Lest we forget

Make no mistake: the events of September 11, 14 years ago, were unnecessary, tragic, shocking, damnable, disgusting, and devastating. There is no way that anyone can "justify" what happened. It was an destructive and frightening act of terror.

We should remember, though, that we still don't know who was responsible. We were told who was responsible, and this was different people or organizations at different times, but we do not know with any certainty. There are, to this day, too many unanswered questions. I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist or practitioner. I yearn for clarity, for transparency, for uprightness, and for honesty. Things that I'm sure many of you would agree are lacking today.

Almost 3,000 people lost their lives, needlessly on one single day. Death tallies like that are normally the result of war, but war was "declared" on "terror" in the wake of those events. And that, my dear reader, is what is so troubling.

The government has spent years trying to convince us of who was behind the attacks, but their arguments and proof are unconvincing. The commission report is laughable and contradicts itself. Nevertheless, we attacked Afghanistan, which was not behind the attacks, even if they were allegedly sheltering Bin Laden. We attacked them for revenge. The country was in chaos before and after the Russians were forced to leave. It wasn't Pakistan, our ally. It wasn't anyone with whom we had friendly relations, but we had a bone to pick with Saddam Hussein and that was the "trump card" eventually played. We attacked Iraq only a few years later, a second act of revenge. We may have been threatened by Al Qaeda or some similar organization, but we attacked countries ... out of revenge.

Since time heals no wounds, as yesterday's Facebook activity will attest, what is it that we have actually done? We've killed, maimed, wounded, traumatized, more than one million human beings. A few of them were from "our side" (about 7,000) if you count 9/11 itself. But the remaining 999,993,000 were "them". No more, no less. Just "them". We weren't defending ourselves, we weren't being attacked. We were attacked once. We, on the other hand, have been attacking ever since.

What does that say about us? About us as a people? About us as a civilization? The old Kabbalistic adage states it clearly: you become what you hate. And we hate. Over 1,000,000 people have lost their lives directly because of this event, another 1,000,000 are in the process of being killed, more than 50,000,000 people are fleeing for their lives, and we have the cold-hearted audacity to glorify the killing, allegedly in the name of the killed. What has become of us?

Two (or more) wrongs have never made a right, and they never will. We gave up our moral high ground long ago, but we still refuse to acknowledge that we're not a damn bit better than those whom we despise, detest, and hate. I'm sorry I have to say it, but for all you so-called good Christians out there screaming the loudest at the Muslims, don't forget that, by your own standards, you will be judged by what you have done, and not by what you have said.

If we want to maintain that Life (whatever you may perceive that to be) is somehow sacred or of high value, then it is time we started acting like it. You can turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the crying and anguish of the suffering, but there's not enough pathetic (in the sense of unjustified pathos) patriotism to cover it over or tune it out. You can act like you are in the right, but to find glee, happiness, or pleasure in the suffering and death of another human being is sadism, pure and simple.

And that, dear reader, is something I don't think we should try to forget.

If not reading, how about reflection?

While I do have my optimistic moments, I'm not the fool many take me for. I know well that most people I know wouldn't read much that is antithetical to their beliefs. The authors of those texts might have a point ... who knows? they might even be right ... and what do you do then? When our beliefs are challenged, the vast majority of us simply reject what we're being told (or what we're reading). It's a lot easier to simply deny than it is to change our minds. How sad is that.

Having said that, however, I'm not convinced that most people know why they believe what they believe. A lot of our beliefs are simply carry-overs from our childhood. Our parents believed certain things, we accepted them, and we believe them now as well. In our teen and young-adult years, our friends or people we admired or looked up to believed things and we decided to believe what they believed because we thought or felt or believed that we were like them. In our adult lives, we believe things sometimes simply because we would like things to be a certain way; our world would be much less threatening and stressful if things are as we believe. What all of these modes of coming-to-beliefs have in common, it is clear, is that they are passive in nature. We don't have to do anything to come to these beliefs, we merely need to accept them and make them our own.

That's fine in as far as it goes, but it's a rather weak foundation, especially when we think of how many people are out there claiming, arguing, hammering home, and trying to impose their beliefs on others. If someone wants to make a strong case for his or her beliefs, then I would like to think that they had at least thought about them seriously, that they had invested some energy in understanding what it is they believe and that they knew why they believed what they believed. Unfortunately, that's hardly ever the case. Beliefs are funny like that: all you have to do is believe them. Personally, I prefer people with convictions (thought-through and grounded beliefs), even if I don't share them myself.

