We should learn from tragedy, but somehow we can't

Very early on while learning to write, I was given some sage advice and learned a valuable lesson: don't write about something if you're too emotionally involved. You should know I'm not heeding that advice right now.

What happened in Nice two days ago was a shocking, horrific, abhorrent, gruesome, atrocious, and terrible act, but it was not an act of terror, try as we might to make it one.

Terror, for those of you who may have forgotten, is the use of excessive, random violence for political ends. And as things stand at the moment, there is no political connection to be found, regardless of how badly the authorities and media want us to believe there is.

A foreign-born, but French, petty criminal with more personal and family problems than most of us can begin to imagine takes a truck and drives amok into a family event, wreaking unimaginable harm, injury and death upon everyday men, women, and children -- families and friends who wanted no more than a bit of joy in their lives. This is a tragedy. You can't know how deeply I grieve for victims, their families and their friends. France was not attacked. Families were attacked. And you can't believe how irate I am that this tragedy is being instrumentalized for other, much less honorable, purposes.

The perpetrator is dead. He can never tell us what motivated him to commit such a brutally horrendous act. There is no mention of the situation in the socially volatile and disadvantaged hot spots in most large French cities. It doesn't matter that we've imposed an economic system that is more exclusionary than capable of meeting even the most basic human needs. And what is more, there are questions about the level and types of security being provided for the event, especially in light of the fact that France is essentially living under marshal law. But all of that is merely brushed aside.

The French prime minister has already declared an Islamistic connection, without offering even the merest shred of evidence. Without claiming responsibility, Daesh is thrilled with the result. Why is that surprising but how is that even newsworthy? The media has been abuzz with one special report after another parading out an endless stream terrorism experts in blatant disregard for the known facts of the case. Even Hollande promised in his initial remarks to increase military retaliation in Syria, and civilian deaths that will result will be the consequence of real, not imagined, terror.

Are we ever going to learn anything? I have my doubts.

When people snap mentally, they go on killing sprees, be it when they used to "go postal" as we referred to it America (because it seemed to happen more often to postal employees than others) and shot up their co-workers or be it when they drive a truck into a crowd of people out for a celebration. Until 9/11 no such event would have labeled as terrorism, but since then there is no killing spree that is not.

9/11 didn't change everything. We changed. We became frightened and fearful and allowed our rights and civil protections to be taken away because of an unavoidable event. We packed it up in the package of terrorism and we've been terrorized ever since. We've dug ourselves in so deeply that we can't see anything anymore without it having a terrorist tint. And if it doesn't have one, we're more than willing to give it one. We're so concerned with what might possibly, perhaps, unexpectedly happen to ourselves that we don't have it in us, it would seem, to stop and mourn for those who need it.

We're in the process of making this about us, when it has to be about those who have been killed and those who have been left to suffer.

Listen! Enough is enough, and enough is too much

Sometimes enough is just too much.

Sometimes you just can't find the words.

I don't know about you, but life even as a dispassionate, detached observer is getting hard to take. It makes you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder, I can tell you that.

Back in my carefree days, I studied literature and was amused by the Theatre of the Absurd. It was crazy, but insightful, purposefully not making sense to entertain. OK, I was young, naive, and a good portion stupid, I'll admit: Beckett and Pynchon weren't writing to entertain, they were rubbing our noses in our own stuff; they weren't just insightful, they were brutally honest; they weren't crazy, we are.

Most of you, dear readers, didn't even stumble over the "carefree" in that last paragraph. You all knew what I meant and most of you smiled inwardly and waxed nostalgic about those days. Truth be told, the vast majority of human beings on this planet never had a carefree day (let alone years) in their lives, but we're too sheltered, too pampered, to out-of-touch to know that. All right, add ignorant to my list of non-virtues.

One day, you (possibly) wake up (and I think most of us have) and you realize this isn't some silly play on the stage that you're watching: damn! Shakespeare was right, all the world is a stage, and every last one of us is a player. Are we just screwing up our parts, or are we really playing our roles? And therein lies the rub, as Bill would also say.

Falcon Heights, Baton Rouge, Dallas -- just the popper on a long, long bullwhip of absurdity. Thoughtless, needless, senseless, feckless, heartless murders, every one of them, and all I can see and hear are tongues wagging, fingers pointing, and knees jerking. We'd might as well face it: we can't fix it. No, it's not because the situation is so broken it can't be fixed. No, it's not because "they" are to blame. No, it's not that "we" are to blame. The reason we can't fix it is simple: we don't want to. All the yelling, screaming, and wailing is just as thoughtless, needless, senseless, feckless and heartless as the murders. There is so much hot air and heated passions being projected into the world that we may die of heat exhaustion before we gun each other down.

For the record -- not as if it will matter -- the vast majority of cops are honest, hard-working, dedicated people who are just trying to make their communities safe. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. The vast majority of our fellow black citizens are decent, hard-working, dedicated people who are trying to make the best of their lives in the situation in which they find themselves. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. The vast majority of protesters are honest, concerned and active citizens who are trying to make those who are still unaware of some of the issues involved more aware. We shouldn't condemn them all for the actions of a few. But that's precisely what we do in all cases. The rotten apples spoil the barrel, and the few give the many a bad name, but it never occurs to us that what we decry in others 9 times out of 10 is merely what we ourselves do all the time. It takes one to know one.

One thing is for sure: this most recent absurdity is truly American. it's American because it's happening in America, not everywhere else; it's being perpetrated by Americans, not some vague foreign agents. No, the problem's as homegrown as you get; you're simply reaping what you have sown, and you're going to keeping on reaping till you own up to the fact that you've got no one to blame but yourselves, collectively, of course, but personally as well.

Yes, we're all to blame, and it's time that we all just face up to it. Did it ever occur to you that you are never part of the problem, it's always"them", or at least someone else. Did it never occur to you that you are always right and "they" (or at least someone else) never is. My Facebook and Twitter feeds have been overflowing with one-breath analyses, one-line conclusions and zero solutions. I don't know what is more absurd, to tell the truth: what's going down or what's being said about it.

But, in all the din of accusations, counter-accusations, blame-fixing no one is listening.

That's the biggest problem of all: no one is listening.

Of course, there are two other problems that play in here that we cannot afford to ignore: The first is America's race problem. It's there, and it's deep-seated, that's for sure. Very deep-seated. It's so much a part of the culture that not a thing is going to change until we own up to it. This isn't a matter of artificially construed and inappropriately applied statistics. Having a race problem, is all the more absurd, of course, now that we know there is no such thing as race, but the label used is the right one because it's the one we can connect with. It was apparent in the fake debate about the flying of the Confederate flag. It's to be found in the the voter restriction laws being passed. It's in the simple, fact that in the year 2016 the KKK is making a comeback. How can that even be? It's time to own up to the fact that no where on earth do people of color have so much working against them as in America. Oh, I know the excuses; I was brought up with them. The ideal is a land of equal opportunity but the reality is an unequal as you can get. The ideal is equal rights under and before the law, but the reality is anything but. Stop screaming, accusing, blaming and start talking ... openly (for a change), honestly (maybe for the first time), directly ... but more than anything else, start listening.

The other problem is the violence problem: There are more murders, more violent crimes committed in American than just about anywhere on earth, and this doesn't take into consideration how many actual deaths were caused, for example, by the wrecking of the economy by capitalist speculators. Ball-point pens can be as deadly as any gun. Just this week we saw murders committed by those within and those outside the law. Americans, it would seem, are more willing to accept all sorts of violence as legitimate, but there is no such thing. There is legalized violence, as when the state allow itself to execute those it deems undesirable, but legitimate violence doesn't exist. It should always be the last resort, not the first one, as we are seeing.

