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For Anarchy
A political poem on Fear, Respect, The State, and Anarchy

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For Anarchy

ben_tam64
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Posted 11/02/09 - 01:22 PM: Subject: For Anarchy	#1
Oh how you fear the state of Anarchy. You who fears the War of All against All, Where the weak are abused, And the strong thrive. You submit to governance To obey and comply, To be led and protected, By those you elect wise. But don’t you know? The state must feed in order to survive. And by your consent, Does the State fan the fires of war. Bribed by the state's many gifts, you turn a blind eye to the evils they spread. Rights, protection, and benefits for citizens. War, plunder, and rape for everyone else. It is out of this chaos, that mutual fear grows, And military becomes essential, If the State wishes to feed and survive. Oh how the strong thrive and the weak suffer! Though is this not what you feared in the first place? You see, by letting your fears control you, By submitting to the whims of the State, You fostered the wars which you feared. And in the war of Nation States, the global arena weeps. But no, there must be more to humanity. For mutual fear cannot be our principle motif. In lieu of fear, there is respect. Not a fear of man's nature, but a respect for man's autonomy. Respect a person and mutual fear dissolves. Only by control one's fear can mutual respect thrive. In essence, there is only power and choice. The power of your body and choices of your mind. Never relinquish your autonomy by obedience to the state. Obey no one, and govern no one but yourself, for unrestrained power over men corrupts the soul. Govern thyself with respect to others, and you will find that life is not a constant war. That there is no need nor desire for government That life is too precious to be lived in fear. When men and women can coexistence in peace, And being freed from the polices of the state, Order arises from mutual respect, And not by persecution of law. This is the ideal of coexistence among men. Order by mutual respect, and not mutual fear. Such is the ideal of Anarchy.

BitterCrank
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Posted 11/04/09 - 05:20 AM:	#2
Twi points: The state's behavior is evil in certain respects, but so are the primary interests the state serves. Business interests drive a good share of governmental activity and deserve a significant share of evil-causing responsibility, though some business activity is perfectly useful, friendly, and benign. "We must love one another or die" W. H. Auden said. Here is the poem in which he says it. You might like it. September 1, 1939 I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
If you won't fan the flames of discontent, at least don't join the fire department.

davidasearles
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Posted 11/04/09 - 05:53 AM:	#3
ben_tam64 wrote: You submit to governance To obey and comply, To be led and protected, By those you elect wise. But don’t you know? The state must feed in order to survive. And by your consent, Does the State fan the fires of war. So in the United States if I obey and comply with the governmental edict to drive on the right hand side of the road when approaching a vehicle traveling in the opposite direction, this consent helps to fan the flames of war? I suppose there must be something to that. I've been driving on the right ever since I got a driver's license back in 1970 and there's been just one damned war after another the whole time. Edited by davidasearles on 11/04/09 - 06:30 AM

ben_tam64
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Posted 11/08/09 - 08:06 PM:	#4
Do drive on the right side because the government says so, Or is it because you don't want to get hit head on by another car?

Ionakani
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Posted 11/09/09 - 12:07 PM:	#5
I drive on the right side of the road, because everyone else does... I obey the government, because everyone else does... We have a government because everyone else does... and if the United States was a giant blank space on the political map then It wouldnt be long until another government moved in to take control of the ungoverned "savages" Its a nice idea... no taxes But it could never happen because it would require a world-wide change not only in policy but in the very nature of man

SittinWSocratesTiff
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Posted 11/09/09 - 01:31 PM:	#6
I am on both sides of the coin for the reasons to drive on the right side of the street both the rules as well as my well being. It can at times feel like we are but a herd of sheep being steered around someone elses grand theme. Even within that 'herd of sheep' there will always be a 'head of the herd' the one who is willing to 'step up' when someone or something confronts the herds safety. Once a 'head' of something is established be it head of state or head of the herd a groundfire begins to stir in some who will eventually stand up and challenging the 'head'.

ben_tam64
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Posted 11/09/09 - 10:41 PM:	#7
"I obey the government, because everyone else does... We have a government because everyone else does..." No one governs me but myself. A free man obeys no one. "It could never happen because it would require a world-wide change not only in policy but in the very nature of man" Change can happen. Humanity has much to mature As for the driving analogy: People drive on one side because it is rational to do so. Sort of like trains, they all run in one direction on the same track not because the government says so, but because it is the rational thing to do.

