by Richard Oxman

“Universal healthcare? We can do way better than any other country on earth here. The potential for Congress to move on meaningful legislation overnight is clear. We just have to threaten the criminals with unprecedented public humiliation…as we shove our progressive and conservative neighbors into the notion that it’s in their own enlightened self-interest to take care of others. I had a dream last night that American mothers had decided to funnel the $11 billion spent on Mother’s Day to the the needy. And, of course, that’s not the only source.” — The author’s inspiring neighbor

“The amount of money that federal agencies lose track of annually –goodbye bucks that can’t be traced by auditors– could provide Universal Healthcare for everyone, including migrants and their families. Great health care. Bucks that will never be recovered, never accounted for…no one held responsible for their loss. Our loss.” — Aunt Torchy II

“People act as if being for or against Free Healthcare is like being for the Sox as opposed to, say, the Yanks. But stuff like this is the farthest thing in the world from being for or against a sports team. What’s your favorite team? Live and let live? I don’t think so. Not when only a few will live, and those are going down the tubes too.” — Percy Dove

A good point of departure for this article is “DV,D: Making Nice to My American Migraine“. I got virtually no response to my DV,D plea; why can’t readers get behind what might have happened if Puff Daddy had pushed DV,D in lieu of his “Vote or Die” mantra? For the future? I’d say it’s “Vote & Die.” Not a threat from me –as per Puffy– but, rather, a threat inherent in the act itself. Very stupid people, these button pushers.

We can have an impact. Not doing something.

Imagine what the dialogue would have been like if stars had been asking us to shine… The Powers. Hardly anyone bought the Velvet Underground’s debut album, but –like Brian Eno’s pointed out more than once– everyone who did started a band.

No VU, no Iggy, no Bowie, no White Stripes…no Pistols. No Jesus and Mary Chain, et. al.

Finger off the button, onto the pulse.

According to an online bio of Mark Allen Mothersbaugh –long after the break-up of his band Devo– MAM went bam on to become one of Hollywood’s most respected film composers, doing the musical scores to all of Wes Anderson’s films…and the theme from the TV show, “Rugrats,” among others. Apparently, he employs most of his former Devo bandmates for these projects. See mutato.com

The Interview Proper

MM: What’s the deal with DV,D? Do you really think not voting will help anything?

OX: Very Eastern, yes? It will help by beginning the process of dropping what’s useless, making time plus available for something useful.

MM: You say, “making time plus…?”

OX: We don’t have the heartbeats for everything. The misconception is that no limits need be set on what we set out to do, consider. Time and resources are limited… just like the Earth’s.

MM: But don’t voters manage to tweak things this way and that occasionally?

OX: Minor advances, which then shrink back, lose significance. Like voting rights. OSHA protections. Discrimination laws. Like with “Tribes and Salmon Win…For Now“… whereby environmental victories are accomplished at great cost…with tentative results. And so on. Saving one salmon on the Trinity River is admirable and necessary in one sense, but the “red herring” (if you will) is that the whole business serves to take our focus off of the Trinity Rivers plural. The latter is a more difficult challenge, but indispensible. Sadly, we must choose. It’s not the type of situation where someone else can pick up the slack 40 years from now.

MM: No one benefits from legislation?

OX: Some few. The same few. Producers of The Scam mostly. And the most fundamental grievances of the vast majority continue to get neglected. With their Ballot Box Imprimatur.

MM: Aren’t you asking too much of the public?

OX: No more than the delusionary expectations they’ve institutionalized for themselves. No more than the unrealistic goals they delineate for their children. Much less.

MM: Are you saying that, ideally, everyone should divorce themselves from current efforts being made within the status quo?

