Mr. Trout Helps Us Understand the Essence of Apathy

The Driver said he used to be a hunter and a fisherman, long ago. It broke his heart when he imagined what the marshes and meadows had been like only a hundred years before. “And when you think of the shit that most of these factories make-wash day products, catfood, pop-“

He had a point. The planet was being destroyed by manufacturing processes, and what was being manufactured was lousy, by and large.

Then Trout made a good point, too. "Well," he said, "I used to be a conservationist. I used to weep and wail about people shooting bald eagles with automatic shotguns from helicopters and all that, but I gave it up. There's a river in Cleveland which is so polluted that it catches fire about once a year. That used to make me sick, but I laugh about it now. When some tanker accidentally dumps its load in the ocean, and kills millions of birds and billions of fish, I say, 'More power to Standard Oil' or whoever it was that dumped it."
Trout raised his arms in celebration. "'Up your ass with Mobil gas,'" he said.

The driver was upset by this. "You're kidding," he said.
"I realized," said Trout, "that God wasn't any conservationist, so for anybody else to be one was sacrilegious and a waste of time. You ever see one of His volcanoes or tornadoes or tidal waves? Anybody ever tell you about the lce Ages he arranges for every half-million years? How about Dutch Elm disease? There's a nice conservation measure for you. That's God, not man. Just about the time we got our rivers cleaned up, he'd probably have the whole galaxy go up like a celluloid collar. That's what the Star of Bethlehem was, you know."
"What was the Star of Bethlehem?" said the driver.
"A whole galaxy going up like a celluloid collar," said Trout.

The driver was impressed. "Come to think about it," he said, "I don't think there's anything about conservation anywhere in the Bible."
"Unless you want to count the story about the Flood," said Trout.


-Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

I have to say Mr. Kilgore Trout is onto something here. Apathy exists in a way that allows us to surrender the anger we harbor over what we cannot change. Why is this important? Because up until November 2nd 2004 at approximately 10:30 pm eastern time I was driving myself crazy over this election like it was a life and death decision for the very soul of the people of America to make.

They went ahead and disappointed me for the last time. I feel like a Humphrey after he got stomped by Nixon. The democrats just simply gave up when LBJ decided not to run, honorable, but a dagger in the heart of the party. So what did their flock do? They became yuppies. Now I’m not that soulless, but that money angle sure is attractive right now. If I can’t do anything, if the country as a whole refuses to do anything, then I may as well look out for myself for a change. No longer will my decisions be based on outside influences. Every move I make will be to benefit myself, hell, I might even vote republican next time in an effort to sum up all that is self-concerning.

UP YOUR ASS WITH MOBIL GAS!

The Media Circus Came to Crawford

Cindy Sheehan reminds me of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. Both are directly connected to the argument at hand yet they are hated by those who disagree, vilified even. The Swift Boaters believed they had necessary information that the public needed to know about John Kerry, a different perspective that was not being heard in the mainstream media. Cindy Sheehan believes she has information that the President needs to hear, a different opinion that he is not listening to.

Both fully enjoy united support from their side because they admire the circumstance of where they are coming from. How can you tell a veteran he's wrong even if he's wrong? The same goes for Cindy. She has become a symbol for mothers who don't understand the administration's motives for this war. Someone who they can use to place the blame for the deaths of their loved ones. Many have been duped into believing that she was the last straw that convinced them the whole war and every life lost is for nothing. The Swift Boaters represented an identifiable group for veterans to use in order to denounce a "War Hero" like Kerry in favor of a "Fortunate Son" like
Bush.

In today's quick paced, instant hero, instant villain world she has become a byproduct of this system. She is given the opportunity to sit on national TV (because that's what happens now) so she takes it, just like the Boaters did. She attempts to illustrate the polarity this country has over the war and the other side hates her for it. They see her as an attention whore at best, and the Swift Boaters were thought of as lying traitors.

