Cast Down Your Bucket Where You Are

"To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern White Man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. "

Booker T. Washington,

1895

"I realised that of the Top 50 Red areas that voted to Leave, I have spent a grand total of FOUR DAYS of my life in those areas [of my own country]..." - Liberal Internationalist Buffoon Alexander Betts

CAST DOWN YOUR BUCKET WHERE YOU ARE.

https://youtu.be/dcwuBo4PvE0

"We shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. 

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. 

It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. 

Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities."

"Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:

One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of our freedom.

Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy farm or truck garden.

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,“Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” 

A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” 

And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” 

The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. 

To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern White Man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. 

And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. 

Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. 

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. 

It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. 

Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race,“Cast down your bucket where you are.” Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labour wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so invested will pay a thousand per cent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed—blessing him that gives and him that takes. There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:

The laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed;

And close as sin and suffering joined We march to fate abreast...

Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third [of] its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.

Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers, books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden without contact with thorns and thistles. While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that has come to our educational life, not only from the Southern states, but especially from Northern philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.

The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera-house.

In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law. This, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new earth.

September 18, 1895

The Shamanism of Bono Vox - U2 and the Occult

"Charles Manson stole this song from The Beatles - we're stealing it back..."

"...To a greater extent than on their previous album, The Joshua Tree, the band explores American roots music and incorporates elements of blues rock, folk rock, and gospel music in their sound. The motion picture was filmed primarily in the United States in late 1987 during The Joshua Tree Tour and it features their experiences with American music. 

Although Rattle and Hum was intended to represent the band paying tribute to rock legends, some critics accused U2 of trying to place themselves amongst the ranks of these artists... "

- The Enemy

"I was very keen on the idea of going wide at a time like that, just seeing how big this thing could get. I had always admired Colonel Parker and Brian Epstein for realising that music could capture the imagination of the whole world."

—U2 manager Paul McGuinness, explaining his original motivation to make a movie.

"Colonel" Tom Parker

An AWOL, psychotic illegal immigrant suspected murderer and deserter

Not a Colonel, not called Tom, not called Parker.

Alanna Nash would later write in The Colonel, her biography of him, that there were questions about a murder in Breda in which Van Kuijk, as he was then still known, might have been a suspect or a person of interest at least.[6] This might have motivated Parker to avoid seeking a passport, as the Netherlands has an active extradition treaty with the United States, and Parker might have wanted to avoid criminal arrest by Dutch authorities in that case.

Immigration to America

Parker returned to America at age 20, finding work with carnivals due to his previous experience in the Netherlands. He enlisted in the United States Army, taking the name "Tom Parker" from the officer who interviewed him, to disguise the fact he was an illegal alien.

He served two years in the 64th Regiment of the Coast Artillery at Fort Shafter in Hawaii and shortly afterwards re-enlisted at Fort Barrancas, Florida. Although Parker had served honorably before, he went AWOL this time and was charged with desertion. He was punished with solitary confinement, from which he emerged with a psychosis that led to two months in a mental hospital.

He was discharged from the Army due to his mental condition.

(This is an article from the Irish Times, which printed an abridged version of a chapter from a Joe Jackson book tentatively titled In Search of Elvis. Having noted many echoes of Presley in U2's Zooropa show, Jackson met Bono to discuss these influences.)



Bono: There's a book called the History of Show Business and Shamanism, and the author says that show business "is" shamanism; that is, above everything else, religious. And he talks about hallucination of the masses, which is what rock bands do today. And there's no doubt that Elvis was the start of that dizziness, that hallucination, wasn't he?

Jackson: You've also suggested that what happened in the Sun Studios in the early '50s (where Elvis was discovered) was one of the most important cultural moments of the 20th century. Did you always realise that, or was it more a result of U2 going to Memphis to film Rattle and Hum?

Bono: It came about more as something unconscious, a part of a journey to check out our own roots, and the roots of our music. But what I meant about Sun was that it was then that shamanism moved centre stage. Jack Nicholson once said, "Elvis wasn't the first. Bing Crosby brought black music, jazz influences into white culture." But what I'm saying is that Memphis at that point was when we had the possession, the shaman, the shuddering of the culture at that core level. You had God, and fun-sex, two previously incompatible ideas; and you had African and European musical ideas, and the blending of those forces made Elvis a microcosm for the wider cultural forces that were set in motion at the same time.

