Reality check on aisle nine

[plural]

There are in this world

very bad people

I've seen them, talked with them, fought against them and
even called a few of them friends

People who see through the happy go lucky charade of modern sentiment
and people who recognize that the world is a brutal ugly place
seek to profit from and ultimately rejoice in its brutality

We in the western world love to talk about human rights and the sanctity of life
but these ideas are foreign in most of the world

for 75% of the worlds population life has a price tag
it is pretty damn cheap and our vaunted ideals
seem like delusional pipe dreams

The facts in most of the world are
that civil rights are a fiction
that human rights are a fiction
that violence & corruption rules the day and breeds in the night

We cannot, in our munificent ignorance continue to stumble along blindly assuring ourselves
that everyone else believes as we do and wants what we want

it is assuredly a recipe for disaster

the vast majority of people in this world are unconcerned about civil rights, human rights
it isnt that they think these to be a bad thing or even that someday they wouldnt like to have them
but that they seem too far off as to be addressable

most of the people in this world are focused far more shortsightedly
not because they are morally inferior but out of simple necessity

when every day of your existence is focused completely
on feeding yourself and your family
on evading the capricious whims of violent men
and trying to eek out some minute measure of security

things like sanctity of life seem awfully far off

We must set aside our overwhelming arrogance and to paraphrase Clinton

Instead of asking what we can do for them, ask what we can do with them

for our compassion has become predatory
our assistance tied to impossible and indeed damaging criteria
and entirely foreign concepts

We sit in our lavish homes (and by world standards nearly every one of us lives lavishly)
watching our televisions, eating ourselves into obesity

thinking those poor people morally bankrupt and pathetic

when it is we who are morally bankrupt
it is we who are pathetic

for only we have the option of choice and squander that choice and the opportunities it provides daily

they are simply trying to survive in a brutal and vicious world
that we have not only no concept of
but are in the most fundemental way in denial of

As Johann Friedrich Von Schiller said

"It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases."

I remember as a child the famine in ethiopia and being scolded to finish my food because of the starving children in africa
I recall in later years hearing similar stories from my grandparents about their childhood

and it depresses me greatly

that even now some eighty years later the chasm of our ignorance prevails

There is catagorically no world food shortage
sure there may be places which like ethiopia suffer temporary famine or drought

but the bottom line is that the is plenty of food in the world
and whether an american six year old eats his peas or not
makes little difference

the problem not a lack of resource but preponderance of greed and corruption

There is no government in the world that could not feed its people if that was its resolve

however most governments in the world are ruled by men who desire power
and realize that a populace that is focused on feeding themselves has little time for other considerations

it was Arafat not the Israelis who have kept the palestinians in abject poverty
and I am not excusing Israel of its part however just pointing out the fact that if Arafat had chosen
he could have done much to alievate the suffering of his people
but he did not
intentionally
because the suffering of his people was his most valued weapon in the court of international opinion

after Oslo in 1993 billions of dollars in aid were funneled to the P.A. and to Israel

In Israel you can see where that money went
new roads, houses and hospital
schools and infrastructure

In Palestine?
nothing
a few new government buildings for the P.A.
new weapons and security services

I was there in 1994
I saw the beginnings of new construction in Israel
a new water treatment plant, a new hospital, a new school
and I travelled accross the green line into Palestine
where I saw only stagnation and corruption

If we want to help the impoverished masses of this world
we must work with them not to give them what we think they need
but to honestly listen and hear them on what they need

The reporting on the Tsunami has in particular
showcased our arrogance and our ignorace of the world

I recall watching CNN and hearing "tragic" reports
of people devastated by the tsunami living in tents, grass huts and ramshackle metal buildings

umm people
most of them lived in grass huts and tin shanty towns before the disaster

and we didnt give a damn then
or at the very least we didnt show tragic images on television twenty four hours a day

the news reports it as if a small midwestern town
with its quaint craftsman homes and treelined avenues had been levelled
and the residents left with lives shattered and in abject poverty

Yes these people have had their lives shattered
but they were in abject poverty before
and in two months when we have again forgotten about them
they will return to lives of abject poverty and survivalist squalor

now I am not downplaying the tradegy one iota
rather commenting on the ignorant arrogance through which we have viewed it
a hundred and fifty thousand lives lost is a terrible thing
of course
as one of my professors mentioned to me in a discussion after class today
in the scope of current world events it is hardly the worst of our current tradegies

the suffering caused by AIDs in Africa has a far higher death toll
as does the violence which has swept that continent in the past decade

but in the Tsunami we are blameless and more importantly we feel potent
we believe we can help where as in the case of AIDS in Africa it seems a lost cause

