April 14, 2005 | Planet Waves A few days ago I asked for comments on the political climate in the United States. I've received quite a few, and I'm going to begin with Greg, whose band is The Divided, http://thedivided.com/ I'll post more through the end of the week and the weekend. If you don't see your comment by Monday night, please send me a prompt -- it may have just sorted out into an odd place in my somewhat interestingly designed inbox. Thank you Greg. "I don't know much about the political climate as I've been spending as much time as possible in the woods, but I can feel it in the ground, the trees, the air in and out of the city: there's a shitload of fear here in the states and most people are too drugged on TV to feel any of it consciously, muscular armor literally squeezing consciousness out of their bodies. The main thing my intuition seems to be telling me is that struggling to see the world as alive and aware of us without falling back on the habitual patterns of perception that brainwash us to think it's a dead, blind machine is the name of the game right now. She's awake and it's damn hard to hear her if you're watching too much TV or having your ears numbed by the unceasing growl, pound, screech, hiss, rumble of the cities. It's even hard to hear her if you go to the woods just to maintain your hallucinatory reality by making inane small talk with your buddies. Just being in the woods is not enough. Il faut écouter bien!" -- greg