C.G.Ayling

Category: Heavy Stuff

This is where you’ll find my musing’s about matters, of substance.

  • Integrity

    A short while ago, I tweeted this.

    Intergity, when our heart knows right, and we do it, when our heart knows wrong, and we don’t.

    Before you continue reading, be warned this post contains graphic imagery which might disturb you.  If you’re squeamish, please stop reading now.

    The issue with integrity isn’t right and wrong at all, it is that we are trained to perceive things a particular way.  If we’re unable to determine that we’ve been trained, then how can we ever know if what we think is right really is?

    How can someone who has been indoctrinated since birth break free of the bonds their indoctrination binds them with? How can they do something they’ve been taught since birth to believe is wrong?

    This frames one of the many things I hold against every organized religion I have encountered. Dogma. Ask any free minded person what they think about something as elementary as a prohibition on eating the flesh of pigs and see what they say.
    Religiously based morals are not based on right and wrong, they are based on mental control.

    At its most fundamental level, morals must break down to matters of life and death.  Yet even there, where are the clear lines defining the one from the other?

    We all think we know we shouldn’t kill sentient beings.  But sometimes we also know that is the only right thing to do.

    Years ago my wife accidentally reversed over a kitten sleeping behind one of the rear wheels.  The kitten’s spine and rear legs were crushed, it’s stomach burst open, emptying its entrails and most of its organs, which remained attached.  We heard it mewl, I got out of the car.  A single glance told me the only right thing to do was to kill the kitten in order to spare it a slow, cruel death.

    My wife had stopped the car halfway up the driveway.  Along with her, our two young children were craned forward trying to see.  I indicated she should reverse the car out of the driveway, my intention being preventing our young kids seeing the painful death of the kitten.  She reversed back about 20 feet and stopped again.  All three of them still craned forward.

    By now I was extremely angry since every passing moment was unnecessary agony for an innocent animal.  I made a very emphatic gesture at her that meant “GET THE #$$%^ OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!!!”  After looking momentarily affronted, she finally reversed out of the driveway and down the road to a point the children could no longer see.  I closed my heart and crushed the kitten’s skull with my heel.  It died instantly.  But that instantly came many seconds after the determination of right and wrong had been made.

    What would an unquestionably ethical religion like Buddhism have had me do?  Let the kitten suffer, while appeasing my conscience with mental mumbo-jumbo about the ebb and flow of life from one state to another in reincarnation?

    The only absolute, is that every absolute has exceptions.

    That is the fantastic thing about our true soul. It knows what is right, and it encourages us to do it, it knows what is wrong, and it encourages us to not. All we need to do, is hear its voice.  But to hear, we first have to learn to silence the ambient noise of a society gone deaf.

    The problem, is the things we’re taught, not the things we know.

  • The Face, of Evil.

    If someone willfully, maliciously, intentionally, and repeatedly deceives, injures, and murders others, we would know them to be evil.  Yet we fail to apply the same rules to corporations as we do to people. We must change our thinking.

    Judged by any human standard, the Tobacco Industry is the personification of an Evil Empire. As with all such entities, there are two classes of people. People who support it, and people who are subjugated and victimized by it. This holds true for the tobacco industry. Those who profit from tobacco support it, therefore they are the pawns of evil. Those who use tobacco products, are its subjugated victims.

    You don’t like what you’re reading?

    Interestingly enough, I didn’t much enjoy writing this post. I know it won’t make me any friends, however these are truths that need to be told.  If you don’t want to believe me, I understand fully, I didn’t want to believe these facts either.  Sadly, that is precisely what forms the basis of this post. Indisputable facts.  Yes, I wrap the facts in my passion, but they are still facts.  Verify them for yourself by clicking on the links throughout the article, or even better do your own research.

    You have a choice to make. You can choose to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and walk away. Just stop reading. But before you do, remember that “All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.”

    Still here? Thank you. I believe you are taking a stance for good.  After reading this post, whether you agree or not, you will have another view of tobacco to consider. Though my thoughts will likely be painful to read, they are plain truths as I see them.

    This post is far longer than I like, likely because it has been hovering in my heart for decades. For that reason I’ve tried to structure it into sections. While I don’t expect you to agree with me, I hope my insights provide you with food for thought.

    Tobacco Kills. Period.

    Tobacco kills. Period. You can’t argue with that statement. It is an indisputable fact.

    Indeed many of the male models used to sell how macho smoking is to a gullible public have died directly as a result of smoking. Don’t want to believe me, think that’s just an urban legend? Consider the “Marlboro Man”.  Need more evidence?  Do a little research of your own, the evidence is everywhere. Now, perhaps you’re mumbling some nonsense like, “Well that’s just a few overpaid actors, why should I care?” You should care because tobacco directly affects you, regardless of whether you use tobacco products or not. Every passing day tobacco injures and kills people who use it. You undoubtedly know, or knew, some of its victims.

    Within the USA alone tobacco kills an astounding 443,000 each year.  Let me put that number in perspective.  I live in Columbus, Ohio, it is the 15th largest city in the USA.  Its estimated 2013 population was 822,553.  Columbus is a large, sprawling city covering 223.11 square miles (562.47 square kilometers for the metricated).  It takes the tobacco industry less than two years to systematically murder every single person in Columbus.

    {Edit. Still not appalled by the gravity of this situation?  How about these additional facts, which you can verify on the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ official website. One in five deaths in the USA are caused by tobacco.  The number of deaths has increased from 443,000, reported above, to 480,000 annually within the USA alone!! In countries such as China, where tobacco is still advertised as containing magical, mystical, beneficial properties it in no way possesses, the death toll is likely a far higher percentage of total annual deaths.  But lets keep things simple by assuming the same percentage.  This means a conservative estimate of tobacco related murders in China is an astonishing  one and a half million people every single year!}

    So, whether you realize it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, you are already one of tobacco’s victims.

    But you know what? Even if by some statistical impossibility you aren’t directly or indirectly affected by tobacco, you should still care. Why? Because caring about the impact of evil is something moral people do.

    The wrong words.

    Words and the way we use them are crucially important. Words can reveal deep, meaningful truths. Words can obscure vicious lies. The wrong words, are wrong. The Tobacco Industry is masterful in its use of wrong words. Their lies, both implicit and explicit, have tricked billions of people into becoming drug addicts. Their lies have directly caused the deaths of literally hundreds of millions of people. All of the wars combined, throughout recorded history, don’t approach the number of deaths directly caused by the tobacco industry. Consider that.

    I am sympathetic to the victims of the tobacco industry, as I believe we all should be. However, those victims need to look at themselves and realize that the words they use to describe their behaviors are deceitful. It is so easy to deceive ourselves, isn’t it?

    Tobacco users are addicts. Addicts don’t “choose to keep using”. Addicts don’t “have a habit”. Addicts are controlled by their addiction. Addicts have no freedom of choice. Addicts are under the control of their drug dealers.

    People who manage to break their addition are not “quitters”, and they haven’t “given up”.  “Quit” and “Give up” have significant negative connotations – they apply to losers.  So why do we apply them to former tobacco users, who are true winners.  Society needs to stop using these cleverly planted, promoted, and misleading statements with truths.

    Perhaps most important of all, addicts are victims. If you use tobacco products, you’re an addict, and you’re also a victim of the tobacco industry. Stop deceiving yourself. Stop thinking in terms of “habit”, and embrace the reality of your addiction. Stop blaming yourself for your lack of willpower, addiction isn’t about willpower at all. Addiction is an insidious evil thing. You are a victim of unscrupulous, misleading marketing that surrounds smoking in a cloak of glamor it doesn’t possess. The tobacco industry hooked you on drugs, that makes them criminals, and you their victim. Acknowledge that you are a drug addict. Realize how pathetic it is to lie to yourself about your ability to kick the “habit”, if only you wanted to. You think you can, but until you do you can’t.

    Society needs to stop thinking of tobacco users as anything other than they are, namely victims. If people don’t acknowledge tobacco users have a problem, what incentive is there to remedy it? People consistently using the wrong words lets the tobacco industry and its users hide behind shadowy mistruths perpetrated by the evil empire.

    The right words.

    Murder.  When a death is deliberately and callously caused, the right word is murder.