And by the way, this isn't a gun issue, folks. Guns are a red herring. The absurdity we're dealing with is a simple, fundamental and deep-seated acceptance, if not love, of violence. Guns are tools, nothing more. They complicate the matter, but they don't define it. Yet physical violence, while the most obvious, is probably the least of the problem: the everyday psychological violence perpetuated on the populace, both collectively and individually, is mind-boggling to say the least: the unbridled, gloves-off brutality of business competition, the cold, calculating oppression of social-service recipients, the wielding of debt as weapon of suppression, be you a home-owner down on your luck or a student trying to make a better life for yourself. Get on the wrong side of the system and you'll be crushed, mercilessly. There is no mercy for losers. Fear is the prime motivator and threats the weapon of choice. But of course if that doesn't work, there's always physical violence as a last resort. It's just around the corner ... or in your face. You see it in its favorite sports, you see it in political campaigns, you see it in the rapaciousness of casino capitalism, you see it in its foreign policy, and you hear it in everyday language. It's time to start listening to what's really being said.

It's enough already. Really. It's time to stop accepting this absurdity as the way things are. None of this has to be the way it is. Things are as they are because we have either made them this way or allowed them to become that way. And while you personally may never have been shot at, while you personally may not have suffered injustice, it is time to wake up to the fact that there are too many who have and too many who do. When are we going to get it? When are we going to see that we are involved whether we like it or not? When is this absurdity going to stop? Well, it can't stop until you do everything you can do to make it stop. It's your move.

You can't fix stupid, but stupidity can be fixed

We've got a problem. By "we", I mean those of us who find ourselves in what we like to think of as the 1st World -- and I'm not the first to ask somewhat naively, where's the 2nd one? Yeah, you, almost all of your reading this, and your friends, and your friends' friends, if they have any, and the people around you, like family and neighbors, and all of us who have too much time on our hands, too much money in our pockets, and too little sense to know what to do with either.

Now, before you go off all insulted because you're struggling to make ends meet or you're starting to sweat all the debt you're carrying around or whether there is going to be anything left for your kids or grandkids ... if you're concerned about any of that, you are precisely whom I'm talking to. Your problem isn't insufficient funds, it's insufficient gratitude. The vast majority of human beings on this planet would swap places with you in a heartbeat: and you'd die having to deal with theirs, and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven. It's a matter of perspective, true, but also relativity. According to popular, widespread, and most oft proclaimed ideology: you chose your problems; the vast majority of humanity had theirs dumped on them by people who care more about themselves than even you do. If you've got a conscience, you'll never make it into the top 10%, let alone 1%. You're not cut out for it. Or sell your conscience. At the moment, however, you're just in the way ... of progress to make a better world or your just another wannabe for those at the top who want, and will eventually, get what you have.

You might get the impression that I'm a bit miffed at the moment, a bit irked, a bit bothered, a bit off-center. And you're right. I am. But, I firmly believe that I have every reason to be. Oh sure, I've cobbled together a fixed-income existence; I don't own anything other than a car of good middle age; I've got family around me, a couple of friends (who at least people who tolerate having me around); I've got a roof over my head, enough to eat and access to the world's largest cesspool of information, the internet. I haven't got a single reason to complain about anything in my life. But I'm also not only not the only person on the planet and I'm not the only person in my immediate environment. I'm part of a larger whole that varies in size depending on time of day, phase of the moon, and societal configuration.

In other words, I lead a relatively normal Western life. And I'm thankful for that, believe me. I'm thankful that I have the wherewithal, the inclination, the talent, the time, the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. But, I must admit, I'm rather bothered by the echoes that are finding their way back to me. Like most of you, I've got a real life and an online life, and the online life has to do with social media to a large extent, and regardless of what you think about either in general, I can assure you that, in particular, the online part is causing me more and more concern with each passing day. That's why I'm bringing this up here, with you, with all of you who obviously have an online life as well. The number of people with online lives is growing daily. The "society" that these online denizens are forming, however, is not exactly what I had hoped it would be way back when 95% of the people on the internet lived within 10 miles of my home. Yeah, I've had a chance to watch all this develop, and I'm not all that excited about what I see.

I'm going to out myself right up front: I don't believe the least in "human nature", but I believe unboundedly in "human potential". I believe -- deep, in the very heart of my own being -- that human beings are the living expression of the possibility of all possible possibilities. (That's the optimist heart that beats in my breast.) And I also believe, unreservedly, that the low end of those possibilities is the world we have thought out for ourselves, the world in which we're all -- at the moment -- forced to live. Stated succinctly, we're the biggest of all of G-d's failures. (And thus beats my cynic's heart in that same breast.)

We are, and have shown, that we're capable of the most exhilarating flights of brilliance: fire, the wheel, more-than-sufficient food production, disease eradication, alternative energies and explorations to the stars. At the same time, we have demonstrated that we're capable of the most terrifying horrors imaginable: war, genocide, unimaginable physical and psychological violence, greed, selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of empathy that there are moments when I find myself almost yearning for that last affront to occur so that we all go down the tubes the blinding fire of nuclear annihilation. And therein lies the rub, as the bard so eloquently put it.

You should be aware that all of G-d's children don't have the same intellectual capabilities and capacities. And that's OK as far as I'm concerned. Some of the nicest people I ever had the honor of dealing with weren't the sharpest pencils in the box, as they say, but they were Menschen, in both the true and Yiddish senses of the word. They cared about others, were kind, generous, helpful, supportive, and chock full of empathy and sympathy for the plight of others. I don't consider these people stupid, however. No, to me, stupid is when you think you know something, when you think you are smarter than you really are, or when you let external, non-personal "attributes" drive your actions.

Three of these are particularly dangerous: money, guns, and power. You can be bright, but once money (or in its most fundamental and nefarious form, the love of money) takes over it's good-bye smarts. Money is a prime cause of stupidity. You think your money makes you better, and smarter than everyone else, but it doesn't. It makes you think you're an authority on things you have no idea about (e.g., Bill Gates and world health or education). Guns are also a classic, and they (or the violence they represent) is a key feature of the gangster/Mafioso boss Hollywood has infected us with for decades. The propensity toward violence or violent behavior, the willingness to use it so "resolve arguments" is prototypical of stupidity in general. And finally, power ... often some vague combination of the previous two attributes, or "actual" power, like a political office (here, Bush the Lesser jumps out as poster child for what can happen when the intellectually challenged get it in their heads that they're better than and worth more than others) ... is the worst of all. And it's the one that has the most disastrous effects on the most people.

Even the most superficial gloss over the history of humankind reveals that it has been those awash in stupidity who have been in charge. We don't know who it was who figured out "fire", but we know practically everybody's name who used fire -- in one form or another -- to ensure that hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people had to suffer to satisfy their own egos. And we praise them, look up to them, remember them, and as school-children are forced to memorize their names, but in the end, they were stupid, self-absorbed, self-serving egoists who forced their personal mentation on others. Alexander the Great, the Roman Caesars, the British and other European royal houses, from Stockholm to Madrid, and, most recently, a whole bevy of American presidents (not starting with but particularly egregious since Reagan), have tortured the life out of countless human beings for the greater glory of , and we laugh and gloat and cheer and pat ourselves on the back for being so "great". But why? What's so smart about being able to kill untold human beings at will? Why do we think -- at this point in history, here, at the beginning of the 21st century (since we've agreed on counting years) -- that this is a good thing? Sure, it enables you to sit there in your room; fat, dumb and happy that you can look down upon the vast majority of humankind; but you need to explain to me what about this is good.

