Happy Samhain

We are the grass. To the elephants we are fodder. When they fight, whoever wins, we are trampled. In peace, our labor fills their coffers. In war, our bodies fill their coffins. They tell us we are free. I guess that means we are free to work and die while their freedom means they are free from responsibility for their thefts and murders. From sea to shining sea has become one big work camp with only varying levels of liberty doled out according to how well you lick their boots. Work, pay us and shut up is the undertone of every soap opera, sermon, sports event, reality show and news clip poured out on us. It is infoterrorism, dopium produced for us, the grasses.

There is no use throwing off our chains. History shows again and again that revolution doesn’t lead to freedom it only changes which elephants are feeding on us and fills many coffins. There’s no use protesting that one set of chains is easier to bear than another. For the mind enervated by the dream of freedom no chain could ever be acceptable. More oppressive situations can even be better because the hand that grasps so tightly lets more slip through. Heavy chains impress the mind more than light ones. It is the informed but not educated, comfortable but indebted, bled but not to death, disenfranchised by the very construct of empowerment, oppressed but unmotivated to change, middle ground where the horror of half-life, undead, zombielike mere existence finds its’ fullest pallid corpse-stinking flower.

It is possible that the self-deluded living death of Uncle Sam’s sharecroppers is the best possible outcome for the unwashed masses, although that would be a pretty sad commentary on the nature of humanity. Even the tomb builders of Egypt could pity us though we never feel the overseer’s lash on our back, they have a legacy while we have just to consume and consume without end under the mental lash of fear, fear of losing illusory freedom, fear that our oppressors will lose power, fear a fellow slave might have more gilding on his chains. The whole world envies our Mc Mansion and Escalade chains, little suspecting that golden chains are the heaviest kind. Our Pinocchio-like appearance of having no strings attached will be quickly falsified when the world clamors for a place on our stage. And they will not thank us when they have attained what they thought they sought. The engorged chain gang will encircle the globe, caught in a demonic conga of repugnance, driven by hobgoblins wielding whips of political promises and apocalyptic prophecies.

There is no hope in personalities. If a blade springs up from among us it must transform into an elephant to drive the other elephants away and then, will or nil, it tramples and feeds, usually in orgiastic auto-adulatory narcissism. If it should miraculously return to us, the space of breath gained only produces fatter fodder to gorge the inevitably returning elephants. To follow is to die, soon or late. Jim Jones showed mercy in alacrity. Our lifetime legislators, judges, sheriffs, councils, ad nauseam, exhibit no such soft tendency. They squeeze for every drop, all for our good, of course.

The demi-gods of state are mortal. The corpse of the elephant feeds the grass. The grave claims all. Is this what is meant by justice, equity, judgment? The final fraternity is perfectly egalitarian, a smooth lawn indeed with each blade cut down to the root. Our chains chafe raw wounds that suppurate and poison our blood while the knowledge that the powers are powerless is the balm, thin and stinging, given by the parsimonious cosmos.