What Goes Around Comes Around

Jane Fonda, Feminism (a little Shakespeare) and the Absorption of Yes and No

again
No. I said to Yoko
how simplistic you were then
Black - white, high - low.
Still valued? -
Has been.

I said yes
ten thousand times before (count them)
wound it tied it ribboned, flourished
tidied whitened whored

and now the time of no has come (hear it?)
backlashing close behind
Pretty girls run naked!
Pretty little napalmed girls! (see them?)
Crying as they run (good girls)
Honest little empty girls (just like we like em)
Firm-breasted girls who lie on their backs (groan)
Scream, no! (learning first to bear, making them women of good carriage)

No is the new yes.
Relax
let me do the thinking, baby
rest your sweet head
Here on my bed
no is yes yes is no so
Let my fingers console you
warm and hidden

Let me take it all away
(back to top)

CLG

Breathe deeply, I tell myself.
pouring the scalding headlines of today's news over my head, I remind myself
I am refreshed.
Dim recollections of a phone's muffled buzz
in the dark
someone needs me -dash
someone reaching across time and space -dash
someone -
alone -dash
my phone displays no calls

Fascism and Sexuality

Life in our country just gets weirder by the minute. Reading the news is a trip. Here's an alarming headline I came across in Raw Story this morning: "FDA official says pill leads to sex cults". They're referring to Plan B contraceptive, here, and reasons for the FDA's reluctance to approve it. (Read the whole article here) Facism again comes to mind...

Fascism and Sexuality

There has also been a revival of interest in recent times, among many academic historians, with regard to the profound cult of masculinity that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female sexuality and reproductive behavior for the ends of the State. Italian fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the 'Battle For Births', to almost double the country's population. The exclusive role assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not workers or soldiers.

According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what Theweleit calls 'the conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. Despite its sexually charged politics, fascism is an anti-eros, 'the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial." (Wikipedia)

What We're Giving Away

Awake at 3am, I'm thinking about corporatism, fascism and our sorry asses. Read this: Congress is Giving Away the Internet, and You Won't Like Who Gets It, found by way of AmericaBlog. And here's more, from Hullabaloo.

Monkeys!

Remember Mo's theory that we are all just "smart" chimps? Well, you gotta go here and watch "Dance, Monkeys, Dance", Ernie Cline's slide show about the very same topic.

Mothering

Success is a great result.
Failure is a great experience.
- Words of Wisdom by Ch'an Master Sheng Yen
Ok, I say to myself, if I take just one action today I will pick up sticks, being present in each movement of the gathering.

Bare feet on cool rubbery new grass, sun on bent back, one dry twig, two dry twigs, three.

A bird in the tree looks down on me. Says look at me!

With twine wrap your bundle tight. Carry it in your arms. Then let it go.

Almost

I almost succeeded in writing a post each day of spring break. Today is my last, and I gotta say, I have been questioning this blogging thing again, and the evolution of my motivation in the past couple of years. Maybe I've just bored myself with all the blah blah blah of the past week, thinking it would be good discipline to make myself write even if the inspiration wasn't there.

I dunno, maybe like Cookie I'm using this blog as an escape from real life. I've always had trouble discerning the difference between "real life" and whatever it is that people say isn't "real life". Like when adults said, "College is not real life," I couldn't understand their reasoning. It always seemed real to me. What makes one environment "real" and another "unreal"? I guess it just depends on the individual and their motivation. And what is my motivation for blogging?

It's been exactly two months since my divorce, and I know I've gotta take some time to adjust, enjoy being alone and be kind to myself. But when does that transition into "a spinster living alone with 23 cats cooking with a hotplate"? Grey Gardens comes to mind as a potentially more upbeat version of my future.



But here I go, thinking too much again. I can see that the sun is shining behind my curtain. I think I will step out into it.

