Ancient Civility?
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the cold, snowy island of Nantucket! Great to be with you and yours on this 13th day of January, 2015, another chilly one out on this little sand bar created 11,500 years ago by that ‘Last Great Ice Age’. An ancient history ‘ner told, nevertheless one of monumental evolution in the human experience, as this was also around the same ‘time’ period when Paka Punka (perhaps the world’s oldest known civilization, dating back to this era) and Atlantis disappeared from the face of the earth in what many call ‘The Great Flood’... Evoking the Bible’s Noah and the Ark and all of those pesky animals/plants he may have saved…
Who knows? Who cares? Am I right? We are all still talking about the Golden Globes and Bill Cosby, ‘with the pills and the people’.. I mean come on, why would anyone care to ponder on the origin of the human condition and how it came to be that way? I mean the past? That is so 1984.
Who would care to be remarking on what worked and what most clearly did not? Right Mitt Romney? We have had many die in the name of religion over the years, with some in this 21st Century United States multicultural media calling out what this radical form of “Islam” boils down to–nonsense of the highest order!
The killings of the cartoonists and the 3.7 million people in France alone who marched in solidarity with “Je Suis Charlie” Hebdo’s weekly periodical, satirical in nature, along with many more millions around the world, woke up many to what this fairly gentle ‘roasting’ represents, a line in that proverbial sand no one is willing cross over. It is black and white, good and evil, oil and water. Both sides at fever pitch calling for war.
The problem of international terrorism is not going away any time soon. However, if we are to eradicate it from OUR now global civilization if you will, with a McDonald’s on every corner of that globe, along with an Arby’s if you are into masochism, we must all play by the rules. And that includes our friends from Saudi Arabia.
It seems a blogger was given “A thousand lashes” for speaking out against a priest? or something to that effect in the Kingdom, thus was given those lashes, 20 at a time, and given them publicly. Moreover, the fact be-headings and other atrocities occur regularly in that oil rich nation, with stark and most would say questionable human rights’ policies, especially when it comes to women, begs the question of our own hypocrisy when it comes to our judgement of ‘who is a bad guy’ and ‘who is an ally?’. Ever forcing US into the compromising role of a seemingly random and fluid arbitrator (cosmic cowboy justice?), when it comes to this horrible phenomenon of terrorizing and attacking those soft targets, creating havoc and chaos around the world 24/7.
There is little doubt this new brand of terror and manipulation of OUR time and resources, really one and the same, has cast a shadow on many of our affairs. From going to the grocery store to going to a football game, people are beginning to question our so called safety on a planet that is always on edge, a kind of permanent PTSD condition if you will, with everyone living in the amygdala (what most psychologists describe as the “fight or flight” cave man part of the noggin, an almond size ‘basement of the physical human brain’, some call the ‘lizard brain’; or any number of FOX “news” commenters) of the world brain, with so many calling for the sky to fall at any moment; ‘Chicken Little’ now an endless feature on Rupert, ‘arrgghh matey!’, Murdoch’s media empire down under!
Like sex, violence sells and thus we have the human condition of fear that plays so well into the anarchists plans of caliphate, destruction and death. But my God, let US all take a step back from the precipice and real eyes that this kind of behavior on the part of humans is not new. In fact, most would argue that the rate of violence as a whole around the world is actually decreasing, with pockets of horror in Nigeria (e.g. Boko Haram militant terrorists who recently murdered 2000 innocent tribes people indigenous to that area), Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and other ‘hot spots’ the CIA and other international intelligence operations are all keeping a close eye on.
Again, one’s chances of being killed by a terrorist are as likely as one being struck by lightening. So go out and take a walk today if you please… Clear your head of all the images of Alkali whatever his name is. The world, especially the U.S., is exponentially safer against existential threats than it was on that crystal clear 2001 morning in New York. Healing for more than a decade after an attack where 3000 plus Americans died at that hands of radical Islamic extremists.
Many of those ‘radicalized’ ideologies have come from clerics in Saudi Arabia (whose behavior at home via their own beheading of people that don’t agree with them, along the spreading of radical prose in prisons around the world to young, disenfranchised, poor and desperate men, mostly of Muslim background but not all by any stretch of the imagination, should be noted), and like the Prophet Mohamed (peace be upon him), are above any kind of criticism, ridicule or mild speculation.
“Charlie Hebdo” has been reborn if you will, serving up a new edition this week with that aforementioned Prophet stating on the front cover–printing 3 million copies, up from it’s normal 60,000–”All is forgiven”.
A pretty good sentiment in my book, one would hope these five-year-old terrorists could embrace (although that seems like a bridge too far as noted before). Breaking free from this evil, radical hate; insane/barbaric violence/death that looks just like it did in the early 1940′. Only this time–instead of an ugly mustache and bad haircut coupled with the genocidal appetite that horrified an entire planet–the terrorists cower behind a mask that only should be worn by groups like “Anonymous” who have vowed to fight fire with fire, hacking into the very heart of the terror-de-jour’s best weapon, ‘the Internet’.
Have a nice Tuesday and stay tuned, same bat station, same bat channel!
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
