Patriot

Patriot
Thrown into the air
Millions of red petals
Flew up in an ecstatic frenzy
Wavered for a moment
Then fell to the ground

Not yet fallen, I glimpse them
In suspension
Watched them in their imaginings
Thinking they could take flight
Like the eagles that command the skies

But they will not find their rapture in war
Millions of petals burning
A holocaust of roses
Greet the clear eye
Burnt out eyes

How many years blind?
scrounging the rosebuds
Degenerate food, degenerate religion, degenerate culture
Marlboros, christmas shopping and sex on TV
Religions of hate versus a multiculturalism of self-loathing hypocracy

But it's so easy to lash out
Lash away from your self-introspection
Towards an outside you barely understand
Finding unity and solace only in their new equality:
"Slavery is for white people too"

But I know the ground from which we're cast
Rich soil of freedom
Now aflame with that sterilizing heat
Aflame with dollars, violence and atomization
That crisp the ground and singe the roses apart

They only grow taller in the ground
But we can feel taller in the air
High on inflation, corn syrup and cocaine
The cheap thrill of stealing a neighbor's seed corn
Gorging oneself on a future that will never come

But for now the petals dance
At the height of their decadence and beauty
Unbeknownst to them
As they struggle higher
Away from the flames destined to consume them

I am one of these petals
But I do not look to the sky but to the bud
My home enveloped in flames
As I reflect on the future awaiting me
Dreaming of the bedrock I hope lies underneath….

1933

It seems that history is repeating itself...

For What Would Never Be Written

Inside the house

Above the streets

Behind the bookcase

The blank page

gazed

Into eyes longing to forget

Forget isolation

Forget the cold

boots on grey pavement

thundering forward

backward

outside

inside

inside

inside

Patriotism

         Hello all! I have been neglecting my poetry in favor of song writing recently and, while this means i haven't produced any poetry, I have been writing lyrics.  I just moved to Richmond VA and as a consequence i have neither much means (or even a job) with which to make a recording (rent a recording studio and/or buy recording equipment) of the songs I have written, but I will get on it as soon as I have the means.

         This song is about the deep spiritual nature that undergirds American patriotism.  Unlike most other countries -some bound together by bonds of race and blood, others existing as the careless footprints of deceased empires- American patriotism stems from a call to action by one's own conscience.  What makes one's blood American is not its connection or faith towards its dead past -to one's ethnic heritage and family roots for instance-, but rather the fact that it is real, living, blood whose pulse cries out for freedom.  This is why people can come here from all four corners of the globe and become Americans regardless of color or creed.

          Finally, I feel compelled to point out that, though many of my fellow countrymen were lucky enough to be born in this land of freedom, many are not truly American.  They do not want and, in fact, work to oppose freedom.  Most unknowingly, but some with conscious intent.  This latter group can be found in its greatest concentration high up in the USA government and its corresponding crony-capitalist mega-corporations.

          Do not misunderstand me.  I am not calling for violence against anyone (in the final verse of this song, the line "my blood falls on this soil", emphasizes individual self-sacrifice and not a commitment to violence against others).  I am merely calling attention to the precarious nature of our union as well as the fact that it is in our day to day lives that we must change the world rather than looking to government to make these changes for us.

The Calling

My blood calls to the soil

Of a land I long to see

Where all my kindred spirits

Would dance in harmony

My brother’s of the forest

My sister’s of the sea

My father is of freedom made

And mother: love of humanity

And we fade

We’ll come again

Does your blood call to this soil

Of this land you long to see

Where all our kindred spirits

Once lived in prosperity

This land is of the forest

This land is of the sea

This land was once of freedom made

Now lives in slavery

And we fade

We’ll come again

My blood falls on this soil

In hopes of liberty

That all my kindred spirits

Would have a place to be

I am of the forest

I am of the sea

Faith in freedom I’ll proclaim

That all might love like me

And we fade

We’ll rise again…

The State Explored Through Art

First let us begin with an artistic critique of the state and the left/right political division.  This video is a critique leveled by the band Laibach and their artist collective.  Though it may appear fascist, it must be analyzed beyond the immediate aesthetics of its presentation.  The lyrics, for instance, are not those of a fascist dictator, but rather those of the communist revolutionary Josip Broz Tito.  They exalt the supposed virtues of the state while claiming its authority is derived from the people.  This juxtaposition of fascist imagery and communist rhetoric has the effect breaking down the divisions of left and right, leaving the viewer faced with pure violent force: the will of the state. 

