Whether It Is Brian Or Jesus, We Have No Right To Impose Martyrdom On Others

 

There is a moral to be learned from the cross, whether you prefer the story as told in Monty Python’s Life Of Brian or the more traditional telling of it. In neither case was the person who was about to be crucified thrilled by the prospect. Brian yelled “Get me down!” Christ was a little more profound when he — knowing what lay before him — said “My Father, if it possible, let this cup pass me by. Still, let it be as you would have it, not as I.” (Matthew 26:39) You see, being an enlightened human being (for human HE was, though He was also God), Jesus appreciated the miracle and gift that is life, and really didn’t want to trade it in for pain and death. And yet I suppose he knew that a life that was not in accordance with higher principles was no life at all.

It takes an incredibly enlightened person to realize that. To realize that life is sweetest only when one lives uncompromisingly. That it is better to live a short existence as one with the universe than to live a long life out of tune with it.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Enlightened ones do not necessarily have to face crucifixion. If the burdens of an unjust world are not placed upon them, people of conscience do not have to choose between sacrificing their lives or their values. It is only when the evils of the world become great that those with integrity and courage are forced to rise up in order to defend their moral convictions.

That’s why enlightened people become teachers. Not only because they wish to share a great joy with others (the good news, as Christians would call it), but also because if they are able to awaken enough other people, they won’t have to bear the burden of acting morally on their own. Unfortunately for Jesus, the instruction he was sharing with his disciples and the world at large was a bit heavy for them at that stage of human development. I’m sure it must have been frustrating to know that those he chose to be his apostles were so uncomprehending as to his true teaching. His frustration is demonstrated when he returns from praying to God that the burden of martyrdom might be lifted from him, only to see that his followers couldn’t even stay awake for him for an hour.

The truth is, the burden COULD have been lifted from Jesus, if those around him had only bothered to share it. What is heavy work for one is lessened by the help of another, halved again by the help of two others, and so on. So that a burden, if lifted by enough hands, is no longer a burden at all but a joy. If some follower of Christ had had the ear of Pontius Pilate, or had the ear of the wife of Pontius Pilate, or of someone who had some sway with Pilate, he — by having the courage to speak up — could perhaps have changed the verdict placed upon Jesus.

A million different scenarios could be written where a person courageous enough to act upon Christ’s teachings might have prevented His crucifixion. A thousand people — each of them lifting in some tiny part the cross which Jesus was forced to carry — would almost surely have changed the outcome. Christ speaks to this when he says “Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” (Matthew 11:29–30) He’s not asking anybody to undertake some tremendous burden, he’s asking everybody to partake of some small part of it. Many hands make light work. Ask any cook, and they’d most likely to tell you that a little help clearing the table would be more helpful than praise from those sitting on the couch watching the game.

Now there will be some Christians who will object to this notion. They will say Jesus had to suffer and die that his role might be played out. But if people had been capable of taking up their cross and following in Jesus’ example, even if only slightly, such a sacrifice would not have been necessary. Jesus’ message would have gotten through to the masses without him having to sacrifice his life. It was they, his own followers, who demanded that sacrifice. Through their lack of willingness to stand up and share the burden, they placed it entirely upon His shoulders.

I see this playing out in all aspects of society today. I see it on Veteran’s Day. People are quick to utter their appreciation for those who served, without lifting a finger to help them in any meaningful way. They offer them their gratitude in the same way they offer their god praise and prayers. They venerate veterans so that they do not have to do anything to lessen their burdens. They worship the warrior so that they do not have to work to prevent war.

I see it too on election day, where they performatively vote for their candidates and feel as if they have done some great task, wearing their “I Voted” sticker like a medal. They behave as though the politicians they vote for are more than mortal men so that they can place the burdens of running the country entirely on their shoulders. Voters need only vote, and to hate those who vote against them, those people who worship other gods. Voters want to believe their politicians will work miracles so that they won’t have to work at all. In this way, they do nothing and yet can consider themselves God’s chosen.

Martin Luther King would have been of little value were it not for the fact that the people themselves had risen up and were willing to participate in the movement. Even then, Dr. King was made to pay the ultimate sacrifice. Too many of us abandoned the cause after that, permitting King’s dream to be too long deferred, too imperfectly realized. Because it was easier to worship him than emulate him.

