Category: Culture

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Time to Choose

–by Mankh (Walter E. Harris III)

Time to Choose

middle finger or peace sign
coca-cola or clean water
republicans and democrats or trees
umpteen gender identities or every man, woman, and child
                    (and, yes, there are physical hermaphrodites)
melting pot or Original Peoples’ lands
the horrors of war or horror movies
plug-in diffusers or clean air
school shootings or common courtesy
rapes or hugs
fast food or simmer
stuck in the mud or paradigm shift
the wrong side of the tracks or improvement of public transportation
slave labor or looking forward to go to work
what are you doing? or how do you feel?
food insecurity or more zucchini than you know what to do with
God Almighty or everyone
stuck in the mud, the landslide, the tornado, the flooding,
the drying lake, the scorched earth
or
paradigm shift, paradigm shift.
brother and sister,
can you spare a paradigm shift?
    
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General Electric Theater

Before embarking on a second career as a politician (governor of California, where he said, “If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all”) and leader of the “free world” (US president 1980-88), Ronald Reagan was an actor, and host of the TV show General Electric Theater (1954-62). Each week he delivered the punch line of the show’s introduction, and the telling slogan of its corporate sponsor: “Progress is our most important product.”

Anyone listening to the pronouncements of Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum (WEF), its transhumanist disciple Yuval Harari, its Young Global Leaders in lockstep mouthing “Build Back Better,” or Bill Gates touting forced medical intervention for every body/soul on earth, will catch an echo of this fundamental mantra of our time. Indeed, the same ethos could be traced back to the biblical injunction for humans to have “dominion” over all the planet and its creatures.

In between, we’ve had the neolithic (tool-making) revolution, the Agricultural Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Information Age. Today we embark on the next frontier, where reality itself is digitized, replaced by its virtual facsimile, overwritten by a new, synthetic narrative. Welcome back to Story Time.

‘The primary motivating factor of any such ideology is its utopian vision. It’s that nebulous vision of something better—the ideal future—that acts as an attractor for the hopes and thus actions of those under its spell…. The vagueness of the notion is its greatest strength—like a societal Rorschach test. The masses latch on to it as the means to end their anxiety, vent their aggression, and achieve the “justice” they feel they have been denied. The attractor is simple: a better world, otherwise undefined. The details don’t need to be clear, but goal is noble, in their minds.’ —Harrison Koehli, On the Fractal Nature of Conspiracy

On the receiving end, Mother Nature suffers all the abuse heaped on her by proud man and his tools, excuses, illusions, conquests, schemes and scams. All undertaken “for the greater good” of homo sapiens, exclusively. But is this vaunted progress and the riches it yields truly to the benefit of all humans concerned? Or has “a better life” been hijacked as an irresistible bandwagon, while the drivers prosper and the passengers pay?

This is not to dispute the value of tools for survival. Electric lighting, modern dentistry, the written word… but where does it end? Few question the train or its tracks, the engineer’s ulterior motives, the collateral damage along the way. The Green movement gives lip service to environmental ethics, but meanwhile gets captured by financial interests, skewed science, and an alternative industry with costs to nature that are hidden or ignored.

Taking heed of a rising ecological ethic, the technocrats at the top have put a new spin on  a Greener future. Their solution is the simplest: reduce human population, by whatever means necessary. Self-appointed as the fittest to survive, they will remain on top, naturally.

‘Being able to see the globalists’ plan as clearly as we can see it now, we have an obligation to future generations to resist, denounce and refuse any and all implementations of the technocratic agenda.’ —Dr. Joseph Mercola

Where there is destruction and dishonesty, there is always pushback. In England under early industrialization, the Luddites resisted the loss of their livelihood to textile machinery. The Amish religious sect has opted to live without electricity and automobiles. Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses are known to refuse blood transfusions. Notable in some aboriginal societies was the principle of judging policy by its effect seven generations down the line.

