Truth crushed to earth

 

William Cullen Bryant once wrote that “truth crushed to earth shall rise again” … but when?

Why doesn’t Lawrence Ferlinghetti tell us when the “American eagle will really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right?”

Why doesn’t Edgar Allan Poe tell us if there is balm in Gilead? The raven says “nevermore” which might just prove to be correct.

I wonder, along with T. S. Eliot, “Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

The answer, my friend, is that they have been lost in misinformation.

The desert is not remote in Southern tropics … it is in the hearts of mothers and fathers and sons and daughters in Ukraine and in other remote places away from our fast food places and familiar faces.

We hear the words … those that ring true and the many lies and distortions … we know the truth … that life is essentially nasty, brutish and short … even for the super wealthy and those whose bank accounts have been frozen and had their yachts repossessed …

The moral is so simple as Bob Dylan said in a ballad … “when you see your neighbor carryin’ something, help him with his load” … our neighbors in far-away places are carrying more than their fare share and suffering from the arms and guns of those who wish to wreak havoc and cause them harm …

Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that what was mysterious (beyond understanding) was not how things are in the world (currently quite messed up) but that there was anything at all … what I find mysterious is why some people believe they should dominate, denigrate and cause the demise of so many others … my father aught me that for every tear drop I caused I would lose a year of life … I should be long dead by now so I modified that advice to be that for every loss of life I caused, I would lose a decade of life … still breathing with one hand waving free …

Mike Spector

March 2022