Introduction to my Slant on Life

OK, First, a little about me. I guess that for most of my life, I've been one of those people who seem to see relationships between areas that others either don't see, or fail to act on (for example, the relationship between the need to raise the minimum wage and the desire to get people off the "welfare rolls"). Also, I notice lessons that we seem to have failed to learn from history, and so are repeating. I started this blog to share thoughts that come to me at odd moments. Somehow, it feels as if these thoughts need to be expressed in some format. Now that I am retired, I have the freedom to persue these thoughts to wherever they might lead me and this is the format that I have selected to share thems. Here is one of them that has been bouncing around for quite a while that I would like to share.

LET GO OF FEAR, CHANGE THE WORLD

Let go of fear and change the world – that is the thought that came to me today in my meditation. I was letting my mind float around the idea of creating some kind of Magick to end the ever-growing struggle among those with differences, regardless of the type of difference. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sex, color, race, religion, intelligence, wealth – whatever it might be. It seems that more and more, those in positions of power throughout the world understand the natural progression of events. First, there is fear and panic. Once these are well established, hate soon follows. Then, as time goes on, if fears are not fanned, they will eventually die down, and the hate, although it is still there, will become quiescent. However, if those fears are cultivated, fertilized, and in every way, encouraged to grow to their maximum potential, they will eventually develop into the kind of blind rage that can be easily manipulated by those in power to achieve total domination over the subjects of that rage. We see this around us everyday. Iraq and Al-Quida fear America will destroy their centuries-old culture by forcing a democratic process on them. Americans fear terrorist attacks on their homeland (although the real cause of this conflict at the highest levels is probably more closely related to the control of oil production). Israel fears the loss of the only homeland they have had in the past thousand years. Palestinians fear that they will be placed under the control of the Israelis and will be forced to give up their own traditions. These fears have been transformed to hate by those who may be pursuing their own special interests.
This situation is perfectly mirrored in our current situation with the Middle East. In America, the fear of potential terrorist attacks is being fanned in order justify the government’s position that for our protection, some of the basic freedoms granted us under the Bill of Rights need to be set aside “for our own protection.” Americans are shown newsclips of terrorist leaders calling for death to all Americans infidels, and of kidnapped civilians blindfolded and even executed on camera. They are advised of various alleged terrorist attacks that have been thwarted by the actions of our government. And once the color alert system was put into place after 9/11, I don’t believe the terror alert has ever been lowered beyond red (extreme) or yellow (high). Editorial cartoons fill our papers displaying Middle Eastern leaders as imposing their way of life onto the American people.
On the other hand, although we not know what is being communicated to the citizens of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, and others, it is safe to assume that they are being shown newsclips of the treatment of prisoners by American soldiers in Iraqi prisons or of civilians killed and maimed in American attacks on suspected terrorist strongholds as evidence of an American intention to destroy their way of life. We have seen samples of editorial cartoons being circulated to their citizens showing American soldiers committing atrocities against helpless civilians. Each of the sects within the Muslim religion in Iraq preach a brand of hate against the others, due to their trying to impose the beliefs of their own sect on other groups of Muslims. Based on the fear thus cultivated among the Iraqis, their young men, often barely into their teens, are taking up arms or are engaging in suicide bombings to destroy the “American Infidel” or to subdue members of other sects that they perceive as trying to destroy their way of life.
And once the hate is established, it is fed and nourished through a continuous round of actions aimed at fanning the flames of fear. The fear thus engendered can and is then manipulated in a number of ways. First, the attention of the citizens of all involved countries is distracted from domestic issues to the perceived foreign threat. Problems with the economy, employment, education, the health care crisis, deterioration of the infrastructure, escalating national debt, violence in the streets, and poverty are either moved to the back burner, or are blamed on the enemy that has been defined by the fears that have been fanned. Secondly, the fear is used to convince the citizens of the need to give up their own safety in order to make their way of life more secure.
What many people do not seem to realize is that once these freedoms are lost, it will be very difficult to get them back. For example, we forget that the technology to target wiretaps and computer taps only to a specific group, such as “suspected terrorists”, can also be used to target any other group. The technology can be turned on Jews, Mexican, Christians, Muslims, any or all groups of recent immigrants, all American Indians, or even all residents of the city of Birmingham, Alabama. The Iraqi forget that the administration of their country can turn these same tactics on them if they are “turned in” as being secretly affiliated with another sect. They give up the rebuilding of their infrastructure and their freedom to walk the streets in order to free up the resources necessary to destroy the “enemy”, no matter who they are or where they may be.
So where do we go from here? I think that people worldwide need to first be aware of history. As far back as the Crusades, the Holy Roman
Empire created the myth that Middle Eastern Muslims were bent on looting and destroying and desecrating the city of Jerusalem and killing any Christians they found. They used that fear to instigate the great Crusades to protect the sanctity of the homeland of Jesus, and remove the “Infidel” that had occupied that land. From our perspective today, we know that the primary intent of the Empire was to return the wealth of the city of Jerusalem, and most especially, the treasures of the temple of Solomon to the Church of Rome.
