[To the Rescue]
[Next: 1. Bartleby Jumps]

Hello Readership,

I am Bartleby Willard, author.
My editor is Amble Whistletown.

We make books and toss them out into the info-aether, where, at the price of US$3 (less than, for example, a medium-fancy cup of coffee in this self-indulgent — still wicked and adulterous after all these years? — generation) the books sit all by themselves, unread, unbothered, unloved, unhated, and — were we to be completely honest — almost never fully edited (because Amble edits but then Bartleby reads what Amble’s edited, and writes over it again!, so then it’s supposed to go back to Amble for editing, but at some point Amble just says, “Screw you! Edit your own nonsense! As far as I’m concerned, this book is done!” And there it lies).

This one, however, is supposed to be a public service.

So we suppose we’ll post it here on our blog.

So that maybe someone will suppose to read it and, reading it, suppose liberal representative democracy a spiritual good after all; and — emboldened by this deep-rooted, promisingly-trunking, self-confirmingly-branching and in-Pureset-Love-blossoming supposition — maybe they and their author and his editor will all find enough clarity and courage to gently help, rather than carry on with all this desperate multi-directional (= ultimately directionless) and upon-shifting-panics-founded (= fundamentally-foundationless) moaning and groaning.

Donald Trump says it’ll never work, that we’re all pathetic losers, and that he’s a big man who reaches out and grabs whatever he grabs and people let him because he’s famous and a genius and the best better than all the rest his record proves it and if you can’t see that in his record that you need to take another look a nice long look or maybe you need to relocate to one of those shithole countries without any white people to run things and so chaos and disorder everywhere.

Donald Trump says he’s going to reach out and grab us by our pussies and we’re going to let him, because he’s the self-fulfilling prophecy and the self-crowning dynasty. And someday, when this is all over and the nation is safely the kind of democracy where elections only count if Donald Trump wins them, we’ll all thank him and thank him and thank him, our legs wide open and so relieved to have his big strong presence explaining how it’s all okay, how he’s got everything under control, how we can just accept his victory and our defeat as his victory and our victory too — since if being swallowed up by God’s Great Truth isn’t a victory, what is?!?

Oh wow! Lots of really great points there! Not sure if it’s true, but, shit, it sounds good! Real good.

I don’t know, people.

I know, whoever you are, you think you’ve got it all figured. I also know, whoever you are, that you don’t. And I know that you need me and I need you. That we all need each other, and that in a liberal representative democracy we evolve the conversation while we nudge our country towards the better and away from the worse — or at least, since this is the fundamental and essential duty of citizens in a republic — while we keep the government from collapsing into madness/chaos. What I know is that whatever principles we think we stand for, and however we explain away our internal contradictions and the gunk that we keep pulling out and strewing all over the place, if we lose the ability to together decide who stays in government and who leaves government, we are at the mercy of whoever the most currently successful thug is. Don’t give me that look! That kind of government-by-thuggery is, at least to some appreciable degree, the norm in human history.

Things are not perfect, but they can get much worse.

In fact if you — through direct support, voting for him, throwing your vote away on staying home or some pouty third party vote, or otherwise make it more likely for the man who attempted in broad daylight and for a whole dramatic and well-documented month to steal the 2020 presidential election and who continues to denigrate democracy and related spiritual goods with lies about stolen elections and boasts about and machinations for employing the various branches of government to destroy everyone whoever bugged him — you will be participating in a political evil of world-historic proportions.

Did you know that? Do you care?

What is going on here? What is the spleen for which you would sink our imperfect but still, assuming we retain a say over the direction of our shared government, actually pretty good and quite salvageable moment?

Consider, for example, that the minimum wage in Colombia is now about $2,160 a year; and that at that salary, employers are allowed to expect you to work up to 47 hours a week (don’t worry: it can be spaced out over six days!). [Based on the January 1, 2023 figure of $1,300,606 Colombian pesos (COP) / month, or 15,607,272 COP a year, at the 1/13/2023 exchange rate of .00026 Colombian pesos per US dollar. https://www.rippling.com/blog/labor-employment-law-in-colombia ]

Consider, for example, that if the government is no longer beholden to the public, a government that initially won support for making it more difficult to get an abortion, might at some point decide that now everyone has to get an abortion after their first child. And what’re you gonna do about it?!? That’s right! You’re gonna shut your fuck’in mouth and swallow it! All of it. That’s it. That’s a good citizen, yeah, real good.

Or consider, for example, that no government is perfectly just, and no set of leaders ever find the best way forward for everyone, but that there is such a thing as a law that is fundamentally lawless, where the rulers get and keep power with violence and fear, and where if you speak up, you endanger you and your loved ones.

Consider the difference between (1) us versus them with those with the most power violently imposing their will on everyone else and (2) us all together trying to figure out this confusing situation together.

What is more confusing than politics?

Individual humans are already full of self-confusions and -contradictions, and now here we are trying to organize a country’s worth of individual humans! But this mix-and-match melee can be more or less beautiful. And the way towards more beauty is the way towards a better functioning liberal representative democracy: Everybody relating to the Love in ways meaningful to them, and working together to steer the whole towards the wiser, towards the better, towards win-win, towards wholesome creative thought and motion, towards us seeking what is best for all — not because I say so, or because you say so, or because anyone says so, but because the Love that chooses everyone has chosen and always will choose everyone all together forever..

Consider our crossroads and make your choices, consider our heartsongs and sing your symphonies, consider our shared joyful laughter and help us compose our future.

Or what? What else you got goin’ on?

Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: Andrew Mackenzie Watson

[To the Rescue]
[Next: 1. Bartleby Jumps]