Walter Mosley

Table of Contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the following pages I refer to the ranks of the wealthy-elite as
the Joes
. I dub the rich with this pedestrian appellation because I do not see them, as individuals, as being different from anyone else—aside, that is, from the size of their bank accounts. In my opinion the rich, on the whole, are regular people with nothing special to recommend them—in essence, they're just regular Joes. They have simply found their slot on the roulette of history.

Some people are wealthy, others poor; but we are all folks. The mistake Marx made in
Capital
, I believe, was to refer to the rich man as Mr. Moneybags. The intonation of this term, in small but important ways,
removes the capitalist from the constructs of history that necessarily formed him just as surely as they created the poor woman, the slave, and the victims of colonization and industrialization. And so, I have degraded the name of the rich man so that we can see him as just another guy with certain privileges that he does not deserve.

This book is an exploration into the ways in which we are oppressed (along with the possibilities of overthrowing that tyranny) in our everyday lives. It is about conceiving of and implementing an intellectual revolution in this country, this land—a real revolution where power is wrenched from the hands of the ruling classes and taken into the embrace of the People as a whole.

My approach is simple. What I intend to do is explore the ways in which the systems and institutions of this nation place heavy loads and hidden addictions on our bodies and minds at the earliest possible age and then expect us to labor under these weights from childhood until the day we die. This minor treatise will also deal with the ways in which we are robbed of our
wealth and then exploited by the ensuing wealthy classes with the very products of our labor and our genius. The revolution I am recommending does not call for bloodshed or physical violence of any kind. But it will require steely resolve and for us to question beliefs as powerful as the old-time certainty that the world is flat.

 

It is possible even today for one to prove that the world we live upon is flat. All you have to do is take a child out onto a parking lot and place a carpenter's level on the asphalt showing that the little bubble aligns perfectly—proving that the earth we walk upon is a continual plane. What argument can the child make against this claim? Even if she gazes at the sky and wonders, the proof of an imperfect sphere hurtling through space is theoretical at best and most people believe it not because of their understanding of astronomical evidence but simply because they were told.

 

We are told many things; some of them are true, many are not.

With hand over heart I recited that thinly disguised prayer every morning in my elementary school and, later, in my junior high. I never questioned it—not once. I never doubted pledging loyalty to a flag raised too often in the name of imperialism; to a country that swears itself to the double standard of wealth and poverty; to a God that our own revolution says is up to the individual not the government; to an indivisibility that is black and white, brown and red, male and female, young and old, rich and poor, legal and illegal; to liberty in a nation founded upon slavery and genocide; and to justice where even the most conservative patriot knows that the best legal defense is a fat bank account.

We are not encouraged to question the basic lies grilled into us by rote in school. The world is round and everything else we are taught is true unless otherwise indicated.

 

I am an alcoholic.

For years in my late teens and early twenties I'd drink very close to a quart of whisky (or its equivalent)
almost every night. I'd imbibe until I was a stumbling, mumbling drunkard—a danger to myself and to others. Twice, I almost died from
accidents
I had while inebriated. And then one night, at the bottom of a deep ravine and lucky to be alive, I realized that I had to stop drinking.

There was no heartfelt drama or deep psychological cause for my addiction(s). I didn't lose my mother at an early age; nor was I thrown into prison for a crime I didn't commit. I didn't live in poverty so dire that I had to escape into alcoholism just to face the day.

No. I drank because there was a dull but consistent pain in my heart. I wanted to shut off the feeling of hopelessness that dogged me. My television and my teachers, newspapers, and employers informed me in ways both subtle and brazen that I was never going to climb out of the rabbit-warren of my life. I was told, and I believed, that I was always going to be an underachiever navigating the slow lane, never getting much beyond the starting line of a mundane life. If I wanted to laugh or love or just look up at the stars while taking in a deep, meaningful breath I had to be three sheets to the wind with a drink in my hand.

During the same span of time, and for much the same reasons, I was a heavy cigarette smoker. I sucked
down three packs of nonfiltered cigarettes every twenty-four hours. This was back in the day when you could smoke anywhere. I lit up in elevators and while sitting with my friends and their children. It was a rare moment when there wasn't a cigarette between my yellowed fingertips. I smoked in cars, classrooms, and cinemas. Once again—I was a danger to myself and to others.

These addictions, these obsessions, these allencompassing pastimes consumed me and made me a noxious hazard.

But I was lucky: I'm just as obsessive about not doing things as I am about doing them. I realized that I was destroying myself and that I was a threat to the health and security of others and so gave up my bad habits. I stopped drinking and then stopped smoking. It so happened that the pain of withdrawal made me feel just as alive as did the drugs. This pain, no longer dull and nagging but bright and threatening, fanned my desire to break away from the demands that made me a substance abuser in the first place.

 

When I suffered from alcoholism I sought out other alcoholics and lived in an insular world that supported my disease. This is the wont of addicts—we search out
people and places that make us feel normal, understood, even forgiven.

In the same way that I experienced my substance abuses many others of us suffer from another form of dependence: Americanism. This is not a physical drug but rather a system of ideas, and even ideals, that we crave, feel we need to make us whole and healthy. In order to imbibe this drug on a regular basis we have acquired great tolerance to lies, worldwide aggression, a completely integrated system of theft, and a monumental amount of pain and lifelong unhappiness.

Our drug is not a powder but a belief-system as absolute as any cult or mania.

We seek out other befuddled patriots and groups and live in an insular world that supports the notion of our righteousness even while our actions, beliefs, and attitudes are clear and present dangers to ourselves and every other living organism on the planet.

This
condition
seems to me to be the blockade keeping us from true political effectiveness and awareness. In order for us to come to a place where we can reap the benefits of our political responsibilities and human rights we must free ourselves from the emotional and economically based addictions that lay claim on almost every aspect of our lives.

And so I set out these twelve steps that if taken (to heart) might help us throw off the yoke of toil we strive under, opening a window onto a world that does not require us to be deaf to the cries of suffering, blind to crimes that are committed in our names, and silent about both these travesties.

Not all of these steps need to be taken in order. Some are
one-off
activities that can be achieved at almost any time along the way. But the first step must come where it is placed. Without this motion no other movement is possible.

T
his task is massive and ongoing, possibly neverending. We face so many problems as denizens (not citizens) of the modern world that getting a handle on the definitions and interconnections of our afflictions and addictions might be the greatest conundrum we ever face.

From our bank accounts to our so-called health care system we are continually dealing with issues that defy our control. We live with machinery that chronically breaks down, debt that magically multiplies, poisons
in the air and sea and earth, medical
care
that impoverishes us, and uncertain berths at jobs that slowly disintegrate our physical and mental well-being. We are fighting wars while feeling little patriotism and filling our prisons with millions of functional illiterates in a land that promises, no—legally requires—universal education.

We, most of us, live on the edge of poverty. Some own a home but can't afford food; others mortgage their property in order to eat, only to find that they may be evicted; many more move to the streets and are criminalized for the simple fact of their poverty. We drink to escape the thought of what we've become and are then arrested for our inebriation.