Easter Thoughts on The Gospel of Judas

Searching the internet this morning for information on gnosticism and The Gospel of Judas, I happened on an article in The Washington Times called, Judas Stars as 'Anti-Hero' in Gospel. So much for my original insights, huh. Here's a passage from the article:

Judas is given star billing in this account as Jesus' chief confidant among the disciples, contrary to the portrayals in the four canonical Gospels.
    "Judas is presented as the one to whom everything is told," said Gregor Wurst, a German scholar who helped translate the document. "Judas was an anti-hero."
    It claims that Jesus and Judas planned Jesus' Crucifixion so that the death of Christ's weak, earthly body could release His spirit to enjoy the glories of heaven.
    Near the end of the Judas gospel, Jesus tells Judas he will "exceed" the rest of the disciples "for you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
    This concept comes from gnosticism, a doctrine that believes salvation comes not by Jesus' death and Resurrection, but through secret knowledge imparted by Him to select individuals.

Samael Aun Weor teaches that The Gospel of Judas is allegorical, like all of the other gospels, and that "...Judas, as a symbol of the ego, must die. Only in this way can the Savior be resurrected." He says that, "Each apostle of Jesus represents specific qualities of our own inner divinity." And further:

Judas symbolizes a very specific aspect of the consciousness. To comprehend Judas in his full symbolic depth requires Meditation. The Intellect is simply too shallow and redundant to grasp the full impact of any spiritual truth, and Judas, who on the surface appears diabolic, escapes easy definition.

The story of Judas and the manner in which humanity perceives him is closely related to that of Lucifer. As with many of the most profound aspects of the Christian doctrine, the stories of Judas and Lucifer were edited, corrupted and eventually despised. But it was not always so. In the early days of the Christian Faith, when the doctrine was more intact, both Judas and Lucifer represented critical aspects of the Christian doctrine. This is easily demonstrated even today: simply look into any church history, and you will find many of the early church fathers bearing the name Lucifer. It is said that even one of the early popes carried that name.

I can see why this new perspective of Judas would be threatening to the mainstream church (American civil religion), which depends on "the flock's" belief in and obedience to the teachings of the patriarchal church, including the division of heaven and hell, God and the devil, man and god, 'good' and 'evil' to maintain societal control." Gnosticism is quite different in that..."[I]n a religious context, to be 'Gnostic' should be understood as being reliant not on knowledge in a general sense, but as being specially receptive to mystical or esoteric experiences of direct participation with the divine. Indeed, in most Gnostic systems the sufficient cause of salvation is this 'knowledge of' ('acquaintance with') the divine. This is commonly identified with a process of inward 'knowing' or self-exploration."

The Gospel of Judas thus confirms the fundamental difference between the tradition from the disciples and the Gnostic tradition. The disciples saw Jesus as the promised Messiah, i.e. Christ and called themselves Christians. The Gnostics had another god than "their god". It is thus not correct to see The Gospel of Judas as a Christian gospel. It is rather a text written against the Christians, in which Jesus is made a Gnostic teacher believing in another god than the Jewish god. It wants the reader to believe that there is only one witness who is telling the truth while the other witnesses even failed to see that Jesus was against "their god".

I will be interested to see how The Gospel of Judas will be absorbed into our culture. Most "radicalism" is tolerated, given just enough air time to make it seem acceptable, absorbing it, then making it mainstream or "cool", transfering it as slogans on a t-shirt and rendering it benign.

How does all of this relate to our world today? We are anesthesized. Granny D believes that, "If we Americans are split into two meaningful camps, it is not the conservative versus the liberal, it is the politically awake and the hypnotized." She says,

"If you believe that human beings, in addition to all their other instincts, want to help create and live in a happy, creative and cooperative world, then you must believe that people are to be trusted in their politics so long as they are encouraged to study everyone's experience and study the competing points of view -- and so long as they are raised with enough love and security to be capable of empathy. We need not force a liberal agenda on our society, any more than we need force our political opinions on our children. We can enjoy life instead of banging our heads against the old walls. If we encourage an awake thoughtfulness, democracy and justice will have all the victories our hearts can handle."

And here, in contrast, is a quote from of our beloved law-breaking division-creating government official, Tom Delay:

"Sides are being chosen, and the future of man hangs in the balance!" he warned. "The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won and if we put our trust in Christ they never will. ...It is for us then to do as our heroes have always done and put our faith in the perfect redeeming love of Jesus Christ."

