July in the High Desert

 Psychology

This old brain, seeking some comfort from the relentless arrival of such "very bad news from the front," found itself in a silent reconciling waltz with an old friend, M. Aurouet, that is, Mister Voltaire, and specifically the final words of the bravely undauntable  Candide.

During the past month, MeanMesa has suffered the mind numbing ennui of the conquered who still await the victor's lash.  Of course, the time was pleasant enough, spent mindlessly languishing -- unperturbed by dark invading thoughts from the world --  amid the glorious sunlit days and the sudden wet coolness of the season's unpredictable high desert monsoons.

"Work then without disputing", said Martin; "it is the only way to render life supportable."

The little society, one and all, entered into this laudable design and set themselves to exert their different talents. The little piece of ground yielded them a plentiful crop. 

 ...Pangloss used now and then to say to Candide:

"There is a concatenation of all events in the best of possible worlds; for, in short, had you not been kicked out of a fine castle for the love of Miss Cunegonde; had you not been put into the Inquisition; had you not traveled over America on foot; had you not run the Baron through the body; and had you not lost all your sheep, which you brought from the good country of El Dorado, you would not have been here to eat preserved citrons and pistachio nuts."

"Excellently observed", answered Candide; "but we must cultivate our garden."

And, although perhaps waxing poetic, it was to precisely this lofty destination to which MeanMesa cast sail, seeking some quiet relief -- no matter how synthetic -- from the maelstrom of deceit and intransigence which has fallen on our country.

MeanMesa's July was spent in the gardens.

[Note:  You can click on any of these photos which may have been truncated by the Blogger.]

Absolutism: Turning Obama into a Toothache

Fighting, tooth and nail, for our god-given right to answer the wrong question with the wrong answer.

One hundred days should have been enough time to fix the depression, win the wars and save the country. 94

Maybe we know someone who, when approaching even the most mundane sort of every day challenge, slips into a frenzy of impossibilities and hopelessness at the drop of a hat. Oh, yes. Outcomes are solarized into precisely two shades, blissful, unimaginable perfection or utter catastrophic mortal failure. The sleeping, lazy mind eliminates the continuum between the possibilities, the continuum in which most of actual reality seems to reside. H-bombs and ebola, thankfully, are denizens only of the sensational media for us in this country. Likewise, aside from a perpetually narcotic, orgasmic religious atrophy of some sort, we seldom encounter outcomes which have not even the slightest shade of gray in their, well, “perfect wonderfulness.”

Yet, we are invited daily to wander into the adoption of perfect scenarios for all sorts of things, most of which none of us would rationally expect in a more reasoned moment. Baking a perfect batch of cookies is one thing -- we can buy the best ingredients, measure all the recipe twice or three times and calibrate the heat of the oven to a tenth of a degree with an electronic thermometer. One the other hand, is it reasonable to expect, or even hope for, the same kind of numbing control on more dynamically variable causes? Causes such as foreign policy? Causes such a bailing out the banks? Causes such as performing to every dot and ticker each feature of a campaign once the campaigner faces the reality of his office?

As a culture now drenched in tragic codependency, we have an insatiable appetite to control everything, to know everything in advance and to enjoy outcomes entirely predicted and guaranteed, realized through “purified” approaches so sterile they would be welcome in a surgical operating room. We coast ahead, stupefied and disappointed, when our dreams and insistence on a course of events totally devoid of risk are brutally “cluttered” by the events and complications they encounter in the abrasions of the real world.

Progressive or reactionary, it doesn’t seem to matter too much what the position might be, its clearly necessary deviations from its initial pristine representation can be nothing other than outrages and insults to its original supporters. After all, they were the ones who so bravely risked embarrassment when they supported it in the first place. Now, once this brilliant idea has been horribly soiled and disfigured by “outrageous fate” during the course of its striving to become a living, breathing actuality, that is, soiled by the complexities of the uncertainty of its environment, all these “fair weather patriots” and other “eager beavers” dive headlong into victimhood. And the most infuriating kind of shallow criticism. Glazed eye, ideological tactics vomited out to momentarily sway voters. Anything goes.

