At This Place, In This Time, All Mankind Is Us

The future's unknown. Celebrate what we have now.

Since paleolithic times, humans have thrived because of shared communities. (Image source)

This is the first of two posts that say what, in this time, we can be for, not just what we must be against. This piece considers the emotional context of our present moment and looks at what we can celebrate. In the next piece I’ll consider the political and operational contexts, and look at what we can do.

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VLADIMIR:
Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance....at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say?
—Samuel Becket, Waiting for Godot

We see it with our eyes. It's in front of our faces. The twin demons we knew were approaching — the on-the-ground fact of climate change; the chaotic national rebellion against national asset stripping — have approached at last. And Americans still are trying to avert their eyes, partly from fear, partly from disbelief, and partly because their thoughts are drowned by media that's averted its own eyes, slave as it is to the asset strippers themselves.

We, people like us, have been forced to the front of a fight none of us wanted to be in charge of. If you're like me, you wanted others to lead this war, with your support. You wanted those more capable, those better positioned, those whose job it is to protect the nation and its people, to take the lead in protecting the nation and its people. You wanted to fight beside them — you sure as hell didn't want to find yourself leaderless at the front, with no real plan and not much army to act with.

If you're like me, you wanted the next Lincoln to lead the charge, the next Teddy Roosevelt to bust the balls of the billionaires taking us down. Instead we watch as the billionaires bust their own balls to put themselves into space, or otherwise spend their “control fraud"–accumulated wealth to paint themselves as seers, people who deserve to lead our species to the glorious appropriated future of their design. They bust each of their balls daily to keep us from seeing who they truly are — rapists and plunderers, butchers and thieves, pirates who stole our past-created wealth and plot to steal more.

If you're like me, you waited and watched for someone to raise the banner you would gladly follow. I've personally waited since Reagan to see that flag. It has not appeared. The next Lincoln, sadly, has not emerged, at least not yet. The next FDR, the one who welcomes the hatred of America's true enemies — and is positioned to defeat them — is not to be found.

There have been pretenders (more on that elsewhere), but they either lied to us outright, knowing we wanted to like them; or fought to near the end, then laid down their sword to serve the great god Comity; or started strong, then settled for the role of ineffective bit-player foil to the real stars of the piece, the neoliberal masters of what used to be the people's party.

Which means it's finally us, standing alone, standing in the first battle rank of an army that doesn't exist, waiting for the spark, the coalescing voice that makes of the nation's individual fingers a fist of anger and pain.

Do we despair while we wait for the army that hasn't shown up? Does Godot never come?

Perhaps. But as badly as we perceive the spotted past, the future is a spotless space on which anything could be written. Will we wake tomorrow? We think we know we will, but only because we woke up yesterday.

When we die, will we turn into angels or dust? We think we know, at least a few of us do, but really, if you woke from death's deep sleep and found you were a tree or a patch of grass, would it surprise you more than if you didn't wake at all, or woke to the sound of harps and eternal gates?

If we have no army (yet) to face what’s coming, we still have ourselves and each other. If the world goes to actual hell in a climate-fueled dystopia, fine. But it hasn't yet. If America becomes the world of Dover Beach, swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies fight in a wealth-seeded war, an actual bloody battle against each other, let it be so when it's so. It isn't yet.

All of this is to say, whatever we lack, we who watch as these devils make their approach, we have each other and that's quite a lot. Whether we like it or not, as Becket said, at this place, in this time, all mankind is us. We breathe today. The eruption has yet to occur. We should celebrate, while we can, ourselves, our thoughts, our love, and the places we gather for ideas and comfort, visions and hopes and fears.

And who knows? Just because Godot hasn't arrived, doesn't mean he won't. America was blessed with three Godots so far. Who's to say a fourth won't raise his head?