How much could be accomplished if the masses realized that in lifting a small part of the cross they might lighten the burden upon those willing to carry it, if necessary, alone. Thus we have people like Julian Assange, who was imprisoned for years for the burdens of witnessing the truth and protecting journalistic integrity. We have people like Aaron Bushnell, who are willing to die a most painful death in order to bring attention to those being burned alive and in other ways slaughtered with the help of each and every taxpaying U.S. citizen.

And yet there are those who would not move a finger to lighten the load of those with a greater compulsion to act upon their values. They could not perform the meagerest performative action, refusing to vote for those who were aiding in genocide. Even worse, they scolded those whose consciences would not permit them to do so.

The burden you lay upon people of conscience by doing absolutely nothing to prevent perhaps the worst of all imaginable crimes is not a light one. The refusal to vote for a political party in its abetting of genocide was merely the most obvious action people of conscience would take. That we could not stop a genocide with our vote — as if we were given any real hope of that — makes us ask ourselves what actions our consciences now prompt us to take.

This is not a light question which we ask ourselves. The cost now demanded of people of conscience will take them from the comfortable lives they had hoped would be their lot. But the cost of doing nothing in the face of great evil, they know, would be greater still. And so each of us must ask how far we feel comfortable in carrying the cross. It is a burden that would be light and easy if others realized how just a little courage and effort might help change the situation. It would be far preferable to saying afterwards what brave and selfless heroes were those willing to bear a burden that was everyone’s to share.

Maybe those you claim to worship don’t want to be worshipped. Maybe they just want a helping hand. Maybe they just want you to do a bit of the lifting. So that the cross is no longer a burden to them but a joy for all. If I may repeat the words of Gil Scott Heron:

“You alone have the wisdom to take this world and make it what it
Needs to be, wants to be, will be. Someday,
The day you understand
That there ain’t no such thing as a Superman.”

We Are Given The Choice Between Genocide And Genocide

 

We built a compromise world by negotiating an agreement with the corporations. We permitted them to keep the power in return for some concessions. We gave them our support to do what they wanted abroad if they treated us decently here in the heart of empire. They gave us a certain degree of choice in who and what we might vote for, along with the illusion that by voting we might make things better and better with time. We didn’t know the other side was biding its time, until any opposition governments around the world fell. Until they no longer had to make capitalism look pretty. Until the populace gradually lost any memory of morality and virtues that weren’t rooted in selfishness and obedience and apathy. We let them keep the power and in turn they gave us all kinds of toys to play with to keep us amused, to keep us distracted, to keep us as children.

And all this time we imagined the future was going to keep getting better. That we were progressing somewhere that we might want to go. Even when things started getting worse, we imagined such problems were just bumps along the road of progress. Even when we voted in the party we thought best represented our ideals and things still got worse, we thought we could fix our party, that our party cared for us. Even when our party and the other party started taking hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations, we still thought they cared for us, shared our values on the sacredness of democracy. Even when the corporations started writing the bills our representatives then signed into law, we just thought if we voted harder we could set things right. If we just hated and blamed the other side enough, we could have a country based upon human values and not corporate values.

And now the choice our corporate government gives us is that we can vote for genocide or genocide. That we can vote for war or war. That we can vote for censorship or censorship. That all housing will soon be owned by Blackrock. That the entirety of the internet will soon be in the hands of a few billionaires, and what is not outright owned by them will be controlled and censored by them. We thought the internet was going to save us, would permit us to share information and ideas across the world. We thought technology would bring us freedom. And community. But now we are screaming for big tech to censor us. Well, not us, exactly, just those we disagree with.

Our last rationalizations for supporting the system we have permitted are wearing out, but there’s a new Deadpool movie that will soon drop. And there’s a new Call Of Duty that will be out just in time for us to celebrate the birth of the Prince Of Peace. And in it you can save the world from Nazis by killing whatever people anonymous authority tells you to kill. Because killing is wrong unless some voice in your ear tells you to. Just do what the voices tell you to do and you will never have to worry about anything. You will never have to make a difficult moral decision. You will never have to hold your own government to account. You will never be alone no matter how lonely you feel. And the magic of the market will guarantee that whatever you spend your money on will be good for the environment. And will make you a better human being. Because the TV said so. Because the economic professors said so. Because I’m pretty sure The Bible and Declaration Of Independence say so.