Recent history has shown us what's going on. Whether is was Thatcher in Britain or Reagan in the US, or Clinton (who could cover it over better than most), or Blair or Bush the Lesser (if that wasn't the tip-off, I don't know who was) or Merkel, or Cameron or Juncker or Schäuble or Gabriel or Obama or that it's not the bright ones who are leading the way and seeing to it that the proper shots are called. No, among this limited selection of individuals there are those who -- on their own, in a normal conversation -- would come across as half-way intelligent and reasonable, there seems to be the overwhelming propensity, if not compulsion, to blow any and all alleged inherent intelligence to the wind and strut forth as a contender for the crown of Village Idiot.

This -- not the results of neoliberal economic policies -- is what trickles down. We then find the same behavior patterns in the general population, be it in alternative political parties (like the AfD in Germany) or alternative political candidates (like Trump in the US (though Hilary isn't much better) and his followers) or just plain misinformed-and-proud-of-it welfare-bashers, gun-nuts, evangelicals, flag-wavers, sports-fanatics, and small-minded bleaters would rather complain about others than actually do something for or with others to make a difference. And I'm amazed each day at the number of people for whom this description applies.

No, I don't have a very high opinion of the general quality of information available on the internet, but there is a lot of good, sound, reliable information to be found there. But you have to go looking for it, and you have to wade through cybermiles of sludge and jungle to find it. There are good, sound, and inspiring insights to be found there, but you have to be able to weigh and evaluate, compare and contrast, and, well, think, to figure out which they are.

Of course, you have to be willing to explore thoughts, ideas, opinions, and views with which you don't necessarily or immediately agree and you have to be willing to assess their validity, their impacts and maybe even their worth. But that takes both time and effort and, well, with all the important stuff so many of us have in our lives that needs to get done, who is going to ensure they do this as well? But, most importantly, you have to be willing to communicate what you find and discuss it with others, not just with people whom you agree with. You need actively engage other ideas and notions if you are ever to come up with thoughts and ideas of your own. And who, pray tell, is going to be willing to do that? There are some thank goodness, though they are few and far between. There are some who haven't yet given up, even though they are reviled and ridiculed by those who have chosen stupidity and their particular way of life.

The point is that we don't have to be in the messes we're in. We don't have to deal with all the ignorant nonsense which pervades most of our lives. We don't have to allow stupidity to rule our lives ... but we are, we do and we will, because to change any of it, we might just have to change ourselves. So, don't complain about stupid (and all that is wrong with everybody else) if you choose stupidity yourself. And that is the choice too many people are making.

Moms have been getting a raw deal for far too long

This weekend is Mother's Day, in a lot of the world that is. (Not unexpectedly the Brits celebrate theirs on 4th Sunday in Lent. Go figure; always no reason to be different.) Anna Jarvis, an early 20th-century woman's activist pushed to get it recognized, only partly successfully of course, but recognized nevertheless. Some countries picked it up; others refunctioned their own similar holidays honoring women, so there is no universally accepted day of celebration. And yes, it's one of those pseudo-holidays that Hallmark or one of those greeting card manufacturers breathed life into in order to increase sales. But, the fact remains that we still have a day to honor mothers, in spite of everything modern culture tries to do to ignore, if not outrightly suppress, them.

You don't have to be a zealot of political correctness to know that we live in a man's world, that our societies for the greatest part are patriarchal. This is one of those little understood aspects of life that has always fascinated me, for it never ceases to surprise me to what ends some folks will go -- mostly men, of course -- to justify this as some natural order of things. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Male dominance or patriarchy, and I'm referring to human beings now, is a cultural, not a biological or natural state of affairs.

Throughout most of nature, males are larger and stronger than females, but this is also not a given. It seems that among birds of prey, females tend to be larger than males; the female great white shark is larger and stronger than the male, and there is certainly a difference when considering propagating vs. social relations: praying mantises and black widow spiders have the final word on who's in charge; elephants, for the most part, live in female-dominated herds, while males are more of loners and only show up for mating; lion prides are organized by the females; but hyenas, lemurs and the bonobo all live within a strict matriarchal order. Given this wide range of set-ups, only a bean-counting statistician would insist "natural" male dominance, and I'm pretty sure that they do.

Biologically, however, at least as far as human beings are concerned, no case can be made for male superiority at all. Mothers conceive and gestate the young; mothers give birth (well, except for among seahorses, I understand, and you've got to love the irony of at least one species providing an exception). The only thing that men contribute to thee young of the species is 50% of the DNA and the determination of gender, otherwise, males are pretty much observers in the whole affair. Even a cursory reflection upon biology class and the X and Y chromosome lesson shows us that Y-chromosomes are complete, the X-chromosome is noting more than a crippled X (that is, one of its legs is missing) so in essence, boys are merely crippled girls. The fact that more boys then girls are born in the natural population is due to the fact that infant mortality is higher and later reckless behavior lead to more early male deaths. Male-female populations don't balance out till around 20 years-old or so. And, with males being more observers than participants in the whole new-life thing, it was the Anglo-Saxons of yore and the Jews to this day who correctly observed that the bloodline actually runs through the mother, not the father. Nature takes care of itself, it always has, and it could probably well use less of our help in getting along. (Of course, in regard to this gender thing in general, the Americans (unsuprisingly) have lost the plot and now find it one of their highest legislative and juridical priorities to sort out biology apparently gone wrong. Truth be told, nothing's changed in nature, just the way certain obviously ignorant and sexually-inhibited individuals choose to see nature, but there's nothing new about that either.)

The next biggest justification, and certainly one of the pieces of evidence I would take to support my own case for cultural choice as opposed to biological selection, is religion. The religionists all seem to have got together defend male dominance. We have to remember, however, that there is a huge difference between what religions' sacred texts say, what they mean, how they are interpreted and, finally but most importantly, collected into whatever articles of faith that are used to organize their affairs. Christians love to go on and on about how Eve caused the Fall from grace and were made subordinate to their husbands; even more love to use the writings of St. Paul to justify male domination (having converted out of Judaism and as desirous as he was to bring Gentiles into the fold, it is not surprising that he would take over any number of their "beliefs" in order to further his cause). You can open practically any newspaper or read any online new site and find all kinds of evidence of male domination in most Muslim societies and communities. The fact that the Indians and Chinese would resort to infanticide should a female child be born first provides evidence for their own fanaticism of male domination. Of course, what most people don't realize about religion generally is that there is an exoteric side to it, the one that you actually see and most often get to experience, but there's also an esoteric, or hidden side, where the real tenets of the faith can be found. (For example, since the notion of bloodline referred to above, or consider that the majority of Jesus' followers were women, that they were treated as equals if not more (for example, the controversial role played by Mary Magdalene, especially in the Gospel bearing her name) and that it's been well documented that later redactors of the Pauline texts even changed women's names to men to serve their theological needs.) It would seem the things that we need to take at face value, like biology, we don't, but the things where a bit more discernment is needed, say, with the texts, well, why go to all that trouble once you've got them saying what you want them to say anyhow? But what we should be aware of, in every instance, is the fact that when we start to speak of "civilization", we find men wanting to or actually calling the shots.

