Who's to blame?

We love to place the blame, don't we? I mean, there are so many others, there are just so many places we could place it, isn't there? Why do we have to place it on ourselves?

While I can certainly understand not wanting to be culpable, it is time we started realizing that we all share some of the blame for the terrible shape our world is in. And it's in bad shape. The environment is deteriorating, and it doesn't matter whether it's humans or natural, we need to do something about it. The economy worldwide is deteriorating, and it doesn't matter whether it's the greed of the money-lenders, the corruption in government, or a combination of both, we need to do something about it. Our societies are deteriorating, and it doesn't matter if it is unbridled egotism or sheer indifference, we need to something about it. So many things are broken - big things, significant things - that we have to do something before everything just collapses around our ears, for when it does collapse - and it will (I've got history on my side in that one) - it will collapse around all our ears, not just some of ours.

The ideas I've been pushing the last few posts are not original. Taking on guilt because you don't do something when you should is even a legal precept in Germany, for example (it's called unterlassene Hilfeleistung, literally, "refused help". If you see someone in need and you don't help, it's considered a crime in these parts. It's a good idea, because it is simply part of what holds us together, as a society, and as a race - the human race.

A couple of weeks ago I read a passionate little book by William Rivers Pitt about what went wrong with the first Bush II administration. It was the passion that struck me most of all; the facts, at least in this case, pretty well speak for themselves. He took the title of the book from a statement Bill Moyers made back in a speech in October 2001, over a decade ago, and called it The Greatest Sedition is Silence. I can't remember the last time that truer words were spoken. Pitt put his finger in the most festering wound we've got, worldwide, in every so-called or half-way "free" country: we are silent. We allow bad things - very bad things, cruel things, lethal things, inhuman things - to happen; we know about them; and we stay silent.

We have every reason in the world to hang our heads and hide our faces. We should be more than ashamed. And for that very reason, it is time to speak up and speak out.

Is that all?

No, not by a long shot. You really didn't think that was all I had to say about that, did you? I didn't think so.

You might have noticed that a word popped up more than once in the last post, and it's really the theme of this one: hypocrisy. It's one of our taken-for-granted concepts. Everybody believes they know what it means, and it's one of those that, oddly enough, only ever applies to other people, never to ourselves. The moment you find yourself thinking just that, it might be time to stop and reassess.

There's a lot of little things that fit into the scheme here. Did you ever notice that other people get paid way too much for what they do, and we never get paid what we're worth? Or, have you noticed lately that only poor people who get assistance from the government are moochers, but when the well-off receive it, it's a necessary subsidy? Or, what about those folks who rail against entitlements but take their own Social Security checks to the bank every month and ride to their Tea Party protests on scooters paid for by Medicare? I could go on, of course, but why beat a dead horse? None of that applies to any of us.

If asked directly, all of us will say that we're all for freedom and liberty, but if pushed just a little, you'll find that every one of these liberty-lovers isn't so keen on having Nazis around, or perhaps they think that our society has become promiscuous or degenerate because others have decided on a lifestyle different from our own. And, of course, anyone on the street protesting, well, talk about too much time on your hands: why don't these people go get a job and stop asking for a handout?

All of these ways of thinking are simply hypocritical. We're right; others are wrong. We know our limits; others are just takers. Truth be told, we're no different than anyone else. What most of you don't know - or maybe what you're simply not aware of - is the fact that if you do not stand up and speak out against the injustices that are inflicted on others each and every day, if you simply remain silent because you don't think it's your problem or you (even worse) don't want to get involved, then you are every bit as guilty as those who actually do the deeds. Need I remind you: silence is assent. By allowing it to happen, by not speaking out against it, you are, at least tacitly, supporting it.

Silence has its price. Looking the other way has its price. For the more religiously inclined among you, there are sins of commission and sins of omission. You can be guilty for doing something, but it's almost worse to know that others are being dealt with unjustly and to be silent.

If you've never thought of it this way, you need to start.

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.