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| Blogs > rm_swallow22us > "If ignorance is truly bliss, |
Happy Fourth - You Have No Government
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Happy Fourth - You Have No Government As this Blog is being written the world is entranced with terrorist attacks in the United Kingdom, and U.S. residents are stocking up on beer and barbecue for the most sacrosanct of all American holidays. Barefoot are running through sprinklers and reveling in backyard swimming pools. Fireflies flicker through muggy Midwest nights, and urban jungles swelter in a sultry aura of crime and poverty. But whether in the McMansions of Florida bedroom communities or locked in the suffocating despair of Chicago’s Cabrini Green, everyone knows–everyone feels it, but no one is talking about “it.” That “it”, that “something” is why depression is rampant, and why Americans are so sleep-deprived. That “something” can’t be fixed with a new mattress or more Tylenol PM, and when long nights of fitful or no sleep turn into another workday, the American way is to rise and shine into frenetic workaholism and ten thousand other distractions so that no one has to think or talk about “it”. “It” is the sickening, gut-wrenching, capillary-constricting, heart-palpitating, suffocating, terrifying, paralyzing awareness in the deepest recesses of the body and soul that the entire house of cards for which Americans have worked, saved, sacrificed–for which they have sent their off to war and off to college, which they have been willing to defend to their death and which has given them meaning when nothing else would–all of that, yes ALL of that is collapsing, dissolving, disintegrating, disappearing, slipping away. Perhaps only subconsciously weary of war and tormented by finances as they are, some part of them knows that their aren’t going to college, that they won’t be able to stop foreclosure on their home, that their increasing reliance on credit cards postpones bankruptcy a little longer but makes its consequences ever-more brutal, and that when it’s all said and done, the retirement package and the 401K they were counting on for the worst-case scenario, like the rollicking good times of the pre-dot-com nineties, has simply evaporated into history. All of this is horrifying enough by itself, but add to this the reality that these same Americans no longer live in a democratic republic and that they have lost all perspective of what that actually means. In 2004 I wrote an Blog entitled “Hello, You Are Now Living In A Fascist Empire” which at the time drew many emails telling me how paranoid and hopelessly locked into “conspiracy theory” I was. Now, three years later, Rodrigue Tremblay in his article “Imperialism And Fascism Are On The Rise In The USA” has updated the history of America’s descent into fascism, listing the tyrannical steps taken within the past six years to shred the Constitution and eviscerate the republic. Sadly, I notice that some of the same progressives who labeled me paranoid in 2004, while now appalled at the litany of civil liberties destroyed by the current regime, still do not comprehend the reality of collapse. As a result, I keep hearing their illusions in the emails I receive and in the articles they write on websites and blogs. Not unlike the middle-class, sleep-deprived, thoroughly distracted and denial-crazed workaholics mentioned above, they believe that somehow the show can be kept on the road if only progressives do the right things. William Butler Yeats, a highly intuitive poet, wrote “The Second Coming” in 1921 as Hitler was getting warmed up and learning to speak in front of large crowds. Yeats knew that somehow things were falling apart and that the center could not hold. His poem now reverberates down through the decades to our time and our “second coming.” This will not be the second coming of the LaHaye-Jenkins crowd. No Rapture nor extraterrestrial throngs will sweep away the “faithful”, followed by the destruction of the earth by Jesus and his followers. No, Jesus’ so-called followers are doing that here and now–and have been doing so in his name for the past two thousand years, calling it “having dominion over the earth.” And in my opinion, those progressives who pride themselves in their optimism, who refuse to face the collapse of civilization, blinded by their illusions, are no more enlightened than the fundamentalist Christians or New Age devotees who are waiting for the second coming of Jesus or the arrival of rescuing aliens from other worlds. Many individuals love to debate whether collapse will be “fast or slow”. According to the “slow burners”, those who say it will be sudden are delusional, whereas those who insist on its suddenness reject the collapse as a gradual process. Even the issue of collapse is replete with the distractions of a conflict over “slow” or “sudden.” Western Civilization and Christianity in particular have left their mark on us in the polarization that we can’t seem to extricate ourselves from, even over the issue of collapse. It is, in some respects, that very duality that has created the end of civilization as we have known it, yet we cling to the polarization as if our lives depended on it. Collapse, on a more metaphorical level, is a form of apocalypse, and apocalypse is simply a Greek word meaning, “the lifting of the veil.” When veils are lifted, reality is seen for what it is, and given that definition, apocalypse has been going on for a long time. Think of the veils that have been lifted just in the past seven years: The 2000 election, the crimes of 9/11 perpetrated by the U.S. government, Enron, Peak Oil, climate change, the incomprehensible levels of corruption in the U.S. government, the trillions of dollars of missing money, the deceptions of the Iraq War, the coverup of Pat Tillman's death–the list could go on and on. The biggest veil to be lifted is that humans are the superior life form on planet earth and that they have a right to conquer, , pillage, and own its resources. Collapse, which in my opinion has been going on for at least thirty years, is lifting the veil of that illusion and will reveal incontrovertibly the lie that it is, but for some, the lie cannot be allowed in their consciousness until there is nothing–and I mean nothing, left to lie about. As always Swallow |
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7/11/2007 4:15 pm |
Very good piece, however I do believe we have a government that prefers to remain in obscurity because they are very much aware that these fine ideas that we as a nation hold to be true, have been sold to the highest bidder! This document that holds these words that contain the iron that we hold so dear: WE THE PEOPLE. Is no longer a document of the people. Instead it has become nothing more than a dream, a wishful hope for so many that desperately wants to believe in democracy. You cannot have a democracy when you have so many that believe God takes precedence over the country and things like life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are denied to so many solely because their lifestyle does not conform to lifestyle of those they consider themselves the moral majority. If you believe persecution does not exist in this country by the religious right, you need to read my latest article :: with the comedy of Louis Black in mind.
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Thanks for popping by Fussy and yes I have read the book , and it is a good read. As always Swallow
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