NOTHING'S WORSE THAN THE SLOW SLIDE INTO OBLIVION when still lingering along the fringes of modern capitalism, say some. Nonsense, say I. Pandering to the masses with oily half-truths and an itchy accusing finger of blame when faced with some of the more obvious perils of love and war in a paint by numbers collusion with scattered wits who never seem to make it to the table is a lame and bogus excuse to whitewash the gutwrenching feeling of paralysis global disorganization concedes. The New Left has no plan for change, while demanding it, no fresh visions of New Hope, while infuriating it, no cure for the pitfalls of human nature, while dismissing the fact that human nature itself congeals into disrespective parts, both the best and the worst of human affairs. The New Left has old problems. This is a boat that does not float.
Simple but poignant study has brought me nothing but word games and number problems, word problems and numbers games. Who needs at this late date five to ten more years of professional study in philistinism when both sides of the so-called political divide boast minions of ordained professors and priests and commissioned soldiers also fighting the so-called good fight, waging this relentless war for the shrunken heads and the pulsating pursestrings of both the opposition and the great unwashed? Only one question actually begs to be answered. Where stands the self-cultivating family man in the street with his one life, one vote mentality in all this loopholed logoplasty slopping up against his notions of a lifetime of hard work and an ample payoff in a world made smaller every day by the march of history and commerce? Enter the considerations of the Scenewash Project.
As we have been thus far careful not to offend each other, except in secret incantations carried out behind the closed doors of another bright aim, only the dreaded silence of our own failed vision has approached our collective net worth, we the three or four gathered, now scattered back to the ashes from which we sprang like so many Nixes. Despite each our own penchants for "holding our own" it became plainly apparent that while there was no revealed malice between the several writers gathered within our fledgling group, we just couldn't seem to pull it all together on the back pages of ambition. Each of us continued to bury our own dead, make our own beds, build our own Babylons, even curse our own darknesses while lighting a candle but always without the anticipated qualities of actually sharing regular energies interacting with each other beyond the occasional riff.
Again, while no one is directly to blame, I, as founder, webmaster, and first canary, shouldered the greater degree of fault, for I had begun to speak with knotted tongue in offering a long string of excuses without end for my own failure to produce beyond my capabilities. Personal life simply took priority over the strife of catering to the group in a fashion and direction one or two may have preferred. Modern life, unfortunately, is often faced like a Faustian dilemma of competing choices. The repackaging and reselling of the family Dollhouse in that pinpointing social experiment best understood as the ghetto years and the subsequent move across the city in a major haul that's now nearly nine months in struggle and glitch with no relief in sight, had rendered me incapable of pulling my thoughts, much less a steady stream of pages together fast enough to satisfy the agents of action and movement amongst us.
After the first bursts of excitement surrounding the Amsterdam Summit gave way to ever more foot soldiering in Paris despite repeated pleas for mobile clemency, a rude silence set upon us after our departure, but only now have we begun to heal with the telephone while at least two of us bask in the slow realization that previous blocks in tearing down the walls had less to do with sound and more to do with sight. And that pathos rarely shifts in a landscape of pretense.
In my own attempt to break past this irrelevant pseudoMarxist (is there any other species) conundrum for good, responses from several holdouts have laid waste to what's left of SWORG comradeship now closed to Marxists everywhere, not that proto-Marxism's not a beautiful idea whose day is even predicted in the West's own holy books, and may arrive without a flinch if the global economy endgame is played by the rules of justice for all instead of the lures of unbridled greed for the same few elites, and we don't destroy ourselves in the process first. A rational environmentalism is an important key to winning this endgame. After all, western capitalism in all her glittering robes and cleavage is the most productive form of both liberty and communism ever practiced among the peoples and nations, bar none. Resistance can be said to be futile. She must of course consider her own failings, response clearly and effectively to clean up her most foul acts whenever and wherever possible, and never turn a blind eye to the promises for which she stands. The fall of capitalism should not be in anyone's prayers. The promises and transcendence of capitalism are by far the more preferable aim.
Among rugged individualists, no group effort can sustain itself by ruggedly running around akimbo at different speeds and in different directions unless a strong commitment to the organization's center of gravity is adhered to the abiding cadences of the original premise, and is diligently kept by those reputedly involved. Dissention on the team was spelled out over many conversations. All the tricks and trumps were played. The original SWORG cluster met its Waterloo in St. Louis in a sweet passion play of sudden reversals. Enough said. Marked voices of various timber will doubtlessly continue to sally forth here at the Project, but no one ever will ever earn a reputation as a permanent fixture. Maybe a tee-shirt if the work and the fortunes of its stewardship is compelling enough. But as predicted in a 1979 poem by a young 23-year old poet just beginning to write from the banks of Kleenex Creek in NE Florida, "They accused me of being unnaturally slow."
Now, after being denounced last year of dropping out of the race, of being a tortoise to his hare, a metaphorical catholic to his protestantism, unproductive to his swingblade chop 'em ups, a rather visceral study of failure, compassion and insight definitely not his chunk of cheese, I still have little to say that would convey soiled regrets to my mouth concerning his taunting departure. Funny how reasonable certain enigmas become when early promises are unseasonably strongest. Youth, it has been said, is often a fool's paradise. And the old man - rarely more than an odd turtle resting on this lily pad of memories for which youth has not even begun to bargain - knows his protective shell and unpretentious pace is still his home, not his cage, and gives thanks. In fact, he remembers all too well in some other phase of life when he raced like the hare and success was like the wind. But as his long age and current station require, he also recalls something else swaying among the killer branches on a night like this. He recalls that silence among literary parsimonies defeats its rivals in every arguable pick-up line crossed, and while few are the wiser, each hope dashed is mere pulp for the gristmill among friends on standby who have nothing to gain by quickie rabbit tales.
The self-assured hare had overlooked the obvious when he shouted, "Hop!" to his friend the tortoise. He would hear no retort, "How high?" because it was simply foreign to his friend's nature to "hop" on command at all.
Gabriel Thy: SWORG: February 22, 2002
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