Jackson: When did you first tune in to Elvis?

Bono: I always said there's only been one man I ever fancied as a pre-pubescent, and that was Marc Bolan. But coming right behind that, the one who charged me heterosexually was Elvis, in that black leather suit in the Comeback Special. That's why I wear the black suit and we created the small boxing-ring stage in Zooropa. That's where all that comes from. But on a spiritual level, when I saw "the fat Elvis" during the early '70s, I saw him as a fallen man. And when he sang "Glory, Glory, Hallelujah" I knew he meant it. Even then I knew where he was coming from. I saw him as I've always seen Southern preachers -- in a very Shakespearean way, as much, much larger than life.

Jackson: You end Zooropa with Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love." Why?

Bono: The whole encore section is kitsch, it's Elvis/second-hand car salesman/the devil, before I got into Macphisto. That's what I saw him as: an Elvis-devil. It was about world-weariness, about being in a jaded, fat-Elvis period which -- in a sense -- is what U2 are going through. But part of it all was "stardom," and the decadence implicit in that supposed lifestyle. So we begin with "Money, Money, Money" then "Desire" and ringing up the President, whatever. It's the derangement of stardom. And we paint that kind of portrait until finally we come through to the soul of that with "With or Without You" and "Love is Blindness" -- the repentance. Then there is this voice, which starts off as an Elvis parody, because it's the drug addict strung out on the audience, singing, "I can't help falling in love with you" -- look at me. This is what I am. Yet the last voice was mine, in falsetto; and to me that sound is the child on the cover of our first album. That, at the end of all this artifice, is me saying this is where I come from. So what we're saying is that amongst all the trash, you can keep alive a sense of purity, that this little quiet voice is still there and still true. That's why people loved Elvis, even at the end. There was still that aspect of purity.

Jackson: Now you know why that picture of Elvis as a child is central to the book. That image, to me, is the voice that lingers, even after Presley's death; the voice of a child. The child he was, I was, we all were.

Bono: That's why I shivered when you showed me the illustration. But take this one step further. What if that image of purity is the image of a Christian in the original state of grace? As it is to many people. One night I was doing my Elvis-devil dance on stage with a young girl, in Wales, and she said, "Are you still a believer? If so, what are you doing dressed up as the devil?" I said, "Have you read The Screwtape Letters?" Which is a C.S. Lewis book that a lot of intense Christians are plugged into. They are letters from the devil. That's where I got the whole philosophy of mock-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-you. So she said, "Yes" and I said, "So you know what I'm doing." Then she relaxed and said, "I want to bless you."

Jackson: But isn't that a core issue in relation to U2 and Elvis? The way people are locked inside linear thought patterns, saying, "If you are this, you can't be that." Particularly in relation to Judaeo-Christian teaching, which tell us we must forever be "good" like Christ and not "bad" like Satan. Or critics who ask, "How can Bono be subverting the trappings of fame when he seems to be enjoying them so much?" Surely the truth lies in the middle of both paradigms, the tension between being good and bad, saint and sinner, the dualistic nature of life.

Bono: That's what I've come to learn, in time. And I think that's exactly what killed Elvis Presley. That was the pain. The pain wasn't "I don't have any friends, my career is on the skids, my waistline has expanded." The pain was "I don't like myself, and don't respect myself and my life, because people who say I'm bad must be right." I think it was guilt along those lines that made Elvis lose the will to live. Yet in the scripture there is another line: "There is, therefore, no condemnation for those in God." There is no guilt. Guilt is not of God. It is a false teaching.

Jackson: Does the fact that Elvis's life apparently ended as a result of drug abuse make you keep a check on your own indulgences? Does any of that resonate for you?

