With No Direction Home, America is a Rolling Stone. How Does it Feel?
I’ve been wanting to write this article for the past ten years, so strap in. We’re going on a long car ride to a new home —might even take in some scenery together and cross a bridge or two. Clear some time if you want to come with.
It’s probable that most of our readers are now old enough to remember when politics, in both the personal and grander sense, did not weave itself through our lives and touch almost all aspects of social interactions as it does now. Unfortunately, we now live in a world where politics is one of the preferred go-to topics of entertainment and interpersonal communications. The problem with subjugating life in favor of the daily political hand-wringing that divides us rather than uniting us is that we are no longer arbiters or sovereigns of our own hijacked happiness. We now serve a system of cruel intent set up to pit us against one another to fill the capital and capitol coffers. We now live in a society of communications bamboozling and conveyor belt thought pregnancy, replete with elaborate and insidious techniques of deception and psychological manipulation geared towards disorienting our foundation and depriving us of our perspective.
We willingly let these predators (whose whole plight is to exploit us through commercialized ideological division) treat politics as a victory-above-all-else proposition designed to break us down to the point that we forget that there is far more that unites us as a country than divides us. These harpies and their life-sucking vehicles (whether an entity or platform that financially benefits from partition machinations, or the political agents that embrace unlinking of America as a means to exerting a death grip on clout, abundance and riches) overheat and undermine America’s foundational ideals and the sense of fair play in politics with bombastic rhetoric. The phenomenon seems to have taken on a life of its own, and it is threatening the nation’s capacity to solve critical problems, from employment to energy to entitlements to education. And we let it happen with eyes wide shut.
The whole politi-tainment industrial complex, its caustic spin-doctors, and its disassociated, ruptured and unyoking elected representative instruments have poisoned our American governance system at all levels in order to promote the artform of resentful and estrangement politics in this country. Long before COVID-19 we were infected with a contagious and demoralizing disease that debased our core values, bastardized our relationships, and rotted the partnership of who we are as Americans and what we stand for. The politi-tainment industrial complex and the elected officials who play their sick games present us with a false-dilemma that combines lies and half-truths in order to force us to choose between becoming belabored integrity-based civics field workers, or tolerating a virtual reality so incomplete that it leaves its viewers or voters as dupes too misinformed to fulfill their most basic responsibilities as citizens to make informed choices about the direction of the country.
The disease the politi-tainment industrial complex has perpetrated is the strain of cognitive tribalism where Americans trust that believing is a requirement to belonging; that they should embrace their urge to connect with a community even if it means subordinating their quests for truth or fighting for principles not incorporated by the tribe. Policy making in America now operates in a realm of theatric superficial confrontations, where provisional victory is paramount, “compromise” is a dirty word, and virtually any issue or development can become armament for bashing the other side. This cognitive tribalism and its purveyors have poisoned us to the point where we are lost as a country. Lost. LOST.
Whether you are a Republican, Democrat or Non-Party Affiliated, or right, middle, or left leaning in governance philosophy, you are a stooge or a shill. It does not matter whose box you filled in on your ballot, you are a sucker. It doesn’t matter where you get your information at, you are a rube. At least that’s the way our system thinks of you and treats you. And, in all likelihood, you have either coddled it or humored it. Sadly, I know I have. We were always the target, and this system rarely misses its mark.
Every single one of us have become victims to the con game that is predicated on the committed, market-tested business model that our citizens will electively choose to self-destruct through selecting the path of least resistance and tribalism. The politi-tainment industrial complex and partisan ideologues know that because humans are relational beings, we seek out connections. These affiliations we possess, such as our favorite sports team, our religion, or even our gender, govern how we perceive the words and actions of others, thus making it more difficult to see eye to eye. They seize this instinct and always present issues as an us-versus-them proposition. By subdividing us into groups, these vultures know that they can make the powerless feel more powerful within the larger identity. As the focus of an annexed populace grows on its reduced and divided tribe, the more likely it is to accept the validity of an untruth that paints those outside the group in a negative light. The final goal of this gaslighting long-game grift is to create dependency on the abuser. When people are paranoid, angry and distrust one another, the tribe becomes an anchor of belonging and certainty. Confidence tricks succeed because they induce judgment errors, namely errors arising from imperfect information and cognitive biases. The system and its swindlers exploit our human vulnerabilities.
