It doesn't matter if it's paper or plastic. When it's contaminated by politics, we won't touch it
The ranks of Occupy Seattle doubled July 1 when tens of thousands people discovered the grocery store in their neighborhood wouldn’t bag their purchases in free plastic anymore.
Conspiracy theories raced through the community as people tried to understand the new rules. Conservative Seattle voters blamed Obama, noting that the lack of plastic bags plays into the hands of the hemp lobby — and we all know Obama inhaled.
But the majority of Seattleites, being well to the left of John Lennon (who liked Reagan), knew that the reason the grocery stores were not providing plastic bags was because the grocery corporations are evil, man.
Three days later on July 4th, the day of our great nation’s freedom, by gosh, I waited in a huge line at the checkout of my local supermarket. This is what I witnessed: A man, absent-mindedly entering his debit card code to pay for his groceries. The cashier says, “Do you want a bag?” He says, “Sure.”
She whips out a paper bag, swipes it to add a nickel charge. She tells him it’s five cents.
He says, ”Huh? I don’t want it then.”
So she puts the bag back, takes the nickel charge back off his total. She tells him what his groceries cost and he punches his okie dokie in to the machine. He gets his receipt, and now there’s a stand-off.
“Don’t I get a bag?”
“You said you didn’t want the bag.”
“Oh.”
A light dawns — it’s distant and feeble, but I can still see it from several feet back. I imagine I can also see light through his head. There’s a distant “clunk” sound, possibly the sound of a neuron registering.
“But I can’t carry it without a bag.”
“So you want the bag after all?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
So she adds the bag charge again. He has to re-punch his okie dokie, and this time he goes through with it and takes his groceries away bagged in paper. And now, that having been accomplished — this is the world I live in, this is why I don’t sing happy songs about tulips and butterflies and puppies all day long, why I walk with a limp and avoid public places, why I know the Higgs Boson hates me — the next person in front of the cashier answers the question, “Do you want a bag?” with “Sure.”
And it all starts over.
Why do people ignore politics? How stupid is that? I’ll tell you how stupid that is. That’s what I’m here for.
It’s stupid to ignore politics, because politics belongs to you. Politics is your power. You want power don’t you? Don’t you?
If you don’t want power, why don’t you just die and get out of my checkout line? What’s the point of you being in the way?
The politicians want to bore you with politics. Failing that, they want to make you sick of it. Why? They want power and know that power can only be had through politics. If you think politics is so dirty and detestable that you won’t touch it, they’ll have it all to themselves.