    Addict. When someone has a physical and psychological dependence on a drug, they don’t have a habit, they have an addiction.  The right word is not habit, it is addiction.

    Victim.  Those injured by others are victims. Victims should never be the subject of blame.  The right word is not choice, it is victim.

    Overcome. When you manage to defeat overwhelming odds you overcome. When you win and defeat your addiction, you have overcome, you haven’t quit.

    Evil. There are forces of good and evil, and their reins are held by men.  Never make exemptions for evil behavior.  Call something vile, something vile.  The right words are not tobacco industry, they are Evil Empire.

    The Pawns of the Evil Empire.

    With my premise set, let me now ensure that the pawns of evil know that we know who they are. The pawns of evil are those who profit from the tobacco industry. If you work for a tobacco company, invest in a tobacco company, sell tobacco “products”, pass laws to protect tobacco companies, or do anything that in any way supports the tobacco industry, then you are a pawn of this evil empire. How else can you possibly consider yourself? It is directly because of you, personally, that countless people suffer and die. How does that make you feel? Have you ever even thought about it? How do you appease your conscience? Do you still have one?

    Do you think I’m being harsh by saying that stores carrying tobacco products are pawns of evil? Allow me to provide an analogy. A military general issues an order explicitly instructing a group of soldiers to torture and kill a group of civilians. The soldiers comply. Who is the war criminal? Answer:- Everyone involved in the war crime, from general all the way down the chain of command to the actual soldiers who physically carried out the orders. Tobacco does precisely what the military personnel in this analogy have done, tobacco tortures, maims, and murders innocents. Tobacco is far, far worse than a war crime – tobacco is a crime against humanity.

    Simply because a store owner does not produce tobacco products in no way exempts them from their involvement in the crime. The same goes for every single person who profits from the tobacco industry. From advertising agencies responsible for storyboards for tobacco commercials, to the freight companies that transport the products, to the chemical companies that provide chemicals to process noxious tobacco products. Every single person who profits from the tobacco industry has the blood of millions of people on their hands. Every single one of you commits crimes against humanity.

    And now every single one of you can’t hide behind the excuse that you didn’t know.

    But they employ so many…

    Thinking the tobacco industry should be permitted to remain in existence because it employs so many people verges on the insane. I have even heard people saying we must also consider how many people are indirectly employed due to the tobacco industry. I wonder if they mean those in the healthcare industry? I equate that to saying the Mafia should be allowed go around breaking people’s legs with baseball bats, because doing so ensures the livelihood of not only the mafia, but also of the healthcare workers who treat their victim’s injuries.

    To permit an industry that directly costs society countless billions in medical bills annually,  that murders millions of people every single year, that decimates families who lose their loved ones… to permit such an industry to continue existing because it employs people…  in a word that thinking is insane.

    Tobacco Farmers.

    Don’t tell me tobacco farmers can’t grow anything else. I have personally known tobacco farmers who profitably converted their former tobacco fields to growing cut flowers. I know land used for tobacco production can grow other crops. Regardless, I am not a farmer, and I am not going to get into arguments over nickels and dimes with profit driven liars.

    Even if it were completely true that lands used to grow tobacco could never be used to grow anything else, the inescapable fact is that tobacco farmers directly profit by injuring people. What does that make them? Tobacco farmers are way above the “pawns of evil”, or perhaps they are way below them? Indeed tobacco farmers are the very root of the evil empire that is the tobacco industry.

    Without tobacco farmers, there would be no tobacco industry.

    To my mind, tobacco farmers are filthy, despicable, and immoral scum. Tobacco farmers are on the same level as the most vicious bosses of the most violent drug cartels – except of course that tobacco farmers kill and injure more people than any cartel, ever. The only thing tobacco farmers deserve from society is a long jail term.

    A worthless drug.

    Tobacco is a worse than worthless drug. Tobacco causes immediate and long-term harm. Tobacco doesn’t improve mental or physical performance. Tobacco doesn’t cure a single ailment. Tobacco doesn’t increase virility. Tobacco damages, that is all it does.  But that single deed is more than enough cause for any thinking, moral person to desire the destruction of the entire tobacco industry.

    I doubt I could accurately convey the number of tobacco addicts who have answered my question, “Why do you smoke?” with the answer, “Smoking calms me.”

    Smoking calms you… really? Think for a moment and you’ll see that statement is about as ludicrous as saying, “Since a shot of heroin calms a heroin addict, heroin must be a calming agent.”

    Smoking doesn’t calm people, it temporarily calms their craving for nicotine.  How is a calmed addiction any less an addiction?

    If you smoke tobacco, you’re a drug addict. If you chew tobacco, you’re a drug addict. If you snort snuff, you’re a drug addict. Those are plain, simple, and inescapable facts.

    The essence of addiction.

    Since tobacco is so worthless, why do so many people throughout the world use tobacco products? Because tobacco is a ready source of an incredibly addictive chemical called “nicotine”.  And yes, the tobacco industry has known about nicotine’s addictive power for generations. The tobacco industries knowledge of nicotine’s addictive properties is why they remove nicotine from tobacco at the start of processing, only to reintroduce it when the processing won’t damage the nicotine. Nicotine is the tobacco industry’s not-so-secret cash cow – what better way to guarantee sales than addicting your customers to your products. What other industry is permitted to sell products whose only purpose is addiction? Why is the tobacco industry exempt from all moral laws? Why indeed?

    Nicotine is noted to be a stimulant, yet precisely what it stimulates I can’t imagine. Nicotine certainly doesn’t stimulate the brain, or people would realize how foolish becoming addicted is, and they would immediately stop. Nicotine certainly doesn’t improve physical performance, as evidenced by watching smokers wheezing along behind non-smokers, or by watching those who chew tobacco lose their teeth to gum disease.

    I was wrong, I can imagine what nicotine stimulates – profits for a truly evil empire.

    A matter of choice?

    Tobacco is not a matter of choice. Tobacco is a matter of addiction. It causes addiction at a speed unmatched by virtually all other drugs, including heroin. We don’t listen to heroin addicts telling us, “It’s cool brother, I choose to do heroin.” So why do we listen to those addicted to tobacco saying similarly fallacious things?

    Perhaps it is because the tobacco industry has promoted this issue as a matter of free choice. Indeed they have promoted the idea of nicotine addicts deserving freedom of choice so well that their victims have forgotten they are victims and have assumed the mantle of blame for their addiction.

    Since when do addicts have free choice in their addiction?  Since nicotine addicts are permitted this choice should we not extend the same freedoms to cocaine and heroin users?  Aaahhh, another right word which is never used to describe tobacco addicts. User.

    Tobacco {non-}Education.

    Why does our educational system not tell our children about this despicable, addictive drug? I hear you saying it does. In school, my children have all been taught irrelevancies about smoking. Most of which somehow make it appear as though tobacco is a choice they should only make when they are grown-up. This somehow encourages them to make the choice immediately, because that will show how grown-up they are. The schools haven’t explicitly informed student that nicotine is a physically and psychologically addictive drug. The schools don’t tell kids that smoking as few as two or three cigarettes is enough for them to become dependent on nicotine. The schools don’t tell kids that the most likely drug of all for all of them to become hooked on isn’t pot, or meth, or coke, or any of the other cute sounding buzzword drugs. The drug they are most likely to become addicted to, and never manage to escape, is nicotine. I have four children. I have told them these things, and they have listened. Directly due to my efforts, none of my children use tobacco products. But what about the children of smokers? Not only do they not tell their kids about the dangers of tobacco, they resent anyone else doing the same. Somehow it is deemed to be politically incorrect to warn people about the dangers they are imposing on themselves and others by smoking – perhaps because it impinges on an addict’s “freedom of choice”?

    Note my earlier choice of words, “use tobacco products”. Why did I say that instead of “smoke cigarettes”? This comes back to the inadequacy of our educational system in equipping our children to defend themselves from the predatory, drug pushing corporations that all tobacco companies are. When my second daughter was about seventeen and in her senior year I found a tin of “chew” in her room. When I accosted her, she said something that really shocked me. She said, “Oh don’t worry Dad, I don’t smoke.” I explained to her it doesn’t matter how the tobacco industry gets you hooked on nicotine, all they care about is getting you hooked. The schools had told her nothing about this. Nothing. Only by pure chance did I discover my lapse in time to save my daughter from nicotine addiction.

