Considering it produces no income and, WORSE, gives no evidence of helping anyone but ME — and even THAT is debatable — I spend a lotta lotta time on Twitter.
Sentence by sentence, with a 140-character limit per, MOST of it “original” composition, ask around, THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND TWEETS is a lotta lotta venting. The argument defending my commitment of uber-scarce resource TIME to Twitter turns on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual benefits of ORDERING MY THOUGHTS and TAMPERING MY RAGE.
I do not use the term RAGE lightly. ANGER is dangerous — NOT to say it does not sometimes serve excellent purpose, such as severing of toxic relationships. ANGER is a redder flag among red flags — think, RED HOT. Rage? Redder, still. Hot hot HOT says devoted parent to cherished child: DON’T TOUCH!
See, I got screwed by Conscienceless Uber Rich BEFORE the Great Savings Heist of 2008…then AGAIN in 2008. I’m down to two gears for Anger: TOTALLY PISSED and PAYBACK IS A BITCH.
In MY world, in quote-unquote GOOD Times, “Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our principles, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. In THESE times, no lie or exaggeration, Anonymity seems to me to bear rather pointedly on SURVIVAL. Poor Sergio Vieira de Mello. Poor Vittorio Arrigoni.
One thing I am NOT anonymous about is my REMISSION from Alcoholism. I quote from famous CHAPTER FIVE: HOW IT WORKS of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, BIBLE TO UNCOUNTED MILLIONS: “Resentment is the number one offender . . . With the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.”
Empirically, I AM FIGHTING FOR MY LIFE, such as it is. More consequentially, I am fighting for the salvation of my soul — whether that is defined by the EXTREME heaven-hell paradigm or by karma-based Spiritual Evolution. I categorically REJECT the dispiriting notion that THIS is the whole shebang. It would scarcely be worth getting out of bed in the morning. As far as I am concerned, this entire MILLENNIUM has sucked.
With more than a half-century of Life Experience under my belt, I have encountered NOTHING that breeds and feeds resentment like DELIBERATE INJUSTICE PERPETRATED BY MORE POWERFUL PARTIES WHO SWASHBUCKLE WITH BRAVADO THAT TRACES TO OFFICIAL COMPLICITY & JUDICIAL SYMPATHY.
Like when the Banking Sector plays FINANCIAL TERRORIST and the Federal Government sez PLENTY OF BLAME TO GO AROUND, LET’S MOVE FORWARD.
No can do.
People say LOSE THE ANGER. Great idea. Put it WHERE? Profiteers and Opportunists are swashbuckling away. Injustices MOUNT. Consider how many OCCUPY WALL STREET Protesters have been arrested . . . and how many Real Estate Appraisers, Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Bankers, Hedge Fund Managers, Market Makers, Investment Advisors, Derivative Traders & Risk Assessors have NOT been arrested?
Hell, porn-surfing employees of the Securities & Exchange Commission, paid by Taxpayers to prevent JUST such a debacle as occurred with Sub-prime Credit Default Swaps, didn’t even get fired.
Societies get more of whatever turns a profit. Take Afghanistan, by way of random example. HEROIN and WAR turn profits. DRUG WAR & “REGULAR” WAR, we got. White Collar Crime pays EYE-POPPINGLY, MIND-BOGGLINGLY well in America, so we get more and more of it. Scam Artistry abounds, INCLUDING in agencies and programs instituted and administered (again at Taxpayer expense) ostensibly to RECTIFY previous wrongdoings. Corruption is RAMPANT.
And why WOULDN’T it be?
“Analysts” assign a PERCENT OF REAL to numbers. “Creative” Accounting has replaced Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Commerce without Generally Accepted Accounting Principles is as ridiculous as commerce without standardized Weights & Measures.
LET US COUNT THE WAYS is the only logical response, if modestly intelligent and attentive Americans ask themselves whether whether their Government has ever lied to them. Ditto, if they ask themselves whether their Government has ever CONSPIRED in covert operations. I give you Fast And Furious. Funneling arms to Mexican Drug Lords, what could possibly go wrong?
