Bread and circuses ... at home
by Underground Panther in the Sky, Unknown News
May 3, 2005
My mom gets upset at me when I talk politics. She complains that I am so left. I fear her when she complains that immigrants should be forced to adopt English, She scares me when a Rush "talking point" slips out her mouth as if it was the most sensible thing ... and yet she says she hates Rush Limbaugh.
I feel such anger, and I can't explain it without tripping over her defenses, her sacred cows. She says, "Let's not talk about it." She says, "Lighten up, enjoy this TV show, let's change the topic." So these things never get discussed.
Inside I seethe and worry, and think to myself, why can't she just empathize with me? I feel like my heart is breaking, and she wants me to watch some British comedy when the last thing I feel like doing is laughing.
People around me are almost begging me to slip into this numbness with them, this dreamy twilight state where nothing can happen that will cause them pain or regret and everything is still A-OK and cheaters never prosper. They want me to laugh along with them, like my laughing will prove to them nothing is wrong, that there is no danger with things as they are. They want me to joyfully go about my days like nothing bad is coming.
But unlike these people, I can't use denial and positive affirmations as a coping mechanism with horrors I see. I was abused as a kid, and that game of denial that comforts so many became a weapon that protected abusers and allowed me to be hurt.
So here I am, hurting, brain locked in a vigilant state that was burned into place by traumas long ago, reinforced by stress today, triggered over and over by the denial all around me. And they say I should quit being so negative. They say how nice the emperor looks in that suit. I cringe, wanting to cry out, but ... "But, Moooommm, he's naked! And he's got a boner!
My mom she loves her Mah Jong. My friends are so worried about shit like what to wear with what to what party with who next Saturday, attracting a new mate to like them. Me, I worry that maybe next Saturday things might be very different, for everyone -- our rights may be gone. Soon our loved ones could be dying, because of some disease and no insurance to pay for a cure.
I await the financial crash. I wonder how long until Bush's mental health testing teams put my ass away. I wonder how long until those pain microwave lasers on Humvees are used to put down angry homeless people on my street. They're homeless because their jobs have been outsourced, or just because they've been screwed over.
Most of the people I know, know at least one person who's in jail or a mental hospital on bullshit charges. Everyone, homeless or not, seems to be fighting for food, shelter, and medicine for themselves, their loved ones, and kids they shouldn't have had, who suffer and die.
Parents hope their children get good grades and good jobs, while the kids speak of resisting war, avoiding bullies, and dying for acceptance, eventually realizing their own parents have no moral courage or sense of fairness or responsibility. I wonder, my heart suffers for teens with no hope, offing themselves and killing each other, escaping into drugs, finding 'family' in gangs.
Their parents are still assuming the system works. They wait on savior Jesus. Or they wait for some expert to lead them away, fix the problems that have bloomed since they failed to remove the corruption from power when they had a chance
-- when the problem was small, when Reagan began to start the ruin of today. They ignored the problems then, and their kids
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will know they were in denial, and hate them for telling those that cannot slip into denial to "lighten up."
Today my loved ones say, just lighten up, Panther. People on TV are still blaming the poor for being poor, the fat for eating too much. People are grabbing the slices of pie crumbs offered from the owners of the "ownership society," as if Me Getting Mine was all that mattered, and fuck the rest.
I gasp inwardly at the denial I see all around me. It makes me sick inside. I shudder at the scapegoating, the sneering hypocrites on the left and the bully boys and crusaders on the right, smug all of them because today they are comfortable. They do not want to see that the same boots are holding them in place, and the blade is coming down on their necks without regard. They never had to be vigilant, and detect abusers that look like good people. They never had to think, Why me?
The Food Network is the hottest topic of discussion in my family. Everyone gathers, yakking about wonderful new
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recipes for meatball sub sandwiches ... and yes, I agree, the subs were good ... but I wonder secretly to myself if these meatballs I am eating now are the ones. Knowing full well this may or may not
be the one meatball made from a |
hundred cows to give me Mad Cow Disease later on.
I swallow the tasty morsel hard, chasing it with bottled water because tap water ain't clean anymore... and inside I scream.
But what do I scream at? At myself for eating meatballs like a fool? At my family for hiding from reality? At the government for playing this ghastly game, feeding cows with blood, risking my health for profit? Or at the Food and Drug Administration, which would rather be a buddy to its rich cronies than do its job? At the media for cowardice? Who do I scream at?
Instead I feel like I am not even here.
I sit there, trying to talk light, about the bullshit on TV, about playing golf, and showing my latest art project, and my progress in learning Poi fire dancing. I yammer like the rest of them, but I feel so disconnected and alone.
I'm trying not be a wet blanket at my niece’s first birthday party, when deep in my own thoughts I wonder why, whydid they bring this precious little girl into this horrible fucked-up world.
Why was she born into a mess, a society of fools and predatory games our parents left for us that we as adults still failed to fix. Why, a world in worse shape that we will leave her |
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to fix. I wonder what in the hell were they thinking, having a child now??? And I weep for her inside.
The blasphemy of it all makes me want to explode. And of course, I say nothing about how I feel, because I fear they would not want to understand it. They might feel scared or angry, they may scapegoat me for being the downer.
When people do dumb things, they really don't want to admit it's as selfish or dumb as it is, especially when it concerns innocent life they brought into a world that cannot cope with the reality it creates.
After the party, I walk out alone to put my stuff in the car before I go. On the ledge a pigeon is giving the alarm sound that pigeons do, to warn the flocks of danger ... bobbing his head, he sits behind this facade on the roof. Then he hops from his hiding spot on the ledge right in front of me, as he warns me, his beautiful feathers in the sun sheening lavender, he warbles his heartout. He looks at me, knowing I am paying attention.
He's looking right at me.
Then I turn away to open the car door, and he warbles like crazy, and I see why. Between the buildings I catch |
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a glimpse of a falcon, soaring above the rooftops of the city neighborhood, looking for prey.
Bless that little bird. He was the only one besides me that felt this awful feeling inside, and it was like he was saying “Coo, coo, I feel it too, watch out. The hawks are out in the sunny blue sky, looking for prey, and they will tear you apart even when all looks well and the day appears perfect!
© by the author.
What do you think?
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I gasp inwardly at the denial I see all around me.
It makes me sick inside.
I shudder at the scapegoating, the sneering hypocrites on the left and the bully boys and crusaders on the right, smug all of them because today they are comfortable.
They do not want to see that the same boots are holding them in place, and the blade is coming down on their necks without regard.
They never had to be vigilant, and detect abusers that look like good people.
They never had to think, Why me?
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