What’s the point?

Like it or not, the last few elections have painted the American population as something unpleasantly close to a 50% -- 50% mix, but the allegations as to the meaning of that ratio may have been subtly managed to our national disadvantage, that is, they may have been presented as something they actually weren’t.

Clenching our “party absolutism” as tightly as a cornered psychopath we breathe dangerous generalities into what may well be the wrong political metric to rationally describe the state of national opinions. We divide ourselves, quite conveniently for the simplistic pundits, into two camps with only a shell pocked wasteland between them. At least, that is the scene to which we are introduced in childhood and sustained upon throughout our political lives.

In fact, the Republican Party cannot be defined as simply favoring torture and looting, and the Democrats similarly as “soft on defense” and “strong on tax and spend.” Not only are these suspiciously short lived caricatures supported intermittently during moments of political opportunity, they seem to be little more than awkward invitations to addictive, imaginary conflict, concept-wise. They have proved themselves, of late, to be destructive and divisive, and, more interestingly, essentially without purpose or constructive motivation. There is no particular political goal beyond the superficial moment itself, an American phenomenon which is most profitable when it is most partisan.

Headline news-wise, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

With voters prepared the way we have been prepared, the fickle victory of any election is as fleeting as a single success on the gridiron. When the darting fits of our eight minute attention are successfully redirected, again, by those same pundits, that last election becomes as immaterial as a decisive field goal. “Glorious, but gone. Over. History.”

We are flooded with examples of this “shell in the chamber” absolutism. The Rep’s want the government out of the hair of banks so they can pay their CEO’s as much as they want. The Dem’s want them nationalized so their executives are incentivized to act more prudently. The Rep’s are certain that every strategic aspect of the nation’s defense could be well served by secrets extracted from screaming, dying torture victims. The Dem’s want to be idealistic. They say the Rep’s are brutal thugs. The Rep’s respond that the Dem’s are silly pollyannas.

The Rep’s claim that paying for universal health care will wreck the economy. The Dem’s argue back that for-profit health care is wrecking the economy already. Both sides saturate their positions with very much less than honorable rhetoric -- advertising gimmicks. They have thrown everything imaginable into this pot of soup while carefully avoiding firm estimates of cost or constructive plans about how to pay for it.

The Rep’s want our armies in Iraq and Afghanistan to “march all the way to victory.” The Dem’s assume that the entire affair has been so fatally botched that no amount of lipstick can rehabilitate the dismal history of it. Facts mean nothing. Concrete accomplishments are either disregarded or exaggerated. Voters seem much more interested in the political “basket ball game” for domestic dominance than in the rather troubling aspects of possible outcomes.

Without the perspective of history (the U.S. is now 40th in the world in literacy), an alien on our shores would assume that the country is only a gnat’s sneeze from a repeat of the gunfire which marked the Bolshevik Revolution. Listening to the pundits, one might conclude Republicans and Democrats both have a wet dream of utter annihilation, a cleansing pogrom of all opposition ruthlessly conducted on every street and directed by talk show hosts as generals.

This list stumbles ahead daily. We can add abortion, bipartisanship, the CIA photos, the budget, Pakistan and Gaza, and the stimulus package. All the players are waiting in breathless anticipation to engage in every debate. Their positions have been assigned and accepted. After all, there are only two possible choices.

The media has literally exhausted itself (at least the last remnant of its credibility) while very responsibly and objectively persuading us that there are two sides to every issue, and that those sides are so close in their respective validity that anyone who is not torn by indecision and exception is no more than an uninformed, thoughtless brute. The broadcast premise is that there are precisely and exclusively two sides to all the selected and approved issues, Rep’s and Dem’s. Unapproved debates about other unadopted and unpublicized topics are strictly reserved for the “out fielders,” that is, dreamers and other ridiculous futurists who simply want to waste time on something besides the endless, numbing, narcotizing “partisan” debate.

