TIMES LIKE THESE CALL FOR DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, BUT HE’S NOT ANSWERING
By Greggory Moore
Where are you when we need you, David Foster Wallace? We’re waiting for the story of 9/11ii. It’s the story of a world where a great national tragedy took place, a terrorist plot that killed thousands god knows, and it really happened as advertised, no “false flag” nonsense. Ten years later, California is bankrupt, and the U.S. has killed bL (the kingpin, the Ace of Spades), and aQ is understandably pretty pissed off (yes, they’re always pissed off, but never mind), yet maybe not in the best position to do much right now, there’s just a lot going on.
So the U.S. govt hatches a plan, like it does every so often. The public would believe an aQ reprisal, almost expects it. The greater Los Angeles area is a likely target, there’s so much to choose from—LAX, Hollywood, infidelism up and down the street, Long Beach faggots, Venice Beach women not covering their heads, reruns of Beverly Hills 90210 that clearly show girls being allowed to go to school.
The public will totally believe it (Disneyland would work too, but we’re going with this), and the President (who, in an ironic twist, turns out really to have been an American vis-à-vis the law—with a real birth certificate and everything, gee whiz—but an un-American betrayer of liberal ideals) gives the go order: Project Replenish is a go.
Havoc is wreaked upon the City of Angels, a nuclear false-flag (maybe Diablo Canyon, topical because of Fukushima Dai-ichi). Federal disaster relief. Rebuilding. Debt forgiveness. A new start for California, a new start for all of us.
Where are you when we need you, David Foster Wallace, where be your gibes now? It’s just a few years later. You could still be here. There’s so much that you’re missing.
12 Comments
david foster wielenga??
come on, they look pretty similar.
I think this quote is applicable considering our fin. sitation; “For these cultures, getting rid of the pain without addressing the deeper cause is like shutting off a fire alarm while the fumes are still going”.
Exactly, right, rino2! It is like local or statewide bans on plastic bags and polystyrene foam because they are found littered about our public spaces without dealing in a more effective manner with those who do the littering.
It is like some of our more liberal elected officials proposing one ill-advised law after another that further exacerbate our statewide fiscal and employment challenges, without dealing substantively with the out-of-control public spending and hyper-regulation that caused them:
http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_18194773
Ah, comment strings on literate websites, our own infinite jest . . .
John, your cause of problems in our world seems to focus on “voters”, or non voters, and “those who do the littering”. As a retired cop, you have been immersed in a culture with alot of bad behavior, and this could cause a person to become pessimistic on people. Well, what effective measures can you think of to make people better, or more responsible, because this seems to be the your focus of why things are bad.
@rino2:
Cop-talk:
Because “cop” was only a significant part of what I did for the last 26 years, and not nearly all of who I was, I do not believe I am pessimistic about people, only about the ability of some in our society to think critically, to exercise their right to vote in a constructive and productive manner, and then to monitor and correct government whenever it fails of its purpose.
Those in our society who choose to commit crimes are (fortunately) the vast minority in our population. This is why I think it is important for cops…particularly big city cops…to fill their lives with people and activities completely separate from their chosen profession. I always tried to do that.
Who is sovereign and, thus, has the ultimate authority, ability, and *responsibility* to direct and correct our various governments?:
The world is a very large place and there are many other places in the world where people known as “voters” still do not exist and never have existed. Because of this I try to restrict my critiques concerning “voters” to the US generally and to our state and city specifically.
Because we are a free people in a civil society that is rightly constrained by the rule of law (quite unlike some other places in the world) we have the ability to organize our city, state and nation in whatever way we choose, assuming compliance with our nations guiding legal document…the constitution. Yet even the constitution can be changed …amended…if enough of us agree that such a change is right and proper.
Because we possess this amazing freedom of self-determination, the ultimate blame for whatever ills we find in the manner in which our city, state or nation are organized can only be laid at the feet of the people who have the ability to do the organizing…and the responsibility to make any changes…the people, us, as represented by a majority of the voters.