Well, I'm beginning to think civilization is the problem. What this implies is that the opposite of civilization isn't barbarism, as we've been told to believe. Let's think about this for a minute: civilization meant the rise of the city-states, the old Babylonian and Mesopotamian empires ... society was organized well enough that surpluses were possible, resources were accumulated, food became plentiful and could be distributed among a larger number of people. All of these are good things are they not? And, of course, they are, but the fact that some folks are managing their resources and processes well implies that that there are other who are not. It also implies that there are others who perhaps want more than they'd otherwise be entitled to. In other words, the whole idea of not having enough which at some point turns into having more than anyone else enters the picture, and once these feelings take over, well, the next thing you know -- religious texts or no -- stealing, raiding, robbing, pillaging, plundering and other forms of aggression and violence against others suddenly becomes the norm. And here we are -- voila -- a mere 10 millennia later and there still isn't enough to go around for all the rich folk. What we need to remember, however, it was at the time that this civilization got off the ground that the women were kicked out of power (yes, there is strong evidence that pre-civilizational societies were matriarchal) and the men took over. In a perpetual act of what appears to be gross psychological compensation, we are privileged to live in a world so advanced, so powerful, so dominated by male aggression that we literally stand on the brink of annihilation, and most people I know -- men and women -- are standing by cheering these louts on. If you can inject enough testosterone into anything or anybody, if it has a mind, it will lose it. And that's where we are.

Now, I dare any of you who are now thinking I'm exaggerating to prove me wrong. Look at the state of something as irrelevant as sports these days: a male-dominated, rape-condoning, destructive, greed-machine that serves primarily to distract us from real issues that need resolving. What about international diplomacy: Their machos fighting our machos in a loser-loses-everything-winner-takes-nothing chest-beating with deadly consequences. Politically: the rapid rise of violent-imbued, rightist ideology from the entire American political caste to the Front National in France or the Polish and Hungarian proto-fascists, to our coddling of the new Turkish sultan who in turn has become the poster boy for male-dominance and misogyny. I could go on and on, and where is the voice of reason among them? Nowhere because at some point women wanted to become men and partially succeeded (e.g., Thatcher, Merkel, Fiona, etc.) but failed in the end because, well, they might act like men, but in the end, they just aren't.)

Too many people these days think that if you don't believe this then you must believe that, if things aren't one way then they have to be other. Nothing could be further from the truth, but nothing is more telling of how we moderns think. Whether the days of the matriarchy were good or bad is something we'll never know. We do know it was good enough to get us to written history and the documentation of millennia of blood-letting and conquest. We do know that for whatever benefits civilization and male-dominance may have brought us, it's at the end of its rope. We can't take much, if any, more of male aggression, violence and death, of hyper-masculinity. Matriarchy had its chance. Patriarchy had its chance as well. It's time to move to something more inclusive, an Integrum, if you will, in which men and women, male and female, integrate.

The Ancients ... even back in the days of the Matriarchy, when myth was first taking shape and being used to describe who and how we are as human beings ... knew the principles of essential balance, the complementarity of male and female; the need for allowing each his or her due and to make his or her contribution. We've forgotten that, too, of course. Or maybe we consciously, willfully, viciously drove it out of our minds. I wish it were the former, but it feels more like the latter. We've got our problems with gender equality over here in Europe, to be sure, but we've still at least got it written into our constitutions and there's still some hope we're going to "get it" before the next wave of mind-numbing PC washes over us from across the pond. Maybe.

So, I for one, will be celebrating Mother's Day, as I always have and hopefully always will. I still open and hold open doors for women, because that's how I was raised, but then again, I don't let doors I go through slam in anybody's face. And I will continue to recognize women for what they are: equal partners, our (we men's) better half, and more than ever our hope for any kind of tomorrow. If we don't manage to turn the hypermasculine, violent patriarchs around -- or at least put them in their proper place -- they'll manage to finish off the planet before we can do anything about it. And yes, I still say Mother Earth. Go figure.

No, I didn't say that at all

I have long maintained that the wonder of communication is that we manage to communicate at all. The reaction(s) to the Paris terror attacks have made this clear once again.

There are lots of smart people running around out there and some of them use their brains (at least sometimes) and some of them don't (or not very often), others are more emotional than reasonable, still others have such fixed ideas that no manner or volume of facts or arguments is going to change their minds. Unfortunately, I must say, that's how people are.

What is particularly tough these days, though, is have a view of things that is not mainstream or mainstream-sanctioned. We have arrived at a point here in the West when disagreeing with a given (generally speaking, accepted) point-of-view is automatically interpreted as advocating the precise opposite. This isn't faulty thinking, it's unacceptable behavior, and I don't care how smart you are or think you are, if you make this mistake, you're just being stupid. None of us lives in a world of black-and-white, regardless of how much most people, the mainstream media, the powers-that-be, or anyone else would like it to be so.

Let me repeat what I've said so often in the past few days: what happened in Paris is reprehensible and inexcusable. There is no justification for it; end of story. Let me add what I've also had to say so often in the past few days: I understand all your shock and sadness, but the fact remains that this kind of thing happens to "us" (I'll come back to that) once every couple of years; for too many others on this planet, this is their life every single day. Why is that so hard to understand? Why is it so unwanted when someone -- like me -- brings it up? I think those are legitimate questions.

Our reaction to the tragedy of terrorism should be (and yes, I'm being very prescriptive here), how do we stop things like this (read: acts of terror) from happening? what can we do to make it stop?

This shouldn't detract us from our mourning, but our mourning itself should sensitize us to the real issues involved. We've got a problem, and by "we" I mean all of us, every single human being on the planet. Terror happens everywhere but in some places more than other. We, in the West, have been exposed (NYC, London, Madrid, Paris, to name the most familiar), but others have been immersed (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, to name the most recent) in it. It matters. It matters a lot that we have to go through it, but it matters that others have to live with it.

While I have never claimed that we don't care about the terror inflicted on others, there is a good bit of factual evidence available that we don't know about it, don't recognize it, don't accept it, and don't feel as moved by it as we should. This "we" is all of us in the West, and all our countries that believe that we know what's better for others than they know themselves, which we claim fear and hate us when they would probably just prefer that we leave them alone, which just happen to be sitting are geographical areas that we have decided -- for whatever reasons -- are in "our interest". Just what the hell is that: our "interests"?

Personally, I'm sick and tired of all the blaming, all the blathering, all the threatening and the theatrics, all the conflict-seeking and the killing. When are we going to get it? When are we going to understand that every act of violence and revenge that we yearn for only makes things worse? When are we finally going to practice what we preach?

Almost the same sh1t, different day

It is probably clear to most readers that my American friends get tired of me picking on the USA. Oh sure, they provide ample material, there's no doubt about that, and in reality, the only real complaint that I have is the hypocrisy of it all: claiming one thing and doing another. In this regard, I can assure you, the USA are not alone. The most recent developments here in Europe have shown that we have learned well from our mentor and we can be every bit as hypocritical as our big brothers across the pond can be. So, today, as a change of pace, I thought I'd let off a bit of steam for many of the same reasons, but with a different focus.

On more than one occasion, quite recently in fact, I have taken a very critical look at what the EU has done and is doing to Greece. (If you missed that or forgot, look here, here, and here.) What I did not do in those posts, and what has been bothering as long as it has been going on, is the role that Germany has played in all of this. Yes, the dismantling of representative democracy in Europe, the quasi-colonization of a (once) sovereign state, and the oppression of a whole people has taken place under the guise of a pan-European project, but, the truth of the matter is, it was a German-led action. And that bothers me to no end.

