ELECTING A LEADER There is a way in which the very concept of electing a leader is absurd. We have a system in which the followers select the leaders. Think about it. Followers select leaders. Now ask yourself a question: What do followers know of leadership? Nothing, except that they want a leader; they want to be led. But this is not knowing something of leadership. It is merely insight into followship (if I may coin a word). Followers are - obviously - directionless. Being directionless suggests not only an inability to determine the proper direction, but also to pursue it. If you are a follower, you don't know where you want to go, or how to get there if you did know. Do we really want a nation of people like this deciding who will be the leader? I used to think that I did, but not any more. After the voters in this country selected George W. Bush to the highest office in the land, the clouds parted and the light came shining through. I became firmly convinced that at least sixty-million of them deserved to be disenfranchised. Take a hard look at what they did. They had the power to select a leader, and look what they did! They put Alfred E. Newman, all grown up, in the White House. Followers only know of following. They know nothing of leading. Followers are directionless, clueless and cowardly. If the polls may be believed, the vast majority of citizens in this country are followers. Nearly all confess to be associated with some sort of organized religion, be it Christianity, Islam or Judaism. There is no religion in the entire world that is not somehow based on fear. People are Christians (or Muslims or Jews) because they are afraid not to be. A Christian (or a Muslim or a Jew) cannot give you a reason (in the sense of a rationale) for maintaining allegiance to their religious orientation. They all remind me of patriots. A patriot also doesn't have any reason to be a patriot. If you analyze it honestly, you can't help but arrive at the realization that a patriot is a person who simply likes his/her country. Gee, imagine that. A patriot likes his country. It's like saying you like your family. Ok, so what? Everyone (at least most everyone) likes their family (in most cases the real reason that people hold allegiance to their religion, because it was the religion of their family). People who don't like their family have a way of getting messed up in the head. I like my family too, no matter how dysfunctional (another quality that seems to pervade many a family in this country) I sense them to be. I've got a question I'd like to ask every patriot and/or religious type in America: How do you feel about the human family? Here's a newsflash for you: The human family is your real family, the real bona-fide deal. It is time, indeed, past time, for Americans (and Mexicans and Canadians and Russians and Chinese and the British and ... well, you get the point) to get their heads out of their nationalistic asses and join the human family. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." To live by this sentiment is to live with the realization that it doesn't matter who the leader is. Leaders are unnecessary. Leaders create followers, in the same way the north pole of a magnet induces the south pole, and in the same way the the rich create the poor. If no one was rich, no one would be poor. And if they were poor, they wouldn't know it without the rich around constantly reminding them of the fact. We need to stop playing the game of follow-the-leader (always a rich dude). But it's tough to do in a nation of followers. Followers are always on the lookout for leaders, as if they are somehow incomplete without them. If you would like to stop being a follower, and thereby make an impact on the current dismal dynamic (and thereby truly contribute to changing its direction), I suggest the following: 1. Stop voting. By continuing to vote you continue to support the democratic process that does nothing but keep everyone in their place. It keeps the rich rich and the poor poor. If you truly want to do something about the growing inequities of resource allocation, stop supporting politics as usual. No one is more qualified than anyone else to be in a position of leadership in the current system. "All men are created equal" suggests that all men are equally qualified to make decisions about the creation of the laws that govern us. There should be no voting for the purpose of deciding who will serve in public office. Such service should be an obligation, something that all citizens are required to do (occasionally, as in jury duty), not something that is only a privilege for the wealthy. The only voting you should continue be involved with is referendum voting. It is one thing to vote directly on a piece of legislation, and quite another to vote for a person. 2. Stop supporting the market place (or at least reduce your participation to a bare minimum). Stop being suckered into buying the latest of whatever is being marketed to you. In other words, stop supporting built-in obsolescence, which is yet another way of supporting the wealth that promotes the current system. Whenever you do buy something, buy quality, something you plan to keep forever, to pass on to your estate. 3. Stop being a sports fan. (Talk about being a follower.) To openly admit that you are a fan of a particular team is to admit that you do not have a life of your own. To say "Stop being a sports fan" is the same as saying "Get a life." They are equivalent statements. The whole sports scene does little more than promote the competitive ideal that fuels the marketplace, the same marketplace that creates the winners and losers that we so casually refer to as rich and poor. 4. Strive to the best of your abilities to become an individual. Think your own thoughts, not someone else's. Anyone who is not an individual is more susceptible to being led around by the nose, and thus duped and deceived. 5. Totally destroy the house of religion that you inherited from your family and build your own. You may build a similar house, but at least you will know that you built it. 6. Embrace the family of man as your real family. This does not mean that you should disown your legal/biological family. It means that you should try to get a grasp on the big picture, on what is truly real. If you are focused on the big stuff, the little stuff will not phase you. 7. Promote technocracy. It is the only way of ensuring that the fair and equal distribution of resources will ever become a reality. Once technocracy is in place (and some day it will be), the delusion of democracy will fade like a bad dream.
|
