Fear the Wardulak

Polarization. I am only 25 years old, so I am without a comprehensive perspective, but have we ever been so divided in the political process? The answer is yes (Reference: 1861-1865), but it’s to the point now where debates are for assholes. People know where they stand, and I am one of them. I stand right here…or actually over there, but in the interests of pragmatism, I stand here until November. I talk with my father, and he knows where he stands. He is one of them. I love him, and yet I cannot understand how he believes what he believes. My bond to my family is infinitely stronger than any political or philosophical affiliation, and yet I still couldn’t get the guy to see Fahrenheit 9/11 on my birthday. (I pray for the day O’Reilly, Hannity, or Coulter makes a movie. I’ll be first in line.) It’s ridiculous at this point. It’s sports, and we all have our teams we will unquestioningly root for until the day we die. I am definitely a fan. I watch Fox News and listen to Limbaugh in the interests of humor. They are like aliens. Alien invaders, their rhetoric is so foreign to my dominant paradigm. Is debate even worthwhile? Are people going to be swayed by anything? Does dialogue serve a purpose? Are we being insightful or are we being inciteful?

I am torn between the sensible temporary versus the nihilistic long-term. But I hold together. It’s a part of becoming wise: holding yourself against opposite forces. Our culture cannot last, and someday a greater species may come to our world and find a clustered layer of outrageous artifacts buried beneath the woods, but until then I will teach, and procreate, and acquiescently consume. This is the debate that rages in me. I work 15 hours, then go to the bar, consume nothing, and leave with nothing. There is no meaning to the majority of my days, and yet I question the need to keep this cycle alive. And then I drive from New York City to Syracuse, and it’s so beautiful, and I listen to Jimi Hendrix followed by Lungfish and it’s the perfect combination of temperature and sensory input, and I think that we need to keep this going at all costs. I have to tell people about this, and John Kerry has to be elected so people in other countries will stop wanting to fly planes into our buildings…because for every building there are a billion images like this.

I watched as much Democratic National Convention coverage as I could. There were few highlights. Political masturbation doesn’t speak to me. However, the pragmatic force in my brain makes me shake with anticipation for what Barack Obama could bring to this world. And everyone else feels it too. If this plays out what will the other side resort to? I’ve never been alive while a great leader performed. This could be it. He could be real hope. Not the ambiguous, impotent hope from that awful democratic slogan. Hope like Luke Skywalker.

…but I am earnestly and critically afraid of vampires. I attempt to keep myself pure while the rest of this country is slowly infected. People are taken up with a force and a lust greater than themselves. They have the thirst. Vampires are not inherently evil; they are, however, under a compulsion to devour lifeblood. This is what I’m battling against: compulsion and consumption. This is the downfall of the nation, and neither Democrat nor Republican will help on either front, and neither reactionary nor progressive has the vision to save our culture. Soon we won’t be anything more than Neanderthals. Something better will come along. We won’t notice because of our violent and self-intoxicating drama, and we will continue to break beams. No matter who is elected President of the United States of America, two thirds of the world’s population will still be starving, and there will still be hundreds of dictatorships depriving the citizens of their inalienable rights; there will still be torture; there will still be suicide, and there will still be slavery. And for this reason (the fact that I fear vampires), I do not think I have anything productive to offer to the political dialogue. When I argue and debate, people tell me I sound violent. But I am just passionate, and if my passion cannot resonate with others, then my words, which are nothing exclusive, have no chance.

And this is how I go back and forth, and when I am a public school teacher I better put it aside and have some confidence in what I am doing. I have to take a stand then. I have to communicate from a logically consistent canon. I have to prepare my students for the current world, not the world that will eventually come to exist, regardless of when I fear that eventuality might come, and I have to show them how to prolong it, to give the scientists as much time as possible to figure out how we can remain.

And that’s the difference between Andrew N. Williams and George W. Bush. We have different takes on salvation. I believe we have a lot to figure out, and he has had it figured out for him already. There is a nice plan neatly laid out: just stay thirsty, and keep it coming. Consumption is power. It drives them forward, fat on suspensors. And somehow the New Testament, which is an anti-government, anti-consumerist text, is warped, subverted, and used with devilish purpose. It is our duty, not as Americans, but as human beings to fight the subversion. I have accepted these things: 1) There is no easy answer to a complicated existence. 2) There will always be mass amounts of suffering. 3) This world is worth fighting for.

Join the fight; don’t vote for Bush.