SittinWSocratesTiff
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Posted 11/10/09 - 03:38 AM: Subject: Pioneers! O Pioneers!	#8
1 COME, my tan-faced children, Follow well in order, get your weapons ready; Have you your pistols? have you your sharp edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers! 2 For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers! 3 O you youths, western youths, So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you, western youths, see you tramping with the foremost, Pioneers! O pioneers! 4 Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied, over there beyond the seas? We take up the task eternal, and the burden, and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers! 5 All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O pioneers! 6 We detachments steady throwing, Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing, as we go, the unknown ways, Pioneers! O pioneers! 7 We primeval forests felling, We the rivers stemming, vexing we, and piercing deep the mines within; We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers! 8 Colorado men are we, From the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the high plateaus, From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O pioneers! 9 From Nebraska, from Arkansas, Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the continental blood intervein’d; All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all the Northern, Pioneers! O pioneers! 10 O resistless, restless race! O beloved race in all! O my breast aches with tender love for all! O I mourn and yet exult—I am rapt with love for all, Pioneers! O pioneers! 11 Raise the mighty mother mistress, Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry mistress, (bend your heads all,) Raise the fang’d and warlike mistress, stern, impassive, weapon’d mistress, Pioneers! O pioneers! 12 See, my children, resolute children, By those swarms upon our rear, we must never yield or falter, Ages back in ghostly millions, frowning there behind us urging, Pioneers! O pioneers! 13 On and on, the compact ranks, With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead quickly fill’d, Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never stopping, Pioneers! O pioneers! 14 O to die advancing on! Are there some of us to droop and die? has the hour come? Then upon the march we fittest die, soon and sure the gap is fill’d, Pioneers! O pioneers! 15 All the pulses of the world, Falling in, they beat for us, with the western movement beat; Holding single or together, steady moving, to the front, all for us, Pioneers! O pioneers! 16 Life’s involv’d and varied pageants, All the forms and shows, all the workmen at their work, All the seamen and the landsmen, all the masters with their slaves, Pioneers! O pioneers! 17 All the hapless silent lovers, All the prisoners in the prisons, all the righteous and the wicked, All the joyous, all the sorrowing, all the living, all the dying, Pioneers! O pioneers! 18 I too with my soul and body, We, a curious trio, picking, wandering on our way, Through these shores, amid the shadows, with the apparitions pressing, Pioneers! O pioneers! 19 Lo! the darting bowling orb! Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets, All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams, Pioneers! O pioneers! 20 These are of us, they are with us, All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind, We to-day’s procession heading, we the route for travel clearing, Pioneers! O pioneers! 21 O you daughters of the west! O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives! Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united, Pioneers! O pioneers! 22 Minstrels latent on the prairies! (Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep—you have done your work) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us, Pioneers! O pioneers! 23 Not for delectations sweet; Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious; Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment, Pioneers! O pioneers! 24 Do the feasters gluttonous feast? Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock’d and bolted doors? Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground, Pioneers! O pioneers! 25 Has the night descended? Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious, Pioneers! O pioneers! 26 Till with sound of trumpet, Far, far off the day-break call—hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind; Swift! to the head of the army!—swift! spring to your places, Pioneers! O pioneers. Walt Whitman Edited by SittinWSocratesTiff on 11/10/09 - 04:02 AM. Reason: removal of emoticon

SittinWSocratesTiff
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Posted 11/10/09 - 04:49 AM:	#9
Although I have enjoyed writings of this length before, I admit at times I find myself rolling my eyes at another list of words that left me feeling as though the thoughts applied to another time in history. I much prefer to listen to such a writing as inflection and tone matter so much to me. There are times when the voice is the only thing keeping my interest. I shared that with you because of the way I became familiar with this Pioneer! O Pioneer! writing. I heard an urgent voice from the tv reciting passage one and two with a group of teens against a nightime sky lighting up torches made of sticks and rags. The commercial is for Levi's Strauss Co. and it did invoke a response from me so the marketing worked. The words left me with a larger question than what jeans to buy. I had to track down this writing and have read it over and over in an effort to understand it. I would have to believe that the marketing dept of Levi's have choosen this particuliar writing, at this particuliar time, for a specific reason? Maybe Aristotle's argument of anger would apply here and if it does what is thier intended reason?

davidasearles
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Posted 11/10/09 - 07:44 AM:	#10
How is society to enforce the drive on the right rule? A person driving on the left should be charged with not driving on the side everyone else drives on, or for failing to obey the legal mandate to drive on the right?

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