Soundtrack to a Dream ... And My Greatest Nightmare.

Have you ever had a waking dream with a soundtrack? A song you hadn't thought of in years?
I did today.
Before I tell you the song, a little background is needed ...

~

I cut my Political "teeth" in the Nixon Re-election Campaign of 1972.

At the ripe old age of 13, I was a staunch Young Republican, and manned the phones and watched the local office of the GOP some evenings. Of course, these were different times, and Madera was still a "farm town" in a safer, more trusting age. I was also 6' tall, and over 200 lbs.

Being a sorta geeky, personally Conservative church boy, I wore my "Nixon in '72" button most proudly on my overalls and knew all of the "talking points" against Sen. George McGovern. I defended the Nixon Presidency, and passed out campaign fliers to my newspaper route customers.

Still, I was sometimes uneasy. The Eagleton "crying" incident was hard for me to understand, since we youth were being prompted to accept crying as a legitimate outlet for our emotions, at least in family counseling.
The upstanding clergymen I had as my male influences maintained that there was nothing disgraceful in tears.
My own Mother taught me that tears were a "lubricant for the soul."
So, when Mr. Eagleton wept, I felt sympathy, not scorn, and didn't understand why he would have to leave Mr. McGovern's campaign over a few tears.

I'd been through the "Summer of Love" at Fresno State College, spending my days wonderfully at the Library while my Mom attended class. I was definitely precocious, and felt like I was let loose in a candy store of knowledge. And, strangely enough, I was usually accepted by the college students, since I was there in the (very) loose supervision of one of Mom's fellow students. I watched and listened, and remember the strings of black balloons that flew over the College on Black Monday, and the tremendous noise and shouting from the College Amphitheater.

I remember my mom defending President Johnson when I asked questions about the Vietnam War. She felt that it was best to teach us to support the President, no matter whether she disagreed at her core. Also, having 4 small children and desiring a teaching career, she had to keep a reign on her viewpoint. She often had to deflect uncomfortable questions that popped from my mouth.

There were so many questions, and so few easy answers.

But, I didn't mind the uneasy answers ... I simply wanted to know "why?"

I still do.

~

Today, I awoke to a dream ... No, a Nightmare.
As sometimes happens to me, this dream had a soundtrack.

Here's the song ...

Buffalo Springfield - "For what it's worth"

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down

As this old, sad song began, images, crisp and clear, flashed forth from my memory ...

Images that have haunted me since childhood ...

A Vietnamese Politician holding a gun to a man's head and pulling the trigger.

A little girl ... Screaming, running naked down a road, burning napalm splattered across her body.

Tanks and jeeps on a Vietnamese main street, filled with sad, dirty men carrying guns ...

The scene *morphs* ...

The City became my hometown ... but the tanks and jeeps changed, and color washed in ...

The Tanks were still tanks, but newer, and no mud clung to their sides ... The jeeps became armored personnel carriers, all in desert camouflage ...

And as they passed City Hall, the star on their sides was sharp and white.

Again, the scene shifted, as if searching in Google Maps:

It soared, arching through the sky, and the scene was clear ... no cars moved in the streets ... no one stirred ... all was quiet, but for the soundtrack.

And the tanks and APU's patrolled the streets ... startlingly few, but unopposed, so it seemed from above.

The scene zoomed in, to a middle class neighborhood ... silent, empty streets, wisps of smoke wafting from the fireplaces (strange, wasn't it a "no burn day?") ... and plunged right through a roof, into a living room. A family of 5 sat upon the floor inn front of the firplace, swaddled in blankets, shivering ... their dining room table and chairs piled in pieces beside the hearth. Green cans marked MRE sat beside them.

Outside, the sun shone down on empty streets.

Arching again through the sky ... and down into what looks like a swarm of ants, crawling around, into and out of what appears as a pile of blocks ... dropping as a rock ... into a yelling crowd of people, Black & White, Hispanic & Asian ... familiar faces, yet strangely contorted ... fear, greed, need painted as if with a toothbrush upon these faces ... trade goods in their arms ...

