“Your Lack Of Rage Disturbing.”

Eric Renderking Fisk | December 1st, 2009

I'm walking down the street and it's pretty dark. This section of town that I'm walking through is extremely rough. And a few steps ahead I see this little guy getting beaten and kicked by a bigger man. This little guy is getting hammered, his ribs are broken and his face is cut up and bruised. He can hardly get out any words, he can hardly reach out for help. And when he does, his hand is slapped down by The Bully. "Take your beating and like it!"

I want to do something. I scream out, "Someone! Someone help me stop this bully from beating this guy!"

The other pedestrians are looking at me like I'm crazy. "That's just the way it is, just be grateful that it's not you this time. Just walk away and pretend you don't see it. Avert your eyes and look at this - look at this entertainment. 'American Idol' is on tonight... 'New Moon' is in the theaters! Let's talk about that instead."

I'm incredulous. "Don't you see! This man is taking a beating! We have to stop this!" 

Then the man who took the beating is left alone since there's nothing more The Bully can do. The Bully has beaten the poor man almost to death, but lets him alone so he can heal. And The Bully snarls: "Oh, you need to give me more of your lunch money! I want 65% next time!" And the man who just took the beating is barely able to gurgle through the blood in his mouth "OK, I'm sorry..." to The Bully who just beat him!

The beaten man goes back to the crowd of people walking (or limping) in the opposite direction from my own. And I look and I see that everyone else walking with him in the same direction still have the bruises from the last time they took a beating from The Bully.

And I come home and write about how we should all gather up and stand up to The Bully. And people try to take away my ability to speak. Some try to break into this house to take away my computer, or file complaints to our service provider or the Politically Correct Thought Police. Some break into my home to try to put tape over my mouth, and as they try to do so I can see their own cuts, their bruises. Those who took beatings in the past are now covering up for The Bully. Some of them even try to cover their own hides by trying to get on The Bully's side. They point to me: "Fisk hasn't taken a beating in a while. Go after him, and we'll watch and cheer!"

And The Bully comes after me. And I'm standing up to The Bully. AndThe Bully backs off. And people are angry at me because I'm standing up to The Bully: "That's not the way it's supposed to work! That's not the way it's supposed to be!" But behind the scenes there are some pedestrians that say "I'm with you, I'm behind you. I just don't want anyone to know because I don't want to be called a 'tea bagger' or an social agitator."

And I am enraged. The rage I feel is the accumulation of things. I'm angry at The Bully who is beating the pedestrians. I'm angry at the other pedestrians who are watching The Bullybeat up on their fellow pedestrians. And I'm angry at the attitude of the other pedestrians who chide me - telling if not demanding that this is the way it is and I have to suffer with the rest of them, I have to accept the fact that people are going to get beaten. There's no sense in getting angry because you can't change anything. "Just go along with it. Here's some entertainment, here's some porn. Here's some alcoholic beverages and other legal substances that will help take your mind off of the horrors that are brought on by The Bully."

Now, obviously The Walk is life. I hope you figured that out already, that this is a metaphor.

In this metaphor - The Bully is obviously The Establishment. If you've read any of my writing before then you already know the other name I've given to The Bully: "The Committee Of They."

"They" are the ones who set up the rules. "They" are the ones who tell you what's "in" and what's "out." "They" are the ones who tell you that Navy Blue is "The New Black." "They" tell you what's the latest thing to buy. They tell us what books are popular, what musical artists are on the top of the charts. And They say: "We're going to provide for you some vital services, and we're going to jack up the prices for those services when ever we want to, and we'll lie about why we're doing it. And we'll pull those vital services away from you when ever we want." More on that in a minute...

But there's a more nefarious branch of The Committee Of They. "They" are the ones that tell you how much you should be paying in taxes, fees and fines. "They" are the ones who take the money you pay to The Establishment and misspend it. There's a bridge that's on the verge of collapse less then 10 miles south of where I live. There seems to be no effort to fix it. It's closed. But the Governor has a more then a handful of patronage jobs for friends and family members of those who volunteered for his election campaign or made large donations. This is the same state that claims it values knowledge and public access to information... while it's closing libraries all over the state. The Committee Of They has already seen to the collapse of society. It's profiting from the libraries closing and the bridges falling into the river. Keep people stupid, and keep them from going where they need to go or control the direction as a reminder of who's really in charge.

The Bully is everywhere, in the local municipalities, the local utility companies. The Establishment isn't just in Washington D.C. or our state capitol (in my case, Concord, New Hampshire.) And in some cases we've appointed "The Committee Of They." It's in Madison Avenue and they advertising agencies elsewhere. It's in the media companies, the news organizations. Every time you pick up an entertainment magazine and allow yourself to be influenced by "The Social Elite" you've given power over to "They."

But as you can tell by the title of this rant, this isn't a rant about "The Establishment" or "The Committee Of They." This is about my frustration, if not rage towards the people in my parable - "The Pedestrians..." The bystanders. 

The Pedestrians are us - you and me. We're just walking along, trying to get by and build lives for ourselves, our spouses and children. We the pedestrians try so hard to work with the establishment. We follow the rules, we try to stay out of trouble. We all rebel a little bit by going a little too fast down the highway, we indulge in some vices - legal vices - and try to exert some muscle by showing some of our independence once in a while. But we're pedestrians and we do our best to stay on The Sidewalk: the rules set up by "The Establishment."

