Listen! Enough is enough, and enough is too much

Sometimes enough is just too much.

Sometimes you just can't find the words.

I don't know about you, but life even as a dispassionate, detached observer is getting hard to take. It makes you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder, I can tell you that.

Back in my carefree days, I studied literature and was amused by the Theatre of the Absurd. It was crazy, but insightful, purposefully not making sense to entertain. OK, I was young, naive, and a good portion stupid, I'll admit: Beckett and Pynchon weren't writing to entertain, they were rubbing our noses in our own stuff; they weren't just insightful, they were brutally honest; they weren't crazy, we are.

Most of you, dear readers, didn't even stumble over the "carefree" in that last paragraph. You all knew what I meant and most of you smiled inwardly and waxed nostalgic about those days. Truth be told, the vast majority of human beings on this planet never had a carefree day (let alone years) in their lives, but we're too sheltered, too pampered, to out-of-touch to know that. All right, add ignorant to my list of non-virtues.

One day, you (possibly) wake up (and I think most of us have) and you realize this isn't some silly play on the stage that you're watching: damn! Shakespeare was right, all the world is a stage, and every last one of us is a player. Are we just screwing up our parts, or are we really playing our roles? And therein lies the rub, as Bill would also say.

Falcon Heights, Baton Rouge, Dallas -- just the popper on a long, long bullwhip of absurdity. Thoughtless, needless, senseless, feckless, heartless murders, every one of them, and all I can see and hear are tongues wagging, fingers pointing, and knees jerking. We'd might as well face it: we can't fix it. No, it's not because the situation is so broken it can't be fixed. No, it's not because "they" are to blame. No, it's not that "we" are to blame. The reason we can't fix it is simple: we don't want to. All the yelling, screaming, and wailing is just as thoughtless, needless, senseless, feckless and heartless as the murders. There is so much hot air and heated passions being projected into the world that we may die of heat exhaustion before we gun each other down.

For the record -- not as if it will matter -- the vast majority of cops are honest, hard-working, dedicated people who are just trying to make their communities safe. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. The vast majority of our fellow black citizens are decent, hard-working, dedicated people who are trying to make the best of their lives in the situation in which they find themselves. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. The vast majority of protesters are honest, concerned and active citizens who are trying to make those who are still unaware of some of the issues involved more aware. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. But that's precisely what we do in all cases. The rotten apples spoil the barrel, and the few give the many a bad name, but it never occurs to us that what we decry in others 9 times out of 10 is merely what we ourselves do all the time. It takes one to know one.

One thing is for sure: this most recent absurdity is truly American. it's American because it's happening in America, not everywhere else; it's being perpetrated by Americans, not some vague foreign agents. No, the problem's as homegrown as you get; you're simply reaping what you have sown, and you're going to keeping on reaping till you own up to the fact that you've got no one to blame but yourselves, collectively, of course, but personally as well.

Yes, we're all to blame, and it's time that we all just face up to it. Did it ever occur to you that you are never part of the problem, it's always"them", or at least someone else. Did it never occur to you that you are always right and "they" (or at least someone else) never is. My Facebook and Twitter feeds have been overflowing with one-breath analyses, one-line conclusions and zero solutions. I don't know what is more absurd, to tell the truth: what's going down or what's being said about it.

But, in all the din of accusations, counter-accusations, blame-fixing no one is listening.

That's the biggest problem of all: no one is listening.

Of course, there are two other problems that play in here that we cannot afford to ignore: The first is America's race problem. It's there, and it's deep-seated, that's for sure. Very deep-seated. It's so much a part of the culture that not a thing is going to change until we own up to it. This isn't a matter of artificially construed and inappropriately applied statistics. Having a race problem, is all the more absurd, of course, now that we know there is no such thing as race, but the label used is the right one because it's the one we can connect with. It was apparent in the fake debate about the flying of the Confederate flag. It's to be found in the the voter restriction laws being passed. It's in the simple, fact that in the year 2016 the KKK is making a comeback. How can that even be? It's time to own up to the fact that no where on earth do people of color have so much working against them as in America. Oh, I know the excuses; I was brought up with them. The ideal is a land of equal opportunity but the reality is an unequal as you can get. The ideal is equal rights under and before the law, but the reality is anything but. Stop screaming, accusing, blaming and start talking ... openly (for a change), honestly (maybe for the first time), directly ... but more than anything else, start listening.

The other problem is the violence problem: There are more murders, more violent crimes committed in American than just about anywhere on earth, and this doesn't take into consideration how many actual deaths were caused, for example, by the wrecking of the economy by capitalist speculators. Ball-point pens can be as deadly as any gun. Just this week we saw murders committed by those within and those outside the law. Americans, it would seem, are more willing to accept all sorts of violence as legitimate, but there is no such thing. There is legalized violence, as when the state allow itself to execute those it deems undesirable, but legitimate violence doesn't exist. It should always be the last resort, not the first one, as we are seeing.

And by the way, this isn't a gun issue, folks. Guns are a red herring. The absurdity we're dealing with is a simple, fundamental and deep-seated acceptance, if not love, of violence. Guns are tools, nothing more. They complicate the matter, but they don't define it. Yet physical violence, while the most obvious, is probably the least of the problem: the everyday psychological violence perpetuated on the populace, both collectively and individually, is mind-boggling to say the least: the unbridled, gloves-off brutality of business competition, the cold, calculating oppression of social-service recipients, the wielding of debt as weapon of suppression, be you a home-owner down on your luck or a student trying to make a better life for yourself. Get on the wrong side of the system and you'll be crushed, mercilessly. There is no mercy for losers. Fear is the prime motivator and threats the weapon of choice. But of course if that doesn't work, there's always physical violence as a last resort. It's just around the corner ... or in your face. You see it in its favorite sports, you see it in political campaigns, you see it in the rapaciousness of casino capitalism, you see it in its foreign policy, and you hear it in everyday language. It's time to start listening to what's really being said.

It's enough already. Really. It's time to stop accepting this absurdity as the way things are. None of this has to be the way it is. Things are as they are because we have either made them this way or allowed them to become that way. And while you personally may never have been shot at, while you personally may not have suffered injustice, it is time to wake up to the fact that there are too many who have and too many who do. When are we going to get it? When are we going to see that we are involved whether we like it or not? When is this absurdity going to stop? Well, it can't stop until you do everything you can do to make it stop. It's your move.