Feel like my life on the line
That’s why a nigga be hype all the time
Ready for the revolution at the drop of a dime.
-Stic.man, “Look Around”

I got a duty to have security for my niggas
A duty to serve the beautiful black sisters
A duty to stand wit anybody that’s wit us
And fully criticize all bullshitters.
-M1, “Look Around”

Sludge burns, so naturally thugs learn to stay vested
-Psycho Les, “Look Around”

As I sit here in this strange hot box on the left edge of the old capital of the Confederacy, most of the world is muddy and turgid beneath a haze of red wine and loneliness, but a few thing are clear enough.

America has died, good friends, and good riddance. For too long we imagined that a couple paragraphs of high-minded piffle scrawled on a half-disintegrated piece of parchment sitting in a vacuum-sealed glass case in some marble mausoleum in the bowels of our crumbling, ridiculous capital would save us. Let us abandon, at this late date, this dangerous and frankly childish convention.

We are alone.

It could be worse, of course. After all, the wise old men whom we have traditionally trusted to guide us through the complex ins and outs of the administration of the most powerful government in the history of mankind were mostly superstitious, foul-smelling traitors and con men, holed up in a dimly lit fire trap in north Philadelphia, furiously trying to bang out a document that would make its own drafting (which act did, we should remember, introduce the possibility that armed men might appear at any moment and expeditiously order that any or all of its signatories be hanged by the neck until they be dead) seem worthy of the undignified carnage that would, Dei Willing, make The Republic a firm historical reality and not just another subheading in the index of history under the title “Farmers’ Rebellions.”

To put it another way, let us learn from our forefathers instead of imitating their followers. This shit is serious now, what we face. If this generation is to labor under the weight of calligraphic chains, let us forge those chains ourselves.

The Declaration and its sister the Constitution have, we must admit, produced this current situation, in which the United States shells the capital of a country it invaded and took control of over four years ago, calling the shelling part of a plan to bring “security” to that very same capital.

The First Amendment enshrined in the Bill of Rights (an addendum to that second sister) fortunately spells out several possible approaches to this turn of events. We are Free at least to find Religion, and to freely exercise the rites Thereof, without the intervention of the State.

If we search for Religions in this country we will find that their attitudes range from those attitudes wildly supportive of the aforementioned Foreign Policy Situation (the Baptists, if we can permit ourselves a few broad brush strokes, form the Vanguard of this vainglorious faction) to those attitudes that fail to seriously engage the Situation at all (the Episcopalians and the Catholics are two wonderful, if not altogether dissimilar, examples of churches that seem to have no real position on the most significant moral issue of our generation). We can certainly choose to Believe in Our President, a religion many have adopted. But beyond that we are faced with the frightening possibility that Belief might not be a particularly useful tool in the confrontation of our current calamity.

Next we have Freedom of Speech, and of the Press, which afford us the right to say freely what we will, and publish it as we might.

It would be difficult to identify a Freedom that separates us more clearly from the repressive societies of the past, who compelled compliance with the dictates of the State. Here we are Free to think, and think we do.

Take for example the leading Liberal Think Tank, where serious men and women diligently search for ways to subvert the Dominant Conservative Ideology of the United States, laboring tirelessly to stem the red tide that sweeps over the country as hardworking men and women conclude (using their First Amendment rights, natch) that liberalism is a bankrupt ideology, and that the conservative President represents the best hope for our nation.

Here at this Think Tank (known for the record as The Brookings Institution) the reviews of George W. Bush’s most recent bid to bring Democracy and Stability to Iraq are universally laudatory. We are “Fighting a Ruthless Foe,” they say, and we cannot rest until these killers and drug dealers are erased from the page of history.

Because of the fabulous freedoms we Take For Granted (and which we will surely bring to the rest of the world as soon as we work out the kinks in the implementation), these noble thoughts are disseminated not only by Speech but by The Press, namely the Washington Times, a newspaper operating at a loss and staying in business only by virtue of massive infusions of cash from the very same moguls who financed the President’s rise to his current station.

Meanwhile some malcontents wonder what it will take to bring the power back to the streets, where The People live. In stairwells, jail cells, penthouses, and basements, individuals call for a change to the policies that kill three Americans (and untold foreigners) every day, for reasons no one seems to be able to explain.

The majority of the country - the VAST majority - sees what is going on. But does this fabulous country afford us no avenue to enforce this vision beyond electing representatives through the same corrupt system that produced our foundering Congress, bankrupt government, and dysfunctional Press?

In fact, it does. “Congress shall make no law respecting… the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Constitution by its words and the Declaration by its example provide us with an avenue for taking peaceful action in exactly the dire condition in which we find ourselves today.

If the insanity that is our current government is to be ended, it will not be ended by the same hidebound thinking that produced it in the first place. We must organize, and act. And we must do it soon.

I call for a General Strike beginning August 1st, 2007. The details can be worked out at a summit in July, which I will organize and host.

I look forward to seeing everyone.

Sincerely

Raul Groom

This entry by Raul Groom was posted on Monday, April 30th, 2007 at 12:25 am and is filed under Everything Else, Iraq, War Absurdities, Evildoers, Free Speech, Blogging, Dope, Ill-rhymes, History, Education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.