    There is no such thing as a former addict, there are only addicts in recovery. Don’t let your children become addicts.

    Medicine.

    Please stop trying to tell me that nicotine magically transforms from addictive agent into medicine if it is taken transdermally, or is ingested in tablet form.

    Nicotine is not medicine, and it never will be.

    Which brings me to an important question.  How is it possible that no medications, real medicines, are widely available to cure nicotine addiction?  We have such medicines for heroin, which afflicts a truly miniscule percentage of society.  How is it even possible that no medicines to cure nicotine addiction exist?

    I have no doubt that such medicines do exist.  And I also have no doubt that we don’t know about them because certain “interested parties” don’t want us to know about them.  Am I a conspiracy theorist?  You may decide whether I am for yourself.  As for me, I have my own suspicions which I won’t share on that subject.

    Institutionalized drug enforcement.

    It is only through sheer luck that I never took up smoking in high school. Back then, in the early to mid 1970s, the health risks of tobacco were not widely known by the general population. Smoking was just something adults did. Naturally, this caused adolescents to see smoking as a way to be perceived as adults. {I have never understood why children are so eager to give up their childhoods.} Anyway, along with all my friends I was “smoking” – right up till someone more sophisticated told me I wasn’t doing it right. They told me, “You have to breathe the smoke right into your lungs.” I blew out, and drew a breath through the cigarette. For my effort, I received an immediate, pounding headache accompanied by a hacking cough as my body attempted to evacuate the poisonous tobacco smoke from my lungs. However, that wasn’t the worst of it. When I tried to walk to the sickbay, I discovered my feet were no longer quite touching the ground, but were somehow hovering just above it.

    It was literally the most nauseating experience I have ever had.

    When my sophisticated instructor told me, “Take another puff, it gets better.” I looked at him and replied, “You’re a f…..g idiot if you think I’ll ever do that again.” Apparently he wasn’t, because I never did do that again. Not even during my military training, in which the instructors regularly gave, “Smoke breaks.” What is a smoke break?  A smoke break is where, in the midst of vigorous physical exercise, everyone who smokes is allowed to take a five or ten minute break. Everyone who doesn’t smoke is forced to run laps while the smokers puff away.

    Institutionalized drug enforcement… where you’re forced to take drugs, instead of being prevented from taking them.

    Unbelievable? This by military instructors who believe the lies about smoking having a calming effect.

    Society punishes the victims.

    Punishing the victims. Instead of punishing the pushers, governments punish the victims of nicotine addiction by treating their addiction as a profit center. Governments everywhere apply exorbitant taxes to tobacco products. Do the tobacco companies pay those taxes? No, their victims pay them.

    My wife is a nicotine addict who firmly believes she is to blame for her addiction. She actually thinks she “chooses to smoke”. I wonder if you know anyone else like that? I wonder if you are like that yourself? We’ve been married twenty-eight years, in that time my wife has spent enough on her drug habit to buy four brand new cars. If that isn’t disgusting enough, I estimate that probably thirty percent of that wasted money has been paid to the governments that are supposed to work in her best interests.

    My wife’s father died a truly miserable death at the hands of COPD, caused by lifelong addiction to smoking. She sat beside his deathbed as he struggled to breathe. She held her father’s hand as he died, the direct, painful, irrevocable result of his addiction.  Yet she still smokes, and she still believes “she chooses to smoke.”  She believes it is her fault.

    An evil industry operating outside any moral constraints committed unconscionable acts in order to addict my wife to an utterly worthless drug. Adding insult to injury, they also made her a victim of propaganda which ensures she holds herself to blame for her addiction.

    We should never punish the victims of crime. Yet, in the case of tobacco users, all of society, non-smoking and smoking both, punishes the victims.

    Enough, is enough.

    Governments everywhere count the short-term profits from taxes levied against these disgusting purveyors of addiction as being greater than the uncounted hidden costs of misery, debilitating personal injury, shortened life, and the cold hard cash costs of medical treatment. This financial equation completely discards the grief felt by the loved ones left after tobacco addicts die painful, miserable deaths.

    Our governments don’t serve our interests – they serve the interests of immoral corporations.

    I’ll say it again. Tobacco users are victims who have been deceived by the tobacco industry into becoming drug addicts.

    It is time for change. Let us make the demise of the entire tobacco industry the first casualty in what we must realize is a war to take back our stolen citizenry.

    Interested in more reading ? http://smoking-tobacco.whocanisue.com/

    Is there any good news?

    Yes, and no.  If you are under the age of 40 and successfully defeat your addiction then, per the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions’ official website, stopping smoking  reduces the risk of dying from smoking-related disease by about 90%.  That is the yes.

    As for the no.  The NO, should be massive, and it should also be a plural.  As long as people sit idle, refuse to listen to irrefutable facts, and most of all refuse to take strong action to force their governments to protect them from the Evil Empire that the Tobacco Industry is… well then nothing is going to change.  Before too long tobacco will claim its billionth human life.  Sadly, I suspect that day has already come and gone – but it’s okay as long as we don’t know about it, right? Wrong. Very, very Wrong.

    {P.S. One of the few things I disliked about the Lord of the Rings, to which my own work has been compared, is that J.R.R.Tolkien chose to include “tabac” in the story.  J.R.R.Tolkien glorified tobacco use, just as thousands of other fictional pieces have done since.  Think about how many times you have seen the celebrities of television and movies smoking? Who do you think pays for that subliminal advertising? Smoking is not “cool”, it is criminal. Sadly, the ones treated as the criminals are in fact the victims.

    Should you read my work, “Beltamar’s War“, you will find a culture stripped bare of the things that make humans act so poorly. “Tabac” is one of the many things you won’t find in my tale.}

    {P.P.S.  I actually had someone on Twitter describe this post as “biased lies“.  I accept that I am strongly biased against the  tobacco industry – how could I not be?  The tobacco industry has repeatedly murdered people I love, and I have no doubt they will murder more who are precious to me and to you as well. Indeed, I cannot imagine how any decent person with access to information can be anything other than biased against the tobacco industry.

    However, I strongly resent being called a liar. When I DM’ed the person in question about this, he informed me that the statistics quoted by the Centers for Disease Control are lies. Apparently my quoting facts published by a reputable, unbiased governmental agency qualifies me as a biased liar.  So be it.}

  • Social Justice.

    This post was prompted by a tweet by Candace Brown. It read, “I TIRE of stereotypical stories of us just sittin’ round collecting welfare checks. That is not a ‘black’ problem..its a POVERTY problem”

    I have long wondered how the world has become so disconnected with the awful reality in which we find ourselves. While my current experience is within the USA, I believe the problem is worldwide. What problem? The widening gap between the wealthy and the poor.

    Everywhere I look, I find that the poor are held to blame by pervasive, society-wide anti-social rhetoric. What do I mean? Think about the things we’re told with such constant, implicit vehemence they begin to gain credence. We’re not told these things by our friends, who should be the people we trust. We aren’t even told them by the mass-media, who should be the people we trust the least. {Why? Because the mass-media is not “people”, the mass-media is amoral corporations who have no qualms about lying outright.}  No one in their right mind would ever come out and say something so blatantly stupid as, “The poor are to blame for crime.”  No, we aren’t actually told such things outright. However, they are implied with truly frightening frequency.

    Think how many times you’ve seen coverage of the allegedly widespread criminal activity taking place all around us. Now look at the video with a close, skeptical eye. Notice how often low income housing appears. Notice how often people of color predominate. What is the unspoken message? That “those people” are the problem.

    Look at the statistics of people incarcerated.  You can’t help but note how minorities make up the majority of convicted criminals. What is the unspoken message? That “those people” are the problem.

    I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen coverage of people selling their food-stamps for pennies on the dollar in order to gain access to alcohol or drugs. These stories are invariably followed by a public outcry. What is the unspoken message? That “those people” should not be getting public assistance.

