Allred-Alive and Well in the Belly of the Beast
September 20, 2021
Words are going the way of the buffalo, though not yet extinct, the ones that are left are only for grazing the vast occupied plains of consciousness as items of interest to only tourists and natural cynics of environmentalism. A relatively few number of them have taken the place of hundreds of thousands of words and their distinctive meanings.
Americans
have been the least curious lot when it comes to technical jargon. We’ve handed
over the specifics of our technology to experts who on the one hand have made
it so difficult for ordinary people to utilize any sort of practical ideological
or technological advancement. Cars are driven but no one knows how one works.
Most people cannot even change a tire. From phones to nuclear weapons, from
democracy to fascism, from computers to reading a book, knowledge has been
driven over the cliff like the buffalo herds driven from the plains by
slaughter and the natural sin of capricious violence
Along with
this invasion of ignorance, comes the authority of the expert, whether it be
the mechanic or the politician.
But yes, the
mechanic is a necessary rendition, it’s true we can’t know how everything works
or influences us. One has to trust to some extent the experts who fix the
things we don’t comprehend or have time to fix. But we cannot become their
ploys.
The
politician is another story. They hold the language keys to the ideological foundations
of our social, political, cultural, and economic lives in the same way the
preacher claims to hold the keys to paradise/heaven/ the blessings of
Jesus/God. We give them the power because they’ve always told us we can’t get
there without them.
Politicians
and preachers are essentially no different since both dabble in the
interpretation of the rules, behaviors of their own institutional making, i.e.
religion and the nation. They’ve made the rules, they’ve created the
enforcement of laws, everything spiritual or reasonable, as defined by them,
goes through them.
The ironic
thing is there is no second amendment in the bible. There is only one enforcer,
rulemaker or breaker in the Old testament and if God did give over any power it
was in the New testament and then, even then, sinners are to be punished by the
heavens, not the self-deputized militias, armies, landowners of the rich and
famous.
Politicians
and preachers have usurped the power of their own God for their own purposes.
It’s all there, like it is in any political freedom document, either God has
relented and given them the power, like in the Pope, Patriarchal religious
leaders world -wide, or presidents and prime ministers with technological dominance
over their own citizens and other nations.
Here are a
few facts about our current situation that demonstrate how little discourse and
activism come out of it:
1.
The right wing insists on their own
freedom withing this country but also insists due to racist, misogynist, and
superiority philosophies that the rest of the world and their own nations
citizens should bow, make homage, live by the standards set by them. Does our
freedom as Americans mean everyone else has to relinquish their own freedom,
even in their own nations or communities?
2.
The right wing also believes that
socialistic adherence to principles, mostly natural and necessary, for social
cohesion in any society, big or small need not apply to individualist standards
of freedom which also are natural and should exempt them from what the society
believes is necessary.( by democratic processes).
3.
The nations of the world today are a
blend of both these tendencies in any society but this concept of nation is a
false construct based in the, and I repeat, the usurpation of religious belief,
coming out of superstition and fear of the unknown, being incorporated into the
enforcement of laws, always by a small, elite group of powerful influencers, by
force or governance of wealth ( meaning control over jobs, resources and the
law that governs all necessary “survival” of the masses).
Sure,
writers use a dictionary or thesaurus but for the most part, but common
language, based on familiarized ideas promulgated through social media,
regulated news, and a fractured yet stupefying education system which all
guarantees unoriginal thinking for the sake of structure and adherence to
rules. If you really want to be an Outsider just try and have a conversation
with someone using a wide range of metaphor, simile, wide word usage parameters
and you’ll soon see that no one is listening.
Oh, that’s
what poetry and prose is about. Only scientists and politicians will try to
explain what they mean in different ways. This is all why music makes much more
sense. White people made language to confuse us though I wonder if eskimos or
other indigenous peoples have only one sound for blue or rain.
