Us would be you, me, and the committee in my head.
Peace and Carats is part of a broader online publishing effort, Implausible Endeavors LLC, the components of which are listed in the Blogroll. Amid all the confusion and corruption, all the murder and mayhem, all the bravado and bullshit, I have discovered that my country is more screwed up than I am. On the path of Enlightenment, I am actually ahead of my country. Who’da thunk?
I haven’t decided whether that’s more of a shock or more of a relief.
Who could have known that the course of my life or my nation’s history would take such preposterous turns? True, anyone who was watching my behavior or my countrymen’s could have known but the point is, what’re we gonna do NOW? We quote-unquote “find ourselves” in crises, one worse than the other and, joke of jokes, the United States of America is in deeper shit than me.
It has been brought to my attention as startlingly as if I stepped on a tack that there is not a single person on earth to whom I am the most important person on earth. Not a married person, either. Not a family member. Not a friend. Not my only child. Not my own government. No human has got my back.
Boo hoo, right? There are American Workers sitting in a factory in the Midwest, having been let go without notice or severance, some of them after decades of labor, many of them with families, right before Christmas. My problems pale compared to most people’s. It follows, then, that I ought to be able to help those who are worse off than me . . . I mean, aside from handing cash to homeless people every time I leave the apartment. Taking a play from the government playbook, I realize that what I need to do in order to help those who are worse off than me is to get those who are better off than me to channel some money my way.
With the global economy in the crapper, you can appreciate the challenge. A three-point basket at the buzzer. A 56-yard field goal in overtime. A grand slam. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? Plus, bear in mind that I’m talking about people forking over one or two dollars, not one or two illions. Long tails of zeros are the realm of the Players.
Since no one but the Bad Guys seem to know what they’re doing, I figure it’s a lead, follow or step aside situation. Until someone steps up that I can follow, I’ve no choice but to take my own lead or I’m liable to wind up floor-kill, like the hapless WalMart employee who recklessly opened a door without an attack plan or an exit strategy. Keep me company or present a better idea.
I have launched a micro mini independent media outlet that I hope shall be commercially viable strictly upon the good favor of the Public. That would be you. Whether my work — the formulation of my observations, ruminations and dot connections into readable paragraphs — is worth a small sum each year to enough people worldwide to float my boat as an international gypsy, that is the question.
A child can see that the People are being lied to right, left and center. A child can see that Bad Guys are gumming up the works. People who need people are the luckiest people in the world? That hasn’t been MY experience. In my experience, Need = Vulnerability. People need people who speak Truth — otherwise, it’s all like chasing mercury.
I am generally considered to be TOO honest.
My bedside manner sucks, I swear like a sailor, I don’t suffer fools, I wrestle with a brooding and cynical nature. But I’m also smart, incisive, ethical and expendable. Have opinions, will travel. I know a thing or two about a thing or two, and I think I can get a few project percolating. New stuff. Cool stuff. Right stuff.
Big Media answers to Big Money, that’s the name of that tune. Birds of a feather, honor among thieves, don’t bite the hand that feeds you . . . pick your poison. My country is being driven into the ground, without a cop, a detour or a designated driver in sight.
Like Eddie Izzard, “I’m willing to learn” but, like I said . . . lead, follow or step aside.
Within the broad labor classification of Writer, surely there is space and need for financially “independent” Citizen Journalists and Philosophers who are reliant upon public rather than private funding. Surely it will not afford an accurate historical record if only those who are well settled into bona fide personal financial independence shall be free to speak, write and report candidly. Great personal wealth and security skews both perception AND reception — I give you the Ruling Elite.
What guarantee, then, that I shall not become biased by great wealth? One of the things that I have learned about people is that we don’t really want our contemporaries to succeed too much . . . the further you move ahead, the further behind I fall. Oh yes indeedy, I am ON to us.
For one thing, there are the obvious constraints of my own talent and appeal. I am not a Politician setting out to bewitch a broad base, but a Writer setting out to tap a deep well. For another thing, I am on a mission to prove to my spoiled and thankless son that being rich does NOT oblige a person to be an Asshole. Thirdly, if I get too big for my britches or if I’m a cheapskate or an asshole, cut me off. EZPZ.
