In truth, I think I understand now that the unknown poet of the Third Galaxy really meant it when he apologized for the things he seems to be forced to say. Forced? Yes, because having seen, one must bear witness. Silence is not an option. That is just as true as speaking of one million dead in Wudda-Wreck as speaking as he does here of a single victim of state-sponsored torture.
As Bernhard points out -- it is not just the leaders who lie us into submission, who bear the burden but the passive complicity of the average citizen who let ourselves be lied to.
Because the wind of night has beat
across his heart the windings of a colden heat:
The artist is a conscious fool.
Although his words may seem harsh or even somewhat cruel:
The vision is a factory hall.
where workers wait for their numbers to be called.
(See the lines of faces, rigid and blank,
they sleep alone at night in isolation tanks.)
Then all day long, their eyes are glued
to ghastly sights which flicker on the idiot-tubes...
(A girl is tied to a parrot stick,
her naked screams reveal she really doesn't like it.)
"The Hole has said that prime time
should show the punishment of economic crime"
(Did she steal a car, a loaf of bread,
or refuse to go to bed with some important hole?)
_____________________________________
One of the things of which we will almost all be Accused in the Final Analysis is: Why did you ignore atrocity while, at the same time, enjoy its fruit, even going so far as to smack your lips and ask for more bones to crunch like sweet sugar candy between your teeth.
"A parrot stick" is a fiendishly simple device for inflicting painful humiliation with a horizontal pole upon which the victim is tied. ure -- until the feet and leg muscles go into spasms. But all these kind of things are described in detailed bureaucratic jargon in the Holy Kubark.
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