The media polls, objective analysts with their fingers on the “pulse of public opinion,” relegate such independent thinkers to the tin foil hat section. “Every important thing we need to think about has exactly two convenient sides and has been well defined by the entirely unbiased editorial staff of our network or newspaper or both. Everything else has simply been injected into the mix to ‘muddy the water’ and ‘confuse’ the voters. So, sit down and tune in. We are getting ready to help you know just what to think about everything that is important.”

The Rep vs. Dem spitting match has veiled the real faces of the actual sides long enough. Here is the astonishing news for those still sloppily languishing in the “There have to be two sides to everything” Kool Aid pool. The universe, this world, this country all exist in a continuum of possibilities. If every absolutist position of any current player in our politics were to be fully actualized, we would face the choices of staggering around with a new dynastic, oligarchic royalty at war with everyone we hadn’t nuked yet, or else street fighting outside the Dollar General store, trying to rob each other for the price of a can of corn.

We have been hypnotized by this vacuous two party model long enough. It has grown so rapacious now that none of the players can even think a coherent thought about something as supposedly universally central to the values of each side as, say, the good of the country.

We’ve been set up.

At least the conflict to which we are so addicted is a set up. The thrall of our culture, especially as it manifests in our media, has become so threatening, penetrating or compelling that we simply haven’t time to ponder ideas about good political and national management. The most voracious of the combatants finds himself in the embarrassing state of being unable to coherently even express the axioms of his position’s political beliefs. Utterances which might have been constructive comments had they been thought through become inane accusations, most successful only when they evoke an accompanying chorus of similar inane accusations.

Still, although somewhat suspicious, we remain locked under the finite limits of our established two party politics. No tin foil hats for us!

Is this some sort of dramatic, Malthusian exaggeration? Let’s take a test. It will be a self-graded essay test where each question must be answered in a “terse and laconic” paragraph. Here come the questions.

1. What are the simplest, most fundamental values of the Republican Party?
2. What are the simplest, most fundamental values of the Democratic Party?
3. What are the simplest, most fundamental values of the United States?
4. Exactly what qualifications would you require for a really great President?
5. In the biggest “big picture” possible, what are your hopes and ambitions for the country?

How did you do? Did your answers fit closely to any available example of political rhetoric? Are there voices discussing the topics you listed in answer to these simple questions? Or, are the voices all too focused on something too similar to a football game to merit the influence they are having over your opinions? Over your political activities? Over your dreams for the future?

Considering your answers and the discourse and debate in the country, are we on a relevant track? One that is likely to create the ideas we need to get out of this mess?

The solution, our tomorrow, our children’s future will be based on sincere, mature selections of various positions in the continuum of possibilities. We simply have to stop indulging in endless ideological nose bleeds sponsored by those who profit from our mindless adversarial indulgences. Instead, we will need to learn to accept and support some workable, “middle of the road,” negotiated strategies for our own good -- both of the sides in conflict have their “own good.”

The goal of Obama’s Presidency runs far beyond the sole aim of vindicating as non-hypocritical lockstep with everything he offered in his campaign. It has to do with applying the very best choices available to the challenges he faces. That latter fact will determine both the degree of our nation’s success and the tone of history’s treatment of his administration.

He is searching very thoughtfully for a path which can embrace all the sides of us. Yes, of course, elections have consequences, but if all those who voted for John McCain look carefully at the course Obama has set for us, they will see that they are included. The childish dogfight is over. We can’t afford any more of it.

We certainly don’t need to spend all of our waking time listening to well practiced instigators -- pundits or politicians -- arguing decisions about choices we don’t actually have. We can hardly afford any more of that, either.

