Jack Burns Lives!

“We should restore the practice of dueling. It might improve manners around here.”-Edward Abbey

Scattered amongst the trees on a perfect spring day, dozens of species of birds sing beautifully in celebration. Separate but seemingly in rhythm, they produce a symphony of delightful song. I imagine them going about their daily business, gathering nesting materials and finding food while maintaining a careful lookout for their powerful red-tailed cousin lurking above in the azure sky. The garden is pallet of color, reds, blues and pinks and my young, fragile plants reach for the sun.

Then, from less than a quarter mile away, just beyond a row of houses on the west side of the garden, a shrill, dissonant sound, a high pitched squeal, penetrates the air. It grows steadily, increasing in volume, then briefly decreases, changes directions and pitch, but remains. Soon, it’s joined by a similar sound and then another, until there’s a cacophony of noise permeating the landscape, drowning out all other sounds.

The peace of the afternoon is shattered.

Lying in the sun, I imagine a man on horseback confronting the abomination. An anachronism, his clothes are trail worn, and his boots are caked in dust. His hair, slightly curly and light brown, is long for his age and reaches his jacket. And although his face is weathered, he posses a youthful look, a face that beams with confidence and determination, dominated by blue eyes that seem to waiver between between sadness and rage.

He stands for what he stands on.

Before him stand three men, each holding a leaf blower. The man on horseback studies them, slowly shaking his head as if amazed by their ignorance. The men stare at him in equal befuddlement, holding their machines by their sides like weapons, idling, burning fuel. Suddenly, the rider’s gaze hardens. Beneath his wide brimmed hat, his frightening blue eyes focus doggedly upon the men. He judges them and sets the sentence, then focuses on the man closest to him. The rider pulls a Winchester rifle from his scabbard, points it at the leaf blower and fires. The unmistakable sound of the Winchester lever action rifle pierces the air like a scythe, and the plastic casing of the leaf blower explodes as the .30-30 slug buries itself in the machine, leaving the man holding holding nothing but the handle. The rider again cocks his rifle, points at the second leaf blower and fires. Same result. The third man tries to run, but it’s useless. In seconds, the rider steadies his horse, aims the rifle, holds his breath and fires, knocking the device from the man’s hands. All three devices lie on the ground, inoperable.

The men scatter for their truck like roaches caught in the light. Order is restored.

Thanks to Kent Duryee for this find….

From:
Western Review
A Journal of the Humanities
Published winter and summer by
Western New Mexico University, Silver City New Mexico
Volume 4, Number 1
Summer, 1967
Sunflowers
by Edward Abbey

It was a clean stark high sparkling sunlit silent desert morning. Hayduke sat at his desk in the
backyard, facing his typewriter. But listening to a meadowlark. And thinking of the mountains.
Those mountains, he thought, oh those magic and magnetic mountains where the mule deer – at
this very moment – are gnawing at the bark of aspens, and the jackrabbits plunge through snow
under dripping piñon trees, and the redtailed hawk, also starving – but in style, with pride, with
honor – rides the thermal pillars, his merciless green eyes glittering with cold clear craw hunger.
Buen fuerte, compañero…

The rest is here.

The man sits motionless at his cubicle staring at a computer screen. There are 112 messages in his inbox and a stack of files to his right, 15 or so deep, all waiting. Waiting for him to take action, but he can’t move.

He hates it. The computer, the job, his clothes, his life, his inability to act. It’s the same routine every day. He wakes up, showers, puts on the corporate uniform, navigates roads crammed with raging self-medicating lunatics so he can sit in a putrid yellowish prison of steel.

His job is to help THE COMPANY money and make his BOSSES richer, although such action almost always means some poor soul somewhere, some little person that apparently doesn’t matter, loses out while profits soar.

At the top of the stack is file 1125. A mother with systemic disease, now unemployed, is four months behind on her mortgage. She’s racked by pain and her disfigured limbs are now useless to the corporation she formerly served. Daily, she contemplates how she might bring about her own death. She’s written a fair and final plea, an offer to make two payments and to finance the repayment of the other two over next six months with current payments.

The man scans the document and enters it into the digital filing system. Pursuant to company policy, he selects Option 4 and rejects the offer. This automatically accelerates the foreclosure process and will generate Letter 4 informing the mortgagee of the “decision.”