In today’s parlance such tech-hesitancy takes the form of the precautionary principle, a safeguard against blindly innovating when safety is in question and future harms are unknown. As a legal caution it has found wider application than the aforementioned examples of various dissident groups. Yet the overriding force of Western civilization, especially, throws caution to the wind in promoting and pursuing “progress” without question, at any cost.

But of course, there are always costs. The question then turns to: who will pay?

‘Here we’re just faced by a toxic mix of hubris, abhorring mediocrity, delusion, crude ideological sheep-think and outright irrationality wallowing in white man’s burden racist/supremacist slush – all symptoms of a profound sickness of the soul.’ —Pepe Escobar, Russia and China Haven’t Even Started to Ratchet Up the Pain Dial

The current Geopolitical Revolution notwithstanding, where do we stand with Nature now? If the species does manage to survive the predations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, what can we learn from our species-wide rise and fall? Where did we go wrong, and how can we make it right?

As with most dilemmas, the answer probably lies between the extremes. To be circumspect about new solutions, selective in our choices, wary of shiny promises, mindful of future consequences from our automatic reflex for present gratification.

The seven generations rule is the most likely to stand the test of time. What’s not to like about honoring our ancestors, and looking out for our children and their children? Anything else smacks of a sales pitch, another episode of “General Electric Theater.”

—

Talking Spirit: Essays and Inspirations, by Nowick Gray

Essays spanning three decades—reflective yet contemporary, philosophical and practical—address human nature and environmental ethics; personal and metapolitical intention; radical insight and live freedom in thought, emotion and action.

Order now from Amazon.

Nowick Gray is a regular contributor to The New Agora and also offers perspectives and resources for alternative culture and African drumming. Subscribe to his Substack (New World Dreaming) or visit his  writings website at NowickGray.com.

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Keep On Rockin’

 

From the book RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War

By William T. Hathaway

RADICAL PEACE presents the experiences of war resisters, deserters, and peace activists who are working to change our warrior culture. An American exchange student in one of my courses here in Germany contributed the following essay about how she became an anarchist for peace.

Jason was my boy-friend for a while in high school. It wasn’t a match made in heaven. Looking back, I think the main thing we had in common was that I wanted a boy-friend and he wanted a girl-friend. Other than that there wasn’t much between us, as we discovered whenever we tried to talk about anything. I broke up with him when he asked me to go rabbit hunting with him. We stayed friends, though, probably because since it was obvious we could never be a real couple, neither of us had hard feelings.

We both left town after graduation; I went to college, Jason went to the marines. Two years later we were both back home; I was on summer vacation, Jason was on medical leave after having half his leg blown off in Iraq. He’d been riding in a truck that hit a mine.

Everybody in town felt terrible about what had happened to him. The American Legion post gave him a parade. The high school marching band played, the vets marched, and Jason walked in front next to the mayor, who was carrying the American flag. Jason could walk pretty well, considering.

They marched into the football stadium, where a couple of hundred people, including me, were sitting in the bleachers. They mayor, the high school principal, and Jason’s minister all gave speeches that praised his heroism and the sacrifice he’d made for our freedom. Jason gave a speech about how much he loved his country and how much he appreciated everyone for their support. He said he had a new dream in life. In high school he’d been on the track team, had run the 220. Now he was going to try out for the Special Olympics, to show the world that people can overcome any handicap.

At this, everyone jumped to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. People were crying while they clapped. Jason started to cry, and the minister led him back to his seat. I left the stadium crying while the band played the “Marine Hymn” and “America, the Beautiful.”

Some of the people in our class were going to give him a party that night, and I’d been planning to go. But now I kept hearing his voice as he was speaking. It sounded like a machine, like he was saying what everybody wanted to hear and what he wanted to hear, what he wanted desperately to believe but couldn’t quite, but if he forced himself to say it and saw everyone else believed it, he might convince himself. Because otherwise it was too terrible, and he couldn’t bear that. To block out his grief, Jason had become a robot of patriotism.

I couldn’t go to the party and hear him talking in that mechanical voice. I didn’t want to hang around home either and hear my parents say how brave Jason was. I poured a little from each of my parents’ liquor bottles — bourbon, scotch, vodka, gin, rum, and Southern Comfort — into a jar, then poured in some Coke. Tasted terrible.