Does anyone else suspect that maybe the actual struggle isn’t between Rep’s and Dem’s at all? Hardly any member of either party could get a passing grade reciting the essential positions of those parties or the contemporary relevance of their historical foundations. The threatening -- and exhilarating -- and non-optional challenge in the opportunity of the moment cannot be met by a mindless participation in the prepackaged, semiliterate “burning issues of the day” provided by such clearly defective players as our media and political ideologues. The new “sides” are denoted by traits such as nationalism, idealism, optimism, tolerance, sincerity, maturity, positive activism, involvement and cooperation. We have some gravely serious rebuilding to do.

Our country isn’t divided 50% -- 50% at all. We have far more in common than in dispute. We can do much better than this. We can do so much better than this that the entire world will be stupefied by our example. By our new hope.

We now have the leader. The question is, “Will we follow?”

Interested in knowing more about some outrageous pundits?
http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/
http://www.glennbeck.com/
http://www.hannity.com/
http://www.billoreilly.com/

and, of course,
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/today.guest.html

“How Far Must the Dow Plunge Before Confidence Is Restored?

Spending too much time "ducking" the old things? Spending not enough time dreaming about the new things?

These days hold only cold comfort for the timid.

The newspaper headline titling this post betrays what may be an unexamined paradox. The sensation of "confidence" is an allegedly rational one which may be insinuated by past history, but probably not the past history being cited in the discussions of this moment. Likewise, the "restore" idea is visiting every area of pain in the present economy. There are the dreamy desires of those who would like the declining value (market price?) of their real estate "restored" to the figures of a year or two ago. There are those who feel that economic recovery implies that the stocks they purchased in the past might be "restored" not only to their previous trading values, but also in their vivacity and mobility with respect to potential profits or losses demarcated in the "numbers and the systems of the past."

Folks who are entertaining this expectation for the "recovery" are not founding their ideas on circumstances which enjoy much of a chance to materialize in reality.

The less lofty have ambitions for a stable floor to the decline where, although the numerical "prices" of monetary assets would be defined by lower numerical values, the relative values would become, once more, as promising as they had been before. Perhaps even the wage earners are gradually becoming adjusted to the idea that their "restored" wages, although not bearing the same figures as on the old paychecks, might have a "restored" purchasing power or offer an investment opportunity equivalent to the ones on those old stubs.

The economic pedestrian has only a slightly more realistic view of the possibilities at hand. He, at least, has the common sense necessary to envision an economic solution which is not the "restoration" of his previous conditions, but something of a hybrid, located between full "recovery" or "restoration" and some intermediate state where his comfort level is comparable to what it was before.

Likewise, the critics and cynics (uh, that would be the hillbillies, Senate bigots and other free market criminals) seize on the predictable, codependent opportunity of establishing that true "recovery" or "restoration" can be nothing less than a sterile return to the artificial successes previously derived from the avarice of the recent past. They would, foolishly, like to establish that vision as the only possible outcome which might legitimatize Obama's desperate efforts ideologically. The public opinion attraction to that insistent approach is waning rapidly, most likely, as was the tragic case with "confidence," another victim of “common sense” on the main street.

My advice? Quit dreaming of the past. Quit trying to measure the possibilities and challenges of the near future by the currency of the past. All those “restorations” require more than a duplicated economic flow of factors and equations. Frankly, they all depend on more than a resurgence of familiar numbers on the Wall Street trading boards. They also, in a way as subtle as the “elephant in the living room,” also depend upon the resurrection of all sorts of imaginary asset values, labor rates, real estate ambitions and even international trade relations. There is no part of the economic stimulus plan which can re-materialize these old, opium dreams. They cannot be “restored,” because they were never material in the first place.

We can join the wailing of the Wall Streeters and the bankers and the quiet, arrogant ultra-rich with their effected accents if we like, but all the old deceptions of this crowd have evaporated just as concretely as the sale price of the duplex next door. All the illicit advantages they promoted as “sharp business practices” for the last dozen decades have been exposed now. Worse, their dreams of the precise value of such deceptions have also been smashed. They sold them to us once, and that worked out well for them. But now, those balloons have popped -- perhaps largely in the very faces of these “pretend Captains of Industry.”