So, now that summer is upon us, and now that many of us are thinking about time off or vacations or just lying out in the sun or going to the beach, I have little illusion that most of you will be taking a book with you. For those who are, I commend you, and I certainly hope you read it. For those of you who are not choosing that option, may I suggest a less strenuous, but I believe more challenging, and, perhaps, even more rewarding activity: reflecting. Yes, why not take the time in which you're not really doing anything else, and think about what you believe. Ask yourself why you believe it. Do little thought experiments about what it would be like, or what the world would be like, if you, or most people or anyone else, didn't believe what you believe. You really ought to try it. It can be a very enlightening experience, if done intensely and seriously enough.

No one's asking you to do anything but think ... about what you think and why. Who thinks they can handle it?

Lullabies from La-La-Land

On the whole, I'm a pretty easy-going guy. In general, I don't get too upset about too many things. But, like everyone else, I have things that can just set me off and having to deal with things that could have been easily avoided is right up there at the top of the list.

OK, I'll admit it: what irks me is that fact that most of the folks I know would rather sit on their well-padded backsides and tell themselves that everything's OK instead of recognizing that we're all being taken to the cleaners. We're being duped, and dumbed down to boot. I'm not saying there is a conspiracy. Power doesn't need a conspiracy, it only needs to take things as they come. We've been deluded, and most of it has been our own doing. Because we love to be deluded ... it takes so much responsibility off our own shoulders.

We like to think that life is so much easier these days, that we've somehow progressed as a species, that we've overcome so many limitations that our forebears suffered under. This is largely untrue. Some societies have suffered long and hard, and have suffered more because others, allegedly more civilized societies, have made life miserable for them. Just ask the Africans or Native Americans. They both enjoyed more freedom, health, and natural wealth than we like to admit. And for all the comforts of modern living, like indoor plumbing and the Internet, we're not really all the better off for it. We've got gene-modified food and we have no idea if it's good for us or not; we have industry processed food and we know it's bad for us. We have artificial light and no more natural routines, be they daily or yearly. We have bad air, bad water, and a whole lot of bad ideas. Our life expectancy is longer, yes, but that's simply an actuarial bet, not a fact. And who would want to live in Hell for 80 years?

No, life is a struggle. It was very early on in our history as a species, and the one thing we really haven't changed -- but could have -- was our struggle for life. Yes, we are barraged by stimuli our ancestors couldn't imagine in their wildest nightmares. Yes, we are faced with food and environment that makes us sick instead of nourishing us. Yes, we devote inordinate amounts of time and energy trying to "get ahead" only to realize we are slowly sliding behind. Oh yes, we've come such a long, long way and life isn't any easier today than it was 100,000 years ago. The specifics have changed, but the big picture really hasn't. Oh, don't we have so much to be proud of?

And you see, all of this was avoidable. It doesn't have to be this way. Again and again throughout our history people have tried to get others to see that we weren't doing all of us a favor. But, we haven't been smart enough, and lord knows, not wise enough to stop and listen.

All of the ills of modern society are the result of rules we have made for ourselves. Yes, we made it up. It is, in the truest sense of the word, a fiction. We are in a position to make the world into just about anything we want, and we can do it to the benefit of all or the benefit of the few. Why we have chosen the latter path is incomprehensible to me.

The clock is ticking however. It is precisely all those things that we thought had brought us further that will be the seeds of our undoing. We simply believe it is otherwise. But, we love to be deceived.

Why do only catastrophes motivate us?

Exaggeration? Hyperbole? The title sort of sounds like it, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't think it's all that far off the mark.

Think about it: most of us "have ours" (whatever that really means) ... we've got a job or a decent retirement, a house, a nice car, decent prospects. If nothing really bad happens, we'll continue doing OK. Life can be tricky, we all know that, so purposefully rocking the boat may not be Option #1. Admit it. That's how most of us think.

