<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Select poems from the work of journalist, analyst and digital street philosopher Caitlin Johnstone. </p><p><br></p><p>Show Me An Old Rebel</p><p><br></p><p>Do not show me a young rebel, </p><p>whose eyes are bright</p><p>and whose tail is bushy.</p><p><br></p><p>Young rebels are fine and good, </p><p>but they are merely doing</p><p>what the young are meant to do.</p><p><br></p><p>Show me an old rebel.</p><p>One who keeps punching</p><p>when his hands are arthritic, </p><p>when her hair is white, </p><p>when his friends are all dead, </p><p>when her knees are shot, </p><p>when it hurts him to pee, </p><p>when her shoulders are so bad</p><p>that it would be much easier to punch down</p><p>than to punch up.</p><p><br></p><p>Show me an old rebel</p><p>who keeps standing up after being knocked down</p><p>over and over again, </p><p>year after year, </p><p>decade after decade, </p><p>who after the thousandth blow</p><p>merely spits out a tooth</p><p>and says "Son, you have no idea what you're dealing with, </p><p>do you?"</p><p><br></p><p>Are you a young rebel?</p><p>Are you Sticking It to The Man?</p><p>Are you upsetting the gray brainiacs</p><p>and knocking over their word castles?</p><p><br></p><p>That is fine.</p><p>Youth will youth.</p><p><br></p><p>But show me a young rebel</p><p>who became an old rebel, </p><p>who stuck with it through the setbacks</p><p>and the beatings and betrayals, </p><p>who watched the hippies become yuppies</p><p>and the protesters become pundits</p><p>and still kept a fire lit</p><p>amid the monsoons of infiltration</p><p>and the hurricanes of heartbreak.</p><p>Who will close their tired eyes for a final time</p><p>without ever once having cast them to the ground</p><p>or peered up in imploring subordination.</p><p><br></p><p>That, my friends, </p><p>that is a true spirit.</p><p><br></p><p>If you are still a fiery rebel</p><p>even as everything is ripped away from you, </p><p>I will be humbled and awed by you, </p><p>because I will know that you will carry that with you to the grave.</p><p>And I will know that whatever you find on the other side</p><p>will be met</p><p>with that same defiant glare.</p><p><br></p><p>And I will sing your song when you are gone.</p>