The man knows he’s guilty. He’s one of them and brings these things to pass. Guilt pounds through his veins,darkens his soul and cuts through him like a scythe. Betty sits across from him doing the same things, but she blithely goes about her daily routine with no guilt whatsoever. He listens to her each day, taking calls from desperate people, her raspy cigarette scared voice showing no mercy. She’s as callous as a cancer and terrifyingly efficient, processing three times the number of cases he does. No emotion, no feeling, just a job a do and the job is to destroy lives.

During his break, he slips away. He dreams of living under a viaduct. Dropping out and no one ever knowing what happened. Working as a ranch hand in Southwest Texas. Washing dishes in Marfa. Anything but this, a life that’s a gaping wound, draining his spirit.

He decides he’s finished and reaches under the desk to turn off the computer, completely ignoring the company policy for proper shutdown of the device. Then he stands up, shoves the chair back under his desk and walks out. He’s free.

“Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean; the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises into nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.”

His things are already packed and in the truck. They’ve been there for two years. Driving through downtown Memphis, the ramp to the Hernando Desoto Bridge rises before him. Beneath the bridge flows the Big Muddy. The Mighty Mississippi. To his right are the silos of a grain company and a few houses foolishly built in a flood plain. To his left are the cold, dreary office buildings filled with people like him performing mostly operose worthless tasks. Investment analysts, lawyers, IRS representatives and county commissioners.

Pressing harder on the accelerator, he finally crosses the Mississippi but decides to stop just past the state line and lighten the load. He walks to the edge of the bridge and hurls his cellphone over the edge into the swirling chocolate abyss, walks back to the truck, changes the radio station and stops at a song he loves.

He drives onward.

Dozens of trucks of all shapes and sizes moved slowly up and down the newly cut, winding road. At the bottom of the canyon, four Komatsu 575 A dozers, moved massive piles of rock and dust into towering monoliths while a monstrous backhoe hoisted piles of coal into the awaiting beds of heavy haulers.

It was a perpetual motion machine of mass destruction where haulers continuously moved in and out of the canyon to obtain and deliver the precious commodity.

Looking southward from the ridge was a lone rider, sitting tall in a Mexican saddle. The morning sun reflected off its conchos, piercing the canyon like a laser. He was tall and lean, with a hawk-like hose, narrow eyes and a bandana hanging loosely around his weathered neck. His black hat was covered in dust, as were his faded and slightly torn Wrangler jeans. He wore a leather holster containing a Colt Single Action Army pistol, a nickle-plated .45 with a 7-1/2 inch barrel.  Attached to the right side of the saddle was his scabbard. It held a cherished possession, a Winchester lever action rifle, Model 94 .30-.30, purchased in 1962 from a friend in Duke City, New Mexico.

He looked down at the operation with disdain, even hate. Yes, he hated these people. Money grubbin’ rich folks with their mindless lackeys despoiling the land. And all for what? For even higher production levels and even greater profits, regardless of the real costs. The cost to the land, to humans and to non-humans. Especially non-humans….

But now he was an old man with limitations. It had been nearly fifty-five years since he’d first come west, and in those fifty-five years he’d seen unspeakable horrors. He’d witnessed the rape of the land first hand. How the industrial metastasis gradually moved in and around nearly everything, rapping its poisonous tentacles around the mountains, the canyons and the desert, slowly choking the life out of everything.

The nagging cough coming from deep within his lungs told him he didn’t have much time. Perhaps only enough time to do one more good thing before his bones became snacks for coyotes.

An old friend once told him “Jack, sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a thousand books.”

Yes, one more brave deed.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

The Mountain

Allison walked outside and found G.L. on the porch.

“Have you read the paper yet, G.L.?”

“No. Just been out here enjoying the morning.”

“Looks like they’re going ahead with the plans for that new plant.”

G.L. glanced upward, noticing contrails of water vapor and carbon dioxide where the jet recently passed. He said nothing, just put his head down and turned and walked through the screen door back into the house. Allison was following him inside when he suddenly turned to face her.

“You know. Something’s got to be done to stop this. It’s already bad enough. This thing is going to absolutely kill the park and make the air around here so bad we won’t be able to breathe. Clean coal my ass.”

“Well, this is it,” Allison responded. “We aren’t moving again.”

“No, we ain’t. We’re staying here. But I’m not sitting back and just watching these assholes ruin the place.”

Five years earlier, G.L. tried to leave it all behind.  There was a brief stint in Southwest Texas, but he soon found life in Texas wasn’t what he expected. It was too dry and too hot and what water was to be had was hard as iron.

