No Hiding Place

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

“Hide nothing, for time which sees all and hears all, exposes all.” – Sophocles.

“Rhetoric, it seems, is a producer for persuasion of belief, not for instruction in the matter of right and wrong.” - Plato

“On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‘is it safe?’ Expedience asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Then Vanity come along and asks the question, ‘Is it popular?’ But Conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’”  -Martin Luther King Jr.

“Eloquence is the nature of art and cannot be learned in schools, but rhetoric is the creature of art which he who feels least will most excel in.” – Charles Caleb Colton

Now, forgiveness never comes easy for any of us. But if a greater part of the civilized world will never forgive Vladimir Putin for authorising the Russian invasion of Ukraine, political expediency alone will ensure an enduring pragmatism, whatever rhetoric it delivers to its peoples.

Much the same, I daresay, can be said of human nature as it affects all our lives on a daily basis.

NO HIDING PLACE

No safe place to hide away,
give us time and space enough to see
our way through
the damn maze of mixed feelings,
under the digital
watch of a world far less inclined
to forgive than to live
and let live, no matter what’s true or fake,
only make or break

We think the very deceptions
we weave will see us easily and safely
through the maze,
our being architects of its every bend,
so unlikely to fall foul
of such untruths and half-truths
required to negotiate
every twist and turn, emerge a clear winner
in the politics of power

Power, though, over others,
for all its fine trappings, may yet prove
as vulnerable
to the very worst flaws in human nature
exploited on its way
with more than a little help from friends
of like minds,
convinced, by now they could do even better
than their mentor

Every heart has its heroes,
deliverers from such evils as the world
creates or promotes;
for every such hero, though, its antonyms
giving expression
to an innate, ever-nagging vanity,
feeding on an inability
to see a potential in humanity to resist persuasion
under coercion...

Our enemies, though primed
in the art of faux reason and persuasion
risk exposure,
by majority life and art forces deploring
any act that’s at best,
only human, at worst abandoning
the truer landscape
of any personal space where a free mind-body-spirit
defies corrosion of it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022

Autobiography of a Master Builder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

In the history of humankind, everyone has a conscience or at least an awareness of something for which they deserve to feel a sense of regret, even guilt; whether or not we take much if any notice, of course, is something else altogether. Anyone who chooses to ignore matters of conscience - or block them out, as the case may be -  may well mean they will carry on regardless, even 're-offend'.

We can never quite be rid of any form of self-awareness (and alter ego), whether it be for better or worse; such, perhaps, are the ghost selves that haunt us, manifestations of all we see as mistakes we have made or whatever ...?

History and personal history all have their ghosts; we need to acknowledge these, if only to enlist their aid to prevent either repeating itself, except in a good way, for we are all born into innocence and goodness although fortunate, indeed, is he or she who resists any temptation to stray in an opposite direction, for whatever reason, as we tackle the ups and downs of life on an everyday basis.

We can, all of us, but do our best not to stray, and if we cannot forgive ourselves for such times as we do, we can at least allow our ghosts to remind us not to do so again; in a sense, they are both ego and  alter ego, invariably vying for our attention, not least with the rhetoric of persuasion.  
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A  MASTER BUILDER

You’ll find me in no history book,

yet I haunt its pages

among other lively ghosts

left pulling any strings

available in their assured capacity

as a role model figure

of authority, the least likely

to be challenged but by the politics

of ambition and its semantics

I am rarely seen compensating

for any damage done

given that my  preferred brief

has nearly always been

to take the path of least resistance

for just as long as I can

until the next player, poised

to take me over lock, stock and barrel,

ceases to scheme, gets real

I play mind games with humanity

in a contemporaneity

hell bent on putting its house

in order to specifications

as put forward by one of our own,

encouraged and backed

by various related personae

suggesting he or she has to be the best,

for the Here-and-Now at least

I am that bitter-sweet rhetoric of ego
behind every socio-political hero

Copyright R.N. Taber 2020

Civilian Casualties Sidelined OR Whose War Is It...?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

We read and hear much on this or that political platform about Global Warming and the global economic downturn etc.

Considering various conflicts across the world, whatever happened to the Global Conscience?

CIVILIAN CASUALTIES SIDELINED or WHOSE WAR IS IT...?

People left homeless,
losing limbs,
civilian death toll rising,
NATO focusing
on its troop numbers

Children left orphans,
losing limbs,
dying before their time,
NATO playing
the usual blame game

Families left weeping,
losing heart,
making ends meet
as best they can,
fighting a losing battle

Media left observing
lost limbs,
civilian death toll rising,
NATO focusing
on its troop numbers

World left wondering,
why?

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. NH. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]