KISS - keep it sincerely simple

KISS … Keep It Sincere Simple

Over time KISS has “morphed” into dozens of different derivatives and today I’ll add mine to that collection for consideration. Like the human act of kissing the word acquires for each individual a personal special sincere selective and simple meaning.

In applying KISS to our dialog especially between government and the citizens it has sworn … to serve and to protect … an interesting dimension arises. The once normal dialog between reasonable and rational human beings is replaced with a … proceed with caution sign … blinking on the forehead of all government personnel, politicians, bureaucrats as well as their constituents. These once quite sincere and simple speakers now choose dialog wherein they admit nothing, deny everything and make counter accusations. And they couple that with a tone implying that if you can not convince them, confuse them. Why is that, what happened to the once sincere simple exchange between human beings…?

Call me a dreamer and perhaps the reality is others, which may include you, never really endorsed KISS in a manner honestly compatible to that which I hold to be true. Perhaps KISS for you and them is merely the opportunity to obfuscate, to divide, to manipulate and where a little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation. I hold there is great truth in the statement … a person is just about as big as the things that make them angry … and most contemporary government personnel appear largely to be totally unaware of what they are really expressing their anger about…? And as are we…?

Far wiser minds than I wrote … an assumption is the mother of all screw-ups … and believe me I’ve have made more than my share of assumptions. With this background I make yet another assumption for your consideration. I honestly assume it is the fundamental intent of all the laws, rules, regulations and bulletins “we” develop respecting all aspects of our environment they are to benefit human kind or at least not overtly subject human kind to harm. And additionally, these same writings are not overtly designed to inflict harm upon any portion of our biosphere.

What is amusing when one takes a moment to look behind the curtain at those proposing, writing, speaking and droning on an on about rules, regulations is the near sacramental overtone they attached to their pontifications. Amusingly when “we” ask questions of them about who, what, where, when, why, and how they designed their writing they sanctimoniously rejoin us as if we had engaged in a form of sacrilege. It is sufficient in their opinion that they made the time to write these rules, now, in their minds inviolate. There is no aspect of our environment where the dialog does not reek of this self-serving sanctimonious uttering. What “we” are asked to overlook, which “we” religiously perform, is not to see on Monday they were employed by EPA, engaged in writing these “commandments” and on Friday of that same week they are now actively employed by ExxonMobil touting its commitment to our global environment on the one hand, while lobbying congress that global warming is a hoax on the other. This dance has become an art form to the point most of us don’t see the shell game being so artfully performed before our very eyes. For those that do see, who are they to ask … what is the truth... ?

Reviewing even a small portion of any rule or regulation written respecting how to define, control, regulate, correct or make whole anything respecting air or water, a larger than life sacred cow immediately appears. All these writing serve only one purpose, to promote the success of the sacrosanct “for-profit-corporation” and the products, services, processes and proprietary claims they have. There is not one word written to promote the ideas, beliefs, desires of any single individual. An individual is but a cog in the wheel of progress as determined by what the late President Dwight Eisenhower prophetically described as the rise of the salient power implicit within the “military-industrial-complex. As we enter the second quarter of the year 2008, these words of Eisenhower resonate with new validity and authenticity on many fronts not the least of which is our environment.

Out of one side of our mouth we watch as mass media fortune tellers solemnly display “public-service-messages” calling upon all of us to commit to fostering a life style conducive to promoting a sustainable world environment. While on the other hand touting with Las Vegas style fan fare Presidential pronouncements that to support and show faith in our nation and its policies “we” should go out to the mall and shop. If there are two more diametrically opposing concepts competing for our awareness I confess I cannot think of any…? But as you know, this is but one of literally hundreds of mixed messages to which we are subjected daily. The sad commentary is, in our collective lack of awareness “we” don’t even know we have the right to ask questions to determine what is the truth...? “We” have for so long fed at the trough of corporate-sponsored education we are no longer aware of our right to freedom of expression. Like the seemingly unfettered rats of science experiments “we” keep our nose to the grindstone of the treadmill for-profit-corporations-with-consent-from-our-government have so efficiently and effectively provided to us. Though we may complain at our lot, as a result of the intentional deficiency in our education, we do not know, we are not even remotely aware, “we” have sole command of what “we” do or what we believe or choose not to do or choose not to believe.