His wife missed the lushness of Tennessee, and they were going broke in Texas.

Thirty years prior, he lived a life of unfulfilling corporate drudgery. It paid the bills but offered little else.  It was completely devoid of any intellectual stimulation. Other than caring for his kids, extended family and friends, he saw himself as a “taker,” living a life millions of others could probably only dream of living.

He felt that his success was made possible, at least to some degree, by the suffering of others. In his view, designing networks and telecommunications systems wasn’t benign.

He justified the last ten years with the creation of his own firm. It was a small company that paid its workers well, promoted work place democracy and community, but it still wasn’t enough. It was still a life that required most of your days to be spent in Orwellian office buildings discussing inane subjects with cold, calculating self-absorbed executives.

His networks helped the machine function and expand, but he was sick of the machine. In fact, he hated the machine.

He tried serving on the boards of various non-profits, but quickly came to the conclusion most of his fellow board members weren’t there to solve poverty, racism or advance the arts. They served on boards to inflate their resumes and to network with other executives. It was mostly bullshit. Just a way to inflate your persona and to get your name out there. Such endeavors drove revenue and driving revenue was corporate America’s raison d’être.

He longed to be a cowboy, but cowboyin’ didn’t pay well in 1870, and it still wasn’t payin’ well.  And besides, he didn’t know shit about cowboyin’, and everything was mechanized these days. Electric branding irons. ATV’s used on round ups. The open range was long gone and wasn’t around long to begin with anyway. It was a flash in the pan destroyed ultimately destroyed by greed and more specifically, the railroad.  So, he settled for being a dime store version and decided cowboyin’ was more about how you lived and treated folks, not what you did for a livin’.

Toward the end, it became unbearable. He made excuses to break appointments. He canceled appointments for fake illnesses and would hide in coffee shops for hours at a time, watching people, writing and dreaming of what life could be.  He was dying and had to get out.

He exercised his options in the company and took off for Texas hoping to make it doing odd jobs and writing for living. Had he been willing to put money in the stock market, he and Allison probably could have lived off investments, but he wasn’t very deft with money, and he distrusted the stock market. He loathed all of it, stocks, banks, credit bureaus, mortgage companies and lawyers, and viewed Wall Street as one of the single greatest threats to all life on the planet.

Truth be told, he’d prefer to just take off on a horse and head to the hills, but he had responsibilities and people that loved him and needed him.

He decided they’d live on what they had and make more.  Money was a renewable resource.

Only two years into the Texas experiment, they punted. Sold the place and headed back to Tennessee. They’d been happiest in East Tennessee, and they missed the mountains.

But once they got back, they noticed quite a bit had changed.

The precipitous decline in air quality, one that had already begun when they lived there previously, was now much worse. There were good days here and there, but during the summer months, you might not be able to see ten miles from the ridgeline in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Fifty years ago, you could see over one hundred miles.

The National Park Service constantly issued health warnings for elderly people or people with upper respiratory conditions to not visit the higher elevations.

The pollution was damaging plants, trees, high elevation soils and streams and everything was interconnected. Everything was affected. And there were other problems, as well. Too many fucking roads cutting through pristine areas, overdevelopment and hunters.  He had no issues with people hunting for food, taking a deer or elk for the winter freezer, ducks or geese. What he loathed was the senseless killing of animals just for the sake of sport, and especially bears in the Southern Appalachians.  The knowledge of it gnawed at his gut like a cancer.

G.L. sat down at the table, a nine-foot long rustic pine treasure where they’d had countless meals with family and friends. As he glanced over the newspaper, Allison brought him a cup of coffee and placed it on the table.

“Let’s go hiking, G.L.”

“Yeah, while we still can. What you up for, a quiet lower elevation stroll along stream or a climb to the ridgeline?”

“I can do a climb today, if that’s what you want.”

Allison was always a gamer. Even when her arthritis was at its worst, she rarely complained and was tough as nails. Much tougher than G.L. and every bit the fighter he was. Most folks that knew both of them would say she was the more tenacious of the two. The one you’d want in your corner in a pinch.

She’d been his steady companion for thirty years and loved him despite all his faults, not the least of which were a quick, Irish temper, an inability to manage money, and a wandering eye.

But she understood him and had mostly reformed him. Anyone that knew him when he was twenty-two and that still claimed him as a friend would readily tell you he was a much better person today than he was then. And they’d give Allison full credit for the miraculous, perhaps saving transformation.

