Where Is That Weasel Ben Franklin When We Need Him?
Because we need that kind of weasel now.
What do the words “our forefathers” mean? When they manifested life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they were war-torn, over-ambitious, and secretive; a pack of wild egos who hated each other. The virtuous picture of Whig scholars, inventors, and philosophers is a whitewashed portrayal of what it must have been like. Hot. Smelly. Smoky. Gross. That’s what I want to see — the carnage of arguments. Everyone has permission to read between the lines and believe what they want about the characters known as our forefathers.
For example, a smug Benjamin Franklin rests easy on a famous painting that depicts the signing of the Constitution. The Howard Christy piece hangs on the walls of the White House today. The truth is Benjamin Franklin was not at the Constitutional Convention. Yet, he sits smack dab right in the middle of that iconic piece of art.
After reading much about him, it seems like he was a slippery one. Aside from all his tireless efforts as a renaissance man, he had an ego the size of Alaska and loved to gossip. He was beholden to his image of superior intelligence and gutsy balls. He was a real man for the people and he moved a million miles a minute.
Ben Franklin weaseled his way into complicated relationships between the British and the Confederates because he was an elitist who wanted to be in the know, to be that guy, to be the one who cleverly carved the colonies away from British rule. He was a sneaky masterful architect of society and knew how to get stuff done. I’ll bet he was the king of humble bragging and claimed his rights because he did more in a day than three men combined.
This is not about Ben Franklin, the most arrogant and cunning of them all. It’s about what would a forefather like Ben Franklin do about a country so deconstructed as America. Let’s call that guy Frank Benlin. Would he buy up guns and storm the capital? Would he threaten his neighbors and friends who disagree with his politics? Would he terrorize people in his neighborhood who have signs for politicians he disagrees with? Probably not.
He’d probably organize with ordinary people to avoid politics all together and rationally come up with a decent plan for the public to dismantle corporate greed. He wouldn’t care about politics at all, totally disinterested in any fake mockery of power featured on news networks. He certainly would find hackers to tear down social- completely, forever, freeing good brains with good hearts from the bondage of conspiracies made up by people who have too much time to think and too little to live for.
Storming the capital would be the last thing on his mind. Organizing and intelligently planning effective long-term boycotts? Now you’re talking. A slow stop of port cities to wean from imports? Now we’re on to something.
That second amendment, what would he think about it now? He would be shocked people were so crazy about guns. Hell, even small pacifists and little hippies are secretly getting warm to cold guns, chilling ammunition, and physical protection against those who are openly armed to the teeth. A lot of people, regardless of beliefs, are ready or getting ready to lethally act on physical threats to them or their families. Frank Benlin would be able to convince people of the most obvious of facts: guns only make corporate control more powerful and sinister.
People buy guns and ammo for the illusion of protecting themselves against soldiers, cops, or whatever armed desperate neighbor that comes to their door to steal the last bushel of tomatoes from their backyard. Frank Benlin would devise healthy, deliberate, targeted plans to form unofficial local commonwealth-esque communities with no leaders that support each other in being self-sufficient to wean from corporate control.
Would it even be socialism if it has nothing to do with government and no central body or authoritative power? I guess. Kind of? Nobody cares if nobody is boss. Let it be bereft of ism. There is a common foe of corporate greed, and Frank Benlin would make sure everyone felt it in their bones to move away from it, even beloved Walmart.
Big pharma would be replaced with private labs run by R&D converts. Blue Cross Blue Shield would be out of business because doctors would strike and trade services with co-ops. Frank Benlin would know how to balance hard science with practical survival. It’d be glorious.
And if you think the government would intervene, remember — I’m talking about unofficial entities, not anti-states. Because these decentralized groups of smart, inspired people would construct peaceful communities of corporate bans, what could the US government do that wouldn’t be war crimes on its own people? It would be a slow painful death of capitalism into a new form of egalitarian existence. Frank Benlin would be that good.