Shall we maintain the status quo, which seems to consist of our complicit agreement with politics that ensure infinite war and ultimate annihilation of the world and ourselves? Would Tom Delay consider me an enemy of virtue? Probably. I hardly think the politicians in power would approve of The Gospel of Judas, but probably not consider it, or us the people, as a threat to their ultimate agenda.

Evangelical Christians will probably have little interest in this gospel. They may be aware that there were many dozens of gospels circulating within the early Christian movement of which only four were found to be legitimate, inspired by God and inerrant. These are the canonical gospels: Mark, Matthew, Luke and John...

Liberal Christians will probably have a great deal of interest in the gospel. It demonstrates the wide diversity of beliefs held by the various groups within the diverse early Christian movement.

Judas the Star

When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.
Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?
Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon.
And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.
Now no man at the table knew for what intent he spake this unto him.
For some of them thought, because Judas had the bag, that Jesus had said unto him, Buy those things that we have need of against the feast; or that he should give something to the poor.
He than having recieved tha sop went immediately out: and it was night. (1 John 13:21-30)

I am intrigued by The Gospel of Judas, and though I had taken a liking to the infamous Judas before, now he has become famous in traditional selfless John Wayne style. Dare we call him a star?

In the movie script of the old version, written by the apostle John (above, King James version), the role of Judas would have been played by a character actor in a minor role, like one of the children in The Sound of Music. He would be the irritating clingy one that always has to sit by Jesus and monopolize his attention, driving the other apostles nuts. He was the most flawed of all the apostles, full of contradictions, and no lightening revelation of pure devotion marked his transformation. He did what most humans are inclined to do. He fucked up. (In a similar vein, I was quite attracted to Boromir's character in The Lord of the Rings, also a "traitor" who represented the deep conflict of being human.)

No offense to Jesus, but this new gospel is big news, it seems to me. It changes everything, makes things less black and white, brings some doubt into the mix and complicates what we thought of as "reality". The newly redefined Judas Iscariot, described as the only one of the 12 disciples to understand Jesus' teachings, made a real fucking sacrifice, just like Jesus, but unlike Christ, received no spotlight or accolades. Well, it seems that Judas' time has come. Suddenly a character we had thought of as minor is presented in a major role, sort of like the movie Rosencranz and Guildenstern, which retells the story of Hamlet from the perspective of two minor characters who have no control of their destiny. Or how about Adaptation, a movie in which the screenwriter revises the original book upon which the movie is based to make himself the protagonist? New perspectives are always interesting, and we are lucky to have them.

And now that we have Judas' own version of his story, it reminds me of so many relevant issues that I thought were lost in this conservative age in which we live, like "Who is allowed to write history? Who is allowed to have a voice, and why? Who benefits from the versions of history that become canon?" There has been such a "revisionist history" backlash toward multiculturalism, feminism, all of the movements that would give voice to the voiceless. Who says the personal isn't political? Contrary to popular belief, Judas is an antihero.

Though some theologians have hypothesized the "good Judas" before, scholars who have translated and studied the text said this was the first time an ancient document lent specific support to a revised image of the man whose name in history has been synonymous with treachery...

Already, some scholars are saying that this Gospel sheds new light on the historical relationship between Jesus and Judas. They find strands of secret Jewish mysticism running through the beliefs expressed by some branches of early Christianity.

But others say the text is merely one more scripture produced by a marginalized Christian cult of Gnostics, who lived so many years after Jesus' day that they could not possibly produce anything accurate about his life. For these reasons, the discoveries are expected to intrigue theologians and historians of religion and perhaps be deeply troubling to some church leaders and lay believers. (The New York Times)

A tradition of bible-thumping hell and brimstone preaching has gone down concerning Judas the turncoat, and preachers don't take kindly to being challenged, I've noticed. Will they have to redirect all that fire toward some other villain? Will they simply deny the Judas gospel, fearing the wider implications that accompany it? Will they fear appearing less authoritative? Letting the people think for themselves can be a dangerous thing.

