BigUglyWorld #12 - Something To Lose (June 23, 2005)
Band:
We're going to be having what should be a huge show in a couple of weeks, followed by a quiet August. There's rumors that we might throw in one more show over the month of July if we can arrange it for a live recording, but we'll see. August will be devoid of shows due to us being out of town. All things being equal, though, we're doing well and feeling good about the band.
Me:
I have had pink eye for several days now and I'm starting to get pissed off.
The World Outside:
I swear, more people freaked out that Michael Jackson was innocent than batted an eye when Enron folded. The fucking media companies have us eating out of their palms.
Meat:
So I had a great chat with my buddy Onkel Tom today. We decided to meet up and have a beer at the ole' Bar Fly before popping in to a used book store down the street that had a 75% off sale. Tom brought me a copy of American Hardcore to read, and that naturally led to a conversation about music, politics, and the world we live in.
I brought up the Soviets near the end of the Soviet Union. These were people who were lining up with jerry cans in all day lineups just to get a little beer to assuage their miserable lives. They were people who had watched the system that had been built up around them and had differentiated them from the rest of the world begin to falter and fall victim to the realities of that world.
The truth is that communism (and it's parent, socialism) can't work. As a system, textbook communism appeals to the pure, perfect goodness at the heart of people. It is a system that quickly abandons government because people will work together for the common good and will no longer need to be told how to get along.
This, of course, is horse shit.
The darker side of human nature is just as real as the lighter side. Yes, there are those who would embrace this system and who would gladly take one on the chin for the betterment of the common man. But the truth is, the vast majority talk a good game but are simply not able to back that up.
Have no fear, true believers, because it's not a flaw held only by the commies.
Capitalism is based on that same altruistic belief in the greater good. Don't believe me? Read your Adam Smith. The concept of an invisible hand that guides the marketplace and ensures that there is some kind of balance is a defining concept of capitalism, and by the time FDR took office it was pretty much clear that this concept was just not working. There was no magic arm that would keep things on an even keel, and so social programs had to be implemented.
And that brings us to most of the western world today, a mixture of free enterprise and social programs, a mish-mash of ideologies that allows the strengths of one system to carry the weaknesses of the other, and vice-versa.
Let's take a second and think about your average American or Canadian at the time of the fall of the Soviet Union. We were probably financially under some modicum of control. We were probably optimistic about both the future of the world and our own future within it. We had the means, the minds, and the motivators to get things done. Even our stupid Atari-wave Generation X children were coming around, becoming brutally selfish capitalists and embracing the way the world works.
So who was in a better spot?
In a lot of regards, the westerner would be thought of as being better off, and I ultimately won't dispute that waiting in line for a jerry can of beer is in some way better than owning all the coolest Top 40 Music. But the young Russian had one thing we didn't have, and that was the desire and passion to change the system.
When you have nothing to lose, you risk nothing in standing up and fighting for what you believe. And the end result of that fight was the fall of Communism, the rise of democracy and a more capitalist economy, and a lot more opportunity than Russia had seen in decades. Russia became a better place, and it did so fast.
In much the same way as how Japan was rebuilt following World War II into a democratic capitalist frightmareland in next to no time, so Russia emerged into a global superpower. One of their first acts was to very nearly elect a fascist dictator whose comittment to nuclear war would have seen the end of the world as we know it, but that's democracy for you. The point is that the people finally had a say.
Now here in the west, we have something to lose. We have X-Box. We have waterslides. We have TVs in our minivans, cocaine in all our suburbs, and a McDonalds in every Wal Mart. We are set. And the idea of standing up for ourselves suddenly becomes less important. If we stand up, we risk losing all these things. We have, in effect, accomplished the one thing that no dictator ever has been able to accomplish. We have bought ourselves into complascency.
These days, our popular music is a montage of imagery almost completely based on consumerism and the almighty dollar. Where hip hop music was once a voice for the black and hispanic communities, it is now a means to a bling bling end. Where punk and hardcore music once encouraged rebellion, political awakedness, and distrusting the authorities, now we're left with how sad we felt when our grade eight girlfriend died of lukemia. And rock and roll, the great rebel music of the 50s, has hauled the bloated corpses of it's olden day heros from the Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd to Pearl Jam out of the cemetary for one last pocket pick.
These days, we don't want innovation. We don't want rebellion. These things are scary. What we like is business as usual, because business is good. Or at least that's what they keep telling us while they lay off entire towns, ship jobs overseas, and turn the people against one another in the name of national security. And it all comes back to us having so very much to lose.
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