They met when she was seventeen. She was a freshman in college, and he was a twenty-two year old senior.  Within two weeks of meeting, she was pregnant. He loved her and proposed marriage, although it took some finagling on his part to convince her he was the right choice.

And about every twenty-four months, he had to convince her all over again he was still the right choice.

Together, they raised three children, now all successful adults living their own lives.  The best times were when they all gathered at that pine table, just as they had for so many years. Only now there were additions. There were spouses and grandchildren, and even larger circle of love.

They feasted on well-prepared meals and wine. On Blueberry pies with homemade ice cream.  On piles of pancakes and yummy French toast. Allison baked cookies and fresh breads.  They told stories and laughed, planned hikes together and discussed and debated music, art and politics.

They were blessed beyond belief, and all of these blessings made G.L. feel even more indebted to do something. To do something to defend the earth that had opened its bounty to him.

“Let’s climb today, honey. We need to clear our heads and our lungs and prepare for battle.”

“What battle?”

“The battle to save our home. Who knows how much time we have left. We’ve been so blessed, Allison. We have so much. We have good minds and strong backs. The time has come.”

“Well, I think we need to write Senator Smith again.”

“Fuck him. I’m sick and tired of writing that worthless toad. He’s a whore to industry. It’s the same old thing over and over again. Same old prepared response that’s basically just a bunch of hooey.”

“You’re right. But the people around here don’t even care, G.L. They’re just trying to make it, and a lot of ‘em see these coal plants as providing jobs. I don’t see what can be done.”

“Exactly. All the more reason to seek new strategies.”

“Like what, Mr. Dawson?”

“Get your stuff ready. The mountain will tell us.”

Chapter One

Nestled in a quiet cove, the house lies just east of Mt. LeConte, an ancient edifice of granite and sandstone towering 6500 feet above sea level. Towering over the valley, the mountain dominates the landscape with magnificent walls brilliantly adorned in a palette of fall color.

The house is quiet and the mountain lies still.

Decorating the countryside with its most lavish design, nature’s fall show signals the arrival of a grand death. Butternut Hickory, Mountain Ash and Red oak shower the soil with their offering, as the splashes of color slowly give way to the subdued hues of winter.

The Appalachian sun rises gently, its sparkling tentacles gradually making their way over the Anakeesta ridge, reaching outward to the valley, illuminating dew that’s settled on the trees and fields surrounding the house.

It’s a fall morning in the Smokies, and he doesn’t believe there’s a prettier place on the planet.

Morning is his favorite time of day. He embraces its peace, its stillness and the subtle sounds developing into a broader, more perfectly orchestrated symphony. The wind stirring the leaves, calls from his avian friends and the primal buzz of the cicada.

Stepping outside, he finds the air is pleasantly cool and moist. Unzipping his fly, he exercises his right as a free featherless biped and participates in the time-honored tradition of peeing off the front porch.

The urine flows freely and spills over the side onto the grass below, causing a beetle to scurry for cover beneath the porch.

Safely tucked away in a tangled patch of rhododendron not far from the house, a Ruby-crowned kinglet serenades him with continuous celebratory song. Lightly hopping from branch to branch, he thinks it must lead a perfect existence. No mortgage, no taxes and no worries, other than the noble quest for the necessities of life.

Food, shelter and sex.

He imagines the kinglet to say “I’m a kinglet! Look at me! I’m a kinglet, and I’m happy!”

As his imagination wonders, he ponders life in these mountains and valleys hundreds of years earlier, before whites established property lines, capitalism, governments and prisons. He concludes that humans in North America more or less lived much like the kinglet, where the primary tasks of each day were mostly focused on food, shelter, sex, celebration and song.

Oh, there was hardship. There was war and conflict. Life could certainly be brutal and short, but it seemed more honorable.

He feels modern society carries a lingering stench. It’s too frantic, and there are billions of people looking for peace and quiet that never find it. Hardly a place remains where you can’t see the effects of man. There’s no open frontier. Only constant vigilance to protect what remains.

And then, as if on queue, an airplane passes overhead, ripping through the serenity of this hallowed place like a hot knife through butter. Filling the valley, the sound is harsh and dissonant like fingers scraping a blackboard.

He reaches out and forms his hand and fingers into an imaginary pistol. Using his middle finger as trigger, he aims and fires into the endless sky.