"These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion and demonstrating how diverse — and fascinating — the early Christian movement really was," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics. (The New York Times)

Once again I am reminded that all things change.

Moving Flowers

Are You Normal?

A nagging feeling that I should be "getting on" with my life has pervaded my consciousness for the past few months along with a strong desire to avoid "normal" people, "normal" advice and the "normal" world. Is this a dilemma? In my vision there are very few people scurrying about the earth who aren't "normal". I keep my eye out, but it's pretty dry.

I live in a university town, a very normal town that, were it not for the university would be exactly like any other closed-minded midwestern town. The townspeople generally hate the students and their feisty youthful behavior and an example of the townspeoples' method of "reaching out" to students is to have boring meetings outlining expectations for student behavior. We have, in the not-so-distant past, been famous for student "riots" after football games, which usually consisted of the burning of a couch or two in a student lawn accompanied by bare-breasted undergrads dancing around the fire like "heathens". Woohoo! The adult population is alarmed and mimics a scene from The Crucible, with interrogations, trials, banishment, burning at the stake, you know the story.

One well-known and revered portion of real estate in town consists of comically large McMansions facing the rich-man's version of the gazing ball, man-made "lakes". They afford prestige to some couples who require normal things like cocktail parties and the redecoration of their house each year to stave off boredom.

Sometimes it occurs to me that a normal day in the presence of normal people is very much like watching the Discovery Channel, with adolescent human males and females grouping together, eyes darting, tentatively trying to enter a social circle, sometimes taken in, but more likely driven away if the right signifiers (clothing, language) are not displayed. Mating rituals abound! The adult social norm is one male and one female who have mated and formed an exclusive family group who socialize with other similar couples. Marriage and the exclusivity of emotional and physical intimacy which it demands as "the norm" creates the largest in-group and out-group.

Sometimes when I am out in the world I am struck by the sheer volume of heterosexual couples moving hand-in-hand through their lives, year after year, and how we all grew up believing this was the only option that was acceptable and natural. How bizarre that it is radical not to believe that an exclusive life-long relationship is the only right and true way (and "God's will", no less). How much reinforcement is needed to constantly keep this vision of the world alive? (The DaVinci Code, while not a great book, is interesting because a book that blew the lid off the patriarchal "norm" which has placed men in a position of superiority and subjugated women in Christian culture for centuries was so wildly popular.) Perhaps there are fewer normal people out there than I realize, or at least fewer who are happy being normal.

And now that Judas may be revealed as a "good guy", what are good Christians gonna do with that? I will watch it like the Discovery Channel, with familiar human positioning, power plays, the use of guilt to produce compliance, punishment and fear tactics to deter behaviors. Containment is a full-time job.

Questions: Do you believe that the "rewards" of spending your life with one person are somehow special, or superior to the rewards of any other way of life? Is fear (of being ostracized or simply left alone) a motivating force behind marriage? "Heterosexual exclusive relationship" propaganda abounds in the media (movies, TV, mainstream magazines)... or is the media simply reflecting what is normal? How do you feel about love?

Grounded

My dog bite is healing nicely and even though it left a scar, I didn't get rabies or gangrene, forcing me to have my leg amputated. Wow. How fortunate am I?

Needing a little gounding this morning (I have determined to write at least one post each day over my spring break. Very concrete. And how lucky are you? You have seemingly endless reading from now until next Tuesday.) I will not beat my head against The Wall by thinking about the seriously misguided Bush administration or alter my state of consciousness by going to that place which "is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits". I have felt so drawn to that place of late, but perhaps I have lost myself in translation. How good is it that I have scattered bread crumbs to point my way back to my own garden?

You know, I am very sick of flowers. Searching for the wisdom of cycles this week, a sort of contented acceptance of the changing of the seasons, birth and death and the revolution of the planets, I admit to a little problem with repetition.

