- dedicated to the Oglala Lakota, The Sioux Nation; their Ancestors; and to The Water Protectors @ Standing Rock
"A hero is someone that understands the responsibility that comes with freedom. “ - Bob Dylan
I live in a nation where my country[people]men allowed their presidential selection to be bracketed between a “bought-and-paid-for” Wall Street shill hell-bent to demonstrate her formidable will by bombing all opposed into the stone ages, and a “bought-but-never-paid-for-anything” Wall Street shill hell-bent on subjugating anyone or anything which does not attest his magnificence. I don’t have many heroes, not the “talking heads” suddenly possessing 20/20 hindsight, nor the unbent, unbowed progressive leadership which shipwrecked the ship of state; does this absolve me of my responsibilities as a warrior scholar? Were i more of either, the cowardice of Bismarck North Dakota sloughing off it’s share of responsibility for the travesty of justice being visited upon the Sioux Nation, their holy sanctuaries and the wellbeing of the entire planet, would instead be a proud exhortation: “Continue your valiant struggle for peace and autonomy", which you have so nobly demonstrated through commonsense, persistence and courage using only your open, loving hearts, Bravo! . . alack . such a victorious essay will have to wait for a better opportunity. Does this mean The Water Protectors @ Standing Rock do not deserve loyal support, and loving admiration - i’d give a body part, if i thought it would make one brave soul on those cold front lines warmer. My responsibility is to find one other human being willing to struggle for the common good as the warriors battling “the black snake” of Crazy Horse’s dream have done by facing the combined corporate power of the international oil cartels and their lackeys in government - a struggle which has just resulted in a victory; however temporary - A Victory ! nonetheless . .
How about you . . are you one of those spiritually bankrupt souls, with confederate flags fluttering, looking to bolster your cause and deny your fear through intimidation and brute force, or are you amongst the hordes peering the flickering bars of scrolling text, shackled to the suspicion that somehow you might have missed the elusive secret of success which everyone else seems to have obtained so effortlessly? Aside from the bifurcated logic of an either/or fallacy, what are my responsibilities to you the reader - entertainment, enlightenment, engagement? A more accurate question might be - what are my responsibilities to myself - to be, or not; leave the world better than i found it; or like Leonard Cohen’s dew on a leaf, “leave no harm, nor ever will”? Yesterday i watched more movies than i’d seen in months culminating in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. To manage my shame for such appalling lack of industry, i inoculated myself “in vino veritas” and “reefer madness - was that freedom? There are parts of the world where i could be put to death for even one such infraction, and other parts of the world which would happily condemn my soul to the darkest regions of hell for both - is that freedom? At the conclusion of my last marriage, my sense of defeat was so great that i became convinced my forgiveness would be born of abstinence; for a decade, i neither drank nor smoked - is that freedom? My father, may he rest in peace, was adamant that choice, any choice one makes, must be born by each individual - pop was a wise guy. Here i sit covered chest to chin with shingles - Varicella Zoster Virus - “chicken pops” - not my choice, and yet . . . research suggests this pleasure of the aged is precipitated by stress and/or a weakened immune system - both conditions solely within the purview of personal responsibility.
I choose to eat well and meditate routinely, combining calisthenics and tai chi; how could i have been attacked so effectively by something which preys on a weakened immune system or excitable mind? It must have come from a delusion, my own; it is all i can figure. What else could explain such a soulless malady seizing my world and making of me its slave - in such thrall as to be willing to claw my heart out for some small relief? No substance or emotion i’ve ever known has reduced my will to naught as easily as this nucleic acid mutant and its fucking protein coat. I’m not being completely honest: bedbugs inspired me similarly - though rather than wish for my own early death - i did find myself cheek-to-jowl with an unatural blood lust for the extinction of all bedbugs - a lethal fury so complete as to abandon my “all life is sacred” tenant; so much for my career as a “militant pacifist” - a regrettable, however reasonable choice. Am i doomed by this flaw, or is life more like William Blake described - “The road of excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom...You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.”? Do we in the United States have too much freedom, an excess that has made us lazy and susceptible to tyrants? Are my aged excesses born of too little responsibly, resulting in a physical vulnerability. Would i be delivered from this 'Bardo', were i to reassume the harness of gainful employment and take that job at “Widgets Inc.”? Has my deliberate boycott of every stylish consumer advertisement rendered me an enemy of the state and proud advocate of justice for The Water Protectors @ Standing Rock? Will an essay on “freedom” affect one unfree human being on the planet, or divert my path from Dante’s lowest rung of hell, due to this deliberate slow intoxication to death of my own volition?
