A sound of cornered-animal fear and hate and surrender and defiance . . . like the last sound the treed and shot and falling animal makes as the dogs get him, when he finally doesn’t care about anything but himself and his dying.
Ken Kesey (1935 – ) One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 1962
Poor Joe Stack, may he rest in peace, is already becoming a folk hero among the addled populist right wing, including the incredibly confused “Tea Party” crowd, who enshrine an ideology in which they imagine that each person should be “free” from “big government” to pursue his or her self interest. Yet their model of a society unfettered by “big government” can only create a predator-prey feeding chain in which a few big animals feed on the many smaller animals. This is exactly what we should expect to get when we cleave to the idea of free markets unfettered by government.
Yesterday Joe, who was neither insane nor crazy, only dazed, confused, thrashing and biting from his corner, got eaten.
In an unfettered free market, the relationship between predator and prey — hunter and hunted — is really not that difficult to understand.
Predators seek to create an uneven playing field by confusing and deceiving their prey. They hide in the tall grass. They camouflage themselves. They wait for the perfect moment. And when they spring their trap, they run their prey to ground by cutting off all avenues of escape, until their prey is cornered, confused, and just gives up.
In order to not decimate the herds they rely upon for sustainance, predators take down only a few, and then lie in wait again before their next feeding. They deceive their prey into thinking the danger is passed — the tranquil equilibrium of nature restored. Once the herd has forgotten the danger and goes back to its complacent foraging, the predator leaps from hiding and strikes again.
The predator relies on its ability to trick its prey into complacency by diverting attention and confusing it so that it cannot see the predator’s stalking patterns. Joe Stack was prey.
In his suicide manifesto, he tells us that his life has been spent trying to decipher the confusing patterns that predators have been using to feed on him.
He rails against government:
And corporations:
And the religious institutions:
And his CPA.
He explains how he tried to imitate the predators:
And ended up getting eaten.
Confused Joe ends his manifesto against big government, corporations, insurance companies, CPAs, and religions, with the strangest of juxtapositions.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed.”
Was he saying the communist creed is better than the capitalist’s? Was he saying they are both bad?
Cornered
In the end, poor Joe Stack was so totally confused and cornered by predators that he lashed out at whoever was closest. But the predators who assailed him were not big government. Our government is not a predator but it has been co-opted as a tool by the predators and they will continue to pervert our government so long as we allow it. Our government is US, and so long as we embrace the predator’s deception, that predator – prey is the way things ought to be, the predators among us will continue to sow the seeds of our confusion and will continue to feed on US.
It’s not difficult to get un-confused, once you understand that the problem is not government at all. The problem is that you are being suckered by predators who will use your government and everything else at their disposal to stay at the top of the feeding chain.
