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I Blame Us for Duffism
I blame us for Duffism. Damn us for Duffism. Dithering & Duffism. The good news is that our strength is our weakness. By nature, we aren’t easily organized – we don’t have a totalitarian cast. We tend to live and let live. It’s why we’re cool with homosexual marriage. It’s why we’re pro-choice. Laissez faire. How you shuffle your cars is pretty much your business. And if you mention that our hearts bleed, we’re glad to have hearts to bleed.
We tend to kindness. We err on the side of generosity. We jump to the best conclusion about you. There are very few totalitarian artists, so most of the high arts and low arts are ours. The big, burly, creative, bustling cities are ours. the elegant, exotic cities are ours. We’re good, we’re beautiful, we’re interesting.
The bad news is that we are afflicted by Duffism — remaining perched upon our duffs or rumps. If it hasn’t burned your oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to recall that Al Gore was an almost perfect president for the time, you’re blinder, deafer, dumber. He was extremely savvy about the environment and the technological frontiers. He was actually compassionate. But we allowed the damned (& they are) Nader people, our brethren & sistren, to whine that he wasn’t the apotheosis. We did not take them by the scruffs of their scrawny necks and say do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Vote for Nader in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />California and Idaho, in the FC states (the Foregone Conclusion States) – do not dare to cast one vote for Nader the Nasty in Ohio or Florida. That is past even unconscionable self-indulgence to flaming insane. 90,000 stupid people voted for Nader in Florida and sealed our fate.
Sometimes you just have to color inside the lines, children. Do you really like “the message” you sent? Who got hurt? Not GeorgeJr & Co. No, the little people took it hideously in the shorts – every one of us for generations will take it in the shorts, you stupid people. No, no, no, they are not “all the same” – that’s a pigpecker of an ill-informed petulant whine out the wazoo, and you 90,000-handedly ruined my old age, turned my golden years to lead. You let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You stood on Idiot Principle. The Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing People. Idealism Run Amok. I hate you if not every hour, every day for making the boulder so much heavier.
The agony is that we have the votes everywhere – cleanly, clearly, not close. If 601 of you 90,000 had Got the Brain before the Election, we all could be constructing a brilliant world as we speak.
You were smart enough and bestirred enough to get registered. That is well done. Now, if you could only consider the consequences of your actions beyond the knee-jerk herd of the-snippy-&-righteous surface. Of course they all suck compared to Enlightened You, but they do not all suck the same. You were looking through the wrong end of the telescope. You are the Tut-Tut Duffists, the Scolds.
Then there are our Retard Duffists. The Retards who can’t velcro their shoes. Who can’t out of the two years between elections carve out the 5 minutes it takes to get thee to a library or a post office and fill out a registration form you can mail for free. Voting is not confusing. Vote for Gore or Kerry, not Bush. Period. Leave the booth. You do not need to vote for any other person or initiative. You don’t have to vote for County Water Assessor or for Prop 666. Stay essential.
I would like registration to be even easier. It is a nuisance. Same day registration is good. There ought to be voting on the weekend. Get your damned absentee ballot. Yes, the electoral college is completely anti-democratic. Voting machines must have a paper trail.
But look at the consequences of your ‘not getting around to it’; not ‘bothering’; of flailing into the ‘they’re all the same tantrum.’ Do they look all the same now? Ye gods, you cretins, get off your damned duffs and register and vote.
And the rest of us long-suffering holier than thou enlightened people who did do our citizen duty – did register, did find out where our darn precinct is this year (Think absentee absentee absentee), did vote? So now we’re clucking – “Oh, oh, it’s the Tut-Tut Scolds, those awful Nader people; it’s our Retards who make excuses all the way to the Mall – it’s their fault. I did my part. Look at me, how fine I am. Change the architecture so I can fit my head through the door.”
No, you self-satisfied Preener Duffist, the fate of the fxxcking precious Earth is at stake and you don’t get off so easy. It’s ordinary for you to vote intelligently. You pass Democracy 101. Well done. Now you have to do something – one thing – extra-ordinary. You don’t have to become a major-league political junkie pouring your heart into saving the fruited Earth. Just do one extra-ordinary thing. Take 5 registration forms from the post office or library and put them in your car. Check that the coffee-jerks at your Starbucks are registered. adopt one voter. Make it your business to personally adopt one voter each two years. If we each did that simple thing, we would double the Democratic vote. The key is getting those 5 forms from the post office into your car.
Of course I wish with blood dripping like tears from my eyes that you would get yourself to a Peace March, would stand up, speak out at the water cooler, with your knees trembling and your voice quavering – hell with your neuroses, friend, it’s Urgent Times for the Beloved Planet. It is always better to do one small thing than one big nothing. Don’t worry at all about being a coward. I’m the hugest coward ever. I just do one excruciating grain of sand at a time (and over time, it adds up to a pleasantly surprising anthill.)
I have not sat freezing naked in a Tibet cave living on one dried berry a month praying for your wretched and lazy soul – I am not much holier than thou. But I do know that cynicism sucks – it’s like poisoning yourself and hoping the other person dies. I do know that inertia kills. Kennedy beat Nixon by one vote a precinct. Your vote may matter. Do not dare take a chance.
Dear Turtle Island which is what North America was called before the Florid Hairless Biped genocided her (one man’s genocide is another man’s heroic conquest . . .) – Turtle Island may yet become a powerful but authentically humble global-citizen-servant bringing our constructive ingenuity to bear on the fascinating future. We perfected the tools of destruction: It’s bombs, napalm, landmines into broadband and healthcare time.
Do one small extra-ordinary thing. Let’s get off our arses, Duffists, and arise.
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the pro-peace world begins today with you
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Interestingly in my job as a therapist, I find that people use 'the perfect' as a cloak for inertia too. It becomes the enemy of the good, but unconsciously it covers over the inertia, the entropic desire. And as busy as the corporate skunk race keeps us, who can blame people — except as you say, the Planet is on the line.
'The perfect' also cloaks shyness in some. Until we see that it is not about us, but about the future and the small bird of hope, we can be very shy of 'going out there.' Ye olde unknown and all that. This post is a nice kick in the arse for all of us, pog. I am picking up my 5 registration forms on my trip to the post office THIS very morning.
I have taught adults for a lifetime and it is the Perfectionist who prevents them from taking a chance on trying new things where they will be awkward for a considerable time, not complacently accomplished as they are in their present calcified Adult Job or Status.
I tell the ones brave enough to even get into the Adult Education door to send their Perfectionist to Fiji for the duration of the class to chill out with large tropical drinks.
And only allow the Perfectionist back if it is willing to be the world's most encouraging and affable coach, whispering sweet somethings into their ears.