This past week I learned that I only offer condemnation of our nation, rather than solutions. How do I know? Well, Roseanne Barr told me so. After seeing my article (the Thoroughness of a Good Whore: Buying into what’s left of the American Dream), she commented on Twitter that she offers solutions, not only condemnations. In the interest of not upsetting Roseanne, I will begin writing of solutions, or I could whip up a palatable mix of condemnation to go with them.
I’m not an expert, but I do aim for a certain level of professionalism in my writing.
Johnny Argent, Roseanne Barr’s lover said I was preaching it righteous. Laying it down straight. He retweeted my article, Occupy Wall Street is Dangerous. I tend to think he’s a very smart man. He’s got long hair and looks like Sir Richard Branson, who once flew to the moon, took a piss, and then rocketed back home. I like Argent, we could easily be good friends.
As I write this, I’m trying hard to avoid condemning things: the current American political situation, the coming austerity measures like those going on in Europe, the Occupy uprisings, the fact that Homeland Security is now turning its twitching, bloodshot eyes toward social media networks, and the fact that 46 million Americans live in poverty, and 50 million don’t have health insurance. Just shit like that. I’m staying away from condemnation, because frankly, I don’t have any solutions.
See Occupy Los Angeles swarms city call, the march
When I hear the word solution, I think of eye drops, specifically, and in general I imagine the interactions between molecules and ions. Are they energetically favored or not, I don’t know, but interactions just the same. I think of even distribution of molecules. Perhaps Roseanne’s an amateur chemist. In that case, she would know more about solutions than I. But let me say, without condemning:
The wealth in our society is not like a solution. It’s a mixture, unevenly distributed. I can imagine a dollar bill like a molecule floating within that system we call American society (assuming society exists). I can imagine a solution where the molecules, when stirred and shaken, evenly distribute and create a satisfying balance. Like sugar in water.
I don’t have to imagine what an unevenly distributed mixture would look like. I can see it everywhere I go. A thin layer of oil on water. One percent oil, ninety-nine percent water. You can shake and stir and raise a ruckus, but you can’t get that oil to evenly distribute throughout. This is not a solution, but a frustrating problem. Someone should condemn it.
More specifically, the American economy and financial prosperity of its citizens. The Rolls Royces and Ferraris on Sunset Blvd, blasting past homeless hillbillies and desperate hungry people. So desperate they would eat dead pigeons falling from the skies and landing in Larry King Square.
More specifically, the billions of bonus dollars on Wall Street, awarded to CEOs and hedge fund managers responsible for our financial crisis, bailed out by our taxpayer dollars, while our government works to defund Planned Parenthood, lay off teachers and firefighters, cut education, slash Medicare, and scale back on nutrition programs for kids.
What can we do? We could get an untainted third party, like a responsible entity with a steady hand, to carefully scrape and gather that one percent that greedily supports and suspends itself atop the ninety-nine, and cast it out to burn up in the pounding sun. Cut it off from the greater system it has tainted and polluted. Then you might be closer to a harmonious solution, rather than a chaotic mixture.