I’ve seen
fourteen presidents in my lifetime. I find it hard to distinguish one from the
other. They are much like Kings or Princes and like the many foreign women
presidents and prime ministers that have already preceded our yet to be elected
first woman president, they are all pretty much indistinguishable from each
other too. It’s not a fluke that this is so, since our presidents and the
foreign ones also represent the same idea/ideology, much like corporate heads
who represent their stockholders (as well as themselves), all leaving the rest
(and most) of humanity to dregs of history.
When you
have what many people believe is a clown for president, what you’re left with
is a circus.
If “love’ is a real emotion rather than an abstraction, then
“love of country” is another houdini trick about getting men to skip out,
disappear on empathy.
Everything you really need to know about living is walking
distance from Here and Now.
Be Humble
I'm sure the Buddha said, at one time or another, something
like, "Be Humble." Which in lay terms means, Just because you haven't ever thought about something and suddenly a realization comes to you like a
flash of light, out of what seems Nowhere, try and remember that it's probably
already part of a three thousand year old tradition, in some part of the world
you consider more primitive and NOT your very own direct line self-proclaimed
Enlightenment from the Heavens above.
The Future
The Future is always going to feel a lot like the past, it’ll just have alot more blinding accoutrements,
illusionary embellishments, thus making it look different but it’s still the
same old leftovers from yesterday.
The Apocalypse
I always loved the Apocalypse. There is nothing quite
so entrancing as the Four Horsemen as followers of Assassin Creed or the
Terminator certainly know. Everything from Zombies, deadly viruses, car
accidents and measureable gun deaths counted in the millions thrown into the
Horseman’s revelry and glee, all certainly being worthy killers of human beings
history.
I just never thought it would be real until the day he
took the government away, like some Whore of Babylon, dressed up in a red wig,
suit and tie, just like the Good Book said it would happen.
It didn’t seem to make me as crazy as it made a lot of
other people so I began to think I was one of the chosen people. I’d be lifted,
books and all, once the deadly job was indeed complete.
But alas, I too, like everyone, was to be undone by my
own fancy -dancin dereliction of social duty and the machinations of time on
the threshold of my life, bidding me to step forward to meet my maker.
04/14/21
We’re Only Human, Aren’t We?
One of mankind’s biggest problems is that there is a tendency, whether natural or not I don’t know, to lay a legal socially simulated architectural framework around every important philosophical and religious belief. This framework turns into more of a meshy( as well as messy) mental jail from which the intellectual cannot escape without leaving the truth behind, like a revered lover. From the Holy Bible, Torah, Koran to the Magna Carta, Constitution, or Social Contract there is the tendency to obfuscate whatever is written so it can fit the perusal needs of the obfuscator, as GWB or Sarah Palin might say. There is hope though. There is one firm example of a written philosophy that has been little toyed with and remains intact and free from legislators and their legal ilk who act as the oracles of Delphi in our political world, describing and reinterpreting those things we are already sure of. This one philosophy which has managed to escape these oracles is the Kama Sutra. What you see is what you get there and need no lawyer be present to understand. Long live mutually satisfying sex. Very few right-wing extremists wear their guns into coitus nor have Karl Marx, Adam Smith, nor the Fed successfully managed to either tax it or make revolution with it, though they've tried. Keep on fucking. It’s the last free state of being.
Some people ask, “How can you beat the past?’ and I say,
“You beat the past by making the future?”
Evolutionary Theory, though basically true, is still filled
with primitive stereotypical and contrived “facts” such as -Neanderthals are
our imperfect cousins, they came along in full shaggy beards, thick skulls, and
large brains, kind of like early computer models, less efficient than Cro-Magnon,
our so called direct European ancestors, who came ready, willing, and able to
go out and eat, shave every-day, or, at least, had enough sense to get a beard
trim while Mrs Magnon was learning to set a mean New York dinner table.
The older I get the more I understand that there are Truths
still uncovered nor discovered by human hands.
