The Emperor is Naked, and he also has no Balls: Unlearning Fear and Respect

OR

Forgive me, O bleeding piece of earth, that I am so meek and gentle with these butchers

By Kevin Annett

Work for and Trust the Powerful Few; What’s good for them is good for you.

- from the play Marat/Sade by Peter Weiss

Nothing has evoked such a horrified response in recent weeks than my satirical and irreverent attacks in print and over the airwaves on members of the “royal family”, the Pope, and other assorted parental figures. In fact, more than three times the number of people have chastised me for these slings against the powerful than have responded to the news that native people and our own supporters have been murdered.

One person even told me that I am possessed by an evil demon for mocking the authorities the way I do.

It`s true that I feel kind of delightfully devilish and cocky these days. But be that as it may, these criticisms remind me that what gets people most upset is not the brutality of the powerful but the temerity of challenging those rulers personally.

Erstwhile radicals and those who you’d think would know better have chastised me with visceral outrage for “harming my cause” by stooping to call the mighty names or referring to the mating habits of young royal newlyweds.

If I can follow the reasoning of my critics – assuming, of course, that this is about reason – if I keep a respectful tongue and employ rational discourse and humble appeals, my “cause” will gain a lot more mileage and my own personal credibility will be higher. Result: the system will respond and justice will be won.

This is better known as the logic of a battered child.

George Bernard Shaw wrote that an oppressor has no defence against being mocked, and every child beating parent knows it`s true. The abuser fears ridicule and exposure, for these pull back the mask of legitimacy shrouding his blows. We are to cower from the next beating from our abuser, or respectfully ask him for leniency: not laugh at him. For jeering at a bully disarms him, and threatens to collapse the fragile co-dependency that embraces the victims too, who then might lose the predictable security of victimhood.

Such freedom – to live life according to one`s own power and definition - is more terrifying to an abused child than the pain and fear of abuse, and so he shrinks away from such a risk. A hard lesson, but we all learn this, and internalize it, very young.

I hear the same irrational terror of the victim threatened with freedom in the words of my critics who lecture me that calling the rulers nasty names will only get me in deep trouble, and harm all my other efforts. Our childhood conditioning remains that strong.

Nobody can rule guiltlessly, said Blaise Pascal; and the more the elites rule through lies, violence, arbitrary imposition, and crime, the less respect and allegiance they deserve. Besides, just learn from history: Institutions change only by being threatened with force - something even Mahatma Gandhi admitted. And the greatest force in the world is the capacity of the ruled to withdraw their allegiance by shouting loudly and clearly that, yes indeed, the Emperor is quite naked - and lacking in balls.

That`s why I publicly mock the rich and powerful. I also find it exceedingly fun to do so.

Soon after I wrote a piece calling Canadian government hack and genocide-denier John Milloy a big, fat idiot, I heard that the guy went absolutely ballistic and threatened to fire anybody on his staff who circulated my article. I love it when they lose their cool and squirm like that.

But, fundamentally, my mocking these bozos is a practical way for me to help all of us lose our mental and spiritual dependency on the rulers, and on being ruled.

Have you ever noticed, in a political meeting, a public debate or a healing circle, that when the time comes to not just talk about a problem but actually do something, everyone tends to freeze up, and then look around impotently for somebody else to decide for them what is to be done?

Everyone single one of us, without exception, has been raised to think and conduct life like that: in a state of abject dependency on some external authority figure. That’s why child abuse is not just endemic, but a structural requirement of our society, and every culture based on the hierarchical dominance of an elite. We lose that dependency rarely, and only after years of struggle, and even then never completely: for no class society will ever allow its ruled majority to acquire self-awareness and sovereignty.

So I’m understanding of the fear in my critics’ letters, imploring me to go easy on the Pope, the government, Prince Willy and his new bride, and all the other moral midgets who rob us while smiling so beatifically. Understanding, yes, but not tolerant.

Call me demon possessed, if you like, which is curiously apt, since Satan was of course history’s first untamed rebel – and his decision to rule himself rather than dwell under the tutelage of a divine master did win him his own kingdom.

And isn’t that the whole point?

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See the evidence of Genocide in Canada at www.hiddennolonger.com and on the website of The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State at www.itccs.org .

Watch Kevin's award-winning documentary film UNREPENTANT on his website www.hiddenfromhistory.org

"True religion undefiled is this: To make restitution of the earth which has been taken and held from the common people by the power of Conquests, and so set the oppressed free by placing all land in common." - Gerrard Winstanley, 1650

"We will bring to light the hidden works of darkness and drive falsity to the bottomless pit. For all doctrines founded in fraud or nursed by fear shall be confounded by Truth."
- Kevin's ancestor Peter Annett, writing in The Free Inquirer, October 17, 1761, just before being imprisoned by the English crown for "blasphemous libel"

"I gave Kevin Annett his Indian name, Eagle Strong Voice, in 2004 when I adopted him into our Anishinabe Nation. He carries that name proudly because he is doing the job he was sent to do, to tell his people of their wrongs. He speaks strongly and with truth. He speaks for our stolen and murdered children. I ask everyone to listen to him and welcome him."
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Elder, Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg, Manitoba