No one can still reasonably hope that those “balloons” of theirs can be “restored.” Further, citizens of both the United States and the rest of the world where their extractive schemes have reached, seem to have a new, much more informed style of awareness of exactly what had been done before. The hordes of what had previously been “easy marks” have now entered a period of renewed understanding of what the responsibility of “self-interest” actually means. An understanding which excludes the necessity of supporting these parasites in the style and luxury of the past.

Obama gets this. One wonders how many familiars of the old White House have appeared once again with “offers he can’t refuse.” One wonders what was on their deflated faces when he did, in fact, refuse.

Without the hordes of the sleeping, the mistaken certainties of the past are beginning to rot on the vine. Mistaken certainties? The sanctity of the free market as the ultimate director of the economy. The acceptability of the well (and not so well) disguised, noncompetitive subterfuge, whether a no bid contract for billions or some doo-dad added to a House bill at the last minute making new profits an automatic reality for some crony.

But wait. No matter how refreshing it might be, a modern correction of these sorts of things amounts to little more than a tweeking to the system. Such a development might turn out to be the final result of this economic melt-down, but there are others -- developments which can hardly be defined as a “tweeking.” In any event, it looks constantly less likely to be a mere “restoration.”

The economy is not experiencing a little difficulty, it is evaporating before our very eyes. We have heard fifteen thousand reasons why this is happening, but what seems the most logical conclusion at this point is that no one has either any complete or rational explanation of precisely why this is happening or how far down it will go. All the old reasons are approaching a region of logical discontinuity far too similar to what might be encountered on a classic Riemann Equation’s first surface. We have probably left explanations or their possible comfort somewhere behind us.

The classical parameters which used to drive everything have ceased functioning. What was successful “tweeking” in the past system no longer produces any effect at all.

So, where does it go?

It “goes” through the discontinuity, and we go with it. The hilarious threats of creeping Socialism or nationalization or Fascism or vacant promises of capitalism or free marketism or a “restored” hegemony are all now parked in the "used car lot" history of the past, in our memories, in our dreams. That old currency fills the entire stage, constructs all the sets and writes all the play. We can make no new play which requires parts other than those old familiar ones. Our imagination has beached itself on the remnants of our fears.

The choices for the face of the future system will not be variations of the faces of the past. What has begun as an economic aberration has become an ideological meat grinder, and its product may well arrive without so much as a reasoned hint or even a wild speculation from the past.

The “new thing” approaches.

It won’t be all bad, either, but these last few months before its arrival will be terrifying -- especially for those who were able to prosper in the false world of the false values of the past. Still, we must prepare ourselves for a new system. It arrives just as the widower's new wife. The recipes and the bedroom, although quite satisfying, can never "restore" what has passed before. We have no firm ideas about what the new system will require of us or what new opportunities it may present, of course, but we do know one thing. We prepare ourselves by watching for its arrival with hope, not dread.

Adjusting our ideas of “necessity” and “comfort” might help a little. Experimenting with values which have evolved beyond imposed scarcity and insatiable greed and impossible security is probably a good idea, even if such a discipline hasn’t ever been reasonable in the past. We must clear our road weary slate of ancient false priorities, thrash out the cobwebs and steel ourselves for a new day.

As humans, we are now stranded with the frightening necessity of charting our way forward. We find the press of events has cast us not as survivors, but as designers.

The “new thing” approaches.

Hypocrisy Hunting in the New Obama Cabinet

Undercutting New Possibilities With Old Ideas? 68

The predictable complaints of hypocrisy, or at least, inconsistency, are now rolling in from any ambitious pundit with a microphone. How could such an idealist as Barrack Obama, that is, someone so highly dedicated to changing the government, announce that he intended to do business with Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton or even John McCain?

