newkid9

The Land of Liberty has become a beacon of injustice and repression, not enlightenment and freedom. Our prisons teem. Both sides of the political spectrum are fundamentalist, coercive, and increasingly totalitarian. The Empowered Witch and Toxic King rule by sword.

America has managed to turn its back on itself and cannibalize itself at the same time � quite a contortion. It�s an uncomfortable posture that cannot be maintained.

So old Plato, dead white maleness and the American Academy notwithstanding, was spot on. Until our political kings are also spiritual kings, Sophian Philosophers, we are all going to suffer like nekkid refugees � all except our current �kings,� that is, and their courts, cronies, contributors and favorites. How convenient that Plato is now both too white and too male for the American Association of University Women�s gender supremacist reading lists.

Given global conditions, if we are to realize Plato�s �light of day,� we had best get to it. America and its allies may continue on the path of historical Empire. Then matriarchal Sparta and patriarchal Athens will war forever. The Mideast will ignite. The opposites will tear one another � and this planet -- to shreds.

Staying the course in our �leadership� means we confirm that our current policies � increasingly tyrannical domestically, and voracious internationally � are the best the nation can do. Staying the course means that the bought �leadership� of the likes of Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and the Bush Bunch is the best America can do.

It means we continue to disport in the world community like spoiled brats. It means our skies and water continue to darken, our prisons continue to expand, graft and greed run rampant in government and industry, children mow down their classmates with semi-automatics. It means that we crumble comfortably, from within. It means that only Groups � the rich Groups, the powerful Groups, the Correct Groups � have rights. As under the old matriarchies, individuals are driven from the hive. Incorrect Groups � and there are ALWAYS Incorrect Groups -- are spawn of a lesser god, and are treated as such, sleeping under the back porch.

In �The Philosopher King,� Plato notes: There will be discovered to be some natures who ought to study philosophy and to be leaders in the State; and others who are not born to be philosophers, and are meant to be followers rather than leaders � and he who dislikes learning, especially in youth, when he has no power of judging what is good and what is not, such a one we maintain not to be a philosopher or a lover of knowledge, just as he who refuses his food is not hungry, and may be said to have a bad appetite and not a good one?

In a sane State, King George II not only would be kept on the ranch, but preferably under both heavy sedation and some humane form of diversionary restraint. Perhaps the Republic might invest in a huge rubber playpen with endless video games and a wetbar. Locks would be moot.

When Junior, Senior, Crooked Willy and the rest are picking up cigarette butts in parking lots, we will know the nation at last is safe.

To recall what the upstanding citizens and �leaders� did to Senor Socrates for his views: execution for �corrupting the morals of Athenian youth.� That sentiment � and the hypocritical justification for brutality that underlies it -- never goes out of style. Our �leaders� still stuff their pockets and get away with murder while chanting about �protecting the children.�

Poor Socrates. Twice betrayed, twice slain. But the nightmare of history affirms him -- matriarchy, then patriarchy, then matriarchy again. (Third time�s the charm, old goat. See ya at the Big Parade.)

Plato guaranteed that relations between the Philosopher King (Guardian) and the People would inevitably be contentious. The King must speak truth. Truth is the opposite of what we want to hear -- and are used to hearing -- from the media, schools, preachers, politicians, and Powers soothing us. Instead we get the unending whitewash, the Machine stuck on Spin cycle.

And therefore philosophers must inevitably fall under the censure of the world?

They must.

And of individuals who consort with the mob and seek to please them?

That is evident.

Plato notes that the rightful rulership of Philosopher Kings, far from delighting or affirming the People, will piss the People off royally. They will not much like their King, and their King will dislike kingship.

Ah, sweet balance of diseases. In the new State, two wrongs make a right.

The Philosopher King was not born in the mind of the Father, of virgin birth. He is not the Christos, godhead injected from above. He comes from a workingman�s town. There�s nothing ephemeral about him. He doesn�t hang out in heaven. He�s from here, and proud of it. He�s Apollo-by-the-Bay, our next-door neighbor.

It is the accuser, the outcast, the fallen, the loathed messenger who stands in this relationship to society, bearing news like a millstone.

The King is the hated amongst us, our beloved Scapegoat, village outcast and fool. Like us he is born of earthen matter, in darkness and pain. He labored a thousand lifetimes to rise one foot off the Earth, and a thousand more to gain and know the Upper Worlds. Having done so, he now must descend again in consciousness not merely to surface Earth (�middle Earth�), but to the very core of matter, to Tartarus itself, until even the faintest traces of spirit, the most broken and hopeless prisoners of darkness, hear the song of release.