newkid16

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view

-- Bob Dylan, "All Along the Watchtower"

With spirit now re-grounded in matter, Plato�s Philosopher King moves to effect the coniunctio of the body politic with the body spiritual, the outer Israel with the inner. This new State is ruled over not by power-junkies and petty thieves, but by magistrates who have walked through both Hell and the Halls of Heaven. Here is the Christian Millennium, the Judaic Day of Atonement, the opening of Shamballah, the breaching of the gates of Hades, the bringing of heaven and earth to altar:

And thus our State which is also yours will be a reality, and not a dream only, and will be administered in a spirit unlike that of other States, in which men fight with one another about shadows only and are distracted in the struggle for power, which in their eyes is a great good.

Whereas the truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst.

Who then are those whom we shall compel to be guardians? Surely they will be the men who are wisest about affairs of State, and by whom the State is best administered, and who at the same time have other honours and another and a better life than that of politics?

They are the men, and I will choose them, he replied.

Uh oh Pla-toh. That sounds like a promise, pure-dee prophecy. To many it�s a stark threat.

In any case, it doesn�t sound promising for Spiro T. Agnew clones. Wherever you are in the cosmos, Spiro T., you best find the cave that bin Badboy vacated and hunker on down. Eventually the stink of you will fade from the nation�s nostrils, and you can come slinking on back.

No White House Wing this time, though. No wings of any sort. Bring an orange vest, a Hefty bag, and a stick with a nail on the end.

It also appears that Junior Bush is going to have to go back to school, Ronnie Reagan will have to live without Mother, and Dick Nixon will spend forty incarnations selling used Studebakers in twenty-third century Kansas.

Unfortunately for old Milhous, Kansas will have landed in Oz by then.

And they say there�s no Dog.

Down, Snake

�You get on stage," he would complain, "and you say 'Have you seen what this guy Reagan is doing? He's a demon.'

And the crowd [would] laugh and go, 'He's a demon, hahaha!'

'No! Listen, he really IS a demon, I'm serious.'

'A demon, hahaha!' And you run down exactly how this guy is a liar and an idiot and they laugh and go elect him again."

-- Bill Hicks, stage notes from �Prophet of Rage,� Uncut Magazine (U.K.), March 1999, Simon Lewis. Reprinted at Sacred Cow Productions. Used by kind permission.

Poor Bill. He never quite grokked the rationalistic naivete of modern cultures, sleeping snuggy in their beds at night, never dreaming that demons and witches are not yarns. Nor did brave Mr. Hicks realize the brevity of his life was a blessing. He lasted one year short of Jesus.

We needed Bill at court, stalking like a holy madman around the Oval Office, keeping his Eye on shenanigans. Instead we left him scuffling about on barf-stained stages, playing to drunken, half-empty rooms.

Good news, though, Bill. We're dusting off your Chair. Rule by tyrant is ending. The Old King is already stretched out in his coffin, his bony white hands clutching the side of the box, stealing a few final, foul breaths.

I hear the oaken lid creaking shut. He�s about history. We�re reaching behind to the future, for more tested, authentic leadership.

And no, Mama, nobody�s handing the flint-knife back to you.

We�re gonna raise medicine men.

Read my lips, King George: Fill Ossifer King. Coming to a theatre near you soon.

Get back, girls and boys, to where you once belonged. There�s a New Kid in town.