Silencing The Forest

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.

Henry van Dyke 

No matter how good you are at something, there’s always about a million people better than you.     

Gotcha.  Can’t win, don’t try.

The Simpsons

It is far easier to abandon our efforts than to strive imperfectly forward, especially in a culture of constant criticism and condemnation.  When even our most earnest actions seem paltry, and a chorus of internet critics are quick to belittle them, apathy feels very appealing.  

It is the focus, however that is at fault here.  The idea that only the best may contribute their works and all others must refrain, poisons public discourse and leads to a pernicious habit of denigrating the offerings of others.  Instead of endeavoring to encourage each other, the standard mode becomes that of disparagement- and tearing down is always easier than building up.

When only the winner is awarded accolades, and the rest are shouted down into silence, the reticence becomes deafening.  

IF THE SHOE DOESN'T FIT...

 Being black in America is like being force to wear ill-fitting shoes.  Some people adjust to it.  It's always uncomfortable on your foot, but you've got to wear it  because it's the only shoe you've got.  You don't necessarily like it.  Some people can bear the uncomfortable more than others.  Some people can block it from their mind, some can't.  When you see some acting docile and some acting militant, they have one thing in common: the shoe is uncomfortable.  It always has been and always will be.

-Joseph Lattimore

To be in someone's else's power... induces doubts about the ordering of the universe, while those who have power can assume it is part of the natural order of things and invent or adopt ideas which justify their possession of it.

Albert Hourani

Sometimes, you have to sacrifice comfort for style- or sacrifice comfort for survival.  Learning to bear pain to insure one's continued existence is necessary for people; adding to someone's else's agony for self serving gratification, however, is inexcusable.  

Forcing another into a role that demands a self destruction can't be justified; yet this behavior flourishes in the land of power worship.  Conventionality becomes virtue; divergence is deemed vice, and the arbitrators of conformity dispense condemnation with a tyrannical exuberance.  

Rationalizing punishment provides those in power a grisly sustenance- a filthy fodder to fill the souls hollowed out by the pursuit of personal gain.  The ability to inflict suffering is the nectar of necrocracy; it allows the spiritually dead the illusion of dominance and control.

Cloaking the suffering of others under the disguise of "guidance" and pressuring them to don ill-fitting garments of orthodoxy in exchange for their continued survival is the mark of a tattered morality, no matter what fashionable fascists may claim.   

It should be apparent that the apparel of oppression is a wardrobe best left unclothed and closed.

My God

 We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride, but by confusion.  We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun- from "my boots' ... to "my God."  They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of "my boots", the "my" of ownership.  

Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by "my teddy bear" not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in a special relation... but "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like".

And at the other end of the scale, we have taught men to say "my God" in a sense not really very different from "my boots", meaning "the God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished service and whom I exploit from the pulpit..."

C.S. Lewis- The Screwtape Letters

For many, their religion is not a sacred responsibility borne out of love, but a weapon to be wielded in the service of hate.  Instead of using the truths contained in holy gospels for self improvement and service to others, they search instead for those commands that rationalize cruelty, celebrate exploitation, and sanctify violence against those people they fear and despise.

God becomes a bludgeon with which to beat those perceived as "enemy"; the Almighty is transmuted to a truncheon to thrash any and all that disagree with a chosen viewpoint.  Instead of serving God, god now serves instead the basest of impulses; the most degraded of desires.

Adversaries are "owned"; their suffering mandated by Divine will, and any opposition to such wanton malice can be damned as"demonic".  God becomes a possession, and the rights of ownership permits unspeakable torments to be dispensed with joyless abandon.

They have traded their faith in the power of God for a faith in the god of power.

Roll THE CROOKED DICE/

Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called 'vital interests.

Albert Camus

It has been said that the motivation for gambling is best understood as a longing for excitement rather than material gain.  The acceptance of politics as a form of wagering shows that a craving for diversion has superseded a desire for improvement; trading the pursuit of better governance for the entertainment supplied by hollow clowns.  

Staking one's life and livelihood for transitory thrills has lead to the rejection of reality and truth, and the acceptance of banal tyranny.  

Knowing the dice to be crooked, yet willing to roll; risking everything for a hat full of hollow- how less than kind, how much like kin these creatures have become.

Ogre Outrage

 Once this habit is well established, you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offense is taken.

C.S. Lewis- Screwtape Letters

One of the more gratifying trends in current political discourse has to be our success in fomenting  virulent verbal attacks between adversaries.  Through our efforts, contempt has been sanctified; acts of malice are seen as a sign of courage and strength rather than being acknowledged as indulgent vices born of cowardice.  

To this end, we have employed the technique of ogre outrage.  Vile and vicious epithets are spewed out under the guise of "speaking truth', knowing full well they hold only the slightest connection to veracity, and are designed sorely to inflict pain.  

If the slander prompts a negative response, the attacker then lambasts their victim; accusing them of trying to cancel legitimate discourse, or asserting that the gutter insults are merely "jokes", not to be taken seriously.

If, however, one does not respond to the verbal assault, then the vilification is deemed vindicated and a more pernicious denigration follows.  Thus, under the guise of dialogue, the most atrocious utterances can be voiced without any sense of remorse or responsibility; and should offense be taken, the attacker feels justified in being aggrieved.  

Outrageous Ogres acting offensively who are outraged when anyone is offended - that's what gladdens the hearts of the August Assembly.  

Dr. Mordacious "Deceit as the tool of Statecraft"

Gift of the MAGA

WE WILL GIVE YOU ANYTHING YOU WISH, BUT NOT THE PAIN OF ANOTHER.-

CORDWAINER SMITH

The era of MAGA sounds a despicable decree- we will give you nothing, but the pain of others.  For those who have become accustomed to misery and despair of escape, another's agony provides them solace.  This strain of sickness runs through the history of society; whether the spectacle of the colosseum or the squalor of the hometown hanging, the stupefying satisfaction derived from observing the torment of others has a dark hold on humankind.  

The birthright of suffering remains as sure as the upward flight of sparks, but the relish with which some devour the misfortunes of others- that is chosen and preventable.  Lacking beneficial offerings, MAGA  delights in inflicting anguish as it revels in dehumanizing and debasing vulnerable people.  Embracing exploitation, rending scapegoats, and mauling the defenseless gorge but never satiate their cravings for the suffering of others.  

They have squeezed themselves hollow with a lust for power, and no amount of cruelty and torture can fill that void.  This is the gift of the MAGA.

MASKS OFF

 How to start a war?  Nurture your own latent hungers for power.  Forget that only madmen pursue power for its own stake.  Let such madmen gain power- even you.  Let such madmen act behind their conventional masks of sanity.  Whether their masks be fashioned from the delusions of defense or the theological aura of law, war will come.

-Gowachin aphorism

War has come and with it, the loss of any semblance of sanity.  We are delivered whatever madness the day requires; delivered from the electronic rooftops throughout a land under siege.  Any that speak against it are denounced as traitors, branded as demons, and threatened with extermination.  

Bloodlust feeds a frenzy that sacrifices life, liberty and resources on the altar of hubris; an altar dedicated to a despot divorced from reason and compassion.  Conceive in fear and forged in hatred, his rages consume the country that elected him and threaten the world at large.  

The mask has been removed, revealing the darkest impulses hidden beneath.  The face of war mirrors our own.