Yo tambien soy indignato.

I, too, am indignant.

in solidarity with Los Indignatos; Sunday, May 13, 2012

I am indignant after hearing a lifetime of lies.

I turn away in indignation at a country that has lied to me non-stop, every day of my life.

I remember with indignation the miserable schools of my youth—places where anything I learned was despite the influence of teachers who themselves knew nothing of freedom and culture.  And, if those teachers believed the lies they had been told, then they are blameless because that is how one survives in the cruel politicial and economic system called capitalism.

And if there were one or two teachers who encouraged freedom and creativity, their influence was not enough to overcome the tremendous weight of an evil system of conformity and control.

I am indignant when I think of the impersonality and factory-like nature of the so-called “higher” education which I received at the University of Texas-Austin.  And whenever I hear that someone would like to credit that institution for any of my achievements, I recoil in deep and bitter indignation.  There, too,  basic humanity was lacking---except for one or two or three individuals who were an exception to the rule of factory production.

I am indignant when I think of my parents’ faith that by helping me get an education they were helping me to have a better life than they have had.  I have had nothing but insecure, temporary employment----and that includes short-term jobs with universities when I was given a fancy title.  It would have been more accurate to describe me as a Professor-Temp.

I am indignant when I think that all of my education was warped and twisted by the Capitalist’s refusal to recognize that education is a right, a social good, not a commodity.  And that decision by a small number of evil individuals ruined my access to real culture. –Not evil in a metaphysical way, not evil as an imaginary creature with horns, but evil in the only way humans can be evil, when they encourage, participate in, and profit from a system of exploitation.  Capitalism perverted and twisted what should have been something only good in my life so that it was an unpleasant experience with only moments of pleasure and insight.

I am indignant at the joylessness of my life, the anti-social nature of my schooling experiences and my childhood---due in large measure to the over-expenditure on highways and freeways, the obsession with climate-destroying indivisually-piloted vehicles of destruction.

I look back on my life with indignation.  I look back on the lives of my parents with indignation.

I am indignant when I see the privileges of doctors and the way my elderly parents are treated.

I am indignant when I see frail elderly adults struggling to travel to the office of a much younger, much healthier doctor who might easily and comfortably travel to them.

I am indignant when I see the constant demand that my parents' justify their need for help----and most indignant of all when I realize that no such parallel demand is ever made upon those who manufacture weapons of killing.

We have been lied to and used.  And, as if that were not enough, my country, the USA has abused many other nations, and continues to do so.

The place of my birth, which can never be my spiritual home, is a place of militarism and racism.  It is a hypocritical purveyor of disorder throughout the world, a greedy beast which devours the innocent at home and in foreign lands.

Enough is enough.  It is time to say that it is all a lie.  It is time for justice and an end to wars of aggression, time for real education which liberates rather than limits the imagination, time for relations between human beings which are not based upon exploitation and fear.  It is time for courage and imagination to triumph over pettiness and violence.  But, first of all, we must speak truly, and
say what's going on, and what has been going on.  It is needful to describe the ugliness of existing institutions without shrinking back.  And with even a half accurate description, anyone with a shred of honesty must turn away with disgust, indignation, and anger.

They will of course invoke a taboo and attempt to stop you from such emotional honesty.  That, too, is a device of control.  Indeed, companies sell software packages to measure that bad honesty!

But I laugh, laugh, laugh at such idiocy.