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The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

quote by Winston Churchill
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F.M. Doll

Take my doll put on her pretty clothes
Now don't you soil her dress
Brush her hair, paint her lips like a rose
Cover up your mess
Strip baby strip 'cause your daddy is watching
Strip baby strip just for me
Strip baby strip show your mother knows nothing
Strip baby strip Just for me, oh
Someone say doctor is my friend
Bruising is his cause
Behind closing doors
Strip baby strip for the soul of your brother
Strip baby strip for his wife
Strip baby strip 'cause you know she's not willing
Strip baby strip by the knife, Yeah
I lost my doll, put on my pretty clothes
I wont soil my dress
I brush my hair, paint my lips like a rose
I cover up my mess
Strip baby strip for the soul of your mother
Strip baby strip for her life
Strip baby strip 'cause you know you're worth nothing
Strip baby strip by the knife
Strip baby strip 'cause your daddy is watching
Strip baby strip just for me
Strip baby strip 'cause you know you're worth nothing
Strip baby strip for me, oh yeah

song performed by Queen Adreena
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The Believer's Principles : Chap. IV.

Faith and Sense Natural, compared and distinguished.

When Abram's body, Sarah's womb,
Were ripe for nothing but the tomb,
Exceeding old, and wholly dead,
Unlike to bear the promis'd seed:

Faith said, 'I shall an Isaac see;'
'No, no,' said Sense, 'it cannot be;'
Blind Reason, to augment the strife,
Adds, 'How can death engender life?'

My heart is like a rotten tomb,
More dead than ever Sarah's womb;
O! can the promis'd seed of grace
Spring forth from such a barren place?

Sense gazing but on flinty rocks,
My hope and expectation chokes:
But could I, skill'd in Abram's art,
O'erlook my dead and barren heart;

And build my hope on nothing less
That divine pow'r and faithfulness;
Soon would I find him raise up sons
To Abram, out of rocks and stones.

Faith acts as busy boatmen do,
Who backward look and forward row;
It looks intent to things unseen,
Thinks objects visible too mean.

Sense thinks it madness thus to steer,
And only trusts its eye and ear;
Into faith's boat dare thrust its oar,
And put it further from the shore.

Faith does alone the promise eye;
Sense won't believe unless it see;
Nor can it trust the divine guide,
Unless it have both wind and tide.

Faith thinks the promise sure and good;
Sense doth depend on likelihood;
Faith ev'n in storms believes the seers;
Sense calls all men, ev'n prophets, liars.

Faith uses means, but rests on none;
Sense sails when outward means are gone:

[...] Read more

poem by Ralph Erskine
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Losing Life to Fear

In fear of being heard,

In fear of being understood,

In fear of not being heard,

In fear of not being understood,

In fear of being misheard,

In fear of being misunderstood,

In fear of hearing too much,

In fear of understanding too much,

In fear of saying too much,

In fear of saying too little,

In fear of being too enlightened,

In fear of not being factually correct,

In fear of being too bright,

In fear of being too ignorant,

In fear of being praised,

In fear of being bullied,

In fear of not being like others,

In fear of loosing my individuality,

In fear of being ostracized,

In fear of being camouflaged,

[...] Read more

poem by Suraj Samtani
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Modern Dancing

Modern, modern, modern, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern
I see you acting modernly with the boys and girls
Exposure breeds discovery in the modern world
The 60's hairdos 90's eyes are just flashing lights
A touch of neon hinting class for the modern night
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern
Mono vision tv face and determined eyes
The clothes are perfect the rips in place just the perfect size
Familiarity breeds contempt but it doesn't show
We've heard the music times before but it still makes you go
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, modern dancing
Modern dancing, dancing
....variations to fade....

song performed by Men Without Hats
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Fears of a teenage mafioso