Once our grandparents fought fascism. And oligarchy. And corporate capitalism. They spilt their blood on foreign shores and in front of padlocked factory gates. They walked across Pettus Bridge, rode buses across the South, provided mutual aide in Oakland’s slums. But they only managed to fight it to a standstill. But the forces that wanted to control and exploit us were never going to be satisfied with sharing power. That’s not what fascism is about. They plotted, and waited, and positioned their pieces on the chessboard. And they lulled us to sleep. But we’re having dreams that we are awake. And fighting for freedom on the beaches of Normandy, fighting for the environment on Pandora, fighting empire with light sabers. In our sleep we claim that we are woke. In our sleep, we are screaming “Wake up, sheeple” to people conjured by our sleeping minds. In our sleep, we are arguing with AI, repeating all the wisdom that has been pumped into us by the corporate media.

Even at our desks at work, performing mindless and unrewarding tasks, we secretly know we are Neo, fighting the matrix.

Unpleasant Truths For A Nation In Denial

 

Think about how bad so many of us Americans have it, and then think about how we only have it as good as we do because we are massively exploiting labor across the globe, and you will have some idea of how messed up our system is. Once you realize we live as well as we do only because we are rapidly consuming our non-renewable resources, you will understand how unsustainable it all is. And just think that we’re living with whatever luxuries and even necessities we now have only because our nation has put it all on the credit card, to the tune of a $35 trillion debt. That we’ve let our public infrastructure slide, that we’ve failed to invest in educating our people as to what’s actually happening in the world. That we are only where we’re at on the global scene because of the reputation we once had but now have squandered, so that the world will never again look at us as it once did.

We’ve pushed our every advantage as far as it will go, let everything slide as far as we possibly could, lived off of our former reputation to the point where we have irreparably tarnished it. There are no good times that can be further extended, nor are there good old days to which we can return.

In 2022, President Biden dipped deeper into the U.S. petroleum reserves than anyone ever has, selling off 180 million barrels. Our current reserves of oil are good for about 17 days at 2019 consumption levels. We’ve blown up the Nord Stream pipeline that provided Europe with natural gas, meaning that we have to provide massive amounts of our gas to our principle allies. Russia still provides much of Europe’s fuel needs (through Ukraine pipelines, believe it or not), but they are under no obligation to do so forever. We’ve sanctioned the country with the largest oil reserves (Venezuela) so utterly that it would be incapable of providing for our oil needs should they desire to do so. Now we are providing everything Israel asks for so that they might contemplate attacking Iran’s oil fields. Iran is the world’s 7th largest oil producer, and the loss of their oil will create a significant strain on the world market. If this happens, Iran will surely shut down the Straits of Hormuz in response, blocking oil shipments from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and most of the world’s other major sources of oil. We will have 17 days to contemplate what to do after that happens before the whole system shuts down.

Russia and China have each other, so they should be more or less okay. Russia has resources and China has production capacity. They have been pushed into each other’s arms by a United States that thought it was its God-given right to subjugate each in its turn rather than finding some way to coexist with other nations. BRICS nations are looking to develop an alternative to the dollar standard that permits the U.S. to print money endlessly while placing sanctions on nearly a third of the people on the planet. Should the U.S. Dollar be dethroned as the de facto global currency, the dollar will not be worth the ink it is printed with. No one will need it, therefore no one will want it. As the dollar goes, so will go American influence.

None of this, none of this, is being discussed by either of our duopoly presidential candidates. You’re not going to vote your way out of this. Everything the mainstream media tells you to worry about doesn’t mean shit. They will never mention the fact that our system is not and has never been sustainable. Or just. Or sane. They’ve led us down a side street that has taken us to Looneyville, and we’ve been so conditioned by trips to Disneyworld that we don’t even recognize it for what it is. They parade Goofy and Cruela de Vil in front of us and we fight over which one is the serious presidential candidate. We argue over all the talking points the media gives us to prevent us from thinking about how the whole system is just an elaborate game of cards that was never going to last forever, which no one imagined would last as long as it has.

It’s no wonder we’re all playing along. We’re children who are ill-equipped for reality. We’re quite content to sit in front of the TV in our footie pajamas, letting the grownups deal with it all as we indulge in the fantasy worlds they’ve created for our amusement. Only there aren’t any grownups left. The one’s we’ve permitted to be in charge are the most deluded of us all. Take a good look at them sometime and see for yourself.

This is what happens when you relinquish your adult duties for too long. Things get worse. And they don’t get better until you reclaim your adult obligations, until you once again feel the power that grown, mature, human beings are capable of wielding. A child is incapable of imagining a way out of this. An adult rolls up their sleeves and gets to work changing things.

