It's an hour before I realize that I'm not alone in the flat. Julian awakes, and slides his door open casually with a spat "good morning" and glazed eyes before taking a shower. Next thing I know, he's out in the kitchen again and smartly dressed with a bag of groceries and a baguette from the market downstairs, and he asks me if I'd like some salad and coffee. Uhm, why yes, of course I would. How kind of him to offer. He is always too generous and eager to speak things out in English with me. I'm happy to oblige. I ask him if he has work today. "Non, not untel Monday, do I have." Lovely. Julian is a lawyer, and a bit older than I (Il a vingt-six ans), and just yesterday he penned his name on the contract of a new job. He had worked at a firm in Luxembourg before, but he told me it wasn't for him. "Et was a firm for bez-nus law and we, em, dalt with de financial markets and things like this. Et es very complicated, I think. But you are en economics, yes?"
"I studied it, yes. And it's complicated, for sure. Securities and the financial markets are crazy, from what I gathered in university anyways." "And wot do you think about all this craziness now? On your Wall Street, and in the world and these things" Oh, Julian. Such a man of intellectual resolve. A lot of times I may find things like this difficult to talk about, not necessarily in an awkward way, but it can be hard at times to find the right words and thoughts and string them together for a someone to understand coherently, I think. Julian knew the catalyst though (a bit of French wisdom, I suppose), and espresso in hand we dive in and the keyboard's all but forgotten. I tell him it's a fundamental problem with government and power (money) and the media. "Lobbyists? You know this term?" "Ouai, I know et. They ore those peple that work for the coompanies and talk to government and present de point off view of the company, to persuade, I know this. We 'ave this en France." Yes, so he knows. So I explain the best I can in that caffeine-fueled way how, in my mind at least, our government works in such respects. And I feel myself rambling a little now, bumping off down this road, but Julian is right there with me, hanging on to every word, analyzing, making himself understand. I tell him of the corporations behind the lobbyists, and the money. And how in America persuasion is more done with money than with words. And it is like this that many policies are made, with politicians' "best interests" in mind. The problem is that these interest are no longer the people they represent, but the corporations that sponsor them.
"And in Europe?" And he tells me their problems. He tells me about Greece and the Papandreau and the referendum and the financial markets. He tells me of all those little differences between countries, their taxes, their societies, and how so many of them fall under the currency of the Euro and all the inequalities in business (with the smaller, low- tax countries, like the tiny state in London) this created for Europe. But at the same time it made things easier as well. And so it is this give and take, he says. "Just like with ouwr governments. We 'ave a very socialist government 'ere in France." I knew, but not well, so he told me. He told me of the swings of power between the Conservatives and the Liberals. The injustices he sees, and he shows me video of the manifestos and the protests over the retirement age being raised, and I think to myself, "same shit, different country I guess." On the Facebook I see pictures from friends at the General Strike at the Port of Oakland. But it's not the same kind of shit, really. It's different. Our shit's on a hamburger, and their's is served at Cafe Constant. And we have nothing to do but dig in with fork and with ketchup for the sake of our sanity, to keep trudging along on towards that uncertain future with the clouds menacing before us. "Et is impossible for et to go on much longer like thes, I think. 'Dere will be a change."
Will there? I'm not so sure I tell him. With caffeine pumping through my heart, the mind holds onto everything, and every thought becomes something to be over-analyzed behind the eye. It's happening now. I tell him, that bringing change in the West isn't what it used to be. Social upsets and events of importance to enact anything of the sort is lost in our never-ending cycle of news. Our new, short attention span. We are hypnotized now. Subdued. Ultimately submissive. And it's from no Alduous Huxeley government drug, but still, he had the right idea. The media controls us all. It tells us everything we know, it makes us forget what they want us to. Who? Why, the corporations that own it, of course. And from this we are lazier than ever, we've evolved technology to point that we don't have to think anymore. It's all too easy now, all at our fingers, and we only need to ask the question, and if not that, just enough new links to click on so the screen refreshes to new things meaningless, for us to glaze over and dismiss. And heaven forbid it should not refresh quick enough. Lazy and irritable. And soon we'll all just be talking to Siri. Human interaction is so over-rated. (Ha! Said the boy behind the keyboard. All alone in this strange canyon of a city, in this flat with cold floors with only a bare bulb for light and a plastic-corked Cab for companionship.)
I've lost myself. Ah, yes. Let me pick it up. Julian talks about the protests in Paris and how so much of a French thing this is. "'Dey don't 'ave this en Germany, for example. Et es a French thing, I think" He's is impressed by (or maybe it's just a curious intrigue of) this American occupation of it's financial district. "And what do you think of et?" Hmm, what do I think? Well, I have to think for a moment. It's useless, I tell him. And it's a shame, but it's true. What they're doing now won't change anything. Julian's taken aback, it seems. "The protests last month over the retirement age, how long was it?" "Ehm... like three or four weeks maybe. Et was huge with so many peple." "Yes, but did they change the age?" He pauses for a second and looks down, "Non." C'est la meme chose. Simply protesting never does anything. It is something that will never bring change in the West. There needs to be more, a catalyst, or what's more, a leader, someone to hold the flame to the fumes and unafraid of the risks. In the Middle East, violence was that catalyst. Things in America will never change like that. Our government's too smart for such follies, and it's not protecting a regime legacy. They just let their children have their tantrum and burn off their steam. It's so easy for them, to just sit and endure, and ridicule us as stupid youths. And we're too afraid for violence anyways. Courage over in Arabia is a different thing altogether. Lives are on the line when it comes to these things. That is a bravery and a determination unknown to our pampered American civilianship.
No, our catalyst is dialogue. It's the only one we have (that I can think of at the moment anyways). I think back. There have been countless movements, protests, riots, and the lick over the last fifty years. But what's become of them? I can't remember, and I don't think it matters really. The last time a public movement in America directly influenced government policy hadn't been for some time, I believe. There's just one I can really anchor on. It was an issue of social relevance and grave injustice, a movement for civil rights. And it's leader was fearless. And peaceful. A strong orator, who held onto people's hearts, and wrung the soul dry of all the prejudice, or at least tried to. It was a thing he truly believed in, and gave his life to it. "For change to occur," I tell Julian, "Someone's going to have to rise up from that mass and lead. They need a leader like Martin Luther King Jr. But I don't thinks there's anyone out there like that now. Someone to gather his congregation and march. Put foot to pavement like in the good ole' days. March to the capitol where our representatives reside. Those old, callous individuals that govern us from lofty Hill. There needs to be someone strong to lead the charge down that road from New York to DC like a lightning rod and depolarize the stalemate. Someone to walk up those steps, turn around, face the nation, and pour his/her soul out with a loud and demanding call for justice and hope for the future. Anything to light a fire under those old weather-bags, to break that gripping spell of party loyalty and open their eyes to what's really best for the three hundred million people they're responsible for." It's no easy feat. Julian agrees.