    And the list goes on… Actually, with me the list does not go on. I don’t buy any of the nonsense the mass-media tries to force feed me. What I see in each of these scenarios is this:-

    There is nowhere near as much crime as the media portrays. Period. In any given group of people there are going to be a small percentage of rotten apples. This is undeniable. Let me reiterate. ANY given group of people, white, yellow, brown, or black. Where is the coverage of the white-collar criminal who steals the life savings from hundreds or thousands of people? Show us the footage of fancy houses, in fancy suburbs, whose fancy driveways are filled with fancy cars. Oh wait, the mass-media won’t do that because of fancy lawyers who will sue them for fancy damages. The bottom line is that we don’t hear about crimes from people with the wealth to buy freedom from prosecution. Simply because we don’t hear about them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

    Incarcerated minorities. Yes, a truly disproportionate number of convicted criminals are minorities. Why? Because a vastly larger percentage of minorities are criminals than the white majority? No, I’m willing to bet that exactly the same percentage of people are criminally inclined in any racial or ethnic group. So then why? Because they are the ones who cannot afford legal representation. Because they are easy marks for a system desperate to find someone to blame, convict, and hold up to a public eye hungry for “justice”. Because being hard on petty crime is much easier than being effective against the really serious criminals. However this statistical anomaly also raises another, extremely troubling question. Why does this bastion of freedom deprive more of its people of their freedom than virtually any other country? {Indeed, the USA jails a greater percentage of its citizens than all but two countries in the entire world.  Including dictatorships and various other extremely oppressive forms of government.}

    Selling food-stamps for pennies on the dollar. Outrageous! Actually, almost unbelievable. Make that completely unbelievable. Does it happen? I don’t doubt it for a moment. What I do doubt is that it is the poverty stricken who do this. I suspect the criminals, from that small, uniform percentage across all racial and ethnic groups, are the ones taking advantage of a broken system.

    Let us talk about Robin Hood.

    Sadly, the much lauded tale of Robin Hood is a two edged sword.  A two-edged sword of which both edges cut the poor in defense of the rich.

    The mythical sword’s first edge raises a false hope of social justice in uncounted people, for everyone likes to think they have a chance of improving their lot.  And if that improvement comes at penalty to the obscenely wealthy then so much the better.  The German word, “Schadenfreude“, describes this rather well.

    The mythical sword’s second edge grants crooks a siren song to sing to the unwary, a song that I have oft heard repeated. It goes something like this, “We shouldn’t take from the rich, in order to give to the poor.” Another version follows this refrain, “Though you can take from the rich and give to the poor, doing so doesn’t lift the poor from poverty, it only removes wealth from the rich.” Have you ever heard some variation on this song? No doubt you have, however let me ask you this… How many times have you heard of a rich person being stripped of their wealth in order that the poor might benefit? I know precisely and exactly how many times I have. Zero. It just does not happen. Ever. Not even in wartime.  Not even during the most violent of revolutions.

    I tire of hearing that the poor will always be with us.  Perhaps in an unenlightened world that might have been true, but no excuse for it remains.  If we are ever to eliminate poverty, then we must stop implicitly blaming the poverty stricken for being trapped in circumstances from which there is no chance of escape.

    That isn’t going to happen until the richest stop stealing from the poorest.

    Social justice isn’t about taking from the rich to “give” to the poor, it’s about stopping the rich from pillaging the poor.

    Yes, I know there are people in their wrong mind. I know because I see the results of their handiwork displayed under a convincing guise of pseudo-reason every time I make the mistake of paying attention to the mass-media.

    The last thing I’d like to stress is something I’ve said many times before, and which I’ll say many times again.

    There is no “us and them”, it takes individuals to make “them”, just as it takes you and me to make “we”. #thought

    Phrased in other words… There is no such person as “those people”, there are only people.

    {P.S. I’m just a man, just like every other man, no matter how poor. Please note that I don’t categorize myself with the wealthy. Not in any way, shape, or form. Not now, not in the past, and certainly not in the future. Like every reasonable human, all I desire is the chance to make things better for my family, with the proviso that by doing so I don’t make things worse for anyone else. If you want to help me improve our lot in life, then please buy and read my work. Reading it is important, since it depicts my view of a more just world. Perhaps Malmaxa will strike a chord for you and help you see that wherever, whenever, and however we are, we are all just people, though of course some are more just than others. But before you do, please grant dignity, thought, and charity to the billions who are far worse off than me.}

  • Black Elks Speaks

    “History is written by the victors, not by the vanquished.”

    Rarely do we have an opportunity to view history from the perspective of the vanquished.  “Black Elks Speaks”, by  John Neihardt, gives us another window through which we may look at the past.  Neihardt’s window shows us a completely different view of history.  A view in which honor and dignity belongs not to the victors, but to the vanquished.

    “Black Elk Speaks” grants a Lakota medicine man named Black Elk a voice, and every reader an opportunity to revisit the past.  Be warned that this is not a pretty past, it is a troubled one, but one from which each of us can learn a great deal.

    Black Elk has a powerful voice, and Neihardt’s work lets us hear it.  Listen carefully and you’ll hear the rustling of the winds, you’ll see the symbols he sees, and you’ll understand that deep down, Black Elk was simply a human – just like you or I.

    Black Elk, was one of the vanquished.  As a youth, he survived the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.  Fourteen years later, in 1890, he managed to escape death at the Wounded Knee Massacre.  Neihardt’s work is presented as a narration of Black Elk’s words, it includes but is not limited to these incidents.

    I have long held that there are two sides to truth.  “Black Elk Speaks” is the other side of the truth Americans generally see.  Through Neihardt’s lens the glorious past does not look as glorious, it looks downright shameful.

    What is “Black Elk Speaks”?

    It is not some fanciful romanticized Cowboys and Indians tale of the sort on which I was raised.  It is another version of the truth, one in which an honorable, dignified, and ancient culture were systematically cheated, misled, murdered, and ultimately destroyed in the name of western progress.

    It is a powerful revelation of how misuse and abuse of power inevitably results in tragedy.  It is a tale of rampant greed allowed to go entirely unchecked.  It is a tale of a government spurring its people on, allowing them to ride roughshod over those who get in the way of their vision of progress.  It is a tale of symbolism misunderstood.  It is a tale of tragedy.

    Is “Black Elk Speaks” a fun read?  Absolutely not.  It disturbed me deeply to learn that, in regard to US History, I had never been told the whole truth.  Equally disturbing is the realization that came with this knowledge, that many of the supposed truths I had accepted were so badly biased toward one side that they amounted to outright lies.

    Why read something that isn’t enjoyable?  Where do you derive enjoyment and satisfaction, from learning, or from being blissfully unaware?

    If we can’t learn from the past, then we should hold no hope for the future.  Black Elk Speaks grants us a glimpse of a past in which many mistakes were made.  It really is a learning opportunity for the future.

    “Black Elk Speaks” is not a “story” or a “tale”, it is another peoples’ truth.

    My further thoughts.

    Black Elk’s version of history differs substantially from my romantic childhood visions of the glorious Wild West, in which the Indians were the villains and the Cowboys the heroes.  My apologies to all Native Americans, please bear with me for a moment.  We have learnt a little of dignity in the last 40 years, we’re starting to understand that terms people find insulting should not be used.  But we still have a lot to learn.  We need to do more than not use derogatory cultural terms, we need to stop believing them.  A substantial part of that disbelief is readily available within “Black Elk Speaks”, which shows us the human side of those we are so willing to dehumanize with derogatory labels.  Once we realize that people are people are people, once we begin to understand that we are all the same on the inside, once we learn that we all have similar aspirations, once we are able to tear off the labels and look at the individuals…  Then we begin to realize that the world is a world of we, not a world of me.  Hopefully we also begin to realize that dignity is not granted by our discarding offensive labels such as “indian”, it is granted by the way we act towards the people we so labeled.

    While we cannot make right the wrongs done in the past, we can learn the other side of truth.  Are knowledgeable people less likely to repeat past errors?  We can only hope they are.

    My exposure to “Black Elk Speaks” distressed me sufficiently to prompt this tweet.

    Western civilization
    is a culture of conquer, and claim,
    everywhere it rides is thunder and acid rain,
    theft,
    without conscience, or shame.

    Who holds honor, the deceived, or the deceivers.

    Where lies shame?  With those whose ancestors faced a ruthless foe and succumbed, or with those whose ancestors were ruthless and destroyed?