There is a song I’ve loved nearly all of my life that perfectly explains who we are as a country right now, and the feeling that we all should feel from being sitting duck plot devices in the shell game of politi-tainment that is callous to all collateral damage. To put it succinctly, we are all Miss Lonely in Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone. The song at its core is about delusion and congruity, as taught through a precept about deception and truth. The song repeatedly describes ways in which the bourgeois woman (Miss Lonely) failed to see what was really going on around her. She never saw the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns placed there to entertain or distract her. She thought that people were joking when they said she was heading for torment and ruination, because she couldn’t conceive that she would ever be forced to live a life that didn’t include overabundances and decadence. She failed to realize that the diplomat who carried a Siamese cat was leveraging her, and so on. The song is indeed sinister, as the specter of demise is always in reach of out-of-touch Miss Lonely. Like a Rolling Stone forecasts a fall from grace enveloped with unsettling hopelessness for those who are unaware of what is going on around them. Sound familiar, Miss Lonely?
What makes Like A Rolling Stone so illuminating is that it is more than just a character sketch, more than just a scornful procès-verbal; in a melodic case study, there is histrionic migration: the unenlightened woman who has been oblivious has experienced tangible descent in order to experience intangible ascent. From that experience, she has an opportunity to change, to absorb, to amend, to transform. Luminously, each verse describes one more experience from which Miss Lonely might learn, takes Miss Lonely to the edge of enlightenment, asks the vital questions whose answers would provide persuasion, then… stops, begins again, and repeats the process. The audience is left to wonder how it feels to be Miss Lonely.
Ahh you've gone to the finest schools, alright Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
Nobody's ever taught you how to live out on the street
And now you're gonna have to get used to it
You say you never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And say do you want to make a deal?
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
A complete unknown, like a rolling stone
As Miss Lonely, we Americans who have all the finest schools and all the finest things aren’t prepared to get off our high horses and accept the reality of what is going on around us yet. As a society, we are approaching American governance with a certain childish, simplistic approach to life, apparently thinking that everything around us is placed there solely for our own amusement. Because we’re juiced in it. We aren’t yet prepared to accept that we have devolved into intellectual prostitution to the empty-eyed grifter wolves who purport to provide us a service or product that isn’t really designed to help us. Yet, we are the ones who are still asking them, “Do you want to make a deal?” Why? They aren’t giving us solutions. They are not selling us any alibis. How does it feel?
Ah you never turned around to see the frowns
On the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you
You never understood that it ain't no good
You shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you
You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain't it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn't where it's at
After he took from you everything he could steal
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To have on your own, with no direction home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
This expression, “like a rolling stone,” that contextually meant a lack of material possessions, but metaphorically meant an aimless vessel for Miss Lonely is where we are as a country. The allure of easy-fix, feel-good-in-the-moment tribalism has enslaved us to the point where it has made our perspective for sale to the self-serving politi-tainment industrial complex jugglers and clowns who blur our vision, dull our senses, and surmount our defenses in order to asphyxiate our unifying potential. We are no longer equipped to deal with these dangerous hucksters, hustlers and vagabonds haunting our every step and trying to exploit us. Every time we flip on a TV, pick up a phone or turn on a radio, we encounter these chrome horse diplomat personages and have no idea how to deal with them because we have yet to discover that they are taking from us everything they can steal. As Miss Lonely, we should all be able to understand how the bygone reversal of fortune of one woman can predict the imminent transformation of a country. Our innocence is long lost, and we are all set to live with the inexorable reality that the myths, props and false belief systems the politi-tainment industrial complex has imparted for at least a decade. Dylan’s poetry should call us to seek an answer to the question, “How does it feel?” But we just can’t seem to liberate ourselves from our position and our place long enough to ask the question, let alone answer it. As a society we are unable to see through the deceit and illusion around us, and unable to achieve that assembled, transcendent vision that can only be bestowed by demanding ethically faithful and professionally responsible media and elected leaders.
