La Pequeña Burguesía

The poor can afford to be honest.

Like the dead, they've no pretensions to preserve. Robbed of all, they are safe.

They wander the streets: "Are you hungry?" "Yes." "I have a banana and some pretzels." "That sounds great." "Here you go." "God bless you. Have a great weekend." The best interchange we have all year, the most human.

The wealthy are frightened of reality, and shore up every scrap of philanthropy against their ruin. Their philanthropy masks their egotism, and provides a platform for their soap-boxing. Wealth provides a help for every kind of depravity. When one is wealthy and comfortable, why should he question his own motives?

It is far easier to make exorbitant claims when no one can effectively remonstrate. Safe in our death-defying capsules of Self. Unassailable idiocracy.

The poor can afford to be honest. They can accept truth regardless of its source. They can think a nun the greatest soul alive. They can praise a priest.

The poor suffer the universal victimization of human sin. They are its representatives, its constant proof, and they need no other label to be recognized. They live the utterly real.

But the prison of the rich is ivory. It's gate the gate of sawn ivory.

Teach me, you who are rich, how one rejects wisdom. If a man were to give his life for yours, how would you rationalize his stupidity for doing so, and simultaneously assert your own righteousness?

The rich may become great because the burden of proof always rests upon them. Martin Luther King was rich for a black man, but his case was poor and thus proveable.

Today, the imposters of his cause do not prove their case, but instead use the golden fist.

Mi pequeña burguesía, tu vida es una mentira. El reloj del universo para ti no espera. Despierten.

'The Tranquilizing Drug of Gradualism'

Revised and redacted from MLK's "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

I must make two honest confessions to you, my sisters and brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the pro-life moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the pro-life movement's great stumbling block in this stride toward the protection of life is not the NARAL activist or the Planned Parenthood lobbyist, but the pro-life moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another person's very right to life itself; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who would seem to be constantly telling the endangered unborn child -- as he goes to the execution chamber -- to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. 

I had also hoped that the pro-life moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for the lives of the unborn. I have just received a letter from a pro-life brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the unborn will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

Public Service Announcement: Moral Requirement

Part 1

Part 2

See the Operation Rescue documentary here.

Abstract:

A small group of young black men is surrounded by a large group of young white men who have indicated that they wish to do significant harm to the former. 

The small group of black men are fortunate in that they are well-fed, strongly-built, and accustomed to frequent persecution. These attributes would be a great consolation to these young men if their opponents were not also well-endowed and of greater number.

On the fringes of the conflict stands a small group of not unable white men who happen to be of the anti-racism persuasion. However, they linger in the corners and flit between shadows as the victims valiantly defend their dignity and valiantly fall, one by one. 

One would undoubtedly say that the anti-racism group had committed a moral failure by neglecting to provide assistance to their brothers in need. Nevertheless, their crime is not unforgivable, the encounter likely being non-lethal and the targeted group having some means of self-defense.

Let us now not break step, but turn directly to the picture of pro-life activism in the current decade. Of what does it consist that worthily addresses the daily perpetration of countless irreparable evils?

Imagine a large group of pregnant women sitting in the waiting room of an abortion mill. They have already been addressed, one by one, by a solitary man who has indicated that he wishes to murder their children. They are sitting here awaiting the hour of bloodshed.

The children, whose death is imminent, are unfortunate in that they are weak, small, and accustomed only to the soft beat of their mothers' hearts, the peaceful bower of the womb. These conditions are of no consolation in the face of sharp instruments created to inflict the greatest harm possible upon their tender and fragile bodies. 

Watching by the gate of the mill, quite near and totally aware of the violent upheaval of nature about to occur, stand a group of able-bodied adults who claim to oppose abortion, who enjoy declaring their fervor. They stand by as the frightened unborn dart from side to side of their sacred havens now violated and profaned, treated as a chamber of execution in the most heinous rape unimaginable. 

Their persons are torn to pieces as they die in newfound pain uncomprehended.

