Societal Mitosis

You can lie to yourself all you want... gravity exists. Whether you chose to believe it or not is irrelevant. 

I saw a man sitting on the floor of a subway car while returning from Taste of the Danforth. He was dressed shabbily and sorting cans he had collected from trash bins. I also saw the looks he received from others.

He isn't the enemy. The people staring at him aren't the enemy either.

Cellular Mitosis

There is division in our society and the gap is growing larger. Many have already reached the fork in the road and chosen a path. Two polarizing forces are pulling us in separate and philosophically very different directions. One need only pay attention to news snippets to understand what is happening. For instance, Walter Palmer killing Cecil the Lion... or Donald Trump railing against Mexicans... or Sabrina Corgatelli who went on a two week “safari” in South Africa killing everything she came across including a giraffe, a warthog, a wildebeest and a kudu... or deniers of Global Warming... or those corporations who suck the water out of drought ridden areas. (The Global Warming deniers, for the record, are those benefiting most from stripping the planet to the bones. The rest of us are screwed until laws become morality based.)

I don't know about you and I haven't seen giraffe, or any of the other animals noted, on a menu recently.

These are polarizing events. It's easy to figure out which side of the fence you are on when one of these events takes place. With the advent of Facebook, twitter, etc., these events polarize quickly. And they disappear just as rapidly when the next shiny, dramatic, heart-wrenching penny appears in our thrill seeking peripheral.

How about the shootings in a Black church? Polarizing.

How about the rich saying they have more rights to water (for their lawns and golf courses) than the arid poor? Polarizing.

How about Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying the energy sector (oil) is critical to our economy? (It's only 2% of GDP.) Polarizing.

How about the next war being good for the economy and our security. Polarizing.

How about decisions being made by monetary value rather than moral value. Polarizing. (We can't afford to send food and water to starving countries but we can easily afford to fly over and bomb the poor unfortunate bastards if there is an uprising we don't agree with.)

At some point, we as individuals have to determine what is a lie and what is not; what is serving those who create the news, sound bites and laws versus what is serving the general good. There is a social mitosis occurring. A splitting of the mother cell into two daughter cells and one of these things is not like the other. The slow rending has always been occurring yet it happens in the blink of an eye with internet and 24 hour, droning, televised, evangelical, embedded correspondence.

During the performance of my job, I visit virtually every part of the city (and other cities). I can see the bill of goods most of us have been sold. I visit wealthy neighbourhoods where the sprinklers are on and no-one is home. (They are less happy than the rest of us as well. Always worried about who is going to steal their shit. I feel sorry for them, honestly. They've tied most of their life and self value into what they have instead of who they are.) I visit poor neighbourhoods where drugs and alcohol flow freely to ensure the residents stay incoherent enough to believe everything they are fed through news sources and hearsay. I visit the middle class who are sold on the idea that if we work hard enough, we can break through into the elite of society.

How many of those middle class folks have ever made it to elite status? Start naming them. There will not be many. Ninety-nine percent of us will remain in the ninety-nine percent.

We have been sold a bill of goods telling us Blacks and Whites and Hispanics and Muslims and Indigenous are different. We have been sold a bill of goods stating we should hate those who look different than us because it is they who are responsible for us not getting our just rewards. We have been sold a bill of goods stating the enemy is us.

This has been going on since the Egyptians were bitch-slapping their own people and thrusting them into slavery. Luck of the fucking draw you poor, wretched, worthless piece of shit. Now get back to work.

The divisions occurring now are around two poles; those who believe the 99 percent deserve better (certain inviolable rights) and those who will blithely follow the One Percent without question, hungrily consuming the bullshit being fed them... by the One percent.

It's hard to see clearly when the bullshit is up above your eyes.

Trophy hunters are nothing more than arrogant children trying to please their One Percent, absentee "parents"... which they will never do. Looking good is more important than feeling good. It is in the best interest for the richest of our society to keep us where we are; even those arrogant few who believe they are rich and above the law. The belief is, if we are fed hope of a better life for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren, then we will tow the company line and continue performing tasks for the self-important, self-indulgent master.

Corporations are not people. If one looks closely enough, the stinking rich aren't people either.

There is a three tiered system at play in North America (and elsewhere). Those who are not white are at the bottom. We have been sold an idea since coming to the Americas that those who look different than us (Indigenous) are the enemy. We have been sold on the idea that those who were enslaved by us in the past (Blacks) are to be kept in bondage because they are worth less than the rest of us. We have been sold on the idea that those with different shaped eyes (Asians) see differently. We are being sold on the idea that those from Middle East countries are radicals and to be feared.

The second tier are poor, middle class whites. We are enchanted by the idea that, if we work hard, we too can become one of the social elite. It simply isn't true. There is a glass ceiling and money does not buy your way through it. Indignant attitude toward fellow human beings is what gets you through. Make no mistake... those in the "poor white" category are just as condemned as those in the "non-white" category. 

The wealthiest and most powerful in our society sell us this crap so we will fight among ourselves over whatever scraps elite deem unnecessary for themselves... thus deflecting our attention from the real threat.

Those who are members of the bottom ninety-nine percent are not the enemy. They are our brothers and sisters who toil through the same struggle, who have many of the same dreams for themselves, their families and friends, and who see themselves spinning their wheels getting nowhere. There is no Black problem. There is no Native American problem. There is no Mexican problem. There is no threat from Middle Eastern or Asian folks. (ISIS are elitist... make no mistake.) There is no war on poverty. There is no war on drugs. There is no youth problem.

There is only one problem; the Elitist Problem. And it sure as shit ain't a problem for the elite.

You don't need a bigger boat. You don't need a bigger house. You don't need your fucking grass to be greener than your neighbour. You don't need grassed forty acres to prove your worth. You don't need to kill every last living thing to prove you have bigger balls than everyone else. If you want to prove you have bigger testicles, grab an M-16 and go fight ISIS. We'll see how big your balls are then. If you need a nice shiny car to prove how big a man or woman you are, the problem isn't the fucking car.

If you need a two week vacation somewhere else to make you feel like you have a life, then you don't have a life.

We buy into so much bullshit now that reality seems surreal. That's the lie.

Walter Palmer and Sabrina Corgatelli are pawns. They are uneducated, mindless drones who believed they were part of the elite and beyond reproach. What they really are is part of the upper middle being fed to the rest of us to keep us distracted from the reality. They were fed a bill of goods and, by the stupidity of their own lordliness, are now sacrificial lambs to allow the rest of us to believe we have chipped away at the throne. They were not bright enough to see they were being set up. 

And they deserve what they get.

The splitting of society is occurring at a rapid rate. Young folks, by and large, have seen what their future looks like and they aren't happy. I'm not so sure I would be happy seeing what is coming and seeing who the culprits are.

The world is changing. The cracks in the System are beginning to grow. Nature is providing a great equalizer... and threat. People are beginning to wake up to the childish narcissism of the extreme rich and powerful. Polarization has begun and the potential violence that will follow will not be pretty. People are beginning to see that those with wealth are also the ones creating the rules of the game.

Nick Hanauer is right. The pitchforks are coming.

The mitosis of society is speeding up. Shoving your head in the sand and ignoring what is in front of you won't save your ass.
You can lie to yourself all you want... elitism exists... and they aren't looking out for your ass. Whether you chose to believe it or not is irrelevant.

Other references:

Help Bail the Boat or Abandon Ship - by Cynthia Barlow

The Pitchforks Are Coming - TED talk

How to Race Bait (on Facebook) - Mathew Cooke