Yesterday we wrote an introductory editorial preceding a piece about climate change and its effect on Florida. Getting it out of the way in response to some emails first. We are not deniers of climate change and its risks at all. The empirical information confirms the science. And until it does not, we will be concerned and aware. Who's fault is it? We don't care. Who's responsibility is it to be fixed? We all know that answer. But we digress.
The editorial was very loosely focused on the what we believe is the pervasiveness of Globalist Dogma ( as opposed to ideas) in virtually every aspect of academia.
We asked at the end of our screed a couple largely rhetorical questions. A reader responded to those questions. The result to us was a slap in the face. A wake up call. It was humbling to say the least.
The part quoted by the reader:
Mnuchin's tax statement yesterday basically implied the intention to remove tax cuts at the middle class level by removing home owner tax deductions. The working class is taken for granted. Even Ghandi had a point where he'd take up arms. Wake up people. Why aren't you mad? That said, enjoy the piece below. -Soren K. Group --------------------
The Reader's Response [Minor edits made to protect the writer's identity.-SKG]
Yes the working class is abused. But sadly, voters and the public never controlled things or the export of jobs to enrich the corporate elites bonus via giving China - a totalitarian dictatorship- preferred trade status in 1990, would have never happened.
The American middle class has been attacked and impoverished by the super-rich, yet only the absurd think their vote, their voice ever counted. The Fed was created on Jekyll Island by the Bankers Trust to avoid action against the bankers trust.
Why do you presume to tell me to wake up?
Why do you presume to tell me to be angry?
It is not a question of us waking us - it is you who live in the delusion that somehow "waking up" and "speaking up" will through some mysterious power cause those in control of the government (and no that is not the public) to give up their control, money and power they love so much.
I am awake. I know what is going on - perhaps more deeply than yourself. I know where control lies and it is not with me and mine. Beset on all sides by the machinery of control, weighed down by taxes and bad laws and regulation, with freedom of speech a quaint bygone memory, I feel the power of the coming police state and an ugly 1984 world.
Wake up yourself, plant a tree, be kind to a neighbor, and pray and empower the change.
To the Reader in earnest:
Acknowledged and understood. We have looked at the situation through many lenses. We looked through a Zen lens. Theologically very similar to Prayer of St. Francis. Should we accept our fate as part of a bigger scheme and acknowledge we are but grains of sand in a largely cyclical event that involves complexity, collapse, and rebirth? The western part of us can accept our fate. But it cannot accept we do not try. Zen does not work for us.
Should we "rail against the dying of the light" as Dylan Thomas would have? We cannot. We feel unable to take the actions necessary to raise awareness without jeopardizing our own loved ones.
The de-evolution of our society due to lowest common denominator marketing which divides and opiates us is one source of the cancer on our ability to shake off the controls the powerful use to keep us in line. The powerful only use the truncheon as a final resource now.
They have adopted psychological and legal concepts quite well to reinforce the protective moats they have built around their incumbency. We feel our attempts would be fruitless and risk our families.
Practically speaking, it would seem that to raise awareness, personality cults and authoritarian approaches succeed best as the "point of the spear". But that evangelical approach goes against our ideals as well. Who are we to impose our wills on others? Counter to that, doing nothing necessitates an acceptance of fate. And that puts us back to the Zen concept.
Our own philosophy has become this: The key in any action for us is intention to do well with detachment of the outcome. This is a way to keep our western ego in check. That is the closest thing we can intellectually, philosophically, and theologically use to act.
So assume a person is willing to die for an idea. That person is also accepting of the outcome of his efforts. He is not married to the outcome. Intention with detachment, if you will.
Yet there are those who depend on that person to live. We can only pretend to rise to the level of Soren Kierkegaard's "man of faith" who you seem to channel. We are too weak to walk away from what Buddha did to learn. We are, as Soren says, stuck in the Moral, unable to rise to the higher levels of Faith in the bigger picture. Yet to do nothing is anathema to us. We do "plant trees" but struggle with the line between doing all we can, and accepting the outcome.
We are more like Arjuna, realizing that all violence is abhorrent morally, and unable to accept the advice of our charioteer. We are, in a way, the warrior turned pacifist for our children's sake who has become self-loathing.
Regards,
SKG
Read more by Soren K.Group
