Bitcoin Community Projects Communicate The Message Of Freedom

Projects like the Declaration of Monetary Independence are examples of how the bitcoin community can bring powerful messages to greater audiences.

Colin Crossman: 

Aspirational projects like the Declaration of Monetary Independence are designed to engender strong feelings — that’s part of their power. Much contemporary art was made about the American Independence movement, such as William Blake’s “America, A Prophecy,” and Philip Freneau in both “A Political Litany” and “American Liberty.” Such works help communicate the overall message of the movement to a broader audience, and often do a better job conveying the emotionality of the movement than the base layer argument.

We can see much artistic output coming from the broad Bitcoin community, with a great output of audio and visual works. For me, when I was exposed to early versions of the Declaration of Monetary Independence project, I was moved to write a couple of haiku. Upon hearing that they were looking for more of such work to assist with the project, I decided that this would be my contribution to it.

A few notes about the below. Each haiku is intended to stand on its own, while also being a part of a larger story. One apparent departure from the norm, haiku generally evokes nature. Here, while I do evoke nature, I also include aspects of Bitcoin’s construction (SHA-256), and memes. To my mind, these are part of Bitcoin’s nature, and so in evoking these, I believe these remain true to the spirit of English language haiku.

Rick Poach: 

A little over a month ago, on a whim, I started posting Bitcoin/Econ themed limericks to a Telegram board of Denver Bitcoiners. The limericks were to form: humorous and unserious snippets of verse. I didn't think much about them other than the fact that they were coming to mind in the first place.

For nearly twelve years, I have written what I label as political satire (sarcasm) in verse. However, after what, in my opinion, was a false flag “insurrection,” whatever inspiration to write that I might have had remaining had dried up. Any attempt that I made at writing felt like, and was, a half-hearted effort: the absurdities were so apparent, what more could my sarcasm do to reveal it?
With the exception of a couple of half-hearted pieces, I had stopped writing for almost a year.

However, during that year, two interesting things happened to me. The first was that, in April, Colin Crossman introduced me to Bitcoin. I quickly went down the rabbit hole, as I almost immediately intuited that eventually, “Bitcoin fixes,” the absurdist forces which have seized power. The second was that, about a month ago, Mark Maraia read those throwaway limericks that I had posted, and asked me to write some verse in support of the Declaration of Monetary Independence.

The result of those two interesting things is the piece, “Hum.”

I would like to thank both Colin and Mark for their unknowing contribution to “Hum”. I would not have had the inspiration to write it without them.

If needed, here is a key to better understand “Hum”:

1. “Hum” is written in dactylic hexameter – also known as heroic meter. Most verse in English are in rhythms of two (iambic), however “Hum” is in rhythms of three (dactylic).
   
   
2. Over the years of writing satire in verse, I have built up a kind of mythos: recurring characters that symbolize important themes. Those thematic characters in “Hum” are:

• The Four Sisters – Historia, Liberty, Providence, and Columbia.
• Historia – The Goddess of the Pen, forever marking down the deeds of “those who fight for liberty and those who rule by fear.”
• Liberty – The Goddess of the Song of Freedom which can always be heard, even if in the distance, in the darkest times
• Providence – The Goddess of the Storm, bringing just what is needed right when it is needed.
• Columbia – The Goddess of the Promise of Independence that is supposed to be America.
• Leviathan – The Hobbesian nightmare of an all pervasive state which must be surrendered to and which must be fed.
• Polaris – The single point of reference to navigate by in uncertain times: “this: each word from our ruling class is guaranteed a lie.”

This is a guest post by Rick Poach And Colin Crossman. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.