The Rolling Stones have a new album. The NBA season is underway. Cable flows on. Barbie busts records. It’s binge heaven out there. 

Simultaneously, state of the art armies unleash holy hell. High waters flood cities. Low waters drain aquifers. Self absorbed bigotry cremates love. Head in the dirt denial nurtures horrific hypocrisy. Record setting cowardice occupies center stage. It’s binge hell out there.

These things are beyond words, beyond pain, beyond desire, beyond shame, beyond feeling, beyond reason. Hooray for my team. Incinerate your team. A selfie for me. A thousand million cuts for you. Welcome to the world, 2023. Butterflies scream. 

Slow motion murder becomes mass murder. Occasional lies become a nearly permanent cacophony. Why do we do what we do? Is it only because it is what we have done and having done it…we do it again. And do it again. Unto death. Science cowers. Respect withers. Truth becomes fable. Is this our destiny? Is this humanity? To robotically welcome robots who look human? To welcome robot love delivered by violent drone? Dogs whimper. 

Violence calls itself virtue. Violence preens. Violence goes viral. Violence rises to number one with a bullet. Violence is hunger and bombs. Violence is hurricanes and floods. Violence is regimentation and enforcement. Violence is rape. Violence is at the mall. Violence is in schools. Violence is at work. Violence is in the kitchen. Violence reports see me everywhere. Violence screams I am great. Violence bellows bow down to me. Violence demands on your knees for me. 

Profit rules. Greed grabs riches. Morons master war. Lunatics lubricate self destruction with oil. Preachers pray to penthouse gods. Learn hate. Teach hate. Aim. Shoot. Mourn. Burn yourselves up. The sky weeps.

But wait. Demands proliferate. Demands for peace. Demands for caring. Demands for health. Demands for knowledge. Demands for sexual healing. Demands for an end to billionaires profiting. Demands for an end to bosses bossing. Demands for an end to colors corroding. Demands for an end to lives atrophying. Demands for dignity. Save the planet. Save ourselves. Cease firing, dammit. Doves awake.

Demands are nice, very nice, but demands need careful plans and continuous efforts. Careful plans and continuous efforts need lots and lots of people. To engage lots and lots of people, and then more people, and still more people, needs listening and hearing. Listening and hearing needs clear voices. It needs inspiring actions. It needs ears wide open. Deduction: to have lots and lots of people we need people to see hopeful welcoming possibilities, we need people to anticipate worthiness. We need people to share where they want to go and how to get there.

Our times are in our face disgusting. Our times are off the charts suicidal. Incredibly brazen. Incredibly blatant. On one side resurgent Nazi apocalypse hollers hatred. On the other side freedom, dignity, respect, mutual aid, and a new world require struggle. Which side is our friend? Look closely. Which side are you on? Which side?

No more nit-picking. No more ghosting. No more self delusion. No more business as usual. No more school daze. No more yesterday’s agenda. No more excuses for joining the wrong side. Better is possible. Better is necessary. Better means dignity. Better means life. No more accommodating. Time has come today.

There is no way around it. We will either be part of the problem or part of the solution. We can no longer deny, fear, ridicule or play act fundamental change. But we won’t win the world in one gulp. One gulp rhetoric is gluttonous nonsense. Amassing support takes time. History takes time. To win we need to unify many threads. To unify many threads requires that we weave together countless partial steps that overcome the past and construct the future. Gender steps, cultural steps, legislative steps, economic steps, ecological steps, and international steps that all aim where we want to arrive. That all intersect together.

No more, no more, no more denying the obvious. Our pursuit, our job, our agenda, our  profession, what we admire, what we aspire to, what we respect, what we celebrate, who we want to be, who we must be, and who we will be has got to become smartly revolutionary. We have got to become, caring, mature, sober revolutionaries. 

Step by step, we have to do it, do it, do it until we civilize ourselves, until we civilize the world. Time has come today. 

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