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http://kulturcritic.wordpress.com/posts/prometheus-unbound/

Prometheus Unbound

As many of you know, I have been back in the ‘land of the free’ for about a month, where the eagle soars without constraint. The most enlightening aspect has been my access to the nightly news and the talking-head ‘news’ shows on the air virtually 24/7. What have I seen? Well, I can tell you that the channels I flipped through have been focused almost exclusively on the relatively minor, yet by no means insignificant, miscarriage of justice in the Trayvon Martin murder case. Again, I am not trying to minimize that clusterfuck by the Florida legal system. And its implications for further racial divisiveness in this country are clearly evident. The injustice of the system keeps manifesting itself. But that may just be another distraction. Certainly, there are other, bigger fish needing to be fried that are still lying raw and rotting under a fisherman’s tarp on the hot deck.

What fish? How about the story of the US government’s clandestine and illegal collection of any and all data records and metadata across the globe. But all the corporate media circus cares to ask about is the juvenile question – “where’s Waldo?” Waldo, of course, is Edward Snowden. They want to force feed the chattel-citizenry of this land on Snowden’s personal escapade and his public flight from some imagined ‘justice,’ while systematically ignoring the stench of the fetid fish rotting in the corner… the gross illegality, injustice and tyranny of the US Mega-Surveilance State. We have been driven full-steam ahead, back to the future of George Orwell’s 1984, and the general populace is still unwilling or unable to see through the smoke and the smoke-screens. They have us fret about the enemy out there that, if it does exist, is not nearly as dangerous as the enemy among us… the Media-Military-Industrial-Surveilance State that is swooping down on eagles’ wings to create enemies where none exist, to gather unto itself the artless or the artful moves of all players on the grand chessboard, including the casual peccadilloes of the average joe-sixpack. This is what the media goons throw in our faces while refusing to examine or debate the real issues, even if only as a charade.

The media outlets drink from the chalices of their owners and sponsors, and their political appointees; so they do what they are beckoned to do. They distract, entertain, and ignore the real issues. We only find these issues discussed online, and those who are discussing them are closely monitored by the State and its data mining machinery.

Perhaps the larger question is, why doesn’t the public respond to this gnawing, fascist inspired tyranny? I do not think the answer is anymore one of ‘complacency.’ After all the ‘American Dream’ – that nightmare dressed-up in seductive evening wear — has begun to evaporate for much of the populace… like hot breath on a mirror. I really believe the issue constraining any public ‘blowback’ is one of FEAR. After the military-style shut-down of Occupy Movements around the country, the armored closing of parts of the city of Boston in search of a lone and wounded nineteen year old ‘terror suspect,’ and our general apprehension at the growing apparatus of a full-blown security state with its tentacles fully extended (just look at our quiet uneasiness with TSA at the airports), I believe it is fear of reprisal that keeps citizens from responding, either by public assembly or other, perhaps more belligerent, means. Surely, it is far safer to go to the streets and rally against the legal decision in a case of apparently racially motivated murder. There is no real threat to the hegemony in that instance, at least no clear and present danger. It is much more dangerous to demonstrate against the king and his court directly. There the wheels of empire, with its newfound brutality and cynicism, can grind you into dust, and they will. Just watch how they try to get their long arms around Assange, Snowden, Manning, and others for embarrassing them on the world stage, or those veteran groups assembling at the New York City’s Vietnam Memorial municipal park after official closing hours. Even Chris Hedges has seen this heavy-hand of the State up close and personal with his own efforts at public assembly and civil disobedience. The inverted totalitarianism of which Chris has spoken eloquently over the past year is now starting to right itself, baring its teeth and flexing its muscle. Meanwhile, the hegemon perched atop this malicious hierarchy is only doing the evil bidding of his masters. It seems that slavery never dies, it merely changes its form… it is a classical shape-shifter… the better to keep us confused and confined.

So what is the citizenry supposed to do? Nothing? Just accept our fate, letting destiny take its course. Is our only recourse to obey the whims of a rolling tyranny? The virtual world of instant communication across the globe is the strangest of bedfellows. We can use it to steal fire from the gods, but can we use it to spark and illuminate the masses, or do we simply burn ourselves out as we become embroiled in the increasing terror of the State, a state which knows no limits, a regime that soars like an eagle only to feed on our liver again each and every day. This has become our fate for defiance of the gods.

I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver hurts. However, I don’t know beans about my pain, and I am not sure what is bothering me.

Perhaps we are like Dostoyevsky’s anti-hero. But why do we hurt? And how can Prometheus become unbound, freed from the tyranny of this state and its feeding on my liver? I too fear… for the future of this people, of all peoples, and for the planet we now share as we walk gently upon eggshells.