They Won’t Awaken for Fear of Losing the Dream

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

The great citizens of a country are not those who bend the knee before authority but rather those who, against authority if need be, are adamant as to the honor and freedom of that country. 

– Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

 

The task of men…is not to desert historical struggles nor to serve the cruel and inhuman elements in those struggles. It is rather to remain what they are, to help man against what is oppressing him, to favor freedom against the fatalities that close in upon it.…Man’s greatness…lies in his decision to be greater than his condition. And if his condition is unjust, he has only one way of overcoming it, which is to be just himself.

– Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

 

Those familiar with the story of Noah’s Ark will know the ancient patriarch, as described in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, built a ship to ensure his family’s lineage through a great global flood. The mass population of Noah’s day would not survive the coming carnage and the people lived without any knowledge of what was about to happen. Perhaps they even ridiculed Noah and his family for building the ark. Regardless, the Walking Dead lived the dream until their world ended, abruptly, in a deluge that swept them to their respective deaths.

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The Fear Not to Be

Via Off-Guardian

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

This year marks the seventieth anniversary of the theologian Paul Tillich’s famous book, The Courage to Be. Widely read in the days when an educated public read books, it is long forgotten.

In it, Tillich surveys the history of anxiety and fear and their relation to courage, religious faith, and the meaning of life.

His closing sentence – “The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt” – became acclaimed as an astute description of the existential need to find a foundation for faith and courage when their foundations were shaking.

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NO WAY OUT

I know there are many people out there who don’t watch the daily drivel emanating from their 72 inch HD boob tubes. I don’t blame them. Most of the shows on TV are dumbed down to the level of their audience of government educated zombies. The facebooking, twittering, texting, instagraming generation is too shallow, too self-consumed, and too intellectually lazy to connect the dots, understand symbolism or learn moral lessons from well written thought-provoking TV shows. But there have been a few exceptions over the last few years. Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and Walking Dead are intelligent, brilliantly scripted, morally ambiguous, psychologically stimulating TV shows challenging your understanding of how the world really works.

The Walking Dead is much more than a gory, mindless, teenage zombie flick. Personally, I find myself interpreting the imagery, metaphorical storylines, and morality lessons of Walking Dead within the larger context of cultural, political, and social decay rapidly consuming our society today. I don’t pretend to know the thought process or intent of the writers, but I see plot parallels symbolizing current day issues plaguing our empire of debt. Their mid-season opener was one of the most intense shocking episodes of the entire series. It was titled No Way Out, as the main characters appeared to be trapped in a no win situation with long odds and little hope of surviving.

From my vantage point I see four explicit types of characters inhabiting the world of the Walking Dead. There are the infected mindless zombies roaming the countryside in search of flesh to consume. They are oblivious to the world around them, unable to think, feel, or act human. They can be distracted and led in different directions by loud noises or other diversions. Then there are the still human zombies inhabiting the walled city of Alexandria who are sentient, thinking, frightened men and women, not prepared to face the harsh reality of an unfair brutal world and the consequences of not fighting the forces of evil. They cower behind their walls and hope for the best.

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Rand Paul talks of ‘open rebellion’ in Senate filibuster over Patriot Act

Published: May 20, 2015 4:55 p.m. ET

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Sen. Rand Paul plans to speak ‘until he can no longer speak’ against the Patriot Act

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Rand Paul has taken over the Senate floor. Again.

Paul, the Kentucky Republican running for president, moved Wednesday afternoon to filibuster, or delay, a Senate bill to renew the Patriot Act. The post-Sept. 11 law allows the National Security Agency to collect phone records, and is set to expire on June 1.

Paul’s spokeswoman said the senator would speak for “an undisclosed amount of time. He will speak until he can no longer speak.” (But the Republican won’t be able to speak forever, as The Wall Street Journal notes: Senate aides said party leaders will be able to cut him off Thursday and hold a vote on a trade bill.)

Yet it could be many hours before Paul lets up. If the words Paul and delay or filibuster sound familiar, they should. The Kentucky senator waged a nearly 13-hour filibuster back in 2013 over U.S. drone strikes.

Paul began his floor speech at 1:18 p.m. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, also spoke on the floor in support of Paul, as did Republican Mike Lee of Utah.

Paul ripped the government’s collection of metadata from phone records, saying “you should be alarmed” by it.

“We should be in open rebellion saying enough is enough, we’re not going to take it anymore,” Paul said.

Paul’s planned marathon of a floor speech gets one of his premier issues in the spotlight not long after he announced his presidential campaign. Paul, who announced he was seeking the Republican nomination on April 7, is in fourth place among GOP contenders, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average.