The Righteous Path Of The Righteous Party Of The Righteous Human Beings

 

I hold my friends to higher standards than I do others. That’s why I choose to be around certain people more than others, because I deem them to be more interested in doing the right thing. That’s why I might tell a friend he has had enough to drink and be less likely to tell a stranger at a bar the same thing. If I see a friend making bad choices, I want better for him and will weigh in on what he is doing. I also like to think he will appreciate my input even if he doesn’t agree with it. But even if he doesn’t immediately appreciate my advice, I still feel it is my obligation as a friend to give him my opinion.

I’ve always considered myself a Democrat. I cast my very first vote for Jesse Jackson in the primaries in 1984. I voted for Mondale in the general election that same year. I voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and Bill Clinton in 1992. In fact, I have NEVER voted for a Republican candidate for any office even once in my life.

So please take all of that to heart when I offer opinions that are directed at Democratic voters. I want what’s best for you. You and I mostly have the same goals, though we seem to be choosing increasingly different paths in how we pursue them. When I offer an opinion or ask you to explain your behavior, know that it is YOUR values I wish to defend. When I criticize your tactics, it is because they are failing to produce the results both you and I wish to achieve. And if we disagree as to how to achieve those results, well, that is a subject for conversation and not repudiation.

First, I would like to point out that you are currently supporting a candidate who has quite openly announced her intention to continue to support genocide in Gaza. I am going to presume that you and I find this less than ideal and would, in a perfect world, like to stop the indiscriminate killing of children, or at least lessen it. I think that there ARE things the Democratic Party could do to lessen the killing of children. Furthermore, I don’t think the uncritical support of what could legitimately argued to be a genocide is a choice the Democratic Party has to make in order to win the election. In fact, I would argue that the party’s support of genocide is going to cost them more votes than it is going to gain them.

I assume you are a supporter of the Democratic Party because you feel that they are the morally superior party. I also assume you feel yourself to be of a higher moral standard than others because you call yourself a Democrat. If both of my assumptions are true, then I would suggest that a moral party would do whatever it could to put a halt to genocide. That if said political party was not doing all in its power to stop a genocide, it wasn’t really all that moral of a party at all. Furthermore, if the preferred party of a morally righteous human being was not doing all it could to prevent young children from losing their limbs and lives due to an unrestrained bombing campaign, it is incumbent upon any morally righteous person to call them out on it.

I don’t hear people who plan to vote blue calling out the Harris campaign. Voters have the power to make her pay attention. I would go so far as to say you have not merely the power but the responsibility to use it. I would even go so far as to say that the blood of children is on your hands should you choose not to use the power you have to influence your chosen candidate to alter her stance on the ongoing slaughter of innocents. Again, this shouldn’t cost her the election, it would merely move her toward a more morally justifiable position on the Gaza problem and more in line with the general public. There is no downside to this, pragmatically or morally. We need not call those who disagree with you nonpragmatic purists.

You say Donald Trump would be even worse. That may be true, but that is hardly an argument against insisting your preferred candidate take a moral position that would not hurt her politically. Would it not be the pragmatic thing to do to push your candidate toward a position with which the majority of Americans agree? A Gallop poll from March of this year shows that 55% of Americans disagree with “the military action Israel has taken in Gaza.” Surely support for Israel has fallen further given all the atrocities we have witnessed since then, the murdered journalists, the incursion into Lebanon, the increased chances of a war with Iran. Furthermore, 75% of Democrats disagree with what Israel is doing. And yet they are planning on voting for a candidate that has shown no signs that she cares what Democratic voters think.

Or are they going to vote for her? Assuredly some of them are going to regard genocide as a red line. Some will choose not to vote for a Democratic candidate for President for the first time in their lives. How then, is it an effective strategy for Kamala Harris to support Israel without reservation?

It is the stated strategy of Democrats to get their candidate elected and then worry about getting that candidate to embrace the more progressive aspects of the left. This has been the strategy of Democrats for the past 30 years. It has been a spectacular failure. They have asked for nothing from those who claim they want to represent them, and have received exactly that. They have demanded nothing and gotten even worse than the bare minimum they expected. Of all the failed strategies that have ever been concocted, I can think of none that have been less unsuccessful. And yet Democratic voters persist, more avidly supportive of the strategy than ever before.

