Sunday, September 15, 2013

Nominate Noam Chomsky for a Nobel Peace Prize

Without Truth, Peace Will Never Be Possible

I'm no one important...just an online cyberpoet. 

But I am also an increasingly-concerned, world-citizen. 

On a daily basis, I watch the way public information is deliberately molded to serve power. I see the global conversation hijacked by corporate and private interests. I observe the way, little by little, language is losing all meaning and context as self-censored, media talking-heads, judiciously avoid actual information in favor reading canned, press release statements of "vetted" sources for fear of losing access to high-profile, seats of power.

The mainstream world is becoming more disoriented, more divorced from reality and less authentic with each passing day.

Critical Thinking is on the decline, while media-manufactured, scandal distraction and group think is on the rise.   

REAL CHANGE will not be possible until citizens around the globe make a conscious decision to celebrate the brave individuals who speak truth to power, who stand steadfastly by their truth and who share their hard-earned wisdom so that others my see the actual path that we are traveling - instead of the illusion that propaganda and misinformation has fashioned over our instruments of perception to keep our hearts and minds from functioning properly. 
 

Professor Noam Chomsky is one of those brave individuals. He regularly shares reality-shifting perspectives, that shatter the official stories of corporate-funded, think tank justifications, designed to keep ordinary citizens complacent in times of great injustice. 

Professor Chomsky speaks the kind of truths that make the powerful, the privileged and the corrupt take a good hard look in the national and global mirror...only to find themselves scrambling to answer his straight-forward challenge of their carefully-constructed, but demonstrably false, agendas. 
 
So, with that in mind, I have started a petition to the International Court of Justice and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to consider nominating Prof. Noam Chomsky (international icon for justice among students and peace-minded individuals everywhere) for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Not just because I feel this nomination is well-deserved and long over-due, but because I believe the nomination will bring much-needed, international attention to the causes of Peace, Nuclear Disarmament and Climate Change – all of which Professor Chomsky (and anyone with a conscience) is passionate about.
 
For over half a century, Professor Chomsky has had to look the most horrific world events in the face then, calmly and intelligently, draw a map of the policies that allowed those events to come to pass so that others could understand the connectivity (or externalities, as he calls them) of neo-liberal, geopolitical strategies.

Professor Chomsky speaks truth to power. He spreads knowledge and understanding of how totalitarianism impacts the world. His tireless commitment to justice creates a dialog of truth which makes CHANGE POSSIBLE...which, in turn, makes PEACE POSSIBLE.

If you agree: Please SIGN & SHARE with your followers and contacts!  Thank you!


 
At least, that's the way it seems to me,

Sharee Anne Gorman
annienomad-cyberpoet
http://annienomad.com


Monday, July 15, 2013

The Evolutionary Need for Whistleblowers...by annienomad-cyberpoet


Why we need to consider very carefully the cases of Bradley Manning (Wiki-Leaks), Edward Snowden (NSA) and Bradley Birkenfeld (UBS) before we apply the label of “Traitor”.


The debate over the morality and destructive impact of any Empire’s geopolitical footprint is nothing new. But today, in the age of information, unprecedented surveillance and tech-fueled financial fraud, the debate has risen to international, trans-global proportions. It has, in fact, reached a fever-pitch.


With a camera in every corner of the globe we can no longer ignore the suffering that expansionism creates. We as, a nation, can no longer escape the stunned question upon waking – no, not the familiar question of “Where are we?” But the infinitely more telling question of “Who are we?” 


Whether it be North invading South, East expanding West, or the non-geographical new frontier of cyber-dominance…the question remains. Are we humans genetically programmed to invade, conquer, sabotage and wage endless war in a desperate attempt to stay on top for as long as possible?


This is now America’s burning question. And truth be told, it always has been even from the beginning, in that we were conceived (as George Washington himself described America) as an “Infant Empire”. A deliberate and expanding Empire, that Thomas Jefferson characterized as a “nest” that would spread out and colonize the entire continent - doing away with the red man, eliminating the Latinos and sending the slaves back to Africa when they were no longer needed.
 
Since the inception of our nation the United States has been struggling to bridge the disconnect between the stated ideals of our Founding Fathers and their strategic policies to expand the empire…first here at home, and then abroad.

And in that struggle, some of our best minds have put forth the kind of work that questioned America’s “exceptionalism”.

Artist As Whistleblower

Most people know of George Orwell's cautionary tale "1984" about just how far down the rabbit-hole we can get if surveillance and mind-control go unchecked and unchallenged.