To be honest, I don't care what the motives are, nor am I all that concerned with the "reasons" or alleged "justifications". I don't care about the political rationalizations. What I have long maintained and what I never tire of saying: I don't care in the least what you say, I'm only concerned with what you do. Actions always speak louder than words, and that is the purest case for my problems with the USA these days, and it is the same reason that I've been ruminating over Germany for a while.

Most of you are not aware that everything that any of hears about the situation in Greece is propaganda. Over the past few days, as the Greek government "debated" the latest "emergency financial package" and "more quickly than expected" managed to "pass the appropriate legislation" to allow themselves to be "helped", I had to fight back the desire to "projectile regurgitate" on whatever media I was engaging at the moment. Seldom in my time on this planet have I been exposed to so much BS in such a short period of time.

It could very well be that the Germans were forced into the euro. It could very well be that so many mistakes were made in introducing the currency that there's no turning back now. It could very well be that political solutions to problems are always messy and always miss the point. It could also very well be that I'm seeing motives where there are only reactions. But, the fact of the matter remains that the Germans (Merkle in the background, coward that she is, and Schäuble in the foreground, power-addicted know-it-all that he is) believed it was their right to do what they did. But it wasn't. It never was, it never is, and it never will be.

The crisis is far from over, regardless of how the media try to spin it. The damage to be wrought will become more than obvious. The suffering of the people will become more than apparent. But the propaganda machine is running at full power here, just like it runs in America 24/7.

And, all of this is avoidable, if we would only stop talking and start listening, if we would only stop griping and start engaging, if we would only stop fighting amongst ourselves and realize that everyone who believes that they have even the least bit to say, is doing their best to ensure that we little folk don't ever, ever realize how much we're being manipulated. And that's all I have to say about that.

It's not all Greek to me

Most folks have not taken the time to read the tons of documentation that has been produced in regard to the Greek crisis. Tsipras is trying to buy some time to get through the next phase of the storm, but has anyone seriously asked themselves what he's doing and why? I don't know. I really don't know, but what I do know is that we're being fed an official line of distraction and confusion, and they're using every trick in the book to see that it stays that way.

The Greeks have been forced to put up all their public assets for sale. Just over a week ago, Warren Buffet took advantage of the sale and bought himself an island for a mere €15m. Not unsurprisingly, just this past week, it was -- quietly, subtly, almost unreportedly -- that the Americans are going to be given access to Greece's (not insubstantial) gas and oil reserves (just like they silently and forcibly moved in and took over the Ukraine's). In the meantime, just like in the USA where Social Security and Medicare are on the block for the upcoming elections, top priority was given to privatizing and gutting the pension system and the Value-Added-Tax, the most regressive of all taxes, was almost doubled.

The official line is that these "reforms" are necessary to get Greece back on its feet. When you call a program whose sole results is the destruction of what was there before a "reform", you have to be pretty damn cynical at heart. In the five years of the crisis, and here, in the last round, where it was do-or-die, the creditors (as if they should be given credit for something) demanded these changes, but not once in all that time have they demanded that a tax on the rich or super-rich be instituted, not once have they demanded that the government immediately clamp down on tax-evasion. Instead, the Greeks have been encouraged to "modernize" their administration (for example, by issuing very limited, but very lucrative IT-infrastructure tenders to be implemented whenever) and over all this time, the Greeks had submitted to continuous reviews, all of which were approved by those very parties who decided it was time for the Greeks to turn over their democratic sovereignty to extra-democratic institutions.

In light of the documentation, and in light of the actions of the Greek government in the last couple of weeks, I'd say they know what's what. At the very slightest indication of non-cooperation, I would be willing to bet that what has so-far been accomplished below the radar will simply burst to the surface. There will be a radical, perhaps even violent, change of government right here on the edge of Europe. Greece is being made an example of, but there is growing distrust of the current powers-that-be, not only in Greece, but elsewhere, and it is very likely that Greece will begin living its myths and become Pandora's Box.

Was what just happened in Europe a coup?

The recent Greek situation was as close to a coup as you can get without involving the military. Let us recall, that a coup d'etat is, most often, when a democratically elected government is ousted by the military (our most common 20th century experience) which then sets itself up as a junta. No, it doesn't have to be the military, which is why Greece is so interesting: for the first time in a long time, the coup came about not from within and not by the military, but from without, by civilians, namely technocrats and bankers.

As part of the "deal", the Greeks must ask permission of the Troika (the current powers-that-be) even to discuss certain topics. If they want to pass a law, they must present it to the powers-that-be for their approval before it is debated. Think about it. The Greeks, for all intents and purposes, are no longer a sovereign nation. They cannot alone decide what is good for them, in their own interests, and they may not decide how they want to solve their problems. Others will now tell them what, how and why ... well, not why, for that would unmask the whole charade.

My American friends, no doubt, have trouble understanding the problem, I am sure. Oh, it's not as many of you think that they are somewhat ignorant and ill-informed. No, that's not it at all. They can't understand it because they've been living in Greece all along but never knew it. They have no national healthcare to speak of, they have private insurance that will soon take its revenge for the sins of Obamacare. They have no real unemployment or welfare benefits because they all know that whoever is out of work, for whatever reason, is solely responsible for his or her plight. If you had done better, you wouldn't be in that predicament. Americans have a rapacious tax agency, and point-of-purchase tax-collection agents (it's called sales tax for those not following). Americans are personally swamped by debt, lose their homes daily, "enjoy" (in the meantime) somewhat lenient bankruptcy laws (which are necessary when so many "citizens" have to take advantage of them), and Americans, even the Creationists among them, that social Darwinism is a mere fact of life.

That my American friends have been deceived, manipulated, cajoled, coerced, even brainwashed into believing that their oppressors are benevolent is clear to me and most people in Europe. You can't ever miss what you never had, whether it was a good idea or not. It turns out that social cohesion is a defining characteristic of humanity. Destroy that and you destroy humanity itself. And there we are at modern-day capitalism.

The "money" that Greece owes is a paper -- no, digital -- fiction. Every rule of economics as we were taught them in school has been violated to create the situation in Greece (and elsewhere, including simple American households). All the so-called "laws" have been twisted, contorted, bent and broken in order that a fortunate few can live in excess at the expense of the unfortunate many. And there is no dearth of die-hard cheerleaders, from all walks of life and from every social stratum, who are willing to praise these thieves, these merchants of death, these heartless, mindless, and senseless parasites as idols, heroes, demi-gods. If they could only get just a little slice of the pie.

At the moment, it doesn't matter. We need to pay attention. We need take heed of what is really happening. A modern, sovereign nation has been declared mentally incapacitated, but as Ken Kesey exposed over a half-a-century ago: it's the inmates who are running the asylum.

What just happened in Europe?

There has been a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth going on around Europe the past couple of days, as well there should be. What is playing out is something for the history books, to be sure, but I suspect it will be reported very differently than it actually went down.

We've known since 2008 and since the leaks around the TPP, TIPP, and TISA that the banks and big business has taken over. This is not a conspiracy theory, it is pure and simple fact. There's not a government in the western, industrialized world that has 10 cents to spare for a single humanitarian program, not even for its own citizens, but there are tons of cash, in the form of bailouts, tax breaks, and subsidies for the most wasteful of things. What is different about the past few days here in Europe, however, is the fact that we have now seen (a) just how much power they possess and (b) to what lengths they are willing to go to deal with opposition of any kind.

