I Have A #9 Dream - Democratic Underground

omega minimo

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Sat Dec-09-06 10:42 PM
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I Have A #9 Dream

Edited on Sat Dec-09-06 10:54 PM by omega minimo

"It's fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that --it's all illusion. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it's unknown and it's plain sailing. Everything is unknown --then you're ahead of the game. That's what it is. Right?" --J.L.

"If The Beatles or the 60's had a message, it was ‘Learn to swim,’ and once you've learned --SWIM." --John Lennon

In 1980, Ronald Reagan got elected and John Lennon got killed. I thought Reagan’s bogus “landslide” was the marker of When-America-Began-It’s-Sleepwalk-Into-Hell, going along with the rouge-cheeked and bumbling Big Liar... yet after this recent election --where Americans (almost) woke up from their nap --and the 26th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, it appears that Lennon is the true symbol of The Beginning Of The End.

We hold these truths to be self-evident. So self-evident that we can ignore them, take them for granted.

We are the consumers of a marketing scheme called patriotism, a brand name called Democracy-- willing now to sell out the Constitution, because “Democratic President 2008” is being held out in a shiny, happy, resealable package. Microwaveable!

We are a nation of pretenders, ruled by bad actors. We give lip service to national values enshrined in a document that we ignore as it is sent through the shredder by the current White House resident wearing the Invisible Cloak of Emperor Reagan.

We are the children of assassination. We are all inflicted with the primal wound-- growing up in the shadows of Duck and Cover, nuclear clouds, men in the shadows, murdered heroes... The same people trained to believe in the power and rights and responsibility of the individual are frozen, immobilized by the unspoken, internalized knowledge that the hero gets his head blown off.

And the children of this mix of passion, patriotism and paranoia, the pathetic born-cynics that think inaction and ennui is a decisive statement, have it sorted out as best they can... smugly certain that anyone who thinks individual action can make a difference is deluded.

Maybe it will take another generation for the spirit to come back: The spirit of engaged and interdependent American democracy that lived before Reaganism; the spirit of fun, art, rage and passion that was John Lennon, that was American art before corporate domination.

The spirit of the dream.

“You make your own dream. That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story . That's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be. There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.” --John Lennon

edit for: "responsibility"