Archive for the ‘Political’ Category

1988-06-08

Wednesday, June 8th, 1988

Why do people look down on patriotism?

It’s because it shows a definite lack
of checking your own assumptions.

And things we believe in without doubting
are acts of faith or stubbornness.

gallagher
8 jun 88
irvine

— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —

The Great Correction

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

down on the corner of ruin and grace
I’m growin weary of the human race
hold my lamp up in everyone’s face
lookin for an honest man

everyone tied to the turnin wheel
everyone hidin from the things they feel
well the truth’s so hard it just don’t seem real
the shadow across this land

people round here don’t know what it means
to suffer at the hands of our american dreams
they turn their backs on the grisly scenes
traced to the privileged sons

they got their god they got their guns
got their armies and the chosen ones
but we’ll all be burnin in the same big sun
when the great correction comes

down through the ages lovers of the mystery
been sayin people let your love light shine
poets and sages all throughout history
say the light burns brightest in the darkest times

it’s the bitter end we’ve come down to
the eye of the needle that we gotta get through
but the end could be the start of something new
when the great correction comes

down through the ages down to the wire runnin out of time
still got hope in this heart of mine
but the future waits on the horizon line
for our daughters and our sons

I don’t know where this train’s bound
whole lotta people tryin to turn it around
gonna shout til the walls come tumblin down
and the great correction comes

don’t let me down
when the great correction comes

-Eliza Gilkyson

- - - - -
From her 2008 album, Beautiful World.
and a hat tip to Michael Tobias at Only In It For The Gold

— Copyright 2008 by Eliza Gilkyson —

2015-03-23 – Cambrian Explosion

Wednesday, March 25th, 2015
 
Maybe, in human affairs
it happens as it does
in biological evolution.

A massive die-off occurs
and results in many open niches 
and something like the Cambrian Explosion 
occurs as nature or people
fill in the empty spaces.

In human affairs, wars and revolutions
take the place of nature's 
cataclysmic comets and meteors.

After WWII, there was a redistribution of
enormous amounts of wealth and opportunity
that diffused through a system
rendered porous by all the war's destruction.

Education and knowledge of the world
and it workings, poured out into the formerly
low and middle income populace
and they were no longer the sole domain
of the rich and privileged.

And we, the newly educated and newly freed,
became the human equivalents
of the denizens radiating from
the Cambrian Explosion.

But, as in biology, empty niches always
fill in again as they are reoccupied
by the more competitive among us.

The wealth and freedom 
that were liberated by war
for wide distribution
have begun to be gathered in again
by the ever present acquisitors.

But this time there are differences.
This time we are not 
the peasants of the Middle Ages
who have never seen past the end 
of our lord's properties.
This time many of us have read widely 
and know of the human history
of greed and domination that lies 
in endless repetition behind us.

This time we can see that 
which is beginning to enclose us 
yet again. 

We see the Neoliberals ascending 
our political hierarchies 
funded by the multinational corporations
who are weaving quasi-legal nets 
around national governments
with their faux free-trade agreements.

We see our news media being controlled
to shape what we see and hear.

We listen to the constant propaganda
of advertisement that encourages us 
to look the other way 
as it dazzles us 
with materialistic trinkets.

But knowledge is power
and this time we can see the causal links,
we can see the closing nets,
we can see the propaganda of confusion
creeping around us and
seeking to marginalize us
for the benefit of the acquisitors
as they seek to make us again
into their servants.

Knowledge has awoken us
and this time we will resist.

gallagher
23Mar15
Christchurch
      

— Copyright 1965-2015 by Dennis Gallagher —