    I think human nature encourages us to believe we are honorable, and that our heritage is honorable.  Sadly this is often not the case, {In my  case, my ancestors displaced the peoples of southern Africa.} yet when the evidence shows otherwise, we close our eyes.  We’re good at finding excuses and exemptions for our poor behavior, or for poor behavior exhibited by others that benefits us.

    However when we’re faced with the very real suffering that such behavior inevitably causes, then we start to think that perhaps things are not quite as just as we held them up to be.  That is what I felt in “Black Elk Speaks”.  I believe Neihardt’s work is the very real memories of one man, as told to another.  This isn’t a fictional story, but a translated memory of the events that shaped a person.  Black Elk was actually there, physically present at some of the brutal massacres perpetrated by the US military.  Yes, the author acted as intermediary, yes there is the potential for translation errors, and yes, understanding the symbolism of a culture foreign to your own is very confusing.  However none of those factors matter to me.

    Black Elk was a man, I am a man.  Black Elk wanted a life for his family, I want a life for mine.  Black Elk expected to be treated with dignity, as do I.  We’re all just humans, as humans have been for thousands of years, and as we’ll probably continue to be for thousands more.  Yet to this day distrust exists between the various sub-species of human. Our behavior toward those that differ from us is as repugnant as the behavior of those who virtually destroyed the Lakota sub-species. The lessons in Neihardt’s work are just as applicable today as they where during those tragic times, let us learn from them.

    Black Elk uses symbolism to illustrate his vision of past and future. Unfortunately, as a westerner to whom his culture is no longer accessible, I feel that I miss a great deal of what the symbols he invokes represent.  However that does not in any way detract from the power of Neihardt’s work. Black Elk’s symbolism gives us a glimpse of a deep understanding between man and nature, so deep as to be unity.  Black Elk does not separate and hold himself aloof from nature. Perhaps in Black Elk’s mind the bonding force between man and nature is spirit.

    In western European culture we take great pride in how our spirit remains indomitable beneath the elemental forces of nature.  In Black Elk’s culture, and within the symbols of it which Neihardt’s work presents, I sense an entirely different outlook.  In Black Elk’s vision of the world nature does not attempt to dominate man, thus there is therefore no need to man to be indomitable.  Only when man no longer hears Nature’s call is there reason to fear nature.  In Black Elk’s world nature encompasses man within its benevolent protection.  I see the escape of Black Elk’s people beneath cover of a blizzard as an example of nature’s protection.

    Why do we westerners make the mistake of thinking we can dominate nature?  “Black Elk Speaks” brings home to me how the Lakota people never held this view.  I wonder how it is that our modern, technologically advanced society has forgotten things an ancient culture knows?

    As I said, I’m of western European origin, which means some of the symbols Black Elk considers obvious are not obvious to me at all.  However, simply because we don’t understand symbolism does not make it any less symbolic.  Though the symbolism of a different culture is difficult to grasp, it is still worth making the effort to understand.  Cultural symbolism offers us insights into why people are the way they are.  Ultimately what we uncover, is that people are people no matter who they are.

    “Black Elk Speaks” gives us a glimpse of an ancient culture that is no more, washed away by what we so self-righteously assume is the progress of the western world.  The western world is not the only viable model for successful society, think on that the next time you hear unsubstantiated headlines designed to make you do anything but think.

    Black Elk Speaks brings home the cost of “the right of conquest”.  The vanquished lose everything, while the victors gain everlasting shame. Shame does not lessen with the passage of time, it waits, biding its time until something uncovers it and demands redress.

    Additional reading material on some of the topics covered in this post are available below.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Neihardt
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Elk_Speaks
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Big_Horn
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

  • Water, water everywhere, yet only bottles we’ll drink.

    Since we’re eating so unhealthy, instead of consuming natural sugar in soda we should be consuming artificial chemicals instead.  Stated like that, it really doesn’t make any kind of sense does it?

    Sugar is a crop that costs money to grow, harvest, process, package and transport.  In comparison, the chemical sweeteners primarily used in soda costs virtually nothing to produce – yet somehow the “diet” versions cost consumers precisely the same as the natural sugar based versions.  How are we convinced to consume chemicals designed to trick our taste buds into thinking we’re tasting sugar?  Corporations sell these artificially created chemicals as something somehow better for us than sugar. What are their motives for advertising so-called diet soda so constantly?  From a commercial perspective, it makes perfect sense.  If you’re making two versions of a product where one version costs you 5 cents to manufacture, and the other costs you 10 cents, but you sell both for the same price, which are you going to advertise?  The one that makes the bigger profit!

    Now let me be clear that I’m not saying we should all be consuming soda loaded with sugar – indeed I don’t think we should be consuming soda at all.  However, I am saying we should not be falling for clever sales and marketing nonsense.

    Which finally brings me to the purpose of this post – namely water, a fundamental need of every human, and indeed of all life as we know it.  And that raises the subject of bottled water…

    Bottled water is often sold for even more than soda – once again based on the overused mantra, “it’s good for you so it must be worth more”.  I have no doubt pure water is better for you than naturally or chemically sweetened soda – unfortunately bottled water is very bad for your wallet.  Spend a few minutes of research on the internet, review the science behind water in all its forms, and you’ll find that pure water is simply, well, pure water.  Spend a few minutes of your time doing said research, and you may well save yourself hundreds, if not thousands {I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not} of dollars – and who of us doesn’t need to save money?

    The scientific description of pure water is, “A colorless, odorless, tasteless liquid”.  Strangely, the impurities within water give it flavor – so when we’re taught to like the flavor of bottled water, we’re really being taught to like a different set of impurities than those which we can get virtually free from our household spigot.  As for the misconception that bottled water is better for you than tap water, do a little research – you’ll find that at best, bottled water is no different.  Indeed sometimes the very minerals that give certain varieties of bottled water their distinctive flavor make it significantly worse for you.  Those are the real differences, however real doesn’t matter if we can be taught something else.

    And with water {and too many other things to name, but which will be the subjects of further blog posts} we are taught something entirely different to reality.

    Advertising teaches us to believe bottled water is better.  Naturally, “better” always comes at a cost…

    I am the first to admit I don’t really enjoy the flavorful impurities found within our municipal tap water.  The flavor of water which I prefer, is pure – aka tasteless, odorless, and colorless.  To that end, when I feel the need for a glass of the good stuff, I use the filtered outlet provided on our refrigerator.  The cost per glass?  Whatever I happen to be paying for municipal water, and very occasionally a new filter for the fridge.  {No, I don’t know how much the filter costs so I’m not going to factor it in – we’ve only had the fridge about two years and the water still tastes as wonderfully tasteless as it did when the fridge was brand new.}

    So what do I estimate it costs me per glass of water dispensed from our fridge?

    My guesstimate was about a tenth of a cent per large glass.

    Turns out I was wrong!

    The cost per large glass is actually substantially less than one fiftieth of a cent.  Go ahead and compare the fiftieth of a cent I’m paying with what you’re paying per bottle.  I don’t think you’re going to like the comparison a whole lot, especially if you took the time to do the research, and the knowledge gained while doing said research proves your bottled water is a significantly less than pure.

    Or maybe not – apparently many people enjoy spending three thousand times as much per glass than they need to.

    On the very interesting, and well cited, Environmental Protection Agency site I linked above, and from which I derived those numbers, I found this interesting tidbit, “If you drink your daily recommended 8 glasses of water per day from the tap, it will cost you about 50 cents per year.  If you choose to drink it from water bottles, it can cost you up to $1,400 dollars.”

    The bottom line.

    Are you doing your kids, or yourself, a favor by buying bottled water?  I think you’re doing them an enormous disservice by literally pouring money down the drain, to say nothing of the pollution billions of unnecessary plastic bottles generate.  {Yes, the factories making them generate pollution, discarded plastic generates more, and the reprocessing in the recycling stage generates still more.  That is what I call a lose, lose, lose situation.}

    While we’re talking about the watered-down truth {pun intended} lets looks at another type of lie – that of the media repeating something enough times that it assumes the mantle of truth.

    The example I’m referring to is that of Peter Braback, the infamous CEO of Nestle Corporation who said water is not a human right.  Search the internet and you’ll find literally thousands of websites and blog posts headlining with the infamous quote, “Water is not a human right.”  The problem is that Peter Braback never said that.  His actual words were, “The one option which I think is extreme is represented by the NGOs who bang on about declaring water a public right.”