To represent society within the state as the division between left and right is to institutionalize division and violence. Not only are the two sides divided against each other, but they are also divided against themselves: the left is pulled two ways by its stance as socially libertarian and economically authoritarian, while the right is pulled two ways by its stance as socially authoritarian and economically libertarian.  Society is thus doubly fragmented by its left-right division as well as its libertarian-authoritarian division.  In the end this fragmentation produces a paradigm that is both socially and economically authoritarian: this institutionalization of conflict demands more state control, more violence simply to keep things together.


This is exactly what the state does.  The state uses violence to keep the situation (the nation), that it creates and oversees, together.  It does this by representing the people of the nation to themselves.  In this way, the state is the people, but only insofar as it is the people separated from themselves.


To divide the conflict within the state into left and right parties is therefore to institutionalize the need for the state.  The left/right division -unlike the authoritarian/libertarian division- does not pertain to the nature of the state per say, but rather to the specific expressions of its adherent's individuality.  By siding with a side in the left/right division, the individual ignores the nature of the state leaving the state with the task of expressing the nature of leftness or rightness (since it is within the state that the conflict between left and right is embodied).  The state is thus left to its own devices: first encroaching on society in a "left" way (pushing through regulations on industry, instituting social welfare programs etc.) and then it encroaches on society in a "right" way (taking away personal liberties, pushing through legislation that benefits big business interests etc.).  The more the sate encroaches, the more the divisions within the state become meaningless up to the point where we have a system like we have today: a system where both parties stand for the same principles and the same policies.

It is time that we as Americans do away with this left/right divide (or at the very least, relegate it to the realm of social interaction and personal feeling) and adress the real problem: the state itself...

Dreams of Liberty (The State)                      

Feel the force of the broken ones

Blindly lashing at the branches

Afraid to strike the root and see

The end to their negative solidarity

Streets seethe under daylight’s pressure:

The negative solidarity movement marches forth.

But I remember as I stand here watching on,

That they say the night is always darkest before the dawn.

In fear the masses converge

Under banners devoid of vision,

Understanding,

And love.

No light of freedom glints in eyes

That look for solutions from above:

“The state will cure the sickness

of self-centeredness,

Greed,

And lust.

It will bring the order to our lives

Our cities,

Our nation,

Our trust.”

But the state can protect us only

From the violence we cause each other

Its touch never brings the love we crave

From every man as our brother.

It cements its rule with force’s power

That in love’s absence, projects a veneer

Of a nation’s people bound together

Though, in fact, they’re bound by fear

The state’s hand touches where we’ve succumbed

To the blind hatred that keeps us enchained

To our selfishness that preys on others

And acts on lies we’ve entertained.

The state lets us live with the folly

Of not looking our fellow man in the eyes

And knowing his pain, troubles and joy

While living with him every day of our lives.

I dream one day we’ll realize the truth

That our nation was not of fiat born

But birthed by freedom’s present light

From which the state has had us torn.

I dream one day we’ll see the truth

That love and freedom must lead the fight

Against state slavery and its chains

But ’till then we march:

Left, right,

Left, right,

Left, right.

Finally, I would like to point out that I am adding a new tag called "ideology in prose" which I will use to tag any post where i lay out a piece of my worldview in prose (as opposed to visual art, music or poetry).

Negative Solidarity Movement

 This is a quick poem inspired by my interactions with the Occupy Wall St movement (an interesting conversation I had yesterday inspired me to finish it).  For the most part they seem like good, well-intentioned, mostly liberal people who, when confronted by the current situation are afraid of what it might say about the politics that they've been pursuing for so long.  Rather than admit the obvious (the corruption of government as an institution, the need for a decentralized society built on organic community, the fatal contradiction of the leftist worldview that believes one can have personal liberty while the government delivers you your prosperity on a platter), they stand paralyzed in the face of reality saying things like "no one knows what will happen next", "no one knows what to do about this problem" etc. 