I am one of those whom establishment Democrat types often call a purist or an absolutist. And yet I cannot conceive of anyone more purist than one who adheres so utterly to such a failed strategy. Nor can I imagine anyone being more an absolutist than one who insists everyone else support a candidate who has never had popular support, and who is now neck deep in the blood of children whose only crime is inhabiting land which the Zionists want to possess for themselves. I cannot imagine a world in which someone who demands an end to such a situation is labelled a purist.

These are harsh words, I guess. Still, they are written by one who does not see you as an enemy but as a friend who has taken the wrong path. They are harsh words but they are spoken not in hatred but with concern. I get it, there are other issues to consider, but none that you will mention rise to the level of what is happening in Gaza right now. And I do not see it as realistic that a political party that is on the wrong side of genocide is going to be very interested in doing the right thing on the issues you’re most concerned about. Consider their fight to raise the minimum wage as but one example of their desire to fight for you.

Again, however harsh it may appear, my intent is communication, not condemnation. You need us as much as we need you. To consider us as your enemy rather than a concerned friend with whom you need to have a heart to heart chat would be, I feel, a mistake.

The Deeper Beauty Of My Lunch

 

The beauty of my lunch goes deep. Deep enough that I wanted to take a picture of it, to memorialize its ephemeral beauty. So that I may study and savor its richness long after it is gone.

I have had two compliments on it today, by coworkers expressing a desire for such a salad. I’m sure it looks quite unlike anything they are going to see all day. Excepting the wrapper of the Skittles package, it is way more colorful than anything to be found in the vending machine, which my coworkers jokingly refer to as the Wheel Of Death.

If I were to bring this salad to the art department of my local college I wouldn’t be surprised if some painter did not draw inspiration from it and ask if he might capture it on canvas for posterity’s sake . Perhaps I shall blow up the image, put it in a frame, and hang it upon my wall. I know just the spot.

They say that beauty is only skin deep but this goes deeper. It is a wonder for the eyes, but it is also an experience for the taste buds. Each bite a different texture of crunch. Each taste a subtle shift of flavor that blends with the rest. And when I have finished, I shall arise from the table not full, not sluggish, but energized and ready to return to work. The enjoyment of eating it is but a precursor to the joy of having it inside of me. It does not sit like a rock in my stomach but is already making its way through me, causing my body — not merely my tastebuds — to be awake and alert.

But it goes deeper. For it is a variety of natural foods, each packed with one or more of the vitamins and minerals which are essential for this soft machine which I inhabit. I have not filled myself with harmful food, like I once did in my childhood. I did not choose option C3 from the Wheel Of Death. All that I have ingested is of nature. All that which is consumed by me is what my body has evolved to find nourishment in. There is no falsity in it, no artificial coloring required. This, my friends, is lunch as it was intended by God, the Tao, the Mother Goddess, whatever spiritual reference resonates with you.

But it goes deeper. The food I eat was grown as a labor of love. Each vegetable was raised by those who choose to farm, who have a great love for it. It was not grown on some massive farm, not picked by exploited immigrants who do not have the same quality of life I do or the same career choices. It was grown by people very much like myself.

But it goes deeper. At the farmers market, these wonderful growers of food offer their wares for sale and I am able to meet and express my appreciation for their efforts. We talk, and in communicating we create the bonds with which our local community is knit. There is no automated checkout at the farmers market.

But it goes deeper. This salad’s importance has an impact upon the planet. Or rather, it doesn’t. Because there is nothing in it that has been shipped further than 30 miles. Most of it has not had to travel more than five. Some of it required no additional travel at all. While the grocery stores in town are filled with foods that have traveled across the country and from other continents, this food I eat has only a tiny footprint upon our tired and weary Mother. In eating this salad I am asking of Her as little as possible, and her gratitude for this is the gift of the freshest and most flavorful vegetables one can find. Bill Gates wishes he could eat produce as fresh as this.

But it goes deeper. This produce was not raised in a cage. The tomato never had its offspring torn from it at the moment of its birth. There was no animal suffering involved in the meal. No milk taken from a suckling’s lips to be given instead to an adult human. This salad did not require the repetitive motions of manual laborers performing on living creatures some of the most inhumane actions imaginable with a sharpened blade. Neither man nor beast was traumatized in the picking of these radishes.

But it goes deeper. This food was grown in accord with nature. It did not require unnatural chemicals or fertilizers. It is sustainable. Its creation does not unduly tax the ecosystem. It does not create massive manure ponds. The streams that acquire the runoff from the area where these vegetables were farmed do not carry algae to nearby rivers and lakes, killing off the fish and other creatures.