    Am I defending this Mr. Braback?  Not in a month of Sundays.  The evidence accumulated against Nestle Corporation on illegal and immoral practices is quite overwhelming – but why should we be surprised?  Nestle isn’t an exceptional corporation.  Indeed they’re pretty much like every other corporation, regardless of size – their motivation is profit, not people.  And as long as people continue to consume their products, they’ll continue to make profit.  Profits, to the tune of an alleged $35 billion annually on bottled water sales alone.

    Think about that number.

    Thirty-five billion!!!

    In decimal digits, it reads 35,000,000,000.

    It is a big number…  Indeed, it’s so big we have difficulty understanding it and tend to trivialize it in order overcome our lack of understanding.  In order to understand it let us look at thirty-five billion in other ways.  How many people are there in the world?  Last I checked, it was “only” around 7 billion.  If you took thirty-five billion one dollar bills and placed them end-to-end, the resultant string of dollars would be over three million miles long.

    Still too big to comprehend?

    That string of dollar bills could wrap around the world… one hundred and thirty six times, and still have enough left over to tie a decent knot that dangled far into space.

    Thirty-five billion is an extraordinarily large profit for an unscrupulous company to make on sales of something that we should be getting virtually for free.

    But it gets even worse!

    Nestle is not alone in this rampant display of corporate greed.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other vendors of bottled water, each making insane profits by selling us the Brooklyn Bridge {or maybe the stuff that flows beneath it?}.

    Now, having spent your time reading this blog post, I’m willing to make a startling prediction.

    My prediction is that you won’t listen to me, to logic, to your wallet, to your own research {you never did it, did you?}, or to your taste buds.

    Sadly, you’ll listen to the incessant noise of corporations telling you what to think as they advertise products you don’t need.

    You’ll continue flushing your hard-earned paycheck down the toilet.

    In short, if you’re a bottled water drinker, you’ll continue drinking bottled water.  And worst of all, you’ll probably be listening to yourself repeat the mantra of lies the marketers of a product that should be a human right {yes, I do mean pure water} are pounding into us each and every day.

    You’ll be murmuring something like this to yourself…

    “I don’t care that I could drink water virtually for free – this flimsy plastic bottle is worth every penny I paid.  And hey, I intend recycling the plastic, so there’s my good deed for the day.”

    {P.S. The processed things we eat, aren’t truly treats.}

  • Societal “efficiency”.

    Before you begin reading, be warned – this post is likely to disturb you.  It certainly did me, proof of which is in how I wrote it over ten weeks ago and simply could not bring myself to post it – it just felt so “wrong” in how it raised questions about things I’d previously held sacrosanct, and therefore above question.  In the weeks that followed its writing, I’ve expanded my thinking to consider other things which had previously escaped my scrutiny for similar reasons – you know, the things that are so obvious we don’t even need to think about them…  The results of those troubling thoughts begin below and will continue into further posts, as I find the energy to write and release them. And now, the first troubling post.

    Corporations aren’t interested in people, they’re interested in profits.

    In this post, I’ll discuss the three revelations that prompted this thought.

    On my morning commute, during which I drop off my two youngest kids at school, we sometimes talk about odd things.  I say sometimes, because my son, like the vast majority of teenagers, is not a “morning person” – so most mornings we talk very little.

    On this particular day we discussed the operation of garbage trucks.  The conversation began with me commenting on how impressive the claw hands on its side were.  This led into a reflection of when garbage trucks were operated by a driver and two or three men on the rear who manually picked up the trash and dumped it into the truck.  Turns out that impressive claw on the side of the truck eliminated several jobs.

    A bit further into the trip we came up behind a school bus.  Since we seldom see school buses in the morning, I commented on this.  My kids put me straight – we were running a couple of minutes earlier than normal.  This led into talk of summer break, and how bus route planning happens.  I explained that schools spend a small fortune on bus routing software that has a single intent – the elimination of buses by consolidating, and thereby eliminating bus routes.  This efficiency brings substantial savings by eliminating vehicles and their drivers.

    The third revelation came after I’d dropped our kids at school and my thoughts turned to work, which had been horribly busy the entire week.  I’ve been working at the same company for seven years – when I joined there were seven full time techs. Over that same seven years I’ve seen our department slashed to three – yet we support the same number of customers we did seven years ago.  Incredible improvements in efficiency, right?  Wrong.

    The three “corporations” in this post are the privately owned waste removal company, the school systems of the USA, and the small company (less than 50 employees) for which I work, of which there are hundreds of thousands across the USA.  All of these entities reveal the same ethical sub-standards – kill jobs in the interest of efficiency.

    Have the people stripped of their livelihoods improved their lot in life?  I ran into the first engineer who lost his job about a year later – he was still looking for a new position. So, not only do the people lose their income, many of them are stripped of their dignity as well.  In my opinion that’s an even more devastating blow to their self-worth.  How many people do you know who take pride in knowing the work they once did has been relegated to a machine, or deemed so valueless they’re simply not needed since the post they lost has never been replaced?

    About now I’m sure you’re thinking (as I did when writing this post) that all of those people could improve their lot. Why they can study, get further qualifications, and do bigger and better things!  That apparently laudable thought has some flaws.

    The first is that it assumes the displaced people are somehow inferior, and can “do better”.  Think about that for a moment.  Precisely what makes someone who works in an office better than someone who works with their hands?  Where did that strange little misconception arise? {By the way, before you ask the pointed question, I work in an office at work, and with my hands at home.}

    Another flaw is how it assumes all people want to improve, with the generally accepted definition of “improve” being… making more money.  More money grants them access to more things, and if they don’t want more things… well there must be something wrong with them.  How and when did the inherent value of greed as a worthy and desirable character trait come into existence?  {There is a post on that subject somewhere else on my blog.}

    Possibly the most damaging flaw in the “everyone can improve” logic is how it assumes society is a stratified place comprised of layers and levels – kind of like a pyramid.  You start life on the bottom level, “improve”, climb up a level, improve, climb another level, improve and so on – until you eventually get to the top.  The problem with pyramid schemes is that they’re immoral, unethical, and unsustainable – the only people who ever win are the first ones in.  A societal pyramid is only sustainable for as long as those on top can continue to convince those on the layers beneath them that this is the way things should be.  In reality only the very rare exception manages to climb the pyramid and get to its next level, and they must displace someone in order to do so – if this wasn’t true then the pyramid would soon be upside down, with everyone on the top and no one on the bottom.

    That just doesn’t happen.

    Yes, people do move around in the societal pyramid, but it is almost invariably laterally – they achieve promotions that somehow manage to keep them just about where they were before. How does it feel when you realize you’re part of a monumental pyramid scheme that’s been so effectively marketed you’d never even question it?  I believe this is precisely what modern society has become – a gigantic scam.  Me, I don’t feel good about it at all – people are not paving stones and I have no desire to walk on anyone. Furthermore I have no desire to be stepped upon, and very little tolerance of people who try to walk on me.

    By the way, unless we’re on the bottom tier of the scheme, the layer we happen to occupy is largely irrelevant – most of us are standing on the shoulders of those beneath us, while frantically struggling to climb the legs of those above. Occasionally the media throws us a bone and a glimmer of hope by headlining how some lucky person achieved something extraordinary, and shot far up the pyramid.  Those incidents are pretty much like winning the lottery, except a whole lot rarer – after all the lottery gets won every couple of weeks, while spectacular success stories like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and J. K. Rowling appear years apart.  However, when they do we see a great deal about them on TV, in the papers and on the Internet which encourages us to hold them up as positive icons to our children by saying things like, “They are proof – anyone can achieve anything. If they succeeded, well you can too.”  By so doing we’ve become a pawn in the propagation of societal lies, and what we’re really doing is selling our children false hopes of impossible dreams.

    I’m not saying we shouldn’t give our children aspirations of success. {Every single child is already great, and every parent should be reinforcing that.}  What I am saying is that telling our children they can do anything they set their mind to is the worst sort of lie. It’s a lie that sets them up for failure in their own minds – when they don’t attain their dream, they must be the ones who fell short.

    So, where does this leave us?

    Trickle down isn’t much fun, unless you’re on top.