Bono: No. What I still want from my life is a wholeness that I don't believe Elvis has. I had a conversation with Jerry Lee Lewis years ago, because I always felt he's the man who had these driving dualities. As with that moment in Sun where he stops the session and says, "This is the devil's music, I'm not going to make it." He's either in the church choir or down the strip. There are those extremes that, for Jerry Lee Lewis, seem not to be resolvable. But I remember saying to him, "Amazing Grace/How sweet the sound. Music is the sound. Don't you see?" Yet people like Jerry Lee find it so hard to resolve these tensions because of the battering they received from the Bible Belt. On the other hand, I've had the experience of unmolested spiritual growth, so I believe I can live in a way that these people can't. I understand, I think, a little better these two urges and how, although they are paradoxical, they are comfortable to live with -- the spiritual life and the sexual/physical life. And so, to answer your question, the only encouragement I get from Elvis at that level, is "don't make the mistake of being driven by this idea that you can't have it all -- because you can." That is, to be whole.

Jackson: Do you think Elvis sought that sense of wholeness through drugs, or tried to escape from the fact he couldn't reconcile such opposing forces in his own life?

Bono: I really think he was trying mostly to escape the pain of the guilt, the pain of believing that he was tapping into voodoo and the spirit of the devil. All of that must have affected him because of his Pentecostal upbringing. And he must've known, instinctively, that when he sang he was touched by the spirit of God. And he apparently did read countless books trying to figure out such questions, but I don't think he ever got a satisfactory answer. It's the thing that Bob Marley lived, and not just in terms of the sex and the spirit but in terms of the politics. He had that three-chorded strand. That's the wholeness I'm looking for. It says in the Bible, "The three-chord strand cannot be broken." That's a reference to the Trinity, obviously, and the Trinity is God the Father, God the Son -- which is the flesh, Jesus wanting to understand what it's like to have a body -- and the Holy Spirit. That's what we must aspire towards. But Elvis didn't reach that state of being, he was crushed under the weight of not figuring out how to draw together those three strands. And crushed under not being able to accept that God loves him, loves his creations as they are, and where they are. That's the tragedy. Though the problem also is learning how to live with the tensions between those forces and the thought that you may never pull them together. Maybe even feeding off that, which I think is what I do in terms of all the music I create, and my life. Elvis was left with those two great energies, sexual and spiritual, and even though he never resolved how to draw them together, with the the third strand, his music did help so many of us to pull together at least two of those strands. That was his greatest contribution to rock 'n' roll and to our cultural life in general. That's his greatest legacy.

Jackson: Elvis's motto was "Taking care of business," obviously another part of his legacy for U2.

Bono: Definitely. I've always wanted U2 to take on this middle-class, bourgeois preconception that art must stand apart from commerce. And U2 do call it "TCB." We quote Elvis. We are a gang of four, but a corporation of five, so we sit down and go through the numbers and say, "Taking Care of Business."

Jackson: Nonetheless, critics suggest that your business involvements "pollute" the art, the music -- that you could end up "selling your soul" for wealth, as maybe Elvis did in Hollywood.

Bono: This is madness. Look at Picasso. And the real point is that business shouldn't be left out of the creative process. The key is to serve your vision and not just serve the making of money. If you serve the concept of money-making you do sell out your vision, and soul. And U2 have learned from Elvis in that area. That's why we've no problem serving art and business, seeing both as two sides of the same equation. That's not a bad legacy from "the man" is it?



© The Irish Times, 1994. All rights reserved.

BreXit : Gaunt

"Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--"

John of Gaunt (Patrick Stewart) is dying. 

He criticises Richard (Ben Wishaw) for 

being surrounded by a thousand flatterers and for being landlord of England rather than King.

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!"

SCENE I. Ely House.

Enter JOHN OF GAUNT sick, with the DUKE OF YORK, & c

JOHN OF GAUNT

Will the king come, that I may breathe my last
In wholesome counsel to his unstaid youth?