One could not say otherwise but that the "anti-abortion" group had been ought else but complicit in their inaction, in their political correctness of moral abdication. Can their crime be forgiven? The encounter they witnessed could not have been other than lethal, and they but spoke and prayed while blood gushed forth from innocence.

Satire and Evil (and Good), Pt. 2

Note: At one point in this video, I mention amendments to the satire posted earlier. Not all of those amendments -- if any -- will go into effect. To injure the rhetorical effect of the satire by rendering it facile would be to diminish the necessary seriousness of approach to this difficult issue.

Satire and Evil (and Good), Pt. 1

A Royal Abortion

The Unspared Heir

Flakstad, Norway
THE SWIFTIAN POST

Courtesy of mydaily.co.uk

Lately, much news has been circulating regarding the new Royal Baby and his (her?) blushing parents. Indeed, as the laws were changed in 2013, the sex of the child doesn't matter: boy or girl, Will and Kate have provided the essential "spare heir".

Or they would have if Kate hadn't made a shocking announcement yesterday afternoon. Kate says she will not be having the Royal baby. Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, next Queen of England, will instead be having a "royal abortion", as some have termed it.

Sources say that the Duchess has a consultation next week with a clinic in New York. Kate says that "the abortion legacy in America is one of its largest accomplishments; Planned Parenthood enjoys a name of near-greater import than its host country. Time to add a pound of royalty to the pile!"

When questioned as to why, after so much excitement in the media -- and indeed in the hearts of people worldwide -- the Prince and the Duchess have decided to eradicate the newest princeling, Kate replied, "Well, it was mostly my decision. Sometimes I have to hold baby George when his nanny is preparing lunch. It just takes so much energy out of you. Every time I see him, I know that I'll never shake that responsibility, and it's exhausting."

When pressed, the Duchess said pointedly that "It's a women's issue, really. I feel it's my responsibility to show people that the right to abortion rests for no one, regardless of lineage. Even a royal baby can be aborted."

Courtesy of huffingtonpost.com

Prince William, though remaining vaguely supportive of Kate's decision, has expressed some concerns. "There is the problem of the 'spare heir', it's true. G** forbid that something happen to little George, it's possible that the royal line will be broken because of this miss-, well, soon-to-be missing link." The Prince seemed somewhat nervous and confused.

Kate's response to Will's apparent indecision was firm confirmation that this was her choice: "If I don't want to birth another heir at this point, then I don't have to. ... How does it go? 'My body, my choice'? Will will just have to wait." However, the Duchess did suggest that another royal birth is highly unlikely anytime in the near future.

The Duchess then volunteered the following information: "After the, you know, procedure, we're going to have an abortion shower, where we plan to ... well, there's a secret ... but we plan to show everyone just how beautiful abortion is! I guess you could say there's going to be a reveal."

After the brief press meeting at their summer cottage in Norway, Kate hurried off to a "Loopy Luau" party on the couples' private cruiser, leaving a dazed Will dreamy-eyed on the patio. The extended royal family is concerned over what seems to have been an extended breach of character over the last few weeks.

Some of Kate's college friends have remarked on social media that "this is the Kate we remember", but insist on the maturity and propriety of her decision to abort the royal child. One twitter user, 86girlpower86, declared that "no one has the right to chain you down, not even Prince charming or his little princeling."

While news media adjust to the transition from "Royal Baby" to "unplanned pregnancy", some fear what may come of these events in the weeks to come, which will certainly be a fragile period in Britain's political history. Stay tuned for more news of the "royal abortion reveal."



DISCLAIMER: This article is completely and utterly fabricated. The persons and places mentioned are real, but the corresponding events, actions, and utterances have been generated specifically for satirical purposes, and are not intended as a factual record. 

Where is the Horse and the Rider

or 'Why you see few art-related posts on my page'

"Where is the horse and the rider?

Where is the horn that was blowing?

They have passed like rain on the mountains,

Like wind in the meadow

The days have come down in the West

Behind the hills into shadow..."

