->COVER -> RADIOACTIVE
OAKTOWN, CALI - This year, Rod's Year of The Dragon, has made me think about a lot of things. Family and the importance of personal relationships, sure... But I also am starting to see how thangs look from the behind The Dragon's eyes. Take this real crisis, which we are trying to deny and just finish up our Christmas shopping, playing out before our eyes about who is the next US President.
The Dragon is the only mythological character of the Chinese zodiac. How did I learn this? Once again it came from our Esteemed Editor. He was born in a Year of The Dragon, and when the year 2000 came along, he reminded me of the lore. It seems fitting now, Home-boys and -girls, when I get back to my old column to talk about things here in the Snakes.
Yeah. I didn't say "States," I said "Snakes," as many an Old School, Original Gangstah might do.
The cat has been let out of the bag:
- The house is way-way divided;
- we got stuff comin' outtah the bag we sure-as-Hell didn't want to talk about;
- we got half the population of the country (over 100 million people) who don't even give a damn about voting anymore, and;
- we got 100 million other people that did vote all-but-ready to say whoever is the next President-elect is a sham and a fraud.
And --- oh yeah! --- we are the "Bastion of Democracy" in the world.
. There is something sinister and troubling going on right now.I can feel it coming. I am like your dolphin in deep waters. I moonwalk on my dorsals like Michael Jackson acrosss the surface of the waves. I punctuate the meeting of water and air with my laughter and with songs of love. I bounce between air and water in plunging loops between one and the other. And that's why I can tell you about the juggernauts of death. No playing there, no intercourse of elements. They move as single-mindedly as guided missiles, cumbersome and without remorse. They cut through the deep or knife just below the surface, as relentless as Time, ravenous. Until they take the scent of desperation or blood. Then, mesmerized, they push waves of malignance through the depths before them, intent on the kill. Can you feel it?
Radio Raheem
I'm not talking about just the Presidential election here in America. I'm talking about the growing divide between the regular folks in this world and the Powers that are trying to control and suppress our need to be free.
When I look at my family and value it, as you have read me say in my little space here, I also look to the future of the people I love. That, as part of what little have I learned about the G21, means that more people around the world have become part of my family. I have learned that they and I want the same things for our children and our families.
Then they look over here at us in America, arrogant and hypocritical, thinking about our Christmas holiday as another chance to buy mass-quantities, taking the very bread out of their families' mouths.
And I see bad things happening if we don't know how to bring the laugher and songs of love back in, ya'll.
I turn on my TV and hear people yellin' to be heard. I can't even listen to my radio anymore. And then I come here on the Internet, in this little rag of a Web magazine my Bro turned me onto, and hope that somebody out there is listenin' to us callin' out "GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!"
Sometimes you slay The Dragon, sometimes The Dragon slays you.
I'm glad this Dragon got me... It took me until this year to see that so many people, all over the world, all want the same things. It is only -isms and governments and imaginary borders that are keeping us apart. Then I remember why I started writing here, and what that one man had to tell me about changing the world...
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