Once Cookie said, "I'm having trouble blogging because it's beginning to feel like something escapists do when they want to pretend they're engaging in life," and now, a few months later, Cookie is gone. I wonder if she feels more engaged with life. Gene has mysteriously, with some of his posts and part of his name, disappeared. I hope he's writing a novel. ("It is interesting pondering writing and a novel and how much it entails. Coming up with 50,000+ words that people would actually want to read all the way through seems daunting, but it seems like something I need to try to do to see if I come up with anything good.")

How strange that I, with my aversion to sameness, walk on, now posting flowers from the gardens, looking for a middle-of-the-night comment from Best Ryan, empathizing with the dramatic, smart and infamous Melina. Tomorrow some political raging and then comes time for poetry. Have I escaped from life? Have I found a fantasy half-way house where the characters' foibles make them more endearing? They don't shit, have bad breath or find fault with me. It is the perfect world. Whew! Isn't it lucky that I am so grounded in "real" life that I can balance here in perfect perspective?

AJ sleeps upstairs, still on New York time. She is so able to make decisions with no regrets. Something breaks? She lets it go, a very healthy quality to possess. And I can let this blog go (strange, but it feels like real life), if need be. I am closer than ever to accepting change. Man! Isn't it great that I can let you go? How lucky am I to have you for a moment!

Today in the Gardens

God Tells George W Bush to Nuke Iran!

And the lord said to his little helper, "Nuke the fucking hell out of Iran, but pretend you're advocating diplomacy."

Sound familiar? Things are not looking good, kids. Our president wants to invade Iran using nuclear weapons, and who is going to stop him? When the citizens of our supposedly democratic country are willing to give up free speech, habeas corpus and the bill of rights to a minority of religious extremists (the Bush administration) we are in deep shit in more ways than one.

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack...

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. (Seymour Hirch, The New Yorker)

This administration is determined to start a war with Iran, and nothing stops this guy. Under his watch no atrocity appears too heinous, no photos of torture, no lies, no broken promises, no voter fraud, no environmental destruction, no crime of this administration can wake us up. Is there anything that will motivate us to stop them from bringing us to the brink of annihilation?

This administration doesn't care about poll numbers, they don't care what we think. They are deluded. They think they are chosen by God to do his will. Bush believes he's God's little helper, bringing on the apocalypse.

In recent weeks, the President has quietly initiated a series of talks on plans for Iran with a few key senators and members of Congress, including at least one Democrat. A senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, who did not take part in the meetings but has discussed their content with his colleagues, told me that there had been “no formal briefings,” because “they’re reluctant to brief the minority. They’re doing the Senate, somewhat selectively.”

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.” (Seymour Hirch, The New Yorker)

And some closing words from another Republican who is not afraid to break the law for Christ, Mr Tom Delay (hell, yea!).

"Sides are being chosen, and the future of man hangs in the balance!" he warned. "The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ they never will. ... It is for us then to do as our heroes have always done and put our faith in the perfect redeeming love of Jesus Christ." (Tom Delay at "War on Christians" Conference by way of Jesus General)

Job Interview

Do you swallow ssswords? gilded wet
tongue slides smooth fork
down open gullet Didn it?
downwent cat eyes
quickgone under
I groan setting off
nastic movement chain reaction nuclear fusion

Snakes. Can you handle them? big
venomous creatures
known devourers of helpless females and
small children

What about breathing fire? women
scream love! love!
wiggle walk sweet talk
lie down on hard
bed of nails

eaters of glass
pierced with hooks fiercely
pulling their elastic skin
limbless torsoed posing pouting
sequined scales
full of dreams of flying
Are you experienced?

Have you ever been a mermaid?
Made of rubber?
Conjoined with another?
Type with toes?
Balance plates on your nose?
Answer the phone?
Bend over baby show me your assets

#58

Once I said I want to be a hermit (in the vein of the Taoist Chinese hermits, who are now no doubt non-existent. Hell, if we had our way there would be WalMarts lining the Chungnan Mountains, but that's another blog. Or not.) So the wisdom of Dolly comes back to haunt me again. "Be careful what you wish for." I am pretty much living as a Chinese Taoist hermit minus the Chinese part and the Taoism. (Did Chinese hermits drink wine from boxes?)

