Monkey See? Monkey Do!!

UPDATE 28 Jul 2014: I have not listened to talk radio or listened to Glenn Beck in years, especially not since Obama got in the White House. Glenn just got too weird for me.  There are a few blogs I like to follow and a few friends I pay attention to on Facebook, who can stand the gut-wrenching process of keeping their ear to the ground and reporting back to me the sound of America dying.

When I was a kid, I had the chance to see my Dad’s office at work once or twice. What stuck in my mind was that everything was different between his desk at home and his desk at work, except for one thing. On both desks, he had a monkey statue. You know the one: it has three monkeys sitting in a row. The first is covering its eyes, the next has its hands over its mouth, and the last one is covering its ears. When I asked him what the statue meant, Dad said it represented that one should “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.” This puzzled me, and though I really didn’t understand why such a statue would be so significant to my Dad, I knew it was because when I made him another set of Three Wise Monkeys statues in ceramics class, he kept them… even when we moved.

I was thinking about the political landscape the other day… especially all the heat that conservative TV and radio commentators are receiving. Suddenly, I was struck by the memory of my father’s Three Wise Monkeys. How very weird that the same thing is happening in the world of political commentary. Rush Limbaugh, considered by many to be the father of the Talk Radio movement, started to go deaf a few years ago. Now he has a cochlear implant. He’s like the Hear-No-Evil Monkey. He’s gone deaf, yet he hears. Glenn Beck recently announced that he is going blind. Yet, while going blind, he sees what’s coming and has been wearing his life out, putting everything on the line, to try and warn the rest of us to be prepared. Glenn Beck is like the See-No-Evil Monkey.

My thoughts turned to the remaining monkey. I reviewed what I knew about other conservative commentator personalities, but none of them fit the bill. We all know they make their living off of TALK. So, I asked myself, “Who is it that speaks no evil, and yet must speak? Who is it, like Rush and Glenn, that needs a healer to do what they were meant to do?” The monkey that sees and hears what’s going on and remains mute? Why, it’s US! It’s us and the politicians we elect! Politicians of faith, hope and charity are cornered, persecuted, vilified, and attacked. If there is anything I’ve learned from my own life… from the white-collar domestic violence to the hypothyroidism – all in the throat chakra… if you’ve lost your voice, healing = speaking out. If you’ve lost your voice, you only need to find it and use it again.

I’m reminded of the lyrics from one of my favorite songs by Tracy Chapman,
And remember the Tin Man
Found he had what he thought he lacked
Remember the Tin Man
Go find your heart and take it back

Wikipedia says that one of the few earthy possessions that Gandhi owned was a small Three Wise Monkeys statue. This was a peaceful man, yet this is a man who saw, who spoke, who heard, and who went out and did something! I am trying to be hopeful that it is not too late. I am trying to be hopeful that good American people will stop being so fearful to speak out. I am trying to be hopeful that they will realize that our domestic enemies already know who we are anyway, so give them enough evidence to convict!!! Without a warrant, they can tap our phones, monitor our emails, keep records of every website we visit, compile elaborate data sheets of our social networks… I stopped being afraid when I stopped being ashamed to be who I am. If we are to go down for all that is good and right about America, then we go down fighting for it, for I have not the stomach to live in any other kind of America! Is not the blood and sacrifice of our fellow countrymen, from the Revolution on down, worth the part that we must play in maintaining and defending the Constitution of the United States?

If I could have the dream of my heart, I would love to see my generation rise up and restore what has been so slowly and carefully stolen from us over the past 100+ years.

Monkey see? Monkey Do!
Monkey hear? Monkey Do!
Speak, Monkey, SPEAK!!!
Do, Monkey, DO!!!

“While goodness affords a people ultimate protection against evil, ignorance of their capabilities allows evil to impose itself upon them.”
– Henry M. Littlefield

 

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