H.R. Porter

Politics is a King-Bitch

”Mangled bodies tell no tales.”

The definition of politics is an interesting and worthwhile attempt to make sense of something highly abstract and rotten which is why the definition is utterly useless. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some politicians and ideologies out there that actually make sense and in some way or other works for the common good but politics in general and a as fundamental concept for survival and advancement has lost it interest as well as its fang. What we need is revolution and fast or else we will get caught in a “Huxlian” world where everyone is led to believe that everything is perfect and mindless entertainment as well as drugs further enlightens this “fact.”

But where am I going with this, have I recently been screwed by a politician? Well, no, not in a definite way but there is something in the air. It’s almost like the first taste of midnight bourbon as the crowd tunes in to listen to the old telling of a backwoods story. If you never been in one of those crowds then you can’t know what I’m talking about but if you have, like me, then you know what it is; the anticipation, the fear, the laughter.

That’s how it is with politics; once you get heavily into it there is no turning back. Your ear is to the ground all the time and everywhere you see signs of backstabbing, thieving and brutal rapes. Your life is reduced down to polling numbers and the actions of your local politician become second nature for you. Instead of looking at yourself you inject the venom straight into you and read and read and read.

Something is badly wrong today. You can’t put your finger on it but there is this lingering thought inside of you that keeps gnawing on parts of your brain, releasing your own chemicals into your body as soldiers in a warzone; take no prisoners, tell no one of your mission. I watch TV at Christmas, sometimes during the summer and if a friend I’m visiting has the TV on. Watching it only enhances the feeling of wrongness and instills me with a deep and savage fear. Wouldn’t it be sheer terror if I was alone in this world, eh? Terror and somehow Invigorating; two words I like to keep close to my vest. The TV shows the same world I saw about three years ago when I left it but somehow it seems so different.

Was it I or the world that changed? Was it I who failed TV or did TV fail me? The universal truth in the phrase “Phanta Rei” (everything flows) by Heraclitus still rings true. We acknowledge it with our lips but deny it with our actions. Everything changes and nothing remains still. But if we assume I changed then why didn’t TV change? Why didn’t politics change? Why didn’t you change?

As you see the Greek already knew this and they never had media in the same way we do, eh? Still, they knew that something is wrong, has been wrong and will be wrong. It was never a majority, I’m still not convinced it is even though the symptoms can be seen as clear as leprosy, and the minority always made sure it never spread. Maybe it has to do with the logic that not all need to suffer when only a few can handle the pain? But then again pain is artificial for some and they have learned, not only to live with it, but even to use it for their own benefit. Pain and Politics go hand in hand; the more pain you can endure the better a politician you are and vice versa.

Everything changes, nothing remains the same. A fundamental truth if you are sure you’re the majority and keep the same pace as the one next to you in the Line for Salvation. Abstracts sure are fun, eh? They say that a single TOW missile costs $180k.



So long,

Henry Ray Porter

Så, ännu en dag idag. Vad ska man hitta på att göra? Jo, jag har mina planer, bland annat blir det en sväng förbi Myrorna om ett tag nu; jag behöver nämligen nya skor. Varför Myrorna? Svaret är enkelt och tvåhövdat; jag behöver nya skor och jag vet Myrorna rätt ofta har skor av just den typen jag gillar. Dessutom är det bra för samhället och miljön att återanvända saker istället för att bara köpa nytt, nytt, nytt som tidningarna skriker om.

Sedan är en fördel med second hand-skor att dem är redan ingångna och det är rätt roligt att tänka på förra ägaren, fundera på vart skorna gått förut och veta att man är en del av en resa. Nävål.

"Lather was thirty years old today,
They took away all of his toys.
His mother sent newspaper clippings to him,
About his old friends who'd stopped being boys.
There was Harwitz E. Green, just turned thirty-three,
His leather chair waits at the bank.
And Sergeant Dow Jones, twenty-seven years old,
Commanding his very own tank.
But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do,
To lie about nude in the sand,
Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps,
And thrashing the air with his hands.

But wait, oh Lather's productive you know,
He produces the finest of sound,
Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose,
Snorting the best licks in town,
But that's all over...

Lather was thirty years old today,
And Lather came foam from his tongue.
He looked at me eyes wide and plainly said,
Is it true that I'm no longer young?
And the children call him famous,
what the old men call insane,
And sometimes he's so nameless,
That he hardly knows which game to play...
Which words to say...
And I should have told him, "No, you're not old."
And I should have let him go on...smiling...baby-wide."

When it's my moment in the sun
Oh, how beautiful I'll be
but in a normal sort of way
Like I am you and you are me