I was raised with a strong belief that with power comes the responsibility to use it wisely
our wealth is power and we squander it daily and even our misguided attempt to render assistance
to improve the lot of the world as a whole are doomed to failure because of our ignorance and arrogance

We must learn to see the world as it is, to see truly all of its vicious and capricious nature
and give up our idyllic delusions of how we wish it to be

until we can see the world and its problems as they are
rather than how we want them to be
we can never even begin to make positive change
to right the wrongs and develop policies which can effect real change

and that is the tradegy which I lament most

We must as a nation, as a world, as human beings
recognize and face the evil which pervades our existance
and be willing to fight that evil with every fiber of our being

We must learn to accept that we have utterly failed and will continue to utterly fail
until we can burst our bubble of denial and address the real problems of the world
with real solutions

we must give up our neat little answers, our feel good moments and pretty ribbons of sympathy

the problems of this world are not pretty and the answers to those problems will not be either

in many parts of the world, particularly in africa
life is dictated by cruel and vicious men more akin to rabid dogs than human beings

you cannot negotiate with a rabid dog
you cannot appease it nor can you turn your back on it

however distasteful it may seem you must put it down and utterly destroy it

When slaying monsters and demons
there is a fine line which must be tread
between having the will to do what must be done
and becoming a monster yourself

As Nietzsche said

"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you",

the horrors of war are absolute
ask any veteran of the second world war how that war changed them as a man
and they will probably smile and shake their head knowing that you could never understand

there is a terrible price for fighting evil
a price which only the soldier understands
those without blood on their hands can never begin to grasp these facts

there are acts in this world
that once performed forever change a human being
no matter how well intentioned or in the service of righteousness it may be
the dark stain of it will never leave your soul

Oh we find words and explainations
to appease and satisfy us

"Post-traumatic stress syndrome"

what bullshit

you want to know what "Post-traumatic-stress syndrome" really is

it is the inability to forget what you have seen and what you have done
the inability to return to the shelter of ignorance and denial
in which your family and friends still reside
the knowlege that no matter what you do or say
they can never understand what you experienced
what you did and the price which you paid with your very soul

yet ask that same veteran of that same second world war
if they would rather have forgone their nightmares
their haunting ghosts and tormenting demons
and not travelled that hellish path

I have never met one that would

because at the most basic they each understand
that the price they paid in blood and humanity
was a necessary price to rid the world of a single instance of great evil

but we have lost this resolve in our selfishness and denial
we have succumbed to the poisonous words of our own snaked tongue advisors
whispering quietly that there is another way
that such a sacrifice is no longer needed
that the costs are too high
that the sword of war is too terrible to ever be unsheathed

they say that violence is too ugly
that war is too indiscriminate a tool ever to be used
we are distracted by casualties, both of our own troops and innocents
and asked if it is worth the cost

and to say that the sword of war is horrible will bring no objection from me
but the price of standing idly by seems a far greater horror

We as Americans saw the cost of standing idly by in 1946
when we liberated the death camps of Europe
it was a price paid with millions of lives for our reticence, for our selfishness

but the neither we nor the world learned our lesson
for we keep paying that bloody price
keep ignoring torrent of innocent blood swirling at our feet
and cling tightly to our delusions

Refuse to admit that the world is not a happy pretty place
and that we have both the power and the obligation to do something about it
whatever the cost.

We did it in the Balkans
We did it in Rwanda
We do it now in the Sudan

We must open our eyes and reject our delusions
admit our failures and neglect

I remember as a small boy when I began to study Aikido
the first thing I was taught when faced with violence was to run away
the second thing I was taught was to knock them down, then run away
and when that violence was unavoidable and persistent
when I could not escape the violence
I was taught to utterly destroy them

We can change the channel all we like
distract ourselves with our vapid lives
but we cannot escape the violence

I dislike violence, probably more than most of you
as I have seen it first hand on a scale that few of you have
I have felt it course through my own flesh and scar my soul
but when I look at the world and see it in its reality

my heart is repulsed by claims
that a violent response to such evil
is unnecessary

Comments

[rdg.livejournal.com]

you cannot negotiate with a rabid dog
you cannot appease it nor can you turn your back on it

we give them loans instead