The Politics of Pain

No one and I mean absolutely no one, not even the mighty Ex-President Clinton can say: “I feel your pain”, and mean it. It is such a bullshit line it makes me laugh out loud and spit milk out through my nose.
How can one know what it’s like to lose your leg, lose your lover, lose your freedom or even your life, unless you already have? And then, do you even care?
We can of course, be sympathetic to ones plight, (Which I support whole-heartedly) even go so far as to be empathetic in the extreme. But the pain will always be personal. It is the nature of us, as creatures of this earth-Mammals.
The funny thing is, I don’t think this is such a bad thing. I don’t want or need anyone to feel what I feel, it’s unfair. No one should have to go through that. And I think most folks in chronic pain (be it mental or physical) would agree. Maybe sometimes I go for the low blow sympathy vote (not when I can help it). But generally speaking;
I like my pain straight up, alone, with a chaser of morphine.

Why do we as a culture, need to feel others pain? Is it voyeuristic? Is it altruistic? Is it sadistic?
“Ooh baby, a little more to the left…that’s it, make the poker hotter…ouch!”. “Yeah, that’s the shit!!”

Maybe it’s all of the above. But pain is huge business. It is for the drug companies who make snake oil remedies of all shapes and sizes for the pain. It is for the media, who broadcast the illusion that the pain is a universal pain and that in our 24-hour news cycle your pain is my pain, and your pain is so worth talking about, because I’m so worth listening to…. It is for the medical industry, who have basically no idea what causes the pain but works diligently to try and find it-all the while draining your bank account. And Let’s not forget the greeting card business that helps us express our uselessness in dealing with the pain of others, while allowing us to read wonderful little bon mots to make us feel better about someone elses’s pain.

I like my pain hard. Come at me with the baseball bat and get ‘er done. None of this lingering shit for me.

But like most things, it’s never quite what we prayed for and looks nothing like what would recognize. It comes quietly in the shadows of happiness, a little twinge here, and a poke there. Until it builds like a tsunami that just washes over you and carries you out to sea.

Pain is relentless, we can stem the tide for a while with various soothing solutions, but it returns to haunt our lives again and again.
The phrase should be; there’s no escaping death, taxes and pain.
While someone can live their whole lives without ever finding love, that same thought cannot be said for pain. Not that they desire it, (not generally at least), but it’s just the way we are built.

Another funny little notion of pain, is that those in real intense chronic pain, generally don’t talk about it to each other. We just nod back and forth as we pass by each other in the waiting rooms of purgatory.

The nod is succinct.
“Hey, what’s up dude, how’s that colon cancer going?”

“Like shitting razors, and you?”

My testicular cancer is a real bitch, it’s like peeing fire 24/7”.

Be cool man, see you soon!!”

There’s no need to say even a single word to each other because we all know. We all know what we feel and not what others feel and we don’t have to. Ours is enough.

I like my pain quiet and terse. Just feed my broken ass to the wolves and be done with it.

If I were to die, I would die in the American Spring.

Selah

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The Lament of Orange Pokey

As heard in the most unlikely place, in my fair city of San Francisco.

The Lament of Orange Pokey:

Dat black man tried to take my guns.
Now wy de do dat?
Tweren’t very nice.
I didn’t take his guns.
As a Matta fact, I give him all he wants.
The bullets, silencers, I give him clips the size of his little black babies.
Taint right, not at all. It un’merican.

It’s my constitutional right, given to me and ma kin by god hiself.
It says it right there in the 2nd menment.
I git the right to bare arms. I even kno some fella’s who lost their arms in eyerak and still they got guns.
It’s un’merican.

I mean, we been given guns to the blacks and the hizpaniks for yeah’s now.

It aint my problem they been killin each other. It’s their right. God Given. It’s the ‘merican way.
You know wat dey say, First you take the guns, then you take ma liberty.

You know my cousins A’zona sure know how to do it right. Dey be carring guns at de rally’s, in the streets and to protests. Dey carrin dem everywhere!
Now dat’s de ‘merican way!!

But along comes this socalist president who want to take away my guns. How dare he!
What he think dis is Russia? It’s just like de guy who played Moses said, You know Moses had firearms too cept they weren’t guns, just some sort of fire from god. Dats how dey beat the jyptions. But like hey sayd, “From my cold dead hands”. Dat’s what I’m sayin.
I sure do wish Moses was still wit us, he was a great man! But ‘nother great man  standin’ up fo us that Wayne LaPierre. He sayin all de riaht stuff as well.
I’m gonna quote him so padon my ‘merican,

‘There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people ………through vicious and violent video games.”

Is ma right to go buy my bushmaster, my glock, my magnum foty foh. I meen a mans gots to support his famly by huntin if need be. ‘Cept of course I haven’t dun much huntin lately on account of I hate cleaning dem dead things.
But if I wanted to I could and that’s what mattahs!

People all be sayin that guns kill folk. Taint true!

But it turns out dat we won de day. NO bakgrun cheks needed. I can simply go to my local pervayer of firearms and git whatever I whant, whenever I want. That’s de way it shuld be.
De land o de free.

So it turns out that a small group of well funded lobbyists have turned a national tragedy onto itself. The slaughter of children at the  Sandy Hook elementary school has become one of the biggest boons to guns sales and gun lobbyists since the 9/11 attacks. The mere thought of a comprehensive background check (Some thing potential employers can do, because a burger is a very dangerous weapon!) has been tossed out by our venerablel senate whores in favor of a better NRA rating.

