Reflections on our Condition

Sitting at a Del Taco on the outskirts of Las Vegas the thought occurred to me…

From the moment everyone of us is born, every thought, every breath, every second has been monetized. We have totally and completely been bought and paid for as a species. And even though other animals, species, plants, insects, floral and fauna do not use nor never will need money to live we so very dearly do.

Think about it. Even when you are sleeping at night. That is a paid for expense. It costs money to sleep because of rent or homeownership. And not a trivial amount. It cost quite a lot to be able to sleep at night.

As I am writing this very note, it is costing me. Not just the opportunity cost of what I could be doing to earn money. But I paid for my meal. I paid for my half hour of legal time being able to sit at this fast food restaurant when the exchange for food took place. I paid for the phone service monthly and the expense of the device.

I looked outside and saw some teenagers talking on the sidewalk in front of some local businesses. One had a basketball and the others were just swaying back and forth laughing and joking. Then it struck me. They could be loitering. Those businesses need to have clear access to their entrance and they were blocking it slightly. The police could legally be called. But where should they go? There is nothing but commercial businesses and shopping districts for dozens of blocks. Very few parks, courts or public places to go and gather.

I asked myself where are these children really safe in their neighborhood? You could say their homes but even that is not always a good atmosphere and the authorities can still be called for any reason by people you may or may not know. So we have people policing us, tracking us, watching us and profiting from us that we really don’t know.

And it all makes sense. Like, I agree it all works. Kind of. We have this concept of money. We know it is inherently worthless but because people we do not know bestow it value and enforce contract law around it we also agree it must have value and use it as a means of exchange. That means of exchange is not backed by anything real but can be traded against or with other means to create real assets. The whole system rests on perceived value. And it motivates every single action we take. Every one.

Money is a factor. Perhaps the main factor that motivates most human activity. Our society can be organized into different groups or levels. We can make it relatively simple or extremely complex. At the bottom level (from one vantage point) we have the individual. The solo actor. The person. The entity. The white male. The black female. The gay teen. The Jewish grandmother. The (adj) + human being. Than we have the family. Parents, brothers and sisters. Groups of persons related by blood. Then extended family. Strong links but not immediate. Grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts. Next, in America, we jump to the neighborhood, then town/city, then state, then country. Only problem is after going from immediate family to town we start to really not know each other. The concept of stranger is there. They may not be my race or religion or family or political preference or any number of things that seemingly divides us. But whether it be the town, city, state or country we are bound to each other because of a body of laws and commercial statutes. Our lives are literally by the book whether we like it or not. You cannot choose to participate. Sure you can choose to vote or not to but the regime exists whether or not I give my consent.

There is a certain uneasiness I have felt in the pit of my stomach. Since childhood. Once I really started to study civics, US and world history. We don’t have it right. We never have. People are coerced into action. Through various means. Mostly through to avoid financial or physical hardship. Why do we go to work? Do we actual enjoy the products we make, the services we offer, the people we interact with? To some extent yes but would you do it for free? Would you go to work, slave over those deadlines, pull all nighters, memorize useless statistics, would you go and do that? For free? No. The answer is no you would not. So why do you do it? You need to make money. Money to eat, money to sleep, money to drink, money to have your teeth cleaned, your back cracked, you feet covered, your hair combed, your eye brows plucked, your ass wiped, your dick sucked. Might have gone too far but you get the picture. Money is the motive.

But how can we get rid of it? Nearly everything is privatized. You need a goddamn permit to drink rain water. The earth is not yours. The earth has been bought and paid for by materials that come from the earth. The concept of ownership is the main problem. The earth cannot be owned and we are part of the earth and we are fucking owned. Bought and paid for. Slaves. All of us. I do not own myself. I am in debt. And even if I weren’t in debt I am still owned. Money is not real but tender for debt. The country has been bankrupt so many times and for so long we forget. Our birth certificates hand us over to the state and their jurisdiction and we don’t see it because this stuff takes place at a hospital and not a so-called government office. But isn’t every single establishment a government office? Don’t believe me? How would you define whether a business belongs to you or not.