Step forward a few hundred years and look at the Inquisition. At this period of time, as in the Crusades, the government and the Church were virtually interchangeable in continental Europe. Again, the Church feared a diminution of their power and authority by failing to punish those who refused to accept the Church/government’s authority over them. They found a convenient scapegoat in the Pagan wise women and sages. They created a fable of evil spells cast by these “witches” against those were “true believers”. The fear of those “True Believers” was fanned to target any individuals who refused to conform to the authority of the Church/government, and subjected anyone thus accused of being a “witch” to the Inquisition. Of course, few, if any, of those accused were able to satisfactorily prove their innocence. And, of course, it didn’t hurt that the wealth and properties of those found guilty reverted to the Church.
Step forward another few hundred years into Germany in the 1930’s – to a country whose rampant economic problems had pushed a huge majority of its citizens into abject poverty. It was time to find a new scapegoat. Suddenly the Jews, aided and abetted by other non-Aryan peoples, were accused of hoarding all the wealth, and causing the impoverishment of the German people. The fears of the general population, who were led to consider themselves as the Aryan race, against those who would push them deeper and deeper into the pit of most abject poverty were encouraged in every conceivable way. These fears were then formed into a hate that led to persecution and domination of those groups responsible for their impoverished state. Suddenly the Aryan race was transformed into a superior race whose domination was threatened by not only the Jews and Communists but also by citizens of other countries who were not members of this “super race”. All of these groups were portrayed as threats to the pre-ordained world domination of the Aryan people. Their attempt to establish domination over Europe, and, possibly, the rest of the world required the combined forces of several nations, most notably for our purposes, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Of course, once the Aryan “super race” was subjugated, it could almost have been predicted that the two strongest powers would begin to eye each other suspiciously. The ink on the signatures of the German surrender on May 8, 1945 had barely dried when tension began to grow between the two superpowers. They each recognized that the only real threat posed to each of them was by the other. Here in America, we were taught to fear the possibility of being overcome by Communists, and forced to give up our own democratic form of government. By the same token, citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic were taught that the intent of the west was to take away their right to be ruled “by the people”, and return them to the same Imperialism that they had suffered under the Tsars before the Bolshevik Revolution. By fanning the fear of domination by a foreign power, the authority of the ruling party was virtually guaranteed, since a simple accusation of involvement in the ideology of the other power was sufficient to dispose of any perceived threats to the status quo.
By 1950, the Communist witch-hunt was on in the United States, and the “Cold War” was in full bloom, and although no actual “battles” were fought, in either country a suspected link to the other could lead to anything from being ostracized, to imprisonment for an unspecified period, to execution. In both countries, the party in power needed a method to consolidate their power and continue their authority. Fear again proved to be a quick and easy method to ensure this desired outcome. This fear continued to be fanned for years. In the United States, we had bomb drills in schools just as we had fire drills. We had an array of civilians who voluntarily watched our skies, reporting every plane that they saw to a central location to ensure that no foreign planes carrying bombs could subject us to a surprise attack. During this time, the Iron Curtain separating East from West effectively made it so that we do not know what fears were being engendered among the Communist countries. And this stalemate continued until the 1990’s when the Communists began to lose power in their own lands, and the Union, itself finally disintegrated, leaving the United States as the single Super Power.
From history, then, we can learn to look to our government to determine the reality of the “clear and present danger” that they present to us. It would be naïve, at best, to consider ourselves to be totally safe – to be invulnerable to the real dangers that exist in our world, but are these fears real, or are they being used by our government, and governments all over the world, to engender a hate that will drive us to war to destroy those whom we have been taught to fear? In other words, are we being driven to war to make the world a safer place, or to further the ulterior motives of those in power – to subjugate another race or another nationality – to conquer more land – to take possession and control of any of a number of valuable natural resources? If there is a real threat, of course we must take whatever actions are necessary to protect ourselves and our nation. But if the fear is derived from an attempt on the part of our government, or any other government, to foster fear and hatred among us, let us walk away from that fear. Let us step back and see how we can work together so that everyone’s needs are recognized and addressed.
If we truly want to make this world a safer place for ourselves and for those who will follow us, we need to stop allowing our governments to do our thinking for us. We need to recognize and understand the hidden motives that may be influencing their desire to fan the fire of fear. We need to let go of that fear that is allowing us to be played like pawns in someone else’s game, and start to make choices and changes for ourselves. When we are able to put aside the fear, we will find a whole new vista opening before us – one in which we work together in partnership with peoples of all races, religions and beliefs to make the world a better and safer place for all. We will find that we CAN change the world.

My Outlet

I'm looking for a place to think out loud about my philosophy of the world and live. I have things I want to say, but no one to hear them.