“Bastards”

When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town’s in trouble.-Edward Abbey

At a House Budget Committee meeting last Wednesday, second term Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke said that the Fed will “not print money” to pay for United States burgeoning debt. That’s the traditional way for governments to crawfish out of bad debt, just print a bunch of bogus money and present it as “legal tender for all debts public and private.” Good thing, because I don’t believe the Chinese are going to fall for some Hong Kong Phooey financial trickery.

Maybe Nixon was on to something when he took us off the gold standard.

He also mentioned the unthinkable, cutting “defense” (do we really still call it that and get away with it?) spending, and went on to say that “the economy is not just turning downward, if something is not done soon, it will completely collapse.”

Well, no shit Sherlock.

Some of my business associates that fly in the realm of high finance are expressing considerable concern about things, even to the point of suggesting China and India could soon be running things in the good old USofA. I see that as somewhat doubtful, but there’s no doubt we’re in deep poopoo. If we continue with our bailouts, which are essentially “re-capitalization” efforts using public funds, the Chinese are eventually going to call our hand.

These moves really anger the Chinese, because they come at the expense of the dollar and Treasuries. China could, in a bad, but not “worst case” scenario, renege on their commodity driven derivative contracts. This would be a slap in the face to the US Federal Reserve without “going nuclear” by selling Treasuries outright. This would, however, set off a dangerous chain reaction.

The Chinese have fired a couple of warning shots already. If it happens, the US could choose to default on its debt to China, and at that point, we’d have full-scale economic war and potentially on our way to military conflict. They can raid our natural resources, something has has actually already started. It’s ugly no matter how you look at it.

We’re in this mess for two reasons. One, growth capitalism is a non-sustainable house of cards, and two, the country is being held hostage by an a cadre of greedy, inbred, financial moguls. Washington and Wall Street successfully consummated their evil marriage many years ago, but to this day, we’re still under the thumb of its lascivious, perpetually breeding offspring.

I would have much preferred a steady descent down the mountain to something more sensible and sustainable; however, it now appears we’ll all be hurled off the summit posthaste to the rocks waiting below.

And while all this human madness is occurring, somewhere in the desert, a hawk goes about its daily business of gathering food. A rattlesnake warms itself in the sun, and the desert flora, dormant in winter, prepare to bloom and gloriously announce the coming of spring. Life continues on, unabated, despite the folly of featherless bipeds in suits and ties.

Hayduke, I think it’s time. Time for us to get busy and do the messy work these young pups apparently ain’t willing or don’t know how to do.

I’m takin’ Whiskey to the livery for some shoes, picking up a good mule and some supplies and will be headed toward the old rendezvous spot. She’s old and may not be trail fit, so I could be hopping on a train, but either way, I’ll be there.

We’ll use the “old ways” to communicate once I hit the trail.

You contact the others.

Jack sits motionless at his cubicle staring at his computer screen. 112 messages in his inbox and a stack of files to his right, 15 or so deep, all waiting. Waiting for him to take action, but he can’t move.

He hates it. The computer, the job, his clothes, his life, his inability to act. It’s the same routine every day. Wake up, shower, dress in the corporate uniform, fight traffic, sit in a putrid yellowish prison of steel and cloth and review cases while attempting to avoid gossipy busy bodies whose entire lives seemingly revolve around office politics and which fast food dump they’ll select at feeding time.

The goal of the review is to save THE COMPANY money and make the bosses richer, although such action almost always means some poor soul somewhere, some little person that apparently doesn’t matter, will die while profits soar.

A mother with systemic disease joins the unemployed. She’s racked by pain and her disfigured limbs are now useless to the corporation she formerly served. Daily, she contemplates how she might bring about her own death. She’s the product of his work.

He knows he’s guilty. He’s one of them. He brings these things to pass and his guilt cuts through him like a scythe.

During his break, he slips away. He dreams of living under a viaduct. Dropping out and no one ever knowing what happened. Working as a ranch hand in Southwest Texas. Washing dishes in Marfa. Anything but this, a life that’s a gaping wound, draining his spirit.

Finally, he closes the laptop, stands up, shoves the chair back under his desk and walks out.

“Under the desert sun, in that dogmatic clarity, the fables of theology and the myths of classical philosophy dissolve like mist. The air is clean; the rock cuts cruelly into flesh; shatter the rock and the odor of flint rises into nostrils, bitter and sharp. Whirlwinds dance across the salt flats, a pillar of dust by day; the thornbush breaks into flame at night. What does it mean? It means nothing. It is as it is and has no need for meaning. The desert lies beneath and soars beyond any possible human qualification. Therefore, sublime.”

