Unwissenheit macht frei (Ignorance makes freedom)





If there were a pause button, I'd have used it a thousand times, if there were a rewind, I'd have worn off the icon by now. If there were a way to erase it all, we'd be staring at cold static in empty cities, monoliths of a society that couldn't understand what it had, wouldn't open it's eyes for 10 seconds to see what it all really was about.

But there isn't.

We're stuck on a program where 18 year old boys step out of school and into a foreign country. They kick through clapboard doors and brandish assault rifles at other 18 year old boys with brains full of ruinous propaganda and hearts brimming with pride at being the boy on the winning side. I cannot blame these kids, they are only doing what is asked of them. They live in a world where words really are just words, and thought is always pure, as long as it's in your native tongue.

Children working in other countries get coin to create what we pay dollars for. Creating a product that probably has a better survivability chance then it's creator. A product that will be cared for with more reverence then the small hands that were it's creator. Everybody knows about it and gives the appropriate " tsk tsk" when it's brought into light, even the occasional gasp when we learn that their overlords are not the families or neighbors of those children, but our own. Keeping up with the Jones's never seem so ignoble in the past.

In our own back yards men, women, and children starve with hands that could make those products. Hands that live in tents next to freeway on-ramps, hidden in our micro forests that exist next to roadways where once a true forest stood. The makeup that Americans try to use to hide America's scars. Living in the shadows of giants of glass and steel, brushed off one too many times by a business suit throwing half of a sandwich in the garbage. Beaten one too many times by a youth, angry at his parents, angry at society, angry at the steroids pulsing through his veins, taking it out on those that cannot, or will not defend themselves. Bitter resentment brewed and fueled by broken promises, by realizing that to be a part of the American dream, you need to be asleep.

Angry words, sad faces bobbing amongst the flock of ties and button up shirts. Sorrowful at being awake, angry at knowing we can never sleep again.

Being awake is not the loss of innocence, it is casting off ignorance, there was no innocence to lose. That innocence died the moment that the next generation was taken home, clutched tight to a breast filled with the promise of a better tomorrow as it passed a handful of the homeless outside of the hospital before climbing into it's steel beast to ride the scars home. We lay them in a crib built by the hands of a toddler who sleeps atop discarded packing boxes in a country that has been beaten down one too many times by a handful of 18 year old boys playing at men with brains full of words and hearts full of pride. Purchased from those neighbors and family who put the right spin on it all, who sing the lullaby.
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The mind is an odd thing, I'm in a less than savory mood, and I can't get my mind off of what kind of transformer I'd be. Not sure if there's any Freudian significance to that, like if I said I wanted to transform from a panther into a double headed rubber cock, black with rainbow sparkles in it, I'm sure some psychiatrist would tell me that I've got deep seeded issues about space exploration. So I keep thinking about it, trying to make sure that my decision has enough Karate cool to satisfy my male urges, while not stemming back to some Oedipal complex where I wanna stuff my mothers vajayjay with burning trash. It's tough, I've got one part of it right, the robot part, I'm a consuming American, there're parts of me that are free thinking post Pinocchio real boy-esk, but there's also that television watching, internet addicted, SUV driving Americocksucker there too. My inner puppet man looks at the automaton and worries, especially with a child, it worries a lot. It's a tough balance trying to make sure that I don't fuck up the world too bad for him in the future while still worrying if this really is a future I want him to have.

Before you get the wrong idea, I don't want my child dead, I don't want to destroy America, or anything like that. Hell, I'm even almost afraid of a huge radical change, radical changes bring about serious strife, will my son be equipped to deal with that? Or will he be remembered as a "Hero of the Revolution", or I shudder to think, as one of the fallen oppressors, or even worse, as an innocent bystander. I don't want him to be a fence sitter, never willing to completely choose a side, without enough spine to either embrace that darkest part of us and join the hierarchal elite, or give in to his anger and dissolution and fight for a change.

My battle was over long ago, my spine is fluid, my battle is what you read, an aging man bitching and whining from a keyboard, or through a pen. My will was broken years ago in the workforce by flag waving pricks running daddy's company into the ground, using me as cheap labor because I am trusting enough to believe what someone says and take their word at face value, only to watch that promotion go to the bosses half assed son-in-law. At least to my credit, that's my breaking point, you make it clear that I have no future in this company because I was too prideful to go and work for family, then so be it, I'll go someplace else and start the cycle again. At least my state protects me enough that they can't say anything bad about me to future employers because I told them exactly what I thought of them.

I guess, now that I've gotten some shit outta the way, if I could transform into anything, I'd transform into salvation. I have no idea what I'd look like, I really fear that for salvation it'd be a can of Bud Light, but that's what I choose. Salvation for a race, not in sacrifice on a cross, more spiritual enlightenment. I'd crop dust the world, my salvation flies (that's where the Karate cool comes in, it also shoots missiles at commies), drifting clouds of enlightenment raining down upon the masses. Eyes opening to gasp in horror at what we've done, minds opening to make the plan to set it right, hearts filling with love for our neighbors, not the ones down the street, but the ones down the continent from us. A happy hippy love fest just waiting for Dick Cheney to transform into the death star and break it all down to an atomic scale. Shit, there I go again with those Space exploration issues.

Shit, I digress....

-Josh