Looking into Like A Rolling Stone is like looking into Harry Potter’s magical Mirror of Erised, since it also shows us the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. In this song lies a great lesson about our American values and temptations, our collective search for greater meaning, and the dangers of our smutty, facile disenfranchisement delivered at the hand of the politi-tainment industrial complex and its executioners. As a country, the awakening of self-realization is all that stands in our way. Instead of circling a roundabout, we need to see this moment right now as a true crossroads. Can we find our direction home?
Ahh princess on a steeple and all the pretty people
They're all drinking, thinking that they've got it made
Exchanging all precious gifts
But you better take your diamond ring, you better pawn it babe
You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him he calls you, you can't refuse
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal
How does it feel, ah how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone
When you are a kid that comes from the background I come from, the line “when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose” means something to you. It causes me to clench my teeth when I hear it. Because its true. I know how it feels. This world has its way of stripping us all down to the studs so many times in life because life is hard. And it isn’t fair. And it really hurts like hell sometimes. But if you focus on what is within your power to change for the better, you can. And you will. And that is where I have a problem with the “pretty people” of the politi-tainment industrial complex who try to turn our plight into a game of blaming others for our own shortcomings or frailties. The machine has programed us to criticize others so that we avoid truths about ourselves and give up our power to change. The cognitive tribalism enables us to excuse ourselves while blaming others. To point fingers with unclean hands. To blame society instead of acknowledging that we are society.
The business side of media and politics does all of this for their gain, not ours. As willing participants in this process, when will we start setting limits on how much more we are willing take? I’d suggest it start soon, because we know that the politi-tainment industrial complex and its beneficiaries won’t set be in the boundary setting business anytime soon. They don’t care about patriotism, humanitarianism or anything that helps promote goodwill. They double-deal in informational distraction and racketeering like a gang of ruffians running a cutthroat loan-sharking enterprise. They don’t care about Miss Lonely, so as Miss Lonely we must stop empowering them. We have to stop crossing oceans for people and institutions that would not jump puddles for us. They have only cut our hands off because we handed them the scissors. It must stop. We, as a democratic republic, cannot survive such consequences-be-damned, winner-take-all, law-and-facts-don’t-matter politics. We need some direction home.
What the divisive cognitive tribalism promoted by the politi-tainment industrial complex fails to tell us is that we’ll never live a full life without love for one another. Being “amused” by a superficial short-term belonging is not the way to “[have] it made.” Having it made is not taking the alluring “precious gifts” from the “pretty people” who want to offer us a manufactured cultural identity that fits their profit and power purpose. Rather, having it made is having the strength to be true to yourself and true to the honest human nature to love and help one another that exists in each of us. If the complex would spend more time telling us that it takes both sides to build a bridge, then perhaps our country could get back to building more of the literal and figurative bridges that epitomize the U.S.A. from sea to shining sea. Anyone who has traveled the literal or figurative roads of America knows that Americans build bridges that are majestic; they are hard to cross, but they sure do lead you to some extraordinary places. Can the next bridge we build together be on our path home?
Like a Rolling Stone can, and should, be seen as a warning about the dangers of living pointlessly, going along with the crowd (aka the complex), and not treating others appropriately. We are all Miss Lonely, the frivolous society girl who is set to fall from our tribal pedestal but equipped with crutches to pick ourselves up. The chorus continually reminds us that we’re “like a rolling stone.” On one level this implies that our Miss Lonely life is going ever faster downhill, but on another it reminds us of the proverb ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss.’ This tells us there are benefits to being on the move. If we keep moving, we will not be destroyed by the mind-numbing pitches of the politi-tainment industrial complex that tells us what to think and who to like. As Miss Lonely, we might deserve this fate, but we’re not invisible yet. Our induced dissonance is our biggest secret that is left to reveal, and one that will lift restraints on our progress as a harmonious society. We need to recognize it, own it and move past it. We can then exert our power of freewill and make a choice to fight this grift of cognitive tribalism.
We have to commit to preserving the integrity of the political, legal and democratic processes by ensuring we have an informed mass willing and able to overcome the unremitting tests of democratic governance. There’s nothing wrong with competing views of life or lifestyle, or the role and methods of government in running our country. Civil discourse has served the United States well in the past. For the discussion to prove constructive, however, we have to put the health of the democracy first. When we stand up to the divisiveness and embrace each other, we will reject cognitive tribalism and recover this country. Then we can ask them “how does it feel?”