But it goes deeper. This salad may feed me, but it does little to feed the corporations that control so much of our food supply. That control so much of our economy. That influence our government, buy our elected officials, create commercials that induce our children to eat unnatural and unhealthy diets. That feed our children such unhealthy foods that they are unable to perform at school. That feed them such unnatural foods that our children require medications simply to function as normal children should.

That’s pretty deep. Way deeper than a Happy Meal. Way deeper than a Kit Kat commercial. Even deeper than the bottomless salad bowl at Olive Garden. Plus — and this is the best part — it makes my coworkers envious. Taste The Revolution.

It’s Red They Win, Blue You Lose (voting is a sucker’s game)

When the system makes winning impossible, it becomes foolish to play the game. This may sound like an excuse for quitting to many, but it is not. It may sound like nihilism to those who dare not stare directly at the truth, but they are wrong. It is starting over. It is letting go of what does not work in order to try something else. It is abandoning illusion in order to find the truth. It is leaving the comfort that conformity and obedience provide in order to find some solid ground on which to make a stand.

 People wedded to a dysfunctional system will accuse you of refusing to use the impotent instruments of change provided to you by those who would be your masters. In truth, you are coming to the realization that it is time to take charge.

I look at what others point to as a collection of victories and all I see does not amount to a pile of crumbs. Those who are swayed by such scraps are like gambling addicts, remembering every time they left the casino up for the night while ignoring their impending bankruptcy. They are blinded by the blinking lights of the machine that robs them. One more pull of the lever and everything will all be right. One more pull of the lever and all will be right. One more pull…

 This is not cowardice to refuse to go along, it is courage. It is not resignation, it is determination. Determination to take the reins of power from those who shake the nuclear dice. To take the microphone from the propagandists and paid spokespersons and speak the truth and not the party line.

 It is the unavoidable acceptance of facts, knowing that to think otherwise is to engage in self-deception and the abandonment of our responsibilities.

I assure you that once freed from the box they do all their power to keep you in, you will laugh at the idea that you once considered voting for Trump or Harris. You will howl with laughter thinking of how you once put your faith in those who already failed you so many times. That you gave your power to those least qualified to wield it responsibly.

 You will one day look upon such behavior as you now look upon the games you once played as a child. You will one day cringe at the decisions you make now as you cringe at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of your adolescence, grateful that you have survived it. Knowing that it was mere luck that you made it through those days before you realized just how precious life really is. And you will ask yourself “What the hell was I thinking?” And you won’t be able to answer, because you will no longer recognize the foolish person you are now. And you will gaze upon those people you once looked up to and realize just how badly they betrayed you, and what a fool you were to let them get away with it.

There will come a time when you will grow disgusted with playing children’s games, in being led by children. In playing grown up instead of acting like a grown up. There will come a time when you realize it is not a game, and even if it was, no one else has the right to write the rules for you. On that day you will feel good, even with the burden of responsibility resting firmly on your shoulders.

 The story of our time is being written by idiots. By psychopaths drunk with power and terrified of all they cannot dominate. By the morally bankrupt and by emotionally crippled children. Their narrative weaves the thinnest of veils so that you see only half of their evil mixed with illusory good. Their illusions and puppetry can only ever deceive those who wish to be deceived. Those with a critical and honest eye will pierce the wispy thin veil, and an illusion once pierced can never again be mistaken for reality.

 This will be your future. You will be made to see the truth for what it is, whether you desire it or not. Your only choice is whether to gaze upon it as a helpless child or as a grown up ready to act upon what can no longer be denied.

 

It Doesn’t Take A Whole Lot Of Fascists To Spoil A Movement (But The U.S. State Department Is Okay With That)

 

I just watched the opening minutes of the film Winter On Fire, a movie made in response to Oliver Stone’s movie Ukraine On Fire. As opposed to Oliver Stone’s movie which explained how the U.S. supported a coup in Ukraine and was willing to work with the worst kind of fascists and neo-Nazis to do it, Winter On Fire took the official U.S. line on the events of 2013–4. In case you were wondering, it was WAY easier to find than Oliver Stone’s film. In fact I wasn’t even looking for it, I just stumbled upon it while looking for a good documentary to watch.

