Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament XIX

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Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11.  Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption.  It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts.  But most of all, it is a search for identity and meaning in an empty world.

Naked and alone we came into exile.  In her dark womb, we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth. Which of us has known his brother?  Which of us has looked into his father’s heart?  Which of us has not remained prison-pent?  Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?      ~Thomas Wolfe

All installments are available for reading here on Docudharma’s Series page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.

    You are no one.

    You are everyone.

    You are the lover you never knew.   You are the child you never had.   You are your past and your future.   You are your life and your death.   You are nothing, but you are everything.   Does urgency burn within you like an unquenchable fire?  If not–it will.  Is the anguish of betrayal searing what’s left of your soul?  If not–it will.

    Can you hear the timeless whisper of hope?   Listen to it, listen well.  It is whispering to you.   Hear it, and remembrance of freedom in a not so distant past will sustain you.  Hear it, and restoring freedom in a not so distant future will summon you.  Hear it, for it is calling upon you to bear witness to what you have seen, and to condemn what must be condemned.  Hear it, and you will become hope.  Hear it, and you will become that whisper.  Hear it, and you will become the change you seek.

    Can wisdom yet be gained, or is there no wisdom left in this world?   What will become of you, if you continue with me on this journey?  I cannot say, that is for you to determine.  You are the one who will either accept what you see, or condemn it.  It is your experiences, your thoughts, your memories, your shame, your fury that you must either act upon, or turn away from, in the false belief that turning away will deliver you of your pain.

    I am reaching out to you.   We are humanity’s past and humanity’s future.   We are this world’s life, or this world’s death.  We are humanity, you and I.  I am the lover you never knew, you are the lover I never knew.  I am the child you never had, you are the child I never had.  We must seek one another, we must love one another, we must live together in peace, or we will die together, and this world will die with us.    

   These men of power who deceive, these criminals who lie and steal and kill, proclaim their illicit power as the new reality.  They lie with impunity, and call it the new reality.  They steal with impunity, and call it the new reality. They kill with impunity, and call it the new reality.   In their conceit, they call themselves history’s actors, but they are not history’s actors, they are history’s assassins.

    They speak to us with patronizing disdain, they tell us we will be left to just study what they do.  Judiciously.  As though learning and education and scholarship are a waste of time, as though the finest gifts of the Enlightenment are deserving of nothing but mockery and ridicule in this new reality of theirs.  But they’re not creating a new reality, they’re descending into madness.   They know nothing of reality, they’ve turned their backs on it, they turned their backs on all that is real, they grabbed their PNAC shovels, exhumed the reeking corpse of fascism, washed the rot and slime and blood off it, slapped an American flag pin on it, and expect us to judiciously salute it.

    I’m challenging you, so make up your mind.  Are you going to fight back, or are you going to just lay there bleeding?  There’s no time to lose.   Each minute vanishes into the past as quickly as it came, bringing you and I and this world of ours another minute closer to extinction.  The relentless passing of time is my enemy, it is your enemy, it is the enemy of us all.  Time cannot be conquered.  It never has been.  It never will be.   It can be used wisely, or it can be squandered, thrown away minute by minute until there are no minutes left.

    Do you enjoy being deceived?   With impunity?  Every day?  Until you’re dead?   Deceit.  It has become so pervasive, so intrusive there is no escape from it.  It is called savvy marketing, it is called compassionate conservatism, it is called corporate media news.  It is called everything but what it is.  It is unleashing unspeakable corruption throughout this suffering land and across this dying world.  Deceit.  Never acknowledged by the deceivers, never exposed by the packagers of news as they look down upon America from their towers of glass, and decree what will be reported and what will not be reported.

    Shannon and I have gone through the Gateway, and now another journey lies ahead of us.  The distance we must travel to our destination cannot be measured in miles, for the road we now must take has no beginning, it has no end.  It exists beyond the dimensions of the physical world, it exists in a new and unexplored realm, it exists in cyberspace.  It leads to everywhere and from everywhere, it will take us to progressive blogs, it will take us to where the truth still endures, to where idealism still lives, to where Americans are gathering together to speak out against those who degrade us all with their crimes, their treachery, and their fascist new reality.  Their conservatism is no longer an ideology, it is a mental illness.  It is government of the insane, by the insane, and for the insane.

    Across America, people are pleading for justice, but no one hears them. Shattered soldiers are suffering, but no one comforts them.  Tens of millions of people are being exploited, but no one defends them.   We are progressives, we have seen enough.  We will stand up for them, will hear them, we will comfort them, we will defend them.

    If you continue with us on this journey, if you keep walking beside us across this broken land of shame and pain, what you see will disturb you, it will shock you, it will haunt you, you will feel betrayed.  You will see madness praised as strong leadership, you will see massive electoral fraud ignored, you will see an American city destroyed while a craven fool of a president frolics on vacation, you will see hundreds of thousands die while he postures as their liberator.  

   Heed this warning.  Heed it well.  These outrages will never end unless we end them.  So be a seeker of truth, be a seeker of justice, be a seeker of peace, walk beside us.  Join a progressive blog, and together, we will make it the rest of the way through this darkest of nights, we will see the light of truth shine upon America once again.