OX: Total abandon, no. But to whatever degree people are abandoning the Big Picture to address very limited felt-difficulties, yes. Case by case, it must be decided. Two hours invested to make sure the child next door eats should not be pushed under the rug. A six-month battle respecting a no-smoking ban or local streetlight campaign might have to be reconsidered. But in America there’s this pervasive notion –very sick, slickly unacknowledged– that everyone should be left alone to do their own thing, that these or those activist efforts all come down to the same thing. That’s demonstrably, absolutely…not true. It makes a mockery of the ideal of solidarity.

MM: How would all that be applied to, say, unions fighting for a better local deal?

OX: I’m glad you brought that up, since the immediate pocketbook issues are so central to everyone’s existence. Sure, union members should eat. But they had better start eating organic food…and organic food that’s not contaminated by omnipresent, ungodly toxic air particles. In a kitchen that’s free of mold, in a house that’s not perpetuating worse. Too big of a challenge? I think not. Got to start with what’s within one’s grasp, and work from there? I think not. At least not in every case. Not in most cases. Case the joint, the Big Picture. The DV,D thing asks workers to demand health care…free…overnight. That’s not unrealistic. Only if your pitiful mind is stuck in…the pits…with old paradigms. An example would be watching Nader, second time around, lambasted by his brothers, still not allowed to debate and pulling down pitiful numbers. Rotten fruit…to the core. The pits. Working piecemeal with the idea that one’s going to address all the other related ills down the road is unrealistic…in a tasteless melodramatic way. Nothing wrong with being unrealistic in the sense of uncompromisingly ambitious. But you get a cop or a teacher getting theirs on these shores… without reference to the plights of workers elsewhere, and you’ve got a very unreal mindset triumphing. A great deal more has to be on the table about trumping the Donald Trumps of this world. Now. Quickly. Without moves being contingent upon Congress’ arthiritic, disingenuous snail’s pace. Much can’t be accomplished overnight. Much can. You learn a lot if you ask yourself what of “what can” is acknowledged as such by legislators. Answer? Zero. Everything is categorized for us –at their psyche’s convenience– stored up, and worked to death. Reinforcing the rot. Again, at a snail’s pace.

MM: In our face.

OX: I love a good rhyme.

MM: Even over slime.

OX & MM: (Heads together like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans singing “Happy Trails to You,” in the key of C flat) On your dime.

MM: Hasn’t what you’re advocating been tried before?

OX: It’s been put on trial in modified form before. But the withdrawl from electoral politics has never been coupled with a demand… in the history of the world. The ripples cannot be predicted. Only dismissed out-of-hand by know-it-alls. I say that a lot of DV,D naysayers would come around were they to spend a Seinfeld’s worth of time –a single segment’s portion– on NOT sitting on their imagination, on exploring the pastabilities over a bowl of linguini. My guess is that they’d bowl themselves over with the scenarios that could come down as a result of opting out of The System…in a loud public way… officially, if you will,…speaking of belief in solidarity…having faith in the more positive aspects of humanity and life itself to emerge victorious…in a new way. “You are gangsters and murderers, ecocidists at worse,” let them shout, “and uninformed and/or uncaring fools at best.” I have zero interest in helping those “liabilities” keep their gigs.

MM: Can you give us any instances of where working with the government might be called for… respecting huge issues, like the withdrawl of troops from Iraq, say?

OX: I should have something specifically on that –or my colleague Scott should– coming out shortly in the “Answers That Smart” section of oxtogrind.org. However, let me just note that Naomi Klein, in her “How to End the War” says we have to have “the courage to be serious.” She elaborates: “Part of that seriousness is to echo the policy demands made by voters and demonstrators in the streets of Baghdad and Basra and bring those demands to Washington, where the decisions are being made.” To get really get serious we’re going to have to stop having our starting place be that the decisions have to be made in Washington. We could make this Monster fall apart, you know. And we should. We must.

MM: At least she’s addressing how to get out, no?

OX: That kind of thinking will keep us from getting out… without keeping us from discussing the issue, keeping us in our little pen… like pigs content with the slop. Naomi has a brilliant, courageous side to her, but you simply can’t reconcile Nice Jewish Womanliness with radical moves. You miss the point.

