Valentine's Day

Today we celebrate with a feast to honor the martyrdom of our beloved Saint Valentine. We gorge ourselves on chocolate, candies, and cum. I, however, will not participate in this commodification. I wish it were because of some noble character trait or a true reluctance to participate in the capitalist phenomena, but it’s because I will just be alone another year.

I’ve never had a real date for Valentine’s Day. A real “Valentine”. Getting cards with cookie-cutter words of love and stuffing my backpack full of duck, rabbit, pigs, even hearts, all the cartoon characters of my childhood in the centers of loaded love symbols. In high school it evolved into exchanges with close female friends and sometimes a girl I liked. I’ve only had a real girlfriend for one Valentine’s Day though, but she was in another town and I was still alone. I was looking forward to the last holiday from the other side with her. This year she’ll see it with my once best friend.

It’s in the middle of the night that my loneliness is really felt, not on holidays like this one. Waking from dream and feeling nothing in the darkness beside you. No one’s warmth to absorb or breaths to fall asleep to. What is to be alone? I desire this connection with someone, physical and emotional. I see a beautiful girl and I want to talk to her. More accurately, I want to have sex with her. Do I relish my mind with images of a romantic dinner, walking on the beach, or a sappy movie? No, I imagine her bent and begging. I wonder what she sounds like, what she moans like, she tastes like. I have a drive, an impulse, a response to stimuli. The more intense the stimuli, the greater the response. This works for both sexes, as I consistently see girls fawning and feigning over a title, or money, or power- just as men salivate over thighs or breasts. My desire to make her laugh, to cook for, to protect are just to consummate my love.

So it seems to be that I need to acquire that which is desirable- a title, money, or power. I know what I want, but why do I want it? What motivates this? My entire purpose to accumulate power and wealth so that I can impress a better looking woman?

My desire to ejaculate is the motivation of my DNA to propagate. I often ask myself why I want to do a certain thing. I feel compelled by society, culture, some unknown hand to go out, drink, and try to find a slut to use. I feel like I have to be social, to be involved, to see people. I also feel the desire to learn. To read, to watch films, to learn about subjects, to see and delve and revise and critique. To triumph and topple, destroy and demolish, crush and kill. All of these things are just motivations of my DNA to better myself and ultimately appear more desirable to a female.

It is not as shallow as simply being impulsed to party and fuck that makes me a slave to a chemical staircase; it is that any desire to improve is merely a desire to appear better for a female. If I radically decided to become celibate for the rest of my life, to avoid sex and think of nothing but philosophy, God or the devil in mankind, it would only be so that I could appear to be more resilient to my urges and more steadfast for my convictions. It would make me appear better and thus be for the purpose of finding a better female. If I wanted to avoid females, it would only be so that I could find a better female. I see no way out of this cycle.

I’m damned if I do; fucked if I don’t. I know my motivations, my desires to do anything are ultimately not my own, so my life is not my own. Anything I want to do or feel, any real emotion, real desire, real want or need or thought or action or concept or culmination or breakthrough or eureka is just to find a better mate. It’s not to give value to my own life. They are not to benefit anyone. It leads me to pollinate, spread, inject, infect with seed. It is the hardwired whisper. We are no different than a coconut tree or sea urchin or zebra. We have a purpose to spread our genes, and to seek improving features, through mutation or self-help books, so that we can spread our genes better and spread better genes. It is all we have and all we are. We are machines at heart, and serve it rightly so.

I’m left with absolutely nothing. In the face of death, or the thought of not existing, I have nothing to offer myself. Combating loneliness is impossible. I can’t console or cope. I am nothing but a slave with no heart or mind of my own. I have no soul. Where is my assurance against death? While my aunts believe in God, that some mighty Father in the Sky will give them life everlasting, I believe in absolute nothingness. It is not to say I don’t believe in anything. I believe in nothing. We will not exist when we die. It will be as good as if we did not exist. Our bodies will rot in the ground and plump worms will burrow into our brains. And eventually, the universe will be destroyed, our sun will burn out, we will ravage our planet with pollution and war and disease. The bottom line is that the end of the line is non-existence. No matter how high we build our towers, and how long we get to live, we will inevitably die, and we will be grinded into the sands of time.