What’s next? Will the rape of and tragic suicide by Audrie Pott,  pave the way for national rape a teen day?

The American Spring is not about an armed insurgence, but one of the heart. We must change the way we accept the decisions of our supposed corporate overlords and lead them into the light.

If I am to fight, I would fight for an American spring.

Selah

Entitlements

The most bandied about concept in American politics today, outside of Kim Jong Un of course. (I wonder if he is also, “wonwy”)?
When I here this war cry of the “right” (and I don’t mean the political right, just those who are sure that they are morally correct), I think to myself, who in this world does not feel entitled to something? Really, when I think about it, everyone and every group feels that they are owed something or other.
Let’s bear witness:
The Gun Lobby feels that they are entitled to the right to bear arms-any arms.
The Anti-Gun Lobby feels that they are entitled to not be hit by gunfire-any gunfire.
The Elderly feel that they are entitled to Social Security (which when you think about it, is like a bank that’s failing-but they still deserve their deposits).
The Bankers and Financiers feel they are entitled to a place above the law, because the world economy revolves around them. And it DOES!
The Military Industrial Complex feels they are entitled to commit acts of heinous fraud and theft under the guise of national security, oh and because the world economy revolves around them.
The Oil Companies feel that they are entitled the oil even if it’s not on their own soil or endangers human life.
The Environmentalists feel that they are entitled to clean air and water. Hell, just because we need to breathe and drink.
The Poor feel that they are entitled to health care and food because they are human and all humans deserve these-god-given rights.
The Celebrities feel they are entitled to better treatment because of their celebrity, wealth and apparent power.
The Paparazzi feel that they are entitled to destroy the Celebrities because of their celebrity, wealth and apparent power.
Blacks feel entitled because they were slaves.
Whites feel entitles because they stole this land fair and square.
The Jews feel entitled because they are the chosen people.
The Muslims feel entitled because THEY are the chosen people.
And the Christians feel they are the MOST chosen of the chosen, so they are the MOST entitled.
Who does that leave…my dogs? Hell, they even feel entitled to treats just for listening to me. (Which of course they never do!)
But think about it in your terms, in your life. Do you feel entitled?

We live in a world of entitlement brought on by the social conciseness of greed.
Now some of the folks on the left may be thinking-bullshit Rev! Medicare, food stamps, and SSI are all products of the government trying to help the underprivileged. And I agree, but NOT because we are entitled to them, but because it’s the right thing to do. Because we as a society-must want to do these things-to help or brothers and sisters and NOT because they are simply entitled to it. We must want to be the keepers of the faith of society.

I believe in equality plain and simple. To have one group entitled, all must be entitled and to have all entitled is to live in nothing more then a pit of despair because who wants to live in a world where all take and none give. Not I said the little red hen, (Who, by the same concept, thought she was entitled to more then just the confines of a dark dank room, moving on a slow conveyer belt awaiting HER DESTRUCTION).

We need to control our primal urges of fear and insecurity, so that we can remember that helping someone else is not hurting ourselves. We need to control the anxiety of loss so that we do not become hoarders of love. We need to be just a bit more than ourselves everyday, so that tomorrow will be better.

If I were to yearn, I would yearn for an American Spring.

Selah

Prayers

Do you pray and if you do why? It is an odd act, yet one that most of us do all the time in one-way or another. Some of us go to a church/temple/mosque and pray with others to a uniformed god, looking for uniformed answers. Some of us go out to the wild and commune with nature-the Great Mother, Gaia. Some are alone in their thoughts, and speak directly to their god. I’ve even seen people praying to the heavens over a roll of dice. (Man I hope THAT worked out!!).

The point being, that we as a species generally enjoy the thought of someone looking out for us even though most times the interaction is one way. We like the feeling that Mom or Dad have never gone away and are always looking out for us.

The American Indian culture suggests, that when we pray to our gods, our ancestors intercede on our behalf. I like this idea. (A spiritual lawyer, so to speak). It sort of means that at some point in your life you have done deeds that have earned you points with the dead. Maybe you looked after their families or pets. Maybe you helped an old lady cross a street or read a book. Who knows?

But points you have.

So I guess the question is, who intercedes on your behalf?

Have you done deeds or act that are deserving of someone coming to bat for you?

Have you committed acts of betrayal in your world, that would supercede the Devine legal/familial intervention?

Maybe you should pray and find out?

Do prayers even work? I understand the theory that words are the manifestation of thought. And that action can be the manifestation of words, but that still does not answer my questions. Do they work and am I deserving of their answers?

I pray all of the time. I find it comforting and enlightening. Comforting, because unlike my shrink, my god doesn’t count the minutes till he can bill me again. I can redial that number a thousand times for thousands of minutes. I also like the personal nature of my conversations. I don’t stand much for ritual and pomp; I just like to talk, so being able to speak plainly in my prayers make them more meaningful to me. They are an honest assessment of my moment, which brings me to my second point.

They are enlightening….to me!

If I truly examine what it is I pray for, I must also ask myself why I want whatever it is I want. Is it just an item to be placed in my box of items? Or is it a more meaningful question that can have a substantive change in my world if answered?

I don’t know, but any prayer that makes me examine my box car full of baggage along with my motivational forces, is an enlightening prayer and maybe, just maybe, the prayer in and of itself, is actually the question and the answer all wrapped up in one nice little package.

If I were to pray, I would pray for an American Spring.

Selah