Fear of love,
Fear of pain,
Fear of the unforgiving cane,
Fear of lies,
Fear of sighs,
Fear of those distraught eyes,
Fear for the unknown,
Fear for the known,
Fear of everything combined,
Fear is what makes me blind,
Fear is what makes me think,
and act in blind accordance,
Hindering the world around me,
Hence, My Fear of myself
Fear is when you run away,
Fear is when you’re scared to love someone,
Fear is when the sky turns grey,
Fear of confusion,
Fear is like a dark blue ocean,
Fear won’t let me escape
Fear mocks me, watching
Fear taunts me, waiting
Fear of losing,
Fear you cannot see,
Fear dealt upon thee.
Fear of darkness and death,
Fear of a dead comrade,
Fear of a gun being cocked,
Fear of being endlessly stalked,
Fear of time,
Fear of all the crime,
Fear of the undesirable truth,
Fear for the good.
Fear for the sake of life,
Fear of the neighbors next door,
Fear of the secretive man in the subway,
Fear of the revolutionary uproar,
Fear is to not rejoice your living,
Fear for the sake of your life,
But to fear is to forsake it.
Fear is to have no hope in life,
Fear of the fear of fear,
We need no reason to fear,
For fear has no reason for itself.
I guess life is just like that,
To fear for no reason,
For to fear is not to reason,
But to reason is to fear.
To fear for the sake of fear,
Is fear for fear,

[...] Read more

poem by David daveres
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An Essay on Criticism

Part I

INTRODUCTION. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But of the two less dangerous is th'offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense:
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critic's share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well;
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not Critics to their judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;
The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right:
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill col'ring but the more disgraced,
So by false learning is good sense defaced:
Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools:
In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn Critics in their own defence:
Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,
There are who judge still worse than he can write.

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass'd;
Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain Fools at last.
Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;
Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,

[...] Read more

poem by Alexander Pope
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Paperback Writer

(LennonMcCartney)
Paperback writer
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look?
It's based on a novel by a man named Lear
And I need a job, so I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
It's the dirty story of a dirty man
And his clinging wife doesn't understand
His son is working for the Daily Mail
It's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
It's a thousand pages, give or take a few
I'll be writing more in a week or two
I can make it longer if you like the style
I can change it round and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
If you really like it you can have the rights
It could make a million for you overnight
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer
Paperback writer, paperback writer (fade out)

song performed by Paul McCartney
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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I Have Reserved Time to Write This; Why?

I sat in the nature reserve
Watching the animals playing football
I was just a reserve
Not in the first eleven

I had a seat in the theatre reserved
I watched the play unfold
I not an actor I’m too reserved
I’m in the audience where I belong

I was called up by the army
Served before; but they wanted me to re-serve
I was playing tennis; the ball went wide
They made me re-serve

Reserve your energy
Reserve your nerve
Keep your humour in reserve
Keep your reserve in reserve

I reserve the right to say you asked me to write this
And I have kept the best in reserve
You will have to reserve an appointment
With a proper poet after you’ve read this

An anagram of reserve
Is reverse
I wish I could reverse time
Then I wouldn’t have wrote this

poem by Michael Micmac Mccrory
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The Ghost - Book IV

Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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The Rosciad

Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.

Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 8

And now the Angel, from the trembling sight,
Veil'd the wide world–when sudden shades of night
Move o'er the ethereal vault; the starry train
Paint their dim forms beneath the placid main;
While earth and heaven, around the hero's eye,
Seem arch'd immense, like one surrounding sky.
Still, from the Power superior splendors shone,
The height emblazing like a radiant throne;
To converse sweet the soothing shades invite,
And on the guide the hero fix'd his sight.
Kind messenger of Heaven, he thus began,
Why this progressive labouring search of man?
If man by wisdom form'd hath power to reach
These opening truths that following ages teach,
Step after step, thro' devious mazes, wind,
And fill at last the measure of the mind,
Why did not Heaven, with one unclouded ray,
All human arts and reason's powers display?
That mad opinions, sects and party strife
Might find no place t'imbitter human life.
To whom the Angelic Power; to thee 'tis given,
To hold high converse, and enquire of heaven,
To mark uncircled ages and to trace
The unfolding truths that wait thy kindred race.
Know then, the counsels of th'unchanging Mind,
Thro' nature's range, progressive paths design'd,
Unfinish'd works th'harmonious system grace,
Thro' all duration and around all space;
Thus beauty, wisdom, power, their parts unroll,
Till full perfection joins the accordant whole.
So the first week, beheld the progress rise,
Which form'd the earth and arch'd th'incumbant skies.
Dark and imperfect first, the unbeauteous frame,
From vacant night, to crude existence came;
Light starr'd the heavens and suns were taught their bound,
Winds woke their force, and floods their centre found;
Earth's kindred elements, in joyous strife,
Warm'd the glad glebe to vegetable life,
Till sense and power and action claim'd their place,
And godlike reason crown'd the imperial race.
Progressive thus, from that great source above,
Flows the fair fountain of redeeming love.
Dark harbingers of hope, at first bestow'd,
Taught early faith to feel her path to God:
Down the prophetic, brightening train of years,
Consenting voices rose of different seers,
In shadowy types display'd the accomplish'd plan,
When filial Godhead should assume the man,
When the pure Church should stretch her arms abroad,
Fair as a bride and liberal as her God;

