“The Matrix
is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You
can see it when you look out your window or when
you turn
on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to
church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over
your eyes to blind you from the truth ... That you are a slave.”
--Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), The Matrix
By Ron Lee
The Verbal Assassin
"Reality" is exactly as we are led to believe in this day and
age of a virtual society. Daily, we are programmed with mainstream propaganda.
Their truth is only someone’s opinion, and the masses slurp it up buying
every last moment of the “news”, taking it as gospel. Forgotten
are the realities of the world; the horrors; the beauties; the tortures;
the grandeur of it all. Reality exists now only as conspiracy and extremism,
both sides' fringes finding common truth that the people aren't the problem;
that greed is ultimately to blame. But, commonality is as passe as yesterday's
technology, and unity dies leaving few left fighting to free America from
their bondage to this matrix.
People do really believe that what they are told on the nightly news and
by their representatives; that what they read on the internet and are told
by their bartenders is true. What we have lost, that had allowed us to see
clearly, was using our logic, our ability to think, with our morality, our
compass. It gave us reason. This quality has been several generations removed,
instead replaced by emotional fanaticism. The 'how it makes you feel' is
more important than what it was in the first place or what caused it. It
doesn't matter now if things have a simple solution, a root cause or a clearly
defined definition. It just matters how it all feels. To me, that makes this
place, this time, this matrix a sad desperate place where everyone is out
for themselves and nothing true and right is safe. If it doesn't play to
the heartstrings of those in authoritative rule, it is outlaw.
Here we are today, this state of my union - frail, starving, tired from
the constant nonsense fed to us. Horrified by the cluelessness. Terrified
by the rule of the programmers, those who know the power of the mainstream
and manipulate its every episode, broadcast, podcast, webcast and transmission.
If only it were as simple as taking the red pill to wake up. But then again,
unlike most in society, I don't believe a pill can solve my problems, heal
my ails, or temper the pangs of youth. Waking for the masses is going to
come much later, I am afraid. It will come when even the most conscious have
been lulled back by the constant flow of the matrix.
Tell me, what will wake
you up? What will make you see that if a criminal comes at you or your
child with
a gun, running at him with a pair of scissors
as prescribed by the Department of Homeland Security is crazy, that if you
had and were trained in the use of your own gun, you could stop the criminal?
Why can’t you see that gun ownership really has nothing to do with
anything but keeping our government in check and from having the ability
to murder us! What will make you see that if we kept from throwing our garbage
about our world, the planet would be a much better place and for much longer?
Perhaps you will never wake up. God knows there are times when I wish I never
had.
“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning
back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed
and believe whatever
you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and
I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” --Morpheus
Just remember this, America
was built by those who dared to challenge their "reality";
to dream beyond their bonds and break through the matrix to be free. I wonder
what they would say? I know one thing, they’d be ashamed that we are
right back where they started; yoked by a governance that dictates to its
people and maintains the perception that everything it does is in the people’s
best interest.
Ahhh, how amazing it would be for history to repeat itself. Perhaps it would
even turn out better than the film sequels, but then again, anything is better
than those!