In the past seven years I have read enough theosophy and esoteric Buddhism to get a fair understanding of the concepts of racial, tribal and national karma, and to realize what I suspected all along: anything, such as elections and war, that influences the lives of whole shitloads of people, is to be treated as a mere spectacle for the soul.
To attempt to influence the outcomes, especially by direct action, but even by expending enough energy to write something interesting about them, is like pissing into the wind, or pouring a glass of water into the ocean.
I am revolted by American imperialism, from the time of our original crimes in the Philippines till today, and I am equally revolted by the gang of thugs who happen to be pulling the current president's strings. I acknowledge that Kerry might be a skosh better domestically.
But America's foreign wars have little to do with which worthless prick happens to be in the White House. Recall that one of Clinton's first acts in office was to continue Dubya's daddy's smart-bomb extermination of Baghdad's civilian population. This will not change.
America's military adventures have always been and always will be the functions of our corporate plutocrats. They think of themselves as swashbuckling masters of their own and every one else's fate. But they're merely the unconscious tools of tribal, racial and national karma.
This is the message of War and Peace. You might think that Napoleon was the one guy in the world with the greatest autonomy, but Tolstoy insists, very convincingly, that he had the least freedom of any human on earth at that time.
Entire populations do not kill each other because of the whims or ambitions of one man or group of men. To fancy that is to make the insane mistake of assuming the soul of a peasant or a prole is less important that a prince's or a general's. Each spirit is working out its own metempsychotic progress. When masses of them get interrupted in this all-important endeavor by untimely death, it can only be due to the ethical debts of the tribe, or nation, or race to which they belong, as intertwined with other nations, races, or tribes.
When the time comes for such collective blood-dues to be paid, a Napoleon, or an Ariel Sharon, or a Dubya shows up, and is pressed into service as the mere instrument of Universal Balance.
Even before learning about this stuff, my instincts told me that voting was a particularly ludicrous version of whacking off. I never entered a booth, except for one time, early in my marriage, when my brother was the democratic candidate for the Utah governorship, and my wife twisted my arm into showing up at the polls. All I did was duck behind the curtain and trash the place--I busted the stylus and generally fucked everything up so nobody could exercise their franchise after me.
I had no philosophy in mind, not even anarchism. My body just told me to do it, and it was fun, like barfing into your boss' pipe tobacco. I'm sure trashing voting booths is some kind of federal crime, and I guess I'm lucky nobody yelled for the fat old cop who was loitering around.
Anyway, fuck voting.
Tom says, "I am a bleeding victim/hero in the never-ending war to make the world safe for Freedom of the Press. My battles have lately been fought in the Pacific Theater, against the mean Shinto fascist pricks. My courageous actions have been featured in Arts and Letters Daily, and are psychoanalyzed in the legendary Exquisite Corpse, where I am diagnosed as suffering from an 'unwholesome Christ complex and a desire for public self-annihilation. I bless you and keep you. I make my face to shine upon you, and give you respite. Amen."