Mea Culpa..

I have once again been reminded of the old quotation: "Your right to free speech ends at the other guys' nose." Forget who said it. But I understand it.

I realize in reviewing many of my recent columns that I have been ranting. Not a bad thing necessarily, but it is an explosion of emotion formed from the magma of fear and sorrow. This is my country and I sorrow to see the corruption, murder, and ideological insanity that preoccupies the present Administration. I fear that Americans have become indifferent to the responsibilities of citizenship. But, maybe, it isn't the abstract 'them' that I fear, perhaps it is myself. Perhaps I have become indifferent, reduced to making keyboard noises in place of standing up in the real world. Perhaps I need to place participation in the system over rhetoric.

I know that our only hope for a brighter future lies within the reality of the system itself. In order to win, we must use the system to win. To do otherwise is to tear it all down in spasms of childish rage. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, are all arrogant assholes who truly believe in their mission. I could match their arrogance with my temper, but what would that avail? I am begining to realize that if I want a future of peace and promise it must start with me.

Sometimes I push the envelope of 'Free Speech' because I am reckless and want someone to hear my voice. Perhaps the more outrageous my statements, the more I believe I will be taken seriously. But, the trap to this, the lie to this, is that I wind up ranting and do very little thinking. And it is thinking that is called for now. To convince others of the dangers we currently face, from Theocratic Fascism to Environmental catastrophe to Economic collapse we must use reason and responsible words. Example rather than exortation.

I will leave my past words in view, but with this caveat: "Violence is the behavior of powerless people. People who believe they are helpless. Violence does nothing to disprove this belief, and further, but more importantly, violence does not work." I have made a study of War, and have come to the conclusion that war never solves anything, it only leaves the rich richer and the poor dead. The outcome of violence is always more violence, rarely peace and never tranquility. For the world to change for the better, I must change for the better.

I will devote this blog to peaceful means of communication and problem solving, not because I fear the retribution of the Empire, but because my existence at this time has more to do with discovering who I am and how I shape my reality than it does in venting injudicious fear.

I will still feature news stories that uncover the lies of the Empire, but I believe I must focus on learning a new way to see, rather than an old way of reacting. Shouting isn't the only way to be heard and violence solves nothing.

Be at peace, and take it slow.

BOG