Of Good And Evil

Edition #41 — 16 Feb 2003

Greetings, and let's get to it.

If good and evil were soft drinks, evil would dominate shelves. Turn on the news — negativity rules! If good news was oxygen, we'd all be turning blue by now.

OK, so it's February and a little obligatory winter gloom is expected, but the real chill is coming from the south, courtesy of the U.S. government's display of belligerent arrogance and pride.

If democracy is sustained by the voice of the people, then U.S. citizens for peace are being muzzled. Maybe that's why duct tape sales are up.

George Bush is a hypocrite. Sure, most of us are from time to time, but this cowboy volunteered to play daddy to more than two hundred million people, and that's a lot of dependants to neglect. Through his prominent campaign of denial, he has squeezed the American people firmly beneath his designer boots as he prepares to shoot himself in the foot with the U.S. military. The Americans will lose the most important war — the one for respect. You can't buy implants for that...

The U.N., a multi-national democratic forum, remains largely ignored by the U.S. government, arguably the seat of democracy in the free world. How's that for irony!

A Tale Of Two Faces

When I look into George Bush's face I see a man who can't believe he's sitting where he is, doing what he's doing, and that people are actually playing along and not calling his bluff: "Hey Georgie, stop daydreaming and get back to cleanin' them stalls!" But here he is, for whatever it's worth, leader of the country with the most weapons of mass destruction, industrial billionaires, and aging bleach blonde mistresses with fake boobs.

He's struggling with an identity problem, in my opinion. He doesn't believe in himself enough and is trying so hard to please his daddy. A lousy actor, he at least didn't hide the fact as he wants to mislead his people to yet another futile war against, as he put it: "A man who tried to kill my daddy!" How many more of these hostile foreign takeovers can they afford to lose? Why is Saddam still alive if they won last time?

Worst of all, this time George and his people are going to war against everybody in what amounts to a U.S. suicide bombing against global diplomacy. There will be few friends left after the smoke clears. Money will still continue to trade hands for it has no prejudices. But people do.

George knows he doesn't know. He's hoping no one will catch on before he writes his own little paragraph in history books: daddy's big boy! The great leader who led the fearless charge against terrorism — with blind tyranny. Yet back on U.S. soil, more people die from lack of proper medical care than Al Quaida attacks. That's what you call "economic terrorism" — tax the poor and keep the rich yachting. No war on that front though. Ever wonder why?

Clean Out Your Locker — Turn In Your Uniform!

What keeps George from getting pulled out of the game is that he is the president. To some that means he's supposed to know something, be smart. But good schooling doesn't grant wisdom or common sense. Violence is the old school way of dealing with opposition; "the eye for an eye" principal that leaves everyone blind — is myopia the ultimate Utopia? I sure hope-ia not.

War is not evolutionary; there are other cards to be played. Conflict doesn't always have to end in gunfire with John Wayne saying: "That'll teach ya to build weapons of mass destruction, ya filthy yella Iraqis!" George's title is his saving grace — without it he'd be just another hick with a misinformed sense of reality.

But it seems that U.S. business demands a more aggressive direct sales approach. Armed with a good media campaign, a trillion dollar Visa card limit and plenty of guns with young boys to aim them, there remains but one question: "How much time do you need to vacate? We'd like to take possession by Q2, if that's OK with you? Gettin' a lot of pressure from the shareholders."

Always One Clear Winner

What good is a democracy when the majority vote loses? Check the opinion polls, the majority want the U.S. to stay at home. But it appears that shareholders in the arms industry have other plans for our future; peace is probably not one of them. It's bad for business.

Now imagine that, in every war that's ever been fought there's always one clear winner: the arms dealer. If you were a marketer for the arms industry, how would you promote your business to ensure future growth and profits? Well, if I was trying to ensure good Q1 profits for 2003, I'd do something to diffuse reason and sanity: like putting the entire country on a full terrorism alert. Enough of those events and people will get tired of it and just say:

"BOMB THOSE DAMNED BASTARDS! BOMB SOMEBODY; ANYBODY — JUST LET ME GET BACK TO SLEEP — I GOTTA WORK IN THE MORNING, YA KNOW!"

"Bombs? Sure thing mister, I got bombs! What colour ya want?"

Wakey, Wakey!

We are slowly waking up to the fact that our sacred institutions, our trusted leaders, the people we are educated, expected, even forced to obey, are largely self-serving, greedy Goliaths that wouldn't offer their piss if you were dying of thirst. Our surrogate mommies and daddies in political attire are there largely to validate their own existence, not yours. They are trying to win a popularity contest which is defeated by making others their priority. The chariot race in the movie, Ben Hur, is a good anecdote: Massala, Ben's one time best friend, tries to whip and maim his way to personal glory, even killing other contestants to secure victory. Mother Theresa didn't race chariots; neither did Ghandi — you figure it out.

And so you have. The secrets out, the bubble burst, and we the people are indignant and beside ourselves about being left out in the cold while our rulers sip hot cocoa from designer mugs in front of crackling fires fueled by taxpayer dollars. Corporate work place loyalty is frigid, and belief in politicians is sub zero. We are, for the most part, jaded and cynical about authority figures. When something positive does happen, it's usually from the efforts of ordinary people focussed upon helping others, not merely themselves. That's the kind of news that's usually saved for after the weather report. "Goodwill? Boring!!!"

