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On the issues that matter in Malone NY (USA)

The Cascading Tyranny

 We Refuse to Acknowledge

Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

Calvin Luther Martin, PhD

August 21, 2021

I normally don’t watch videos like this, below (right). I make an exception  because  this one was made by a young man who, either himself or through his parents, escaped tyranny. (I don’t know what country it was. Judging from his accent, I would guess it’s somewhere in Eastern Europe.)

He speaks from experience. This matters. I have not had this experience, nor have you. He maintains his experience (or his family’s) is happening all over again, in America—ironically, the country he hoped would be a refuge from tyranny.

Americans are oblivious to this process because we steadfastly and vociferously believe we are somehow immune to such awful stuff.  Tyranny happens in Europe or the Middle East or Asia. Not here. 

This is baloney, of course, as the narrator relentlessly insists. Evidently this man sees something that few of us see.

On the other hand, we all sense there’s something wrong. It’s difficult, perhaps, to put one’s finger on exactly what it is; we just know there’s something amiss.  Not something minor, either; there is a crushing sense of oppression, building and building. Of doom. As if something unprecedented has been set in motion. (See Auden’s poem, below. See, as well, Yeats’s “Second Coming.”)

The narrator says our unease is our instinctive, gut reaction to the lockstep process of tyranny. (Didn’t we put this forever behind us in 1776?) 

I realize many viewers will scoff at this. Fine, but hear him out. Then decide.

Play Video

This was written by the British poet, W. H. Auden in 1941-42, in the dark years of World War 2 when Britain was being pounded by Nazi bombs.  It’s part of a lengthy poem titled, “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio,” first published in 1944.  See if you resonate to these lines.

W. H. Auden

4 thoughts on “The Cascading Tyranny We Refuse to Acknowledge”

  1. Martin,

    I appreciate the time you spend gathering this information and posting it for all to see. Times are scary, to say the least.

    To many, there is little hope for the future. I believe the Bible speaks accurately about all this invasion of our lives – and that the worst is yet to come. Maybe not in the near future, but it will come.

    For those interested, I offer a glimmer hope – https://freerobertwilliam.com/2021/08/22/accountability/. Hope is not passive but active.

    Thank you so much for gathering in this fashion.

    Bob

  2.  
    Absolute truth!

    While manipulating the good in all US citizens.

    I always speak truth to power.

    If everyone takes action when faced with corrupt, morally bankrupted companies and people, we can make change. I find most people believe this to be true, yet decide comfort and sense of security is at stake. Meanwhile, our rights are being pilfered and our taxes are being misallocated and misappropriated.

    People are programmed in the legal system, health system, social services, education, etc., to believe they are helping, when in reality we are paid to keep others oppressed.

    Human beings are a source of income in our country, objectified and categorized, trained to rely and depend on these systems.

    Security with goods coming from China? Pulling out of Afghanistan and leaving all our weapons and equipment to power Al Qaeda? On and on.

    KL Puleo


  3.  
    Calvin, I was married for eleven years to a brilliant, talented man who was raised under the Nazis and then Russian control. After having escaped and worked his way to America, he was bewildered by the ease that Americans accepted freedom as a given, with life. He well knew the struggle to find and protect this precious gift.

    Thank you for reminding us to look a bit more closely.

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