Here then is the origin and rise of government; namely, a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world; here too is the design and end of government, viz. Freedom and security. And however our eyes may be dazzled with show, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and reason will say, ’tis right.
- Thomas Paine

Change does not occur in your living room
with popcorn
and a united vision of dialectic
dishonesty from 		t  a  l  k  i
			 		  n
				              g  h  e  a  d  s.

Change does not occur on your privatized
lawns of No Trespassing! signs
or the concrete barricades
on your city streets.

Change does not occur behind
the barbwire fence of your
nine-to-five.

Change is not a word
but an interest.

You don’t remember the wars that lead to the wars to end all suffering—

You don’t remember the American War of Independence—you weren’t there.
“                                    ” Barbary Wars				M
“                                    ” War of 1812				A
“                                    ” Trail of Tears				N
“                                    ” Mexican-American War			I
“                                    ” American Civil War			F
“                                    ” Spanish-American War			E
“                                    ” Philippine-American War			S
“                                    ” Banana Wars				T
“                                    ” The Boxer Rebellion
“                                    ” World War I				D
“                                    ” World War II				E
“                                    ” Cold War [CIA Proxy Wars]		S
“                                    ” Korean War				T
“                                    ” Vietnam War				I
“                                    ” Gulf War					N
“                                    ” War on Terror				Y
			    [Afghanistan, Iraq, Philippines]

You don’t remember the printing press
fresh with the aroma of ink and ideas
offering Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
	or the images he must have witnessed:

		“Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;
			the former promotes our happiness POSITVELY
		by uniting affections,
				           the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices.  			The one encourages intercourse, the other creates
			distinctions. The first is a patron,
		the last a punisher.”

You don’t remember World War I.
You weren’t there, standing on the streets of America
reading the headlines						          ___ to the Netherlands
			about mortar rounds bombarding civilians, |___
bridges conquered							   |
and the people, who world leaders must have thought were rats          |
scurrying from the trenches,                      ______________________|
with new machine guns and bombs         |				  |
to tear away flesh                     _____      |				  |
                                          ___|            |__|				  |
from the Somme ______|	    	      |_______			  |
						        |______		  |
							         | ___straight through Bavaria

in the name of Franz Ferdinand.

				    Or the expanded power of the federal government
to levy new taxes and suckle on the sweat of labor
for more wars
		more wars
			      more wars.

			Society +
				 - Government

You don’t remember because you weren’t told to remember.

You weren’t there.  You didn’t see your grandparents struggle to feed themselves with their families when the boom of the 1920’s found the bust of the 1930’s.  You weren’t there.

		You weren’t there, grinding away your teeth,
		as you ate from the Dust Bowl.

You don’t remember those horrific days
					      when Truman vaporized the Japanese—
survivors sifting through the rubble seeing their parents shadows etched on the road
below their ashen entrails.

[April 16, 1953] President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers,
		the genius of its scientists,
					      the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this:
						 a modern brick school
in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
	   We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.
	   We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed
	   more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

	       This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
Under the cloud of threatening war,
				          it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

You weren’t there when Kennedy’s brains went missing
after he was shot in the head.

You
        weren’t
	          there.

You weren’t aware
when Ronald Regan lied about his administration’s weapons deal with Iran.
You weren’t told to remember
          Ronald Regan selling weapons to Iran.

You weren’t told that the 1% doctrine is criminal
	when Dick Cheney
	levied his opinions
	on preemptive warfare.

You won’t say anything.
	When the Pentagon approves “harsh interrogation techniques”
	saying the President, George W. Bush,
	has wartime authority to trump
	international bans on torture.

You won’t say anything
			   about that fuzzy logic

because you weren’t told to—
				or how.