A Different Way
Without divulging too much, let’s just say I am not in the US at the moment, having traveled abroad as a companion and adviser to a friend.This time out of country has opened my eyes even wider than I care them to be, because once again the social and political injustices placed on people of the world by the US mega-complex has come into bold focus.
When you are happily ensconced in the artificial cocoon of the United States you really get the feeling that you are an island, an island that may sink at any moment, at least that is the feeling I have gotten lately. It wasn’t this way always, things seemed like a better form of “normal” before. The feeling was we Americans were indeed in this thing, the entity that is the US, and all that encompasses that contrived ethos, together. Common goals, common ideals. This I have come to recognize as a contrived machination, one created by people in higher levels of business and politics to artificially restrain active and creative thought and contemplative thinking. It sounds like the Matrix, but God it is starting to feel that way. These are not new ideas at all, and this whole diatribe may seem contrived, but better here on my screen than stuck in my swirling head.
In general I hate conspiracy theorists, and the paranoia they spread, but one thing they have going for them is doubt, and this sense of doubt about the standing order of things sets them apart, albeit in a crazy fashion, from the pablum eating general populace. This sense of doubt is something we need more of. Questions need to be asked, and real answers need to be given so that a new understanding of America can be attained. What is real, what is not, who is really running things? And please clarify something for me; is America for the few, or for the many. The ‘few’ seems to be winning.
Yesterday I had a conversation with an old friend on the water in this ancient seaside port, and the question posed was: is the US on the verge of a revolution a la France with it’s continuing convergence from one Republic to another? Five Republics now, and I don’t think the French have gotten it right just yet, but at least they make an effort of it. What course we are taking? Will a soft revolution occur in the US, or are the disadvantaged, downtrodden, bankrupted masses going to have a more Stalinist day of reckoning?
Yesterday I watched people of no means, none, walking along a seaside boulevard in their best Sunday clothes, broad smiley greetings to all who passed them. My smile to them was one of gratitude, gratitude for giving me back a little bit of what I had forgotten was out there; the feeling of unity with those around you, the feeling of a true community.
Is it too late for us? No, but things are going to have to change a lot for us to get back to the form and nature that once was the US, the feeling that we are all in this thing together, and we are all striving to make this a better world, not just conquer it.
Posted on May 17, 2010