Through the soundtrack, sounds like walnuts being cracked on a sidewalk ... red splatters appear upon random crowd members ... they fall, now mere "bodies" ... the scene arches yet again ...

And falls into a void of blacktop, a wide gulf between sweating, screaming Citizens, armed with whatever they could lay their hands upon ... and sweating, fearful troops, armed to the teeth ...

And here the scene split ... on one side, Citizens rushed the troops, bodies blossomed blood, and fell ... the streets ran red ...

And on the other side ... silence fell and reigned ... quiet faces peered into other quiet, fearful faces ... A chant rose ... "no" ... "more" ... "NO" ... "MORE" ... "NO" ... "MORE" ... "NO MORE!"

It began with one quiet voice ... spread like a wave of oil ...  anger expressed, resolve adopted ...

A stand taken.

And the Troops laid down their guns.

(Here the music ended)

The scene arched away a final time ... this time to the familiar, Mason designed streets of Washington, D.C. ... and dove through a marble dome ...

Below, finely dressed folk danced ... drinking fine wines ... ate delicacies rare & expensive ...

And in the distance, the faint sound of sirens ...

A rock crashes through a window ...

~

And I woke up.

Theodore, my big, gray "Daddy" cat was "making muffins" on my arm, making the silly chirping sound he does when he wants to be fed & loved.

I felt like bursting into tears and, wiping the sleep from my face, found that I already was.

The last thing I felt like doing was getting up and writing about this dream.

But I knew that I must ...

Maybe then, it wouldn't happen.

~

Now, I've got to wipe away the tears and decide what it means.

What was my sleeping mind telling me, as I awoke all too slowly?

Here's my take:

Totalitarianism has made it's way into our Government, and "We the People" have voted it in. As the sage wrote, "If they find that they can vote themselves whatever they want, they will fall."

It's so easy, so seductive to look across the continent or the county line, and speak about "those people."

It's so simple to fall into the place of the "Partisan shill" as this writer of opinion in the S.F. Chronicle has done. (Thanks to KMJ-Now for posting the opinion piece.)

After all, it's good for him, isn't it? It gives him a paycheck this week, to go buy his Chilean grapes and Chinese carrots and Japanese maguro tuna ...

The Partisan "player" thinks first of themselves, always. They look at the "blank slate" of Barack Hussein Obama, a slate upon which each voter ascribed their own selfish desires.

"Hope & Change" was the ultimate expression of selfish desire, and raw self interest. It means something different for each self-interested voter.

Unfortunately, what "Hope & Change" seem to mean for us, here in NObama and surrounding counties, is that we're the first to be screwed.

~

So, what else do I see within my Nightmare?

I see the future of Fresno, and if it falls to a Totalitarian Federal Government, a precedent for dealing with "dissident voices."

A "legal"precedent that will be slowly & surely carried out against those who dare to disagree with this Totalitarian Government in any way.

My Nightmare is completely and starkly predictive in it's single conclusion: The People, or a significant fraction of them, will not stand aside and act like the sheep that the majority will be.

The Majority will be wooed into sitting in their cold, dark homes, waiting for the electricity to come back on, and the gas to be turned back on, and the water to come from their taps once again ...

And out there, where the sheep decide not to be, the Patriots will rise ... with no barriers of race or color, no divisions between us ...

The question that survives my Nightmare scenario is, why 2 paths, with a single outcome?

Because carrying out the same scenario with the same folks will almost uniformly achieve the same result.

The real question is in the People, and the Military that is sworn to uphold the Constitution.

And, in the event that my Nightmare does take place, the People must stand firm & resolute, but not exceed their Constitutionally guaranteed rights and attack the Military. And, the Military must follow the Constitution, reject any un-Constitutional orders, and put down their weapons, rather than wield them against their fellow Citizens.

I reject the "solution" that wastes the "blood of Patriots." Violence will create an answer, but needless violence will only create ruin.

It did at Kent State, My Lai and Cambodia, and if all falls to violence, it will do so here.