By “do business” we mean “give authority and trust.”

The neo-con purists (yes, they still imagine themselves purists after all the soiled things their man committed in the last two terms...) claim that Clinton Cabinet politicos contaminate Obama’s claim to the “high road.” Other hungry commentators dredge relentlessly for contradictions in past positions to compare with what they present as present positions required to fill Obama’s government and support his political philosophy.

Let’s indulge in a fable at this point.

You are a remarkably progressive and idealistic King in a medieval country. You set out to rectify some grave injustices by a military campaign. When it’s time to select generals to conduct this thing you seem to have two choices.

On one side, there is the Abbot, your spiritual advisor, a man with unshakably good, decent ideas about how to improve matters. On the other side, there is General Smith, a ruthlessly successful medieval military strategist with a checkered history of brutality and effectiveness.

If you intend to prevail in this struggle, that is, if you intend to over power the rather impressive and well established enemy who has sponsored these atrocities you find so deplorable, you will select General Smith. Issues such as collateral damage and war crimes associated with the Abbot might be much more palatable than the likely results of General Smith’s campaign, but the results would probably be disappointing.

If you are determined to prevail and advance your cause of decency, General Smith will be your man. First, the war must be won, then your plans can become material. In the meantime, that is, during the conduct of the war, you can insist that General Smith be more decent than he would be normally or than he has been previously, but the necessity of results dictates that you employ his expertise to deliver the possibility of conditions for your own intention.

This progressive King is more armored by his Divine Right than the trust of those who might ultimately benefit from his ideals, but, unlike recent leaders, he will have to trust himself! We have no King. Obama is armored by the trust of those who sent him into this difficult place. His leadership is qualified by his spiritual solidity of trusting himself.

Obama needs a cabinet capable of surviving the inevitable, paralytic aggression of the Republicans. He needs a cabinet which can deliver in Washington politics. The work of these mindless reactionaries has left us a disaster so grave that excuses or near victories, especially when precipitated by the stupid, inexperienced or ineffective application of power, are not an option.

Yes, incorporating individuals with alternative political philosophies may help a little, but the reactionary forces, inflamed as usual by the low road sabotage of hate radio and anti-American Congressional throw backs, have no interest in any solution to our difficult problems. Their cynical interests have nothing to do with America’s future. The entire focus of their babble is directed at maximizing the number of voters in their districts that can they deceive, lie to or frighten into sustaining their offices, reinvigorating their opportunities for looting.

Obama’s ideals will, in fact, make the difference we need. Ideals belong at the top of the pyramid when the ground level is violently contested by well financed cynics and other criminals. Obama’s “ground war” will be conducted by the best he can find, some of the Clinton legacy and other new, competent faces, the 21st century equivalent of that old King’s General Smith.

We trust his idealism, his cabinet selections, his competence, his intellect and his spirit. These vociferous tantrums are to be expected. Neo-cons are allergic to leadership.

The Audacity of Hope Ain’t Jest Whistlin’ Dixie

The young ones really do carry our species' life energy. When they come to life, the rest of us live again, the rest of us dare to remember and dare to dream. Again. 64

Barack Obama appeared at a rally in Albuquerque. 45,000 of my fellow New Mexicans attended. Lots of us have been pounding the pavement for this remarkable candidate for months. Many of us have sensed an unsettling wisp of patriotism. This post, however, concerns a far more spectacular phenomenon.

The almost fearful optimism felt by many of the young strikes light through these chilly, fall, high desert nights. At the outset of his campaign, I could see the reluctance in their eyes. Everything they had heard about politics and politicians, all the cynicism of their parents (and, God forbid, me) became a torturous reality during the Bush Autocracy. The seemingly bottomless self-serving of a wretched, neo-con psycopathy had lost even the inclination to deceive us as they increased their insults, and, for the young, the outrages slipped into a dismal, national, hopeless melancholy of realization that we, as citizens, really had lost a class war.

