This term has always vaguely puzzled me. Who/what is 'the man'? I ask this not to be a pain in the foot, nor as a pain in the far flung isles of Langerhans. Hargh, indeed. I am trying not to take myself too seriously, but here's my think:

To externalize this entity which we, the liberal-leaning or perhaps moderate yet peace-loving and greed-averse, refer to as 'the man', seems to be a dangerous practice. How many times are joints of decent and well-meaning marijuana passed around among well-meaning people, while someone rails against 'the man' momentarily, before going on to insist that the world will end in the year 2012, and is offended by those who wish to discuss this issue from the seat of detached examination rather than knee-jerk acceptance of the doom-edict because it has something to do with the Mayans, or was it the Aztecs, or some kinda hip peoples who were, despite their penchant for human sacrifice, cool?

>>Editor's note: This Cloud guy takes himself too damn seriously. He tries to act like an intellectual. He paints his truck with a paintbrush like a hillbilly houndwaxer, then composes sentences so twisted and parenthetical and scatterbrained that a perfectly calm aquatic ape would be driven to sporadic pacing through the shallow waters of the notional lakes which cover so much of the land mass of those famous far flung Isles of Langerhans! Do not be led astray by this Cloud charlatan! He has an agenda of some sort, no doubt a very devious one. He probably wants to be governor and repair bridges. But we need that new sports complex in Manayunk! Hargh! Why am I even editing this drivel? (End Editor's note)

I will make a bet with all comers that will be payable to me on December 31st 2013. I will bet anyone that the world will still not have experienced any pole shifts or huge tidal waves killing us all. If we are still alive and the phone lines are still operable, I win. I give the extra year as a show of good faith. If we are dead or the phone lines are not working due to catastrophic event(s), I lose. I will take as many of these bets as anyone is willing to make. Boy do I feel important.

As long as we are straying from the point, let me hasten to add that slang is an amazing machine which appears to be getting better all the time. Years ago a term came out that described someone feeling angry: feel some kind of way. To use the phrase in a sentence: "If you feel some kind of way about it, I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not, so get over it..." Yes, slang is an advanced form of communication. It inspires awe in me, and I’m serious about that.

Anyway, back to 'the man'. To me, 'the man' is not something external, but is instead the aggressive and greedy impulses that exist in all humans. Some people act on these greedy and aggressive impulses, which I believe are part of our genetic make-up due to the fact that we exist in space and time and need space to live and food to eat and so do our fellow creatures, thus the 'need?' for aggression and greed in some degree for survival. To externalize 'the man' is to slow the already incredibly slow process of human evolution, which is unlikely to outgrow aggression and warfare in the short time (short in evolutionary time, which is counted in millions of years, huge amounts of time for a change to take place) we have before an asteroid or comet or whatever the right term is hits our planet or before the bad element overly present in some humans causes mass extinction due to nuclear war or release of killer nano-bots, or ecological disaster caused by humanity or the natural cycles of the planet. But there is always the chance we will evolve beyond this tendency for warfare, probably requiring that we 'colonize' other planets so when earth is no longer hospitable we can still keep evolving. There's always that chance. Evolution is a pretty amazing phenom after all. Tends towards organization and survival. Survival ultimately means leaving war behind, now that we have nuclear weapons.

Thinking like a bumper sticker.

Anyway, I think 'the man' is a part of human nature, and that there is no conspiracy afoot to keep us all too busy to study history and politics. It is just the natural result of the greedy folks gaining more and more power and squeezing the workforce tighter and tighter and also of people spending their time watching the TV instead of reading and interacting.

WOW! I feel like some kind of smart dog now! Someone needs to bark at my theories and bring me down to earth. My head has swollen and is full of some kind of helium or something, and I am floating away, Help! Argue with me! Show me my errors! I am too full of self-importance and am floating away...

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