04 June 2008

A modest proposal

Heretofore in this metropolis our downtown has been, for the past thirty-five years or so, dead as a retail and commercial district.  Oh, it still houses government, office, and institutional agencies, but as a center of life and activity in the city it no longer functions as such.  Though a few 'night spots' have opened on Third Street in recent years, this has only made a modest dent in the overlying deadness, in my opinion.

So to arrest this development, but primarily to enrich the politically connected White elite downtown interests and property owners who stand to lose by this continued state of affairs, our solons, always ready to impose the socialist solution, have created an arts and entertainment district which is supposed to make downtown palatable to the brie and cheese set again.

Don't see how this will do much good.  When government gets involved in any situation things tend to proceed rapidly downhill.  This is just a scheme, as always, engineered by the elites to enrich their quality of life, and the lives of the all so important privileged class (ya don't think they actually allow working folks inside those trendy bars, do you?) who make the decisions in this city.  Of course it's the working man who will have to subsidize it all while seeing absolutely no benefits from this.

Ya know, this is how it always goes here.  Even more so than elsewhere, in the Stick there seems to be an especially strong alliance of politicians, "enlightened" bureaucRATS and other State "planners", the privileged professional classes, the economic movers and shakers/moneyed elites, and other similar interests who desire very much to run your life.  Their goals are couched in such seemingly innocuous and flowery language - "economic development", "increasing quality of life", "enriching the cultural scene", and other such claptrap.  

But their real purpose is this: to reshape the city in their interests and image, to manuver State subsidy to enrich their pocketbooks, to create a lily-White center of privilege and affluence where the working man has been made to disappear, the Blacks have been removed from the scene completely, and there is nothing that will disturb the bubble like dream world of the privileged elite, with their idiotic frivolities, their wine and cheese parties, their all night bar hopping drinking binges, their false image of propriety and stability which they hypocritically present to the world.  

In short, the height of arrogance and class privilege.  The hatred of the poor burns brightest in the Deep South.  Here, poor = Black, you know.

Magazines and publications which cater to this class, such as the loathsome 225, are the primary exponents of their worldview.  Of course in their dickhead arrogance they present this all as a great good, as if when the entire world is controlled and operated for the rich will be just perfect (with big government as a willing partner, of course, ready and able to remove those pesky poor Blacks if and when they get in the way).  Can't have anything in the way of pursuing life and happiness dickhead style - ya know, pilates courses, wine tasting, art gallery openings, etc....the absurd lifestyle of the privileged.

The members of the upper classes seem happy, and who knows, perhaps they are.  They are so goddamned materialistic and morally bankrupt in being able to derive pleasure from these stupid activities, which simply proves their intellectual ignorance, moral depravity, and ultimate economic worthlessness.  After all, supporting a government and a system which engages in mass murder halfway around the world is taxing on the conscience, eh?  They must replace and conceal these unpleasant truths with bullshit.  Can't be using critical thinking skills and all that, else position and privilege per the System might be jeopardized. 

I would give anything to see the stuffed shirts work in a factory for a day, or make their living flipping burgers, or selling shoes, or stocking shelves.  Because the folks who work those types of jobs can't be concerned with the finer things in life.  They are just trying to survive day by day. And while the elites can have their tea parties in their protected enclaves to their heart's content, when they try to impose their lifestyle on all of us, while by extension pushing the average man's pursuit of happiness to the side with the implicit assumption that it is not legitimate, then they are practicing fascism.  And that is the most disgusting thing of all.

So this is my proposal.  If the downtown interests really want to revive that center, here is what they should do.  Make downtown a "State-free zone"!  Entrepeneurs won't need State permissions to build structures, sell liquor, or do anything else currently circumscribed; zoning and other dumbass State regulations would be suspended indefinitely; tax assessments would be suspended; stupid laws would not be enforced; and so on.

Well if anything, this is sure to get downtown hopping again!  Think of the new investment that would be produced in the absence of the State parasites and extortionists!  But I dare say you will never hear any of our so-called leaders propose such a 'radical' and 'dangerous' initiative.  Because it would cut to the heart of what is really supposed to be enriched here - State power, fat petty bureaucrats, and State support of White elite privilege. After all, a world without the State is unimaginable!

I rest my case.