Thursday, January 22, 2009

We Are ScreamBucket

Aetius Romulous:

MANIFESTO


"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."
Bob Dylan

At the close of World War II, so very, very long ago, the young of that generation who spilled their blood and spent their treasure said with one voice;"Never Again". That generation set out to craft a world where "Peace, Love, and Prosperity" would become the earth's shared destiny.

And for their sins, they got one out of three.

The next generation, whose prophets sang a manifesto so different from their fathers - and all the fathers that had proceeded them - succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of their battlewagon parents, building a worldwide Global Village geared from its inception for speed and style, for consumption and luxury. It was at Bretton Woods in 1944 in fact, that their fathers built a global financial system that was designed to bring historic stability, and gather the warring peoples of the earth together under the umbrella of the Free Market economy. A world where aggression had a cost beyond that simple measure, human life. But it worked, and thus Bob Dylan and his contemporaries inherited a model financial structure around which they could build their new generation, free of charge and all expenses paid.

How could anybody screw that up?

But screw it up they have. Those born in the late 1940's (Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Neil Young, et al) grew into Hippies, then Yippies, then Yuppies, then Wall Street barons and as a class, the most profligate spenders, consumers, and glutinous greedsticks history had ever witnessed. No - worse. They borrowed it all from their children, and their children, and their children. And now, when the bill is due, the credit is gone, and they are oh so close to lovely retirement, the Baby Boom generation that completely fucked everything up is taking a wild, desperate stab at just finishing their last few years here in the style and class at which they have become accustomed, and believe is their due. The only "Stimulus Package" of which they are guaranteed, is one of anger and disdain.

In their pursuit of happiness, they filled their shelves with crap forced from little brown slaves, and from places they can't find on a map outside of Texas. They pumped the earth dry of oil - where they couldn't find anything else of value. They waged wars over stuff, stuff they needed for their back gardens in the Hamptons, and for their apartments in Bonn. They built towers of paper to rival those of Babel, and constructed rivers of credit to replace the rivers of fish they blasted dry. They killed for profit - both each other as well as the Earth itself and most catastrophically, they killed any chance their children would have to build a world better than their own fathers. And we, those who will remain when they have all passed through, cling to the brittle crust of a spent earth by hope alone, waiting to be jettisoned like so much dust on a badly hit line drive.

"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam,
and admit that the waters
Around you have grown,
and accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to youIs worth savin
'Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.


Who speaks for those of us around whom the waters have grown? Where are our prophets and writers and critics? Where is our village voice, our Rolling Stone? We have none. We are as so many seeds, screaming for life, trapped in a bucket behind the barn and forgotten.
That's us - a freakin' ScreamBucket.

A ScreamBucket with wireless high speed that is, LOL.

A glass fibred, million terabyte, My Space URL'd ScreamBucket of infinite connections to millions and millions and millions of individual human beings of free will, thought, shared values, something worth saying - and a Facebook page.

Come gather 'round people wherever you Roam, connect, text, or plug in, and let's admit that the waters around us have grown. Let's all connect through our online world and begin speaking, and talking, and discussing, and playing, and writing, and singing...and screaming. Lets carve a corner out of space and time and provide a single, glowing, fibre optic spark - a spark that may, some fine day, glow blue white and "spill across the universe".

We are ScreamBucket.