These Aren't The Protests You're Looking For

"In order to understand the structure of the universe
one must first understand the nature of responsibility."
-Albert Einstein

It has been said that the definition of tomorrow is to take what's happening today and move it into the light. To wit: the "economic boom" of the previous decade was not a boon but in fact the opposite. These things happen because we live in a collective state of self-deception and denial. We know this but do not admit this - which makes us a silly people. And a tragic people. The fate of the present is always rooted in the past and this can be seen today.

And since mankind lives in a state of deception, there are those who would profit from that and even build their homes on it. For where there is deception there is darkness and that darkness allows the lie to be born. Hence, there is a marketplace of definitions of this "unknown" reality we all struggle with and each marketplace has its buyers and sellers. If I can sell you on my "truth" I can market myself as a good man!

So I sit here on the moon watching the crowds gather and move from one bucket of truth to another hoping to find the one that makes them feel the best. It's sort of like watching cattle with ADD. Like cardboard figures in a shooting gallery, a new hero pops up only to be shot down once his "truth" is revealed under the ever-growing light (e.g. first GWB, now Obama). Of course, those who speak the actual truth are actually shot. We want a hero who makes us feel good with lies that can be sold as truth, which keeps us constantly switching sides:

MARULLUS
Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he [Caesar] home?
What tributaries follow him to Rome,
To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels?
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft
Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,
To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,
Your infants in your arms, and there have sat
The livelong day, with patient expectation,
To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:
And when you saw his chariot but appear,
Have you not made an universal shout,
That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,
To hear the replication of your sounds
Made in her concave shores?
And do you now put on your best attire?
And do you now cull out a holiday?
And do you now strew flowers in his way
That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.

It's tough being a hero!

We are still of the generation of which Jesus spoke, just as backwards and superstitious ("Profits are real!") and self-serving as ever. Look at the Wisconsin protests and tell me what you see - or rather, how many ways can it be sold? The dawning of a new middle class movement? Americans sticking up for their rights at last? A long needed push for equality to right the American ship? I could write an eloquent essay supporting each of those viewpoints and I too would be applauded as Caesar.

But I like me too much to do that.

As we here in the West warn of the Middle East protests needing to support themselves by enacting social freedoms that strip off the chains of unquestioned religious laws lest their efforts be doomed and swallowed whole by a dictator by any other name, we too need to take that same caution here at home with our own unquestioned religion: greed. Do I see what is going on in Wisconsin and in places of solidarity as a rebuke of greed? More like no honor among thieves, I'd say.

Going back to Albert's quote, we have to place events within the context of responsibility. So Americans want their voice back? Tad late for that, I'd say. Where were the protests when we raided and looted another country, butchering children and driving millions from their homes? Where were the protests against the lies told to us even after indisputable proof was revealed? Where were the protests when civil rights were suspended, which puts us all in danger? The list goes on. You see, when you are silent in the face of injustice to others, then injustice shall be your fate as well. That is the order of the universe.

Just imagine the guy getting killed
is an Iraqi and you'll feel better

We have fed the dogs of war and one day they will turn on us to be devoured in due course with their insatiable appetite. Our worship of oil will cut off our food supplies and our belief that money will save us will destroy our environment. There will be more protests and screams as in turn each group finds its ox to be gored next on the altar of greed. But that is the fate we are choosing on a path built on deception: it leaves nothing still standing.

"Not one stone here will be left on another;
every one will be thrown down."
-Jesus Christ, on the foundation of modern society

These things will happen because that is what's happening today here in the dark. Maybe repentance isn't such a bad idea after all - and then we can build something real.

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You're all a bunch of day trippers!