There is nothing wrong with the organization of our city, state, or nation that we do not have the constitutionally-guaranteed right (and responsibility) to change if it seems fitting to us to do so. Thus, if we do not make the necessary changes, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
We cannot blame it all on our President or our Governor, because we elect them (or allow them to be elected) and we can just as readily remove them. We cannot blame it all on Congress, our State legislature, or the City Council…we elect (and can remove) them as well. We cannot blame it all on the Courts. We elected the people who nominate and confirm the Justices and except in the case of SCOTUS, we affirm all judicial appointments during various elections. We cannot blame it on any highly placed political appointee like a cabinet member, a State-level department head, or our City Manager or Police Chief, etc, because we elect the people who appoint them and we can require those we elect to remove them if it seems fitting to us that they should do so.
Hence my consistent focus upon the people…as represented by a majority of the electors. In this greatest of nations *we* are soverign and so *we* have the ultimate authority, ability, and responsibility to order our society -including our governments- as *we* choose. So whenever our society or our governments are not working as a true majority of us believe that they should (and as rightly constrained by the rule of law), we ultimately have no one to blame but *ourselves.*
Four effective measures:
One of the approaches an individual might take to become a more effective participant in the constructive and productive ordering of his or her society is first to obtain a quality education so that he or she can consider, in a more critical and rational manner, those political candidates and societal issues that come before them. As of 2008, our national and state public high school graduation rates were 70.1% and 68.2% respectively. This is tragic and I think we must do better.
http://www.higheredinfo.org/dbrowser/index.php?measure=23
Another approach an individual might take is to assume more personal responsibility for registering to vote. In 2008, in the US, only “71 percent of voting-age citizens were registered to vote, a decrease compared to the 72 percent who were registered in 2004.” Of the 71% of those who had registered, only 89% actually voted. So in 2008, in the US, only “64 percent of voting-age citizens voted.” I think this is tragic, particularly in the context mentioned previously – that there are many others in this world who do *not* enjoy this right. I think we must do better.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p20-562.pdf
Another approach an individual who is educated and who votes might take is to vote in a more intelligent manner. Many voters are far too easily swayed by shallow sound bites, bumper stickers, and vacuous campaign slogans. We *must* be more willing to do our homework…to seek out, read, and more critically consider more of the pertinent information available to us concerning a candidate or a question that is brought before us. In modern times, and particularly with the advent of the internet, we have direct access to more *facts* about people and circumstances than we ever have before. I think we must do better at accessing this information and considering it more critically.
Another approach an individual might take -assuming he or she has obtained a quality education, registered to vote, and then done his or her best to vote in an intelligent manner- is to commit to more closely monitoring our governments activities and all of those who serve us within it. Whenever our government begins to stray from the path we have laid out for it…it is our right and our *responsibility* to correctly identify the cause of the failure, whether it is a person or a sytem, and correct it.
In summary:
As a society, I think we are failing, to one degree or another, in all of these metrics and quite a few others. Until we correct these failures in ourselves, we will not correct the many, many challenges that currently exist within the national, state, and local governments whose sole purpose is to serve *us* and not, to any degree, the converse.
John, you say “Until we correct these failures in ourselves, we will not correct the many…”. My question to you was what measures can you think of to make people better, or more responsible…. Don’t you see you missed the question completely. Or, maybe you don’t see any solution to the whole underlying basis to your own world view, which means your existence, in your own thinking, might be no more influential in cosmic terms than that of seeking temporary pleasure for you and yours.
I do not think there are any externally applied measures that can “make people better” in this area. I didn’t miss the question, I simply tried to answer it in the best way I know how.
People have to do it for themselves and I begin to wonder if many of those who so squander their rights as citizens will ever see how important it is that they become more directly involved in the organizing of their (our) society.
This is but a part of the reason that I accepted that column on another site for a year and why I choose to comment on sites like this one so often now…to try to share my ideas of how we have allowed our great nation to go so horribly wrong in some areas and to remind folks that we have the authority and the responsibility to correct it.
What other reasons besides sharing ideas and reminding folks did you accept a column on another site and choose to comment on this one?
Thats it. Well, that and a fairly recent motivation to point out occurrences when Mr. Ruehle chooses to post false, fraudulent and misleading comments and to attempt to rebut those comments whenever he does so. Why do you ask?
I find MR’s comments the most informative and content rich.
I think it’s always good to be informative and full of factual content. Unfortunately Mr. Ruehle sometimes overlooks the “factual” aspect of that equation.