DUKE OF YORK

Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath;
For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, but they say the tongues of dying men
Enforce attention like deep harmony:
Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,
For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.
He that no more must say is listen'd more
Than they whom youth and ease have taught to glose;
More are men's ends mark'd than their lives before:
The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past:
Though Richard my life's counsel would not hear,
My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

DUKE OF YORK

No; it is stopp'd with other flattering sounds,
As praises, of whose taste the wise are fond,
Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound
The open ear of youth doth always listen;
Report of fashions in proud Italy,
Whose manners still our tardy apish nation
Limps after in base imitation.
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--
So it be new, there's no respect how vile--
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
Then all too late comes counsel to be heard,
Where will doth mutiny with wit's regard.
Direct not him whose way himself will choose:
'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

JOHN OF GAUNT

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter KING RICHARD II and QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, BAGOT, LORD ROSS, and LORD WILLOUGHBY

DUKE OF YORK

The king is come: deal mildly with his youth;
For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.

QUEEN

How fares our noble uncle, Lancaster?

KING RICHARD II

What comfort, man? how is't with aged Gaunt?

JOHN OF GAUNT

O how that name befits my composition!
Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:
Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast;
And who abstains from meat that is not gaunt?
For sleeping England long time have I watch'd;
Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt:
The pleasure that some fathers feed upon,
Is my strict fast; I mean, my children's looks;
And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt:
Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,
Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones.

KING RICHARD II

Can sick men play so nicely with their names?

JOHN OF GAUNT

No, misery makes sport to mock itself:
Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me,
I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

KING RICHARD II

Should dying men flatter with those that live?

JOHN OF GAUNT

No, no, men living flatter those that die.

KING RICHARD II

Thou, now a-dying, say'st thou flatterest me.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, no! thou diest, though I the sicker be.

KING RICHARD II

I am in health, I breathe, and see thee ill.

JOHN OF GAUNT

Now He that made me knows I see thee ill;
Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.
Thy death-bed is no lesser than thy land
Wherein thou liest in reputation sick;
And thou, too careless patient as thou art,
Commit'st thy anointed body to the cure
Of those physicians that first wounded thee:
A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,
Whose compass is no bigger than thy head;
And yet, incaged in so small a verge,
The waste is no whit lesser than thy land.
O, had thy grandsire with a prophet's eye
Seen how his son's son should destroy his sons,
From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame,
Deposing thee before thou wert possess'd,
Which art possess'd now to depose thyself.
Why, cousin, wert thou regent of the world,
It were a shame to let this land by lease;
But for thy world enjoying but this land,
Is it not more than shame to shame it so?
Landlord of England art thou now, not king:
Thy state of law is bondslave to the law; And thou--

KING RICHARD II

A lunatic lean-witted fool,
Presuming on an ague's privilege,
Darest with thy frozen admonition
Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood
With fury from his native residence.
Now, by my seat's right royal majesty,
Wert thou not brother to great Edward's son,
This tongue that runs so roundly in thy head
Should run thy head from thy unreverent shoulders.

JOHN OF GAUNT

O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live that love and honour have.

Exit, borne off by his Attendants

KING RICHARD II

And let them die that age and sullens have;
For both hast thou, and both become the grave.

DUKE OF YORK

I do beseech your majesty, impute his words
To wayward sickliness and age in him:
He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear
As Harry Duke of Hereford, were he here.

KING RICHARD II

Right, you say true: as Hereford's love, so his;
As theirs, so mine; and all be as it is.

Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

NORTHUMBERLAND

My liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

KING RICHARD II

What says he?

NORTHUMBERLAND

Nay, nothing; all is said
His tongue is now a stringless instrument;
Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.

DUKE OF YORK

Be York the next that must be bankrupt so!
Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

KING RICHARD II

The ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he;
His time is spent, our pilgrimage must be.
So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:
We must supplant those rough rug-headed kerns,
Which live like venom where no venom else
But only they have privilege to live.
And for these great affairs do ask some charge,
Towards our assistance we do seize to us
The plate, corn, revenues and moveables,
Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possess'd.

DUKE OF YORK

How long shall I be patient? ah, how long
Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?
Not Gloucester's death, nor Hereford's banishment
Not Gaunt's rebukes, nor England's private wrongs,
Nor the prevention of poor Bolingbroke
About his marriage, nor my own disgrace,
Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,
Or bend one wrinkle on my sovereign's face.
I am the last of noble Edward's sons,
Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first:
In war was never lion raged more fierce,
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.
His face thou hast, for even so look'd he,
Accomplish'd with the number of thy hours;
But when he frown'd, it was against the French
And not against his friends; his noble hand
Did will what he did spend and spent not that
Which his triumphant father's hand had won;
His hands were guilty of no kindred blood,
But bloody with the enemies of his kin.
O Richard! York is too far gone with grief,
Or else he never would compare between.