I would be the last to maintain that the Greeks need to reform their governmental apparatus, start collecting taxes, and try to reduce unnecessary expenditures. However, in contrast to the EC, the IMF, the ECB, and the Eurogroup, I'm not willing to maintain that these reforms should be obtained at any price. For those of you both inside and outside Europe: this is not about the EU; this is not about the euro, as currency, per se; this is about power and what it means for us everyday little people.

The person in the street will tell you right out that without a land registry office, without a functioning tax system and tax authority, you cannot expect to get a grasp on your national income. Since 2010, the Troika -- the big players in the field -- have been placing one requirement after the other on the Greeks. If you take the time to look at the Memoranda of Understanding that direct this process, one significant feature become conspicuous by its absence: the demand, specifically, to set up a necessary tax infrastructure. There is a whole list of things To-Do, no question about it, but if placed in order of priority, it almost seems as if it has been inverted. Not the most necessary things to do were placed at the top, but the easiest to do. All the necessary reforms, the ones that may, perhaps, if everything went perfectly well, were placed at the bottom of the list. They are still to come, but there is other business to be attended to in the meantime, like bludgeoning the defenseless, cutting pensions by 30%, eliminating healthcare for a third of the population, driving the poverty rate from 26% to almost 35%, increasing unemployment to 25% overall and over 50% among the youth of the country, shrinking the economy by 25% and increasing the debt by over 25% as well.

In contrast to what is floated as common wisdom, neither Ireland nor the Baltic states were in a comparable situation to Greece, so they are not the success stories that everyone would like to maintain. Estonia, for example, had as good as no debt when their crisis hit; Ireland had a functioning governmental infrastructure. When the smoke clears, it's obvious that, well, a lot of folks are simply blowing smoke.

No, Greece had the audacity to elect a leftist government. That will not be tolerated. They had the courage to throw out the Troika. That cannot be tolerated either. They demanded reforms that work. And that cannot be tolerated in a world in which you are to do as you are told or you'll be squashed like a bug. In the end, the entire population said "no", and, strangely enough, when asked to present a list of reforms, the Greek government laid on the table, more or less, the take-it-or-leave-it agreement that the EC had dictated. The result: go back and do your homework, such a list is simply unacceptable.

So now, the Greek parliament has approved the plan they've been given. They had three days to do so. Private institutions and non-elected technocrats have desovereigntized a country in the 21st century, right before our very eyes. And that, my friends, is the Europe of today. It is not the Europe I migrated to (yes, I am a mere immigrant here), and it's not the Europe that encouraged me to say.

The message is clear: hold all the referendums you want, cry democracy and the will of the people all you want. In the end, it's the money people who have all the say. It's the simple Golden Rule: he who has the gold, rules.

On this day in history

Yes, on this day in history, November 22, 1963, more than half-a-century ago, John F. Kennedy, then President of the United States, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The assassin was allegedly Lee Harvey Oswald, but the circumstances surrounding this event, the consequences, the actual facts have been long obscured in conspiracy, fantasy, and delusion. We'll never know what really happened and why, and I'm not sure that it really matters in the end. Sure, I was an impressionable adolescent when it happened, and, yes, I think about that day from time to time (and sometimes when the date rolls around again), and, yes, it makes me wonder. (I told you: I wonder a lot; I always have and with each additional year of my life, I am given more reason to as well.)

So what am I wondering about this time? Simple: why do only Americans assassinate their major political figures? Sure, every once in a long while, someone flips out in the Middle East or in Israel and a well-known politician or Prime Minister is killed, but it's almost always someone "from the other side". No, Americans are pretty unique in that they elect someone to the highest office in the land, and then, later, for myriad, stupid reasons, they decide to end their term of office prematurely. Think about it:

• Including the current one, the US has had 44 presidents thus far.
• Four presidents have definitely been assassinated: Lincoln (#16), Garfield (#20), McKinley (#25), and Kennedy (#35).
• Two more presidents are at least rumored to have been assassinated: Taylor (#12) and Harding (#29).
• Two additional presidents were injured in assassination attempts: Roosevelt (#26) and Reagan (#40).
• And, there have been 13 assassination attempts on presidents not mentioned in the points above.

That's a pretty impressive list, if you ask me: 21 of 44 (that's 47%) have been killed, injured, or attempts have been made on their lives. Just how democratic is this? With the exception of Johnson (#36), every single president since Kennedy has been at least threatened with assassination. That doesn't make you wonder? It makes me wonder, I can assure you of that.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know what to think about that. My first reaction is, "the US is one violent society." Another thought that crosses my mind is, "why is assassination (well, murder, actually) considered a solution to anything?" More generally, "what does this say about the state of American democracy?" And the cynical side of me wants to know why America is held up as an example for anything political? Be honest. Who really wants a job in which almost half the holders have been murdered or someone attempted to murder them? And the country isn't even 300 years old! So young, so reckless, so irresponsible.

Yes, I wonder a lot ... more some days that others ... sometimes merely because the calendar gives reason to.

When in the course of human events ...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ..." Thus begins the second paragraph of one of the holiest documents of the United States of America. In the 11 score and 17 years hence, some things have changed significantly. Some for the better, some not so much.

We now know that "men" in that statement actually means "humans", even though our forebears were really only thinking about males -- and those with property at that -- when Jefferson wrote those words and when the rest of "the guys" approved them. Yes, I know, Texas, the Republican party and Islamist extremists haven't caught on yet, but give them time. What's a couple of centuries amongst friends.

In case you hadn't noticed, that was the upside. The downside is that it really wasn't true then; that is, that they were held to be true, and they aren't true now. What is more, the following clause to the one above -- "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" -- aren't believed in anymore either. Oh, it's not because we stopped believing in a Creator. No, not at all. In fact, it appears that those most willing to ascribe our existence to that Creator are the first ones to ensure that none of this high-fallutin' gibberish is put into practice.

No, what was rotten at the founding of America is what is rotten to this day: property, not inalienable rights, is what counts, and if you've got it, you've got rights; if you don't, well, it just sucks to be you.

Yes, the preamble to the Declaration of Independence tries to justify the rebellion on the grounds that at some point in time, it just becomes too damn obvious that the few-and-far-away are benefitting unjustly at the expense of the many-right-here. The Declaration is interesting, I believe, for this more than any other reason. The lofty language it employs and the general ideas it incorporates were not new then and they aren't new now. The notions that the words point to -- i.e., equality, liberty, life, and the fact that these are in fact inherent, yes, inalienable rights -- are not new either, but there was an indication, a glimmer of hope that a broader base of humanity had come to recognize this. That was the hope, as I said, but it certainly wasn't and it still isn't a reality at all.

Anyone thinking anything even remotely akin to what the Founding Fathers might have been thinking, can be, and most often is, simply branded a traitor and a terrorist. Isn't it ironic somehow that less than two-and-a-half centuries after someone tried to put the ball in motion, that in that same place there is today the largest, most active, concerted, organized and, whenever thought to be necessary, violent opposition to those ideas?

Tragedy should give us pause to think

My personal condolences to all of the families of all of the victims of the latest tragedy in Connecticut. I am truly saddened by your loss.

