If You Are Free, You

When That Devil's Bullet Lodged Itself Inside The Body Of Martin Luther King, He Had Already Begun An Astonishing Mobilization Of Poor, Black, White, Latino Americans Who Had Nothing To Lose. They Would Challenge Our Government To Eliminate Exploitative, Merciless, And War-mongering Policies, Nationwide, Or Else "tie Up The Country" Through "means Of Civil Disobedience." Dr. King Intended To Organize Those Legions Into "coercive Direct Actions" That Would Make Of Babylon A Dysfunctional Behemoth Begging For Relief. Is It Any Wonder He Was Killed?

Our Earth Is Round, And, Among Other Things, That Means That You And I Can Hold Completely Different Points Of View And Both Be Right. The Difference Of Our Positions Will Show Stars In Your Window I Cannot Even Imagine. Your Sky May Burn With Light, While Mine, At The Same Moment, Spreads Beautiful To Darkness. Still We Must Choose How We Separately Corner The Circling Universe Of Our Experience. Once Chosen, Our Cornering Will Determine The Message Of Any Star And Darkness We Encounter.

All Of Western Tradition, From The Late Bloom Of The British Empire Right Through The Early Doom Of Vietnam, Dictates That You Do Something Spectacular And Irreversible Whenever You Find Yourself In Or Whenever You Impose Yourself Upon A Wholly Unfamiliar Situation Belonging To Somebody Else. Frequently It's Your Soul Or Your Honor Or Your Manhood, Or Democracy Itself, At Stake.

The United States Supreme Court, Once A Reliable If Ultimate Recourse For Progressive And Even Revolutionary Grievances, Has Become A Retrograde Wellspring For Enormous Economic And Social Distress.

When We Heard About The Hippies, The Barely More Than Boys And Girls Who Decided To Try Something Different ... We Laughed At Them. We Condemned Them, Our Children, For Seeking A Different Future. We Hated Them For Their Flowers, For Their Love, And For Their Unmistakable Rejection Of Every Hideous, Mistaken Compromise That We Had Made Throughout Our Hollow, Money-bitten, Frightened, Adult Lives