Left, Right, or Human? - An Essay on the Debilitating Effect of Ego & Identity Politics

In the summer of 2001 I was sitting in the backyard of a communal house in Boulder Colorado attending a vegan barbecue/screening of some activist oriented film I have zero recollection of. What I do remember is a conversation I had with a girl not much younger then myself. I was expressing my concern for all the movements I was aware of at the time as a Systems Administrator for Free Speech TV directed by one John Schwartz a good friend of Amy Goodman. So ya I was pretty "Left". Regardless it didn’t even take a year of being in an epicenter of activism (i’m talking rock climbing training for banner drops, sowing giant corporate USA flags, etc..) for me to realize the futility of it all. I understood the organizational strength of the Corporate Oligarchy we were up against back then. I had just come from a very respectable line of corporate jobs each better then the last as that was my way of promoting myself. I didn’t wait for promotion from within though it did happen a few times. Mostly however, as I gained new skills I went and found new jobs that represented a promotion from my last either in title, salary, or both. Now having chosen to throw my lot in with the "Left" as I knew the world was awry and I knew basically why, I was concerned by the "Left’s" apparent LACK of organizational strength. Funding wasn’t the problem, they had plenty all the time. Numbers weren’t the problem, in the college town of Boulder just about everyone is an activist and then Denver was right their to draw even more strength from not to mention a very extensive web of both national and international connections. Indymedia.org was just getting started back then and I knew some of the people responsible, personally. The problem wasn’t enthusiasm, dedication, or even intelligence.

Their were two problems that when combined become a debilitating force of epic proportions and what represents in my mind and others one of the most brilliant moves by the Oligarchy in modern times, albeit within my limited knowledge as a surf. A curious open minded surf but a surf none the less.

The problem was the human Ego combined with Identity Politics. Of course back then I didn’t know to call it Identity Politics. I explained to this girl at the vegan barbecue the reason why we (the left) would NEVER “win the day” doing things the way we were. I saw endless issues (aka symptoms) being addressed but each issue had it’s own group of activists dedicated to changing that one specific issue as if that One would change everything else in some kind of metaphysical trickle sideways fan out effect. On top of that, I saw a lot of wannabe MLK’s. People that needed their issue to be the most important really only so they could be remembered as “the one’s who did it”. On the opposing side I saw one group the Oligarchy creating all these different issues, oil, parasitic trade practices, oppression based on race and sexual orientation etc., general raping of the environment for profit, climate change, extinction of various species, destruction of the rain forests, land grabs, violent law enforcement, immigration, women’s rights, and endless wars etc. etc. . So many issues but were we all united in addressing the ONE problem creating ALL the others? No we were not. She got it and I could see new synaptic connections forming in her eyes. I wonder what became of her.

Their was an effort to unite the "Leftist Factions" back then in 2001 using the corporate flag replacing the stars of the American flag with corporate logos. It never really caught on, and after 9/11 and the inevitability of another corporate war, when I saw uniting the activist factions wasn’t going to catch on anytime soon, I parted ways. I decided growing pot and partying with strippers was far more fun (which it is...for a while) and arguably just as productive as anything else I had ever done. Eventually I burned out on that, spent a couple years waiting tables/attending acting workshops and parties in Los Angeles, finally opting to leave the country and travel for a few years beginning as a Hare Krishna Monk in Vrindaven, India on a shoe string “work as you go” budget and ending as a Line Cook in a pub in Haifa Israel. In between being a Monk and a Cook I spent a considerable amount of time as part of a Norwegian/Israeli/Japanese Motorcycle Gang the Shiva Riders, roaming the highest Himalayan mountains down to the beaches of Goa and back again.

