According to the ancient myth, the twelfth and final labor imposed upon Hercules by Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns, was to bring back Cerberus, the three-headed cur with a snake’s tail, from the underworld.  Hercules believed that this task was imposed upon him because Eurystheus thought it was impossible to do.

In our modern times, we have a much more vicious three-headed beast: the Svengali media (or the elite media), the global financial system (Wall Street for short), and the rule of lawyers (Harvard’s and Yale’s law schools).

These institutions are virtually unassailable and, technically speaking, immortal — like Cerberus.  Attack one head of the vicious cur, and the other two will tear you to pieces.  Is it a hopeless dream to be free when these institutions have grown and grown in power and are now practically omnipotent?  Is submission to a corrupt society that they sustain all that is left?

And here is the worst possible conclusion: does it even matter?  Does anything matter?

I cannot go through life with the feeling that nothing I do has any consequence at all.  Therefore, I will not surrender to a cultural revolution that these three snapping, snarling power structures force upon the world that surrounds me.

If Hercules was able to drag the hideous beast up from the underworld, then so can we, but it will take a Herculean effort.

Change is always resisted.  There are minions of feckless careerists who will always agree with the beast, no matter what it is.  (Just watch CNN or Fox News, and you will see fecklessness in action.)  Humanity is greater, though, than what the left head of Cerberus, the media, can spew at the world.  Nevertheless, the cur is so arrogant that it believes that it can make 2 + 2 = 5 simply by saying “2 + 2 = 5” over and over again.  The cur believes that it can convince mortals that the oceans are filled with red wine simply by saying “the oceans are filled with red wine” over and over again.  We humans are not as stupid as the beast believes.

Wall Street, the right head of Cerberus, believes that everyone can be bought off.  Once we lowlife humans realize that the global financial system is an omnipotent source of power in the world, we will give in and believe in nothing except our personal relationship with our wallets.  Humanity is greater than this.

Then there is Harvard and Yale Law School, the central head of Cerberus, which snarls at any uppity human who dares to act out or voice heresy and not submit to the rule of lawyers.  They threaten to build millions more prison cells for these hapless humans.  (There are already almost two million souls incarcerated in the pit.  Why not five million, or ten million?  The left head of Cerberus will never call it what it is: a gulag.)

All these institutions are out of control and have perverted everything in life.  It is not as the Irish poet says.  It is not things fall apart.  It is things get out of control.

The politically empowered beast is not invincible, but we must bide our time, make our plans, and strike at the right moment — just as Hercules did in the ancient myth.

Image via Picryl.