His things are already packed and in the truck. They’ve been there for two years. Crossing the Mississippi, he looks back at the city. Behind him, towering grey edifices cut through the sky like shards of glass. They’re hosts to parasites, the bloodsucking apostles of growth. CEO’s, corporate lawyers, real estate agents and people selling solutions for erectile dysfunction, bad debt and insomnia. None of it works.

He decides to stop just past the state line and lighten the load. He walks to the edge of the bridge and hurls his cellphone over the edge into the swirling chocolate abyss, walks back to the truck, turns off the radio and drives onward.

The well-worn porch moaned under the weight of the man’s heavy frame as he moved from the small step to the door. The paint was long gone, having faded from years of exposure in the West Texas sun.

A screen door hung by a single hinge but the door behind it was still solid and tightly closed. The man reached for the handle, grasped it and turned it but the door required a heavy shove to open.

Once inside, he immediately noticed a familiar smell, the smell of a place that hadn’t been lived in for many years. Dusty and filled with cobwebs, it was otherwise very orderly. The furniture was still there, an older style that probably dated back fifty years. Dishes and plates sat motionless in a china cabinet as if frozen in time.

A large wooden table sat adjacent to the china cabinet, and in the center, a set of salt and pepper shakers sat filled and ready for service. There was an old plastic bottle with a thick, solid substance in the bottom quarter and a butter plate. At the head of the table, there was a stack of old magazines along with a faded, legal size envelope.

He picks up the envelope and reads the writing.

“Please Open.”

The man complies, pulls out a three sheets a paper and begins to read.

Howdy. Make yourself at home and relax for a minute. I have something important to say.

I’m the owner of this place but long gone. Not sure how long I’ve been gone, however, because I have no idea when you showed up.

If you found this, you’re either one of the survivors or perhaps even a visitor from another planet. I’m not exactly sure what happened to the country after I left the house, but I can guess. Probably got ugly, and I’m glad I wasn’t around to see it. Regardless, welcome to my home, or what’s left of it.

I died in 2052. Survived longer than most, probably because of genetics, healthy living and preparedness. Age 90, long enough for this world, as a human at least. Don’t worry, though, I’m not in the house. I’m now part of the landscape.

I knew I was dying, so I saddled up my horse and took off for the Big Bend Country to die proper. I wondered off into the mountains and took my life peacefully like I’d always planned. Provided I had a choice, of course. Guess I was one of the lucky ones that did, and I even had the good fortune to become part of the desert landscape. Maybe even a coyote gnawed on my bones somewhere along the way.

I always liked those little varmints. A lot of folks didn’t, but in my mind, they were just doing their jobs like everyone else.

Anyway, I’m gone and the place, or what’s left of it, is yours if you want it.

Only one string attached, as we used to say “back in the day.” You need to read this note and pass these things on to others, if there are others. It’s important, and I’ll take you at your word that you’ll keep the bargain.

Now what I’m going to say is what some folks call an “over simplification,” meaning, I left out a lot of important facts and issues. Maybe so. But I’m a pretty simple guy that always called it like I saw it, and that’s what I’m getting ready to tell you. What I saw.

It always seemed to me that folks that tried to make things more complicated than was necessary were just trying to hide something. Trying to make things purposely complicated. What smart, college boys called an “obfuscation.” Lots of obfuscating to keep people in the dark about what’s really going on.

Well, there ain’t gonna be any obfuscating on my place. We’re shootin’ straight here in West Texas, so here it goes.

Us humans got ourselves in a big mess. Some folks say the big slide started after the Second World War back in the 1940’s, which might be true, but it really don’t matter much. What does matter is what happened, why it happened and what could have been done to prevent it.

Myself, I figure it all started with what we called “organized religion.” When folks started thinking there was a god, and we were somehow made “special” by the god, goddess or “higher being.” I always hoped it would be a woman, but it became apparent as I grew older that not only was it not a woman (a woman wouldn’t let things get so fucked up), but there was nothing out there beyond ourselves.

So, don’t be looking up in the sky or to any gurus for answers. All the answers you need are beneath your feet, right here on good old Mother Earth. In the soil, the air, the trees, the rivers and whatever inhabitants remain.

The college boys call such a world view “anthropocentric,” which is really just a fancy way of saying man is main thing. The central focus of “creation” and over all other living things.