    To me an efficient society is one where there is an equitable place for all its members.  Society isn’t a corporation whose only motivation is profit. Society should not be a place where the disparity between the top and the bottom of the pyramid is measured in light years and those in the bottom layers are disposable in order to gain measurable and sale-able “efficiencies” for the next quarter’s results.

    Society, is people, not profit.  Corporate efficiency is profit, not people. Don’t fall into the trap, and the widely held belief, of thinking societal efficiencies meld with corporate goals – they do not.

    I believe that for society to survive and be sustainable for more than a ten-year corporate forecast {let alone a quarterly one}, everyone needs to be a fulfilled, contributing member.  Corporations aren’t bound by societal norms of decency and ethics, and corporations couldn’t care less about people – their only concern is profit.  In the case of public institutions like schools, politicians run them – and most politicians seem to have adopted the philosophies of amoral corporations.

    Don’t try to twist my words into shapes they don’t hold, and things they don’t say. I don’t want a portion of the person in the tier above me, but I’m not willing to give them a piece of me either – and right now, the ones on top of the pyramid are getting their pound of flesh from every rank beneath them. That has to stop, governments have to work for their people, or their people will make those failing governments fall.

    Is your government working for you? Or is it in the back pocket of the corporations who fund its re-election?

    Personally, I’m sick of corporations.  I want to live in a decent society, in which people take precedence.  If any of you know such a nirvana, please let me know – till then, I’ll dwell in my dreams, in a place stripped bare of most everything I believe renders humanity inhumane.

    That place, is my literal world – Malmaxa.

    {When the next post in this thread will come, I can’t say.  However, I must warn that words such as these are as difficult to write, as they are disquieting to read – so don’t anticipate a rapid turnout.}

  • To Mr. Edward Snowden, a Hero.

    As anyone who follows me on Twitter knows, I’ve been in a particularly bleak mood this last week. I’ve attributed part of my poor mood to the moon in perigee, but that is only part of the truth. Another is that I am sorely afflicted with realization that my naturalized home, the USA, is losing its way. To me, the United States is a nation that holds the rule of law and personal freedom to be sacrosanct.

    Apparently, this vital truth is no more. Perhaps I am naïve.

    Edward Snowden brought down that house of cards with his revealing the appalling extent of the NSA’s illegal and immoral surveillance of innocent people, quite literally, everywhere.

    What happened to “probable cause”? Mr. Snowden has my utmost respect now, and let me be the first to tell you that he always will. I don’t care what evidence of law-breaking the government stacks against him – and yes, I chose the word “stacks” with deliberate intent.

    However this filthy affair of a government that has lost its way eventually turns out, Edward Snowden did the morally correct thing – he refused to remain silent in the face of grievous and excessive abuse of governmental powers.

    Yes, he may have broken the letter of some law, however he did so in order to reveal a moral miss-step by an abusive and intrusive security agency that has chosen to break a far more binding code – namely the Constitution of the United States, the Fourth Amendment of which states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

    Try and twist it as you will, I will simply read the words written – they require no interpretation.

    Sadly, I expect the government to continue down the path of shame they have chosen. A path of spin, where they attempt to distract the Citizens of this great country from their blatant disregard for our Constitution. The rest of the world isn’t falling for it, what makes them think their own Citizens will?

    As for you, President Obama, I am shocked that a former Constitutional lawyer such as you can be so misguided you resort to making speeches in support of this indefensible action by a rogue security agency. For shame!

    I am not a law-breaker, and I do not advocate the breaking of just laws. Indeed, I once instructed my eldest daughter that when one chooses to live in society, one must abide by society’s rules – regardless of how ridiculous those rules might be. If recollection serves, I said something along these lines, “If society passes a law stating you may not wear yellow on a Wednesday, then you may not wear yellow on a Wednesday. You can’t choose which laws you’ll obey, and which you will ignore – if you don’t agree with the law then lobby to have it changed, but obey it until you succeed in having it overturned.”

    So how can I now openly support a man who has broken certain laws? Simple, Mr. Snowden’s moral code bound him to reveal a particularly egregious violation of every single United States Citizen’s Constitutional Rights. The US Constitution is the supreme law in these United States – nobody may break its binding moral code, and that nobody includes whatever government happens to be in power.

    Mr. Edward Snowden is a Hero in my book, and should be lauded as such by every law-abiding US Citizen.

    With passage of the “Patriot Act”, the US government overstepped its bounds – it crossed a line clearly drawn in the sand by the most sacred document of this nation. It is time for our government to hang its head in shame and repeal that foul and unconstitutional law. President Obama had the chance to let the “Patriot Act” lapse. What a sad day for America and the entire free world when he succumbed to the siren song of power perceived, and held the US Government above its own laws – by re-signing the bill into law.

    For shame…

  • Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

    During my Friday lunch break my wife sprang a sudden question, “Do you suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?” Powerful emotion immediately overcame me, I turned to the window and gazed out of it for the minute or so it took me to regain emotional control.  Without meeting her eyes, for I had no desire for her to see the remnants of tears in my own, I replied, “Yes, I think I do.”

    This prompted a tweet a little later,

    At lunch today my wife asked “Do you suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?” As I blinked away a tear, and hid, I knew, I did and do.

    My companions on Twitter responded with mostly silent support, which I greatly appreciate as talking about my own emotional pain does little to lessen it for me.  However posting about it isn’t really talking, it’s simply speaking without the fear someone will ask piercing questions that re-open old wounds. Thus this post.

    Well then, what is PTSD? The National Institute of Mental Health define it in this article “What is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)”

    As a combat veteran, I’m a candidate for the NIMH’s classic definition.  Of their list of symptoms, I regularly experience all but two – namely, “Having trouble remembering the dangerous event”, and “Being easily startled”.  Indeed, sometimes I rather wish I suffered from memory problems of so specific a nature that I could forget everything bad that ever happened. {Actually I don’t wish anything of the sort, for reasons I’ll explain later}.

    That said, as with many things my own understanding and definition of the term PTSD differs from the widely accepted.  I believe anyone who suffers mental trauma of a particularly unpleasant nature is a candidate for PTSD.  I have no doubt this ailment is far more widespread than the NIMH’s restrictive definition implies.  I don’t think drugs are the solution. In fact, I don’t consider PTSD an ailment at all.  In my opinion, it’s a learned response intended to keep us out of danger by ensuring we don’t forget the events leading to our traumatic experience.

    As Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, or George Santayana, once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

    Yes, the effects of PTSD are debilitating, but would I give up my most terrible memories to gain relief?  I would not.  You see those memories, perhaps even more so than the actual events, are factors that have shaped me into who I am.  I lived through the events only once.  Yet I’ve repeatedly relived them in my memory.  Repetition is an age old mechanism of learning.

    Yes, I often loathe myself for the things I’ve done, the stances I never took, the words I never said, the things I didn’t do yet know I should have.  However without those events, and especially the memories of them, I simply would not be me.  I’m not saying I love myself and that you should too.  Not at all.  However after decades I’m finally finding peace and I sincerely hope sharing my thoughts might aid any of you who have ever suffered from any truly traumatic event.  For me sympathizing with other helps, where having others offer sympathy to me does not.

    With the type of memories that my personal PTSD invokes in mind, I wrote two poems, which follow.  I hope they strike a chord within you and that perhaps you enjoy the second.

    <<-0->>

    ~ Memory, of Pain ~
    ~
    Memories I ever dread,
    yet know
    will come again.
    Memory, of pride and duty,
    then memory, of their disdain.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memory, of valor,
    of selfless acts, and tragedy.
    Memory, of loss,
    then memory, of disdain.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memory, of high regard,
    of sacrifice and atrocity.
    Memory, of shame,
    then memory, of my disdain.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memories that take
    much more than they give.
    Memories that tear themselves apart,
    and then themselves, rebuild again.
    Memories for all time,
    that each recollection redefines.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memories of guilt
    at others’ blood we spilt.
    Memories we can’t refute,
    for our guilt seems absolute.
    Memories, of why.
    Memories that always make us cry.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memories of joy we treasure.,
    Even as memories of pain
    we lay to rest,
    as from their memory
    we refrain.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Who knows what
    our memories will unearth?
    And with their resurrection
    grant our forgotten pain,
    rebirth.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Alas, only Warriors from the fray
    will ever fully know
    how terrible was the day,
    when conscience
    struck
    us down.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    A bitter pill indeed…
    to know we did
    no good.
    Memory, of pain.
    ~
    Memories forever remain.
    Memories, of mine…
    These memories…
    are the memories
    that
    our character define.
    Memory, of mine.
    ~

    <<-0->>

    And now, as reward for those that read this far, a lighter poem.  Hopefully it will ease you from any anguish invoked by the first.

