2006-06-25 - 3:42 p.m.
It was difficult to watch her being converted. At first she would fight the rules, sasheying down the halls carefree and loving. Then they instituted the policies, a policy for every occasion, she became angry, complaining and overworked, her brain numbed by repetition. Soon she began to fit the mold, the complaints became less frequent, instead of testing the waters, poking for the like-minded, before she knew it, she was a warden of these waters.
As they instituted policy after policy, excercises in repetition, slicing away the final traces of peculiarity, the survival of the organization became all that mattered. Prisoners were commiting suicide in their individual cells, using whatever was available
It was at this point that the single most demonizing thing you could call a person was a "flip-flopper." To be somebody who was uncertain, who didn't have a vision was to be of unreputable character. It was also at this time that the other worst thing you could be called was "unpatriotic."
You began to hear arguments among analysists of elected thieves P.A. #1 says "The Senator from Vermont is a philanderer, child-molester, he is a notorious self-promoter, he is also unpatriotic." P.A. #2 "He is certainly a convicted child-molester but I don't think we should go so far as to say the senator from Vermont is unpatriotic, this is a guy who was in the National Guard after all.
Spoke to an Army soldier the other day, leaving for his third tour. He said funding is so tight that they are getting short on food also repairs for equipment has been a problem for quite some time.
He said he didn't want to go at all, last time he was shot at and it had scared him. He was afraid of being court-martialled. He said he would be put into some type of military jail and that it would be difficult for him to find a job after the army, it would be on his "permanent record."
It's just like at most places of work. People are afraid to do or not do things because "they are watching." When you inquire as to who is watching and how exactly they are doing the watching, you never get a substantial answer. Everybody has a different answer as to how late you can be and how many times you can be late. You can only make x amount of mistakes on the paperwork in x time, otherwise "they" will can you. As to the strictness of the numbers, nobody knows.
I have often heard that or maybe just once heard from a Foucault book or somebody talking about Foucault books, that he said institutions tend to mimic each other. The other day, the background of these thoughts came into focus for me. I was watching a little black boy playing with his mother on an elementary playground, it was all fenced in, the baskbetball nets themselves were a metal mesh. The surrounding fence was a step away from consantina wire. The school had hardly any windows, only in the cafeteria. The elementary school suddenly looked like a prison to me.
