COVER -> RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT
ROCK THIS! - While MTV and lots of non-governmental organizations are glomming onto the slogan "Rock the Vote" we keep saying nothing has changed: Rock the Boat. Let's stop rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, Captain! There's an iceberg up ahead.
I don't have a particular hankering to listen to "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Sorry.
Yep! That's me on the wrong side of the barricades, Mom. Yep, that's me reasoning with that cop in riot gear. Me arguing that we are NOTHING without our dreams? Yep. That's me, Mom.
The only way to achieve democracy, fellow pilgrims, is to make it real for you.
What I mean by that is that, as in every epoch in history, THE PEOPLE have to stretch a little bit, do some street theatre, LAUGH at the so-called Powers That Be. OUR STRONGEST WEAPON IS LAUGHING AT THEIR SILLINESS.
Dance in the streets again.
Remember the saying "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow."
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The challenge facing all of us, around the world, from Katmandu to Ukiah, is the same one that has faced humanity for almost five thousand years now: FREEDOM. Not privilege, but freedom. Not opportunity, but freedom.
Yep, Mom, when you see that cop beating down a guy, it's ME.
That is why I am a Radical.
Again: the objective is not to FIX the existing system, it is to establish the system we ALL KNOW is within our grasp. End Hunger. Stop the most oppresive form of violence, poverty. Eliminate national borders. Admit that we don't dominate and subjugate this planet, we are part and parcel of it. Stop the destruction of other species.
Only then can we look to the stars.
Some people miss the fact that we radicals are supreme optimists. How could you agitate and advocate for change unless you believed that there is hope for the future of humanity?
The quintessential part of being a radical is believing that we matter, as individals, and that we can still change the world.
I believe that's what I admire most about the early Christians. Evidence seems to say that they had no doubt that they would achieve the Kingdom of Heaven. I'm sure they did not envision the Catholic Church or the subsequent denominations or churches. But that's what happens when you break a few eggs in the stream of history.
Does this argument relate to the current political situation? Yes. I'm not drifting as far afield as some of you might think. I'm talking about the underlying values that inform our decisions.
Why do we value our families? Kinship, after all, is a part of our common experience that stretches back over centuries. Millennia.
As we look back on that personal history, we see people in cities, towns, villages who had a relationship to the earth in ways that many in the "First World" only romanticize. But the resonation is there.
What resonates, Your Writer believes, is that we are in their position now. We are shaping the memories and values of those who follow.
We can decide that they aspire for more freedom, that they exercise their innate curiousity.... and that they reach for the stars, too.
We can teach love.
Can you do that with something as mundane as a choice in voting booth on a Tuesday afternoon?
Forgive me. I believe you can. I believe every single decision you make shapes the future. I believe every person matters...
Karma or Kismet? Wish I knew. I'd get rich.
The best I can hope is that at least one thing we say here at The World's Magazine makes you want to join us in trying to change the world for the better.
It starts with you, you know?
This week's Poll: After the USA Presidential election, I'm...?
RDR RECOMMENDED SITE OF THE DAY: The folks over at Mother Jones magazine think we need to have election observers in the United States. Go here to read why.