This shouldn't have happened, and I shouldn't feel like I have to say something about it. But, I must for this is not a singular incident, nor is it a one-issue event. It is a systemic, cultural tragedy, one that runs deeper than most Americans are willing to think or feel. Yet, what is most tragic about this event, what saddens me the most, is that it is not, by a long shot, the last one, nor will it remain the worst one. None of this is going to go away soon.

The American journalist and writer H.L. Mencken once wrote "There is always an easy solution to every problem – neat, plausible, and wrong." That was over a hundred years ago, and a quick look at Facebook and a quick zap through the news channels will assure you, it's every bit as true today.

My fellow Americans, you are a superficial, quick-fix society. You don't want to be bothered, you don't want to have to actually do anything other than pursue your own self-interest, make as much money as possible and just do your own thing. And what won't be said by any public figure in any public venue is that you all share the guilt of the shooter whether you realize it or not, whether you like it or not. The howling and finger-pointing have already started, the tragedy is already being used for political gain, the victims and their families instrumentalized for more reasons than I care to think about.

You can't find single solutions on the surface. You have to follow multiple issues deeper and deeper; you must recognize connections and relationships between attitudes and values and laws and beliefs; you must follow the branches down to the trunk in order to get to the root of what makes events like Connecticut even possible. When I look at what happened, I can tell you what I see. I see America.

This isn't about gun control, security, healthcare, police oversight and screenings, domestic terrorism, video games or any other red herring that every so-called journalist and expert is going to trot out for review. No, all of this is just distraction. It's part of the illusion that Americans love so dearly: the illusion that it was someone else, from somewhere else who is responsible, who is to blame. It's not. It's about you, too.

The United States of America is not just the allegedly richest country in the world (and I say alleged, because it may have the most monetary wealth, but one can easily get the impression it is morally bankrupt; in other words, what "rich" means is up for discussion). More importantly, it is the most violent country in the world. And I would maintain that Americans love their violence more than anything else. It is the only solution to problems that Americans know. Violence defines American culture. It is the only answer that Americans have for any pressing question: violence. I'm exaggerating? Hardly.

Military violence.
A defense budget that is breaking your fiscal back. Two full-fledged wars that have brought only death, pain and destruction to everyone involved, and for what? Don't do what we say and we'll bomb you back to the stone age. Violence.

Psychological violence.
Spreading fear and suspicion, allowing your rights to be taken away so you can be sent to Guantanamo on suspicion, where you can be tortured for the blandest of reasons, like we do to other detainees, like we do in secret interrogation (read: torture) centers the world around. Violence.

Political violence.
Did none of you see the last presidential campaign? Hate, bile, vitriolic aggression, an obscene amount of money spent in hate and anger, while real people still suffer in real places everywhere. A winner-take-all mentality because you shouldn't just beat your opponent, you should destroy him.

Social violence.
Poor people should simply be eliminated. Lazy welfare folks should be forced to work, for nothing if necessary. After all, it's their own damn fault that they're takers. Ever more draconian measures with ever fewer results. The highest murder rate in the world. The highest rate of violent crime in the world. Denying healthcare to those who need it because they can't pay. Opposing universal healthcare because it would impinge on others' right to exploit and extort.

Legal violence.
The (non-deterring) death penalty. Money talks, everybody else walks, and this is directly related to the increasing environmental destruction that follows in its wake; the use of force, violent force, to remove protesters, to prosecute opponents, the sheer brutality of the police in so many Occupy situations: pepper-spraying women and children with impunity, the suppression of due process; stop-and-frisk laws. The passing of special-interest laws that simply take from others at the expense of the public good.

Environmental violence.
Disproportionate over-consumption of natural resources. Pollution that need not be cleaned up (see legal violence above). The forceful takeover of water and air supplies in the name of financial gain. Factual manipulation, lying, suppressing, and threatening opponents to escape having to take responsibility for the pain and suffering (e.g. BP in the Gulf of Mexico, fracking, the Keystone pipeline, just to name the most visible).

Financial violence.
Predatory lending practices, forced evictions, unregulated speculation that cost millions of people worldwide their homes, their businesses, their retirements, and more. Banking activities that put the entire world at risk and we know there were untold numbers of people who were killed as a result, who were wiped out and saw no other way out than a heart-attack or suicide. The widespread feeling of desperation, and of course, none of the guilty were ever called to task (see legal violence, above).

Workplace violence.
From below through mobbing, and bullying. The successful professional is the one who can elbow his or her way up the corporate ladder, any method is accepted as long as it works. Employer violence toward employees: paying non-livable wages, even if the company is making record profits, short-timing employees so that benefits need not be paid. Suppression of wages in the name of competitiveness (instead of producing something better than everyone would want). Inhuman working conditions (often outsourced work), substandard facilities and ignoring of OSHA regulations in search of profit.

Entertainment violence.
(My personal favorite.) Where did violent video games originate? Who produces and sells them to this day? What about the movie industry: so many people haven't seen enough people hacked, chopped, tortured, blown apart, dismembered and there just hasn't been enough blood flowing to satisfy our insatiable thirst. (How many voyeur-vampires do you know?) Not to mention America's favorite sports pastime: football -- it can't be brutal enough, violent enough, you can't stomp your opponent enough, and we celebrate the most brutal of the players as our heroes. Idols for our children.

Ever more force, ever bigger weapons, ever stronger tactics, ever more brutality, thuggery, arbitrary suppression ... had enough? I'm sure I could find some more if I took some time to think about it. This is simply what immediately came to mind.

I'm sorry, my fellow Americans, but you live in a society that allows, accepts, encourages, promotes, at times demands, idolizes, welcomes, perhaps worships, and exports violence. It may not be the American Dream, but it is the American Way of Life. It is such a part of the culture that it is most likely simply taken for granted, but as long everything is about "me", and as long as it is about what I can get because I believe that everybody else is trying to get more than their share; along as it is about believing that ends justify means, as long as you tolerate and accept all of this as just the way it is, well, you are just going to have to live with these tragedies again and again.

You can't stop them. You have only fertile ground for growing more. You have built your society on violence and it is time to simply own up to the fact that this is how your world works. You support it. You feed it. You nurture it. You justify it. You defend it. You even argue for it. And you do nothing to stop it. Yes, my fellow Americans, it is a deep-seated, cultural problem that you (and unfortunately the rest of the world) have to deal with. And until you do, you're just going to get a lot more of the same. You are going to be part of who's to blame.

Is he serious?

Oh, yes, he is. He's very serious. I'm very serious.

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I hear all you whiners, too: nobody made him take the loan; he didn't have to sign the contract ... but, is that really the case? No car, no job. Where's the choice? There are many times in life when we simply have no choice and we end up in a situation that we wish were otherwise. My question is, why don't any of us count so much that our situation can be considered? Why are we treated like human beings? Why are we simply contracts, and agreements, and obligations, and, well, just things. When you strip a human of his/her humanity, you do violence. And that's what we do, and that's what we think is right these days. Yes, we've stooped this low.

For all the touting that conservatives do about the worth and necessity of the individual, I find it somehow surprising that as soon as money is involved, the individual isn't worth anything at all. Any individual can suffer a twist of fate, a set-back, an unexpected and temporary change of fortune. Why can't that all be calculated in? Why is this so difficult?

Well, it isn't difficult if you owe enough, or if you appear to be rich enough, or you have the proper gift of persuasion. Rupert Murdoch can be on the verge of bankruptcy, but if he calls in his creditors and tells them they are going to negotiate new terms, new terms get negotiated. If you're not of Rupert's "stature", you're nothing more than free game. The fact that another can consider you so unimportant, so insignificant, so not worth dealing with, is another piece of evidence for my violence hypothesis. Since I can bully you, I will; since I cannot bully Rupert, I won't. How phony can you get? And these are the folks we like to praise as "captains of industry", "gurus of high finance", "business leaders" ... right.

