That Swingin Pendulum

This meme crossed my Facebook feed this morning. It might seem irrelevant now, what with many younger folks having no familiarity with the act of cracking a book open and reading it. The problem is, anal retentive assholes all over the world have been trying to stop Humanity from reading since before the Dark Ages. 

The pursuit of Science was banned and those who dared to challenge the powers that were, often ended up with one end of a stick up their butt and the other end of that stick planted deep next to some byway out of town. Or they were burned, castrated, drawn and quartered or one of the many other go to tortures and horrifying deaths conceived for folks who disrespected their gods or leaders.

Various religious groups in the beginning and later in unison with government cooperation worked to restrict or vanquish any considerations of literacy and free thought. Now, the assault on literacy appears to be gaining momentum again. An ignorant population that depends completely on the information fed them by Religious and or Government overlords is a population under control. Control information, you control your world.

Let a bunch of liberal free thinkers run amok among the drooling masses, and it won't be long before Leadership and their policies will be successfully challenged and control is lost. Where are you then in your expensive robes and other trappings of power? The salt of the earth population you have been oppressing hangs you head down from the closest overpass. 

So, I get it. A government will do whatever it deems necessary to defend itself from real or perceived threats to its survival. Regardless how much control an oppressor may have, the pendulum eventually swings back the other way. It seems to be an unavoidable cycle that has plagued Mankind since we were shitting in Mammoth fur shorts.

This inherent Human failing offers us little comfort here and now, but it presents also offers up a glimmer of hope, a hint of  a sliver lining forming in some current cloud somewhere sometime in our futures. Someday, clear heads will return to steer our ship and the pendulum will swing back the other way.

Until that time or Hell freezes over, I plan to continue to keep on reading, questioning, and more importantly, I will continue voicing what is on my mind, what I care about, what you might put your mind to caring about, and hopefully maybe open a mind or two.

Keep it 'Tween the Ditches ..................................

Literate open minded humans are the bane of Authoritarians and Theocrats.

 This is one of the many reasons smart people do not like Trump.

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Musical choice for today's post has been delayed. Instead of taste testing tunes while I wrote down these words, I punched up a 3 hour long Productive Jazz playlist. An hour or so into the list, I finished the post. Those productive jazz lists are indeed nice to write by. Some are better than others. I am currently favoring any with "Penguins" in the title.

It took a few minutes of checking a songs when I came across a band and a song I have history with. In Oct of 1976, I was hired by SHOWCO to haul their equipment for various musical acts. My first tour was with The Who. They opened every show with "Won't Get Fooled Again". The first time I stood behind one of the speaker stacks and heard the sound of 60-70,000 fans screaming in unison, well, I still remember those shivers.

I wrote a short piece, "Drawing a Last Breath",  about the gig at the Oakland Coliseum.

Without further ado, Punch up the live version of  "Won't Get Fooled Again".