{"article":{"id":100686,"heading":"Fear and duplicity","author":"Parmenides","created":"2004-01-19 01:45:02","modified":"2013-11-11 00:28:27","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:28:27","article":"

When one decides to take action against fear and duplicity they open themselves up to intimidation and harrassment. Is this just? Our present corporate state will not allow citizens to exercise their rights without consequence, the lash back of a desperate regime teetering on despotism. Whether in Miami against a corrupt consolidation of banks and market forces to doom millions to a life of servitude and neverending poverty or a meager pulpit in a small town the task of rescuing the agenda outlined in the US Constitution towards life and liberty are everywhere under attack by the forces of fear, xenophobia, and ignorance.

So what is the political agenda of these anti-constitutional forces that have taken over the ruling politic of our nation? It is obvious to all of us in the anti-globalist anti-war movement. It is visible and undeniable in the SHUs in Angola Prison and the sound of snowmobilers in Yellowstone. It is clear and present in the policies that seek to turn the environs of Denali into a PCB laced Golgotha. It is written into the fiber of the endless new laws and proclamations from an embittered and inferior slew of legislators and police-state thugs. It is the end of the American dream, that frail wisp of sharp intelligence that is being smothered by the forces of the corporate death state and their attendant religions and unscientific technologists.

What is the idea of madness, a mad America hurtling like a locomotive?

Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a

flower? when did you look at your skin and

decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?

the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and

shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?

~~Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg

It rises from the past America that was built on slavery and extermination, the past America that was intolerant and fundamentalist, the past America that gave birth to the still potent legacy, the brutality of the Klan, of Nixon, of Hiroshima. The madness that we are separate from the other peoples of the planet and that our dominant position is divinely inspired and perpetuated by unseen forces that reside in the sepulchers of religious tyranny.

We face many problems in our culture, some of which I have mentioned above, and yet they all become irrelevant, like so many potatoes at a supermarket, something to glance at from time to time but not to address, when faced with the truest loss of values represented by the infectious death cult of Bush and his minions. The intimidation and use of the mechanisms of the military-industrial-entertainment complex to squash popular dissent, to belittle free speech, and convert the hope of countless generations placing their sons and daughters onto American soil into a mindfuck of hamster racing to pay bills so the rich can eat off of gold plates and the priest can read from his silk covered bible is the worst tragedy to befall this culture and nation.

And there are no easy answers. For the climate of fear insures that alternatives as such are not really alternatives at all, and that everyone is suspect in the burden of past implied transgressions, and that all future activity must be decided not by the public, the community of neighbors and family and friends but by the whims of heartless corporations and their owned owners who infect our nations leadership.

Real change will become manifest only when we turn our backs on intimidation and seek radically different and much more holistic forms of lifestyles. It is our responsibility and our power to do just that. The forces which seek to return our culture to the Dark Ages of feudalism, bigotry, and control of knowledge by a few squirreled away in faceless boardrooms, hiding behind desks and FBI sweeps, are aware of this. They will fight to the bitter end to hold onto their bitter coins and keep us out of the decision making that democracy requires of us as citizens. It will become worse as their despair at our power grows. We cannot allow intimidation to work its subtle death grip tighter. We cannot give up when we have accomplished so much. We are getting closer to restoring the Constitution, day by day, action by action, strike by strike…and they know that, and so their efforts will increase as our power grows. ML King knew this. He saw the horror of American madness and the potential for its twisted fulfillment and defended the liberties that we do not take for granted with his life.

We still have miles to go before we can rest. We must proceed not with fear but with the courage of our convictions. That might is not right. That war is the only true enemy. That the American dream may have not yet have ever existed but that its existence lies within us all and is seeking to come out and breathe air uncontaminated by the stench of corporate rot.

