more thoughts on the will to power

another email, this one about power and who has it. why we're all so apathetic and complacent... and overworked and unable or unwilling to try and see what's really going on. without further ado, here comes the sun:

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I really don’t know. Perhaps if we all become more educated, concerned, and, most importantly, involved? But we’ve got other responsibilities. Imagine if wealth were distributed more equitably across the spectrum; if we all went home with a greater percentage in our pockets while CEO’s and Board Members of various companies got less. Imagine if the working poor continued to work, but was not just able to subsist.. if our minimum wage was enough to, if both parents worked, pay the bills and for child care? Imagine that we didn’t have to work two jobs to be able to afford a house and “The American Dream”. Now, imagine… would any of us voluntarily give up that extra time to participate in government?

Judging from the number of people that I’ve heard complain about jury duty, how ineffective voting is, and never attend local town/city hall meetings, I’m guessing few or none. How do we motivate our citizens to get involved? We certainly can’t be compelled by law… we do have state-run educational institutions… and yet, they teach kids to be compliant, unimaginative, to take sides unfairly and arbitrarily based upon silly divisions such as geography or chronological age, and not to be creative, concerned, involved, or educated in the operation, protection, and upholding of our Constitution, both state and federal.

Who has the power? Who wants to keep the power? Who should have the power? Who wants the power? Who has the means to acquire the power? Who has the power to take the power?

Like in Fahrenheit 451, people want their choices to be simple. Fewer choices makes it easy, especially if they can be made without thinking – vote for the side you always vote for or for the one that has the best hair… eventually, people won’t want any choice at all, they just want to go back to having fun and not worrying.

Toward the end of the Roman Empire, citizens worked one-two days to pay their taxes… while armies of slaves took care of all the work. In my opinion, consider the CEO’s and corporate higher ups to be the only real citizens of the US, since they are the only ones who can really exercise a vote with their almighty dollar. Us? well, we’re just the slaves that have to keep the gears greased and turning. Thank goodness we have other slaves to make our food, mow our lawns, change our oil, take care of our children, and wipe our asses when we get too old to do it ourselves.

In the words of Rage Against the Machine, “We gotta take the power back.” and “What better place than here? What better time than now?”