There’s a dark ray moment in every sunny sky and in the
darkest night there’s a bit of bright star. It’s a world of change, pain, and
contradictions that confounds us
To paraphrase William Burroughs. All Presidents look alike.
Sometimes I wonder where’s our Goldman, where’s our Berkman,
where’s our Frick? The answer is we only get Fricks and constant SPAM..
.
A cowboy once told me that everything he needed to know was
within a days ride, that may be good for cowboys but for us, everything you
need to know to get along in this world is within walking distance.
Love and Imperfection are, if not the only, certainly two of
the most benevolent and universal traits with Imperfection being the more
unacceptable of the two. Since you can't get rid of your own Imperfections, you
can’t expect anyone else to do so by loving you and you definitely can’t expect
perfection from anything or anyone you love. It works better that way.
If someone reads what I write and doesn't like it that's a
matter of opinion, but if someone reads what i write and doesn't want me to
write anymore then that's a matter of fight
It used to be they said only death and taxes are
certainties, but since a few decades have passed under my bridge, I can add
Change to that axiom because it is certainly going to change, like tomorrow is
always coming but the axiom says it never comes but unlike tomorrow, Change
will come.
The movement now is more about what happens on the internet.
The internet has certainly made office worker's jobs easier, and those who
learned typing in high school can take advantage of the progress a keyboard and
the storage of documents has made life easier. And then there are the robots,
programmed to take over the spot welding but I don't know why it's so exciting
to think this is the way of the future because it still takes a season to grow
food though mixing a few compatible chemicals might make a meal but the slow
evolution of our bodies will make trying to fly as difficult as it's ever been.
Everybody has their day (history), nobody has tomorrow
(revolution)
Take one for the Lord, take one for your government,
take a bullet in the head for freedom and the american way.
take one for the earth or the cheetah running down the
gazelle,
but please don't say you're taking one for me.
Democracy: a
political convention whereby common people select recycled politicians in order
to officially maintain/retain the status quo. In theory, it is based on the
traditional family kitchen table decision making process whereby everyone gets
their say until a decision is made by one for everyone, including whoever is
the dog.
If freedom isn’t
free then it isn’t freedom. If freedom isn’t free then we must be in america,
Dorothy.
Some of us humans
most precious inventions have been double edge swords, such as writing, guns,
and money. Writing because lies can become permanently imbedded as truth, guns
because we no longer are equal to the animals, thus rarely can be humbled by
nature, and money because it’s only intrinsic value is a purely psychological
acceptance of authority and power.
Women know that
gossip, rumors, and deceit move more quickly and make more noise than truth does
to the ears and intuition.
Men, on the other hand, don’t listen nor dance, so there
is no difference between true or false. It’s whatever goes good with beer,
pizza, and guns.
That’s why if you want people to listen, first tell a
lie to get whatever attention you can, then tell the truth. The lie will make
history, the truth will make weak tea.
August 2020
They say on TV now we have to give Joe Biden and Kamala
Harris a chance but first we have to get rid of the Fascist in the White House.
And they said the world would never get another ego like Hitlers, a Caligula.
Already I wander. Just seventy something more days, they say, or whatever the
number is, then on November 4th, we’ll (we being progressives and
revolutionaries alike) start working on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Well, my
friends, I’ve been watching you (the news) and here’s what I have to say.
If we’re on some sort of revolutionary countdown ten, nine,
eight, seven six, five…and someone or something magical is going to happen on
November 4th, then I’m starting to write America’s (and the world's)
epitaph right now. It looks as if from this perspective (from California),
America has chosen cremation.
History marches on. Somebody has to be realistic. It can’t
be me and Cornell West alone can it? He who isn’t being pessimistic isn’t being
realistic. The fact of the matter somebody’s going to have to die to shake
things up. Probably somebody who doesn’t want to for your sake or god’s sake
either. There aren’t any Christ’s up America’s sleeve. They all came around in
the sixties, all invoked in acceptance speeches when really the only important
fact is when Mrs Schwerner, the wife of Andrew Schwerner, who disappeared along
with Goodman and Chaney, insisted to Lyndon Johnson that he needed to get more
feds down in Mississippi to search, Johnson, the great (now) signer of the
Civil Rights bill, called J. Edgar to ask if HE thought there should be more FBI
investigators and J. Edgar answered- she’s a communist- and Johnson
answered-it’s worse than that, she’s rude and a (bitch).