Where is the love of beauty? Where is breathtaking art and poignant song, and where are those who will seek them, praise them, cherish them, and show us how to see?

Like the brief, ephemeral art of our generation, they have been abruptly hidden from sight. Rinsed as from the slate -- no tablet of wax bearing the imprint of centuries' wisdom. Rather, the clean slate of a frontier school that started clean one day and started clean again the next.

Just as we are minimalists in ownership, we are minimalists in understanding or in seeking, in knowing and in wishing to know. And so we receive what we desire, we reap what we sow, which is so close now to nothingness. Where is the love of beauty, the devout appraisal of art? It is as it is in our hearts. Do we expect the tiny race of the people of culture to shower us with the Gospel while we wonder whether we are Princess Belle in her green dress or blue, or which Buzzfeed quiz will show us our best virtues?

Can you hear the overwhelming silence of the artists? I can hear the sea ceasing to sing, ceasing to whelm us over with the peace that she has given the imagination and the further peace that the imagination has given her. Did we think the artists would not starve? But they have all starved -- starved from a destruction of beauty in the world, a destruction of real living, of the seemingly invincible subject. The world has died, and art imitates life as life imitates art. Have you seen the imitation of death? I know that I have.

"The everlasting violence of that double passion with which God hates and loves the world" has come upon the artists in their silence. And as much as they have loved her, adorned and graced her with their innumerable lavishments, they wish nothing now but for her destruction, her punishment, her fall from pride into desolation and suffering and noisome darkness and fear. Repentance.

The fuel of the artist is life -- life that breeds more life -- life teeming and bursting at the seams -- life burgeoning unstoppably and never ceasing to unfold into new and eternal glories. Is it any wonder that the artists are silent, or that the lesser imitate death until it takes them.

Here is the demand of beauty: life. What prodigies have we killed, or allowed to die? No more.

The death of society is at hand. Were we more bitter towards the slaughter of our friends, we would have burned the fortresses of darkness and salted the earth, leaving the festering fields of evil forever barren.

We wish to intervene against the Islamic State in the Middle East. This is a just impulse. But, in our haste to tender retribution, do we forget the thousands slaughtered daily at home. Are the lives of countless children less worthy than the preservation of political potency in names: in "Yezidi", in "Christian", in "Shi'ite". Do we wish to save lives? Is that our intent? Or do we wish to save particular lives for particular reasons? Are the unborn not our brothers and sisters, and do they not live next door. Do they not die next door.

Can you justify your willingness to stop the IS against your unwillingness to stop the Abortionist State? Is it easier to fight a tyrant thousands of miles away?

The lauds of the poet fall silent. The artist in anger and desperation hurls his brush. Is there beauty in the world.

Can you justify not -- at the very least -- standing in prayer before the clinic, adjuring those who would be murderers to abandon their course? Rationalize, I beg you. Rationalize. Rationalize a way to avoid preventing murder when power is in your hands. I have dispensed with the arguments. I have had them all. I have heard them all. There is not one left with integrity. The truth cries out like a stone. It will not move.

The poet falls silent. The artist's heart roils and burns, and a black anger rises.

If you would have the soldiers stopped who terrorize in the name of Islam, but you will not place yourself in danger for your brother who perishes at the hands of the mercenary next door, the only judgement left to you is that of coward and liar.

Go out into the world. Go out. You have been sent out to bring the good news. The good news begins with the gospel of life. You must protect life, from conception to natural death. If you have not done this basic duty, this basic act for the ongoing creation of society, if you watch society crumble -- you too will fall with it.

Go out into the streets and pray, and beg God for mercy. I too will go with you. Come alive, and reject the systematic destruction of the human person. Overthrow the deathly edifice. This is our duty. It is undeniable. It is irrefutable. It is the supreme test of faith in our time -- the supreme evil, that which requires the most devout action in opposition.

If you wish to have good things, you must give, and you must first give life.

Where is the horse and the rider?

The beauty of the warrior lies in that which he defends.