Subject: Circling the Drain or Springtime for Humanity?
Today was one of the best episodes of Free Keene TV yet. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch it now. On top of it, the episode was followed by a visit from JJ Schlessinger (Thursday night Free Talk Live cohost, FreeKeene.com blogger, and Free Keene TV producer) and Anarcho-Ali Havens (Friday night Free Talk Live cohost, LadiesInKeene.com blogger, and regular anchor for Free Keene TV). Their visit really helped buoy my spirits on what has been a very up and down day for me.
Today’s “Memorial Day” episode of FKTV was all prerecorded because the local studio was closed for the “holiday”, so there were no anchors or news segments as a regular viewer would expect. Instead there was a collection of moving videos loosely centered around the theme of how politicians have lied their way to riches at the expense of the poor, middle class, the environment, and possibly the future. It does an excellent job of singling out some of these most critical issues and stressing the importance of consciousness and action at this very moment.
What a bizarre experience to watch this in jail. The whole duration of the episode (and I hope you can imagine this while watching at home) was accompanied by the second TV beside it playing MTV’s newest intelligence-insulting hit, “Ridiculousness”, a show (if you can call it that) which features a multitude of video clips of people getting hurt while a panel of attractive judged laugh like Beavis and Butthead. Think “Ow, my balls” from the movie Idiocracy. It is hands down the most popular TV program in jail besides sports. So while you’re watching the most timely and hardest-hitting episode of Free Keene TV yet, imagine a gaggle of giggling boys watching a montage of people hitting each other in the balls and riding motorcycles into brick walls every time a comment about the endangered environment or children living in war zones moves you to tears. That was my experience tonight.
In the past, when I was more cynical, being trapped alongside this level of blissful ignorance and immaturity would have caused me to question whether or not I was the same species as my present company. It may have filled me with a sense of hopelessness about the world and its future, as this display clearly proves a concerning lack of heedence for the impending danger to our species if critical analysis is not applied nor action taken. No, to these, my brethren for the time being, I am a fool to care about children in Gaza who can articulate more eloquently than “American” adult grievances which are unthinkable: fear for loss of life due to barrages of bombs, and lack of food and water.
In my high school Latin classes, Magistra (Latin for teacher) stressed the importance of learning the lessons from the fallen Roman Empire: never ending and expanding wars, creating foreign enemies, diluting the value of the currency over time to almost nothing, taking on unpayable debts, and lulling the ignorant and enabling masses to sleep with state-sponsored bread, circuses, and gladiator shows. I refuse to be party to a generation that allows itself to suffer the fate of the Romans when I know better. I will not sit idly by and allow this to be my fate, even if I am not able to motivate anyone else to prepare for the consequences of the actions of recent generations. There will be blow back from the enemies created by intrusion into sovereign communities abroad, as there was in Rome. There will be a collapse of the financial system, too. As soon as night follows day, these things are true. They are happening before my eyes. And my fellow inmates of Prison Town, USA, watch TV shows called “Ridiculousness” (when they’re not watching sports) and eat pink slime and drink cancer juice paid for at the point of a gun by the productive few who remain propping up this nightmare of a society.
The old me would be so thoroughly disgusted by the slap-in-the-face reality check this jail experience provides that he would take his own life rather than risk rather than witnessing the shit show bound to unfold before his eyes. You may feel this way right now, and I wouldn’t blame you. But before you take that kitchen knife and start slicing your wrists, let me offer you an alternative view that has given me a new, more bearable perspective.
Allow me to posit that one who looks upon the world today and says, “It’s dying,” is wrong. In the same way, a person who sees bare branches and says, “It’s dying,” is wrong. One cannot deny what one is witnessing with one’s own eyes: It resembles death, but since the future is uncertain, it could simply be the end of an epoch or the end of a cycle of seasons.
To simply point to all the evidence of collapse and say “It’s over” is to adopt a myopic worldview. Yes, it is changing in a big way ¨C you and I have the great fortune of bearing witness to the end of an epoch here on planet Earth. Even more fortunately, because of the technologies which you are using to read these words, you and I can also play a role in the formation of a new world ¨C one shaped by he who is courageous enough to IMAGINE it. Imagination first, then reality. That is the order.
The tide is already beginning to turn because of individuals who dared to dream and acted on those dreams. Here are some examples:
1. A “nobody” professor used his imagination to dream of a place where people who value pace and personal autonomy would converge to collaborate on influencing the culture in that direction. He wrote his ideas on paper and shared them with others, resulting in over 1000 people uprooting their lives to come together and achieve those goals. That number continues to grow at an accelerating rate.
2. Some of those individuals who left the comfort of the familiar in order to popularize the ideas of peace and freedom decided to collaborate on producing a television show which would warn viewers of the dangers of lost personal sovereignty and educate them about strategies for living more independently. That program continues to grow in popularity while inspiring new conversations and motivating others to use their imaginations and envision a more free and peaceful world.
Tonight, when Free Keene TV had ended and I stood up to go back to my cell, one unexpected inmate (Tough Guy, for those of you who have been following my posts from jail) remarked to me, unprovoked, “That girl is smart.” I was shocked. I had no idea he had been watching. He had been speaking of the 13-year-old girl from Vancouver who spoke on behalf of a coalition of young people concerned for the environment, telling the adults convened around her, “If you don’t know how to fix it, then stop breaking it.” I believe the video is called, “The little girl who silenced the world”, if you want to search for it.
What was especially surprising to me is that this individual who commented is the toughest guy in cell block R ¨C the ultimate jock/meat head. In the past, he had threatened to beat up Beau, but no doubt thanks in large part to those who dared to share their love of peace and freedom, I was having a conversation about freedom with a person of whom I had previous been too afraid to speak. And he engaged me!
The tyranny of the past is unsustainable. It is crumbling, clinging on with hopes of distracting an ever wiser population during the final heist. It’s over for those who seek to oppress humanity, and the evidence is in front of you if you have the courage and the imagination to be far-sighted.