The sun will set and the light will march across my room and over my bed, under my blinds and up to the moon, leaving me to swim in the ocean midnight. No matter how hard I try to stay awake, my eyes will still close. The false sense of permanence, a monument that will stand through time, this is what my nucleic acids try to build. Erecting a lasting structure on a microscopic scale. I need an illusion. I want to hear a woman’s falsetto. I want to feel the energy between our clasped hands. I want to fall asleep with someone.

Africa

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹



I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

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EDITOR'S NOTE:

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://politibits.tuscaloosanews.com/default.asp?item=2318013 Clarence Jones, who helped King draft the speech the night before in the Willard Hotel was interviewed by CNN after they showed the speech and he said that at some point the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who was on the podium with King, yelled out to King to "tell them about the dream!," a theme that he had used in other speeches, but had not planned to incorporate in that day's oration. Jones said he saw King turn his prepared notes over and told someone nearby, "These people don't know it, but they are fixing to go to church."

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And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

I can't even begin to go over how beautiful and perfect this speech was. The man didn't even live to see forty, and was brutally murdered for his ideas of spreading equality and extinguishing the flames of injustice perpetuated by the cultural elitism and ethnocentrism that breeds the racist scorns and acts of violence. Even this, the denial of food and means of living can be seen as an act of violence. We are gorging ourselves on food, the Western world growing fat and obese, while a large number of the world's population gets thinner and thinner, dying of starvation. The shift and classist gap that has emerged is absolutely staggering to me. We have a Western world with obesity and heart disease and cancer to fear, and I look at the "dark continent" and see starvation, disease, and AIDS wreaking havoc. Our problems are a result of excess, and their problems are a result of lacking- and we continue to stuff ourselves to overfill.

If the United States wants to be a true beacon of hope, of prosperity, of democracy, of freedom- the freedom to live, to not die when innocent. To not starve to death before seeing your fifth birthday. Not being kidnapped, raped, killed, infected, or left to die in some other way. If we wish to truly support these fundamental ideas which drive the purpose for our country's existence, we must be able to extend our hand and help those around us, even if it means the sacrifice of luxury.

We can act as we did in World War II, shrug off the wars and destruction on another continent, and eventually act as we know we will inevitably have to, or we can prevent the further killing of innocent human lives.

There are very few things which many cultures agree upon. One thing which stands pretty firmly, however, is the Golden Rule. It has been said and re-said many ways. Here is Kant's wording:

Quote:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

I want to express the idea that we cannot turn a blind eye to problems that we know exist. In our own law, the witnessing of a crime or an injustice and doing nothing is criminal activity itself. If we, as the West, as America, as whatever responsible global, emerging entity who will speak for the well-being of not just the US, but of the entire human race, wants to be the beacon of freedom, then we must help our fellow man right now.

I know it's a sad say when I have to argue for the idea that people needlessly dying horrible ways despite our having the resources to prevent it is a bad thing. The very nature of this suffering and how horrible is reason enough to prevent it, even if it means the sacrificing of a few luxuries so that others may not have to die.

I will repeat a section of Dr. King's speech:

Quote:

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We must realize that our destiny is tied up with the destiny of our world. We have begun to modernize our energy, we have realized our effect on the environment, but what about truly realizing our effect and possible affect on each other? Our freedom, our democracy, how bright and shining and beautiful these ideals may seem, they can never be as beautiful when they do not live up to their purposes as beacons. To be a beacon, something must exude light. It must be filled with a luminosity that spreads out onto the darker areas. We do not have to infect as we have done in the past to bring light. We can help end chronic malnutrition, diseases, and wars all around the world, as well as Africa.

We do not have to colonize to help. We do not have to push our culture onto their own. We can help them, as it inevitably will help us. What good is it to prosper and to know of wealth when the world around us becomes wretched and diseased and withers into dust? How bright and shining can our world be when surrounded with the stench of rotting corpses and haunted by the cries of starving children? Will we let innocents die until our own innocence is dead?