Goodbye Rome

Looking back, I was a dullard in collage. Actually I’ve been a dullard much of my life. But no more, so its okay now. and its this new perspective on life that allows me to understand how much of a dullard I was…of course, it is only a matter of perspective. Afterall, maybe now I am even more of a dullard that I was before – certainly less sane of course.

Lately, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the underlying theory behind the purpose of running a national deficit. In collage, I majored in economics, of all things, and I recall the phrase “a debtor nation is a better nation,” and while I don’t recall the logic behind this rhyme, I remember there was one. The theory being running a deficit makes us a stronger country.

I realize now looking back that pretty much the whole of college involved very little critical thinking. It was about just getting the answers and hitting the marks. Conditioning. But that’s the system. There is no dissenting viewpoint presented, so what is presented as fact, and you are not asked to question anything. My Civil war History class was the only one that challenged me to think. At the time it made me a little uncomfortable, but I didn’t understand why. Now I do.

Like I said, at the time I was a dullard. Now I am not. But the larger point was that I wasn’t alone, in fact, EVERYONE was the same way. Mindless drones. Chomsky is right when he says the Educated are the most indoctrinated. And I state that as a previous member of the indoctrinated.

So looking back, I realize how ludicrous a proposition that was. The type of power that provided on the scale of society is similar to that of the sweaty balding guy at the strip club in order to get attention from the strippers. And as far as the individual is concerned within the context of the larger hole, it really is running up a bill and leaving it for your children to pay. Morpheus was fucking right when he said that we are borne into a cage that we cannot touch, see, or smell. We are born owing money, not to the government, but to banks, in the form of interest payments.

This isn’t about the recent federal bailout of the financial system; it only caused my awareness to spike. The very system is not only corrupt it is unsustainable. And it is because we have created a nation of dullards, and we are so far gone that for most, the inability to even consider this as a possible truth, in part or whole, is evidence. “America is Great!” - “Freedom!” blablabla. Can you be more indoctrinated? If you take a serious look at the history of the United (and not the one you were taught in high school. Don’t fucking kid yourself that what is going on in Texas right now is an isolated incident) you will find it hard to take such statements seriously/ But America is nothing special, this is the history of ALL nations, with the same story lines of the struggle for control between the individual and the institutions. The story is always the same.

Rome is burning my friends, and I don’t think there is anything I can do to stop it, so I am going to stock up on graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars and make smores and sing and dance and laugh and play while Rome burns. You did this. You did this.