What most of us don't think about, however, is that we make up a rather small minority of the world's population. Oh sure, we'd like to think that just about everybody in America or Europe is getting along pretty much like we are, but we know -- at least in the back of our minds -- that this is not the case. So, there's only 6% unemployment in the US these days; in Germany it's around the same; but, we all know that the way the statistics are counted is for the sole purpose of making things not appear as bad as they really are. We all also know -- whether we like to admit it or not -- that wages have been stagnating, that inflation is still making itself known, that the disparity between rich and poor is still growing steadily in the entire developed world. In other words, economically, we tend to put on our rose-colored glasses whenever we think about these kinds of things. After all, acknowledging that so many others aren't doing so well doesn't really do much for us when we're trying to be satisfied with ourselves.

And, in the back of those same minds, we know that the planet is warming, the climate is changing, and it doesn't really matter whether we humans are behind it or not. Any change, any significant change, is going to disrupt our peaceful, and rather oblivious, way of life. We know that we've got infrastructure problems, energy problems, that the housing and banking industries are still shaky, that the US, at least, as a massive crime problem ... in other words, the future is not exactly set on a positive trajectory. We know all of this, but still we act if there weren't any real problems at all.

Don't get me wrong, I know full well that many people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, that others are saddled with crushing debt (and not just students), that taxes keep going up for the most of us and that we are too often just busy dealing with the squeeze that all of us are feeling. And that's my point.

Let's be honest: as long as we're busy keeping our heads above water, we're not all that "worried" about the big picture. I, for one, can understand that, but it doesn't help. You don't have to be either a genius nor a conspiracy theorist to recognize that the more I have to deal with the details, the less I can deal with the big picture, and those who allegedly represent us have done so much to allow that big picture to fade, to ensure that we have more than enough details to deal with that things will most likely just keep going on as they are till they finally go down the chute.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that it will most likely take a catastrophe -- environmental, social, economic -- to get us motivated. I'm not talking about a scare like happened in 2008. That was a wake-up call, and guess what? we're still sleeping. Pleasant dreams.

Manning, cowardice, and silence (Update)

This morning there was an interesting press release posted at truth-out.org, namely that a petition has been started, to be signed by those who would be willing to serve part of Manning's eventual sentence.

While I'm fundamentally not a petition fan, since they are simply too easy to ignore, I was taken by the fact that the purpose of the petition was not to defeat evil, rather

The goals of the petition are to let Bradley Manning know how much we appreciate his work as a whistleblower for human rights. The petitioners also want to let the sentencing judge, the convening authority and anyone else who reviews the case see that many Americans strongly support Manning to the point where they are willing to go to prison for him.

This caught my attention, of course, because it specifically addresses the complaint I raised in my recent post that there was too much silence surrounding the Manning case. This silence, as we know, is being enhanced by the mainstream media. As the propaganda organ of the powers-that-be (TPTB), it has little, if any, interest in justice. In fact, it's hard to speak of justice at all these days. But, be that as it may ...

The chances that anything will come of this may be small. As one commenter already noted, "talk is cheap", but talk still "costs" more than mere silence. I, for one, am happy to admit that I was at least partly wrong in my assessment, even if my overall point has not been thereby refuted: TPTB oppress (and torture) the little folks because they can, and they protect the real villians, because they are the villians themselves.

As of this writing, over 3,500 people have signed. If you are interested, you can find the petition here. Of course, more information can also be found on the I Am Bradley Manning website.

The Snowden snow-job

There was a very wise man once who remarked that "by their fruits you shall know them". He was, I'll admit, a bit of a rebel, perhaps a downright troublemaker, but I like to think of him as a courageous individual who was willing to not only call 'em as he saw 'em, but was right about most of what he saw.

Talk's cheap. We all know that, and some folks make a career out of cheap talk. Lawyers spring to mind, but, as is too often the case, politicians elbow their way to the front of the line. And while the vast majority of Americans, for example, have little, if any faith, in their elected officials, and even though an increasing number wail and moan about too much government, too many of these people are willing to accept the assertion that Edward Snowden is not only a criminal, he's a traitor. It's easy to say, but it's difficult to prove. Of course, a lot of us are wondering if it will ever come to that ... proving it, that is. After all, like with Bradley Manning, he was guilty upon arrest, the conviction was merely to legitimize it all after the fact.

Like Manning, Snowden, released classified information to the public. There's no question about that; like Manning, he's admitted to it. Like Manning, he believed that he could no longer be apart of that nefarious apparatus that was doing the collection. He felt "the people" had the right to know. Unlike Manning who exposed the war crimes of the American government, Snowden exposed the civilian crimes that same government was committing: the unwarranted, whole-scale collection of data and meta-data of communications by its enemies, sure, but also its friends and its own people.