Of course, by the time enough people figured out it was all bullshit, it was too late. There were a small number of folks that knew it all along, but most of the others labeled us as “extremists” or just plum crazy. We chuckled, knowing full well Mother Earth would have the last laugh and kept on trying to tell people the truth. And that’s really lesson number one, that us humans aren’t any more special than any other living thing. All life is interdependent. Trees, rivers, birds, humans, coyotes, insects, molds, blueberries. We all depend on one another in a big old circle of life.

The Indian folk that were here before us understood these things, but we either killed them or rounded ‘em up like cattle into what we called “reservations,” because they weren’t like us and would be getting’ in the way of what we needed to do.

First order of business was chopping up the land into smaller segments and applying values to it. What we called an “appraisal.” And we also had these things called borders, which made no damn sense whatsoever because they rarely if ever had anything to do with how the land was naturally organized.

This was a key development, because once you controlled the land, you controlled everything. Land ownership was the key to power. Some of us saw the folly in this design and knew full well what all that power could do, but again, no one listened. It all fell on deaf ears. Just remember this…humans don’t own the land. We’re part of the land. And this, too. Power is dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best, as my friend Ed used to say.

Well, humans set off on this path thinking they were the main thing and more or less saw the earth as their personal playground. And on the playground, we developed a little game we called capitalism. It started out simple enough and seemed fairly harmless. We had little shops and family owned businesses where people would sell or trade something they made. Baked goods, farm animals, crafts, clothing or food. Worked pretty dern well for a while. Some of us even tried to get back to that simple ideal, but we were only able to do so in small communities.

Things got out of hand in the late 1800’s when we created these things called “corporations” and gave the corporations the same rights and privileges as human beings. And talk about power! Before you knew it, there were massive corporations that had immense power. In hindsight, it seems absurd when you realize how they were constructed, and how they actually worked, but as it’s often said “hindsight is 20-20.”

In most cases, corporations had a small handful of people that controlled large numbers of people. The controlling people at the top made a ton of money and wielded incredible amounts of power, not only over the people at the bottom but over entire communities, even nations and the whole planet. The folks at the bottom were more or less at the mercy of the folks at the top and could lose their work at any moment. Again, the college boys had a word for it, hierarchy. Basically a system where people at higher levels control others, often to the point of limiting their freedoms and negatively affecting their lives.

It essentially replaced another age-old system we called slavery, a system where you worked for another man but for no wages and with no freedom. Most folks saw capitalism as an improvement, but in the end stages, it really wasn’t because most people were trapped in meaningless jobs paying off enormous debts they could never escape. We called it wage slavery. And as you may have guessed, all the payments and profits pretty much went to the people at the top of the pyramid. Most folks walked a fine line between relative prosperity and what we called bankruptcy. One minute they’re ridin’ high, and the next minute they’re damn near in the soup line. Not all, though. Some of us lived within our means. All you need to know about bankruptcy is it’s bad, and it’s what happened to folks that spent more than they made in an effort to get to the top with the fat cats controlling everything.

Oh, profit…..what that word really means is I give you less than you gave me in a system of exchange. The difference is the “profit.”

We also figured out, with the help of the college boys, that capitalism was inherently “inegalitarian.” That’s a fancy way of saying it ain’t equal. It means my profit or making things better for myself is usually accomplished at your expense. Trust me, you want this system about as much as you want cholera. (If you don’t know what that is, there are some books behind you that will explain it.)

“Greed and usury were always the carbuncles on the neck of America.” So sayeth the great poet Lew Welch, and he was right. Fine fella. Some of his books are on that shelf behind you.

In addition to the corporations, we created these things called “governments.” Governments were all powerful, although not really so much different from corporations. Both were run by small groups of people. Both collected money from the populace. And both were corrupt as hell. Both could wage war, although governments would wage war on a much grander scale than corporations, although usually at the behest of corporations. Corporations sometimes had their own little private armies, but they really needed help from governments to do their bidding on a grand scale.

And as you might guess, the top folks in governments were chummy with the top folks at corporations. They worked hand in hand in making sure the folks at the top kept making bigger and bigger profits, even if it meant destroying competing governments and corporations that got in their way.

The whole government thing was really interesting in that was very similar to religion. Vast numbers of people were convinced of its legitimacy, even though it was plain as day to some of us that it was basically a crock of shit. Governments were clever, too. They made laws or rules that made it a crime to speak out against them and used goons with all sorts of weapons to enforce their rules. But the most clever thing they did was to convince people that the government was “theirs,” that they were really in control and had a say in what was going on!