I leave at 8:00 am to pick AJ up at the airport in the city. I haven't seen her since last summer when I broke my key off in the lock and used my body as a battering ram to bust her apartment door down. Among other things. What a summer that was.

So much has gone down, my old life seems very distant and the new one unformed. But today I enjoy this happy moment of anticipation.

58. As the past has faded into misty memories, and the future remains a dream unrealized, seizing the present is most important. (from the "108 Paths to Liberation" by Ch'an Master Sheng Yen)

Tuesdays

On Tuesdays I dutifully and somewhat loudly drag the old plastic garbage can from the back yard out to the curb. Matted thick brown leaves, until recently buried under months of heavy winter snow create the perfect slick path, and again I think how stupid it is to rake. Refusing to succumb to the luxury of a brand new sturdy modern wheeled can with a snappy environmental city logo, I energetically brave the dark early morning with its obstacles lurking who-knows-where around the muddy yard. I get the job done. "Exhilerating!" I tell myself.

Where do all of the old recycling bins go? Are the landfills full of them? The city workers will no longer have anything to do with my cracked one. They ignore the glass and plastic offerings inside and leave me notes referring to rules concerning my responsibilities and their expectations. They also refuse to take the offensive bin away. They will have nothing to do with it. Again I suspect I have missed an important memo, a bit of information that everyone in the neighborhood seems to know. I am an environmental cretin. I am unknowingly destroying the world.

On Tuesdays in the dark I pass driveways with carefully placed cans perched smartly at the end of driveways, recycling bins sitting properly to the left. Behind them, yards are green already, some miracle of fall raking I suppose.

The Norm, Big Dicks and Spoilt Lives

The Dalai Lama, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph says, among other things, that Westerners have

...become self-absorbed, burdened with too much choice.

"It is fascinating. In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences - yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours," he said.

"I don't think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice - which brings no real freedom."

Not more selfish, but spoilt. What does that mean? I always figured being spoiled meant being given ones' way for too long, leading to selfishness. Perhaps the Dalai Lama means to, "injure the character of by excessive indulgence" (The Oxford Modern English Dictionary), which is probably true. Our character is definitely in question. Case in point: Is there one person in our government that you trust? Everyone has sold out, everyone is spun, every news release is layered with lies, half-truths, hidden agendas. All is compromised. Lies are now the "norm".

The sad thing is that most "normal" people ("normal" in the Reverend Mykeru sense: "By definition, a "normal" is the sort of person who would actually use phrases like "think out of the box" or "color outside the lines" in the service of doing something trite, boring, probably life-hating and usually involves ripping people off, and then bitch slap the first person actually caught thinking outside their box and coloring outside their lines.") are totally unaware of their inability to think critically, self-examine or analyze how their demands for conformity effect the rest of the world.

We are blind, all wrapped up in our spoilt lives, bringing up our spoilt children, handing down our fixation on body image and designer clothing and our selfish dreams of ownership and exclusion in our spoilt and polluted world. We are deluded, who drive super-sized gas-guzzling Hummers (of all things) because a fucking Hummer symbolizes a super-sized he-man penis. Driving a hummer is a parade of insecurity about dick size. "So while our brothers and sisters are off in the Middle East risking their lives to secure America's fossil fuel future, H2 drivers are pissing away our "spoils of victory" during each trip to the grocery store." (Fuck You and Your H2) Real men don't need a big environment-destroying machine to validate their masculinity. Size really isn't that big a deal.

Anything of value has gone underground (Please let there be things of value underground!). Above are the "normal", who demand those things for which they later punish you, start wars and rumors of wars, require allegiance, classify documents for your own good, rape and pillage while wearing the garish patriarchal costumes of patriotism and christianity. Inciting fear of difference. Creating disturbances. Censoring. Neutering. Hating. Killing.

Yes, we Westerners are spoilt, a condition of which only we are unaware. The rest of the world knows that we fancy ourselves the "norm", the nice guys, the charmers, the center of the universe. The sun. The moon. The constellations. The big dicks.

Those of us who still live up here? We are merely the complicit. We are goin down, I think. Perhaps that is the only road to freedom.