"Just Run"

     Confidence begets confidence, don't let the bastards get you down. When you're tired and you need to rest, just run. When you've given your all and life has slapped you down, just run. When you've tried everything and you can't go on, run.


     It's morning and the sun is beginning to rise and shine it's light upon the world. It is a dark night that we awaken from, but now, I believe people can see. There have been other nights from other ages; some, I'm sure, seemed they would never end. Many individuals must have spent there entire lives within these periods, never having been witness to the dawn. But as a race, we endured. 


     There was an awakening of language and tools, and a fight to dominate our environment. We could have never advanced and propagated as we did, without working together and sharing knowledge and technologies, so future generations could build on what we'd learned.


     It took us from the caves and brought us into an agrarian lifestyle in which we flourished. But men need to be governed in a society and with leaders comes power, and with power, corruption. And so we built the pyramids on the backs of slave labor until, with an exodus from Egypt, we gained freedom from oppression, if only for a moment.


     We thrived and spread out around the globe and slaughtered ourselves in a land-hungry fight for supremacy. Great nations rose and fell while emperors and would be gods played with the lives of men, in a vain attempt to rule the world. We polarized around distorted tenants of religion and killed in the name of God; and still, as a people, we pressed on. 


     We have risen above many times: in the Renaissance, the New World, and the Industrial Revolution. And each time, those in power have sought too much. Sometimes, as in 1939, bringing us to the brink of world destruction. But we prevailed. Here in this country, we strove to build on the democratic ideals of Voltaire and Franklin and Jefferson, but did so at the expense of the black slave. The civil rights movement that we like to treat as a battle already won, was merely the first glimmer of light in the earliest of dawns, and we have miles to go before we sleep.


     There are those among us who are opportunists. There are those that rule today that have naught in their hearts but unassailable greed and lust for power. It is nothing new. It is, as it has always been, and their time is short. Soon, we shall rise again and enter a new age of egalitarian enlightenment, where we will flourish and advance as one race, one people. And, in time, the light will begin to fade. It is the way of the world.


     But let us not be distracted by the cyclical nature of things. Let us not be deterred by the rhetoric of the ruling class. Those who would oppose the will of the majority, will not last. In the prophetic words of Mr. Cash, 
   "He's gonna cut you down."


     So, get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights. Don't give up the fight. Stand because you just can't stand it any longer and for those who can't stand for themselves, and run.