That’s how we march along, like freed slaves heading to Nowheresville
( another sundowner town) with Hope.
you are living in the free world and in the free world you must stay. Phil Ochs
I was one of those
reluctant NPP (no political party) switchers back in 2018 just to get in to vote but that’s okay, I can always
switch back if necessary. I enjoyed listening to the little one minute “speech”
and was disappointed that only one, you, included US foreign policy as a
necessary front to focus on. I assume one minute doesn’t cover much but still
US foreign policy is the white noise behind everything this country does
(especially with money and power). Equality and Justice will never happen as
long as we continue to think of ourselves
(in the abstract) as superior and yet fearful of the rest of the world.
There are many people who have their finger on
the pulse of what’s wrong here in America and around the world but unless we
start acting in a “new” way, the old and traditional way will undermine and
negate anything we do. The repetitive nature of historical facts has rendered
the future (or even tomorrow) obsolete and impotent before it even gets here.
As it is now, The future is just a long series of yesterdays, pasts. We need to
eat less, want less, desire less, and most of all, fear less. We are Here
All of us kids lacked something essential to live in the modern world, the modern world being the world as it exists today rather than the way it was when we were all growing up. In thirty years of living we all become somewhat obsolete. We learn that business, the state, the institutions we adhere to or those we are cemented to by socialization or by debt, all that exists outside the very parameters we are told we must maintain. What we get is the particulars, the specifics, the nuances of the principles we live by and it’s within our nature to be confused as to what behaviors we must choose, which can only be defined by those others, the authorities that bind us.Take citizenship for example. Citizenship is the specifically designed traditions and rules that give any person living within the confines of a nation the privileges of citizenship, usually the right to vote in most modern societies, this right to choose whoever represents the nation as well as the method of choosing, the processes. Other than that, there’s not much else to being a citizen, except maybe depending on the restrictions of living here unconditionally, free of harassment. But in most modern nations the rights determined to be irrevocable, at least on paper, human rights, those rights that every human has should not be usurped by citizenship. If all men should be treated equally under the law then that should not be a privilege given to those who have citizenship only and taken away from so called non- citizens, those not fitting the established standards of whatever society they actually live in. America like any other nation that confers upon its citizens certain inalienable rights only by way of citizenship is not a very progressive nation, no matter how high and mighty it’s ideals sound. That’s nationalism, racism, or any other ism by those very definitions. Any form of privilege whether written, practiced or insinuated which provides an exclusion to those who can’t be included and those restrictive practices being institutionalized within a nations traditions, legal, and social institutions is purely arbitrary.We’re all born into this worldly strife, the same as a squirmy rat, the best thing about it is we haven’t been tattooed with a corporate logo yet. That comes later but for now, on that original birthday, we have no understanding of what awaits us upon arrival into our nation’s history. Depending on whether or not we’re born black and all the shades of equanimity, how much money our parents have (or parent in many more cases than is satisfactory), or how much luck and right circumstance we possess, we’ll plod through their authoritarian fogs ignonimously, each individual in various degrees, all the while lacking nobility.
I was one of those
reluctant NPP (no political party) switchers back in 2018 just to get in to vote but that’s okay, I can always
switch back if necessary. I enjoyed listening to the little one minute “speech”
and was disappointed that only one, you, included US foreign policy as a
necessary front to focus on. I assume one minute doesn’t cover much but still
US foreign policy is the white noise behind everything this country does
(especially with money and power). Equality and Justice will never happen as
long as we continue to think of ourselves
(in the abstract) as superior and yet fearful of the rest of the world.
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