I returned to the States to find a black man was about to be elected as President. I got fully caught up in the wave of HOPE and CHANGE. I cried during several of Obama’s speeches. In 2011 I rejoined the Left when they tried once more to unite all factions during “Occupy Wall Street” but it was clear then as well, the strangle hold of Identity Politics was still too strong, stronger even then when I saw it back in 2001. I joined up with the Occupy Oakland crew as I was already in California when it got going. I could tell right away everyone knew what the problem was but eventually it also became obvious few people could get over themselves long enough to do anything about it not to mention the non stop sabotage of the protests from within thanks primarily to Black Block, Grateful Dead Family (GDF), gang bangers (one of whom put the sharp end of a hammer through my face after I thwarted their efforts to light someone’s tent on fire), and naturally the resulting regular visits from the riot police.

It was a zoo.

These days Identity Politics demand I identify as a Proud Black Man. Identity Politics demand I fully support Black Lives Matter (mostly funded by George Soros) and that I expose the white devil and his “White Supremacy” for the pandemic evil the media would have us believe it is. Oh and I must LOVE Obama no matter how much worse then Bush he actually turned out to be. There’s also a very strong “Eat The Rich” theme being pushed by all media but most people don’t have a clue who holds the real wealth of this world. Instead they focus their attacks on public puppet after public puppet, exactly as the “True Elite” planned all along. The “Elite” thrive on conflict secure in the knowledge that most people don’t even know they exist. This could be changing. It looks like it is, only time will tell and it’s looked like it before. So many times in fact I can no longer bring myself to get excited.

Regardless,

I am NOT nor will I ever “BE” BLACK! I mean technically I don’t even have black skin. If your going only by skin color I look more Latino then anything but that’s a result of having a Mother with pale white skin and a Father with skin on the darker side of black. I also don’t subscribe to most of what is most commonly considered “black culture”. I can’t even really give you an example of what that means outside of Hip Hop, letting your ass hang out, and selling crack on the corner and I think this way only after living in the ghetto’s of East Oakland near the warehouse district and the stadium in my early to mid thirties. I grew up in an all white town on the border of Canada in New York State. I grew up on Top 40 Pop & Rock like everyone else where I grew up although I did really like the Beastie Boys and NWA both of whom I was forbidden to listen to as the most defining aspect of my youth was being born a Jehovah’s Witness. My Dad despite our religion, my Mother, and being very very black in skin tone, favored Rock, and Country music over all other genres. Despite growing up in The Bronx of New York City, if you spoke to my father on the phone without knowing him you would assume he was white, a big surprise sometimes when we showed up to look at a rental especially when we moved to South Florida shortly after my 18th Birthday. I never really experienced racism (that I was aware of) till we moved to South Florida so when it did happen it was very easy for me to just laugh it off. What you don’t like me because of my skin color? Cool you’re not really the kind of person I want anything to do with anyway, have a nice life, I'm out. My Grandfather did love jazz however he worked as a Merchant Marine as well as a New York City Police Officer going so far as to work undercover to infiltrate the Black Panthers, a job he did so well that upon his eventual discovery the Panthers put a hit out on him, a fact I was later able to confirm when I actually met and befriended one of the Panthers that wanted to kill him while I was living on the street in Berkeley California. Rick was a Vietnam Tunnel Rat, an O.G. Black Panther, and surprisingly representative of the kinds of people you meet playing chess with the homeless in Berkeley’s “People’s Park”

Regardless,

aside from the obvious divisiveness, another problem with identifying with one single aspect of your biological makeup is it’s something you can not change. Now If I lack personal motivation and generally treat everyone around me with a complete lack of respect I would be right to identify as a “lazy asshole” and I often do, but now, that is something I CAN change. That is something I must take personal responsibility for. Same thing goes for “White” people. You cant change being white. However, if you identify as the greedy, arrogant, ignorant, aristocratic, douchebag you actually are, well now that’s something you could and arguably should change. Ya I’m talking to you Rothschild's, Rockefeller’s Windsor’s and all other Dutch Royal Aristocratic Family Types.

Identity politics often encourage people to Identify their ENTIRE SELF with one single unchangeable aspect of their biological makeup or worse a political party whose ideals and direction you also have NO control over. This allows people to justify never changing anything about themselves because it’s all in their mind a part of that ONE UNCHANGEABLE biological or political aspect. The real stake through the heart however is the creation of easily managed and manipulated sectarian groups within what could otherwise be a united Left and Right.