But few remember that during the invasion of the Philippines, Mark Twain wrote an imagined history of a twentieth-century America.  In it, he predicted that a “lust for conquest” had already destroyed “the Great [American] Republic,” because  “trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home.”

Thoughtful, creative types have always felt it was their duty to question the wisdom of those blinded by the quest for power and the satiation of greed. That it is our human imperative to keep ourselves, as a species, evolving rather than devolving.

Keeping our elected leaders on track, serving the will of the people instead of kowtowing to power, is an exercise that, by definition, requires Critical Thinking - the kind of thinking that can identify and illustrate the incongruity of words in a speech or document, verses actions taken on the ground, in our name...with our children.

The inherent hypocrisy of a seeming all-embracing statement such as, “All Men Are Created Equal”…unless, of course, you were born outside the author’s esteemed circle of landed-gentry, a woman, a person of a different color who happen to be a convenient source of free labor, or to a tribe that has been living for centuries on lands rich in natural resources that, rightfully or wrongfully, will be claimed by a superior force…becomes obvious when exposed to the merest hint of a well-formed question.  

Thankfully, as in the parable of “The Emperor Has No Clothes”, even a child can provide a simple reality-check. The absence of which contributes to a myriad of human abuses that continue unchecked and unabated when people of conscience refuse to take a stand. 

In a world where no one will question the rationales of their leaders for fear there won’t be enough for themselves – the end result will always be that the "lower classes" and the unprotected native populations of the world will have to endure the fickle “benevolence” of their land-grabbing, money-hoarding oppressors…in perpetuity. 

Well, maybe not "in perpetuity"- just right up to that terrible moment when the strategic political planners of the invaders decide they have built a strong enough case against their “burden” and no longer see the need for keeping up appearances.  

It then becomes a foregone conclusion that our “enemy” will die, en masse, at the hands of a military (domestic or foreign) saddled with whatever label our leaders have leveled against them to justify their extinction.

Their only crime being...they were living in the path of Empire.  

Whistleblowers are necessary when institutions and governments no longer serve the greater good. They are, if ethically motivated, agents of evolution because the goal of a whistleblower is to demand that those in positions of authority live up to the ideals and mission statements contained within their company charter or government constitution. 

So, I ask you to consider carefully before vilifying the revealers of harsh truths, because the only thing standing between truth and lies…is transparency. 

At least, that’s the way is seems to me,


Annie

annienomad-cyberpoet


 

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Truce - Children of War by Sharee Anne Gorman (annienomad-cyberpoet)

 

Truce


(for all Children of War) 

today,
I did not waken to
the sounds of war

morning tea
was not seasoned
by the mist of
crumbling mortar

 my gun,
left on a makeshift
and empty table

 …I go in search of food…

 the theater is gone,
broken rows of empty seats
no longer watch the stage

 where am I? 

signs are missing
familiar landmarks lie lost
among the scattered rubble

 …I hear the crying man before I see him…
 
 how long has he been crying?
 
by the looks of his dead family
must be about a week 
he’ll be gone soon too,
you can tell

 shit! 

there’s the pharmacy
blown to hell 

…“little bit” needs medicine… 
but I don’ know what kind
and I don’t know how much 

God! 

where’s the relief truck?
are they sending supplies?
 what day is it?
what year? 

the streets are so quiet 

silent, almost 
as if, grief
naturally muffles 

…I want to cry…but nothing comes… 

no tears
no prayers
no help 

I have to go back
 
 back and tell “little bit”,
still no food 
“little bit”,
who’s growing weaker
“little bit”,
who likes to bug me at school
“little bit”,
who will die
during my afternoon nap 

…today, I woke to find… 

I had slept through my sister’s
final farewell

 
(excerpt from my book "Legends, Myths & Journeys)
 


©2000shareeannegorman
(annienomad-cyberpoet)
http://annienomad.com

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Conscience (I Apply Scar Gel) A Poem by annienomad-cyberpoet

When the world does not reflect the tenets of its own rhetoric and life is lost in resisting the internalization of the disconnect...the mind will start to eat itself.
You start to feel that in seeing beyond the mind-control, in collapsing beneath the weight of what lies behind the curtain, in not embracing the automatic life...that you have done something wrong.

Conscience
(Apply Scar Gel)
Morning comes
feed the cat
wash the dishes
make the bed
apply scar gel
to pulse points,
like an exotic
oil of essence.
Sugar wants a nap
Evening comes
feed the cat
wash the dishes
unmake the bed
apply dreams
like scar gel
to the pulse points
of conscience.
3/26/13

by
Sharee Anne Gorman
(annienomad-cyberpoet)

©2013shareeannegorman