Because they have learned this: the forces of repression might buffet your body, might zip-cuff your wrists, might lock you in jail -- but they cannot gain entrance into your mind, unless you allow them in. They cannot imprison your soul unless you let them.
"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country -- if the people lose their confidence in themselves -- and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance." -- Walt Whitman
Whitman's admonition is known innately by some, by those whose spirit of defiance are helping us to remember our innate roughness: by Bradley Manning, by the people of Greece, of OWS, by those stopped and frisked, humiliated, harmed, and jailed on false charges daily on the streets of the U.S. police state, and by the spirit of defiance being displayed in ever increasing degree by oppress people the world over -- by all of those souls who will no longer accept the dismal fate of being imprisoned by fear.
In truth, the one percent would not be capable of building a propaganda apparatus slick enough, nor be able to hire enough cops, nor assemble armies with enough troops, nor build prisons rapidly enough nor large enough to keep us enslaved -- if only enough of us awoke to the reality of our common plight.
Therefore: "I'm worried now but I won't be worried long."
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City. Visit Phil's website: http://philrockstroh.com/ or at FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/profile.php?id=100000711907499
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