I hope all my OWS brothers and sisters who read this realize (and here, I speak from my deepest of personal experiences) that the first part of accepting reality and your place in it is admitting you are wrong.  I have been through this process.  It was hard living in an ideological limbo where I paid attention to so many things I was unable to form an opinion on, but admitting that my previous conceptions (I was, you could say, a generic statist) that set my course of action were wrong started me on the woodland path that I am still walking today.  Your former self will fall to ashes but you will rise a phoenix from the fires of change.

Negative Solidarity Movement

The crowd

Of decaying walls

Whose roof that united them

In common interest,

Belief,

Prosperity,

Has collapsed into the ground

Leaving them stranded:

Searching for someone to blame

As they crumble in the rain.

Out of isolation come the walls

To stand in city streets

Chanting slogans,

Holding placards,

Walking alone

Though with each other.

Between them

All bonds lie broken:

Each one stands

In contradiction with the crowd,

But walks with it

In self-righteous anger

That divides them even as it unites.

This movement stands afraid

To question

To answer

To find

An answer to their anger

For fear of what it might unbind…

Peak Government

I had to re-post this article because it succinctly articulates so much of what I feel against government intervention. 

Big government means no free market.  They tell us that the unbridled free-market caused the 2008 financial crisis and our inability to escape it.  This seems to be true since some of the biggest market players (and makers) are implicated in (and I would argue guilty of) the crimes of our time.  This argument, however, fails to consider the possibility that the very government that its adherents turn to in order to solve these problems might actually be the problem in the first place.  Take a closer look at some of the companies that are so reviled (for instance: Monsanto, Wall Mart, Exon Mobil, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan etc.) and you will find that all have in common ties with the government or a business strategy of fitting into a dynamic in private society created by the government (Wall Mart for instance, fits into the "globalization" dynamic created by the Fed's cheap money that encourages excessive consumption and discourages productive pursuits  at the "center" [aka the USA] and moves production -at the expense of consumption- to the periphery [aka china et al.].  It also benefits from the Fed and Government because many of its patrons are also on Social Security, welfare, unemployment etc.).

Dis-empower the state  and you will end the reign (and the existence) of its parasite corporations.

Big government is also a symptom and a cause of the spiritual disconnection of humanity from its own experience of itself and, through this, a disconnection with the ecology in which it lives.  The transfer of risk from one's own shoulders -say, the risk of poverty and the social consequences of poverty- also transfer the face of the stranger who represents the problem (represents it as both cause and effect) -the face of the poor and the face of the cause of poverty (corrupt governments that team up with corporations and especially financiers to steal your wealth through inflation as they use the state to keep you on financial life support while they gut you and your children of your future)-  from your gaze.  This dynamic of appealing to the state re-enforces personal isolation and selfishness which ultimately re-asserts itself in society as something that requires more state intervention.  This selfishness, meanwhile,  runs rampant over people and environment as both are disregarded in the quest (which the state and parasite corporations have institutionalized) for money and power.

The only way to end this dynamic is to do it PERSONALLY.  This change goes down to the essence of one's existence (an essence which I have tried to capture in poems such as Displacement, Dance of Silence, Solution and Experiment 2) as well as the concrete actions in which we engage in order to change our unfeeling and corrupt world that we live in (I have also attempted to addressed this aspect of concrete personal actions and experience with the world in poems such as The Illusions of Progress, The Future of an Illusion and Dust). 

This article is re-posted from http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/acknowledging-arrival-peak-government-part-1/75356 and was written by Charles Hugh Smith who writes on http://www.oftwominds.com/.

I don't necessarily agree with everything in the article but it's a great place to start.

Acknowledging the Arrival of Peak Government

Most informed people are familiar with the concept of Peak Oil, but fewer are aware that we’re also entering the era of Peak Government. The central misconception of Peak Oil -- that it’s not about “running out of oil,” it’s about running out of cheap, easy-to-access oil -- can also be applied to Peak Government: It’s not about government disappearing, it’s about government shrinking.
Central government -- the Central State -- has been in the expansion mode for so long that the process of contracting government is completely alien to the nation, to those who work for the State, and to those who are dependent on the State. Thus we have little recent historical experience of Peak Government and few if any conceptual guideposts to help us understand this contraction.
Peak Government is not a reflection of government services or the millions of individuals who work in government; it is a reflection of four key systemic forces that drove State expansion are now either declining or reversing.