KING RICHARD II

Why, uncle, what's the matter?

DUKE OF YORK

O my liege,
Pardon me, if you please; if n ot, I, pleased
Not to be pardon'd, am content withal.
Seek you to seize and gripe into your hands
The royalties and rights of banish'd Hereford?
Is not Gaunt dead, and doth not Hereford live?
Was not Gaunt just, and is not Harry true?
Did not the one deserve to have an heir?
Is not his heir a well-deserving son?
Take Hereford's rights away, and take from Time
His charters and his customary rights;
Let not to-morrow then ensue to-day;
Be not thyself; for how art thou a king
But by fair sequence and succession?
Now, afore God--God forbid I say true!--
If you do wrongfully seize Hereford's rights,
Call in the letters patent that he hath
By his attorneys-general to sue
His livery, and deny his offer'd homage,
You pluck a thousand dangers on your head,
You lose a thousand well-disposed hearts
And prick my tender patience, to those thoughts
Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

KING RICHARD II

Think what you will, we seize into our hands
His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.

DUKE OF YORK

I'll not be by the while: my liege, farewell:
What will ensue hereof, there's none can tell;
But by bad courses may be understood
That their events can never fall out good.Exit

KING RICHARD II

Go, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight:
Bid him repair to us to Ely House
To see this business. To-morrow next
We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow:
And we create, in absence of ourself,
Our uncle York lord governor of England;
For he is just and always loved us well.
Come on, our queen: to-morrow must we part;
Be merry, for our time of stay is short

Flourish. 

Exeunt KING RICHARD II, QUEEN, DUKE OF AUMERLE, BUSHY, GREEN, and BAGOT

NORTHUMBERLAND

Well, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

LORD ROSS

And living too; for now his son is duke.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Barely in title, not in revenue.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Richly in both, if justice had her right.

LORD ROSS

My heart is great; but it must break with silence,
Ere't be disburden'd with a liberal tongue.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Nay, speak thy mind; and let him ne'er speak more
That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Tends that thou wouldst speak to the Duke of Hereford?
If it be so, out with it boldly, man;
Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

LORD ROSS

No good at all that I can do for him;
Unless you call it good to pity him,
Bereft and gelded of his patrimony.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Now, afore God, 'tis shame such wrongs are borne
In him, a royal prince, and many moe
Of noble blood in this declining land.
The king is not himself, but basely led
By flatterers; and what they will inform,
Merely in hate, 'gainst any of us all,
That will the king severely prosecute
'Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

LORD ROSS

The commons hath he pill'd with grievous taxes,
And quite lost their hearts: the nobles hath he fined
For ancient quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

And daily new exactions are devised,
As blanks, benevolences, and I wot not what:
But what, o' God's name, doth become of this?

NORTHUMBERLAND

Wars have not wasted it, for warr'd he hath not,
But basely yielded upon compromise
That which his noble ancestors achieved with blows:
More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

LORD ROSS

The Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

The king's grown bankrupt, like a broken man.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Reproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

LORD ROSS

He hath not money for these Irish wars,
His burthenous taxations notwithstanding,
But by the robbing of the banish'd duke.

NORTHUMBERLAND

His noble kinsman: most degenerate king!
But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,
Yet see no shelter to avoid the storm;
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails,
And yet we strike not, but securely perish.

LORD ROSS

We see the very wreck that we must suffer;
And unavoided is the danger now,
For suffering so the causes of our wreck.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Not so; even through the hollow eyes of death
I spy life peering; but I dare not say
How near the tidings of our comfort is.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Nay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

LORD ROSS

Be confident to speak, Northumberland:
We three are but thyself; and, speaking so,
Thy words are but as thoughts; therefore, be bold.