    ~ Memory, of Youth ~
    ~
    Flowing circles,
    drawing closer, then away.
    Trigger words, and trigger sounds,
    so many triggers, for memories abound.
    ~
    A gleam of light,
    a shadowed figure passing by,
    a sidelong glance, a down-turned eye.
    Sympathy perceived, or offered
    seldom fail
    to unlock memory’s coffers.
    ~
    A wafting wind brings to mind
    a youth long lost.
    Memory, our lost youth will find
    and full strength, to us return
    the dreams we had, the dreams,
    that burn.
    ~
    Remembered dreams will we hold tight
    before reluctant, we them release.
    Our slow drooping eye heralds sleep’s return,
    Where we will find fresh dreams,
    fresh hopes,
    of peace.
    ~
    Slumber grants new dreams,
    we clench and grasp them, tight
    but still we feel them slip away
    as we awaken,
    to a newborn day.
    ~

    {Thank you for reading. Please remember I’m an author, your support in purchasing my works would be most gratefully received. If interested, head on over to [Samples], where you can read the opening of the first novel in my Epic, Malmaxa.}

  • Same-Sex Marriage.

    The US Supreme Court is currently considering cases regarding a touchy, emotive subject. Namely the question of the veracity of same-sex marriage.  Unfortunately, I don’t do well when I’m troubled by thoughts of injustice, and this subject is rampant with such thoughts.

    Until relatively recently, my view was that the word “marriage” should be reserved for the specific union between a man and a woman.  {For those interested in my change of heart, my post, “Marriage,  a word’s meaning” provides a little background.}

    Why did I change my mind?  Because of prompting from my youngest daughter {thirteen at the time}, who expressed shock I could be opposed to same-sex couples.  I corrected her by stating I had never held that bigoted viewpoint, then went on to explain that we were talking about the meaning of a root word, namely marriage.

    Though I wish I could remember Julia’s exact words, I cannot, so here’s the gist of how she prompted my change of heart, “That doesn’t make sense, dad.  Words change their meaning all the time.  Just because people in the past were ignorant and had the wrong ideas doesn’t mean we’re stuck with what they thought something meant.  I think marriage is for couples who love each other and intend to be with each other forever.  What do you think?”

    How is it that the young see the truth of things so clearly?  Perhaps it is because they haven’t yet been trained to the biases of whatever society they dwell in?

    What could I do but agree?  Julia’s definition of “marriage” cuts to the heart of the matter.  Marriage is not about sex, or about gender.  Marriage, is about commitment.  No one, neither individual or government, has the right to deny any committed couple their chance at the permanent bond of marriage.

    So, since I’ve come to terms with my change of heart, why am I troubled by thoughts of injustice?  Simple.  Because I fear the US Supreme Court is about to allow a massive, long running injustice go unaddressed… or at best inadequately addressed.

    Sadly, the USA seems to be a country where the courts are less concerned with justice than they are in following the letter of flawed laws.  In reflecting on the technicalities of the matter of same-sex marriage, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seems to be following that precedent.  She asked this question, “If the issue is letting the states experiment and letting the society have more time to figure out its direction, why is taking a case now the answer?”

    Allow me, a gravely troubled citizen, to answer that question.  Because everyone deserves equal access to justice now, not at some unspecified time in the future.

    Many of the original European immigrants came to America to escape religious persecution.  Limiting marriage benefits and responsibility exclusively to heterosexual couples has no basis other than religious or politically motivated dogma.  How has this country been so sorely turned about that where it once held separation of Church and State as sacrosanct, it now seeks to entrench religious persecution into law?

    I don’t do well when I’m troubled by thoughts of injustice…  Withholding access to marriage equality from any committed couple, regardless of gender, is injustice.  As a strictly heterosexual male already past my silver wedding anniversary, and looking forward to my gold, I can only imagine how same sex couples denied access to equal rights feel.

    That very imagining troubles me.

    Same-sex couples are victims of persecution, oppression, and injustice.

    That needs to end, and it needs to end now, not at some other undetermined time in the future.

    The following is a quote from my work, Malmaxa. “Were those denied justice ever satisfied with their lot?”  Since the answer to that question is a resounding, “No!” we should not be surprised when same-sex couples aren’t satisfied with their lot.  Indeed, no moral person should be content to remain silent in any society that denies equal justice to all its citizens, regardless of gender, color, caste, creed, sexual orientation, origin, or religion.

    The time for silent social conscience on this issue is long since passed. Now is the time for social activism.

    {04/14/13 – further steps on this journey can be found here.}

  • Let’s Talk, about Guns.

    With recent tragedy fresh in mind, I thought I’d share my feelings on guns, and the touchy subject of gun control.  First, a little background about me.  I’m proud to be a naturalized Citizen of the USA.  Before gaining that status, I occupied limbo – holding the unenviable state, of being stateless.  You see, I left the country of my birth a very long time ago – Zimbabwe, is most reluctant to renew the documents of non-residents, five generations… for nothing.  Does any of this matter?  Good question, my answers follow.

    On freedom’s scale, Zimbabwe must rate as one of the worst.  Most of the things the Zimbabwe Government holds dear are anathema to me.  For example, rampant censorship, absolute control of all media, zero freedom of speech, and complete gun control.  {About now you’re thinking you know my stance, read on – I may yet surprise you.}

    Contrast Zimbabwe to the USA, and you realize we live in a virtual paradise – least in my mind we do.  In the USA, the very idea of censorship is abhorrent to most people.  The United States Constitution guarantees freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and the right to bear arms.  {Now, you’re positive you know where this leads – again, I say read on.}

    As a former citizen of a country with virtually no civil liberties, I hold civil liberty in high esteem.  Indeed, as a naturalized Citizen of the USA, I have little doubt I treasure my newfound freedom far more than most born in the US Americans – few of whom have had to live beneath tyranny’s oppressive fist.  Every time I see something erode civil liberty within the USA, my heart sinks – seldom regained, are liberties lost.  {I knew it, I hear you say… you’re wrong.}

    To me, government has a single purpose – service to its citizens.

    Now contrast my abhorrence of erosion of civil liberty, which gun control most definitely is, with my belief that a government is obliged to protect its citizens – finally, the quandary reveals itself.

    Though this is a cliché, it is also undeniably true – “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  Without a person operating it, a gun does nothing.  This is the real issue, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be distracted from it with emotional rhetoric.

    People in the USA kill other people – and it seems their preferred means of achieving this, is with a gun.  While we can legislate away guns, we can’t legislate away insanity.

    To me, that’s the real crux of the matter – insane people using guns against innocents.  With the actual problem identified, it seems the solution to the problem is very simple.  Keep guns out of the hands of those people who should not have them.  In my mind, there are two types of “those people” – there are criminals, and there are the mentally unstable.  Neither should be permitted to possess firearms.  Period.

    In the case of the criminals, this is a no-brainer.  Since they choose to step outside the law, they relinquish their right to certain of its protections, and certain of its privileges.  Indeed, criminals used to be termed outlaws.  Outlaws, or criminals if you prefer, have no business possessing firearms.  Once someone becomes a convicted criminal, they never have the pleasure of owning a firearm again – no excuses, no rehabilitation, no parole… the end.

    The question of mental instability is far more difficult.  Identifying mentally unstable people is complex – it will require unpopular laws that could impinge on civil liberty, without extreme care and oversight by the citizenry.  However, once identified, unstable individuals shouldn’t be permitted to possess weapons with which they have the potential to hurt themselves, or others.

    In summary, laws impinging on the Constitutional right to bear arms do nothing to solve the real problem.  Remember what the real problem is and has always been – guns in the hands of the irresponsible.  That is where our legislative efforts should be focused – eliminating the possibility of irresponsible people possessing firearms.  Gun control…  I’m all for it, if it’s handled in that fashion.

    {originally posted on She Writes.}