Criminalized America

and, perhaps i'm very, very naive still, but when did all common sense leave our planet? or is it we have just replaced it with common corruption?

i'm 41 years old. i've lived my entire life here on planet earth in several different states of the united states. i'm reasonably intelligent, some would say brighter than average, i am a mom, a wife, really a rather ordinary person. if i am compelled, i will pull over on the side of the freeway to see if they need help; if i see someone struggling with something, i offer to help; if i see something not right, i try to change it; i turn things i find to the lost and found.

am i so strange? and, the thought i am pondering right now is, in doing these things i was taught as a child and practiced my entire life, do they now make me a criminal?

here in america, that question doesn't even matter anymore. because the truth is, everyone is a criminal. everyone is either really and truly criminal ... messrs. bush and cheney come to mind ... and everyone else is merely labeled as a "criminal" by those with the authority and desire to define, label and designate someone else as such. and, if you think there is no possible way that you could be defined as a "criminal," i would smile and say, but you already are.

much like the way we designate who is and isn't a 'terrorist' or a 'rebel' (remember, nelson mandela was just last month undesignated as a 'terrorist'); "criminal" is a label in our everyday life that label makers apply liberally ... as you can see from the volumes of statutes logged on the books. i would argue that merely by being a reader of this can make you a criminal because you do not necessarily buy-in to the label maker's point of view and that is enough. and, you will find, that those who do find themselves subjected to the system, reveal the truth of their 'criminal mind' as most criminals are very easily made to comply, once their freedoms are threatened or stripped from their lives. their guilt is for the crime only they know they commit: self-denial.

today, in "the movement" (if you can call it that), everyone plays the game of the label-makers ... protesters arranging their arrests because they know how they've been labeled and can arrange their life to accommodate the role and its requisite duties established by their life's chore. they are criminals (though not guilty of harm), as they play in the game the label-makers create and they choose to partake in the give-and-take. clearly, dr. king was a criminal and would be today, because he played in their game ... knowing he did so to become a label-maker himself and redraft the laws to reform the books on the shelf.

but was rosa parks a criminal?

rosa parks wasn't a criminal ... and she lacked the "criminal's mind." she was, however, an individual who committed the biggest, most offensive human crime imaginable: she stood (or rather sat) in her individuality. and that, my friends, remains the crime we are all potentially guilty of as we close out this picean age or, in the language i was first taught, during this time of armageddon. it is the only crime for which true innocence is the defense. AND, if you so choose to energize this potential, if you find yourself involved with the courts like ms. parks, your only real crime is the one of not being engaged in their game.

in this chaos the churning transformation creates, criminals will emerge. we see those who do so in the light of day without accountability (merely because the collective is so, well, let's face it, most people are 'marks'); and then there those who do so in the light of the local news or in the silence thereof. for criminals are:

those who consider themselves equal in their being to the person standing right there or to the so-called collective's voice amplified in the statutes that are written by the label-maker's hand.

those who do their lives according to their own inner guide, experience and wisdom ... not to hurt anyone else, but to merely be who they are in the conscience and conscious application of their life without fear or even awareness of any consequences of the game maintain by those who claim they are "greater than" you.

i suppose then, perhaps maybe i am a criminal, then. the grand jury is right, as they have the authority to so designate me as such without even seeing my face or knowing who i am. there is no 'innocent until proven guilty' and our system is ill. but so am i, as i have been told, for being me, as smart as i am and still not developing a "criminal's mind" in this day and time.

peace & harmony,
elaine
'freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!'