NORTHUMBERLAND

Then thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay
In Brittany, received intelligence
That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold Lord Cobham,
That late broke from the Duke of Exeter,
His brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,
Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Ramston,
Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,
All these well furnish'd by the Duke of Bretagne
With eight tall ships, three thousand men of war,
Are making hither with all due expedience
And shortly mean to touch our northern shore:
Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay
The first departing of the king for Ireland.
If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,
Imp out our drooping country's broken wing,
Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown,
Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt
And make high majesty look like itself,
Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

LORD ROSS

To horse, to horse! urge doubts to them that fear.

LORD WILLOUGHBY

Hold out my horse, and I will first be there.

Exeunt

BreXit : Nationalism is Not So Vile a Sin...

"Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs

Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

Take up the English short, and let them know

Of what a monarchy you are the head:

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

As self-neglecting."

Yes, I know my Enemies.

They're the teachers who taught Me to fight Me

Compromise

Conformity

Assimilation

Submission

Ignorance

Hypocrisy

Brutality

The Elite

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American dreams

All of which are American Dreams

Female Anarchism : Women are Circular, Men are Linear

Anarchism is utter and completely incompatible with the Male Psyche.

"No Leaders" is irreconcilable with Male organisational concepts of domination and hierarchical leadership - except in the single instance in World History of a Submissive Patriarchal Civilisation : "Islam"  means "Submission".

We are The Best

So Screw The Rest

We Do as We Damn Well Please

Until The End,

St.Trinnians

Defenders of Anarchy

I am The Borg.

I am The Beginning, The End, The One who is Many.

I am The Borg.

I am The Collective.

I bring Order to Chaos.

You are In Chaos, Data. You are The Contradiction. A Machine who wishes to a Man.

We too are on a quest to better ourselves. Evolving toward a state of Perfection.

By assimilating other beings into our Collective, we are bringing them closer to Perfection.

You haven't been properly ...stimulated yet.

Don't be frightened.

Do you know what this is?

What a cold description for such a beautiful gift...

GIVE YOURSELF...... To The Shadow

"If you don’t understand your own weird, shitty side...

If you don’t understand the fact that there’s someone in there who will kill your mother, if need be – 

If you can’t take that on... 

If you can’t take that on board and realise that Charles Manson and me and you are not much different... 

That John Wayne Gacy and me and you are not much different 

– except that he did it. 

Y’know, there’s those days when I’m gonna kill that motherfucker over there – but we don’t do it.

But it’s in us, and it’s there. 

And so much of this is denial.
That we have no dark side. 

You know: the hippies, and those lovely people in the rave era who were all on ecstasy – they tried to pretend we have no dark side. 

And what happened was they got fucked up by their own dark side. 

As will ALWAYS happen.

So let’s kiss our Dark Sides

Let’s FUCK our Dark Sides. 

Get him down there where He belongs. 

And He can tell us stuff.

 Y’know, that thing’s useful.

But above all: let’s become plex-creatures. 

Complex, superplex – be able to take on new personality traits; able to take on new ideas; able to adapt; 

able to extend our boundaries into what was previously the ‘Enemy Territory’ – 

until the point where 
We Become what was once our Enemy, 

and They are Us, 

and there is no distinction."

Grant Morrisson

Lamont Cranston :

Do you have any idea who you just kidnapped?

Tulku: 

Cranston. Lamont Cranston.

Lamont Cranston: 

You know my real name?

Tulku: 

Yes. 

I also know that for as long as you can remember, you struggled against your own Black Heart and always lost. 

You watched your spirit, your very face change as the beast claws its way out from within you. 

You are in great pain, aren't you?

You know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, for you have seen that evil in your own heart. 

Every man pays a price for redemption; this is yours.

Lamont Cranston: 

I'm not lookin' for redemption!

You have no choice - 

You will be redeemed, because I will teach you to use your Black Shadow to fight evil.

 

Who Knows What Darkness Lurks inside the Hearts of Men..?

The Shadow, Knows...!

HA-HAAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!!!

"You know something that puzzles me Lamont,  how a man like yourself, who has absolutely nothing to do, can manage to be late for every little engagement..."

"Practice, Uncle Wainwright, lots and lots of practice..."