I drove my moped down to the river and sat on the bank as it got dark, drinking and watching the slow brown water and listening to the cicadas and frogs chirping like those speeches. I started out sad and then got mad.

I didn’t think Jason had been defending anybody’s freedom. I drank some more and realized the word “freedom” has become meaningless. It’s just a gesture like waving the flag or playing the national anthem to create a feeling in people.

I threw some rocks into the river. I liked the way they splashed but was afraid I might hit a fish.

I got afraid of being out there alone, so I drove away. The strip mall on the edge of town was closed for the night. I saw the army recruiting office and thought of all the Jasons they’re still convincing to sign up and get their legs blown off. I thought it would be more efficient to put the recruiting office, the hospital, and the funeral home all together, so you could just go from one to the next.

I looked around to see if anybody was there. Nobody. I drove to the edge of the parking lot and picked up a big rock. Drove back and when no cars were going by, I threw the rock through the window.

Crashing glass. Wailing alarm. The cardboard dummies of smiling soldiers in the window display fell over. I felt like David knocking over Goliath. But only for a second. Then I got terrified. The cops would be coming. What if my fingerprints were on the rock? What if somebody saw me? I sped away, taking side streets back into town.

I got home OK. My parents were in bed. I threw up in the toilet and went to bed.

Next morning I woke up hungover and afraid. What should I do if police come to the house? Don’t admit anything. Maybe they can’t prove it.

The newspaper had an article about it and an editorial saying vandalism like this is an insult to Jason and all the other heroes who have sacrificed to defend the free world.

I couldn’t resist returning to the scene of the crime. I left the moped a few blocks away in case anyone recognized it, and I wore a hat and sunglasses. The window was covered with a big sheet of plywood, and people were looking at it and talking. I wondered what they were saying but didn’t want to get that close.

Over the next several days a stream of letters came out in the paper. Some said people who do things like that should be sent to Iraq. But I was surprised by how many said the war is wrong and we shouldn’t be sending our young people over there to fight. It was a real debate that wouldn’t have happened unless I’d thrown the rock.

I thought maybe Jason would write a letter, but he didn’t. I thought about calling him, but I knew I couldn’t say the kind of things that would make him feel better. So I went back to college early.

That town has a recruiting office too, and every time I went by it, I wanted to break the window. But I was too afraid.

Now I’m doing my junior year abroad in Germany. When I read about how the people here who resisted fascism when it was taking over are now honored but back then were despised and persecuted, it made me glad for what I’d done and convinced me I should keep doing it, be careful but take that chance of getting caught. I don’t have a police record, so if I did get arrested I probably wouldn’t go to prison. It’s just breaking a window. Throwing that rock lets people know we can fight back against this, we aren’t helpless. Each boarded recruiting window makes people wonder if this war is right, especially if they’re thinking of going inside and signing up. And the money it costs the government to fix it can’t be used to kill people.

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s more than just breaking a window. It’s also smashing the glass walls that surround us. This prison we all live in is invisible, but it holds us down. Its walls say: “This is how things have to be, and you have to obey.” “These are your only choices.” “This is freedom.”

The easier a person has it in this society, the harder it is to see it’s really a prison for all of us. Even the people at the top have had to sacrifice their humanity to get there and stay there.

Breaking windows doesn’t demolish the prison, but it does let in a breath of fresh air, and that makes us yearn for more. It’s air conditioning for the brain. Breaking glass is making music. It’s DIY redecoration of our neighborhood. It opens our eyes and lets us see. Breaking glass should be a new Olympic sport … especially for the Special Olympics.

*

RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War is published by Trineday, https://www.trineday.com/products/radical-peace-refusing-war?_pos=1&_sid=6fd196daf&_ss=r

William T. Hathaway is a Special Forces combat veteran, an emeritus Fulbright professor of American studies in Germany, and the author of Lila, the Revolutionary, a fable for adults about an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice.