Courage

My name is Ali and I am free

I am Twelve years old, and I am bold

No fear in my veins, although my life is pain

Fearlessly I tread, on the path of the dead

As a martyr I shall live, with only my life to give

Hope

"The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts."
-John Locke
Despair is what seems to predominate most youth these days. Assailed from childhood with advertisements and the mental prison of public indoctrination it should be no surprise. Breaking their spirits day by day until the tragedy of their teens, in which most act out or retreat inward. Either way by the time adulthood arrives, if such a term can even be used in America these days, they are quite often desperately inundated with despair. If they are lucky they have found refuge, perhaps in religion, a cause or sometimes even a job. For the rest however there is only a sort of pathetic remorse at having ever been born. Decadence is the most common and prevalent answer that I've noticed. Trying to drown their sorrow in designer drugs, alcohol and mind numbing tools of all sorts makes their despair a pastime. People of the older generations bitch about how we youngsters don't vote. But what is their to vote for? Another self serving frontman for corporate Americas seemingly endless apatite for ever more currency? Or maybe some charlatans who promises the world and delivers nothing but a harsh lesson in the foolishness of trust? No, if nothing else comes from this despair, it is a rather politically accurate realization that the product that our culture is selling is really not worth buying into. There is really only one real cure for despair, and that is hope. Hope that someday things will get better. Hope that the delineation of the world between ruler and ruled will disappear. Maybe even hope that the entire structure of western thought that has brought us to this deplorable state will be forever renounced for the false prophet that it really is. I myself found my cure in part in knowledge. Knowledge of the system, history, geopolitics, different cultures and all else I could acquire through conversation and reading. The one thing that did the most however to save me from the despair induced materialism that dominates America's youth is this: the quest to join the ranks of all decent people past and present who have done all they could to save humanity from the cold hand of hopelessness and despair. In that quest I've found a reason to keep my mind pure and free in the hope that some day people will break the chains of their mental inertia and ascend to the heights that I sincerely believe mankind is capable of.

Songs of a caged bird

One can't conclude much, unless one excludes much. And to generalize is, in essence, to tell lies. These things aren't exactly closely guarded secrets. How is it then that people, in all other ways rather intelligent, can just accept all the senseless lies that were told them in youth? They can read Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, but they can't accept that our entire society is based on slavery and genocide. Rather interesting paradox. My song goes:
Life is funny, when you exist to make money.
The deeper path is long lost, covered in frost
from the cold calculations, of a savage nation
can people return to life, after corporate strife?
Such is my dream, it remains to be seen...

Can only wonder

I wonder what people think when Americans come to town. What perspective those people have when vague rumors of technology, aggression and ideology wafting in with the columns of motorized vehicles and camouflaged troops. Throwing money around like it is confetti and preaching about how they are taking over to give you something you supposedly have never had, freedom. Compare to the doldrums of average oppression it must seem rather exotic; this elaborate explanation and justification. Surely with a reputation like America's no one actually believes such silly notions as liberty, democracy or freedom... or do they? Although the words are clearly hollow the fact remains that the majority of the world supports them and has already signed on to the program. The complete stupidity of those who resist and act like barbaric buffons only leads you to want the corporate world more and more. For if the American dream is anything it is comfort and safety. That fact is also why Terrorism is such a potent weapon against the US.

Funniest News Article Ever

The following is a short story that was on CNN's website, if it was from any other source I'd think it a joke:

OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) -- Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. ... And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hiller said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

Ignorance is Bliss

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
Americans have very little notion of what is happening in the rest of the world. And if they actually do care and try to find out, they usually content themselves to watching various domestic news sources that tell them nothing but what they want to hear; something fascinating, a little of the morbid and a lot of the sensational. Thus are we able to sleep in our beds in our houses in our various cities or suburban conglomerations all across the country. Such notions as class and poverty are vague concepts that, although hard to miss, are easy to ignore in a country where 98% of the population has a TV. Rumors of the occasional revolution or coup or famine or war occasionally are heard, but easy to dismiss as anomalies or the natural functioning of the world and be twisted into just another opportunity for self-aggrandizing reporters to show their skill at hiding the truth. Truth you say, what is that? The truth is just a plain picture, which is apparently is a hard sell these days. Let me give you an example. We are told that we are in a life and death struggle with militant Islamic terrorists, who are for no explainable reason hell bent on taking away our precious freedom. Say what you will about the objectivity of the media, that is undeniably how they put it to us. Well fine, I guess that is certainly a perspective, but here is another. We have been engaged in a 75 year long free for all for the exploitation of Southwest Asia's resources with the necessary accompaniment of political control of its people and they are finally beginning to collectively come to the realization of that fact. Having acquired this new consciousness they naturally turn to the only people with the courage to stand up against our outrageously powerful military, the fact that these people are fearlessly devout Muslims is purely coincidental and a result of circumstance. Now I'm very ready to admit that my view is just as subject to criticism and rebuke as there's, but it is just as valid, probably even more so since I'm at least trying to use some historical facts as a basis for my assertions. How about this, what would the media be squawking about if we didn't have all the Muslims to hate on? They would be all about Chinese expantionism, North Korean nuclear insanity, or maybe go back to beating the old anti-Russian drum again. This isn't the medias fault, they produce a product to be consumed just like everyone else. The one they are pitching is as old as dirt, the concept of the other, and their is very little reason to believe we are going to stop eating it up any time soon. So the natural question that we get from all this: Why do people in the US prefer being spoon fed their geopolitics to just actually deducing it for themselves? Rather than tell you what I think, answer that one out for yourself!

Oh man, we so funny. Running around like maniacal bunnies. I wish I could dismiss us all as dummies. But some of us drop knowledge in our tummies. But all the same, we go insane, play the white cracker game. Each day a few more sell out and few more buy in, I can't even really call it sin. More like despair induced materialism. Suppose I'm really not the one to say, not my duty to pass judgment anyway. Better off by far, go out into the world and build up a scar. A big old one, over where my heart used to be, pain on suffering, then some misery. Then perchance to dream, or more realistically make a big scene; sounds more like me. Spit out some verses like life damning curses. Watch the eyes stare in confusion as I go off on social fusion. Tell all the whites to find someone to night of a different shade, culture and creed. All the children will be on the border, of all the stereotypes and world order. Then those kids will have a chance, to make good on life's promise and just dance, to the new music that I'm sure they'll be producing. Yup, crazy as me, better off just bypassing the whole scene, of the maniacal bunnies that be so funny.