We're a divided world today. It's hopelessly sad, and I have to escape into my music in order for the world to make sense. Linda cooing on Blue Bayou. Tom wanting to be king. James reminding me of the secret o'life. Is it real any more, or do I subbornly remain a simple romantic, purposefully ignorant of today's world in some lame attempt to rise above it all?
You disagree with me politically? Fine. Let's have a beer together, enjoy each other's company, and fuhgeddaboudit. For truly, you and I are bound to disagree, simply because different masters pull our strings. Yet, they're all the same, just like you and me. They have the money, and to keep it, they must ensure that we claw at each other's throats. Divide and conquer, the most lasting tactic of those who have, above US, who do the work and have not. That's how they keep what they have, increase it, and laugh at us as we fight for the crumbs that fall by the wayside.
It's the same with religion. You're no good because you don't believe as how I believe; this is their mantra. I believe in God, in goodness, in goodwill toward others, whether I practice it always, or not. It's there within each of us. We choose to practice it, or we don't. Those who do not, yet say they do, are frauds. It's that simple. You either love one another as the God of your particular version of the "good book" commands, or you say you do while turning the hypocritical cheek. There are no gray areas in life, I've learned.
Politicians all feed at the holy grail of money. Lincoln was the last president who believed in the power of our country to be the last bastion of goodness in the world. He was the first Republican, yet he was also a severe Democrat. A balanced man, self-taught, and dedicated to the true principles which founded our country. Theodore Roosevelt was a 40-year-later clone of this political god, who was convinced our undoing would be achieved by those who controlled the very parts of the machine which moved our economy.
As always, there are those who have, and those who have not. In between, we're simply pawns who lean toward one rich faction or the other. Those in between are the undecideds, the independents, the free thinkers who refuse to buy into either of the rich man's proposition that all are unequal in the eyes of those: Who Have.
Today's societal mores no longer surprise me. I'm just sickened by how we've learned to tear each other apart over the simplest of human ideals. Guns? Do we really need them in today's world? Our food is processed so many times before it reaches our stoves, we don't need to hunt rather than want to. We tend to shoot each other more than we hunt animals. Sure, I own a gun. I like to shoot it from time to time... at paper targets. I like the BOOM of the explosion, the power of the kick in my hands. But to kill another human? Only if the sumbitch is trying to kill me, which unfortunately is becoming more common these days... because of the divisions between us that our puppet-masters have masterfully crafted. Yet, if we kill each other off, who will be left to do the work which makes THEM their zillions? Why have we allowed ourselves to be so enslaved? George Orwell was right... he was just a few decades off. Why aren't our weapons trained outward, upon those who have turned us against ourselves? What's the point in that? If we kill each other, those of us who make the wheels of our economies roll, how is that in any way... progress?
I thought, once upon a time while gazing longingly through my favorite flower's tinted spectacles, that we would evolve as a species, that we would someday see the good that beckons us to do what's right for each other. I hoped we could discard the bonds of slavery and work toward a world where all were healthy and strong.
The evil disqualifier is money. It's the one tool through which even the best of us are corrupted. The most of it is held by the least of us. Those who have are morally bankrupt; those whose souls are mostly pure, struggle to pay our bills to those who hold the purse strings. Is this progress? As a child, I hoped we'd become a better version of our evilest incarnation. Instead, we've evolved into a snarling, snapping, ridiculous carnival of cannibalistic carnivorous wildebeasts. Repuglicants versus Libtards. Is that all we can be?
You read this, please know that I don't care how you identify. You're my brother or sister. We rise, go to work, put in the hours at whatever we do. We breathe the same atmospheric elements, view the same sights, love our kids and spouses with the equal intensity. But we are, in the sense that Abraham Lincoln envisioned, entitled. If we are truly blessed in this country to be endowed with "inalienable rights," then we must pull together to assert our collective power.
To some, "entitlement" has become a dirty word. Yet, the basis of its definition is true to the core of human decency. We are entitled, via our beloved Constitution, the right to "the pursuit of happiness," defined as it is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, to "freely pursue joy and live life in a way that makes you happy, as long as you don't do anything illegal or violate the rights of others." Only problem today is, we're too focused upon telling others their happiness isn't as important as our own definition of it.
"To the victor go the spoils," said New York Senator William Marcy in 1832. Unfortunately, the working middle class has lost the battle. Our "spoils" went rancid a century ago. Since the Industrial Revolution, where workers' rights became a battle cry for the disenfranchised majority, our victories have been systematically diminished by those who have, by the edicts handed down by politicians controlled by those who fund the corrupted system.
We've allowed our politicians to run amok for far too long. They keep on running... away... with our money. We continue to vote for them, they keep pulling the wool over our eyes. There are no controls for those who control us. They vote themselves raises, while denying the least of us a living wage. Even so, we fight each other in predetermined battles, the outcomes decided by those who encourage the division. It's an insane battle we cannot win unless we turn the tables and fight those who enjoy watching us fight amongst ourselves. Until we pull together and discard the issues we're conditioned to insult each other over, we're doomed to this institutionalized slavery. The 13th Amendment is only as strong as we slaves allow.
On point brother!
ReplyDeleteYou rock Deke! Remember resistance is always futile but maybe there is still hope!
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