Politics…shit.
Two groups who were highjacked by agendas and powerbrokers. Brilliant

And were supposed to pick somebody from these two sides to represent all of us? Yikes

Presidential Politics: Untold Power and Fortune

I find it almost impossible to believe what we in the United States are living through right now. What delusion our society happily lives their lives under. Has the fate of the roman empire finally become the American reality? Have the people become so consumed with possessions and success that we don’t care how we get them? I certainly hope not, because I deeply love this country and the wonderful people who call it home. But that’s hardly the point, our future has been hijacked by extremely powerful agents who wish to use the people of this country like peasants.

We elected the son of a President who has the most powerful connections in the world. Add to that the man behind the man. This is the person who is the intermediary between the President and as Eisenhower put it, the ‘Military-Industrial Complex.’ This person is usually in the back ground, but this time he is the vice-President.

Together these two are the paid representatives for large corporations who profit on war. The president is not a man who decided one day he wanted to make a difference in the world, he was born into power and politics. And he has as little to do with his office as he had in choosing it. Why bother? Someone else can always do that, he had heard about Reagan, he knew he didn’t have to do much. The idea of being a puppet probably appealed to him.

The events of September 11th were unexpected but provided the opportunity to do the one thing he wanted to do when he got into office; Kill Saddam Hussein. And he created a war out of nothing to do it.

Now according to the administration the war is going smoothly, and by their standard it sure is. We will be bogged down in Iraq for as long as we want. For as long as the profit outweighs the people’s growing intolerance.

The President is living the dream for all who paid to put him in office. It could not have worked out better. A political comedian said, “The worst thing that happened to this country, turns out to be the best thing that happened to you.” Now, due to the reelection ‘the people have spoken,’ and he has ‘currency,’ and he intends to spend it like it was in surplus.

So what is next for the President? For he is coasting freely inside the corridors of power, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

UFO's

I saw something in the sky once that I could not explain. I'm sure someone probably could, but not me. I was driving in the mountains so I had limited field of vision and It was real quick but I saw something dart down behind the mountains that didn't look natural or within the limits of today’s aircraft. I was in Colorado a place where a lot of cattle mutilations occur.

Once when I was younger I was with my uncle, who is a photographer, at a photo shop. We were talking about photography with a former Air Force photographer who took surveillance photos from an airplane in Viet Nam. So off the subject I asked him if he had ever seen or photographed any UFO’s on his missions. He said he had images appear on the photos that were moving way to fast to be airplanes. His camera took pictures very fast with a motor drive set to take pictures in a sequence. He said he knew they were going so fast because he compared it to other planes he had photographed. The unidentifiable ones were going much faster. He kept referring to the fact that the time limit had expired so he was allowed to talk about what he did in the war. I trusted this guy, he had no reason to lie to us.

That’s what I know, everything else is conjecture to me.

Getting Started

In 1977 Orson Scott Card published a novel in which society's discourse took place on the 'nets,' where sometimes anonymous people wrote their opinions of the day. Some graduated to larger audiences as their writings became more popular. Leaders were chosen from the most popular writers and thinkers of the day.

It would appear the 27 year old side plot of Ender's Game is at the infancy of becoming reality. Weblogs are fast becoming the place where information is discussed first.

Shall we find our next great thinkers here?
How will society be served by this form?

We shall see.

The New Apathy

The New Apathy started at 10:30 Eastern time on November 2nd 2004. I decided that if the rest of the country doesn't care enough to look for the truth and question their government then I certainly wasn't going to care anymore. When Bush won reelection it affirmed to me that the country's problems were so out of control that I could either go crazy over it or just stop caring. I chose the latter. However, I reserve the right to stay informed if I so desire and occasionally care about something if it doesn't interfere with my own personal well-being, happiness, or pursuit of property.

We have open admission in The New Apathy, you need only care enough to realize it doesn't matter anyway. Sort of the way Humphrey Democrats did in the 60's, which is why they all became yuppies.