YOUR TAX DOLLARS HARDLY AT WORK.
I do not discount the possibility that OCCUPY WALL STREET was masterminded by, who else, Masterminds. Certainly it scooted the Palestinians’ bid to enjoy the same rights as Israelis onto the mental back burner of a notoriously attention-deficit electorate. Continued marginalization of Palestinians IS an objective of many a Very Important Person, no?
I do not discount the probability that OCCUPY WALL STREET is riddled with Provocateurs from under BOTH the Anarchist rock AND the Martial Law rock.
I do not disregard the obviousness that OCCUPY WALL STREET includes Socialists, Marxists, KIDS, Communists, Bleeding Hearts, Wishful Thinkers and Slackers.
In a world not only gone mad, but a world gone mad with the United States blazing trails, Occupy Wall Street makes MORAL SENSE. Occupy The Federal Reserve makes MORAL SENSE. Occupy Washington DC makes MORAL SENSE.
Me, I am NOT an Anarchist. I recognize Government as a NECESSARY EVIL. I therefore view Corrupt Officials as TRAITORS and I am in the irreproachable company of Marcus Tullius Cicero in believing that Traitors must be executed, if a country would be sovereign and secure. But that is a tangential subject, and I know how strongly “we” feel about Sanctity of Life . . . nudge nudge, wink wink.
Maybe we don’t HAVE TO disrupt commerce in a dozen Federal Reserve Cities. Maybe we don’t HAVE TO shut down our nation’s CAPITOL, fer cryin’ out loud. But evidence abounds that calling and writing and texting and voting have NOT turned the tide and WILL NOT turn the tide. Look only to a Wealth Gap that continues to INCREASE, when it was already unsustainable at the START of the “Crisis”.
America gained BILLIONAIRES via a manmade clusterfuck of a wealth transfer that is lumped under the CRISIS umbrella like so much aftermath of a Natural Disaster.
It bears mention that even NATURAL DISASTERS turn profits for the Few, while taxing the Many. Even HOMELAND SECURITY. I would never have believed such skullduggery would be commonplace in my own country, but for routine confrontation with the REALITY of it. It is obscene. Think, SODOM & GOMORRAH.
If more and more and more GOOD-HEARTED, HARD-WORKING, SCREWED OVER & INDIGNANT AMERICANS support Occupy Wall Street, the tinier will become the percentage represented by Extremists. NOBODY’S agenda is gonna be adopted wholesale . . . unless it is that of Prevailing Rulers. Ninety-nine percent have no CHOICE but to compromise. But first we must rout Bad Guys.
Even before that, though . . . FIRST, YOU’VE GOT TO GET MAD.
FIRST THINGS FIRST is an important Recovery Circuit Concept.
I quote again from the Big Book: “Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate.”
The United States Government been stepping on toes in other countries for years for as long as it has had enough POWER to do so. The United States Government has been doing it to AMERICANS for several years now. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, or it is NOT enough.
OCCUPY WALL STREET is a vehicle to WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN. Egyptians didn’t manage to unseat Mubarek because HE was more dastardly as a Dictator or because THEY were more righteous as The Oppressed. THEY WOULDN’T TAKE ‘NO’ FOR AN ANSWER. They couldn’t.
THIS “crisis” was not without precedent in the S & L Crisis. Who went to prison? What changed? Money is VERY seductive. Human Nature is VERY flawed. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely; money IS power. Greed is one of the SEVEN DEADLY SINS . . . not some component of the entrepreneurial spirit that, like other components, requires balance but is vital to Success. There is no such thing as Greed Lite.
I know from whence I speak when I say SPENDING is an addiction, and money is a SUBSTANCE OF CHOICE.
Think of Occupy Wall Street as an INTERVENTION. We can get back to circle-jerk bickering after we separate The Diseased from the herd and quarantine them. It is highly contagious, what they have, and lethal. Think, MIDAS. Think, PIED PIPER.
Occupy Wall Street. Just say NO to Corruption. Think . . . THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD.
