photo: pjguyton2002 via Flickr

Too many New Year’s Eves will come and go before humanity drinks from that Cup of Kindness Robert Burns spoke of in his classic poem, Auld Lang Syne. When that day comes, it will be because people in this degraded world finally listened to writers, poets, singers and songwriters, who’ve been the conscience of humanity ever since the lies of the first kings ignited the first wars and four thousand years of killing for gold and power began on the ancient battlegrounds of the Middle East.

In Artists of Resistance, Howard Zinn emphasizes the critical importance of artists who communicate universal truths through poetry, music, and literature. They have always spoken truth to power, their voices are needed now more than ever, as shock doctrine capitalism intensifies and humanity itself is targeted for destruction. If we keep retreating, if we keep surrendering without a fight because fighting back might offend the criminals who are beating the hell out of us, all that is human within us will die, it will be gone forever, and the nightmare world of 1984 will become reality.

George Orwell . . .

Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

A corporate final solution on a global scale. The ultimate holocaust.

Chris Hedges . . .

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten, and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from Brave New World to 1984. The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war, and corporate malfeasance, is sliding towards bankruptcy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Too many people still believe the lies, too many are afraid to speak out, too many are still clinging to the illusion that what’s happened so many times before can’t happen here. Well it is happening here, and as it escalates, too many people will just accept it, they won’t resist and will turn their backs on those who do.

Resistance is a long, hard road to travel, but many men and women have traveled it before. Every mile of it. We won’t be on our own, we won’t have to find our way through the darkness alone, they’ve shown us the way . . .

Oppression must always be resisted, justice must always be defended, the truth must always be told, no matter what the cost. History teaches us that, the world’s great religions teach us that, the greatest poetry, literature, and music ever written teaches us that.

That lesson will be learned, it will be learned very well in the years to come. So keep the faith, keep telling the truth, it will finally be heard, it will finally be believed, it will set us all free. That Cup of Kindness will be passed among us, it will not be bought and sold, it will be shared, and all will drink from it. Corporate capitalism will be gone from this world, it’ll be as gone as the divine right of kings, it’ll be stone-cold dead and buried a mile deep in an unmarked grave on the dark side of the moon.