It seems a whirlwind pervades the news these days. One looks off to the west and drinks in the nectar of the red/orange sun. It’s as if Zephyrus has breathed some warmth into the wind and cast it out across the sky, across the ocean, and into the hearts of the leaders of all the G8 nations.
The chosen ones of politics have gathered; the champions of our little colonies and our little hopes strewn broadly across the vast canvass of the world have assembled in acrylic rather than oil to render our concerns in vivid shades, that the rest of the world might sympathize and show us some grace.
Don’t be alarmed that sometimes their smiles run, or their eyes seem a bit bilious.
The chosen ones will fight for us to the death. We have their ears and they have our hearts and our trust. There is no truth to the absurd perception of pretense, or self-indulgence. Nor is there any substance to the rumors one hears in furtive tones concerning the fact that such conglomerations beget nothing more than secret handshakes and “bedtime stories” to be shared among the ruling class at the next such gathering.
Goodwill abounds. The troops will be abandoning their positions and leaving the deserts and the mountains unto themselves; funnels of billowing smoke and crushed lives in their wake and in their future. Ah, it all consumes one with the urge to flutter off into some secret place and giggle for a spell.
Take a full gulp of your beer, scratch at that nagging itch on your backside, and fade out… into the distraction afforded by some muted sporting event or even old Looney Tunes reruns.
“Look! It’s Lance Armstrong and his little wristband laboring up a mountain! Look it’s Medvedev, and Obama smiling and exchanging inside jokes! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Fudd! No, it’s Berlusconi!”
What utter shit.
I realize there’s a world out there to which you’re eager to return. I realize your life beckons. I assure you I shan’t keep you long.
I would simply point out – lest anyone get too excited about all the goodwill choking up the newsreels just now – that nothing has changed.
The season has shifted from Winter into comparative Spring, it’s true; at least as far as words are concerned. Here at the advent, it is time to put aside certain differences (generally relating to soon-to-be extinct non-proliferation treaties, Anti-Missile Systems, the eternal, endless war we wage against the subjective concept of, for instance, terrorism, and whatever other petty problems there are that weigh upon the plebes). This is the way the game is played. The game is won or lost, eternally, on the basis of pretense and perception. This does not change.
It’s quid pro quo disseminated exponentially, which seems as though it could be a good thing – almost fair. But the gestures of the chosen ones never seem to get to the crux of things, do they?
The fluidity with which words like “compromise” or “concession” drip from the canvass is only a fleeting glimpse of a masterpiece that as yet lies in the shifting void of some different, as yet unrealized dream.
One says it will relent on the issue of a missile defense system positioned strategically in Eastern Europe to protect the world from Iran… ahem.
The other holds it’s right hand aloft and proclaims that it will allow access to airspace and provide continued support in the War on Terror (while with the left hand, it arms and equips potential rogue states and suspect organizations).
To be sure, the notion of “give and take” is a noble one. But only when the fruits of painstaking negotiation and the necessary compromise and concession inherent in such negotiation is representative of the will of the people the chosen ones have sworn to lead to the uplands.
One loves to see Berlusconi’s hand on Merkel’s ass while simultaneously trying to remain abreast of the impotence of AC Milan on the world football transfer market.
One loves to see all the laughter and the embraces – the warmth of a zephyr rendered flesh, in vivid colors upon a canvass that is unfurled for the common mind on a television screen near you.
When they are happy our lives are better. When they are happy our lives are simple.
Right?
Here’s some free advice, and it’s worth exactly what you paid for it: Take it upon yourself to make the world a better place, because the chosen ones don’t give a fuck about the masses and they never will; not to the extent that is required to make a difference on the human level.
Make no mistake: the political level and the human level will forever be at odds.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the people, themselves. Each of us, irrespective of our background or our lot in life has the ability to help this world shine a little brighter. This has everything to do with the lengths to which the chosen ones – people that have already given away so much of themselves in order to gain office – will go to linger among the “approved” or the “favored.”
The game never ends. Don’t forget that.