The Fermentation of the Underground

Back in the eighties, a group of friends and I were arguing with another friend (Trip, if you’re listening, I wonder if you’ll remember this) about Reagan.  My friends and I were opposed to Reagan, and (curiously to me at the time) Trip was arguing for Reagan’s re-election. I had considered that Trip and I were of similar mind-sets on many things, and I didn’t understand his position on this issue. His response was brief, and struck me then, and still strikes me today, as a laser-beam shot at the folly of all politics. Explaining his support for Reagan’s re-election, Trip whispered in my ear while everyone else continued to rant:

The fermentation of the underground.

The tables have now turned, but the principle remains the same (which is why politics is folly). The ruling party stimulates the underground. Subversion is inevitable. Fermentation of the underground (whether liberal or conservative) is inevitable. The yeast will bubble and rise and overcome and assume control, and then the process will recycle.

Some other random but somehow related thoughts:

I have a picture that my sister gave me of some graffiti spray-painted on a building wall that reads:

People are priceless, Money is shit.

Perhaps the most significant sentence in the book 1984 by George Orwell is the following:

Proles and animals are free.

And finally, I still remember (its funny how certain tiny clips from a life come back with renewed and compounded meaning over and over again) a phrase I read written by an acquaintance to a friend of his in the college annual:

You take the high road …

Taxes Aren’t Charity

It seems to me, despite whatever hopes political liberals and hipsters may have had about Obama, Obama is anti-freedom. Obamanomics is about GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL.

Obama says that more federal/central government is the solution, not the problem.

Reagan said that more federal/central government is the problem, not the solution.

If you value freedom, which makes more sense?

Love (and charity, and responsibility, and hope, and opportunity, and freedom) is not manifested and cannot grow under the strong-arm of political power and imposed “sacrifice.”

The Gold Ring of Freedom

Having been a political “liberal” until around age 32, and having now become a political “conservative,” I am now aware of how any given political or philosophical perspective–if followed through to its logical conclusions–wraps around and either becomes its opposite, or else recognizes its opposite within itself. (The problems I see with both sides, liberal and conservative, usually come from a stubborn unwillingness to follow through and wrap around.) So, I comfortably hold equal appreciation and agreement with, for example, the music of The Grateful Dead and the talk of Rush Limbaugh. Although, I reckon, neither the Dead (and deadheads) nor Limbaugh would recognize their own beliefs within the expressions of the other, I do.

Freedom, that’s what I’m after. And that’s what I’ve always understood both the Dead and Limbaugh are ultimately after. And that’s what I’ve also always understood the U.S. Constitution was written and established to preserve.

Oh, Freedom, Oh, Liberty,

Oh, leave me alone

To find my own way home.

Freedom is the prize. This is the gold ring.

Calling Winston Smith! (or, Will the Real Big Brother Please Stand Up)

It’s funny how, as a “liberal” in the eighties, I viewed Reagan as a sort of Big Brother figure, and the fear on the left was that Reagan represented a move toward a fascist/totalitarian state.

It is obvious to me now that Obama’s resemblance to Big Brother is remarkable. During the campaign, when he was labelled a socialist, Obama and his supporters scoffed and hastily refuted the label, correctly asserting that socialism means government ownership of the means of production, and of course Obama was not (then) talking about government ownership of the means of production (and, oh, how ridiculous for anyone to suggest that he was). Now, as we are actually experiencing the takeover of private entities (the auto industry, the banking industry, and coming soon, the health care industry) by the government, we clearly have government ownership of the means of production.

Is he is, or is he ain’t, a socialist?

I wonder who Winston Smith would fear more, Reagan or Obama?

Take a load off Fannie Mae

I was listening to The Grateful Dead (Deer Creek, 6/7/91) cover of “The Weight” (check it out for Bob’s impersonation of Danko’s strained warbling–beautiful, in an odd sort of way), and it crossed my mind how this song applies in an unexpected (perhaps) way to the Obamanomics practice of governmentally enforced “charity” by taking from those who have and giving to those who (supposedly/theoretically) have not:

Take a load off Fannie,

And you put the load right on me!

I also find it curious/serendipitous that the line refers to Fannie, which so happens to be the name of the quasi-government sponsored mortgaging entity whose gross mis-management started this cannonball (!) rolling downhill.

Robbie Robertson said of the song:

(Buñuel) did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood. People trying to be good in ‘Viridiana’ and ‘Nazarin’, people trying to do their thing. In ‘The Weight’ it’s the same thing. People like Buñuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn’t necessarily a religious meaning. In Buñuel there were these people trying to be good and it’s impossible to be good. In ‘The Weight’ it was this very simple thing. Someone says, ‘Listen, would you do me this favour? When you get there will you say “hello” to somebody or will you give somebody this or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh? You’re going to Nazareth, that’s where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you’re there.’ This is what it’s all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it’s like ‘Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say “hello” for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.’ It was very Buñuelish to me at the time.

via Peter Viney on “The Weight”.

This is what Obamanomics feels like:

… one thing leads to another and it’s like ‘Holy Shit, what’s this turned into? I’ve only come here to say “hello” for somebody and I’ve got myself in this incredible predicament.