These are your candidates.
Since the beginning of human time we have been on a path of self-destruction. As we evolve, we believe to be making constructive progress in this respect, if allowing for increasingly frightening examples of quite the opposite. Instead of completely admitting our own illness, however, the standard seems to be to point to the other: Ahmadinejad, Bush, Cheney, FOX News, or some lone nut inspired by their rhetoric.
Forget that the one who pulls a trigger, any trigger, is responding in the same reactive way, succumbing to the same illness. It is easier to construct as reasonable that violence can stop violence.
It is a truly sick society that accepts as tenable the killing of innocent children in a war that it is not able to adequately define. We do not love our children if we can turn our backs on the children of others. Rather, we make a mockery of the concept of love and, in turn, ourselves and our children.
That I would have to state that I do not justify the violence of lone nuts, or terrorists, or whomever, after the previous paragraph is an indication of just how sick a species we are.
That we accept out of hand that the so-called Green Party oppositional candidate in Iran is the victim of a corrupt election is an indication of just how delusional we are; that is, willing to accept who we are told is the bad guy and to oppose him out of hand. All of the candidates in that election were, "we know", sanctioned exclusively by the same backward demagogue, and the men who would be president have held fast to the sole notion (the right to atomic energy) that unites the last two American administrations - and by extension, the last three (or eight) - in what they deem as acceptable vis-à-vis the Iranians domestic policy.
And we know - thanks in part to the recent and relatively eloquent words on the matter from the head of the latest American administration - that the American saber-rattling, unlike the Iranian's, has resulted in the violent overthrow of democracy in countries other than our own. Thanks to the eloquent words, we can overlook the children in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and who knows where else - who die as I write; children who die because we humans accept the concept of necessary war.
We accept war because we are afraid not to. On the surface because we are told to be afraid, and therefore are. This is what we call our ability to reason. But below this surface we accept it because we don't know what it would mean not to accept it. We fear unknown unknowns, if I may be so bold as to apply the wisdom of one of the ones we mock (because we are oh-so superior, albeit afraid of his kind, as well).
And we accept by extension that weapons that kill (on a scale more massive than anything our forebears could have imagined) are manufactured for profit (yet at our financial expense). That is, we accept it if it is administered by our leader and not the other one.
But the other ones. The other threats are so much greater than...
That we can accept that the lone nut is sicker than we are is an indication of just how sick we are. I don't expect us to realize it any time soon.
I have a new slogan for the armed forces of the world: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Who needs honor and pride when you've got acceptance and denial.
Since the beginning of human time we have been on a path of self-destruction. As we evolve, we believe to be making constructive progress in this respect, if allowing for increasingly frightening examples of quite the opposite. Instead of completely admitting our own illness, however, the standard seems to be to point to the other: Ahmadinejad, Bush, Cheney, FOX News, or some lone nut inspired by their rhetoric.Forget that the one who pulls a trigger, any trigger, is responding in the same reactive way, succumbing to the same illness. It is easier to construct as reasonable that violence can stop violence.
It is a truly sick society that accepts as tenable the killing of innocent children in a war that it is not able to adequately define. We do not love our children if we can turn our backs on the children of others. Rather, we make a mockery of the concept of love and, in turn, ourselves and our children.
That I would have to state that I do not justify the violence of lone nuts, or terrorists, or whomever, after the previous paragraph is an indication of just how sick a species we are.
That we accept out of hand that the so-called Green Party oppositional candidate in Iran is the victim of a corrupt election is an indication of just how delusional we are; that is, willing to accept who we are told is the bad guy and to oppose him out of hand. All of the candidates in that election were, "we know", sanctioned exclusively by the same backward demagogue, and the men who would be president have held fast to the sole notion (the right to atomic energy) that unites the last two American administrations - and by extension, the last three (or eight) - in what they deem as acceptable vis-à-vis the Iranians domestic policy.
And we know - thanks in part to the recent and relatively eloquent words on the matter from the head of the latest American administration - that the American saber-rattling, unlike the Iranian's, has resulted in the violent overthrow of democracy in countries other than our own. Thanks to the eloquent words, we can overlook the children in Afghanistan and Pakistan - and who knows where else - who die as I write; children who die because we humans accept the concept of necessary war.
We accept war because we are afraid not to. On the surface because we are told to be afraid, and therefore are. This is what we call our ability to reason. But below this surface we accept it because we don't know what it would mean not to accept it. We fear unknown unknowns, if I may be so bold as to apply the wisdom of one of the ones we mock (because we are oh-so superior, albeit afraid of his kind, as well).
And we accept by extension that weapons that kill (on a scale more massive than anything our forebears could have imagined) are manufactured for profit (yet at our financial expense). That is, we accept it if it is administered by our leader and not the other one.
But the other ones. The other threats are so much greater than...
That we can accept that the lone nut is sicker than we are is an indication of just how sick we are. I don't expect us to realize it any time soon.
I have a new slogan for the armed forces of the world: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Who needs honor and pride when you've got acceptance and denial.