The hubris of an openly opportunistic Congress as it extracted more and more from the country, the silence of a whining, insistent, self-defined media claiming to be relevant and a President who seemed to walk in a mindless, blood-soaked indifference had all gently groomed these young ones for our national descent. A Justice Department openly determined to serve its masters any outrage they ordered and a Supreme Court which almost instantly inaugurated its party choice in the face of what was called an election quietly reinforced the darkest “No Exit” existential numbness for the young ones.

Challenged, frustrated, they found themselves agonizingly unaware. They absolutely felt, but they were blind sided by not knowing. There was the unsettling possibility -- in those young minds -- that they had been bred stupid to be a meaningless sacrifice in Carl Rove’s dreadful abattoirs. Their fate was to be a lifetime of low caste exploitation, the lot, historically, of all who had suffered the loss of their country. Logic was to mean nothing in the face of power. A tawdry innuendo of gutless democracy and bereft freedom continually demanded that it was enough. That it was all there was. That it had always been all there was.

No wonder they narcotized themselves with useless education, distraction, drugs and half hearted attempts to pretend that the future had somehow survived.

Then came the black man.

I had seen it before, long ago. At first no more than furtive, stolen moon light through a cold night’s wind, then that ancient human spark began to reappear, frightened and cowering at first, then, ever so slowly, a bit more courageous. You know, that nasty little spark that has always terrified tyrants.

These young ones who had never been persuaded or convinced before, still refused to listen, but they saw inside themselves. They could see what had been put there. They saw the extremes. They saw, at once, both the soul starving deception of the ones who had frightened all of us so masterfully and the crazy inebriation of every human who had ever finally stood for himself after believing that he couldn’t. Details mattered little. Perhaps it was George Washington sizing up the British Empire with a thought of taking it down. Perhaps it was some nameless, but deadly brave Australopithecine deciding that terrifyingly lethal saber tooth could also bleed.

Thoughts such as these only become material when there also exists the possibility of mortal failure. All new currency to these young ones -- currency with an exchange rate known to none of them.

Could something like this be possible? Possible even to those who weren’t entirely sure they even knew what the “something” was?

They searched their textbooks and computers. Everything they found there seemed to be more of the same dark blanket of hopelessness. They watched the news with a new fervor, but it only told them new versions of the same depressing story of inevitability. They spoke out, a little, and were told that they were foolishly exaggerating, that they were spoiled and indulgently dreaming.

The televisions spoke to them. They listened for a while. Then they quit listening. At least, they quit believing. They were told to have no hope. They were told that things were not really as things were, really. The televisions told them to be calm, to be accepting. The televisions told the young ones that the televisions spoke the truth.

The world encompassing evil slowly emerged, revealing itself to them. They didn’t know enough to be any more than suspicious, but they could feel the hypnotic death grip of this numbing pain slipping. The details of fact, perhaps, continued to elude them, but the fact of anger made its own muscles in their souls. The young ones got mad.

Against the most powerful odds on the planet, the black man was still there, still speaking. The young ones listened because he was speaking to them. Was he the first one who spoke to them?

The rest of this strange, fast tale is history.

If you are a tyrant, hope is a cancer. If you are a tyrant and it becomes audacious hope -- either in perception or material reality -- it is a mortal threat, dulling the psychology of despair, relentlessly charting its course to a painful, unavoidable desolation. No death is more desperate than the one endured alone when all who might wait with you have lost interest.

And, we can see these empty, pompous interlopers, exposed as such false creations, while their machinations and purloined power collapses in the face of hope such as this. They rage, briefly, snarling about in the dust, formulating another of their ravenous schemes to perpetuate control, but then, when lit up fully by this new light, they become eerily passive like the gazelle after the failed escape, calmly grazing for a last moment before the cheetah hits.

The hope of the black man was impressive enough, but alone, hardly historically decisive.

However, once it entered the young ones...