But by "staying on the sidewalk," we turn over a little more control of our lives with every step in what we're told is the "right" direction. The direction marked on the map as "conformity." You pick up a copy of "Vogue" to find out what's in or what's out, you're turning some control over in your life. If you watch any of those Entertainment shows to find out what's "hot" in movies, music, television and in book, you're turning over to more of your own individual thought. If you've ever bought a book and read it because Oprah Winfrey featured it in her "Book Of The Month Club," and for no other reason... you're making a conscious choice to be dragged into the neighborhood of conformity.

You're walking towards "conformity." I'm not talking about the "good" conformity like paying your bills on time, obeying just laws of society and religion. I'm talking about the BAD conformity. Don't make any noise, don't point to the problems of society much less make suggestions on how things can be fixed. Just go with the flow, allow yourself to become distracted. Nothing bad will happen to you so long as you go along with The Establishment.

Better yet, if you can become "The Bully" or part of The Establishment and "help" determine how things should go, then there is money in it for you. The goal is to climb your way to the top of The Establishment's food-chain and become a "leader" by getting people to follow you and the rest of The System. You can't be an individual, a "true individual" until you're able to get people to follow you. Be independent and you own person, but not too much of your own person. To be a part of the social elite, it's helpful to have plenty of money to burn. It's a lofty and almost impossible goal to achieve. It's almost maddening if you think about it too long and try to figure out to way to succeed.

The Pedestrians are the enablers of The Committee Of They, The Establishment and "The Bully.' With out The Pedestrians there is no real power. The power is fake, it's not real in the sense that they're entitled to it. They're entitled to it only because we grant it to them. We allow them to get away with their crimes not because of our actions, but mostly because of our inactions. We don't do anything besides complain and vent on our social media services like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and The Electric Speakeasy.

My rage is that we all know what's wrong. It's so clear to me that we know what's wrong because we post about it. We write about the travesty, we know what's wrong and what's bad. We know about the crimes committed to society by "The Bully," and we only chatter amongst our selves. We are greater in numbers, we grant The Establishment and The Bully it's power - but we are blinded to our own power. We allow The Bully to beat us down. We don't lift a hand when we see others taking a beating. We turn a blind eye and look away while we are grateful that it's not us this time.

And there is no rage much less action when we see it happening to our friends, family and neighbors. It's bad, it's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Learn from this and keep your head down so there won't be a next time.

All of this came to a head in my mind this past week when I found out that the local cable and broadband internet access provider "Pine Tree Cable" was going out of business....

This is not the problem, but it's the symptom of the real, much larger problem. 

I'm so angry for many of the people here in Rindge and neighboring towns that have been ripped off by this cable company. I would like to know who was responsible for the exclusive sweet-heart deal Pine Tree was given to the town of Rindge (and neighboring towns) and how come nobody held their feet to the fire? Who got a kick-back, who had their wheels greased and pockets filled?

After years of people complaining to the local officials and panels of bad service, the lack of consistent service and the rumors (that I have heard in the past two years) of the company just collapsing because of mismanagement. The fact that this happened is a "surprise" to many people. Especially our local officials. "Ha Ha, it's a big joke! Let's hope someone comes in and provides service sometime soon. But we're not going to hold our breath or move too fast to accomplish anything."

-  I also need to note here that from my understanding of the agreement between The Town Of Rindge and Pine Tree Cable, that they would have an exclusive deal - I almost hate to use the word "monopoly" - to this region in exchange for maintaining and improving the cable infrastructure. According to my source in the Town Clerk's office, Pine Tree Cable has been in breach of that aspect of the contract "for years." Where was the attempt by the town to do something about that? If the company was in breach of contract, The Town Of Rindge should have dissolved that contract and brought in new service providers to bid on the contract...

The real problem here is people's attitude and lack of rage. There's the lemming mentality of a lot of people around here who just laugh at the problem, grin and say "Ah, what'cha gonna do?" while throwing your hands up. As if this is all a funny prank that's gotten a little old.

Here's a vital service people rely on that's being taken away from ten towns in southern New Hampshire. Ten neighboring towns. And in those ten towns, to my knowledge, I can only find a handful of people who are protesting.

After spending some time on line, I've found that there really aren't a lot of people angry or protesting this. I found my town's "Facebook" fan page and there's less than a dozen people posting their frustration. Those people who have posted their protests and have asked what action they can take, those are not the pedestrians I'm talking about. Those are the people who are standing up to The Bully.

Just for a moment, suppose this is just the beginning. What if today this is just about the cable that carries television and internet access for almost everyone in these ten towns, but tomorrow it's something else like electricity or food distribution? You might say that it would never happen because too many people would protest or raise a fuss. And so what if it did happen? Everyone in those ten towns could just drive to where there is food, or find gas generators to run their households. The people in those 10 towns would adapt.

Were something like that to happen, like the loss of electricity or food delivery, how would the majority of people here react? Would most of these people around here just laugh at the problem, grin and say "Ah, what'cha gonna do?" while throwing your hands up. As if this is all a funny prank that's gotten a little old. No? People would be outraged and frustration and "demand action?" That could never happen.

The Establishment - whether it's service providers or the governments on every level are taking more and more from us in the form of Rights and money in the form of fees, taxes and fines. It's a little more each year. Where's the public frustration, where is the demand for action? Well, there is some public frustration, protests, and calls for action. But we called those people during The Bush Administration "unpatriotic, subversive dissenters," and now during The Obama Administration we call them "Racist retards and tea baggers."

Most of them have been beaten down for voicing their concerns. Some of them are cranks, granted, But not all of them. We disrespect and try to silence anyone who makes too much noise because we don't want them to call too much attention to us. Just give us our daily 6 pack of beer, or our box of wine. And let us just vegetate in front of the television and forget about what's wrong.

"Just let us watch our television... oh! Wait..."

I find your lack of rage against the establishment disturbing.