The movie opens with an interview of a pro-revolution protestor speaking about the leadup to the protests. The camera pans out to reveal he is wearing a scarf with the image of Stepan Bandera on it. Within a moment or two, the red and black flag of UNSO (the military arm of UNA) can be seen in the background. This flag is ubiquitous in the background (or foreground) of almost all the footage I watched (I only watched the first twenty minutes or so). The fact that the creators of the documentary found it either impossible or unnecessary to avoid overt Nazi imagery is telling.

There are those who will say that Bandera wasn’t really that bad a guy, and that even if he was, the people with pictures of him on their wall or with tattoos of him on their bodies are really just inspired by the fact that he fought for Ukrainian independence. Let’s do a quick dive into the history of Stepan Bandera, courtesy of Wikipedia:

An Image Of Stepan Bandera Against An OUN Flag

Bandera was a key member of OUN, a group of Ukrainian nationalists who used terrorism and assassination against the Polish government. The OUN employed “bomb-throwing at Polish exhibitions and murders of policemen,” among other tactics. Bandera was arrested and sentenced to death for his involvement in terrorism, a sentence that was later commuted to life in prison. The OUN worked closely with NAZI intelligence to aid their invasion of Poland, and later helped to form the Waffen-SS Galizien division, perhaps the most vicious of all the SS groups.

Much revisionist history has taken place in the last decade to minimize the crimes of Bandera and the OUN, a necessity since their images, flags, and tattoos seem to be ever-present amongst the propaganda images and video of the west. Not just in this documentary but in many interviews of various Ukrainians on mainstream media. So let me cite a source that predated the events of the last two decades in order to get a more fairly balanced view of the symbology that is so prevalent in Ukraine.

The book Fascism: Past, Present and Future was written by Walter Laqueur and published in 1996. No wacko rightwing or leftwing nutjob, Laqueur was for 25 years the director of one of the world’s leading institutes for the study of fascism, London’s Wiener Holocaust Library. According to Laqueur, the red and black flags that are so prevalent among the protests belong to the UNSO, which is the paramilitary arm of the UNA, a successor group of OUN. To summarize, those red and black flags belong to a paramilitary group that considers itself the successor to the Ukrainian SS division, a group that even the German SS found especially reprehensible. The slogans of the UNSO are “War is our future” and “Provocation, revolt, revolution” (p. 213).

One might wonder why in 2014, with Ukraine being ostensibly a democracy, they felt revolution was necessary, until one recalls that the Weimar Republic was also a democracy.

Besides saying that Bandera and the UON we’re not that bad, western media is also fond of saying that the far-right elements involved in Ukrainian politics is a small minority. That is true, but the question is what percentage of ethnocentric nationalists, who take as their inspiration a truly genocidal movement, is acceptable. In United Sates politics according to liberal media, that would be zero percent. A single Confederate flag at a MAGA rally, or a Nazi flag — even if it is used to call the other side Nazis — instantly brands everyone there a racist and a fascist. I don’t necessarily think this is fair, whether we are discussing Ukrainian protests or Trump supporters, but if I were a supporter of either Trump or Ukraine, I would be careful whom I allowed in my protests.

Yevgeny Karas, the leader of the far-right group C14, was asked to comment on the fact that the extreme right only accounted for ten percent of the protestors involved in the Maidan Revolution. He replied that it was perhaps only eight percent of the crowd, but if it were not for them “the protests would have turned into a gay pride parade”. It doesn’t take a lot of violence-prone racists to change the course of a protest or a revolution.

Photo by Marko Djurica

To see the extent of the violence employed during the Maidan protests, it is recommended that you view Oliver Stone’s Ukraine On Fire (if you can find it). Compared to the documented violence that occurred in Kiev, January 6th looks as non-violent as a gay pride parade.

There is a moment in the movie Battleship Potemkin where the people gather together and decide the government must be brought down. In the midst of the excitement, one member of the crowd shouts: “Down with the Jews!” The crowd turns towards to where the voice came from, and the man who spoke the words realizes the crowd is not with him. The man pulls up his collar, pulls down his hat, and tries to slip away unseen. But the crowd is onto him. They surround him, and begin to pummel him.

This is what the protestors at Maidan should have done to the people overtly proclaiming their affinity for genocidal fascists. This happens in U.S. protests all the time. I’ve seen video of MAGA protestors chasing away provocateurs trying to incite violence. I’ve seen BLM protestors do the same. If you have a legitimate cause you are fighting for, it is essential that you do not allow such people to worm their way into your movement.