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Taken To Extremes

At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
Accepting people AND their shortcomings

At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
Accepting people AND their shortcomings

I had stop,
Accepting people and their shortcomings
I had to stop,
An empathy they would expect from me.
I was made to drop,
All the giving of my energy...
Taken to extremes until they saw me bleed.

I had stop,
Accepting people and their shortcomings
I had to stop,
An empathy they would expect from me.
I was made to drop,
All the giving of my energy...
Taken to extremes until they saw me bleed.

At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
At one time I was,
Am I now...
No!
Accepting people AND their shortcomings.

I was made to drop,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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It Makes More Sense

It makes more sense,
Stopping something not to start.
Yes it makes more sense,
Not to tear things all apart.
Or bring up filthy garbage,
Knowing it is just a farce.

It makes more sense,
To walk away than to be petty.
And it makes more sense,
To prevent a thumping headache.
And it makes more sense,
Not to argue with a fool.
Knowing this is something done,
Many fools love to do.

And it makes more sense,
Stopping something not to start.
Yes it makes more sense,
Not to tear things all apart.
Or bring up filthy garbage,
Knowing it is just a farce.
And it makes more sense,
Not to argue with a fool.
Knowing this is something done,
Fools love to do.

And it makes more sense,
To keep the peace with every neighbor.
And it makes more sense,
To chase all bitterness away.
And it makes more sense,
To say, 'You're right' than build a hate.
Knowing that tomorrow promises another day.

And it makes more sense,
To keep the peace with every neighbor.
And it makes more sense,
To chase all bitterness away.
And it makes more sense,
To say, 'You're right' than build a hate.
Knowing that tomorrow promises another day.

Yes it makes more sense,
To keep the peace with every neighbor.
And it makes more sense,
To say, 'You're right' than build a hate.
Knowing that tomorrow promises another day.
Yes it makes more sense,
To keep the peace with every neighbor.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Loath and Fear

If I would rely on phrenology,
Or science, or mythology,
I'd burn down this damned city
And disembark in a conclusion
Of the ugly veracity:
I loathe everything!
I fear everything!
I loathe that I am writing about loathing
And I fear that I might lose every one
Though I barely have anyone,
So I loathe even more on this fear.
I loathe that I write about myself all the time, and
I fear that I might not be writing at all
I loathe that I would narrate a story
In the surreal slopes of enigma, and
I fear, afterwards, that no one will pry
To understand or even console.
I loathe that my mouth cannot mouth
What my hands opted to write, and
I fear that my hands aren't equipped
To write what I cannot mouth.
I loathe even more that I build walls
For people to beat down and divulge
The forlorn boy inside, and yet
I fear to be found.
And I loathe to the point of breaking
That no one ever cared to pry
And that makes me shudder in fear, and
I fear this kind of loathing
And loathe this kind of fear.
I loathe that I cannot gain readers, and
I fear that I may never have
I loathe that readers appreciates the writing
But not the congealed brook
Between the lines of it, and
I fear that they might not even
Appreciate the spilled blood
In every line of it.
I loathe, I fear,
That apart from writing
I am never good at anything
Except maybe from fearing and loathing.
I loathe that I blame the past
For making me loathe a lot, and
For making me fear a lot
For making me loathe sports, and
For making me fear trying
And all the brusquely recreations
And the shame of failing.
I loathe, I fear,