The Four Key Drivers of State Expansion

The twin peaks of oil and government are causally linked: central government's great era of expansion has been fueled by abundant, cheap liquid fuels. As economies powered by abundant cheap energy expanded, so did tax revenues.
Demographics also aided Central States’ expansion: as the population of working-age citizens grew, so did the work force and the taxes paid by workers and enterprises.
The third support of Central State expansion was debt, and more broadly, financialization, which includes debt, leverage, and institutionalized incentives for speculation and misallocation of capital. Not only have Central States benefited from the higher tax revenues generated by speculative bubbles, they now depend on debt to finance their annual spending. In the U.S., roughly one-third of Federal expenditures are borrowed every year. In Japan -- which is further along on this timeline, relative to America -- tax revenues barely cover social security payments and interest on central government debt; all other spending is funded with borrowed money.
The fourth dynamic of Central State expansion is the State’s ontological imperative to expand. The State has only one mode of being, expansion. It has no concept of, or mechanisms for, contraction.
In my book Resistance, Revolution, Liberation: A Model for Positive Change, I explain this ontological imperative in terms of risk and gain. From the Central State’s point of view, everything outside its control poses a risk. The best way to lower risk is to control everything that can be controlled. Once the potential sources of risk are controlled, then risk can be shifted to others.
Put another way, once the State controls the entire economy and society, it can transfer systemic risk to others: to other nations, to taxpayers, etc.
In effect, the State’s prime directive is to cut the causal connection between risk and gain so that the State can retain the gain and transfer the risk to others. The separation of risk from gain is called moral hazard, and the key characteristic of moral hazard can be stated very simply: People who are exposed to risk and consequence act very differently than those who are not exposed to risk and consequence.
Every time the Central State guarantees something, it disconnects risk from consequence and institutionalizes moral hazard.
To take but one example of many, when the Central State guarantees mortgages so lenders and originators cannot lose and the borrower can’t lose more than his modest 3% down payment, then everyone in the chain is encouraged to pursue risky speculations because the State has disconnected risk from the consequence of a potentially large loss. The risk hasn’t vanished; it has simply been transferred to the taxpayers, who absorb the inevitable losses that result when speculation is encouraged.
Separating risk from gain inevitably generates systemic instability. The entire credit-housing bubble can be seen as proof of this dynamic.
All four of the causal factors itemized above are turning against continued expansion:

• The key energy source of global transportation, liquid fuel, is no longer cheap and easy to access.
• The demographics have reversed as the population of State dependents is soaring.
• Debt has expanded to the point that servicing that debt now threatens the financial stability of the State and its currency.
• The State’s separation of risk and consequence is generating systemic instability.

There are plenty of models of State expansion -- democracy, socialism, communism, theocracy, and so on -- and none for State contraction. This suggests that the down slope of Peak Government will be disorderly and rife with unintended consequences.

The Failure of Separation of Powers

The predominant Western model of governance assumes, incorrectly, that a “separation of powers” within the State will limit the State’s appetite for control. But rather than limit the State’s expansion, the State’s subsystems -- the institutions of executive power, legislative power and judicial power -- are competing to gain as much control as possible over both the State itself and the nation’s social and financial systems.
This competition doesn’t weaken or limit the State; rather, it lends the State a fearsome competitive advantage, as each institution gains power as the State expands. So even though the competition between the three may appear to limit the power of each, in aggregate this competition only increases the State’s expansion as each seeks to outdo the others in reach, influence, and power.
Regardless of which institution wins or loses a particular squabble, the State inexorably expands its control and power. And just as inexorably, elites within the State -- systemically protected from the risk created by their policies -- will experience a rising sense of omnipotence as their private power rises in tandem with the State’s expansion.
These powers also offer State elites a way to radically lower their own risk and dramatically increase their private gain by leveraging the State’s vast powers to their own private benefit.
In other words, not only does each agency and branch of the State seek to expand its reach and power, so, too, does every individual within the State who can leverage the power of the State to protect his/her own individual gain.

