Truth for Children

what if you lived your minutes aware and cognizant of the fact that one day - maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next year, but one day - you are going to die? what if all the machinations of your life, all the blood sweat and tears, all the labor, all the love, what if all of it were directed towards that bulls-eye instead of running away from it with bloomingdale's bags in your hands or some poor sucker's money in your pocket? what if you could see an abridged version of your life and where it was ultimately headed?

would you change anything? would you do it all again? or would you let go of your fears and your loose change and try to abolish all fallacy and illusion in your perception of the world around you?

now what if i told you these and other changes were already in progress?.....

con·spir·a·cy [kuhn-spir-uh-see]

1.	the act of conspiring.

2.	an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

3.	a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose: He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.

4.	Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

5.	any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

got thirst?

go ahead, sell your watered-down lemonade for quarters and pray the Fall is near, because you all know what the next few weeks hold: august dog days, leaves browning over, hang-around preteens plotting their next 7-11 something-for-nothing scheme, more empty promises from flip-flop 'presidential' candidates offering cures for what ails ya, more ex-homeowners swallowed whole by the cold reality of (gasp) apartment living, and - as if it needs to even be said - the all-consuming 'grave & gathering' threat of Islamofascism. maybe just maybe they'll indulge us and finally bump up the Death-o-Meter to the tampax-soaked color we deserve.

remember way back when cheney wasn't yet king, months after one sunny Tuesday when former chief of staff andrew card glibly said, 'from a marketing standpoint, you don't introduce new products in august?' he was onto something, that guy - how'd a megawatt like that get stuck working for Junior Boy Dim? i mean for a white house insider to slip and offer the public a window into how this country's most secretive administration makes decisions on how to terrorize us further, one must infer that there is a real ongoing effort that, whether orange, green or in between, our fearmongers are keenly aware of how these alerts can affect us.

i mean, seriously - yellow alert? does anyone even buy this anymore? 'holy shit! i cant go to work today! what if today's the day CIAl Qaida decides to hate me for my freedom?!?'

what we need to start doing is changing the language we use to analyze and question what the Fourth Estate is feeding us, to stop dismissing out-of-hand the idea that there are powerful forces at work in this world collaborating, conceptualizing, and YES conspiring to profit from this american culture of fear. from cnn to the new york times to paramount pictures to bantam fucking books is it really that outrageous to consider that this war of terror isn't (at least in large part) the work of market forces conspiring to shape popular opinion for political & economic gain? exactly what part of that theory is unsubstantiated? who says all capitalist endeavors don't utilize grand deception as part of their marketing campaign?

forget for a moment the zeitgeist, the theories, all of it and just ask yourself this: what is the most common charge in criminal courts? it's when two or more people work together in the planning stages of a crime. it's what you do when you mutter about starting a softball team or a labor union, it's what you do when you enlist the aid of one or more people in a common goal. hell, it's how this country spilled the first blood on its hands, by paul revere town-crying, whispers among patriots towards insurrection - my fellow americans, that is called conspiracy.

now nobody's said anything about bilderberg smoke-filled backrooms (though we know they exist), not one time have i suggested our elected leaders are engineering foreign policy in secret forums and among lobbyists unaccountable to the electorate (though our system relies heavily on this very process), and no one is ordering you to obey and conform and accept the prevailing Fables spun by this and practically every other administration (though your president has just signed off on an executive order criminalizing those who refuse to do so) - but perhaps its time to reconsider the simplistic and potentially naive assumption that opportunities for exploitation and control aren't pursued by those in positions of power. some of us who aren't yet willing or able to pay attention to the man behind the curtain should at least concede that yes virginia, there is a man, there is a curtain, and what goes on behind it is likely something not borne of coincidence.