They promise us so many things, these men and women desirous of power. But you know, what most of them want is mean and mere: privilege, status, prestige, a transcendence of the law and wealth.
When I speak of smoldering heaps of privilege I speak of Joe Lieberman, say, or John McCain - people who can easily be satirized as neutered Roman senators whom Caesar allows to walk the halls of power - walk, and nothing more. And I hate to say this but, yes, I include Hillary Clinton in that category as well (albeit spayed in her case), because from where I stand and what I've seen I can easily see her (and Lieberman, and McCain):
- Salivating over "the invisible crown" (Reynolds) of privilege, the all-but kissing of the ring
- Dying ever-smaller deaths over the beatified realms promised status-wise via the American presidency...you are literally the world's honorary king/queen
- Clinging to the prestige of the office ahead of time ("My own library!" shrieks Hillary)
- Imagining the giddy, childlike joy of never really bothering with laws ever again...they don't apply to you no more
- Spending the money, the money, the money...
Fairly narcotic perks, no?
You have to love Jon Tester. His is a Martian's relation to the creatures listed above. He has absolutely nothing to do with them. But look at John Kerry. Look, and be curious...for...you feel status, and you feel privilege, and you do indeed feel the presence of wealth. The never wanting for anything. Yet you like the man, it's just that there's something troubled in that soul. Could it be the corrosive power of endless compromise? Whereas, when it comes to soul, wherefore Lieberman's? Or Hillary's? I don' t mean to be a bastard but hey, you have to wonder. You really have to ask the hardest questions in the threadbare places, of the things that don't want to answer.
My friend Reynolds, whom I quote regularly in my writings, always says it best, and I'll leave the final words to him, spoken last Thursday during a session for Crappy Jack's Mother, Save Yerself (Reynolds is a bass player). "Cheney, Bush, these guys know - at this moment; right now, in time, with our feet planted here - that they are set for life. They have nary a motherfucking care. Their families are gold, forever, amen. They shalt never want. Think on it. The rest of us naked idiots, there are no guarantees - and you might think, 'Well, obviously,' but understand, you take it as natural as the fucking elements that a person would agree there are no guarantees in life, but Dick Cheney motherfucking knows by fucking fuck that he will drink the finest wine the rest of his born days. And so will Lynne. And Liz and the grandchildren. And Bucky Bush will always be in the best whiskey, and no matter what Jeb's son does on the level of the illicit, he's godhead golden fucking son of the preacher man fucking Prince Hal at the plate, man...those motherfuckers know that it will all be gilded in the night sky, eating up the dark, shitting stars all over creation, young pussy and endless banknotes and toilets made of the finest, finest materials. They do not care about governing, and they never did. It was always another form of serfdom. You and I and them and those back there and these iPod-beholden cretins among us, we serve them, as is natural in their larger, more penetrating, fully psychic animal kingdom, where the big ones eat the little ones and the women always cum, amen, hallelujah."*
*Excerpted in its entirety because I felt that the least excision, even the removal of a comma, would warp Reynolds's singular, pinpointed anger on that day. His rage was used for the powers of good, however, when he played bass on the song mentioned above and kicked all known ass. Maybe, if we live through the scary Bushian night, we can meet on a sunlit field of day and listen to Reynolds's playing. But somehow, I just doubt that's gonna happen.