[...] Read more

poem by Norman Santos
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Death Of The Middle Class

Oligarchs and Banksters tighten financial screws
In a bold attempt to kill the global Middle Class
Heads of State unable/unwilling to halt this ruse
The “Great Depression of 1929” we soon surpass

ROTMS

By Andrew Gavin Marshall - Global Research

We now stand at the edge of the global financial abyss of a ‘Great Global Debt Depression, ’ where nations, mired in extreme debt, are beginning to implement ‘fiscal austerity’ measures to reduce their deficits, which will ultimately result in systematic global social genocide, as the middle classes vanish and the social foundations upon which our nations rest are swept away. How did we get here? Who brought us here? Where is this road leading? These are questions I will briefly attempt to answer.

At the heart of the global political economy is the central banking system. Central banks are responsible for printing a nation’s currency and setting interest rates, thus determining the value of the currency. This should no doubt be the prerogative of a national government, however, central banks are of a particularly deceptive nature, in which while being imbued with governmental authority, they are in fact privately owned by the world’s major global banks, and are thus profit-seeking institutions. How do central banks make a profit? The answer is simple: how do all banks make a profit? Interest on debt. Loans are made, interest rates are set, and profits are made. It is a system of debt, imperial economics at its finest.

In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System, with the Board located in Washington, appointed by the President, but where true power rested in the 12 regional banks, most notably among them, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The regional Fed banks were private banks, owned in shares by the major banks in each region, which elected the board members to represent them, and who would then share power with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

In the early 1920s, the Council on Foreign Relations was formed in the United States as the premier foreign policy think tank, dominated by powerful banking interests. In 1930, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) was created to manage German reparations payments, but it also had another role, which was much less known, but much more significant. It was to act as a “coordinator of the operations of central banks around the world.” Essentially, it is the central bank for the world’s central banks, whose operations are kept ‘strictly confidential.’ As historian Carroll Quigley wrote:

'The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations.'

In 1954, the Bilderberg Group was formed as a secretive global think tank, comprising intellectual, financial, corporate, political, military and media elites from Western Europe and North America, with prominent bankers such as David Rockefeller, as well as European royalty, such as the Dutch royal family, who are the largest shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, whose CEO attends every meeting. This group of roughly 130 elites meets every year in secret to discuss and debate global affairs, and to set general goals and undertake broad agendas at various meetings. The group was initially formed to promote European integration. The 1956 meeting discussed European integration and a common currency. In fact, the current Chairman of the Bilderberg Group told European media last year that the euro was debated at the Bilderberg Group.

In 1973, David Rockefeller, Chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the Steering Committee of the Blderberg Group, formed the Trilateral Commission with CFR academic Zbigniew Brzezinski. That same year, the oil price shocks created a wealth of oil money, which was discussed at that years Bilderberg meeting 5 months prior to the oil shocks, and the money was funneled through western banks, which loaned it to ‘third world’ nations desperately in need of loans to finance industrialization.

When Jimmy Carter became President in 1977, he appointed over two dozen members of the Trilateral Commission into his cabinet, including himself, and of course, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was his National Security Adviser. In 1979, Carter appointed David Rockefeller’s former aide and friend, Paul Volcker, who had held various positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S. Treasury Department, and who also happened to be a member of the Trilateral Commission, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. When another oil shock took place in 1979, Volcker decided to raise interest rates from 2% in the late 70s, to 18% in the early 80s. The effect this had was that the countries of the developing world suddenly had to pay enormous interest on their loans, and in 1982, Mexico announced it could no longer afford to pay its interest, and it defaulted on its debt, which set off the 1980s debt crisis – collapsing nations in debt across Latin America, Africa and parts of Asia.

It was the IMF and the World Bank came to the ‘assistance’ of the Third World with their ‘structural adjustment programs’, which forced countries seeking assistance to privatize all state owned industries and resources, devalue their currencies, liberalize their economies, dismantle health, education and social services; ultimately resulting in the re-colonization of the ‘Third World’ as Western corporations and banks bought all their assets and resources, and ultimately created the conditions of social genocide, with the spread of mass poverty, and the emergence of corrupt national elites who were subservient to the interests of Western elites. The people in these nations would protest, riot and rebel, and the states would clamp down with the police and military.