How long will it be until humans are no longer allowed to ask such questions - how few in the audience even know, or care, about Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, or that the lowest rings of hell were reserved for those who’d take their own lives? Dante had, at one time, been considered part of an education in the classics; there are now college courses on the “TV Guide,” and this by a professor i highly regard. The ability to reason has always suffered from attacks by those whose fortunes are built on ignorance and fear; however we are living in a time when people are paying for their own shackles and docilely believe that the corporate overlords wait for no more than a “like” in order to bend whole revenue streams toward the “Liker.” And what of that, am i opposed to corporate overlords because i envy their viral financial muscle? Are my feeble protests nothing more than the plaintive wail of another bleeding heart liberal whining about trees in the forest being reduced to stubble? What if all of America begins to emulate the self-unaware bombastics of a man who feels the entire floor of a metropolitan high-rise is an appropriate domain for a 10 year-old child, yet thinks America’s below poverty minimum wage is too high? Will this selfishness make us “great again”? Our world, by all rational accounts is dying and there is nary a peep from the incessant whine of our “information super-highway.” How is it even possible that so many could be blinded from the realities of institutional betrayal at the highest levels of our leadership; are we so deluded as to believe a new car will suffice for a deteriorating moral compass - a broken guide which numbs us to the sufferings of anyone not recognizable as one of our “own.” How can a technology developed on the premise that more effective communication will break down barriers, have become so effective at isolating whole nations from each other, much less you from the person next to you?
Do i write this because i am free, or am i free because i write this? Talk is cheap, freedom not. When young, many are absorbed by distorted fantasies about others - their power, their age even their sex, yet from where i sit, freedom must be found within my own mind. Is this because i’m old and therefore know more than the young - not by a stretch. Many have died young knowing freedom much better than i, whether i live long or prosper much. I have seen the wealthiest chained by no more than a chimera - a certainty that their riches represent freedom - “life is like a shit sandwich; the more bread ya’ got, the less shit you gotta to eat.” - A. Nonymous. However, more often than not, rather than share their freedom, the wealthy struggle invariably to deprive others of their rights to such freedom - seemingly for no other reason than to have more of what those supposed “masters of the universe” have already, in abundance. Why is that? Is it possible that from the conceit of having tricked others into coveting objects, the rich have actually deluded themselves into believing objects will break the chain of our biology - end of life? How sad to come to one’s end surrounded by empty eyes - eyes coveting cherished objects representing imagined freedom as one recedes further from real freedom, that of breath. If wealth represents freedom, how is it possible that love is the only thing that grows when you give it away - is that not another meaning for freedom - the quiet personal decision to amplify positive opportunity as opposed to constraining liberty?
“The secret of human freedom is to act well, without attachment to the results” - Bhagavad Gita
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tyranny - the sonnet
how come tyranny sounds quite so whiny?
“YOU HURT MY FEELINGS, SO I’LL MAKE YOU PAY!
IF YOU WON’T OBEY, I’LL HIDE YOU FROM TV
AND TELL MY WORLD WHAT YOU WANTED TO SAY!”
why does tyranny need quite so much help?
“GET THE TRAITORS WHO DISOBEY - JAIL THEM;
THROW AWAY THE KEY - BUT KILL THE LEADER’S WHELP,
BEFORE IT’S SUNG OUT IN SOME FUCKING HYMN.”
what kills every tyranny known to man?
“THEY’VE REFUSED TO FIGHT? THEY’VE DEFIED MY MIGHT?
I’LL SQUEEZE THEM HARD; I WILL - THEY KNOW I CAN?
WHAT’S THIS! THEY DON’T COWER OR CRINGE? - NO FRIGHT!”
“OH FUCK. . BACK UNDER THE ROCK I MUST GO,
BUT I’LL BE BACK; THEY WILL FORGET - I KNOW.”
(˚ ㄥ _˚)
jts 12/5/2016
http://ExtinctionChronicles.blogspot.com
http://JosephTStevens.blogspot.com
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
prohibited from AI sampling in any form
reprinted with permission; all rights reserved
∞
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