Now, I want to tell you a few things.

The first thing is that before the internet, bookstores and libraries — were, essentially, the internet for the common person. You may have had cafés and universities, too… but those universities had libraries… bookstores. And if you were at a uni — and you wanted an adventure in knowledge… you -went to the bookstore-. And believe me, if it was near a great college? You -=had that adventure=- and came home filled with unthinkable novelty, wonder, and romance.

Bookstores. Libraries. The only way to ‘use’ them as more than record storage and retrieval areas was to carefully and covertly -engage their inhabitants and masters-. And, of course, their patrons. To -use the internet- you had to -approach people in person-.

Think about this.

Now, there were catalogs, but they didn’t say much. Same with music. No internet. No listening stations. Only stores, and radio.

But here’s the really amazing thing. In the 1980’s, television became too toxic to proceed to watch. Literally. I was there. Advertising was, primarily, the cause. But back then, before around that time, the Republicans had not yet gutted the arts and education funding in our government. And so we had Public Television and Radio, all the time. Without commercials. Mr. Rogers. Sesame Street. Endless educational shows put on basically by private citizens like Bob Ross who taught not just painting… but -seeing- and -feeling-. The Electric Company.

We had intelligent, humane television, free, everywhere. Because it was simply funded. Then, something happened. A lot of things, but one in particular. Republicans gutted the budgets associated with art and education. And here was the result: Ads on NPR. For car companies. The same people who were poisoning the environment, minds, and bodies of -every organism on earth- 24/7. So, the assassins were now funding the teachers. And using them to convert new fodder. From there? NPR went haywire. For a single reason: they could only hire people who agreed.

And that was 30 years ago.

We used to have education. We used to have -artists teaching us all the time- in public and on television. We had -commercial-free educational TV-.

And you used to meet people in bookstores and libraries who so rocked your world that, for all intents and purposes? They were angels. Angels of a heaven lost in the inchoate pulse of the heartbeat of our hypno-pompous masters and their lich-like structures of power, identity, coercion, deprivation… and hate.

Now here’s the punch: Dungeons and Dragons was born in the United States for the -exact same reason that Lord of the Rings- is wildly, hopelessly popular (and spawned Harry, directly) here. These are popular because our -own children and people have been directly engaged in the metaphoric situations and stories they portray — here in our own country for many years and generations now-. The country that masquerades as the birthplace of democracy and the ‘Home of the Brave’ is, actually… a once paradisiacal place that was overrun and ruined by faceless, nameless evil in organized, lethal expressions that precisely match the paradigms that we find in High Fantasy and Dungeoneering stories.

We love vampire movies and Zombie apocalypses for a simple reason: We are living this. And have been for 50 years. We, the American people, know the location of Mordor. It is in DC. And I am here to tell you something you may not believe but you will see it.

The Ring Bearer is moving. Now. Know his mark. And the Mark of the Fellowship. For it is in the shape and sound of words like these. And he is alive and questing in the heart of every man, woman and child of this once great nation. You will see him in your time.

He is tiny. Almost alone. And invisible … and he is on the way … to the Black Mountain. He is amongst you. And he is alone except for brave companions far away. The struggle is afoot. And this is why our government is -girding its loins against its own people, fiercely, with complete contempt of law and humanity, openly, purposefully-.

Believe me. The battle is well-underway. Now. Right now.

The quest is afoot. The stories are alive in us. We will see the Nazgul Fall. We -will- shatter the dark tower. Forever.