In the West, corporations and banks saw rapid, record-breaking profits. This was the era in which the term ‘globalization’ emerged. While profits soared, wages for people in the West did not. Thus, to consume in an economy in which prices were rising, people had to go into debt. This is why this era marked the rise of credit cards fueling consumption, and the middle class became a class based entirely on debt.

In the 1990s, the ‘new world order’ was born, with America ruling the global economy, free trade agreements began integrating regional and global markets for the benefit of global banks and corporations, and speculation dominated the economy.

The global economic crisis arose as a result of decades of global imperialism – known recently as ‘globalization’ – and the reckless growth of– speculation, derivatives and an explosion of debt. As the economic crisis spread, nations of the world, particularly the United States, bailed out the major banks (which should have been made to fail and crumble under their own corruption and greed) , and now the West has essentially privatized profits for the banks, and socialized the risk. In other words, the nations bought the debt from the banks, and now the people have to pay for it. The people, however, are immersed in their own personal debt to such degrees that today, the average Canadian is $39,000 in debt, and students are graduating into a jobless market with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of student debt that they will never repay. Hence, we are now faced with a global debt crisis.

To manage the economic crisis, the G20 was established as the major international forum for cooperation among the 20 major economies of the world, including the major developing – or emerging – economies, such as India, Brazil, South Africa and China. At the onset of the financial crisis, China and Russia’s central banks began calling for the establishment of a global currency to replace the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency. This proposal was backed by the UN and the IMF. It should be noted, however, that the Chinese and Russian central banks cooperate with the Western central banks through the Bank for International Settlements – which the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, recently said was the principle forum for “governance of central bank cooperation” and that the G20 is “the prime group for global economic governance.” In 2009, the IMF stated that the BIS “is the central and the oldest focal point for coordination of global governance arrangements.” The President of the European Union, appointed to the position after attending a Bilderberg meeting, declared 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” The 2009 Bilderberg meeting reported on the desire to create a global treasury, or global central bank, to manage the world economy. In 2009, prior to the Bilderberg meeting in fact, the G20 set in motion plans to make the IMF a global central bank of sorts, issuing and even printing its own currency – called Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) – which is valued against a basket of currencies. In May of 2010, the IMF Managing Director stated that “crisis is an opportunity, ” and while Special Drawing Rights are a step in the right direction, ultimately what is needed is “a new global currency issued by a global central bank, with robust governance and institutional features.” Thus, we see the emergence of a process towards the formation of a global central bank and a global currency, totally unaccountable to any nation or people, and totally controlled by global banking interests.

In 2010, Greece was plunged into a debt crisis, a crisis which is now spreading across Europe, to the U.K. and eventually to Japan and the United States. If we look at Greece, we see the nature of the global debt crisis. The debt is owed to major European and American banks. To pay the interest on the debt, Greece had to get a loan from the European Central Bank and the IMF, which forced the country to impose ‘fiscal austerity’ measures as a condition for the loans, pressuring Greece to commit social genocide. Meanwhile, the major banks of America and Europe speculate against the Greek debt, further plunging the country into economic and social crisis. The loan is granted, to pay the interest, yet simply has the effect of adding to the overall debt, as a new loan is new debt. Thus, Greece is caught in the same debt trap that re-colonized the Third World.

At the recent G20 meeting in Toronto, the major nations of the world agreed to impose fiscal austerity – or in other words, commit social genocide – within their nations, in a veritable global structural adjustment program. So now we will see the beginnings of the Great Global Debt Depression, in which major western and global nations cut social spending, create mass unemployment by dismantling health, education, and social services. Further, state infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, airports, ports, railways, prisons, hospitals, electric transmission lines and water – will be privatized, so that global corporations and banks will own the entirely of national assets. Simultaneously, of course, taxes will be raised dramatically to levels never before seen. The BIS said that interest rates should rise at the same time, meaning that interest payments on debt will dramatically increase at both the national and individual level, forcing governments to turn to the IMF for loans – likely in the form of its new global reserve currency – to simply pay the interest, and will thus be absorbing more debt. Simultaneously, of course, the middle class will in effect have its debts called in, and since the middle class exists only as an illusion, the illusion will vanish.