As for governments, and their multiple levels of enforcers, from the police to the military, we know that uniforms are no protection from evil either. If you can read at a grade 2 level, then you know what some people, cloaked in the guise of servitude, are capable of. We have to cover our backs, and our throats.

And furthermore...

What To Do When Your Mascot Dies

On the lighter side: Osama Bin Laden is dead. His tapes are forgeries. He has so much money and resources — and video cameras — available that there is no reason to use audio when his living image would rub more humbling dirt into the vengeful face of King George's anti-terrorist war machine. He has always appeared on film. Why is he now merely a rare, opportunistic voice on a scratchy tape recorder? Shyness? Guilt? Shame? Furthermore, he is now only a voice that claims it will kill itself in the next year in an assault against Americans. That would conveniently explain THEN why he's already dead NOW! Nice swing kid, but you were supposed to hit the ball, not the umpire...

NASA Drops Some Food For Thought

Pretend you're secular; an atheist who thinks life began in a volcanic cereal bowl replete with fortified breakfast sludge for the dawning of humanity, and you somehow ended up with colossal organisms like Albert Einstein, Van Halen and yes, even George Bush, the younger. Even from that rational podium you'd have a tough time dismissing the profound coincidental symbolism of NASA's recent Columbia Shuttle disaster — what ominous timing!

The first Israeli astronaut dies returning home and debris lands in Palestine, Texas. Go figure. The Columbia, named after America's discoverer, Christopher Columbus disintegrated over the back yard state of America's latest presidential lottery winner, George B.Jr. Right or wrong, America is a strong supporter of Israel. It's too big an impression to not have been orchestrated by providence — or some force in the Universe saying:

"Wake up you stupid idiots, this is humanity, love, life and liberty we're talking about here! You're all a bunch of hypocrites with selective amnesia! Stop killing each other already, please. Let's have some lunch. Mama, bring some struddel! More tea, Saddam?"

The shuttle incident itself came in the midst of a well-televised war cry and caused an outpouring of compassion. The sudden turning and diffusion of hateful energies into a nation-wide campaign of appreciation for human life pushed the main issue of spiritual evolution to the fore: our need for compassion.

How does it feel to be a surviver? Ask the shuttle families. Then ask a widow or child after we dry our eyes and start randomly shooting at our "enemies" in Iraq.

The tragedy preempted the murky brew of negativity that weeks of protest and war anxiety had cultivated. Like a dollop of whipped cream on a pile of dog shit, something didn't quite make sense about mourning death as we were about to go killing again. Though a catastrophe, the Shuttle crash, like the death of Lady Diana Spencer a few years ago, created a sudden break in the clouds during which our hearts and desire for goodness had a chance to shine. Darkness was forced to scramble.

The loss of human life through violence is always tragic — can we numb ourselves from feeling compassion by depersonalizing our victims, saying "yeah, but they were all terrorists!" It makes abusing our enemies easier if we de-humanize them, but the truth is that for every thousand people, there may only be one person who poses a threat to society. He should lose his freedom to harm others — but not his life. Thou Shallt Not Kill — it's in all the books these supposedly God-worshipping people use to support their views! Shame, these illiterates!

Enuff's Enuff!

POP QUIZ: Does the U.S. have weapons of mass destruction? Why? Higher moral standards? They're more trustworthy? God wants them to? It's good for the economy? People enjoy the feeling of security it gives them? What? Am I missing somebody's point here?

Some of us cloak ourselves in self righteousness: "you got what you deserved!", convinced we're morally superior and GOD sanctioned in our abuse of others. Some of us shield ourselves with futile rationalizations that pretend to justify our evil deeds. But can death row be justified over life imprisonment if it serves the same function? If someone is in a cage, do you have to kill him to protect people from further harm? No, that's just a preference.

I keep thinking of Texas. Number one capital punishment state. Shuttle debris, bodies. Death. I spent more than a month there last year - didn't seem like an evil place at all. Far from. Preference, that's all it is.

Violence Over Diplomacy

Fear and anger cause primitive, animalistic survival-based reactions within us — and greed promotes them. We're either protecting our lives or our beliefs. We show few signs of compassion and mercy when overwhelmed by fear, either of death or psychological threats, like communism, or vampires. Yet compassion and mercy are revered as being the essence of a successful spiritual existence. They are the idealistic qualities of GOD which both militant religious zealots and politicians claim to be upholding as they march to war to murder their brothers in foreign lands.

One things for sure, who needs to burn books anymore when we can simply edit out truth with denial.

Evil people eventually die. Hitler did. Ayattolah Khomeini did. Saddam will be replaced as every other desperado in the wild west has been, if not by compassion, then by the force of nature. He'll die. His dingy small window of opportunity in world history will have been his loss. Life will go on, as always. What we do, what we choose, those are the things that propel us into the future, or keep us digging like animals wanting to resurrect our dead past.

Ironically, George Bush may be first to go, considering his popularity. Saddam can hide out in a cave somewhere and come back later. George will have to face voters. They call that democracy. Sometimes it works.

Now that we know what a mistake looks like, let's vote better in the future, in all our respective countries's elections.

Peace & toodles, Roland Kriewaldt


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