Truth be told, they are little more than braggarts, bullies and cowards. They hide behind their rules and laws when it suits them and when they can get away with it, but otherwise, they bow, scrape and kow-tow before anyone upon whom they can place a monetary value greater than their own (in that moment). Isn't that just grand? How proud we must be? How satisfied we must be with our own humanity.

Well, not really. You may think they are business or finance geniuses, but they're simply crappy human beings. They're hypocrites and purveyors and multiple standards. They're inconsistent, arbitrary, and in the end, cruel, and simply violent. If you admire them, or support them, or simply don't care, well, you're just as bad.

Funny, I can't remember the last time I was this serious.

Does he mean me?

Yes, he does; that is, yes, I do.

Lots of you don't feel spoken to, and I think for two primary, but very different reasons. First, there are those who just don't get the debt-violence connection. And, second, there are those who don't think I'm talking to them.

Let's take the second group first: I'm talking to you. It's that simple. I'm talking to you because I'm talking to everybody. As George Carlin put it, you're here, you're guilty, end of story. Get over yourselves. You're involved, you're not immune. None of us are immune. If we're not actively playing the debt game, we're playing it indirectly. We support it because we don't understand it, we think we know better, but the fact of the matter is, hardly anybody really thinks about it because we think that's just the way things are. They're not. This is how we made them (or allowed them to be made). There's nothing natural about it. It's artificial, just like everything humans make is artificial.

So, now the other folks, the one's who don't get it yet ... here's the deal:

To me, the definition of violence is simple: it is the ability one has to have someone else conform to that person's will, when the person simply can't say "no" without repercussions to his/her well-being. Say you just got a job, but you can't walk to it nor can you take public transportation (because more often than not there isn't any). Now what? You need a car. Have the money? No. Answer: car loan. Do you have a choice? Not really, if it's up to you and you can't mooch off others. Great. Now you have a car, but the company decides it's closing shop and sending all the jobs to China. Now you have no job, therefore no money. Does the lending institution tell you not to worry about it, they'll just put the payments on hold and as soon as you're back on your feet again, you can pick up where you left off? I doubt it. They want their money, they want it now, and if you don't pay it, they'll send some thuggy looking individual to intimidate you into putting up the cash or simply taking back your car, by force, if necessary. That's violence folks, and the fact that they can do that without the slightest hesitation, without fear of the slightest sanction, they exercise violence ... against you. It may be psychological, it may be potential, or it may even be physical. You're in debt, you're subject to that violence.

You don't count. Your circumstances don't count. Nothing counts but the money you owe. And "they" can get it, one way or the other, by force, if necessary, and you have not recourse whatsoever. If that's not violence, I don't know what is.

Courage? Right.

There are a few brave souls out there who will think seriously about thinking critically, but they are a dwindling majority. Most of you are thinking to yourselves, "Yes, what's wrong with those cowards who won't take a stand for tomorrow?", whereby you who are thinking this may be the most to blame. Just how critical is your own thinking? Have you ever really tested it? And if you have, have you done so publicly? I think most likely not. Don't get me wrong: I'm not accusing anyone of cowardice, but I know how most of you are feeling. Yeah, but ... and it's always the "but" that gets you and it's where you end up getting kicked as well.

Take this freak show going under the guise of a presidential campaign: How many of you have already made up your minds? Good. Now how many of you have thought about something substantial in making that decision? Right. Now, for all of you who have made substantial decisions, have you seriously investigated any of Romney's policies? I doubt it, because if you did, you'd find out he really doesn't have any. He campaigns well enough against Obama, but he is as backhanded as they come. Or, for you Obama fans: have you seriously thought about his policies or are you just against Romney? Probably not. Our proud Nobel Prize winner has as much guilt on his conscience as the war-mongers of Bush II & Co. Why is none of this an issue?

It is an insult to the intelligence of any thinking person that the best you can do is put up these two guys and then expect that the world take you seriously. Is that the best you can do? Obviously, because that's who you've got. The only folks who got close to getting it were the Occupy crowd, and we all saw what happened to them. Legitimate dissent will be crushed - literally crushed - by the powers-that-be. Police departments ... yes, police departments ... are buying mid-sized armor and drones, for crying out loud. The police, mind you. Bloomberg even brags about having one of the world's largest armies, and he's talking about NYPD. Tell me that's not downright bizarre.

And every single one of you who found a rationalization for this, everyone who thinks that you have do something before things get out of hand ... well, you guys are not thinking critically. In fact, you're not thinking at all. All that America seems to know anymore, all that America is being seen for anymore, is the amount and intensity of violence they are willing to perpetrate on themselves. We already know they are not overly sensitive to inflicting it also on others.

Might does not make right. Never has, never will. What is right can only be determined by thinking people debating serious ideas, and you can't get to serious ideas without questioning what is. I hear a lot of saying, but as good as no questioning at all.

Time to talk

Violence is a sign of total frustration. When someone is backed into a corner and escape seems impossible, a common response is simply violence.

It is particularly sad, however, when it is the government – be it municipal, state, or federal – which feels compelled to act this way, for they are, at least in theory, servants of the public. I know it doesn't seem like it. Politics and governance have appeared to take on a lives of their own, or at least they appear to be living in their own little world. That's another sign of being overwhelmed by reality: retreating into one's own world.

For a good number of people, this is the time to find the guilty and ensure they are punished, but that's a really bad idea. Not only is there no one single entity, institution, group or person who can be blamed. We're all to blame. As George Carlin once quipped, "You're here, you're guilty, end of story." Well, almost. This is not the time to fix the blame, it's time to start fixing the problem.

Why? Because we're so good at it? Hardly. Because we know what needs to be done? Not in the least? Because we have a good chance of coming to a consensus on the way forward? Absolutely not. No, we have to start working on the fix simply because we have no choice. We've ranted and raved, thrown things, broken lots of stuff, almost burned the place to the ground, but, as expected, none of that has helped. No, now we have to take a deep breath, get calm, look each other in the eye, and do what we've practically forgotten how to do: we've got to start talking with one another.

You'll notice I said "with" ... not "to" or "at", not "out", "down" or "up". No, with. We've got to re-learn the lost arts of listening, reflecting, considering, questioning, and discussing. None of these need to be done with complete objective coolness. Passion is allowed, but not obsession. Assertiveness is allowed, but not abuse. Vigor is allowed, but not violence. But we have to start talking again.

Discussion is not a financial or economic method, so the moment we exchanged our society for a mere economy, we took away from ourselves perhaps our most powerful human problem-solving tool. We exchanged cleverness for clubs, reason for rubber bullets, and common sense for sonic cannons.

A recent article in New Scientist [online] by David Sloan Wilson, entitled "Selfless evolution: An idea rejected" shows how even Darwin acknowledged the necessity for a group selection function in evolution, that the Spencerian notion of "the survival of the fittest" has only short-term, but never long-term benefits. And the recent financial crisis has shown -- once again -- what happens when you think short-term for too long a time. Cooperation, not competition, is the strategic approach, and societies are (or at least should be) based on cooperation. So, it's time to put the economy in its place, take back our society and start talking again. My grandkids will thank you all for it, believe me.