Already, towns, cities, and states across America are resorting to drastic actions to reduce their debts, such as closing fire stations, scaling back trash collection, turning off street lights, ending bus services and public transportation, cutting back on library hours or closing them altogether, school districts cutting down the school day, week or year. Simultaneously, this is occurring with a dramatic increase in the rate of privatizations or “public-private partnerships” in which even libraries are being privatized.

No wonder then, that this month, the Managing Director of the IMF warned that America and Europe, in the midst of the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, face an “explosion of social unrest.” Just yesterday, Europe experienced a wave of mass protests and social unrest in opposition to ‘austerity measures’, with a general strike in Spain involving millions of people, and a march on the EU headquarters in Brussels of nearly 100,000 people. As social unrest spreads, governments will likely react – as we saw in the case of the G20 in Toronto – with oppressive police state measures. Here, we see the true relevance of the emergence of ‘Homeland Security States’, designed not to protect people from terrorists, but to protect the powerful from the people.

So while things have never seemed quite so bleak, there is a dim and growing beacon of hope, in what Zbigniew Brzezinski has termed as the greatest threat to elite interests everywhere – the ‘global political awakening’. The global political awakening is representative of the fact that for the first time in all of human history, mankind is politically awakened and stirring, activated and aware, and that generally – as Zbigniew Brzezinski explains – generally is aware of global inequalities, exploitation, and disrespect. This awakening is largely the result of the information revolution – thus revealing the contradictory nature of the globalization project – as while it globalizes power and oppression, so too does it globalize awareness and opposition. This awakening is the greatest threat to entrenched elite interests everywhere. The awakening, while having taken root in the global south – already long subjected to exploitation and devastation – is now stirring in the west, and will grow as the economy crumbles. As the middle classes realize their consumption was an illusion of wealth, they will seek answers and demand true change, not the Wall Street packaged ‘brand-name’ change of Obama Inc., but true, inspired, and empowering change.

In 1967, Martin Luther King delivered a speech in which he spoke out against the Vietnam War and the American empire, and he stated that, “It seems as if we are on the wrong side of a world revolution.” So now it seems to me that the time has come for that to change.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) .

poem by Ray Lucero
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Modern Dance

Maybe I should go and live in amsterdam
In a side street near a big canal
Spend my evenings in the van gogh museum
What a dream, van gogh museum
Maybe its time to see tangiers
A different life-style, some different fears
And maybe I should be in edinburgh
In a kilt in edinburgh
Doin a modern dance
Doin a modern dance
Or maybe I should get a farm in southern france
Where the winds are wispy and the villagers dance
And you and I wed sleep beneath a moon
Moon in june and sleep till noon
And maybe you and I could fall in love
Regain the spirit that we once had
Youd let me hold you and touch the night
That shines so bright, so bright with fright
Doin a modern dance
Doin a modern dance
Shit, maybe I could go to yucatan
Where women are women, a mans a man
Ah, no one confused, ever loses place
With their place in the human race
Maybe Im not cut out for city life
The smell of exhaust, the smell of strife
And maybe you dont wanna be a wife
Its not a life being a wife
Doin a modern dance
Doin a modern dance
So maybe I should go to tanganyika
Where the rivers run, down mountains tall and steep
Or go to india to study chants
And lose romance to a mantras dance
I need a guru, I need some law
Explain to me the things we saw
Why it always comes to this
Its all downhill after the first kiss
Maybe I should move to rotterdam
Maybe move to amsterdam
I should move to ireland, italy, spain
Afghanistan where there is no rain
Or maybe I should just learn a modern dance
Where roles are shifting the modern dance
You never touch you dont know who youre with
This week, this month, this time of year
This week, this month, this time of year
Doin a modern dance
You dont know who youre with modern dance
I should move to pakistan, go to afghanistan

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song performed by Lou Reed
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The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.