The State as Protector of Private Gain

The Central State is granted unique powers of coercion by its membership (the citizenry) to protect them from the predation of foreign powers, individuals, and subgroups seeking monopoly. The citizens grant the State this extraordinary power to protect their freedom of faith, movement, expression, enterprise and association and to insure that no subgroup can dominate the nation for their private gain.
Granting this power to the State creates a risk that the State itself may become predatory. To counter this potential, the State has the self-limiting mechanisms of a separation of powers such that no one institution or agency can dominate the State and thus the nation.
But as we have seen, the separation of powers has failed to limit the expansion of the State; rather, it has become a competitive advantage, feeding the State’s expansion. There are no State-based limits on the State’s concentration of wealth and power.
There is a great irony in this concentration of power in the State: the power is concentrated to protect the citizenry from predation and exploitation, but that concentration becomes an irresistible attractor for all those seeking to increase their private gain via monopoly, cartels, collusion, fraud, and other forms of predation.
The wealth that can be concentrated in private hands is not limited or self-regulated, and so private concentrations of wealth inevitably exceed the ethical threshold of individuals within the State (i.e., their resistance to bribes and self-interest). This structural imbalance leaves the State intrinsically vulnerable to the influence of private wealth. Once this wealth has a foothold of influence within the State, it can then bypass the State’s internal controls and become the financial equivalent of cancer: a blindly self-interested organism bent solely on growth at the expense of the system as a whole.
Rather than protect the citizens from exploitation, the State’s primary role becomes protecting the private gains of elites who have taken effective control of the State’s vast powers.

The Death Spiral of an Expansive State

We can now see that the Central State faces an impossible contradiction: to pursue its primary purpose of protecting the citizenry from predation, it is granted powers that enable it to evade its own self-limiting mechanisms. Private concentrations of wealth gain control over the State’s machinery of governance, and the resulting partnership of private and State elites suppress the mechanisms that were intended to limit private influence over State power.
To enhance their own power, these elites increase the State’s reach until it dominates the entire political, social, and economic system. This sets up an inherently self-destructive feedback loop in which the State’s actions to protect its self-serving elites weaken both the State and the nation. The State’s inefficiencies pressure the nation’s output, even as the State increases its share of the national income to maintain its self-serving elites and quiet its potentially restive dependents. The more the State expropriates, the less surplus is left for productive investment, and so the nation’s output continues to decline.
This dynamic creates a positive feedback loop (i.e., a death spiral) of higher taxes and lower investment in productive assets.

The Coming Collapse

The collapse is comming so stock up on food and gold, get to know your neighbors and find new ways to love...

The Coming Collapse

(March 28, 2012)

Our kingdom come

Which now stands lost

To its self-imprisonment in vice,

Finds itself in consonance

With the end its ways have wrought.

Soon we’ll find

Our only chance

To guide the blind

To righteous sight

-A chance that greets us with open arms

Opened by their lack of direction:

We herald now

The bell that tolls

For the impermanence

Of coddling waste,

Which brings with it destructive fires

That wipe away the cultures of decay.

We’ll stand among

The righteous flames,

Prepared to help

With loving hands

Those who survive the cleansing blaze:

Possessing eyes that see in firelight.

Burn

Will towers imprisoning minds!

Razed to dust

Will be walls that divide!

We must show this world new light

From which no one will want to hide.

The Fiat Dollar

 There are two primary factors driving society's divergence from truth.  The first factor is one I attempt to remedy in my poetry by attempting to liberate consciousness from its own illusion.

The second factor is money: What we use as money (debt) drives and facilitates so many of the ills that plague our society today: mindless rampant debt-fueled consumerism, wars fought in order to support the dollar, political corruption and corporatism etc.

These two videos explain the structure of our fiat currency -the world reserve currency and the currency you have to own if you want to buy oil (unless you're buying it from Iran, but don't worry, Obama will make sure to change that).

The Truth About Politics

I have never agreed more with the host of a program on FOX. Needless to say this show was canceled shortly thereafter

Dust

   

The wanderer follows

No hallowed path

Set forth for her

By the sagacious few.

Nor does she live

To build her past

For far off futures

Whose seeds are sewn.

No familiar face

Has she ever seen

That greets her where

She decides to sleep

But travels with

The wind in her hair:

The only companion

She chooses to keep.

