In France, again, the public rebels as we ought to everywhere. Will the French strike widen? Will the French occupy, expand, diversify, and unify? Will French power extend from some to more? Will French power address economic, gender, racial, and political deprivation? Will French power address war and ecology? Beyond grabbing the streets, will the French grab changes that facilitate more changes? Will the French grab control? What then? NATO’s next target, Paris? What about London? What about Berlin, Cairo, Bogota, Rio, and Sydney? What about New York? What about your town? What about my town? NATO repelled? War no more?
Facts always matter. Aspirations always matter. But politicians, executives, and pundits matter only as long as we salute them. The world slip slides to hell. We want better. Times need change. But time waits for no one. Time runs out. Tick tock. What next?
People in homes, in schools, at work, privately hunger to control their lives. Privately people dream dignity. Privately people dream respect. Privately people dream means to thrive. Privately people dream reciprocity with nature. But publicly, people watch TV. Publicly people endure classroom boredom. Publicly people suffer regimented work. Publicly people divide, doubt, and depress. Publicly, people hang on to survive. When atomized souls see phony opportunity, publicly people seek private gain. Publicly people clutch a comfortable chair on the deck of a stricken global Titanic. Meanwhile, for solidarity, for collectivity, time ticks toward disaster.
But from the top, from the suites, commanders wield clocks their fathers forged in hell. On stolen time, commanders command. Commanders control. Commanders kill. Their souls mutilated by their climb to the top. Their thought horizons black holed by their climb to the top. With their mutilated souls and stunted thoughts our commanders cling to their topmost perches. They drink away the cost to themselves. They ignore away the cost to others. Their mothers weep while they strut. We watch. We obey. Meanwhile, time ticks onward.
Guns wreck havoc in schools, in malls, in minds around every corner. Teenagers embrace hand held electric taskmasters. Teenagers look back and and see their ancestors’ depravity. Teenagers look forward and see onrushing deprivation. Teenagers contemplate suicide. Adults dig children’s graves.
Trains jump tracks and dump crap. City’s shudder. Civilized killers hire gold plated lawyers. Bulging briefcases trample everything everywhere. War salutes. Winds howl. High water rises. Corpses curse. Hypocrisy shines. False gods. Pettiness. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. The best minds of whose times unleash artificial intelligence against the real thing. Commanders grab the joysticks. Teenagers scream. Adults prepare lace lined coffins.
What will wake us up? Old folks alone, jettisoned, won’t sufficiently rally, march, strike, occupy, and implement. How long will youngsters grind their teeth, lonely and afraid, before they say, okay, we have seen enough. Okay, we have endured enough. Okay, already, we have had enough. We want a new world and we are going to win it. Put away our coffins. Our time must change. Now.
My prayer: Find your voice and sing this song. Better still, find your voice and sing your own song. Either way, do more this time than my generation did last time.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin’
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’
Bob Dylan said that. Tick tock. Time is running out. I said that.