The ideological Left is telling us what the world ought to be, filling our minds with noble egalitarian ideals. The ideological Right is telling us what the world is. The working class Right doesn’t care what the world ought to be they just want food on the table making the best of things as they are, while the Left is always living in the dream of how things ought to be with no anchor in how things actually are, rendering both impotent.

We need the left. The left are the dreamers, they present us with ideals to attain to. Ideals which at their core are meant to liberate, inspire, and generally speaking if allowed would actually keep the Right from falling victim to enslavement by the less scrupulous members of the human race who all to eagerly take advantage of the rights simplistic realism and their tendency to believe in anything or anyone claiming to be a “Higher Power”. I’m not hatin, i’m just sayin. However we need the Right also because they are the dedicated providers and protectors, willing to make the best of the world as it is. Sadly most of the truly Idealistic and Heroic Right get sent to war to die or come home with such severe PTSD they can barely function after facing the true lunacy of war, occasionally for a heroic cause but usually not. None the less the Right are the people who get things done in the world as it is, ensuring the rest of us have what we need to exist, to a certain extent, as we see fit. They represent practical wisdom, stability, family, longevity.

If you go all left, you’ve got nothing but dreamers, nothing ever gets done, and we all starve to death. If you go all right we’ve got a reliable work force whom unfortunately do whatever they’re told in the name of nationalism and or religion as long as they can feed their family and we all work/war ourselves to death never really knowing what it means to ENJOY life, a fate worse then death in my opinion and an accurate representation of life as we know it today. Also arguably the main reason WHY the Left is so pissed off. The Right knows things are messed up but they’re willing to let it slide in exchange for the illusion of security for themselves and their family. Essentially they feel “we have a roof and food so fuck it, why rock the boat”. Systemically nothing really ever changes or if it does it quickly changes back because the Right generally make up Law Enforcement and the Military and the Left is never going to be able to overcome their enforcement of the status quo in armed conflict. The Left generally have issues with killing anything for any reason anyway, something I tend to agree with unless it’s a video game.

The reality of it seems to be at this time that we need qualities from both Left and Right. That is to say we need to find a balance between the Left and the Right that allows us to dream and to be happy while still actually building and maintaining the world that allows for people to dream and be happy in. You can not MAKE people happy. But you can create a world that allows for it in every way imaginable. When you create that world for EVERYONE, you create that world for YOURSELF as well.

Left and Right have allowed themselves to be manipulated into fighting with each other and with themselves, especially on the left. We are on all sides caught in this never ending ego driven need to be definitively right, to be vindicated, to WIN the argument. We need to drop the EGO and have a civil discussion on how we CAN move forward together instead of just holding each other back at every step up we encounter. In order for this to happen the first step is the “snowflakes” need to get over their Political Correctness and the “deplorables” need to get over their Nationalism. Political Correctness and Nationalism have both served equally to castrate Critical Thinking on their respective sides of the aisle. Oh and we need to get rid of the aisle.

You are NOT LEFT.

You are NOT RIGHT.

You are the innumerable constantly changing aspects of your personality and your worth is defined solely by your actions EACH DAY. Every single day brings a new opportunity for you to express your absolute best to the world. You do not need to be BETTER then anyone else. Just be the best you that you can and the world will love you for it. Well a sane world would. That’s my goal. A sane world in direct opposition to the cockamamie lunacy we except as normal currently. No free passes for being Black, White, Asian, Latino, Gay, Straight, Male, Female, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Democrat, or Republican etc. etc. . These are all among the labels of Identity Politics and have nothing in reality to do with who YOU are as a HUMAN BEING.

It’s not that any ONE of us needs to start behaving like THEY ARE a human being but rather WE ALL need to start behaving like EVERYONE ELSE AROUND US is a human being as well, REGARDLESS of their biological, political, religious, or economic status.