GreenCount

In a moment of Samuel Jacksonness, Obama said he is searching for "whose ass to kick." Yea, he said that in an interview. Wasn't it Spike Lee who said that Obama should be more vocal? That was two weeks ago or something. If anacondas turn up on Air Force One, I think I know exactly what he'll say.

1. "Isn't going green a fad?"
Going green is like dieting, being frugal or filling out your census form*. They're good things to do. They've ALWAYS been good things to do (ever since the first caveman realized, "Fuck. Me fat. Me work out and eat good now so me can get caveguidette at sand-water this summer"), and yet we Americans can't quite get it. Going green - whose synonyms include "being environmentally responsible," "not being an asshole and properly disposing of your batteries and electronics so their shit don't seep into the ground and water and fuck up the fish that I feed my kids" and "killing the lights you don't need so you don't have to pay for power that you waste" - is not a fad. It's only becoming a big deal now because in the Industrial Revolution, when factories and all that shit were coming up, the planet could kinda handle the smoke, fog, smog, and other Los Angeles-native pollutants. We've been doing that for a couple hundred years now, and today in 2010, we're starting to feel it. That's why you have these people (you may know them as "tree huggers," "hippies," "hipsters," "Al Gore" etc.) who are out there with their grassroots movements and their initiatives and their shit. It wouldn't have worked 60 years ago because everything felt fine. It snowed in the winter and it was hot in the summer. How bout the shit that's going on now? It snowed in April of 2006 in New Jersey. I spent last Christmas Eve checking out hot girls at the beach with a set of binoculars in 80 degree weather. I spent Christmas Morning getting emergency binocular removal surgery at a proctologist's office. Alas, such is life.

2. "Global warming is a myth."
Maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but that doesn't mean you go back to doing the dumb shit you're doing now. Say you smoke, and you go in for a checkup, and the doctor says, your lungs look like the Taco Bell I left in the toilet, BUT! you don't have cancer. So you say woohoo! And go home and smoke some more. That's an intelligent thing to do. Call it global warming, call it climate change, or !xobile, YVAN EHT NIOJ, "oil gusher," "skeet," whatever title you want to give it. The planet gets fucked up every day, and it's been getting fucked up every day, ever since a cow farted and released methane into the environment. At least try to make this place last a LITTLE longer so your grandkids can enjoy it, or help buy some time because you never know if or when a solution will be discovered. Or maybe we'll just up and fly to Mars. Shit, I don't know. Every green hipster out there strives for a mix of these things: stop the problem, slow the problem, buy time. Imagine it's 2150, and the planet is even more fucked up than it already is. How do you explain that? A bunch of pricks thought it wasn't a big deal, so they kept doing their shit, and they died in general comfort, as did the generation after them. But it gradually got worse and worse and when people finally realized what was happening, it was too late. Too bad =( Alas, such is life.

3. "Oh I'm not interested in the Census."
The Census means money. Some 8 million people live in NYC, as far as anyone knows. Say the census data come in and the magic number is 5 million. NYC is going to get 5 million persons' worth of funding for their hospitals, roads, AA programs, schools, MTA, all that SHIT. You blow off the census and you ---- yourself in the ass for the next ten years. Some people like to turn away the form and the enumerators etc in a bid to protect themselves and their privacy. What privacy do you think you have? If Uncle Sam really wanted to, he could wiretap your phones and smash his way into your email in a heartbeat. Slamming the door and saying, muahaha, they'll never know that four people live here! isn't quite the same as sticking it to the man.

There are totally some problems with how the 2010 census was and is being conducted. Well, it's the government. Get over it. They're not gonna quit. You're under their auspices, and if you don't like it, you can go to Montreal or Tijuana. Sometimes you just gotta put up with shit. You should always be critical and questioning, but in constructive ways. Slamming the door in a government worker's face (when she's trying to throw you a friggin' bone) is akin to some college kid in California flipping over a car and setting the engine block on fire because his tuition increased. Also, census workers don't have badges or fancy suits or 9mms, so it's easy to turn them away. But the census is a mandatory thing. You wouldn't tell ATF you're "not interested" when they pull the door off your house at 11pm, and you wouldn't put "refused, return to sender" on a tax form and mail it in. If people keep ducking it's not going to stop until some really unnecessary legal shit goes down. Alas, such is life.

4. "Collective action fail"
Few believe in the power of one, and it's seriously fucking this country over. Don't nobody vote. People think, I'm one person, what difference am I gonna make?

FACT: You ARE one person. Your vote probably will NOT be the deciding factor in young (relatively) black guy or old white guy in the oval office.

FACT: When millions of people think this way, bad things happen.

FACT: Millions of Americans DO think this way, and bad things DO happen. For example, a black guy becomes president and a bunch of people are all, WHAT THE FUCK. THAT'S BULLSHIT. I DON'T WANT SOME (reeeeee) IN THAT THERE CIRCLE OFFICE (it's actually an oval). Well, did you vote? Oh. And you're upset. Right, okay.

FACT: Every little thing counts. I realize this contradicts F1, but that's only because I didn't mention when lots of "one person"s come together to do shit, you get results. Weird, right?

Collective action fail, as I've lazily pieced together, means something needs to be done but all the participants think, naw, fuck that shit, somebody else will do it so I don't have to.

There are a million things wrong in the world right now. Israeli commandos are storming love boats, BP oil is spilling into the Gulf, a North Korean striker promised "a goal a game" in the World Cup . . . . how the hell are we supposed to fix any of that if we can't even find it in ourselves to matter worth a damn? Jesus.