[Newspoetry] State of Terrorism Rules O-u-R Lives

[Donald L Emerick]

State of Terrorism Rules O-u-R Lives

QUOTE OF THE DAY (850,000 days ago):
Aristotle, On Politics, V-8 at 1308a 25-34:
Constitutions are most often preserved
when their Destroyers are at a distance,
and sometimes also when they are near,
for Fear of them makes all Government
take and keep in hand its Constitution.

Therefore, when caring for Constitutions,
Rulers shall carefully invent terrors,
to make distant dangers seem near,
so citizens may be on their guards,
and, like sentinels in a night-watch.
restlessly never relax their attention.

No ordinary man discerns how evil begins,
as true statesmen see how evil sprouts up.


ARISTOCRATIC ARISTOTALITARIANS
All Words of every Aristocrat define Virtue,
a never ceasing Gloss on a Truth in Heart,
always acting, it follows, in good Deeds,
motivated by no Privacy nor its Publicity,
neither Excess nor Deficit is fit for Rule.

Aristotle does not speak about Disaster,
as He speaks neutrally on Form Change:
Aristocracy, Democracy, or Oligocracy --
All seem to be equally the same to him,
who taught Alexander how to rule well,
so well that He moved against the East
with mighty Engines of war-trained Men,
overrunning Lands where All opposed Him,
as Usurper, Tyrant, or Rebel against Law
which lets People be free to choose Life
according to their own Ideas of the Best.

A People who do not know to be Anxious
become Those who lack reasoned Order,
for then They do not care to follow Orders
if those other Orders lack Consequences
that have been anxiously felt to follow
and which Anxiety Others must also feel;
Be made to feel, High Lord Aristotle says,
Educate them young, habit-train Them,
to what is in the Spirit of a Constitution:
for They shall follow after their Training.
(On Politics V-9, 1310a ca 13 et seq.)

Was Alexander this Aristotle's proof Case?
Must every well-trained Ruler ever conquer,
to prove every Right by almighty Conquest?
Such training Rules suppose EgoManiacs
may lack a ruthless Ambition, or Skill at it,
or require ruthless Training to be Ruthless.

Ruthlessness both lies at a far Distance and
yet comes ever so near a truthlessness Truth
about the unwritten Constitution of all Rulers,
how They measure Kingdoms but not Kings,
as if each true One were an absolute Prime.

Then, None may measure Bush or Hussein,
or Hitler or Stalin, except by personal Rules,
invented by Them, to terrorize the Rest of Us,
to make Us, by Habit, bow down before Them,
for Kings never do any Wrong, by being Gods,
the highest imaginable Primes in our Numbers.

If the People may not define Political Truth
apart from such well-ordered Constitutions,
whether written or unwritten, private or public,
then perhaps They seek what must be False,
which Error may be "proved from a Poem,
one by Tyrtaeus, entitled 'GOOD ORDER',
speaking of some Citizens ruined by War
Who then desired a redistributive Justice,"
as "when Few are very rich, Many very poor,
then the most frequent State of a Society"
necessarily "resembles" Struggles of its Birth,
has Birthmarks of War as "a Result of a War"
for "revolutionary Wars arise when a Person
dreams his Greatness would be even Greater
than He thinks it to be, were He alone to rule."
(On Politics, V-7, 1306b 36 to 1307a 3)

All Terrorism then reflects the Whims of Rulers,
as It grows out of their weakest Link, of Anxiety,
their pathological Insecurities in a public Privacy
or, by a De-privacy made well known in Publicity,
for what Person wants his InnerSelf most revealed
when It might also become most reviled or defiled?

What Terrorism means is Distraction by Rulers,
And also, deconstructively, Attraction to Rulers,
which is why People fight when their Rulers do,
by emulating their Gods, in a vast War of Gods,
when there could be no God but a God of War,
And a Loser who was really no War-God at all,
Who was Nothing much and a Nothing to fear,
Nothing fears Namelessness as a Nothingness.

If there were any God, would S/He be for Peace?
Or, knowing well that when People have no fear,
They never follow Orders, would God love Terror,
love every Act of Ruler-invented Rule by Terrorism,
for where there is Terror, there also is Fear of God?
And, then, we see Locke's Divine Right of Kings,
or Hegel's gyrations in a Theory of the Right-wing,
Servants of Aristotle, tutoring future Terror-kings,
in Terrorist Training Camp Colleges and Schools,
dedicated to the Propositions of following Orders,
just following Orders, no matter where They lead.

Thanks for not being too afraid to listen,
as a listening never fears that it hears,
learns not to be afraid of what it hears,
fear being afraid to be unafraid of itself,
so it holds itself in terror by unknowing;
unknowing, it fears none but fear itself,
fear fears itself and sprouts up, anxiety.

Thanks for listening,
Donald L Emerick

(PS: A word of advice to my readers, if there be any besides me, who is (usually) sure that he needs to remind himself why he talks so long and says so little, and all of that in such great confusion and haste, that, when reading this, he shall wonder who said all of this when they could have said so much more, or said it so much more succinctly, or differently, if not better by charm or chant: read me here.)
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