What surprises me more than anything else, like in the Manning case, is the silence. There should be outrage. Snowden did us a favor, whether we like it or not. He confirmed the suspicion that so many of us have had for so long: our own government thinks no more of its own people, no more of its allies, no more of its supporters than it does of its enemies. That is paranoia writ large. That is possibly schizophrenia. It is a strong indication that America is sick. Very, very sick.

But, Americans take it. They've pulled in their heads into their little turtle shells and will continue to believe, to tell themselves, how great, noble, and honorable their country is, how proud they are to be Americans, lying to themselves and showing the world that what once may have been great is now decrepit, what once may have been noble is now deceiving, what once may have been honorable is now treacherous.

America no longer leads by example, unless hypocrisy is worth emulating. The self-proclaimed "land of the free and home of the brave" has become its own prison led by violently inclined cowards who know no more reason, only force (any country refusing to extradite Snowden will be punished). By what right? Since when does might make right?

It's a sad day, not only, but especially for America. By their fruits you shall know them.

Manning, cowardice, and silence

It's been about a week ... enough time to cool down and take a more reasonable look at recent events. As Dark Helmet said in "Spaceballs", "There's an upside, and a downside ...". The upside was that in the first round, Bradley Manning was found not guilty of "aiding the enemy". The downside is that there was this trial -- if one can even call it that -- at all.

When crimes become known, when suspects or perpetrators are identified, our sense of justice calls for a trial. When this happens so selectively, when suspects and perpetrators are treated so inhumanely, and when punishment is the sole aim, then it is difficult to speak of justice at all. And if there must be punishment at all, wouldn't it at least be some semblance of justice if it were to fit the crime? When none of this holds, which is the case with Bradley Manning, all you are left with is a travesty.

We know that leading and not-so-leading figures on Wall Street lied to, cheated and stole from the public and their investors causing the biggest financial meltdown in modern times. Innumerable laws were broken, and in the aftermath death and destruction followed. We know that lives were destroyed, suicides committed ... we know who the perpetrators are but they will never be brought to justice. They will never even be charged.

We know that Bush and Blair, but primarily Bush, lied, cheated and stole (in this case, trust) from the American public and plunged the country into unpayable debt and an unwinnable war. He is responsible for the deaths of upwards of a million people ... Lady Macbeth couldn't live with even one ... and he authorized the use of torture and terror, all in the name of Freedom, so he, too, will never face a day in court, even though what he did was both illegal and utterly immoral.

But, Bradley Manning, who, for whatever reasons, committed much lesser wrongs, who has not caused a single death, who has merely exposed the hypocrisy, two-facedness and immorality of the supposed "good guys", well, he's looking at up to 136 years in prison. And to top it off, he has been mistreated, tortured, abused, maligned, and set upon by a media thirsting for blood, and what do we hear? Silence.

Most people don't know what he did. Most people have not taken the time to consider what information he actually released. He never argued that he did and he even tried to give his side of the story ... not so that he would be exonerated -- he never expected that apparently -- but so that others would understand why. We know for a fact that at least once he took seriously his duty as an American soldier to report human rights violations to his superior officers. We also know for a fact that his superior officer not only failed to follow up on Manning's plea, he participated in its suppression (which is punishable by the same code of military justice that decided it needn't bring charges at all), and so it all falls upon the shoulders of one rather defenseless individual.

Those who have the most to say have the most to lose and they also have the means -- fair or foul, right or wrong -- to defend themselves. Those who are at the bottom of the food chain are expected to say thank you for being torn to shreds by the lions instead of the tigers, or something to that effect. These are clear signs of cowardice. Manning will be made an example of, for whatever petty crimes his oppressors deem fit. Those who committed the real crimes, the big crimes, will go free to be praised and applauded by the ignorant.

No, no one ever said that life is or would ever be fair. But we as humans know what justice is and we know how to achieve it, but we are choosing cowardice instead. The oppression of Bradley Manning is an act of sheer cowardice. And matching that is the silence of all those who know how he has been treated and what is to become of him is no way commensurate with whatever wrongs we believe he may have committed. And that silence is simply shameful.