The people in charge were supposed “elected” by us regular folks, but once those folks were elected, they never seemed to go away, even if huge numbers of people didn’t want them any more. They just stayed and stayed and things got worse and worse.

Now, there was another system of governance we called “democracy,” but it didn’t go over well with the government and corporate folks. Democracy means that everyone has a voice and a real say in the affairs of the community, but as you may have guessed, small groups of powerful people saw that as a real threat to their power. Everyone having a say is a direct threat to hierarchy, so the folks at the top of the hierarchy are going to do everything they can to make damn sure you stay in your place. Remember that.

Which brings me to perhaps the most clever of all the tricks our government carried out. They told people that the wars being fought (at the behest of the corporations) were actually being carried out to spread democracy, when in fact they were frequently designed to eliminate democracy.

I never figured out how they pulled the wool over the eyes of so many people, but they did.

Where capitalism really got wings and took off was with the discovery of what we called fossil fuel. Oil and gas. Once we discovered oil, things were never the same. We made automobiles (the funny looking things that are probably piled up in big heaps or just sitting on the side of the road with weeds growing over them), planes that could fly through the air, rockets that could go to outer space and weapons that could blow up entire cities. We tore up the whole damn countryside looking for the stuff, including most of our ancient, pristine canyons and mountains. We went completely nuts and built an entire economy (that’s what we called the capitalist system) around the stuff.

It was all interwoven. We needed oil to fuel transportation and the war machine, and the economy needed transportation and the war machine in order to remain viable. Then people, millions and millions of people, needed oil and a vibrant economy to maintain their lifestyles. Funny thing is too few connected the dots and realized that war means death and if you’re dependent on war to survive, well, you’re dependent upon to death to survive. Sorta odd and really stupid, but that’s what we did.

Well, the end result was all the war and capitalist expansion completely fucked up the neighborhood. We tore up everything. Dried up lakes, polluted the air, drove entire species of animals to extinction and heated up the place so nothing would grow in many regions. People starved and entire communities, even nation states, disappeared.

So, here’s a summary of what we learned, and if you and other survivors plan on doing any better, you’d better listen up.

1. Humans aren’t any more important that other forms of life. We all need one another to survive and have any quality of life.
2. We can’t “own” the land. We’re part of the land, and it’s impossible to live in harmony with the land if you divide it up into little parcels that pay no attention to soil, rivers, plants, trees and critters. Flora and fauna.
3. Hierarchy is a way for small groups of people to control large numbers of people and enslave them to varying degrees. It’s as bad and deadly as bacteria. Be forewarned.
4. Capitalism is inherently non-egalitarian and ultimately oppressive. It’s another bad bug unless you can keep it small and corral it. We never could, so proceed with caution.
5. Corporations are sophisticated systems of hierarchy designed to take capitalism to the highest levels of greed, graft and corruption. In its ultimate form, industrial capitalism, it will destroy everything. As my grandfather used to say “I guarandamntee ya.” If you need an enterprise to produce things, just make sure everyone in the community is an owner. That’s called a cooperative, and it will work just fine if you need to produce goods and services.
6. All governments are bad. If you want to have a way of organizing things, use democracy. That ain’t the same as a “government.” That’s “governance,” and it’s different. Make sure everyone has a say in things. The college boys also used to call such a system “anarchism.” It’s a system where everyone is equal, has a say and all work together for the good of the community. No one has the power to coerce others or gain enough power to harm the community. The second envelope you found contains more detailed information on this system as well as cooperatives. It was written by one of my college buddies, a fella named Lewis. Make sure folks read his stuff.

Depending on when you found this, there may still be good food in the pantry and meat in the smokehouse. There’s a shotgun and a rifle I left in good working order with ammo for hunting game, assuming there’s any left. You’re probably better off getting the garden going again and staying away from meat, though. Only take the game as a last resort.

Seeds are in the box to the left with instructions on what’s what and when to plant it.

The well served me faithfully for fifty years. I hope it serves you as well.

Oh, and there’s a collection of books on the shelves. Pay close attention to that Abbey fella. He wrote a bunch of stuff about what really happened as it was happening. Back when we had a chance to do something, but didn’t.

Good luck to you, amigo, and may the wind be at your back,

Cactus Jack
1962-2052