Much malice, mingled with a little wit,
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;
Because the muse has peopled Caledon
With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown,
As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own.
Let Æsop answer, who has set to view
Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;
And Mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,
Has sharply blamed a British lioness;
That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,
Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.
Led by those great examples, may not I
The wonted organs of their words supply?
If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then
For brutes to claim the privilege of men.
Others our Hind of folly will indite,
To entertain a dangerous guest by night.
Let those remember, that she cannot die,
Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;
Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;
The wary savage would not give offence,
To forfeit the protection of her prince;
But watched the time her vengeance to complete,
When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;
Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,
And with a lenten salad cooled her blood.
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,
Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.
For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove
To express her plain simplicity of love,
Did all the honours of her house so well,
No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.
She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,
To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;
Remembering every storm which tossed the state,
When both were objects of the public hate,
And dropt a tear betwixt for her own children's fate.
Nor failed she then a full review to make
Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;
Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,
Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,
Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,
Her choice of honourable infamy.
On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;
Then with acknowledgments herself she charged;
For friendship, of itself an holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,
They met like chance companions on the way,

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poem by John Dryden
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We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To You

(kinky friedman, rick goldberg, j. maizel)
While traveling through the lone star state
I lost my lunch before I ate,
It happened in a pull-ahead caf. yahoo!
I felt my bones begin to crunch
I saw my name on the businessmans lunch
And the neck who owned the place stepped up to say:
hey buddy, are you blind,
Say, partner, cant you read the sign ?
We reserve the right to refuse service to you,
Take your business back to walgreens,
Have you tried your local zoo ?
You smell just like a communist,
You come on through just like a jew,
We reserve the right to refuse service to you.
Well, I walked on in to my house of god
Congregation on the nod,
Just chosen folks are doing their weekly thing.
Hear, o israel, yes indeed,
My book was backwards, couldnt read,
But I got a good rise when I heard that rabbi sing,
boruch atoh adonoi,
What the hell are you doing back there, boy ?
We reserve the right to refuse services to you,
Your friends are all on welfare
You call yourself a jew ?
You need your ticket and your tie
To zip your prayers on through,
We reserve the right to refuse services unto you.
Life from laos and cambodia
No more tears tonight they showed ya
The latest old war movies on tv.
You know its bound to escalate
So go and turn on channel eight,
Watch channel seven border channel three.
Well, I wont mind your tanks and jets and jeeps
And speaking on behalf of all my fellow creeps:
We reserve the right to refuse service to you,
Right, face, forward, move
And get the children, too.
Let saigons be bygones,
Dont you blow this world in two.
We reserve the right to refuse service to you.
Well, its just my luck that gods a texan
One big sonbitchin anglo-saxon,
Some crazy tall norwegian bore
Just to help my body shipped air-freight
From texas to the pearly gate
Just ring the bell and leave me at the door.
Ill be somewhere over jordan swinging low,

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song performed by Kinky Friedman
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The Victories Of Love. Book II

I
From Jane To Her Mother

Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heart
Are not half known till they depart!
Although I long'd, for many a year,
To love with love that casts out fear,
My Frederick's kindness frighten'd me,
And heaven seem'd less far off than he;
And in my fancy I would trace
A lady with an angel's face,
That made devotion simply debt,
Till sick with envy and regret,
And wicked grief that God should e'er
Make women, and not make them fair.
That he might love me more because
Another in his memory was,
And that my indigence might be
To him what Baby's was to me,
The chief of charms, who could have thought?
But God's wise way is to give nought
Till we with asking it are tired;
And when, indeed, the change desired
Comes, lest we give ourselves the praise,
It comes by Providence, not Grace;
And mostly our thanks for granted pray'rs
Are groans at unexpected cares.
First Baby went to heaven, you know,
And, five weeks after, Grace went, too.
Then he became more talkative,
And, stooping to my heart, would give
Signs of his love, which pleased me more
Than all the proofs he gave before;
And, in that time of our great grief,
We talk'd religion for relief;
For, though we very seldom name
Religion, we now think the same!
Oh, what a bar is thus removed
To loving and to being loved!
For no agreement really is
In anything when none's in this.
Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press'd
His wife against his hearty breast,
The interior difference seem'd to tear
My own, until I could not bear
The trouble. 'Twas a dreadful strife,
And show'd, indeed, that faith is life.
He never felt this. If he did,
I'm sure it could not have been hid;
For wives, I need not say to you,

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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