I'm sure you've heard it said, "He's a shady character," meaning the person was something less than honest.  Perhaps the person in the spotlight for a moment is an outright criminal, or better yet the reference might be directed at someone who just works around the borders of criminality.  We've always been able to identify politicians as potential shady characters, since the profession breeds so many of them.  Then there's car salesmen, building contractors, preachers, lawyers, doctors, morticians, house siding salesmen, telemarketers, priests, insurance salesmen, and on and on and on.  In fact, there's hardly an occupation in America where you can't find shady characters, and sometimes the pop up in places you'd least expect them - like in the child care business, the retirement home business, the police, and especially in religious organizations.  But they are there, and life in this day in age is pretty much a story of how to deal with them.

Some my left wing friends blame it all on the capitalist system we live under, but that's a cop out.  We'd have it regardless of what kind of economic system we employed because there's a dark side in all of us, and that dark side seems to come forefront in people who have worked themselves into positions of power.  Yes, it's true that almost all business in America is shady, less than honest.  Yes, it's true that government is likewise just as shady, perhaps even more so because that's where the problem starts.  And yes, it's true that the people we should be able to turn to in teaching us how to deal with the shady parts of life are shady themselves - like education, religion, the community, and even family.  If being shady is a sign of deteriorating ethics and morality, then we've got a serious case of it.  I'm not quite pessimistic enough to think we've all gone to hell in a bucket of greed and self-centeredness, but I think we've damn sure bought the ticket.  In other words, we're already in the bucket waiting on high tide to take us straight out to sea . . . and partner, this is a sea of pure shit that some folks call hell. 

I've done shady areas a disservice here by equating them with dishonesty, and that's not always the case by a long shot.  Many of the worthwhile things in life are shady, but not in an ethical sense.  What I'm trying to do here is make a point that we can't ignore the shady designs that are made by the less than honest people around us.  And within that central point, there's another that must be made: These people who design shady politics, business, religion, and so forth do so because that's what we have come to expect from them.  They do it because that's what we have shown them in ourselves - a tendency to respond positively to shady deals.  In other words, the prey upon our dishonesty, our greed, our shady side.  It's a classic example of target marketing.  They identified us, saw what we were likey to respond to, and then gave it to us.  If you're getting a load of shit delivered to your front door every day, it's more than likely because you ask for it.

Now, hold on a minute, Mr. Penumbra Man.  It's sounds to me like you're trying to dump a load of shit on me right now . . . and I didn't ask for it.  As a matter of fact, I've never one time ask for it, so where do you get off blaming me for all the shit that gets dumped on me?  Is that what you're thinking?  Well, if not, that's exactly what  you should think.  None of us wittingly asked to be dumped on, but we do it in other ways.  We do it by example, for instance, because all a shady dealer has to do is observe us, and he knows exactly where to deliver the shit.   He's got  your number.  He knows where you live.  He knows better than you what you want.  

Nobody wants a load of shit in their front yard, right?  I know for sure that I don't, but I've got one anyway.  It's invisible, but it still stinks.  It got dumped on me by unscrupulous medical practitioners, lousy insurance companies, tax assessors and collectors, politicians, doctors, and just about anybody I've had to deal with.  The biggest piles of shit come from the very government I'm forced to live under, or from some mega business outfit making big bucks off things you can't live without - like medications that keep you alive.  We are all victimized by these shady characters, these dark design people . . . and we always have been.  This is nothing new.  They've been around since  . . . well, since that chickenshit snake talked Eve into putting the pressure on Adam to eat that apple.  

I don't believe for a second that the apple story every happened, but it's in the bible for a good reason.  Like many things there, we find some hidden messages of great importance in the bible, and in this case the message is:  Watch out for the snakes.  Keep you eye out for shady characters.  The message there certainly isn't that we should never trust a woman.  As a matter of fact, if I were a woman, I'd be pissed that I'd been selected as the first person in history to be taken in by a shady character.  I do believe that if God created us, then he knew we'd end up with some shady characters in our society.  The ability to be dark, to have shady spots in our character, is most probably by design, not oversight.  I'd hate to believe that my basic design was made by a Divinity that later looked down on me and said, "Well, crap!   I sure didn't see that coming."

As bad as I hate to admit it, we need the dark characters in our lives.  The problem is, we may be getting an overload of darkness at the present time.  Yes, we've always had them, but it seems that as of this moment we've just got too damn many of them.  We've got them in courthouses, statehouses, and in Washington.  We've got them on Wall Steet, in board rooms, and all across the economic spectrum.  And we've got them in schools, churches, clubhouses, and just about anywhere else you look . . . in abundance.  The piles of shit are getting bigger and the stench is greater than I can ever remember it being.  What we need around here is a massive clean-up, a wholesale restoration of the entire system.  In other words, we need to kick the bastards out.  We need to quit being good receptors for all their shit.

Yeah, well, that's easier said than done.  What can I do?  That's the big question, right?  Well, I've got an answer for that, and it's easy to see.  Stop giving these dark design people directions to your house.  Stop encouraging them, and the way to do that is to be more honest yourself.  It may seem like a little thing, but when a professional football player gets involved in dog fighting, he dumps shit on all of us.  When a self-righteous homophobic Senator turns out to be queer himself, that dumps more shit on us.  When a dumbass President and his band of cohort dark designers dump a needless war on us, that's a monumental pile of shit that's sure going to stink for a while.  Turn you back on these people.  Speak out against them.  That's how you send the message that you're no longer a shit dump.  

It's only metaphoric, but here's a wonderful thought for you.  Wouldn't it be great to have a big beach party where we could send all the dark designers out into that big sea of shit they've created?  Yeah, we could gather at the beach with some buckets and put all the people we'd shrunk down to size in it (we did this by turning our backs on them), then wait for high tide.  We could drink some beer, have some popcorn, then stuff all these tiny little formers heads of drug companies, politicians, greedy lawyers and doctors, asshole congresmen, priests who'd been buggering the choir boys, dog fighters, abusive parents, and bankrupt educators . . . all the people who've been dumping shit on us, and set them afloat in buckets headed straight for hell.

Do you like that idea?  I sure do.

PMC, 10/13/07