Well, you’ve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air
But will you keep on building higher
‘Til there’s no more room up there
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?
I know we’ve come a long way
We’re changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?
~ Cat Stevens, Where Do The Children Play
Kerri regularly tells me to “gear down.” She’s asking me to simplify my thoughts so they are more accessible. It’s the reason I nodded knowingly when I read this in Thom Hartmann’s newsletter:
“The reason we’re at a pivotal moment in America is because most people don’t know how to answer this question: “How do you know when you’re really no longer living in a democracy?”
He makes a great point. Even though we have tanks rolling down civilian streets, masked thugs plucking people without warrant or due process, concentration camps popping up in swamps, the collapse of checks-and-balances, the intentional scrubbing of our history, an all-out assault on diversity and civil rights, a Supreme Court regularly ruling against the Constitution in support of a single man consolidating power… “Up until the last few days, most Americans didn’t think we’d lost our freedoms or are about to.”
He continues: “But everybody knows Jimmy Kimmel. So the new understanding is: ‘You know you don’t live in a free country any more when comedians can no longer criticize the president.‘”
So, here it is. Geared down so all can understand. We don’t live in a free country anymore. We can either mumble our way into autocracy or we can open our mouths and regain our freedoms. As Stephen Colbert said, “We’re all Jimmy Kimmel now.”
read Kerri’s blogpost about FREE SPEECH
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, CAt Stevens, comedians, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, free country, freedom of speech, freedoms, jimmy kimmel, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, stephen colbert, story, studio melange, the melange, Thom Hartmann, Where Do the Children Play | 1 Comment »
The Direction of Intention 