WHY BROTHER (Living As One)

Mike, the eternal optimist, tends to think that a right-winger is a liberal with a wallet and not enough information. He has supported this view with so much passion and talent that I have believed him and incorporated the idea… at the very time I consciously thought I didn’t.

Here is how he elaborated on that in an inspired article he wrote for USA Today at the time when he was hired to report for them about the RNC :

I've often found that if I go down the list of "liberal" issues with people who say they're Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don't want America to be the world's police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don't think the government has the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.

There's a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don't believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.




I believed him… I believed it…

I believed it because it was him, that’s quite possible. But through this childlike faith in humanity, Mike was also simply voicing the basic Christian worldview : the fundamental goodness of man and evil as mistake or ignorance. A creed going back as far as Socrates, who used to teach that ignorance was evil and, besides, died according to a logic similar to the one that led to the crucifixion…

Whatever…

I wasn’t born yesterday, and I’m no longer what you could call young. And still, I have believed in a right-winger… It was the first time in my life. It was like falling in love.

I think I saw him like a battlefield. He looked torn between slumber, fear and refusal – and lucidity, honesty and genuine morality.

Genuine morality…

My friend the Moore-disliker was smart enough to understand and creative enough to be an artist, but he slowly drifted toward power, shallowness and cynicism. When I saw his repetition-based humor turn to Rovian propaganda and his desire to appease the disputes turn to an order to follow his views, my friend the Moore-disliker began to dislike me. When I meant time, fidelity and loyalty, my friend the Moore-disliker began to keep silent. And when I told him not to sink in slumber, fear and refusal with the rest of the desolate Bored Crowd, my friend the Moore-disliker told me * I * had betrayed him and he gave me the Darwin boot for that.

He did it with the hubris of Roger Smith and the arrogance of George Bush. He did it because I had posted ONE thing he didn’t like. Like Bush, he didn’t need to say what. Like Bush, it was with him or against him. Like Bush, he was right without discussion. Like Bush, it was because nothing else mattered whatsoever. And like Bush, none of this fuss was real and he lied to divert the attention from his own guilt.

OK… So Bush murdered thousands, and my friend the Moore-disliker only temporarily shot my soul and my brain. But if the degrees in damage can’t compare, what about the natures ? He behaved coldly. He knew what he was doing, and he did it just for oil, I mean, just to get rid of something that was getting in his chit-chat. Who cares if it meant the deaths of so many young people, I mean, hurting a true heart. Fascism is basically considering the other as a thing. You can do anything to a thing. During the process, my friend the fascist had carefully pointed out, in his indirect, scornful way, that posters on a board should be regarded as 99% pixels.

And that’s how he’s acting now, for what you do to the others, you’re doing to yourself. He rarely posts, but when he does, his messages are of a worldly teenager or an obsessional robot. He keeps posting variations on ONE sentence from Mike he “doesn’t forgive him”, presumably aimed at underlining that my ONE post was a crime, or, more likely, simply at pissing me off. Well… OK, it pisses me off. So what, my friend the lame fascist ?

Bah. A lame fascist who’s only posting on a board is more lame than fascist. And I’ve seen this one make right choices before. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a dream, but it’s a game. It’s always a game. The game used to be a personal Mission. Now it’s Bush’s Crusade. We’re choosing all the time between love and ego, ideal and power, heaven and abyss. It’s a game, but it’s the absolute game.

For the fact is that, in a 99% pixels world, spiritual slumber is far superior. Easier, handier. Better survival, especially after you’ve created the paranoid place where you will need to survive. Everybody plays the game, but most bet and win or lose counterfeit money. And the frustration drives them mad. Writers like Bret Easton Ellis have described the bridges that lead from boredom to immorality. Movies like “The Corporation” have followed the paths that lead from economic rationality to spiritual madness.

Is there such a difference between individual and collective choices ? On earth as it is in Heaven, says the Lord’s Prayer…

Mike is a son of the Age of Reason, the Age of Enlightenment. He is driven by a stubborn, visionary faith in man’s good will and common sense, a deep, overwhelming conviction that any man will automatically choose the right path if only given the knowledge.

Here is an excerpt of his Acceptance Speech in 2004 at Cannes :

"I have a sneaking suspicion that you've ensured that the American people will see this film.

You've put a huge light on this, you've taken truth out of the closet. A Republican President once said, 'If you just give people the truth the Republic will be saved.' That was Abraham Lincoln, a different kind of Republican than George Bush."




That’s why he advocates education. Why he lays greater stress on information in education. Why he has worked for 12 years as a journalist. Why the absurdity of Bush’s re-election made him stay in bed for three days. And also, why he got out of bed after three days…

Well, life goes on. My ex-brother can always switch from Bush to Lincoln, and I’m getting out of bed every day, like Mike.

Forgiveness ? Acceptance ? Why bother ?

Why, brother ?

Ah. An important precision. I deleted my ONE post while under the shock. But I never brothered to re-read it as it was demanded. One Volk, one Reich, one Post… Things. It is just not my country, 99 % dude.