Peaceful Dock
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket! So good, as always, to be writing this ‘message in a bottle’ to you LIVE, from the great seaside village of Osterville, on this Sunday morning, 5:53 a.m., EST, the thirtieth day of January, 2011. The weather is improving, as we will see the sun make it’s triumphant return to this very peaceful corner of the globe, and with the unrest in Egypt, as well as all across the Middle East, this image that you see above represents a symbol of my gratitude that I live in a place that is not filled with angry protesters in the streets, devoid of burning buildings and looters by the thousands. I thought about that yesterday, when I was taking in all of the happenings in Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria, watching it all unfold on MSNBC, of course. While viewing the amazing footage of the unprecedented uprising of the people of Cairo, Alexandria or Suez who are angry with the dictator, who, for over thirty years, has held his country, and it’s people, down, both economically and socially, MSNBC’s coverage switched gears for just a split second and showed a harmless mail truck, you know, or perhaps you don’t, the New England mail trucks that look like a shoe box with wheels and a motor, delivering the mail to residents on a quite country lane in Centerville, the next town over from Osterville, and following that mail truck was a wild turkey, who was attacking the mail man’s vehicle with ferocity and determination. The wild turkey followed said truck down the snowy lane for a few hundred feet, angrily pecking and literally attacking the federal vehicle, as if to say, “you give the dog a biscuit, where is mine?” Perhaps that is exactly, in an exponentially larger forum, what is happening right NOW in one of the key strategic states in the Middle East–Egypt. So many countries around the world have seen uprisings by people who have been oppressed most of their lives. We saw it in Iran only 15 months ago, ending in bloodshed, yet planting the seed of social awareness that would see the Light of day once again. The speed at which these uprisings have occurred–starting in Tunisia, where the President of that small North African nation is long gone, as we all wait and see if Mubarak can hold out, when his fate seems to already have been sealed, is startling. The reality of the intranet, and social mediums such as Facebook, Twitter and the like, have given an avenue for people, real people, to communicate with one another and organize, bringing a voice that was once just a faint murmur, to grow into a voice that now speaks with authority and urgency, stating, under no uncertain terms, “we are mad as hell and we aren’t going to take it anymore.” This unrest in the region will undoubtedly bring angst to the state of Israel, who depends upon some stability in that area of the world, for it’s very survival, to feel somewhat safe, and this will be the President’s, Barrack Obama’s, greatest challenge. For the words of FREEDOM now ring for ALL, as was expanded upon by President Obama himself when he spoke to a huge crowd in Cairo, soon after taking the mantle of President in 2009. The fact is we, here in the United States, should not assume we have all of the answers when it comes to the Middle East, and yet, at the same time, should also not be caught on the wrong side of history. We cannot, for example, deploy our military, naively assuming the “presence” of American troops will make it better. Experience has shown us in the past what folly that notion OWNS… The world is a big place, filled with problems that are seemingly beyond mankind’s capacity to solve, not that we lack the intelligence, compassion or LOVE to solve these problems, it’s more to the point that “special interests” usually trump those aforementioned better ANGELS of our real nature. Pity that, for as the world’s energy demands, demands for food, demands for clean water, demands for social JUSTICE and demands for religious, individual and economic equality continue to spike upwards, we must understand that our number one goal in THIS country should be with OUR own people, so that this wave of unrest and anger does not bleed over onto our shores. There are so many in this country that are hurting–financially, physically, mentally and spiritually, so much so, that we can no longer afford to keep our head in the sand, as most politicians would like us to, for “business as usual”, i.e. the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, is the root of all evil, as we all know that money is not the root of all evil, rather the LUST for it is. If we wish to remain a proud and otherwise good nation of immigrants, a nation based on an “idea”, we must lead by example, and not allow the multi-national corporations that are raping and pillaging our lands, such as “fracking” for “natural gas”, dumping 596 chemicals into our drinking water and destroying the health of tens of thousands of people, to continue with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “business as usual” stamp of approval, for we know what the end result will be–something akin to what is happening right NOW in Egypt. We are all one people in the end, with different accents, different skin colors, different traditions, different lifestyles, and different forms of dress–yet we fail to see this, somehow, and choose to fight rather than to understand and move forward, evolve if you will, bringing new solutions, perhaps never thought of, to LIGHT and making this world, a now truly GLOBAL affair, into alignment with who we really all wanted to be to begin with. My prayers are with the people of Egypt today, along with the rest of the Middle East, for it seems that an act of divine providence is the only answer to the constant ongoing dilemma of being human in the year 2011. Have a wonderful Sunday folks and may the force be with you and yours. PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
