I was a rebellious teenager, as were millions of others. My interests during this time largely were heavy metal music and girls. Sounds pretty normal, right? When I was 14 I found a band named Queensryche. Many people know them for the song “Silent Lucidity,” if they know them at all. I liked them before that song hit the charts. The album I fell in love with was titled, “Operation: Mindcrime.” This was a concept album. It told the story of a man who was being chased by the police for killing a priest. The timeline was completely set in a flashback. This would be the soundtrack that echoed in the background of my life.
As the years passed by, I began to question society and the lies we are told. These are some of the lyrics from the first song, “Revolution Calling.”
“For a price I'd do about anything
Except pull the trigger
For that I'd need a pretty good cause
Then I heard of Dr. X
The man with the cure
Just watch the television
Yeah, you'll see there's something going on
Got no love for politicians
Or that crazy scene in D.C.
It's just a power mad town
But the time is ripe for changes
There's a growing feeling
That taking a chance on a new kind of vision is due
I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I've seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?
Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Revolution calling you
(There's a) Revolution calling
Revolution calling
Gotta make a change
Gotta push, gotta push it on through”
I will grant you that not every word fits my political opinions of today but just look at some of those lyrics. Could Dr. X be Dr. PAUL. To top it all off, it was the Ron Paul revolution. I continued to evolve many years later and echoes of this song still fill my activism as I work tirelessly for Adam Kokesh
“I used to think
That only America's way, way was right
But now the holy dollar rules everybody's lives
Gotta make a million doesn't matter who dies”
Teaching peace and opposing war are some of the most important things I do, but the death and destruction our government causes knows no end. Partnering with corporations they market poison as food and spill death in vaccines. Our pharmaceutical companies no longer cure disease they get our populace addicted to their “treatments.”
“I used to trust the media
To tell me the truth, tell us the truth
But now I've seen the payoffs
Everywhere I look
Who do you trust when everyone's a crook?”
I am the press secretary for Adam’s campaign. It is my job to contact the media all over the world. Just this week I have contacted The New York Tmes, Russian Television, and The Guardian, just to name a few. When the leading candidate for the third largest party in the country was arrested less than an hour after announcing his official bid for the presidency, the silence from the main stream media was deafening.
This was just the beginning of the album. This album certainly is not a Voluntaryist dreamland. No it is about a crime and the tragic story of one perspective. The main character was a drug addict and became an assassin. Still contained in the words belted out was my rebellion.
Here are a few interesting lyrics from the song “Speak.” These certainly echo in my head.
“Seven years of power
The corporation claw
The rich control the government, the media the law
To make some kind of difference
Then everyone must know
Eradicate the fascists, revolution will grow
The system we learn says we're equal under law
But the streets are reality, the weak and poor will fall
Let's tip the power balance and tear down their crown
Educate the masses,”
Again the final lyric goes a little to far, “We'll burn the White House down,” when you are talking about peacefully dissolving the federal government. We will not burn it down. It is more appropriate to make it a museum to remember the time before we were free.
This entire album still replays itself in my mind. Sure the outright rebellion of my youth has transformed into, what I hope is, thoughtful and impactful activism. To this day I still like the radicals in history. I find inspiration from, Geronimo, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Rothbard. As a teenager though it was this album that pushed me to question authority.
another set of Lyrics-
"Religion and sex are powerplays
Manipulate the people for the money they pay
Selling skin, selling God
The numbers look the same on their credit cards
Politicians say no to drugs
While we pay for wars in South America
Fighting fire with empty words
While the banks get fat
And the poor stay poor
And the rich get rich
And the cops get paid
To look away
As the one percent rules America
Spreading the disease
Everybody needs
But no one wants to see
The way society
Keeps spreading the disease”
This was the late1980s and this band's lyrics are still relevant. Maybe the wars are in the Middle East and not South America, but the point still stands.
My activism really is mainly in the action of conversation. I write and I talk. The ideas of self ownership and the localization of government are no longer radical. It is strange for me to get my head around the fact that I now am helping to actually make the changes I dreamed about. So long ago, I saw a problem in society and in our government and now I am part of a campaign that is proposing real solutions that will impact the lives of people.
It has been my desire to leave this world better than I received it. For a while I felt that I would fail in this goal. Over the past year I have seen proof that my dreams of a stateless society where individuals voluntarily come together and work from a loving heart, is not only possible, but is manifesting all around me. The Revolution certainly was calling, but Evolution answered. Humanity is climbing out of its slumber and regaining its compassion. I am just one man, an idealist, a dreamer. I have found out I am not alone. The people like me are all over the world, and we are coming together to free mankind with Peace.