While presidential candidates spent historic sums on self-promotion, I heard on the radio that the American Red Cross had to BORROW money to help flood victims in the Midwest last summer. Can you believe that? Hope it wasn’t one a them adjustable rate dealies. It seems that after Hurricane Katrina — not that THAT mess has been mopped up, I can attest after driving through New Orleans in March — people shifted their “charity” to Campaign-O-Rama. Between souped-up hurricanes, recurring California fires and the likelihood that increasing violence will accompany worsening economic conditions, I apprehend that the American Red Cross is an organization in need of Major Donors.
I can grow this business journalistically. Were it not for the pesky matter of paying its members, I could provide work for a crew beginning tomorrow — there are so many more stories than hours. Or I can be a Rugged Individualist. I can do reality, or I can do fiction.
What I can’t do is write for free. What you can’t want is another page smattered with advertising-for-revenue. Will the public pay me to write? Otherwise, I’m thinking that teaching English overseas might be my ticket out of this craziness. Gooood Morning Viet Nam.
In asking an already beleaguered Public for financial support, I would ask that you to contemplate that SEVENTY THREE MILLION DOLLARS of Other People’s Money was recently spent advocating and opposing gay marriage on a single ballot initiative. Over a BILLION DOLLARS of Other People’s Money was spent between Obama and McCain. HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS-SOON-TO-BE-TRILLIONS of dollars of Other People’s Money is being diverted to bailout Bad Guys. I think that my imposition on the market is not strenuous and that the potential for right-minded upside is real.
Plus, I am a notorious spendthrift — a walking, talking Economic Stimulus Package. I have no cause to save one dime more than I can spend. On the contrary, think Little Red Hen. Imagine an ongoing spending FRENZY that features not stuff but services and ideas. I have already burnt out the Acquisition Of Stuff treadmill. I am STILL shedding Stuff since my Reversal of Fortune . . . I WEEP to think of the hours and dollars I have squandered on superficial material “goods.” Finito.
Transportation, accommodation, relaxation, education — planes, trains, buses, hotels, motels, the side of the road, restaurants, cafes, someone’s dining room — another city, another state, another country, another circumstance, another opportunity, another piece of the puzzle, go, go, go, move, move, move . . .stay in the game until we find solutions or I find peace or we both drop dead.
I’m pretty sure posterity will not regret your having supported me while I chased and collected thoughts.
I am a Truth Teller, which is not a claim that most of your representatives in Congress can make.
The prize on which my eyes gaze is not Loan Modification, but Citizenship Modification. I shall devise exceedingly reasonable terms which my greedy and heavy-handed government can accept, thereby establishing precedent, or which my greedy and heavy-handed government can reject by exiling or murdering me. That alone oughtta be worth a couple of bucks.
But what I will NOT do is play and pay by their capricious moneymaker rules, and what I will NOT be is fodder for Incarceration Incorporated.
Life is short and the world is big. With support from a free market, I’m pretty sure I can get a better than average small business off the ground and a better than average show on the road. Without support from a free market, it is not a small business that SHOULD get off the ground, nor a show that warrants a sendoff.
Without support from a free market, it’s not a Startup — it’s a Bailout.
Presently, there is a PayPal option in the right hand menu. I confess I have heard many not-good stories about PayPal, though from the accumulating rather than the spending point of view. Certainly I have less and less confidence in the entire Money Moving industry.
What I’d really like to encourage is sending a one-dollar bill. Perhaps the occasional fiver or ten-spot, but surely not more than that . . . cash. I would not want to tempt postal employees into a federal crime. But I would not at all mind seeing snoopy, greedy Government Officials drive themselves to distraction over their inability to track my/your money.
Good. Let THEM see how helpless reliance on another’s word feels like. But here’s the thing . . . I am a person of my word, which is not an attribute that even the President of the United States can lay claim.
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