Almost everyone living within the suffocating confines of Western civilization (and beyond, except the American Class of 2014) knows this tale, coming from a blurb in the Book of Genesis and other books: after the Flood, the survivors, sharing one language, decided to build a great tower to impress God. There was a unity of the people, really called "Shinar" in the Old Testament version. But God wasn't pleased with their work, and "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." (King James Version)
Once the tower ended, so too did the city of Shinar, it was over, and the people dispersed. There was no more society, just brigands, raiders, chaos. This is about the fall of a civilization. But why would "God" do this? There doesn't seem to be any logical reason. "God" just wanted to show who was boss. What this is, is allegory, once again.
The Priests and Sovereign of Babylon would do these things, more specifically to the captive tribal Jews, but could also be expected to have done the same to anyone under their sway. The Tower of Babel is about human hierarchy and how people tend more towards unity naturally, but that hierarchy is also natural and that it has a tendency to divide. The Priests were usually the only ones who could read and write, therefore, they controlled language, and they knew how to corrupt its use through religion to render communication between ordinary people almost useless.
That's where we're at right now as a society, a civilization. The Priests--the economists, the rich, the managerial class, the media, rotten lawyers, the military officers, the pundits, and so on--have corrupted language to the point that things are unraveling, society itself is coming-apart. A great deal of it is owed to this manipulation of language. Hierarchy might be inevitable, but its dysfunction can be controlled, my take. I'm sure this isn't the first time someone has "found" this interpretation, I make no high claims.
No, there is not. There's a loose conglomeration of the reactionary right, conservative (whatever that means) senior citizens who have been mislead in thinking that their Medicare is going to be cut, closet racists who had no problem with eight criminal years of Bush II but don't like having a black president, tax protesters, gun rights activists, the rural and suburban unemployed, wacko evangelicals, Libertarians, disgruntled former Republicans, militia nuts, neo-Nazis, and a lot of other people I'd never invite over for a drink or a cookout anytime soon.
What the so-called "Tea Party movement" is constitutes reactionary, rightist populism. In other words, misguided, misdirected populist rage that's apparently not willing to be "co-opted" by the GOP let alone the DNC.
In some crucial sense, they're the opposite side of the coin to the progressive left, meaning the majority of the public when you look at the polls regarding social issues and the spending to combat social problems. The majority is for a leftward reformist model, not a rightward trend. Where does that leave these red-headed stepchildren of the right? As far as anyone can tell, an ineffectual demographic minority that, yes, gets it that Wall Street is the problem, yet doesn't like the idea of New Deal reforms and progressive taxation of the wealthiest.
You know: the dumb assholes who still cling to the American Dream.
There is an off-chance that some of these folks will have that "road to Damascus" conversion and actually see that their own interests are best represented in joining the antiwar and progressive left in the streets (as well as on the Internet), in joining together to stop the corporate assault on our rights, but so far it's a pipe dream. Instead, we all harp on more fringe elements of this demographic, and while that's not entirely misplaced in its importance, it's not all about the problem children, it's about the overall group that's been labelled as "Tea Party." Some have implied that many of these self-styled "Tea Baggers" could only attend many of these events by being small business owners, and indeed, there's a kernal of truth to this. But it's not the entire story, some are simply retired baby boomers.
I'm not really sure why the GOP would even want this disparate gaggle of the terminally confused, but what else do they have left as a base? Yet, as stated before, the demographic is fundamentally mistrustful of the entire political establishment and stubbornly resists being used, of being co-opted. Regardless of that, they have been used pretty effectively by both the GOP and DNC to assist in a creating a smokescreen so that bogus health reform could be passed. It doesn't surpise me that this pseudo-movement began with Texas congressional representative Ron Paul since it's as confused in its viewpoint and message as much as he is. To add to the confusion, the mainstream corporate media affixed the labels to them and let things fly, and fly they have, right out the window.
Is there really a Tea Party movement? I don't think so, and it's not going to decide any national elections anytime soon. What it will do, and has done, is to provide one more spectacle, one more distraction, from the worthwhile goals of reformists and the dreams in the hearts of American populists of every stripe. The Mesopotamian priests used the corruption of language to control the builders of the Tower of Babel--but it went bust, and no one could understand each other anymore, and the pillar that was the society of that time, the work towards real civilization, remained unfinished and the people disbursed. The show was effectively over. Funny that religion is part of the equation again, but if it's broken don't fix it when it comes to holding onto power.
South Bend, Indiana--What was his fucking name? Wilbur? Fred? Terry? Chuck? Kilroy? George? I can't remember his goddamned name, so George it is. Anyway, he was our band instructor, our music teacher at John Adams High School in the 1980s, and, as he told us at least seven times in one year, he was "Lisa Germano's dad." I'm probably going to get whacked for this if John Mellencamp becomes a senator, but what the hell? It's not especially damning of him, just Mr. Germano and Indiana, and hardly even that.
So, anyway, I can barely remember anything about Mr. Germano's class, but he was a really nice man, I liked him, and he rose above the pack of Jackapes I had to dodge every day. But that's all he could talk about sometimes: "My daughter Lisa is playing violin for John Cougar Mellencamp [he was still called this at the time], bow before her icon, yadda-yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah," like it was Shintoism, worshiping the people who came before us, except for no particular purpose. OK, there was one. He got to say his daughter was famous and that he was proud of her, which is fine, it's cool, solid. He should have been.
But why, then, is that all I can remember from his class, says I-and-I? Babylon soon come, but this one still has me vexed. True, I never liked reading sheet music, and that's what he taught, so once again, I was fucked. Math has never been my strong point, regardless of its context. I have to imagine that in-between my naps in his classroom, Mr. Germano had to have said something about his daughter Lisa at least seven times, no less, and probably a lot more were I able to recall how many doo-doos I had that week. But alas, I'm not autistic...or at least I don't think so. Consider (not the lillies, that's for another time class) that he was telling all of his classes this shit every class.
My opinion, though, over the years is that he--Mr. Germano--didn't especially care about the quality of the music Lisa was playing (which was very competent on her end) but that she was "famous," that coveted status that means everything outside of the ideals of humanism and the good deeds of St. Francis. It's a queer attitude that I don't relate to and didn't back then around 1983. Let's be honest though: she could have sleptwalked through the simple parts she had to play for her "boss." She was classically trained and could play circles around that shit, get real. For a time, she was working in a bookstore in Indy during the 90s! Mellencamp didn't want to do anything, her 4AD (Pixies, Cocteau Twins home label) record deal didn't go the way she might have hoped it would, and she had a shitty job like me--what the fuck! That's showbusiness, as they say, whoever the fuck "they" are.
Non-sequitur time: It might seem like a great idea to have someone famous whom one likes and feels holds and reflects the same values, but that's not the thing in practice. I'm sure Mellencamp is a great guy, and I've heard good things about him. Does that mean he'd be a great senator? No. But really, I hope she's doing well. I assume Mr. Germano has passed away, I don't know. He was a nice man in a crappy school, and I think he followed us from Edison Middle School, but again, I don't remember it all, or what I had for lunch on February 13th, 1979. I know, what an asshole...