MM: The point?

OX: That Klein’s /In These Times/ audience –not very different than The Nation and NPR audience– can only deal with neat little packages like she delineated… wherein “hope” is incorporated into a logical plan of withdrawl. It’s insisted upon –that’s her thrust– in an environment which probably demands chaos… before the U.S. troops can leave… and longer… after they depart. And on some level Naomi knows she wouldn’t have an audience if she went further in her analysis, her creative angle for solution. I mean these are people who don’t bat an eyelash at Walmart sponsoring NPR, major conservative foundations forking over for ZMag, Nationrag, Mother Jones and more*.

*Available upon request.

MM: How does one build anything without them?

OX: A huge part of The Point is that we’re not –maybe? likely?– going to build anything. The goal cannot be to seek solidarity with people who are incapable of cutting from the cushion; cushioning oneself against such collusion seems more to The Point.

MM: You lost me there.

OX: It can only come to a dirty deal, dealing with people playing it safe, anal people, ignorant people, faithless people. Self-serving people. The easy strawmen are the Bechtel bitches that Naomi levels, the Halliburton hooligans. Duh. Where’s the condemnation for people who back publications like, say, The Progressive… which has taken forever to meekly make demands of the administration, and is still calling The Dude Prez Bush, not Butcher Bush.

MM: They certainly do criticize his butchery.

OX: In the easy-to-write articles. But the form of address, routinely applied is… President Bush. It’s rationalized, justified under the umbrella of what’s… proper. It’s the same sense of propriety that’ll keep critics from considering anything but a neat withdrawl… with hope. I mean, we have our Amerikan counterparts to the British notion that Blair being re-elected without some of his colleagues regaining office is a sign of hope, don’t we? It’s crazy-making.

MM: Surely you believe the Iraqis deserve reparations, etc.

OX: In time. But first… the First Crimes. Payment for Native Americans. Care for domestic indigents. Everyone forcing everyone else to come on board with the New Religion… which has to be total concern for everyone’s health… and total lack of concern with privilege… and the possible consequences of trying something fresh.

MM: How does one get something fresh implemented though?

OX: One absolutely does NOT get dragged into the scam of having to come up with such. Simply telling the Congressional murderers, the gangsters –who will not be forced to leave their positions of power overnight– to do something new should be sufficient to start. “You figure it out, Smarty Pants. Or don’t, and let the whole world watch so-called American democracy crumble, its facade rotting in fast-motion.” Let the fissures crack wider, quicker…more wildly, I say. It can get infinitely more difficult for The Powers to save face, to operate as smoothly as they do.

MM: In a sentence?

OX: Well, maybe two.

MM: That’ll do…if they’re clear.

OX: Hmm. Just like…just like how there was a suggestion when Devo first hit the charts…that your thick glasses were a stage image. The parallel gets convoluted, but there’s an inspiration there.

MM: I don’t understand.

OX: They weren’t in place as a stage image; you needed them badly…to see. Your prescription glasses.

MM: True. I’ve been severely near-sighted my whole life, so much so that I was nearly declared legally blind as a child.