All empires return

To dust that birthed

Them from the nothingness

Of barren ground,

And push the ambitious

To build them tall

For fleeting futures

On foundations unsound.

Such men still laugh

At one like her

Who possesses nothing

In their eyes,
And lives in chaos

Of shifting destiny

With no respect

For human lies.

But no future goal

Controls her fate

Nor worldly tethers

Bind her past

So she is free

To contemplate

Her relation to

The earth so vast.

She is the dust

from God’s fingers

that’s fallen on

Ungrateful land

And shows the blind

And sinful people

Their origin from

The present at hand.

They deride and mock

Or at best ignore her

And value what God

Did not confer

But she is more

than the earth and sky

And none can take

What belongs to her.

The Illusions of Progress

It's not capitalism vs anti-capitalism or right vs left
It's freedom vs slavery, love vs hate

The Illusions of Progress

Those who think they hold us to heel

When they bask in the light of our hallucination

Think control will keep at bay what’s real

By manipulating parties, media and nation.

But illusion has captured them as well.

Decades passed and truth repressed

Leave them under the deceiving spell

Of fleeting power with no regress

We know that truth has no party here

Where success finds only the greedy few

Perpetuating facades and grinding gears

Which cause such pain and crush the new

But the power lies in the peoples’ hands

Which build the pedestals from which greed falls

And demand control throughout the lands

In hopes their pride will conquer all

In our hopeless desire for personal glory

We ignore the love we owe each other

And leave the selfish to write our story

Forgetting each man is our brother

This freedom that we feel together

Manifests itself between us now

If we heed its virtuous call to weather

The trials our fate can’t disavow:

Cast off illusion from your mind!

Cast off your party: left and right

More powerful than a memory’s bind

Is present freedom’s eternal light

Destiny makes this our cause

Against loves’ division by selfish hate

So we can walk as one: free of laws

And live together without the state

The Future

This is a poem not only about past errors but also present ones waiting to be made.

Red Black Yellow

Atomized,

Anti-socialized,

No one to turn to.

No one to help you.

In a hypocritical world

We look to him for direction.

We find in him a solution:

Where actions become

The only form of thought,

There lies the virtue of sacrifice.

No one will deny

the purity of blood

Selflessly shed for this dream:

“When these centuries of struggle end,

Paradise will be complete.

Everything is possible.

We can change the world.”

Government loots Social Security to pay off banks

I completely expected this.  I never expected to collect SS in my lifetime since, like our monetary system, it has been designed as a ponzi scheme since its inception. 

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/senate-nears-debt-ceiling-consensus-which-revolves-around-changing-cpi-definition

so basically they are making the cuts by changing the way inflation is calculated so that they will be able to pay out less to those who put money in (the money SS pays out is adjusted for inflation).

It's really quite insidious.  This new way of calculating inflation "takes into account" the way people change their spending patterns when prices rise.  For instance... say a meal for 1 person earning $10,000 is $2 a meal.  Now say that the price of food rises astronomically so that it costs $20,000 for one meal.  The new government CPI calculation would look at this person and say "ok.  Food prices have gone up a lot and you definitely can't afford ANY food whatsoever.  BUT because you aren't buying any food, the inflation in food prices won't affect you."    You can clearly see what a scam this is. 

Arguing over a debt ceiling and budget cuts is pointless (too little too late) since there is no possiblity of us ever paying the debts off.  These extend and pretend policies only delay examination and acceptance of the fact/problem that our currency (the US dollar or Federal Reserve Notes [FRNs]) is a ponzi scheme and that this directly necessitates that our entire society is chronically (and unpayably) in debt.  The longer we extend and pretend, the more thouroughly our government and big, crony capitalist, financial institutions can loot our society.  Any solution is bound to be MASSIVELY painful because it will require that we acknowledge that none of these debts are ever going to be paid (deflation) or that they are completely worthless (hyper-inflation).  Of these two choices, the second one is far more likely since it is politically palatable: it allows the biggest debtors (the goverments and banks) to not make the politically difficult choice of default or bankruptcy.  Hyper-inflation allows these debtors to remain "solvent" until the end by allowing them to not be forced into  recognizing their own insolvency.

But no matter what happens just remember: they're all criminals and should be thrown into jail.