The fact that the peaceful protestors did shows either their ignorance of their own history or a fear of confronting the far right. If they were ignorant of their history, it is likely because of an undue influence of Western intelligence in their culture. Russia or the Soviet Union never would have permitted them to forget history when it came to Nazis. If it is because they feared groups such as C-14, The Svoboda party, and Right Sector, then clearly these groups had a greater influence on the protests than what western “experts” claim.

Among the protestors, non-violent and otherwise, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland handed out cookies. Despite being Jewish, Nuland to my knowledge never uttered a word of concern about far-right groups that espoused violent and antisemitic sentiments. This would be shocking, if anything the U.S. did in foreign politics had any shock value anymore. From Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden, MEK to ISIS, there is no one the U.S. will not supply weapons to or urge to violence.

Like the protestors in Ukraine, we are to blame for permitting such promotors of violence to exist among us. If we continue to tolerate them, they will soon employ violence, coercion and lies to co-opt our society and government. Oh, wait, that happened a long time ago.

Revolution Through Embracing Simplicity

 

 

 

In the last few years’ I’ve become more aware of how wonderful a thing it is to breathe. It’s not like I’ve recovered from a pulmonary disease or a near-drowning experience or anything, I’ve just come to appreciate the pleasant sensation that accompanies air moving in and out of my lungs. I feel it now, a slight tickle in what I imagine might be my capillaries.

It’s odd that I never really seemed to be aware of this before. God knows my lungs are not what they once were, having smoked cigarettes for decades. You’d think in my youth I would have occasionally marveled at this feeling, seeing as how all physical sensation seems heightened in youth.

Perhaps this awareness started to evolve a dozen or more years ago when I finally kicked the nicotine addiction, choosing fresh air over poisonous smoke. Sometimes getting a second chance at life makes us appreciate it more.

I’ve also noticed of late how good it feels to move. Again, I cannot move as I once did in my twenties or in childhood. But when I allow my body to move at its own speed, to exert itself with an appropriate force, I am reminded that bodies are meant to move, are happiest in motion. If I only meet it on its terms and do not try to force it to be what I want it to be, but allow it to be what it is, it will not merely respond but do so joyfully. I am not just some lump of clay but the energy that moves through it. I may be dependent upon my limited frame, but it is not all that I am.

I can feel this way in a factory, where the air is not sweet and the sounds are not that of nature. Do not get me wrong, I prefer nature, but I can transcend my surroundings. Sometimes I lie awake at night and feel my breathing, and think of how wonderful it is to be alive. And while I appreciate it that my wife is next to me and our dog is between us, if I were alone, I would still be aware of how pleasant a thing it is to breathe.

I lie in bed and breathe, thankful for the modest but comforting blanket on top of me. I enjoy the coolness of the air mixed with the blanket’s ability to moderate it. If I inhale deeply, I might get a whiff of the simple but extremely enriching meal that my wife made earlier. Such wonderful smells tend to pervade the household and hang around. There are leftovers in the refrigerator and we will have the opportunity to dine on it again tomorrow.

Life is simple. Happiness is simple. The true joys of life do not require fighting over. There is more than enough for all. I sometimes ask myself, late at night when the air is brisk but the blanket is comforting, why we must fight so bitterly for the things that do not make us happy. Why do we focus on other things when simply acknowledging the beauty of the moment has the power to bring us contentment? Sometimes I feel that we as a species are throwing everything away, everything, for things that do not matter at all, for things that do not bring joy but only distract us from it.

I think of such things, and I open myself up to an immense sadness for what we have to lose. The world is dominated by those who fear and crave and hate but who clearly do not appreciate the simple joy of breathing. Such people are leading our society, our species, our entire planet to ruin. Like others, I have tasted despair and quiet desperation in my life, and I know they still call to me, not as a solution but as a resignation.

But then I become aware of my breathing. I hear my dog’s inhalations next to me, free from all the concerns we humans have. I could lose myself to despair, but that would help nobody, least of all myself. I accept the simple comforts the universe has provided me. With gratitude. With joy. Perhaps, if I can appreciate fully such simple things, others might come to ask me what it is that makes me so at peace, so contented, so joyful. I can think of no other way to get people to cease their pursuit of useless acquisitions, to choose a path of peace rather than a path of violence and domination.

I’ve tried other ways, and they did nothing to change the world, they only made me forget how wonderful it is to breathe, how wonderful it is to be alive. I feel it now.