OX: Well, there is an image projected by Congress…which is false. Yet, there is blindness on both the part of the legislators and the public. We don’t need them to see, we don’t need them to do…forever. We only need them temporarily in a way not perceived by the vast majority of propagandized citizens. And the first step is to take off the rose-colored glasses. Smash the glasses. Proceed blindly, if necessary. Show the world more clearly than ever before that braille is not being provided, that our seeing-eye dogs are being murdered…that our children’s eyes are being mutilated with myopia. That Ray can only be made if this or that is cut out, only be shown if such and such is added. That Stevie (overweighted, former) Wonder will be allowed on stage, only if he’s Oprahfied, fatly capitalized…and capable of being…analyzed. This is NOT a situation out of college textbook exercise. Concerned citizens need to consider themselves in the trenches. One look at a Dahr Jamail photo, one iota of a sense of history, one listen in a local public school room, one looksee at a hobo…who can no longer find a user-friendly boxcar to jump in, anyone boxed out from an ER. You have to murder someone in Iraq to make a living? Or waste a brother in blue…to survive? It’s horrid beyond belief, and at total variance with the drugged conceptions with which we parade our flag. The so-called dangerous scum of our streets, deranged vets and down-and-outers of all stripes are slated to get the care they deserve as human beings. No more doctors or entrepreneurs or entertainers who refuse to serve without proper compensation. One way or another. Everyone’s gonna serve, and no one’s gonna be sidetracked by talk about how (with the new setup) this one and that one’s getting away with murder, finanacially or otherwise. ‘Cause if you sat down as the Creator Her/Himself to map out a scenario in which suffering ruled and promise was cancelled, the possibility of a humane existence declared null and void…you couldn’t come up with a worse script than the Dantesque Inner Circle we inhabit. Unlike The Stranger, where Camus has Meursault blinded by the Sun…simply going through the motions of life, unemotional, we are proactively –with an enormous degree of passion– running a number on the Sun, slated to run it down, in hit-and-nowhere-to-run-fashion. Being estranged from our own children these days is of quite a different order of things than what is generally umbrella-ized as generation-gapish. That’s the status quo.

MM: And so you…?

OX: Stop voting…for starters. Stop being tricked into talking Socialism vs. Capitalism.

MM: Stop participating in The Sham?

OX: And start shouting loudly about doing so. Perhaps wearing something comparable to those ribbons Lance Armstrong was pushing for his cause… boldly associating yourself with your radical stance in public. Make voting as onerous as smoking in confined, public spaces.

MM: And see what happens?

OX: Exactly. Which is exactly what people will do… if they refrain from telling themselves they know something that they don’t know.

MM: What the bleep do we know?

OX: From another angle, we know a helluva lot. The scorecard’s in. The smoking gun’s on the table. Greg Palast’s recent article about “Facts Were Fixed” is a good point of departure for establishing that…for the simplest of minds…and the most argumentative…definitively.

MM: So… what’s your ideal scenario… if your “Don’t Vote, Devolve” thing catches on?

OX: That the devolution aspect will really get rolling. However, short of that… seven things:

1. People test their own creativity and faith by burning the ships on some non-electoral island.
2. The connections between healthcare and other issues becomes clearer.
3. Clarity on enlightened self-interest makes it obvious that free health care is essential.
4. Everyone refrains from being tricked into talking Socialism vs. Capitalism.
5. The Powers make some serious mistakes in trying to compensate for crumbling images.
6. Citizens see the value in attempts at movement in national solidarity whilst…
7. Acknowledgement is made respecting people being too screwed up personally to make meaningful connections with other human beings –as per a morose, simplistic Aimee Mann message– as things stand politically.

MM: What are people afraid of?

OX: The number seven comes to mind again:

1. They’re scared to death of losin’ their religion, their collective Crutch.
2. They insist upon a game plan, a replacement. No trust in negative space.
3. They will not give up their mundane, materialistic privileges.
4. They’re woefully misinformed and/or unable to forgo habits. Well over 99% of the literature neglects this latter phenomenon. Everything, it seems, is centered on providing info. Just look at people who you know well personally –people who you love– who are stuck in self-destructive behavior for reasons other than…lack of info. Extrapolate, please.
5. They insist upon personally being involved in making changes, and being acknowledged for their efforts/accomplishments. They fear a loss of personal social importance.
6. They don’t want to lead.
7. They have zero faith in what others might feel/can do. Like Lou Reed and Cale said a long time ago in “The Ostrich” cut, “First you stand on your partner’s head.” That’s a deal killer for many.

MM: Lights out.

OX: Sleep well.