Persistent Barbarism Where does it all end? When we're able to proclaim an undeniable winner? Is this really a game? I frequently ask myself these very questions, and more. Like, why can't we just get along? Why must the bloodshed in Palestine continue? Is it insulting to Jews to refer to the area south of Lebanon as Palestine, will I get death threats for failing to respect the sovereignty of the state of Israel? A Jewish minister in San Francisco makes the comment that his people should pursue peace, and he is called a betrayer of his people and his life is threatened. Danny Glover, a movie star, tours the country trying to promote peace, and he is called un-American for it. Something more frightening to me than the notion of war, is that notion that we really are barbarians imitating civilized people. How far below the surface of our presumed civilization does this barbarism exist? Can we tell from the outside? Or must we carry on never suspecting when the beast will rise up and deny us our chance at being human. History and sociology tells us that not more than 15% of the human population has ever participated in the shaping of history. Which means the other 85% of us are really just herd beasts. We are the slaughtered, the enslaved, the oppressed, and usually the cannon fodder for the active 15%. Is this what humanity is? Is the entirety of human history to be defined by less than 15% of us? We sit at a point in history where no human being on the planet need suffer for anything. Yet, like children fighting over the favored toy, we are incapable of solving our social issues and healing our planet. Was this the gift of Pandora when she opened the box and released all the ills into the world? Have we forgotten that what was left at the bottom of the box was hope, or have most of us never even heard the myth of Pandora's box? Did we just go to school so some of us could learn to be better button pushers, while others of us go to school to learn how to design more elaborate buttons? Do we live in a world that has been kept purposefully divided unto itself? It's easy to see when you look at the news that conflict is profitable. So then, is the entire future of humanity been compromised just for profit? The chaos philosophy says that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. How strong will we be when our world is a barren wasteland, and us a dusty memory? Will the mutants that stumble through the rumble be the crowning glory of the human race, or a pitiful reminder of our vanity? Like mindless animals we compete for some of the stupidest things imaginable. Power, fame, and sometimes just simply social recognition. How sad. 12,000 years of history has taught us nothing but better ways to kill each other. Why are we fooling ourselves calling ourselves an evolved species if this is the best we can do? Were we supposed to be anything more? Perhaps Darwin was right and we are nothing but clever monkeys. Throughout history philosophers and spiritual men who sought to divine our purpose in reality, have tried to impart to the ignorant 85% of us the existence of something more within us. They have written stories to engage us, doctrines to guide us, and have exercised hope that we would aspire to something greater than a mindless pack of animals fighting over a bone. And yet here we are, still fighting for the bone. Using the doctrines they gave us instead as validation for our need to be animals. What is it we're missing? Have we been hypnotized by all the shiny little baubles, mesmerized into mindlessness? We walk around everyday pretending to be civilized, because we've cultured our struggle for survival. Thus, to cut the next guy off in traffic so you can arrive at work on time becomes the proverbial morning scuffle to see who will drink from the river first. We lay claim to our stuff like a dog peeing on a tree. "Mine" we scream whenever any other person approaches our "stuff". We pursue our sexual partners with the same graces as a dog. We want the attractive mate because the attractive mate gives us social status. Although, sometime later after the conquest, we discard the prize, because for some weird reason that was unforeseeable when we stalked it from afar. It has a strange perspective that is contradictory to our imagined use of it. The amazingly chaotic condition of the human psychosis. What is the source of this tension that runs in between us? Perhaps we are not just simple animals after all. It would be much simpler if we did not suffer from this non-localized psychosis. But, indeed it is the culprit of our extended barbarism. We imagine, thus we are. Only problem there is we are not often what we imagine ourselves to be. Case in point, we imagine we are a circle, when we're really just a square. Can't get a square in a round hole, but then we can't see the hole is round. We think the hole is square and that there must be some very good reason why this isn't working. We attach all manner of illusionary interpretations to the reason why we personnally cannot get into the hole. Perhaps the path to overcoming this incidental barbarism, is by learning to analyze the physical proof of our actions in relation to our imagined intent. This simply means being totally honest with ourselves. Let's take the current Sept. 11 illusion for example. Are we to be so easily decieved? From the observational perspective