out its own metempsychotic progress. When masses of them get interrupted in this all-important endeavor by untimely death, it can only be due to the moral debts of the tribe, or nation, or race to which they belong, as intertwined with other nations, races, or tribes.
When the time comes for such collective blood-dues to be paid, a Napoleon, or an Ariel Sharon, or a Dubya shows up, and is pressed into service as the mere instrument of Universal Balance, meanwhile racking up dark stains of demerit for his own affiliations.
Even before learning about this stuff, my instincts told me that voting was a particularly ludicrous version of whacking off. I never entered a booth, except for one time, early in my marriage, when my brother was the democratic candidate for the Utah governorship, and my wife twisted my arm into showing up at the polls. All I did was duck behind the tiny curtain and trash the place. I busted the stylus and generally fucked everything up so nobody could exercise his franchise after me.
I had no philosophy in mind, not even anarchism. My body just told me to do it, and it was fun, like barfing into your boss' pipe tobacco. I'm sure trashing voting booths is some kind of federal crime, And I guess I'm lucky nobody yelled for the fat old cop who was loitering around.
Anyway, fuck voting.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 Tom Bradley's latest book, Fission Among The Fanatics, has just been published by the great Spuyten Duyvil (NYC).
[permalink]
|
[0 comments]
|
