Bouazizi Ben Norton “How do you expect me to make a living?” Slaves to indifferent masters; “Employees,” they call it. We call it. Chattel. Employees of a tainted, dying trade; Sailors on a sinking, putrid ship. Chattel. Foot soldiers in a wicked, crooked war; (Redundant, isn’t it?) Porcelain pawns in this loaded, heinous lottery— This chilling game of chess. Just chattel. Chattel are we. And on our porcelain planet, No clay’s allowed, Regardless of its form.
“How do you expect me to make a living?” The wheels keep on turning. Turning, turning, turning. Over, over, over… Bodies. Over bodies. Turning over bodies. Over his bodies, over their bodies, Over our, bodies. (They don’t matter anyway.) Cogs in the machine, Just cogs, Cogs in the machine. But this machine isn’t very well-oiled. And there’s no ghost in this machine. No, this war machine creates ghosts.
A tyrant once said:
“[I]t is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.... And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Wise words of a depraved despot. A slave master. An “entrepreneur,” as we like to call it. Wise words, of a hater of democracy. Wise words, of a bigot. But this bigot’s right about one thing: The tree of liberty is on its way; The seeds have been planted; It’s growing. And the people are doing the refreshing, The nurturing. And tyrants, are only the natural part of this natural manure.
But we We… All we can do: We, “like soulless bodies since he left,” Just keep on asking, Without an answer… “How do you expect me to make a living?”