Kesey column, rough.

In these days of destruction, in this era of aggression and revenge, it’s become plain to me that we need a new way of thinking. It’s time for a revolution, a real one this time that actually steps up to the plate and hits a homerun. The revolution we need is more in line with Martin Luthur King, of Ghandi, a revolution without bloodshed. We need what Ken Kesey called a “revolution of consciousness.”
“We’ve got to be mature enough to incorporate everyone into this revolution.” Kesey wrote. “It’s basis is mercy and justice, and mercy before justice.”
This should be its mantra.
We’ve come a long way as humans, but once again, like so many times in the past, we are in jeopardy. We are once again bordering on ending it all. Killing the whole damn planet. Wiping out everything. Starting another world war, believe it kids, and believe too that like all things, the third time’s the charm.
There ain’t gonna be no world war four.
But we hold the keys to our fate, each and every single one of us. We choose war or peace. We choose joy or misery. We choose revenge or forgiveness. Our leaders sign the checks, but we write ‘em.
There is plenty of hatred and anger going around these days. There is planety of in-fighting. Just take a look at our political process.
We’ve got two parties, democrats and republicans. Both sides believe in rules of the game, they each have a creed, a side, and neither one of them will budge if it means sacrificing some dogmatic ideal. They’d rather escalate the fury than calm down and take a moment to just simply listen to what the other guy has to say. And these days, the poles are shifting further and further to one side or the other. The tug of war is getting so sotrng that the rope is gonna snap. This is not good. We need a common ground here where beliefs aren’t held in front of ideas and emotions aren’t imprisoning logic.
The anger has been mounting for some time now, but it wasn’t until 9/11 that the shit really smacked the fan. The whole nation has been foaming at the mouth to kill a bunch of people for doing this to us. And now we’re shocked when we see pictures of our soldiers torturing our enemy. Get real folks, this is war. This is reality television. This is what happens behind closed doors. This is what it comes down to.
This year our choice for president is either a smirking jackal or a sneaky jackal. We’re in a lose-lose situation here. We ain’t getting any enlightenment from these people. There’ll be no consciousness expansion here. There’ll be no peace here. There’ll be no unity here.
We gotta look someplace else. We gotta find the enlightenment and that higher ground elsewhere, before it’s too late. And I’m not talking about looking for a leader. I’m talking about looking inside. That’s the only place we’re gonna find it.
If not we’re doomed.