Who needs truth when you can have conspiracy and right-wing lies?
Who needs truth when you can shovel propaganda down throats?
Who needs truth?
If you have no truth you don’t need truth checkers!
If you have no truth you can make more money!
Who cares about democracy?
It’s called sucking up to Trump!
No Truth. No solid ground.
No truth,
Only opinion,
As the foundations crumble,
Edifices fall.
Everything is liquid.
There is no solid ground.
Into the vacuum
Populists slip
To offer the solidity of a swamp.
Stirring the pot,
Accusing Deep State,
Insinuating fear
And hate.
Deploying scapegoats.
Offering phony solutions.
Used. Abused.
Dressed in caps and uniform,
Rings in noses,
Waving flags,
Euphoric on dreams,
Ecstatic with trust,
Led on a goose chase,
Searching for solid ground.
Opher – 28.11.2024
In the grubby world of politics, where deception is the nature of the game and there are no rules, the charade has descended to a new all-time low.
Hypocrisy rules.
In this nightmare world the swamp talks about draining the swamp.
Greedy billionaires scramble to convince the masses that they have their interests at heart while cynically exploiting them for every penny they can get.
Fairness and justice, empathy and compassion, are just words to be treated with contempt and disdain.
Greed rules.
There are no rules.
Lies, deception, misinformation and fake news are the weapons of choice.
Confuse, direct and rule.
Weaponise the truth.
Tax evasion is a laudable enterprise in the land of survival of the richest. Sex crimes are not only acceptable but a badge of office.
Truth is absent. Belief is optional.
The faithful are in a trance and perform their circus tricks to order.
This is the age of post-truth where science and intelligent, rational thought has been replaced with superstition and conspiracy.
Populists detest solid ground. They are denizens of the real swamp!
The Seal of Approval
I went looking
For the seal of approval.
All I discovered
Was the walrus of discontent.
Shuffling dreams
Destined for removal.
Knowing
What I really meant.
Pencil – what’s the point?
There is no explanation.
Even nothing
Does not exist!
Superstition and lies,
A great prevarication.
Yet the dream
Must still persist.
Opher Goodwin – 5.10.2024
My friend Pete and I had a laugh about the seal of approval and walrus of discontent.
In this post-truth age we find ourselves completely adrift without any reference points. All the religions are phony, man-made constructs, designed to foster tribalism and create hierarchical power structures. All the news is controlled and manipulated by unscrupulous power-mad individuals. The internet is a Wild West of stupidity promoting every daft conspiracy, targeted by the powerful to hold the majority in thrall.
I write. I try to explain my truth clearly and fail. I look for kinship and understanding and fall short.
Ultimately there is no point, no truth, no understanding and I do not receive any seal of approval.
This then, is my walrus of discontent.
Inconvenient
The truth is inconvenient for most.
The universe began by accident.
None of us are cursed.
No wonderful omnipresent host.
The truth is inconvenient or worse.
There is no underlying reason
No wonderful afterlife.
Just endless oblivion – unrehearsed.
The truth is inconvenient for some.
The planet is busy warming,
Nature is threatened;
The worst is yet to come.
The truth is inconvenient for many.
Greed is killing everything.
The lust for more is rampant.
Of hope – there isn’t any.
The truth is inconvenient for us all.
A flawed species rampant
Full of lust for power
Vicious beyond recall.
The truth is inconvenient for the blind.
Our history is littered
With the blood of the innocent.
It’s all we leave behind.
The truth needs to be learnt from
If we are to build a future
And intelligently grow
Without the bullet or the bomb.
Opher – 14.8.2024
We all believe what we want to believe based on our upbringing, our education and our experience.
We rarely learn from the past and blithely go on making the same mistakes.
We gullibly swallow what we are fed.
Our whole world is an algorithm.
Our history is one of great violence, wars, senseless slaughter of wildlife, destruction and torture.
While there is much to admire it is overshadowed by the horrors we have exacted on each other and other living things.
We enjoy pain. We enjoy suffering. We love inflicting agony.
We are tribal, exhibiting insane group-think and adrenaline fuelled madness.
We love to believe conspiracies and close our minds to reality.
We see violence as the answer.
We always see violence as an answer.
The whole world is run by a handful of men who can never have enough. They leave misery in their wake.
We never learn from the past. Despite the demise of thousands of gods who have all come and gone we still believe ‘ours’ is real.
We still think the earth is flat and is the centre of the universe. We nonsensically believe in arks, veils and angels. Satan is real for many. We never learn.
We never see the way misogyny, racism and hatred is being used to gain power. We fail to see religion as a tribal tool for a minority to gain power and wealth.
The truth is inconvenient.
The Indivisibility of Freedom – The politics of hope!
The indivisibility of freedom
Is the state’s greatest demon.
One woman’s freedom is the freedom of us all.
Bring down the wall!
The power of the powerless
Is supreme.
It comes rising
In an ecstatic scream.
Diversity and plurality
Is the aim.
The purpose
Of my game.
Like water dripping on a stone
A million people
Are never alone.
The truth gradually erodes
The lies
Until the future explodes.
At the end of the totalitarian rope
We have the politics of hope.
Opher – 4.12.2022
I was watching Simon Schama last night. It does fill me full of shame at being a member of a species that is so disgusting. A history of war, exploitation and repression.
Through it all there is always a strand of hope. There are people prepared to stand up against totalitarianism, to risk it all for freedom.
Here’s to the brave Iranian girls waving their detested hijabs – the symbol of oppression.
Here’s to the artists, writers and musicians who make brave stands against fascism and totalitarian oppression in all its forms.
Here’s to Pussy Riot and the Plastic People, Roy Harper, Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa.
Here’s to the politics of hope!