of the "establishment", it appears that American innocence was attacked without provocation. The extreme generosity of the American people was hienously violated, and we were attacked by evil men who just wanted to hurt us. Evil men who are jealous of our freedoms and our wealth. How noble of us to take up the crusade to remove these evil men from our midst. How brave of us to step out and remove the blight of terrorism from the world. So, here we are the one dominant superpower left in the world. We alone can field a military budget that is at lest three times larger than the next sixteen countries' in succession below us. What do we do with that power? We attack one of the poorest countries on the planet. Incidentally, a poor country we happen to have used to our purposes just a few short years ago. Remember the word colonialism? That word is still very much in use today. America, land of the free, home of the brave, is the world's premier colonialist power today. Our foreign policy frequently uses and abuses what we consider lesser people (poorer), then after ravaging them we cast them aside. Our corporate foreign policy is frequently used to force debt on smaller country's, and despite our boast of supporting democracy abroad; we have destroyed several in the past three decades. Hypocrisy. While at home we get a mainstream media that tells us we are saving the world, and they should be grateful. Abroad, we are the swaggering conqueror laying waste to foreign democracies, and destroying the rights of common people. Barbarism comes into play when we, as Americans, fail to hold our government accountable for a foreign policy that turns us into targets. When we fail to look deeper into a situation and realize we are harboring criminals and thieves within our government. And that it is the actions of these barbarians that lead us all down a path of darkness. We have been duped into supporting evil, because we as individuals have not made an assessment of the values of our country in relation to ourselves. We do not even support the U.S. constitution, how so can we then call ourselves American. According to our constitution, it is un-American to enact racism towards another person. Based on that notion, it is un-American to create a system of economic segregation, with the intent of restricting the economic growth of a select group of individuals. It is un-American to beat, abuse, or deny a woman equal rights with a man. Which means it is un-American to deny her the right to choose what she does with her body. If we are to promote democracy abroad, then it is un-American to train and support military despots. America as a nation is a travesty of conflicting expression. More and more we see not only our foreign, but also our domestic policy being bent to the will of wealthy privateers. The current episode with the Enron Corporation will be a good example, as we watch them all walk away, despite our great efforts at law enforcement. We must learn to be ever vigilant within ourselves. Barbarism is a mental dis-ease born of fear and the frailty of the human ego. Barbarism is in essence a fear of what we used to be, based on a lack of knowledge of what we are to become. We can get along; most of us want to, at least 85% of us. The problem, especially in America, is that we have trusted the 15% because they sound like they know what they're talking about. Every time I mention the corruption of the Bush family and their participation in helping Adolf Hitler to power to a WWII vet, he refuses to think this could be possible. He refuses to accept the fact that large American companies made huge profits over the death of his buddies and friends. The 85% of Americans need to start reading history. And we must learn to never ever trust a man in power. Men of power must be diligently watched to prevent their abuse of power. Powerful men cannot be the judges of other powerful men, powerful men will not be removed from power by other powerful men, they must be removed from power by us. We the people, empower our leaders, and only we must be responsible for removeing the power we give them. It is our responsibility as the body politic. The abuse of power is barbarism. The barbarism of the man in power leads us all down the same path of barbarism. It is un-American for us, the 85%, to not be directly involved
in the
direction of our government and Our foreign policy. It is un-American
for
any of us to illiterate or dumb, when we live in the most
technologically
advanced nation on the earth. It is dishonorable and cowardly of
us to bomb innocent people as an act of revenge for an act of terrorism
born in the midst of our own corrupt barbarism. The villains, who would
call themselves our dedicated protectors, are in the position to be our
worst violators. The Sleepers must awaken. The herd must begin to think
for itself and make those thoughts known. If we are a Christian
country,
then we know the wages of sin are death, and that vengeance is the
Lord's.
We know that the more we fund the military industrial complex, the more
violence and death will occur as a result. Most of us have good moral
values.
Write your representatives in Washington and let them know we will not
be led into barbarism for profit. And if they don't listen, fire them.
Because, after all, everyone in Washington on the public payroll is
supposed
to be working for Us. |