Think about a McDonalds or a Del Taco. What makes them those things? The stream of money funnels from you to the owners of the establishments. But not all of it. No not all of it. Maria the cash register is still paid. Ronnie the cook. Manny the manager. They are paid. And Joe the branch manager. And Susie the store owner. And Steve the real estate leasor. You get it. Many people all paid. But the money, the PROFITS, those all go back to the decision makers at an undisclosed location at the corporate headquarters. They never flipped a burger, exchanged a twenty, took the trash out, put on a uniform, maybe never entered a branch. They might not even consume the product. But they own it. They profit from it. They plan the future profits. Now let’s zoom back out again. This McDonalds has to pay its owner too. Big bad McDonalds has to pay its taxes. If they don’t, they cannot operate legally. Now all of the transactions that are made are taxed. And of the money we make is taxed and given to people we don’t know so they can make laws to ensure we continue giving them money. It’s a viscious feedback loop. The government seeks to break up monopolies but they themselves are a massive monopoly taking in more money than any other institution and doing so with the actual physical threat of violence or imprisonment (complete loss of any semblance of freedom) if we fail to pay them.

Every 2 or 4 years we battle over who to be forced to pay, how much they should charge us and how poorly they used our money in the past and then expect different results this time. But those in power don’t know you. They don’t care about you. They most likely never met you. They just know they have your money and they have the power to extract more from you. Since they have the money, they can pay for an army. They can pay for a police force. They can pay for an education “system”. They can build prisons. They can build border walls. They can manufacture tanks, jets, warships and nuclear bombs. They can tell other owners what they can or cannot do.

Initially the right to bear arms was to be a balance for the people. They could feasibly overthrow the government because the scope of the government was that small. A couple muskets and rifles per family was enough to keep the bureaucrats in check. Is that the case today? No. No it is not. The government OWNS the arms industry. Regulated completely and we fight to be allowed to hunt in this country. They say it is for our benefit because we cannot be trusted with the weapons. We would hurt ourselves. We are hurting ourselves now. Yes. That is true. There is violence in this country. Caused by abject poverty, lack of resources, access to education etc. But the answer isn’t giving them (the thieves) more money to trickle down to us. The entire system is improperly aligned and motivated.

This country and all countries only exist on paper. Brands are not real. Corporations are artificial. The representatives do not represent you. Someone who actively lobbied to take 40 percent of what I earn, what I have and what I will have, absolutely does not represent me.

So what do we do? This is where it gets scary and the point is driven home that our situation is fucked up.

Let’s consider resistors.

A single resistor. They will be crushed. But civilly maybe. Don’t pay your taxes. Eventually you will go to jail. Freedom gone. Life still there but wages garnished and imprisoned. It’s the elephant in the room. Magazines or newspapers don’t talk about it or if they do it is negative characterization on behalf of the individual. Like Rapper X or Y has evaded the IRS and is now locked up. The disdain is towards the rapper for being stupid or silly. Silly to what? Expect not to be robbed of earnings. How silly.

A group of resistors. Riot police. Pepper spray. Smoke bombs. Real bullets. Crowd dispersed. People jailed. Story over.

A city of resistors. This happened in Oklahoma. Now maybe these weren’t resistors. Rather black people operating successfully. Entire city burned to the ground. No punishments. No retribution.

What if all citizens actively resisted? Stopped going to work. Stopped buying things. Stopped paying Uncle Sam. Stopped feeding the beast if you will. Not likely that could ever be coordinated and the govt and its entities would fight to the bitter end against it.

We act like we are civil. We act like we follow the law. We act like we care. But we are merely acting. We don’t care to be civil. We don’t care to follow the law. We don’t care to even care. We are organized, categorized, systematized, marginalized, forecasted, jailed and codified. When we gather to learn in mass, to declare in mass, to nationalize in mass we are determined to be extremist. Black Identity Extremist. Too proud of being black. Conspiracy theorist. Believer of things alternative to the mainstream news. And who owns the news? Who can shut down the news? Who does the news pay to operate? The government.

So we can pretend we are not tracked, are not watched, are not discriminated against. But we cannot pretend we are not taxed. We cannot pretend we are not owned. We cannot pretend we are not controlled. Because the government and its tentacles do own you outright. If they didn’t what gives them the authority to tax you, to jail you, to torture you, to murder you, to compel you to murder others and to some extent feed you and cloth you?

Closing note (added later, not at Del Taco): I say all this while realizing — in some ways, this is the best we have come up with so far to organize society. Free trade, systems of laws, governing bodies, taxes, duties, police and military all make sense. To a degree. What I am doing (hopefully) by pointing out the practical and theoretical dark side to how these things operate is asking can we do better and if so how? Technology continues to improve — and people continue to run faster, jump higher, recover better, learn more and live longer. This is great. But are our political systems, ruling bodies and legal systems also evolving with society? Is the gap between the rich and the poor shrinking, do our people (races) get along, do we feel valued, is justice carried out consistently, can we count on a standard of living? The first step is to question, the second to demand answers, the third to give them ourselves and the fourth to implement. I’ll let you decide where we are in that process.

– MC SOLAR WIND
© 2017