<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Some thoughts on fear, intimidation and Martin Luther King Jr.","numcomment":11,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2004\/01\/100686.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":100687,"heading":"Wrong there, boy.","article":"It's the likes of YOU who want to throw us back into the dark Ages. You want a society based, I suppose, on agrarian peasantry. You want us living, mean, nasty short lives with no medicine, no entertainment, no leisure time; just a grim struggle for survival against hunger and disease.","author":"Barney","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 01:52:07","modified":"2004-01-19 01:52:07","fileurl":""},{"id":100730,"heading":"Barney's right","article":"You say the US is a "desperate regime teetering on despotism", when in fact it was Saddam and the Taliban, China and Cuba which are\/were desparate regimes, in the full thoes of despotism. How backasswards can a guy be?\r\n\r\nYou say:\r\n\r\n\r\nWhether in Miami against a corrupt consolidation of banks and market forces to doom millions to a life of servitude and neverending poverty. . .\r\n\r\nYou want to see a billion plus people actually living lives of servitude and neverending poverty? Go to China. \r\n\r\nCheck out North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia or Cuba. There's poverty and servitude.\r\n\r\nCheck out the Soviet bloc before Reagan relegated them to the "dust bin of history". That was poverty and servitude.\r\n\r\nIn the countries that embrace capitalism and conservativism (Hong Kong, for example) the life span increases, the standard of living increases and life improves for virtually everyone who is willing to make the sacrifices needed to improve it. That's freedom and prosperity. It happens in the places you despise!","author":"Andy","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 15:25:15","modified":"2004-01-19 15:25:15","fileurl":""},{"id":100731,"heading":"a few questions","article":"Why does the infant mortality rate in Cuba trail the rate in the USA?\r\nWhy did the life expectancy fall in the fmr Soviet Union after capitalism\r\nreigned triumphant there?","author":" ah Klem","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 15:35:02","modified":"2004-01-19 15:35:02","fileurl":""},{"id":100733,"heading":"You have to be kidding me","article":"Why did the life expectancy rate in the USSR fall after Stalin came into power????\r\n\r\nAre you unaware of the fact that he murdered 30 million people?????\r\n\r\n","author":"Andy","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 16:10:29","modified":"2004-01-19 16:10:29","fileurl":""},{"id":100734,"heading":"Truth","article":"in the face of lies:\r\n\r\nYevgeny Andreyev, a demography expert with the Institute of National Economic Forecasting in Moscow, says that average life-expectancy fell steadily between 1965 and 1980, but the statistic has followed a roller-coaster path in the last twenty years. Average life expectancy rose in the mid 1980s, fluctuated through the 1990s, and has remained relatively stable over the last few years.\r\n","author":"Andy","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 16:12:45","modified":"2004-01-19 16:12:45","fileurl":""},{"id":100735,"heading":"Andy","article":"I see you are on the job with the bucket of white wash.\r\nNow scrub those dirty corners and paint over the rotted sections.\r\nYou fools make me laugh. Get busy.","author":"ah Klem","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 16:18:55","modified":"2004-01-19 16:18:55","fileurl":""},{"id":100739,"heading":"there is no causal relationship there","article":"There is no causal relationship between capitalism and life expectancy. Neither is there one between communism and life expectancy.\r\n\r\nthis site has some stats<\/a>\r\n\r\nCanadians (79 yrs) live longer than Americans. Americans live longer than Mexicans (72 yrs). Cubans live .8 years less than Americans. Go figure.\r\n\r\nThe difference between nations is less than the difference between races in the USA, where whites have always outlived nonwhites. Obviously, this isn't due to any kind of genetic predisposition, but because Whites have generally exploited nonwhites, and nonwhites are more likely to work in dangerous, life-shortening occupations, and more likely to live in dangerous neighborhoods with less police "protection" (and more police exploitation). The most significant gap, though, is infant mortality, as shown in this page:\r\n\r\nanimation of the closing mortality gap<\/a>\r\n\r\nThe gender gap widens as the race gap narrows, but overall, things are improving because infant mortality drops and general conditions of health improve.\r\n\r\nBack to work --- a study shows that the type of work you do correlates with life expectancy. This article says that jobs that include decision-making correlate with longer lives, and jobs with no decision-making, shorter.\r\n\r\nmindless jobs harder...<\/a>\r\n\r\nMy conclusion? If you want to live a long life, find a bunch of people to order around, and make them do mindless, dangerous work for your personal profit. Exploit them, and let their deaths allow you to live a few more years. You can do this under communism, and you can do this under capitalism.\r\n\r\nUnder capitalism, it's a little easier to exploit others for your benefit, because you can indirectly exploit someone in a poorer country (like Mexico). Internally, the capitalists of Mexico will (as we do in the US) take advantage of racist inequalities to have the nonwhites do the dangerous work.","author":"more rational","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 19:20:37","modified":"2004-01-19 19:20:37","fileurl":""},{"id":100740,"heading":"the schrill cries of shills","article":"Shills can try and rewrite history as much as they like. The fact is that bush was not elected by the majority of Americans. The fact is that as prez bush has dome more to damage and infringe upon the rights of Americans than any president before him. The unswavering war on the environment is misguided and wrong. The decimation of other nations people through death weapons for corporate excess is wrong. Ever since the courts granted corporations the same rights as citizens these corporations have proceeded to consolidate control, break laws, and influence elected officials to the point where despotism is a distinct potential in the nation. The lack of accountability that these corporations and their minions in government pursue is contrary to the same laws and accountability that all of us must face, workers, activists, and citizens, and yet they are allowed to continue their depredations on the American soul. The war on Iraq, conducted for still untold reasons has destroyed what faith many nations and peoples of the world had in America. This is despotism. And it is the real terrorist threat to our culture. It is inbred and vile. Only we as a nation, as a whole can rid ourselves of this and the racist legacy from which it grows. \r\n\r\nAnd the power of the lies and the imposition of fear is not working. We are too intelligent for your transparent misconceptions and inane justifications for terror and decimation.\r\n\r\nThe traitors of this American dream will be swamped with good will and the need for equality. It has always been so, no matter how many copies of Machiavelli they read, their logic is only the logic of the graveyard, and I hope they get there soon so the rest of us hardworking Americans can reignite the passion and dremas which formerly made this nation a beacon of hope rather than cauldron of corruption.","author":"Parmenides","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 19:33:10","modified":"2004-01-19 19:33:10","fileurl":""},{"id":100751,"heading":"You're too intelligent, eh Parm??","article":"Flatter yourself a little more, why doncha?\r\n\r\nYet you're not intelligent enough to see that Communism was a humaitarian diaster for every country that had the misfortune to experience it while every country which adopted US style economies and democratic standards has prospered in peace and good health with unrivalled educational standards.","author":"Barney","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 21:59:32","modified":"2004-01-19 21:59:32","fileurl":""},{"id":100754,"heading":"oh, I get you now","article":">prospered in peace and good health with unrivalled educational standards.<\r\nyou mean like Cuba?","author":"ah Klem","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-19 22:56:58","modified":"2004-01-19 22:56:58","fileurl":""},{"id":100756,"heading":"No, ah Klem, not Cuba","article":"I don't see thousands of American citizens desperate to get to Cuba on liferafts. \r\n\r\nFor some bizarre reason the traffic all seems to be coming the other way. How about that?","author":"Barney","parent_id":100686,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-01-20 01:33:13","modified":"2004-01-20 01:33:13","fileurl":""}]}