KISS has by designed been transformed by “for-profit-corporations-with-consent-from-our-government” into - KEEP IT SILLY SEXY – they (that’s us) won’t know the difference. These capitalist provocateurs based on “science” they purchase, from once independently thinking academia, devised titillating propaganda messages arousing essentially prurient and animalistic levels of our emotional being. Safe knowing “we” are incapable of thinking outside the box, their mesmerizing addictive TV box that is, we’re easy “marks” for their carnival effort. Though silly and sexy their messaging is highly effective producing a culture wherein they have successfully all but eradicated sincere simple dialog between individuals. Amid an atmosphere which bombards 24/7 silly sexy messages those speaking sincere and simple have their words lost on the wind. The pace of life in America in 2008 is like being the pace car for the Indianapolis 500. Speed dominates separates. Educated on a diet of speed most of us understandably do not have any awareness “we” can slow down and still survive, so dominate is the life treadmill of “for-profit-corporations-with-consent-from-our-government.” Silly sexy mass media informs us that 13 minutes is the ideal time to achieve maximum sexual pleasure and interestingly this appears in most every major news outlet in America. To sex, they add violence, now its own art form. They combine sex and violence and our Arizona State Legislature passes legislation fostering an increased level to this stylized blood sport called “cage fighting.” As quickly and as excitedly as possible bash your opponents head in, draw blood, break and bend, mutilate and humiliate your fellow man. But do it quickly. To everything we attach a time-line notably relating to speed. To maximize this, to achieve that, to go here, to get there, to obtain this, to minimize that, a factor of time is promoted. Those things falling outside these pronounced timelines are deemed inferior, ineffective, incapable, inefficient and probably fattening too…?

Based on time alone any dialog regarding our environment begins skewed as “mother nature’s” sense of time and that fostered by corporate America are polar opposites. It is my understanding all “life-forms” require at least these two ingredients – air – water. Moreover, all life-forms vary in their ability to utilize less than pristine quality of these two ingredients – air – water. In 2008, few would argue that air or water are pristine, in fact many would be willing to chronicle that air and water continue to be substantively degraded. “We” recognize only that time-line delineated for us by our corporate puppeteers, those successfully pulling our chain each and every day. Their time-line is immediate, in the moment, now, vastly divergent from the eons by which Mother Nature leisurely abides. These polar opposite assessments of time constitute the underpinning for the chaotic conditions in our collective environment. Whereas Mother Nature says I need more time to clean and cleanse, we know only do it now, immediately. Re-creating this time line we allow corporate America to conveniently renew their “shell game” before our very eyes. “We” choose not to see as they steadfastly engage in activities which by the minute add to the potpourri of pollutants forms incessantly invading our water and air. Increasingly on those occasions when Mother Nature demands we see evidence of pollution our allegiance to our corporate puppeteers allows us to not acknowledge any awareness of any linkage between our collective activities and the increasing pollution of our water and air. Recite verbatim, we can, those propaganda messages incessantly broadcast at us by our corporate capitalist masters.

Interestingly many can equally enumerate those environmental and ecological groups they support monetarily or by membership, Green Peace, the Sierra Club, don’t waste this, save that, clean this, white wash that or it is green wash…? In the years following the debacle of 9/11, the fall out from enactment of the Patriot Act has on many fronts found folks a bit tongue tied in their vociferous denouncement of polluting environmental acts of government and industry. To state simply and sincerely see acts on the part of government or industry as destructive to our collective environment is, in today’s political climate, to open one’s self to hostile acts from the very body reputedly sworn to serve and to protect you and me. Canned, ready-made retorts, instant marchers with appropriate picket signs galore, stand ready for command. Push the button release the lot, to mass TV, radio, on the side walk of the corner store. Your once simple sincere questions about the polluting acts of your government or industry totally shouted and pushed out of sight. So, if it’s truth you seek, whom do you ask…?

There was a time when I saw myself; perhaps you did too, as a part of our collective environment. A moral obligation I had to use judiciously the bounty this earth provided to me. But no more as long ago dispelled was this notion tying me to you and us. KISS today has become, what’s in it for me, you’re on your own my corporate masters tell me to voice robotically.