The right is afraid of an Orwellian socialist government, leftists fear The Handmaid’s Tale, but the government isn’t coming for shoeboxes full of cash under the bed, bushels of tomatoes, for your property, for your uterus, or your guns. At this point, it’s other white people. People arm up for none other reason than to feel more in control, and Frank Benlin would talk citizens off that ledge with inventive solutions that nobody could say no to, even those obsessed with online forums and groupthink. There would be no reason for progressive folks to buy and register guns, learn how to use them, no need to stomach the thought of defending their homesteads, themselves and their children from this wildfire of small-scale greed. He would have mesmerizing instincts for dismantling large-scale supreme power and he would turn citizen heads that-a-way.
You may be thinking oh hell no, there are too many wealthy jerks to go along with such nonsense. How could people do this without help from corporate factories, large institutions with assets? Frank Benlin would be able to convert those who have so much money that they don’t know what money is into wild beasts of preservation. Factories would become solar punk catch-alls for the fabrication of complicated things only machines can make. Things like fiberglass, steel, electricity. Owners of those places would invite in the best and brightest and be proud to disconnect themselves from government. They would be centers of invention.
Frank Benlin would appeal to the wealthy’s darkest desires that have nothing to do with money. He would challenge them: what is the point of your wealth and power? What is it that millionaires to trillionaires want so bad that they are willing to shape and control entire societies to get it? Simple — they want personalized luxury and don’t want to be anywhere near certain death of life as we know it.
To avoid certain death of a dying planet, what power is more supreme than escaping? Top echelon elite white people are making plans and drumming up the science, physics, and machinery to go into space permanently. Frank Benlin would want a hand in that, but he would be able to do that AND disassemble corporate toeholds at the same time. He would be that good.
The white men “our forefathers” protected, as they wrote a form of freedom they knew would eventually expire, are planning an escape, getting off the planet in their fancy rocket ships. Whigs could not have known to what lengths future white men would go to stay alive, but they had some motivating and absurd idea of eternal life despite the nightmares about British mercenaries and adjusting to PTSD. Benjamin Franklin figured it out then, and Frank Benlin would figure it out now.
As a person who is likely not obsessed with living forever and/or getting off the planet, what does it take to keep yourself safe in a power-driven combustible country where you are just trying to get by? Maybe ask the people who have been doing that for 400 years since arriving to this continent in chains on boats? I’ll bet they know better than anybody. I’d bet Frank Benlin would humbly ask them about survival. What it’s really like, not what white people think it’s like. He would recognize white people don’t know shit about that but acknowledge that not knowing shit about something is probably where we should start. He would be smart about how to inspire white people to rise up, how to raise them up, maybe even above themselves, to be true allies, not fake temporary sponsors of anti-violence. He would make a marriage of reparations and preparations.
Frank Benlin would hypnotize society with a psychological contraption that hasn’t been invented yet and embed a passion in everyone that all humans need each other to be alive rather than survive, to be free, to be the omnivorous yet loving animals that we are. Some of us already dream to not just “pursue happiness,” but to enjoy life where we can. Some of us already accept the prospect of death but stay productive, explore, and build things to last for children as if it was going to be forever. Frank Benlin would capitalize on that and make that a standard.
Alas, Frank Benlin does not exist, nor is anyone stepping up into that role with the gusto Ben Franklin was able to. That said, do whatever you need to do to protect yourselves, your families, your communities, and your homesteads. If that means owning guns, some of us will do it.
Persist with everything beautiful about our human experiences until the end. I can only hope and pray that I will die in joy on Earth regardless of the state of my country, that my daughter will die in joy — because despite threats, we are here to be joyful, regardless of the pursuit of happiness or the written rights to do it. That’s what Frank Benlin would want.
Lastly, conservative, liberal, progressive, Antifa, Q-Anon, all of you — vote. Do 5 minutes of research on the people on your local ballot and VOTE as if it matters. Frank Benlin may not be on the ballot now or in 2024 but do it anyway because Ben Franklin asked you to do it way back when and it’s still the right thing to do. Maybe the original weasel’s true vision has yet to reveal itself.
